by Paul Dale
“Stonearm, my friend, you bow to no one.” The words came without thought, but as the orc looked up with a quizzical, almost worried look, and his knee began to straighten, Morden thought better of it. “No one except me, of course. Rise, Field Marshal.”
“My lord, we’ve won. The enemy is defeated. We’ve started pursuit and will be entering the city shortly, though I ordered the army to wait on the outskirts so you may enter first, as is fitting.”
“Excellent, Stonearm. And where is my father?”
“He’s gone to his wife’s body.”
Morden looked in that direction and decided flying would be quicker than walking—plus it gave him another excuse to take to the air.
“Very well. Continue as you are and I will come to the city gate shortly.”
Stonearm nodded and turned to the ring of orcs that had formed around them. “What are you lot staring at? Never seen a Dark Lord before? Haven’t you got scavenging to do? Move it!”
Morden left his friend to it and once more leapt into the air. The transformation was easy and sent a thrill through him. In all too brief a time, he covered the few hundred yards to where Lady Deathwing lay and landed next to his father. Dead eyes stared at him from the pile of corpses his father was sitting on. Lord Deathwing’s head was bowed, playing with something in his hands.
“Father? I’m sorry.”
Morden had meant to ask his father what the hell he thought he had been doing with the cannon, but seeing him sitting there sent an unfamiliar twinge through him. He wasn’t sure what it was but it felt odd. Lord Deathwing turned to look at his son. He was smiling. Whatever Morden had been feeling disappeared in an instant to be replaced by anger. Not so much at his father, but at himself for being so stupid.
“Sorry? What for?” asked Lord Deathwing, getting to his feet.
“For this.” Morden took a step towards his father and punched him hard on the nose. He’d never punched anyone in his life and was surprised by several things, all jumbled up. Apart from the pain that shot up his arm, it felt good to hit his father. He deserved it. His father shot horizontally back with the force of the blow and into the side of his dead wife’s corpse. Morden looked at his fist. He was a lot stronger than he had thought. Not that he was about to apologise. His father still deserved it.
Lord Deathwing took a moment to get to his feet, one hand going to his nose where he found an abundance of black dragon blood.
“What was that for? That hurt,” said his father with an amazing amount of innocence.
“What for? You nearly killed me with those cannon and, in all likelihood, did kill the only woman I’ve ever loved. What were you thinking? If I thought for a second you were trying to kill me—”
“Now hang on.” Lord Deathwing raised his hands and spread them. “I was only doing as ordered. You said, ‘On my signal’. You gave the signal, so I fired.”
“I meant when I got back from talking to Griselda. And what signal?”
“You waved your mace.”
“She was going to attack me. I was defending myself.”
“Well, it was hard to tell from where I was. I saw you waving your mace like a lunatic, so I thought that was the signal.”
Morden didn’t think his father could be so stupid. Surely it was an act and he had been trying to kill two birds, or a Dark Lord and his queen, in one go. With them out of the way, he and his wife could have stepped in and taken over. It wasn’t as if his father hadn’t killed in the past as part of some cunning plan. Kristoff was proof of that. He couldn’t be sure, though, and his father’s mind was hidden from him. Not for long. Morden gathered his power and gripped his father with a compulsion so strong it forced him to his knees.
“Tell me the truth,” said Morden, towering over his father.
“I … I thought … I thought, I might get lucky. It wasn’t planned. The opportunity presented itself and I took it. You would have done the same.”
The air around them was growing dark. What orcs there were around them, scavenging the dead and gathering their fallen comrades, turned and fled. The corpses strewn on the ground began to melt away, decomposing in seconds. Lord Deathwing’s body began to shake and his flesh began to stretch over his bones, his face becoming taut. Morden could see fear in his eyes as his son held him in his power.
Morden knew he could kill his father and that would be the end of it. He had always been more trouble than he was worth. It had been his father’s fault Griselda had left. It was his fault she had taken up arms against him, and it was his fault she had been hit by a cannonball and almost certainly killed. He didn’t deserve to live. His father had gone against him, and he was a Dark Lord. Dark Lords didn’t take that kind of shit from anyone, no matter who they were. His father’s skin was starting to split and his mouth was open in a silent scream of agony. Black blood seeped from open wounds.
Morden turned his back on his father—which would have been foolhardy under different circumstances, but he was confident his father was no hero.
“Get out of my sight.”
“Son, I’m sorry.” His father’s words were strained and pain-filled. “I found this. On her body.”
Morden didn’t have to turn around to know what his father had found. She had always kept it on a silver chain around her neck: his finger. It had dropped off one night when they had been fooling around in bed. It had been the first part of him he had lost to the decay. They had both laughed at the time. She had said she would keep it and wear it always so that wherever she was, he would always be with her. That she had it round her neck when she had ridden out to face him surely meant she still loved him? He would never know for sure, but he would like to think so.
“I know where she fell.”
“Show me.”
It would be good to see her face one last time. He followed his father a short distance across the battlefield, stepping carefully between the corpses and body parts, taking care not to slip on the blood that covered the bodies and ground. The orcs who had been scavenging nearby stopped what they were doing to watch the two pass by. His father came to a halt and Morden went to stand next to him. He looked at his Dark Queen’s body for an instant and then had to turn away. At least her face was intact and her eyes closed. How often had he watched her sleep with the same look? What he could not bear was the ruin that was the rest of her body where she had been hit by the cannonball.
Morden cast his eyes around. He couldn’t leave her lying here like this. “You. Yes, you. Come here.”
The knot of three orcs who had been staring lurched towards their Dark Lord master and threw themselves onto the ground in front of him.
“Take care of her,” said Morden, pointing at Griselda’s corpse. “Make sure her body is taken, laid in a casket, and brought to Firena. Report this to Field Marshal Stonearm and send word when it is done. Go.”
The orcs scurried off, leaving Morden in his grief. When he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, he let it stay. He doubted his father felt the same way about the loss of his wife, but he could at least pretend they shared a common grief. His father let him stand in silence before saying anything. Unsurprisingly, they were not words of comfort.
“Morden, we need to go. There is a city to take and you need to be seen taking it.”
Chapter 55 Morden's Conquest
Job done.
The Dark Lord’s Handbook
After he made sure Griselda was going to be taken care of, Morden went with his father to do the same for Lady Deathwing. She had impaled her corpse on a knight and his upraised sword. Now he knew what had become of Edwin. One minute they had been engaged in banter and the next he had glimpsed a Fae coming at him. Without thought, he had committed the cardinal sin and briefly ignored a hero. And lived. By the time Morden had dealt with the Fae and turned his attention back to Edwin, he had disappeared.
Morden ordered Edwin’s body be taken to be buried with his sister, for Griselda’s sake. Then there was his sword, flicke
ring with blue fire, to deal with. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice and risk ever facing it again. He had it wrapped and carried by two orcs who were never to stray more than ten feet from their master. Once he had dealt with matters in Firena, and Penbury in particular, he would personally destroy the sword in the one place he knew it would not survive. He was half-tempted to go now, but Stonearm reminded him he needed to be seen as the conquering Dark Lord and enter Firena on the back of a black horse. It was traditional.
Rampage had not survived the battle—Morden couldn’t honestly say he was upset by the loss; others had died who he would miss more. The horse they found for him looked like it spent its days pulling a plough, which was fine by Morden. He was upset when Stonearm insisted on having the blinkers removed. It was bad enough he had to get on the creature’s back without worrying about how it would cope with streets lined with drunk, cheering orcs saluting their Dark Lord as he rode past.
“What’s its name?” Morden asked Stonearm, as they final preparations were made.
“Stompy, my lord.”
They had found a black saddle and tack for Stompy, who took it with considered indifference. Morden went to the horse’s head, gripped the rein, and leaned into its ear.
“Now listen here, Stompy,” he whispered. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, like go galloping off, or I’m going to have you made into glue. Got it?”
Stompy looked sideways at Morden, then blinked and turned away.
“Let’s get this done,” said Morden.
Ideally, at this point he would have leapt onto the back of the horse and made it rear up while striking a pose. Unfortunately, his laboured mounting was with the help of his personal guard. Once mounted, the guard formed up in neat ranks, Stonearm at their head. Morden spurred his horse and it began a reluctant walk towards Firena’s open gates. There had been no resistance when Morden’s army had come knocking. All fight had gone out of the population once its army had been so thoroughly destroyed, and those who had remained behind with some notion of a last-ditch defence had clearly seen the futility of such an action with the Black Dragon Flight soaring over the walls and above the city.
Morden’s procession made its stately way through the city streets, cheered as he went by his orc minions. Orcs from the east freely mingled with those of the west. Morden was sure Grimtooth would have approved. The only city folk to be seen were the faces of the more curious peering from windows; none dared come out onto the street.
After what was to Morden an interminable length of time, they came to the Palace Square, where King Olaf VII and the Firena nobles waited, an orc guard hemming them in. They looked suitably terrified at the sight of him plodding into the square. A section of orcs blared a welcome on trumpets that sounded like they had known better days, or perhaps that was how orcs played. Morden neither knew nor cared. What he was supposed to do now was lord it over the defeated aristocrats, passing scathing condemnation on their ways and their pathetic resistance, before launching into a soliloquy on how all that had transpired vindicated him completely in his right to conquer and rule. But he couldn’t care less right now. The only man he wished to crow over was Chancellor Penbury and he was not here.
“To the chancellor’s estate,” he ordered, turning his back on Firena’s nobility.
Stompy is well-named, thought Morden, as they plodded through the narrow streets. It gave Morden a chance to take in Firena and he could see why Penbury lived here. There was a simplicity about the buildings, with their terracotta tile roofs, slatted windows, and plant-lined balconies. The streets formed a maze that broke into small piazzas, with fountains that burbled clear water. The cobblestones were swept clean. Even the gutters, which ran in a channel down one edge of each street, looked more for decoration given their cleanliness. Compared to the many cesspools Morden’s army had conquered in the last few months, where the idea of sanitation was an open window and a bucket, Firena was a marvel of modern living. Morden could see himself having an estate here and enjoying the sun while slaking his thirst and eating olives. Penbury’s place should do nicely. Eventually, they arrived at Penbury’s estate, which was enclosed by a high, clay-brick wall and a set of large, iron-bound wooden gates.
“Do see if he’s in,” ordered Morden.
Stonearm hammered on the gate. A moment later, a shuttered peephole was opened and a hawkish face appeared.
“Who is it?”
“The Dark Lord, Morden Deathwing. Now open up before we smash these gates down.”
As if to emphasise his point, Stonearm beat the gate with his mailed fist, making it shudder. Morden was sure Stonearm could knock it off its hinges by himself. Not that he needed to, as the peephole was closed and moments later the gate creaked open. It was tall enough, and wide enough, to easily accommodate a carriage and its retinue. Regardless, Morden found himself ducking as he passed through the gate.
It was like passing through a gateway into paradise. Gardens spread to either side in what looked like chaotic fashion but, as Morden took in the detail, could be seen to be expertly arranged and managed. Wildflowers bloomed in one area as though it were a meadow, merging seamlessly into rockeries split by a bubbling stream. Lawns that looked as if each blade had been cut by hand were dotted with flowerbeds in a riot of colours. Morden found his senses overwhelmed by it all. He had forgotten what it was like to smell. A gravelled road led through the garden and up to the main house, which was a two-storied affair, understated and yet tasteful, and not by any means small, which matched the style of Firena perfectly.
Morden ordered the majority of his guard to wait at the gate. He saw no need to take more than half a dozen guards and Stonearm to the house. In front of the main doors, there was a more widely gravelled area where Morden assumed Penbury’s carriage would pick him up when he had the need. Waiting there, patiently, was a man who Morden had not seen for over three years: Chidwick, Penbury’s personal private secretary. His pale skin, dark looks, and slim build were as Morden remembered. He looked, in some ways, more like the shifty types Morden used to see in the Slap and Tickle back in Bindelburg. But looks could be deceiving.
Morden dismounted and approached Chidwick. He found it impossible not to smile.
“So, lad, who’s in a lot of trouble now?” asked Morden, standing in front Chidwick.
To his credit, Chidwick seemed completely unabashed. “Chancellor Penbury is waiting for you in his study.”
While he thought a last gasp ambush unlikely, one of the things Morden had learnt from his Handbook was hubris and its pitfalls, so he took Stonearm and two guards in with him. He changed his skin to black dragon scale to be sure, and for added effect. Now he had regained some measure of normality in his looks, he was minded to wear his hood down. He was still trying to decide which had the greater effect: hood up or hood down. Threat from a brooding hooded presence, or charismatic threat from draconian good looks. It was a hard call. He went with the hood down.
Chidwick led them down the hall to a set of double doors, which he pushed open, then stood to one side and inclined his head to indicate they should step past him.
“The Dark Lord, Morden Deathwing,” announced Chidwick, as Morden strode past him. (Morden had settled on striding over stalking, it felt less creepy.)
Stonearm and his guards followed him in. Chidwick entered last and closed the doors behind him. Chancellor Penbury’s office was everything Morden would have expected from a well-educated, wealthy man. Bookcases lined the walls, paintings hung in the spaces between, masterpieces of light, shade, form, and naked women draped over chaise longues. In one corner a globe sat in a cradle, confirmation of Penbury’s acceptance of the roundness of the world, a fact Morden knew from his own experience from flying. Morden walked over to it, ignoring Penbury, who was sitting in a worn leather chair behind a mahogany desk. Morden spun the globe with a finger. Most of it was blank. The Western Reaches, and the eastern continent where he had his fortress, took up a relatively sma
ll part of the globe’s entire surface.
“It looks as if I have some way to go before I am master of the world.”
There was a scrape of wood on tile and Penbury got up to join his guest at the globe. He seemed relaxed and at ease. Impressive, given he must think it could well be his last day on this planet.
“It is to scale?” asked Morden.
“Naturally,” replied Penbury. The chancellor reached out and spun the globe, stopping it to point at a section of coast. “We are here.”
Morden leaned in to take a closer look. It was a finely made globe, drawn in amazing detail. He spun the globe himself to look to the east. The ocean was not as wide as he had thought, and the detail of the eastern continent was not nearly as good as the Western Reaches. He traced as best he could to where he thought Firerock Mountain was (it was not marked on the globe) and placed his finger.
“I think my fortress is around here. You should give me the name of the man who made this. I would like one of my own.”
“I would offer you this one,” said Penbury, returning to his seat, “but it was a gift and that would be rude. Please, take a seat.”
Morden didn’t have to consult the Handbook to know a Dark Lord never sat unless it was on a throne. “I’ll stand.”
“So, what can I do for you, Morden? As I’m sure you’ll understand, I’m a busy man.”
“That’s Dark Lord Morden,” corrected Stonearm. “You will address my lord correctly.”
“My apologies, Dark Lord Morden.”
Morden ignored the question and continued to look around the room, though this time he was not so much looking at curios and artwork but for places someone may be hidden, or a murder hole. Penbury was far too relaxed given the circumstances and Morden wondered if he was about to be blindsided. He wouldn’t have been the first Dark Lord to have been defeated at the moment when they had thought everything won. As good as his dragon sight was, he could see no threat, or smell anything untoward, though he did eye the set of doors that opened onto a veranda with suspicion. There could be anyone out there.