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

by Chris Philbrook

  Makar listened from his hiding spot at the end of the hallway. He was just around the corner from where he heard the young man and woman decimating his undead horde. While not nearly as impressive or lethal as his master Omniri's force, it was nothing to scoff at. Nearly a score of heavily armored laborers and dead soldiers were at his beck and call, and he sent them forth two at a time to test his foe. It was a slow and deliberate tactic to painfully draw out their reserves of energy, and expend all their will to fight. Eventually, they might give up on this fool's errand from fatigue, and niggling injuries if his zombies weren’t able to kill them directly.

  Makar kept his eyes closed and focused on manipulating his undead's position and aggression. It was difficult work, keeping them arranged two by two, and making sure that they focused on harassing both enemies at the same time, but it was worth it. He could hear the grunts of the man and woman as their weak, living flesh fought against his minion's superior reanimated bodies. His slaves would never fatigue, never give up, and never beg for mercy. They were better in every way.

  There was a sickly wet sound of something hitting the floor. A limb, or an internal organ no longer inside perhaps. One of his undead would be put down soon undoubtedly. With a mental push he sent another of his dead around the corner of the hall he stood at and into the fray. There must be no relenting now. No taking of breath, and certainly no mercy.

  Makar would enjoy reanimating these two. It would be sweet to control them in every way.

  Malwynn watched as another of the gargantuan zombies rounded the corner at the end of the hall. It seemed as if they were all massive and wearing that damned heavy leather armor now. At his side Umaryn swung her hammer once more, shattering the shoulder of one of Omniri's undead. The thick body swung sideways and stumbled backwards, and a scant moment later the arm gave way and simply fell out of the socket. The sound of it hitting floor reminded him of his childhood, when his mother would drop an armload of wet laundry on their floor at home in New Picknell. He shook the memory as fast as he could and twisted his frame to launch a powerful stab into the neck of the cage-headed brute. He felt the sudden resistance of the spine followed by the sensation of it breaking. The zombie crumpled down in the hallway and the twins leapt over as another undead approached.

  Malwynn instantly had a revelation; the timing of this was too perfect. In order for him to control and mete out the presence of the undead such as this, he would've had to have been right on the spot. Within earshot at the very least…

  Makar or Omniri could only be steps away, and at the end of the hallway, Malwynn could feel the presence of something more, something alive, and something manipulating the way. He felt like a child dreading the presence of something under the bed in the middle of the dark, cold night. It was like a cold slickness running from neck to ass, raising pimples on his skin. If he could get to who or what was giving him that feeling, this marathon of pointless murder could be stopped.

  "Follow me," Mal said abruptly. As his sister reacted and attempted to keep up, Mal reached into a small pocket that hung on his waist and pressed forward. He'd hand sewn the belt and the pouches himself just a month before. It kept the things he needed for his spells organized, and at his finger's reach. From one of his pouches he produced a small handful of the Obrinnor's moss, and with his sword hand, he savagely hacked a giant rent in the chest armor of the undead nearest to him. Faster than the eye could see, he gathered the will to fuel a spell, and punched the fist that clutched the moss into the hole in the armor.

  The reaction was instantaneous.

  Mal's fist carried the Way-infused moss straight through the chest of the monster and right out its back, spraying blood, gore, and ageless undead wreckage the length of the passageway. The zombie's animating essence was annihilated, and it dropped to the floor, destroyed. Malwynn pushed down the hallway, intent on reaching the end where the manifestation had seemed to come from. One more large undead remained in his way, and Malwynn reached into his pouch once more for the moss that enabled The Way. As his fingers wrapped around the tiny green bit of fluff, his mouth was already speaking the words that formulated the energies for the spell.

  Umaryn feinted a crushing lunge with her hammer causing the undead to move in counterattack. Her thin and light body retracted like a pit viper coiling for a bite, and instead the girl spun her hammer in her hand like a ballerina holding a baton, and as she dropped to a knee, her hammer smashed the foot and ankle of the beastly zombie to a pulp. With his base destroyed the zombie tilted to the wall, unable to move forward, enabling Malwynn's killing blow.

  Mal tossed the moss through the wrought iron cage around the zombie's head and watched as it landed on the flesh and seared it away. The grey skin puckered and sizzled like bacon fat on a pan. The monster's head began to decay away under the sway of the spell, and both twins knew their foe was decimated.

  "OMNIRI!" Malwynn screamed from the base of the gut. The sound of his hatred reverberated in the hallway and actually managed to startle Umaryn. She was shaken by the power of his seething anger. She watched as her brother's fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of his sword. He was set afire now, and she feared for why.

  A long hand rocketed around the corner of the hallway as Malwynn came to it. Umaryn saw only a blink's worth of motion, but she saw a skeletal hand with gnarled knuckles and blackened fingernails that tapered to flesh-rending points. The hand struck her brother up side his head and she watched as a spray of her family blood erupted into the air.

  Malwynn stumbled away and careened into the wall as a living foe stepped into the hall challenging her. It was Makar, the wispy sycophant of Omniri's. It was his hand, warped by necromancy that had struck her brother, and suddenly, powerfully, she knew the hatred her brother felt.

  "I'll rip your cunt in two with my pretty little hands my dear girl," Makar said, his voice low and sexual.

  "We'll see who has their tiny bits intact in ten heartbeats you piece of shit," Umaryn said quickly.

  For a moment, the two stood still, eyes locked.

  One heartbeat.

  Makar moved first.

  His hands moved like poisoned talons in the air, slashing left and right, cutting the air like a blade. She could've heard them if she closed her eyes. He was fast, as fast as anyone she'd gone toe to toe with, but she too was quick. Out of the corner of her eye she saw as her twin brother started to push off the floor to get up, and her heart soared. His wound was not fatal.

  Three heartbeats.

  Immediately on the defensive, she weaved back and forth, dodging his wild and vicious swings. Umaryn took one step backward after another, nearly stumbling over the bodies of the armored undead this very man had sent after her and her brother. The necromancer's claws looked like bloody railroad spikes at the tips of his fingers, and she knew that if he connected her flesh would part easily, and never be the same again. Makar let slip a guttural scream and swung again, leaving his flank open for a moment.

  Umaryn was off balance but she managed a half swing with her hammer into his side. The gore covered hammer head bounced off his ribs and with an evil smile she felt at least one rib give in.

  Makar gasped for air and paused his assault.

  Five heartbeats.

  Umaryn's assault began in earnest. As a larger and larger rictus grin spread across her face, she began to swing her hammer to and fro, pushing Makar backwards as he had just done to her. She saw a flash of fear in his sunken eyes as he too realized how quickly his fortunes had changed. He had broken bones, and was now locked in a battle with a woman that would die to see him dead.

  Makar turned and attempted to flee.

  Seven heartbeats.

  For no reason Umaryn would ever be able to explain, as Makar took his steps to escape she thought of her father splitting wood back in New Picknell. One warm memory occurred to her in the moment. She had been very little, perhaps six, and her pestering brother; the same one with the side of his head ripped open just
feet away, was off doing some filthy boy's errand. It was a time for her, and her father.

  They had laughed as he'd placed one log on the chopping block after another. His lean but strong arms would lift the axe up, and then bring it down on the log, cleanly splitting them into fireplace sized pieces over and over. She remembered getting her hands dirty as she picked up the logs and stacked them on the pile haphazardly as a six year old would.

  When they'd finished that day, her father had turned to her. "Watch this trick Umaryn. I learned this in the Eastern Wilds." Her father then lined up the axe in front of his body, both hands on the long haft. He brought the axe above his head and flung it cleanly and directly at a maple tree that had stood in their backyard. The woodcutting axe spun through the air end over end until the blade of it lodged firmly in the tree, handle vibrating.

  Right here, right now, deep inside a stone mansion that might turn into her and her brother's place of death, she held her hammer in front of her face as her father had held that axe, and lifted it high as he had, and she flung her hammer at Makar's back, just the same as her father had thrown that sharpened work axe at that maple so long ago.

  The hammer didn't pierce the fleeing necromancer as the axe had parted the bark of the tree, but the steel head struck true right at the base of the bastard's back, and he let out a yelp of pain as his legs gave out. Makar's long, oily black hair spilled out on the carpeted floor as his forehead cracked down.

  "Please no, I beg of you mercy!" Makar said as he awkwardly rolled over onto his back. Umaryn's grin spread impossibly wider as she watched a thick river of blood run down his face from a deep cut. She realized then the man was broken. His back was in two, and there would be no escape.

  Nine heartbeats.

  Umaryn reached down and scooped up the hammer. Makar saw what was to be, and began to conjure up The Way one last time in a final attempt to save his own life.

  Just like her father had brought that axe down onto the logs that day, Umaryn swung the hammer strong and clean.

  She split Makar's log in two, just as easily as her father had split those logs that day, long ago during the childhood she so missed now.

  Ten heartbeats.

  Makar's screams were more than agony, more than understandable by any human empathy. His groin was laid entirely asunder, and blood stained his grey trousers, and spread into the rich carpet faster than any man should bleed. He abandoned any attempts at The Way, instead clutching at his ruined genitals.

  "I told you," she said before turning away to tend to her brother.

  - Chapter Sixteen -

  THREE QUESTIONS ASKED

  "Ancestors help you Mal, your head is split nearly in half," Umaryn said softly. She'd crouched low next to Mal's sitting form to take a closer look at the giant rent in her brother's head. The bloody gash ran from his left temple over his ear and to the back of his skull where his hair line ended. The flesh had pulled away, revealing the bright pink skull bone beneath his scalp. Umaryn squashed a lurch in her stomach.

  "Is my skull broken? I don't have a headache," Mal said as he lifted his hand again to try and touch the wound. Umaryn slapped his hand away.

  "Stop fucking with it Mal," she said brusquely. Umaryn slid her small backpack off and removed the lantern that Dram had given them. Just touching the artifact made the tips of her fingers tingle, but she had no time to admire the thing's energy. She fished out a roll of clean white cloth to use as a bandage. She unrolled it tight but gingerly around her brother's head, using her free hand's fingers to push the gap of flesh together. She winced; her brother's eyes rolled up into his head and he faded from consciousness.

  As her brother's two undead slaves stood passively blocking the stone passage that led deeper into Omnirr's fortress, she worked quickly. She feared Omniri's undead forces dearly, but she also feared her brother's two zombies as well. He'd told her a dozen times the his undead would not stray from his will unless he died, but she was no necromancer, and had no love or trust for the darkest arts of The Way.

  Fortunately, the two dead soldiers stood true to Malwynn's word, keeping anything that might come at them at bay. Umaryn felt some appreciation for their presence, but it was tempered by mistrust and fear. Give her steel, give her wood. In these things she could place faith and trust.

  "Am I all better?" Mal asked, startling her. She hadn't realized she was spacing out.

  "Um, yeah. Sorry. You blacked out for a moment there. I've bandaged the wound, but with no tonic to give you, you are what you are right now." Umaryn stood, and extended a hand down to help her brother up.

  Malwynn took the hand graciously, and joined her standing in the hall, mostly due to her strength. His head swooned and he saw stars. When his vision cleared he saw the fresh blood on the stone and rugs. He knew it was his. It was still sticky underfoot.

  "Soon I'll be able to restore my flesh with necromancy, but I've not studied the spell enough yet. Timing is everything it seems. Do we still have the lantern?" Mal asked, tenderly feeling at the bandage around his chin and forehead. His flesh felt tight.

  Umaryn had to laugh. He looked ridiculous, "We still have it. Ready to be lit whenever we need it most. Probably should have already lit the damned thing eh?"

  Malwynn smiled at their predicament, and then laughed a bit with her. It felt good to laugh, even in this den of evil. He let the moment finish, and assessed their next step.

  Umaryn spoke again, "We need to move forward. If there's an exit from here, Omniri will surely be heading for it by now. That or he's mustering his most powerful defenses for his last stand against us."

  "Yeah," was all the response Mal could come up with. He was still thinking about what to do next.

  "Can you reanimate these dead bodies? The zombies wearing the armor that we've been killing for half an hour? They'd be perfect."

  Mal shook his head, "No. Once they're destroyed the soul inside is rendered useless, void. I can no more reanimate them than I could a turnip, or your hammer."

  "If you did any of your necromantic bullshit on my hammer Mal I swear to god I'd send it so far up your ass you could drive nails with your nose."

  Mal laughed again. Umaryn did the same.

  "Look Umaryn, this won't be good. I'm already hurt, we're both tired. We've likely seen less than half of what Omniri can send at us, let alone Omniri the necromancer. He's likely to be as powerful as Dram, or more so."

  "At least we have this lantern. I know Dram had little faith in its power Mal, but I can sense it as clear as the moons on a cloudless night. There is such power in it." Umaryn closed her eyes and rested her fingertips atop the lantern. Her skin prickled with joy at its touch.

  "Then let someone else's failure be our deliverance. Perhaps the ancestors smile on us at long last dear sister."

  "A fool's errand, this vengeance," Umaryn said softly, realizing they could die in just a few minutes.

  "Justice. Justice for our mother, our father, and our little sister. Justice for my Marissa. Justice for the entire village of New Picknell. Call it vengeance if you want, but I did not do the things I did with you to give up now. We're a hundred feet and ten minutes from watching the man that murdered our parents bleed out on the floor in front of us."

  "Let the ancestors bear witness."

  "And let us hope there's an apostle nearby to usher our souls into proper rest should we fail in our task here."

  The Everwalk twins grasped bloody hands for a moment, and after Umaryn slung her backpack, and picked up the lantern, they headed deeper down the passage towards where they hoped to find Omniri.

  And the strange, ruthless justice they'd sought for so long now.

  The thick necromancer sat on his raised dais like a bloated preacher. Before him stood his self made congregation of undead, lined up in long rows. A lush purple velvet chair wrapped its folds around his ample flesh a little too tightly to truly be comfortable. Omniri's vanity and love of the gift the Queen had given him would never allow f
or a different seat. If the chair was taken from him he would simply never sit again.

  Past the heavy oak double doors that Makar had sealed behind him when he left Omniri could sense precious little presence of the undead. It was a relatively easy trick of The Way to reach out with his mind and feel the essence of the reanimated dead, and Omniri had performed this parlor trick several times now. It was a waste of his mental fortitude, but his obsessive need to know prevented him from relaxing.

  He closed his eyes and extended his will out from his body, and through the thick granite walls of his home. Like pinpricks of light in the night sky he could see less than a hand's worth of the dead in the void beyond. One twinkle of undeath disappeared, signaling the ruin of yet another of Makar's minions. Omniri gnashed his teeth together and stood, full of anger. The chair gripped his sides, hesitant to free his prodigious body from its embrace.

  These two miscreants… These two foul spawns of a whore's ass would pay for all the trouble they'd caused him. He would not be embarrassed here in his very home by two unknowns from Graben's gutter. They would repay him with their death.

  There was a sound at the door. A scratching, then a slight rattle as the door shook. Omniri turned and watched as the twin doors to the hall moved ever so slightly. Someone was trying to pull them open. The same fools then tried to push them in to no avail. His doors would not give way to any strength they could muster.

  "Let them spend what remains of their strength there, failing to operate something as simple as a door, my pets. Then we shall show them what it means to truly face a necromancer."

  Lined up scores deep and scores wide before him was the personal army of Omniri Decadra. Their dead mouths fought and failed to salivate inside their wrought iron cages. They wanted the warm flesh of the intruders almost as much as their master did.

  "How do we get it open?" Mal asked, looking at the wide and sturdy double door. When he grabbed the handles and gave them a yank earlier he immediately knew that he had no chance of kicking the door in. The hall they stood in terminated at the thick door, and there was nowhere else to go. Omniri had to be on the other side.