Bones of the Empire

by Jim Galford

  Frantically looking about for help that would not come, the man relented and relaxed as he stared at Raeln’s tattoos. Turning his head away in what appeared to be shame, he said loud enough for others to hear, “This…man…has proven himself in a battle of wisdom and strength. Until there is reason to resist, we will follow him and seek to honor our ancestors by destroying the monsters they have become.”

  Shouts began all around them as the order was passed to the rest of the clan. After giving it a few seconds, Raeln lifted his sword from the man and offered him a hand up, though the Turessian eyed it as though it would somehow defile him. Instead of taking Raeln’s hand, the man raised his own in surrender.

  “We are allies now,” Raeln said. “Best we work together. Can I have your name?”

  “Nimmas, of clan Dorith. Shamed preserver of our clan.”

  Clasping Nimmas’s hand despite his effort to avoid the contact, Raeln pulled him up and leaned close. “Raeln of Hyeth and defender of Lantonne. Cross me again, and I will splay your guts across the snow for miles. Are we understanding each other?”

  Nimmas nodded slowly. “Our clans will follow you, Raeln of Hyeth. Tread carefully, and we will follow that much longer.”

  Nearby, Ceran pointed at the sky. Where she pointed, a burst of green flame appeared to alert their clans that the battle had changed. They had worked the signal out earlier in the day, and the clan reacted Nimmas’s people could change their own targets. The woman with Nimmas quickly let off a similar explosion, and all of the remaining Turessian forces backpedaled toward Raeln and Nimmas, moving as one, despite having been trying to kill one another seconds before. Even the slaves of both sides fell in, forming a defensive line against the undead. The clans were clearly used to putting aside hostilities for common goals.

  “Who leads them?” Nimmas asked, once he had a good look at the vast army pouring out of the woods. “None of the clans would allow such a betrayal of their people…”

  Raeln snorted and picked up his shield as he walked toward the front lines, with Nimmas, Ceran, and Yoska following close behind. “I have my hunch who’s out there. Those aren’t your ancestors…they’re my people’s. They are the dead stolen from their graves by a hundred or more Turessians who refuse to obey even their own laws.”

  Nimmas glanced over at Raeln as they walked, and the disgust that had been evident previously was gone. A hardened anger burned there instead. Raeln had no doubt of his loyalty now. Nimmas would follow him to the ends of Eldvar to avenge such a horrific act.

  “You have our clans at your disposal until we learn why this is happening and end it,” Nimmas pledged, waving off a group of slaves moving to intercept Raeln. “I may question your presence here, but if my people are doing this, we have larger concerns. I will not allow anyone’s ancestors to be treated this way. I would sooner marry off my daughter to your kind than back down from this battle.”

  Smiling to himself, Raeln dug in and ran, outpacing Nimmas within seconds. He raced into the massive group of slaves who were only a thirty feet from the first wave of undead. Between the slaves and the undead, the last of Raeln’s people were running to escape, their lines broken.

  The stench that burned his nose made it difficult to concentrate, but Raeln did not need much to fight the dead. He only needed to keep moving.

  Raeln dove into the front lines of the undead seconds before they reached the wall of slaves. As if backing him up, flame and lightning fell from the sky into the seemingly limitless waves of undead that continued to pour from the woods.

  As Raeln crashed into the first of the undead, turning and slashing with each impact, he saw more explosions of magic striking at the Turessians helping him. That confirmed his suspicions. Dorralt would not send so many troops without a leader. There was someone among the undead, and he was willing to bet on who Dorralt would have chosen.

  Roaring as he kicked a bloated corpse into those behind it, Raeln pushed forward, cutting through every limb that reached for him as he tried to drive through them. He was forced to strike with his shield and feet as often as his sword to make headway, while more undead poured in around him, trampling those he had knocked down.

  Mere moments after Raeln had charged in, the slaves of the four clans came in behind him, cutting down undead nearly as fast as he did. They were joined by their masters, wading into the battle using combinations of magic and weaponry with blurring speed and skill, keeping the undead from closing in behind Raeln. Despite the calm Raeln had learned to expect from the Turessians, now facing undead, they were ferocious and visibly angry.

  Raeln pushed on with the others at his back, practically running over top of the undead he managed to cripple or knock down. They would not stay down long, but the Turessians in the group behind him were steadily burning them to ash with magic. Hacking undead apart usually failed, but magic seemed to bring their thrashing to a halt swiftly.

  More than once, Raeln saw a human reduced to tears, even as they incinerated their foes. This battle was more than war to the Turessians. It forced them to come face-to-face with the defiling of nations their own kin had engaged in. It was as close to a religious war as the Turessians had likely ever faced, and they had managed to ignore it until he had forced them to look it in the eye.

  Suddenly the entire undead army split and retreated to either side of Raeln, outside his reach, creating a wide gap for him to move forward while they closed in to fight behind him. He was surrounded, but the undead ignored him. Even when he attacked one zombie, cutting much of its skull off, it did not pay any attention to him. The abrupt calm that surrounded him startled him and made him slowly spin in a full circle in confusion. When he turned back the direction he had been going, he saw why.

  Standing in the middle of the fresh path was a black-robed woman, silently watching him. She could have been anyone, but Raeln knew Dorralt would only send one person after him. The woman dragged the remains of a Turessian whose robe bore the faint markings of someone from Ceran’s clan. At his approach, she dropped the limp body to the ground and stepped over it toward him. Lifting one hand, she stilled the sounds of combat, her magic creating an effect as if they were alone in a room.

  “Hello again, Liris,” Raeln said as calmly as he could, relaxing his stance. He was trapped, surrounded by hundreds or thousands of undead. Still, it would keep her busy, and that meant the others would live that much longer. He knew her well enough that he was certain she would not look for a new target as long as he lived.

  “I hadn’t been sure it was you,” Liris replied, her gentle tone belying the brutality Raeln knew her capable of. She lowered her hood and shook her long dark brown hair over her shoulders and crossed her arms. “You do all look alike, but then I saw those adorable so-called honor-markings. If I had any doubt about the quality of my people these days, the runewords on your brow confirm it. Dorralt’s purging may need to be directed somewhat farther north than expected. I haven’t seen those particular markings in a long time, and I don’t intend to see them again after today.”

  Raeln smiled slightly at the idea that Liris was willing to banter, even in the middle of a war. “My Turessian isn’t so good. What do they say, anyway? Knowing the people I’m working with, probably, ‘Pull my tail.’”

  “Humorous, yet you know better,” she replied, her cheek muscle twitching angrily. “You dare mark yourself as the sword of the empire? Do these people even know how to read runewords that old? I will be happy to rip those marks off you and educate your clansmen as they bleed to death.”

  Raeln slowly lowered himself into a ready stance as Liris paced. “If we’re on speaking terms, where are Estin and Feanne?”

  “I killed them both, along with that simpering Turess,” she told him, walking slowly forward to close the gap between them. “How does that make you feel, knowing that the luckiest of your kind and his love who managed to come back from death are both impaled on spears to warn others away from our lands? Do you think you can shiel
d these clans from me or my master? They will never know that their reborn beloved founder and all of his followers are dead. You are all that is left of On’esquin’s prophesied resistance. All you are doing is delaying what is coming and causing so many more lives to be lost than necessary.”

  The more Raeln fought to remain still, the more his muscles ached and his heart raced, demanding he knock the smug look off Liris’s face. All in good time, he told himself.

  “You aren’t killing barbarians anymore,” he said, trying to listen for his allies behind him. Liris continued to advance, reducing the amount of time he could stall. “How do you justify this? These are your people.”

  “Easily. My master wishes to whittle the land to a single clan—his. If they do not follow us, they are enemies. If they follow you, I do not even need to question their loyalty. As usual, he has given me freedom in deciding my methods. I have decided that these four clans are tainted by your leadership. So few clans remain. It is a true shame.”

  Liris was less than ten feet away. Raeln knew he could strike at any moment, but if she was willing to come closer, he would let her yield her magical advantage. He had fought her often enough before and knew the risks of underestimating her at any range. But he never wanted to fight a spellcaster anywhere farther than his arms could reach. With his arm already burned and muscles sore from fighting Nimmas, he wanted to minimize how much extra effort he had to put into fighting Liris.

  In a rush of movement, Liris cast a spell Raeln did not see coming in time, and a concussive force slammed into his shield, knocking him to his back. When he tried to roll away, Liris leaped atop him and punched him across the jaw hard enough that he tasted blood and felt pieces of bone in his mouth. He tried to bring up his shield between them and barely managed to block another swing, which dented the metal badly.

  “I warned you that I would kill you,” Liris whispered near his ear as she pulled him up by his chest fur, pushing aside his shield. “Each time you slip away, you only make it worse on yourself when I find you.”

  Struggling through the dizziness and pain, Raeln tried to get his sword between them. Liris picked him up with one hand on his chest and the other on his jaw. With only inches between them, his sword was too large to maneuver. Raeln dropped his shield and quickly shifted his grip from the hilt to the blade of his sword. Ignoring the sharp flare of agony as the edges sliced open his fingers and palm, he drove the weapon into Liris’s stomach and up into her chest until blood from both of their wounds made it impossible to keep his grip on the sword.

  Liris let out a choked scream as she dropped Raeln to rip the sword from her stomach. The bleeding gash closed in the time it took her to cast aside the weapon, and Raeln only barely scrambled a few feet before she was on him again. She pulled him backward and threw him to the ground at her feet. He tried to stand, but Liris kicked his legs out from under him and then slammed her palm into his stomach, forcing him to curl into a ball and gag for breath.

  “Stop!” shouted a woman’s voice nearby as Liris drove her elbow into Raeln’s face, splattering blood across his muzzle and the snow around him.

  Liris pulled back to strike again, and Raeln could barely lift his hands to stop her. When he did get an arm between himself and her, Liris grabbed his wrist and twisted, forcing a scream from him as his elbow went numb right before he both heard and felt a loud crack of bone breaking. She released him then, and he tried to crawl away using his remaining arm, but a boot came down on his thigh hard enough that he was certain he felt bones break there too.

  Coughing blood across the snow as he tried to get away, Raeln was quickly dragged back by Liris.

  “I’m done chasing you, wolf,” she said softly right into his ear, holding him off the ground by the scruff of his neck. “I won’t—”

  Raeln hit the ground hard as Liris tumbled over him and collided with several of the waiting undead nearby. When he looked her way, he saw thick vines coiling around her, while an enormous bat clawed at her face. The bat lived little longer than the vines held when the undead came to Liris’s aid, ripping and biting at anything they could reach.

  Turning, Raeln saw the Turessians were still fighting their way through the undead, but one person had somehow managed to get ahead of the rest. Surrounded by vine-wrapped zombies, Dalania held her ground.

  Liris climbed back to her feet. “Decided to show yourself at last?” she asked, smoothing her robes as they mended themselves. Behind her, the bat continued to shriek as it was ripped apart by zombies. “Run along and play in the woods, fae-kin. The wolf is mine, but I might give him back in pieces soon enough.”

  Raeln tried to yell for Dalania to run, to go back to the Turessians he could see making their way toward him, but she held her ground, and all he could eke out was more coughing. As he watched, Dalania prepared another spell.

  “Give up already, child!” Liris said, laughing as she grabbed Raeln’s ear and pulled him off the ground by it. He tried to scream, but Liris punched him again, and when he hit the ground, he felt warmth from blood running down where his ear had been. Through the ringing on that side of his head, he could hear nothing.

  Two huge shapes burst from the ground, scattering snow and driving Liris back a step. At Dalania’s direction, two massive bug-like creatures leaped on Liris, trying to tear at her with deadly sharp talons.

  Liris incinerated one midstride and tore the head from the other, casting it aside as the creature’s body fell. “You will have to do far better than that.” Liris flicked her fingers at Dalania, who screamed and tumbled backward under the force of the spell. Turning to Raeln, she added, “Would you like to see the girl die?”

  The sounds of battle—what little Raeln could hear—were getting closer, and all of the zombies moved to protect Liris, though if she noticed, she gave no indication. With the group of undead closing ranks, Raeln could no longer even see the clans making their way toward him and Dalania. All he really could do was look down at the red snow and watch as fresh drops fell off his chin as he tried to find the strength to stand through his pain.

  Nearby, Dalania came off the ground, clutching at her throat. When Raeln looked over at Liris, she held her hand up casually, as though holding something. The ease with which Liris wielded magic was frightening. She was far stronger than the last few times he had fought her.

  She returned her attention to Raeln, lifting her robe with her free hand to sit down on his legs, maintaining her magical grip on Dalania. “Dorralt taught me this gem,” she explained as she lifted Dalania completely off the ground, staring into Raeln’s eyes happily. “Think of all the fun I could have had over the years with this spell. Where is the fight in your friend, now?”

  Raeln roared and flung himself at Liris, trying to aim his good arm at her. She caught his wrist with her free hand and easily pinned him down on the ground. Laughing, she tightened her grip until Raeln’s arm shook with the effort of keeping his muscles taught. If he relaxed or lost control, he knew she would break his wrist in an instant.

  A flash of metal near Raeln’s face caught Liris by surprise, and she released him and lost her hold on Dalania. With speed Raeln did not think he possessed, Yoska danced around Liris, cutting her with his knives. Midslice, he kicked backward and knocked Raeln away from Liris, who was still reeling from his blades. She recovered quickly and flung Yoska aside with magic. While they fought, Dalania escaped into the army of undead, whose attentions were still on the Turessians trying to get through.

  Sliding with the impact from Yoska, Raeln crawled for the edge of the battle, hoping he could get enough distance that Yoska would abandon his attack and run.

  Swearing, Liris wiped blood from her face as she made her way back to Raeln and kicked him in the side. The pain was incredible, and he wondered if she had broken all of his ribs. Curling into a ball to shield his body as best he could, he waited for the next strike. When it did not come, he peeked over his broken arm and found Liris and Ceran stood opposite each oth
er, with a large swath of undead behind Ceran reduced to steaming ash. Behind Ceran, Yoska was trying to get to his feet. Blood ran from a deep cut on his face and neck.

  Ceran stood calmly with her hood up, holding a blazing magical sword she had apparently summoned. From where he lay, Raeln saw her smile widen when Liris summoned a matching weapon. Everything else felt as though it were fading away until the two women were all Raeln could see and hear.

  “You are too old to do this, preserver,” Liris said, raising her own flaming sword and moving in a slow circle around Ceran, who barely appeared to acknowledge Liris at all. “I will cut you down easily.”

  Chuckling, Ceran answered, “Your master can give you magic, but he cannot teach understanding. You’ve earned nothing that you use. Age weakens muscles, not magic.”

  “What do you know, old woman?”

  “I know that there is a reason Turess put wisdom above strength,” noted Ceran, lifting her own sword as Liris came closer. “Besides, a stone is old and yet stronger through inaction than any of us. Choose your words better, you ignorant child.”

  Liris lunged, her wild swings backed by immense strength. She tried to hack Ceran down, but Ceran easily deflected the attack as she moved around the battlefield. Each time Liris swung, Ceran drove her sword aside with a casual flick of her own weapon, forcing Liris to cut down several zombies by accident as they moved.

  “Magic does not require brute force,” Ceran explained, only holding her sword in one hand as she parried swings Raeln was certain would have cut through the heaviest armor he had ever seen. “I know my spell as well as my own body, and it will behave as I wish. Your spell is clumsy and foreign to you. You shame me for having to involve myself.”