Death Mark

by Robert J. Schwalb

  Alaeda had few ideas where she would find Talara. She started in Iron Square, where she had last seen the dune trader when they had first arrived in the city. From there, she drifted up Caravan Way, paying bribes to locals to help narrow her search. It was easy. Talara had done nothing to hide her whereabouts. She stirred up the whole district with her questions about House Vordon and its activities. It was foolish since there could be no doubt her interest would get back to the merchant prince. However, that may have been what Talara was after. Stir up enough attention, and people might notice Vordon was up to no good.

  She entered the building through the front door and ducked into a low tunnel extending several paces before opening onto a small courtyard with a statue in the center. The statue depicted a warrior; she could tell by its armor. It was missing its head and the hand at the end of an outstretched arm. Pots holding flowering cacti stood around it. Overhead, she could see the sky looming. Every ten feet or so, a walled promenade extended out from the floor to overlook the courtyard. Sturdy stairs connected the various levels. Flickering light from lamps hanging on posts hammered into the walls meant there would be few shadows for hiding.

  Alaeda climbed the stairs, careful to make no sound as she moved. She drew her blade, expecting trouble at any moment. When she reached the first walkway, she saw the staircase to the third floor was on the other side. The toothless man she had interrogated minutes before claimed Talara had rooms on the third floor.

  A scraping noise from overhead froze her in her tracks. She peered up to the next floor and spotted a shadowy figure racing out of view. Fearing an assassin, she abandoned all caution and ran around to the other staircase, taking two steps at a time until she reached the top.

  Across the way, on the other side, she spotted the figure again. It was waiting for her and pointed a finger at her. In the flickering light, she could see it was a man. Scars made his face a maze. He wore black robes, marking him a templar. Behind him stood a closed door.

  “Hold there, woman,” he said in a whispery voice.

  Alaeda ignored the command and left the stairs. She crept around the walkway to close the distance. He tracked her with his finger. “I said hold!”

  Something about the gesture told her to obey. “Have templars fallen so low, they have to resort to assassination?”

  He smiled, showing a few broken teeth. He might have been handsome once, but something had gotten hold of him and what good looks he had were a ruin of still-healing scars. He was missing an eye, and jagged flesh surrounded the dark socket. “My dear, I would never deign to dabble in your trade. Now before I kill you, why don’t you be a good girl and tell me who sent you to kill Talara Vordon?”

  Before Alaeda could answer, the door behind the templar opened to reveal another shadow, framed by light. The templar dropped his hand.

  “Better still,” said the familiar voice, “why don’t you both tell me what you’re doing here.”

  Pakka awoke. She was cold. There was darkness all around. She did not know where she was or what had happened. She felt strange, detached, untethered. She also felt angry. Then she remembered. She had failed. She had died. She was doomed.

  Pakka screamed.

  “What the hells was that?” said Melech, startled by the sudden noise. He had heard a scream like a horrible banshee wail, and a chill crawled up his back. There was nothing on that lonely street in the Warrens, no one who could have made such a noise. He waited a few minutes more. When no ghost materialized, he continued toward the Rat’s Nest.

  He wasn’t far. It was the last place he wanted to be since he was sure Torston would be there and with him would be the excruciating death Melech wanted to avoid. Yet his feet ignored his protests and kept moving him closer to the place once his home. As errant and misbehaving as his feet were proving to be, he knew he had to go there. He had to find Galadan so he could kill him. Then fate could do with Melech what it liked.

  His mind raced. He turned over every lie he could think of to get Torston to tell him where he could find the elf. It was futile, he knew. He had about the same chance of getting the crime lord’s help as he of did finding water in the desert, which was to say his odds didn’t look good. Maybe Torston wouldn’t be there. And if not, Poxy would tell him. She’d tell him anything. Lovely girl, Poxy.

  Melech hurried down another street. He did his best to look as if he belonged. There were few people around, and the ones Melech had spied were up to no good. Hooded and cloaked, all furtive gestures and shifty movements, Melech could read the telltale signs and knew, with the tension gripping the city, the people out and about were ones on dark errands. Since leaving the Ziggurat, Melech had seen fewer and fewer folks. If even half the rumors were true, the new enemy would be crashing against the walls soon, perhaps that very night, maybe the next. People had withdrawn to their homes and shops to protect their families and belongings before some new tragedy fell.

  He could see the Rat’s Nest ahead. Light spilled through the curtained opening. In another time, the wavering, bright slash might have been inviting. For Melech, it promised death, pain, and fear. Terror gnawed on his courage. Hatred drove him on, gave him the resolve to go through the curtain, borrowed dagger in hand.

  Talara Vordon reacted to the news of Pakka’s death with a flinch and single tear. The other woman, who, once all the confusion was sorted out, introduced herself as Alaeda Stel, took the news a bit harder. He looked at the shattered bust on the floor and the cracked brick that had borne the brunt of Alaeda’s wrath. Korvak frowned.

  Both women proved agreeable enough when he had stated his business. It galled him to bow and scrape to such lesser creatures. He needed Talara Vordon, and he suspected Alaeda might have some use herself. He had nothing against women, but he never had much use for them. Less since the halfling’s treatment.

  Talara had seemed intent on skewering him, but she had stayed her hand when he mentioned Pakka’s name and the fact she had sent him. Alaeda had a harder time quashing Talara’s suspicions. Talara distrusted the other woman, and she stared at Alaeda throughout Korvak’s tale. When Korvak suggested there may be people watching, Talara waved them both into her chambers.

  She questioned Korvak first. She was worried about her servant, a genuine concern Korvak found distasteful. He ran through the facts as he knew them, covering everything from the dummy houses Vordon used to hide his soldiers, to his plot to seize Tyr’s throne, and concluded by running through the last few hours he spent with Pakka. He had glossed over his torture, not wanting to appear weak. He didn’t want sympathy from either woman.

  Neither seemed shocked by his revelations. He couldn’t help feeling a bit angry, although not having to argue his case was a relief. He had given up much to uncover Vordon’s plot. They had come to the same conclusions. Talara stirred up the city with questions. Alaeda got her information from Melech during their brief time together.

  Korvak would have to teach Melech discretion’s importance.

  The conversation soon shifted to Alaeda’s tale after she threw Thaxos’s bust across the room. Since much of Alaeda’s discoveries mirrored Korvak’s own, he had let their discussion wash over him, but the word undead brought him back.

  “What did you say?” asked Korvak, leaning forward in his chair.

  “I said Melech and Kep loosed undead into the city.”

  “An army of the dead outside. An army of the dead underneath.”

  “What?” asked Talara, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. Her stony exterior broke, and tears spilled down her cheeks as the enormity of Pakka’s death sank in.

  Korvak had not described the woman who killed Pakka, so he did. “I suspect the diagram we found was a summoning circle, a doorway to let something into the city.”

  Korvak rubbed his temples and closed his eyes. The women were silent, waiting for him to continue. He had nothing to add, so Alaeda resumed her story. She discussed the mountain trek, running across Phytos, and her return to the
city. “So you see, you have to get out of Tyr,” she concluded.

  Talara said nothing for a moment. “Quite the story. Even if some of what you say is true, how can I know? How can I believe anything either one of you says?”

  “Talara, I don’t blame you for—”

  “There is a third player in this game,” Korvak announced. “As to your concerns, Talara, set them aside. None of us has time for this foolishness. Trust us or don’t. That is your choice. But there is more to this drama than two houses bickering over iron or Vordon’s move to take the throne. House Shom means to destroy the city.”

  Before either Alaeda or Talara could respond, a mul kicked in the front door.

  Loren was strong enough to fight. He put the bone helmet on his head. He checked the sword on his back. A quick inspection of his body revealed crooked stitches holding wounds shut, bruises, abrasions, and extensive sunburns over most of his body. He doubted he would live through the coming fight. He lacked the will.

  The campfire blazed and around it huddled the handful of living soldiers left from those who first set out. Kutok worked on a haunch of meat, tearing and chewing, ignoring the grease dribbling down his chin. Few others ate. They were gaunt, quiet, and forlorn, not a one of them without some grievous, maiming injury. Missing hands, fingers, and eyes were common, but a few had lost arms and legs.

  Loren couldn’t bear their hollow-eyed stares, so he walked off into the fields. Temmnya’s army had settled in among the plantations surrounding Tyr. The undead had no use for the fruit trees, but the living did, both Loren’s warriors and the strange slave tribe soldiers who had come to lend their swords to Temmnya’s cause. Loren shuddered at the thought of them. Kutok had said they were cannibals and they had butchered and eaten the villagers in a horrific feast.

  The moon Ral was shrinking away, spreading sickening green light across the undead army. He couldn’t count their numbers, but their glittering eyes seemed more numerous than the stars twinkling overhead.

  Beyond the writhing mass loomed Tyr. Still several miles away, the lights cut through the darkness. Loren could make out the high walls girding the crowded city, whose buildings seemed piled atop one another. He could see the mighty Ziggurat. He marveled at the colors painting each tier. And behind the Ziggurat, reaching above its own monstrous height, stood the two towers of the Golden City, the cloistered district where King Kalak had once ruled.

  In hours Loren would return to the city of his birth not as a citizen, but as a destroyer, a killer who would carve a blood swath through the city until his battered body gave out and he could lie down and die. A commotion drew Loren out from his bleak thoughts.

  The dead parted. They withdrew or fell to the ground to make way for Temmnya Shom. She swept forward. The strange burns she had suffered glistened red in the dim light, but if they hurt her, she showed no sign. She held her head high. The stink from the mobile corpses did not affect her. Aeris stood at her side. Unlike Temmnya, who showed grace and poise, he stumbled and slipped, revulsion plain on his face.

  Temmnya walked through the dead. She brushed her hands on ravaged bodies, ruined flesh, faces more bone than skin. Through them all she walked until she reached the far side of the stirring, twitching host, where she could look across the last few miles to Tyr, glowing in the night. Aeris followed through the press, and just as he reached her side, he fell to the ground, retching.

  Temmnya stared at the city.

  The wind moaned through the camp. A few dull zombies twisted and turned as if unsure what had disturbed them.

  She threw up her hands, fingers splayed, and chanted.

  The wind died. It wasn’t still; it quivered. The ground trembled. Loren’s hairs rose on the nape of his neck, his arms, and all across his body. The undead able to still make noise moaned in fear. Then a sharp pain stabbed him in the breast—a pain so fierce he could no longer stand.

  He fell to the ground. A groan escaped him. Blue lightning danced across the gritty soil, emanating from his body and skittering toward Temmnya where she stood, arms raised. Loren tasted soot in his mouth and noted the ground all around him had blackened as Temmnya leeched every bit of life she could to power her magic. Black flakes swirled through the air, spreading out in a widening circle wiping out plants, small animals, and even a few weak soldiers. Trees curled up, branches falling until blackened stumps remained. Men and women screamed their last screams. Swirling vortices of ash, dust, and magical energy danced all around, and still Temmnya did not relent.

  It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. All Loren knew was the pain stopped, and when it did and when his eyes fluttered open, black flakes fell from the sky, drifting down like feathers.

  The ground trembled. Fissures opened, splitting up the powdery soil, spilling rivers into the cracks. Black smoke rose from the clefts and concealed the horrors clawing their way free. Skeletal hands reached up from the depths, clawing and grasping for handholds to help pull themselves free. Grinning skulls with burning red eyes followed, dragging rusted weapons as they clambered to their feet. At first there were just a few. After moments, two score became eight then eighteen then too many to count as a horde of pale bones answered the necromancer’s call.

  Temmnya’s laughter sounded in greeting. “See, Aeris! Behold my power! Tonight Tyr shall be ours!”

  Poxy dropped a wooden mug when she saw Melech push aside the leather tarp serving as the Rat’s Nest’s door. The clatter might have startled the place on an ordinary night, but the Nest was almost empty. Melech saw Rude Kala come out through the kitchen door. He had interrupted her meal, evident from her loud chewing. The curtain to Torston’s booth was open. Blood stained the table, the blood spilled from Melech’s nose.

  It took a moment for Rude Kala to realize it was Melech who stood in front of her and Melech was not supposed to be alive. Astonishment lit her face.

  “That’s right, bitch. I’m not dead.”

  She snarled and yanked a hatchet from her belt.

  Melech knew he could not take her in a fair fight. That fact did not stop him from raising his borrowed dagger.

  Unimpressed, Rude Kala spit on the floor. She rounded the bar, axe in hand, muscles rippling as she shook out her arms. Melech noted Poxy had ducked behind the counter.

  The ex-gladiator closed the distance with the same confidence a butcher might show a side of inix meat. She swung the axe, more to drive Melech back than to injure him.

  Melech scrambled back. He said, “We don’t have to do this. I don’t have a problem with you.”

  “Too late, boy. I aim to snatch yer stones and add ’em to my collection.”

  She struck out again, bringing the axe up toward Melech’s groin.

  Melech sprang back. “Sorry, Kala. I like them where they are,” he said. He feinted and jabbed his blade at her face.

  He missed. She had stepped into his attack and struck him with her meaty fist. His nose exploded blood once more, and Melech felt consciousness drifting. Black spots blossomed. The world tilted. He staggered.

  Kala brayed. She swept her axe at his face to finish him off. His inability to stand saved his life, for he fell hard on his back.

  Kala growled. She straddled him like a lover. She dropped down with her knees on his arms and leaned down until they were face-to-face.

  Her mouth opened to say something, but her teeth snapped shut, clipping off the tip of her tongue when a stone pan collided with her head. Kala fell forward, unconscious. Poxy retreated.

  Melech cut Kala’s throat using the dagger, and blood sprayed into the air. She kicked a few times and died. Melech watched, chest heaving.

  Poxy had fallen back to the bar. She sobbed, “Are … are … you all right, Melech?”

  He looked up and gave her his best smile under the circumstances. Her eyes flicked up to a spot behind him. She gave the faintest squeak when the bolt slammed into her chest. She fell back and lay sprawled across the bar.

  “Melech.”
/>   He turned in answer. Torston filled the doorway, crossbow in hand. Behind him stood Kep.

  Pakka knew she was neither alive nor dead. She was somewhere in between. The witch had killed her. She should have moved on, should have found the oblivion waiting for all. Yet she was still in the living world.

  The old stories told about the fates of those dwarves who left oaths unfulfilled, promises not kept. Their vows became anchors on their spirits, and thus, they were doomed to walk the earth until they could find peace by completing the task they had set for themselves. Most banshees, as they were known, never managed to escape their trapped state and lingered for centuries.

  That was, it seemed, Pakka’s fate. She had become something other because she was convinced Talara Vordon was in danger and she had failed to protect her. She would remain trapped, between life and death, until she could achieve some level of satisfaction her mistress would be safe. She knew what she had to do, but she had clarity enough to realize Talara would never, ever be safe. She might protect her for the time being, but what about the future? Would she linger throughout the rest of Talara’s life? And what would happen when she died?

  Talara was a good woman, yet Talara was not worth such doom. Shame welled up inside her.

  She willed herself to stand. She felt nothing in her limbs. She looked at her hands. They looked familiar, albeit gray. She could feel nothing from them. It then struck her as odd she could see them at all. The passage was dark, black even, yet she could make out each stone in the walls, could see the dust of her remains on the floor, a diagram sketched onto the ground.

  The witch had gone. So had Korvak.

  She tested her voice. She had cried out, but could she speak? “Ah … what have I become?” Her voice was as hollow as she felt. “Spirits,” she cried, “spirits, help me.”