Bones of the Empire

by Jim Galford

  Resisting the urge to growl, Raeln sniffed and found she was not wrong. While the dead Turessians had no appreciable scent of their own, their clothing bore a few distinctive odors. Raeln associated Liris with the scent of dead wildlings. The other two Turessians were new to him, but Liris was all too familiar. Rushing in would be suicide. Oddly, he could pick up body scents from the other two Turessians in the camp, though he decided he would worry about that at a later time.

  Raising his hand to signal the spellcasters among his group, Raeln tried not to let the cold stares of the zombies worry him. In the deep darkness of the plains—even with the moonlight—his plan would work. The Turessians would never see it coming. With that advantage, he could finally attack Liris when she was on the defensive. It might be enough to give him the upper-hand, at least for a few minutes. By then he had to hope the army had reached them.

  Raeln gave the camp one last look over, hoping his people were ready. As an afterthought, his attention went to a war spear lying near one of the Turessians. On’esquin had once taught Raeln how to use one, and he would rather have it in his hands than an enemy’s. He would take that during the charge, if only to deny it to the Turessians.

  Dropping his hand, Raeln saw Liris turn partway just as his own Turessian allies began their spells. Raeln closed his eyes, knowing what was coming. Even with his eyes clamped shut, the abrupt flash of magical light was nearly enough to wash out his vision. Thankfully, when he opened them again, the lights had already gone out and all three Turessians were clutching at their eyes.

  “Go!” Raeln called and dove into the open space of the camp. He hopped over the reaching hand of one of the men before tumbling forward over the second to grab the spear midroll. When he came up, Liris was watching him, standing calmly with her back to the other two Turessians and the rest of Raeln’s group.

  “They never were prepared for ambushes,” she said.

  Ceran and Yoska tore into the blinded Turessian men and the bear wildling knocked away the nearest undead.

  Liris raised a hand as gouts of flame scattered around her, parting as though she had somehow deflected them. “Me…I’m always prepared. I’ve been waiting for you to come back, dog.”

  Raeln spun the spear in his off hand, forcing himself to smile. She had killed so many of his people. Estin’s parents, possibly Estin and Feanne, and very nearly Raeln himself. He had no intention of seeing her escape again. He owed her a lost ear.

  “You keep bragging how much Dorralt has shown you,” Raeln said, looking past her as one of the Turessians she had been with fell, choking on his own blood. These were not undead as he had expected—they were actual living Turessians. Dorralt had scattered living among his troops to hide their real numbers. “Let’s see if your master can show you enough to be better than someone who’s trained his whole life.”

  “Excellent,” she hissed back. A shimmering, magical blade appeared in her hand. “I’d actually hoped for this fight with On’esquin, but given the circumstances, this will have to do. I keep forgetting to ask…did you like the gift that I left outside Jnodin for you? I left a few of those here than there, but I’m afraid you never found the others. An awful shame for all those slaves…”

  Raeln attacked without thinking, twirling the spear as he lunged, using it both to parry her attack and to strike at her.

  She danced nimbly out of his reach, narrowly avoiding his spear as she moved to a safe distance. Grinning, she blew him a kiss with her free hand as she backed into the undead. Keeping away from him as she slowly backed through the snow, Liris asked, “How do you get up each day, knowing how much blood is on your hands? It’s practically as much as I’ve got on mine. Poor Greth…”

  Raeln tensed to strike again, but before he could, the white bear wildling burst through the unmoving undead. He tackled Liris from behind, driving his claws into her side and his fangs into her shoulder, forcing her to the ground.

  In the second it took for Raeln to get to them, Liris rolled the bear off herself and waved a hand across him. Immediately, the bear began coughing up blood, convulsing violently while Liris backed away again, allowing Raeln to get to the man’s side.

  Bending down, Raeln found the white-furred man was already dead, though his limbs still trembled. Raeln could barely control his anger. He rose to his feet and stepped past the fallen wildling to continue after Liris.

  “Yet another body on your fragile conscience,” she mused, hurrying away from Raeln through the crowded undead. “Do you really want to keep this fight up, Raeln? Every time you try to touch me, others die.”

  Raeln charged in again, striking faster than Liris could counter. He caught her across the jaw with the tip of his spear before kicking her left knee, shattering bone under his paw. He came around quickly, backhanding her hard enough to snap her head sideways as she fell.

  From her place in the snow, with blood sprayed across her face and the ground, Liris laughed as she raised a hand toward Raeln. A chill washed over him, and he realized there was nothing he could do. She was going to kill him, and he would never reach her in time. His heart skipped a beat as magic took hold of his muscles.

  The spell Liris was casting suddenly flared into visible light before fading away. Judging by her face, that was not even remotely what it should have done. They both looked around. Raeln found Ceran and Dalania standing together, both women hurriedly bringing their hands through complex motions indicative of magic.

  “Enough!” Liris screamed, pointing at Dalania. “Die, child!”

  Dark magic flickered and struck Dalania in the middle of her chest. For the briefest moment, Raeln thought he saw her eyes glaze over, but then she blinked and straightened her back, giving him a confused glance.

  “No more spells, no more tricks,” Raeln growled, advancing on Liris as she scrambled to her feet. “Fight me!”

  They circled slowly, with Liris occasionally flicking her free hand to one side to disrupt Ceran’s attempts to cast some spell. When Yoska appeared from the group of zombies, trying to be subtle, Liris motioned at him and he fell prone, struggling to stand.

  Smirking, she let her hood fall back to allow her long hair to move freely. Backing away again, Liris said, “Did you think Dorralt would leave the east open to you? The ruse with that group circling around from the west was clever, I will grant you that.”

  Raeln stepped in fast, bringing the spear around in an arc that deflected Liris’s weapon before coming around to graze her neck as he spun away from her, regaining his distance. “We were never in the west. Dorralt is an idiot. You might want to rethink your choice of masters.”

  Liris flashed Raeln a bright grin right before she raced in on him, her sword hooking past his defenses. Raeln tried to counter with the spear but was a little too slow and felt the heat of the magical sword brush across his shirt. He managed to bring the butt of the spear up, cracking Liris’s elbow, forcing her back a step and driving away her weapon in the process. She stumbled away from him, slowly settling into a ready stance.

  “Is that your army I hear in the distance?” Liris asked as explosions and shouts echoed across the plains. “It will take them some time to reach us. By then Dorralt will have seen that I have you here, and he will pour his might into me. Your army will find your remains staining half of Turessi, and your friends’ bodies will be used as a tombstone.”

  Twisting around, Liris parried a strike from Ceran, who had summoned a magical sword like Liris’s. Before Raeln could close on them, Liris ducked Ceran’s follow-up swing and punched her in the stomach, sending her sprawling on the snow.

  Yoska shouted angrily, still unable to rise.

  Raeln’s spear narrowly missed Liris’s side. She was in no position to strike back, so she danced out of his reach, shoving a blank-eyed zombie between them as a shield. Almost as an afterthought, she brushed away a bolt of brilliantly white lightning from one of Raeln’s Turessians, who had been maneuvering to get a clear shot at her.

 
“I can feel my master’s eyes on us.” Liris laughed, moving through the undead to keep Raeln from catching up with her. “Already I grow stronger and faster. Soon, I will be able to cut down your entire army without a single spell. Keep it up, wildling. This is getting interesting now.”

  A gentle hand came down on Raeln’s back, and he sniffed to find Dalania had snuck up on him. Strength flooded his body and all of his weariness faded instantly. It was a fair fight again. He had Dalania’s magic strengthening him the same way Liris had Dorralt’s.

  Driving his shoulder into one of the zombies to push it away quickly, Raeln moved among the uncaring undead, his spear darting and flashing in the moonlight, nearly fast enough to get past Liris’s quick attempts to parry. She clenched her jaw as she shifted her grip to have both hands on the weapon. With a cry of frustration, she ducked behind another group of undead as Raeln’s spear nicked her upper arm, sending blood spraying. That, unlike all of the other movement, caught the attention of the undead. They began groaning as a group, wandering around aimlessly, trying to find their target.

  Backing away through the undead, Liris abruptly shouted, “Undead! Kill anything with fur!”

  All around Raeln, thousands of zombies turned slowly to follow him as he went after Liris. Rough fingers tried to grab at him, but he kept moving, trying to keep ahead of them. He soon had to resort to kicking them out of his way and fighting to keep his clothes out of their reaching fingers. Liris continued to avoid him, getting putting more and more distance between them. He struggled each step, casting aside his furs and cloak, giving the undead something to grab onto other than his flesh and his own fur. It bought him seconds, but more were on him before he could reach Liris.

  Then, the whole fight changed as magic came down across Raeln’s back and shoulders, forcing him to the ground. He had been paying too much attention to the zombies and failed to notice Liris, who had stopped and held a hand toward him. All of the tricks he had been hoping to use, all of the practice with the Turessians in his camp were for naught if he was not even watching the person who was trying to kill him. Liris grinned and let her sword vanish as she came over. Zombies packed in around him, giving him nowhere to run, even if he could.

  “The dryad will be the next to die,” Liris warned, kneeling beside Raeln as he struggled to get out from under her magic. It felt as though a tree had fallen across his shoulders, pushing him down under its weight, no matter how he struggled. “I will rip every leaf off that woman and then light her on fire. Only then will I go after the rest of your pitiful army. You, I will watch be torn apart by these mindless savages that we use as tools.”

  Raeln roared, forcing himself to ignore pain as he pulled himself up to his knees. Blood ran across his shoulders as the magic pushing down on him tore into his body, but he would not let it win. All he could see in his mind was the bear’s death—a wildling he would never know the name of—slowly replaced by Greth. He had no intention of letting Liris anywhere near Dalania.

  The zombies bore Raeln to the ground between the weight of the magic and their own efforts. They did not try to kill him, though their broken fingers dug so tightly into him that they could have him without much effort once he was unable to move. There was nothing he could do to even fight back, aside from the occasional kick when he managed to free his leg. Growling with frustration, he clawed at the ground, trying to reach Liris without managing to budge an inch. She continued taunting him, but he no longer cared. He needed to get to her, to find a way to kill her before she hurt anyone else.

  Raeln, said a voice within his head, startling him enough that he froze. He had only met one creature in his life that could talk to him that way, though the voice did not belong to the dragon Nenophar. Still, it seemed familiar. Make yourself as small as possible. I will be sure you survive mostly intact. Any limb you wish to keep, you will put under your body.

  Doing as he was told, Raeln wrapped his arms around his head and curled up as best he could as the entire area warmed. With a deafening boom, he could feel the area abruptly cleared of anyone else nearby. It felt as though a tornado had landed on his head, leaving him safe at its center. Even Liris’s magic hold on him vanished.

  In the distance, a bestial roar shook the ground. To his own surprise, Raeln laughed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Heart of the Maelstrom”

  For nearly five years now, I have harbored a desire to attack the Turessians at their head, to exact vengeance for all those who have died. It is not in my nature to seek revenge, nor my breed’s, so far as I can tell. Still, from the time I watched Varra be killed by that first puppet of Dorralt, to the day I scribble these words in the dim candlelight of a tent within sight of the temple of Turessi, I have craved getting my claws into someone I could convince myself was responsible for all the pain and suffering around me.

  Now I find myself less than a day from that very reality. Throughout the army, I can see the resolve of those who have suffered the same as I have. They want this chance, no matter how remote. That is why we all march, knowing we have little hope of victory, but willing to risk it all to put a face to our anger. We all have the burden of hatred, and within the next day, we will be able to finally stop feeling helpless.

  We all know we will die here at the temple. No one has voiced it, but we know. Any force powerful enough to conquer nations for hundreds or thousands of miles in all directions will not be unseated by a few hundred misfits from the crushed nations. We may have resolve, but resolve alone cannot win a war.

  They are expecting us.

  This last entry I have bundled with the previous ones and am sending away with a small group of those who have chosen not to enter the temple. Most of them are good people, who had followed friends and loved ones this far and now see they cannot go farther unless they take up arms. Out of hundreds, we are losing no more than twenty. The scouts believe if they are quick, they can get to one of several shifting gaps in the mists and leave this area as the mists concentrate on the temple itself.

  I, like many others, am sending my last words with them in some vague hope that my children will somehow receive them. Perhaps then they will know their parents gave their lives for the slimmest chance that the world could be brought back to enough stability that they might enjoy their lives, far from warfare. We must fight this battle so they do not.

  Your mother and I love you all. Know that, and do not ever come looking for our remains in the far north. The Turessians do not bury their dead, and I doubt we will even receive so much as a kind word when we are gone. There will be no grave to visit and no marker for where we fell. If we are lucky, we will be lost to the deep snows, but if we are unlucky…I do not want my children to find what I would have become.

  “We need to know why they fell back,” Turess told the few assembled leaders of the army. Among them were Linn, Feanne, Estin, and a dozen men and women who represented some of the crushed cities of the south. “Undead do not flee, and Dorralt certainly would not relent without actually losing a significant force.”

  “Five hundred yesterday and another two hundred today is not significant?” Linn asked, his heavy armor jingling as he crossed his arms.

  “Not hardly,” Feanne interjected. “He has hundreds of thousands.”

  “Spread across half of Eldvar,” Linn reminded her. “What leader would bring them all back here when he has so many other places to defend? He’s probably fortifying the temple with what reserves he has left and using the small groups to slow us. I say we push forward.”

  A dark elven woman in a delicate dress, which Estin was impressed had survived so far into their travels, spoke up. Her soft voice and odd accent drew attention far better than Linn’s volume. “The scouting people confirmed tens of thousands. They were moved before we arrived. Whether he has a full force here or not, he has more than we have encountered. Perhaps he pulls them back to guard his temple as Master Linn suggests? I would certainly bring whatever I had in the region to
my home if a foe was so close. However, I would not allow them so close in the first place, unless I had a plan. I would sacrifice many men to ensure they had not gotten nearly so close.”

  Turess shook his head. “No. My brother always hated the north. He would not use this place as a last line of battle unless there was another reason. He would have held Altis or Corraith before choosing the temple.”

  Estin’s fur stood on end at the mention of Corraith. He had been trying not to think of the war being anywhere near it for his own sanity. He lost part of the conversation as his thoughts drifted to the kits, wondering if they were even still alive and whether his letters would reach them too late.

  “Quite simply, this is too easy,” Linn finally admitted, relaxing somewhat. “Against a general of the south, I would say we are being lured into an ambush. Turess keeps telling me that his people don’t like the idea of ambushes, but that’s what I’m expecting. How long do we have until we can see the temple clearly to know what we’re up against?”

  “A few minutes after dawn,” Turess replied without looking up from the map that lay on the ground between all of them. “We only need to cross the remainder of these woods and we see all six roads to the temple, as well as the entire region around it. If he has army left, they will be there. Temple itself is too small to hold more than a hundred soldiers. I would assume he keeps his favorite troops there. Generals, if you will, yes? Those he trusts most will wait at those doors. If we get inside, we face only those he trusts, which will be very few.”

  Feanne looked over all of the people assembled there. “I want us marching before first light. When that sun rises, we need to already be clear of the woods. We’ll be marching across open plains from then on, and I do not want to waste time.”

  A distant boom reverberated through the ground under Estin’s feet. Only he and Feanne seemed to notice at first, but a second rumble got the dwarf and two dark elves looking around as well. Seconds later, a horn cried from somewhere to the east.