Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (64 page)

“No trouble because you’re a woman?” he
asked.

Is this another bid to get me to be his
woman?
she
thought
but
answered, “No, the example I made o’ Nostrils has kept any o’ the
men with amorous thoughts
admir’in
from a distance. That’s the way I want
te
keep it,” she added, before he could make any
overtures.

“This I’ve gathered,” he replied, “So, you
think they’ve accepted you well enough to trust you in a
fight?”

Now we’re getting to the main point,
she thought and she answered, “No problem, o’ course they won’t
trust me completely until we’ve been blooded together.”

“That’s right, so I’ve decided to send you
out on the next mission. You’re leaving tomorrow morning. You'll be
part of a
fifteen-man
squad on
their way to take a merchant train heading for Belorn. I’ve
received word from our scouts that they left Myrnvale yesterday,”
he explained.

“Oo’s in command?” Elizabeth asked.

“Razor,” he answered simply.

“Yer favorite, does that mean
anyth’in
?”

“So you heard of him already, that’s good,
and as you will soon see everything I do means something. He’s my
best lieutenant and he’ll be there to smooth out any difficulties
with the men. Some of them may not be overly excited by having to
break in a green recruit on a first mission, and a woman at that,”
the bandit commander explained.

“This isn’t my first action, so I’m not
exactly green. I’ve been on the other side o’ these attacks quite a
few times. I used te make my
liv’in
’ guard’in merchants from bandit groups just like
this,” Elizabeth lied to him bluntly.

“I know, some of my men have heard of your
exploits. As far as I know we haven’t tangled with you in the past.
That's a good thing, my men would resent letting a past enemy into
their ranks, particularly if that enemy had killed his friends,”
Wernok told Elizabeth. “But… just curiously, reports said that you
had lost an eye,” and he looked up at her as he spoke.

“No, but I wore an eye patch for awhile. It
helped to discourage advances. Ugliness has its advantages. As for
running into you or your men, I mostly worked down south and seldom
got further north than Myrnvale. From what I’ve seen and
heard,
you work north o’ Myrnvale.
It’s the reason I chose
te
join
yer band, I didn’t want te be fighting old friends,” Elizabeth
explained.

“You know there is always the chance that
one of your old friends will take a job in the north,” Wernok
commented, watching Elizabeth carefully for her reaction, “you
might be required to kill one someday.”

“They know the risks when they take the
round. Ya
look
out
fer
yerself
in
life, no one else
is go
’in te do
it
fer
ya,” Elizabeth said,
purposely giving him the response he wanted to hear.

“Good, then since there’s no conflict of
interest I don’t see any problems. Check in with Razor after you
leave here and then ready your weapons. You can get your horse
ready in the morning. This is your chance to prove yourself on a
raid; don't disappoint me,” Wernok said, finishing the
conversation.

The mind projection of the necromancer RIveK
slipped out of the Dark Plane into an alley near the central square
of Myrnvale just as the clock above the square struck ten
bells.

She was out of the alley and walking across
the square before the tenth dull reverberation had stopped echoing.
She decided that it was time to make use of a situation common to
large cities such as Myrnvale.

She entered the low light district, but
this time,
she was looking for a
different kind of help. She waited in the shadows of an alley and
watched an intersection of t
wo major
streets. After a half-bell,
her vigilance was rewarded. A
small shape dressed in rags scurried across the intersection and
into an alley. RIveK crossed the street and followed.

The necromancer attached a string of power
to the scampering shape so that she would not lose
him
and then allowed him to get far in the
lead.

She followed her thin purple string of
energy until she reached an old three-story building in a narrow
alley. Rats crawled along the lower edges of the buildings,
scurrying through the filth and muck that littered and stained the
cobblestone streets.

RIveK’s insubstantial projection passed
silently up the rickety old stairs that should have creaked and
groaned in warning to those who lived above.

Tonight RIveK was dressed in dark green
leathers with a black cloak draped over her shoulders, her blood
red hair was tied back in a
ponytail
and the hood of the cloak was over her head
covering the damaged portion of her skull. Black gloves finished
off the outfit covering her long fingers and painted nails.

It took a moment for the rag-a-muffin
children to see her as she stepped onto the top floor of the
building. She placed her gloved hands on her hips and waited
patiently.

One of
twenty-odd
children looked up from where she was counting
out copper coins to the eldest and leader of the children. The
little girl immediately screamed out warning.

Children fairly exploded outward in all
directions heading for the doors and windows of the building in an
all out rout of flying limbs.

Even at the extraordinary rate that the
children fled they were not fast enough to escape the smiling
RIveK, she raised her hands and every door slammed shut, every
shutter banged closed. All openings that lacked a method of closure
suddenly crackled with a thin sheet of purple energy stretched
across them.

One child, who had too much momentum to
stop, hit a sheet of the necromancer’s power. Light flared and all
the hair on his body burned off instantly. He screamed and
collapsed into a ball, shaking and crying.

A few others tried to force open a door and
got
singed
by the purple energy,
though not as severely.

Eventually,
they all stopped trying to flee and cowered into the back corners.
A few pulled out knives and pointed them at her; a couple even had
slings. They launched their stone missiles which passed through her
smiling image.

RIveK stepped away from the closed door
behind her and sat delicately on an old wooden crate near the
center of the room.

“Now that you understand who is in charge
here, let us begin our talk,” she said calmly to the terrified
street urchins who watched her carefully.

“A man named Hetark and a woman named
Elizabeth entered this city, probably within the last two days. I
want you to find them for me. They may or may not be using their
real names, this is what they look like,” she said, describing the
two people.

RIveK would have shown them a projection of
their faces, but she had never met Elizabeth or her knight.

“Why should we?” a small voice called out,
RIveK thought he was probably the leader.

“Because I’ll pay you this,” she said,
setting a large stack of gold coins on the crate next to her
leg.

The urchin gang gasped, they had never seen
that much wealth in one place.

Their leader stepped forward; he was a bone
rack of a boy about fourteen years old.

“How do we know ye won’t cheat us?” he
asked.

“I am extremely wealthy, so this amount
doesn’t even mean anything to me, besides I may need to use your
services again someday, all right?” she asked.

“Fine, let us get on with it,” he responded
bravely.

“Yes by all means, but five of you will stay
here with me, including
you,
as
insurance that my wishes are met. If any of you decide to try and
run and just leave these fine friends to their fate then remember
that I’ve marked you all. I can find you anytime I wish, watch,”
she said and tweaked the thin purple string that was still attached
to the boy she had followed; it was invisible to the children.

He yelped and screamed with pain for a
moment, then she stopped and he recovered.

“You have until morning and then I want to
see every one of you back here whether you know something or not,
GO!” she suddenly snapped, and the windows and doors opened.

They all ran, except the leader, he was
frozen in his tracks with his eyes locked on RIveK’s. When the last
four children were about to leave the doors all closed again
trapping them and their leader in the sealed room with RIveK.

“You’re the lucky five who get to stay with
me ‘til morning. To pass the time each of you will tell me an
interesting story, and if you don’t amuse me you will be punished,”
she promised and gave the youngest girl child a small jolt of pain
as an example.

Razor chose the bandit squad's campsite near
enough to the road to reach it easily, but far enough behind a
gently rolling hill to keep them from being seen. After the bandits
had pitched their camp the lieutenant called all fifteen of them
together.

Razor's face was devoid of expression as he
laid out the details of their raid in his whispery voice.
“According to Wernok’s
information,
the merchant train should be passing here
sometime tomorrow morning. I need two volunteers to scout the
merchant and two to scout the site of the ambush.”

Two men volunteered to scout the ambush
site, so Razor sent them off to begin immediately.

“I’ll scout the merchant’s camp, I know
their guard setups fairly well,” Elizabeth volunteered.

A man with a square cut face, thick brows, a
shock of black hair and a wide grin, stepped forward. “I’ll go with
her
te
make sure she stays out ‘o
trouble,” said the fairly large bandit named Bushwhacker.

“Be careful Poison, he
don’t
get his name from
strik’in
plants,” another bandit said jokingly.

A few of the other men laughed heartily at
the comment.

They even laughed louder at Elizabeth’s
replied, “He’ll have te change his name
te
Bustedbranch if’n he gets fresh with me.”

Razor did not join in the laughter, the
other bandits would have been surprised if he had; no one there had
ever seen him smile.

“Fine, I’ll expect your report on their
guard strength, estimated arrival time, and
number
of wagons before morning,” he whispered, and then
added, “Don’t disappoint me.” He stared directly into Elizabeth’s
eyes, holding her gaze for a moment to emphasize his implied
threat, and then he turned and left them to prepare their
horses.

Elizabeth’s eyes never wavered from the
Lieutenant’s, he bothered her, and he had a mind shield, just like
his boss, Wernok. She stared
after
him as he walked away.
Who gave them these shields? It has the
same feel and strength of Wernok’s. Someone with power planted them
and it’s vital that I find out whom.

She walked to the horses and Bushwhacker
gave her a jaunty grin from where he was cinching his saddle down
tighter. She checked his
thoughts
but picked up no signs of antagonism. He seemed to have taken her
good-natured threat as she had intended. Elizabeth had wanted them
to start laughing with her instead of at her.

“Need a boost,” she asked with a grin.

He swung lazily into his saddle and returned
her smile before replying, “Not today, but if I’m
ridd’in
too fast yer ya, let me know,” and he
galloped off toward the road.

Good, this one seems a decent fellow,
he’s already treating me as part of the gang,
Elizabeth thought
as she mounted and hurried to catch up to Bushwhacker.

A bell and a half later the two of them were
on foot and sneaking toward the merchant camp. There were four
wagons and a string of ten pack mules for carrying the merchant’s
wares. The wagons were arranged in a square and a large fire burned
in the middle of the camp.

Bushwhacker spotted two sentries, one on
each side of the camp perpendicular to the road. He suggested that
they both move in closer from either side of the road, so they
could get a look at how many other men sat around the fire.

Elizabeth agreed for a different reason, she
wanted to get close enough to pick up a few thoughts and find out
more about these men.

As she moved closer she spread her aura
perception out looking for sentries that her partner had not found.
She only found the two known guards. She could already have told
Bushwhacker that there were exactly twelve men seated around the
fire, but she still wanted to get closer.

When she reached about equal distance
between one
sentry
and the main
camp group she was close enough to read their surface thoughts
clearly. She sampled each man’s thoughts looking for one who was
thinking about something of interest.

She learned that they were working for a
merchant out of Belorn, so they were not part of the Usurper’s men.
This was an honest group of merchants, not an enemy of Autrany.

Then Elizabeth checked the thoughts of the
sentry, he was looking back down the trail and wondering what the
lights were that he caught occasionally reflecting in the sky. He
figured it was another camp about two leagues down the road. He was
wondering if it was anything he should worry about since they
didn’t know of any other merchants traveling this way right now.
Usually,
merchants banded together
when traveling the same direction to strengthen themselves against
bandit attacks.

Elizabeth backed quietly out of her hidden
position and went back to meet with Bushwhacker at the horses. She
had an idea and she needed to convince her partner to go along with
her new plan.