The Echoes of Sin (The Kinless Trilogy Book 3)

by Philbrook, Chris

  Samrale smiled and waited for the salesman to join the son on the rail. Nicholas Longwind looked smug, and victorious. The mage wanted to poke him in the eye and more than one spell came to mind that would allow him to do it from where they stood.

  “Are you the captain’s son?” Samrale asked the boy. He couldn’t be much more than fourteen summers.

  “I am. You can call me Jonah,” the boy said proudly. He was unafraid of the mage, and Samrale approved of his strong, confident tone.

  “Very well Jonah Sarkett. Please tell your father that my name is Samrale, and if he would like to learn how to make his boat fly, and if he has any interest in flying Bridgette Marie to Ockham’s Fringe to assist in the defense of Varrland, I’ll be in my office. I would be willing to pay five hundred Protectorate dollars per day—in cash—for the use of his boat. I estimate a minimum rental period of, say, five days, plus however long he wishes to stay and lend assistance, or however long it will take for the Waymancers to free up to bring the ship home. Tell your father please, Jonah. And Nicholas Longwind, may you catch a nasty cold that blesses us with the sound of you not talking.”

  Samrale left the dock smiling. He would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall of the cabin as Nicholas tried to stop Jonah from telling his father such interesting news. Samrale wouldn’t have been in the least surprised if the Ryobian salesman ended his grievance tossed overboard by the boy or his father.

  Captain Sarkett ran Samrale down less than ten minutes later, long before the old Waymancer left the city proper. He would take two hundred dollars per day, and not a cent more. He did however, want the other three hundred dollars to go into the purchasing of supplies for them to bring, and for certain, he wanted to know what Samrale’s plan was. No detail could be skipped

  The Waymancer sat on a small bench outside a raucous tavern, and after buying two large tankards of house lager for he and his new captain, he told Sarkett enough of his plan to put a grin on the sailor’s face. In the end, the tanned sailor didn’t need to know every detail to know he wanted in.

  Adam’s head bounced off the hard ground of the grassy plateau, knocking his brain into the ignorance of sleep. But he was tougher than the ground, and as his horse dragged him along at full speed, the rest of his body bouncing mightily, he came back to consciousness. The soldier’s ankle was lodged, twisted in the stirrup, bent in a way that no one’s body should be made to. His eyes sparkled with specks of light and waves of darkness from the searing, scalding, wrenching pain in his foot. Each stride of the horse felt to him as if the boot covered foot was being torn at by a wild dog set on fire.

  I cannot scream. I cannot scream. They must think I am dead. It’s my only chance.

  Adam had been taught to be loose when he fell. He was told that if he were to stiffen, he would break more bones, and suffer more damage, and if there were no Apostles about, he would suffer for a very long time. This was a good example of the length of possible suffering, so Adam forcibly relaxed, and let his body tumble up and down on the ground as the petrified horse ran with everything it had. He prayed that there would be no stones to dash his skull on, and that his horse would run straight to exhaustion. He also prayed that his Empire pursuers became tired before his mount did.

  Adam’s two arrows had struck the necromancer’s horse flush. The first shot sinking into the neck had hurt the creature but more importantly the shot had scared it, and when the mount reared up, his second arrow pierced the belly of the creature, and slashed open a hole the size of a melon on the way in. While still not fatal, the horse’s intestines would spill and run out of the wound if it stood, and that meant it could not be ridden.

  “Kill him!” Argalen Brood screamed as he got to his feet having narrowly avoided a smashed leg. He stumbled when he stood and felt a sharp stabbing pain in his knee. With a snarl he reached down and clutched the joint. There was no visible blood, but he could feel something wrong inside, something behind the kneecap had been fouled in the fall. He dropped down to his good knee and watched as his four living soldiers launched a series of arrows at the man escaping on the horse. His attacker was a Varrland soldier. His dirty red and white uniform and skilled archery left no doubt in the death mage’s mind. Brood saw the filthy weapon he’d used to fell Argalen’s horse in his left hand.

  One of the arrows hit the side of the fugitive horse and frayed a leather strap at a buckle but failed to injure the animal. The timing could not have been more fortuitous, as the rider had just leaned away, causing too much weight to shift. The saddle rotated quick as a bee’s sting around the horse’s midsection, and the rider went down on the ground, smashing his head into the earth and then being dragged by the galloping horse at full tilt. If he wasn’t dead from hitting his skull he’d be dead in minutes as the horse’s run bludgeoned him to death.

  “Shall we give chase?” one of Argalen’s men asked him. Argalen thought his name was Vrank, or Frank. It didn’t matter. In the end every Empire citizen was nameless.

  The necromancer, still on his knee shook his head. His purple robe was dirty and that made him even angrier. “No. The horse will tire. We will catch up to him once we deal with this good-for-nothing animal, and my broken knee.”

  His other soldiers gathered around as the four undead under Argalen’s domination stood on the outer fringe of their group, guarding them against new attacks. Argalen’s domination of their will was utter and complete. He felt a familiar surge of pride in his own abilities as one of his men helped him get to his feet.

  “What we can do?” another soldier asked.

  “Help me to the animal,” Argalen said through gritted teeth.

  “You can heal it?” his most senior soldier asked, confused. Necromancers were not known for their healing skills.

  “No, I intend to put it out of its misery,” Argalen said. He couldn’t remember that one’s name.

  “Allow me then,” the same soldier offered, freeing up his spear to give the horse a merciful and quick death.

  “NO!” Argalen said in a near scream. “Let me use The Way.” Now standing painfully beside the creature, Argalen fumbled in a small pouch and produced a tiny sprig of mint. He chewed on it, letting the tingle of the herb cross his dry tongue and produce some saliva. He used that mixture of sensations as a guide, and summoned The Way. His right hand sprouted talons on the first two fingers from the spell. Gnarled, hooked, chitinous things that would’ve looked more fitting on an enormous bird of prey than his hand. With no fanfare, and no goodbye, Argalen slashed the neck of the horse, severing its artery with a great spout of blood. The red vitae hit the grass and stood out boldly against the green, the life of something ruined. The horse kicked out in surprise and pain, giving out a pitiful wail of betrayal. The raw damage to the horse and the violence of the act transmuted with necromantic intent, sparking repair in the torn flesh inside his knee with a burning, satisfying feeling. The joint seemed to repair itself in morbid pulses that matched the rhythm of the squirts of blood coming from the horse. Argalen let up on the pressure he was putting on his assistant soldier, and quickly he stood on his own, free of discomfort.

  “Better?” the soldier asked him.

  “All better, bless The Queen. Now then,” he said as he flexed the leg. It felt sore, but would work. “Let me animate this little animal so I don’t have to walk, and we’ll catch up to that horse dragging our dead body. I’ve got a few questions to ask him, dead or alive.”

  —Chapter Ten—

  THE VILLAGE

  Despite the steady rise of the sun above the jagged tips of the mountains surrounding the village, the day had turned gloomy. Clouds carpeted the sky above, clinging to the peaks like a blanket allowing little of the sun’s warmth through, and leaving the threat of a damp rain instead. It had become the kind of summer day that felt cool enough to make you regret not dressing warmer. Fortunately for the twins and their friends—James notwithstanding—armor lent some warmth to the body.

  “Accordi
ng to the Church of Soul’s records, the first Apostle spell was The Blessing of Soul’s Rest,” James said from his seat at the center of the ruined New Falun town hall. From the story Weston told, in better times the building had served as the local church as well, which made it a fitting place for the precious ritual James had begun preparations for.

  “Is that so?” Malwynn replied, only half paying attention to his friend. “My mother must’ve blessed every dead person for twenty miles around when she was alive.” His sister and Chelsea were moving around in the ruined village going from collapsed home to destroyed building checking for anything interesting left behind, and anything dangerous that may lay in wait with it. Mal had his money that the women would encounter something before long, and he wanted to be ready with his bow. The girls both were more than capable warriors and daylight had many hours remaining in it, but three in any fight was better than two.

  James ferreted supplies out of his backpack as he spoke and had no idea Mal was only giving him the barest of his attention. He continued unabated. “Church records indicate that the consecration spell was one of the many developed right after the first blessing. I don’t think it was the second spell, but I’m pretty certain that it was one of the first five spells discovered. History’s recording at that time wasn’t a priority.”

  “Discovered eh? Not researched, or developed at some college of Apostle learning?” Mal posed.

  “I think the words are interchangeable Mal. You know the first kind of magic discovered was Apostle magic. Then the Artificers came about, and not too long after that, people like yourself started to show up.”

  “Necromancers?”

  James sighed, acknowledging that Mal was right. “Shortly after that came the Waymancers and nothing new since has evolved.” James stopped his preparations, paused by a thought. “Do you think we’ve learned all we can learn about The Way?” James asked his friend.

  Mal actually stopped and looked back at James. It was a good question, and one that had no easy answer. “I doubt it. New spells are revealed all the time. Sooner or later someone will be the first to do an entirely new… thing with The Way, and it’ll change the world again.”

  “I hope.” James took out a small funereal urn that glinted in the dull light of the day, gilded with gold and silver, and had an ornate painting wrapping around its width. It must’ve been incredibly expensive. He sat it in front of him in the overgrown grass he’d beaten flat with the trodding of his feet.

  “What’s that?”

  James looked at the urn in appreciation. Mal could see the Apostle revered it. “That is Father Desmond Silver.”

  “What? His ashes you mean? Or his spirit?” Mal was taken aback. He caught the humor in his own response. He dealt with dead bodies and sickness, and he had just overreacted to the properly disposed cremated remains of a person. He laughed at his own expense.

  “One and the same. Apostles are cremated on a pyre the same as you or I would be, but the Church collects their ashes for consecration preparations. Father Silver here will give us a strong binding to the ancestors when I spread his ashes around the stone base of the town hall here.”

  “So every church has the ashes of a dead guy along its perimeter?”

  James nodded as he pulled out some holy books that Mal had seen him reading before. “Some of the Cathedrals have the ashes of hundreds of dead Apostles not only spread around their area, but mixed right in with the concrete and mortar of the buildings. The holy sites of the Church of Souls are in every sense built for, and out of faith. Such a wonderful notion. Let me ask you this; have you ever heard of an undead violating a Cathedral’s grounds?”

  Mal thought about it. “I can’t say as I have.”

  “Because so many Apostles in death have given back their purity and strength to build a wall of The Way that the undead can only barely stand to be near, let alone step through. Strong undead can cross the barrier, but they will suffer, and if they stay inside the consecrated area, the faith of the dead will destroy them. Today… I’m going to have to do a rush job, but Father Silver was well known for his hatred of undead. His reputation as a hunter of them has been recorded many times over. I think his spirit will be particularly interested in working hard to protect us for a night or two. We were fortunate that I was able to get this urn of his ashes.”

  “When you say rush job, I get real nervous James,” Mal said, searching the village for where Umaryn and Chelsea had been a moment earlier. He couldn’t see them and the anxiety that caused made him queasy.

  “I understand. You should be thankful that Naomi got us here when she did. Normally it takes a full Twenty-Four hours—starting at dawn—to finish the spell, but all we really have is until nightfall, and we are starting later than I’d like. I will pray hard after I spread Father Silver’s ashes. You must prevent me from being disturbed, Mal. Once I start to pray any interruption will reset the spell, and as you or your sister might say, we will be up shit’s creek.”

  Mal turned and looked at the Apostle, surprised at his choice of words. “Did you just swear? I don’t think I’ve heard you swear before.”

  “I try to keep it to a minimum. I’m an Apostle after all. Now, I must spread Father Silver’s remains in peace before the sun rises too high. These clouds aren’t helpful either. It’s important to embark on this magical endeavor when the sun is beginning the day, and not in the middle of it. I must speak to his spirit as I do this, so if you’ll excuse me,” James stood and opened the urn, looking down at the white ash inside with an inner peace that reminded Mal of his mother Catherine. James almost seemed to say hello to the dead man’s spirit in the jar as he headed to the decayed wood and stone edge of the ruined building.

  “Say hello for me,” Mal called out to James impulsively, thinking of his own mother.

  James stopped and looked back, a pleasant look on his face. “I will Mal. It might sway him even more to know that others will appreciate his efforts tonight.”

  Mal looked back into the village for the women, and hoped they were alright. No screams had to be good news, right?

  “I thought there would be bodies. Corpses, skeletons even. Hell, skeletal remains,” Chelsea said as she and Umaryn ducked under a fallen beam that had originally been the top of a doorframe. They had only been able to search the ground level homes thus far. All of the two story pillared cabins and huts were by far too rickety and treacherous to risk ascending into. It was bad enough that they were going into the darkened spaces in a village that they knew to be overrun by undead at points of the day. To then go into a house that seemed a stiff breeze and a heavy foot away from collapsing in on itself in a moldy catastrophe was insult and injury. Most of that style of home in New Falun had collapsed years ago anyway, so the places of temptation with two floors were few, and unlikely to house any threats unless they needed to fear squirrels, or large forest beetles. “We haven’t seen a damn thing alive or dead inside the village yet. It does however smell bad.”

  “Don’t jinx us Chelsea. I thought you would have more sense than that,” Umaryn said as she lowered her head and followed the soldier into the home. It was a bit tougher for her to move into the cramped ruins because of her armor. While much lighter than traditional plate, her armor still had bulk, and she was still learning the feel of wearing it. Chelsea wore lighter chain mixed with strategically placed small leather and steel plates, armor suited for fast movement, and agility. Armor designed for riding, and archery. Armor designed for commanding and organizing more than battling in the worst of war.

  The women were well into the search of the abandoned village. Ten houses (or what passed for houses here in New Falun) had been entered cautiously, and given a cursory search. Anything exposed to the elements had rotted, and very little remained behind. Someone or something had gone through the settlement and taken everything of value long ago. All the tools were missing, the plates were gone, silverware was missing, and even the beds and bedding were absent. In what they
had seen so far, the village had already been raided, and left like the picked over and scraped white bones of carrion.

  But who or what had done it? Who were the vultures of New Falun?

  “Think of how long it has been since people lived here,” Umaryn said as she used her hammer to tip over a rotting kitchen table. Insects scattered under the gray light of the overcast sky peering in through the open window and door. The bugs were the most impressive showing of life they’d seen as of yet. “See, there you go. Life.” The bugs escaped across the floor, skittering up and over a bear pelt rug that had seen far better days.

  Chelsea scowled a grin. “Bugs are not life.”

  “So hateful to bugs. Did you know there are spiders in the desert regions of the Coastal Freelands that are a foot across? Big as a dinner plate. They’re called Brunyi Spiders. Locals eat them boiled or roasted with butter. They’re a delicacy.” Umaryn used her hammer cautiously to pry open a cupboard door that was ajar. It wouldn’t open for her. “And in the southern jungles, In Ebonvale and Oakdale, there are beetles three feet long that can launch these tines that jut out of their shells at you like an arrow. They’re called Archer Beetles.” She smashed the cupboard open after giving up being delicate.

  “They can keep ‘em. Is this your idea of helping? Can we focus on the task at hand?” Chelsea asked as she used her sword with more dexterity than Umaryn to open a different rotting door in the kitchen. The loose and soft door swung open, and promptly fell apart onto the mossy, mold covered floor. It hit with a wet, sticky noise.

  “Ha,” Umaryn said. “And there are stories of far worse in depths of The Plague Dunes.”