And so they did.
Hubik, tall and imposing with his steel-gray beard and purple cape hanging nobly over the back of his gleaming plate armor, paced back and forth along the line, silently watching his archers work. He would linger near a man firing too slow long enough for that man to realize that his performance was earning the General’s ire. If the bowman didn’t repair whatever behavior irritated Hubik, the Empire officer saw to it he was relieved of his burden. A piercing thrust from his long sword through his chest or back sent the unsatisfactory archer into the hands of an awaiting necromancer, where he would be put to proper use. Soldiers found it harder to fail after dying.
Hubik felt good about this night. Everything moved at the proper pace, and his archers had plenty of arrows and fire for the Varrlanders to deal with. All he needed was a little luck, and the blessings of The Purple Throne.
He already had the throne, and he knew from previous engagements his expected amount of luck increased with every fired arrow.
“MORE!” he bellowed to his soldiers as the night wore on. A wave of flame erupted from the line, sending more death and destruction over the wall.
Private Aubrey Leaf had been declared insane by her Corporal. She’d requested the tower again that night, and had asked for enough arrows for three archers. It didn’t matter to her that her friend Willem had died in the tower just feet from her, and it didn’t matter that if a flaming arrow took root in the tower she might burn to death, then fall a hundred feet to her doom. It only mattered to her that she had enough arrows.
“Give me six quivers,” she asked her Corporal.
“Why? You’ll be shooting blind into the night trying to hit them. It’s a waste of arrows, Leaf. You’re better off staying on the ground and helping the fire crews tonight.”
“Corporal please. I’m an archer, not a firewoman. A bucket of water in my hands is a waste. I can see their line of archers by the flames of their braziers at night, and I can hit them. I can kill them, I won’t be blind. I just need your blessing to try.”
The corporal—a man only a few years her elder—snorted a laugh. “You need the blessings of a slew of ancestors is what you need. You’re crazy. I should have you sent to that lunatic asylum in Ryobia.” He looked around and did a simple headcount of the men and women in the courtyard. “Maybe I’ll join you there. Seems we all have a touch of madness to be here. I have more men tonight to lend Beckett than last night. I guess that means you draw the tower. Are you sure that’s what you want?”
Aubrey nodded, her hand tightening on the bow she held. “Yes sir. I’d like to give it a few shots if you understand my meaning.”
The corporal looked around again, thinking. He turned back to her shaking his head. “I’ll spare you three quivers Leaf. But you best make those arrows count. We’ve a pile of our friends’ ashes to account for. Misses aren’t justice.”
“Hits are, sir. Thank you.” She saluted him, and after he returned it, she jogged away to one of the armories where she could get the arrows she requested.
She left the cramped and cluttered weapons storage room with four quivers, and took a long route to the tower so her corporal didn’t see her act of deception. So long as she only came down from the tower the next morning with three empty quivers, her theft wouldn’t matter. She knew Willem would approve, and to her, that was all that mattered.
As the Empire let loose its hundredth volley of arrows lit aflame, far away Private Adam Klein had reached the end of his own luck. After having had his mount struck by several arrows after crossing an Empire patrol, he had fallen out of the saddle when the strap had been severed, and received the gift of unconsciousness.
The ancestors must have been at his side, for his foot stayed in the stirrup, and his frightened and injured horse ran as fast as it could manage, for as long as its stamina allowed. He came to periodically as his horse ran, but always dipped back into the comforting, oblivious darkness. He finally regained his wits battered, bruised, confused and lost in a shallow depression in the vast expanse of the northern Varrland plains. He might even have reached Graben, judging by how cool the night air felt. Under the blue moonlight of Lune, his horse meandered about, limping as it ate at the damp vegetation in the darkness. Adam’s head throbbed, swollen full of blood and crisscrossed with a dozen lacerations from smashing up and down during his horse’s flight. His brown hair stuck to the blood covering most of his skull.
“My aunt Marilyn thanks you Dawn,” Adam said quietly to the horse. It whinnied in pain. Adam lay on his back in the grass. The thick yellowing hay felt cold, and it soothed him. It did nothing for the scream coming from his ankle. He lifted his head and looked. His foot had twisted in the stirrup, and the violent torsion had damaged the joint above the foot. His leather boot looked fat like a full water skin or a cooked sausage from the swelling. It felt like fire.
With a grunt Adam freed his dagger out of its sheath off his belt. After letting the fresh batch of stars fade from his eyesight he steeled his breath and sat up, using his offhand to grip his calf. He folded himself up with great effort, and managed to slide the sharp edge of the blade along the leather strap that attached the iron stirrup to the saddle. When it broke, Adam’s mangled leg fell like chopped tree, and it hit the ground just as hard. He began to scream out, but buried his face in the crook of his arm. He couldn’t afford to alert the Empire if they were near.
After putting his dagger away it took him many minutes to build the courage to try and stand. He had been blissfully unaware of how elevating his foot in the stirrup had helped him. His leg now on the ground and flat pulsed angrily in step with his heart, and his heart beat fast. Every throb threatened to make him cry out in pain. He tried to get his boot off the foot, but the destroyed leg had fattened so badly the boot would need to be cut off. The effort was futile, he would have to make do and suffer the agony.
“Good girl,” Adam said to his mount Dawn as he used her as a leaning post to get to his knees. That simple act alone took him what felt like forever. It took forever and ten minutes more to get his good leg beneath him, and force all his strength into it to get to standing. He immediately regretted his decision.
“Ugh,” Adam said to his horse softly, waves of nausea causing him to nearly fall. He gripped the twisted saddle strap on Dawn and held firm, lifting his broken ankle high by bending his knee. That alleviated the pain enough to clear away the threatened sickness, and gave him a moment to dig out his whiskey flask. It took him only a few seconds to free it from the near upside-down saddlebag where he hid it on deployments. Once a month ago his Corporal had found it during a routine inspection, and looked the other way. Adam had wondered how many other flasks like his existed in the Darisian 2nd. He would drink them all tonight if he could.
He tipped up the flask after unscrewing the cap and let two mouthfuls of the spicy whiskey dance onto his tongue. He forced the sizzling liquor down his throat and felt the burn slide down to his belly, where it ate at his empty stomach.
“I have to eat something Dawn. And not grass,” Adam said to his patient horse. Using the still attached reins and her long face, Adam hopped to the opposite side of the horse on his good foot. He could already feel the pleasant swims from the liquor as he bent over to the saddle bag that held his food. The saddle had twisted from the broken strap, and hung at Dawn’s belly, and when he undid the buckle on the strap that held the bag shut, its contents dumped out the ground, far from his reach.
“Shit,” Adam said to Dawn. With a grimace he lowered his body, reaching down to try and grab a tightly wrapped piece of wax paper that he knew held a piece of reasonably fresh bread and cheddar cheese. Thinking of the salty and tangy cheese made his tongue water; he focused on that ambition and tried to drown out the pulsating screams of pain coming from his destroyed ankle. As he reached down, the strength in his good leg failed him, and he collapsed. His ankle bent in the boot as he hit the dirt and grass, and the pain from the new twist overcame his will. He c
ried out, piercing the cold night with a shrill noise. As he lifted his hurt leg to the star-filled sky he felt hot tears run down his cheeks.
“Did that hurt young man?” a voice called out to Adam, stilling his heart.
He rolled to face the voice, and found the dagger at his waist. He drew it and pointed its sleek metal blade upwards to the person who spoke. “I will cut you to death. Come no closer.”
“As you wish Varrlander,” the voice said again.
Adam focused his eyes on the man and in the blue light realized his threat wore a purple robe, and no armor. The intruder in his midst was the necromancer he’d dismounted by bow earlier in the day. The pain in his foot faded somewhat. It had been scared away by the thoughts of something worse to come. “Keep your distance necromancer,” he said as menacingly as he could manage.
The invader laughed softly. “I don’t think a man on his back in the middle of nowhere with a shattered leg is in any situation to issue commands.”
“Try me,” Adam said, holding the now wobbling knife out.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Argalen Brood. I serve the Purple Queen, but I suspect you’ve already assembled that much by my garb,” he said as he ran a thin hand through even thinner blonde hair. He kept it short and professional as an officer might, though he had used no rank when he introduced himself.
“I had.”
Argalen smiled as he crouched down. His purple robe surrounded his feet and piled up, making him appear as a boulder in the middle of the nowhere flatness of Varrland. Dawn the horse took a few nervous steps away from him as he spoke again. She sensed his wrongness. “Might I inquire your name and rank soldier?”
“Private Adam Klein of the Darisian 2nd. You’re a necromancer.”
Argalen nodded and brushed something off his knee. “Aye. And you then would know that I am cross with you. You killed my horse and hurt my leg earlier today. Tit for tat it would appear.” Argalen pointed to Adam’s debilitated ankle.
“Well we Varrlanders aren’t the kind to stand for being invaded. Especially by slavers like the Empire.”
Argalen let rip a genuine laugh from the belly. “Slavers? Don’t be ridiculous. Who do we enslave? Tell me that.”
“The dead. Razing villages to the ground, taking the dead and animating them to use for slave labor. You’re nothing but lazy cowards.”
Argalan’s expression soured. “Cowards we are not, Adam, of that I am certain. Cowards wouldn’t be as bold as us. Cowards wouldn’t march south into the supposedly powerful nation of Varrland without a care. Cowards are the kind of people who sit and debate the moral implications of whether or not they respond to force with force. Cowards send five hundred lambs to be slaughtered by two thousand wolves.”
“You won’t get what you want,” Adam said defiantly.
“I disagree. Tonight I will get exactly I want. And what I want will help the Queen get what she wants. It’ll all work out,” Argalen said as he reached under his robe to search for something.
Adam adjusted to relieve the pressure swelling in his foot again. “You realize more of our army is headed this way right? That we are doing exactly what we were meant to do. You think you understand it all, but you don’t.”
Argalen pulled out a tiny velvet bag and let it dangle on its drawstring from his delicate fingers. “Now Adam, I want you to understand that your suffering means little to me,” he said with detached menace. “If you answer my questions and I am not required to hurt you to get those answers, then so be it. Good for you that you were smart enough to avoid needless suffering. But understand Adam, that I can get my answers from you alive, and give you a chance at a new life after we’ve conquered your nation, or I can kill you, question your dead body with necromancy, and as you said earlier, I can ‘enslave’ your corpse.”
Adam swallowed the rising bile and tried to act tough. “You forgot what if I kill you and escape.”
Argalen chuckled and opened the small bag with dexterous fingers. “I didn’t forget that Adam. If you care to look around, you’ll see my archers are arrayed about the rim of this strange depression in the field. If you think you can run on that foot, let alone get by my scouts in the process, be my guest. I imagine they’ll pick you apart before you take five steps, but it would be amusing to be proved wrong or right.”
Adam leaned back and looked around. As sure as the pain in his foot, archers stood around them. They stood casually, bows in slack hands, arrows notched. Adam didn’t pose a threat to them physically, and he certainly didn’t pose a threat to escape. His journey had almost reached its end. All that remained was the end itself. “I have another option.”
Argalen looked up from his little bag with a surprised expression. “Creativity is good as is bargaining. What do you say Private Adam?”
Adam looked over at the flask he’d dropped when he collapsed a few minutes prior. He sat his dagger on his chest and reached over to grab it. Once in hand, he unscrewed the attached cap and poured it into his mouth, swallowing constantly until all of the liquor had burnt its way down to his stomach again. He coughed when the last mouthful passed his tongue. “That’s good stuff.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Argalen said with a smile.
Adam dropped the flask and picked his dagger up from its resting place on his chest. “My ankle really hurts.”
Argalen made a showing of understanding Adam. “I am sure it does. We’ll get you to a healer in the Empire camp as soon as we finish talking. We’ve several skilled healers. They’re not Apostles, but you’d be surprised what you can achieve with herbs and leeches.”
“Can I ask you a question?” a now slightly drunken Adam asked the necromancer.
“I suppose it’s not out of the question to ask me a question,” he replied.
“If you question me, how will you know I’m not lying? Won’t you just kill me after I tell you whatever it is I tell you, and ask me again when I’m dead? Just to be sure?”
Argalen’s wry smile told Adam the truth. “I had entertained the thought Adam, that you were a man of honesty and integrity. I’d hoped there’d be no need to kill you once questioned.”
Adam didn’t respond. He locked gazes with the necromancer with the corn-colored hair and held the moment. Wordlessly Adam lifted his dagger and drew it down along his neck, splitting the artery under the skin open, and setting free a thick jet of his own blood. He held the necromancer’s gaze as spurt after spurt of his blood launched out into the cold night air, painting the green grass a darker color in the moonlight. Not long after his eyes drifted shut, and he slumped lifelessly to the ground. Slowly his fingers unwrapped from the dagger, and it too fell to the ground. His horse Dawn whinnied once, and took a step away from his body, unnerved by the smell of so much blood.
Argalen sighed and stood. “You asshole!” he screamed suddenly. He lifted a foot and brought it down in a powerful stomp on Adam’s face, crunching teeth and bone. “I wanted to interrogate you.” The mage walked in an angry circle around the body as the horse walked further away. “I suppose I should interrogate his corpse.” The necromancer sighed again, and dropped to his knees beside Adam’s body, producing the materials he needed to summon the dead man’s spirit.
The sun threatened to rise on a new day and the village of Ockham’s Fringe still stood. Necromancer of Queen’s Guild Yefim Gneery sat near the general who commanded the invasion force he had been personally assigned to. As the general raged, storming around his massive purple pavilion tent, Yefim let his thoughts wander to more serene vistas in his mind. To be sent south in the first wave of the war could only seen as a reward, and a high honor, and Yefim felt happy to do his Queen’s bidding. He hadn’t felt true joy in decades. Not since his death and transition to unlife as a Wight. As Yefim thought of what success here in northern Varrland would mean for his future in the Guild, he watched Dalibor Hubik scream at a pair of archery officers.
“Why?” he bellowed in their faces, his spittle flying. “
Why have you not managed to set fire to the village? Thousands upon thousands of our arrows sent over the wall, each set aflame and nothing! I’ve collected more undead in my ranks from their return fire, that’s what I’ve got to show for your efforts and idiocy. Do you think our Queen would be pleased if I told her of your damned incompetence?”
The junior officers stood and took the verbal beating. Yefim could see they knew better than to defend themselves in this situation. Perhaps it wasn’t they who were incompetent.
“General?” Yefim asked quietly from under his purple hood. The necromancer sat on a comfortable sofa designed for sleep off to the side, many steps from the general’s wrathful words.
Dalibor’s head snapped to the side, locking on to Yefim. His eyes were wide, full of fury. “What?”
“Might I suggest something more effective than yelling at your soldiers?”
Dalibor turned his whole body and stomped across the interior of the massive tent to where Yefim sat. His armor creaked and groaned as he approached, and he towered over the slight mage. “Are you telling me you disapprove of my disciplinary measures? You’re the expert at dealing with the living in this room? Last I checked Guildsman, it was your job to manage the dead, and my job to manage the living.”
“I serve the Queen, General Hubik. And to that end, I will speak up when I believe that my advice will assist her in her ambitions for our nation. I do not seek to usurp your authority or make decisions. I merely seek to advise.”
The general made a noiseless snarl and snapped his hand at the twin officers, telling them to flee. They saluted, and disappeared out of the tent’s large flap. A poke of gray-blue light slipped in, confirming that the sun indeed would rise that day. Dalibor made a distinct effort to smooth out his emotions before speaking calmly. “Tell me your advice Yefim. I think a different approach might be worthwhile.”
The Echoes of Sin (The Kinless Trilogy Book 3) Page 14
