Page 44 of Deadly Maiden (Dragons and Darkthings #1)

Wyntre

Dawn’s light is barely tiptoeing over the city and the sea when we glide in on our rowboat, bump the timber walkway, and sneak up the ladder. The young sailor casts off immediately, rowing back to his sailboat. Water tinkles, sloshes, and stirs as my undead climb and crawl onto the walkway, first on hands and knees, then splatting to their feet. They drip seawater and cluster on the jetty and the walkway. Their ghoulish silhouettes would scare most citizens into an early grave. Which would be ironic.

Almost none of them still carry a weapon. I shake my head and tsk , but…I expected as much. None of these can think like Asher does. I miss him by my side, but most of all, I miss Rorsyd. This next part of the plan, this is not where I want to be, but I need to get it done.

I look around, adjusting my sword belt, my gheist pistol, my boots. Anathema is to my left. My other globular darkthing, taken from the vat in Slaedorth, that I’ve given four legs but nothing else, toddles about near my right bootheel, seeking shadows when it can. I don’t want to grow attached to it. The thing has no face, no head.

To my left, the palace dominates the hill behind the harbor. A pink-white edifice of spectacular towers and levels, it was constructed to be decorative and formidable. In a pinch, it’s a locked-in castle, with fifteen-feet-thick, high stone walls, except for where the king had a section removed to allow him to view the torture. He will regret that today.

This should be the right spot for the rendezvous. Grundle pointed out a blinkered light signal replying to his own cautious unveiling of a ship’s lantern. Across the paved street and blocking the rising sun is a long, gray warehouse. This part of the harbor seems deserted, though there is movement to the north, where the rail that holds Rorsyd’s cage attaches to a tower. Considering sailors are early risers…where is everyone?

“What a spectacular morning.” The sing-song voice comes from the warehouse.

“Stay,” I command my undead, letting them remain at the seafront, apart from five who slouch at my back. I decide on boldness and stride across the road, pretending I belong here. From a distance, my undead group might be taken for sailors?

The shadows are thick beneath the warehouse eaves. Three large, armed men emerge from a narrow alleyway. Their nervousness is expected, so I ignore the signs.

“A spectacular morning.” I deliver the code, though I’m sure they’ve figured out I’m a genuine necromancer. “These are mine. I command them. I can have them attack the area where your king is being held.”

“They won’t attack us?” asks the first man.

Oh. This is why I’m not a general. I make a snap decision. “Let them swarm the area first. I’ll go with their wave and control them from the rear. Keep your men away until we have secured the king.”

“Will the king be safe if you let them do that?”

“Yes.”

He scratches at his small red beard. His chunky jaw, broad face, and squashed nose mark him a brawler. Like the others, he’s dressed in gray, has a red armband bearing the interlinked C and U.

“There’s at least two mages out there, Miss Wyntre. And ours too. Some of us will be shifting. Watch for the bands.” He taps his. “On arms and on the forelegs of shifters. Let’s be off then. We cleared this part of the harbor earlier. A bit around that bend in the road…” He jerks his chin northward. “Is the start of where they have a barrier stopping people from interfering with the torture of him. A big fence.”

“My undead should be able to push that fence down. I have five hundred of them.”

“Good.” He has gone a shade paler. “Inside the fence is the rock platform at the edge of the sea. They’ll be doing the torture in about two hours, but if we’re fast, we can overrun the small detachment of Aos Sin soldiers. Twenty-three of them. We get in, kill them, free the king, get out. Ten minutes tops. Go past that time, and we will have the king’s reserve on top of us. Taking the palace is a whole other job.”

“Okay.” Though how will I hold back my undead if they get dispersed?

“I have fifty plus men with me. We’ll sweep in after yours go through. I was told you want some to help you free that dragonshifter in the cage? You got fifteen of them, providing I can spare them after the fight. I suggest you keep yours heading north, crash through the fence on the other side, zoom along to your man up there, to that tower.” Again he points. “Then in and out of there as fast as you can. You do not want to get stopped.” He chews on something in his mouth, his beard already looking redder as the sun brightens the morning. “The C of U main assault isn’t happening here yet.”

I scrutinize that tower. How I can get up that and do it fast? I will have to simply try and see. Heal him and then fly out? Maybe. Having studied what little there is about necro healing, I know what I want to do to see if I can permanently heal Rorsyd. But I have no floor plan for this tower. No idea who is inside it.

“Got it.”

“Good then? Let’s do this before the morning gets stale.”

I draw a breath, eye the palace and where the road curves, then jog into the middle of the road and command my undead to advance down it, as fast as they can—which is a sort of scraping, moaning hobble, for most. A few summon a ragged jog. I stay in the middle, contrary to what I said. They’re already spreading out.

Keeping hold, controlling them, is akin to telling five hundred ants what to do…if you could speak to every ant’s head. It is possible but messy, and they’re forever wandering off.

Tight, keep it tight.

We go round the bend. There is the fence made of metal pickets, but with fancy curlicues and rails that suggest it is ornamental and may not be that strong—meant to be see-through for the visitors and voyeurs to gaze at the chained king. As we close in, the sounds of the undead bring two soldiers to check the fence. They gape and back away, scream warnings as the first of my undead hit the wall and start to pile up, clawing and climbing over each other. Within seconds, the fence is bending, and a moment later it crashes inward.

I send more undead slide-jogging, crawling, mumbling, to where a bunch of soldiers tumble from a hut. They’re haphazardly strapping on weapons, shouting, trying to organize themselves.

The horde’s onward rush washes over them, and they vanish beneath, evidence of their existence comes only from the muffled screams and the waving of arms and legs. It continues as I run forward.

I pass the heaving knot of undead and the blood, the ripped-off limbs, the remains of those men. Keep going, keep going, ignore it. I find where Jannik Stryke, the king of legend, the last king of Orencia, sits on a rock, naked and manacled by his feet.

I stand beside him, this drooling ex-king who mumbles over a hunk of bread. His eyes are vacant yet somehow filled with unspeakable terror. Twenty years of torture? Could anyone withstand that? A chill shivers in. That any fae could order that done to anyone… Yet, King Madlin has.

I stamp my feet, widen my stance, and glare at the undead who dare to come close. “Away! Away!”

Do these guys get bloodlust? Maybe they resent the living? I don’t know, but they feel more like a hive of angry bees now, not ants. Far at the back, moving over the squashed fence, are red-beard’s men, among them several wolfshifters and a mage with a glowing staff.

I don’t have the time or the experience to somehow shift my undead and herd them away from living C of U rebels. Fifteen he said I could have? I’m afraid the rebels will be killed, so I sigh and turn away, ushering my horde to the opposite fence to overwhelm whoever gets between us and that tower.

When most have hobbled past, I join the rear.

I have no way to be sure they will not attack and kill the average citizen or sailor who gets in our way. It is what it is. An undead army is not an army, but an undisciplined riot that may respond to commands and often does not, because my attention cannot be everywhere at once. All I can do is run with them and try to stop the worst of it.

Luckily, few innocent citizens are out at this early hour, and those who see us are turning aside and shouting warnings.

“Beware!” “Undead creatures! Evil! Evil is loose!” “Run!”

No one stops our advance along the waterfront, though some brave soldiers try and get flattened and torn apart.

I’ve somehow lost about two thirds of my five hundred from various problems.

I walk backward, examining what lies behind us, checking the litter the horde left. What went wrong?

Falling into the harbor, deviating elsewhere to parts unknown—and I hope they went to the palace.

Soldiers have felled some.

An enemy fire mage is back there, I saw the blasts. He’s probably taking out a fair number of the straggler undead.

A few may have simply become lost and are going in circles.

The Aos Sin will soon rally and get reinforcements in here, though the bearded shifter’s rebels have whisked away Jannik.

We’re almost at the tower.

Though I’ve tried not to look, the cage has been on my left since what feels like forever on this march. I can see Rorsyd and the spear that transfixes him. I swear I can feel the soulmate bond that joins us and the agony at his center.

A few more steps is all it will take to get me there. And probably much killing.

But these soldiers…they are brave to face my army.

The first of my undead have ripped a steel door from the tower and are ascending a spiral staircase. They will carve their deadly way to the top then stop or fall over the edge. The footbridge out to the cage must be narrow, but if I heal him, and I believe I can, we can fly out without needing to return down those stairs. This is a great advantage, since already the palace slopes show the betraying glitter and shine of armor as soldiers pour toward the waterfront.

My undead number one hundred and twenty-three. This is more than enough. Most can remain down here.

One hundred and four. Ninety-one.

What’s going on?

I study the length of the tower, a red-and-gray brick needle of a thing with that single door at the bottom.

Smoke and flame puff out the tower’s lower windows. Someone is destroying the undead with ease. I expected this might happen. A fire mage is in there.

“You.” I cock my finger and thumb at the globby darkthing pottering about at my ankles. “Time for you to do your thing... Glob.” I name it in a fit of passion. Why not christen it? Death is all around, and I plan to suck it dry. Glob will not be Glob soon.

I practiced on the boat, in the comfort of the cabin, using tiny shards to knock targets off a shelf.

I can do this. I march to the door and look up, jump backward to dodge a rolling ball of flame that has barreled down the stairway frizzling everything it touches. I glimpse the mage, a woman with red hair—how appropriate. “I can do this,” I tell myself and emerge from my hiding place before she can conjure another fireball.

Standing in the doorway, I splay my fingers, pretend to throw my hand up the stairs, watch the darkthing shards arrow upward like black bees. The mage ducks, and I only kill a soldier hiding behind her. I summon another handful and throw a second flock of shards, miss again.

My glob is down to half size. Frowning, cursing, I create one larger arrowhead of darkthing, wait for her to step out with a fireball rolling in her hand, but she drops down the stairwell, her coat flaring like wings. She lands neatly, throws her flame.

I spin and flatten myself to the tower wall beside the doorway. The heat sears my face as it whizzes past and crispy fries about thirty-four of my undead.

“Damn it.” I hate hand to hand, but I may need Glob later on. Hearing her coming at speed, I unsheathe my sword, reach in, and ram it point first in mid-air, mid-doorway, at stomach level. She runs into, at neck level. Trying to surprise me? Much of her neck is severed. Blood gouts appallingly, splashing door frame and floor.

I retch then jump her twitching body and begin my cautious jog up the stairway, avoiding the severed limbs, torsos, the heads rolling, the little blazes smoldering on clothes and flesh, and the embers drifting. Another massacre. This is getting to be a bad habit, one that I would like to forsake. Is anyone up there left alive? The stairwell crackles and stinks of smoke and released bowels but is otherwise quiet. I summon ten of my army and ascend.

The rest can be a rearguard. As long as no more fire mages appear.

As long as nothing above me is deadly to my undead…

And I can heal Rorsyd and pull out that iron…

Today is almost a victory. I do not care if Jannik Stryke is a gibbering, mind-lost fool.

Okay. I scowl at myself as we go up step by painful step. My undead are slow on stairs and keep falling over.

I do care about Jannik. I do. I simply have priorities.

We pass two floors, and the doors leading onto them, and keep going.

Then a man is roars and a blade rings on stone. Pieces of undead fly past, heading to ground level. A head drops, then another.

I can see the swing of that blade a few yards overhead.

“Sorry, Glob.” I grab the last of his darkthing matter and assemble the shape into three finely wrought flechettes, thin enough to sneak through the finest gaps. I need to see the target though.

Another three heads topple past on the steps, bouncing. He knows how to kill undead, this warrior. The bastard.

I lean into the tower wall, inch upward, see him dispatch my last two undead. He grins at me with a mouthful of teeth, his two-handed great sword angled across his chest.

With another roar, he heads for me, negotiating the steps with ease and speed.

I flick my dark arrows at him and slice him into three neatish parts, which flop to the steps as he kicks out his last life. Or rather as his lower torso kicks. His head portion is gasping for air, his chest twitching.

I press my lips together and sidle past, aiming to avoid the worst of the guts and gore.

The steps end. Cautiously, I peer around me. I am alone.

I’ve reached the top floor with only the coned roof above.

The clamor of fighting drifts to my ears, barely audible over the wind whistling through the open door and the slim, arched windows. Since I landed from the rowboat, the windspeed has picked up by several knots.

The rail the cage is attached to stretches out from this top story. It’s six feet wide, at most, but there are guardrails. The ocean surges and flails at the jetties and the waterfront hundreds of feet below. From the size of the people fighting down there, a dive into the sea would turn me into jam—a very, very sloshy jam. I don’t have time to sneak out to Rorsyd, clutching the guardrail. I don’t have time to be scared.

I inhale, exhale, scrape some of the gore from my boots. Hurriedly, I say a prayer to all the gods. Then I run.

My heart thuds in time with the clang of my boots while vertigo threatens to take me, but I reach the fractured end of the footbridge, skid to a halt, and grab that guardrail. I peer over the edge.

The cage swings, squeaking. It’s a small drop to the roof.

The bars on the top are flat, making a ceiling, with a hatchway into the cage. Rorsyd has awakened, and he stares up at me, clutching his gut where the spear goes through. Rasping in air, I nod at him. The climb, the fighting, and the run have exhausted me.

“Getting you out now. First, though, I must remove what is inside you.”

“Okay.” He shakes his head as if to clear it. “Whatever you say. Be careful.”

I need calm to do this. I close my eyes and seek what is within Rorsyd, ready to plunge deep, when a noise wrenches me back to the world. Rorsyd is yelling.

Banging and crashing comes from the tower.

“Fuck.”

Someone has climbed the stairs, and my undead are gone. It’s a mage, from the staff he carries then a big soldier is there with him, sword drawn. He tosses aside a shield. They’ve seen me. I’ve no darkthing matter, and my sword and average dueling skills will be useless in this fight.

Calm.

I slam my eyes shut and plunge my mind deep into Rorsyd’s flesh. I know the way. I can be ruthless and speedy. I plotted this, did the calculations.

Theoretically, if I remove the dead matter, he should heal properly, replace what is gone with healthy tissue, and get back his shifting.

But only because he is immortal. Anyone else would probably die from this treatment. And the iron spear needs to be removed.

I find the dead flesh, grapple with it, wind all of it into an ethereal bundle. I rip, tear, ignore the pain I send pulsing through Rorsyd.

Do I have it all? I do. I hope. I unstick myself and swim to the surface, spilling my mind into real space in time to see the mage smiling from a few yards away and the soldier holding my wrist, ready to snap an iron manacle onto me, once he opens it. That would kill my powers.

Behind them, on the rail, many more soldiers have assembled.

And I’m clutching a writhing mass of darkmatter, recently harvested from an immortal.

“Hi there.” I grin at them both.

Startled by my cheerfulness, the warrior freezes for a second.

It’s enough. I fashion a storm of thousand sharp flechettes of darkthing matter and fling it at every enemy in sight, shredding them and blowing them off the rail. They fall and spin into the sea, silently, minds already dead, like confetti at a rather gruesome wedding.

“Nice.” Rorsyd is smiling up at me, looking tired but happier.

“I’ve had practice.” I drop onto the cage, open the hatch, and lay it flat. “I’ve just healed you properly, fully.” I hope. “All I have to do now is get that spear out of you.”

I study the thing and where it’s attached at both ends to the cage. At how they’ve welded it there, probably with magik. I expected locks and chains, not welds. Even Anathema cannot eat through metal. I have the pistol? I draw it and aim at one end of the spear, pull the trigger.

The weld ruptures loose, cracking off the cage as Rorsyd gasps and crumples to one knee. Which twists the spear inside him again. He winces and stays there. The shock of the bullet strike must have traveled along the spear.

I fumble to reload and cannot find the pouch of bullets that I tied to my belt. It’s gone. Of all this items to lose…

Considering the mayhem…I’m lucky I survived, let alone the pouch.

I swallow. We can do this.

“Can you pull it out?”

I cannot aid him in this and must watch as he inches his body along the spear, pushing it through his body so he can get to where I broke that weld. Just imagining how that must feel makes me despair. It’s obvious he cannot squeeze between cage and spear. When he starts to rock back and forth along the arc of the cage, and then the intact and opposite weld groans and creaks, I see his purpose. To twist the spear enough to snap that last weld.

How can he do that to himself? My stomach churns as he uses his bodyweight to bend the iron.

He will need to shift, fast, when he gets free. Will my necro healing be enough? If nothing else is possible, I will leap into the ocean with him and take my chances that way.

I glance at the tower.

We may need to jump. More soldiers have arrived. They swing off the top of the stairs and immediately head for the door and onto the rail. They’re moving fast, boots banging onto the metal.

“Rorsyd!” I warn him, fear rising as they pound nearer. “Get away if you can!”

No. I…me, it is I who has to do something! Anathema? I could use him. I could…

He materializes beside me, from a hiding spot in the shadows beneath the rail.

I don’t want to, but I have to . I’m looking into his pretty eyes, when something slams into me.

Cold, extreme cold that frosts the air, turns breath to mist, flesh to ice.

And I stiffen. My hair crackles and freezes.

What was it I needed? No more fire mages. Nothing killing my undead… Heal Rorsyd, pull out that spear. Everything has gone wrong.

I cannot move my hands, my arms, my legs.

And I fall…

Flopping onto my side, paralyzed. My skin sticks to the icy bars of the cage.

Dazed, confused, I’m aware of a bag being thrown over my head and tied at my neck. My sight goes. My hands are forced behind me into manacles.

Iron hooks are thrust into the flesh of both my sides. I’m taken elsewhere, and consciousness fades in and out. Sounds are muffled…scraping, distant voices, laughter. Orders are being given but something muzzles my brain.

An ice mage hit me with something.