by Paul Barrett
The dim light made it impossible for Erick to tell how his friends fared. He risked a glance through Blink’s eyes and found the homunculus hovering over Marcus, who stood with his back against someone, two men facing him and another on the ground, blood running from his crotch. The men seemed reluctant to advance, but Erick knew such hesitance wouldn’t last forever. Blink, where are you?
To your left.
Erick spotted Blink in the air, fifty feet away. He glanced to Fathen and Corby. They had finally beaten down their man, although Corby had a small gash across his cheek.
“Protect Gabrielle,” he shouted to them, hoping she was still behind him and unharmed. He looked at Nels. “Follow me,” he told Nels as he ran toward Blink. The quana kept up with him. As Erick drew close, four men surrounded Marcus and Elissia, and two lay dead on the ground. “Attack the men with swords,” Erick ordered.
The first man went down with a sword in his back. The other three looked in shock at their former comrade attacking them. The next man closest to Nels took a swing and caught him in the side. The blade sank into the leather armor but went no further. The Elonsha stopped the metal before it could slice the flesh. The man’s last expression was one of surprise as Nels rammed the sword into his throat. He gurgled and dropped as blood sprayed from the wound.
That was enough for one of the attackers. He turned and ran.
“I’ve got him,” Elissia said. Drawing a second dagger, she ran toward the retreating man. She leapt, slammed both knives into his unprotected neck, and went to the ground with him as he dropped. Rolling forward, she pulled the knives with her. Gouts of blood flew into the air.
The remaining attacker turned pale as he realized he stood alone.
“Surrender,” Erick said.
Nodding, the man lowered his sword and dropped it.
Erick took a few steps toward the man. “Tell me-”
The man’s face changed. A crazed gleam came to his brown eyes. His thick moustache twitched. “The Fist never surrenders.”
Before Erick could react, the man punched him in the face.
It was the first time in Erick’s life he had ever been seriously hit. The pain stunned him. Stars flashed in his eyes. He tasted copper in his mouth as the blow knocked him to the ground. Through blurred vision, he watched the fighter drop toward him, elbows extended.
The elbows landed on his chest, followed by the man’s full weight. A cracking sound turned his breast into a lance of fire. Breathing became difficult. Hands around his throat squeezed, and dots appeared in front of his eyes.
Through the mist of pain, Erick heard a violent tearing sound. Warm liquid sprayed on to his face and chest. He forced his eyes to focus. His attacker no longer had a head. Nels had cut it off. The pressure on his throat lessened, and the body slid to one side, taking the weight from his chest.
He tried to sit up, but something popped in his sternum. He screamed and fell back, losing all strength.
Elissia, Marcus, and Blink looked down at him. Nels stood motionless, bloody sword in hand.
“They’re all dead,” Elissia said as she knelt beside him. Corby, Fathen, and Gabrielle drew within Erick’s sight.
“Except for three of them,” Blink said. “I got them with my tail.”
“Kill them,” Erick said.
Gabrielle gasped.
“Are you sure?” Elissia asked.
Erick nodded. “I won’t make the same mistake I made last time.”
Marcus pointed at the headless corpse. “Probably should have done that to him, instead of accepting his surrender.”
“Yeah, good idea,” Erick rasped, wanting to laugh with joy that they had survived. He tried to suck in a deep breath; the intense pain immediately rendered him unconscious.
Erick came from the darkness into a world of fire. Flames danced around him in a circle. They soared above him and trapped him in the center. Heat poured off the flickering blaze. Sweat ran from every pore of his body. He peered toward the inferno, trying to find a means of escape, but none presented itself.
The fire edged closer, the circle tightening, and his skin burned and smoked, bringing with it deep pain. Cracks appeared in the flesh of his arms. He screamed in agony as blood bubbled from his blistered limbs. The flames moved even closer until he became part of the blaze, his body and hair burning and writhing as he continued to screech, pleading for the torture to end.
It stopped, and blissful obscurity engulfed him again.
When he awoke, he found Blink sitting by his head, Elissia kneeling on one side holding his hand, worry on her face, and Gabrielle on the other, frowning as she applied a pungent smelling paste to his chest.
“This is becoming a familiar sight,” he said weakly, coughing. Noticing Gabrielle’s frown, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t talk,” she said quietly. “Nothing’s wrong; it’s just not healing as quickly as it should.”
“It’s because I’m a Necromancer. The Elonsha resists the healing. And also makes it painful.”
“I understand,” Gabrielle said. “But that doesn’t explain--”
She stopped as shadows fell over her. Fathen came into Erick’s line of sight, followed closely by Corby and Marcus. The priest towered over all of them, a grim expression on his craggy face. “How is our young Necromancer?”
“He’ll heal,” Gabrielle answered, her voice barely audible. “He had a broken rib, some torn muscles, a large bruise on his chest, a broken nose, and a small scalp laceration. He’ll be able to move without too much trouble by morning.”
The alacrity of Gabrielle’s curative magic amazed Erick again. Judging by his recent pain, he expected to be incapacitated at least a week. But as he did a mental check of his injuries, he found only some stiffness, and his nose throbbed like a toothache. He started to reach for his face, but Gabrielle stopped him.
“Don’t. I haven’t healed that yet.”
“Gabrielle is a miracle worker,” Elissia said, causing the healer to blush.
Fathen spoke up. “Can we talk while you work?”
“If you must,” Gabrielle said as she threaded a shiny curved needle.
“Where is Nels?” Erick asked.
“The fighter you animated?” Corby asked. “He collapsed as soon as you passed out.”
“Good,” Erick said. Had he somehow remained animated without Erick’s will guiding him, he would have turned on the others. He noticed Elissia, sitting beside him, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “Later.”
Fathen lowered himself with care until he sat on the ground with his long legs crossed.
“Thank you,” Erick said to the priest.
“For what?”
“You and Corby saved my life.”
“We’re all in this together,” Fathen said. “What happened?” he asked Marcus
“I hate being outside,” Marcus answered, abashment in his voice.
“Yes, but why did you scream?”
Marcus muttered at the ground.
“He walked over a snake,” Elissia answered for him.
“A large snake,” Marcus said.
“What kind?” Erick asked. He had seen it but hadn’t recognized the breed.
“A giant striper,” Elissia said.
“Completely harmless,” Corby added.
“Nothing that large is completely harmless,” Marcus said. “It could have swallowed me whole.”
“Four-footer at best.” Corby smiled and gave Marcus a gentle poke in the arm. Marcus grimaced back at him.
“Giant striper,” Erick said. “Do they taste anything like ratter?”
“Very much like ratter,” Gabrielle said. “If you want, I can cook it for dinner tomorrow.”
“That would be wonderful,” Erick said, his mouth already watering.
“You better start learning to cook, sis,” Marcus said, earning a glare from Elissia.
With a shy smile at Erick’s compliment, Gabrielle said,
“Close your eyes.”
As Erick closed his eyes, Fathen took a moment to study the boy. How simple it would be to kill him now, as he lay on the ground in complete trust of the goodwill of those around him. Fathen hoped Erick accepted his sincerity since he had saved the boy’s life, a stroke of luck for which he offered profound thanks to Eligos. Something in the boy’s pure gratitude struck Fathen, much the same way Calligan’s thankfulness had. But the thief had died, and Erick had lived. Fathen wished it had been the other way around, so the dead boy would leave him alone.
Fathen glanced at Elissia but found her attention focused on Erick. She would never accept him, but that didn’t matter. He only had to convince Erick. “Corby and I have been talking. We both feel it would be best for us if we took a different route to Twr Krinnik.”
Erick gasped as Gabrielle pushed the sewing needle into his scalp and began stitching up his gash. “Different route? I thought this road was the only way from Kalador.”
“It’s the easiest,” Fathen said. “But it’s the route the Fist will expect you to take, so that means they may have more ambushes planned along the way in case this one failed. At the least, every village or town we come to will most likely have an Inconnu looking for you.”
Fathen suspected there was no truth to what he said. Andras wanted the boy alive at Twr Krinnik, so he would stop any further attacks. This ambush had either gone too far to stop or had been a test of Fathen’s resolve to help Erick. It disturbed Fathen his master didn’t trust him, but it was perhaps not entirely unwarranted. He vowed to do what he needed to gain Eligos’s graces.
“If they had other warriors, they would have sent them,” Marcus said. “If this is the best they’ve got, we’re good.”
“Perhaps,” Fathen said. He found the boy’s bravado amusing, but he also knew too well that these men did represent the best available. On-board ship, the sad state into which the Fist had fallen enraged Eligos, and he declared that once he came to power, such ineptitude would be removed through pain and blood. “But there may still be spies and assassins, some quiet enough to sneak into camp. All the Inconnu want is to kill Erick. They don’t need a frontal attack for that.”
Marcus looked at his sister. “So that whole ruse we concocted in town with Erick’s double was just a waste of time and resources. These bastards are still after him.”
“Hopefully not as many,” Elissia said. “At the least, we don’t have to worry about the Procurers trying to find us.”
“How do we avoid them?” Erick asked.
“We go up through The Ruins and come back down when we reach Prospector’s Camp,” Fathen said
“The Ruins?” Elissia burst out. “Are you insane?”
Erick opened his eyes to find Elissia staring at Fathen as if he had declared they should walk into a burning building. Disbelief warred with fear on her face. He reached out and took her hand. Her palm felt warm.
“What’s wrong with the Ruins?” he asked.
“They’re cursed. If we go up there, we’ll never come out.”
He closed his eyes again. “They aren’t cursed.”
“Then what would you call it?” Elissia asked. “Every hillock has a ghost behind it, and undead roam the valleys. People who have survived time in the mountains have gone insane or become undead themselves.”
“Fairy tales,” Fathen spat. “Told to scare children and old women.”
“Like the Inconnu?” Elissia shot back. “You thought they were a fairy tale, too.”
“They’re not cursed,” Erick repeated. “There is residual Elonsha left from the battle between Eligos and The Ten, and there are gateloah to be found in the mountains, but there’s hardly a ghost behind every hillock, and any undead that do exist are most likely aimless and not much of a threat to anyone who’s the least bit alert.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Elissia said, but the conviction in her voice had started to waver.
“How do you know that?” Marcus asked. “This is the first time you’ve even been off your tiny island.”
Erick smiled, his eyes still closed. “And this is the first time you’ve been outside your city,” he reminded Marcus. “I’m a Necromancer. If it involves the Inconnu or gateloah, I know about it.”
“What about the insane people?” Elissia asked.
“Did you ever actually meet, or even see, one of them?”
“No.”
“My father always said, ‘the older the story, the bigger the lie.’ Perhaps one person lost their sense after being in the Ruins, but anything could have caused that. Someone put the two facts together and created the idea that the mountains were cursed.”
“Maybe,” Elissia said.
Erick squeezed her hand gently. “You should know all too well the difference between the story and the reality.”
Elissia squeezed back. “When you put it that way, I guess it makes sense.”
As he lay with his eyes closed, Erick debated between the assumed relative safety of the mountains and the delay such a detour would cause. Some inner sense told him delay could prove disastrous, but Fathen’s assessment of the Inconnu threat seemed accurate. Hadn’t the danger already been shown to him several times over? Having to fight Fist members every step of the way could prove as much a delay as the mountains, and more dangerous. Fathen’s mention of assassins struck close. He had survived the Eligoi attack through blessings of Denech, a fickle god, and he did not wish to press his favor. “Okay, we’ll go into the Ruins.”
“Your decision,” Corby said. “But there are practical matters you might want to consider.”
“Such as?”
“Going through the mountains will add at least a week to our journey, so we’ll have to ration our provisions. We can hunt, but that will delay us more, and I don’t know that any of us are any good at it. There will probably be wild animals we’ll have to fight or avoid. I’m the only one familiar with mountain travel, and that was a jaunt in the Spires with my father when I was ten.”
Erick felt a slight tug, and then the snip of thread being cut. “You can open your eyes if you want,” Gabrielle said. He did so and found his company gathered around, awaiting his decision.
“Can I sit up?”
“No, you need to stay here until the morning, then you should be healed enough to move. There’s going to be some pain, but if it becomes too much, I can give you some bogbean leaves or valerian.”
“Okay. Anything else?” he asked Corby.
“This time of year it will get cold, but not enough to be dangerous.”
“I’ve read the Ruins are fairly jagged. Do we have the equipment to traverse them?”
Corby’s brows bunched in thought. “From what I remember of my studies, we should be able to find paths and manage with a minimum of climbing. As long as we have rope, we should be okay.”
“We’re going through the mountains, aren’t we?” Marcus said, his voice bitter with resignation.
“Yes,” Erick answered. “I hate losing the time, but if we get attacked again, I don’t think we’ll survive. I almost got killed. What if the next attack has more people?”
“Yeah, but what if the Inconnu are in the Ruins, too?” Marcus asked him.
“The odds are slim they’ll send people up there,” Fathen said before Erick could speak. “Even if they are there, we have a better chance of hiding in the mountains than in open farmland.”
“Or getting ambushed,” Marcus muttered.
“I should think you would be pleased,” Fathen said. “Less open space.”
Marcus muttered again, but Erick couldn’t hear what he said.
Fathen smiled, a disconcerting expression on his craggy face. “If that’s settled, we should plan on rising early in the morning,” he said. “I’m going to retire.”
“I’ll take watch,” Blink said.
Saying their evening greetings, everyone moved toward their tents except Blink, who positioned himself outside the circle of the dying fir
e, and Elissia, who retrieved a blanket and laid it over Erick before lying next to him and gently placing her arm on his chest. He winced as the weight settled close to his recently healed rib, but he said nothing. The warmth of her closeness outweighed the discomfort. Exhausted from the fight and injuries, he drifted toward sleep.
“Are you still okay?” Elissia asked. Something in her voice told Erick she was asking about more than his physical condition.
“What do you mean?”
“You killed those men.”
“I didn’t kill them. Nels did.”
“But he was under your control. You brought him back, and then he killed. Isn’t that the same as you killing?”
Erick frowned. He hadn’t thought about that, but he didn’t feel different. No overwhelming urge to kill again, no taint of Elonsha tugging at his soul. “I don’t think it is. The gateloah are like my children. You aren’t responsible if your child kills someone.”
“I am if I tell them to do it.”
Erick didn’t speak for a long time, considering the implications. More things his father never got around to explaining. He realized exactly how deficient his father’s instruction had been and a burst of anger hit him. “I honestly don’t know. All I know is the Covenant forbids me from killing with my own hands. I can’t make gateloah out of anyone my gateloah kill, but I can use them to kill if I have to. Maybe intent comes into it. I was defending myself. Elonsha is an evil force. If I had used Nels to murder innocent people, it would have a foothold. But my cause was just, so it had no way to hook into my soul.”
“Sounds like a bunch of religious horse shit,” Elissia murmured, drifting off to sleep.
“No, it’s all too real,” Erick said. Her questions had him wondering. The next time the Elonsha whispered to him, would he be less resistant to it? Was killing with a quana under his direct control the same as doing it with his own hands? Hopefully, the other Necromancers at Broken Mountain could ease his mind. He let the worries go. He had done it, and fretting about it now would get him nowhere.
Are you sure we want to go through the mountains? Blink asked before Erick dozed off. Maybe he’s changed, but Fathen suggesting it makes it instantly not a good idea to me.
