by Evren, S. K.
“I will, after I tend to my wound. May I see what you’ve brought me?”
“May I have your word that you won’t attack me, Vae?”
She stared at him for a long time. The blood continued to run down her leg and into her sandals. The food on the plate steamed and caught the attention of nearby insects. Vae inhaled deeply and sighed.
“You have my word, Captain.”
“Thank you, Vae.” He handed her the small bag.
Vae opened it to find several spools of thread and four needles pinned into the canvas of the bag. She drew out a needle and thread. She put the end of the thread in her mouth to make it moist than threaded it into the eye of the needle. She bent over and inserted the needle into the flesh of her shin.
“Why do you travel with that monstrosity?” she asked Cardalan, her voice even and devoid of pain.
“He is necessary to my mission,” Cardalan explained. “He is—or was—a member of the family that I serve, as well.”
Vae lifted her eyes to stare at the captain though her head remained down over her wound.
“You knew him?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t. He was killed before I transferred to the family’s life guards.”
“Who was he?”
“He was the husband of my Lord’s daughter, a priest and former city guard from Arlethord.”
“How did he die?”
“He was killed by my predecessor, apparently.” Cardalan stared at Vae’s hands as they worked to stitch her wound. He watched the blood paint her hands and run down her calf. Vae noticed his stare.
“He is an abomination, but his little friend is quick with her blades.” There was a note of approval in her voice as she spoke of Chance.
“He may be an abomination,” Cardalan replied, “but he is still considered a part of the family, and he may be useful in our mission.”
“His only use is as food for a fire!” Vae said heatedly.
“Why do you hate him so? I mean, he’s dead, I get that, but this seems… personal”
Vae stared into Cardalan’s eyes as she knotted the thread in her leg. She snapped the thread in her hands and returned the needle to the bag.
“I was defending the city of Sa Ruus, when the dead arrived. At first none of us believed our eyes. It had to be a dream, and a bad one at that. They looked quite fragile, but there were so very many. They extended as far as the eye could see, and I am known for having good eyes.
“We shattered the first wave of attackers—at least we thought we had. As we advanced on the next wave, the shattered bodies behind us stood once more.” Vae shuddered and made a sign to ward off evil. “Many of my friends were stabbed in the back, killed without seeing the face of their attacker.
“My Kaytin, ‘Captain’ as you call it, shouted out my name. I ran to his side, thinking he needed my aid.” She laughed derisively. “He did, just not in the way I expected. He told me he needed me to get to a horse and ride west as fast as I could. I started to protest and he struck me. ‘You are the fastest,’ he told me. ‘You are the only one who can get word of this attack out of here. We are all dead, Vae,’ he said.
“I left the line and dashed for a horse, any horse. I was fortunate and found one with heart and speed. I dodged my way through the ranks of the dead and came west. I did not escort the Avrandian envoy, Captain. I am the envoy who spoke to your king. I am the emissary that has stirred your state to war. I am the one who woke you.”
“I see,” Cardalan said, “but you did not answer my question.”
Vae nodded.
“I did not only leave my line and Sa Ruus to come here, Captain. I left something else, something I am certain is in great peril. I left my own child in Sel Avrand, in the city of Sa Kuuth.”
“I hope your child is well, Vae,” Cardalan said sincerely.
“Now you must tell me something, Captain.”
“I will answer if I can, Vae.”
“Why is it that you hate me?”
Cardalan looked into her eyes. He sighed and grimaced.
“Seven years ago, when your forces came west, your people took something from me that I can never replace. I miss my wife to this very day.”
“Was she in Æostemark?”
“She was an archer in my Lord’s service, a captain of her own rank. Her company was on rotation in Æostemark. She was my friend, and she was my love, and she died defending that damned border town.”
“I am sorry, Kaytin,” Vae offered sincerely. “If it will ease your pain, know that I was not a part of that invasion, and that I looked on it as dishonorable.”
“If it will ease your pain any, Vae, know that Drothspar was not one of the dead who attacked your city.”
Cardalan stood and saluted smartly.
“We’ll be leaving for Æostemark in the morning.” He turned on his heel and left Vae to her dinner.
“Drothspar,” Chance said, “do you feel like we’re being watched?”
“Seriously? A beautiful girl leaning against a pile of bones and you think we’re being watched?”
Chance hit him playfully on the arm and turned her head to look at him. Her cheeks flushed slightly.
“Not by the soldiers,” she told him. “This is something different.” She scooted closer to her friend.
“Don’t worry, I won’t go to sleep.”
“Drothspar,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Chapter 35 – Serpents
Troseth’s head was pounding. He tried to remember where he was. The acrid reek of stale smoke invaded his nostrils. It mixed with the taste of alcohol and vomit lining his mouth. His head continued to pound.
Had he just attacked Ythel’s estate? No, he wasn’t in Arlethord. That had been years ago. He was fairly certain of that. There hadn’t been smoke that time. His hand was resting on the cool handle of his sword. He hadn’t had a sword back then, either.
The pounding, the damn incessant pounding was waking him up, but it hurt too much to think clearly. He tried to open his eyes, but they were stuck shut. Pulling his hand from his sword to his eye, he felt something crusty. It scratched at his eyelids and fingers as he broke it away.
The world was blurry when he first opened his eyes. After a moment, his vision cleared. He was in a tent. That made sense.
He could hear the rustling of the tent’s canvas in the stale breeze—nothing else. He heard no voices, no footsteps. He was alone. He closed his eyes. He was alone with his pain.
Æostemark. He was in Æostemark.
Memories began to filter in, fuzzier than the day’s light. He was in Æostemark with the old man, Poson, and a cluster of dead. Li was with them.
Li was here, in Æostemark, with him, and further out of reach than ever. A spike of pain drove deep into his skull. He crushed his eyes shut and tried to endure it. He felt around the tent floor for a bottle, a flask, anything to ease his pain. His hand found his dagger. Not yet, he thought to himself.
He found nothing in his tent other than a patch of dried vomit under his head. He tried to breathe deeply.
He was sure he was in Æostemark. He just wasn’t sure why he was sure—or how he’d gotten there. It wasn’t the smell, he thought to himself. Æostemark didn’t smell any different than Sa Ruus or Sa Kuuth.
Sa Kuuth. They’d been in Sa Kuuth. That was where he’d found Li. And lost Li. She’d been taken from him, right from his very hands. Poson gave her up—gave him up—to the old man, the “Master.” He’d trusted Poson, and Poson had betrayed him. There was no trust in this world, no honor. There was only his pounding head. Troseth’s eyes clamped shut with each pulse of pain.
The old Necromancer and Poson, there was some battle going on between them, but it wasn’t a stand-up fight. He wasn’t sure how long the covert war had been waged, but he was certain it was coming to a head.
Damn, but his head hurt.
Troseth pushed himself to his knees with some
effort. His head responded with another spike of pain. His neck bones felt as if they’d been locked together. He heard an audible “snap” when they came loose. Blinking rapidly, he tried to convince his eyes to stay open. The light hurt. Everything hurt.
Li had been taken from him. She was a piece on the field between Poson and the old man, but Troseth didn’t know if she was a pawn or a queen. Either way, she was equally out of reach. Honestly, he thought, she might not mean anything at all to them. That thought hurt far worse than his head—to lose everything for nothing.
He pushed aside his tent flaps as if they’d been made of granite. He tripped on the tent’s lower edge as he lurched out, catching himself before he hit the ground. He wasn’t sure the effort hurt less than the fall would have.
Troseth looked around his encampment. This was the little patch of the Ostie ruins he’d been assigned by some mageling. His men still slept in various states of disarray. He was certain that none of them would fare better than he had when they woke. He was just as certain that none would feel worse.
He shuffled slowly through the camp, kicking at canteens and bottles, hoping to hear the slosh of liquid. Behind a large, rectangular section of support beam the men had been using as a bench, he found a bottle that was nearly half-full. He bent over to pick it up, enduring the spike of pain necessary for his salvation. Tipping the bottle up, he drank greedily—only to spit out as much as he could, sputtering and cursing.
Who the hell pisses in a bottle, he asked himself, throwing it at the head of his nearest trooper. The bottle missed, shattering inches from the sleeping soldier. The man snored on obliviously.
He took a moment to vomit. Surprisingly, he felt a little better after purging himself. He was about to go back to his tent when he spied a bottle beside a wagon. He picked it up and examined it closely. It was still waxed shut, but he sniffed it after opening it, just to be safe.
He downed a quarter of the bottle in one go. The alcohol raced down his throat and into his belly. In moments, he felt the warmth as it bit into his blood. He felt sick for a few minutes, but struggled to hold against it. The pounding in his head began to ease. The muscles in his neck began to relax. His owlishly blinking eyes slowed and stayed open to the light.
“Captain Troseth,” a mageling said, seeming to appear from nowhere. “Captain, are you well?”
“I’m fine,” Troseth answered gruffly. “What do you want?”
“The investment ritual will begin at midnight, Captain. My Lord Poson wished you to be informed.”
“Midnight?” Troseth looked up at the hazy sky. He thought it was late afternoon. “How long have we been here?”
“This will be our third night in Æostemark, Captain,” the underpriest replied. Distaste narrowed the man’s eyes.
“Third night,” Troseth mused. He took another drink and shook his head.
“Yes, Captain,” the underpriest answered, assuming Troseth’s musing to be a question.
“Fine, fine,” he told the priest. “I’ll be there when I’m ready.”
“As you wish, Captain.” The priest bowed ever-so-slightly to Troseth and left.
“Insolent cur,” Troseth mumbled as the man scurried away. He closed his eyes to the pain.
It took Troseth the better part of the evening—and his bottle—to pull himself together. Back in his tent, he strapped on his armor and wiped himself down with a dirty rag. He wasn’t shiny anymore, he thought to himself, but he’d at least knocked off most of the dirt.
He left the tent, remembering to step over the little canvas lip at the doorway. As a reward for not tripping, he decided to kick his sergeant awake.
“Moler,” he said gruffly, kicking the sergeant a second time.
“What?” the sergeant asked, agitated by his awakening.
“Get up, Moler,” Troseth ordered, kicking him harder the third time.
“Captain,” Moler grunted. “Sorry, Sir, I didn’t know it was you.” He scrambled unsteadily to his feet.
“Get the men assembled tonight. The old man’s doing another ritual in the square. Get there when you’ve got them presentable.” He paused. “On second thought, send in those new recruits we picked up outside of Sa Kuuth. Let them see what they’ve signed up for. Keep the veterans ready, but in reserve. We’ll see if any of the new blood get cold feet. If they do, enlist them in the Master’s army—the hard way.”
“Yes, Captain,” the sergeant said, saluting. His eyes were bloodshot, but he stood straight and still.
Moler wore his hangover well, Troseth thought, the benefits of experience.
Troseth worked his way through the ruined city. His encampment was several streets back from the main square. He hadn’t thought about it when the place had been assigned to him. At least, he didn’t think he’d thought about it. He had plenty of time to think about it as he walked.
The last time he’d been in the square, he’d been right beside the old man. His troops had been their entire force. Now, however, he’d been cast aside, literally and geographically. His men were useless, a fifth wheel trailing behind a wagon.
His wheel squeaked, he was honest enough to admit to himself. It needed things; food, water, shelter. It got drunk. It made noise. It wavered and wobbled. It wasn’t needed and, in truth, it was annoying.
He had started this defection pure and clean. He’d had purpose and plan. He had, actually, achieved his goal. He’d found the woman he’d been looking for—dead or not. Then he’d lost her. He’d lost everything.
Maker-damned alcohol! He couldn’t pull himself out of his downward spiral of thoughts. He stumbled over loose bricks and charred wooden beams. With each stumble, with each bump into the ruins, his armor picked up filth. He looked down and realized he was far more of a mess than when he’d started.
He was a useless, filthy fifth wheel.
A low chanting intruded itself on Troseth’s thoughts. He looked across the square. The Necromancer stood with a single red-clothed skeleton before him. Troseth could feel wave upon wave of energy flowing toward the man and the body. The waves passed in peaks of heat and troughs of cold, and their frequency was increasing. Troseth followed the invisible waves as they coursed directly toward the chanting Necromancer.
A small movement caught his eye near the skeleton’s bare foot. It appeared as if a dark weed was growing up into the foot, writhing and wrapping itself around the bone. Troseth watched as the dark ribbon slithered and snaked its way higher into the leg when another movement called his attention back to the feet.
A dark mass, much larger than the first, swelled up and over the bones of the corpse’s foot. Like a blind snail, the mass inched its way up the foot, attaching itself and growing offshoots that spread up the leg. The mass surged and retracted, stretching itself, pulling itself higher into the frame. Troseth shook his head and looked back down at the corpse’s foot.
Sprouting over the dark red mass was a pale covering, spreading like spilled milk on a kitchen floor. The stain spread to cover the entire mass of the foot and eagerly pushed its way up the masses attached to the lower leg. Troseth’s eyes widened as he realized he was seeing skin—fresh skin form to cover the veins and musculature of the dead body in the center of the square.
The weed-like veins had invaded the body’s lower abdomen and reached hungrily toward the chest cavity. Troseth watched, oblivious to all else, as the muscles and skin covered the thighs and hips. He averted his eyes quickly when he realized that the skin was forming the external organs of a male.
The veins had found purchase in the chest and were blossoming into a dark mass the size of a man’s fist. Two pale bags dropped low into the rib cage on either side as intestines boiled up from below. Muscles rippled through the creature’s abdomen and up over his breast. Although he wasn’t sure, Troseth could swear that he had seen the heart twitch.
As skin climbed up and over the secrets of the heart and lungs, more veins were threading through the skeleton’s jaw, skull, and eye s
ockets. Flesh and muscle crept up the man’s neck as gray matter writhed and bunched through a massive hole in the upper skull. Red musculature slithered out onto the face and two bright white orbs rolled from inside the skull to settle in the eye sockets. Troseth watched, stunned, as the skull’s bone knitted itself over the large hole just as flesh and muscle completed their course. Looking up at the stars above, Troseth realized it had taken roughly an hour for the skeleton to become flesh, blood, and bones.
Two underpriests came forward to escort the new man away, while two more brought a drink and a small gold vial to the Necromancer. The ancient mage drank from both and handed them back to his servants. He crooked a finger and another red-clothed skeleton marched out of the line to confront him.
Troseth had been standing, staring with his mouth open, in shocked disbelief. This old man had not merely raised the dead, he did not simply control multitudes of animated bones—he could restore the foundation of life at will! Troseth closed his mouth and tasted the dry, sickening flavor of assimilated alcohol. He could also taste the charred flesh of Æostemark, and the decaying corpses around him. None of that mattered as he staggered slightly into Poson. All that mattered to Troseth in that moment was the process he was watching and the possibilities it presented.
Poson smiled.
Chapter 36 – Eyes in the Night
It took two day’s hard riding for Drothspar, Chance, and Captain Cardalan’s contingent to reach the forest west of Æostemark. Cardalan’s forward scout reported that the city appeared to be occupied by a hostile force. Drothspar was present when the rider reported to Cardalan, and he could hear the anxiety in the young man’s voice.
Cardalan dismissed the rider, sending him off for a meal and some rest. He ordered his men to set up camp some distance back from the edge of the woods.
“Sergeant!” Cardalan called.
“Yes, Captain!”
“I’m going with our guests to reconnoiter at the tree-line. No fires tonight. Tell the men we’re in enemy territory now. Keep everyone alert.”