by Paul Dale
“Khuh, huh.”
It was a subtle cough that hinted at a titter to follow, and, once heard, recognised, and understood, left no other option than to ask: “Did I say something funny?” Which Penbury, knowing all this, couldn’t help but ask of his strange guest.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Nuriel. “I’m an old man who finds much in life amusing.”
“No, please. Do elaborate,” said Penbury. “I insist.”
“These are the most delicate and delicious crackers, and go so well with this cheese,” said Pierre. “It is a four-year-old Biscema?”
“Five,” said Penbury. “Nuriel, I’m curious not only as to who you are, but also why you think a good general in charge of affairs, when a continent is about to fight for its very existence against an evil the world has not seen for hundreds of years, is not a good thing?”
Nuriel smiled in a way that only increased Penbury’s ire. He hadn’t been made to feel like this since the time he had been at school and asked his economics teacher why, if capitalism generated so much wealth, there were still so many poor people. He remembered his teacher’s smile; it was almost as condescending as the one Nuriel wore.
“I’m sorry, Chancellor. I meant no offence. Of course, a good general is always desirable. The problem is, in this case, it wouldn’t do any good. This war will not be won by good generals on either side. This is no ordinary war. Yes, there will be battles, won and lost by both sides, and a good general would help win some of these battles, but the war will not be decided by them. This is a war with a Dark Lord. They are not beaten by such simple means. A Dark Lord has never been beaten by military might alone. As for your defeat, should it happen, it will not depend on how good or bad the general is but on whether you can defeat the Dark Lord before you are crushed under his boot or forced to bend to his will. I do not say all is lost—all is not lost. I merely think the path to victory is not by force of arms—though some force doesn’t go amiss, if for no other reason than to buy time.”
“No offence taken,” said Penbury. “I defer to your experience in such matters. You must have faced many Dark Lords.”
“Now that you mention it,” said Nuriel, his smile widening, and a hand going to his grey beard, “I have.”
Penbury was reminded of the first time he had met Lady Deathwing. A creeping sensation of dread started in the pit of his stomach and quickly made its chilling way up his back to his neck, where it made the small hairs stand up. Penbury was the kind of man who preferred his spirits, cheeses, and meats aged. Ancient beings from a millennium past, who had fought Dark Lords, gave him the creeps. Penbury reached for his glass of brandy and took a slug, not even washing it around the bowl of the glass and taking an appreciative sniff first.
“Do tell,” he coughed, as the spirit burned his throat.
Nuriel chewed on a cracker and looked at his dinner companions. Penbury felt as though he were on a scale, being weighed for worthiness to receive such gifts of wisdom as Nuriel may be willing to dispense.
“You have, I’m sure, heard of the expression an ancient evil? As in ‘there arises an ancient evil in the east’. Or north, or whichever place the evil is arising.”
Penbury nodded, appreciative of Nuriel’s attempt at dispelling any ambiguity as to where evil may arise. As a rule, one ought to be precise.
“Good. Evil has been rising, coming forth and attempting to claim dominion over the world since the world began, or shortly thereafter. In the beginning, there wasn’t much around. Anyway, we’re all familiar with ancient evil. What is often forgotten is that as well as ancient evil, there is also ancient good. After the world has been saved, and there is little else to do, it gets tired. It’s hard to stay awake, year after year, when nothing much is going on, I can tell you. It falls into a slumber. And once asleep, ancient good can be hard to wake. It takes an ancient evil of considerable power to shake its good counterpart back into wakefulness. A few never sleep. A few have to stay awake and watch as the decades pass. They get increasingly bored and set in their ways, with nothing fun to do, often in a faraway place no one bothers to visit, with little more than meditation and mental exercises to keep themselves amused. It’s so dull, even they can doze off for the odd year or ten.”
“That sounds fantastical,” said Pierre. “Is this not the age of reason, where such nonsense is shown to be such?”
“I wish it were so, my friend,” said Penbury. “And yet we have Morden, a Dark Lord, dragons, and a host that will shortly be landing on these shores.”
Pierre bowed his head and picked disconsolately at his plate. “I know. I know. I had only hoped it was all done with and the world could return to the normal place it was five years ago, a world in which we are finally learning how things work, a world that doesn’t need magic, or magical beings, but only curiosity and a keen mind. I can dream though?”
“Yes. You may dream,” said Nuriel. “It is a fine dream, but sadly one that is not to be realised with the current state of affairs. There are, as the Chancellor has made clear, undeniable facts. If it is a world that makes sense you desire then we need to deal with the one that does not first.”
“Agreed,” said Penbury. The conversation was at last heading in a direction he was more comfortable with. Like Pierre, his world, until recently, had been one that made sense. It was governed by rules and laws, many of which he had discovered and instituted. He liked to think the world had become a better place, in as much as it made sense, and people were better off in such a world. His long-distant predecessor, Chancellor Huffenhoff, had started it all off with his great secular revolution. Penbury thought of himself as a carrier of the flame of reason that had been lit. His job, as he saw it, besides getting fantastically rich, was to make things run smoothly and, by-and-large, they did. “We only have the small matter of having next to no army, no leaders of any merit, and no hero. Not that I miss the last one, but, from what you’ve said, we’ll lose unless we get one.”
“Probably,” said Nuriel. “We won many battles. We decimated the forces of evil and yet the Dark Lord would always raise up another army. The only way we ever won was by dealing with the Dark Lord directly, either by destroying his source of power or killing him. In either case, it took a hero to perform the task.”
“Merde,” said Pierre, throwing his hands up. “We are lost.”
To Penbury, it did look like they were in dire straits. “Merde, indeed. Unless we get a hero.”
“And how do we do that?” asked Pierre. “Don’t they have to be found living in humble circumstance, possessing powers unknown to themselves as a birthright, having been hidden at birth by the overseers of all that is right and good?”
“Or there is Griselda,” suggested Nuriel.
Pierre shot Penbury a glance that suggested, while he loved women, he was not an ‘equal opportunities’ kind of man when it came to important things like saving the world. “Griselda? She’s more dangerous to us than to Morden. Look at the way she holds that damned sword.”
Pierre was, of course, correct. She was lethal in the worst kind of accidental way. Penbury had heard at one of the plays the line that intimated ‘there was nothing as pissed off, or as full of rage, as a woman who had been wronged by the man she loved’, or something like that.
“Nuriel may have a point,” said Penbury. “She is Edwin’s sister, and so we could hope heroic blood is in her veins. She has the sword, which, as we are led to believe, can only be wielded by those of heroic bent, and she absolutely hates Morden.”
“What good is that sword if she can’t use it?” proffered Pierre. “And what hope would she have against one as powerful as a Deathwing?”
“She is … was … married to him,” said Penbury. “That will get her under his guard. And you can teach her to use that sword.”
“Pfft. Impossible.”
“Are you not the best sword this land knows?”
“D’accord.”
“Then if anyone can train her, you ca
n.”
“I knew you’d get there in the end,” said Nuriel. “And you never know, the rest of my lot may turn up, and maybe Edwin will be with them.”
“The rest of your lot?” asked Penbury. His stomach did a sudden turn. He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of this. An ancient evil was bad enough without the other lot making an appearance.
“Like I told you,” said Nuriel smoothly, as his infuriating smile returned. “Ancient evil isn’t the only thing that stirs. Ancient good is awaking in the north. I can feel it. Summer is coming.”
Chapter 36 Escape
If you feel no love, it cannot be lost.
The Dark Lord’s Handbook
Zara had watched Hal die and her rage had given her strength enough to break free and avenge him. Then Ferg had stepped in and stabbed the dragon lord as he lay bleeding on the floor. She’d had no time to say goodbye to Hal, no time to even take him off that terrible spike, lay him down, and tell him how she felt. And now she would never be able to tell him what he’d meant to her. She’d never see his smile come alive in his eyes. Her only consolation was they had been together. Properly together. She had never been with a man she had cared for before. He had been strong but gentle, both demanding and considerate. After, he had slept but she could not. She had been both happier than she had ever been and also never more angry with herself. This crazy quest. This foolish idea. She had played along because she had thought it would bring them together at last, and it had. She had never thought they would ever go through with it. She had thought Hal would see the futility of his destiny and they would go home. He was a goddamned baker. He had never been a dragon slayer in anything but name. It was an idiotic, insane idea. And it was all her fault. She had played along. She had let him believe. She had wanted him to live his dream and now he was dead. Gone.
Their escape from the fortress had been a blur. Ferg had dragged her into the sewer, albeit briefly, before leading her through the maze of the fortress, escaping the gates before word reached to close them. They had tagged along with a supply train, before slipping away at the first chance. All the while, she had been on automatic. Ferg led. She followed. She didn’t even feel angry with the orc. He wasn’t to blame. She was. All this was her fault. Hal was dead because of her.
It had been a day later when her fury came. Her screaming at Ferg had boiled over into a fight. To his credit, the orc had fought back. They had punched, kicked, gouged, scratched, and, in Ferg’s case, bitten (which had hurt given the size of his teeth), until they were exhausted and couldn’t raise a fist.
“He was a brother to me,” the orc had said, lying exhausted on his back.
“He was my lover,” she had answered, and wept.
Ferg had known better than to try to console the inconsolable, and she was glad for that. Ferg was not entirely to blame, but he was as much a part of it as she was. They had both let Hal believe when both of them must have known, deep down, he was no hero. It had been Ferg’s insatiable thirst for revenge, having lost the one he loved to a dragon’s whim, that had driven him. This she now understood. There was nothing she would not do if she thought she could avenge Hal further. The one small recompense for them both was they had left a dragon lord dead on the stone floor of the torture chamber. She had struck the first blow with the hammer and Ferg had followed with the shiv Hal had dropped. Black dragon blood had stained the ground.
It still filled her dreams. When she woke, she thought her dreams were a nightmare and then she’d know they were not. Today was no exception. She woke in a sweat, as much from her nightmares as from the sticky air. It was winter, but still hot and humid. As she let herself adjust to the pain of wakefulness, and the loss she felt, she was gripped by a wave of nausea. She managed to roll to her side and get her head clear of the bed before she retched. She had been like this for a few weeks. She hoped she’d caught some forsaken bug in this hell-hole and not been able to shake it rather than the alternative she feared. She retched until her stomach was dry before she tried to sip some water from the rainwater bucket. Humid air blew in through the open windows and the sounds of the city were brought in on it. The city had been busy when they had passed through the first time; now it was jam-packed with orcs and men. They had been lucky to get a room. Many now slept on the stairs of the ziggurats dotted around the island, the one exception being the temple ziggurat with the statue of the Dark Lord standing over it. When Zara had seen that statue, she had cursed it. The robed figure stood, book in hand, lording it over the city, a constant reminder of Morden’s power. Foremost in her mind, besides the loss of Hal, was one day having the opportunity to get revenge upon the Dark Lord Morden. If only it had been Morden who had come to the torture chamber and it was his bones she had cracked with the hammer.
It had taken them two months to get to Deathcropolis. It had been their port of entry on the way in and Ferg insisted it was their only choice on their way out. It was the only place where there was still sufficient traffic to the west that Ferg could use his contacts to get aboard a vessel. He’d been trying for a week but with no luck. Word was Morden was coming with his army and everything was going crazy. There were hundreds of boats in the bay around the island but could they get on one of them? Could they, bollocks.
Zara retched again, emptying what little there was left in her stomach. The bamboo door to the hut they were staying in, down by one of the beaches in the many small coves on the island, swung open and Ferg scuttled in.
“Still ill? Here.”
Ferg tossed her a small package—a banana leaf wrapping something.
“What’s this?” asked Zara, wiping spittle from her lips and turning the package over in her hands.
“An old orc remedy. It should help.”
“I’m no orc, but thanks anyway.”
Ferg took a cup from the one table in the room, dipped it in the bucket of water, took a sip and emptied the rest over his head. “Damn, it’s hot. No, you’re no orc, but when I described your illness to the apothecary, he diagnosed a condition common to humans and orcs alike.”
Zara unwrapped the leaf to reveal a white powder. She sniffed at it suspiciously. She wasn’t worried Ferg was going to poison her, it was more her nature to be suspicious of most things.
“And what would that be? Food poisoning? I knew that fish was old. No amount of sauce could hide it. You’d have thought fish would be safe in a lagoon. From now on, I’m only eating rice.” At least, that’s what she hoped it was. The alternative did bear thinking about.
Ferg came and sat on the end of the bed, taking care to avoid the splash of vomit on the floor. He rested a calloused hand on her foot. “I wouldn’t advise that. You have to keep your strength up. Now that …” Ferg’s hand gripped her foot and then, with a sigh, he let it go and stood. “We’ve got a long way to go. I think I found someone who might take us but he wants to see us first, and we can’t have you puking on him when he does. So take the powder.”
“Now that what?” she asked, sick to her stomach as the realisation dawned that the orc knew it wasn’t food poisoning.
She could see the orc tense and he gripped the bamboo windowsill. “You need to keep your strength up, now that you’re … eating for two.” He turned to face her. “You’re pregnant.”
Zara knew the truth when she heard it, no matter how much she had been denying it. She hadn’t bled for over a month. She told herself it was because of the stress, the lack of decent food, and the travelling. There were girls back home who said they’d known immediately when they had conceived; they’d known the exact time and place. Zara had always dismissed them as foolish romantics. Certainly, when she had lain with Hal she hadn’t immediately thought she would be carrying his child. There had to be more to it than that. She couldn’t possibly get pregnant while they were on a quest to kill a Dark Lord. It didn’t happen. It was a bit of rough and tumble. Stress relief. So what if it had been the best sex she’d ever had? That made it even more unlikely. Women who had children
didn’t enjoy themselves. Not the ones Zara knew, even if they put a brave face on it and loved their children. The getting of them was never that much fun, the way her friends told it. When first married, or even before, it may have been a pleasure, but soon enough it was a chore, and that’s when the children arrived. Then another. And another.
All this time, she had been trying to fool herself. Now, she had to face the fact, she was carrying Hal’s child.
She took the cup Ferg had used, filled it, and emptied the powder into it. She swirled the powder with her finger and drank it in one go. If she was going to carry Hal’s child she was damned if she wasn’t going to get off this island and back home where she would be as far away from Morden as she could. And if that meant she had to take the powder to stop puking to get on a boat, then that was what she would do. The powdered water tasted chalky and made her gag, but the queasiness calmed almost immediately.
“Good girl. Now let’s go.”
Ferg led her along the shore, skirting the city proper. Here, fishermen lived in bamboo huts with nets hung between poles where they could be worked on. They passed orcs who paid them no heed as they whittled the ends of fishing spears. Orc children splashed in the shallows, naked and tanned. One found a crab in a pool and held up the trophy before tearing off its little legs and chucking the remains at his friends, who squealed and fled as the bits came their way. Some older children were swinging from a rope that reached out over the water, dropping with delighted shouts into the sea, sending splashes in every direction. Zara could see they were already getting muscle, and their teeth were protruding out over their lips. They would grow up strong. She wondered what the future held for them, when they were grown and a Dark Lord held dominion over all of them. Even now, they lived under the shadow of his temple and statue. Soon, he would be here. Would they greet him with squeals and laughter? Would they one day march in his army and spill their blood according to his will? For now, they played. Zara put a hand to her belly. Too early to feel anything, she was nonetheless fearful of the world she would be bringing this child into.