by Rob J. Hayes
I shook my head. "I have nothing left, Ssserakis."
You think they have stripped you of your power. They haven't. They can't. It is a part of you. They could no more take it from you, than you can give it away. Use it! Use my power and your own. We will make them pay together.
"She's free!" The shout echoed down the corridor. "The Corpse Queen has escaped. Get reinforcements." A man started down the stretch between us. He carried a wooden blackjack in one hand and a burning torch in the other. "Get back in your cell." I had already decided I would die before I allowed them to put me back, but they would die first. "Get back in your cell and we'll pretend this didn't happen." He stopped to glance down at the door lying before him, ripped from its hinges, huge rents gouged from it. "How did you…"
Now!
I lunged towards him, crossing the ten paces between us at a flat sprint my body should not have been capable of. I recognised the man in that moment. Clews, one of the Grave Watch who escorted me to and from my cell each day. A man who stood by and watched my torture day after day after day. He no longer mocked me and called that a kindness, but he was as responsible for my suffering as the Emperor himself. They all were. All the Grave Watch. All the soldiers. All the people of Juntorrow. All of them!
Clews raised his blackjack, but it was a stick and I was a monster. Black wings brushed the weapon aside and I slammed them into the man, twisting him about and driving him against the corridor wall. The bladed ends of my wings, talons of shadow, sunk into his chest and Clews gasped in pain, unable to even scream as the wings pierced his lungs. Blackjack and torch dropped from his limp arms and Clews shook as death reached up to claim him.
"No!" I dropped the lantern and reached up with my arm, gripping hold of Clews' neck. "You don't get to die!" I screamed it at him.
Necromancy is a poorly understood school of magic. Attuned Sourcerers are rare, and even at its height the academy had only one tutor. By the time I was attending the academy, so much of the school's arts had been lost, and they were not willing to teach a young girl how to control death itself. Of course, that didn't stop the Iron Legion from injecting the magic into me. I had spent much of my time in the Red Cells studying that innate Necromancy. Every time I unravelled one of my ghosts, I learned more about it. How to control it. What it could do.
I pinned Clews into his body at the moment of his death, not allowing his soul to escape. His body died, but he did not. Trapped between life and death, and mine to command. I gave him an order, one so simple to carry out. and I turned his unlife into a curse he could spread.
"Kill them!" I hissed the words and they became Clews' only purpose. "Kill them all and spread my curse."
I stepped back from Clews, my shadowy wings sliding out of his flesh and dripping with blood. For a few moments my Grave Watch captor swayed on his feet, staring at me with damning eyes. I think maybe he fought against my command. He lost. Footsteps and shouts echoed down the corridor and Clews turned towards them and sprinted away in a headlong rush. It wasn't long before the screaming started. This time it wasn't coming from the prisoners.
I wandered through blood streaked halls, following the chaos I had unleashed. There were no bodies. Every Grave Watch who fell stood back up again only moments after death and carried out my terrible purpose. How far my curse would spread and how many it would affect, I did not know. They were questions I had not stopped to consider when I wrought it. I had given it a life of its own and set it free to destroy and kill until it ran itself dry. I did not feel pity for the soldiers who died and were brought back. They all knew what they did here. They deserved their fates.
The Red Cells are a labyrinth of corridors and torture chambers and stairwells. I called out as I went, shouting Hardt's name to a chorus of replies, but none of them were him. Other prisoners begged me to release them. I did, tearing doors off hinges and shearing shadowy wings through the bolts that held them closed. The prisoners stared at me like I was a monster rather than their saviour. I was both, I admit that, but it would have been nice for a little gratitude. I can't blame them. A one-armed woman, my face made ghoulish by my scars and the gauntness, and two great black wings hunched behind me. Anyone would have run from that. In truth it might have been kinder to leave them in their cells. The curse I had loosed upon the world was not too selective in its victims. I told Clews to kill them all and that is exactly what he and all the others were doing. I hope some of the prisoners escaped. I hope some of them deserved to escape. When you're an inmate, it's hard to tell who around you are guilty, and who isn't.
It took some time to find Hardt. He was two floors below me, trapped in his own cell no larger than my own. I called for him at every door and my stomach gave a nervous flutter when finally I heard his voice.
"Eska?" He sounded weak, weary. I saw dark eyes peering at me through the little hole in the door.
"Stand back, Away from the door." He did and I made to tear the door down. My wings did not move.
He is a weakness.
"No. He is my strength. Just as you are my strength. I won't escape without him. I can't."
"Eska?" Hardt asked.
My wings ripped into the door. I was not gentle. In my fervour to free Hardt, I tore the wood to splinters and stood amidst the wreckage.
Hardt stumbled forward into the light of the corridor. He was smaller than I remembered, so much of his bulk wasted away. He held an arm across his ribs and limped. His beard was patchy and matted with filth and his face was a patchwork of wounds and old scars where the torturers had plied their trade. But he was alive!
"Eska!" Hardt slumped forward and wrapped an arm around me pulling me in to a tight embrace, heedless of the wings that still sprouted from my back. "I'm sorry." He sobbed into my shoulder. I would have sobbed back, but my throat closed and I choked on it. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault." He was babbling, leaning much of his weight on me and only the strength I was taking from Ssserakis kept us all upright.
When finally we pulled apart his face was soaked from tears and he was shaking. I smiled at him and hoped I didn't look as monstrous as I was certain I did. His eyes dropped and horror played across his shaggy features. "What happened to your arm?"
That sob I had been holding in broke loose. "They took it." Tears streaked down my face and I felt like a little girl again, hurt and afraid and running to my big brother for protection. "They took my arm, Hardt. They fucking took it."
He hugged me again then and we spent some more time finding strength in each other. I am not embarrassed by this. I was nothing but glad. So happy to see Hardt again. So happy he was whole. Even if I was not.
It's time, Eskara. Time to tear down this fool emperor's walls and show him what his fear looks like.
I pulled away from Hardt. "I know."
"Eska…" Hardt said and looked at me again, his eyes moving over my shadowy wings. "Is it… Are you in control?" His face made the pain of the question clear.
I smiled and nodded. "Yes." And that was it. We never really spoke of Ssserakis, but Hardt knew I carried something inside. He knew. And he never asked.
"We have to go," I said and started towards the stairwell.
Hardt followed me through the bloody halls, limping but easily keeping pace. "Was this you?"
"Yes and no. I… I've caused a lot of chaos. We'll use the cover of it."
"To escape?"
I stopped and turned on my friend, wiping away tears. "I'm not running."
Hardt opened his mouth, an argument maybe. He didn't give it voice.
"You've met the Emperor. You've had that pleasure?" I waited for Hardt to nod. "He won't let me go. He'll chase me. I will not give him the chance." I turned back towards the stairs. "Aras Terrelan dies today."
Chapter 29
Evidence of my curse streaked the halls of the Red Cells. Blood mostly, a severed limb or two, dropped weapons the evidence of swift and fruitless battle. No bodies. Not a single member of the Grave Watch survived my curse.
But it spread farther than just the dungeon. We found the door leading outside hanging open. It was gouged as though from nails biting into it, and slick with blood. Outside, the true impact of my curse was revealed. The chaos had spread beyond my intentions. Far beyond them.
It was night, and I was glad of the darkness. I'm not sure how I would have reacted to the light of day after so long underground. Things had changed since my time in the Pit. I no longer saw the sky as freedom, and I felt more at home in the dark. Lursa was dominant, her cracked, red bulk glaring down at us all. The air split with screams, sounds of battle, a fire raging somewhere close by, smoke billowed up into the night sky.
"What did you do?" Hardt asked. He had found a body. The hands and mouth were bloody, an odd decaying rot already starting to show, veins turned black and standing out proud along the arms and neck. Signs of my curse. The head was split open.
You made them fear us. Ssserakis wasn't wrong. I could taste the fear on the air along with the ash. It was intoxicating.
"I… uh… don't really know. Just stay close to me. Behind me. And not too close." Ssserakis stretched out my wings to their full span for the first time and even I marvelled at their size. They weighed nothing, made from my own shadow, yet they dwarfed me somehow. Thick and jagged. More like the legs of winged spider than any bird I had ever seen, jagged talons along the length of each one. They crouched around me, ready to protect as quickly as attack. I needed them. With only one arm and no magic save for the Necromancy that was already wreaking havoc, I would have felt quite vulnerable if not for my wings.
A soldier wearing a bloodied Terrelan uniform ran past, not even sparing two escaped prisoners a glance. Two other soldiers chased him, snarling and bloody. One of the chasers slowed to a stop and stared at me. Dead eyes. There was something approaching intelligence in them but locked behind the orders I had given. I didn't recognise the man, but he was wearing the colours of the Grave Watch. He took a lurching step towards me and his mouth twitched.
"Release… me." Blood and saliva and bits of flesh fell from his mouth as his spoke, his voice guttural and barely terran anymore.
Never! Ours to control. A spreading curse converting all to our cause. I never even considered such a thing. I could hear the approval in Ssserakis' voice. It should have made me sick, but my rage would not allow any compassion. Not towards these people. Months of torture had beaten the compassion out of me.
"You have your orders. Go."
The cursed man twitched, fighting against my will. He lost. His body, the curse already clearly standing out in his veins, turned and ran off, looking for more victims.
I heard Hardt shift behind me, but he said nothing. That should have given me pause. Revealed to me how broken Hardt was, that even he would not argue at the massacre taking place on my orders.
We moved towards the palace, skirting the edges of buildings. Other soldiers passed us, some under the influence of my curse, and fewer of them still alive. One man veered away, screaming about the Corpse Queen having escaped. We could see the fires now, a large section of the city seemed to be on fire, the flames spreading, building to building, in the chaos.
"The gate…" Hardt pointed to the where the palace gates were open. Beyond them were fires and screams and my curse running amok, multiplying with each death. How far would it spread? I never considered the extent. Juntorrow paid a heavy price for my single callous act. Above the gate, a wooden post sat, an arm made of stone nailed to it.
They deserve the pain and fear. I did not agree, but in that moment, I could not find it within myself to care. The people of Juntorrow had begged for my corpse. They hated me. Assaulted me. And now they would die because of me.
I am not proud of the decisions I made that day. But I cannot change the past. I was broken and not thinking clearly. These are not excuses. Nothing can ever excuse what I did. Nothing. I offer the words as explanation only.
We rounded a building and the palace steps came into view. The great doors were closed, dozens of my Cursed hammering in an attempt to break it down. Bodies littered the courtyard in front of the steps, some broken things, others charred beyond recognition. From the highest balcony, a man watched the carnage below, flanked by guards and Sourcerers both. Emperor Aras Terrelan. He saw me then and it was obvious he recognised me. I could not hear his voice, but I saw him pointing and I was easy to recognise. A small woman with a savage snarl and one arm, great black wings curling protectively around me.
More of my Cursed lurched into view, they barrelled towards the others, hopelessly assaulting the palace doors. It would take more than a few dozen dead beating their fists upon that metal barrier to break through.
"Watch out!" Hardt's cry was too late as a bolt of lightning ripped through the air toward me. Ssserakis shifted my wings to protect me and I felt the pain of my horror as the energy burned our shadow. The Sourcerer was an Arcmancer, and stood at the entrance to a large building, not part of the palace. Some of my Cursed lay at his feet, smoking ruins that had once been men.
"Don't protect me." My words were meant for Ssserakis, but Hardt took a step back all the same.
Are you sure, Eskara? You have no Sources.
I shrugged and my wings furled behind me. I placed the lantern I was carrying on the ground and stepped past it, holding up my right hand and giving the gesture to the Sourcerer to try again. He was an ageing man, grey of hair and a face just starting to droop from his long years. He wasted no time and let loose another blast of lightning toward me. I didn't try to avoid it.
Memories flooded me, or more the impression of memories. I had a feeling I knew the Sourcerer though it was nothing specific. It was not like Tutor Elsteth's Arcstorm; I recognised it as hers' because I knew her. This man was alien to me. But I felt suddenly as I had known him all my life. His emotions, his memories, all a jumble. And then gone.
I felt the Arcstorm roar into life inside me once more. My eyes flashed, the storm inside and raging. I was breathing heavily as I came around. Still night, still in the courtyard before the palace. Energy crackled around me, tiny bolts of lightning sparking between the talons of my wings. I looked up at the Sourcerer and grinned, savage and feral, and full of malice.
"Thank you. I needed that," I said.
Now?
I nodded. "Now." I leapt and with a single beat of my wings, I flew towards the Sourcerer. He let loose two more bolts of lightning and I felt him once more. I saw him as a young man, proud of his magic, and then a flash of him cradling a child, face ashen and still. There was no context to the memories. No idea what they truly meant to him, and why. Each blast of energy hit me, and I absorbed it, the storm inside raging ever stronger and more violently. I slammed into the man, carrying him back inside the barracks. My wings crashed through the bricks, scattering stone around us, and the talons stabbed into the man's chest and abdomen. He was already dead by the time I slammed him against the far wall and when I withdrew my wings, his body slid down to sitting, a large blood smear behind him, more of the stuff leaking out through his wounds.
The barracks was in chaos, smoking bodies apparent everywhere, cots overturned, whole sections of the walls scorched by lightning. I cared not a whim for that devastation.
"I need a blade." Ssserakis was happy to oblige and shadow twisted around my right hand, forming itself into a small, wide blade. "Sorry about this." I shoved it into the dead Sourcerers midsection and cut through robes and flesh alike, opening his stomach. It was messy work, but I pulled a single Source out of the bloody wreckage. Not a large crystal, at least not by some standards, but larger than I was used to. I wiped it as best I could on his stained robes, and then shoved it inside my mouth. It tasted vile, blood and worse that I refused to think about. I tensed and swallowed it. The taste almost made me vomit, but I forced it down.
Half of the barracks exploded as a lightning storm raged to life around me. It was not quite an Arcstorm, it did not take on a life of its own. No. It was just me, exalting i
n my power once again. Revelling in the feeling of magic inside and fuelling the Arcstorm that had resided in me since the day I died at Picarr. I reigned it in, but only a little. Lightning crackled around me, constant bolts sparking off my body and my wings, striking anything and everything nearby. Some things were set alight from the heat of the bolts, others just smoked as the power scorched them. I stepped out of the wreckage of that barracks and set my sight on the palace. The Emperor was gone from the balcony, but I had no doubt he was still up there, hiding where he thought he was safe. Nowhere was safe. Not for him. Not from me!
"Eska, what—" Hardt paused at the sight of me. "Are you alright?" A fair question given my appearance. My eyes were flashing once again, lightning struck around me constantly, and I had blood smeared across my mouth. Someone else's blood.
"You should find somewhere to hide," I said, my voice croaking.
"I'm coming with you."
I stared up at the balcony and plucked the lantern from where I had left it. "You can't. I'm going up there. You can follow behind though."
My Cursed were still battering uselessly at the palace doors as I approached, some had already broken their wrists in their fervour to get inside. "Stand back." I shouted the command and the Cursed turned toward me, the intelligence all but lost from their eyes.
"They obeyed you," Hardt said in wonder. My Cursed waited nearby, almost thirty of them, mostly in soldiers' uniforms.
"They have no choice. My will is theirs'." I drew my Arcstorm back inside, letting the power build and build until I felt as though I were about to explode. Then I unleashed the full fury of it, drawing upon the Source inside my stomach, as a single bolt of lightning directed at the palace doors. They burst open with a crack, the bar on the other side giving way in an instant.
