11- The Sergeant's Apprentice

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Fetch us some water,” Casper ordered.

  The orcs obeyed without question. Casper tested the water, then held the bottle to Emily’s lips to allow her to drink. It tasted sour, but at least it was drinkable. The orcs watched her with a kind of vapid curiosity that puzzled her. Had they never seen a person drinking before? Their leader looked amused — and puzzled. No doubt he was wondering why Casper was actually caring for his captive.

  Gaius probably wouldn’t bother, Emily thought, as Casper took a long swig of water before attaching the bottle to his saddle. He might even prefer me to be thirsty.

  And yet, he’d have to explain why you died en route, her own thoughts reminded her. Would he really want to take that chance?

  She gritted her teeth as the small party headed away from the village and into the Desert of Death. The flickers of wild magic were growing stronger, poisoning the land. Even in the semi-darkness, illuminated by the rising moon, she could see sandstorms in the distance, their mere presence chilling her to the bone. It reminded her, discomfortingly, of the Blighted Lands. In truth, she realized numbly, the Desert of Death was part of the Blighted Lands. The entire ecosystem had long since started to break down under the impact of the Faerie and — later — the necromancers. Farrakhan had been on the border of the Blighted Lands and never realized it.

  The landscape blurred into darkened sand dunes, each one treacherous underfoot. Emily had to resist the urge to keep her eyes closed as the horse stumbled, caught itself and stumbled again. The wild magic seemed to discomfort it as much as it worried the humans, even though she assumed the beast had been bred in the Blighted Lands. But then, there were places no wild animals would go, willingly. She supposed that made them smarter than their human masters. The horror stories of how humans had been warped and twisted by wild magic were terrifying.

  Casper nudged her, jerking her out of a near-trance. “Heart’s Eye,” he muttered, jabbing a finger into the distance. The sky was brightening, the sun throwing odd flickers of light across the land. “It has to be.”

  Emily cast a night-vision spell, hoping it was subtle enough not to alert the twisted human to her magic. The landscape sprung into sharp relief, revealing a strange shape dominating the skyline ahead of them. Emily had expected a castle, like Whitehall or Stronghold, but Heart’s Eye looked more like a fairytale palace. Strange towers reached up towards the sky, held up by fragile stones ... It was so ludicrously flimsy, to the naked eye, that she was surprised it was still intact. Magic, powerful magic, had to have been used to build it.

  And yet, the nexus point is gone, she thought, grimly. She should have been able to sense the nexus point at this distance, even if it had been tamed for centuries. Why didn’t the building fall down?

  She pushed the thought out of her head as they drew closer. Heart’s Eye was huge, easily larger than Whitehall. And it was surrounded by a small city, even the largest buildings effortlessly dwarfed by the school. She’d expected the city to be in ruins, if it hadn’t been lost to the sand, but it was still intact. Thousands of orcs and twisted humans were clearly visible, moving through the streets as though they lived there. She could hear the sounds of battle echoing over the city, coming from an orcish birthing pit. The strongest amongst them would be given the honor of siring the next generation of warriors.

  “Gods,” Casper breathed.

  The wind shifted, blowing the stench of orcs — and worse — towards them. Emily gagged, fighting the urge to be sick. The orcs laughed uproariously, as if they thought it was a great joke. Perhaps it was, to them. She swallowed hard, trying to breathe through her mouth as the smell grew worse. She’d been in cities, back in the Allied Lands, that had smelled cleaner. The orcs didn’t seem to give a damn about sanitation.

  The sun rose into the sky as they cantered through a set of trenches and into the city itself. She heard voices crying out and looked around, spotting the holding pens behind the buildings. They were crammed with humans — men, women, and children — just waiting to be sacrificed. It was clear, just from their terrified faces, that they knew what was coming. Others wore slave collars and moved from cage to cage, their expressions utterly broken. Several captives were lying so still that she suspected they were dead. She hoped they were dead.

  I’ll get you out, even if it’s the last thing I do, she promised them silently. I will.

  The horrors grew as they rode though the darkened city. Humans — free and slave — toiling away in tiny factories, producing swords, arrows, and other weapons. Orcs supervised, lashing out with their whips whenever they thought their captives weren’t keeping their noses to the grindstone. White bones lay everywhere, reminding her — again — that orcs ate human flesh. An elderly worker, unable to continue, was yanked out of the line and shared amongst a dozen orcs. Emily looked away, knowing she could do nothing.

  She felt Casper quivering with rage behind her. It had to be worse for him, she knew. He’d grown up knowing he might have to die, one day, to save civilians from an awful fate. But there was nothing he could do to save the captives. She wasn’t even sure that anything could be done to save the captives. Even if they were freed tomorrow, they’d need years to recover from their trauma ... years the Nameless World wouldn’t give them. She caught sight of a line of captives — all young girls — being marched west and shuddered. God alone knew what the necromancer had in mind for them.

  “Stay calm,” Emily muttered. The orcs were hooting and hollering. Hopefully, no one could overhear her. “We only get one shot at him.”

  She kept her face expressionless, even though she knew the presence of so many captives changed everything. She’d assumed the necromancer would be alone, like Shadye, or surrounded merely by orcs. Shadye had never had living servants or slaves, as far as she knew. He’d built his servants out of dead bones. But the presence of so many living humans changed everything. She couldn’t risk blowing up the city if so many innocent lives would be lost.

  And what choice would they make, her own thoughts mocked her, if you offered them life or death?

  She shook her head. It wasn’t a choice she could make, not for them. Maybe they would prefer to die, rather than spend the rest of their lives as slaves. But she couldn’t sentence them all to death just for being unfortunate enough to be taken captive and enslaved.

  And yet, was that not a form of cowardice? Was she just as bad as the necromancer, leaving them to their fate when she could have ended it in a moment?

  There were more holding pens near the school, she noted, crammed with captives. The necromancer’s next dinner, she assumed. A small altar sat just outside the giant stone doors, so tainted with necromancy that she could barely look at it. Perhaps the necromancer had turned sacrificing into a ritual ... or maybe it was just a way to torment his captives still further. And then ...

  She nudged Casper. “We need a better plan,” she said. She found herself tossing options around, each of them involving the batteries, but none of them seemed usable. Perhaps they would have to use the nuke-spell ... could she snatch all the captives into a pocket dimension? Or would that be too complex? “Or ...”

  A low rumble echoed through the air. The giant stone doors, easily large enough to allow a full-sized dragon into the school, were opening. Emily tensed as she sensed spikes of magic, oddly-tainted magic. It didn’t make any sense. Heart’s Eye was dead, yet it still lived. She wondered, somehow, if the necromancer was keeping the school intact through sheer force of will. It was as good an explanation as anything else. She braced herself as the doors opened, revealing two men. Two very familiar men.

  Shit, she thought.

  She cursed her own lack of foresight under her breath. It had been two years since she’d seen Lucas and Roderick, Gaius’s boon companions. She’d thought they’d left him ... no, Gaius had told her they’d left him. And she hadn’t thought to ask Gaius when he’d been under the spell. They were caught. There was no way Casper’s glamour would fool them. Hell, they mi
ght even suspect something, just from how much consideration “Gaius” was showing his captive. He hadn’t been the sort of person to let a captive ride with dignity, even if her hands were bound.

  “Gaius,” Lucas said. He sounded as pompous as Emily remembered. “I ...”

  He broke off, his eyes going wide. “Who are you?”

  “Death,” Casper snapped. He lifted his hand and hurled a fireball. “Die!”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  EMILY PULLED HER HANDS FREE, THEN slid off the horse and dropped to the ground, one hand clutching for the battery in her pouch. Lucas hurled a fireball back at Casper, missing his head by inches, his face twisting in rage. The orcs howled their fury, but seemed unsure which way to jump. Their master, the twisted human, was turning to face Emily, magic crackling around him ... she shaped a death-spell in her mind, then threw it at him with all the power she could muster. He gasped and fell to the ground, dead.

  Got you, Emily thought.

  She finished rigging the battery and valve, then turned to face Lucas and Roderick before they could react. Casper was keeping them busy, firing spell after spell into their defenses or past them into the school. Both of them seemed stunned, unsure what to do. They’d probably relied on Gaius to do most of the thinking, Emily thought nastily.

  And now, it was too late.

  The battery felt warm in her hand as she triggered the spell. A wave of balefire, far larger than any normal magician could produce, roared towards its two targets, slamming into Roderick before he could run. It was colossal overkill, a waste of a battery, yet she didn’t dare risk a more even battle that might go either way. Emily sensed Roderick’s death as the fire burned through his wards, incinerating him in a heartbeat. Lucas, quicker to dodge, managed to evade enough of the fire to survive, but the force of the impact still sent him flying away from the doors. Emily turned as she felt the battery start to run out of power, sweeping the flames across the nearest orcs. They howled, torn between the urge to attack her and the urge to bow down in front of her. And then they started to flee.

  Emily sensed a wave of magic behind her and jumped aside just in time to avoid a nasty curse from Lucas. His face was burnt, but he was alive. He tossed a second curse at her a moment before Casper blasted him. The force of the impact sent him flying into the pile of burning orcs. Emily deflected his curse and looked around. The captives were shouting to be released.

  She motioned for Casper to watch her back as she destroyed the battery, then hurried over to the nearest cage. She’d half-expected it to be locked with magic, but instead the lock was merely too tough for any mere human to undo. She reached for an orcish axe and brought it down instead, cracking open the cage and releasing the prisoners. They burst out, swarming around her; their hands touching her as if they thought she was a goddess. She fought herself free with an effort, using magic to push them back. She’d grown better about having others in her personal space, but there were limits.

  “Free the others,” she ordered, pushing as much compulsion as she dared into her voice. It would be easy to overdo it. “Free the others, then flee the city.”

  The ex-captives hurried to work, breaking open the other cages and snatching up abandoned weapons. Emily had no idea if they were trained fighters or not, but at least they’d have a chance when the orcs rallied. Surprise had carried them as far as it had, yet she knew — all too well — that she only had one more battery. If she used it, she’d have to face the necromancer without it.

  She reached out with her senses, just as Lucas burst free of the flames and charged her. Magic billowed around him, threatening to overwhelm her weakened defenses. It was crude, but she knew it would be effective if she allowed him to grab her. Gritting her teeth, she slammed a force punch into his defenses and followed with a cutting hex that should have taken off his head. He deflected it, barely, and kept coming. Emily braced herself, only to watch in astonishment as Casper tackled Lucas. The two young men rolled around on the ground, their magic crackling around them. She’d never seen anything like it.

  “Free the others,” Casper shouted at her.

  Cursing herself, Emily turned ... just in time to see a small horde of orcs charging towards the freed captives. She reached for her magic, but held back as the captives charged at the orcs. The two sides crashed together with terrifying force, half-mad humans actually holding the line and driving the orcs back. Behind them, Emily saw a trio of twisted humans working a spell. She threw an itching hex towards them, gambling that they wouldn’t be familiar with a spell used mainly for pranking unwary students. Their concentration was broken as they started to scratch themselves, giving their former slaves a chance to overwhelm them. The ground shook, a moment later, as a distant building exploded into a fireball.

  Emily blinked in shock. A powder mill?

  It was possible, she supposed, as she turned back to Casper and Lucas. The former was on top of the latter, battering his head into the ground. Emily opened her mouth to tell him they needed Lucas alive, then stopped as she realized it was too late. Lucas’s head had been cracked open ... a second later, a force punch crushed it into paste. Emily was torn between feeling sick and a strange kind of relief. Lucas wouldn’t have a chance to betray the Allied Lands any further.

  She turned her head, reaching out with her senses to search for the necromancer. He had to be nearby. The orcs wouldn’t have risked taking their captive somewhere else. And yet, all she could feel was the strange not-magic surrounding Heart’s Eye. The doors lay open, leading into darkness. She thought she could sense ... something ... at the end of it.

  “The entire city’s in chaos,” Casper said. He looked pleased, even though his tunic was covered in blood and gore. Emily wondered, absently, if Lucas’s family would seek revenge, then decided it was unlikely. If Lucas hadn’t already been disowned, he would be as soon as his family heard of his treachery. “The orcs are even fighting each other.”

  He was right. Dozens of orcs were battling their own kind, slaughtering each other with a shocking fervor. And yet, she would have expected the necromancer to appear to regain control. Was he attacking Farrakhan? It was possible. He knew she wasn’t anywhere near the city. Gaius — damn the man — would probably have told him that the city’s other defenses were on the brink of collapse. There just wasn’t enough Wildfire left to make a difference.

  And yet, he would have wanted me as quickly as possible, she mused. She turned to look back at the doors, lying open. Is he in there?

  “We have to go inside,” she said, finally. “He’ll be summoning forces back from Farrakhan.”

  Casper nodded in agreement. Chat parchments had changed everything. An army could be brought back from the city to regain control, then slaughter every last one of the former slaves. Hell, the necromancer probably would do just that, if he could draw back from Farrakhan. Losing Heart’s Eye — and his growing industrial base — would be disastrous, at least in the short term. And he’d lose his planned sacrifices too.

  “If we can deal with the rest of the enemy here,” he said, after a moment. “They’ll be rallying now.”

  “Probably,” Emily agreed. She could sense flickers of magic as the twisted humans struggled to control the orcs. Half the city was burning now, flames spreading from house to house and driving their occupants into the streets. “But I ...”

  Casper grunted, and waved to a man carrying a sharp sword. “Sergeant, get the rest of the captives organized,” he ordered. “If you hold this ground, help will come.”

  The man saluted. Emily blinked in surprise as he started to bellow orders, trying to organize the captives into a rough formation. They wouldn’t be able to stand against a charge, she suspected, but they’d have a better chance than if they were scattered over the sand dunes. If nothing else, they’d die before the necromancer could use them for power. Casper was right, yet ... she knew they were using the former captives to divert their enemy’s attention.

  She glanced at him.
“Sergeant?”

  “One can always recognize a sergeant,” Casper said. He winked at her. “Don’t you know that?”

  Emily shook her head, watching as the captives were lined up and weapons distributed, the older children and women putting together makeshift barricades. The sound of battle was fading away, suggesting that the twisted humans had finally regained control. Judging by the other sounds, they were assembling the remaining orcs into an army on the far side of the city. She wished, once again, that she’d mastered the spying spells before coming to Farrakhan. They would have been useful, if they’d been effective in the haze. All they had to go on was guesswork.

  “They’d be better advised to keep us pinned down until reinforcements arrive,” Casper muttered, as the sun rose higher in the sky. “But their master will punish them for failure, so they need to come at us now.”

  “They’ll be killed anyway,” Emily predicted. She reached out with her senses once again, but felt nothing beyond the flickers of ... something. “The necromancer won’t let them live.”

  “Probably not,” Casper agreed.

  He glanced at her. “I’m sorry.”

  Emily looked back at him. “For what?”

  A strange blend of emotions — irritation, guilt — crossed his face. “I thought badly of you,” he said, finally. “I thought—” he shook his head “—it doesn’t matter what I thought. You’re a true hero and I look forward to telling embarrassing stories about my brother at the wedding.”

  Emily felt herself flush. “I don’t think he’ll thank you for them.”

  “Of course he won’t,” Casper agreed. “He’d do the same for me.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Emily objected.

  “You see one side of him,” Casper said. “I see another.”

  Emily scowled at him. “Would things have been better if you’d treated him better?”