Conflict (33 page)

The Count’s refusal to help doesn’t bode well. He’s now the second most important man in the kingdom after His Majesty King Thoran. Why should he have ignored my request to meet him? After all, we’ve been friends for many years. Why keep his distance from me, from Rogdon, in this hour of need? I don’t like this at all, I can smell the stink of treachery, I can almost taste it in my mouth
.

But his problems were nothing compared to the ones Gelbin was facing, the Ambassador to the Nocean Empire. He would have to deal with that slippery viper Zecly, the Sorcerer and Counselor to the Regent of the North. The possibilities of coming out alive from an encounter were very slim, and Gelbin was well aware of that. Unfortunately there was nothing he could do about it. King’s orders. He had set off in the direction of Silanda to meet up later with Zecly further south, on the border.

I don’t think we’ll ever see each other again, old friend. I’ll miss you.

They camped at the foot of the mountains, in a prairie crossed by a singing brook which came down from the high peaks. One more day of traveling and they would reach the Fortress of the Half Moon. Albust was happy, his spirit more cheerful. The Lancers had lit several fires and put up his elegant blue and silver tent with curtains of rich silk. He liked to travel as comfortably as he could, since after all he was a nobleman and very close to the King.

Night had already fallen over the camp. Having nothing to fear since they were in Rogdonian territory, Albust relaxed with a glass of sweet wine. He intended to sleep early to let his body recover from the journey. The next morning he would go to the Fortress with a hard day of work in front of him; he needed to be fresh for it. He could hear the Lancers chatting animatedly around the fires.

He leaned back, savoring the excellent wine, and let his mind drift pleasantly…

An untimely sound brought him back to reality, a metallic sound.

He got to his feet, disturbed by this interruption of his well-deserved rest, and was immediately overcome by unease. Restlessly, he reached for his sword. Suddenly screams sounded from the western side of the camp.

“Alarm! Alarm! We’re under attack!” shouted one of the Lancers on watch duty.

More screams followed the initial cry, and the sound of steel on steel filled the camp in the blink of an eye. Albust understood straight away that they were coming for him. An attack on a column of Lancers in Rogdonian territory was an almost unthinkable audacity, and one with a single goal: to put an end to his life. There was no room for doubt. Shouts broke out in the camp, armed men fought for their lives. Albust tried to calm himself, the Lancers were soldiers of great valor and honor, they would defend him to the death, they would not allow the enemy to get to him.

From the noise he could hear, Albust gathered that the fight had turned fierce. Muffled shouts of wounded men, the ring of metal on metal: it was clear that death was hovering over the camp with her sharp carrion nails.

Overwhelmed with nerves, he went to the entrance of the tent, sword in hand, and drew back the cloth slightly to see what was going on. The Lancers had formed a barrier in front of his tent and were repelling the attack of several men in purple clothing whose faces were covered by violet masks. They wore armor of reinforced leather and carried small round shields for protection. In their hands they brandished short swords. They outnumbered the Lancers who were protecting the tent, preventing them from reaching it. The brave Lancers fought with honor, more than half had already fallen but the rest held their ground. This worried the Ambassador: too many casualties. The men in purple charged against the Lancers again and again, yet the latter, forming an unbreakable defensive wall held as firmly as a breakwater in a storm.

After the last attack, he took a closer look at the assailants and saw with relief that there were very few left, around a dozen, and they were retreating in defeat. The Lancers, still with a score of them standing, did not move, but held their position. Albust breathed with relief; his men had repelled the attack. The enemy assailants had not been able to reach him and were stepping down. He calmed down and thanked the Light for those magnificent soldiers who protected him.

From among the shadows of the night there appeared a figure behind the dozen or so surviving attackers. A sinister figure that froze the Ambassador’s heart. This man oozed danger, Albust could almost smell it. He too was dressed in purple and wore a mask of the same color with a silver line at eye level. In the hand of that sinister individual shone a short axe decorated with silver. But what frightened Albust was the skull he carried under his arm. A skull with two red jewels set in the eye-sockets. The macabre sight made the Ambassador take a step back into his tent.

A lugubrious chant from the strange man sounded in the night. The attackers came to stand around him, protecting him as he intoned the eerie melody. Albust looked at the sinister figure once again: he saw his arms outstretched, his chest swollen; in one hand he carried the axe, in the other the skull with ruby eyes. Looking up at the sky of the black night he intoned that funereal chant. And then Albust realized what was going on.

He’s a mage, some kind of mage or sorcerer. He must be stopped
!

“Attack that sorcerer! Charge! He’s casting some spell, dark magic!”

The Lancers looked at the Ambassador without understanding.

“Charge him!” he shouted.

But it was too late.

Before the astonished looks of the line of soldiers the bodies of the fallen fighters were covered by a dark mist coming from the Sorcerer. It penetrated the lifeless bodies on the ground. The brave Rogdonians watched, not understanding, as the dead began to shake their limbs convulsively. Lancers and attackers were being imbued with a dark arcane magic which was bringing them back to life, or rather to a state beyond life.

And before the astonished Rogdonians…

The dead rose.

They began to get to their feet, oblivious of the tremendous wounds which had caused their death, trying to keep their balance, with uncoordinated, clumsy movements.

Albust watched the scene in horror, his knees gave and he nearly fell to the ground. The dead were coming back to life! They were rising to fight for that evil sorcerer. But those men had not come back to life in reality. The sorcerer had raised them, yet it was not life he had imbued them with but death. They were living-dead, their eyes lost on the horizon, their hearts stopped, never to beat again, their unhinged mouths looking for flesh to feed a hunger they would never sate.

It was then that Albust became fully aware of what he was up against.

By all the heavens! A Necromancer! We’re lost!

Fear took hold of his soul. He had heard rumors about secret dark arts used by maleficent Necromancers from faraway lands, but he had always dismissed them as inventions of weak noblemen with little to do and too much imagination.

Until that dreadful moment.

A terrified Lancer, still in shock at what he was seeing, was caught by two living-dead who began to eat his flesh. The Lancer fell to the ground, screaming desperately, while other living-dead lunged at him with clumsy movements, seeking to join the feast. The Lancers yelled in horror, unable to believe the scene unfolding before their eyes. Fear overcame the faithful soldiers when they saw the dead rise and advance, searching for their flesh with an irrational voracity. Several Lancers fell in panic as fear of what they were seeing devoured their spirits. Chaos engulfed them.

The living-dead went on attacking with demented ferocity. Every time a Lancer died, the maleficent Sorcerer used his dark power and made him rise, transformed now into a voracious animated corpse. The surviving soldiers tried to hold the line, but the living-dead were growing more numerous. They fought bravely in the midst of the chaos and nightmare, but those abominations did not feel pain, or fear, they fell on the soldiers indifferent to the wounds they received, guided only by an avid hunger, trying to bite off chunks of the defenders’ flesh. The Lancers fought hard, but in the end they were outnumbered and the line broke.

Only two soldiers remained alive.

They ran into the tent. When Albust looked at them, he saw in their faces a mirror of the terror they felt.

“Let’s get away through the back, sir, quick!”

All three ran to the back of the tent. With their swords they cut the thick cloth and bolted out into the dark night. The living-dead went in pursuit of them, walking slowly with horrible panting breaths, their wounds open and their limbs mutilated. But they kept coming after the three fugitives, following the orders of the Necromancer who commanded them.

Albust ran as fast as his ill-treated body would allow, trying not to trip in the darkness of the night. As they ran for their lives they kept looking back to see how far it was between them and the abominations. They saw several farms behind a low hill and ran to them in search of help. There was light in the windows of the houses. They would find help! Hope began to grow inside Albust, like the flame of a candle being lit at night. Behind him the abominations kept coming, chasing after fresh meat. But they had nearly reached the farms and shelter. They came to the first house and ran to the door.

The soldier at the head of them stopped suddenly, and his partner stumbled against him. Albust, who was in the rear, stopped on the stairs of the porch, trying to get his breath back. His lungs were on the point of bursting from the effort.

“Oh no!” cried the first Lancer shrilly, and began to retreat.

“By the Light, what’s this nightmare!” the second one said, retreating in his turn.

Albust looked up and saw three living-dead coming out of the door of the house, dressed in simple peasant clothes, their eyes lost on the horizon. Their death-wounds were clearly visible, and their panting and grunting as they moved forward in search of flesh were terrifying.

They retreated in terror. Albust began to feel he was trapped in a horrible nightmare which would not let him escape. He turned to the left to start fleeing once again, but saw to his horror that more living-dead farmers were coming; he looked to the right and saw with overwhelming terror that from here too, more living-dead were coming after him.

They retreated helplessly, half-paralyzed with terror.

The living-dead advanced in a half-moon with outstretched arms. In panic, the three fugitives looked around for an escape route.

An appalling grunt from behind them made them start and turn. Their pursuers had caught up with them.

They were surrounded!

Seeing the Necromancer arrive, Albust shouted desperately:

“Stop them, Necromancer! I’ll give you more riches than you can dream of, I’ll give you whatever you want! But stop these abominations!”

The Necromancer lifted his ceremonial axe and pointed it in his direction.

“My name is Narmos, my dear Ambassador. I’m a Priest of the Cult of Imork. Your riches are nothing beside the power of my lord, beside the rage of the Dark Lady. My lord Isuzeni has ordered your death, and your death he shall have.”

“Who? My death? Why?”

The living-dead closed the circle around the three humans.

The Necromancer lifted his axe and spoke a word of power.

The living-dead lunged at the three Rogdonians.

Albust thought how unfair life was while they butchered his body and those of the Lancers amid screams of agony. Now that he finally had the riches he had dreamed of, now that he could enjoy them and give himself over to his innocent vices, the thing he had always defended had failed him: Peace. His last thought was for his beloved family: Lita and Loctun in Rilentor, and Olga and Octen in Silanda.

May the war not reach you
.

At that same moment, many leagues away at the other end of the Kingdom, less than a day from the walled city of Silanda, the second part of Isuzeni’s orders were being carried out, just as the cunning slant-eyed strategist had planned. Gelbin, Ambassador of Rogdon to the Nocean Empire, was running in terror in the middle of the darkness across the small camp the Lancers had put up for the night.

Gelbin ran past one of the fires where a copper pot was still hanging, with the dinner stew in it. A Lancer fell before him, run through by an enemy sword. Gelbin dodged him and tried to make his way to the west of the camp, where the horses were tethered in a corral.

I have to get away from this nightmare, get to the horses and flee
.

Two Lancers fell behind him under the greater number of enemy swords. The Lancers could not stand, the superiority in numbers of the enemy was obvious and Gelbin knew it.

They’re coming for me, they’re coming to kill me. I must get away!

Gelbin ran without looking back, passing through the bloody fighting in the midst of the Lancers’ camp. Nobody got in his way; they were all caught up in fighting for their lives. He reached the horses, where two Lancers were fighting the enemy in an attempt to protect the mounts. The first one was run through by two enemies and crumpled to the ground, eyes open wide in disbelief which even death could not wipe away. The other Lancer finished off one enemy, then attacked his other two assailants. He fought with skill and energy and managed to finish off one of his enemies, but with a treacherous stroke the other skewered him through the back with his sword. He collapsed like a felled tree, and as he did so his eyes met Gelbin’s.