by Helix Parker
He did not think that would be necessary. He had seen the expressions on the faces of the soldiers, and they were utterly baffled at such a force. Their will had been broken. The Marauders only needed to wait for their surrender.
Outside the reach of the city’s archers and catapults, the Marauder camp rose. Tents went up quickly and the spiced ale began pouring early. The menu for supper consisted of roast Dolanians.
Victory still fresh in his veins and robbing him of sleep, Rodrick strolled through the camp. He got a haunch of meat from one of the cooks, tore off a piece, and shoved it in his mouth. It tasted cleaner than much of the meat they had at Castle Night.
He ate more then found his messenger amongst the men. “Go back to the castle and let Lord Erebos know of our victory. Tell him the city will fall tomorrow.” Rodrick handed him a piece of parchment with numbers written on it—the count of the Dolanian dead.
The messenger took the parchment and leapt onto a horse. Before Rodrick could even tell him to come back after he had delivered the message, the man had disappeared into the night.
“Congratulations,” Saria said, coming up behind him
He turned to look at her. She had left her armor on and was every bit as bloodied and dirty as any of the men.
“It is not done yet,” he said. “Tomorrow, we will begin our main assault with the wagons. By nightfall, they will sue for peace, and I will promise them such. And then, when they allow us into the city, I will slit their throats.”
“I think the master would like for you to wait before doing that.”
“I cannot kill a million people, obviously. I was exaggerating.”
She nodded, giving him a wry smile. “I must bathe and remove this gore. Come with me.”
He followed her into the surrounding forest. A river leading into the sea was nearby, and they walked to it.
Saria stripped off her armor and clothing. Her body was perfect, and she knew flaunting it would make him randy.
She slipped into the water. “Join me.”
Rodrick turned away. His will was weak. His master would be there soon, and what if he knew? What if he sensed?
“Rodrick, I grow lonely.”
He stripped and entered the water.
39
Rodrick awoke on the bank of the river. Saria was gone. He dressed and walked back to camp. The Marauders were asleep wherever they could find space, all except the sentries standing guard. He did not need most of his men for what he was about to do, so he decided to let them sleep.
Using only a handful of infantry, he uncovered the catapult wagons. Beside each of the catapults, the bodies of men, women, and children out of nightmares were strapped. Ammunition.
Their skin had putrefied, and their eyes shone yellow. They vomited blood and organs. Most were dead, but it did not matter. The dead could still spread plague. But some were alive, and those would be the most fun.
“Do the live ones first,” he commanded.
He sat on the grass like a child observing a game and watched as the infantry readied the catapults. When they finished, the commander looked over at him. Rodrick nodded.
The first plague victim didn’t have enough strength to protest as his ankles were tied to the catapult.
“Release!” the commander hollered.
The body was flung into the air so violently Rodrick heard the legs break. Still vomiting blood, the man was vaulted over the walls. Rodrick laughed. He would have loved to see the faces of the citizens of Dolane when a screaming, vomiting man spattered among them.
“Half of them, Commander!” he shouted.
Soon, corpses were flying through the air and raining down on the city. Within the first hour, half of the three hundred had been catapulted over the city walls.
“Stop,” he said, rising. “Save some.”
The commander nodded. “As you wish, Lord Rodrick.”
Rodrick walked over to the stabling area and mounted a horse. Traversing the surrounding hills, he came to the highest point and looked over the city. The sheer enormity of the city was truly awe inspiring. Monuments jutted toward the sky, and the flat, square tenements most citizens lived in filled the rest of the space. Two rolling hills were made up of gardens and grasslands. He would dine there that night on real food, he vowed.
Temples to the gods seemed to shine in the sunlight, and the docks were busy with ships. Probably the wealthy leaving port and sailing to other lands. Rodrick didn’t care about them. In fact, watching their wealthy survive the terrors for no other reason than that they had the money to buy passage would further erode the will of the people.
The goings-on of the interior were too far away from him to see, but masses of people did gather at certain locations. Probably as far away from the corpses as possible. A few men would be assigned to gather and burn them, but it wouldn’t matter. He would fling more. Entire villages had been infected with plague, and he knew where they were. They would simply gather more and haul them here.
Hess rode up the ridge. In intense sunlight, his skin turned a deep shade of blue and would twirl in yellows and greens upon his body as he moved. But in the dark, he appeared black, all pigmentation leaving him.
“What do the bones say?” Rodrick asked.
“The bones say that the city will be destroyed.”
“I don’t know if that’s what the master wishes to do.”
“It won’t be the master,” Hess said, staring absently at the crystal blue waters beyond the city.
“Who then?”
“The bones do not tell me. They say only that death will come and claim all of us.”
“The Marauders as well? That’s preposterous. You saw how the Dolanians fight. They’re like ducks with sharp sticks. A few of them will be roasted, and the rest will flee.”
Hess turned to face him. “The plague. What of the plague?”
“What of it?”
“Could it spread to us?”
“Of course it could. But we have orders to kill any who show signs of plague.”
Hess shook his head. “It is too dangerous if it spreads among the army.”
“I’ll catapult the rest of the bodies tonight, and we’ll be done with it for a while. I anticipate surrender soon.”
“They have seen us eat them. I do not know how quickly they will wish to surrender.”
“You lack imagination, Hess. Wait until they begin showing signs of plague with the dead raining on them throughout the night. I will offer peace terms and tell them they can be left alone as long as they submit. The poor will wish to. What do they care if they are ruled by a king or us?”
“I’ve never understood this human fascination with promises. Among my people, all are assumed to lie for advantage at every instance.”
“And that’s why your people could rule my people, except for the fact that you fight each other too much. You need a powerful leader to follow. But whenever one rises, he is killed.”
Hess spit a glob of blue liquid. “We do not wish for one to be above others. That is not our way.”
“And that is why you will never conquer us,” Rodrick said, turning his horse and heading back down the hill.
40
Edgar broke through the line of trees, and his mouth fell open.
Dolane lay before him like a palace out of dreams. He could scarcely see where the walls ended and the sea began. The city had been carved into the landscape in such a way that it appeared to have come up with the rocks and sand, a natural creation of wonder.
Men were busy loading and unloading ships at the docks, but the west side of the city was a nightmare. Corpses were piled so high in front of gates that he could only see the very tops of the archways. If the Marauders were so inclined, they could climb the hill of carcasses up to the parapets and enter the city. Archers from Dolane nervously paced and hung out of windows, probably praying that the Marauders didn’t realize how easily they could overtake them.
“I can’t believe cities
like this exist,” he mumbled.
Naspen shrugged. “I was here once. I quite enjoyed the city. The people were friendly enough.” Her manner of speech made it sound as though she thought the city would not be there much longer.
“So what do we do exactly?”
“We pitch our tents, and we wait. We should be safe up here.”
The tents were little more than animal hides held up by wooden poles they fashioned out of fallen branches from the forest. Edgar had thought they might share one, but Naspen made her own.
When she was old, her skin sagged, and hairy moles sprouted from her face and chin. Sometimes, he found it difficult to see her that way. The old woman was a reminder that he was mortal, that old age and death waited around the next bend.
Edgar sat on the grass with some spring wine and watched the city. Marauders were busy at work for a while—aligning catapults, it looked like—but then they stopped and retreated to their camp. Edgar could almost hear the Dolanians breathe a sigh of relief.
“I’d never seen a man die,” Edgar said, “until they attacked my village.”
She came over and sat next to him, her knees to her chest with her arms wrapped around them. “It’s no easy thing to kill a man. Even for these brutes.”
“It certainly seems easy enough for them.”
“And yet look how they live. Like animals. If you behave like an animal, you will become one. I wager you could ask any Marauder here if they feel joyous at any time in their lives, and if they were honest, they would tell you they don’t.”
“Not everyone needs to be happy to live.”
“But you do, don’t you?”
“Dwarves are not exactly a melancholy people. But we don’t show emotion, or at least we try not to.”
She paused. “You miss him?”
“Who?”
“I don’t need to answer that.”
“No, you don’t. He can’t fight. I don’t know why he has the reputation he does. Leon the Lion, the Devil of the Seas. The Scourge, the Great Death of Sailors. He could barely defeat a shepherd, even when he caught him by surprise.”
“Is that why you sent him home?”
He glanced at her. “No. He needs to be with his family. I could see the pain in his eyes every moment he was away from them.”
“Let me ask you, halfling, why do you do this? I have my reasons for wishing Erebos dead. But you seem to think that the burden falls on your shoulders simply because he destroyed your village. He’s destroyed dozens of villages. Hundreds. Why should you, one halfling with a sack full of gold, be the one to challenge him?”
“Because no one else will. And he’ll do it again and again and again until someone stops him.”
“You loved someone there, I think. A woman. Someone that the Marauders took from you.”
He sipped his wine then sighed. “Her name was Dase. Had she lived, we would have been wed.”
“And yet she didn’t live. And here you are, ready to join her.”
“I don’t want to die.”
“But you do not stop death’s approach, do you? You should leave here, little one.”
Edgar saw Dolanian soldiers taking posts around the city. “And leave an old woman to fight a Marauder horde?”
Instantly, she changed into her beautiful, young self. “I am hardly helpless. Go find your way in the world. Leave me here.”
Before Edgar could respond, he heard a noise behind them. He turned around, and his stomach dropped into his toes.
A blade stained with blood was headed straight for his throat, held by a man dressed in black furs.
41
Leon rode through rivers, forests, and dirt paths without seeing scarcely a soul. He rode until his horse nearly fainted from exhaustion, and he had to stop and allow it to rest. He paced while the animal ate and drank. His mind was on his family and nothing more. His Star waited for him to throw his arms around her so she could welcome him home.
And yet, he was not at peace.
He thought of the halfling lying skinned yet still alive in a Marauder cooking pit until they roasted him enough that the spirit finally fled from him. He thought of Naspen raped by so many of them that she prayed for death. He saw those things in his dreams, and he knew they would come to pass.
He stopped his horse on the dirt road and looked out on the grasslands. The few trees swayed and rocked in the strong wind. He swallowed and glanced back as if he would be able to see the dwarf and the witch. Another day and a half, perhaps two, and he would be home. But how could he enjoy the embrace of his family knowing he had abandoned his friends to such nasty fates?
Naspen had been loyal to him since she was a young girl. She had come on the quest with him for nothing more than his simple request. And the halfling amused him. Edgar had given him that land, a means to feed his family for the rest of their mortal lives. Then the dwarf had released Leon from his bargain and sent him back to his family.
He turned the horse, allowing it to feed on the long grass at the side of the road. The beast chewed and swallowed, the muscles in its long neck pulsing under its tight black skin. Its ears were perked to pick up any sound. Leon ran his fingers over the horse’s neck affectionately. Being a man was difficult work. At least being a good one.
He turned his horse around and headed for Dolane.
42
Edgar was lifted on a stick with his hands and feet bound around it, like a pig on a spit heading for the fire. He glanced behind him and saw Naspen fighting with the Marauders. She had been caught off guard, and what little magik she had, she’d used in the initial struggle to no avail.
She had burned two of their attackers severely enough that Edgar thought they were probably going to die. But her age betrayed her. She grew exhausted fighting the younger, stronger men, and they had eventually overpowered her and broken her staff.
Two Marauders bound her hands behind her back and lifted her onto a plank. One bit into her thigh and came away with a bloody strand of flesh hanging from his mouth. She screamed and kicked him in the teeth, which only seemed to make him more aggressive.
Edgar was beaten and cut, and one of them sucked the blood out of a wound on his arm. He urinated on himself and fought and pulled at the bindings around his hands and feet. He bit anyone who came near him and acted like an animal. Mostly it was fear. Other than weeping, he wasn’t sure what else to do. The Marauders found his fighting humorous to no end, and they actually quit abusing him at one point and carried him and Naspen down the hill to their camp.
The two of them were lowered to the ground in the middle of a circle of men who were howling, shrieking, and thoroughly drunk. Edgar was untied, and the men began closing in around them. They tore at Naspen’s clothes. When one struck her in the face, she changed form.
A tiger appeared before them, letting out a ferocious roar. The Marauders were taken aback, all except one: a man painted blue. He moved forward and calmly thrust a spear into the tiger’s leg. With a scream, Naspen transformed back to her human form. The spear was sticking out of her thigh. Edgar, despite his pain, went to her to pull out the spear.
She pushed him away. “Run,” she gasped.
She rose into the air, and smoke flew out of her mouth and hands. A light flashed that was so blinding Edgar could only see colors racing past his vision. But he did as she had said. He ran.
From the sounds of their grumblings, the Marauders had been blinded, also. Some of them took out their swords or axes and began slashing wildly, cutting limbs off of their comrades. Edgar fell to his hands and knees and crawled among a sea of legs until he was outside the circle.
He sprinted for the safety of the trees. He leapt over a fire and ran through a tent. The cloth stuck to his foot, and he hopped on one leg until he could pull it off. Relief washed over him as he neared the tree line.
Just as he reached the first tree, something grabbed his throat. Gasping for air, he reached for the fingers digging into his skin.
The
man holding him was dressed in black, though most of his body was exposed. He was enormously muscular, almost freakishly so, and a twisted mask of what appeared to be shiny black stone clung to his face.
“And where does our little friend go?” he asked in a grainy, otherworldly voice.
Absolute silence fell.
Then, one of the Marauders shouted, “Master!”
All of them, thousands, fell to their knees, their heads lowered as if they were not even worthy to look upon him. Throughout the camp, Marauders came out of their tents and knelt like peasants who had just seen a god they’d awaited for years.
“Tell me, little man, why are you so quick to leave the celebration? Have you not heard that Dolane is nearly fallen?”
A woman and a tall, fierce-looking Marauder walked over to them and went to their knees beside Edgar.
“Master,” the male said, “I sent word but today.”
“I began the journey shortly after you left, Lord Rodrick. I have full confidence in your abilities.”
“I am humbled, Master. We will bombard the city tonight with plague. By morning, they—”
“I do not wish to wait until morning. We will take the city tonight. Send an emissary and give them our terms: absolute surrender or death.”
His voice echoed in Edgar’s bones like something that came from the earth. The man seemed inhuman, a force of nature, and Edgar was completely and unreservedly at his mercy. He could not even speak, and when his lips moved, nothing came out.
“Now, I starve. Feed me. Roast the little one for my supper.”
Two Marauders grabbed Edgar by the shoulders.
Naspen yelled, “He is my apprentice. Leave him be.” She pulled the spear from her thigh with a yelp of pain and used it to get to her feet.