The Conquerors Shadow

  “Aye,” the chestnut-bearded soldier said, wiping tears from his eyes with the back of a filthy hand, “that’s the right of it.” He allowed himself another chuckle. “The problem, m’lady, is the nature of these rumors.”

  “Some of the men,” Ellowaine interrupted, “are starting to wonder about the money. Revenge is all well and good, but it doesn’t fill the purse or the belly.”

  Seilloah nodded, praying silently that these people never learned the truth about the slights they planned to avenge. “As I’ve said, our commander ought to be arriving anytime now. Once he’s here, the money can be dealt with.”

  “Dealt with?” Ellowaine parroted, her eyes ablaze. “We were promised gold! In advance!”

  Teagan nodded sadly. “You see how it is. And I fear most o’ the boys share Ellowaine’s feelings on the matter. You’ve been promisin’ us that this commander o’ yours ought to arrive ‘shortly’ for well nigh a week. We’re gettin’ tired o’ hearin’, m’lady. We’d like to move on ahead to the seein’ and the spendin’.”

  “There’s been some talk,” the large one-handed warrior interjected, “of leaving. Not all the men, or even most of them, but a few here and there. That sort of feeling spreads. Not to mention that we’ve eaten this town almost barren. We’ll have to start purchasing outside supplies soon.”

  “He’ll be here,” Seilloah said simply.

  “Aye, he’ll be,” Teagan said, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “But whether we’ll be here when he arrives is the real question.”

  “There is another matter,” Losalis interrupted quickly, heading off the brewing argument.

  The witch glared at the thick beard across the table for a moment longer, and then turned her attention to the larger man. “Very well, Losalis. What might that be?”

  “Well, my lady, it seems a few of the men have, well, disappeared.”

  Ellowaine snorted contemptuously. “Can’t even keep track of your own boys, Losalis?”

  Seilloah, however, leaned forward, suddenly intent. “Disappeared?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Not many, but enough that a few of us have noticed.”

  “Us? Then it’s not just your company.”

  He shook his head sharply. “Not at all. Two from my company, that I know of at least.”

  “How many?” Ellowaine asked, her tone softer.

  “Near as we can tell, about twenty over the last three days.”

  Davro stood, looming darkly over Seilloah’s left shoulder. “And we’re sure they haven’t just passed out drunk in a corner somewhere?” he asked them.

  “We’re sure,” Teagan insisted. His expression grew thoughtful, absently scratching at his thick beard. “I’ve found a few o’ my own boys missin’ as well—one o’ them my own lieutenant, third in command. I know better’n to put a drunkard in charge o’ me people. I can assure you, if he’s missin’, you can look to find some cause other than a few drops o’ the bitter.”

  The ogre appeared ready to comment further, but Seilloah stood so abruptly her chair toppled to the ground behind her with a resounding thump. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” she told the three mercenaries. “I assure you, we’ll look into it.”

  All three looked startled at the abrupt dismissal, and Ellowaine and Teagan both appeared to be on the verge of saying something impolite. Losalis, however, had seen the witch’s eyes flicker toward the door and briefly grow wide as eggs. He nodded once and left the table. His two companions, bereft of his support and wondering what he knew that they didn’t, tossed a pair of nasty looks at Seilloah before following their dark-skinned friend.

  Davro blinked twice. “Seilloah, what—”

  “Look!” she hissed, pointing briefly at the man working his way toward them through the packed and bustling crowd.

  The ogre looked, his brow furrowed. It was a tall human, dressed in traveling leathers. His hair was long and grey, his face mostly hidden by an unkempt beard …

  His jaw dropped as he finally saw past the impediment of the man’s facial hair. Sadly, he shook his head. “As if the man wasn’t ugly enough before now.”

  “Davro, hush.” She waited pensively as the man approached, until he’d neared the table. “Cor—”

  A gesture silenced her in midword. “Not here,” he grumbled, his voice not entirely recovered from the arctic temperatures. “Private room.”

  She nodded once, debated whether to brave the crowd herself, and then said to Davro, “Tell the innkeeper we need one of his rooms.”

  “Why don’t you tell him? The man’s scared of me.”

  “Rabid dogs are scared of you, Davro. Go tell him.”

  The ogre frowned sullenly and then bulled his way across the tavern, shoving people and furniture out of his path with equal facility. Though there was a substantial amount of muttering and griping behind his back—from the people, primarily, not the furniture, though one particular table seemed surly about the whole experience—no one had the brass to say anything to his face.

  No rooms were available, of course, as they all currently hosted at least four soldiers each, but the terrified innkeeper was only too happy to provide them one of his storerooms for “as long as Your Lordships require its use.” He even begged off when Davro offered a smattering of coins for his trouble, insisting that he was only too pleased to serve, enjoy the room, and you really ought to be certain that it meets your needs so won’t you please go way over there and inspect it right now.

  “I see the fellow wasn’t in the mood to chat,” Corvis said sardonically when the ogre returned.

  “He seems a bit nervous around me for some reason,” Davro told him.

  “Really? But you’re such a puppy.”

  Davro scowled at him. “You know, I enjoyed our conversation yesterday a lot more than I do this one.”

  “I wasn’t here yest … oh. Funny.”

  It wasn’t much of a room. A damp, musty chamber filled with old barrels and crates, it appeared to suffer from a profound quantity of neglect. It did, at least, possess a few rickety chairs and a writing desk, granting Corvis and Seilloah someplace to sit. Davro gingerly poked and prodded at the crates and barrels until he found one that probably wouldn’t buckle under his weight.

  “So,” Corvis began, “I see you’ve managed pretty well, given that you lacked the first notion how to go about finding mercenaries. How’d you do it?”

  “No,” Seilloah said with a resolute shake of her head. “You first, Corvis.” She glanced meaningfully at the dull red pendant about his neck. “I see you found your tame demon all right.”

  /What? That’s truly insulting!/

  “Well, aren’t you?” Corvis asked him; Seilloah, who could hear only half of the conversation, raised an eyebrow questioningly.

  /I should think not! Tame demon, indeed! I’m imprisoned. That’s not the same thing as being housebroken and taught to roll over and play dead. You tell her to apologize!/

  “Do you mean you’re not housebroken?”

  /Corvis …/

  “What’s he saying?” Seilloah asked.

  “Just how absolutely thrilled he is to bask in your radiant beauty after so many years, Seilloah.”

  /Oooh, but you’re pushing it./

  Corvis leaned back, ignoring the protesting creaks beneath him, and emotionlessly gave them a succinct—and somewhat abbreviated—account of his experiences in the Terrakas Mountains.

  /But Corvis,/ Khanda told him in a false whine, /you’re leaving out the best part./

  “Shut up, Khanda.”

  /Every story is better with children, Corvis. Everybody loves children./

  “Shut up, Khanda!”

  /You’re so squeamish./

  “Anyway,” Corvis concluded, “I’m—we’re—here now. And that means it’s your turn, Seilloah. How’d you manage all this?” He gestured in the direction of the door. “There’s got to be several thousand men out there.”

  She smiled benignly, then, as did Davro
, and Corvis grew nervous. “I’m not going to like this, am I?” he asked.

  “It’s your fault, sweetie,” she told him. “When you ask the impossible, you have to assume some unorthodoxy in your results.”

  “What did you do?” It was almost a whimper.

  “Well, it wasn’t too difficult to find some of the larger companies and mercenary Guilds, after all. They have to make their presence known, if they want any business. Once we found them, Davro got a few of his tribesmen—tribes-ogres, I suppose—and we killed a few of them.”

  “You what?”

  “It got their attention. We didn’t leave any witnesses, and we planted a few ranting and rambling messages about this being the penalty for not joining up with the Serpent when he offered them the chance. Got them pretty riled up.”

  Corvis groaned.

  “Once they’d stirred for a while, Davro and I approached them and told them we represented someone planning to move against Audriss. They were practically climbing over each other to sign up.”

  “For free?” Corvis asked incredulously.

  “Of course not. You’ll owe them a substantial amount of money.”

  Corvis sighed. “Well, I suppose Audriss has to have a pretty hefty treasury behind him. I’ll just pay them from his own stores if we win.”

  Seilloah coughed delicately. “There’s an advance involved. And they want to see all the money beforehand.”

  “An advance?” Corvis asked plaintively. “How much did you promise them?”

  “The numbers were a little vague on that score. Enough to whet their appetite for the rest of it, certainly.”

  “And where the hell am I going to get the gold, Seilloah?”

  “Why don’t you just make it appear?” Davro asked from the corner. “You’ve got your magic thingamabob now.”

  /I am not a thingamabob./

  “Save it.” Corvis glared at the ogre. “Davro, why do you think I was looting the cities we passed through on my last campaign? For fun?”

  “Well, it was fun …”

  “I was funding my army, you numbskull! I do not have the power to pull gold out of the air, and I can’t transform enough of anything else into gold to be worthwhile.”

  “In that case,” Seilloah said blandly, “it appears that you’ve got a problem.”

  Corvis cursed vilely for several minutes. Davro’s eye grew wide with shock, and Seilloah blanched.

  “Wow,” the witch said when Corvis finally wound to a halt. “Can you even do that with a chicken?”

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” the warlord said abruptly, glancing up from the floor he’d stared at while pacing and ranting. “Khanda and I can turn enough of this junk into gold to make up a portion of an advance; I’ll pay the remaining advance from my own pocket.”

  “And the rest?” she asked him. “What do you plan to show them?”

  He told her. Seilloah and Davro added a few improvements, and Seilloah strenuously suggested, among other things, that Corvis sit down for a quick discussion with a razor.

  “I don’t know,” Corvis said slowly. “I’m starting to like the beard.”

  “That skull helmet’s going to look pretty goofy if it coughs up a hair-ball every time you open your mouth.”

  “Okay, you may have a point. Give me about half an hour to clean up and change, and we’ll begin.”

  CORVIS DECIDED to make his appearance from outside. Enshrouded in a cloak of shadows, he crept, all but invisible, from the spare storeroom and snuck from the Prurient Pixie through the back door. Only when he’d circled back to the front did he allow the spell to fade. A single mercenary, leaning up against the doorjamb as he downed his umpteenth flagon of ale, choked as that towering horror stepped from the darkness before his eyes.

  Sparing the gasping, gaping soldier not so much as a second glance, Corvis lifted a black-gauntleted hand and shoved the door as hard as he could.

  The noise was even worse than before. The iron-banded helm captured the ambient sound, bouncing it back and forth like the inside of a church bell. As if to make up for the excess noise, however, the helm did a passable job of filtering out the worst of the scents. The stale beer, unwashed bodies, and old vomit that were overwhelming before were merely nauseating now.

  /Here’s a novel idea. Why don’t you keep your mind—or what passes for it—on what you’re doing?/

  “Why don’t you do something about that noise, so I can hear myself think?” he whispered back.

  /I don’t think that’ll be an issue./

  Starting nearest the door and rippling through the room, a wave of stunned silence settled over the clientele of the Prurient Pixie. Eyes made bleary with drink suddenly went clear and sober, and the features surrounding those eyes twisted themselves into a variety of emotions, most of which bore at least some relation to fear.

  Corvis crossed his arms over his chest and simply stood, waiting for the last lingering pockets of conversation to flicker and die, waiting for the oblivious few in the corners to notice him.

  His eyes fell upon the lengthy brass mirror that hung behind the bar. He had lingering doubts as to the true impact of his armor—he couldn’t quite shake the nagging suspicion that anyone who took two minutes to contemplate it would find the whole thing silly—but he admitted it was certainly imposing.

  Over dozens of reflected heads, the iron-wrapped skull gaped back at him, its empty sockets as soulless as he remembered. The blackened steel and plates of bone were newly polished. A brand-new cloak of royal purple hung from the spines atop his shoulders, and Khanda dangled beneath his breastplate on a deceptively delicate chain. At his side hung Sunder, fully revealed for all to see; the array of figures and engravings on the blade capered madly beneath the gaze of Corvis’s stunned audience.

  /You can’t tell me that a part of you hasn’t missed this,/ Khanda taunted him.

  And for once, Corvis knew that his infernal companion spoke nothing but the absolute truth.

  “I think they’ve waited long enough,” he whispered, ignoring the comment. “You know what to do.”

  /Of course./

  Purposefully, inexorably, Corvis began a long, slow stride across the room. Mercenaries scrambled madly to clear the path of the nightmarish juggernaut that had just stepped from the pages of history through the door of their tavern. Khanda swept the room with undetectable waves of power as they passed. The effects of the alcohol the men had consumed were washed completely away; Corvis wanted no doubts lingering after his arrival, and he needed these men stone-cold sober to bear witness.

  Only when he’d reached the oak bar did he come to a halt, pivoting smoothly to face the sea of humanity he’d just parted. The skull turned casually, majestically, to survey the common room. Dozens of eyes gazed back at him, filled with fear—but also growing more and more expectant as the seconds staggered by, long-fettered ghosts dragging chains of heavy silence behind them.

  “Are any of you here,” the Terror of the East demanded, his deep voice resonating from the farthest wall, “uncertain as to who I am?”

  No one spoke.

  “Good. That saves time. You have suffered recently at the hands of that sniveling creature Audriss.”

  A low mutter swept the crowd, and a number of expressions grew angry. “The Serpent, he calls himself.” Corvis allowed just a trace of scorn to insinuate itself into his cold and emotionless voice. “Hah! The Worm, I call him!”

  The muttering of the assembly grew louder, darker, and a few muffled shouts of agreement drifted to the front of the room.

  The warlord nodded at the crowd. “Revenge is pleasant.” He paused deliberately. “Gold is better.” Another pause. “I offer both!” he shouted, his hands raised high. “You know who I am! You know what I have done, what I am capable of doing! And you have now before you the chance to be a part of what I will do. You men, and others like you, will be the soldiers of a new order. My order!”

  It wasn’t just a few of the braver m
en in the tavern now. The entire crowd cheered his every statement, the fear they felt for this living legend before them having been blown away by a more pressing sense of greed.

  “I offer power!”

  The cheering grew louder still. Corvis shouted at the top of his lungs to overcome it.

  “I offer gold!”

  The roar was deafening. Men shouted, boots stamped, mugs and flagons and fists beat upon tables with the rumble of a growing storm.

  “I offer the head of Audriss the Serpent!”

  The tavern shook with the groundswell of sound. Corvis would scarcely have been surprised to see dust drifting from the rafters, or bottles falling from the shelves.

  Smiling beneath his inhuman helm, he again waited, allowing the warriors’ enthusiasm to wind down. Then, just as the volume began to fade, he raised a single black-and-bone hand. The room fell into an expectant hush.

  Imperiously, the warlord gestured at the storeroom in which he, Seilloah, and Davro had set up shop. “I will meet with the company commanders in there,” he declared, his voice booming. “They will line up outside that door, and I will see them one at a time. We will plan …” Here, once again, he allowed himself a notable pause. “… and perhaps we will see about distributing a bit of the promised gold!”

  He spun, cape swirling dynamically about his ankles, and swept regally through the crowd that had once more burst into shouts and cheers. By the time he reached the converted storeroom, a line of company commanders was already forming.

  “Abide another moment,” Corvis said as he passed the first man in line, a broad-shouldered warrior with a thick beard, a braid, and a saffron tunic. “I will summon you shortly.”

  “Whatever you wish, m’lord,” he said respectfully.

  Corvis stepped into the other room, slinging the door shut behind him.

  “Well,” Seilloah said, “that was loud.”

  His boot heels ringing on the floor, Corvis swung around the desk and collapsed into the chair. He removed his helm, grabbed a nearby rag, and dabbed at the excess moisture plastering his hair firmly to his cheeks and temples. He was clean-shaven now, and his locks had been shorn off at the chin. “This damn thing,” he complained bitterly, “is astoundingly hot.”