The three friends lit up at her offer. “I’d be glad to show it to you,” Umaryn said.
“Send your friends off to get your food and drink. You stick around. Show me your armor kid,” Naomi looked happy, if a dirty face with no color could ever be happy.
Samrale Overfist, second chair of House Kulare, the highest school of The Way in all of Elmoryn, sat at his desk, tending to a mountain of mundane paperwork late in the afternoon. His mood could be described as grumpy. Paperwork seemed like sand spilled into the soul for him. The old mage sat at his desk in the uppermost floor of the sprawling stone and timber castle that perched on a cliff that overlooked the city of Davisville, and the grand western ocean of Elmoryn. His room had rampant clutter in the form of texts, spell materials, and arcane tools. From the walls came the sounds of scratching rodents, looking for dropped morsels of food Samrale had been too busy to spirit away down to the kitchens. A tiny waft of the meal being prepared in the massive ground floor dining hall reached his nose from far below, and told him food would soon be brought his way. The old man’s stomach had begun the starting stages of rumbling, smelling the supper to come.
“How can they get away with charging two pieces an eyeball?” Samrale asked no one. “Bunch of damned brigands, these ‘businessmen’ is. Back in my day, if you paid more than one piece an eyeball you were being taken for a fool. These aren’t even special eyeballs. Sheep and cow. Boring. Now we pay two without batting an eye. Insulting. When they meet their end and see their dead relatives, and have to tell them how they made their living, I hope they can stomach the shame,” the old man muttered, shoving a poorly handwritten invoice into a stack. He grabbed an ink pen and scrawled his approval onto the bottom of it. His signature was only barely legible.
“And this. Blank keys three to a piece. I bet we can pay the Artificer school down in Port Caelin less than that to conjure the fool things up for us. Schools helping schools, what a deal that would be? Speaking of which, I should send old Madog a message. Haven’t spoken to him in a dog’s age,” he said, jotting down a note to that effect on a scrap piece of paper.
Just then a sea breeze swept in through the open windows in the small round office. His papers rustled, threatening to fly away but he gave them a stern look, and they stayed. An ethereal voice crept in with the wind, carried by The Way, and Samrale forgot about his paperwork, and listened to it with the trace of a smile on his lips.
Samrale Overfist. A familiar voice called out from the aether of The Way to him. I bid you greetings, and hope that this message sees you well. It has been too long. Many years ago we struck a bargain and I intend to honor it this day. Late last night my Queen struck out against our neighbor to the south, and this time, it is committed, and will not end without great death and destruction. You asked me for this message to hold up my end of our bargain. Now we are even. May we never meet again as adversaries, only again in peace, as old… friends ought.
The mage sat down his ink pen with a trembling hand, his smile no more than a ghost on his face. To hear this message from this old friend meant dire things for the world. It meant a war. A war no one but The Amaranth Empire stood to benefit from. The old man stood and felt the subtle magic of the sending spell fade away out the window the breeze had came in through. The Way tingled him, and helped to steady his fingers.
Overfist dipped his head and summoned his own spell of communication. He said no words aloud, but they would be heard by the man who’d sent the message to him as clear as the ringing of a bell in his kitchen.
Dram, thank you from the bottom of my heart my friend. May the silence between us these long years not speak to how we wish things were. Were that we lived in different times, or that we had taken different paths in life that led us to one another instead of apart. Be safe. My warmest regards.
The Way leapt from the old spellcaster’s mind like a javelin launched by a giant. It would reach Graben within an hour, carried by The Way.
Samrale huffed after wiping away a tear that had slipped from his eye, and started to gather the things in his office he would need. In his head he assembled a list of students and staff that might wish to accompany him on the task he needed to accomplish. He had to get to the north of Varrland as fast as possible.
He had to get by the first seat of House Kulare first though.
—Chapter Seven—
A NIGHT SURVIVED
“We are infected then,” Marcus said, holding his head in a weary hand the morning after the first arrow had flown. More still flew through the sky now, but the stories would be told about the night of falling stars, not the day of a hundred thousand arrows. The Knight Major sat at a table in Howard’s Tavern, his headquarters. His fall off the wagon had been a thing of freak poor luck; a dropped hose had flipped a plank of wood end over end, hitting him in the back of the skull. There had been some blood, and a headache that throbbed powerful enough to fell an Ice Bear, but the only real damage had been to his pride. An Apostle had already tended to the wound and the headache, but his pride would take some time to mend.
Peiron and Dunwood sat at the small round table with their leader, speaking quietly about the treachery committed by one of the Apostles on the night of the attack. Peiron was the sole survivor of a nearly successful attempt to kill all the priests able of a Sending.
“We don’t know to what extent Sir. With any luck there was the single Apostle rebel in our midst. Peiron was able to kill him in the struggle, thank the dead for that,” Dunwood said, trying to assure his leader.
“Thank you for that priest,” Marcus said to Peiron with fatigue lacing his words. It was noon, and no one had slept since the Empire started their attack nearly twelve hours prior.
“I wish I could say it was pleasure sir. I was hurt and nearly died by him. I’d hate to think that there were more traitors out there. Or here I should say. One was nearly enough to do us all in,” Peiron said almost as wearily.
“True words,” Dunwood said. “Tell me Fitch, how long for the spell to reach our reinforcements in Daris?”
“It’s hard to say,” Peiron said after thinking on it. “I experienced great difficulty in the casting of the spell itself. I fear the Empire might’ve muddled the message, or stopped it entirely. However… I am hopeful that the ancestors carried it. I have faith. If it went through, they should’ve received the word of the attack within an hour of its dispatch.”
Marcus did the math, “Give them an hour to get all the last minute men and equipment aboard. They’d leave Daris at near to midnight. The trains would head north to us nonstop, running at war speeds. If they encountered no stoppages along the way, that means they would get here within sixteen hours. Less if luck and some of our passed relatives are rooting for us. It’s morning now, and unless my sense of time has been ruined by getting hit in the head, I’d wager we’ve got eight hours until we are reinforced.”
“It will be tough,” Dunwood offered. “They continue to assail us by air nonstop. Enough arrows fall every hour to build a new village it would seem. Moving about inside the walls is a struggle, even with our cover. Our archers are effective, but we are outnumbered at range severely.”
“But we have healing,” Peiron suggested.
“And that will be a mitigating asset, yes Peiron,” Marcus said. “But we need to be prepared for the real threat to the village.”
Peiron waited to hear what the real threat was, but neither the Knight Major nor the Sergeant offered it up. “What are we feared of most? The undead?”
One of Howard’s server-women brought over a tray with three bowls of breakfast porridge, and a slab of ham or pork. The porridge was cooling and gelatinous, and the meat cold. She set the food down and left with a forced smile. Marcus waited for her to be out of earshot before explaining. “To a point, yes, we fear the undead.”
“But we’ve Apostles. Many of our spells are designed to destroy the undead. They are abominations to the cycle of life on Elmoryn. We are well equipped to deal
with them.” Peiron looked confused by their worry.
“Priest,” Dunwood started, “there are at least five thousand undead out there. We have what? A hundred Apostles at best? Many of whom are only capable of a few tricks with healing using The Way? Few are as skilled as you and will be of true military value should The Empire rush the moat and gate with their horde. I don’t think I need to remind you that these walls we shelter behind are only a week old, and were built as fast as we could put them up. If they line up side by side and give it a healthy push…”
“It all comes crumbling down,” Marcus finished.
“Why bother building it all?” Peiron asked.
“Because it slows them down. Gives them pause,” Marcus said. “And coupled with even a shallow moat, it allows our archers time to pick off their necromancers. Hopefully breaking their lines. Remember, we are fighting a delaying action. Not trying to win an advance. A twenty minute stumble on their part is a victory on ours.”
“Your archers are that good? They can pick off the necromancers?” Peiron asked with the hint of awe in his voice.
Dunwood and Marcus looked at each other and nodded in satisfaction.
“Peiron,” Dunwood said as he picked up a heavy metal spoon for the porridge, “Let me tell you about Aubrey Leaf.”
Less than a hundred feet away in the tower she hadn’t left in almost a full day sat a chilled Private Aubrey Leaf. Instead of rest she’d yanked each and every arrow out of the small tower after her partner Willem had been killed, and she’d used a small wooden shield to offer cover to the young, spring faced Apostle who’d risked certain death or injury to climb up to release his soul with a blessing. He had said his name was Richard. When he finished his short prayer he left as fast as he could down the ladder.
Willem’s body lay in the tower with arm’s reach of Aubrey. She had taken care during a lull in the rain of arrows at dawn to lay his body out properly, and cross his hands on his chest. He had been a good friend, and a good soldier, and she wanted to show at least that amount of respect. She had asked the Apostle Richard to send a few soldiers up as soon as possible to retrieve his body, but it would likely have to wait for dark. The Empire’s archers weren’t accurate, but there were far too many firing in her direction for them to risk retrieving Willem’s corpse.
Down below in a courtyard where one of the village wells sat, she could smell the bodies as they burnt on the pyre. She hoped the soldiers came soon so his body could be put to the flame, purified, and sent to where the necromancers could no longer make use of him. His body’s odor rose along with the others. Soon the tower would reek terribly.
Her fury and grief put to temporary rest, she returned to what she did best; fire arrows.
In the light of the morning sun she became hindered by the growing glow of dawn itself. The sun rose in her face, cresting over the distant horizon and obscuring the purple cloaked demons she wanted to pierce the hearts of. She had to wait. She had to bide her time and stay low in cover. Once the sun ascended high enough in the sky to be out of her line of sight, she proved her worth.
Aubrey used a standard issue Varrland military bow. Nothing about it was extraordinary. It wasn’t blessed by an Apostle, or enchanted by an Artificer, and it wasn’t an Artifact. It was in every way, ordinary and plain. She took great pride knowing she did the impossible with the average. Her eye, her arms, and her gift with the bow could not be called average however.
Aubrey poked her head above the retaining wall only high enough to scan the field for the color purple. The teeming mass of wavering undead seemed endless, especially after the vigorous testing of the night prior. To survive that horror only to look upon the morning’s gift of thousands of undead crushed a portion of her spirit, but she ignored them, and looked only for their masters. The dead were organized in perfect rank and file, an arm’s length apart from each other without exception, and moving among them were the plump prizes she sought.
Her first arrows missed, but she expected that. Ranging in and feeling out the wind would take experimentation after all. Aubrey got her legs into a crouch underneath her, and got an arrow on her string. She’d get her hands and fingers ready for the draw, her eyes never leaving the cloak she wanted to pierce. When the death mage came to a stop to speak to someone, she came to full height, drew the string and let the arrow fly. Before the bow finished vibrating in her hand she was back down below the wall, only her eyes above it to see where her arrow sailed.
The first missed by several yards, hitting an animated zombie in the chest and dropping him to the ground. The necromancer moved over to it, and yanked the awkward, damaged foot soldier back to its feet, and yanked the arrow out callously. He had no regard for the condition of his pets, only that they were able to interfere with, and potentially kill his living enemies.
She watched the same cloak move without pause for ten minutes, launching two more arrows, each hitting closer to where he stood, yet not alerting him to the fact that each arrow falling about had been intended for his heart.
Moron, she thought. He has never had an arrow fired at him, has he?
Her fourth arrow of the day made him pay for his lack of caution. She’d timed his motion well, and had his range easily. He stayed in the same rank of dead soldiers for too long, and she knew the feel of the distance. When he stopped to adjust the metal cage on the head of one of his soldiers, she popped up, pulled the string back, and on the exhale, released the feathered shaft with the sharp, broad arrowhead at the tip. Her eyes followed the tight rotation of her missile as it arced up and then down sharply. When she’d reached her hiding spot behind the short wall, her arrow hit.
His back faced her, and when the arrow hit him, he flailed about in shock. She couldn’t see his face to know his pain, but the way his arms flailed, trying to reach that impossible itch of the arrow buried in the center of his back, told her he had been more than just a little surprised. He barreled into his own undead, knocking them out of their pristine order, and sending them tumbling into one another like she’d dropped a heavy stone into a pond. She laughed as they fell in larger and larger numbers as the necromancer cried out. There was no way to hear his screams over the vast gulf of space between and the din of the siege, but she knew he cried out in agony. He fell to the ground on his face, his wild, manic arms slowing their grasping attempts at removing the shaft of wood that was killing him. She watched a fellow purple robed fiend started to run down the field to come to his aid.
Aubrey risked another shot. She got the arrow ready and stood, drawing and launching a little faster than she would’ve liked, but considering the circumstances, she couldn’t afford too much time exposed. The Amaranth archers would launch a withering volley at her tower any moment if they caught sight of her. They’d done it already several times.
Her fifth arrow sailed straight and true, but missed the necromancer she’d hit first. Instead, it clipped the head of the new death mage, yanking back her hood and leaving a bright red slash across her brow. The woman with the dark hair and split head went down in a tumble, and started to crawl behind a row of the dead that were struggling to get to their feet.
Aubrey dipped down behind her little wall just as she saw the black haze of a wall of arrows scream into the sky towards her tower. The game had begun now. Shoot and they shoot back. Kill and they try to kill back.
Aubrey grinned again as she felt the arrows slam into the wall she hid behind like the beating of a musician’s heavy drum. The shots vibrated the tower again, just like when Willem was killed. As she had that thought, one of the arrows slid into the space between the roof and wall, and hit her dead partner’s leg. The arrow planted in and shook it side to side, waving the arrow’s feathers like a white flag of surrender. Willem had given up.
Aubrey felt bad that her efforts had gotten his body shot again. “Sorry friend, but war is hell. I’d say I’ll try to not get you shot again next time, but I’d be lying.”
Aubrey chuckled as more inco
ming arrows played her a bass heavy song. Maybe when the band took a breather, she’d shoot a few more alto arrows letting them know she wanted them to keep playing her a tune.
Hours later Dunwood and Corporal Beckett were in the courtyard where the victims of the prior night’s attack were being burnt to ash by devoted Apostles.
“You realize Sergeant,” Corporal Beckett said to his Sergeant, “that I spent the last ten hours doing everything in my worldly power trying to prevent the spread of fire, and how here I sit, throwing sticks and branches and logs onto a pyre to make sure that our dead are sent to the afterlife.”
“Had you learned to read Corporal, you would know that’s called ‘irony,’” Dunwood said back with a grim smile. The smell of burning bodies was overpowering. Half disgusting, and half enticing. It was, after all, meat cooking. Dunwood shook the thought. It was blasphemous to say the least and made him feel ill.
“I may not have been to a fancy school like you and the Knight Major, but I know what irony is Sergeant,” Beckett said back as he tossed a thick branch onto the edge of the fire. The soldiers had amassed a large supply of branches and scrap wood for just this purpose before the war had begun. Beckett had thought it a waste of time, but now…
“You and your men did good work last night. Sergeant’s work if I say so,” Dunwood said when Beckett returned. An Empire arrow whistled through the air and landed in the pyre with a thunk as he finished. Both men laughed.
“Thanks, asshole,” Beckett said into the air at the distant enemy archer. “We were low on wood.”
“We should get to cover,” Dunwood said, pointing to the edge of the shelter roof nearest to them.
When they got under cover, Beckett continued. “We almost lost that large building until you came over. That would’ve been a nightmare.”
The Echoes of Sin (The Kinless Trilogy Book 3) Page 8