by Deck Davis
“I think that’s everything,” said Jakub. “Time to use Death Puppet.”
“You necromancers,” said Rud. “Always playing up to your image.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your spells always have such morbid names. Death Puppet.”
“What else would you have it called?”
“I don’t know, something less dark.”
“Such as?”
“Huh. I don’t know. Erm…Meat Costume?”
“You keep working on that while I’m gone. I’ll be back before you come up with anything worthwhile. One last thing; here, take this.”
He gave Rud the bracelet of rest. He didn’t need it in Thorndyke’s body, and it would be more useful to have Rud stay awake while waiting outside.
Rud offered his hand out. Jakub took it, and they shook.
“Good luck,” said Rud.
“Thanks.”
“Bring her back to me.”
“I’ll do my best.”
CHAPTER 66
His first steps in Thorndyke’s body were awkward ones; the man was taller and wider than him, and it was like trying to walk in a suit of armor. By the time he reached the hamlet gates he’d gotten the hang of it.
Where once there had been one man guarding the hamlet entrance, now there were four, each wearing battle leathers and carrying swords.
“Thorndyke?” said one. “Where the hell have you been?”
“You look like shit,” said another.
This was it, the first test; raise their suspicion, and the plan was over before it began.
Jakub was never one for accents, and now wasn’t the time to try. He spoke in a low voice.
“We attacked the Killeshi’s hut, like the necro asked,” he said.
Hearing this surprised him; his words came out in Thorndyke’s voice, in the man’s own accent. It was a relief.
He carried on. “Bitch had another necro with her, and they lured us in. One of them stuck me with his sword, so I played dead until they left.”
“Where’s Borrin and Peeter and Glenn?”
Jakub shook his head, doing his best to look sad.
“We better take you to Ryden,” said one guard. “He’s going to want to hear about this.”
That was the worst thing they could do – his plan relied on him staying away from the necromancer for a while. Luckily, he’d put the inquisitor’s belt of persuasion around Thorndyke’s waist.
“Thing is, fellas,” he said. “I just hiked back miles with my belly cut to shit, nothing to eat, no sleep. You know that Ryden is gonna get Gregor and Hilda and they’re going to grill me. Can you just give me an hour or two before you let anyone know that I’m back?”
“Didn’t you hear?” said one guard.
“What?”
“Gregor died.”
Jakub didn’t know what to make of this. Rud had told him that Gregor was the leader of the camp, but he didn’t know the man personally.
More importantly, how would Thorndyke have reacted? Sadness? Anger? Rud had said he was a loner, so he wouldn’t have been too upset.
“How did he die?” he asked.
The guard shrugged. “Ryden said he had a heart attack.”
“Poor bastard.”
“He had it comin’. Big guy like that, always drinking, smoking. It was waitin’ to happen. Hilda’s in charge now.”
“Lot’s changed since I was away,” said Jakub. “I need to rest, fellas. Just give me an hour or two, yeah?”
Now he waited, hoping that the inquisitor’s belt worked its magic.
The guard stepped aside. “Go on. You look like hell. We’ll pretend we didn’t see you. When Ryden sees you and asks why you didn’t go to him, don’t put us in the shit.”
Jakub walked past them, breathing a sigh of relief as he stepped into the hamlet.
He’d only took a few steps in, when a smell hit him. The aroma of meat on a grill.
He knew that smell; it wasn’t beef, lamb. It was the smell of human meat cooking. It took him back through the years, back to when he was a kid in his camp, with his family. Before Kortho rescued him.
They were performing Imbibism here tonight. This would have been Rud’s initiation, if he were here.
He needed to focus. He ignored the smell, and instead walked around the edge of the camp, beyond the latrines and over to the entrance of the underground passage.
Nobody was paying attention now; the camp dwellers were crowded in the middle of camp where meat was turning on a spit above the bonfire.
Jakub found the passageway and walked down it and into the tunnel below the hill. A draught hit him and he smelled mana in the air, mingling with the aromas of goodlight.
Tension wound in him. Goodlight. He was close to Kortho’s body now. So far, everything had worked.
He walked down the tunnel and then into the room that Rud had showed him, where the bodies were kept.
He saw shelves. Two were empty, and two had corpses on them.
Neither of them were Kortho.
His tension wound tighter. He smelled goodlight, but he couldn’t see Kortho’s body. Did that mean…
…no. It couldn’t be.
He tried to push the thought away, but it kept coming back.
He knew that they’d brought Kortho here, and he could smell the lingering aroma of goodlight that he’d doused his body with.
But the smell of burning meat in the camp, the absence of Kortho’s corpse.
“No,” he said.
He walked over to the bodies on the shelves, hoping beyond everything that his eyes were playing tricks, that Kortho was down here after all and not up there, not turning on a spit above the bonfire.
The first corpse was the soldier, the one he’d performed last rites on in what seemed like ages ago now.
The second corpse was one he recognized. It was a man whose picture he’d studied back in the academy, before he and Kortho had set out on this assignment.
Harry Helmund, the traitor. The start of all this mess.
Harry had long, curly blonde hair and a moustache groomed to perfection. It made him look like a pirate. He wore a white shirt with frilly cuffs, and had a leather belt around his waist, on the side of which was an empty sheath.
There were no wounds on him, save for bruising around his eyes and nose. He hadn’t died of being stabbed, though, had he? Harry had taken his own life; he’d chewed on a poison pill before the soldiers at the outpost could interrogate him.
This was the man they had come here for. Recovery of his body had seemed so important when they set out; finding him and taking him back to the academy would have marked success in his first field mission, it would have been a big slap in the face for the instructors who’d doubted him, who hadn’t wanted to let him graduate.
Now, it meant nothing. All he felt was a deep worry winding through him like a coil, scarring his insides.
Kortho was the only thing that mattered now, and he wasn’t down here like he’d hoped.
He had to go back out there and see for himself. It was suicide; he knew that. Ryden would see through his death puppetry, and he’d kill him. He had to know.
As he turned to leave, he heard a long, wheezing sound, and then movement.
He turned back to see that Harry Helmund had bolted upright, his eyes open, color flushing back into his cheeks.
CHAPTER 67
Jakub knew resurrection when he saw it, which was a good thing given his job. It would have been embarrassing if he didn’t. This wasn’t it; none of the signs were there.
This man was alive.
Harry blinked. “Laura?” he said, his voice groggy. “Hey, you’re not Laura.”
“And you aren’t dead.”
Harry ran his hand through his hair, pushing the locks back over his head. “No, I’m not. We’re a couple of perceptive guys, aren’t we?”
He got off the shelf, took a step, then collapsed to his knees. He retched, and then vomited a stream of yellow gunk. H
e coughed out the last dribbles of it, and then shakily got to his feet.
Jakub drew his blackened blade and pointed it at Harry.
“What the hell is going on?” he said.
“The same question, right back at you. Where’s Laura?”
“Who is Laura?”
“She was supposed to collect me. This is the outpost, yes?”
“You’re a long way from the outpost, Harry, and people have died trying to find you. You better tell me what the hell is going on and why you’re not dead.”
Harry staggered to the side, smashing into the shelves. He fell to the floor, and then took a deep breath and pushed himself back to his feet.
“Goddamn pill,” he said. “I feel woozy as hell. How long was I out? Supposed to be a day; feels like weeks.”
Jakub walked to him and pressed the sword against Harry’s throat.
“Easy with that thing,” said Harry.
“What’s going on?”
“I need to know where we are,” said Harry. “and who you are, too. Where’s Laura?”
Jakub pushed the blade harder against his throat. “All you need to know right now is that I’m pissed off, and I lost a hell of a lot trying to find you. I was expecting a corpse, and now I’ve got this. You better tell me why you aren’t dead.”
“You’re with the Red Eye, aren’t you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because nobody else would give a shit who I am. Honesty breeds honesty, my friend.”
“Fine. I’m with the academy,” said Jakub.
“Here to take me back to them?”
He nodded.
“Then things haven’t quite gone to plan,” said Harry.
“Plan?”
“I knew I wouldn’t get through the Killeshi lands without getting caught by the outpost soldiers, and I knew what the empire would want to do with me. Torture, that kind of thing. Find out what I told the Baelin. Laura was supposed to come get me. We paid a bunch of Killeshi to come collect me, but only after the soldiers thought I was dead.”
“After they thought you were dead?”
“I bought a pill from an alchemist. It’s supposed to fake the signs of death. When they buried my body, the Killeshi were supposed to find me, dig me up, and smuggle me out of their lands and to Laura.”
He never really died. All this time they’d spent looking for a corpse, and the man wasn’t dead.
“One thing I don’t understand,” he said, “Is where I am now, and who you are.”
“I’m a necromancer with the academy,” said Jakub.
“They sent necromancers. Of course! Why the hell didn’t I think of that? Not even death is an escape from your bastards. Or pretend death, as it happens.”
“This Laura, who is she?”
“My twin sister,” said Harry, and then his eyes widened. For the first time, he lost his cock-sure attitude. “Where is she?”
“I haven’t met a girl called Laura.”
“Something must have happened to her. I have to get out of here, necromancer.”
“You’re going nowhere. Do you understand what I’ve been through to find you? A master necromancer died trying to get to you, all to find out that you’re alive.”
“You and I don’t have anything personal. Let me go.”
“You’re a traitor. You deserted the army and sold information to the Baelin.”
“I thought you might say that. Is that what they told you?”
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s bullshit, and what’s more, you-”
Footsteps sounded in the tunnels. Several of them, all getting closer.
Jakub moved away from Harry and held his sword at waist height, his grip tense around the hilt.
Four men were standing in the entrance to the room.
“Thorndyke?” said one, who Jakub recognized as one of the guards. “What are you doing down here? We’re supposed to be looking for a necromancer.”
“That is him, you idiot,” said a voice.
It was Ryden.
He pushed through the group until he was standing in front of them. He looked at Jakub, and then at Harry.
“You’re not dead,” he said.
“I’m getting asked that a lot lately. As you can see, I’m quite alive.”
Ryden nodded at the guards. “Take them both up top. If they move, kill them.”
“What? That’s Thorndyke,” said a guard. “You must have seen him around camp. He’s one of us.”
“Thorndyke is dead, and this is someone else entirely. Bring them up top.”
CHAPTER 68
The guards led him out of the passageway and into the hamlet. Jakub felt two swords pressing against his back, and every time he slowed for a second, a guard jolted him forward.
“Over here,” said Ryden.
They walked to the bonfire. Jakub felt the flames warm his face, and he saw the camp dwellers gathered around. Some of them, the teenagers, had blood around their mouths from the flesh they had eaten.
Then he saw other things; first, there was Morrigan. Her hands were bound by rope, and she had something stuffed into her mouth.
Behind her, lying on a wooden table, was Kortho. The flames glinted on his liguana skin, and the smell of burning wood mixed with his aroma of goodlight.
The touch of the blades in Jakub’s back was a reminder of how useless he was now, how overmatched. There was nothing he could do.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” said Ryden. “Your assignment was a failure, and the academy would have understood.”
A woman broke through the crowd of camp dwellers. It was Hilda.
“Thorndyke? What’s going on?”
“This isn’t him,” said Ryden. “He’s a necromancer wearing your friend’s skin.”
“Wearing his skin? You…Gregor should never have let you into the camp, Ryden. Flesh, skin, all of it. You’re a blight.”
“You chose your side, woman.”
Hilda looked at Jakub. “Where’s my boy? Is he okay?”
“Answer her,” said Ryden.
Rud being outside the camp with his vampiric crossbow was just about the only advantage he had left, and he wasn’t going to give it up.
He hated it, but he knew what he had to say.
“Rud is dead,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”
“You rotten bastard!”
She went to rush at him, but Ryden stepped in front, put his foot out and tripped her up. She hit the ground, and she put her hand on the edges of the fire as she tried to steady herself. She grunted in pain.
“Your boy is dead,” said Ryden, “but you can still live through this, Hilda. You all can. I will be gone as soon as this is dealt with.”
Jakub looked at Hilda, at the way she stared at Ryden, and he saw his chance.
“Tell your men to kill him. Get rid of Ryden, and this goes away.”
“My boy…” she said.
“I’m not dead, mum,” said a voice.
Rud walked over to the bonfire, his crossbow leveled at Ryden. Jakub looked back across the camp, and saw that there were no guards at the gate now; the commotion had drawn them away, and Rud had walked straight through.
“Kill Ryden,” Jakub told him. “Shoot him in the face.”
“But he’s a necromancer,” said Rud.
“I told you; he’s just a man. He’ll die like the rest of us, necromancer or not.”
Hilda spoke to the men around her. “This has gone on long enough. I don’t know who this man in Thorndyke’s body is, but I know Ryden, and I know we’ll be better off free of him. I’m your leader now, and I wouldn’t do you wrong. Kill the necromancer.”
Ryden shot her a look of pity. “Stupid woman. You saw what I can do. You saw what happened to Gregor. Do you want the rest of the people here to die the same way?”
Her shoulders slumped. “He’s right,” said Hilda. “Stand down.”
“He can’t do a thing if he’s dead,” said J
akub. “Rud, shoot him.”
Rud raised his crossbow and squinted down the sights. His finger tensed over the tiger.
Ryden smiled. “Wait a second, boy.”
“Don’t listen,” said Jakub. “Remember the demons in the Greylands trying to trick us? Ryden is worse than that. Don’t listen to him.
Ryden turned around and looked behind him. “Florence? Come here, girl.”
Jakub watched Rud lower his crossbow, and a cold dread seeped over him.
“Florence?” said Rud.
The girl walked toward them. Her skin looked strangely pale, lit only by the glow of the bonfire.
Some of the other camp dwellers looked around, confused, staring at the space that Rud was focused on, as if they couldn’t see the girl.
Rud dropped his crossbow and ran to Florence, his arms outstretched to pull her into a hug. The girl seemed to be trying to shout, but all that left her mouth were rasping sounds.
Rud reached her, arms out, and then passed straight through her. His staggered and lost his balance, falling onto the ground.
She wasn’t there. Her form was spectral, like something out of the Greylands. Rather than looking hazy like Ludwig, she looked real.
He remembered what Ludwig had told him about the boy, about how Ryden had bound her to him.
He knew what this was now; Ryden had killed Florence, and in death, he’d bound her to him.
Rud got back up. “Florence?”
Ryden nodded at one of the armed camp dwellers. “Grab him.”
The man looked at Ryden, then at Hilda.
“Do as he says,” said Hilda. “We have to do as he says.”
That was it, then. His last card played and wasted. He was trapped here with no weapons, no allies. Morrigan was tied up, but even if she was free she’d have been no match for Ryden and the people around him.
Jakub had failed the academy, failed Kortho, failed himself.
All for a man who wasn’t even dead. He hated everything at that moment; Harry Helmund, Ryden, even the academy.
I’m sorry, Kortho, he thought, staring at his mentor’s body across the bonfire.
It was with that thought, that a thought else hit him, but before he could act on it, three things happened.
At the far end of the camp, figures streamed in through the gates. Seven Killeshis, dressed and armed for battle, led by a woman with long, curly hair, who looked exactly like the female version of Harry Helmund.
