by Beam, Brian
After a few loping strides, however, I saw the Oreph-blooded glint of one of Kait’s metal spheres arcing down ahead of me. Oreph is the god of metal. Big surprise, right? Pain shot through the base of my skull. Darkness followed.
Chapter 9
Briscott to be Kidding Me
I awoke with the sweetly acrid taste of rotten berries in my mouth. My vision turned the world around me into a collection of shapeless multi-colored blobs. If not for the fact that those blobs were static in my vision, I could’ve easily been convinced that I was spinning rapidly in circles, my mind in a constant state of dizziness.
I was sitting on something soft, my hands firmly secured behind my back. My legs were stretched out in front of me, but I could barely move them. Apparently my muscles didn’t want to work just yet. That was just fine; I didn’t feel much like moving anyway.
“Ah, he’s awake,” a friendly male voice sounded from somewhere to my side. I had no idea who’d spoken, where I was, or what in Rizear’s domain was going on. I just barely had a grasp on who I was.
I opened my mouth to speak, but the only thing that came out was drool.
“Don’t worry,” the friendly voice continued, “you’re still under the effects of the tashave leaf. Now that you’re awake, it should begin to wear off.” As the man spoke, he walked hunched over into my field of vision, a dark shape with a green glow coming from chest. Something about that last detail tugged at my memory but stayed just beyond my mental reach.
I tried to respond, but my jaw was still hanging open from when I’d first attempted to speak. I couldn’t get it to close again.
“Poor, blighted bastard,” the friendly voice mumbled. The blurred man settled into a crouch before me and pulled up on my eyelids one at a time. He held his other hand above each open eye, blocking the light for a moment before taking it away again. “Pupils are still a bit sluggish. Guess we’ll just have to wait this out a bit longer.” With that, he stood and left my view once again. I heard some papers shuffling and then silence.
I’m not sure how long I sat there, unable to do much more than breathe, but after what felt like hours, the world around me began to slowly take shape. I was in some kind of small enclosure, the slanting wall in front of me gray and cloth-like. Sunlight seeped through a crack between the tent flaps. Before me was a wooden chest with various glass bottles clustered on one side of its top. On the other side was a dull metal tray covered with various implements I couldn’t quite make out.
My muscles slowly started to regain some strength. I was eventually able to close my mouth and swallow back the saliva that had been oozing out. I bent my knees to test the mobility of my legs. My feet were bound, and my legs felt about as pliable as a block of wood, but I could at least move them a little.
The final step of my recovery came in the form of a gradually clarifying mind. The first major detail I was able to discern was that I was in a canvas tent. I knew in the back of my mind that meant something. The second was that pain lanced along my right shoulder. That seemed like it meant something too. The third was that my hands were tied to something behind me. Some sort of cushion was wedged between my back and whatever I was tied to, keeping me sitting upright.
Then, my mind exploded with a cluster of sickening realizations. I’d been captured by Kait’ and her men. I was in one of their tents. The pain in my shoulder was from the arrow that had nicked me. The green glow coming from the man with the friendly voice’s chest meant that one of Kait’s men was watching over me.
The man had mentioned tashave leaf, a powerful anesthetic. Tashave leaf is typically used on animals that need minor medical work, such as stitching. It can also be used to put them mercifully to sleep. Mathual, my adoptive father, used it sometimes on his farm. If I’d been forced to chew the leaf, or drink a tea made from it, it would explain the rotten-berry taste in my mouth and the loss of my ability to think and move when I’d first awakened. Depending on how much was used, I could’ve been out anywhere from hours to days. Heck, I was lucky to be alive.
I questioned that luck as the man with the friendly voice walked up from behind me in a crouch, holding a stack of loose papers. His black hair was just long enough to tuck behind his ears, his full beard cut short. Recessed pond-water eyes gave him a weary look and made the curve of his hawkish nose more prominent. Lines at the corners of his tilted eyes gave him the appearance of a man just short of his middle years. His complexion was a shade lighter than Kait’s but, along with his eyes, marked him as an easterner as well. He was dressed in dark browns, the circular green glow shining through the fabric of his laced-up shirt. There was a purple bruise just under his left eye.
“So, we’ve finally decided to wake up,” he noted with an easy smile, his thick accent similar to Kait’s. Given my situation, I was understandably suspicious of his affability. I kept my mouth shut and glared.
His smile widened, revealing straight yellow teeth. “Can’t say I blame you,” he chuckled. “Your name’s Korin, right?” I grunted. “Nice to meet you, Korin. I’m Briscott Erlat. I’m the one who stitched you up.” His smile wilted then. “I’m kind of the one who gave you reason to be stitched up. Sorry about that.”
My mouth opened before my brain had the chance to tell it not to. “Oh, so you’re the crack shot,” I sneered, my menacing glare betrayed by a slurred voice and a quick slurp to keep from drooling on myself again. My mouth still didn’t want to move the way it was supposed to.
Briscott smiled again, taking in a deep breath. “Yeah, not my best shot, huh? In my defense, if I had made a better shot, I would’ve gotten a much worse punishment than having to stitch you up.” His admission explained the black eye; I’d punched him. He wouldn’t be getting an apology from me any time soon, though.
When I looked down at my shoulder, I realized I was shirtless, just then noticing how Jilis-blooded cold I was. Jilis is the goddess of winter. My thoughts of the cold were abandoned when I saw how shoddy the stitching of the gash across the top of my shoulder was. The stitches were an uneven mess, and the wound edges weren’t nearly level. His botch-job attempt at sewing me up was going to end with a nastier scar than necessary. At least it looked as if he’d washed the wound well. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to worry about infection on top of my thousand-and-one other concerns.
“Are you sure the stitching was your punishment?” I quipped sarcastically, slurring my words and slurping up saliva yet again.
Briscott simply smiled again and waddled over to the chest, picking up a small clay bowl from the metal tray. “Here, spit in this,” he suggested, holding it below my chin. I tried and ended up with spit on my chest, cold as ice as it ran down my stomach. Briscott shrugged, picking up a cloth from the ground and wiping it off me. “Well, I tried.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled sharply through my nose, my annoyance at the situation overshadowing the anger and fear that should’ve filled me. I wanted to ask this man a million questions to find out what was going on, but my mind was still crawling, and I didn’t want to lose my last shred of dignity by drooling all over myself again.
Briscott set his papers on the chest and placed the clay bowl atop them. He took a cup from the metal tray and held it up to me. “Water?”
I nodded my head the best I could and gulped the water as quickly as he could tilt the cup. The tangy liquid didn’t quench my thirst, but I felt better. Briscott set the cup back on the tray and eased himself down cross-legged on the bare grass in front of me. I looked down to see that I had a bedroll beneath me.
“So, I bet you’d like some answers,” he offered, his eyes, smile, and voice still friendly. Was this guy toying with me? His friendliness, clashing with the bleakness of my situation, made me want to punch him. I wasn’t typically so violent, but at that moment, his benevolence felt like an insult. Actually, more like a slap to the face . . . or some salt in the wound that burned on my shoulder.
My mouth—and even my brain this time—wanted to say something sna
rky like, “No, I just want a bedtime story and a glass of warm milk.” Instead, I nodded and swallowed back the saliva that wanted to make its way down my chin. I wanted answers, and given that I was tied up and still affected by the tashave leaf, I figured I may as well just let Briscott tell me all that he could.
“Kaitlyne and Jefren will be a while yet, so I should have time to fill you in on the basics,” he began, his brow furrowing pensively. “First, I want to let you know that your little Kolarin friend was never caught, so don’t let that worry you.”
I mentally relaxed, the knot in my stomach loosening. I’d assumed that Til’ was being held somewhere else in the camp. Knowing he’d gotten away sparked a tiny flame of hope within me.
Briscott’s expression hardened. “Regretfully, that means they’ll try to use you to get to him.” My eyes widened. “I’ll get to that shortly. I don’t want to pile too much on you at once.”
Why did this guy seem to be so genuinely nice? Was he mocking me?
“Okay, let’s start simple,” he began, rubbing a hand over his beard. “Kaitlyne, Jefren, and me, we’re all from Gualain. Maybe some of the only people in the past year to escape that blighted kingdom. Things have gotten bad there. Some wizard’s been raising the dead, using them to attack the villages and cities.”
I attempted to raise an eyebrow in skepticism, but my facial muscles were still sluggish. Instead, I audibly scoffed.
Briscott chuckled again, but his eyes didn’t share the mirth of his smile. “Yes, I suppose it sounds pretty blighting crazy.” He rubbed a hand through his hair, holding it at the back of his head. “I wish it were nothing but crazy ramblings, but sadly, it’s the Loranis-blighted truth. Jefren’s own wife and daughter were killed by those rotting atrocities of nature. It was a pure stroke of luck that kept him from getting one of these.” Briscott gestured to the green light glowing at his chest.
“Why doesn’t Gualain’s king do something about them?” I asked, still skeptical. Drool poured from the corner of my lips before I could suck it back.
“Because the king’s the blighted one using them,” Briscott answered soberly.
I hadn’t expected that. In my experience, kings didn’t typically use the undead to kill their own subjects.
“So, those things . . . those walking dead monstrosities, they came from nowhere, sweeping through Gualain. Women and children who stood in their way were killed. The men were taken, and green rocks were hammered into their chests.”
At that, Briscott loosened his shirt’s thin leather lacing. My breath caught when he tugged his collar down to reveal a green gem-like stone embedded in the center of his chest. The rough gem, no larger than a baby’s fist, looked as if it were just a chunk of a larger stone with its irregular angles and edges. It was pale green, almost the same shade as Briscott’s eyes, and nothing like any gemstone I’d ever seen. Free from the confines of the dark shirt, it glowed brightly, even in the daylight. The skin around the gem folded inward and was a sickly brownish green.
Briscott seemed amused at my shock. “I probably looked just as you do now when Jefren blighting told me about it.” Briscott laced up his shirt, focusing his eyes somewhere behind me. “We were friends once. Before he . . . I digress. I lived two leagues outside the town of Hillaven in Gualain. Jefren came to me, torn up about his wife and daughter, lucky to have escaped Hillaven alive. Few others were as lucky.” Something flickered across his face. Sadness, maybe. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
It was hard to concentrate on what Briscott was telling me. I kept thinking about Menar’s claim that Raijom was involved in the brewing war in Gualain. Raijom was capable of summoning eldrhims and had an apprentice who could do the same. Were they somehow capable of raising the dead as well? Were they responsible for the green gems? Was Raijom controlling Gualain’s king? I struggled to ignore the compounding questions forming in my mind so that I wouldn’t miss any of Briscott’s story.
“Jefren and I put together what few people we could find to fight back. It was a worthless cause; all of them lost, a full ten deaths on our hands. The enemy was too strong. There were just too many of them. We were only able to kill one of those blighted creatures. At least, if that’s what you call a second death.” Briscott gave another dry laugh.
His smile quickly fled, replaced by a glower. “Jefren tore that gem right out of its light-blighted chest with his bare hands, figuring he could sell it to fund a trip to the Wizard Academy. Those creatures are beyond what normal men can fight. We decided to go to the Grand Wizard for help.”
I braved drooling on myself to jump in at this point. “You don’t seem to be on your way to Tahron,” I said with only a minor amount of slurring. I was starting to get a little more control over my facial muscles, my tongue feeling less bloated.
“You’re no idiot, Korin,” Briscott replied with a wry smile. He turned his head towards the tent flap, as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping. After running a hand through his black hair again, he leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially. “Don’t repeat my words, but Jefren has completely lost it. We stopped at Yillia, a city quite a hair larger than Hillaven, close to the Gualainian border. We needed supplies.
“The whole city was occupied not only by those undead creatures, but by men, alive and well. Only . . . only they had those same glowing rocks in their chests. I still don’t really know how we got in past the watch they had posted around Yillia’s perimeter. Any time we were seen by the men, living or dead, they’d come after us with blighting murder in mind. Jefren killed a half dozen of the living ones. After that, he wasn’t the same. I killed two myself. Don’t know how I stayed sane.” Yet another dry laugh. “Actually, I’m not so sure about that anymore.”
Briscott rubbed at his beard and leaned back from me. His eyes narrowed, and the friendliness melted from his expression. All that was left was the haunted look of a man who’d seen way too much for his years. “We took the glowing rocks from each of those blighted men. Together, we were even able to take down two of those Rizear-damned undead. There were so many dead bodies in the streets. So many women, children . . . it wasn’t until we found Kaitlyne hiding in an alley that we decided to try and capture one of the living men and find out what was going on.”
“Kait’s not his daughter?” I found myself asking, remembering what the drunken man in the Old Homestead had told me.
Briscott’s eyes lit up again. “Kait’, huh? You’ve known her for a single night, and you’re giving her nicknames.” He brushed his hair back, shaking his head. “She’s a dangerous one. You’d do best to watch your tongue with her. But no, she’s no daughter of Jefren’s.”
I arched an eyebrow. Well, at least I tried to.
Briscott must’ve caught something in my expression. “No, no, not that either. They’re more like business associates. She’d been locked up in a prison in Yillia for something; she wouldn’t tell us what. She broke out during all this mess. That magic of hers . . . let’s just say that those undead weren’t so much of a problem with her around.”
Briscott glanced back towards the tent’s entrance. “Sorry, we don’t have much time here, and I’m rambling. We caught one of the living men, and let me tell you, it was no easy task. The bastard wouldn’t stop trying to kill us, no matter what we did. Jefren and Kaitlyne broke all his limbs, and he still kept trying to kill us. The strange thing was that he was apologizing the whole time. Just about the strangest blighted thing I ever did see.
“When he couldn’t fight back any longer, he told us how the undead carried the green rocks, dipping their points into bottles of blood hanging from their necks. The creatures would hammer the blighted things right into men’s chests.” Briscott accompanied his explanation with a gesture as if he were hammering a nail into a board. I couldn’t help but shiver. What kind of dark magic was Raijom using?
“Now for the crazy part.”
My heart was already beating in double time, my chest was like a spring coiled
a little too tightly, and my body felt even weaker than the tashave leaf had already made it. And now Briscott was telling me that everything leading up to this point had not been the craziest part of his explanation. I steeled myself for what could be worse than the undead killing women and children and hammering green gems into people’s chests.
Briscott took a deep breath, his eyes taking on a haunted look once again. “The man said that as soon as that blighted rock was hammered in, he could hear a voice in his head giving him orders. Some kind of vile voice that filled his veins with ice and his lungs with fire. The voice told him to find men without the green rocks in their chests and to put one there. It blighting told him to kill any who got in his way of doing so. He was to do this until he received his next set of orders. And do you know what the worst blighted part of it was?”
Briscott paused long enough to indicate that he actually expected me to answer. “He couldn’t do anything but follow those orders,” I answered, my body numb at the realization.
Whatever these green gems were, their magic was akin to the link created between a Holder and a Setter when an Activated Contract was unfulfilled. However, this link was immediate, whereas with an Activated Contract, the Holder would never become a slave if they fulfilled the Setter’s Terms. Also, Raijom, or whoever else was responsible for the gems, was able to give orders without being physically present. Only pride kept me from sicking up right then and there.
Briscott nodded gravely. “Apparently some men were just given the order to return to the capital to join up with the king’s army. The man said that the undead who actually hammered in the blighted rocks carried large bags full of pouches. Some pouches were full of more of the green rocks, the others with small glass vials of blood. The bags were handed out to the new recruits, some to use, some to pass on to their victims.
“Kaitlyne . . .” Briscott trailed off, looking away from me, his eyes misting. “She thought she understood how the rocks worked. She and Jefren wanted to test them. I’d always been close to Jefren. I trusted him. I volunteered.” Briscott swallowed heavily as a tear broke free and made its way down his cheek. “It was stupid of me, I know, but I didn’t realize how addled his mind had become, how seeing his wife and daughter torn to pieces and killing those men . . . I just didn’t see. I couldn’t blighting see. Hold on.” Briscott rose and left the tent. He wasn’t gone long, but I spent that time absorbing the insanity of what he’d told me.
