The Doom of Fallowhearth

by Robbie MacNiven

  At the gate he found two hastily dressed men-at-arms from the local garrison, blearyeyed and unhappy-looking as they conversed in hushed tones. The doors themselves were open and the portcullis had been raised. Outside Durik could make out a vague impression of a rain-slashed, stormy night.

  The two men stopped talking and stiffened as Durik approached, eyeing him warily.

  “Where is everyone?” Durik asked. They exchanged a glance, clearly weighing up what to tell him.

  “There’s been a disturbance in the town,” one said. “Captain Kloin has taken most of the garrison to subdue it.”

  “Should the doors be open like that?”

  “The captain ordered us to keep them open. He said it wouldn’t take long and he didn’t want to have to wait out in the rain.” Durik decided it was best not to give his opinion on Kloin or his orders – the fact that the bitter captain had left the castle vulnerable for his own convenience was no surprise. Durik found himself imagining catching him alone in a dark, rain-slashed alleyway that night.

  “And how long ago did he leave?” he asked. Neither men answered.

  “I would close them for now,” he said. “And set a watch on the battlements, if there isn’t one already.” Every one of his instincts was on edge, convinced Fallowhearth was in the grip of something far darker than just the encroaching night. He had to speak with Damhán about whatever was going on, face-to-face, before the situation deteriorated any further.

  “You can hardly see five feet in this weather,” one protested.

  “Five feet is better than none,” Durik said. “Between you and I, something is coming this way. I’d rather we didn’t welcome it with an open gate and no sentries.”

  “Have you spoken to the baroness’s advisor?” the other man asked.

  “Briefly. She… does not wish to be disturbed, but I doubt she would be happy knowing we’re compromising the safety of this castle by leaving the doors open.”

  That seemed to be enough. Together, the men closed the entrance and hefted the locking bar back into place.

  “Winch down the portcullis as well,” Durik advised, turning back towards the stairs leading to Kathryn’s chamber. “I will return soon.”

  • • •

  Dezra knelt beside Kathryn, her hand resting on her head. She could feel death in its final act of triumph. The last processes of Kathryn’s life were breaking down, the light that had once been her soul now a tiny, guttering flicker, too small for any magic or artifice to reignite.

  The sorceress wiped fresh tears from her eyes and, slowly, removed her hand. The horror of what had happened, the icy chill of shock and despair, was gone now. A deeper pain had replaced it, driving out all other emotions. She stood and looked at the tomb-keeper. The man had managed to stand, though he was still splattered in gore.

  “Go to your home,” she told him. “Retrieve one of your shovels and dig a pit beside the arch of the lich-gate inside your graveyard. Do not stop until dawn. When the sun has risen, bury Lady Kathryn. I will return to see that the work has been done properly.”

  “Yes, my lady,” the bloodied man managed to say, not daring to meet Dezra’s eyes. She swept past him and out of the shrine’s splintered doors, her undead retinue following her.

  Outside, a crowd had gathered in the rain, their torches spluttering. A gasp went up as Dezra appeared, then cries of horror as she was followed by her skeletal guard. She halted on the steps to the shrine, the wind lashing her cloak and hood. Her sorrow and her anger were so potent they made the skeletons flanking her shiver and rattle.

  A multitude of words assailed her thoughts, desperate for release, all of them bitter and cruel. For a moment she wanted nothing more than to destroy these blind, oafish people as she had the guards, to punish them for the misery they had heaped on her and Kathryn. But the words never left her throat. She was not a murderer, and becoming one, even in the face of such hatred, would simply prove that their bigotry had foundation.

  She had a task to do now, one that didn’t involve unleashing herself on this town. Whatever person or creature had hexed Kathryn, it had to be close by. There wasn’t an easier explanation for her reappearance, though whether Kathryn had escaped or been let loose, Dezra couldn’t yet tell. Either way, she needed reinforcements.

  Dezra raised her arms and began to say the words of the Black Invocation. Screams went up and panic struck the crowd in front of her, people scrambling and pushing through the rain and the mud as they attempted to scatter before her. She continued, the wind picking up around her, deadlights playing in the howling air, orbs of corposant that shone with deathly light. They built and multiplied, swirling about the necromancer as her voice rose. As the final words knifed out into the storm, the lights rose together, as though swirled up on the eddying wind. Then they shot away, darting like meteorites southwards, over the shrine and the graveyard and across the rooftops of the town.

  “Run while you still can,” Dezra said as she watched the stampeding townsfolk. “Your doom is already on its way.”

  She advanced down the steps, her guard closing around her. Still ignoring the people desperately trying to escape, she glared up at Fallowhearth castle, its ramparts rising through the storm, over the thatched roofs ahead. She thrust her consciousness into the skulls of her undead, hissing a simple imperative.

  “Bring me the book.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ronan’s sleep was troubled. When he woke, he thought at first that he was still dreaming.

  It was dark. Clouds hid the moon and stars. A wind was blowing hard from the north. Pico had woken him with its hissing – the familiar’s red fur was on end. Those were the first four things he noticed. The fifth was that he was surrounded. There were figures moving all around him in the dark.

  He surged to his feet, his sword drawn in a heartbeat, as Pico scrambled up the folds of his cloak and onto his shoulder. He’d lain down for the night on top of a low boulder, just east of the fields that ran between Fallowhearth and Blind Muir. That boulder was now surrounded by shapes discernible only by the filthy flames that kindled in their empty sockets or dead eyes. Rotting flesh, dry bone and wet forest mulch assailed Ronan’s senses.

  “Kurnos preserve me,” the northerner muttered, clutching his amulet. Pico growled in agreement, its small body a warm, reassuring weight on his shoulder. Both of their hearts were racing, Ronan’s whole body flooded with adrenaline. How had this happened? And why weren’t they already on him?

  He turned in a tight circle, sword ready, tensed to hack through any bony arms or fingers that sought to quest over the edge of the rock. None did. After a heart-pounding minute, Ronan realized that the undead were all shuffling in the same direction, moving around the rock rather than attempting to get on top of it. They were headed north and had parted like a foul ocean swell around the stony outcrop.

  Ronan heard a shriek from nearby, and thought for a second it was the cry of another hideous wraith, before recognizing it as his stallion’s distress. He had tied the unnamed beast for the night close to the boulder. It was down there, amongst the living dead.

  He didn’t hesitate. He leapt from the rock’s edge and, bellowing a clan war cry, fell amongst the undead. His sword cleft a skull then almost bisected a torso, the gaunt shapes indistinct in the night’s darkness. Horrific, slack-jawed, worm-eaten faces leered at him all around, lit by their terrible eyes, but to Ronan’s dismay none attacked him. They didn’t even seem to notice him. They just carried on past, even when he hacked off one’s arm and jammed his blade between the ribs of another.

  “What is this trickery?” Ronan snarled to Pico, shouldering another limping corpse out of his way. Pico leapt briefly onto its shoulder, causing its magic to collapse and its remains to slump to the dirt. The familiar rejoined Ronan as he reached his mount’s side.

  The horse was clearly distressed by the un
gainly creatures dragging themselves past, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. Ronan untied the stallion and mounted him, kicking the steed into the press without hesitation. More bodies collapsed as rider, mount and familiar fought their way free of the mass, but still none turned on them. It was as though they didn’t exist.

  Soon Ronan could discern open ground beneath the stallion’s hooves, rather than more bodies. He eased him down to a trot, patting his neck reassuringly as he turned to look back the way they had come.

  The bodies formed one long, shambling mass, nearly indiscernible in the dark but for the balefire that burned in their eyes. The ugly little lights were like a constellation of unwholesome stars, clustered together in the dark. They spread all the way south to the black edge of Blind Muir Forest, a column of walking corpses stretching across the fields from the thorny treeline, all headed north. The dead were on the march, and Fallowhearth lay directly in their path.

  Ronan turned his horse towards the town and dug his heels in.

  • • •

  Fallowhearth castle towered above Dezra, its ramparts and hoardings glistening in the rain. There was no movement on the walls, and the doors and portcullis were shut.

  She halted, her skeletal companions at her back. The rain was running pink off their bones and armor. Dezra waited, half expecting a challenge.

  None came. Glaring, she reached out and laid her hands on the iron bars of the portcullis.

  “Mille en una,” she whispered, channeling the dark rage that had blossomed in her soul. At first, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the metal under her hands began to change. It darkened and deformed, growing a thick crust of brown rust that seemed to eat away at the iron. Beneath Dezra’s fingers hundreds of years passed in only a few seconds – the decay spread, gnawing away at the metal frame, reducing it to dust that was whipped away by the storm. As it crumbled and gave way, Dezra pushed her hands on through to the iron-studded door behind. The wood suffered the same fate – timber rotted and mulched at her touch, yellow worms and thick knots of lice blossoming beneath her hands. The door sagged before her, reduced to a mound of wet, writhing pulp. Dezra stepped over it and into the castle.

  Half a dozen men were waiting for her, the last of the town’s men-at-arms, armed and armored, their eyes wide with fear in the flickering light of the torches that lined the entrance hall.

  Dezra smiled at them and, wordlessly, spread her arms. The skeletal remains of the men’s comrades marched past her, their own weapons raised. Without breaking step, they attacked.

  The sorceress advanced through the melee, ignoring the struggle of the living and the dead. The largest passage lay on the far right-hand corner of the hall, the spiral stairs appearing to lead directly to the keep’s highest tower. She went up them, leaving the battle in the hall behind without a thought.

  She didn’t get far. There were footsteps coming down to meet her. A heavy figure rounded the central pillar, his spear at the ready. With whiplash reflexes, Dezra grasped the weapon just beneath its tip.

  “Durik,” she said, looking up at the orc towering over her.

  “Dezra,” Durik grunted. He relaxed the pressure on the spear but didn’t remove it from where she had stopped it, inches from her chest.

  “You’ve left Blind Muir?” he asked, the orc for once unable to mask his emotions as a mixture of surprise and consternation flitted across his face

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be back there soon enough.”

  “What’s happening down below?” the orc demanded, hearing the clash of weapons and the shouts of the men-at-arms echoing up from the entrance hall.

  “Nothing that concerns you. Get out of my way.”

  “It isn’t here.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “You’re here for the book, aren’t you? The enchanted tome hidden in Lady Kathryn’s fireplace. I thought you might have a connection to it after our meeting in the forest.”

  “Where is it?” Dezra asked angrily. She didn’t have time for Durik’s stoicism. Anything that blocked her path was running a very real risk, and not even her oldest friends were exempt. All that mattered now was the book.

  “If you tell me what you’ve done with Logan and Ulma, I’ll tell you where it is,” Durik said.

  “I haven’t done anything with the idiot and the dwarf,” Dezra said, trying her best to match the orc’s apparent calm. She couldn’t lose control now. In her current state, she didn’t know what damage she could do. “Haven’t they returned yet?”

  “No,” Durik said darkly. “Perhaps you can explain why.”

  “Don’t make me break this spear, pathfinder,” Dezra said, the balefire in her eyes flaring.

  “Durik?”

  The voice came from behind the orc, his body and the narrow stairs combining to obscure Dezra’s view of the speaker. Durik didn’t turn.

  “I told you to stay in the room,” he said.

  “She is dark, Durik,” the voice said. “Be careful.” Dezra attempted to look past the orc.

  “Replacing me already?” she asked, trying to get a sense of the power behind the voice she’d heard.

  “If you want the book, I can take you to the one who has it,” Durik said. “But something tells me she’ll be more than reluctant to part with it. Nor is she the sort of person you would wish to anger.”

  “We’ll see,” Dezra said. “Taking me to her is certainly a wiser option than the alternative.”

  “Which is?”

  “I tear the souls from every living being in this castle and torture them until they give up the location of the book.”

  “Let’s avoid that, then. Just for old times’ sake.”

  Durik raised his spear and Dezra backed off a few steps.

  “Show me,” she said.

  • • •

  Durik led Dezra to the castle’s entrance hall. Carys came with him, refusing to return to Kathryn’s bedchamber. She eyed Dezra with a mixture of fear and curiosity, while for her own part Dezra seemed surprised to find the girl was so young.

  “Who is she?” the sorceress asked Durik, as though Carys wasn’t walking right behind him.

  “A clan chieftain’s daughter,” he said, glancing back reassuringly at Carys. “We thought her kindred might have taken Kathryn. We… wanted to make sure they hadn’t.”

  “She’s a hostage?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “She’s the reason the northerner was with Logan and Ulma, then.”

  “You met them,” Durik said, stopping at the foot of the tower stairs. His hand was back on the handle of his knife. “What did you do to them?”

  “I told you, nothing,” Dezra said firmly. “They came to me demanding to know where Kathryn was. I didn’t know.”

  “She knows more than she’s admitting,” Carys said, half hidden behind Durik. Dezra glared at her.

  “The girl has the witch-sight,” she said. “Be careful. You know more than you admit as well.”

  Durik looked between the two, before stepping out into the entrance hall. Bodies littered the floor, most of them belonging to the castle’s garrison, the rest nothing but bones and armor. There were two skeletons as well, standing impassively, skulls grinning as Dezra passed them by. They reacted to a short gesture by the sorceress, turning and walking unsteadily back through the broken gate and out into the night. Durik realized one of the corpses had still been clad in a bloody tabard bearing Forthyn’s golden roc, the same tabard Captain Kloin had worn.

  “How many more have you killed on the way here?” he demanded of Dezra.

  “None who didn’t try to impede me,” she answered defensively. “I have been merciful, for now. The dead are coming from Blind Muir. They will help my hunt for the monster that cursed Kathryn. They will be here by the time the sun rises.”

  “Call them off.”

 
“Not until I have the book.”

  “Why? Why is it so important?”

  “I can’t perform the spells it contains without it.”

  “And what spells would they be?”

  “You’ll see once I have the book.”

  Durik blocked her way once more. “You’ve only gotten this far because of who you are, Dezra. Or who you used to be. Don’t betray what trust I still have in you. If your only intention is to steal back your book and slaughter this town, we stop here.”

  “Kathryn is dead,” Dezra said, facing Durik. Just speaking the words brought back that icy feeling in her gut, that pain that transcended mere emotion. It made her want to flinch. She forced herself to keep speaking, not to show how much agony she was in. Now was not the time to break down. “She was killed by a man named Kloin.”

  “What?” Durik’s tone faltered. She saw sadness in his expression, an emotional response that she forced herself not to snap back at – this wasn’t the moment for pity. She wanted none of it.

  “When? Where?” the orc asked.

  “Moments ago, in the Shrine of Nordros.”

  “You were there? Where has she been this past month?”

  “That’s what I intend to find out. I discovered her wandering in the streets before we were attacked. It looked as though she had just been released, though from where I don’t know. She mentioned the arachyura. If Logan, Ulma and that northerner are missing as well, I suspect that whoever or whatever took Kathryn also took them.”

  “And your book of spells will help lead you to them?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  Durik looked down at Dezra for a heartbeat, then gestured past her at the stairs. “They lead to Lady Damhán’s chamber. She has your book.”

  They climbed up to the castle’s solar, directly above the main hall. Durik paused on the landing and knocked at the door, hard.

  “I told you I was not to be disturbed,” barked an angry voice from within.