The Wrath of the Orphans (The Kinless Trilogy Book 1)

by Chris Philbrook

  "Mal we can have steel staves whenever we want. Both of us can tie a length of rope around our waists, and when we need weapons, we take the rope off, and I cast the spell. We'll always be armed as long as we can find rope. I bet I can even cast it on string to make one of those choking wires. What're they called?"

  "Garrotes. That's pretty fantastic Umaryn. Pretty damn fantastic."

  "Yeah. I'm kind of proud of myself."

  "She left almost every day last week with a guy that's her damn dead ringer. I'd bet my daughter's life it's her brother," one of the Sergeants said.

  The trio of warrior commanders had gathered a small supporting group of their underling soldiers. The Sergeants had gathered another dozen men loyal to them, as well as to their missing Captain. These were men that had hearts filled with hatred, and minds set on revenge. They had assembled late in the night in the very same amphitheatre that Malwynn and Ivar had been using to train in.

  The giant, still wearing his wolf skin pelt was in the center of the posse, clearly the leader of the pack, "Where do they go?"

  "The lifts to the High City. I can't ride the lifts so I don't know where they go up there," the smaller Sergeant replied.

  The wolf skin wearing man mulled it over. "If we do this, we all risk death at the hands of the Inquisitors. All of us will be sent to the guillotine. We won't even rate life as a dead servant. Everyone here needs to be damn well sure they are ready to die to find out if this bitch had anything to do with Captain Drogal." He paused, giving everyone a full minute to contemplate what he was saying. He spoke again, "This is no order from any of us. If you want to keep your heads on your shoulders, and keep your honor as well with us, then walk out now. We'll hold no ill will, and tell no tales of your choice either way."

  There were a few more moments of nervous silence, then five of the men left the room quietly. The man wearing his wolf skin made note that all five men had families. He nodded, respecting their devotion to more than a missing officer. Revenge would be a paltry prize with nothing else in your life.

  He counted the gathered force, "Then it will be the ten of us. In three days, we will confront her in the forges. Queen willing, she answers our questions." The wolf man laughed, "Or Queen willing, she won't."

  Days later Malwynn and Ivar were back at it.

  "Yes, excellent. Perfect form. Your strength is much improved," Ivar said from the first row of the benches in the amphitheatre. Even without his chain and plate Ivar was massive. The ash colored man was dead, that much was obvious, but his necromantic existence did nothing to quell the intimidating nature of his natural presence. Alive he'd have still been frightening.

  Malwynn stopped his rote physical exercises and turned to face his instructor, "Ivar, may I ask you a question?"

  Ivar cocked his head to the side, confused, "About sword work? Of course."

  Malwynn shook his head, "No, I wanted to ask something about you. About how you became… what you are."

  Ivar's white, soulless eyes stared back at Malwynn for an uncomfortably long time before he responded, "You wish to know how I died?"

  "I want to know how you became whatever it is you are. I know you're dead, but you're not like the other dead I've seen before. You're intelligent, you've got self control. You're… unique." Malwynn's growing sense of admiration for the knight was shining through.

  Ivar's face didn't show that he was aware of Mal's appreciation. Ivar was wearing a button up tunic the color of sand that day, and before he spoke, he undid three of the buttons at the center of his chest, right near the base of his ribcage. He inserted his massive paws into the shirt and pulled the fabric to the sides, revealing more milk colored flesh. In the center of his chest, right where the stomach meets the ribcage was an open but bloodless wound. It was two inches long and ran diagonally from left to right. Ivar moved the skin a bit with his fingertip and Malwynn saw the wound spread open.

  "I was engaged in a battle with separatists about three decades ago. I had been a standing knight in the Order of the Purple Flower for three years, and I was destined to rise in the ranks. I had been hailed by the Queen herself as a pinnacle of all things the Empire should aspire to." Ivar spoke romantically. His raspy voice took Malwynn to a different time, and a different place. "As I said the separatists had been stealing weapons and food from a Fort about twenty miles east of here. We rode out to make an example of them, and in the end, in a most unimpressive fashion, I was run through by a sword not unlike my own."

  "You died?"

  Ivar shook his head as he buttoned his shirt back up, "No, not immediately. I fought to cling to life for several days. My unit returned me here to Graben, and I was brought before my superiors. My life was forfeit, my body not repairable. I was judged to be deserving of reanimation, and as I lay dying, I was entrusted to a powerful necromancer. When I passed, he performed the necessary rites to bring my corpse to the state you now see it in."

  "What are you?" Malwynn asked, completely enveloped in the story.

  "I am a Wight now." Ivar said it half proudly, and half sadly. Mal wasn't quite sure what to make of his statement.

  "My mother once said that word. Aren't Wights powerful undead? Aren't they rare?"

  Ivar shook his head again, "Not as rare as you might think here, but yes, our kind of undead is uncommon. Most Wights on Elmoryn are made by necromancers, the same as I."

  Malwynn suddenly figured out who the necromancer that made Ivar was. It was all coming together now. "Why be a knight? Why be a warrior in the first place? I understand you're enormous, but why become a dealer of death and violence? You could've been a farmer, a weaver or a smith."

  Ivar smiled softly. "I wanted to protect those I loved. I couldn't walk away from my natural ability to keep them safe. I decided a long time ago that my soul, and my purity was less important than seeing to it that my friends and family were kept safe. Dying for them was a small price to pay. Now in undeath I have a second life to give for my Queen, and the descendants of my loved ones."

  "You intentionally seek out violence so they don't have to experience it?" Malwynn asked, seeing the man come together.

  "I would visit unending wrath on all who seek to do harm to my nation, or my family Malwynn." Ivar's voice was cold. This was a statement he'd said before. "I push you to train harder, to focus because I know more than anyone else the price you pay when your discipline fails you, even if only for a moment. Your skill is a reflection of my teaching, and if you fail after we part ways, I will have it be for no reason I had control over."

  "I think you and I are more alike than I could've imagined Ivar," Malwynn said as he went back to the sword strokes his mentor wanted him to learn. This time, his practice was different.

  Umaryn's practice in her forge stall had run late a few days after Ivar and Malwynn's discussion. The sun had set many hours earlier, the temperature of the night had plummeted and she knew by now Malwynn would be back at Dram's manor cooking dinner while undead servants milled about. She hoped that when she arrived he wouldn't be too disappointed in her late arrival.

  Things had progressed well that day. She had trimmed down her casting time for Strip by more than half. Of course the hard work came at a price. The ages old Elmoryn expression was that Will was required to use The Way, and spending so long focusing her Will that day left her drained. It was all she could do to pack up her tools and remain on task to get everything in Tinder's saddlebags. She'd never been so drained.

  The weather was stark and clear that night, leaving little but bitter cold. The clouds had finally cleared out, having emptied their white bellies of snow every day and night the past week. High in the sky hung Lune, the bright moon. Umaryn finished gathering all of her supplies and put them away in Tinder's bags. Over her shoulder she heard the faintest crunch atop the snow, and thought it was Malwynn coming to check on her. After all, sometimes he stayed late with that monstrous instructor of his, Ivar.

  "Hey Ma-," she said, cutting herself off
as she realized it was not her brother, but multiple Amaranthine soldiers. They had arrayed themselves in a moon shape, cutting off her exit from the stall, and the courtyard of the forge area of the base.

  "You're Isabel, aren't you?" A massive man asked. He was huge, almost as big as the dead knight her brother studied under, and he wore a huge pelt around his shoulders. She thought it was a wolf skin.

  "I most certainly am not. Might I ask you why you're bothering an Inquisitor's Aide? You must surely realize that impeding me would be met with harsh consequences," Umaryn did her best to appear bold and authoritative. She felt big words would help convince hopefully small minds.

  The pelt wearer was dismissive, and sinister. "You're Isabel. Your eyes flinched when I said that name, and you're her. I've no doubt about that now. You're a bit of a liar, aren't you?"

  Umaryn gave no response. It turned out the large man didn't have a small mind after all. She tried to focus hard to remember where exactly she'd put her hammer. It hung in a loop on Tinder's saddle, just a foot away from her hand.

  "I'm not going to lie to you Isabel. We came here for answers. And either you give them to us, and they are to our satisfaction, or this here forge is where your life comes to an end."

  Umaryn wondered where her brother was.

  - Chapter Ten -

  POTENTIAL REVEALED

  As the ten men fanned out, spanning the entire entrance to her forge stall, Umaryn's mind flittered through the situation, and her options. She was weak. Her will had been spent during the day to fuel her experiments with The Way. She had one spell left inside her, perhaps two. She would have to make them count if it came down to it. The ten men were soldiers. Their armor and Empire issued weapons were clear evidence supporting that.

  This all made sick sense. Umaryn and Malwynn had killed many soldiers of the Amaranthine Empire, and when she worked at The Salon, she'd rubbed more than elbows against scores of these very same men. She'd been foolish to not realize that eventually one of them would recognize her. Apparently her paranoia had been overwhelmed by her enthusiasm to be back in a forge. Now her foolishness would leave her brother fully alone if she wasn't able to escape this situation.

  "What's your name, large one?" Umaryn asked the wolf pelt wearing giant.

  He hefted a blunt mace from his hip and answered her, "No names from us Isabel, just answers from you."

  She licked her lips against the brutal cold of the Amaranthine night and nodded. If she was to talk her way out of this, she'd need to answer their questions, "So be it. Ask what you will. Just be prepared for answers that you won't approve."

  One of the men to her far left challenged her immediately, "What happened to Captain Drogal? The last time anyone saw him you'd left the bar with him alone." The man was so very angry, and nervous. He had nearly choked on his threat.

  She figured this was about Drogal. "I delivered Captain Drogal to an Inquisitor that night for interrogation. I suspect he did not impress the Inquisitor, as I've not seen him since." Her answer was a complete fabrication. She hoped it would divert their anger towards Dram. He was someone far more capable of dealing with this group of murderous hooligans.

  The ten men were speechless. Another of the men put forth a question, just as angry as the first, "What would an Inquisitor want with the Captain? He was a patriot through and through. Loyal as any to the Throne."

  Umaryn shrugged as apologetically as she could, and tried to think one step ahead, "I am but an Inquisitor's Aide. Perhaps he isn't dead? Perhaps he was brought in as a new member of the Inquisition? If he is as big a patriot as you say, that is a distinct possibility."

  The men exchanged glances, tipping their uncertainty to Umaryn. She pressed, sensing the momentum of the encounter shift, "I can send a missive to my Inquisitor if you wish. I can have him contact your unit. Perhaps there is some information he is able to share?" Umaryn tilted her head, and angled her hip out ever so slightly. Even through her heavier outdoor clothing the slight change in posture exuded some sensuality.

  The men seemed to take her bait.

  All but one. The huge pelt wearing leader looked at the men surrounding him as if they'd been struck by lightning. He was incredulous, and screamed at the men. "Are you all mad?! Look at her, the lying whore! She swings her hip out, and looks at us with her feminine ways to seduce us into stupidity. Can't you see she's as guilty as can be?!"

  The other men stopped their behavior immediately and turned their eyes to her. Umaryn suddenly felt very self conscious ad foolish standing as she was, and as innocuously as possible, she went back to her normal posture. The men caught her guilty demeanor and their tempers flared. She'd tipped her hat in the wrong direction, and now she was in more serious trouble than ever.

  "If you won't give us the truth freely wench, then we will beat it out of you," The giant said, lifting his mace and storming forward. The time for talking was over. Umaryn was in a fight for her life, and she was all alone.

  She reached over as fast as she could and snapped up her warhammer from Tinder's saddle. She backpedaled a few steps to get away from her horse, as well as the men. Strange as it was, she didn't want them to hurt Tinder.

  The men didn't seem to care about the horse. The giant with the wolf pelt pressed inward to the center of the stall, backing her straight into the heat of the forge. Umaryn flashed her eyes at the huge man and gave a spell everything she had.

  "Ichthyorak!" She gestured at the mace in wolf-man's hand, and felt the measly surge of everything left in her rush out. She had a split second to hope the magic took effect before he brought the mace into her arm with a swing that would fell a tree.

  The mace bounced off her arm with no more effect than that of a cloth sack. She watched in a half a heart beat as the shaft of the mace bent backwards, and the head caved in as if it were made of soft clay. Her eyes drew upward to the face of the wolf pelt wearing man, and the look of disbelief in his eyes. She was entirely unharmed, and unmoved by his blow.

  She retaliated in kind. With his shoulders twisting him away she brought her hammer down abruptly into the side of his knee. Umaryn didn't put her full strength into the strike, but any hit with a hammer to anywhere near a knee has a catastrophic effect on anyone's ability to remain standing. The wolf pelt wearing soldier moaned in pain as his knee gave out and he collapsed to the cold hard ground.

  Nine to go.

  Two of the men flashed in with their viciously curved long axes. She was instantly thankful for the somewhat confined space of the stall. They couldn't properly enter the forge and use their weapons as well. That didn't mean one of them wasn’t lethal with every slash of his axe. He had the advantage of reach on her. His axe swept left to right as he moved inward on her, cutting off her ability to move, and engage. If she didn't do something quickly about her predicament, she'd be cut in half without a hope of doing anything about it.

  "Kill the bitch!" The wolf man bellowed from the floor through gritted teeth.

  Umaryn looked down at his massive form lying on the forge's stone floor, clutching his crushed knee. She saw an opportunity.

  "Eyah!" She screamed at the top of her lungs as she brought her hammer down onto the shin of the wounded warrior. Her hammer struck with the force of a hundred punches, and shattered his lower leg bones like brittle, dry sticks.

  The man screamed ten times louder than she did, and that rattled the nine others. They looked sympathetically to their now mangled leader, buying her a second to dart in past the reach of the man closest to her with the long axe. She rotated the head of her hammer around and brought it up side the man's head with a backhanded swing, caving in his exposed temple and rolling his eyes up into his skull. Blood gushed from his nostrils like a water pump. Before his axe clattered on the stone floor he was dead.

  Eight to go.

  She lowered her shoulder and rammed it into the next closest man, fully engaging the group in melee now. She was surrounded, and committed to the fight, no matter the endin
g. The man lost his wind in a white puff of steam and his balance simultaneously. He fell on his ass too fast for her to strike him with her weapon, but the man standing to his side failed to move fast enough. Her first hammer blow struck the man square in the ass, blackening the muscle underneath his breeches. The man yelped from the unexpected pain and stumbled to the side long enough for Umaryn to swing the hammer again, this time into the small of his back near the kidneys. He crumpled down with his fallen comrades, eyes shut from the agony his internal organs were experiencing. He wasn't dead by a long shot, but he was out of the fight.

  Seven to go.

  Umaryn's back exploded in pain as another one of the warriors returned a near exact favor to her. She was fortunate enough to still have her heavy leather apron on, and fortunate as well that the man hitting her had used one of the Empire's short swords to do so. The thick leather blunted the slashing edge of the sword enough to save her from having her spine severed, but the impact of the steel still ruined and bruised muscles. Her legs gave way to the force of the blow, and in an instant, she was on her knees, and her hammer was against the floor. She looked up in the sudden silence and saw the remaining seven men looming above her, her death in their eyes. This would be how it would end for Umaryn.

  Just out of her line of vision, she heard a grunt of pain. The other men froze, turning to their comrade who'd made the noise. Umaryn straightened her battered lower back and saw that one of the soldiers had been run through with a blade not unlike the one she'd just been attacked with. The tip of the sword retracted into the chest of the man and he plummeted to the earth just outside the stall. His heart had been pierced, and standing behind where the man had died was her brother Malwynn.

  Six to go.

  Her twin brother moved with a grace and skill she'd never seen before, drawing all the attention from the remaining foes trying to kill her. Umaryn watched from the floor, now completely ignored.