The Far Far Better Thing

by Auston Habershaw

  He marched over, quite close to her, and picked up the pitcher and the tray, throwing the cheese onto the ground.

  Lyrelle fell to her knees, clutching at his robes with her mutilated hands. The regal woman from moments before was gone—a wild, miserable desperation filled her face. “Oh, please, no! No, Arkald! Leave me the water, please! I’m sorry!”

  Arkald pulled himself free as though he were being bitten and fled the room, slamming and barring the door behind him. From inside, he heard his prisoner begin to sob.

  He knew that kind of cry. He had cried that way himself many times since being brought here. They were tears of despair. They hurt him to hear, but he tarried by the door anyway to listen. Perhaps it was an act—a trick.

  Lyrelle Reldamar wept for almost an hour. She screamed. She cursed Sahand and her son, Xahlven. She beat weakly on the door. Then, eventually, Arkald heard her lie in the straw and slowly cry herself to sleep.

  Then, on wobbly legs, Arkald descended to his own room—his own cell—and sat before the book he had forced time to unwrite and rewrite endlessly. His hands trembling, he began the ritual again.

  “Necromancer!” A voice bellowed from the stairs below—a guard. “The prince wishes to see you!”

  A bolt of fear struck through Arkald’s throat. It took him a moment to find his voice again. “Yes. I’m . . . I’m coming.”

  The guard waited for him. Like most of Sahand’s men, he was a meaty block of a human being in a mail shirt. Standing next to him, Arkald felt like a little boy about to be spanked by his father. The guard said almost nothing—only grunted and poked him in the back with the butt of his spear when he wanted Arkald to walk faster.

  The Citadel of Dellor was too huge to heat effectively, and so it was a long, cold journey down the stairs of Arkald’s tower and through the long galleries and cavernous halls to Sahand’s private chambers. The doors were tall and studded with iron, their latches fashioned in the shape of a wyvern’s claws. There were two guards posted on either side of them, as usual, as mail-clad and humorless as the guard who’d fetched him. Arkald’s escort prodded the necromancer forward. “The necromancer, as ordered.”

  The two soldiers opened the doors and motioned for Arkald to go in. Holding his breath, Arkald forced himself to pass over the threshold into Sahand’s inner sanctum. The doors boomed closed behind him.

  He was alone.

  Or, more accurately, he was alone with Banric Sahand.

  Sahand’s private parlor was decorated with the faded banners of the many mercenary companies and petty lords he had crushed on the fields of battle over the years. They hung from the high rafters and along the walls, all of them varying degrees of tattered and bloodstained, many charred, and some so faded that their devices were barely recognizable. At the other end of the room was a high-backed chair of dark wood, carved into the image of a wyvern rising in flight—an echo of the great chair of steel that stood in the Mad Prince’s formal throne room. This one looked rather more comfortable, which had the perverse effect of making it somehow more sinister—Sahand preferred to relax in a chair that looked like a monster and surrounded by the tattered remnants of his enemies.

  A hunk of bloody meat and a goblet of what was probably oggra rested on a table before Sahand’s chair. Sahand was using a wicked-looking dagger to slice off chunks of the red meat and spear them to be popped into his mouth. There was no chair for Arkald. Indeed, there was no other furniture at all apart from a huge manticore-skin rug that stretched from the doors to the foot of Sahand’s table.

  Arkald stood perfectly still, as though trying not to wake the manticore rug.

  It was a full minute before Sahand looked at him. When he did, he pointed the knife at him and waved it to indicate the necromancer should come closer. Arkald went halfway across the rug and stopped. “You called for me, sire?”

  Sahand chewed his meat with gusto, his ruined cheek giving Arkald a perfect view of the process. Red juice squirted across the table. “You don’t bow, Arkald. Why is that?”

  Arkald instantly fell to his knees and abased himself. “I’m sorry, sire. I . . . I forgot . . . please . . .”

  Sahand laughed, the bloody remnants of his meal leaking from the holes in his face and staining his close-cropped beard. “Stand up, stand up—if I cared so much about protocol from you, I’d have killed you long ago. It’s enough to see you shiver when you’re in my presence.”

  His heart pounding, Arkald staggered back to his feet. “As you say, sire.”

  Sahand dabbed at his face with a bloodstained handkerchief and took a careful sip of oggra. “Tell me about Lyrelle.”

  Arkald’s breath caught. He couldn’t know what she said to him, could he? This . . . this was just chance, yes? He licked his lips. “She . . . she suffers greatly, sire.”

  Sahand sawed off another chunk of meat. “Good—I’m glad of it. And her health?”

  “She . . . she appears sickly, sire. She may catch ill, given the cold.”

  Sahand paused. “Is that a note of concern I hear, Arkald?”

  “No! No sire!”

  Sahand frowned at him. “So you’re saying you don’t care if she dies?”

  A bolt of terror shot through him again. A trap—it was a trap! “I . . . I mean, yes, of course I care but . . . but . . . but only because you commanded me to keep her alive and . . . and . . . so therefore I care, but not really.”

  Sahand laughed at him. “You are to provide her no comforts, understood? Not so much as a new blanket. If I learn you have been coddling her, I’ll take your thumbs as well.”

  Arkald remembered to bow this time. “Yes, sire.”

  Sahand returned to eating for a moment, leaving Arkald standing there. Arkald’s stomach rumbled. It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten all day. Even before Lyrelle Reldamar had played havoc with his appetite, food was difficult to come by for Arkald—Sahand did not pay him. He was not in Sahand’s employ in any economic sense—he was Sahand’s permanent guest. He had to barter for food from the kitchens, and few people there had much interest in feeding a necromancer. He’d lived on crusts of bread, pork gristle, and thin soup for years now. Sometimes he managed a little beer or wine, but only if he stole it.

  It occurred to Arkald that Sahand was eating in front of him on purpose. Every hunk of meat the Mad Prince swallowed was just another reminder of Arkald’s absolute inferiority—of his servile wretchedness. He could do nothing but watch, his empty stomach groaning.

  “What does she say?” Sahand asked at last.

  “Sire?”

  Sahand was looking at Arkald intently. “About me, about anything—what does she say?”

  Arkald shivered—a draft from somewhere, or so he told himself. Here was the moment he could tell Sahand about Lyrelle’s attempt to turn him. Perhaps . . . perhaps Arkald’s show of loyalty would be rewarded somehow. Sahand did reward him from time to time. Perhaps he could ask for some payment or new clothing or even an assistant or something.

  “Well, Arkald?”

  Arkald realized that he had not said anything yet. He opened his mouth. “She . . .” he trailed off.

  “Yes?”

  “She weeps, sire. She curses your name and her sons.” Arkald took a deep breath. “She despairs.”

  Sahand glared at him for a moment. Arkald tensed, awaiting the violent backlash for the lie. What bones would the Mad Prince break this time?

  But Sahand only smiled. “Good. Very good.” The Mad Prince waved him away. “You may go, Arkald. Give me regular reports.”

  Arkald bowed and took his leave, uncertain of what he said in response—probably “yes sire.” He was out in the halls and alone a minute later. He ducked into a sawtooth alcove—some ancient defensive measure—and tried to slow his heart from racing. He’d lied. He’d lied to Banric Sahand.

  And he’d gotten away with it!

  Arkald wept.

  But this time with relief.

  Chapter 8

  Dark
Times

  Myreon stood amid the ruins of the little village, flanked by her White Guard. At her feet was the body of a little boy, his head smashed. She could scarcely look at him. There was nowhere better to look.

  Barth’s scouts had spotted the smoke at dawn as the White Army moved north. True to her plan, she had insisted the army keep moving—the scouting party would catch up later. Myreon had also insisted on inspecting the ruins in person. “If I’m fighting a war,” she had said to the old carpenter, “I should at least know what it costs.” As she looked at the body of the little boy, facedown in the mud, she now had her answer.

  But there was no going back now. There was no going back the moment she signed the necromancer’s contract in the sewers. This path—this war—was going to be her legacy, her life’s work. The cost in blood had to be worth it. She would make it worth it.

  Barth, wearing a dented breastplate intended for a smaller man and a feathered cap intended for a larger one, came out of one of the more intact houses and went to Myreon’s side. His face was still, but his eyes were full of barely constrained rage. “There were some survivors. Found ’em in a root cellar—women and children.” He shook his head and took a few deep breaths. He wiped at his eyes.

  “Who did it?” Myreon was surprised at how calm her voice was. Her years of sorcerous training, she supposed—one’s emotions needed to be under control, or else the Fey leaked into all of one’s incantations.

  Barth spat. “The Ghouls. On Sahand’s personal orders, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “How many dead?”

  “About a hundred or so. Half of them unarmed.” Barth’s voice cracked. “Just farmers! Gods, Magus! How much more of this have we got to stand, eh? This is the fifth village hit, and that’s just what we’ve heard of! Hann’s mercy . . .” He shook his head and snuffled. “These aren’t men we’re fighting. Not men.”

  Myreon laid a hand on his shoulder. She tried to think of something inspiring to say, but there was nothing. She just left her hand there, and the old carpenter let it stay as his hulking shoulders shook with silent tears for a moment. Finally, he wiped beneath his eyes and took a long breath. “When . . . when this all started, Magus. When I fought with you in Eretheria, you promised a better world. This isn’t better.”

  Myreon took her hand away. “I know, Barth. I’m sorry.”

  A peasant soldier, tall and lanky, ran up. After a wary eye at the silent White Guard, he pressed a knuckle to his temple in salute. “General, we’ve collected the dead . . . except . . .” His eyes strayed to the dead child.

  Myreon stepped back. “Yes, of course. When they are together, leave them. The White Guard will bury the bodies.”

  The peasant soldier gently lifted the dead little boy and walked away. The man’s face was pale, his eyes sunken.

  Barth grunted. “It ain’t natural, having the dead bury the dead. There should be a priest. There should be friends and family. Wine to ease the passage.”

  Sahand is counting on us slowing down, on us burying our dead. He uses our decency as a weapon against us. Myreon didn’t say this, though. She changed the subject. “Which way did the Ghouls go?”

  Barth shrugged. “Seems like they cut across country, though I can’t say why. Those bastards set a hell of a pace—we can’t match it, especially not off the roads.”

  “So they get away,” Myreon said.

  “So they get away. Again.” Barth said, his voice tight.

  It had been the way ever since they set march—Sahand’s army, working in small bands and in supernatural coordination, scattered across the countryside, burning and pillaging but never engaging in battle. It was a bizarre, perverse strategy. No one on her command staff had ever seen the like of it before. But of course, none of them were really soldiers. Even Valen Hesswyn barely qualified.

  Sahand, on the other hand . . .

  “You’re dismissed, Barth,” Myreon said. “Catch up to the army. I’ll be back by sundown.”

  Barth nodded and left, pulling himself awkwardly into the saddle of a sturdy pony and trotting away. The men in the scouting party went with him, their heads bowed, their bleached tabards stained with blood and ash.

  Soon there was only Myreon and the White Guard. She had brought fifteen of them, and with a tap of her staff, those fifteen silently moved to just beyond the village, where the dead had been laid out in the afternoon sun. Myreon passed the women and the children, doing her best to separate the horror of their deaths from the fact of their bodies. That was how she had to think of them now—merely inert objects, decaying matter. She willed the White Guard to begin digging the grave—one great trench into which all these people would be rolled and then covered.

  Then Myreon came to the men. These she examined more closely, walking down the line and trying to judge age and height and the extent of their injuries. She found twenty of them who were more or less intact and who were of approximately the right frame and size. She had the White Guard separate out these and arrange them in a wide circle, foot to toe.

  The first of the two spells she intended to cast was a desiccation spell that would eliminate the fluids in the corpses, effectively mummifying them. This was difficult work, as the sun was strong and the Ether weak in the area, but she had done this several times now and was getting rather good at it. The process took two hours.

  Then came the easy part. Myreon removed the linking stone from her belt purse—a small crystal orb that glittered with the sunny power of the Lumen. With a few words and a little coaxing of the ample Lumenal energy in the grassy field, the dead men of the destroyed village rose as one. They were met by a White Guard who held out a box of tunics and volto masks. At her urging, the newly risen dead dressed in their new garb—white shrouded, masked, and ready to serve.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to the dead, despite herself. “I’m so sorry to do this to you. You deserved better.”

  The animated corpses, of course, had nothing to say. They fell into a column behind her, marching with eerie precision. Her steps heavy, she turned away from the village and began the long journey to meet with the White Army. Behind her, the only things that moved in the ruined village were the bodies of dead men burying dead women and children.

  Though she was surrounded, she was also alone. She realized she was often alone now. People’s eyes did not shine for the Gray Lady as they once had. No one embraced her, or asked for her blessing, or beseeched Hann on her behalf. Necromancers did not receive such welcomes, even if their efforts were for the good. Even Artus . . . well . . . they had never been close, she and Artus. And Tyvian’s death and what had happened in the palace had only alienated him further from her. Now he had Michelle and the adoration of the peasantry to occupy most of his time anyway.

  No, Myreon was alone. Alone to bear the terrible burdens this “war” was laying on her shoulders. She had no one to confide in, no one to weep with. She had to be seen as stronger than everyone. Her arts and Artus’s gleaming reputation were what made the White Army function, and no crack could be shown in that facade. And so she wept in moments like this—when she was alone but for the abominations she herself had helped create, and where no one would ever see.

  Barth was right—this was worse. The initial euphoria of their early victories was long gone, wiped away by the march north. The spring campaigns might have ended, but this war was a darker thing than they had ever been. No Eretherian lord ever burned the fields of his enemies. No Eretherian knight sacked villages or permitted his men to rape women or murder children. It was undreamed of. Even when Perwynnon rode against Sahand the first time, their battles had observed the conventions of the Common Law. But now, all bets were off along the Great South Plains. Sahand had no compunction about running a war that made people suffer on purpose, and it was just this lack of decency that was going to let him win.

  Their only chance was to get to Tor Erdun, and soon—to take the pass before Sahand could fortify it. So she drove her army onward, refus
ing to let Valen pursue this or that mercenary company as they tried to coax the White Army into a pointless chase in the Eretherian hinterland. But every village they found like this slowed them down, and every order she gave forbidding action sapped morale. They were low on supplies already, and morale was perhaps even lower.

  Her army needed a victory—needed it so badly she felt as though the fate of all of Eretheria, or decency itself hung in the balance. And she would do anything—anything—to secure that victory.

  She marched into the gathering dusk with her undead soldiers all around her.

  She would make it worth it. She would make it all worth it.

  Artus put his hand at the level of his cheekbone. “He would be about this tall, with red hair. If you heard him speak, he’d sound like a lord, but with a foul tongue. He’d probably be wearing a sword—a rapier.”

  The three peasants kneeling on the floor of Artus’s tent exchanged glances. They were a father and his two sons who’d been on a harrowing journey—first fleeing from the Peregrine Palace, then dodging Sahand’s men in the fields, and finally finding their way to the White Army. They were haggard with travel, but had insisted on being brought to see the Young Prince. Artus had barely waited for them to kiss his ring before he started asking questions.

  The father cleared his throat. “If I had news of that kind, Your Highness, I would tell you for sure. But . . . no, sire. We’ve seen no such man.”

  Artus nodded. He’d known the answer as soon as he saw their faces. He knew that they knew what he was asking, too. He bade them rise. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through, really I am.” He reached for his purse.

  The father bowed. “Begging your pardon, sire, but we’ll not take a copper from you.”

  Artus blinked. “But you must need it. Please.”

  All three shook their heads. The father had tears in his eyes. “You don’t understand, my prince. It’s not you who owes us. No sire. It’s . . .” He sniffled. “It’s us who owes you.”