by Deck Davis
The academy words burned in his mind now; duty above self, duty above love, duty above all.
Make sure Kortho could be resurrected, and then recover Harry Helmund’s body. Save his mentor, and avoid failure. That was what he need to do.
He put his hand on Rud’s shoulder and stared deep into his eyes. It hurt him to look into his terrified stare. He saw his own face staring back at him; just a kid born into a dark world that he didn’t want to be part of.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t. I’m here for something more important than you could know, and I can’t take a risk.”
“If you don’t help me, you’ll never leave here,” said Rud.
Jakub reached into his inventory bag and pulled out his blade. “You can’t stop me,” he said.
Rud shook his head. “I can’t, but the necromancer and the others are back, and they’ve sealed the hamlet. They know something’s wrong. You’ll never get out of here without my help.”
“You’re sure you want to leave your family behind?” asked Jakub.
“I can’t live here like this.”
It wasn’t hard for him to believe; Jakub had lived with the same dread Rud felt. Jakub’s initiation had been forced on him, but at least Rud had a chance.
“I can take you as far as the academy when all this is done,” he said. “After that, I don’t know what they’ll do with you.”
“As long as I’m away from here, I’ll spend my life cleaning shitty latrines. I don’t care.”
“Then we better think about how to get out of here. They’ve sealed the entrance, you said?”
Rud nodded. “The doors are closed, and they’ve got two men guarding the outside, two on the inside. We usually set archers patrolling the crest of the mounds too. The necromancer told everyone who’s capable of swinging a sword that they’ve gotta grab one.”
“Do you think he knows I’m here?”
“No, but something made him wary.”
“I can’t fight my way out, and you’re drunk. Can we wait it out down here until they calm down a little?”
Rud shook his head. “Florence is having her initiation in two days’ time. They’ll want to start preparing. Someone will come down here.”
The walls seemed to close in on Jakub then. He felt trapped down here in this freezing, corpse-filled room.
He walked to one of the walls and scratched at them, but the mud was cold and hard. He’d half wondered if they could tunnel out, but that was ridiculous.
His thoughts turned to empathy again. “I can’t see a way out, Rud. Better they don’t catch you conspiring with me. Go.”
“No. I know another way out,” said Rud.
CHAPTER 49
They left through the tunnels and emerged back on the surface of the hamlet. Jakub had held his vagrant blade again until its magic transformed him. It was a trade-off between having the disguise or being able to use his necromancy, but he didn’t see any way the arts of the dead would help in his escape, whereas a disguise could be the difference between leaving or dying.
“Don’t walk like that,” said Rud.
“Like what?”
“You look too confident. A vagrant wouldn’t walk like that. A guy who’d been travelling through Killeshi lands on his own, no shelter, nothing to eat…you’d be a shell. That’s why I came back down, I knew there was something wrong with you.”
“So, walk like this?” said Jakub, affecting an awkwardness in his steps.
“Now you just look like you’re constipated.”
“Forget it. Which way do we go?”
“By the latrines. Me and Hyde and Bennie dug through the mud. We needed a place to…you know…take our girlfriends when everyone was asleep. For some private time. To…”
“I get the idea. The others don’t know about it?”
“They’d have sealed it by now.”
“Then let’s head that way. You lead the way now. Once we’re out of here, I know where to go.”
“There’s something I need to do first,” said Rud.
“We don’t have a lot of time.”
“I need to find Chaser and Florence.”
“Who?”
“My dog, and my girl. I won’t leave without them.”
“Can you do it without getting seen?”
“There’s no choice. I won’t leave without them.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll take you to where we can escape, and then I’ll go get Florence and Chaser.”
Jakub took one last look at the hamlet. There was a flurry of activity, with some men and women grabbing swords and making patrols, and others chatting to each other, no doubt wondering why the necromancer had sealed them in.
It was a good question, and Jakub couldn’t help but think the answer was that the necromancer had somehow guessed Jakub would come here.
It didn’t matter. He’d be gone soon.
Rud led the way on the outer reaches of the camp. They kept to the shadows where the light of the bonfire didn’t reach. Rud paused at every sound, and the closer they got to the latrines, to escape, Jakub felt tenser.
When they finally reached the latrines unseen, he almost couldn’t believe it.
Then, a man stepped out of the latrines, tightening a belt around his trousers.
He was seven-feet-tall, round-bellied, with a head so bald that the dim flickers of the bonfire shined on his scalp.
“Rud?” said the man. “We’ve been called to arms. What’re you…who is this?”
He was staring at Jakub now. Suspicion was cast deep in his face.
Rud started to talk, but Jakub cut him off.
“I came here for a bed,” he said. “Hilda said I’ve got to earn my keep. Apparently, newcomers get to empty the shit holes.”
The man crossed his arms. “They let you in? When we’re locked down?”
“It was before that happened.”
“We better see what Gregor makes of it, then. Things have changed a little, and it’s not the best time for a stranger to be hanging around. Come and see him. If he says you can stay, fine.”
“Honestly, Jack,” said Rud. “It’s fine. Mum said it’s okay.”
“Well she’s not the boss, is she? Gregor is. Come on.”
“But Jack-”
“Shut your mouth right now, lad. You stink of booze, and you’re a liability when you should be helpin’ us prepare. Get your arse across camp, sober yourself up, and then grab a sword. You better pray that Gregor doesn’t smell your breath. As for you, tramp, as much as I’d love to let you clean out our crap, I’ve got to be careful. Come.”
There was no talking their way around this man, and Jakub didn’t want to have to meet the camp leader, nor the necromancer. He couldn’t be certain of it, but he doubted his disguise would hold up to the necromancer’s scrutiny. Magic users could always detect the presence of a spell, even one cast by a vagrant blade.
It was a choice of taking his chances in front of Gregor, or running his blade through this man’s stomach.
Given the man’s size, his odds weren’t great, but once the game was up, it was up. He couldn’t fight his way out of the hamlet if they knew who he was.
“I’ll come with you,” he said, striding toward the man, but carefully reaching for his sword. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
He took another step, ready to pull his blade and then strike, and pray he got this done in one blow.
“Who’s the tramp?” said a voice.
Jakub stopped. He looked to his right, where a sea of faces stared at him. Eight men of the hamlet, each with swords in their hands. There, in the center of them, was the necromancer.
CHAPTER 50
“Take his sword,” said the necromancer, walking toward Jakub and Rud.
Jakub’s sword was taken from him, and it was only thirty seconds before his disguise disappeared.
“I’ll handle this,” said Ryden.
Ryden was a tall man and he was much slimmer than Ja
kub, so much so that his robes seemed too big for him. Wherever he’d been after the academy had banished him, he hadn’t enjoyed a rich diet.
His robes still bore the stitching where the academy emblem would have been, but he’d picked the emblem itself off so that only the outline remained. Even so, Jakub had seen the emblem so many times that he recognized its shape.
“My name is Ryden,” he said. “You are from the academy, are you not?”
Jakub remembered what people said the banished necromancer was called.
“I thought your name was Andrew?” he said.
Anger flashed on his face for a second, then disappeared. The show of emotion told him a lot; the man had been away from the academy for so long that he’d let some of its teachings leave him. Instructor Irvine had drilled into Jakub the importance of never letting your thoughts show on your face.
Jakub was a novice, and he was still working to master that skill, but he’d expected a master necromancer like Ryden to be well-practiced in it.
“You were told wrong. Ryden is my name. May I have yours?”
“No. You may not.”
Ryden smiled. “Irvine is still plying his trade, I see. Fine. What brings you here, novice?”
He said ‘novice’ with sarcasm. He was trying to put Jakub in his place, and trying to throw him off-balance at the same time. He wanted to bring out emotions in him that would force a mistake.
A man standing behind Ryden whispered to one of the hamlet group and then nodded at another, and the two men left the crowd, circled Jakub and Rud, and stood guard over where they’d planned to escape.
So they were trapped now. Just him and a drunken teen against eight armed men - ones tough enough to survive in Killeshi lands - and a master necromancer.
It wasn’t just that that bothered him; he knew what these men were now. He knew the religion they followed, where they ate dead flesh to try and absorb some of its strengths.
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t; he’d seen that all those years ago with his own family. No telling who would receive the gifts of the dead. That also meant he had no idea what kind of abilities these hamlet people would have.
He leaned toward Rud and whispered. “Is there another way out?”
Rud shook his head.
A figure approached the group. It was a woman, bigger than the men, with her sleeves rolled up, and he had a wooden club in her hand. Hilda.
When she saw Rud, she stopped.
“Son?”
“Caught your lad trying to sneak this bugger out of camp,” said the bald man who’d first stopped them. “Helping the enemy.”
“Is this true, Rud?”
Under his mother’s stare, Rud did what every teen would; he became years younger.
“Mum, I-”
Necromancer Ryden put his hand on Hilda’s shoulder. “The boy did us a service. He caught the man on my orders, didn’t you lad?” he said, then gave Rud a subtle wink.
Rud seemed torn now; with the armed hamlet thugs staring at him, his mother’s gaze boring deep into him, and the necromancer’s cold eyes on his, he tensed up.
“Then what are you waiting for?” said Hilda. “You’ve got a blade, lad. Why isn’t it pressed against this bugger’s throat?”
“Remember what you told me,” said Jakub, looking at Rud. “Your initiation. What they were going to make you do. I know what it’s like. You don’t want that. I can get you away from this.”
“What’s all this about your initiation?” said Hilda. “You were looking forward to it. You told me so.”
Anger flared in Jakub now. “He was lying. The things you do here…don’t you realize how sick it is?”
Hilda put her hand on her hip. “Just who the hell are you, anyway? First the bloody vagrant wanders in, and now you, wearing your big overcoat. That’s the symbol of the Queen, isn’t it?”
“The boy is a necromancer,” said Ryden.
“And you presume to tell us that we’re sick?” said Hilda. “After what your lot get up to? No offence, Ryden.”
“None taken.”
“There’s nothing wrong with necromancy, not the way we do it,” said Jakub. “We don’t eat the dead.”
“No, but the whole thing wouldn’t be possible without people like you, would it? Without Ryden here, eating their flesh wouldn’t do shit. It’s only his spells that bring their magic out of their bodies.”
“There’s a reason Ryden was banished from the academy,” said Jakub.
The bald man guarding the exit eyed Jakub like he was a piece of steak ready for a heavy tenderization. “Seems simple to me. We’ve got two necromancers, and only one was invited. Take this little bastard and lock him away. And Rud…well, what’re we to do with you?”
“You won’t touch him,” said Hilda. “Ryden says he was under his orders.”
Ryden nodded. He stared at Rud as he spoke. “Young Rud was trying to repay his debt for a kindness I showed him. He’d never forget that, would he?”
While Rud stared at the necromancer and his mother and his other campmates, Jakub wracked his brains for a way out.
If he let them take him and lock him up, every second would be agony, because he’d know that Kortho’s resurrection window was closing. Not only that, but there was also the traitor, and what failing to get his body would mean to him and Kortho.
The Killeshis had the body, and getting it would be hard enough. There was also the fact that Ryden was looking for the body, too. After all, the soldier was here, wasn’t he? Was his body here to supply flesh for the hamlet dweller’s rituals…or was he here because Ryden, too, had looked at his Last Rites?
Jakub needed a way out.
The hamlet gates were sealed, and the secret exit Rud was taking him through was now guarded by a man big enough to smash Jakub’s face with a single punch.
He was a necromancer, not a soldier. He couldn’t fight his way out of this.
There was another way. A way out of the hamlet and away from these people. The problem was that this way was even more dangerous for him. It was a way out that would assault his mind, one that would go against every warning the academy instructors had planted in him.
Even so, it was the only way.
“Rud,” he said. “Stand close to me.”
“Come here, son,” said Hilda.
Jakub grabbed him. “Listen to me, Rud. There’s a way out, but you have to stand beside me, and we have to go now.”
At that, he heard a sound. A dog barked, and then a white-furred hound sprinted toward them, weaving through the legs of the group. Hilda reached for it, but it darted passed her and then toward Rud, before jumping up at him.
Rud picked up the dog and hugged it close to him. “Chaser,” he said, as the dog licked his face.
“You’ve got your dog; it’s time to go now.”
“No. I need Florence.”
“The girl?” said Hilda. “What would you want with her?”
“He wanted to run away with her,” said a voice.
Two figures approached. One was a teenager not much older than Rud, with long, blonde hair tied into a bun. A girl with auburn locks was next to him, and at first glance it looked like they were walking together.
Then Jakub saw the knife in the boy’s hand. It was pressed against her waist.
“Florence,” said Rud, putting Chaser down. “Ollivander, what are you…”
He stopped talking when he saw the knife.
The boy, Ollivander, spoke. “These two have been meeting illicitly. Rutting together while the rest of you oafs slept.” His accent was of the Red Eye lands, Jakub had no doubt. His way of speaking was refined, one that could only have come through high breeding.
“Let her go, Ollivander.”
“I don’t understand,” said Hilda.
Ollivander looked at the woman as though she was a worm. “Your son and this girl were planning to leave the hamlet before their initiation. They are traitors to you all.”
&
nbsp; “Rud?” said Hilda.
Rud nodded at his mother.
“But why?”
“Because it’s sick,” said Jakub. Then he looked at Rud. “I can’t stay. You have to make your choice now. Stay with them, or come with me.”
Ryden laughed. “All these armed men, and you think you gave a choice?”
Jakub ignored him. “Choose now, Rud.”
Florence struggled against Ollivander, but he pressed the blade harder against her waist.
“Go, Rud,” she said. “If you stay, you know what they’ll do. You have a chance. I don’t.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“If you care about the way I feel, you’ll go.”
Rud stared at them all. At his mother, at the girl, at the necromancer.
“Three days,” he said. “I’ll come for you before then.” He nodded at Jakub. “Get us out of here.”
Ryden pointed at the men around him. “Get them. Maim if you have to, but don’t kill them.”
As the men closed in on them, Jakub moved so that he was standing right beside Rud.
It was time for their way out. The only way. He knew it would work, but that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was what came after.
He pointed at the ground, right at his feet. He let essence drift from his soul necklace, and then he spoke the spellword of Summon Bound.
He knew Ludwig wouldn’t come; Ludwig was gone somewhere, but he didn’t want to summon him.
What he wanted appeared at his feet now; a swirling portal of darkness, the portal from the Greylands from which Ludwig would usually come.
*Necromancy Experience Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ]
He’d seen the swirls of light before when summoning Ludwig, but it was different now.
The portal was directly under him, swirling and churning too close to be safe, but that was how he needed it.
This time, instead of his bound hound coming through the portal, Jakub and Rud and Chaser fell into its depths and crashed down into the Greylands.
CHAPTER 51 – Morrigan
