by Jim Galford
“Yes, ambassador.”
“Your king declared slavery illegal more than a decade ago and granted citizenship to the halflings of the nation, along with other previously low-status members of your society. Servitude to pay off a debt through specific labor is allowed in very controlled circumstances. Am I correct in that, or have I misread your laws?”
Kinet nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing. He sensed the trap coming, but Therec was fairly certain he could not see the specifics. If he could, he still would not risk arguing in front of his colleagues. Judging by Arlind’s cool glare at Kinet, she had already guessed at the direction things were heading.
“In that case,” Therec went on, returning to the table, “why do you have a slave, dear magister?”
“I have no such…” he trailed off as Arlind’s glare darkened and Dorus tapped his pipe loudly on the table. This was clearly something they had been at odds with him about for some time, judging by their reactions. “She is not a slave. She is my servant, who I have perform specific tasks to help pay off her debt…”
“A debt is paid off through specific labor, not through forced activities,” Therec noted dryly. “The woman acts as though you have beaten her or worse. Mind you, I do not judge the holding of slaves, as my people endorse it freely. We do not lie to ourselves about it, though.
“Lying and hiding from the law is what makes these things wrong, not the act itself. There is a certain nobility in standing in the face of an unjust law, but you hide your actions, which tells me that you consider yourself above this law.
“Worse still is using your status as a magister to shield yourself from prosecution, when any commoner would have been put in the keep’s dungeons by now. The moment you forced that woman to do more than run errands for you, she became a slave as surely as any creature that my people put chains on, and that is treason, given your station serving the king directly.”
Kinet’s eyes widened nervously. “I…I’ve never hurt her. We just…it was willing, I swear. It was costly to buy her from the slavers and we were working out how best to work off her debts…”
Arlind’s disgusted groan told Therec that he had just managed to sow a bit of dissent among the magisters while giving himself a touch more respect from the dwarf. She might despise him for being either a foreigner or specifically a Turessian, but at the moment she liked him more than Kinet. If Therec was not mistaken, she was only barely holding herself back from punching the man.
“What was the debt she owed you?” asked Therec, softening his tone. “Regardless of what has been done to her, let us get back to specifics.”
“She…I…um…” the man stammered, looking around as though trying to come up with an answer. “Her father put them badly in debt and I was aiding them, but the cost to save two…”
“Her father’s debt is not hers, by the king’s laws. At most, her father can ask her to help with working off his debt, but she cannot be forced,” Therec countered quickly. “You will have her citizenship papers in her hands by the time the sun rises again. Am I understood?”
“Of course. I’ve been meaning to do that…”
Smiling, Therec bowed his head in acknowledgement of the small victory and then sat down at the table, which made Kinet appear even more uncomfortable. Sliding a book that was lying on the table near him entitled “History of Magic In Warfare,” Therec did not even manage to flip the cover open before the room shook violently.
Therec grabbed hold of the desk to steady himself while praying that he was not about to die in a tower collapse. The room lurched every few seconds, soon knocking books off of the shelves and toppling inkwells and other items lying on the table. This was certainly not how he wanted to join his ancestors.
Aside from the books on the table, only Magister Arlind’s mug remained upright, clasped between her hands. The stout woman glowered at the floor as though she might stop the rocking through force of will. The stubbornness Therec saw in her might well be that powerful.
Through the intermittent bounces of the room, which grew farther in-between with each pulse, Therec watched the magisters for any reaction at all. Aside from annoyance, they seemed entirely unbothered. None gave any indication that they knew it was coming, but they likewise were unconcerned.
Therec waited until the last rumbles could be felt through the floor, though they had faded to the point that Therec would not have noticed them at all if they had not been preceded by the room-shaking quakes.
“What was that?” He got up from his chair once he knew that he would not immediately fall down from the rocking. “Tell me that this tower is not so unstable…”
“What it was is none of your business,” answered Kinet immediately. A glance toward the north windows did not go unnoticed by Therec. The man would give away anything through carelessness, making him Therec’s new favorite in these lands. “Military matters are between Dorus, the king, and the generals.”
Therec got to his feet and headed straight toward the north window. He had not even reached it before he could see with certainty what had caused the shaking of the entire city.
Standing tall above the plains, four massive metal statues appeared to be circling an area several miles north of Lantonne. All around the feet of the golems were thousands of moving shapes. Even at such a distance, the whispering tendrils of magic that encircled the metal figures told Therec with certainty what he was looking at. Magic that strong was difficult to miss by one trained to watch for it.
“You brought in golems to fight the undead that serve Altis?” Therec asked incredulously. “Have you begun evacuations? Whether this works or not, there are at least ten thousand soldiers within marching distance of the city.”
“No!” snapped Kinet, thumping a fist on the table. “We will stop them before they reach the city. They will not enter these walls. “I had this same argument with the king. The simple fact is that even if we tried, it was too late to get people out. We thought the golems could reach the army before they got to Lantonne, but…things did not work out as planned.”
Dorus shook his head sadly as Therec looked back toward the table.
“There are almost fifteen thousand…not ten,” he told Therec softly. “Our options are rather limited and we have been unable to keep them down for long. Luckily, I do not believe they have the numbers needed to breech the walls. At least not yet. The outer city will not be so fortunate. The magisters decided that some must be sacrificed to save the land.”
Therec stared at the vast forces, amazed that the city of Altis could have mustered that many soldiers and gotten them so far south without being stopped. Shifting his vision to see magic, he searched the tiny specs for hints of wizards or other intelligence that might explain their successes, but for several minutes, the magic swirling around the golems made it difficult to make out anything else. Then, he began to see the threads of dark energy that he had worked with his whole life to preserve the ancestors in his clan. Seeing it on the field of battle made his stomach churn.
“That army is undead,” he stated, more to himself than to the magisters.
“Yes,” Arlind practically growled. “Altis has been slowly switching from a living army to a damned undead one. They’re using our own soldiers against us. You can’t spit without fighting someone you once knew.”
Turessi had always kept groups of undead among each of their tribes, but he doubted that all the clans together could have fielded that many corpses. To see an uncivilized nation at war like this was beyond shocking. Therec began to understand why Turessi had been asked to come…they were likely the only nation for thousands of miles around that had a standing army of the undead and, thus, experience in dealing with them.
“Was this really why I was brought here?” he asked, leaning on the windowsill. “The king said I was to try and broach a peace treaty with Altis. I take it things are well past that?”
Arlind took a long swig from her mug and then replied, “There was hope that you could help convince them n
ot to attack us. If that failed, you would be used as a hostage to barter for more time. We are being blunt, ambassador.”
“You have not studied my people, have you?” demanded Therec, turning on the three magisters. “My people would not do this. Even if they could or would do it, my life means nothing in the face of a war. They would tear these walls down without hesitation, and afterwards, they would find my body to give it an honorable ending. Preserving my life would be the last thing they would even consider. My own family would kill me if it meant saving the clan.”
“We know,” Dorus answered ruefully, putting his pipe in his mouth. “The king did not believe us. We were actually hoping that you might have more insight than we did, but we’re not diplomats. We were dreading even asking and wanted to try to bring an end to this on our own.”
“Thus the king thought you were questioning him,” noted Therec.
“And so, we are your bloody traitors,” Arlind muttered, holding her mug up in a mock toast. “Traitors for trying to gain an ally, not a hostage.”
Prying himself away from the window and stumbling across the room, Therec leaned on the back of the chair he had been sitting in when the rumbling steps of the giant golems had shaken the room. One by one, he studied the faces of the magisters, searching them for anything that he might be able to use. What he saw in each was desperation. That, he understood.
“Take me to the front lines,” Therec asked the group, drawing confused glances from all of them. “I need to see what we’re up against. I need to know my people did not do this and find out more about the magic in use out there. How close can you get me?”
*
By mid-afternoon, Therec stood just north of town with two of the magisters and nearly two hundred soldiers at their back.
Whatever Kinet and the others had told the king had been motivational, Therec had to admit. The soldiers had been mobilized faster than the two magisters had been able to ready themselves. During the short wait, Therec sat on a loaned horse just outside the northern edge of town, watching the golems in the distance. From the ground, he could not see the undead army, but the golems could be seen for miles.
“You sure you wanna to go there?” Arlind asked gruffly, sitting atop a pony that looked as though it had been bred for war. The dwarven woman glared at Therec every time she looked his way. “It’s a good way to get killed.”
Therec smiled, still staring at the golems. “You’re afraid I might decide to change sides?”
“Once a necromancer, always one. I don’t give three shits which side you’re on, you’re still a necromancer.”
“I did not claim to stop being one, nor would I even consider it. Among my people, it is an honor, not a disgrace. They call me a preserver, though.”
Arlind spit on the ground, in what Therec had begun to believe was the local custom for even mentioning his profession in public. Yet another crude example of how these people lived, so far from Turessi. Then again, spit would have frozen in seconds during most of the year in his homeland. He also had to keep in mind that Arlind was from an even more crude people than Lantonne. The dwarves were hardly known for manners.
“Just remember that you’re supposed to be proving that your people are misunderstood,” Arlind told him gruffly, watching him with what Therec interpreted to be disgust. “Whether your people are helping that army out there or not changes little for me. All I think it really changes is whether the king sends those golems farther north once we’ve taken down Altis.”
“You’re threatening to invade Turessi?”
The dwarven woman squinted at him, saying, “I’ll be the first to tell him to sod off if you actually do help us. Not betting my braid on it.”
If Arlind had more threats to say, it was cut short by the arrival of Kinet and several heavily-armored soldiers. Unlike the majority of the forces behind him, these men wore custom-fitted suits of metal plates and had poles attached to their saddles that bore the blue-and-white standard of Lantonne flapping high over their heads.
“I’m not waiting out here all day,” snapped the lead soldier, flipping up his visor to reveal that he was far older than Therec. In fact, he was old enough that Therec was a little surprised to find him still leading soldiers. “I was told the golems would do our job for us, so if you people want to get a closer look, I want it done with. If I have my way, I’ll be back in the barracks before the sun sets.”
“We do not intend to engage,” Kinet assured the man, giving Therec a firm look that he took as a request to not make the man a liar. “A quick ride out and back. Nothing more. We are scouting the enemy forces.”
The soldier—commander, Therec thought he overheard from the soldiers behind them—nodded grimly and made a sweeping wave with his arm. As he did, the entire company lurched into motion as one, with only Therec and the two magisters faltering a moment before catching up.
The ride across the plains was a pleasant enough trip. It had been several years since Therec had ridden a horse, he realized with a bit of thought back over the time since he had earned the title of “preserver” among his people. From that time, he had been taken where he needed to go on wagons and other conveyances. Taking himself where he wished to go was a nice change.
About ten minutes out from the city, Therec’s opinion began to sour as the high sun cooked the plains. Dry grass crunched under the feet of horses and men alike, creating a cacophony of small crackling noises that was just different enough from the more familiar sound of snow or ice that Therec found it immediately irritating. He would have killed for a snowstorm or even a cold breeze.
Therec finally gave up on being open for the sake of the people he was visiting and pulled his hood up, hoping to spare his shaved scalp from further burns. Once again, he dearly wished he had been assigned to a diplomatic mission much farther north, or at least higher up in the mountains.
Soon, the sounds of the golems pounding away at the undead army overshadowed any other noise Therec could make out. All he could make out in the distance, aside from the old village ahead of them, were the heads and shoulders of the four massive animated statues. There was no sign of the undead.
“Are they in a valley?” Therec asked aloud, not really caring who answered.
Despite her obvious dislike of Therec, Arlind was swift to answer. “Big open pit mine. They pushed the undead in there so they can’t get away easily. Damned shame to do that to a mine, if you ask me. We figure if that doesn’t work out, we can always collapse the walls of the quarry on them. With the tunnels sealed, that shouldn’t be too risky.”
Therec turned on his saddle to look at the dwarven woman. “Tunnels? I thought you said it was open.”
“It is,” she explained, though she did not look directly at him. “The mine got deep enough that it was too damned slow to cart everything up and down. They used a dry underground river to make a tunnel straight back to the city. We closed it up before letting the undead in there. Just to be safe, there are a few hundred soldiers inside the tunnel, about halfway between the mine and Lantonne, ready to slow them down.”
Looking down at the dry ground around them, Therec was a little taken aback by the idea that there was a large passage far under their feet. It was a tactical risk to even have such a tunnel, but he could see the sense in using a natural structure in that manner. Left to his own choices, he would have collapsed the tunnel at the first hint of invasion.
Within a few minutes, they approached the outskirts of the mining village, though most of the soldiers who were on foot had fallen a short distance behind. There were no undead in sight, making it irrelevant that only those on horseback had arrived. They would not need their troops right away, if at all. If everything went according to plan, no one would need to draw a weapon.
Riding up to a gap between buildings, Therec stared in awe of the golems, their size having been given little credit due to the distance he had been seeing them from. Up close, he found himself smiling at the idea that a wizard o
f any land had managed to build such immense creations.
The golems were undoubtedly dwarven, judging by the detailed features of their faces, a kind of preservation of the long-dead that Therec found merit in. He preferred the idea of using the ancestor’s own body to look to, but such magnificence in a magical creation was not to be dismissed. He would have to describe these creations to the council upon his next report.
The mine itself was more than a hundred feet deep, but the golems rose head and shoulders above the top lip. They would occasionally disappear for a moment as they bent to attack the army at their feet, but then stood back up. Of the four, three were moving constantly, their fists causing clouds of dust to rise both from the quarry itself and the village’s old structures.
The fourth golem stood relatively still, wavering as it made small movements.
“Is that one broken?” asked Therec, looking to Arlind. Given that the golems appeared to be carved into the shapes of dwarves, he thought she might know better than others.
Squinting, Arlind tugged at her braids and looked around nervously at the soldiers that were boxing them in. The only way out of the area was through the tightly-packed troops. “I have no idea,” she admitted, though she sounded nervous. “I don’t think they can break…”
A low hum began to cut through the sounds of battle, rising in pitch and intensity until Therec had to cover his ears. As he did, Kinet ran toward the mine, waving some kind of etched metal rod. With each grand gesture of the rod, one of the golems would stop what it was doing and reached for the edge of the mine, attempting to climb out. Only the one golem, now openly shaking, did not make an attempt to escape.
“What is happening?” screamed Therec in an effort to be heard above the shrieking noise coming from the mine.
All around Therec, soldiers broke and ran. Horses that were held in place soon bucked their masters and fled the area as fast as they could.
Therec fought his own horse briefly, then gave it free reign, letting the beast turn and take off toward Lantonne with Arlind at his side and Kinet only a few feet behind. They raced through the fleeing soldiers, though even as they got farther away, the high-pitched sound made Therec’s head feel as though it were about to explode.