Death Mark

by Robert J. Schwalb

  Pyer stepped up. “And if we’re not, what then?”

  “You won’t be around to worry about it. Dragon’s stones, Loren, I thought these were soldiers,” Aeris muttered.

  Kutok growled. The Draji women drew katars. Loren did not know much about the eastern city-state of Draj, except they believed their king was in fact a god, the son of the two moons. They were a long way from home.

  Loren raised his hands. “Settle down. I trust Aeris. The ritual will work.” He looked around at the others. “Get the men ready. We march in five. And when we move, no one drifts more than a few paces apart. We have to stay together for the magic to work,” said Loren. Aeris had made that part very clear and warned the ritual would work only if they all stayed together.

  As the squad leaders broke apart and relayed the orders to the other soldiers, Loren looked to his friend. “This will work, right?”

  Aeris shrugged. “Hells, Loren, who knows? I just got the scroll a few hours ago. I’ve read through it once.”

  Loren gripped his friend’s shoulder. “It’s going to work because you’ll make it work.”

  Aeris shrugged off the hand. “We’ve been through this, I know, but I’m going to say it one more time. Maybe it will sink in to your thick skull. Forget the bitch. Let’s get the hell out of here. You said we were to protect her, not slaughter caravans.”

  “I know. And you’re right. But we don’t want her for an enemy. She’s a witch. We run now, she’ll find us. And then we’re dead,” said Loren.

  “Ah hells, Loren. Forget it. Just give me a few more minutes to get these components ready. Keep those bastards close together. Got it?”

  “Right.” Loren stalked off. He knew Aeris was right. They should run. He felt like he was standing on silt and no amount of flailing would keep him from drowning in the dust. Loren could not understand the power Temmnya held over him. Every time he wanted to say no, he heard himself saying yes. He was no soldier. He was also no bandit. What was he doing there in who knows where? Loren cursed her, Giovvo Shom, and fate itself as he walked among the mustering soldiers.

  He felt their eyes on him. He smelled their fear. Too much rested on Aeris’s magic. One misstep, and they’d all be dead. He looked off to the south, straining to see anything of the encampment where the rest of the force waited. The boulders hid them. They were alone.

  A soldier with a mop of bright orange hair on his head brought Loren’s erdlu forward. “Let’s go, people!” he shouted and swung himself into the saddle. He drew his sword and turned the beast to the rise over which the force would run as they closed in on the enemy.

  Aeris scrambled on top of the large rock, cursing as he did. Five squads gathered into ranks. Everyone had a weapon drawn. Spears, swords, axes, and more exotic weapons, the sorts of things one might find in the arena such as the cahulaks, a four-bladed nightmare at the end of a long rope used to pull down enemies, and the trikal, a polearm fitted with three blades at the end. They weren’t ordinary mercenaries. Many had fought in the arena. Giovvo Shom must see the fighting pits as some sort of bazaar as much as he shopped there for soldiers. While they might not know much about military formations, and neither did Loren, they knew how to kill and were not afraid to die.

  Aeris shouted to the men, “Get closer, damn you.”

  The guards grumbled and muttered but obeyed. Their shoulders touched.

  The half-elf held the scroll high, and herbs, powders, and crystals lay on the ground before him. Aeris then withdrew a small obsidian shard and clenched it. Loren had never seen it before and wondered where Aeris had come across it. The half-elf read the words aloud, each syllable strange, somehow twisting and unsettling. Loren saw the letters on the scroll burn. Smoke rose from the parchment until it caught fire. The shard pulsed, a throbbing knot of darkness in the half-elf’s hand. Loren felt a cold chill settle in his guts and saw the other soldiers felt the same. The magic claimed its price from the warriors, draining away seconds of life to fuel the incantation. As the last ashes from the burned scroll drifted in the wind, Aeris wavered and fell to his knees. “It’s done,” he said. “Go! Before the magic unravels!”

  Loren kicked his mount and sprang forward. They raced across the shattered landscape at a trot, yet for all their armor and weapons, they made no sound. The caravan ahead showed no sign of slowing nor did the searching guards notice the approaching force. Loren paced his beast so he wouldn’t outrun the foot soldiers following, and he leaned low to his erdlu’s long neck, holding his sword out and away from his body. The closer they got, the more Loren could see. It wasn’t just inixes pulling the wagons. There were also kanks, crodlus, and a few things Loren didn’t recognize. The caravan had expected a fight. Chitin plates reinforced the wagons, and archers sat on the roofs, crossbows loaded and ready.

  Two hundred paces away.

  A seething, dark sphere trailing smoke and flame screamed overhead, coming from behind, and smashed into the lead wagon. It exploded. Men, beasts, and debris flew in all directions. The second wagon crashed into the first. The rest veered off the path. Warriors spilled out from them as merchants hunkered down in panic.

  Aeris’s spell faded when they were still a hundred feet or more away. Panic spread through the caravan. Crossbow bolts started flying toward them. They didn’t get as close as Loren would have liked, but they were close enough to close the gap without taking too many casualties. Loren roared and kicked his heels into the beast. The erdlu ran faster.

  Black smoke rose from the lead wagon, fouling the air. The soldiers under Loren’s command shouted their own battle cries as they joined the charge.

  A terrified young man was the first in Loren’s path. Loren sawed on his mount’s reins, turning the beast so Loren could strike. His mount stumbled forward, screaming, and threw Loren from the saddle. He rolled across the ground and saw his mount had sprouted a feathered bolt from its eye. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the scrapes, and brought his blade up in time to deflect his enemy’s spear. The caravan guard hesitated. Loren pushed forward. He slashed again, pushing the foe back. The guard stabbed his spear at him, but Loren knocked it aside and brought the blade back around to take the man’s head off at the neck. Blood fountained as the body crumpled.

  Another guard rushed out from the smoke. Loren caught him on his sword and tore the blade free in a savage arc. Hot blood and torn entrails spilled to the ground. Loren moved on, his sword rising and falling, severing heads, arms, and legs as he carved a bloody path through the foe. He roared with rage. Gore made his hands slick, yet he held on.

  The sun burned the sky. The smoke mingled with the stench of the dead. Screams and shouts, pleas for mercy, and the sounds of butchery echoed all around.

  As Loren fought, he saw bolts flying from the wagons. Rab caught one in the chest. One of the Draji twins fell when the heavy stone bolt punched through her neck. His soldiers fell all around him. He had to take out the archers at once.

  Eight men worked hard to reload their weapons from behind the cover from a tipped-over wagon. They cranked back the bowstrings to reload. Loren sprang toward them. Two looked up, saw him, and dropped their weapons in panic. They ran, disappearing into the boulder field before Loren could cut them down. The rest died. Their blood fed Loren’s thirsty blade.

  The battle lasted a mere ten minutes. To those fighting, though, it felt like days.

  Loren, chest heaving, heart pounding, stopped. There was no one left to kill. Strings of blood fell from his sword. Exhaustion settled over him. He dropped to the ground. A score of cuts and scrapes across his body bled. It was over.

  The carrion birds descended from the skies to take part in the feast.

  Sweat cut tracks in the gore painting his body. His force had won, he supposed. He could not guess at the casualties. He felt as though he should stand, take charge, and see to the survivors. He ignored his duty and sat until he could catch his breath.

  The caravan was better protected than he had expected or had
been warned. The guards fought like demons. Why? A few bolts of cloth? Maybe some food? They had to die, not out of any grudge Loren had for them, but because it was what his mistress demanded and he, as he was discovering, was her servant.

  After a few minutes, the light-headedness passed. He regained his feet and wandered through the carnage.

  Many of the beasts were dead or dying. An inix lay on its side, thrashing. Several kanks were dead too, foul flesh already putrid and weeping through cracks in their carapaces. Aeris, he guessed, had lent them support late in the battle. Throughout the fight Loren had spotted arcs of violet lightning crashing down from the cloudless sky. Loren hadn’t expected such power. Aeris had never used battle magic to such an extent before. If it hadn’t been him, though, then whom? They would have to talk.

  As Loren walked, he could see lightning and fireballs had created as many corpses of his men as had the enemy fire. Loren wondered why Aeris or whoever else was behind the magical support could not have been more precise, yet he feared there might be some other reason, some price exacted for the magic used to get them close.

  His soldiers were gathering. He joined them. A quick head count put their numbers at a dozen. Kutok stumbled out from the smoke. Thirteen, then. No one else was alive or healthy enough to regroup.

  He pointed at two men sporting minor wounds. “You and you, check the bodies. Give mercy to the enemies. Bring ours, if they live, back here. The rest of you, gather the wagons and salvage what you can from the rest.” They did as Loren commanded.

  He knew they were tired and hurting, and he wasn’t about to let them do all the work. He pitched in and noticed several nodded with respect. It took an hour to get the wagons ready. They had to round up the few escaped beasts and haul out the heavy crates from wreckage to the few intact wagons. Loren found the crates held the expected foodstuffs, textiles, and common traders’ fare. What he didn’t expect to find were a half dozen crates filled with rusting iron. One place in all the lands produced iron in such quantities: Tyr. Each crate bore a black diamond on the side. Loren didn’t know its significance. There was a fortune in iron, though.

  Of the eight wagons they had attacked, they saved four. They didn’t have the beasts to pull the fifth wagon, so they left it behind as it contained trade goods not worth hauling back. They loaded their dead and injured among the stolen crates and supplies and made the grueling trek back to where Aeris waited.

  The mage sat on a flat stone. The ground was black with ashes all around him. The soldiers handling the kanks that were pulling the vehicle tapped the lead with a reed to call them to a halt. Aeris got up and trotted over to the wagon. He climbed up to take the seat next to Loren.

  Loren noted Aeris looked drained. Bruises darkened his eyes. He slouched. Weary, he said, “I’m glad to see you lived. With all those explosions, I had my doubts.”

  Loren grunted. “Your aim stinks.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t me. You think I could throw a spell across a mile?” Aeris replied, his voice haggard. Loren noticed Aeris wasn’t looking at him.

  “Aeris, I appreciate the help, but by the Dragon, your spells took out as many of us as they did the enemy.”

  The driver, who sported no few burns himself, glared. The mage didn’t catch it. “I mean it, Loren. It wasn’t me. The ritual wiped me out. You were far outside my range anyway.”

  “If it wasn’t you, who was it?” Loren asked.

  “I don’t know,” Aeris grumbled. “But I saw someone out there. Someone behind you. Right before the explosions, I could just make out a burst of blackness. Hell, if you turn around and look, you can see the dead spots where the spells were cast.”

  “So?” said Loren.

  “The dead spots mean wizardry. I’ve told you before. Magic requires life energy. Some wizards find ways to draw life without killing. Most don’t. We had a defiler on our side.”

  Loren didn’t bother to look, but he said, “So you saw the bursts, but you didn’t see anyone in them?”

  “If I did, I would tell you. Whoever it was shifted the battle to our favor.”

  “I suppose so,” said Loren.

  He left Aeris sitting on the rock and realized he did not believe his friend. He had never doubted Aeris before, never had reason to. But Loren was sure the half-elf was lying. Aeris could have followed them. The smoke was everywhere. No one would have seen him. And those black spots he had mentioned. There was one all around where Aeris had been sitting. Did the half-elf take him for a fool?

  Even if Aeris hadn’t been at their backs, hurling magic, he himself had defiled. One person other than Aeris possessed such ability: Temmnya. And she must be a defiler as well. Loren didn’t know much about magic, but he knew deep down defiling sounded evil, more evil than anything Loren had ever faced or encountered before.

  Night in Tyr was not much warmer than a night spent in the desert, a fact driven home to Melech as he crouched on a rooftop, each exhale pluming. He had spent many nights on Tyr’s streets enough to know that he didn’t like them. It was too cold. It was also dangerous in the Warrens, where no one cared if you screamed and where corpses turned up in the alleys far too often to make an evening stroll anything but hair raising. He used to take a lot of heat from his colleagues about his reluctance to take on night missions when he was still just a common pickpocket. If he were going to steal, he’d rather just do it in broad daylight; it took skill and finesse, and it was also warmer.

  The whole business with serving two masters was losing its novelty. Melech spent his days visiting shops and taverns, where he convinced impoverished folk to part with their last bits, and his nights haunting any place where traders might congregate in the hopes he might pick up something, anything useful. He knew Korvak was getting impatient. The Crimson Legion, as Tyr’s army had taken to calling itself, was making the final preparations to march to war, and the warriors had taken over the Arena Market for drills and training. Melech hadn’t heard much good about their efforts so far. Rikus was a marginal leader at best. Oh, he was astonishing in the arena—Melech had seen him fight—but he knew nothing about leading men. So while an ill-prepared army made ready to march, it seemed Thaxos Vordon was drawing ever closer to hatching his own sinister plot.

  The intelligence Melech had picked up was spotty at best. His hottest lead came from Mila at the Golden Inix. In the days since their conversation, Melech had done everything he could think of to avoid coming to the meeting Mila had told him about. He even shirked his responsibilities to Torston. He had made a halfhearted effort to collect by day so he could chase down rumors and ply contacts with coin to learn anything he could so he would not have to be shivering on a rooftop at such an obscene hour.

  But there he was all the same, shivering on the rooftop of an abandoned building overlooking Gebbler’s Well in a rotting corner of the Old City. The moons crawled across a sky strewn with stars. Aside from a few moths flitting in the dark, there had been no movement, no activity, nothing at all to signal some importance to the task the templar had set for him.

  Melech was not about to give up. Since talking with Mila, he had pieced together a little more about what was to happen during the night. Representatives from a half dozen or so minor houses were meeting with someone called the Architect. No questioning or bribes revealed the Architect’s identity or the meeting’s purpose. Melech didn’t press the issue with his contacts. Too many questions would have invited attention, attention that could get him killed. He was already dodging questions from his friends. Kep, in particular, had become suspicious. If the halfling found out, Torston would too, and Melech stood a better chance surviving a fall from the Golden Tower than he would facing Torston’s wrath when the old man found out his best collector was also working for a templar. The sooner he gave Korvak what he wanted, the sooner life would get back to normal. Or so Melech hoped.

  A sound echoed up from the square below. Melech crept up to peer over the roof’s edge. Blowing sand chewed away the whitewash co
vering the bricks marking the rooftop’s edge. Age had made them soft and crumbly. They would not bear his weight, but they could keep him out of sight provided he stayed low.

  Over the crumbling wall, Melech saw the whole courtyard lit up below from torches held by armored toughs representing a wide range of races. The lights threw sinister shadows against the walls of the other abandoned buildings that bounded the small clearing. As Melech watched, other people came into the square from the narrow streets, each accompanied by more guards. They didn’t mingle. Instead, they clustered in small groups. Even though Melech was several stories up, he could tell from their postures that they were wary and maybe a little suspicious.

  The guards were the usual sorts, mercenaries, veterans in beast hides and armed with swords, spears, clubs, and the like. Most had their hoods pulled up so Melech couldn’t see their faces. The robed merchants all wore masks fashioned to resemble animals with exaggerated features, making them seem strange, almost monstrous.

  Melech marveled at the numbers. The Architect could not have chosen a better meeting site. No one had lived around Gebbler’s Well in years. Neighboring communities stole bricks and other materials from the buildings, making them too sketchy for even squatters to claim. Then there were the rumors about the well.

  Locals claimed ghosts haunted the neighborhood. Kalak the Merciless killed hundreds when he conquered the city more than a thousand years past, and their spirits were said to still walk the streets on certain nights. Melech had never seen any ghosts there, but then he was smart enough not to go looking for them.

  The well itself was steeped in local legend. Like most in the city, a low wall encircled the hole. Someone had put a heavy stone slab over the opening either to keep people out or to keep something in. Graffiti covered the slab, but it was not the usual gang signs. They were disturbing images, carnal acts and cruelties beyond counting. What he could see made his eyes want a good scrubbing.