The War Born, page 16
Swech had vanished. That thought bothered her a great deal. Swech had killed her predecessor and had told Nachia with complete candor that she would murder anyone the gods told her to kill. She had heard from Merros on several occasions how very good the woman was at slaughter; how she, along with only nine other Sa’ba Taalor, had killed over a thousand people in one night, a task she never wanted to see repeated. He once feared that Swech would be hurt in one of the worst parts of Tyrne before the Summer City was destroyed. By the time he reached her, determined to warn her or protect her, she had killed half a dozen men without so much as breathing harder. Simply put, the woman was a terror. With or without a weapon in her hands, Swech was deadly enough to warrant her being worried.
Who knew what her gods would say to her? Nachia knew she was safe on her throne from almost any attack, but she had no intention of sitting on her throne for the rest of her life. The damned thing was uncomfortable, and enchanted to remain that way. If she could have, she’d have summoned the Silent Army to protect her.
That was another concern, and one she tried not to think about. Her maid and secretary, Gissamoen, stood nearby as she always did, ready to do as requested at a moment’s notice. The woman annoyed her constantly, seldom had much to say and tutted and fretted about as if every move Nachia made was derelict of finesse. To be fair, she was probably quite accurate in that silent assessment, as Nachia had never cared about appearance so much as she did substance. Nonetheless, she would have been lost without her.
She looked to her secretary and said softly, “Make certain the palace guards are notified of the king’s disappearance.”
“Already done, Majesty.”
Nachia nodded. “Find Desh Krohan and have him come to me. My First Advisor has been occupied with other things lately, and that has to come to a stop.”
“Yes, Majesty.” There. Right there. That tone was the one that made Nachia want to grit her teeth. As if criticizing the man she looked to for advice was the very height of political error Perhaps it was, but she was the Empress and would do as she pleased.
“I’m hardly speaking to the court, Gissamoen.”
“I’m only a servant, Majesty. I should not hear criticisms of your finest aides.”
“You’re nearly the only person I can speak to.”
“Granted, but why do you trust me?”
“Because if you betray my trust, I’ll have you executed, or locked in irons, or flayed alive as an example to others.”
“Fair enough, Majesty.” She sniffed and moved away as quietly as she could, a skill she had long since perfected as surely as the assassins of the Sa’ba Taalor.
Nachia closed her eyes and said a silent prayer to the gods of Fellein.
To her surprise, they responded.
CHAPTER NINE
Jeron
The winds howled outside of the wall of the caves and the Godless slept in their death-like slumbers, moving the War-Born to new places and preparing for the next strike against Fellein and the Sa’ba Taalor. Mostly against Fellein. The creatures they commanded were adept hunters, but against the followers of the war gods they were not quite as useful. To that end the Overlords were planning to handle the gods by themselves, striking against the Daxar Taalor as they had already struck at Paedle.
The Overlords were powerful. They were very nearly gods themselves, as evidenced by the fact that they had wounded one of the Daxar Taalor and left Paedle nearly crippled. The gods of war relied too much on their human servants, it seemed, and not enough on their own abilities. Not that Jeron could judge too harshly; if not for the Godless, he would have little control over the War-Born. He had been given great deals of power by his new masters, but when it came to fighting another mage, he had fallen short of his goals and nearly been killed.
For the first time in as long as he could remember Jeron was truly afraid. His failures could well lead to his dismissal by the Overlords, and that likely would mean his true death. It was time to prove himself to his new gods before they decided he was easy to replace. Jeron was powerful, yes, but even with Corin dead, there were others who could come close, especially were the Overlords to offer them the same sort of power they had given him.
“No.” He spoke only to hear a voice in the cold, bitter caves. “Not the Overlords. Necromancy.” And it was true. He was powerful now because he broke the rules of his kind. Perhaps that was what he should have understood from the conflict with Corin. The other sorcerer had either saved up a vast reserve of power over the centuries, holding it for if he ever needed it in combat, or he had found a different source of power, much as Jeron had.
All of the physical changes that had taken place within Jeron had been erased when he possessed poor Roledru. There was no choice. It was die or move his spirit to another body and Roledru was the man he’d prepared for any such emergency. Still, his perceptions were once again human, and his body was sadly weakened. His power? That came from the lifeforces he stole, not from the Overlords. That didn’t mean they weren’t with him. They had quite literally crushed his enemy in combat.
Still, best to consider where he would get his power from when he needed it.
Not far away one of the Godless moved and sighed in his sleep. Jeron turned to look at the shape, uncertain if the woman were waking and would offer a report. No. Silence greeted him.
He frowned and looked to the shape on its stone and moss bed and moved closer. Something was wrong, though he couldn’t have said exactly what. She was still. She…
Wasn’t breathing. Her chest did not rise and fall. The delicate pulse he should have seen on her scarred neck did not show itself. Her mouths hung slightly open, and her eyes stared at the ceiling but saw absolutely nothing from fixed pupils.
Jeron stepped back, his eyes flying wide, and looked at the next of his servants. Vendtril, called Unbroken by his peers, was just as dead as the woman, just as useless.
“Trigan Garth! Trigan! We are attacked!” Jeron’s voice broke as he called out to his general. Trigan stayed in the same position, but his head rolled to the side and Jeron saw the deep slash that opened the man’s neck. Thick blood spilled from the wound, but it spilled slowly, and it steamed lightly in the dank air. He smelled – or imagined he smelled – the man’s blood from where he stood, and his heart hammered in his chest.
He’d have bet many a coin on Trigan Garth being impossible to kill… and yet the man was dead. Murdered!
Jeron backed away and his hands clutched at his chest as he considered the possibilities. What, or who, could kill three of the Sa’ba Taalor and not be seen?
The next body in line did not move either. His Godless all seemed to be dead, or dying at the very least. Jeron stepped back and drew his hood over his head, desperate for his sorceries to protect him against possible harm. The robes served him well as they always had, but they did not cover every inch of him, and any exposed flesh was potentially a vulnerable spot.
“Wake up, you fools! Wake up! We are attacked!”
None of the Godless stirred. His generals, the leaders of his vast army of the War-Born, were all dead.
Impossible!
Jeron wept as he retreated from the bodies laid out around him. His first line of defense was gone. The Godless were all dead, and they’d stolen away his hopes in the process of letting themselves be killed.
Swech
She did not hurry. Instead Swech used her skills to move through the shadows and carefully kill each of the traitors who slept before her.
When Paedle rose from his struggles with the Overlords he called to her, and she responded. Her god told her to rise from her bed and leave the palace and so she had. She rejoiced when she heard him speak, for she’d feared that somehow one of the great gods of her people had been slaughtered. She’d felt every blow delivered upon him, had collapsed into her own pain as a result, for her connection to Paedle was greater than any connection she had to any of the other gods. She was close to most of the gods, certainly to Wrommish and Durhallem, but she was Paedle’s King and that was more than an honor. They were bonded.
Paedle did not have time for pleasantries. He told her what he wanted and where to go and so she stepped into the Blasted Lands as soon as she reached them, and was lifted by her god and transported to a desolate area where the Godless and their vile master waited.
The Godless died first, for that was Paedle’s command. They had abandoned the gods, and the Daxar Taalor were not kind to their wayward children.
The wretches had hoped that their location was enough, apparently, but Paedle, as all of the gods, saw with more than mortal eyes, and found the fallen where they tried to hide themselves. After that it was a matter of patience and a blade or two.
And the right poison.
Their deaths were not a kindness. Mound crawler venom and the crushed seeds of dorah berries guaranteed that the death she offered each of the Godless was painful and lingering, as the gods demanded. They were paralyzed. They could not stir, they could not scream, but their wounds felt as if they were being eaten from the inside, and the agonies they felt were amplified hundreds of times over before they died.
Death took seconds, but felt like decades. It was enough to please Paedle.
Swech watched the sorcerer discover the bodies and kept her place in the shadows. His voice broke as he called out for Trigan Garth, a man she had met several times in her life. He had been a faithful follower of the gods at one time, and now he was dead by her hand.
Paedle was pleased. It was enough.
She had never fought a wizard and was uncertain how to proceed, but it was what Paedle wanted. His rage was a line of fire drawn across her soul. It burned brightly and directed her towards his desires.
The man-made demands of his dead followers. They did not respond.
Four darts slipped into Swech’s hand.
Her target retreated from her, though she didn’t think she’d been spotted. He sought to protect himself from any attacks, perhaps, or to hide himself in the shadows.
Swech moved closer and stepped into the light of the closest torch.
“Who are you?” His voice cracked and the hood shifted as he tried to see her better. Swech answered with a dart that flew effortlessly from her fingertips, and was rewarded with a hiss of pain as it struck flesh.
“I am King Swech Tothis Durwrae of the Sa’ba Taalor.” She spoke softly and prepared herself. He would retaliate soon, and she could not be caught unawares if she wanted to survive.
“You are dead.” Strong hands came from within the robes of the sorcerer, gesturing, catching the air as if to force it to move in certain directions. She could see the air around those fingers begin to blur.
Two more darts slid from her grasp and moved through the air in seemingly effortless arcs. One sank into the web between the thumb and index finger in his left hand, and the other stuck in the skin between the knuckles of his right index finger and the next finger over.
Swech moved as she felt the power around the man come into focus. She dropped low and pushed herself backward, rolling across the floor as quickly as she could.
The air where she had been standing burned, and Swech threw the last of her darts toward the sorcerer’s hood opening but saw it slide off as if bouncing against a steel plate.
None of the wounds she had given him were large, or the sort that could kill a man. It was the poison that mattered. The toxins had to get past skin and into blood to work.
Swech backed away carefully, her eyes never leaving the shape of the man before her. “Your eyes give you away. I can see where you stand, even in the darkness.” He spoke softly, but there was an edge of triumph in his voice.
Swech offered a prayer to Paedle as the wizard gestured again, this time hitting her with the power at his command.
Tendrils of fire swept from his fingers, burning away the darts stuck in his flesh and sweeping toward her. She was not fast enough, and flames caught her cloak and her clothing, burning hotter than natural flame, it seemed.
Swech pulled her clothes away as she retreated, not allowing herself to cry out as the fire scorched her skin. Flesh blistered, but the worst of the attack was delivered to her clothing instead of to her. The cloak fell away, her vest dropped to the ground and the heavy fabric over her arms burned. It took her mere seconds to get out of the clothes and lose herself in the darkness of the cave again.
“There’s no escape.” The voice of the sorcerer sounded more confident.
“You are right.” Swech moved quickly after speaking, keeping to the shadows, and the wizard tried to kill her again. The wall behind where she had stood moments earlier cracked as a peal of thunder escaped the man and shattered stone.
And then there was silence. Not the silence brought by the powerful noise, but the silence of inactivity.
The silence of the grave.
The wizard fell to the floor of the cavern and let out a slow, weak sigh.
The poison was taking effect.
Swech stayed where she was for several minutes, listening and watching. She had no idea what the limits of sorcerers might be, and she had no desire to die. She was not afraid of death, but neither did she seek it out as she had seen others do in her lifetime.
Darsken Murdro
“We are followed once more.”
Daivem kept her voice cheerful and conversational, as befitted a pleasant discussion between two close relatives while they walked through a busy marketplace. The shops and stalls around them were well populated by crowds and, though most people might have worried about pickpockets and cutpurses, the two Inquisitors were not concerned. Very nearly everyone was far too afraid of catching their attention to ever consider trying to steal from them.
There were advantages to being thought of as monsters.
“Yes. I have seen him. He lacks subtlety.”
“He is hard to miss once you’ve seen him.”
“Does he not know how badly he’s disfigured?” Darsken spoke with the same cheer as his sister, safe in the knowledge that the man with the ruined face did not speak their native tongue.
“I truly do not think he does.” The face of the man who followed them was a mass of scars, nearly skeletal with the remains of skin and muscle, yet he walked along as if he could not see the people who recoiled from him in horror. He was young and wiry, straggly blond hair, a strut of a fellow who knew he was attractive to the ladies. He was almost familiar in his gait, but the face was a horror.
“He is mad, I think.”
“Or the victim of sorcery, perhaps. I have heard tales of such things,” Daivem shook her head sadly.
“We could capture him, I suppose.”
“If his plan is to attack us, then we defend ourselves. If he wants to steal a purse, then we keep our coin and give him to the City-Guard.”
“If he is mad?”
“Then the madness is beyond my abilities to treat and there are too many other issues I must deal with, including finding this Jeron before he kills again.” Darsken sighed and shook his head. “Either way, I will go down the alley to our left, and see if he follows you or if he follows me.”
Without another word the Inquisitor broke away, and found he was happy when the small man followed him. Better that someone try to kill him than his sister. They were both Inquisitors. They were always at risk of being targets, but he was not at all surprised that Jeron might find a cutthroat to end his prying ways, and the notion that Daivem was as safe as could be from a malignant stalker was a comfort. He would not insult her by thinking her untrained in defending herself, but he would also not stop being a protective older brother.
He plodded on and pretended not to notice that he was followed.
The man crept closer.
Daivem struck long before the stranger could make a move on Darsken. One hard blow to the back of the head ended the pursuit.
His sister shook her head and frowned when he wheeled on her.
“You would have done the same.”
“Yes, but I’m your big brother. I am supposed to keep you safe.”
She laughed and shook her head as she took several knives from the unconscious man’s body. Up close his scars were even worse. His lips were drawn into a parody of smile that was unsettling. While she was occupied, Darsken found the closest of the City-Guard to find a cell for the would-be assailant.
As Darsken led the very nervous City-Guard back to the scene, the snow stopped for the first time in over a week.
First the necromancer, then he would attend to the scarred man.
Merros Dulver
The sorcerers watched the white-furred monsters as they approached the Dark Passage and several towns around it. They were almost invisible to human eyes, especially considering the snows, but for sorcerers they were easily seen.
In the throne room Merros listened on, pleased despite the sorcery involved, as Desh Krohan explained the situation. “There seems to be a hierarchy of some sort. There was Jeron, then a gathering below him, and under that gathering there were these vile creatures. When Jeron was killed the ones who were following his orders stopped doing their bit and now these things have stopped moving at all. They simply stand there as if waiting for new commands.”
Merros frowned and considered that. “Didn’t you report Jeron killed several days ago?”
“I’m assuming that these followers of his have only just realized that he’s dead. It’s possible they had no choice but to do his bidding and once they no longer received new orders, they simply stopped.”
“What sort of creatures would these be?” Nachia, the Empress, spoke casually enough but only because there was no court in session. This, like many of their gatherings, was an informal thing between people who were friends. It just happened that they were also some of the most powerful figures in the empire.
