The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

A long silence. And then hard words.

  “I don’t know.”

  The elders said the shicts discovered fire long before the humans did. They lit it long enough to cook their food and then wisely put it out.

  The humans, having figured it out much later, promptly cheered and whooped and danced around the fires they left lit all night. And the next morning, all of them lay dead with arrows in their throats from the shicts who had followed their lights in the darkness.

  Kataria had listened to only a few of the elders’ stories. They tended to be repetitive, always ending with dead humans. But she had listened long enough to learn the value of that particular one.

  Fire had a way of making people comfortable. They put too much trust in it, huddling too close to it to ward off the night. Their eyes adjusted to the light, so much that they had a hard time seeing anything beyond it.

  And even though the Karnerians had many torches staked into the earth, and even though their eyes looked vigilant enough as they stared out over the darkened desert, Kataria did not fear being spotted. She moved slowly through the scrub and rocks that littered the road’s edge, body low to the earth like a cat’s and every step just as deliberate.

  Thirty paces away from the edge of the torches’ rings of light. Any closer and she might be spotted—but that was quite a big might.

  With every wary glance she cast toward the convoy, she grew more convinced that their vigilance was a product of rehearsal. Though they tried their best to look alert, they couldn’t help but stifle yawns and shift restlessly. A few particularly bold ones muttered curses about watch duty and their hard-assed commander.

  Whether or not the commander had a hard ass, Kataria could not say. From here it was hard to tell through all the armor he wore.

  Tall and standing authoritatively, he stood near one wagon, a ledger in his hand and three soldiers wearing plumed helmets—sub-commanders, Kataria guessed—standing attentively nearby. She caught a few words as she crept closer, something about deadlines and arriving in Cier’Djaal in time to relieve the speaker there.

  Had she had any room left in her skull for it, she might have been worried about that. But at that moment all she had left was a bow in one hand, an arrow in the other, and two eyes on her target.

  She crept a little closer. Her ears were open, listening for any sound of an alarm, a sign that she or Kwar had been spotted. But she knew none would come; Kwar, twenty paces back, was even stealthier than she was. She drew as close as she dared, nocked her arrow, and squinted through the darkness at the Karnerian commander.

  There. Her eyes rested on a spot on the wagon he stood beside, just two finger’s lengths from his ear. Shoot there. Just close enough that it looks like a near miss. The others will crowd around him to protect him and you can make a break for it.

  She drew a breath.

  Or they’ll immediately fan out, find you, and gut you. But maybe you should have thought of that sooner, hm?

  No time to think of a better plan. Every moment wasted could be another dead shict.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  She raised her bow.

  She drew back the string.

  An arrow flew, its shriek heard for just a fraction of a breath before it ended in a crunch of metal and a messy splattering sound. The sub-commander twitched, at first, neither body nor brain aware of what had just hit it. And by the time he crumpled to the ground, an arrow jutting from the side of his head, it seemed his fellow Karnerians weren’t quite sure, either.

  Hell of a shot.

  Made her wish she had been the one to make it.

  Or the seven others that came shrieking out of the darkness.

  “AMBUSH! TO ARMS!”

  “PROTECT THE SPEAKER!”

  “GET UP, HEATHENS! GET UP!”

  Each word they screamed into the night was followed by the wail of arrows flying. Each rattle of armor as sleeping soldiers roused themselves and seized their shields was followed by the crunch of metal and splintering of wood. Each cry of alarm was followed by a cry of pain and a body hitting the sand.

  That’s how it sounded, anyway.

  Kataria couldn’t see. She was belly-down in the dirt, hands over her head, stock-still as the arrows flew over her head. They did not scream, as arrows shot haphazardly did. They sang, each one a single note of a black dirge that lilted on the whistle of feathers and the moan of metal heads.

  That’s how she knew there were shicts out there.

  How had she not seen them? How had she not heard them? Was she deaf to their Howling? Was she blind to their movements? Was Kwar?

  Kwar.

  Her chest tightened at the name, a surge of panic rising up inside her from a dark place. Had she seen the arrows in time? Had she escaped? Had she—

  “Wall formation!” A deep voice bellowed a command. “Shields up, you fools, shields up!”

  Kataria dared to peer up from the sand. She saw the dead first, the Karnerians who had been too slow to move, too quick to rise. They lay, arrows jutting from their heads, their chests, their necks. She saw the living next, standing tall with their shields in hand, forming a wall of metal to face the hills. There were no wounded. Or at least, no Karnerians who had been hit less than fatally considered themselves wounded. Those with shafts in their legs and arms stood side by side with their fellows, facing the hills.

  Their shields clanged together as they pressed shoulder to shoulder. Their spears rattled as they leveled them warily out into the night. They stood tall, heedless of the dead beneath their feet. Two hundred armored Karnerians, black armor glistening in the firelight, formed an onyx wall against the night.

  So much for getting past them now, Kataria thought.

  Their commander, plumed helmet atop his head, strode behind them. His sword was raised, his voice carried over the night.

  “Stand tall, you sons of Daeon! The Conqueror is watching.” His bellowing commands struck a hymn-like cadence. “Whatever cowardice lurks within the shadow pales before the might of the Empire! Let them come! Karneria Eternal!”

  “KARNERIA ETERNAL!” The soldiers took up his roar, shouting into the night.

  But the night did not shout back.

  And whoever was out there, they did not come.

  No challenging taunts. No rallying war cry. No wail of arrows. The attack, it seemed, had finished just as suddenly as it had begun.

  And Kataria had just about begun to believe that when the first Karnerian fell.

  No arrow. No wound. He was perfectly living one moment, perfectly dead the next. His shield clattered as he slumped forward, his helmet slipped from his head and rolled across the sand. He lay so still and so silent, one might have thought he was simply sleeping.

  One might, that is, until his body spasmed with a sudden, bloody vomiting.

  “Daeon’s will…,” the commander began to gasp, but he had not the words to express what he saw at the dead soldier.

  Or the next one.

  Or the next one.

  One by one they began to fall. Some screamed out before they did. Others had just enough breath to let out a single panicked gasp. They fell, they spasmed, they spilled themselves out of their mouths, and they lay still.

  And when no fewer than sixty were dead, only then did the commander seem to find the words for it.

  “Fuck,” he gasped. “Fuck!”

  She couldn’t fault him for that response, Kataria thought. But she had already figured it out. She wished she hadn’t. She wished she could have had a few more moments of unthinking horror, but it had all come together.

  Shekune’s weapon from the greenshicts: the vial of green liquid in her hands.

  The shicts disguised as Karnerians.

  The big water barrels on the wagons.

  She poisoned them, she thought. She’s going to poison all of them. That’s how she’s going to fight the humans.

  “Close ranks! CLOSE RANKS!”

  The commander bellowed, the soldiers obeye
d. They rattled in their armor as they came together, the still-living Karnerians. But now that their dead outnumbered them, their wall no longer looked quite so perfect, their armor no longer quite so glossy. They were not going to survive this night.

  And they were not the only ones to know it.

  Softly at first, they came wailing. Their war song carried over the hills, hundreds of voices raised in whooping cries joined by the shrieking howls of beasts. Starkly then, they appeared. Dark shadows against the night sky, cresting over the hills atop four-legged mounts. Swiftly at last, they came. Their faces were wooden, their grins were carved, their eyes were hollow.

  And their blades were sharp.

  Khoshicts. Hatchets flashing. Short blades gleaming. Spears smiling.

  Their yijis came charging down the hill, cackling with anticipation. War cries tore from the grins carved into their faces. They came. Swiftly, surely, unstoppable, charging toward the Karnerians.

  And Kataria ran.

  No thought for the Karnerians and their spears and their formations. She had no thoughts left. Only the need to move, the need to run, the need to get away. She was on her feet, rushing toward the convoy.

  “Shicts! They’re fucking shicts!”

  “Son of a bitch, how?”

  “Take their fucking ears! DAEON IS—”

  If Daeon heard that soldier, he never answered.

  The khoshicts burst from the gloom, a roar upon their lips that was shared by their yijis. They tore into the Karnerians with the screech of metal and the howl of beast and laughter at the impending slaughter.

  Shields splintered as spears punched through them. Blood spattered upon the sands. Soldiers screamed, stuck on blades. Soldiers dragged to ground by yiji jaws never got the chance to scream. The khoshicts and their mounts toasted their impending victory with a wordless, shapeless howl.

  That’s what it sounded like, anyway.

  Kataria certainly wasn’t about to stop and look. She ran past the slaughter, past the wagons, into the darkness beyond.

  A shadow moved at her side. A heavy shape caught her in a rush, knocked her to the ground.

  “Filthy pagan scum.” The commander’s voice. “You dare attack a convoy of the Empire?”

  She whirled onto her back, saw the commander looming large over her. His sword was high above his head. His face was etched with the agonized madness of a man who had seen his company collapse in the span of a few breaths.

  His blade came down quickly. But Kataria was quicker. Fear gave her speed, sent her rolling to the side. Instinct gave her reflex, sent her rising to her feet. As for what made her reach for the pouch at her belt…

  Well, maybe that was just luck.

  But she tore free the sack, hurled it at the commander. The bag struck him square in the face, the laces came undone, its flap flew open. And the dozens of tarantulas within celebrated their newfound freedom by crawling and biting every morsel of Karnerian flesh they could find.

  Her panic became his. He dropped his blade, took off running, screaming, pawing at his face as he tried to dislodge the spiders.

  Would that she had time or thought to appreciate that sight.

  But like everything else tonight, that moment ended in a bloody mess.

  The commander, twenty paces away, came to a sudden, jerking halt. He grunted as something burst from his back. A spear’s head, jagged and hooked and smiling a red, bloody smile. Kataria recognized it before anything else. Before the commander’s corpse fell to the ground. Before she saw the khoshict standing over his lifeless body.

  Shekune.

  She wore a mask with slanted eyes and a mouth full of sharpened teeth, like a demon’s. And stretched over the wood: the dried flesh of a human face, gaping in its last scream.

  Her spear, its red smile and its steel teeth, spoke for her. In the groan of metal and the ripping of flesh as she tore it free from the commander’s corpse. In the spattering of blood and the whistle of metal as she held her arms out wide. In the crunch of sand and the distant sound of men dying as she began to walk toward Kataria.

  Slowly.

  Arms outstretched.

  As if to say, softly: Try.

  And Kataria did.

  She nocked, she drew, she loosed. She missed. Arrow after arrow, shot after shot. And whether it was fear that shook her hands or exhaustion that blinded her, her arrows did not scream, nor sing. They muttered, they cursed, they flew wide: over Shekune’s shoulder, past Shekune’s ear, in the dirt by Shekune’s feet.

  She shot until she reached for her quiver and found empty space.

  And Shekune’s arms dropped.

  As if to say, softly: Oh, well.

  She took up her spear in both hands, leveled it at Kataria, tensed and made ready to charge. Kataria held up her bow, a flimsy defense she knew would do nothing. But she had nothing left.

  Nothing but an empty quiver and the shadows around her.

  One of which suddenly moved.

  A shape came screaming out of the darkness. Screaming, not crying in war or in pain, but in rage and need and desperation. It leapt, it caught Shekune about the waist and bore her to the ground. A fist came up, then down. There was the crack of wood. When it rose again, splinters were embedded in its knuckles. When it came down again, the crack was of bone on flesh.

  “Come on.”

  The shape was up on its feet. A bloodied hand reached out for Kataria’s. Wild eyes met her own.

  “Kwar,” she whispered, breathless.

  “She won’t stay down,” Kwar snarled. “They won’t stay still. We run for the hills. Now.”

  No thought for refusal, for resistance, for Kwar’s hand around her wrist. No thought for her feet moving beneath her, for the sound of crunching sand growing louder as the sound of carnage and bloodshed grew fainter. No thought…

  But one.

  For a look cast over her shoulder. For the sight of Shekune standing. For the mask that hung, shattered, off the khoshict chieftain’s face. For the bloody grin of her spear, the silent wail of her mask and the victorious shadows of her warriors and the slow raising of her hand.

  As if to say, softly: Next time.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  AN ETHICAL KNIFE IN THE BACK

  The official reason for the Venarium’s creation was, verbatim: “To assure safety, discipline, and control to those individuals gifted with Venarie and, through them, to provide the same to the world.”

  That more or less covered the unofficial reason, as well, which was that wizards had been right on track to blowing the shit out of the world for a while there.

  As the histories went, wizards were more or less content to live in harmony until the emperors, kings, and lords of the lands realized that men and women who could spit ice and shit fire would be pretty handy in a fight.

  Loyalties were invoked, conscriptions signed, bribes offered, and every fashionable army suddenly had a wizard to throw at its enemies. They would rain lightning on enemy formations, grab catapult-tossed boulders out of the sky, and freeze entire harvests to starve out villages.

  When one wizard decimated an army, that army would get its own wizard. And as wizards tended to burn out rather quickly when they weren’t budgeting their powers, they were in high demand and would often fight to avoid being conscripted. Armies were killing wizards, wizards were killing armies, and, of course, the civilians got quite thoroughly fucked.

  Even for a time when war was quite messy, things were remarkably chaotic.

  The Venarium was formed with the assistance of several nations—some still around, some long since departed—to put an end to this. Instantly wizards were forced to give up their nationalities, families, and prior loyalties and swear obedience to a system that would ensure their cooperation. The Venarium was granted sovereign lands in other nations and access to their resources in exchange for keeping the wizard threat under control.

  And while many armies were reluctant to give up their pet wizards, few argued with
the establishment of the Venarium. For they could think of absolutely no other way to stop a man who could kill with a thought and a flick of his wrist.

  Of course, Dreadaeleon knew, there were ways to stop such a man.

  And naturally, the Venarium knew them, as they were keen to remind him once he was in their custody once again.

  Gestures, stance, and posture were important to channeling and connecting the flow of Venarie in a wizard—sitting him in a thick wooden chair and shackling his wrists and ankles to the armrests and legs, respectively, dealt with that. For the words of power that called on the Venarie and made it manifest, there was a delightful device known as a Seen-and-Not-Heard: a viselike muzzle that forcibly held shut the jaws of a wizard.

  But even a bound and gagged wizard could be a threat if he could concentrate. That was why his cell had one source of light: a globe overhead that flickered on and off erratically. And just in case that wasn’t enough, one male and one female Librarian—elite members of the Venarium—stood guard not ten paces away, flanking the only door leading out of his cell and their eyes constantly locked on him.

  They unlocked him long enough for him to eat, drink, and expel bodily excretions—all of which he was permitted half an hour for—after which he was promptly locked back up and their long vigil resumed.

  But it wasn’t all bad, he thought. He had to endure it for only a few more days before they finalized their report to the Venarium command and received permission to summarily execute him and Harvest his entrails.

  And hey, he thought, at least Admirable Tibbles is here.

  The Charnel Hound sat on its haunches, a mere two paces away. And though it looked at ease, it could strike and snap his neck in an instant. Not that it seemed inclined to at the moment. If the Charnel Hound held any enmity over his previous escape, it didn’t show it.

  Though, he asked himself, how would a thing made out of severed cocks show enmity? I suspect it’d be pretty obvious.

  He stared forward, dumbly.

  You have to be able to laugh about these things, old man.

  He had no energy for laughter, even if he hadn’t been wearing a muzzle.

  The animal panic that had come from waking up in chains had long since ebbed away from days without sleep, hours of flickering light, not so much as a moment when fewer than three people—or creatures—had eyes on him and were ready to kill him.