by Deck Davis
Ryden was sure to be on his way there, and they had to beat him to it.
What if he was already there, waiting? What if they were walking into a trap?
They stopped on the crest of a hill five hundred meters away from the alcove, so they were overlooking it. The alcove was too dark to see who was inside.
“Lud, when I tell you, I need you to scout ahead. Get close to the little alcove there and see who’s inside. If it’s Ryden, make sure he sees you. Draw him out.”
He opened his artificed bag and took out the crossbow and bolts he’d looted from the men who had invaded Morrigan’s hut.
“Can you use this thing?” he said to Rud.
Rud nodded. “We all have to pull guard duty when we’re old enough, after our initiation. They make us practice with a crossbow as soon as we’re strong enough to lift one.”
“Then congratulations, you’ve got yourself a new weapon. If a guy wearing a robe steps out of that alcove, shoot a bolt through his gut.”
“But Ryden, he’s-”
“He’s a necromancer; he’s not immortal. A bolt will rip through his belly just the same as any man, so I want you to rip him a new one. If a woman steps out of there, don’t shoot.”
“This woman; is she your girlfriend?”
“Girlfriend? Ha. She’s a centuries old spirit who took possession of a teenage girl’s body, but she’s the only friend I have out here, so I don’t want you shooting a hole in her.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Jakub stood up. “Then we’re ready. I’m gonna skirt around and get as close to the alcove as I can. If you only maim Ryden, I’ll be ready to finish him. Lud, get going, and be careful.”
Ludwig bounded away from them and toward the alcove. Jakub watched his friend speed off, and he felt tension wrap around his bones. As brave as he’d tried to sound, Ryden scared him. He was a master necromancer, a man who could walk through the Greylands without having to hide his gaze.
In any other situation, he’d have backed off. One rule the academy instilled in you was that you didn’t go looking for impossible fights. With the boy and everything else, he was worried. No, he was downright petrified.
Because if Ryden was already there, then he had Kortho’s body.
Jakub got up and started to sneak toward the alcove, staying low and taking a wide arc to avoid being seen.
He’d only gotten a few hundred meters forward when Ludwig tore out from the alcove. The hound looked around for Jakub, and when he saw him, sprinted over.
“They’re gone,” he said. “Morrigan, Kortho, the boy…they’re gone.”
“Then he beat us to it.”
“It’s worse, Jakub. The walls are covered in blood.”
58
The alcove ground was covered by a smear of blood. Aside from that, sprinklings of glass, and the ruins of the fire Jakub had been in what seemed like weeks ago, there was no sign of Morrigan and Kortho.
“Well we know that blood clots when you die; goodlight can’t do a thing about that,” said Jakub. “And the boy that I still can’t remember was undead, you said. So the blood is Morrigan’s.”
“Or someone she fought with,” said Ludwig.
“She either got attacked, killed them, and fled, or someone got the better of her, took her prisoner, and carried Kortho with them too.”
Rud kneeled, touched the blood with his fingertip, and showed them the blood on it. “It’s still wet. Whatever happened to your friend, it wasn’t long ago. Good luck in finding her. I have to go.”
“You can’t leave yet, Rud. I need your help.”
“Help? I tried to help you before, and look where it got me. That place…you said it yourself, no man should go there.”
“No mortal man. Grow a pair of balls. We’re not the first to go to the Greylands, and we won’t be the last. Guess what – when you die, you’ll visit it again. It’s never going away. If you leave me now because you’re scared and you go back to the hamlet, what do you think is going to happen?”
“They’re going to feed me flesh from the bodies under the hill. If I don’t go back, I’m leaving Florence alone. She’s going to have her initiation soon.”
“I feel like I’m missing something,” said Ludwig.
“The people in the hamlet are like my parents.”
“Can you tell me something?” said Rud.
“I can try.”
“The initiation only works when Ryden does something to the bodies. So what is it? Why do they need him?”
“When someone dies,” said Jakub, “their physical body stays up here, but their consciousness goes into the Greylands until their fate is decided. Either they get resurrected and come back, or they pass beyond the Greylands and to the next life. Ryden is using a spell to bring their soul essence out in their flesh. When you eat flesh brimming with essence, there is a chance you’ll inherited some of the power it carries.”
“I feel sick. You said these people are conscious in the Greylands, right?”
Jakub nodded. “The essence spell only works on the recently dead; the ones still in the Greylands.”
“So while Ryden and the others eat their physical bodies, their consciousness are still alive. They’re being eaten alive.”
“In a sense.”
“I’ve watched them do it. My mum has done it…me and Florence were supposed to. This is sick.”
Rud ran out of the alcove and vomited in the stream.
“You could have worded it nicer for him,” said Ludwig, “Especially seeing what you went through.”
“He’ll get over it. I had to, and I was much younger than him.”
“Look how much I suffered. It was more than you, so you don’t deserve sympathy. That’s what you sound like,” said Ludwig.
“I hate it when you’re right.”
Jakub joined Rud by the stream. “I know what you’re going through. Before I joined the academy, I lived with a family like yours. We moved around a lot. Whenever we got comfy, the locals would start to figure out what we did, and they’d drive us out of town. My parents, everyone else in camp, were like your mum. They finally got stopped when an academy field team raided them.”
Rud faced him. “What happened to you when they made you eat it? What powers did you get? Is this how you became a necromancer?”
“No. The flesh helped me use mana, but I became a necromancer by working for it. There’s no magic shortcut to getting stronger or getting what you want; you have to work for it. People say Imbibism works, but it’s bullshit.”
“Even if I agree with you, that doesn’t change the fact there’s a camp full of people who don’t.”
“Believe it nor not - and I know not many people could say this - but getting taken away from my family was the best thing that ever happened to me. You need a clean break from them, Rud.”
“What about Florence?”
“I promise you we’ll think of something, just as long as you don’t go back. There’s nothing waiting for you in the hamlet except the life you wanted to run away from.”
“Thanks, Jakub.”
“They’re just words. They didn’t cost me anything, so there’s no need to thank me.”
“I mean thank you for showing me the Greylands, I suppose. Without seeing it, without knowing what Imbibism really is, I don’t think I’d be able to stay away.”
59 - Necromancer Ryden
Ryden only kept one chair in his artificed tent, so when Hilda and Gregor came to see him for a meeting, he told them that they’d have to bring their own.
They sat in a circle now, Hilda with her arms crossed, Gregor with his hands on his lap. Ryden had always found it strange that while Gregor was the nominated leader of the camp, Hilda often made the decisions.
He found it stranger still that the two weren’t married, nor even in a relationship; they bickered like a couple who’d lived thirty years of misery together.
Whoever was the leader, and whether they were a couple or not, it didn’t matter
; the balance in camp had changed. Ryden held the real power now, even if he chose to let them pretend otherwise.
The problem was that most of the men and women in the camp respected the pair of them, and right now, Ryden needed their numbers. He needed to keep a figurehead in charge, but he only needed one figurehead. He could use the other to teach a lesson, to show his authority.
He just needed to choose who he’d keep, and who would be the unfortunate victim of his show of power. Hilda or Gregor, which to choose?
Whatever he decided, he’d need to do it now, before they both left his tent.
“What can I do for you both?” he said.
“We want to know what you have planned,” said Gregor. “We just pissed off the Killeshis on your say so, and that’s going to have comebacks. Do you know how long we’ve managed to keep them from sniffing around here?”
“A long time, and you did an excellent job of it. Sometimes you have to upset the status quo to move past it. I take it the ambush went well?”
Gregor nodded. “They all made it back, and they brought him, too.”
“Good. Then as for what I have planned; it will become apparent in the coming day.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell us?”
“Yes.”
“Listen here, you academy swine,” said Gregor, standing up.
Hilda forcibly shoved him down into his seat. “Shut your mouth and keep your head. Hells, can we remember who’s lost someone here?”
“That brings us to something else,” said Gregor.
“The boy?” asked Ryden.
“Yes, we-”
“It’s my turn to speak now, Gregor.” Hilda gave Ryden a stare that even the strongest of the Baelin warriors he’d met wouldn’t have been able to match. “I want assurances. Whatever it is you have going on with the other necromancer, I don’t want Rud to get hurt when you settle it.”
“The boy made his choice,” said Gregor, “and he picked the wrong one. He was going to take his initiation soon; he’s a man. When you reach that age, you’ve got to take the consequences of your actions like a man, too.”
“It’s my son, you lard-bellied prick.”
“This whole camp is going to shit. It’s mayhem out there, Hilda, and your boy is part of it. First he’s trying to mess up the deal we’ve got going on with Ollivander’s parents, then he’s taking off with a necromancer who, let me add, sneaked into our camp. When the time comes, if the boy’s still with the necromancer, then he has to take whatever happens.”
“What might that be?” said Hilda.
“When people fight, people can die, too.”
“If you or any of the guards touch my boy, I’ll slaughter every last one of you. Mark my words on that, Gregor.”
She said this with such conviction that it seemed to turn the air cold. Given that this was an artificed tent, that was a difficult thing to do.
Ryden had made his choice.
“Gregor, you won’t kill the boy,” he said.
“Now just wait a minute, necromancer. This is my camp, and it was mine long before you got here. I’ll do what I please, to who I please, and there’s a thirty-strong head of good folks outside who’ll back me up on that. You got it?”
“Are you finished?” said Ryden.
“You’re the one who’s finished. Fuck what you do for us – there are other necromancer out there who’ll take our money and keep their mouths shut. We don’t need you to meddle.”
“Hilda, close your eyes,” said Ryden.
“What?”
“Just close them, my dear. Trust me. I want Rud to live and if you do to, you’ll listen to me.”
She shut her eyes.
“Now just what in the hell is going on?” said Gregor.
He got to his feet and drew his blade, a longsword sharpened to perfection, with a brass handle filled with intricate carvings. He was a man who took pride in his weapon, and who probably knew how to use it.
That didn’t matter here.
Ryden spoke the spellword of Unburial, and then he waited.
He waited, because he knew something that the dwellers of the hamlet didn’t; that years ago, before most of them were even born, this circle of hills was used for something else - not just a place to camp.
The land beneath where Ryden had placed his tent was the centre of it all.
The ground cracked open, splitting as if suffering an earthquake localized just in Ryden’s tent. When it was wide enough, a pair of arms shot up. Hands grabbed the edges of the split, and a figure pulled itself from the ground.
“Just what the fuck is that?” said Gregor with gut-wrenching terror in his voice.
“You are my slave now,” said Ryden.
“I’m nobody’s slave, not even if you summon all the demons from all the hells.”
“Not you, idiot.”
Ryden wouldn’t be able to watch the next part; his stomach wouldn’t be able to take it.
In fact, he could barely look at the being he’d conjured. It was enough to know that it was under his command.
“Kill him,” he said.
He closed his eyes. Gregor swore, and Ryden heard the sound of steel bouncing against hard bone. Then there was the sound of tearing, the sound of teeth ripping flesh, undercut by Gregor wailing as loud as he could in screams that became too high-pitched for a man to make.
It was a good thing artificed tents were soundproof.
Another tearing sound signified the ripping of Gregor’s vocal chords, and then the screaming stopped, and the tent was silent save the sound of teeth crunching on flesh and muscle and gristle, and then the lapping up of blood.
“Leave,” said Ryden.
His creature growled.
“Leave,” he commanded.
When he judged it was over, he opened his eyes.
“You can open your eyes now, Hilda.”
“Mine were open the whole time,” she said. “I saw everything.”
She didn’t look as shocked as Ryden had expected, and he felt shame that even though he was the one who summoned the creature, he couldn’t bring himself to watch it work.
“You’re the leader of the camp now, Hilda. I know how we can bring your boy to us, without having to harm him. This won’t be pleasant, though. What are you prepared to do for the sake of your son?”
“Ryden, I was pregnant five times before I had Rud. The gods took every single one away from me. For that boy, I would crawl through the underworld and back.”
“Then go outside and announce your authority to the camp. I will back you up, if needed. Once you have done that, I need you to bring Florence to me.”
60
“Ludwig, I need you to find any death scents in the area,” said Jakub. “The blood here is wet, so they didn’t leave too long ago. You should still be able to detect Kortho.”
Ludwig prowled the alcove, then went outside it. He raised his nose in the air and sniffed for what seemed like hours. “It’s windy,” he said.
“There’s no wind at all.”
“Spectral wind, I mean. Real wind wouldn’t affect me. The spectral wind is making it tough.”
“Spectral wind?” said Rud.
“Too much necromancy practiced in one area upsets the balance,” said Jakub. “With me being here and Ryden screwing around with corpses, there’s too much playing with the dead. It’ll make it harder to find Kortho.”
“This Kortho, he’s your superior, right? Your boss.”
“Not just that. Kortho was part of the academy team who rescued me, and he fought to get me a place in the academy when all they wanted to do was pack me off to an orphanage somewhere. After that, when all the kids went back to their families on academy holidays and I had to stay in my dorm, Kortho took me to his own house. He didn’t have to do that.”
“I think I have it,” said Ludwig. “It’s feint, but it’s there.”
They followed Ludwig through thornweeds fields and bracken, then thr
ough woodlands where the trees formed a canopy to block out the sun, before heading west through marshland.
It was when they were walking through the boggy terrain that they began to slow down. The marshes became deeper, in places so treacherous that Jakub took a step and watched his leg sink thigh-deep into a pool of fetid water. Rud had to pick up Chaser and carry her through it.
They emerged from the marshland wet and stinking, coming to a rough dirt path that snaked through a valley of hills.
“This becomes a proper road a few miles north,” said Rud. “If you follow it for long enough, you’ll reach Pendle.”
“They couldn’t have brought Kortho here,” said Jakub. “It makes no sense. They have taken him to the hamlet so they could draw us there.”
“We’re aren’t far away, so you’ll have you answer soon,” said Ludwig.
That became apparent after a few more minutes when they walked into a wall of stench ripe enough to nearly knock them out. It was death in the air, no mistaking that. One aspect of goodlight was that as well as keeping the resurrection window open, it also helped preserve the body. No point reviving someone into a body ruined by rot, was there?
Whoever had died here hadn’t been preserved by goodlight, so it couldn’t have been Kortho.
“Over here,” said Ludwig, sprinting away.
They found the body just out of sight of the dirt path. His body was covered in blood and in the earliest stages of decay. His head was a few meters away, severed at the neck with what looked like two or three sword cuts. It hadn’t been quick.
Rud saw the severed head and turned away from it, walking a few steps away. Jakub left the head and checked the body. When he rolled it over, he saw that the dead man was wearing a black coat with the academy emblem sewn into it.
“How can you get so close to it?” said Rud.
“De-sensitization training.”
“Is death something you should become de-sensitized to?”
“Don’t get moral with me. If your job involves being around death, then yeah, you should become used to it. It doesn’t turn you into a killer, or something. What, you think a funeral director should weep every time he sees a corpse?”
