Dirge for a Necromancer

by Ash Stinson

  War horns were echoing all across the citadel, in the halls and the courtyard and on the battlements. Arrows and hot oil came rushing out of the arrow slits along the fortress’ face. Raettonus sent a few more fireballs down to light the pitch, which left him feeling lightheaded and drained. Then he turned and retreated inside to find Brecan.

  The hallways along the exterior walls were crowded with soldiers, their bows aimed outward. Braziers were set up, heating oil. Raettonus hurried past them wordlessly. Deeper into the fort, messengers galloped with intelligence and commands from higher-ups on different sides of Kaebha, or carried supplies back and forth with great haste. Dohrleht stopped Raettonus outside the doors of the infirmary, now bustling with movement and full of the pained voices of injured men.

  “Tell them to let me fight,” said the centaur.

  “What, this again? Get out of my way,” said Raettonus, starting around him. Dohrleht caught him by the arm.

  “It’s not going to be enough. We’re going to need more soldiers,” said Dohrleht. “If I don’t fight—”

  “You’re only one boy—not even a man,” said Raettonus coldly. “You think you’re going to turn the tide of battle when you can’t even run? This isn’t the sort of thing you can discreetly poison your way to victory in. Let go of me. I need to get out there. Unlike you, I’m actually worth something in a war.”

  Dohrleht furrowed his brow. “At least I didn’t bring Death’s very own army to our fucking doorstep,” he said, tightening his grip. His hand was partially over a wound, and Raettonus winced and gritted his teeth as the injury reopened. “You said you can’t actually bring someone back from the dead. Is this why? Gods, did you know this would happen, and you brought him back anyway?”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Raettonus said. “And I don’t think you have room to act superior. At least I never murdered my own father because some captain made bedroom eyes at me.”

  The young centaur glared at Raettonus for a several long minutes. Somewhere beyond the stone walls, barely audible beneath the babble of war, a clock was ticking.

  “I did what I did for the good of this fort,” said the young centaur, hissing the words out through his teeth. “I did what I did for the sake of my father’s men. It was one life or a hundred and Kurok strike me dead this instant if I made the wrong choice.”

  “So you murdered your own father in cold blood for the greater good, then.” Raettonus sneered. “Bravo. Does it help you sleep at night when you tell yourself that? Or does it help you sleep at night when your beloved, lying, scheming Daeblau is railing you? Does he whisper that greater good line into your ear when he does it?”

  Dohrleht narrowed his eyes and looked as though he might punch Raettonus. After a moment, however, he merely let go of the magician and silently skulked back into the infirmary. Without a second thought, Raettonus continued looking for Brecan.

  In the courtyard, he found Deggho and Diahsis talking beside a gryphon who had been loaned some armor that didn’t quite fit him. As Diahsis mounted, Deggho begged him not to go fight, but the general wasn’t having any of it. He spotted Raettonus and spurred his gryphon steed across the yard to speak with him. “I suppose this’ll be done by tomorrow, this war,” he said.

  “Have you seen Brecan?” asked Raettonus.

  Diahsis unsheathed his gladius and a dagger. He was wearing an ornate, gilded breastplate that Raettonus didn’t find particularly suited to the situation, as well as a decorative helm of steel and dragon bone, the visor of which was carved into the fearsome face of a snarling wolf. “When I thought about how I’d die, I never imagined it’d be like this,” he continued as if Raettonus hadn’t spoken at all. “I mean, I always thought it’d be in war, certainly. Even before I was let into the army, I thought to myself, ‘Diah, some day a soldier’s going to kill you.’ Well, that’s just the sort of thing you think when you’re an elf. I didn’t think the soldier would be in the employ of Cykkus himself, however. It’s…it’s kind of an honor in a strange way. Well, hell, it’s a huge honor.”

  “So you’re lurking here in the courtyard waiting to be killed?”

  The general smiled wearily. “I was only getting ready and saying my farewells,” he said. “I’m going to go out like a hero should—fighting. I’m going to meet Cykkus’ army myself, ahead of the rest of my men. I don’t mind sharing the glory of the last stand with you though, Magician, if you’re headed out there as well. There are worse men to die beside, I think.”

  “I beg to differ,” said Raettonus. He caught sight of Brecan across the yard, coming toward them. Raettonus waved him over.

  “Oh, I was just coming to see how you were,” said Brecan. “You really shouldn’t be up—”

  “I’m going out to fight,” said Raettonus. “Come over here. I’m going to need someone to ride into battle, and of course it’s going to be you.”

  There was the slightest hesitation before the unicorn said, “Okay, Raet.” He knelt down for Raettonus to get on.

  Once Raettonus was astride the unicorn, they started for the broken wall with Diahsis riding beside them. If his tight-mouthed gryphon was nervous about the fight, he didn’t show it. By the time they reached the fissure in the citadel wall, maggots and rats were climbing up through the break, barely held off by the soldiers there. Raettonus’ heart beat wildly at the sight of the rats as he and Diahsis flew over them through the empty air, and his vision began to blur.

  And then they were rising into the sky, high above the squirming army below. “Rats, of all the things it could’ve been,” he mumbled to Brecan.

  They banked hard to the side as abassy arrows came flying at them, Diahsis and his gryphon banking with them in perfect coordination. In the firelight and the pulsing blue glow of the mountains, Diahsis’ dragon bone helm flashed queerly. He flew close to Raettonus and said something with a grin, but his voice was lost to wind and battle. Maggots were crawling against the fortress walls, their stunted legs cracking the stones as they dug into them, their spit frothing out of their mouths. Where the noxious secretions touched the wall, the stone bubbled and began to dissolve. Diahsis dug his knees into the gryphon’s sides, and they split from Raettonus and Brecan, heading toward the maggots. Raettonus wheeled Brecan around to follow, drawing his rapier.

  They came in low at one of the maggots, magician following general. Diahsis slashed it across the back, drawing its attention. Blood welled up onto its slimy flesh as it turned with a screech toward Diahsis. Raettonus followed after, directing a blast of fire toward it. It screeched again and fell, crushing several abassy on the ground beneath.

  Another wave of arrows came at them. The gryphon broke upward while Brecan spun into a dive. He came down close on the abassy soldiers, and they struck upward with spears and lances. With an unrivaled grace, Brecan wheeled and turned in the air and weaved around their attacks. He kicked a couple of them in the head before turning upward. His long tail snapped behind him like a lash, breaking the wooden shafts of a few spears.

  Miasmic arrows filled the air all around them, as did the normal arrows from the soldiers in the fortress beside them. Brecan dipped and swung, avoiding them neatly. He was like a dancer whose stage was war.

  In the air above them, Diahsis’ steed let out an agonized cry and plummeted, flapping one tattered wing uselessly. It crashed down hard, the general rolling from its back. He was on his feet in a moment, dagger and gladius at the ready. The gryphon twitched and tried to get up, but something was broken in it, and it could only flounder and make a few gargling screeches in a language Raettonus didn’t know as it expired slowly. An abassy rushed at Diahsis, but he parried its lance with his dagger and chopped out its throat with his gladius before wheeling around to catch another one in the joint of its leg so hard the chain mail it wore broke.

  “Christ,” said Raettonus as the abassy crowded around Diahsis. “Get me down there. He’s going to be up to his neck in those metal-mouths any second.”

 
“Got it, Raet,” Brecan chirped, looping through the air to avoid an arrow. Raettonus couldn’t see whether it was one of the abassy’s or the centaurs’, and he didn’t suppose it much mattered.

  Brecan roared fiercely as he came at the abassy around Diahsis, diverting their attention for a moment. The general immediately took advantage of the distraction to slit a couple of his enemies’ unprotected throats in quick succession. As soon as Brecan’s cloven hooves touched the ground, Raettonus sprang off his back. Fire danced spontaneously to life across the blade of his rapier as he placed his back against Diahsis’.

  “Magician!” said Diahsis in the same tone one might use to greet an old friend they hadn’t expected to see at a pub. “You came down to help me! I’m touched!”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not going to do all that much good,” said Raettonus. “We need to get back into the air.”

  “I don’t think your unicorn can hold us both.”

  “He’s stronger than he looks,” said Raettonus.

  An abassy lunged at them, and Raettonus put his sword through its eye. At his back, Diahsis caught another one under the chin with his dagger. Brecan was separated from them by the writhing mass of abassy and was fiercely kicking and biting at the creatures. And then more of the abassy filled in the gap between Raettonus and Brecan, and the magician lost all sight of the unicorn.

  The horrible, gray-skinned abominations surged at him. Raettonus slashed with his sword, sending white-hot fire bursting at the abassy swarming around him and Diahsis. He threw the flames at them again and again until he was drenched with sweat and panting with exhaustion.

  The abassy hissed and screeched as the flesh melted on their faces and hands, and as the heat of the fire turned their chain mail red and made it sear into their skin. Flames danced in their eye sockets and turned their greasy hair to ash.

  Raettonus hurled more and more fire. The air was filling with smoke and the smell of spoiled flesh burning. Pained cries echoed up from behind metal fangs, rising with the black-gray smoke. Raettonus hurled more and more fire.

  When Raettonus felt as though one more burst of magic might kill him, he began to stab at them—at their eyes, at their throats, at their groins and thighs and bellies and wherever else he thought he might land a blow. Diahsis was furiously hacking at the exposed parts of the abominations, bumping against Raettonus with every movement.

  Blood spurted up out of the wounds of the abassy as they fell lifelessly around them. It was not the blood of a living thing. It was rancid and black, thick like milk that had gone off. The revolting fluid splashed against Raettonus’ pure white tunic and tights, leaving behind dark stains. It splashed on his face and on his lips. He could taste it in his mouth.

  He could feel the soft fur of Diahsis’ wolfskin cloak against his back. Warmth radiated out of it. Beneath the fur, he could feel Diahsis turning and twisting as he hacked at the crowding monsters around them. He could hear Diahsis singing a cheerful tune as he fought, about a shepherd’s daughter who ran off with a young lord.

  All around them was a solid ring of gray. Gray skin, gray teeth, gray chainmail. The mass of gray swiped with their pikes and snapped with their bear-trap mouths. Raettonus drove his rapier through eyes and throats and nostrils. Limp abassy bodies fell to the ground, their rancid blood dribbling weakly from their wounds as their hearts slowed and stopped. Abassy corpses piled up around the pair. Still more and more came. For every abassy cut down five more seemed to spring up in its place, like some sort of nightmare hydra.

  Black blood. Black, soulless eyes. Metal swords clashing on metal teeth.

  Raettonus cried out as a spear pierced his shoulder. He struck out and killed the offending abassy and pulled its weapon from his body. Two more abassy were already upon him. One quick jab through the eye of one, a jab through the unprotected chest of the other. The two abassy fell. Dark blood gurgled up out of them, clotted like old milk.

  More abassy. Always more. Fierce. Fearless. Hungry for death. They pressed forward, all ceaseless black eyes and teeth made of iron. They hissed and growled and turned toward Raettonus with their flat, mean faces. He killed them. Again and again he killed them. But they were endless.

  “Are you keeping count, Magician?” called Diahsis over the din of war surrounding them. His dragon bone visor was down, masking him in the snarling white face of a wolf.

  “What?” said Raettonus.

  “A kill count,” Diahsis said cheerfully. “Are you keeping a kill count, Magician?”

  “No,” replied Raettonus. He jammed his rapier up under an abassy’s chin. With a swift kick to its middle, he dislodged it from the blade. “Little busy here for counting.”

  “But, Magician!” exclaimed Diahsis. An abassy lunged at him, and he caught it in the temple with his gladius, cleaving its skull nearly in half. “If you don’t keep a count, how will we know which of us has taken down more monsters?”

  “Diahsis, we’re going to die out here,” Raettonus responded, scowling. “Does it really matter which of us killed more abassy if we’re not going to even be around to compare?”

  Diahsis laughed. “A fair point,” he said, and hacked the head off another abassy.

  The stench of abassy blood was thick in the air. It was the most pungent scent Raettonus could imagine. It was worse than corpses left to ripen in the sun. It was worse than putrid, bursting intestines. He was drenched in the foul, clotted fluid. It clung to his white tunic, spattered his sweaty face, and matted his hair. It was on his lips, and he could taste it in his mouth—a bitter, burning taste like lye and weeds.

  It felt as if they’d been fighting forever. Raettonus parried lance after lance, spear after spear. Again and again he plunged his blade deep into abassy flesh and left them twitching on the reeking, muddy ground.

  His muscles ached; it was as if someone had filled them full of caltrops. His lungs burned with effort and the heavy scent of abassy blood. His bowels felt as if they might burst, and his stomach felt as if it might come up his throat and out his mouth. Sweat poured down his face, stung his eyes, caked his lips with salt. Flames burst periodically from his skin, but he couldn’t sustain them.

  Fatigue was settling in. His arms were getting heavy. His chest ached down to its deepest part. His knees were beginning to shake. Pain shot up his back, along his spine, and out into all his muscles.

  Raettonus clenched his teeth hard together and fought on.

  Behind him, Diahsis was tunelessly screaming out that same ballad about the shepherd’s daughter at the top of his lungs. The words were all about spring meadows and lovers basking in sunlight, and they juxtaposed surreally with Diahsis’ hoarse voice and the wet sound of his dagger and sword cutting through tongues and faces and throats.

  Raettonus stumbled as his foot caught on the dead arm of an abassy. Immediately, a pike caught him in the leg. It tore through the outside of his thigh. Raettonus hissed and wheeled on the abassy who had struck him. He jammed his rapier into its cheek to the hilt. The monster swayed slightly, but didn’t go down. Raettonus pulled his blade free and then forced it into the abassy’s belly, just below where its mail ended. With a hiss and a gurgle, the abassy crumpled to the ground.

  There was so much blood on Raettonus’ sword that it dribbled off the crossguard, landing on the ground in thick, black drops. Parry. Jab. Parry. A spear grazed his cheek. He cursed and ended the abassy responsible. Jab. Slash. Parry. Jab. Another horrible, gray monster with gray steel teeth fell to the ground before him. Parry. Jab. He struck out with his sword, and it slid into the nose of an abassy and pierced its brain. He pulled it clear, and it came out with a wave of chunky, fetid blood.

  But there were more of them. No matter how many eyes and brains he pierced, there were more yet to pierce. The monsters came forward ceaselessly on their thin, toned limbs, clutching their pikes and their spears, grinning with their scrap-metal mouths. He stabbed into the horde as they came at him from all sides. Here and there, he managed to muster u
p a few fireballs, which sent the abassy reeling back, smoke coming up from the dark pits of their eyes. But these reprieves were brief. He could barely catch his breath before he was again surrounded, fighting for his life. Fighting for Sir Slade’s life.

  And then things grew still.

  It spread like a ripple through the army. Never taking their blank, black eyes from Raettonus and Diahsis, the abassy stepped slowly back. Raettonus and Diahsis pressed tighter together, scanning their enemies wearily. The abassy withdrew into a large circle. The line of them that had cut Raettonus off from Brecan moved out of the way, and he could see the unicorn once again. Brecan’s white fur was stained black with abassy blood and his own red blood was gushing from deep cuts on his flank, but he was not really any worse for the wear. Not that Raettonus would ever admit it, but he was glad to see the unicorn still standing.

  In the citadel beside them, the war horns still blew and arrows still twanged out the windows. The abassy, however, had stopped moving completely. The ones standing were as still as the ones dead on the ground around them.

  Slowly, Raettonus became aware of a heavy, rhythmic thud. At first it was faint—so faint he could barely feel it in the soles of his boots. As it got louder, the abassy backed farther and farther away from them. “What’s going on?” Diahsis asked Raettonus quietly. The shining white visor of his helm was splattered with dark drops of blood.

  Raettonus furrowed his brow. “I don’t know,” he said. He didn’t like it, whatever it was.

  The abassy were clearing a path as something heavy slowly approached. The trio turned their faces toward the path on instinct. Against his back, Raettonus felt Diahsis go completely slack for a moment. “Gods above,” said the general, his voice little more than a breath caught in the back of his throat.

  On the back of what might’ve been a nightmare given flesh, coming leisurely toward them, was Cykkus, the Black Winged Death.