by Deck Davis
The boy nodded.
“Is that a yes it would be cruel, or a nod that I can leave you for a moment?”
Another nod.
“I can leave you?”
The boy nodded.
“You’re a brave kid,” said Jakub. Filled with adrenaline now, he crossed the room until he was by the wooden counter. “Morrigan, how long until your hawks get back?”
“They should be back by now.”
“We need to know what we’re dealing with and how close they are. A bolt like that could mean anything; there are weapons that could have fired it from half a mile away with a clear line of sight.”
“They’ll be back before you know it,” said Morrigan.
“That might be too long. Ludwig will have to help.”
Jakub took out his soul necklace, but it was empty. “Damn it. No essence.”
That was a blow; Ludwig could have scouted for them and gotten back before the hawks. He didn’t want to say it to Morrigan, but he suspected her birds might have been shot out of the sky.
Without essence, he was stuck. Unless…
…no. He was mad for having the thought, wasn’t he?
He looked at the boy, pale and undead and stuck fast against the wall. Undead but alive at the same time, a being of the Greylands and this land as well. How this had happened, he didn’t know, but maybe it was fortunate.
He rolled up his sleeve. He touched the tattoo of his Soul Harvest glyphline, looked at the boy, and spoke a spellword.
The boy tilted his head back so he stared at the ceiling, and he opened his mouth as if he was screaming, though no sounds came out. Blue essence left him and drifted across the room, seeping into Jakub’s necklace.
*Necromancy Experience Gained!*
[IIIII ]
The necklace filled a quarter. Then halfway…
Pain exploded in Jakub’s jaw, and he stumbled into the counter, knocking a vial to the floor.
“What the hells are you doing to him?” said Morrigan, rubbing her fist. At least punching him had hurt her too.
Jakub’s jaw clicked. “I had no choice. I needed the soul essence, and he’s dead. Technically.”
“He isn’t some dead carrion you’ve found in a field, you creep. Look at him! Look what you’ve done.”
The boy gave him an accusing stare.
“I’m sorry,” said Jakub, “but we need Ludwig here, or we die. The only way to summon him was to take some of your essence, and...”
A squawk filled the air somewhere beyond the hut. Morrigan ran to the door and opened it, and three bolts thudded into the wood, narrowly missing her and driving splinters through the door.
She left the door open, but the hawks didn’t come. Jakub shut it.
“They’re gone,” he said.
“No. Reggie and his brothers aren’t stupid enough to get hit with a bolt.”
“They’re gone, Morrigan. You said yourself; they’d be back by now if they were coming. Whoever is out there shot them, and they’re getting closer. We have to get out of here. Grab my stuff, and then we’ll get the kid loose and put Kortho’s body on your groff and get the hell out of here.”
“Without Reggie, we won’t know which way is safe to leave.”
“And that’s why I needed soul essence.”
CHAPTER 34
The morals of it were hazy, yes. This wasn’t taking essence from something dead, but draining essence from an undead boy who suffered when he did it. Jakub understood that, but their situation didn’t leave room for morals.
He touched his Death Bind tattoo and summoned Ludwig into the hut. The essence left his necklace and dispersed into the either, but the demonic hound didn’t come.
Jakub waited ten seconds. Then twenty more. Still nothing.
“Perhaps something got your wolf, too,” said Morrigan.
There was a smugness to the way she said that that he didn’t like, but it must have been grief over her hawks talking. Either way, Jakub didn’t care.
“This has never happened before. Not a single time. He’s bound to me; he has to come when I spend essence to summon him.”
He pressed his tattoo and spoke the word again, draining more of the essence that he’d taken from the boy.
Ludwig still didn’t come. Instructor Irvine’s mental lessons meant nothing now, not when it was his best friend at risk. Because that’s what it was – something had happened to Ludwig, because that was the only way to explain this.
There were four more thwacks, and bolts burst through sections of the hut wall. Jakub swept a glass vial off the counter, smashing it on the floor.
“Damn it!”
Morrigan came and caught his arm before he smashed another. “That’s my crap you’re smashing, and my floor you’re smashing it on.”
“Not for much longer; this place isn’t safe for you now. Your hawks are dead, and something’s happened to Ludwig. We have no idea how many people are out there, how close they are, or which direction they’re coming from.”
“The bolts have come through the north and west walls. See?” said Morrigan.
Jakub started shoving the ingredients for the goodlight potion into his bag. “Then we’ll leave the opposite way. They might have people approaching from there too, but we’ve no choice.”
“What about your master’s body?”
“We’ll use Bert. Is he strong enough to carry him?”
A groff could carry five of little iguanas like him.”
“He’s heavier than he looks.”
“I know, necromancer. Afterall, I supported him back to my hut while you went on your errands.”
“Let’s get the boy loose from his bolt. We’ll have to load Kortho onto Bert from inside here. Can you call him in?”
“Of course,” said Morrigan. She walked to the door, where the bolts had pierced holes in the wood. “Bert. Bert! Here, boy.”
There was no stamp of hooves. The only answer was the whoosh of bolts and then a gut-wrenching cry; the sound of an animal that had been struck. This descended into yelps of pain.
Morrigan struck the wall with her fist once, twice, and then a third time, each punch making a louder sound than the last and drowning out Bert’s cries from outside.
If Jakub had seen that happen to Ludwig, he wouldn’t have just pulverized the wall with his hand; he’d have charged out there screaming bloody murder, and he’d probably have run straight into a volley of bolts.
Then again, he guessed Morrigan had a lot of practice in controlling her mind, since she had to fight her spirit siblings for possession of it.
Morrigan might have hurt her hand by punching her hut, but it given her back some self-control.
It wasn’t over though, not for Bert. The animal cried out in pain. Jakub could hear death in its voice; the animal was clinging onto life, and it was suffering for it, but its injuries were mortal. As a necromancer, he knew what the last ebbs of mortality sounded like.
“Finish him, you bastards! He’s suffering,” shouted Morrigan.
Anger flared through Jakub. Whoever this was, they were going to pay for it.
CHAPTER 35
“Work on getting the kid free from his bolt,” he said.
While Morrigan did that, Jakub crouched by the side of the door with his inventory bag beside him. He opened the door a crack – thwack. Two bolts thudded through the wood.
He took the jade-framed mirror from his bag and held it on the ground, twisting it left and right to try and get a view of the grass fields surrounding the hut.
Scoping as much as he could, he saw figures approaching from the east. When the jade mirror caught the glare of the sun, though, a well-placed bolt shattered into it.
Jakub drew his hand back. “There goes the resale value.” He joined Morrigan, who had wedged two inches of the bolt from the boy’s chest. The boy was watching her work with impassivity.
“Looks like four men coming over the hills. I couldn’t see their faces, but three of them have
crossbows, one has a sword. We can take them.”
“I thought you wanted to run,” said Morrigan, talking through gritted teeth.
“Fuck that. They killed your groff.”
Jakub unsheathed his blackened sword while Morrigan took up her spear. He tried to remember what he’d been taught at the academy about fighting multiple opponents but as a necromancer, his tactic training had been rudimentary. He was skilled enough to use his sword, but didn’t have the eye for strategy that experience brought.
The men were close enough that they could hear their voices from outside now.
“Stop that thing bleating,” said one. “It’s making me feel bad.”
“I thought you said let it live?”
“It isn’t bloody drawing them out of the hut, though, is it? Put the thing out of its misery.”
Boots clomped outside the hut. Morrigan gritted her teeth so hard she looked like she was growling, and her fingers twitched over her spear.
Jakub couldn’t afford to have her charge out yet. He reached across and squeezed her arm.
“Wait,” he said.
She nodded at him and gripped her weapon tighter.
The boots outside stopped. There was the sound of metal being drawn from a sheath, and then a horrible cry.
Morrigan closed her eyes as her groff died. Jakub felt his own stomach twist up into the smallest knot. If this were his animal, if it were Ludwig…
He felt sick that he couldn’t help the animal, but the bolts had already doomed Bert. This was just the sound of him being put out of his misery. There would be a time for grief later, but not now.
“Maybe they’re dead. Maybe one of the bolts got ‘em,” said a voice.
“We saw the door open, you idiot.”
“Yeah but we fired more after that.”
“Hmm. P’rhaps. Go and look through the door. Through the bolt hole.”
Morrigan crouched. Standing next to the door, she held her spear with the tip pointed out, and moved it up so that it was just an inch away from the fresh hole that the bolt had made in the door.
Footsteps approached. A man whistled a tune to himself. That made it much worse; that this meant so little to them that they were whistling. Not only that, but they were whistling a tune that Jakub recognized – The Dance of the Love Bard, a happy tune most times it was played.
Not today.
The hole in the door darkened as something blocked the light. Morrigan jabbed the top of her spear straight through it.
The resulting cry was so inhumane, so filled with pain, that Jakub couldn’t stand to hear it. Screams met incomprehensible words, and then there was a thumping sound.
“My eye!” he cried. “My fucking eye!”
“That leaves three,” Jakub whispered to Morrigan.
Something rattled the doorframe. There was a thud, then another, and the door smashed inwards, and one of the hinges busted so that it hung slanted.
A figure stepped into the doorframe. Jakub pivoted to his side and ran his sword through the man’s stomach, then tried to pull it back out.
The sword wouldn’t budge; it stuck fast in the man’s gut. Outside, behind the man, one of his friends levelled a crossbow.
“I’ve got aim,” he shouted. “Hold the bastard, Lenny.”
The gutted man, with blood mixing with the spit on his lips, summoned all of his energy to fight the pain and put his hands on Jakub’s throat, holding him in place.
His fingernails dug into Jakub’s skin. This guy was strong; even with a sword in his belly, he was still on his feet, and his grip was too powerful to get out of.
Morrigan thrust her spear through one of his wrists, pushing it through muscle and tendon and bone.
When Jakub felt the grip on his neck relax, he shoved the man away from him and straight into the flight of a freshly-fired bolt. It splattered into his skull, sending shards of bone and brain everywhere.
There was a click as the crossbowman reloaded. Jakub took cover at the side of the door again, and Morrigan was across from him.
“Move further back,” said Jakub. “They’ll aim for the side of the door, and the wood is too thin.”
They moved back, and they waited. Two of their attackers were dead, and he knew that there originally had been three crossbow men.
He nodded at the man on the ground. “He only has a sword,” he said. “That means there’s two of them with crossbows outside. We need to get them both to fire, and we can charge at them when they reload.”
His words came out surprisingly calm; he’d expected to sound anxious. His neck stung from where the man’s nails had ripped into his skin, and the man’s grip had been so heavy that Jakub felt like his hands were still on him. His voice was calm, and his head was clear, and right now that was all that mattered.
“They’ll be more careful now,” said Morrigan. “They can wait us out, since there’s only one way out of the hut. Worse, others could be coming.”
“We need to tempt them into firing.”
“How do we do that?”
Jakub kneeled as low as he could, reached across the floor, and picked up the smashed jade-framed mirror. He tossed this into the open doorway, hoping to hear a resulting thwack of a bolt. Nothing happened.
“They’re being careful,” said Morrigan.
“Like you said; waiting us out. It’s the only sensible way. Fools who rush in end up like this one,” he said, nodding at the man on the ground.
There was no way out other than the door, and the crossbowmen had that covered. Not only that, but they were being careful now; they weren’t just shooting everything that moved. They no doubt had their crossbows levelled on the doorframe and were waiting for a person to emerge. As soon as he or Morrigan appeared in the doorway they’d let loose.
While he waited for a solution to come to him, he looked at the dead man on the floor. He was overweight in a way where he’d once had muscles, but he’d let himself go. Maybe he was an ex-soldier. Certainly not Killeshi, anyway. So, a mercenary, maybe?
That didn’t matter. Jakub took out his soul necklace and spoke the spellword of Essence Grab, draining soul essence from the dead man.
With his Essence Grab now a [2], more of the blue mist flew his way and in a quicker speed, and it was only seconds until his necklace was full.
Practicing his necromancy arts seemed to have dislodged something in his brain, because an answer to their problems came to him.
“I think I have it,” he said. “We need to show them a live target to get them to shoot.”
“Right.”
“The target only needs to look like its alive. They’re not going check for its heartbeat before they start firing bolts,” he said, before staring at the boy on the far side of the room.
CHAPTER 36
They pulled the bolt out of the boy’s chest, leaving a hole in his ribcage. It reminded Jakub of the gouges in the trees in the Killeshi burial grounds.
The boy didn’t seem to mind this. It was strange; he hadn’t shown any pain when the bolt smashed through him, but he’d been in agony when Jakub had taken essence from him. What kind of undead was he?
“This way,” he Jakub, putting his arm around the boy’s shoulder and guiding him to the door.
“At least ask him if he wants to help,” said Morrigan.
“Kid, we need you to take another couple of bolts for us. It doesn’t hurt you, right? I know it’s not ideal, but you won’t die if they hit you. Morrigan and I, on the other hand, wouldn’t be as lucky.”
The boy nodded.
Jakub guided the boy to near the door, then stopped. “Got your spear ready?” he said to Morrigan.
“Yes.”
“Good. As soon as the boy gets hit, rush them. A crossbow takes a while to reload. I’ll take whichever guy is on the left, you take the other. Got it?”
“Anyone would think you were the hunter here,” she said. “But the plan sounds as apt as any.”
“Just rush them, ok
ay? The second the bolts hit him.”
“I’ve got it, necromancer. Mind your own actions.”
Jakub squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry if this is scary, but it saves us dying, and that puts you on my list of friends. Ready?”
The boy nodded.
Jakub gave him a gentle push, and the boy walked into the doorway.
There was a click from outside the hut; the release of something.
Bolts cut through the wind like a whip, and then there were two soft thuds.
The force of the bolts, one in his stomach the other in his neck, knocked the boy back.
“Go,” said Jakub.
He was out of the door first, his blackened sword raised, sprinting up the hill and wishing he wasn’t wearing his overcoat.
The two attackers were standing beside each other on the crest of the hill a few hundred meters away. Seeing Jakub, one took a bolt and slammed it in place, then tried to wrench back the string on his crossbow.
Jakub ran so fast that his lungs burned with the effort. Sweat dripped down his face, and lacking much of a sprinter’s physique, the run exhausted him quicker than he’d expected.
He reached the first man just as he drew back the string and clicked it over the lever, locking it ready to fire.
He raised his sword and hacked the man’s neck, cutting through his skin and tendons and vertebra.
The man’s friend levelled his own freshly-loaded crossbow at Jakub, but a spear cut through the air stronger and faster than any bolt, puncturing his stomach and driving deep into his guts. He stumbled back, impaled, and died on the grass.
Jakub looked back at the hut, where Morrigan was standing with the boy. Jakub had sprinted like hell to get here, and she hadn’t even need to move.
He gave her a clap of appreciation. “Very clever, you show-off,” he said.
CHAPTER 37
He spent the next few minutes looting the two dead crossbowmen, the man outside the hut, and the one in the doorway. He searched their pockets, coats and under their shirts for secret moneybags or necklaces, inspected each hand for rings, and even checked their boots for hidden daggers.
