Ward Against Death

by Melanie Card

  Raucous laughter drifted from the far end of the street. He held his breath. The last thing he wanted was to be caught with a body. He put his arm around Celia’s waist and tipped her head to rest on his shoulder with the hope that if anyone saw them they would look like friends or lovers, sharing a quiet moment.

  He had to think faster. What smelled worse than him? Pubs. At least in the poorer end of the city, those beyond the ninth ring, by the knacker yards. If the knackers of Brawenal were like any other knackers Ward had come across, the piles of animal parts were probably only processed every week or so, if at all.

  Four men staggered around the corner, laughing and dancing. They wore doublets and hose of similar cut, as if they all visited the same tailor. Which could be the case, except Ward knew the padded front, dual-colored slit sleeves and thigh-high doeskin boots were the height of fashion at Brawenal’s court. Ward had already had one of his doublets adjusted and had been saving for the boots in anticipation of his inevitable introduction to the prince.

  He shifted Celia’s weight against his shoulder. So much for that.

  The men stopped beneath the street lantern across from Ward. Between them and Ward the open sewer grate cast a long shadow on the cobblestones. He should have closed it behind him. Celia had told him so not more than an hour ago with the last grate.

  Maybe they wouldn’t notice.

  One of the men belched and stumbled toward the open grate. He fumbled with his breeches, making his friends laugh, but did manage to free his penis and urinate into the sewer. It seemed a never-ending stream, pouring down, defying all Ward knew about the human body, and drawing prying eyes to Ward with the body of Celia Carlyle.

  Ward’s heart pounded. His blood rushed in his ears. Please, oh please, don’t let anyone notice.

  With a sigh, the man re-laced his breeches and scrambled to catch up with his friends, who had left him and continued up the street.

  Ward picked up Celia, and, sticking to the shadows this time, headed in the opposite direction, his mind divided between watching for signs of pursuit and devising a plan to get across town to the knacker yards. He struggled to find his mental balance, to latch onto any coherent thought. The last time he’d been in a situation like this, he’d managed to leave that principality before things became too bad. And this was definitely past bad. Never, in ten generations, would he have acquired a body from her home. Any idiot knew the safest, fastest means of acquisition was a graveyard beyond or near the edge of the city.

  Unfortunately, thinking about what he would have done differently wouldn’t help the situation.

  He reached an opening between two estate walls and turned into the alley. Please let him find something—anything—by the servants’ entrances that would help, although Goddess knew he had no idea what that could be. At least he might be less noticeable than on the public streets.

  FOUR

  Ward took another swig of ale, held the bitter liquid in his mouth for a moment, and forced himself to swallow. Ale was fouler than he remembered. Although, “ale” might not be an accurate representation of the brew, since he’d purchased it and rented the tiny room from the one-armed barkeeper downstairs for only three of the copper buttons from his physician’s jacket. Ward suspected it was the price of the merchandise and not the quality that kept the ramshackle inn in business. Besides, who could taste anything with the acrid scent of blood from the knacker yards next door clinging in his nostrils?

  With one long pull, he finished the small jug and shook his head to clear it. The room didn’t look any better. It was as long as the narrow cot pressed against the wall, and its width was only marginally better. He’d have sat on the lumpy pallet, but he couldn’t recognize half the stains on it and instead changed his mind and sat beside Celia’s body on the floor.

  He checked the incision he had made in his left forearm to ensure he was still bleeding. It stung, but the ale making him bleed faster also numbed some of the pain.

  The bowl collecting his blood was a quarter full. It would do. If he mixed it with water from the pitcher on the small, lopsided table, he’d have enough to paint the octagon and goddess-eyes on the floor. Necromancy was such dark work, particularly if he wanted to attempt anything more complicated than a wake. Since he couldn’t sense the magical energies in his spell components, his best bet to guarantee success was to put more energy into the spell than necessary and pray he could somehow blindly focus it. And there was nothing more powerful than human blood.

  Using the strip of cloth he’d cut from the front of his shirt, he bound his wound. Somehow, he’d remembered the components for this spell, despite having only looked at it a few times. Due to lack of time and funds, he’d been forced to make substitutions, although everything was related, more or less, to what it should be.

  When he started studying necromancy, Grandfather had assured him it wasn’t really the components that made the spell. They were merely a way to focus the correct energies to form the desired effect.

  Ward wasn’t sure he believed that.

  And what was the desired effect? To wake Celia long enough to prove her own murder? He should just run. It would be the smartest option. He could hide, change his name, try going north, and become a physician at one of the Great Northern Outposts.

  No. He didn’t particularly like the cold, most people thought he was too young to be a real physician, and eventually he would run out of principalities to hide in. Besides, he’d already bled for her and he had that damned, damned Oath to consider.

  He brought the ale jug to his lips. Empty. Now was as good a time as any to start, so he reached for the pitcher of water. The room lurched and darkened. He paused until his head cleared. Too much ale, too little blood.

  He mixed the water with the blood and, crawling on hands and knees, drew an octagon around Celia’s body. At her head, he made a closed goddess-eye, at her feet, an open one. At every point, alternating, he placed pieces of obsidian—that were supposed to be hematite—and pine, in place of white oak. He lit the prickle-berry leaves—at least he’d managed to find that—and knelt within the octagon beside Celia.

  He sucked in a slow breath. Grandfather would frown at using human blood, and would lecture Ward about the spell itself. Ward was meddling with the veil and that, according to some ancient necromancer code, was bad. Wakes were acceptable. They were only for a few minutes, and couldn’t upset the balance between life and death. But any spell that lasted longer, without the proper research, risked throwing everything out of balance.

  Still, Ward wasn’t powerful enough to cast a spell that would cause a plague or famine. Maybe a thunderstorm. It was more likely the room would feel a little ominous for a week and then the sensation would pass. The obligation Grandfather insisted every necromancer had—to uphold the balance—didn’t apply here.

  He placed his left hand on Celia’s heart and right hand on her head. It was just like the wake spell, only longer, and required more concentration. He closed his eyes and focused. Power was supposed to emanate from the blood, wood, crystal—or in this case, glass—and herb, but he could only imagine their presence.

  Pounding on the door shocked his eyes open. He hadn’t begun. Nothing, if anything, would have happened in the inn yet. The wine couldn’t be spoiled, the food couldn’t have gone rotten, and the ale couldn’t get any worse. The barkeeper had no reason to call on Ward.

  “De’Ath?”

  His heart leapt into his throat. The barkeeper didn’t know his name. It could only be Celia’s family. How’d they find him so fast? He’d taken every precaution in the market.

  More pounding. Louder and longer.

  He had to wake Celia, get her to tell them he hadn’t stolen her body. Closing his eyes, he bowed his head.

  Deep breath. Imagine the power.

  A bang rattled him. He squeezed his eyes tighter. It sounded like they had a battering ram.

  Imagine the power. He tensed and trembled as if his muscles could squeez
e more of the unfelt inner magic into the spell. His heart pounded, and he gasped for breath, all proper breathing forgotten.

  Another bang, this time accompanied with the crack of breaking wood.

  Power. Breathe. Even with his eyes closed, he reeled. Never before had he felt so completely out of control, merely a means for the spell to cast itself.

  He grabbed his whirling thoughts and, in his mind’s eye, created the image of himself flying to the veil between life and death and parting it.

  Bam. Crack.

  No. He ripped it open. A new and awesome strength powered by the crystal, wood, herb, and his own blood filled him. Celia’s soul would come when he called. He had the power, even if he couldn’t sense it. She would answer. And she. Would. Stay.

  Wood cracked. Men yelled and hands grabbed him.

  No, he needed to stay. He wasn’t finished. He squirmed in their grip, struggling to keep his position and make Celia’s spirit return to her body.

  Fingers dug into his scalp. He shot another forceful call through the imaginary veil and was yanked away. His muscles burned and his breath caught in his throat. Goddess, a spell had never felt like this before. Nothing had ever felt like this before.

  Celia gasped, and Ward opened his eyes.

  Her lashes fluttered open and confusion clouded her expression for just a heartbeat, but then she rolled to her side and grabbed the first man’s legs between hers. With a twist, she toppled him over and shoved her heel into his temple.

  Ward stumbled aside, still weak from the blood loss and the spell, and tripped over the fallen man. His head slammed into the small table. Stars danced before his eyes as Celia grabbed the dagger from the fallen man’s belt and threw it. It landed with a wet thunk in the second man’s throat.

  Blood sprayed from the wound. The man grasped at the dagger but couldn’t pull it free. Celia had hit an artery, and each beat of his heart poured more of his life onto the floor. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but no sound came out. Then his eyes rolled up, and he dropped to the floor.

  “You... He’s...” The proper words wouldn’t form in Ward’s mind. She’d killed those men. Just like that.

  Celia grabbed the first man’s head and rolled it to the side. “Damn.” She turned her icy gaze on Ward. “Can you wake either of them?”

  “But you just killed them.”

  She rose and took a step toward him, then stopped and stretched her neck. “Better question. How long was I dead this time?”

  He swallowed and dropped his gaze to the pool of blood seeping toward him. She had woken and, bam— killed two people as if it was second nature.

  “A little blood shouldn’t bother you, necromancer.”

  Ward looked up at her. It wasn’t the blood that bothered him.

  “How long was I dead, boy?” she asked again, this time in those enunciated words that insulted his intelligence.

  He clenched his jaw. So he’d been momentarily shocked. It wasn’t every day a physician actually saw the violence that brought the patients to him. He tried to sigh, feigning boredom, but it came out as a squeak. “My name is Ward. And you’ve been behind the veil for most of a day.”

  She made a half-hearted kick at the first man’s shoulder. “And you can’t wake them.”

  Ward stifled a snort. He could wake them. He was Edward de’Ath the Fourth, eighth-generation necromancer of the de’Ath family. If there was one necromantic spell he could do well, it was a wake. Ignoring his racing heart and the ache in his arms and legs, he pushed back his shirtsleeves, brushing the bandage around his wrist. Pain flared around the wound, reminding him he’d just performed a difficult spell and used his own blood for it. Trying a wake so soon after the Jam de’U wasn’t such a good idea.

  “I didn’t think so,” she said.

  “Of course I can. But just think about it for a moment.”

  She knelt beside the first man, as if Ward hadn’t spoken, and removed things from his belt.

  “The one you killed with the dagger—I doubt he has vocal cords left.” He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them and leaned against the wall, trying to appear nonchalant. His heart raced from the effort of the spell and the fight. “So there’d be no point in waking him, and the other man—”

  “Are you going to search him?” Celia pointed to the second man. She unclasped the cloak pin of the first man and rolled him over.

  “No, I’m not going to—aren’t you listening to me?”

  “No vocal cords.”

  “Good.”

  “You should at least get his cloak.” She tugged the cloak free from her man and wrapped it about her shoulders. “And you really should get rid of that jacket.”

  “I’ll have you know this jacket—”

  “Was a gift from your father, or grandfather, or mother, or great aunt, or something.”

  He closed his mouth. Yes, it was a gift. From his father. But that wasn’t what he was going to say. The buttons from his favorite physician’s jacket had paid to bring her back to life. It had rented the room and bought the ale and other spell components.

  He ripped off the last two buttons and shoved them into his breeches pocket. Maybe waking her wasn’t such a good idea. He could be on a ship by now bound for... well, for somewhere.

  “Ward.”

  He blinked.

  Celia stood beside him, her rucksack over her shoulder and a cloak in her hand. “Take the cloak, Ward.”

  How long had he been gazing off into nothing? She could have slit his throat before he noticed.

  He glanced at the man bleeding on the floor. He supposed it didn’t matter if he’d been lost in thought or not.

  “There will be others,” she said.

  “How do you know?” Her knowing everything, particularly since she’d been dead for a day, was getting frustrating.

  “Because we’re not where I told you to go.”

  He grabbed the cloak, heat rising up his neck, unwilling to confess he’d been too busy thinking to hear her instructions from when they’d been in the sewer. “I had to improvise.”

  “Improvisation will get you dead.”

  He opened his mouth but couldn’t think of a witty comeback. Ungrateful little... He swung the cloak behind him and settled it on his shoulders. It was sticky with blood. Wonderful. She’d given him the soiled one. A fine match to his slime-encrusted breeches, hose, and shoes.

  He should have left her dead.

  FIVE

  Celia ran a finger along the splintered doorframe where the bolt had locked the door. Her father’s men must have used their shoulders to get past. At least the necromancer—no, Ward—at least he’d had enough sense to lock it, warding against trouble. She snorted. Ward warding.

  But what was he protecting? Her? Himself? His employer?

  She pushed the thought away and peered into the hall. Shadows danced on the walls in the spaces between sputtering candles in crude sconces. She should give him more credit. He’d been right, she was dead—something she’d never admit to him. She even felt dead now, stiff and sore as if she’d exercised too much without stretching, and her muscles were weak, twitching with unexplained tremors.

  Still, she couldn’t decide if she should be grateful to Ward for doing the Jam de’U, or furious with him for leading her father’s men right to her. Where better to dump a body than the knacker yards, dead center in the middle of her father’s domain?

  Could fate have paired her with a bigger fool? It didn’t matter that Ward had no way of knowing her father was the Dominus, Master of Brawenal’s Gentilica, and ruled over all things criminal. Ward was still a fool.

  Yet she couldn’t silence the little voice in the back of her mind that said Ward wasn’t all he claimed to be. Logic told her no one could be that good at acting uncoordinated and confused, particularly in the middle of a fight. But could she really afford to ignore even the smallest voice of caution? She’d have to deal with him carefully. If he hadn’t just watched her kill two m
en, she could still act the damsel in distress. Her next best option was seduction. It was a better hook, but more risky; a cat-and-mouse game of emotions. Just enough to keep him attracted, but not enough for him to think she would sleep with him.

  First step, however, was to get out of this death trap. The hall was empty, so she slipped around the door and pressed her back against the unfinished panels, the coarse wood catching on her shirt.

  Ward didn’t follow.

  She resisted the urge to call him and stepped back into the room.

  “Are you coming?”

  He nodded and opened his mouth to speak. She clamped a hand over his lips before he could say anything. “Not a word.”

  He glared at her.

  Did she really still need him? A small part of her knew she should be grateful, but he would slow her down, even if she just wanted to run. Running, however, wasn’t an option. Those men were Gentilica. Her father’s men. Which meant her father wanted her back. She was not going to oblige him, not until she could rule out everyone in his house as her murderer. And that included all family members: siblings, cousins, everyone—even him.

  She stepped into the hall to hide her growing discomfort. There was a slight possibility that someone, her father or one of her brothers, had taken offense to her latest assignment with the Assassins’ Guild. It was, after all, for an under-lord. But they all knew family was family, and work was work. Didn’t they?

  Ward shuffled into the hall beside her. While she wanted nothing to do with him, she had to admit he might prove useful. If her murderer was a family member, or even in the Guild, she’d have difficulty obtaining information without being detected, but not everyone knew Ward. If he avoided her father and her father’s right-hand man, Bakmeire, he might even be able to search her house. Not to mention that she didn’t know how long the Jam de’U would last.