“You, go and get more troops now,” Rik told one of the soldiers. “You, come with me.”
They pushed on deeper into the Palace. All around them it was quiet as the grave.
At least the mist had started to clear, thought Sardec, and then wished it hadn’t. Up ahead he could see a horde of the walking dead. More and more were erupting from the hard earth around him, their bodies covered in graveyard dirt, their heads and shoulders covered in snow. Sardec did not like to think of the horrible energy it must have taken for them to reach the surface, or the evil magic that had aided the process.
There were scores of the animated corpses now and more appearing every heartbeat. They were in every state of decomposition. Some were fresh and pale. Some were worm-eaten and decomposed. Some were mere skeletons with strips of flesh clinging to them. In every eye green witchfires flowed. Every face turned to look at the oncoming soldiers. Sardec wished that he had a lot more troops.
In the midst of the swarming, shambling host was a cleared area among the tomb stones. Within that area were great barrels the like of which they had found in the cellars of the grave robbers’ house. In the middle of the circle were a group of cowled figures. Black robed, looking like monks.
“Ready your weapons, men,” Sardec said. “Prepare to fire.”
Jaderac was a little surprised to see so many soldiers. He had expected the Nerghul to kill most of them. After all, it was night, and it was in its environment while these men were not. Then he saw the tall silver masked figure standing amid the green-tunicked men and their rather familiar looking officer and he knew exactly what had happened.
“Asea,” he shouted. “This is a pleasant surprise. I thought I was going to have to hunt you down, and now I find you have come to me.”
“Lord Jaderac. Well met. And I do believe that is Lord Sardontine too. What a strange place you have chosen for your little get together. I see your skill at necromancy has greatly increased over the last century.”
Jaderac did not like how confident she sounded. She had the arrogance of the First, just like Malkior, and he had always found that grating. “You are about to witness exactly how much it has increased. I will sweep this city clean of your soldiers. By the end of tonight there will be no Talorean army in Halim.”
“By using such weapons you have already lost. Do you think the rulers of the other nations will stand by and see a return to the practises of the Wars with Shadow?”
“I doubt they will have much choice.” She was trying to keep him talking, Jaderac thought, waiting for help to arrive. Did she not realise that the same thing applied to him. With every passing heartbeat the size of his own legion of followers increased. He glanced at the wand in her hand. Chained lightning danced within it but he was safe within the circle of protection they had created. It would keep out her magic just as easily as it kept out the undead.
“I can see you are not going to surrender,” said Asea. “A pity. We shall have to take a more difficult path. Weasel, kill him.”
Jaderac saw a tall thin scruffy looking man raise a long rifle and aim it at him. He felt a brief thrill of fear but felt certain that the circle would deflect the man’s aim. He had worked potent warding spells into it.
“Kill them all,” Jaderac ordered the army of the walking dead. His eerie followers shambled towards the soldiers.
Dead Terrarchs in the uniform of the household guard lay on the Palace floor. The sentry beside Rik muttered something that might have been a curse or a prayer. Rik pushed at the door gently. It swung open. There were more dead men within. Dead women too. Maids and ladies in waiting lay sprawled across the carpets, blood pooled around them. Rik’s heart sank. He knew where this trail was going to lead. He had arrived too late. The voices gibbered in his head, fear maddened, blood-lusting.
He sprang forward, sword in one hand, pistol in the other, racing along the corridors that led to the Queen’s chambers, jumping over the corpses. His spell-augmented speed was such that he soon left the remaining guard far behind.
The door at the end of the corridor was open. It led into a luxuriously appointed bedchamber. The body of Kathea lay sprawled on the bed. Her eyes were open. A dagger was buried in her breast. A tall figure, garbed all in black stood over here. A hood covered his head, when he turned a scarf obscured the lower half of his face, but Rik still knew him.
“Malkior,” he said. The tall figure made a courtly bow.
“If it isn’t my illegitimate offspring. I must say I am surprised and gladdened to see you. I had expected you to be food for the Exarch by now. You must tell me how you escaped it.”
Rik stared at Kathea’s body. He remembered her alive and well. He had rescued her from the Serpent Tower only for her to die here in her own chambers. A terrible rage sparked within him. “I killed the Quan, just like I am going to kill you.”
He raised the pistol.
“A simple plan, like all the best ones, but I was rather hoping for something more specific.”
“We had our little chat. That was enough for one lifetime.”
“Be sensible, boy. You can’t beat me. I have been doing this for more than a thousand years.”
“It’s time somebody did something about that.”
“And you have elected yourself. How noble.” Even with his sorcerously enhanced senses Rik barely saw Malkior move. His form seemed to elongate and suddenly he was standing in front of Rik. A slash of his black-gloved hand knocked the pistol from Rik’s grip.
“I told you, boy, you can’t beat me. Azaar himself when he was whole would have struggled to do that, and you are not him.”
Rik drew on the power within him, and increased the intensity of his own spells. He sprang away from Malkior, towards where the pistol had fallen. His body throbbed with power. He was aware of everything. The smell of urine and faeces from the corpse. The faint drops of blood congealing on Kathea’s breast. The approaching footsteps of the soldier running down the corridor.
“A nice trick. I see Asea really has been teaching you. And so much power too. You did not possess that when last we met - or have you the trick of hiding it?”
Rik drew his blade and lunged, hoping to take Malkior off-guard. His speed was like that of a tiger, yet the black clad figure eluded him easily. There was a cracking sound as another blow sent his knife spinning. Pain surged through Rik’s hand. His wrist was bent at an odd angle. Broken, he realised, even as he invoked the spell to control his agony.
“You know,” said Malkior conversationally, “I am really glad you are here. It’s almost as if there is a God and he is smiling on me.”
Rik backed away, holding his wrist. It was his right one. His concealed pistol was still there and he fumbled to get it free. “Why do you say that?”
“Asea is up in the graveyard. She was seen going there with a group of soldiers. By morning a plague of zombies will emerge from the place and descend upon the cities. The Light alone knows what prodigies of wicked necromancy she has been up to.”
“You planned that?”
“It’s nice to see you appreciate my cleverness. A few clues here, some documents there. I knew Asea would work out what was going on and rush to interrupt that idiot Jaderac’s ritual.”
“You planted those clues in the lab.”
“Indeed I did. With a little help from my doting daughter. All I really wanted was to get Asea out of the way while I went ahead with my business. With any luck she’ll kill that dolt Jaderac or he will kill her. Jaderac will either complete his ritual, or I will later on the ground he has prepared. In any case, Asea will be blamed, and your presence here is simply icing on a very rich cake.”
The sentry came puffing and wheezing through the door. There was another blur and Malkior was beside him. He broke the guard’s neck with one blow. Rik sprang for him, but a sledgehammer fist caught him in the side and sent him spinning to lie sprawling on the bed beside Kathea’s corpse. Her dead gaze was locked at the ceiling. Stars danced before
Rik’s eyes. He pulled himself painfully upright. Agony surged through his side, ripping through the anaesthetic spells. Broken ribs, he thought, wondering if they had punctured a lung. If that was the case, he was a dead man. He almost laughed; it looked like he was a dead man anyway. Malkior moved closer.
“In what way?” Rik asked. His voice sounded faint even to his own ears. Everything went black for a moment.
“Try and think for yourself, boy. You’ve already proven you have a brain.”
Rik groaned.
“Very well, I shall explain it to. You are Asea’s lover. Here you are in the bedchambers of the dead Queen. With a little stage management on my part, some rearranging of corpses, very soon it shall look as if you were interrupted in your nefarious act by some brave guards. There was a brutal struggle that unfortunately ended in them being killed even as they killed you.”
“Nobody will believe that.”
“People believe what they want to believe, and the story will suit enough of the Kharadrean nobility for it to become history. Take my word for it. I have seen all this before, when the unfortunate Queen Amarielle was assassinated.”
Rik tried to sit up right, to look death in the face as it came for him. The gibbering of the voices reached a crescendo. We are going to die, they screamed. We are going to die.
“Time to end this,” said Malkior.
Weasel pulled the trigger. Smoke erupted from the muzzle of the rifle. There were sparks and eddy currents as the truesilver bullet crashed through the mystical circle, breaking it. A look of surprise passed across Jaderac’s face as the shot smashed into his body. It took him in the shoulder. Sardec supposed that the energy of the circle must have deflected it somewhat, spoiling Weasel’s aim.
Asea raised her lightning wand. The Foragers aimed their rifles. The undead began to move.
Jaderac cursed. A truesilver bullet. Such a simple thing, and he had left it out of his calculations. Who would have expected ordinary soldiers to use them? Now the thing was lodged in his shoulder, interfering with his concentration. As he tried top focus the energy of the spell, the eddies from its presence in his body caused the bullet to heat agonisingly. Its mere presence disrupted his healing spells. His army started to slip out of his control.
Worse than that, the circle was broken. The hungry corpses surged over its edge. The dead sought warm flesh and blood. The cultists panicked as the ravenous monsters tore at them. Jaderac could see Asea and her followers smash their way through the walking dead towards him. With a supreme effort, he drew his blade. All around him was chaos. He staggered towards Asea determined to make the kill.
More shots rang out. He heard screams and shouts as battle was joined between the soldiers of the Queen and his army of the dead.
Malkior touched Rik’s face with one cold hand. “It’s a pity I don’t have my equipment,” he said. “This would be so much more nourishing. Still, beggars can’t be choosers.”
Chill, cold as the grave, spread from his touch. Malkior smiled. “Interesting,” he said. “You absorbed the Quan and its memories. I wish I had more time to savour this.”
Rik felt the same draining sensation he had felt from the Quan, but this time the will behind it was much stronger, and he knew he had no chance of resisting it. Instead he let the pistol drop into his hand, pressed it against Malkior’s gut and pulled the trigger.
The Sardean reeled backwards, breaking the contact. Blood pumped from his wound. “You tried that before,” he said. “It didn’t help you then. It won’t help you now.”
With a supreme effort of will, Rik forced himself upright. Malkior grinned at him. The shadows gathered around him. His eyes glowed green. His powerful healing spell started to close the wound, and then Malkior screamed.
A red glow appeared in his belly, and other parts of abdomen. “What have you done? It burns.” he gasped. Rik lurched over and picked up his other pistol.
“Truesilver bullet,” he muttered. “I filed it so that it would break up on impact. Bits of it are all through your stomach. Healing magic will just heat it.”
Malkior had not heard him. In pain and panic he was making a fatal mistake. Rik sensed him pouring more and more energy into his spells, heating the truesilver more. A little liquid metal bubbled from his wound. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air. Darkness slashed across Rik’s vision. He forced himself to stagger forward. He was not going to black out now. He placed his pistol against Malkior’s temple and with the last of his failing strength pulled the trigger.
There was a loud bang, and the acrid smell of gunpowder filled his nostrils.
Sardec ordered the Foragers to stand firm. There were too many of the walking dead, and the fight was too close. Asea’s lightning lash licked out. Brightness blazed across his field of vision, illuminating a scene from some demented vision of hell.
The walking dead swarmed everywhere. Some squatted over the bodies of the newly dead, ripping at their entrails, cramming them into their mouths. Others fought hand to hand with bayonet-armed soldiers. Weasel smashed one with the butt of his rifle, splintering its skull. The Barbarian dodged and weaved among the tombstones, slashing with both his fighting knives, lopping off limbs, and hacking great cuts out of the side of any foe that came close. It did not help. The loss of limbs did not slow his enemies down. They kept coming. You could not kill that which was already dead.
Even as he watched, Jaderac emerged from the melee and aimed a blow at Asea. The sorceress parried it, and struck back with her own blade. Karim danced around her, trying to keep the animated dead at bay and get between his mistress and the enraged magician. Asea and Jaderac traded more blows. She was faster and seemed stronger. Her armour rippled with a life of its own, augmenting her strength and speed. Before Karim could get into position, she had severed Jaderac’s head. As the necromancer fell, his horde let out a strange wordless scream. Some stumbled and fell, some began to attack anything within reach including their fellow creatures. Without a guiding will, they seemed near mindless, consumed with an insane aggression.
Sardec fought his way over to Asea’s side. Karim almost struck him before he realised who it was. The Southerner’s blade stopped a finger’s breadth from Sardec’s throat.
“Can’t you do something about this?” he asked the sorceress.
“We have interrupted the ritual. The spell is incomplete. The magical energies should disperse.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know. Hours, maybe days.”
“Is there nothing we can do?”
“Try to stay alive, until then.”
“That might be easier said than done.”
Sardec looked around. His troops were holding their own for the moment, but it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. “Order the retreat,” Sardec bellowed. “Fall back. Rally to the flag.”
Word rippled along the fighting line, and the soldiers began to disengage, leaving the mindless army of undead horrors to rip itself apart and feast on its own entrails.
The dawn was a long time coming.
Epilog
Rik looked out the Palace window and watched the city burn. It was the third night since the Queen’s assassination, and followed the third day of rioting. There had been no coronation. The city had exploded in violence as rumour after rumour swept through the streets. Demagogues had raised patriotic crowds against the foreign invaders. Loyalists had taken up arms against them. The Talorean army had taken more casualties trying to keep the peace than they had done taking the city. Three times already a mob had stormed the Palace only to be sent flying by a hail of Talorean bullets.
Rik turned and limped over to the fire. Despite healing sorcery, his injuries still pained him. Asea’s chambers looked orderly and still, a stark contrast to the chaos outside. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” he said. The sorceress poked the fire and then nodded.
“Yes. It’s a mess. We’re stuck in a city that had turned against us, and we have
no friendly Queen on the throne.”
“Malkior was the one responsible for that,” said Rik defensively.
“Try telling that to the mob that wants to lynch you, Rik. A lot of people blame you. You were found with the body. You’re lucky the household guard did not hang you. They would have, if their commander had not wanted to make the hanging public and get all the credit for capturing the Queen’s assassin.”
It had been an unpleasant time. No one had believed his version of events. No one accepted that it was Lord Malkior who had done the deed. It had been a night of fear and confusion, with troops on the march and stories of arcane rituals being performed in the Grand Cemetery. Somehow word had gotten around that Asea was responsible. Rik had heard his captors talking about it as they took him to his cell.
Amid the confusion local regiments had seized the Palace, and declared for Prince Khaldarus. It was almost as if the whole thing had been planned, thought Rik cynically, knowing that it had. It had taken Azaar a day of hard-fighting to re-take the Palace.
“Why won’t people accept the truth?” Rik asked.
“Because they don’t know it is the truth, Rik. All they hear are the stories, and they must try and sift the truth from that. You were there, your face was known, you are a half-breed and an outsider. You made a good culprit. Why would they believe it was Lord Malkior? Everybody knows he is a hundred leagues away in Harven or three hundred leagues away in Sardea.”
“There was a body.”
“And only your word for who it was. No one could recognise it after the mess you made of his head.”
“What did you do with the corpse?”
“I cut it into five parts and buried it in five separate places in lead-lined coffins.”
“I don’t think you were being excessive.”