by Martin Frowd
Fully focusing his eyes, he saw that he was carried in black-clad arms, draped face down across a black-clad shoulder. Turning his head as best he could, he saw the black hood still up on his captor-saviour, still hiding the foreign man’s face. Looking around, Zarynn saw that he had been carried him far from the yurts of his clan, deep into the Hills of Dusk where the People did not dwell. Even now, they traversed a twisting path of thin sandy earth that wound between the night-black hilltops where no grass would grow.
“You wake at last. Good,” the necromancer’s strange, harshly-accented voice spoke from beneath the hood. “I had thought I must carry you all through these hills. I will set you down, now. Do not run. Running will serve you nothing. You cannot go back to your people now. All that you will find there will be death, and not an easy one, boy. Your only hope of survival now is with me.”
“Where…w-where are you t-taking me?” Zarynn asked, forcing out each word. His tongue felt like a bar of lead and a metallic taste filled his mouth as he spoke. Pain spiked in his head, making his whole body shudder. “W-w-what d-do y-you w-w-w-want from me?”
“Ah, you can speak?” the necromancer’s voice held an element of pleased surprise in it. “Swifter than I had expected, your recovery. Wielding so much Power can be stressful indeed upon one not trained to it - particularly one yet so young.”
The necromancer stopped on the path. Zarynn felt another jolt of agony in his head as the necromancer stopped and lowered him to stand on the path. Even as Zarynn stood on his own feet and looked around properly, he realised that he was clad once again in his tunic and leggings of soft hide, the same garments torn from his body by the hunters of the People when the Druid had spurred them into their frenzy, and the manacles were gone from his wrists! His sandals had been restored to his feet. Raised welts around his wrists showed still where the iron bands had chafed his skin, though the bands themselves were gone. Above him, the sun blazed with midday heat in the cloudless blue sky.
“H-how l-long... “
“…were you unconscious?” the necromancer completed Zarynn’s question. “A day, no more. From noonsun to noonsun you slept, while I carried you from the death ground by day, and while we camped by night. You recover more swiftly than others I have rescued.”
“R-res-res – “
“Rescued? Yes, there have been others, and no doubt will be others again in the future, boy. You thought, then, you were the only such one in these lands, were you? No indeed, young Zarynn. Not so, although you may well be the strongest one among them. No other has wakened so swiftly. You shall meet those others, in time.”
Zarynn winced as fiery pain flared again in his head. The black-clad man reached down to the belt that held his robe closed. Focusing through his pain, Zarynn saw that the necromancer’s belt was made of many thin discs of metal – precious iron, surely hammered thinner than any smith of the People could achieve – and its buckle was a larger knob of iron, carved into the form of a grinning skull. Leather pouches and flasks of both leather and metal hung from the belt, and one of these flasks the necromancer detached from the belt, unstopping it and holding it out to Zarynn.
“Drink this. The pain will fade.”
Zarynn hesitated, though the pain still burned through his skull and made him feel sick to the stomach.
“Drink,” the necromancer’s tone became more commanding, with a touch of impatience. “It will bring you no harm, boy. It is only nightroot and spicebark tea, to diminish the pain. Do you truly think I would bring you so far, only to slay you? No indeed, young Zarynn. I would waste no Gifted so. Drink.”
Zarynn accepted the leather flask from the man and slowly raised it to his lips, inhaling the warm spicy fragrance. Nightroot he knew, and he did smell it, but spicebark? He had never heard of such a thing, though he knew of bark, the stuff from plants and trees. Never in his life had Zarynn seen a tree, living on the open plains of the People of the Bear where such plants as grew at all were stunted and scraggly, though he had learned from his mother that trees grew aplenty in the jungles of the People of the Tiger, far to the south, and in the Hills of Twilight in the lands of the People of the Wolf, almost as far to the northeast. Tears welled again as he saw in his mind’s eye his mother lying sprawled and unmoving in death outside the flap of their yurt, before the hunters had seized him and the dark fires had blazed. Yet the man had a point, Zarynn realised. Why would the necromancer have taken him all this way, so far from the place of execution, if only to kill him after all?
Zarynn slowly sipped from the flask, tasting the hot and bitter infusion. Heat spread through his body, raising a sweat, but the pain in his head receded.
“The pain goes, yes? Good,” the necromancer nodded as he took the flask back, replacing the stopper and hooking the flask once more to his metal belt. “Through this day and a day further we must walk, deeper into these black hills. Another waits there for us, to take us onward. Come, boy, we must move.”
The necromancer grasped Zarynn’s hand in his own black-gloved one and began walking. The ache in Zarynn’s muscles began to subside as they moved on, and his stomach ceased to feel queasy, as the infusion did its work. Before long, the pains of his body had fled, leaving only the grief and sorrow that raged through his mind.
“M-my p-p-people…”
“They shall not catch us now,” the necromancer said with a shrug. “The orthim’te’graa would have lasted many hours; we have a long lead upon them by now. By the time that any of them could reach this trail, we will be a-flight, and no hunter of your kind will catch us as we fly through the sky.”
“F-fly? O-o-orthim…”
Zarynn struggled to understand the necromancer’s strange words and statements. Only Druids and birds could fly! This man had saved him from the Druid at the place of execution, and slain men of the clan – surely he was no Druid himself? Was this all a cruel game, a trick played upon him, as a hunting cat played with its prey before the kill? Fear blossomed again within him, and his blood ran cold, though it distracted him from his grief.
“Orthim’te’graa? In the language of magic – a tongue you shall learn, and much more besides – bones of the earth. A prison of bone, to hold back pursuit, to give us time to travel far from that place of death where they would have ended you. And fly we shall, when we reach the place where that one waits for us. From there we shall fly southwest, even to the coast of these lands, young one, and across the shallow waters – the Bay of Dusk, you call it, yes? – to an island that sits off that coast. A ship – like a boat, but larger? – waits there for us, to take us across the ocean to my home – your new home, now.”
“A…a s-s-ship? W-w-where…w-w-who…w-w-what…”
Zarynn had only the slightest concept of boats. His father had told him a few times that some of the clans of the People of the Nighthawk, and the People of the Vulture, hunted the fish of the shallow waters rather than the game of the plains. He had never met such a man, and as far as he knew, even his father had never seen a boat, or the sea shore, for himself. Zarynn imagined that a boat must be something like an upturned yurt that floated on the water, in which a man might stand while he speared fish. A ship must be similar, but larger. He had no real understanding of how such a thing would float with men on it, or how it would travel over even the shallow waters off the shore, let alone cross the sea to another land.
Fear and uncertainty beset him together. The Druids taught that all men from beyond the sea were wicked monsters. His father and mother had taught him, secretly, that the Druids lied. That good men – yes, and women too – lived beyond the sea and worshipped Heldor the Protector, and other good Gods, but openly and proudly, not in secret. Yet Glaraz was from beyond the sea, and he had killed men. Killed men to rescue you. Zarynn knew that if the hunters at the place of execution had not died, he would have, but that knowledge granted him no relief. Instead, it inexorably led him to remember Zoran, who had died by Zarynn’s own magics.
Guilt flare
d, mingling with his fear and anxiety. Zarynn had not meant to kill Zoran, even though the chief’s son had been hurting Zarna. He had only wanted him to stop. Just as he had wanted the hunters who had hurt – who had killed – his parents to stop. But both times, the strange grey fire had burst forth, and he had had no control. It blasted and killed like Druid lightning, but in all the tales he had ever heard about Druids, they commanded the lightning. It did not spring forth of its own accord, uncalled and uncontrolled.
“You have questions aplenty, young one. Of course.” The necromancer chuckled beneath the voluminous black hood that still hid his face. “Very well. You shall have answers.”
The necromancer reached up with a black-gloved hand and pushed back his hood, revealing his face for the first time. The man’s head was shaven like a Druid’s, but his skin was a darker hue than Zarynn had ever seen, almost the colour of his midnight-black hooded robe, rather than the beige shade of Zarynn and his kin, the shade of the People of the Bear. In contrast, the man’s eyes were a bright green, the colour of new spring grass, and burned with a fierce intensity. Strangest of all, Zarynn saw, the man’s eyes were rounded, not slanted up at the edges as were the eyes of all the People. His nose was larger and broader, Zarynn saw, than any nose of the People. His ears were larger also, and slightly pointed at the top, the lobes distended at the bottom by large iron studs carved to resemble skulls. Long jagged scars, perhaps the mark of claws, ran down both sides of his face, from his temples to his jaw, and a straight, rope-like scar stood out in its paleness across his black throat, as if he had been near-strangled.
Zarynn knew he was staring at the man but he could not help himself. Even in the stories his parents had told him in secret about people beyond the western sea who worshipped the Protector and the other Gods of Light, they had never explained just how different, how other those people looked. It was more than just the colouring. The shape of the man’s eyes and ears were unlike anything or anyone he had ever seen. Perhaps his parents had not known either? After all, neither of them had ever said they had met such an outlander. Granted, this man had claimed that he too was pledged to Darkness, although not the Darkness of the Druids. Did that mean the people his parents had told him about, who served the Light, looked different again?
“As to who, my name is Glaraz,” the stranger named himself to Zarynn. “Glaraz Vordakan, Glaraz son of Vordak you would say; master necromancer. Where? From the School of the Black Skull in Maraport I come – Maraport the Freeport, jewel of cities, far across the sea to the southwest. For many years, now, it has been my home – and soon, also, it will be yours. What? If you mean what do I intend to do with you? I intend to help you, young one. Help you to learn to control your Gift.”
“M-m-my…”
“Your Gift, boy. Your magic, yes? You have natural talents, young one, talents that will be a danger to you and all around you, until you learn to control them. This you have already seen, yes? At the death ground, and before also, I think? The Gift surges when you are afraid or enraged or in pain, and it, not you, is the master for now. You must learn to control it, or you will be controlled by it.”
Zarynn nodded, dumbstruck by the necromancer’s insight.
“Am I – am I – the only – “
“The only one plagued by a rogue Gift? Not the only one, no, by no means the only one,” the necromancer chuckled. “I travel many lands, to gather Gifted young ones for the School of which I am a master. One of my own Gifts, you see, is to sense the Gift in others. A rare Gift, but one of great use for my School, yes? I have found few Gifted in these lands – for many are found by the Druids first – yet still you are not the only one. You shall meet some upon the ship. You will meet others – many others, and not of this land alone – when we reach the School. There, you will learn the control that you need, and more, much more, also. At the Black Skull School, you may learn true power. But first, we must get there safely. Through these hills, across the skies of your lands to where my ship waits at anchor, and then across the great sea that divides these lands from mine.”
The midday sun blazed hot in the sky as Zarynn and the black-robed necromancer – Glaraz, Zarynn told himself, Glaraz Vordakan, trying the outlandish foreign syllables silently – made their way along the twisting, turning path of coarse dark dirt that meandered like a river between the midnight-dark hilltops.
Zarynn’s bare hand nestled in Glaraz’s firm gloved grasp as they walked the path between the hilltops; the necromancer seemed loath to release Zarynn from his grip. Apprehensive though Zarynn was, wondering what was to come, he began to accept Glaraz’s assertion that he had nowhere else to go. Certainly, Zarynn realised and agreed, his clan of the People would never take him back; only death awaited him with them. Surely the same fate would be his in any other clan of the People of the Bear – or for that matter any other Tribe of the People, as all the Tribes clove to the faith of Dark Kelnaaros the Demon King, the God of the Druids. As for the other peoples of the world of whom his parents had occasionally spoken, those across the sea who gave their faith to other Gods, Zarynn had only the faintest idea of who and where they might be, and in any case no way of crossing the sea without Glaraz. No, whatever safety he might find must be in the gift of the necromancer, certainly for now.
Periodically, the necromancer stopped sharply, head cocked as if listening to something, before carrying on, but Zarynn forbore to ask what he sought. At last, as the sun slowly sank behind the western edge of the Hills of Dusk, Glaraz stopped again, seemingly scanning the surrounding area from side to side.
“This is as good a place as any, young Zarynn. We will camp here this night and press on by morning.”
Even as Zarynn struggled with the necromancer’s harsh accent, which put an odd intonation on certain of his words, the black-robed man was striding off the path, still grasping Zarynn by the hand, tugging him up the slope of one of the bare black hills by the swiftly fading light of the setting sun.
“On the heights, we can see further around, yes? It will be harder for any enemy to sneak up upon us, whether that enemy be a hunter of your people, or a restless spirit, or a monster from the wild.” Zarynn’s face must have betrayed his worry, as the necromancer paused for a moment, studying him, before continuing. “Your land has many dangers for the unwary, young one. Some I have studied closely, before ever I crossed the sea to this land. Others, I discovered in my travels on this side of the world. Certainly, your elders must have warned you of some of these dangers when you were younger, yes?
“In the lowland grasses, deathweed creepers, bloodroots and stranglevines can be found lurking. These plants all feed on blood, and the unwary are easy prey by night. Here among the bare hilltops, of course, such plants are no threat, and no protections are required against them.
“The wild grasscats and even the grasswolves, however, may roam into these hills to hunt, if sustenance is lacking in the grasslands. Such beasts will attack men, if their hunger drives them to desperation and they can find no lesser prey. With the great doomwolves of the hills it is otherwise; man-flesh is their favoured diet. Surely you must have learned of the doomwolves, the great black beasts that roam these hills. The Druids must have had a hand in their making, I think, perhaps there is something of the Hells in them – though there will be time enough for you to learn more of such things, when we are safe. I have spells enough to hold such creatures at bay, or to ward our camp from them.
“Hunters of the air are another matter, of course, and no doubt you know well enough of those, young Zarynn. Darkbats and hookbeaks and even wild dragonhawks are known to hunt in this region. High ground is obviously no protection against them, but I will set wards against them before we sleep.
“The low grasses and the heights alike are also often haunted by ghoul packs and even by wights,” the necromancer continued. Zarynn listened, intrigued by the rhythm of the outlander’s speech despite the foreign words and the strange pronunciation.
“The
se are the restless dead,” Glaraz Vordakan clarified, clearly seeing Zarynn’s puzzled expression at the unfamiliar terms. “The eaters of flesh and the drinkers of life. Against these, I have many protections. To sense and command the waking dead – and at need to repel them – these things are key to being a necromancer. We will suffer no harm this night from such as they, boy.”
They reached the summit of the black hill and the black-clad necromancer released his crushing grasp on Zarynn’s hand. Turning in a complete circle, Glaraz inscribed a matching circle through the air with a black-gloved hand.
“Rallan’te’orthim’te’graa,” the necromancer intoned in a sonorous voice, once again speaking the incantation he had last used at the execution ground. This time, however, unlike the other, Zarynn was conscious so could see the effect of the magics, as long bleached bones erupted from the rocky hilltop in a ring around the travellers, to form a tightly-packed fence enclosing their resting point.
Zarynn studied the jagged lengths of bone that reached skyward from the rocky hilltop, and the narrow gaps between them, too small to squeeze through, and concluded swiftly that the bony fence was as much prison to keep him in as protection to keep out predators, or men of his own clan – should any have tracked them this far into the hills! – or, what was the word the necromancer had used? Ghouls, he thought, the restless dead who forever roamed the wild places, cursed by the Druids and unable to find eternal rest. His mother Sheynsa had told him of the restless dead and how they walked the land throughout the hours of darkness, cursed never to find peace, though she had not used the names that the outlander used.
“Rallan’te’shuch’te’arvruk,” Glaraz intoned next, again in the same slow sonorous tones as his previous incantation. Even as Zarynn watched, both the necromancer’s gloved hands seemed to glow for a moment, surrounded in a nimbus of purplish light. The purple radiance quickly spread over the wall of bones that Glaraz had raised around the hilltop. As the eldritch light washed over the bones, the jagged lengths of bone slowly darkened, until the radiance was entirely gone and the ring of bones was nearly as dark as Glaraz’s robes.
