When she looked back, the hole was gone.
“Cat!” Emily landed on the ashy ground and knelt beside him. “What happened?”
Cat shifted, uncomfortably. Emily braced herself, then pulled back his trouser leg. There was a nasty purple stain on his ankle where the tentacle had held him. She muttered a spell to test the venom, shivering as she realized it was a paralytic agent of some kind. No wonder he hadn’t been able to muster any resistance. She cast a pair of healing spells, heedless of the drain on her power. She needed him, desperately. They couldn’t give up now.
“Fuck,” Cat managed. “I... fuck.”
Emily peered down at him. “Do you want to rest?”
“Resting here is probably a very bad idea,” Cat said. His entire body shook as he tried to scramble to his feet. Emily had to help him stand. It was a mark of how badly he’d been hurt that he didn’t try to resist. “You saved my life!”
“We all make mistakes,” Emily said, lightly. She wrapped an arm around him, keeping her other arm free so she could cast a fireball if necessary. “Shall we...”
She broke off as she studied the dunes. The ash looked unmoving. It was impossible to tell where another of those creatures might be lurking. She found it hard to believe it was the only one, not here. She stared at the ash, feeling a wave of dismay. They were standing in the middle of a minefield and... she reached for the snake-bracelet, removing it from her wrist and placing it on the ground before releasing the spell. Aurelius sniffed the air, warily. Emily stared through the death viper’s eyes. The snake had no trouble spotting the danger zones.
“I forgot you had that thing,” Cat managed. His voice was unsteady. “Keep it away from me, please.”
“Aurelius is going to keep us safe,” Emily told him, firmly. “Let’s go.”
The snake slid south, keeping well away from the dangerous patches of ashy sand. Emily followed, holding Cat until he could stand on his own and stumble after her. The entire region was dangerous, hundreds of places looking extremely unsafe to the snake’s eyes. Emily thought about the amulet around her neck, a teleport spell that would get her back to the camp... at the price of abandoning the mission. She considered, as she heard Cat grunt behind her, sending him back and carrying on alone. He’d never forgive her, but he’d been poisoned. Healing spells or not, it might take time for the poison to pass out of his body.
She didn’t relax, not at all, until the landscape hardened and became safe... for a given value of safe. Aurelius crawled up her leg, through her shirt and coiled around her neck, closing one eye even as he kept the other one open for threats. His nose tasted all sorts of scents in the air, including humans. Emily couldn’t smell anything herself, but she trusted Aurelius. Her familiar couldn’t lie to her. It was just a shame, she’d often thought, the snake couldn’t talk.
Harry Potter would have been able to talk to him, she thought, tiredly. She knew her mind was wandering. The landscape kept changing, becoming more like scrubland than desert. But perhaps Aurelius wouldn’t have had anything to say.
“We’d better rest,” Cat said, as they reached another gully. “It’s noon.”
Emily didn’t believe him, not really. Her body insisted it was late afternoon, if not evening. The sun hadn’t moved at all... it really was a post-holocaust nightmare, a world so old that the sun itself had turned red as it entered the final stage of its life. She knew it wasn’t true, she knew it was her imagination, but the impression refused to leave her mind. It felt like the end of days.
Cat cast a pair of spells to make sure they were safe, then sat on the hard ground and leaned against the rocky wall. Emily sat next to him, allowing Aurelius to glide down her arm and wrap himself around her wrist before she turned him back into a bracelet. She leaned against Cat, feeling oddly comforted by his presence. Again. Cat glanced at her, smiled tiredly and slowly closed his eyes. Emily poked him, none too gently. They couldn’t afford to sleep.
“Let me see your ankle,” she ordered, after they’d rested. She wasn’t sure how long they’d sat there. “Please.”
She frowned. Cat hadn’t said no. He hadn’t even made a show of resistance. She suspected that meant he was hurt worse than he was prepared to admit, even to her. She wondered, idly, just what he thought of her now. She’d been a comrade, then a friend, then a lover, then a damsel in distress and now... a comrade again. He was probably having some problems deciding, she figured, as she inspected the wound. The purple marks had started to fade, but there were still traces of the poison clinging to his skin. She took a sample and stowed it in her knapsack. It might come in handy for something.
“Rest yourself,” Cat breathed. His eyes were still closed. “Don’t try to do too much.”
“We have to start walking again soon,” Emily told him. She pulled his trouser back over the wound. “We can’t stay here for long.”
“No.” Cat didn’t move. “Pass me the energy potion.”
Emily did as she was told, trying to hide her concern. No jokes, funny or otherwise? No suggestions they should do something that involved a bed, but wasn’t sleep? He was definitely in dire straits. Cat shifted as he drank the potion, then stumbled to his feet. Emily followed, brushing down her trousers. The potion wouldn’t last. They really needed something more...
Next time, bring more people, she thought. And perhaps a small convoy of supplies.
She forced herself to follow, keeping a wary eye on his movements. The potion really wouldn’t last, even if it did flush the last of the poison out of his body. She hoped they’d find somewhere a little more secure to rest when the sun finally sank below the horizon, somewhere they could ward to protect themselves. Cat glanced back at her, a grim expression on his face. She wished, suddenly, she’d talked Lady Barb or Sergeant Miles - or both - into coming with them. Or Void.
“Don’t tell the sergeant I walked into the trap,” Cat said. He sounded as though he was trying not to plead. “He’ll laugh in my face.”
Emily had to smile. “Serves you right,” she said. She’d seen all kinds of strange creatures near Whitehall, all of which had lain in wait to catch the unwary. Sergeant Miles had taught them what to watch for, although he’d never shown them anything akin to the half-seen creature that had nearly killed Cat. “You could have died there.”
She shuddered. Lady Barb had said the Blighted Lands were infested, hadn’t she? Monsters, not all of which had once been human... creatures out of nightmares, creatures so dangerous that no one could encounter them and survive... her lips twitched at the thought. If no one survived long enough to make it back home and report, how did Lady Barb know they even existed? Rumors and innuendo hardly seemed enough to write comprehensive reports.
Cat led her up an incline, then stopped. “Emily,” he said. His voice was suddenly very hard, yet quiet. “Take a look at this.”
Emily stepped up beside him and stared into the haze. “What is that?”
“A plantation,” Cat said. “I think we’ve just found the edge of enemy territory.”
Chapter Seventeen (Emily1)
EMILY HAD THOUGHT HERSELF INURED TO horror, to watching helplessly as peasants grubbed in the mud while their betters sneered, but the plantation was horrific beyond words.
It was... she struggled to comprehend, let alone express, what she saw. Unkempt rows upon rows of mutated crops, plants she’d never seen on the northern side of the mountains; crops tended by men and women who shambled from place to place like dull animals. Men who looked badly wounded, warped and twisted by dark magic; women and children who looked inhuman, sluggish eyes blinking slowly as they listlessly moved around. They worked as little as they could... no, she realized. She’d seen peasants working as little as possible, doing the bare minimum to keep themselves alive, but this was different. These people were working as fast as they could. They just couldn’t work very fast at all.
Her stomach twisted as she spotted a child - male or female, she couldn’t tell - with a missing j
aw. The wound was blackened with... with something. A woman knocked the child to the ground in passing, the woman's eyes so dull Emily knew she didn’t care enough to be malicious. Emily wanted to throw up, to empty her stomach, as her eyes moved from figure to figure. Many were mutilated, wounded so savagely she had no idea how they were still alive. Others were so enervated it looked as if they were on the verge of collapse. The locals didn’t have any spark left, nor any urge to resist. She swallowed hard, unsure of what to say or do. The locals hadn’t even noticed them.
The stench of decay, something utterly foul, hung in the air as they approached the plantation. There were no fences, no wards; she grimaced, remembering the creature that had almost killed Cat. It didn’t look as if any of the locals - the slaves, she told herself - had the drive to run away, let alone make something of themselves, but where would they go? They might die if they ran, or wind up hideously mutated and warped by the tainted magic. She shuddered, again, as she spotted a naked woman no older than herself. One of the woman’s breasts was missing, replaced by a charred wound. The woman's face was so badly battered, it was utterly unrecognizable. And her eyes were dull and lifeless. And the men... they paid no attention to her, as if she wasn’t even there. They were...
They’ve been reduced to animals, Emily thought. It was so horrifying, she could hardly grasp it. They can’t even think for themselves.
No one paid any attention to them, not even when they crossed the invisible line that separated the plantation from the outside world. Emily felt a chill creep down her spine as they moved into the rows upon rows of crops, half-expecting the slaves to spring to life at any moment and attack them. But they did nothing... Emily kept a wary eye on them. She told herself she would sooner die than be enslaved, but... she shook her head, knowing it was never that easy. A person raised in such a nightmarish environment would be helplessly warped by the time they grew old enough to work. The mere thought that this was not how things were meant to be would be unimaginable.
Her skin crawled as she glanced at the crops. They looked like a strange combination of vines and seaweed, bubbling with seed-like pods that waved in the gusts of wind. She blinked as she saw something crawl beneath, staring in confusion until she realized the plants were moving of their own accord. A young boy - she thought it was a boy - sat underneath a leaf, not moving a muscle. Her stomach churned, again, once she realized he was dead. He’d expired, and no one so much as gave a damn.
Cat nudged her arm. She almost hexed him. “What...?”
“We have company,” Cat whispered. “Look sharp. Remember, we’re traders.”
Emily followed his gaze and saw two men making their way towards them. They looked more alert than the slaves, cracking whips towards the slower workers as they moved. The whipping didn’t seem effective, as if the slaves were unbothered or simply incapable of moving any faster. Emily shuddered, again, as the men came closer. Their faces were blackened and burnt, scarred so badly she knew they should be dead. One was missing an eye, the socket peering accusingly at her. Their clothes were so tattered that even peasants in the north would refuse to wear them, at least until they’d been sewn up. But at least they were wearing clothes. The slaves were completely naked.
“Greetings,” Cat said. “Please take us to your leader.”
The two men looked at each other, as if they didn’t quite understand what he’d said. Their eyes were piggish, but lacked the dullness of the slaves. And yet... she caught a glint of bully-like anticipation, a sense they enjoyed bullying the slaves and everyone else unfortunate enough to wander onto the plantation. She gritted her teeth, telling herself they’d probably been just as warped as everyone else. The system did make a grim kind of sense. The slaves who showed a spark of intelligence were probably put to work as overseers, with orders to keep their fellows under control. Or else. She reached out gingerly with her senses. They didn’t seem to have any magic, but it was hard to tell. Tainted magic bubbled around like flies on rotten meat.
“Come with us.” The leader’s voice was oddly-accented, barely understandable. It was hard to believe they spoke the same language. “Now.”
Emily glanced at Cat, then allowed the overseers to lead them through the plantation. It didn’t get any better. The slaves creeped along, tending to crops that looked like something out of a radioactive hellscrape and picking fruit from trees that looked suspiciously mobile. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted something that looked like a primitive railway track on the ground, although it was too small to be a real railway. It looked more like railings to guide trolleys, something she’d seen - something she’d helped establish - in Zangaria. They’d rigged up muscle-powered locomotives that worked like bicycles, but the necromancers clearly preferred to rely on just muscle. She felt the ground shake as a pair of trolleys came into view. The necromancers were mining something, although she wasn’t sure what. The slaves pushing the trolleys looked slightly healthier than the ones in the fields.
The necromancers have to get their weapons from somewhere, she thought, numbly. The orcs carried swords and spears, rarely anything more complex. It wasn’t as if they needed them. They probably have slaves churning out weapons for their hordes.
Her heart sank even further when they reached the edge of the village. A small collection of cages sat at the very edge, a handful loaded with people. They looked at her with dread, like they thought she was a necromancer. She remembered seeing similar cages in the Desert of Death, near Heart’s Eye. The prisoners had been marked for the slaughter pits, to be thrown to the orcs when the necromancer had drained their magic and life. And here... she tasted bile. The necromancers were farming people like cattle. She’d known it was happening, but she hadn’t really believed it until she’d seen it for herself. It was all she could do to keep from throwing up.
Cat dropped back until he was standing beside her. “Are you alright?”
Emily shook her head, but forced herself to keep moving as the overseers led them into the village. It was... her eyes moved from building to building, picking out the bits that didn’t quite make sense. There were too many blacksmiths, too few... the village was a factory, she supposed; the blacksmiths merely part of a much larger war machine. The village couldn’t support so many blacksmiths, but it didn’t matter. They were helping to supply a whole army.
She peered into the nearest forge, eyes adapting quickly to the darkness. A cluster of men, badly scarred, worked steadily to churn out swords. They were surrounded by younger men, who were probably learning the ropes at their father’s hands. A couple looked to be half-orcs, although it was hard to be sure. Even here, the locals were warped by the tainted magic. She caught the eye of a young man, who stared at her for a second before his father - or his master - smacked him on the head. It was far from gentle, a rebuke offered in eerie silence. Emily shivered as she realized what was missing. No one, as far as she could tell, was talking. The only sound echoing in the air was the clash of metal...
“Millie,” Cat said. “Come on.”
Emily nodded and followed him as they approached the largest hut in the village. It looked to be on the verge of falling down at any moment, although she supposed it had survived years in the Blighted Lands. The walls were a mixture of stone and wood, the former looking corroded and the latter rotten. She felt uneasy as she was led into the hut, half-afraid the building was going to collapse and bury them. She prepared a spell within her mind, ready to use it to escape. They’d been warned not to use magic openly, if it could be avoided, but... she shook her head. If they got crushed under falling rubble, the mission would fail spectacularly. Her other self would be doomed before she realized something was wrong.
Inside, the hut smelt foul. Emily gagged at the stench. No one seemed to care. Cat didn’t seem affected... Emily wondered, sourly, if he was cheating or was simply used to foul-spelling places. He’d been in training for years, his master taking him all over the continent before he’d earned his spurs. She pushed the
thought out of her mind as her eyes grew accustomed to the semi-darkness. A grim-faced man stood in front of them, wearing a tunic and cloak that marked him as a powerful man. Emily rather suspected the necromancers considered it a joke.
If they ever bother to think about it, she thought. She knew the type. A village headman, appointed by the local lord, who sucked up to his master and kicked everyone else. The headmen who’d been elected by their peers tended to be much more reasonable, much more understanding of their problems. The necromancers won't care what he does as long as he keeps the village productive.
“My Lord,” Cat said. If she hadn’t known him so well, she’d have thought he was sucking up too. “We come to trade.”
The headman stepped forward. Up close, his face was as scarred and broken as the rest of his people. He might be a trusty, Emily reflected, but he was still a slave. She felt a twinge of pity, despite the cold certainty he’d been a horrific master. The masses in the fields wouldn’t even be able to imagine resistance, let alone put it into practice. And the smarter workers would know that rebellion would lead to certain death when the orcs arrived. They wouldn’t turn on their master as long as he enjoyed the favor of the necromancer.
“Welcome.” His voice was heavily accented too, but more understandable. “What have you brought us?”
Emily allowed Cat to do the talking while she quietly probed her surroundings for magic. There was no active magic within the hut, as far as she could tell, but the tainted magic hung in the air, a dull presence lingering at the back of her mind. It felt almost like subtle magic, yet... oddly unfocused. Emily wondered, suddenly, if the reason the entire village was so broken was that they’d been exposed to runic magic from birth until death. It was quite possible to use subtle magic in such a way, although she’d never seen it before. Void had pointed out that the concept had its limits.
Oathkeeper (Schooled in Magic Book 20) Page 16