Marcus roared something beyond pain and anger, and he stood from his awkward half dead lean against the dead animal skins. “FITCH!” The bellow was so loud Hester froze solid. Marcus strode towards the still reeling traitor-apostle; his shield discarded now, both gauntleted hands gripping his sword in fully revealed and unrestrained wrath. Marcus had done away with the idea of avoiding injury. All he cared about now was inflicting it.
“Stay away Knight Major!” Fitch yelled in a trembling falsetto. He produced from his belt a long and narrow spike of a dagger. The blade seemed even more shadowy and insidious than a normal murderer’s weapon to the red-eyed knight but he didn’t care. Couldn’t care less in fact. Perhaps on some level the restorative efforts of the spirits showed the poison covering it to him and that knowledge made him brave.
“Fuck yourself!” Marcus said as he slashed with both arms in a shoulder height blow. Fitch ducked under the massive swipe and stepped inside and under the blade, bringing up his own poisonous dagger directly at the belly of the leader. If he got it high enough, and managed to plunge it into the flesh, the steel would pierce the knight’s innards to the spine, and release enough poison to kill a Gvorn.
But Marcus knew the strike would come. In fact, he’d hoped for it. As his own barbaric slash crossed over the ducking apostle he let his strong right hand come off the hilt. He kept his eyes fixed on the darting knife blade coming up from below as his momentum turned his body. As Fitch focused on finding the weak point where the armor wasn’t and aiming his tiny blade into that special place, Marcus brought his open right hand straight downward, clamping it on the wrist that held the murder-blade.
He squeezed with every ounce of power he could muster. Every moment of training, every drop of sweat shed running, lifting weights, practicing with sword and shield, and every healed cut and scar to show for it all led to this moment, as it always did, over and over again.
Fitch’s wrist broke in two places as Marcus squeezed and twisted, causing the rat-in-apostle form to bend over, screaming even more than before. His impotent dagger fell from numb fingers to the hard packed dirt floor and Marcus fell atop him, straddling his flat belly and pinning him on his back. The warrior dropped his sword from his other hand and began to rain blows down on Peiron Fitch. The first steel clad punch broke teeth and his nose. The second blow cracked his jaw and eye socket. His third blow broke more teeth, and the apostle’s eyebrow. The fourth and fifth blow started to break the skull in other places, and he’d landed his tenth strike on the man he straddled before Hester dared to interrupt.
“Sir, stop. Sir, stop! He’s dead. Long dead,” Hester said as he sheathed his own bloody sword. Somehow in the fray he’d struck the apostle, but couldn’t remember when. He put a hand on his commander’s steel shorn shoulder and the Knight stopped as if he’d been struck on the head and dazed. His eyes glazed over with the remnants of hate, and the presence of a mind near to overflowing. Below him in the dirt lay a body with mush where Fitch’s skull had been. Brain and bone mixed with dark earth and red blood, and the border where Peiron was and the ground began couldn’t be deciphered.
Marcus stood, blood dripping from both of his hands in a steady stream. “Bless him,” he said, his mind reassembled for the moment.
Richard knew he was speaking to him but feared approaching. “Sir? You want me to free his spirit?”
“Yes. Please,” Marcus said as he lifted a weary leg and stepped over the body of the man he’d just beaten to death. The other men backed away and exchanged nervous glances as he moved.
Stone seemed offended, and let his thoughts be known. “No way. He deserves to rot. No afterlife for him.”
Marcus shook his head and his long black hair came loose. It draped over his face and obscured his eyes. He spoke with sadness, and reverence. “Private, even in death this man deserves an afterlife. I hate to think what a soul such as his might do given an eternity, but I will not cave in my beliefs and faith simply because of one man’s bad deeds. We will do as we have always done, because I will not let my enemy tell me otherwise. He deserved a death, and now he deserves a proper afterlife. Now Richard, bless this man’s soul so I can forget he ever existed.”
Richard didn’t hesitate, and he moved to, and knelt beside the ravaged traitor. He produced a small vial of the precious blessed oils the chant required, and after removing the stopper, he sprinkled drops from Peiron’s destroyed head to his untouched toes. A small bag of herbs came out next, and after sprinkling those over the slick drops of oil, Richard lowered his head and began the spell. The lightest blue of the dawn’s birth could be seen outside the narrow windows nearby.
“This dark night brings us both justice and pain, for this man Peiron Fitch has taken lives in vain for no reason we can understand. Though we and the dead have found him guilty, may he find redemption on the other side. May his soul bring light to all those who come near it, and may he rest in peace.” A moment passed, and Richard let out a long exhalation, marking the release of the dead man’s spirit into the void after life.
“Good. Thank you. Now throw him in one of these vats,” Marcus said as he bent over to pick up his sword and helm. His face twinged with pain, his body still damaged from the horrid spell Fitch visited upon him.
“What?” Hester asked, surprised.
“I wanted his soul to be free. To hell with his body. No second chances for him if the Empire gets inside the city walls. I wager these tanning vats will take good care of him. I’ll help. We need to get back; I think the dawn brings us more than we care to suffer.”
Less than a thousand yards away on the plains of northern Varrland the Empire’s forces were marshaled for war.
General Dalibor Hubik wore his full purple field plate, complete with a purple steel helm that had been ornately hammered out and forged to match the skull of the giant undead Gvorn he rode atop. It too was clad in purple leather and steel barding from head to tail. A warrior atop his dead-warrior steed. On all sides, ten deep from where the enormous general sat, were men or things that once were men sitting atop their own Gvorn steeds. Like the soldiers that rode them, some of the war mounts were dead and reanimated for the purpose of strife.
“Order of the Purple Flower!” Dalibor bellowed to the gathered knights. “We strike at the flank when the undead have filled the moat with their meat, and the walls have a hole in them! We strike out at the secret gate, and from there we will ride down the streets of Ockham’s Fringe until they run red with the spilled blood of foolish false patriots!”
The Wights wearing purple armor atop their lavender Gvorn raised their lances and axes and swords in unison, thrilled that death and service waited. Outside the group of elite cavalry the rest of the Empire force listened on, and cheered in their own way.
“Archers! Fire as you have never fired before! Give our footmen and necromancers an umbrella of arrowheads so that they may bring down this wall and give our Queen the victory she and our nation deserve! We shall free the Varrlanders from their obsession with the soul, and show them that the love for flesh suits the world of Elmoryn so much better!”
Another rousing series of screams and cheers came back at him, and Dalibor turned to the hunched Yefim Gneery, who stood below, at his mount’s side. “Necromancer, unleash the dead. Bring this city to its knees before me.”
Under his shadowed hood in the growing blue light of dawn Yefim choked down a laugh of joy. “As you wish, my lord.”
General Dalibor Hubik allowed his forces to march before him. From the rear of the battle he could watch it all unfold.
Far above, a small speck in the sky closed on Ockham’s Fringe as fast as the wind would allow.
—Chapter Twenty—
A FORGOTTEN GIFT USED AGAIN
The early afternoon descent into the quarry disguised how difficult the exit would be. The steady drops of rain from above gathered and fattened into a bloated and frigid mountain rain storm, making the trip all the worse. What had felt and appeared
to be a gentle slope circling the maw in the earth turned into a lengthy climb through streams of running water, loosened stones, and treacherous visibility. Mal, Umaryn, Chelsea and James all held close to the outer wall of the pit, ensuring that a loose rock or a patch of mud wouldn’t take one of them over the side to plunge to their death. They constantly lost footing, skinning every unarmored knee, and tearing up the wrinkled wet skin of their fingers. Traces of blood were mixed with mountain mud on their clothing and exposed flesh.
“This is wretched,” Umaryn said from under her helm. She led. Her excitement to reach the small locomotive forced her to.
“Last night was worse,” James said with what little breath his lungs could spare. “No vampires today.”
“No hill last night,” Umaryn muttered back. One of her feet slipped off a rock, rolling her booted foot over, and nearly taking her down. She let slip a whelp of pain after righting herself from the now sore ankle, but she steadied herself with her friends and brother watching, and kept on.
“The storm clouds are suffocating the light. It’s getting much darker,” Mal said after pausing to catch his breath. He looked out over the expanse of the massive hole dug into the stone and earth. It appeared to the naked eye to be filled with a million gallons of gray water, though it was a trick of the rain on the eyes. “Any less sun and we’ll have to deal with this hole in the ground and the vampires standing at the top of it as well. We have to move faster.”
“You got it,” Chelsea said with forced cheer. She picked up her pace and caught up with Umaryn. After watching her go, Mal went to the less physically strong James and helped him by taking his water skin and a slung bag of supplies off his back. Weight redistributed, the apostle moved a touch faster up the dangerous slope.
Aleksi had his body pressed flat under the heavy stones that protected him from the burning judgment of the sun above. The merciful rain fell like the happy tears of the joyous spirits that he knew like the night was long wanted the valley protected. How else could anyone see it? He and his brethren undead had been placed here by the will of the Church of Souls, and here and now were heathens and heretics that tried to pry into a past that needed to remain in the forgotten centuries. They fought to reveal what must remain hidden away.
He spoke. “The sun retreats. Our ancestors are generous this day. They give us strength.” He spoke to the spirits, “Give us the power to do your will, and to protect the Church and all of Elmoryn from what these ignorant fools try to do. Come. Come with me now. We shall drain them of the blood that fuels their madness and then burn their bodies so that they and those like them may never seek to do ill again!”
On his stomach the leader and vampire crawled out from under the stones, and the remaining undead followed suit. They rushed out into the dark forest—skin the color of the clouds above—like a carpet of undead cockroaches, scurrying, leaping, jumping, hissing, squealing and hungry.
They felt...
Joy.
Reaching the surface of the earth above the pit felt to the group like they’d reached the summit of a bloodthirsty mountain. They had no idea how accurate that sentiment would prove to be.
The hard wooden stairs of the freight platform couldn’t have felt more palpable and real underfoot after the nightmare of slipping stones and mud on the way up. James dropped to a knee and caressed a hand across the gravel strewn boards, feeling their strength and smiling.
“Oh boy,” he said appreciatively.
Umaryn turned and through the slot in the face of her helm, concern could be seen on her face. “James I need to you to fill the boiler in the locomotive with water. You have the strength?”
He stood on weary legs. “Of course.”
The group trotted down the overgrown rail line to where the abandoned and priceless piece of machinery sat idle. Umaryn’s magical ministrations earlier in the day had worked wonders on the artificer locomotive, removing years of scale and rust, and lubricating moving parts that had gone dry and fallow for a decade. As they arrived at the engine and the three attached cars Umaryn helped James up to where she could open the boiler’s hatch for him to create water. Once he was established, she dropped down into the compartment below, and began to throw fresh wood from the tender into the firebox.
“What can we do to help?” Chelsea hollered up to her man’s sister.
Umaryn stopped, her helmet taken off and a wild excited expression on her face. She froze, thought, and responded. “Mal, if you can protect us with your bow while Chelsea cuts free the two ore cars at the end, I think we’d be well served.”
“Of course,” Mal said as he got his bow off his back.
“How do I do that?” Chelsea asked.
“It’s a pin, basically. Figure out how to pull the pin that attaches the front ore car to the passenger car. Should be a locking mechanism. A spring probably. You’re intelligent. I trust you’ll divine how it works.”
Chelsea chuckled, and took off at a jog to the gap between the two cars. Once out of ear shot, Mal turned to his sister. “Where should I be if we need it?”
She took on a demeanor of worry. “I don’t know. The best place would be the top of the locomotive, but I don’t know how to attach it. You’ll have to hold it.”
“What about the roof of the passenger car?” Mal asked.
Umaryn thought and nodded. “It’s not ideal, but there’s more flat space. Safer. You’ll have to tend it up there. Let’s hope it still works.”
He shrugged as if it were to be expected. They laughed, and Mal hefted the heavy bag filled with the mysterious gear Chelsea had longed to know more about.
Soon, she would know.
The cockroaches ran.
In the engineer’s compartment Umaryn looked at the myriad gauges and levers, reading each hand-etched nameplate describing what each item did. She tried to learn quickly, but the job she studied for took years to master and days to become a novice at.
She had minutes. Umaryn could sense the gloom closing in on them from above, and worse yet from the dark, dank forests on both sides. She knew the vampires were hidden in the shadows nearby. In her imagination she saw them crouched inside shade-giving bushes, and under thick rocks that shielded them from the now dying sun above. They ground their jaws, aching to sink each and every tooth into her fragile flesh.
They’ll have to eat my armor first.
Beside Umaryn stood James the apostle. From the creases in his brow, and the way he leaned on the steel frame of the engine compartment she knew he had drained himself of energy. He didn’t have the physical discipline the other three had, and the hike down into and back out of the mine coupled with the summoning of all the water needed to power the locomotive ran him down. She couldn’t even imagine how tired he felt when they woke earlier. He’d gone nonstop for hours in the dark of the night prior to keep them alive, and he would likely need to do it again. He’d need rest, and a lot of it to reach normal levels again.
“Sleep,” she said, pointing to a hard wooden bench half a body in length. The previously beautiful wood looked cracked and rotten and originally had been put there to sit on, not sleep on, but it would have to do.
“I’ll be fine,” James said reassuringly.
She pointed at the bench as her mother would’ve pointed at a chore for her to do. “Sit. Sleep. We’ve half an hour to New Falun village and you’re tired. We’ve a whole night to live through again and we won’t survive without your prayers.”
James let loose a defeated noise and slumped down on the plank of wood. Umaryn turned back to examining all the controls of the locomotive, and within seconds she heard James snoring. She smiled.
“Hey,” Chelsea called out.
Umaryn stuck her head out the open window of the engine compartment and into the rain. “Yeah?”
“I got the two cars uncoupled. We’re all set when you’re ready,” the soldier said as she shielded her eyes from the falling rain.
Umaryn did the same and looked back at M
al, who had climbed atop the passenger car directly behind the engine. “Mal, are you all set?”
He sat down cross legged on the roof of the car after kicking a large fallen branch away. “Yeah I think I’m as good as I’m going to get.”
“Alright. Chelsea, get on the passenger car with Mal. I don’t know how smooth a ride this will be and it’ll be a whole lot worse if the locals get brave enough to come out before sundown.”
“You think the clouds are dark enough?” Chelsea asked over her shoulder as she jogged back to the ladder at the end of the passenger car.
“I think the clouds are dark enough,” Umaryn said.
“I think they’re desperate and crazy enough,” Mal added.
“Let’s hope we get a break in the clouds then eh?” Chelsea said as she sat down with her legs crossed beside Malwynn.
“Everybody hold on,” Umaryn said before ducking back inside the locomotive. Mal and Chelsea could hear levers being moved by the artificer and just under the sounds of creaking steel and iron, the gentle words of her prayers to the machine’s spirit.
“Is this safe?” Chelsea asked her man with fearful eyes and a worried smile.
Mal chuckled. “After everything that’s happened to us, you’re worried about the safety of a short train ride? Priorities, Chelsea. Evaluate them.”
She hit him, and the train jolted forward. The giant iron wheels turned once, and the trees and mine started to move away. Umaryn had resurrected more than a ghost of the machine, and now they moved.
“Yeeeehaaaw!” she screamed. Her fist exited the window and pumped up and down in the air.
“That’s my sister!” Mal yelled down to her, brimming over with pride.
Chelsea couldn’t help but feel the twin’s joy as her own, and she put a loving hand on Mal’s shoulder. Mal turned to her and the joy on his face didn’t diminish when his eyes came to her. They took in the moment, and he leaned in for a kiss. She returned it, and when their lips parted, they snuggled tighter together on the roof of the train car, and watched as the deep Duulani forest began slipping by. The train picked up speed.
The Echoes of Sin (The Kinless Trilogy Book 3) Page 25
