Code of the Necromancer

by Deck Davis

  The academy. Once they know your shade, they will watch you. Never step out of bounds, never get greedy. Walk into a town with an army of reanimated corpses, and you may find you’ll get more than just funny looks.

  49

  It was time to get moving, but he needed essence. Eyeing the pool of water, Jakub spoke the spellword of Essence Harvest, but nothing happened.

  “Guess I finally emptied it of corpses,” he said.

  Now, he needed to find Witas, and they had to leave the Rats’ Palace. But where had the cleric run off to?

  He got the answer when footsteps echoed from beyond the chamber, and the cleric rushed through the entrance and then stopped, panting for breath.

  “Where the hell did you go? Again?” said Witas.

  “I told you I’d be gone.”

  “Never a necromancer around when you need one,” said Witas, “And then two show up in your life at once. At least you’re one I can trust; I don’t know what her problem was.”

  “You look tense,” said Jakub. “Where’d you go?”

  “I thought I heard voices outside the chamber.”

  “See anyone?”

  “Nope. We better find our way out, though. I’ve had my fill of rats and sewage. I think I know the route we took now, so follow me.”

  Jakub nodded and took a step out of the chamber.

  “Got an admirer?” said Witas, nodding at the rat who walked at Jakub’s pace.

  “He’s a new friend. Don’t worry about him.”

  “Necros…” said Witas, and sighed.

  They left the chamber and followed the red dragon symbols. They might have been counterfeits put there to lead them into a trap, but Witas seemed confident in using them to find their way back out.

  There were dozens of different twists and turns in the sewers, and Jakub wished he’d committed the route they’d taken to his memory. He just had to trust Witas, trust that he could find the way.

  They carried on for another ten minutes, when Witas stopped.

  “Hear that?”

  Jakub listened. At first he just heard a soft breeze and the dripping of dew from the ceiling. Then there was something else. “Voices.”

  “I knew it.”

  “I thought nobody came down here?”

  “It’s hardly a tourist trap. The only people who come down here are criminals and smugglers.”

  The voices got louder now, and Jakub heard the sound of boots echoing through the tunnels.

  “That sounds like a lot of people, Witas.”

  “When a stranger is either a criminal or a smuggler, it’s best not to surprise them in a dark, enclosed space. Come on.”

  “Which way do we go?”

  They were faced with three tunnels now, each with a red dragon painted on the side. When the necromancer had painted her false trail, it looked like she’d neglected to remove all of the old ones, resulting in a dilemma for Jakub and Witas.

  “Pick the wrong one, and we just might stumble into whoever the hell is down here,” said Witas.

  The footsteps grew louder still. Jakub tried to count them, but there were so many. There had to be half a dozen people at least.

  “Hang on a second.” He turned to Ludwig. “I need you to do something.”

  “Anything.”

  “We’re trying to find our way out of here, but we have company. Can you try and sense which direction they’re coming in?”

  “Gotcha.”

  As Ludwig moved away, Witas spoke. “Ian had a bound pet too. A fat little owl. Grumpy as hell, but at least it wasn’t real. The only thing more annoying than its hooting would have been if it left dead mice on my doorstep.”

  “It always struck me as strange that your brother picked an owl as his bound creature.”

  “Ian’s a strange guy. Listen, as good idea as it is to have a hound sniff our new friends out, he’s going to take too long exploring all there tunnels. By the time he’s gone down one and come back on himself, our friends will be here.”

  Jakub shook his head. “Watch.”

  Ludwig approached the first tunnel on the left. He stopped and sniffed. Then he ran at the tunnel wall, before disappearing into it completely.

  “He’s from the Greylands; he doesn’t need to stay on the path,” said Jakub.

  Ludwig returned two minutes later, his tail down, his eyes wide.

  “Lots of people, Jakub. They have swords and they’re wearing armor.”

  “How many is lots?”

  “At least ten; they split up in different directions. I heard them talking about someone called the Cleric.”

  Jakub looked at Witas. “Any ideas?”

  “What did their armor look like?” said Witas.

  “They had the Queen’s emblem on.”

  “Guards.”

  Jakub scratched his head. “But why are they here? Did they say anything else, Lud?”

  “One of the said ‘Blackrum wants the cleric. We should take him by force, but don’t kill him.’”

  “I thought the guardship asked you to help them?” said Jakub.

  Witas tensed his hand into a fist. “Lloyd fucking Blackrum. The bastard has always had it in for me. He doesn’t like the idea of me taking any credit when I help them.”

  “Lloyd Blackrum?”

  “The captain of the guards.”

  “If the captain of the guards hates you, why do you help them?”

  “A cleric’s got to eat, and there aren’t many places a Black Cleric can find work. We better go. Which way, dog?”

  “He’s not a dog,” said Jakub. “He’s a demonic hound; it’s different. Lud, are any of the tunnels empty?”

  Ludwig shook his head. “They spread out so they could cover all of them.”

  “Ten armed men against us two.”

  “Four,” said Witas, nodding at Ludwig. “We’ve got a hound and a rat.”

  “Ludwig is spectral, so he can’t fight, and a rat is hardly a match for an armed guard. We can’t take the tunnels to get out, and the only thing behind us is the chamber. And I suspect the necromancer led us there because it just so happens to be a dead end.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Fighting is out of the question. We need another way,” said Jakub. “Lud, walk back the way we came, see if you can sniff anywhere out. Witas, let’s get back to the chamber. At least we can set up there and get ready if it comes to a fight.”

  50

  With Ludwig sprinting ahead, Jakub and Witas went back through the tunnels and to the chamber of dead rats and fetid water. Ludwig was already gone when they arrived, which Jakub hoped meant that he’d found another way out.

  “You got anything apart from your sword?” asked Witas.

  Jakub went over his inventory in his mind. Aside from his wheels of cheese, his coins, and his steel sword, all he had were trinkets.

  “A Bracelet of Rest, and an Inquisitor’s Belt of Persuasion. Nothing that can help. Oh, and a rogue blood draught.”

  “Let me see the draught. If there’s enough for two…”

  Jakub showed Witas the vial of draught. The liquid was dark blue like a nighttime sea, and it only half filled the vial.

  “Damn it,” said Witas. “I was hoping we could drink it. Rogues are good at sneaking, right?”

  “Even if they were, there’s nowhere to escape to.”

  He looked around as if that would somehow reveal a hidden door. Stuck in a sewer with no exits, with footsteps drifting through the tunnels and getting closer, hemming them in.

  “We’re the rats now, and they’ve got us trapped down here,” said Jakub.

  “I can try and speak to the guards. As long as Lloyd Blackrum isn’t here, I can reason with them. Maybe slip them a few coins. Lloyd thinks they don’t take bribes; the guy has too much faith.”

  “You heard what Ludwig said. This isn’t random, it isn’t like they’re patrolling the sewers. They’ve come expressly for us. If the captain sent them h
ere, and they know we’re trapped, they can hardly leave without us.”

  The boots were louder still. They could only have been a few turns in the tunnels away from them now.

  “Okay, we put the woman’s body by the entrance,” said Jakub. “Maybe a dead body will throw them off a little. Then we stick one of them, I’ll drain the essence from him and use it to draw more rats, and…”

  “Kill one of the guardship? Are you crazy?” said Witas. “Jakub, that wouldn’t just mean a night in the cells. We’d be official enemies of the Queen and the Queendom itself. Killing a solider in peacetime or murdering one of the Dispolis guardship is punishable by death. Not just your peaceful, go-to-sleep-and-never-wake-up kind. They make an example of people who hurt the guards.”

  “I’m not thinking clearly, am I?”

  “You’re thinking like one of our dead vermin friends; fight or flight.”

  Jakub pictured the inside of his own mind. The racing of his heart and the fear and tension hanging in his mind were like dust on his mental floor, and he imagined sweeping it over into a corner and closing a door on it.

  “Jakub, there’s a door this way,” said Ludwig.

  Ludwig emerged from the pool of water. He was completely dry, of course, since the water didn’t actually touch his sprectral form. The problem was, Jakub couldn’t see where he’d emerged from.

  Voices drifted from outside the chamber now,

  “Blackrum says the cleric’s a slippery one and he fights dirty. Take him first. His friend is a necro; all brain and no balls.”

  “Spread out; I want a man on each passageway; don’t let them slip through.”

  Witas held his sword tensed in his hand and he pressed back against the chamber wall so he couldn’t be seen from the entrance immediately. It’d take the guardship a few steps before they caught sight of him.

  “Damn it, we don’t have a choice, do we? We either give ourselves up or we fight,” said Witas. “Our only choices. I have enough enemies without making one of the entire queendom.”

  “Ludwig? Anything?”

  The hound lifted a paw to the pool. “The bars are bent at the bottom; you’d be able to squeeze through. After that the water is shallow enough to walk in, and it leads to a ladder.”

  “I’m not risking catching blight,” said Witas.

  “It’s either that or get caught.”

  “Blight can kill. Even when it doesn’t kill, it’s pretty gods-damned nasty. You might already have it, Jakub. You were in the water for long enough.”

  The boots stopped outside the room. The voices were gone.

  Jakub sensed the guards were whispering to each other, getting ready to storm the chamber.

  He opened his inventory bag and took out the robes of repel rain that he’d looted from the necromancer.

  “I have an idea, but we need time. Can you stop them coming in?”

  51

  Witas spoke toward the chamber entrance. “What do you want?”

  The guards outside muttered to each other, before one of them became their spokesman.

  “Captain Blackrum says we’ve gotta bring you in, Witas. I don’t know what you’re doing down here but don’t make this difficult.”

  “Take one step inside that doorway and I can make it very difficult indeed.”

  “You and your friend are the girls at the barn dance who don’t have partners,” said the guard.

  “There might be more of you, but have you considered something?”

  “What?” asked the guard.

  “That we are a black cleric and a necromancer. Does it seem wise for you to piss us off?”

  The guards whispered among each other then, Jakub couldn’t pick out any words but he could hear their tone, and he remembered what Witas had told him; people without magic either envied it, hated it, or they feared it.

  The guards didn’t know that Jakub had no soul essence, and that a black cleric wasn’t some kind of unbelievably powerful mage.

  To them, it was the unknown. That was what would keep them from rushing in; the plain mystery of their powers, and not knowing what Jakub and Witas could do.

  “That’s good. Keep talking like that,” Jakub whispered. “I just need a few seconds.”

  Witas cupped his hands to amplify his voice. “The first of you to put a boot in that doorway gets a face full of pure Blacktyde ugliness. Got it?”

  While Witas kept them out, Jakub set the robe of repel rain on the ground. The material was light and rather than regular waterproofs, this had been magically stitched to keep water out.

  He spread it out, then took his sword and cut across the fabric. “Do you have any cuts?” he asked Witas.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Check. Blight gets in through your mouth and through open wounds, right?”

  “It’s in the water. Any place water gets into you, so will the blight.”

  A voice spoke out from the entrance. This was a younger one. “We have anti-mana breastplates, cleric. Your fuckus-pocus shit won’t work on us.”

  Jakub looked up at Witas. “Anti-mana? Is that a thing?”

  “It’s a thing, alright. A thing called a bluff. Hurry up with what you’re doing.”

  Jakub cut the repel rain robe up until he had strips of it. He handed four strips to Witas, kept four for himself, and put the rest of the robe in his bag.

  “Tie these around your mouth and your nose, and then when we get to the pool, stuff some in your ears and tie a strip around your eyes.”

  “Are you crazy? The blight-”

  “The blight can’t hurt you if you don’t breath in the water, and we’re covering our eyes for good measure. Get to it.”

  Jakub had already sucked in a gallon of the water, so for all he knew the damned blight was coursing through him right now. Even so, it made sense to prepare.

  He wrapped the strips around his neck so he could put it over his mouth when he needed to, and he tied one around his forehead, ready to pull over his eyes. Then he strapped a long piece around his waist to cover a cut on his side, and another around his thigh to seal the wound he’d gotten from the crossbow sniper.

  “Five seconds,” shouted a voice. “I want to hear swords ring on the ground, and then we’re coming in in the name of the Queen.”

  “Ready?” asked Jakub.

  Witas nodded.

  “Lud, you said the bars were bent? Exactly where?”

  “At the bottom on the right, see?”

  Jakub couldn’t see through the murk, but he trusted Ludwig.

  “And it’s shallow on the other side?”

  “It’ll reach up to your shins.”

  “Do this right,” said Jakub, “And you’ll be in the water for a second or two at the most. Okay, Witas?”

  “Let’s get this over with.”

  “We’re coming in,” called a voice.

  Jakub slipped one strips of the robe over his mouth, the one next over his eyes.

  The guards boots pounded on the stone as they stormed in, and Jakub heard them spread left and right, some shouting, others ordering each other around.

  Jakub held a deep breath in his lungs and he jumped into the pool. The chill of the water hit him, but this time he was protected from its taste and smell.

  He heard Witas land in the water beside him, and he swam forward with his arms outstretched until he touched metal.

  Feeling his way over it with his fingertips, he found where the metal bent, and then he put his hands out and felt nothing; just a gap.

  Ludwig was right.

  Relief met with the aching of his chest as his lungs asked for air.

  He swam through the gap and until he felt himself go all the way through and into the water on the otherwise.

  Swimming north for another twenty seconds, the water became shallower and shallower, until finally it was shallow enough to stand up in.

  His lungs burned now. He stood up and climbed out of the stream and onto the stone at the side of it.
He didn’t take off his robe strips. Instead, he shook himself, he wiped his face, he squeezed his hair to get as much water out as he could.

  Even though he was sopping wet, he was certain the water had at least stopped running down his forehead, so he removed the strips from his eyes, nose, and mouth.

  He saw himself in another tunnel now, with the shallow water behind him, running in a stream where it gushed into yet another little tunnel. Behind him the stream grew larger and deeper, where it met with the iron bars he’d swum through.

  Witas was with him, leaning against the tunnel walls and panting.

  “You okay?” asked Jakub.

  Witas nodded. “They’ll leave the tunnels on their side and circle around through Dispolis so that they’re waiting for us up top. We better go now.”

  52 – Studs Godwin

  Studs heard the boy groan behind him as he approached the metal tray where his inquisitor tools were spread out. There were knives, barbs, and hooks, each scrubbed so they sparkled. It sometimes occurred to him that there was no point washing his implements when his victims were going to be killed at the end anyway, but it was a professional standard he’d developed years ago, and he couldn’t shake it off.

  “We need to keep up momentum,” said Hackett. “More pain. It’s not coming through quickly enough.”

  Studs selected a hook and turned around. Hackett waited there, his head almost touching the ceiling. Beside him, strapped to a chair, was a chubby mage boy.

  “Hurry up; we need to keep the pain flowing,” said Hackett.

  “I wish you’d shut up,” said Studs. “Would you stand over a surgeon’s shoulder and give him tips while he removed a kidney?”

  “Bendeldrick is asking for the last glyphline. I couldn’t give him the necromancer’s glyphlines on time, so I need to get this one to him straight away. That’ll keep him happy until we deliver the others.”

  “Then we need Ella-Faye,” said Studs. “I can’t bring the lad’s magic out without more pain, and I can’t get him close enough to the edge of pain without risking killing him. If that happens, we need our necromancer.”

  “Should she be back by now?”

  “Still in the Rats’ Palace. You know Ella; she likes to…mess with them after they’re dead.”