Marked for Death: The Lost Mark, Book 1

by Forbeck, Matt

  “We have our duty,” Deothen said. He understood the justicar’s anxiety, but the traditions surrounding dead fellows were long established. The knight feared to fail to respect them in such a horrid land.

  “Aren’t you so-called knights sworn to uphold the greater good?” Kandler asked, his rage evident in his voice. “Or does your ‘good’ only cover what’s good for you?”

  Sallah took two steps forward and slapped Kandler in the face. “You will not speak to Sir Deothen like that!”

  Kandler rubbed his jaw. Deothen put his hand on the hilt of his sword, afraid that he might have to step in to defend Sallah from the justicar’s fury. He was happily surprised to see Kandler speak reasonably instead. “You just lost a friend,” the justicar said, “so I’ll let that temporary lapse into insanity slide.”

  Sallah tried to slap Kandler again, but he caught her wrist. “You only get one,” the justicar said.

  This only angered Sallah more. Deothen put his hand on her shoulder. At his touch, she seemed to remember her station and her duties—and neither involved fighting the justicar. She flushed with embarrassment, then pulled her hand from Kandler’s grasp and walked back to look after Brendis.

  “Trail’s getting cold, boss,” said Burch. The shifter moved to his shaggy horse.

  “We must adhere to our traditions,” Deothen said in a tone he hoped brooked no argument. “Gweir deserves a proper burial, don’t you think? Didn’t you bury your wife?”

  Kandler screwed up his face and spit on Deothen’s polished steel boots. The senior knight refused to acknowledge the act, waiting for the justicar to speak.

  “My wife lay here for nearly three years before I could come back for her,” Kandler said, growling out each word like a sword on a grindstone. “The whole of the Mournland is an open grave.”

  “Not for Gweir.”

  “I didn’t realize the Silver Flame was a cult that cared more about the dead than the living.”

  “Without our traditions—our religion—our lives are worthless.”

  Deothen said a silent prayer that the justicar might somehow understand. When Kandler turned and strode away, Deothen knew the effort had been in vain.

  Kandler mounted his horse. He sneered down at the knights before he left. “You’re already worthless to me. Bury the dead, if you like. But you’re on your own.”

  The justicar and the shifter spurred their horses toward the black waters of the ford and put the knights behind them.

  Kandler and Burch rode hard through the black waters of the ford. The tar-colored liquid seemed to pull at their horses’ legs, but they spurred the beasts on and won their way through. Once across the river, they turned north and headed up the valley.

  The two friends galloped along in silence, giving the horses their head. As their mounts began to tire, they slowed to a trot.

  “Still got the trail, Burch?” Kandler asked.

  The shifter nodded. “Like following a herd of hammertails.”

  Kandler looked sidelong at his friend. “What do you know about the big lizards?”

  Burch paid no attention to Kandler’s surprise. The justicar knew the shifter enjoyed these rare moments but would never admit it to him. “Scouted the Talenta Plains five years back. Rode with the little people.”

  “The halflings? On those clawfeet?”

  “Clawfoots. Good mounts. Not fast as these, but bigger teeth.”

  The two trotted on for a moment. “You always manage to amaze me,” Kandler said.

  Burch said nothing for a while, and they put a good two miles behind them. Finally, Burch spoke. “I’m thinking, right?”

  Kandler glanced at him, then back at the trail. “What’s on your mind?” he said as evenly as he could. He recognized Burch’s tone. He took it when he wanted to bring up something Kandler wouldn’t like.

  Burch wrinkled his broad, tanned forehead. “Those knights. We could use their swords.”

  Kandler nodded. He knew what the shifter wanted to say, but he didn’t agree. “We could use the swords, but they could be hours digging a grave and praying. Hours. And every minute Esprë is farther away. We’ll do all right without them. Did you see how those warforged mangled them? They’d just get in our way.”

  “That old knight saved your skin.”

  “You’d have done the same for me.”

  Burch looked up at Kandler on his taller horse and nodded. “True enough. Then we’d be even up.”

  “I thought I had two on you these days.”

  “Forget about that siren?”

  Kandler laughed. “She wasn’t going to kill me.”

  “She’d have had you first, then killed you.” Burch smiled. “Like a spider.”

  “There are worse ways to go.” Kandler said. They both laughed at that, and for a moment the Mournland didn’t seem like such an awful place.

  The sensation didn’t last. As the two rode, the sky grew a darker shade of gray. The lightning in the distance grew closer.

  “That a real storm?” Kandler asked.

  Burch shaded his eyes and squinted at it. “Looks like it’s on the ground.”

  “Think it’s a living spell?”

  “Chain lightning like that isn’t natural. Got to be a spell. Might be hunting.”

  “What does a spell eat?” Kandler tossed it out as a rhetorical question. He should have known that Burch would tackle it. The shifter seemed to have an answer for everything. He didn’t talk much, but that’s because he was always thinking. When he did speak, you knew he meant it, that he’d given the matter due consideration. Kandler liked that.

  “It doesn’t eat. It … zaps.”

  “What?”

  “Everything has a reason to live. A living spell like that lives to be cast, over and over. A living lightning spell zaps.”

  Kandler thought about that for a moment. A notion sprang into his head that he could not get rid of. “Think it might zap Esprë?” he said.

  Burch cracked his neck. “It’ll zap the changeling first.”

  Kandler frowned. “Let’s hope so.” He spurred his steed on faster, and Burch pushed his mount to match his stride for stride.

  Darkness closed in on the two hunters. Soon after, Burch reined his horse to a halt. “Can’t see the trail,” he said as Kandler’s horse stopped beside his. “Don’t want to lose it.”

  “We can break out an everbright lantern,” Kandler said. He steered his horse around Burch’s pony and kept riding.

  Burch urged his horse to trot after him. “Not good enough,” he said. “I can’t see the trail from my saddle.”

  Kandler wasn’t ready to stop. “Then we can walk.”

  Burch kept at the justicar. “The torch’ll show the way. But the light’ll make a good target. Those vampires can see us, and we can’t see them. I don’t like it.”

  Kandler spat on the ground. “Esprë’s still out there,” he said. “We can’t leave her with them for another night.”

  Burch rode alongside Kandler for minutes in silence. The land grew darker by the moment. Soon, all the two could see was a sky that was just a shade less black than the valley floor. The living lightning wandered off behind a bend in the distance and robbed them of even that occasional flash to break the monotony.

  “All right,” Kandler said. He felt sick that they hadn’t caught up to Esprë yet, but he knew they wouldn’t do her any good dead. “You’re right. Let’s make camp.”

  The two dismounted. Kandler pulled out a capped everbright lantern from his saddlebag and removed the top. The heatless flames trapped inside leaped to life once again. “Let’s be quick about it,” he said. “Anyone within a mile can probably see this thing.”

  Burch found them a flat patch of ground within a minute, and the two unpacked their sleeping rolls with the ease from long hours working together. Once they were settled, Kandler capped the torch again and set it down beside his bedroll.

  “Your turn to get dinner?” Kandler said.

&nbs
p; “Can you see past your nose?” Burch asked with a laugh.

  “No.”

  “Then it must be my turn.”

  Kandler heard Burch rummaging around in his saddlebags for a moment, then the shifter handed the justicar some cheese and cured meat. The two munched on their cold meal in silence and sipped from their waterskins.

  “Think the knights know not to drink the water here?” Kandler asked. He was starting to regret leaving the others behind. It had been a rash act, a gamble that they might be able to catch up with Esprë before dark, and it had not paid off.

  “Think I care?” Burch laughed. A moment later, the shifter added, “They’re not that dumb.”

  “I hope so,” Kandler said. As the words left him, he found he really did.

  The two finished their meal. Burch cleaned up and packed away the scraps.

  “Do you have to do that?” Kandler asked.

  “Don’t want to attract animals.” Burch kept scuffling around in the dark.

  “Are there any out here? I haven’t seen any.”

  “Never know,” said Burch. “Better safe than sorry. Besides, it could be worse.”

  “Worse than what?”

  “Animals.”

  Kandler thought about that for a moment. “Good point. Good night.”

  “Night.”

  Burch took the first watch as he always did. The shifter liked to claim he was nocturnal, and that usually suited Kandler fine. Burch’s eyes worked much better in the dark, and at the end of the day Kandler was often too tired to argue.

  Kandler tried to sleep but couldn’t. The air was so still and the sky so black that he could almost convince himself he was sleeping back in his house in Mardakine. The ground was only a bit harder than his bed.

  He wanted to get out of his bed and check on Esprë. He hadn’t done that much since the end of the War. For the first two years after Esprina died, Kandler had checked on Esprë almost every night. He tiptoed into her room and stood there watching her until he was sure he could hear her breathing. One night Esprë had woken and screamed. Kandler stopped coming in so often after that, and he hadn’t done it once in the past year.

  As he lay on the hard ground of the Mournland, he held his breath and listened for that noise, but the only sound he heard was that of Burch breathing. He closed his eyes and let that steady rhythm lull him to sleep.

  In his dream, Kandler walked through the Mournland. It was day, and bodies covered the ground from one side of the misty borders of the place to the other. They were all face down, and Kandler stopped to turn them over one by one, looking for Esprina. He couldn’t find her anywhere, no matter how many bodies he disturbed. Row upon row he went, turning dozens, then thousands.

  When he turned over the last body, Esprë’s face looked back up at him with empty eyes. It was then that he realized that every body he’d looked at had borne Esprë’s face. He stood and looked around the valley to see that the bodies all faced the sky now. Each of them looked like Esprë.

  The Esprës stood up and began walking toward him. They were zombies like the Karrnathi ones Kandler had killed the night before, but they had his daughter’s features and her long, blond hair. His held his sword before him, but he could not bear to strike the creatures, any of them. Instead, he ran.

  The Esprë-zombies stampeded after Kandler, their feet tearing at the earth and raising a cloud of dust in their wake. He ran until his sides ached and his breath came in like a jagged knife. Every time he looked back, they were just behind him, no matter how hard he ran.

  The wall of mist that defined the border of the Mournland rose up before him. He knew if he could reach it he would be safe. The creatures would not follow him in there. As he sprinted for the mist, though, it never seemed to get any nearer. The footsteps pounding behind him drew closer and closer with every second. He reached for the mist, but as he did a thousand undead hands grabbed him by the back.

  Kandler woke with a start.

  The pounding footsteps still sounded in his head. He sat up and called out for Burch.

  “Right here,” the shifter said. He stood next to his own bedroll, the uncapped torch stabbing out of his right hand and parting the night.

  “What are you doing?” the justicar asked. He shook his head, hoping to make the pounding go away, but it just got louder. “You want to bring every creature in the valley down on our heads?”

  “Too late.” Burch pointed into the distance. “We got company.”

  Kandler stood and peered into the darkness. Off in the direction in which Burch had pointed, the justicar saw four torches bouncing closer to them with every second. “Horses’ hooves,” he said. “I heard those in my dream. And those aren’t torches, are they?”

  “Swords.”

  Kandler shook his head. The knights either didn’t realize that anyone could see them coming from miles around, or they didn’t care. “It looks like they are that dumb after all,” he said. He patted Burch on the back. “Good thing you uncapped that torch. They might have run around all night waving those damned things around.”

  “Moths to a flame,” said Burch.

  “Who are the moths? Us or them?”

  “The vampires maybe.”

  Kandler scowled at that. His friend had a way of voicing his worst fears at the worst moments.

  Burch held the torch high and waved it at the riders. They waved back in response and turned toward the light.

  “Know what happens to those moths?” Burch said.

  Kandler smiled despite himself. The shifter might have a dark view of the world, but that never dampened his bravado. “They get burned,” Kandler said.

  “Hail and well met!” Deothen shouted as the four knights rode into the meager camp.

  Kandler signaled Burch to cap the everbright lantern. As the shifter complied, Kandler stepped forward and addressed the knights. “I thought we’d seen the last of you.”

  “We would not abandon good people in their hour of need,” Deothen said.

  “Not as long as they’re still useful to you.” Kandler said. He found it hard to bite back his bitter feelings about the knights’ pursuit of Esprë.

  “That our goals match is a happy coincidence.” Deothen smiled, either unaware of Kandler’s pique or willing to ignore it. Kandler saw that this was a pattern with the knights. He often couldn’t read their intent, but he supposed it didn’t matter much. Actions spoke louder than words.

  Kandler watched the knights dismount. Deothen looked hale and hearty, as if the fight and the ride through the night air had lightened his spirit. Sallah frowned at Kandler and kept a careful eye on both he and Burch. Levritt’s eyes were even wider than normal, and they kept peering into the darkness.

  “How are you?” Kandler asked Brendis.

  The young knight moved his arm without defect. “In body, I am fine, but my heart is heavy.”

  “I am sorry about Gweir. He was a good soldier.”

  Kandler looked at the others and had to shield his eyes from the lights of their blades. “Could you put those things out?” he said. “All sorts of creatures come out around here at night. I’d rather we didn’t invite them into camp.”

  Levritt and Brendis sheathed their swords, extinguishing the flames as they did. Sallah continued to carry hers about like a torch. Deothen stuck his point first in the ground in the center of the camp and let it burn.

  “Let them come,” the senior knight said. “The power of the Silver Flame will keep us safe.”

  From somewhere nearby, unseen in the darkness Burch snorted. “It didn’t save Gweir.”

  Kandler shot the shifter a look that he doubted his friend could see. Exposed out here in the Mournland at night, this was no time to start a fight.

  Deothen nodded. “The warforged caught us unawares. It won’t happen again.”

  “Excellent!” a low, raspy voice said from behind the knights. “I’d hate to think this was a surprise.”

  Sallah screamed and nearly d
ropped her sword. Kandler stepped toward her and drew his own blade. The time for hiding in the dark was over.

  Before Brendis and Levritt could draw their swords, two dark-cloaked figures stepped from the darkness, their hands and faces luminous like moons in the light of the two still-blazing swords. They grabbed Brendis and Levritt and held them fast. The knights struggled but the vampires’ arms had the strength of steel bands, and they froze when they felt fangs against their necks.

  “Hold still, little knightlings,” the same voice said, “or my friends will tear out your throats.”

  Kandler recognized the voice. It belonged to the creature he’d last seen perched atop his roof like a monstrous bird of prey. As he watched, the figure melted into the light, as if it was the worst part of the night become solid, Kandler’s worst fears become real.

  Deothen went for his sword, which still stabbed into the ground in the center of the camp near Kandler and Sallah. He didn’t get three feet before the leader called for him to halt.

  “That’s far enough, great paladin,” the creature said. “I saw what you did to my fellows in that crater-town. If you touch that sword, we will kill your young charges before you can draw it from the earth.”

  Deothen froze, his arm already reaching for his sword’s hilt. He drew his hand back and held it in the air. “As you say,” the senior knight said through bloodless lips.

  Kandler stepped forward and stood near the sword.

  “That goes for you, too, Justicar,” the leader said. “We can keep this civilized, can’t we?” The creature permitted himself a bloodless smile, baring his long, ivory-colored fangs. “Forgive my rudeness,” he said. “My name is Tan Du.”

  “I’ll carve that on the marker over your grave,” Kandler said as he reached out and rested his hand on the pommel of Deothen’s sword. Brendis and Levritt cried out in fear as the beasts holding them tested their teeth on the skin of the knights’ necks.

  Kandler barked a short, mirthless laugh. “Go ahead,” he said, praying that the vampire would not call his bluff. It was a risky gambit, but he wanted everyone’s attention on him right now. “Kill them,” he said coldly. “They’re nothing to me.”