The Conquerors Shadow

by Ari Marmell

  He knew what was in it.

  Fingers twitching within heavy gauntlets, his mouth formed words that did not exist in any human tongue. Behind the horrid mask, his eyes began ever so slightly to glow, and the blackness parted before him.

  “Get these men out of the pit,” he ordered his guards. “Make certain they have water and food.”

  “At once, my lord. Will you be wanting some of us to …” The soldier swallowed, unable to finish, as he stared nervously into the black.

  “No. I will go in alone. Find Valescienn. Inform him that I expect him to hold off Lorum’s armies should they attack before I’ve returned. Tell him that Davro and his ogres are to fall back from the main walls and surround the Hall of Meeting. They’re our last line of defense. The gnomes and the other soldiers should be able to hold the wall for some time without them.”

  “Very good, my lord. Best of luck down, um, down there.”

  Rebaine nodded, and swung down into the passage.

  /We’re being watched, you know,/ the unseen speaker informed him idly.

  “What?” Rebaine glanced down in annoyance. “Any particular reason you waited this long to tell me?” His heavy boots landed with a resounding clang on the ancient stones paving the floor. Unhesitating, he set out toward the north.

  /You were having such fun conversing with the young lady, I felt it would be inappropriate to intrude./

  Rebaine snorted. “Of course you did.” He brushed an enormous cobweb from his path, then chose the leftmost of three identical passages. “Watched how? Seilloah assured me she could block any scrying spells sent our way.”

  /Seilloah lacks imagination. It’s not a scrying spell. Someone—it tastes like Rheah, though I won’t swear to that—has sight-linked herself with a fairly large and exceptionally ugly beetle. It was lurking in the corner of the room upstairs, and it is now scurrying along the wall some few feet behind you./

  Another pause as he glanced at the relatively unmarked walls around him. Which intersection was this? He’d studied the map for days, but it was impossible to be certain.

  Right this time, he finally decided. Then, “How can she see anything? It’s rather dark, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  /Why, so it is. How foolish of me to have missed that. I surely can’t imagine how the little creature might be able to see us down here./ A sudden gasp sounded in Rebaine’s mind. /You don’t suppose she’s using magic, do you?/

  The heavy sigh echoed in the depths of the hideous armor. “I imagine you think you’re funny, don’t you?”

  /Well, I’m amused./

  “One of us ought to be.”

  /Shall we kill it already?/

  Left turn, straight ahead twice, left again. “Deal with it, if you wish. I have no concern but your happiness.”

  /Of course not./ The crystal pendant hanging beneath Rebaine’s breastplate warmed faintly, and a sudden crunch echoed through the hall behind them.

  Rebaine continued, frustration mounting each time he stopped to think about his position on the map. It would have been convenient to have it with him now, but he’d burned it once he’d memorized it to his satisfaction. Despite the chill in the air around him, he lifted his helm now and again to wipe the sweat from his brow.

  “Why do I wear this bloody thing?” he snapped finally.

  /Something about fear and terror among all who see you,/ the voice replied drily. /Or that was your claim, anyway. Me, I can’t picture any of your kind being all that frightening./

  “Fear.” Rebaine shook his head. “This would be so much easier if they’d just cooperate. I wouldn’t have to terrify them all.”

  /The girl didn’t seem all that scared, toward the end there./

  Rebaine once again saw the girl—Tyannon, he corrected himself—the fear in her eyes burned away by her sudden anger. “She’s got spirit, that one.”

  /She does indeed./ A pause. /You should kill her before it spreads./

  “I don’t think so, Khanda.”

  /I’m serious. This sort of thing is dangerous. Let her stand up to you, and others may decide they, too, can get away with it. You need to put a stop to that immediately./

  Another head shake, this one forceful enough to send the helmet clanking against the armor’s shoulder spines. “I don’t kill children, Khanda.” Although Tyannon hardly qualified as a child; she certainly showed more maturity than most of her elders in that chamber.

  /Of course not. You just have your armies do it for you./

  Rebaine swallowed the enraged comment working its way into his throat, choking it back in a tide of bile. There was nothing to be said, no reply he could make, that wouldn’t play right into Khanda’s hands. Nor was this a topic he enjoyed discussing. He’d decided long ago, when he first set upon this path, that the end results were worth whatever it cost him. Still, he didn’t find it pleasant.

  Instead, he directed his attention back to the twisting corridors.

  “This is it,” he said finally, examining the enormous, rust-coated metal door impeding any further progress. “We’re here.”

  /Congratulations. Can we get on with this already?/

  “Not much for savoring the moment, are you? All right, fine. Let’s do it.”

  /Shall I? Or would you prefer to batter it down with that oversized shrub trimmer?/

  Rebaine glanced down at the wide-bladed axe. It could do the job, certainly. For this was Sunder, one of the last of the Kholben Shiar, the demon-forged blades. It was said that with enough patience, a man could carve apart a mountain with such a weapon.

  On the other hand, why take the risk of sending chunks of steel flying through the chamber? He’d pursued this prize too long to risk damaging it now.

  “The fancy way, I think,” he said after a moment of contemplation.

  /Very well./

  The warlord concentrated, focusing his thoughts. His own skills at magic were unremarkable at best. Never formally tested, he imagined he’d qualify as a mere Initiate of the First Circle, or at best an unskilled Second. Pitiful compared with many of his enemies—such as Rheah Vhoune, Initiate of the Seventh Circle. Of all Lorum’s allies, she was the most dangerous: in recorded history, only Selakrian himself, Archmage and Master of the Tenth Circle, had achieved the Seventh at a younger age than Rheah.

  On the other hand, Corvis cheated.

  So accustomed had he grown to the process that he no longer consciously noticed it. He visualized the effect he desired, thrust forth a gauntleted hand, and drew upon not his own power and skill but those of his inhuman ally. Flakes of rust fell from the door, as though agitated by a mild earthquake, yet the corridor itself held steady. The metal began to glow red, then white, in a very specific pattern of lines, dividing the door into eight sections that met in the middle. The air in the corridor grew acrid, painful to breathe. First one wedge, then a second, pulled back from the center, in rather the same way a man might peel an orange. The metal fragments plastered themselves to the wall, the floor, the ceiling, and slowly cooled back to their normal state, welded permanently with the stone.

  Even before the segments fully cooled, Rebaine stepped through the ring of metal into the room beyond. Yes! There it was, lying upon a table, coated with webs and the dust of ages. It had waited for millennia, waited for him. With this, there would be no more bloodshed. There would be no more need. With this, and this alone, he would rule.

  Eyes gleaming beneath the nightmarish helm, Corvis Rebaine strode forward, hands outstretched …

  “RHEAH? Rheah, can you hear me?” A familiar voice. Concerned, worried. Also anxious. More on his mind than just the question.

  “Will she be all right?” Another voice, also familiar, though not so much as the first. Younger. Far more worried. Fear. The accompanying clanking is probably his hands—gauntleted—wringing together.

  “How would I know? What do I know about magic? I don’t even know what happened to her! I—”

  Slowly, mentally bracing herself again
st the stabbing pain she knew the light must bring, she opened her eyes. “Water,” she croaked. A strong hand slid behind her, helping her to sit, and she felt a glass pressed to her lips. It was lukewarm, made gritty by the ambient dust and dirt, but she drank deeply. With every swallow the burning pain in her throat lessened, and the ogre inside her skull finally ceased the ceremonial dances he was performing up and down her brain.

  “Are you all right?” Nathaniel asked. She realized it was he who held her up.

  “I will be, given a few moments. Thank you,” she added, directing the comment at Lorum, who’d held the glass for her. The young man stepped back, smiling slightly.

  “What happened?” the knight demanded.

  Hesitantly, Rheah rose to her feet, leaning only lightly on her friend’s shoulder. “I was detected. My little helper was killed. In a rather excessive display of power, at that.”

  “Power?” Lorum asked hesitantly. “Couldn’t they just have stepped on it, or squashed it?”

  “I suppose they could have. Rebaine chose not to. The death of a mount is never a pleasant experience.” With a grimace, she rubbed the bridge of her nose with the thumb and index finger of her left hand. Obviously, the ogre wasn’t completely exhausted.

  “Your Grace …,” Nathaniel warned quietly. The young man frowned, but nodded.

  “Rheah,” he said tentatively, “I hate to press you under the present circumstances, but—”

  “But,” she interrupted, “you need to know what I learned.”

  Another nod.

  She sighed once, forcing herself to straighten up. “Less than I’d hoped, unfortunately. I know Rebaine has discovered a series of tunnels, a complex or catacomb of some sort, beneath the Hall of Meeting.”

  “Tunnels?” Nathaniel asked. “Where do they lead? Could he move his troops through them? Is—”

  An upraised hand silenced him. “Don’t get ahead of me, Nathan. No, they’re useless for troop movements. They’re small, and they don’t seem to lead much of anywhere. He’s searching for something down there. Something specific.”

  The young regent’s eyes grew wide. “Like what?”

  “I’m not certain. But it’s something worth trapping his entire army in a nearly indefensible city to find.”

  Lorum and Nathan exchanged bleak glances. The regent stepped away, stopping only when he reached the tent’s canvas wall. Absently, his left hand dropped to the table beside him, fingers drumming on the tactical map. His eyes unfocused, as though peering into the city itself. “How close do you think he was to his goal?”

  “I can’t say for certain, Your Grace. But he definitely gave the impression he knew where he was going. If I had to guess, I’d say fairly close.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Lorum allowed himself one more endless moment to stare into space, to fully ponder the ramifications of what he knew he must do. Then, with a fortifying breath, he turned around.

  “Then we can’t give him any more time,” he said firmly. Nathaniel, in the mix of everything else he was feeling, found himself impressed that the young duke was growing into the role required of him. “Gather the generals and tell them to form up the men. We attack as soon as they’re ready. May the gods smile on us all.”

  MANY OF THE GUARDS and the prisoners, united in their curiosity despite the loathing each felt for the other, peered intently over the edge of the pit into which Corvis Rebaine, the Terror of the East, had vanished an hour before. No sound emerged from the blackened depths; no flicker of movement could penetrate the age-old darkness.

  “Maybe the gods are with us,” Jeddeg whispered softly. “Maybe the bastard’s died down there.”

  Tyannon kept her mouth clamped firmly shut for a change. She gazed, instead, at the exhausted, despairing faces around her—all but that of her father, who refused to meet her gaze.

  The darkness beneath them splintered; a burst of flame rolled down the corridor, cracking the stone walls as it passed. A wave of heat flowed from the pit, stinking of smoke and brimstone, making the watchers’ eyes water and blink. And then it passed, replaced by the sound of screaming.

  But this, despite the hopes of the gathered prisoners, was not the scream of a man roasting to death in the inferno’s heart. No, these were shrieks of mindless rage, of a fury that couldn’t be expressed by voice alone. Even as they watched, a second burst of fire flowed down the passage, followed by the sound of shattering stone. Immense clouds of dust poured up from the hole at the base of the pit, and the building shuddered. Guards and prisoners alike exchanged horrified glances at the realization that Rebaine was collapsing the tunnels.

  Tyannon blinked, her eyes tearing again to clear the dust from beneath her lids. When she could finally see again, he stood before her, an impenetrable shadow emerging from the billowing dust. The hideous axe hung from his right hand, flecks of stone and dirt falling from the blade. In his other he held something, boxy, wrapped in mold-covered and moth-eaten red velvet. Rage radiated from him in palpable waves; prisoners and guards alike fell back in fear.

  All save one: a large man, tall and broad of shoulder. His hair was a light blond, almost white, and cut close to his scalp save for a single long lock at the back. He wore a hauberk of chain, topped by a black cuirass similar in design to those worn by the rest of Rebaine’s men. His square features were marred by a jagged scar running from his left ear to just beneath his nose. He, and he alone, stood his ground, undaunted by his master’s fury.

  “My lord?” he asked, his voice gruff, tinted slightly by an accent Tyannon could not place. “Things did not go well?”

  “Well? Well?” Rebaine spun viciously to face his lieutenant. “Does it look like things have gone ‘well,’ Valescienn?”

  “Not as such, my lord, but—”

  “A godsdamn key!” He shook the cloth-covered object in Valescienn’s face, neither noticing nor caring that he would surely have broken the man’s nose had he not flinched away. “All the writings in which he spoke about this, his ‘greatest accomplishment’! You’d think that just once, he’d have bothered to mention it needs a bloody key!”

  Valescienn paled. “You mean—”

  “Useless.” Rebaine stepped back, arms falling limply to his sides. “It’s completely useless.”

  The blond man’s eyes widened, then narrowed in sudden anger. “And without it? Are you suggesting we’ll not be continuing on toward Mecepheum?”

  “Mecepheum? Valescienn, we’ll be lucky if a third of the army survives to escape the damn city! We—”

  “My lord!” Another soldier dashed into the room, his face coated in sweat, skidding slightly on the rubble and detritus near the pit. “My lord, Lorum is attacking! There are tens of thousands of them! Nobles, Guild soldiers …” He croaked to a stop, gasping for breath.

  A mutter passed through the soldiers, each thinking the same thing. But it was Valescienn, as usual, who possessed courage to voice it. “We can’t win, my lord,” he said quietly to the back of Rebaine’s helm. “This city is a death trap. It won’t hold for us any better than it did when we took it.”

  Rebaine’s shoulders slumped, an invisible gesture in the confines of his nightmarish armor. He’d failed. He’d gambled everything on the knowledge that victory lay hidden here, in the ancient tunnels beneath Denathere. And he’d lost.

  He would, at least, deal with it properly.

  “Valescienn, tell the men to fall back. Escape by any means possible. I free them from my service. Let them go home, or find employment elsewhere.”

  “My lord?” The question was incredulous, almost plaintive. “You don’t wish us to regroup elsewhere?”

  “There’s no place to regroup, my friend, nor any purpose. Even with luck on our side, we’ll not have enough men left once we’ve escaped to make a proper army. And I’m tired, Valescienn. I’m tired.”

  “But—”

  “Do it! And tell Davro his people may return to their homes as well.”

  Valescien
n nodded, steeling himself for his final question. “And my lord? What of you?” For they both knew the approaching army would happily have let every last man, ogre, and gnome escape unharmed, if they could get their hands on Corvis Rebaine.

  “Seilloah’s protections will hold for some time. That should shield me from conventional scrying techniques. Nor am I without power of my own, when those fail.”

  /Hmm. Not exactly “your” power, is it?/

  Rebaine ignored that, and Valescienn remained ignorant of the conversation’s third participant. “I should be able to avoid them for quite a while,” Rebaine added.

  “And if Vhoune should send a hunter after you?”

  “Hunting spells require someone who has seen the target, closely, within a few months or so, Valescienn. Neither Vhoune, nor anyone else in Lorum’s employ, has.”

  “No,” the other man said softly, “but there are those who have.” His eyes, cold as gnome’s blood, swept the room. “Say the word, my lord, and they’re all dead.”

  Only the enclosure of the hideous helm stifled Rebaine’s faint sigh. “No, Valescienn. There’s been enough death today.”

  “Then how do you plan to protect yourself?”

  “Better, I think, to risk one than to slay them all. I know Rheah Vhoune. She’s skilled, she’s determined, but she is not near as ruthless as she pretends. I don’t think she’ll risk a hunter if she knows I’ve someone who would suffer the consequences alongside me.”

  “A hostage, my lord?”

  “I see no other alternative.” He examined the hostages, surveying his options—a sham, for Valescienn’s benefit. He’d already made his choice.

  /You have no idea the trouble you’re courting,/ Khanda snapped inside his mind.

  “Tyannon!” Rebaine barked, ignoring his unseen companion. “Come here.”

  The young woman stepped forward, her face whiter than the bone on Rebaine’s armor. He reached out and pulled her near, so near she choked on the scent of smoke and oiled steel.

  “Tyannon, listen to me.” He spoke softly. “Whether you believe me or not, I mean you no harm. Your blood serves no purpose; you do. When that purpose is served, you will be free to leave. You have my vow.”