by David Benem
He tugged in a breath and looked ahead again. Ogrund stood straight and stoic as he eyed the skiff floating toward Riverweave. Several men alongside him—hearty lads draped in paupers’ blankets—pushed another skiff into the water, eased themselves upon the thing and used a long pole to shove off.
Lannick slowed his horse and raised in his saddle. “Ho there!” he called. “Is there room for another on that boat?”
Ogrund spun toward him, hand upon the hilt of his blade. His eyes popped open. “Lannick!” he said in a high-pitched cry. “You made it!”
Lannick nodded, stretching his damaged hand. “Not without a bit of trouble.”
The man’s gaze retreated behind a tight squint once more though a grin rose at the edges of his mouth. “Lannick,” he said, his voice again the gravelly monotone Lannick had grown used to hearing. “It pleases me to see you again.”
“Well fuck my eyes!” came another familiar voice. From out of the crowd slipped one-handed Arleigh Lay. Dirty rags concealed his armor and a bloodied bandage wound about his head. His sneer, though, remained fully intact. “Your friend Ogrund here said you’d survived but I didn’t dare believe it.”
Ogrund turned his squint to Arleigh and folded arms across a thick chest. “I speak no lies.” He looked again to Lannick. “We searched for you, but many scattered from the camp the night you were captured. There was no way to track one person. If you’d but worn your Coda…” He shook his head in what seemed a scold.
“Soon, Ogrund,” said Lannick, eyes turning to the bandage about Arleigh’s head. “And what of that night? How many men did we lose?”
Arleigh pressed his hand against the wound and spat. “Too many. A hundred at least, and perhaps twice that many wounded.”
Ogrund nodded. “Your captors did not work alone. It seems a number of men still loyal to the general had infiltrated our number.”
“There was a good deal of confusion and screaming and fire,” said Arleigh. “A mad night. Who was it that took you from the camp?”
Lannick grimaced and looked along the water toward Riverweave. “One of Black Jon’s men was a Scarlet Sword once, one I’d wounded. He and his companions meant to take me back to the general as their prize.” He lifted his bandaged hand. “Before I was rescued, they took a finger and broke another.”
Arleigh shrugged. “Well, you still have more of a hand than I, and you’ll have your revenge soon enough. Stay with us,” he said, swaying a pointed thumb between himself and Ogrund. “This fellow’s more useful than I’d guessed.” He ignored a grunt from Ogrund and continued. “Plan is to take separate routes through the city then mass near a ruined storehouse not far from the old governor’s palace. Black Jon received word Fane’s made that palace his home. He’s there, or at least near it. Least till he loses Riverweave, anyway.”
Ogrund looked to him. “What Arleigh says is correct. We’ll have another skiff soon. We waited for you, and thus we’ll be among the very last to enter the city.”
Lannick dropped from his mount. “Thank you, Ogrund.”
“Now give your horse to one of these poor folk fleeing the fight and make yourself ready.”
Lannick grabbed the small pack of provisions he’d taken from Harl’s cart then adjusted his purse and his sheathed sword. “I’m ready, Ogrund.”
Ogrund dipped his head with the slightest of nods. “I know, Lannick, and that is a fine thing to hear.”
24
THE HEADS FROM THEIR BODIES
Karnag Mak Ragg sat upon the hilltop, eyes trained on the nighttime battle below. Fencress Fallcrow sat at his side, though not close. She remained far too wary of whatever thoughts tumbled through the man’s head.
The battlefield before them churned, forces clashing in the dark. Rune’s soldiers continued to suffer, their fortifications set aflame by fiery arrows that streaked across the field like shooting stars across the night sky.
“How long will you watch this?” she asked.
“I do not watch,” Karnag said, shifting beneath his coat of Arranese hides and leathers. “I wait.”
Fencress fell silent and knotted her hands.
“I wait,” Karnag continued after a moment. “I wait for Thaydorne’s champions. They will come. They will come before morning, and I will take the heads from their bodies.”
“You’ve foreseen this?”
“I see many things. Things yet to come. A vast number of those things shift upon the atlas of fate by the hands of both mortals and immortals. Some, however, are a certainty. The encounter I foresee is one.”
“So I’m to stay awake this night while awaiting an ambush? Lovely. Karnag, I do tend to enjoy a decent night’s sleep from time to time.” She tugged at her gloves and shook her head with a smirk. “That, and the occasional dream of a pampered life full of perfumes and princesses. I don’t suppose our endeavor will make such dreams come true.”
Karnag remained impervious to any attempt at humor. “Dreams are the refuge of the desperate and the dying. I behold eternity. I behold what will be. Remain awake if you wish. Otherwise sleep until I call upon your help.”
Fencress tugged at her cowl, wondering just what ‘help’ Karnag had in mind. She was by no means a squeamish sort, but didn’t fancy etching bloody notes into the skin of the dead, chopping bodies into tiny pieces or chatting with the corpses of witches. She’d seen Karnag do all those things and wagered his current task would entail something similar.
She looked to him, his hard gaze still affixed to the battlefield, and wondered how long she’d remain at his side. Her resolve was waning, she knew, and every day there seemed less a chance of saving her old friend. She worried whatever had been left of him after they’d killed the Lector had since drained away, bit by bit, and now was forever gone.
Karnag chuckled. “These fools plot and plan even now though they have no measure of the menace awaiting them, no notion of the fate they face. They, and their so-called Spider King, fail to understand I have become death. That is precisely what they will find when they find me.”
Fencress stirred. Night still hung upon the sky and Karnag had yet to rouse her but sleep had been fleeting at best. She sighed, stood, and drew her cloak and weapons about her.
The night seemed eerily quiet, the battle below distant and muted. The sound of Paddyn’s snores rose and fell, though this night he and Drenj had chosen to camp well down the opposite side of the hill.
Far enough from Karnag to be free of his presence, but close enough that odds are he can still protect them.
Perhaps a smart bet.
She straightened and her eyes found him. Karnag, back to her, remained seated just where he’d been. Now, though, he held Gravemaker at his side, its point pressed into the ground and his arm raised overhead to grasp its hilt. The dirty blade shone crimson in the moonlight.
“Fencress Fallcrow,” he said, gaze not straying from the battlefield. “You need not yet arise. They are coming, though there is still time for rest.”
“Forgive me, Karnag. I’ve not slept well, nor much for that matter.”
Karnag pulled his sword from the dirt and laid it across his lap. “Then you may sit.”
Lovely, Fencress thought, though she moved to the highlander’s side and sank to a seat. She looked to him, his eyes affixed to the field below. “What foes do we face?” she asked.
“None that will not be overcome,” Karnag said, no trace of uncertainty upon his voice. “Thaydorne sends me his so-called best, his so-called heroes. They will be accompanied by Necrists, though their workings are known to me now.”
Fencress tucked black hair within her black cowl. “Necrists?”
“Followers of Yrghul the Lord of Nightmares, and now allies of Thaydorne. I have mastered dark truths they only fumble at.” He fell quiet for a moment, eyes closed. “All will perish.”
“You have changed much, Karnag. I…” She thought of saying more but thought better of it.
Karnag produced a rag and set a
bout cleaning his sword. “You worry, Fencress, but my blade will never be brandished against you. You are my friend and will always be.”
Fencress looked to him and wanted to say more. She wanted to talk of feelings of friendship, of loyalty and unbreakable bonds and other such sentimental nonsense.
But it felt false.
Worse, it felt dead.
Karnag tossed the rag aside. Fencress noticed the cloth was darkened with blood, then saw Karnag’s hand deeply cut and bleeding. Karnag, though, paid no regard.
“They come,” Karnag said. “An hour from now, Thaydorne’s captains will arrive to face me. Much blood will run upon this hillside.”
“Should I wake Paddyn and Drenj?”
“Only if you’d prefer they die.”
Dawn drew a hint of purple upon the far horizon. Fencress looked to it then to Karnag. The highlander had risen, standing with sword low a dozen yards down the hillside and uttering words Fencress could barely hear. Words that sounded sharp and broken and chilled her to the core.
He paused his chant and stiffened. He rolled his head and stretched his limbs.
Fencress squeezed the hilts of her twin blades then walked toward him.
“They come,” Karnag said, shoving the point of his massive sword into the ground. “Thirteen is their number. Seven captains of the Spider King and six Necrists in their wake.”
She came to stand at his side. “Seven men and six witches, then.”
Karnag nodded. “Your blades will be needed.” He turned to her and his eyes seemed suddenly different, fuller, brighter and kinder, somehow. “But after this day, Fencress, you will take your leave of me. You are free.”
She looked to him for a moment, uncertain. There was finality in his words, it seemed. It sounded as though he’d given permission to set aside the obligations of friendship, to unravel the bonds between them. She knotted her brow, struck by conflicting emotions. There was relief, certainly. But with it, she felt regret.
She drew a breath. “You have my help this day, Karnag.”
She could think of no more words than those.
“After today,” Karnag continued, “I will challenge Thaydorne himself. That is a battle I insist upon fighting myself and myself alone. He shall fall by my hand and no other.”
Fencress looked to him. “This is our last scrap, then, Karnag? Our last fight?”
Karnag said nothing, eyes fixed now upon the slope below. “They come.”
She tugged at her cowl, drawing it tight. Then this is the end of it.
She followed his gaze down the stretch of the hillside and to the darkened field beyond.
“You see them?” he said. “There, moving aside that fallen horse.”
Fencress peered long and hard but discerned nothing. Karnag pointed, jabbing a finger toward something amidst the shadows and shattered carnage.
And then she saw them.
Shadows deeper than shadows. Figures warping the black of night to cloak themselves.
“The six witches you spoke of?”
Karnag sniffed. “Necrists. Necrists working the dark to hide Thaydorne’s warriors though they cannot hide them from me. Not since I discovered their secrets. Now they will learn I am death and the darkness after. I am the fear of the night.” He straightened, his frayed braids a messy veil upon his face. “Let them come.”
Fencress squeezed the handles of her twin blades hard enough that her fingers ached.
“Ready yourself, Fencress. Ready your blades and prepare yourself for the horrors you will witness. These will not be natural things to mortal eyes.”
She glanced to him, wondering if what she’d see could compare to what Karnag had become. She wagered odds were she’d seen the worst. Whatever came would certainly seem a reprieve. A faint smirk twisted her lips. “Let them come, indeed.”
Karnag looked to her, eyes dead as ever in the pre-dawn light. “They are near.”
Fencress looked down the hill and saw them. Darkness disturbed by something darker, a blacker black amidst the night.
Karnag tugged Gravemaker from the dirt. “They conceal nothing,” he growled, tapping the great blade upon an open hand striped with scabs and fresh blood. “Mine is the vision that beholds all things. All are revealed before me.”
There came then a strange sound upon the air, a sound that struck Fencress like the buzz of many insects within a roomful of madly ticking clocks. There seemed an anger to it, a spiteful tone that caused her skin to prickle. She studied the hillside, pulling her cloak about her shoulders.
“The Necrists cast their spells,” said Karnag, his voice low. “They cast spells begging Yrghul for protection and for strength. But they have learned little and have forgotten much more… These enchantments are pale imitations of the potencies of the dead gods, and I shall tear through them like fire through parchment.”
The mass of shadow gathered at the base of the hill, writhing and twisting together. Thick tendrils of black stretched outward and upward along the slope. Up they came, searching like fingers.
Fencress drew her blades, studying the approaching shadow. Can such things be cleaved or cut? She found she’d retreated a step behind Karnag.
Karnag drew in a great breath, his torso swelling as though he sucked in the whole of the night. He lowered Gravemaker to his side and looked to Fencress. “Be ready. You will have a moment to slay the first warrior and then others. You must seize those chances for I must focus upon the Necrists and the things beneath.”
She looked askance at him then nodded.
The tendrils writhed closer.
Fencress held her twin swords before her, moving backward on soft feet. Terror—a thing she’d not felt often—shook her.
“K’Sharvukkam!” Karnag screamed, expelling what seemed all the air within him. Black smoke curled from his mouth as many echoes of his shout resounded. A pale glow rose, seeming to emanate from somewhere above Karnag and spreading to just beyond the foes below.
The shadows fled. They retreated from the hillside and then from the attackers. A circle of robed witches—Necrists, as Karnag called them—stood surprised and apparently helpless, ugly faces full of stitches jerking about and hands twitching feebly. Their mouths moved but any sound seemed strangled within their throats.
In their center, though, stood others. Hard men, towering figures hefting many vicious weapons. These looked unlike most of the young, angled Arranese they’d encountered thus far. These were veteran killers, scarred and steely-eyed and seemingly all as versed in death as Fencress and her company.
All save Karnag, that is.
“Come!” roared Karnag. He swept Gravemaker overhead and kept it poised there, an executioner’s axe for any necks that came near. “Come!”
The last word seemed an unnerving bellow, thundering so loudly across the hills and the field below Fencress wondered whether Karnag’s lungs or something far deeper propelled it. The ground shivered beneath them, and the Arranese looked nervously to their Necrist escorts.
Karnag wound Gravemaker in a wide circle. “Come!”
The Arranese warrior at the fore—a massive, broad-shouldered man crisscrossed with leather straps and holding vicious axes in both hands—spat and cursed to his brethren. He began ascending the hill. The rest of the Arranese and their Necrist companions cowered behind.
Karnag laughed, an unsettling, choppy growl. “You, Hazzak? You lead this sad company?”
The warrior stared to Karnag with puzzled eyes. He spat once more and whipped his axes about, pulling the blade of one across a forearm. He pressed a thumb against the welling wound then drew bloody streaks beneath his eyes. “The Spider King has sent us to kill you,” he said in his sharp accent, “and this we will do.”
Karnag laughed again. “You, Hazzak, whose very father was among those your so-called Spider King slaughtered? Whose father’s bones helped build his throne? Ha! Very well. Let your bones be among the many to build mine.”
The warrior slowed, h
is steps halting. “You speak from ignorance,” he said after a moment. “You know nothing of such things. You know nothing of me or my father.”
Karnag thrust his sword-arm forward, pointing the blade at Hazzak. “I behold all things, their beginnings and most of all their ends. Come now and embrace yours. Come now and join your coward of a father in the old hells.”
Hazzak’s face snarled to an angry knot. “You dare say such?” He glared at his companions. “I will slay this infidel myself!” He bolted up the slope, pace quickening as he approached. He was an even larger man than he’d appeared at the hill’s bottom, standing nearly a full head taller than Karnag. He brandished his axes and raised them as he neared.
Karnag trained Gravemaker toward the rushing warrior and sank, knees bending. He then twisted the blade to his side, face stoic as the tomb.
The warrior charged at Karnag, whipping his axes about with great fury. Karnag, though, bent and bowed and parried, deftly avoiding every blow. Gravemaker rang as the twin axes glanced off it.
Karnag worked his sword—lazily, it seemed—as he turned aside the onslaught. He appeared calm, disturbingly so, with eyes focused upon the Necrists at the base of the hill. His mouth moved though Fencress could hear no words.
Hazzak continued his assault. He heaved his axes, raising them and throwing them down again and again while roaring some guttural noise.
Karnag slipped from side to side and twisted about, avoiding every strike. He took several steps backward, pulling even with Fencress. He chanted something, a low mumble Fencress could just hear amidst the sweeping sound of weapons and the cry of the Arranese.
Prophecy? Witchery?
The Arranese brute pressed on, swinging his axes and pressing against Karnag as the highlander retreated. The warrior’s blows fell dangerously close to their mark, mere inches from Karnag’s gut and sides and neck. Karnag’s parries drove him aside, though, to just near Fencress.
