Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles (25 page)

“If I let you go, you’re going to tell the whole garrison about me, aren’t you?” Aelron asked.

The officer tried to move his head, but he was pinned.

“I swear,” the officer said. “I’ll tell no one. Please, just let me go.”

Aelron considered it for a moment. If he sent the officer away without a mount, he’d be long gone before the Blackwood garrison was a problem again. And less blood on his hands would be a welcome change of events.

It’s your lucky day.

“Please,” the officer said. “Can’t you just let me go?”

Anxiety. Paranoia.

Aelron’s pulse raced, and a bead of sweat formed on his brow.

Oh no. No. You shouldn’t have.

This couldn’t count! The man didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he asked the question!

Fear. Urgency.

The rules were clear. The question had only two possible answers. That meant the coin.

No. I can’t. I won’t! I don’t need you. Rules? There are no rules. This is all in my head!

He eased his weight off the officer’s neck, and for a moment the compulsion abated. But the familiar dread soon embraced him.

The coin always remembered. The coin always punished.

Always.

Aelron’s arms shook and tensed. His breathing grew ragged.

Malvol’s festering cock!

Aelron pulled the coin from his pocket. His breath came under control almost immediately.

“Let’s play a little game,” Aelron said. “Do you like games?”

The officer whimpered and closed his eyes.

“I asked you a question,” Aelron said. “I was polite. Wasn’t I polite?”

Aelron pressed harder on the man’s neck.

“Yes!” the man said. “You were polite!”

“Which animal do you prefer, the adda or the adda-ki?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Pick one.”

“I don’t under—”

“Pick one!”

“Adda-ki!”

Good choice, given how things have been going today.

Flip.

Adda.

Aelron set the stew pot down and returned the coin to its pocket.

The dread left him.

Euphoria. It wrapped around Aelron like a cozy blanket in a chilly room.

Aelron took a glorious deep breath and exhaled, allowing the relaxation to make everything in the world right again. The coin would leave him alone a while longer. He’d satisfied the multiverse for now.

“Did I pick the right one?” the officer asked.

Aelron shifted his weight, gripped the officer’s head in both hands, then snapped his neck.

“No,” Aelron said. “You didn’t.”

Aelron stood and walked back to the wagon. Maybe there was something useful in the junk.

Or maybe he’d take the festering pot and ladle and become a cook after all.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The first thirteen priests chosen by the god Zubuxo (listed in Ordinationem 1 as “Habakku, Davith, Natan, Nehem, Zerubula, Mose, Jeremi, Ezeki, Zephani, Catiatum, Ardirian, Nuuan, and Mujahid”), are said to have come from an eclectic blend of primitive beliefs and religions. Though it may be difficult to accept within the context of modern orthodoxy, when one steps back from current paradigmatic theology, one sees a simple truth; the gods had not yet revealed themselves to the Creator’s creation. One should exercise humility and charity, therefore, when one reads that Habakku referred to Zubuxo as an illegitimate son, and Ezeki once accused Ardirian of buggery with an adda.

- Coteon of the Steppes, “Coteonic Commentaries on the Origines Multiversi” (circa 520 RL)

The smell of burning wood and charred bodies permeated the cave where Mujahid materialized.

I’m too late.

Shouting and screaming reverberated off the small cave’s walls.

Mujahid ran to the cave entrance, where he peered around a large boulder toward the city, several hundred yards away.

Rotham-on-Orm, the capital city of the Kingdom of Tildem, was ablaze and covered by a noxious black cloud, lit from within by orange tongues of fire dozens of feet in the air.

The city wall, repaired after the Battle of Rotham, had collapsed into a pile of rubble on the north side of the city. But something was odd about the lay of the bricks. They poked outward as if the wall had been demolished from the
inside
.

The landscape was a vision of chaos. People joined together in small groups and ran north, while others shouted for friends and loved ones. Others still ran screaming from the city. Two injured men, covered in blood from head to waist, ran for the wall. But they weren’t fast enough. A blur of motion approached from behind, and when it reached the injured men, their bodies exploded in a fog of red mist.

Mujahid had no idea what could have caused it. He had sensed no power or other arcane force at work. He considered using the mindless hellwraith within to open another portal. That would allow him to get closer without the risk of his approach being seen. But he thought better of it. Every time he used the hellwraith, it weakened to the point of being useless. It could sometimes take days to gather its strength.

A wagon emerged from the city through what was left of the northern gate, its driver whipping two adda who were already in a frenzy. As the wagon passed through the gate, a plume of smoke and flame shot up from the wagon’s rear, which exploded in shards of wood.

A loud
boom
left Mujahid feeling as if someone had punched him in the chest. People who had slowed their escape picked up pace and started running.

The wagon driver leaped down from what was left of the front of the wagon and ran north, leaving the adda hitched to the burning wreck.

Mujahid ran, intent on freeing the terrified animals before the fire incinerated them, but someone got there first. The man’s face was hidden behind long, unkempt hair and an equally long beard. But there was no mistaking his regal bearing, or the haste with which nearby soldiers obeyed his commands.

Donal Tanmor, the King of Tildem, along with two of his soldiers, had the adda unhitched by the time Mujahid arrived. When Donal saw Mujahid, he looked around in confusion for a moment. But then he smiled.

A fake smile. Mujahid had spent enough time around powerful men to recognize one.

Something is wrong here.

“I’m afraid there’s no time for pleasantries, Lord Mukhtaar,” Donal said. “We’d do well to make haste away from here. I’ve ordered General Garon to establish a rally point on that ridge.”

Mujahid glanced in the direction Donal was pointing. People and soldiers gathered around a small tent on a rise above the city.

“Then we’ll talk as we walk,” Mujahid said. “What of the coven?”

Mujahid had instructed Donal to rebuild the necromantic coven in Rotham after the battle with Kagan’s forces several months earlier. Though the king was sovereign in Tildem, Mujahid and Nuuan were absolute rulers of Clan Mukhtaar. And Donal was a necromancer under their charge.

“Five priests came to me after the barrier came down, but no more,” Donal said. “They’ve joined their brethren in the city.”

“You didn’t take them with you?”

That fake smile again.

“Ten priests in all of Tildem and you risk them like this?” Mujahid asked. “Was I mistaken when I placed you in charge of the coven?”

“With respect, Lord Mujahid, there are greater concerns.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

This wasn’t like Donal, but Mujahid couldn’t blame the man for taking risks. His country was in a shambles. First Kagan, and now this.

Still. Something was
off
about the man. Mujahid was certain of it.

“The stories they’re telling at the Pinnacle about this invasion sound like the feverish dreams of a mad man,” Mujahid said. “I hardly know what to ask first.”

“I’ll make it easy for you,” Donal said. “James’s Landing is no more.”

“I knew of King’s Bay, but not James’s Landing. This is worse than I feared.”

“No,” Donal said. “It’s far
worse
than your worst fears, Lord Mukhtaar. James’s Landing was destroyed without a single soldier setting foot upon the shore, by ships that belched fire.”

“Surely you don’t believe—”

“I don’t. I’m not a superstitious man. But whatever weapon they’re using…how do you defend a city against something you cannot see or touch?”

“How did they slip past the Religarian scout ships? They would have had to navigate the southern coast of Religar to strike at Tildem.”

“I don’t know,” Donal said. “But I can tell you what I saw with my own eyes here in Rotham. This foe, whoever they are, simply
appeared
outside the southern wall without warning. One moment the field outside the southern gate was empty of all but merchant traffic. The next, an army several hundred strong destroyed the wall and marched into the city. Had I not watched it happen, I wouldn’t have believed the reports.”

Mujahid pondered it all as they climbed the hill to the rally point.

While it wasn’t impossible to teleport people from one place to another—he’d traveled here himself by way of a portal—there was no way a fleet of ships could have been transported in the same manner. Not even by translocation orb, for that matter. Objects of power were rare, and they took great sacrifice to create in the first place. Kagan had transported siege weapons for the Battle of Rotham, but that was using a complex pattern of
life magic
that only Kagan understood. It wasn’t until long after the battle Mujahid learned the sacrifice required by life magic was the lives of unborn children.

The Barathosians were masters of life magic, though.

No. This had to be something different. Something new. Something they hadn’t used—or didn’t possess—when last they visited the Three Kingdoms. Last time, it was like any other battle. They outnumbered the armies of the Three Kingdoms, but their weapons were no better.

Donal glanced down at his trousers and shoved his hand back into his pocket. There was a struggle on his face, as if he were trying to control a mighty penitent. When the struggle ended, his face grew calm.

A deafening
boom
rocked the north wall of Rotham. The northeast tower collapsed, bringing several archers down with it. When the dust settled, Mujahid saw a curious sight.

A dozen long metallic cylinders, with openings the diameter of a man’s head, rested on top of flat wagons. An animal twice the size of an adda pushed each of the wagons from behind. The creature had four long, curved horns extending outward and forward from the sides of its head. A device, or set of devices, connected the creature’s horns to a frame on back of the flat wagon.

The cylinder on the wagon closest to the fallen tower had smoke billowing out of it. Behind it stood a horned creature, but unlike the others, this one’s horns extended back
away
from its head. As it approached the rear of the wagon, however, the massive, pointed horns turned forward and slid into the strange frame.

A strong surge of necropotency came from within the city. People must be dying at a disturbing rate.

An undead soldier, carrying a blood-drenched sword, ran out from behind the wall and attacked a Barathosian in a wide-brimmed hat. As the fight dragged on, a woman in midnight-blue robes stepped out from behind some debris.

Mujahid ignited the symbol of ascension, flashing his eyes to catch the necromancer’s attention. She nodded and ran toward them.

“How many of you are left?” Mujahid asked.

The necromancer lowered her hood, revealing long, straight blond hair.

“All of us, Lord Mukhtaar,” she said.

“Your name?”

“Jaelin, my lord.”

“Well, Magus Jaelin, it’s time we put a stop to this. Given the look of your penitent, it’s obvious you have battle experience.”

“Aye.”

“Then you’re in command of your brethren until I say otherwise.”

“I already command them, my lord. I’m the most powerful here, second only to you, of course.” Jaelin faced Donal. “I mean no offense, Majesty.”

“No offense was given or taken,” Donal said.