by E M White
He crashed into them, no warning, two curved blades plunging into two larynxes in turn. He clung on tightly as the two giants stumbled and grasped at the vacant, dark air with their four stout arms. They went down very rapidly. He listened. Nothing out there on the exposed, windy plain save the starless, depthless inkiness and the invisible sounds of warm karnog blood bubbling and air hissing from their wide, lacerated necks.
No cries. No anguished groans. Catastrophic blood loss from the neck succumbs the brain almost instantly. Zacharius, a white mage from the Ophidian Cenobian, had seen it many times.
Many times.
The ground, sliding again under his swift feet, was far from flat. The sky god had been nightly fertilizing his wife with rain, mucking the sandy soil, the shrubbery, the clumps of grasses that sought to twist a runner’s ankle in the darkness. Thus, the ground gave way at every leap. Leafless boughs of the hardened shrub nipped his shrouded legs at every landing.
Sarina’s scout moved inwards, closer to the next perimeter line of the camp. He closed in concentric paths, staying low. Now he slowed his approach for fear of producing any noise among the soft soil and the brittle vegetation.
Magnus Sinn’s army had dug no trenches. Set no stockade. But the loud, harsh voices of thousands of warriors, the multitude of their various races illuminated in the light of a hundred fires—or more!—caused Zacharius to grab the soil at his heels and come to a complete stop.
He stopped forty paces from the backs of those attending the closest campfire.
Zacharius knew the savagery of invading armies. He’d seen them come as raping Orcs from the Highlands. He’d seen them come as sadistic elves from the sea. He’d seen them come as land-scorching humans from the Sacred Empire. Every atrocity had been justified by nothing save victory. Every bone had been ground to dust under the weight of subjugation, falsely righteous and divinely perfidious. No invading army saw the Unity of All Things. Nor experienced the enlightenment of Its inclusion. Nothing demonstrated the suffering of the Boiling Duality more than the contempt of an invading army. To have witnessed the tragic results since childhood of such invasions was for Zacharius—the white mage, the consigned scout and chief assassin, the eager lover of a princess—to know intimately the importance of stopping them.
The importance kept him moving forward. Despite the exhaustion and pain stabbing through his joints.
He took a minute to bring his heart rate down.
He surveyed the disorderly camp of Magnus Sinn. Countless orange campfires flickered under fleeting tendrils of pale smoke. They were spread over a quarter-league of flattened scrub grass, separated by vacant blackness, like motes of life dotted among the Universal Vast Abyss. Around these fires, the invaders sat and stood and hunched over their ghastly wounds. They cleaned their armor or sharpened their fearsome weapons, axes and warhammers and swords the length of a man, dulled from the day’s appalling slaughter.
From his stealthy vantage place, Zacharius could see at least a dozen races.
Karnogs with their extra arms and backs piled with monstrous muscle.
Bullywogs with grotesquely gaping mouths and amphibious eyes.
Bi-pedal gnolls with wide canine ears and unfortunate souls.
Red-eyed grimlocks and their bleached skin.
The assortment was head-spinning.
Each campfire was host to a peculiar species, warriors lounging sometimes four and five deep around the fitful flames.
Zacharius thought there must have been a hundred such fires before him, stretching down the bleak plain. As far as he could tell, their segregation wasn’t preventing the crossover brawls and grisly murders in the dense concealment of the anxious night.
No, the camp was far from orderly. It was a mashup of violence and aggression, barely able to set down for the night.
From far beyond his eyesight, there came a distant spate of caws and screeches, a violent jostling of some feathered species and, it seemed to Zacharius, especially restless.
In the middle of them all stood an uneven circle of elite guards, karnogs all of them, towering over the rest. Torches flickered in a round aurora. There’d be no shortage of firelight there to evade. For finally, in there, Zacharius could identify the towering bald pate above them all even at this distance. There, Magnus Sinn was pacing.
This was where the mage was headed.
What valuable information can I gather for Sarina?
He wouldn’t be able even to explain why he’d come this far. He definitely wouldn’t be able to explain why, despite the dangers, he kept infiltrating deeper, why he was drawn to see the beast within.
The erratic wind continued rising. Now every campfire began to stretch far along the ground in long parallel, sinuous lines.
What if I uncovered a path to slay the towering brute here and now?
Without their leader, this army of savages, much larger than even far-sighted Markus imagined, would surely falter.
What a temptation to an assassin!
Perhaps it would disintegrate.
Would my Sarina desire that, the blackbird always circling above for opportunity?
Would she have me deny her the chance to win on the battlefield?
Zacharius almost smiled to himself. Sarina didn’t like to be denied anything, especially fighting her own battles.
Zacharius had already begun moving inward, toward the final circle of light. He moved through the shadows and narrow gaps of vigilance.
These scouting missions weren’t about acquiring a body count. To the contrary, the smaller the mess, in and out without a trace, the more reliable the information stayed.
That didn’t save two dryads who’d drunkenly wandered from their comrades into Zacharius’ darkened path. Their heavy gazes followed a flash of two red eyes, gifts from Shia, to their left. Their skulls were spiked in whirling succession from their right. They fell dead, with neither a twitch nor sound, blood still pulsing from their wounds.
Hopping the shadows of the few tents that stood disorganized about the camp, crouching painfully low, never faltering from the Hazing Spell he needed to keep muttering, Zacharius was forced to admit to himself the burn and shudder in his thighs which was now plaguing his conviction as much as it began incapacitating his muscles.
Surrounded by a thousand ways to die, his eyes began to seek alternate paths—paths out and away. The cacophony of so many savage languages, from all directions, grew loud in his ears.
Hadn’t he seen enough?
Why did he need to keep going?
Because he wanted to know if he could kill the beast at the heart of this army. That’s why.
At the edge of the innermost circle of light, he picked off three elite guards, luring them into the shadows of their armory tent. The hypnotic image of a massive white-scaled viper, slithering among the darkened places, was more than they could resist. They’d kept their armor on for the nightly duties. But Zacharius lay waiting for their soft spots—an eye for one, the temple for another, the windpipe of the last.
Zacharius and his curved blades, the fangs of his trade, blood dripping along their steeled edges, were now thirty paces away from Magnus Sinn. And he’d had never felt such fatigue.
Thirty miles this day alone on horseback, most at a trot. Then, two hours before dusk, he’d prayed alone in a nearby canyon. He’d bartered and raged and bled, his chants echoing among the rocks. He’d promised the reptilian goddess, who transmuted nothing of the Boiling Duality for free, all kinds of sacrifices of flesh. Never had he spent so much of his soul in one night to overcome such odds.
Now he was making good on those promises of sacrifice. Shia was getting her fill of blood tonight. He was so close to the final offering.
But his eyes kept trying to roll back in his head. They burned from three days lack of sleep. His lungs not only ached and stung but simply felt too raw, too exhausted to suck air. The Hazing Spell was pushed to its limit, shreds of his soul wafting out before his weary eyes to feed
Shia’s toll.
It took another twenty minutes to navigate the shifting glances of Magnus’ elite guards.
After all that, in the ring of severed heads dashed upon pikes, among the human and non-human skins hung to dry, ten paces from the heart of the vast camp, Zacharius found the massive karnog leader himself. Alone. Save a goblin snoozing upon his wide shoulder.
Magnus was hunched over, knees under him. His four hands were folded at his chest, behind his long, gray mustache and goatee. Praying. In a language Zacharius had never heard.
They were both praying, then. The whole time. Zacharius prayed to his Shia, conjuring spells and making promises. And Magnus prayed to…
What kind of deity does such a beast offer his thoughts to?
Magnus wore no protection but crude plates of armor strapped to his legs, defiled still from the day’s gore. His back rippled with an obscene amount of muscle, and his green skin looked especially dark in the trembling torchlight. His neck was as thick as two of Zacharius’ thighs put together.
Zacharius leaned to the outermost extremity of the shadow he’d slithered into. He was studying the scene, trying to listen to the alien language. Akimi could probably understand it. She knows languages like I know spells.
He conjured a Rendition Spell from Shia, gifted to him years ago, and leaned toward the light as the snake goddess hissed the meaning of Magnus’ words into his ear. In the same rhythm, Magnus Sinn’s voice rumbled lowly along the ground. It was an eerie experience even by Zacharius’ standards.
Belza’ad have mercy on my long despair!
O Prince of exiles
who have suffered wrong,
the vanquished who rise
through blood more strong.
The goblin upon Magnus’ back stirred.
Its languid eyes examined the inky sky. It seemed very careful not to disturb its master’s incantations. Then…it sniffed.
Zacharius suddenly shifted his focus to the little green creature. Its long nostrils probed the air as it yawned. Its moist bulbous eyes lazily scrutinized the place.
Zacharius adjusted the grip on the two curved blades in his hands. He felt the texture of the soil under his boots, its grip and its give. Determined the distribution of his weight upon his toes should he strike from this nest.
Belza’ad have mercy on my long despair!
Cripple my foes,
and your light shall burn
from their corpses and their souls
for my family and my sons.
Zacharius lowered himself even closer to the ground, tensing his muscles for the pounce. He felt the burn of fear for Sarina. For Markus and Vadric too. His limbs began to quiver. From exhaustion? From terror? All of it.
What if I dispatch him now…
What if I fail in the attempt of it…
He held himself in the tight crouch. His resolve began to waver.
Sarina, what would you have me do?
The vile goblin was on his knobby toes now, long brown claws waving thoughtfully, slowly. The vermin was scrutinizing the dark edges of the torchlight.
Zacharius inched backward. And again. Farther into the darker shadows. The more effective concealment was irresistible.
A gust of wind stirred the soil.
In his red-misted vision, the broad bare shoulders of Magnus slowly shrank as Zacharius slithered farther and farther away.
The image of the little green goblin shrank too. It was already peering inquisitively, frowning—directly toward Zacharius now—in the first drops of rain, a queer expression on its pointy face. Like it was trying to rationalize a sensation, a glimpse of something inconceivable out in the darkness.
It was almost morning, but the night’s rain still pounded upon Sarina’s tent.
She had been listening to the patter of drops and the distant bellow of thunder for hours before her tent flap opened. She gasped to see him.
Zacharius dropped to his knees at her bed, and she flung her arms about his drenched robes.
She pulled his hood from his red eyes. They seemed vacant and detached, desperately searching for her. He looked gaunter than a four-day ride should have done to a man.
The first words he said were slow and measured—exhausted.
“My horse died only a league out from camp. Can you believe it?”
Her heart broke to hear the rasp and sadness in his voice.
He said, “I never walked.”
She held him softly. “I know.”
“I only ran.”
She squeezed him again, feeling that he had no strength to return the embrace. “I know.” She barely knew what to say. “I’m ashamed. I should never have sent you so far.”
He cocked half a smile, though it seemed to take more energy than he had. He said, “You only ordered me half the distance. I disobeyed you to go as far as I did.” Then, the rest of his smile emerged.
She began untying the knots of his robes, starting at his elbows, then his neck and shoulders.
“I saw him,” Zacharius said.
Sarina pulled the drenched garment over his head. It almost toppled him. “Saw who?”
“Magnus Sinn. Night before this.”
She stopped fussing over his clothes and stared at his drooping features in the candlelight, his facial tattoos, running from his eyes to his chin, from his lips to his neck, bore the terrible weight of his exhaustion.
“He’s big.”
She almost burst with laughter. “I hear!” She tossed his top into a wet pile in the corner.
“His whole army is big, Your Highness.”
“I’m sure it is, Zacharius.”
He tried to meet her eyes with his. To show his seriousness. Now she was fussing over his clothes too much. She didn’t want to hear this part of it. He tried again, “Sarina.”
She stopped and looked at him.
He said, “He has at least twice as many warriors as you do.”
Sarina shook her head. More for her own good than his. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t?”
“I have a job to do, Zacharius. Understand me?”
“Of course.”
She wasn’t so sure he did. She began unhitching the belts on his thighs that bore his two twin dagger. “Tell me you did not risk yourself merely to satisfy your pagan dues.”
He shrugged. Had he been so foolish as to try an assassination attempt? She’d kill him if he did.
How close did he get?
His skin looked especially pale, his long white hair, so sodden it was almost dark gray in the candlelight, stuck to the constellations tattooed on his chest. His bronze pendant was still there. She took her own pendant, the twin that he’d given her months ago, and pressed it to his.
“I can’t believe your body endured such a journey. Damn you, Zacharius.”
He leaned into her. His voice dropped. “My body? It gave up long ago.” His eyes seemed to be searching for her. “I have more to report. Gracus lied to you. He knew how big this invading army is.”
“It can wait.”
He nodded and placed a cold hand on her arm. “Why are we whispering?”
She took his face in her hands and forced his gaze to her own. The faint red glow of his magic still glowed far within. He shivered once uncontrollably. Sarina rose and grasped his hand. “Get into my bed,” she ordered him. “Now. I possess a warm body, and you could use some rousing.” She yanked away the top blanket. “You’ve definitely earned the doting touches of this princess.”
He obeyed and collapsed into her furs.
She continued undressing him, muttering the whole time. Praising him. Reprimanding him. Promising to warm him with all the tricks an affectionate woman could bestow on a man.
He muttered, “What kind of man would I be…to say no…to you?”
She looked to a wavering candle. Got lost in it a moment. Then she said, “Keep what you’ve discovered between the two of us. Hear me?”
“About the—”
>
“About the true size of Magnus’ army, yes. All of it.”
He didn’t much energy to debate it. “Of course.”
She turned to the rest of him. To bring back to life.
Alas, she wasn’t quick enough. No surprise.
By the time she had his boots off, by the time she said the words, “I’m always here for you, Zacharius,” he was completely asleep—too done in to even snore.
11
Sarina Gets A Bath
Onäs Grimblade was standing guard outside Sarina’s temporary bath tent.
His face was inclined to the morning sun. His long ears were turned to the sounds of tireless smithies hammering away at thousands of arrowheads, to the ubiquitous shouts and calls of Sarina’s army settling in for the third day of camp outside Tias.
He’d known camps all over Auzurix. Much seemed similar. Except for one significant thing. One significant woman.
His thoughts remained upon the naked princess a few paces away. They were separated by only a thin sheet of fabric and his over-stretched imagination.
What about her seized his curiosity so madly? Wrenched his heart with ferocity? After all, compared to him, compared to Markus and Vadric and even Zacharius, she was barely more than a girl.
He considered her in the bath, merely a few paces away. Then he reassessed that last bit, the part about Sarina being barely more than a girl. It was a misconception many men had made. It was a misconception he decided not to make any longer. Sarina was far more than just a girl.
Only a courageous person, he weighed, a tireless person, stayed this assertive.
Did she waver in her desires to vanquish her enemy? To look after her allies? Not at all.
Such an effective leader, she purchases the faith of her soldiers with ease.
He smiled to himself, admitting, though not always with much charming grace.
Conceivably that will come for her with time. With guidance.
He’d rarely seen more determination in a new leader. Even before the Tias commission, he’s watched her debate tactics far into the night over candlelit maps in her command tent, tirelessly challenging Markus and Vadric, surrendering to their experience only after exhausting all her ideas—many of which, Onäs conceded, had merit. In theory, anyway.
