The Echoes of Sin (The Kinless Trilogy Book 3)

by Philbrook, Chris

  “Faster!” Beckett shouted over the din of the chaos all around. He envisioned what the other fire officers were doing. Yelling like he was, screaming for haste and efficiency. Each and every one of them afraid of the one mistake made by their soldiers that would allow the angry fire to bite deep, and take hold.

  Something flickered above.

  Beckett tilted his head back and looked at the night sky above. It was hard to see anything beyond the village’s flames. It reminded him of nighttime in Daris. A veil of orange hanging above obscuring the sky.

  Another flicker.

  Beckett spun as his men continued to piston the two arms of the pump on the back of the wagon. The horse attached to it whinnied in protest, clearly aware that something had just changed in their environment. Looking at a different hole in the darkened sky above, between two other buildings, the corporal saw another vision of what had teased his eyes a moment before.

  An arrow, its head swaddled in an oil soaked rag and set aflame soared over his head and disappeared somewhere else deeper in the walled hamlet.

  It had begun. His men had stopped to look above as he was, and they were silent. Watchful now of the doom that started to fly overhead. Another arrow flew by, a dire falling star that no one would wish upon. Beckett had to break the fear of the soldiers under his direct command now, or they’d be lost for the whole battle.

  “Double time men! The Empire has slung mud in our eye at long last and it’s our job to wash it off. My uncle George looks over us today and if he could speak to us he’d say ‘fuck that bitch Queen and her arrows lads,’ and I agree! Pump until your arms fall off and then use your feet! No unwelcome fires burn tonight!”

  The men roared, and returned to the business of warding the village from a flaming end.

  Corporal Beckett ignored the screams of fear from the locals all around them. He hoped they weren’t screams of pain.

  Outside the walls of Ockham Fringe, beyond the five foot deep moat Marcus’ men had dug, and past the hundred or so yards of open terrain, loomed the leading edge of the Purple Queen’s invasion force. The bodies (and bodies was the correct term; almost all of the first waves would be composed of the dead) stood passively, lacking all emotion, shoulder to shoulder, awaiting the will of the necromancer they were slaved to. They would surely be hit by arrows, their bodies mangled, and in many cases outright slaughtered with a lucky hit to the eye or throat through the iron cages they wore around their heads, and the mass of them still would remain where they stood. They had the collective fear of a tree awaiting a summer rain.

  Mingled into their numbers were the purple robed death mages that held their intangible magical leashes. The necromancers huddled low, using their pets as shields made of meat for when the return arrows came. They spoke to one another excitedly, happy that they would be able to test their power finally on the field of war. Thrilled that soon there would be new bodies to play with, subjugate, and then command. A legion of toys to play with.

  Beyond them stood the fat braziers filled with burning logs marking the home of the archers. It had only been half of a minute since the archery captains had given the order to let fly the first volley into the village, and the rapidity with which the archers were firing was increasing. The first arrows launched were to gauge the distance. The second the wind, and with the third and fourth arrows, the bowmen were confident in their aim, and they began to rifle their smoldering projectiles over the wall as fast as they could set them aflame. Unlike the necromancers just ahead of them, their faces were a mixture of emotions. Many were grim; soldiers doing their sworn duty. Many still were unhappy or sad, displeased with the start of a war that would see their friends bloodied or killed without doubt. Some others were filled with glee. Murderers finally given permission to be who they are. Hounds with the chains removed.

  Behind the archers and the wagons and the hastily built pens for pigs and goats to feed the living warriors were the massive purple tents that served as the headquarters for the whole army. Many of the smaller tents were big enough only for a pair of cots and matching footlockers, but one was the centerpiece of it all. A violet, violent bubo on the plains of Varrland, rising up swollen like an infection on the back of a hard working citizen who wanted nothing to do with the imminent illness its presence threatened. Inside that tent sat two figures. They were at a finely made wooden table no larger than a butcher’s block, but made to fold away for travel. Food covered one half of the table, flanked by an ornate silver goblet.

  The man sitting on the side of the food ate greedily, like the pigs rutting in mud not far away. A knife in one hand, a three tined fork in the other, he sawed away at a piece of meat that might’ve been goat. He stuffed a bloody near-raw chunk into his mouth and chewed with a wet smacking sound.

  “Eating disgust me,” the other, slighter man said. Like his fellow he was dressed head to toe in purple, but he wore fine voluminous robe, whereas the eater wore a thin cloth uniform.

  Around his mouthful of meat, the older man chortled. “Food disgusts you because you haven’t eaten in decades Yefim Gneery. And as you should remember, eating is the good part. It’s the shitting afterward that’s disgusting.” The man continued to chew. His height couldn’t be hidden by sitting. He was tall and lean, like many men in The Empire, and his legs extended out, unable to bend under the table. It seemed the Snake Ridge Mountains were good for growing men. He was older, with gray hair on his head and hugging his jaw in a well trimmed beard that looked like the strap to a helmet. The beard that now had a trickle of blood running through it. His light brown eyes—the color of sun baked river mud—tested his dinner companion.

  A forced sigh came back from under the hood the man named Yefim wore. “I suppose you are correct General Hubik.”

  “I know I’m correct. I’ve spent enough time around Wights to know how they think.” The General sawed off another chunk of meat and speared the last small red skinned potato on his plate. He pushed it all into his mouth past the teeth and started to chew.

  “The plan is to set the village aflame, that much I know. What then? How long do we wait for the delivery of that gift?” Yefim’s hollow voice scratched like an ill hung door that scraped against the jam.

  The General chewed and swallowed, then tossed back a gulp of whatever was in the goblet, washing down his mouthful of food. It was red like the blood on his chin. “We are arraying forces on all sides of the city under the cover of the volleys. If our agent does what is required, we’ll give the fires a full day to take. If the flames take root, then they have two choices, and we will adjust our tactics based on what they do.”

  The robed undead leaned in slightly. “What do you figure their two choices are?”

  “Burn to death, or try and run.” He sat his knife and fork down on the silver plate, his meal conquered.

  “I suppose our course of action if they burn to death is to do nothing?”

  General Hubik chuckled, a deep laugh that seemed to shake the heavy dyed canvas of the large tent they sat in. “Yes that would be a good response. Send in you and the rest of the necromancers after to reanimate and bind down what corpses remain. Call it a; recruiting opportunity.”

  Yefim laughed. “A delicious proposal, though I would much prefer to have unburnt bodies under my sway, General,” Yefim said.

  “We can’t always get what we wish for Gneery. If what we have are charred bodies, you will send them to war the same as any other corpse.” He tipped his silver Goblet up until it was empty. “More!” He bellowed. A tiny female soldier appeared from behind a folding wall with a pale clay jug. She pulled the cork and poured out a smoky red wine until the goblet was full.

  “More food General?” she asked, trying to hide her intimidation and only failing a bit.

  The General picked at something in his gleaming white teeth. After he got whatever it was out, he dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Go. See to it my armor is ready a moment’s notice.”

  “Yes si
r,” she said before taking his plate away and heading behind the wall again.

  The two men—one alive, one dead—sat in silence until Yefim spoke. “And the second option for the Varrlanders inside the village is to run. What then?”

  General Dalibor Hubik raised his silver chalice high, as if he were about to toast something reverent. “Then my dead necromancer, apple of my Queen’s eye, we get to see them shed their blood on the field of battle, as it should be. That or their blood will run in the streets of the town that they have put so much effort into fortifying.” The General grinned like a jackal, and pretended to click his goblet with a drinking vessel that Yefim didn’t have.

  “And we can win that battle?” the necromancer asked.

  The General grunted in disapproval as he emptied his drink once more. “Yefim I did not rise through the ranks to where I am today because I was a bad tactician. We cannot lose this battle. We have many elements that are in our favor that add up to victory.”

  “Such as outnumbering them?”

  “Ten to one or more. More importantly Yefim Gneery I have you, and all your eager and talented necromancers, and ten thousand men and women whose lives I could not care less about losing. If necessary, every last living soul in this army will die for us to take that village.”

  Even under the hood, the necromancer’s salivating grin could be felt.

  A tidal wave of flaming arrows came at Ockham’s Fringe. Once the invading archers had their bearings, they began to let loose a never-ending wall of fiery missiles at the buildings below. The indiscriminate aim of the attack was not to kill, but to set the world inside the village walls on fire. Their goal was to make ash of it all.

  Marcus hoped the city had been soaked enough to ward off the worst of the fires to come. As he stood watching, a single arrow slammed into the wood of the tower not two feet from where Marcus stood. It had missed his head by a length shorter than his arm. The fabric covered tip burned slowly, languidly, threatening the wood of the tower. The Knight Major reached over and pried it loose from the beam before the fire could catch. He examined it with the same curiosity a young boy might look at a spider he’d found in the larder.

  He turned to the young shaven headed Apostle. “Do your spell, and do it fast. Return to me with news you’ve done it and done it well. May the ancestors guide your feet, and calm your voice.”

  “Yes sir,” Peiron said. His heart soared as the Sergeant he knew as Dunwood lifted the hatch that revealed the sharply angled stairs below. In truth it was more of a ladder. Peiron took the steps quickly, but ensured a strong grip on the elm branches that served as railings. It would not do to tumble at this height and die at the very moment he had spent his entire life preparing for.

  Above he could hear Marcus.

  “Archers, let fly.”

  Over his shoulder Peiron could see a single flaming arrow launch from the tower at the now assaulting Empire army. Peiron knew the flaming arrow had been the one that almost killed Marcus.

  The false Apostle was struck by the level of calm amongst the soldiers at the street level. Arrows that were alight with fire fell from the sky with bowel shaking regularity, and nearly every warrior from the Darisian 2nd Infantry went about their business as if it were no more harmful or irritating than the falling of snow. They pried them loose from shingle and plank and dropped them in puddles of water to put them out as they went to and fro. It certainly helped that the Knight Major had seen to massive construction efforts inside the village to protect the ground level from falling arrows.

  The village’s tightly packed-in construction had proved to be a blessing. Seven feet above the earth on every narrow street in Ockham’s Fringe the infantrymen and the hired laborers had constructed a roof. The thin wooden shelter was topped as well with a bark shingle that purportedly was very resistant to the kiss of fire. Resistant enough for the fire control soldiers to handle them before they could take root. It was now possible to move from one side of the village all the way to the other side, without the fear of being struck by a falling missile. In one moment of construction genius, the Knight Major had almost entirely nullified the threat of a thousand archers.

  Clever fucker, Peiron thought as he saw his young soldier escort. “Take me to the Sending room,” he said urgently to the man designated as his protector.

  The soldier already had his small shield on his arm, and his long sword in hand. If anyone were to approach the Apostle during his short trip to the home just down the street the soldier had orders to gut them. No one was to hurt Peiron.

  It took only a minute for them to reach the sturdy wooden door of the abandoned home that was designated as the place for Peiron’s spell to be cast. The soldier that Peiron had issued instructions to earlier in the day stood at guard awaiting them. His presence was a great sign, and Fitch had to quell the desire to grin like a madman. It was all going so well.

  “I did your bidding Peiron,” the soldier said, “the four Apostles you asked for are inside the home. I hope this helps.”

  He is just so proud. Fool. “You’ve no idea how helpful this will prove Corporal Sutton. Please both of you, guard this door. Do not allow any disturbances. Not even you may enter.”

  “Yes Minister,” Sutton and the other guard said in reply.

  And now, the moment of greatest danger.

  Peiron pushed the heavy wooden door in after lifting the latch. It squeaked in a homey fashion as it swung in. Peiron imagined how a wife would feel her heart beat with longing when the door made that sound, announcing the return of her husband from a long day at the forge. Immediately inside was a thick kitchen table that almost looked like a horizontal duplicate of the door. Both were dark brown, and powerfully rectangular. It had benches on both sides that the four Apostles he’d wanted sat at. Peiron already had his practiced face of urgency on, and they matched his energy, their hands fidgeting and their faces wide eyed and framed with nervous wrinkles.

  “Is it time?” one of the male Apostles asked Peiron. He looked like he’d eaten rotten meat judging by the expression on his face.

  This has to happen perfectly. “Priests, Ministers, yes, our calling has come. Minister Andrea, Minister Gideon, would you come pray with me in the bedroom? I would like your words joined with mine in this time of great importance.”

  “Of course Peiron,” the tiny blonde Minister named Andrea said for the both of them. The one named Gideon was almost as small as her, though thicker, and with a ruddy blonde tuft covering his head.

  Peiron walked with a false urgency to the bedroom. The moment his back was to the Apostles, he reached underneath the creamy robe that he despised wearing and pulled out a pair of small daggers. He was intent and deliberate as he drew them. They were being drawn from a sheath that had been filled with gooey poison. Each wicked blade held enough dune scorpion venom to fell a Gvorn in the blink of a poisoned eye. He held the finger long blades carefully in cupped hands, the steel hidden inside the shell of his fingers, and nearly invisible.

  He stood in the center of the bedroom as the two Ministers entered. “Shut the door please. We can’t afford any disruption to the spell.”

  One of them shut the door. As soon as he heard the wooden latch catch, he spoke again. “Bow your heads and pray to the Ancestors with me.”

  Peiron gave them the span of two seconds to do as he told them before he turned. Both of the Apostles had turned their faces to the floor, and had their hands clasped in front of their stomachs, fervently awaiting the words they thought he was about to share.

  Idiot cattle.

  Peiron’s hands darted upward side by side like two tines of a pitchfork. The small daggers punctured the throats of both clerics within half a second of each other, and he viciously slashed outward, severing their windpipes, and nearly all the precious blood filled veins and arteries. The poison almost seemed like an insult.

  Twin fountains of blood sprayed out and hit the quaint wooden walls of the hard working family home. Both A
postles reached up to their destroyed necks and stared at him with accusing, dying eyes. The light of life faded from them fast though, as jet after jet of their life sprayed out with diminishing power. Peiron gripped their collars and steered their sagging bodies to the adjacent bed, preventing them from hitting the floor hard and alerting the others in the nearby kitchen.

  Both Apostles were dead from blood loss and the venom before Peiron let go of them. They slumped on the bed like sacks of meat. His heart had only barely skipped a beat, and he’d killed two already. He surveyed the robe he disdained so and covered his mouth to stop a laugh. Not a drop of blood had hit him from the stabbing.

  “I guess that settles who the Ancestors want to survive and win this little joke of a war, eh?” Peiron asked in a whisper to the dead bodies. “No comment? Don’t be such sore losers.” With another quiet chuckle Peiron Fitch sheathed his tiny daggers inside his robe, and drew them again, envenomed once more.

  “Priests, please come join us,” Peiron called out through the door. “The Empire conspires with The Way against us, and our spell fails. We need your power to succeed this night.”

  “Yes Minister!” Peiron heard one of them call out. He waited just inside the arc of the door for them to enter.

  They walked into the daggers. The two young men opened their mouths to scream but the paralytic agent inside the scorpion toxin was already in control of too many of their muscles. The tiny blades buried in their bellies just below the ribs had done their work, and Peiron let them fall to the floor after giving the blades a spiteful twist. Their collapse wouldn’t be enough to draw the attention of the two warriors outside, especially with all the noise of the village’s defense.