The Echoes of Sin (The Kinless Trilogy Book 3)

by Philbrook, Chris

  Chelsea could see Mal dropping back behind his sister, who stood like a wall between the vampires and the two men. She held her hammer with both hands low, ready to fight, but something about how she stood told Chelsea in this moment, she defended, not attacked. The Varrlander sergeant dove headfirst over the foundation and into the consecrated area. As she ate a mouthful of sopping wet loam she heard James’s voice in prayer. Angry prayer.

  This time, the vampire leapt the wall without thought for the consequences, and as Umaryn’s armor sent aside a half dozen hurled spears harmlessly, she swung her hammer in a wide arc, mauling down the front row.

  As they hit the soggy earth the words from James’ mouth bit into their flesh, and they began to smolder, and burn.

  The ancestors had had enough, and at James’ sacrifice, they had sent forth their purity to cleanse the dead. James stepped around the Everwalk sister as she watched the vampire burn, and he walked towards the now startled mass of the blood drinkers. With each step, he angrily cast out small handfuls of blessed ground stone taken from Elmoryn’s most sacred of Cathedrals.

  “May you burn!” he screamed out with his ruined voice into the storm.

  And they burned.

  —Chapter Sixteen—

  TIPPING POINTS

  Peiron Fitch had been a good Amaranthine citizen. Many Varrlander bodies were stashed about Ockham’s Fringe because of the work he had just done, and because of that, the army outside the walls would win the war before high noon the next day. He couldn’t be any more sure of it. All that remained of his deed was to message his superiors in the camp outside to inform them of his successful dirty deeds.

  Peiron returned to his decrepit home of choice: a second level single family home above their stable. Only a few people knew he had taken up residence there, and one of those soldiers had died at his hand not ten minutes prior. For now, he needed only a few minutes for a hasty sending, and then he’d retreat away and await the morning someplace different. His survival would be a challenge, but one he felt up to.

  The agent dropped low behind the small kitchen table and arranged the chairs to put additional blockages between where he sat and the shuttered windows and stairs leading up to his floor. The gesture gave no additional security to speak of but it made him feel better anyway. His paranoia abated the smallest bit and at a time like this, he appreciated it. Operating in the open wasn’t what he wanted to do, or what he was best at, and it bothered him.

  “Carry to those who need to know,” Peiron whispered, feeling the spirits of the Varrlander dead rouse at his will. An attentive spirit—perhaps a dead boy—came to him. Peiron couldn’t see the child, but could sense his presence anyway. “Listen well, stride fast.”

  Peiron spoke to the child, and the dead boy left him, happy to be of use again to someone.

  The sorcerer Yefim Gneery had moved his golden chair outside of Dalibor’s lavish purple tent. The air inside had become stale and meaty, and even though he didn’t need to breathe, he felt his flesh became stained by it. The General had taken two of his younger female aides to bed only an hour before in an attempt to relieve some of the tension brought on by the horrid wait to do war. The noises they made disgusted Yefim.

  Perhaps I left the tent because of their cries of pleasure and pain? It would appear that the good General is an effective but not a sensitive or gentle lover. To be expected. Yefim sat in his own hooded robe made of purple in the cool night air and watched as the hum of battle grew louder. Soldiers ebbed and flowed carrying the supplies of war back and forth. Quivers of arrows here, food and water there. The men and women of The Empire had been briefed by their sergeants and knew that something was afoot. The assault could come as early as tomorrow morning at dawn and the energy they had at the potential news tingled at Yefim, stimulating nerves years dead.

  “Your will is done,” a soft and insubstantial voice called out beside Yefim’s hood covered ear.

  “Oh is it?” Yefim asked aloud, knowing full well the spirit that spoke to him couldn’t respond to his words and wouldn’t even if it could.

  The spirit spoke again using the voice of Yefim’s lackey, Peiron. “I have murdered the leader of one of the fire crews and killed two of their most experienced healers. Two of the archers in a tower to the east have been poisoned, and they shall succumb before dawn, clearing the field you will approach on. What now?”

  Yefim nodded in satisfaction. Another gear had slid into place, and the engine of war’s hum grew louder still. Yefim fought off a smile and mentally dug deep into the masses of undead surrounding him. He burrowed down inside his own dead body, and from there he summoned The Way to send a reply. “Well done. Seek shelter where you will not be found, and where fire will not kill you. Should you die as such your reanimation will be less pleasant. Die a clean death if you must. I shall seek you out when we enter the village and ensure you are rewarded properly. The Queen will hear of your deeds.” Yefim Gneery finished speaking his whispered message to the cold night air and let the gentle breeze carry it away, over the legion of undead, over the plains and the hastily dug moat, and up and over the log wall that surrounded Ockham’s Fringe.

  The wall his army would soon rip down.

  Yefim stood from his golden chair and returned into the purple tent where Dalibor was fucking. The necromancer would interrupt the coitus—happily—and inform the general that the arrows should fly, in greater numbers than ever, and they should fly now.

  The barrage of arrows came, and they fell from the sky as flaming stars might, were they struck from the universe above by angry souls. This time the men and women of the Darisian 2nd were ill-equipped, and in one crucial case ill-led to fight against the fires the arrows brought.

  Corporal Beckett’s fire team waited for his return after he walked off to talk to Minister Fitch, but after a time their anxious waiting for their leader’s return and the Empire’s attack was ruptured. A single missile fell from the dark sky above, hitting the ground and clattering against the stone foundation of a two story home nearby. The men saw the arrow and abandoned their worry for what might be. Now, they could focus on what had begun. The small tongues of flame licked at the hard rock ineffectually, and one of the men ran out to pick it up. He tossed it inside a small barrel of water at the corner of the closest building, extinguishing it with a hiss and puff of steam.

  “Here it comes boys,” the previously dissatisfied Private Reader said. He cracked his knuckles as the sky took on an orange glow. The flames came, but first their light appeared.

  “Where’s Beckett?” one of the less experienced privates asked the rest of the engine crew.

  Reader shrugged. “Probably kissing the good Minister’s ass for a better spot at the prayer service in the morning. Who cares? We know what to do and we know how to do it. Let’s get to it men!” Reader stoked the men’s enthusiasm, and they readied their horse drawn wagon with the water tank and pump. Flares of fire could be seen already down one of the streets and without a word spoken, they moved as a team and started down the dirt road to handle the threat it posed. The horses’ hooves clopped in loud rhythm over the growing panic and activity inside Ockham’s Fringe.

  They couldn’t have known just how bad a threat the fire would be that night.

  A hellish hour after the first arrow went into the bucket, the fires inside Ockham’s walls were about to rage out of control. Sergeant Oberyn Dunwood had remained at the side of Knight Major Marcus Gray, managing the things that didn’t need his commander’s immediate attention. It shocked the Sergeant how much the Knight Major needed to decide. The two men were in the command center of the tavern watching out over the city from the second floor windows. As the hour drew long, and the orange light stemming from multiple fires grew brighter and brighter through the glass, the two warriors locked eyes, and before Marcus said anything, Oberyn knew what needed to be done.

  “Something is wrong in the southern area. The fire team down there isn’t keeping up with the f
ires like they have been. Go check on it. Find out what Corporal Beckett’s team is dealing with and lend a hand. Maybe they’ve take casualties. Take a few men with you to help.”

  “Yes sir. I’ll send a runner back with a message,” Oberyn said and then saluted.

  Marcus saluted back. “Watch out for the arrows. They’re falling as thick as raindrops tonight.”

  “I’ll try not to get wet,” Oberyn said grimly. The sergeant descended the stairs, motioned for two of his subordinates to follow, and the three men exited the building on their appointed task on fleet feet.

  Marcus was right. The arrows were falling as thick as rain from clouds that seemed made of fire.

  Sergeant Dunwood and his two men arrived at the primary intersection in the southern half of Ockham’s Fringe near out of breath and only the slimmest of margins from being perforated by falling arrows. In the center of the X-shaped road crossing sat the deepest of Ockham’s three wells. Running from the cylindrical hole in the earth was a giant hose made of knit canvas and rubber. The hose crossed the street to the engine wagon led by Corporal Beckett. The brass fittings held the pulsing tube filled with well water in place as two men atop the wagon feverishly operated a hand-driven pump. Both soldiers worked in unison well, but they were rushed and fatigued. Covered in sweat, soot, and water, they kept one eye on their partner to keep pace, and one eye on the sky for the fiery tipped arrow that had their name on it.

  Leading away from the engine was another thick hose carried on by the rest of the fire crew. They held on tight as the pressurized water blasted out at the side and interior of a two story home with a stable built underneath the living space above. Enormous flames jetted out from the stable, fed by precious air and piles of dry straw and old wood. Dunwood’s experienced eyes assessed the home and judged it a loss. The fire team was wasting precious time soaking what would be rubble in mere minutes. The houses on each side could be saved, but only if they were soaked from shingle to stone to prevent their catching.

  “Where is Beckett?” Dunwood screamed as he ran up to the three men holding the hose. Dunwood’s men held shields aloft above his head, and no sooner had he asked his question, he heard the panging strike of an arrow hit the steel a foot from his temple. A spent, broken arrow clattered to the ground at his feet.

  One of the older and larger soldiers at the rear of the stack of men shrugged, bothered by the question. He looked beaten and frustrated. “We don’t know.”

  “What? How do you not know where your unit leader is?” Dunwood felt his own anger rise to match his frustration over the night’s attacks.

  The old private shrugged—a humorous gesture given that he seemingly fed all his strength into controlling the animated hose—“The Minister took him off to tell him something just as the attack started, and he never came back. We don’t know where he went!”

  “Minister Fitch?” Dunwood asked just below a yell.

  “Yes!” the private said, back to focusing on the ornery hose he and his friends held firm.

  “Where did this happen?” Dunwood demanded.

  “Five homes back. Maybe six,” the private said, tipping his helmeted head in the direction he’d last seen his leader. “They slid down the narrow alley to talk. There’s a brown rain bucket with an arrow in it where they went. North it was.”

  Dunwood pondered the information and decided guidance should be the next step. “This house is lost. Turn the hose to this house, and that one,” he pointed his blade at the two structures beside the flaming one, “and soak them to the rocks. If we can prevent them from catching, we’ll save the street. Do it now.”

  “Yes sir!” the private said happily, thankful to have some kind of guidance from a superior officer.

  Dunwood turned to the man who held the shield that protected his skull. “Stay with them. They need the assistance.” He turned to the other man who had accompanied him from the tavern. “Come with me, we’re going to look for the good Corporal and the minister in an alley. Perhaps they took arrows and need aid.”

  The world grew a good deal quieter just a few homes down the street from the creaking and rocking engine and the yells of the men under literal fire who staffed it. The screams of the injured and frightened around the village as a whole had faded away for the moment at least, and as Dunwood and his private companion walked towards the alley where the Corporal disappeared, they held their swords at the ready. Something didn’t feel right to Oberyn.

  “Between you and I, Private Hester, Fitch surviving that attack on the apostles alone unsettled me. It still does. Be on your guard, and don’t for a moment trust anyone but me or the Knight Major until we leave this place.”

  The sergeant’s strange tenor frightened the younger soldier, but he held firm, readying his shield and sword. “I will sir.”

  In the darkness Dunwood saw the sad little bucket with its impotent arrow leaning against its side, drowning in old rain. Another arrow clacked into the hard wooden siding of the house it rested beside and fell to the dirt and stone below, its wrapped tip smoldering uselessly in the dirt. Oberyn picked up the arrow with his sword hand and dropped it in the bucket, extinguishing it. From his crouch Oberyn’s eye caught something amiss on the stone foundation of one of the houses in the alley. A dark wet smudge that seemed fresh, and conspicuously out of place.

  The Sergeant stood and approached the fist sized spot on the wall. He dropped low again to scrutinize the evidence. Almost directly beneath the bloody impact on the wall rested a matching circle of dark, blood stained dirt. “Violence,” Dunwood said. The other soldier tensed more, sensing a traitor in their midst.

  “Shall we search for the Minister?” the soldier asked.

  Dunwood stood, his face creased with the effects of what appeared to be the markings of betrayal. “We shall. At the very least he must be taken into custody and questioned about what he knows regarding Beckett.” Dunwood turned to face his companion as an arrow smacked into the wooden side of the home six feet above the blood smear. “Do you think the good Minister was kind enough to give the Blessing of Soul’s rest to the man he murdered in the name of The Empire?”

  The other soldier shook his head. “I would suppose a wandering dead man would be of more service to the Purple Queen.”

  Dunwood spit on the ground away from the blood. “Bastard. If Beckett is dead then enough time has passed for him to rise. Hester, go to the Knight Major at once and tell him I believe Minister Fitch killed the corporal, and may well be a double agent. If you see the Minister, beware. He has The Way, and you cannot know what he’s capable of. Gather support and apprehend him. Bind him and gag him. Bring him to the tavern to answer to the Knight Major.”

  “What are you going to do?” the private asked the sergeant.

  Dunwood turned to the alley. “I see drops and small streaks of blood leading away. I’d bet my aunt’s spirit that bastard dragged Beckett’s body and hid it somewhere ahead. I’m going to try and find that body, then head to the home where Fitch had been staying. Perhaps I’ll catch him there.”

  “Do you really think he did this?”

  Dunwood reached up and yanked the flaming arrow from the side of the home. He dropped it in the dirt, far from where it could catch anything aflame. “My father told me where you find bear shit you’ll find a bear. This is treachery in my eyes, and I suspect not far from here we’ll find a traitor. I hope to be proven wrong, but that is asking more than the ancestors can bear, I fear.” Dunwood clapped the younger warrior on the shoulder. “Go. Run.”

  And he did.

  Dunwood turned his trained eye once more on the dirt in the alley, and traced the specks as they moved along. Not five steps distant he found scuff marks, telling him that something heavy had been dragged awkwardly.

  Corporal Beckett would have been heavy. The Sergeant steeled himself, and began to stalk the prey he wished didn’t exist.

  Samrale, second seat of House Kulare, opened his eyes to the cold air of the middle of
the night. The sky had remained clear for his entire sleep, and far above the stars twinkled and danced to their ancient and silent song. The old man’s back cracked as he adjusted his shoulders against the hard deck of the airship his spell kept aloft. With a wince he sat up, fighting against the whine of his stomach muscles and the groan of his shoulders. On an elbow, he looked around at the half dozen sitting Waymancer students and tuned into their soft chanting, focusing on their intonation and pronunciation, ensuring that they were efficient in their harvesting and funneling of The Way.

  They were. The boat would stay above the clouds. Samrale smiled.

  After another series of painful groans, whines and whinnies from an army of aging body parts, Samrale got to his feet. Both heels and all ten toes made themselves heard as well, but he ignored them too. Nearby Jonah and the Captain were at the wheel of the vessel, guiding the massive ship through the current of air towards the village. Samrale stepped over and around more than a few sleeping passengers under the moonlight until he got to the father and son.

  “Smooth sailing?” Samrale asked the darkened father.

  The man’s face wrinkled with appreciation. “No swells to fight like the sea gives you, but finding the currents to push us is more of a challenge. Lots of sail work. My crew will be exhausted when we reach the border.”

  Samrale could appreciate the captain’s concern. “We are almost there?”