Healer's Ruin

by O'Mara, Chris

  Over and over they yelled the same warnings, the same orders. Chalos willed them to shut up, pressing his hands to his temples and squeezing his eyes shut. He bellowed, but they didn't hear him. So he focused on the cord of energy that flowed from the well and through his soul. He focused on closing the halo tight, choking off the flow of magic.

  It worked.

  With a sigh the voices stopped and a hundred thousand warriors slumped. Chalos did not see the whorls open in the air around the city's resurrected defenders, but he did feel the defenders slip away from him, pulled back into nonexistence.

  It took come concentration to release his grip on the cord. When he did, the clamour returned and he heard boots hammering on the streets above as the warriors headed for the walls, arranging themselves on its rough, time-savaged battlements.

  I can't control them, but I can restrain them, he realised. Like dogs on a leash. Or, like restricting the blood pumping to a limb simply by applying a tight grip.

  For one versed in anatomy, this analogy made sense.

  So this, he knew, was the dreadful magical experiment the mages of the Ruin had been carrying out. A way to create an immortal army. A force that could never be bested, never be driven from its position, never be broken. Warriors that could never die.

  And the golems had taken one horrified look at what was happening and lain waste to the city and its people.

  Of course, it makes sense, Chalos thought as he lay in the basement room, staring through the ruined ceiling at a sky that was obscured by the dust of ages that had been disturbed by the shockingly sudden reconstitution of so many beings. In their travels the golems had seen so much war, so much slaughter... coming upon this place where the most fearsome army ever contemplated was being amassed must have disturbed them greatly.

  Had Chalos himself not seen how death was the only thing that stopped empires? That death was the only barrier to endless tyranny? The greed of Kings ended with their last death-bed whisper. But what if there was no death? What if the tyrants and their armies could live forever, march forever, conquer forever? And having all the time in the universe, there would be no place, however distant, that would not eventually fall in the aeons that stretched before them.

  The golems killed everyone here. But they didn't destroy the well. The secret source of its power.

  He imagined the Wielder happening upon it, a cocky and curious young slinger from Aphazail on an adventure, peeking through the Ruin looking for treasure. Happening upon the well, and discovering that it bolstered his meagre magical abilities, lending force and strength to his illusions.

  Then we invaded, and he found his calling. The hero.

  Chalos laughed then. The hero of the tale was dead, buried beneath a volcanic flow of magery. But the healer remained. The coward, the fool who had gone to war without even strapping on a sword. Yes, he remained. Alone and in constant pain.

  No. Not alone.

  He flexed the cord. The army of ghosts rose and fanned out, brandishing its weapons. He tightened his grip. They paused and slumped. He smiled.

  Suddenly, and for the first time, he had a part to play in the future of the world. Suddenly, he had what he had always lacked.

  Power.

  Twelve

  Army of Ghosts

  'I don't like this,' said General Pardo Zalan of the Aphazail Silverclad. 'It feels like a trap.'

  Nchalak, Commander of the Sabres of Tchiqua, nodded. Her gaze was fixed on the approaching riders and her right hand itched, strong leather-clad fingers inches from the pommel of a finely crafted longsword. Her horse sensed her anticipation and shook its grey mane anxiously.

  The man next to her took a deep breath and fidgeted in the saddle, his exquisite armour clanking. Zalan's own horse, heavier than Nchalak's, simply stared ahead. It was bred for frontal assaults, being more powerful and more dumb that the Commander's slender animal.

  'I did warn you,' Nchalak said. 'But then, what choice do we have? We can't camp out here forever.'

  Zalan grunted his agreement.

  Through the morning mist came two riders on fearsome-looking shadamars. The men wore inky black Baldaw mesh and were hulking purple-skinned brutes, taller and wider and any Riln had ever or could ever be. The smaller of the two had a battle-scarred face, his black hair arranged in braided rows. He had an eye-patch and carried a standard on which blazed a single black claw rending a simple crimson gash.

  The Black Talon, Zalan knew. Krune. He thought about the terrible stories his own scouts had told him about how these fiends of the southern continent had carved their way through the Dallian Woodland before smashing an army of ten thousand Riln to pieces. Not men to be trifled with.

  The other rider sat strangely in the saddle. Both legs were slung over the right side as if he was about to leap from the horse but his waist was twisted at a ninety-degree angle so that he faced forwards. He held the reins in one gauntleted hand, his other hanging down by the scabbard of his wide-bladed sword. He wore a towering dark helm with a disturbing demonic face carved into the front. His eyes were hidden behind the grilles.

  The two Krune stopped a couple of metres distant.

  'Hail, you bloody invader bastards,' said Zalan with a mirthless grin and a curt, sardonic bow. 'And good morning.'

  The Krune in the demon helm cocked his head.

  'And to you, Riln,' his voice boomed. 'You hide your fear well.'

  'I am General Zalan, and this is Commander Nchalak. We thank you for agreeing to this meeting.'

  'It is an honour to meet the last living officers in all of Riln, General,' the masked Krune said. 'I am Jolm, master of the Black Talon.'

  Zalan frowned.

  'I was expecting Duke Elas.'

  'Well, you can meet his boots if you like, because that's all that's left of him,' said Jolm with a shrug. 'Your golemns cared not for the cut of his jib.'

  'I am surprised the King did not send his own banner,' Zalan said, nodding at the Black Talon standard. 'Does he not bless this meeting? Is he so cowed by the battering he has taken at the hands of this land's protectors that he sends an underling to do his bartering?'

  Jolm chuckled.

  'I like your vigour, General,' he said. 'It will be a shame for us not to clash swords on the field.' He paused for a moment. 'As I'm sure your pesky spies have already told you, the King has fallen back to Doyu, where he awaits resupply. The Black Talon holds the Plains to the south and the Dallian Woodland beyond, and for now, it falls to us to represent the might of the Ten Plains King.'

  Nobody holds the Woodland, you idiot, Zalan mused. Gods, even we don't hold it! There are horrors there that will forever leave that place uncivilised. Still, it buoyed his spirits to note how little the invaders understood the kingdom they had attempted to conquer. Small wonder they failed in their task.

  'Very good,' Zalan said. 'Let's talk.'

  'Wait,' said Nchalak, raising a hand. 'We have an audience.'

  'Eh?'

  Jolm laughed again.

  'Sorry, General,' the Krune said. 'This is war, after all.'

  Shapes emerged from the thick morning mist. Massive and jagged, the Krune edged forward, swords sliding from scabbards. Zalan's horse attempted to wheel and the General hissed at it to hold firm. Nchalak merely watched the thirty or so enemy ambushers appear, a wry eyebrow raised.

  'These brutes can be quiet when they want to be,' Jolm said. 'Now, you can surrender, but death will be slow. So my advice is to demand a duel. I promise to be quick. The Tarukaveri can tell you,' he added, gesturing to the Krune on the right hand side of the detachment, whose armour differed slightly to the rest. 'I don't play too much with my prey.'

  Zalan's mouth twisted and he leaned over to spit into the grass, never taking his grey eyes off the Black Talon leader. When he leaned back into the saddle, he turned to his companion, his eyes still fixed on the demon helm's dark grilles.

  'The lack of trust these days... a terrible state of affairs, eh Commander?'


  Nchalak nodded primly.

  'Indeed, General.'

  'It is a good job you are wiser than me, my friend.'

  The Sabre Commander raised her chin at the compliment.

  'It is good that you are wise enough to listen,' she replied.

  With that, she stuck out a long, lean and muscular limb, opening her fist out wide. From all around there came a clamour. Two thousand Riln, half mounted, the other with bows drawn, appeared from the mist. Amongst them were cowled men and women, powder blue robes wrapped about them. When she closed her fist, the soldiers halted their approach.

  'Our slingers might not have the shock and awe of your sorcerers and Coppermasks, Krune,' said Zalan. 'But they are excellent tricksters.' Watching the small detachment of Krune waver, he allowed himself a smirk. 'Your victories against us have made you arrogant and your arrogance makes you careless.'

  Jolm cursed under his breath.

  'So,' Zalan went on. 'Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, shall we do what we came here to do?'

  'Very well,' the Black Talon leader grated.

  Leaving their forces behind, the two men turned eastward and rode into the mist. It was not long before they started to see the first of the gaunt figures unveil themselves. Zalan shivered and touched the amulet about his neck, the coin-sized engraving tapping against his breastplate as he rode. Guardians protect me. Even Jolm tensed. There was something hanging on the grey warriors who loomed from the mist, a shroud of doom and despondency. Their eyes were baleful and dry as stone, lips almost sealed through countless centuries of silence. But their armour, though it bore the mark of countless years of rust and decay, was still in place, swords and spears still sharp enough to slice and skewer the unwitting.

  'So many of them,' Jolm said, the peculiar joviality in his tone surprising Zalan. 'What power it must have taken to raise them.'

  'Indeed,' the Riln General replied. 'Now we know what dread experiments the mages of the Ruin were conducting, and why the golems wiped them out.'

  'So that's what laid waste to this city...'

  'So the legend goes,' Zalan said. 'More than a thousand years ago, the golems discovered a den of wizards practising necromancy. They punished them by destroying their entire city, and everyone in it.' He shrugged. 'Some fled, of course, but never returned. The golems have watched over it ever since. When you marched on the Ruin, the golems returned to protect its secrets.' He glanced at the Krune. 'If your King had come in peace, we might have warned you about the dangers of provoking them.'

  Jolm chuckled.

  'He doesn't even go to the bathroom in peace,' the Krune said.

  Zalan could not help smiling at the comment.

  'To bring back the dead...' Jolm said after a few moments of silence, glancing at the shrouded warriors that crammed the field and shaking his head. The leather fixings of his towering dark helm creaked. 'Is there nothing more abominable? See them: soulless, fearless, hopeless. Fixed in place, consumed by their final duty – to defend their already devastated city.'

  'An army of protectors, centuries too late.'

  The two men rode through rank after rank of the long dead, losing count amongst the dizzying number of men. Only the mist kept the true scale of the Ruin's defending army from their gaze. Soon, surely, that mist would dissipate or lift and all would see how many of the long dead had been hauled back into service.

  'You've tried to fight them, I take it?' Zalan asked.

  'Yes,' said Jolm. 'They're graceless and easy to kill, but once slain, they simply rise up again. It eats at the courage of the men to kill, again and again, the same man.'

  Zalan agreed.

  'We've tried, too. Our archers had a field day, but as you say, they just get back to their feet, the arrows gone from their bodies.'

  They reached a yawning gate of stone. Dismounting, they approached, pausing only on the threshold. Above them, on ruined battlements, were grey archers cradling bows. Ancient arrowheads on curiously undiminished wooden shafts were pointed down at them.

  'Are you sure about this, General?' Jolm asked.

  'What choice is there? You're afraid these grey warriors will suddenly march south against you, and we're afraid they'll march north. We need to meet their master, divine his intentions.'

  'And if their master sides with me?'

  Zalan shrugged.

  'I'll kill him. And you.'

  Jolm laughed heartily and slapped the Riln on the back.

  'I like your vigour!' he said again. 'I do hope we can duel sometime.'

  'To the death?'

  'Naturally! Play is for pups.'

  They heard soft footfalls ahead. The men stopped to peer into the ancient street where they spotted a solitary figure, clad in several layers of robes and animal skins, face hidden under several layers of hood. Slender, crooked, moving as if in pain, the small man stopped a few steps from the edge of the city's limits, a mere metre from where the two warriors stood. With a gentle wave of his hand the grey warriors closest to them, and the archers on the battlements above, vanished into sudden spatial whorls. Jolm gasped and Zalan touched his amulet again.

  'What do you want?' the cowled man asked. His voice was a ragged rasp as if he had spent the night screaming and had woken with his throat raw.

  'I am Zalan of the Riln. This is Jolm of the army of the Ten Plains King,' the General said. 'We seek an audience with the master of this impressive army of ghosts.'

  'You have it, General.'

  'What are you...?' Zalan asked. 'A Riln? A Tabalard? You look like you might be one of my people...?'

  The head of the figure lifted slightly, revealing a sharp, pale chin with dark, wiry stubble.

  'I am a Rovann.'

  Jolm's lips, invisible with his helm, curled into a smile.

  'So, it is you,' he said. 'Gods and bones, slinger, we all thought you dead.'

  Zalan turned from the cowled figure to the Krune and back again. His hand went to his sword, grasping it as if to draw. He took a breath and held it, making his body light and ready for combat.

  'Relax, General,' said Jolm, waving at him dismissively. 'He isn't with us. Not any more. Right, slinger?'

  'Right,' said Chalos.

  Zalan took his hand away from his weapon and let out his breath in a soft hiss. The relief on his face was obvious.

  'So, what do you want?' the Riln asked. 'I mean, what do they want?' His gesture swept over the grey warriors, their ranks stretching into the misty distance of the plains.

  'They want to protect their city,' said Chalos. 'I awakened them quite by accident, when I meddled with the power of this place. When I saw how many of them there were, it occurred to me that although they missed their opportunity to protect their loved ones all those centuries ago, they could at least protect this kingdom now.'

  'So you're with us?' Zalan smiled.

  'No,' said Chalos. 'Nor am I with the King.' He straightened, with some difficultly and threw back the layers of hood. He looked emaciated and pallid, his hair a lank mop of black. His eyes were red-rimmed.

  So young to hold such power! Zalan thought. How like our Wielder! Then he realised that, perhaps, this pale Rovann had been the one to kill the hero of the Riln, the young sorcerer who had ventured into the Ruin during the attack of the golems, and not returned.

  'So then, what's your plan, slinger?' asked Jolm.

  'Tell the King that he can progress no further than the edge of the Dallian Woodland. If he steps onto the plains, I will call on the dead souls of this city and bring them all forth. A million of them, embittered and unkillable, and I will let them slaughter his men to the last soul.' Chalos turned his dark gaze to Zalan. 'Your kingdom, from here to the north, is safe. But do not think of me as an ally. I am simply a man sick of war.'

  Jolm grumbled something indecipherable.

  'Go now, General. Tell your soldiers they can return to their homes. Tell them to forget about the Ten Plains King. He is no threat to you now.
'

  Zalan, too nervous of the Rovann's power to argue, glanced at Jolm and then turned, striding into the mist. When he had gone, Jolm sighed.

  'So, slinger. Look at you, master of a whole city, with an army at your beck and call!'

  'Not precisely,' said Chalos, lowering himself down onto a chunk of masonry and massaging his calves. Though healed, his body still screamed with pain, though there were periods of respite. 'They have no minds and no hearts. All I do is control the flow of energy that feeds their existence. If I relax it, and let it roar into them, they become animated and ferocious. If I tighten my grip, they become like dolls.'

  'Do you mean what you say? That you will wage war on us if we take a step beyond the Dallian Woodland?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then I suppose I should ride back and send message to the King with all haste,' the Krune said. 'Tell him he has a new enemy.'

  'I'll let you choose the wording of your message, lieutenant.'

  'Heh. It's Duke now, actually.'

  'Congratulations,' said Chalos, trying not to sound half-hearted. 'He died in battle with the golems?'

  'That's the story,' Jolm said with a shrug. 'The truth is, after the death of Agryce the Tarukaveri fell in behind me, leaving him with little or no real authority. After the last golem fell, I found him in his little mobile fortress, nursing minor wounds. I had a little conversation with the bastard, and then I cut his head off.'

  Even after everything Chalos had witnessed, Jolm still had the ability to shock him. The healer let out a dry, rattling laugh.

  'So you're the master of all the Black Talon, then? Well, good for you. Perhaps that will bring peace to the Krune tribes.'

  'Oh, that's the first step of my plan,' Jolm replied, before changing the subject. 'Can I ask you something, slinger?'

  'Um, fine,' Chalos replied.

  Here it comes. He's going to ask me to let his forces through, try and negotiate a deal to help him conquer this land. Or maybe just try and gain a foothold in this city of mine...

  But it was not that at all.

  'Where are you from?'