by David Benem
Only Karnag’s laughter soared upon the fetid air.
“Now,” he said, his chortle giving way to a grave tone. “You will tell me.”
The tongue continued its dance and the jawbone began moving. It opened and shut with the click and clatter of bone against bone. As it chattered, tendrils of black formed an inky cloud before it.
Karnag drew back, stretching his sinewy arms to press the skull farther from him. The cloud grew, though, filling the distance. Soon it began to envelop him.
He pulled in a deep breath and shivered. His chest heaved and the cloud diminished. “I see…” he said. “Father?”
The witch’s skull broke in Karnag’s hands and its pieces tumbled through his fingers. The dark cloud vanished, its last wispy remnants seeping into Karnag’s nostrils.
Karnag dropped to a knee, his head drooped and hidden by his unraveling black braids. After a time he looked to the murky sky above. “Father…” he sighed.
Fencress kept still, her curiosity as bracing as her fear. What sort of thing have you taken, Karnag? The spirit of another demon to torment you?
Karnag did not move. He knelt there upon the bloody earth, quiet, with eyes tilted skyward. His expression seemed soft and contemplative, no longer the frightful mask of violence.
But Fencress knew that’d not last. She figured odds were whatever had just happened would make her friend even worse.
Something gave way beneath her and she nearly lost her balance. A pained groan sounded. Only then did she realize she’d placed a foot upon a poor fellow’s ruined arm and her boot had just ripped away what was left of the flesh upon it.
“My deepest apologies,” Fencress said.
The man, a soldier of Rune judging from the tatters of his red sash and his shredded chainmail, seemed nearly dead. His breaths came shallow and quick. He struggled to turn his head but at last regarded Fencress with eyes that seemed to wander in and out of focus. “Dead gods!” he wheezed. “We won…”
She looked to him, tugging the brim of her cowl. “Sorry, friend, but it doesn’t seem you’ll be enjoying the spoils of victory. I’d help you if I could, but you’re well beyond helping.” She tapped the hilts of her twin blades. “Unless you’d like a quicker death, that is? I can offer you that favor.”
Tears twisted down the soldier’s face and dripped into the mud beneath him. “No,” he croaked. “Just a few more breaths…”
Her eyes softened. “I suppose that’s all you have,” she said, drawing her hands away from her swords.
“The heavens… They are waiting for me…”
Fencress glanced back to Karnag, still kneeling in his bloody circle. He no longer looked to the heavy sky but to the ground below and that menacing glare once again darkened his face.
“Perhaps they are,” Fencress said.
Or perhaps it’s just as Drenj said. Perhaps there’s only death.
Fencress sat in the campfire’s glow, studying the pair of dice on the plate before her. They were the ones she’d stolen from The Mewling Mutton in Shank’s Hollow. The wooden plate she’d taken from a wagonload of supplies no longer needed by Rune’s fallen soldiers.
“A decent meal, at least,” Paddyn whistled through a mouthful. He held a whole wheel of smelly cheese in his lap and a cheek-stuffed smile on his face. “Never knew soldiers ate so well.”
“They’re not eating anymore,” Drenj said, taking a small bite of dried meat. He chewed slowly, his eyes finding the fire.
“All the more for us,” answered Paddyn before sinking his teeth into the cheese.
Fencress stared out to the night, toward the battlefield a quarter mile downwind. Odds were Karnag remained there still, kneeling in that same morbid circle amongst the dead. She didn’t know for certain, but knew she didn’t want to head back to find out. Forces raged within her old friend, battling for his soul, and she had yet to figure out her best bet to change him.
She looked again to the dice. An excellent pair, fashioned from ivory and worn smooth along the edges. They seemed too fine for a place like Shank’s Hollow, and Fencress wondered if the thane’s dead brother had forgotten them at the tavern in some drunken stupor or perhaps lost them as part of a bad wager.
Regardless, they were hers now, as were the many turns of chance they held.
She snatched them up in her gloved hand and tumbled them across her wooden plate. Four pips and one. Honest dice, but lucky ones. It seemed most times she rolled them, one or the other or both would land with just one pip showing—the best face a die could show in deadman’s dice.
Perhaps chance still favors me.
Drenj spat out whatever he’d been eating into the fire. He rubbed his eyes. “Where is he leading us? Why do we follow?”
Fencress grabbed the dice, tossed them upward then caught them. She again sent them across the wooden plate with a clatter. Two pips and one. Another fine roll.
“Fencress?” Drenj asked, running long fingers across his head. “Where does he take us?”
“Why he leads us to gold and glory, I’m sure!” she said, reaching for a bottle of whiskey she’d found amidst the supplies. “Considering what we’ve seen, I suppose Karnag could vanquish the whole of the Arranese army in mere days. Think of the loot! Before you know it the lot of us may be sitting atop a pile of coin as tall as the Southwalls!”
Drenj’s eyes returned to the fire. “You know that’s not going to happen.”
She looked to him before taking a draw of the whiskey. It tasted like the harshest sort of rotgut. She swallowed and took another pull anyway.
“We don’t belong in any war,” Drenj said. “You know that, too.”
Paddyn stifled a belch. He’d stopped eating his wheel of cheese in mid-chew and stared now at Fencress.
Fencress looked away. “Perhaps I do.”
“I’m afraid, Fencress,” said Drenj. “More afraid than I’ve ever been.”
Fencress nodded. She felt the same but didn’t want to say it. Given what they’d seen of Karnag in recent days she worried the words would weaken what resolve she still had.
“It’s not just war he seeks,” said Drenj. “I fear he seeks a destination much worse. I fear he seeks some kind of hell.”
She tumbled the ivory dice across the plate once more. Six pips on one and five on the other—a bad roll at last. She seized them and tucked them inside a pocket sewn into her black cloak then stared again to the darkness. To that field of fatted crows and bloated corpses.
To Karnag and his demons.
She sucked in another mouthful of rotgut. “Who’s to say? We may be in that very hell already.”
Morning arrived heavy with dread. Fencress hadn’t slept well and wondered when she last had. She’d long ago grown accustomed to danger, but this endeavor was a thing entirely different.
“Breakfast?” asked Paddyn.
Fencress turned in her bedroll to see the skinny lad hunched over a heaping plateful of salted pork, cheese and crusty bread. “At least this foul task hasn’t stolen your appetite.”
Paddyn smiled, his lips curling to reveal the gap left by his missing tooth. “Never.”
Fencress pulled herself upright to see a landscape still shrouded with mist. “Where’s Karnag? Any sign of him?”
“None,” he mumbled, struggling to bite off a chunk of the bread.
Drenj shifted nearby. “Perhaps he’s left us? Perhaps we’re free to go at last?” He darted upright, dark eyes lit by what seemed hope.
Fencress grabbed a few strips of salted pork. “I’d wager he’s still crouched on that field of dead soldiers. He’ll find us as soon as he’s finished doing… whatever it is he’s doing. As for leaving, you can do that any time you like. He’s told you that.”
Drenj sighed and fell silent, the only sound about them that of the occasional squawking crow and Paddyn’s incessant chewing.
Fencress ripped into the pork. It was tough and stringy but tasty all the same.
At last Drenj spoke
again. “I dreamt of my daughter last night,” he said, mouth turning with a wistful smile. “Of little Ryaza. She was three years old when last I held her, though by now she’s a few months past four. Her hair was long and black, perfectly straight like her mother’s, and her brown eyes aglow with laughter. She was… She is beautiful.”
“I very much want you to see her again,” Fencress said. “I mean that.”
Drenj held his dark eyes downcast. “I do too. I just fear that every day there is less hope of that. It seems the farther I go from home, the longer I stay with Karnag, the less hope I have of ever holding her again.”
“He said you are free to go. You have that choice.”
“Choice? He said I’d die if I left his side. What kind of choice is there when every choice leads to death?” He twisted his long fingers in his lap. “But I’ve begun to wonder, Fencress. I wonder if it’d be better to die away from him. That way at least I’d die away from this madness, this evil. And better yet, perhaps there’s some chance he’s wrong. You said something like that once, and you’ve talked about how you believe in chance. Perhaps there’s some chance those hunters won’t find me. Or perhaps some chance they’ll not find me until after I’ve reached Raven’s Roost and held my Ryaza once more. Some chance I’ll see my Ryaza again. At Karnag’s side there’s no chance for that.”
Fencress swallowed down the last of her salted pork. “I’d hate to see you go, Drenj, but I’d understand your reasons. You have family. I don’t—none that I know of, anyways. If you follow the river west a few days and then break south for a couple more past the Drimrill you’ll at least be close enough to find Raven’s Roost by its stink.”
Drenj sniffled and rubbed at his eyes, darkening the smear of kohl across his cheeks. “I would like that…”
“Go, then,” Fencress said. “Take all you want from the supplies we found. Take the finest horse you can find from those milling still about that battlefield. I’ll give you a good handful of coin, enough to make a nice start on a new life. Go and get clear of this. Go for yourself and your family.”
Drenj held his gaze downcast for a time and his dark eyes welled with tears. He began to weep and cradled his head in his hands. “I w-would like that but… I’m so afraid. I’m a coward, Fencress!”
Fencress watched him as he sobbed, his form withered as a waif. She wasn’t one to have much sympathy for those burdened by hardship—she’d shouldered plenty of her own. But she pitied Drenj. This dark venture had broken him.
“Drenj,” she said, “not one of us has ever seen anything like what’s happened to Karnag, what he’s become. Only a fool would fail to fear him. You are no coward on account of that.”
“I am a coward,” Drenj said, wiping a mess of snot and tears and kohl from his face, “and the very worst kind of all. I stay at Karnag’s side because I fear more for my own life than I do for my daughter’s.”
Fencress picked a chunk of salted pork from her teeth, finding its taste sour. Her eyes lingered upon the Khaldisian. “No one’s ever as virtuous as they proclaim, especially those who give frequent voice to it. Every last one of us cares first and most of all for our own skin, for our own feelings. We just have a hard time admitting that until we’re confronted with the hard choices.”
Drenj shuddered and looked away.
Fencress adjusted her black gloves. She worried the short odds were the Khaldisian would find an untimely demise regardless of the path he chose.
A thud sounded. Then a rustle.
Fencress turned to see a man’s head tumbling across the dew-tipped grass. It rolled to a stop just aside Paddyn’s breakfast plate. A fat, pasty head that’d been severed just beneath its generous jowls.
“Behold.” Karnag stood amidst them, towering and terrifying. He seemed even more fearsome than before, clad now in a mishmash of Arranese leathers, his burly frame and eerie eyes holding naught but the promise of death. Before him drooped his sword Gravemaker, fresh blood trickling down its length.
“Karnag?” asked Fencress, unable to bring her usual, practiced cheer to her words. She gestured to the severed head resting just beneath Paddyn’s blanched face. “Who is—or was—this?”
“His name was Barly Stample,” Karnag said. “He was an acolyte of the Ancient Sanctum of Illienne the Light Eternal. I…” His eyes wandered for a moment, as though confusion muddled his head. He breathed. “Castor presided over his induction into the order four years ago and regarded him a loyal though limited servant. And now he is dead.”
Fencress studied Karnag’s face. “You didn’t find him dead on the battlefield, did you?”
Karnag looked to her, brow raised. “No. He was one of our pursuers, sent to scout our location. I sensed his presence then I took his head.”
“Our pursuers?” moaned Drenj.
Karnag nodded. “The others will be upon us soon if we remain here. I intend to face them elsewhere, at another time. After I’ve mastered what I’ve taken. After I’ve… become.”
“The rotted skull,” Fencress said quietly.
“Arise,” Karnag commanded. “We ride now.”
Fencress stood. “What horses—” She stopped short. Over Karnag’s shoulder she spied a line of a half-dozen warhorses ambling toward them from the battlefield.
Karnag smiled. “We ride upon the mounts of the dead. We ride them to war and to ruin.”
16
TO WAR ONCE MORE
Lannick surveyed the many hundreds of soldiers about him, arms and armor reflecting the hard sun above. Some marched on foot, others rode horses, and others still guided wagons sagging with provisions.
All headed to war once more.
The air rose with an old but familiar song. Weapons clicked and clanked while wagons squealed and groaned. Horses nickered and men spoke in proud voices of deeds to come. Occasional orders or encouraging words were barked over it all.
“Two days to Riverweave!” shouted someone waving a red and black banner amidst the mass of men ahead. “Two and a half to victory!”
“Fuck General Fane!” howled another. Soldiers cheered in reply, smacking swords against shields and throwing fists into the air.
Lannick found himself smiling in wholehearted agreement.
Brugan would have loved this. He deserved to see it. If only…
He thought of the manner of his friend’s death and his smile waned.
He knew at this moment Fane was heaping ever more lives upon the pyre of his ambition. More innocent lives lost to the man’s madness.
Hatred filled his heart and he spat. He spurred his horse onward, wishing that doing so could bring him revenge just an instant sooner. He’d waited so long—too long—to make Fane pay for his deeds.
“You are mindful of your purpose, yes?” grumbled squint-eyed Ogrund from atop his drab horse.
Lannick looked sideways to the green-clad Variden. “Always.”
Ogrund’s head tilted upon his almost imperceptible neck. “Good,” he grunted. “It is good to count you among the Variden once more. You should don your Coda.”
Lannick ignored the words, his thoughts focused upon Fane. His ears still burned from the man’s shrill voice and he could still see the scars striating the general’s face. But most memorable were the eyes. Black eyes, ever intense and disquieting. Always calculating, always seeking an advantage. Always greedy with desire.
“Good,” Ogrund grated in seeming annoyance. “I said it was good to have you with us, and that you should don your Coda. You should complete your rededication to the cause.”
Lannick looked hard at the man. “You must understand something, Ogrund,” he said. “I have not returned to the Variden. Not yet. You and the others condemned me for seeking vengeance. Just because our purposes have become intertwined doesn’t mean I’m ready to lash my Coda to my wrist and have you and Wil and all the rest poking around my head.”
Ogrund shifted stiffly in his saddle and regarded Lannick with eyes almost closed. “There is far
more at stake than exacting punishment for one man’s past misdeeds. There is—”
“Misdeeds?” Lannick scoffed. “Dead gods! The man murdered my family and now my friend has been put in the ground as well!”
Ogrund raised a hand. “I mean not to diminish your losses. I mean only to illustrate what is at stake in this war.”
“I’m well aware of the stakes and you’d not stand at my side now if I’d not learned Fane’s place in all of this.”
Ogrund stared to him with some sort of meaning, though the man’s impassive features and eternal squint made that meaning impossible to identify.
At last Ogrund grunted. “One cannot simply wear a Coda whenever one pleases,” he said. “It is no mere ornament, Lannick. You know that. Our Codas are sacred gifts from Valis. They bind us to his purpose and grant to us his power.”
Lannick shook his head, weary of the lecture. “Yet my Coda hasn’t left me, has it? Perhaps it and Valis understand my purpose more than you and Wil and Alisa and all those others who would question me.”
“Our purpose is to defend Rune from its ancient and most dangerous enemy.”
“And mine is to put my sword through Fane’s heart!” Lannick growled. “I serve no other purpose until that one is fulfilled!”
“Well that’s damned nice to hear.” The voice belonged to Arleigh Lay. He’d come to ride alongside them and looked to Ogrund with his nasty sneer.
Ogrund turned to the man. “I am speaking with Lannick about things that do not concern you. He and I require a moment. Please ride along.”
Arleigh pressed his remaining hand into the black jerkin he’d stretched over his chainmail, that part of the jerkin likely holding his dagger. “The fuck I will.”
Ogrund pulled his horse to a halt. “I will not suffer such vulgar address.”
Arleigh sneered. “Well you’d best ride the fuck elsewhere, then.”
For just an instant Ogrund’s eyes flared open before squeezing to a tight squint once more. He spurred his horse to a trot and wove between the soldiers ahead before becoming lost within the marching army.
