She lifted her head and met his eyes. He could see tears had started to slide down her face. Even in her sadness, he found her beautiful.
“If you find him, I will reward you with anything you ask. I will publicly swear my loyalty to you as King.”
“I will do what I can,” Aramis replied.
Lynessa leaned in uncomfortably close to him. He could smell her perfume. Staring into her eyes, he had the sudden urge to kiss her. She must have had the same idea because she moved in even closer. They were mere inches from one another. Pushing his nervousness aside, he was about to kiss her when someone knocked on the door. The interruption broke the moment and Lynessa pulled back.
The door opened and Mel poked his head inside. “You need to see this, my Lord.”
“What is it?” Aramis asked, still staring at Lynessa. His heart was thudding against his chest.
“The dead. They’re … not dead. They’re attacking the city.”
“A man is never too weak or wounded to fight
if the cause is greater than his own life.”
—Aramis
CHAPTER three
Ash.
Jovanna stood on a blackened field. As far as she could see, there was nothing but a smoldering, charred landscape. Scorched bones littered the area. The smell of burnt flesh—and death—filled her nostrils. It was overwhelming. She dropped to her knees and vomited.
Inhale. Exhale.
Jovanna repeated the words in her mind and her body obeyed. She wiped the back of her hand across her lips and spat the vile taste from her mouth. She was stronger than this; better than this. She staggered to her feet and immediately felt her strength drain from her. It was all she could do to remain standing. Tremors ran through every muscle in her body. It was a weakness like she had never experienced. A pounding ache in her head reverberated behind her eyes.
The weakness was undeniable, yet she also felt powerful. She had done something no one else had. She had used the elven tattoo magic. Her, a human, able to wield both elven magic and human magic. She smiled as the implication slowly came into focus.
She stood and waited for the dizziness to pass. The rushing torrent of magical energy that had left her and caused the destruction that she gazed upon was great indeed, though it left her feeling sick and weak. She would need to learn to control it better.
As her vision returned to normal, Jovanna noticed the elves had regrouped across the field. They were preparing to attack, forming ranks and putting their archers at the rear of their force. She needed to recuperate.
Jovanna tried to turn and retreat to the fortress, but her muscles would not obey her. She stood there, frozen. She was confused. Then she thought maybe one of the elves had cast a spell at her. Closing her eyes, she sent her senses out. Nothing. She could feel the humming of the elves’ magical tattoos, but aside from that, there was no other magic in effect.
She opened her eyes and looked down at her legs. They trembled slightly from weakness, but there were no wounds she could see that would keep her from moving. Her confusion turned to anger as she tried harder to move. Had the tattoos she’d inked caused an issue? She watched the magic floating around her calves. Everything seemed normal. Then again, to her knowledge, she was the first human to use the elven magic. Perhaps there was a good reason why humans didn’t use it.
The book. She remembered reading in the book that humans had given their elven slaves the tattoos. There was no mention of whether the humans had used them as well. Jovanna sighed in frustration.
A single braying trumpet sounded from the fortress behind her. She turned her head—she had some control—and her eyes widened in shock. The front half of the castle had been blown apart. Had she done that?
The army of elves came across the field at a run, shouting insults and defiance to their foes. Arrows from both sides arced into the skies, forming a canopy of death above the heads of the armies, who came together with a resounding crash. Not far from the fighting, she was trying desperately to move. No one had noticed her. Yet.
Then she saw Garrick, the king of Talvaard, look her way. She had saved his life when the elves were assaulting the walls. Like some fool, she had watched him leap off the castle walls into the midst of the elves, single handedly fighting them off while his men repaired the breach the elves had created.
She watched as combat became hand to hand. The archers on both side were now effectively useless. The two armies were locked together in a bloody embrace. After several moments, she saw the human line of defense break.
Their order and discipline quickly dissolved and chaos ensued. Then, faintly, she felt something in the air. It was magic, she was sure, but it was not like anything she’d experienced before. There was something … old to it. She twisted her head in every direction, but she didn’t see the source.
Her attention returned to Garrick once she noticed he was fighting one of the elves with the stone skin tattoo. He was fighting a losing battle. She’d helped him once; now he was on his own. And then suddenly, she could move again. Whatever had held her still just dissipated. Jovanna surveyed the battle. There was nothing she could do. Until she learned to control her new magic, everyone was at risk of being killed by anything she cast.
Just as she decided to run, she saw him. His black robes billowed around him as he stalked through the battlefield. She watched as with barely a touch, he made men collapse to the ground as though they were dead. Her eyes narrowed when she realized it was Tairu.
She unsheathed her sword and ran towards him.
“Death hands all men dice. Only a few roll them.”
—Adamar
CHAPTER four
Aramis watched the amassing crowd of corpses from behind the castle’s courtyard gates. They shuffled in random directions in what appeared to him to be laziness. Mel stood at his side, a look of disgust on his face. They’d both had their fill of a delicious meal and changed clothes. They were each wearing thin black cloaks over plain brown tunics and black breaches.
Mel had initially scoffed at the plain clothes, but knowing they would likely be covered in blood and the gods knew what else, he had finally acquiesced.
“It’s odd,” Aramis said. “They don’t seem like they are all that dangerous.”
“Don’t be fooled,” one of the nearby guards said. “They only act like that when the Warlock isn’t among them. When he is, they become very formidable.”
“Formidable would be an understatement,” one of the other guards chimed in. “I’ve fought formidable men before. These things can’t die. They’re much more than formidable.”
“Have either of you seen the Warlock?” Aramis asked.
“No,” the first man said.
“I have,” said the second. “It was only a glimpse, but that was enough to raise the hackles on my neck. Creepy looking fellow.”
“What did he look like?”
“Hard to say,” the guard said. “He was wearing a long robe and his face was covered with a hood.”
Aramis frowned. “A man in a robe whose features you couldn’t see made you uneasy?”
“Of course not,” the man bristled. His face flushed with anger. “There’s something about his presence that was…” the man grasped at the air as if he could grab ahold of the word he was searching for, “… dark. Evil.”
He knew the feeling well. When he’d faced the chimera in the woodland home of the druids, the very air seemed to be sucked from his lungs. The creature’s presence was overpowering. Aramis nodded in understanding. He looked around the courtyard and surveyed the demeanor of the guards. Although the gates were closed and barred against the dead, they all seemed anxious. Their hands gripped the hilts of their swords and their eyes darted from shadow to shadow.
“What about the townsfolk?” Aramis asked. “How are they safe outside these walls?”
“The dead act like this normally, so they are safe within their homes or other buildings. The first few nights they came alive was
different. They were smarter.”
“Smarter?”
“Yes. They knew how to enter buildings, they carried weapons. They had purpose. It was as if they had someone commanding them, guiding them to where they should be. I know it sounds odd, but you’d have to have seen it to understand.”
Aramis looked to Mel, who only squinted out into the darkness. “What do you think?” Aramis asked. “Should we make our move tonight?”
Mel reached up and tapped his chin with his right hand. “The idea of walking among these disgusting things is appalling.” He sighed dramatically. “Yet I suppose the quicker we take action, the quicker we can be done here and move on to our intended destination.”
“Agreed,” Aramis said. He turned to the guard. “Open the gates.”
“What?” The guard looked like he might run off in fear.
“We need to get out there and find the Warlock. Open the gates.”
The guard hesitated, looking from the corpses outside the gate to the castle.
“Don’t worry,” Aramis said. “We won’t let any of them breach the wall. We don’t even need to open it much, just enough for us to slip out.”
Aramis thought the man would deny the request, but he nodded. He waved to the other guard who came over and helped him lift the bar from the gates. Opening the gate just enough to fit his body through, Aramis stepped out among the dead. Mel followed quickly, then pushed the gate back in place. The two guards replaced the bar.
“Good luck,” one of them said. “You’re going to need it.”
“Thanks.”
Aramis summoned his blade. The air hissed as the black metaled weapon formed in his hand. Mel did likewise, the silver blade standing in stark contrast to his own. They began making their way through the undead, dodging the corpse’s slow-moving attempts to grab at them.
“It’s hard to imagine these things actually fighting,” Aramis said over his shoulder to Mel.
“I agree, my Lord. The idea that these things could have anything resembling intelligence is … doubtful.”
They stopped at the end of the street. It continued straight and forked to the left and to the right. The area was devoid of any of the dead. The street lanterns had been lit and they had plenty of light to see by. The buildings in this area looked similar to the ones they had passed by earlier. Signs of fire, broken windows. Aramis placed the tip of his sword in the cobbled ground and balanced the blade against his leg, then pulled out a piece of parchment.
“This map shows the graveyard should be down the street to our right. A few hundred feet, if that.”
“The Lady seems taken with you,” Mel said unexpectedly.
“What?” Aramis turned to his friend.
“I can see it in her eyes,” Mel added. “She fancies you. She’s twice your age, surely, but she likes you. Do you not see it?”
“Oh, I see it,” Aramis answered. “She probably would have kissed me if you hadn’t walked in earlier.”
“If I may be direct, my Lord?”
“You know you can,” Aramis said with a laugh. “You’ve never asked permission before.”
“Do not toy with her emotions. If you do not feel the same way about her as you do about Hanna, I would avoid anything other than our current business with her.”
At Hanna’s name, Aramis pulled the pendant she had given him out from beneath his shirt. It glimmered faintly in the light of the street lanterns. He hadn’t thought of Hanna in a while.
“Of course I don’t feel the same way,” Aramis finally said. “They have two completely different personalities. Lynessa is beautiful and strong. Especially in the wake of her husband’s murder. Trying to deal with grief and run a city … I can only imagine what she is going through. Hanna though … Hanna is more than someone whose looks I admire.” He placed the pendant back beneath his shirt and rolled the parchment back up. He slipped it into his belt and picked up his sword.
“That’s good to hear, my Lord. I fear that her attraction to you may simply be part of her grieving. Freedom changes people.”
“Freedom? I wouldn’t think the loss of someone beloved to you to be freedom.”
“Perhaps freedom was the wrong word. Loneliness, maybe? The lack of love changes people. It makes us do things we would never do otherwise. Certainly, you understand this?”
“Yes,” Aramis lied. He knew what Mel meant, of course, but he couldn’t say he understood how it felt. He didn’t like talking about his feelings anyway. “This way,” he said. They went to the right and walked for a while in silence. The further they traveled, the less the street lanterns illuminated anything. It was like a dark haze was pulling the light into its depths. Ahead, Aramis saw the small stone wall and steel gate that marked the entryway into the cemetery.
“There,” Aramis paused and pointed. “That must be it. It fits the description.”
“Something feels wrong here,” Mel said.
Aramis looked around them, expecting to see more of the corpses. Everything was quiet. The flame of the lantern to their right flickered sporadically before suddenly dying. They were left in complete darkness except for the pale moonlight that filtered down through the thick murky clouds above. They exchanged glances.
“Eerie,” Aramis said. The sound of his voice seemed loud and out of place. Without another word, Aramis headed toward the gate. It swung open on silent hinges. Apparently, it was well kept. Large stepping stones, surrounded by small pebbles, led them into the cemetery. The footpath was only a few feet wide. On either side of the path, manicured grass stretched out before them. A dense fog blanketed everything. It was so thick Aramis could only see a few feet in any direction.
“This seems like a bad idea,” he whispered.
“I couldn’t agree more, my Lord,” Mel whispered back.
As they continued along the path, they began passing gravesites. Most of them had been disturbed, the grass and dirt having been heaved up off the wooden caskets below the ground. Aramis’s senses began to play tricks on him. He thought he saw movement within the shadowy fog, but when he peered toward the movement, there was nothing there. Whispers called out to him, but when he stopped walking, he heard nothing.
“Is it just me, or does this place seem alive?” he asked.
“That would be one way to describe it,” Mel answered.
The path circled around a large fountain. Gray stone benches were placed on the edges of the pathway, close to the grass. The base of the fountain was round and made of the same gray stone as the benches. An angelic statue stood guard in the center of the fountain, holding a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. Water sprayed mist like into the air from the tip of the blade.
“What is that?” Mel asked.
Aramis turned his attention to where Mel was pointing. A mass of shapes slowly materialized out of the fog. As they came closer, he realized they were corpses. They weren’t like those outside of the castle, however. These corpses didn’t shuffle around. They walked like normal men and they were armed with swords and axes.
Aramis summoned his armor. He could hear the air hissing around him as Mel did the same. With a sudden quickness, the dead charged them. Aramis brought his sword up in a sweeping arc as one of them came within range. The powerful stroke cut through the creature’s rotting flesh easily, but stopped as it struck the dead man’s ribcage.
The blow hardly affected the thing. It growled at him and brought its own sword up to strike him. Throwing himself backwards to avoid the blow, he had to let go of his own blade. The dead man came at him, swinging its sword back and forth like an untrained thug. Aramis easily maneuvered himself away from the swings. When he saw an opportunity, he lunged forward and grabbed the hilt of his sword and yanked hard. A cracking noise filled the air and the blade came free. No blood rushed from the wound. He deflected the man’s next few strikes and scored a few of his own.
“How do you kill someone who is already dead?” Aramis shouted. He risked a glance over at Mel and sa
w he was busy fending off two corpses.
“I haven’t figured that out yet!” Mel shouted back.
Swinging low, Aramis succeeded in hacking off one of the man’s legs. It threatened to fall over, but managed to stay upright. It began hopping toward him. Aramis was unpleasantly surprised to see the limb stand up and reattach itself to the man’s stump. It came at him as if nothing had happened.
Gods, he thought, this was a terrible idea. I don’t even know how to fight these things! Then he thought about Lynessa and her look of disappointment. He couldn’t let her down. He wouldn’t. With a loud cry, he swung with all his might and removed the dead man’s head. The corpse continued to stand for a moment before toppling to the ground. He watched for a moment to see if the thing would get back up. It didn’t move.
“Cut off their heads!” he yelled to Mel.
He watched as Mel spun about in a circle and, with an amazing flourish, both corpses had their heads lopped off.
“You’ve got company!” Mel shouted.
Aramis turned to find three of the dead men running at him. He growled in frustration and rushed to meet them head on. Though they were obviously untrained, he was outnumbered. He went on the defensive, parrying their strikes. They kept him so busy fending off their attacks that he couldn’t get his own strikes in. He began to back pedal, slapping their swords away as he struggled not to trip over himself. His back suddenly slammed into something hard. Glancing back, he saw it was Mel.
His friend was fighting a pair of dead men. Being so focused on the fight, he almost didn’t notice the mass of corpses that were joining the fray. It was slow at first. Two and three here or there, but then they started appearing in droves. They were quickly surrounded. Only a small circle of space kept the dead at bay.
Aramis could feel his arms getting heavy. His breathing was getting labored and sweat was dripping down his chest and back. As his defenses began to falter, his armor started taking more hits. Clanging filled the air as the dead men’s blows rained down on him. He could hear Mel grunting in pain behind him.
The Restored King (The Fallen King Chronicles Book 4) Page 3
