by Deck Davis
I won’t let that happen.
He found his way to the mess room, walking past overturned chairs, scattered swords, and headless corpses.
But the soldier was gone.
Jakub paced around the room. Had he remembered it wrong? No, the only corpse with its head still attached had been here, in the mess room by the oval table. Now, it had vanished.
He leaned against the table and let his pulse settle. The disappearance of the body had rattled him, because the way he saw it, there were only two options.
One, the man hadn’t been dead.
Two, someone had removed the corpse.
For the first to be true, the man had to have been convincing enough playing dead that he could slow his own pulse to a stop. Jacob had heard of magi who could do that, putting their bodies into a state of hibernation, but he doubted a soldier in one of the Queen’s outposts had such training.
Next, for someone to have come back to the outpost and taken the body, they must have done it in the period between he and Kortho leaving to hunt, and Jakub coming back on his own.
Not only that, but they’d have to have had a reason for it. Had they been out there watching Jakub and Kortho a few hours ago? Had they heard them talk about Last Rites, and then come back to take the corpse away?
That didn’t make sense either. Whoever did this had enough numbers or skill to slay an entire outpost of soldiers. If they’d been out there watching, they could easily have come and killed two necromancers.
Thinking about the ‘why’ of it all wasn’t helping, so he needed to think of a ‘how’. How could Jakub find out what had happened here?
Well, he had a necklace full of essence. That was enough for two, maybe three Last Rites spells. He could use them on the other decapitated heads outside.
Nope. That was a no go – they’d show similar scenes as the woman he’d performed it on. Besides, the window for that had likely closed by now. Lacking the rest of its body, a severed head would have a much smaller window for necromancy.
The solider was the only one who could reveal more, since his death had come later than the rest, and he was the only person who could have seen anything different to the others.
Without him as a lead, they had nothing. No clue of who had done this, and nobody around to question except the locals, and he knew that the Killeshi wouldn’t help two necromancers of the queen.
If he left the outpost and went back to the woman and Kortho, he’d have nothing to show but failure. They would be forced to go back to the academy having failed, and it wasn’t an ordinary failure – this one had ended in a master necromancer taking a near-fatal wound.
There was only one thing he could do now – he had to use his third glyphline.
10
A touch of his Death Bind glyphline tattoo drained a sliver of essence from his necklace. As a soulthrift - which was the necromancer nickname for a spendthrift and was actually a compliment -Jakub didn’t like to use his small amount of soul essence so soon after getting it.
Wants were usually driven by needs, as Instructor Lolo always said, and besides, Jakub was always happy to use his third glyphline.
There was a good reason for that.
He used the only spell on his Death Blind glyphline; Summon Binded.
*Necromancy Experience Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIIIII ]
“Jakub!” shouted a voice.
A demonic hound sprinted toward him from across the room and then leapt up with its paws-first, intending to put them on his shoulders. Unfortunately, since the demonic hound was bodyless and came from the Greylands - the plane between life and death - it couldn’t touch him.
Ludwig crashed passed straight through Jakub, roared, and then passed through again.
It was a shame he couldn’t touch him, because Jakub wished he could reach out and ruffle the fur on his friend’s head. Instead, he had to settle for giving him a smile.
“Hello, Ludwig,” he said.
“It’s been so long, Jakub! Years! But…let’s see…you don’t look different. Why did you leave it so long? I’ve been thinking about you all this time, thinking and waiting and chasing things…”
“It’s been three days. We saw each other before I left the academy, remember?”
“Three days? Come on, you’re pulling my tail. It seems much longer.”
“We’ve been over this.”
“We have?”
“Time isn’t the same in the Greylands. It might feel like a long time, but it isn’t.”
“Sure. If you say it, then I believe it. I always tell the guys in here, ‘Jakub would never say something he didn’t mean.’”
“You’ve been gossiping about me?”
“Not just hounds; demons, imps, even people, but they’re wary of me and people never stay in the Greylands long enough to become friends. Bu the imps and other hounds get curious. They want to be bound to a necromancer, too. Anyway, are we going for a walk?”
While Ludwig couldn’t touch things in the real world, he could at least see it when Jakub summoned him. Once called to the world through the third glyphline, Ludwig was bound to wherever Jakub was. He couldn’t wander off.
That meant that in that one respect, they could be like a real dog and owner. Jakub could go for a walk somewhere nice, and Ludwig would get to see some of the world.
“Sorry, Lud. When we’re away from the academy it costs me too much to summon you. I called you here because we’re in trouble.”
“We? You and Kortho?”
Jakub nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
Concern shot Ludwig’s demonic features. He and Kortho were close, and Kortho often had Jakub summon his hound so they could spend time together. Jakub suspected it was because Kortho and his own binded animal didn’t get on so well.
“Is Kortho okay?” said Ludwig.
“He got poisoned by a blightwood wyrm,” said Jakub. He phrased it to downplay the seriousness of Kortho’s injuries to stop him worrying, while still telling the truth. Summoning Ludwig cost a lot of soul essence, which meant every second counted. He couldn’t waste it by having Ludwig lose his mind in concern.
“I don’t see him. Where is he?” said Ludwig.
“We met a woman, and she’s looking after him.”
Ludwig’s tail, thin and capped at the end by a tuft of fiery-red fur, swished around. “What do you need?”
“I need you to scent out some death for me.”
Ludwig’s nostrils twitched. “This place is rife with it.”
“I need to follow a specific trail leading away from the outpost. It’ll be different from the others, since this man died later than them. Can you pick it out from the rest?”
“Give me a few minutes to get a start on it,” said Ludwig.
While Ludwig ran from room to room in the outpost, Jakub took one last look around the mess room to see if there was anything he’d missed in his looting earlier. He checked underneath bodies, inside shirts, in wooden chests.
In the end, he’d collected a few more loot items, and a touch of his fourth tattoo identified them for him.
*Loot Received!*
Rags
*Common*
Vial of Flame Oil
*Common*
Tin of Weapon Blacking
**Uncommon**
A tin of black paste that can be rubbed onto a metal weapon to turn it permanently black, adding an intimidation effect on low-level creatures when the weapon is brandished.
He was glad that he’d decided to check again; it was the smallest things that he’d missed. The rags and flame oil had been in a wooden chest against the wall of the mess room, underneath a rainbow-shaped arc of blood spatter.
His inventory bag, like the tent inside it, was made so that it could hold more items than should have been possible according to its size. Even so, there was still a limit to space, and normally he’d have left the rags.
The fact he’d found flame oil changed his mind. All he needed wa
s a stick or two, and to wrap the rags around and douse them in flame oil, and then he had a torch.
Or…if he really needed to cause a scene, he could get a large beer bottle, fill it with oil, stick a rag in the end. All he had to do was light it and throw it at something, and his target would suffer the unfortunate ailment of being on fire.
Then there was the weapon blacking. He opened the tin, and he was hit with a blast of oil-like aroma. Inside the tin was a layer of black paste. He tore off a piece of rag, dipped it in the paste and then he laid his sword across his thigh.
It only took him a minute or two to cover his steel blade, turning the metal from a dull grey to a deep black. He had to admit, it did lend a fearsome look to an ordinary weapon.
He sheathed his sword and put the weapon blacking tin in his bag just as Ludwig ran back into the room.
“Jakub! It’s been too long!”
“Six minutes,” said Jakub. “What’ve you got for me?”
“A scent leading from a door in the kitchen and out into the forest, and one down some stairs into the basement.”
“Two scents of death?”
“Death or dying,” said Ludwig. “Fresher than the rest, anyway.”
“Kortho and I searched this place, every room, and we didn’t find a basement.”
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
Jakub followed Ludwig out of the mess room, through the main lobby, through the kitchen, and into the small larder. There were shelves on the wall, each stocked with jars of preserved vegetables and grains. In the corner of the room, in a wooden crate, there was a pile of salted meat.
Ludwig trotted across the room and sniffed the meat, staring at it with the kind of yearning eyes only dogs had. Jakub wished he could give him a treat, but his unfortunate status as a resident of the land between life and death made it impossible.
“So where is it?”
“Over here,” said Ludwig.
He left the meat and stood near the wall. He nodded at the floor, which was made of rows of cobbled stone pieces.
“The stairs are underneath here,” he said. “They smell like a death trail.”
“How do you know they’re stairs?”
“When the scent is strong enough I can form a vague picture in my mind with it. Like bats with sound. The way the smell comes to me, I’m sure there are stairs there.”
This left Jakub with three problems. First, there were two death scents. One had led into the forest, and the other had gone into the outpost basement. Jakub hadn’t expected there to be a scent of death beneath the outpost itself.
This led to problem two – the stairs were hidden under stone flooring, with no lever or handle.
Three, darkness had well and truly set upon the Killeshi lands now. The trail outside the outpost would fade in time, which meant he’d have to follow it soon, which also meant he’d have to walk through the Killeshi lands, at night, alone.
Sure, Ludwig would be there, but his presence was ethereal, and he couldn’t help in a fight.
Not only that, though. The longer Ludwig was summoned, the more soul essence Jakub would have to use to keep him around, and he still needed to save some for the whole point in coming here again – to find the soldier, perform the Last Rites spell, and find out what had happened here.
So now, he had a decision to make.
11
“I’m sorry Lud, but I’m going to need you to fade for a while.”
“So soon? I only just got here! I did what you said, I found the scent. Now it’s time for a walk…”
Jakub shook his head. It was stupid, but it made his heart heavy to disappoint Ludwig. He was such a simple, optimistic creature whose needs and wants were too pure for a demon hound caught in the Greylands.
“It’s different now, Lud. I can’t leach off the academy soulstone all the way out here. I need you to fade while I explore the basement, then I’ll summon you and we can follow the trail in the forest.”
Ludwig hung his head low and made his black eyes as wide as possible. The hound had many talents but one was greater than the rest; an ability to instill pity in Jakub.
He knew he had to be quick, or the pup’s wide eyes would get to him.
“Revoke,” he said.
Ludwig’s form glimmered and then disappeared, leaving Jakub alone in the larder. It wasn’t a nice feeling to be back on his own in the outpost, but there was little choice.
Now he needed to find the switch or level that would open the entrance to the basement.
If the steps were right below the larder, then there had to be a switch somewhere. He searched the shelves lining the walls first. Maybe there would be a lever behind a jar of grain or rice, or something.
Nope. Next he tried the walls, passing his hand over each piece of stone. The larder walls were cold, as they should be, but they didn’t open the entrance.
He looked around. The lever or switch would be inconspicuous, since whoever made the outpost had taken great care to hide the entrance to the basement. So, where was it?
“Aha.”
He walked to the left most corner of the room, where a square-shaped part of the cobble stone floor was slightly more raised than the rest. When he stood on this piece, he was rewarded with a rumbling sound, then then a rectangle of the flooring to his right opened up.
He stared into darkness. The larder was dim to begin with, but the depths below were pure black, and he couldn’t even see the stairs. If any situation was asking for a misplaced step and a broken leg, this was it.
He pulled out his sword and then the vial of flame oil. Knowing fire wouldn’t damage steel, he slathered the ends of his weapon with the oil, took a flint and stone from his inventory bag and made a spark.
The end of his weapon glowed orange, and this flickering light revealed the stairs. They were thin, roughly cut and led deep under the outpost, going so far down he couldn’t see where they ended.
With a pang of anxiety growing inside him, he walked down them. The further he got the thicker the darkness became, as if it was a shroud of black and even his flaming sword struggled to cut through it. His footsteps echoed even when he trod quietly, and the sound stirred worry in him.
Ludwig had picked up the scent of someone, or something, undead down here. Undead was different to death – it implied sentience. Odds were that they could hear him.
What could he do, though? Ludwig had detected the scent of walking death here, and it might be the soldier. He couldn’t turn back.
He reached the bottom of the stairs at last, and his flickering sword light cast ebbs of orange in front of him, illuminating a tunnel ceiling so low that, standing upright, there was just an inch between it and the top of his head.
The air was cold, crypt like, and the darkness was thicker still. He could feel fingers of cold teasing through the collar of his overcoat and onto his chest, and even his breath sounded too loud. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was waiting for him.
He pulled out his necklace. It was three-quarters blue now, and he didn’t want to drain it further, but he didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t too ashamed to admit that the basement tunnel and its darkness and cold air and claustrophobic ceiling was getting the better of him.
Even necromancer got scared in crypts sometimes.
With an uttering of his third glyphline word, a spectral form shimmered beside him.
*Necromancy Experience Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ]
“Jakub!” said a voice. “It’s been too long! Where’ve you been? You-”
“Hush, Lud,” he said.
Ludwig looked around him. In the darkness of the tunnel, his eyes weren’t black anymore. Instead, they had changed so that they glowed orange, and the dim light touched parts of the blackness that Jakub’s sword missed.
“We’re in the basement?”
“They hid it in the corner of the room.”
“I thought I wasn’t coming back until we were going into the fo
rest?”
“The place got the better of me. Brave, huh?”
“You know you’ll be okay, right? This isn’t like your dreams. You have academy training, you’ll be a match for anything!”
Mention of dreams brought back bittersweet memories. Bitter in the terror of his nightmares in the academy dorm room, and the sweetness of Ludwig curling up next to him on his bed to reassure him, even if the hound couldn’t actually touch him.
“I love your confidence , Lud, but I need you with me for a while. Do you still smell the scent?”
Ludwig raised his nose and sniffed. “It’s further along. Not far.”
“Definitely undead? Not just dead?”
“Yup.”
“Do you smell anything else?”
“If I were a real dog, Jakub, you could give me treats and hugs. I’m not good at physical smells.”
“I’ll settle for you sniffing out the spectral. Warn me if you detect any movement.”
They walked on through the tunnel. It shamed Jakub that he needed his friend with him, and he knew that someone like Kortho wouldn’t have needed a spectral companion to give him comfort down here.
Then again, most people wouldn’t have dared come down here in the first place. That counted for something, didn’t it?
With that thought, he forced himself on, even though a feeling in his chest seemed to be trying to tell him something, trying to get him to turn back.
The tunnel went on for much longer than he’d thought, and the oil on his blade was almost spent. He slathered more on and then recorked his vial and put it back in his bag, and the fresh bout of flames instilled more bravery in him.
“We must have walked half a mile,” he said. “The smell still there?”
“It’s getting stronger,” said Ludwig.
“Anything hostile?”
“I don’t sense that it wants to hurt you, but whatever it is might not know that you’re here yet.”
They walked a few more paces before the flames on Jakub’s sword flickered with more force, and the breeze blew on his face stronger and colder.
