Dirge for a Necromancer (26 page)

The horrible, gray-skinned abominations surged at him. Raettonus slashed with his sword, sending white-hot fire bursting at the abassy swarming around him and Diahsis. He threw the flames at them again and again until he was drenched with sweat and panting with exhaustion.

The abassy hissed and screeched as the flesh melted on their faces and hands, and as the heat of the fire turned their chain mail red and made it sear into their skin. Flames danced in their eye sockets and turned their greasy hair to ash.

Raettonus hurled more and more fire. The air was filling with smoke and the smell of spoiled flesh burning. Pained cries echoed up from behind metal fangs, rising with the black-gray smoke. Raettonus hurled more and more fire.

When Raettonus felt as though one more burst of magic might kill him, he began to stab at them—at their eyes, at their throats, at their groins and thighs and bellies and wherever else he thought he might land a blow. Diahsis was furiously hacking at the exposed parts of the abominations, bumping against Raettonus with every movement.

Blood spurted up out of the wounds of the abassy as they fell lifelessly around them. It was not the blood of a living thing. It was rancid and black, thick like milk that had gone off. The revolting fluid splashed against Raettonus’ pure white tunic and tights, leaving behind dark stains. It splashed on his face and on his lips. He could taste it in his mouth.

He could feel the soft fur of Diahsis’ wolfskin cloak against his back. Warmth radiated out of it. Beneath the fur, he could feel Diahsis turning and twisting as he hacked at the crowding monsters around them. He could hear Diahsis singing a cheerful tune as he fought, about a shepherd’s daughter who ran off with a young lord.

All around them was a solid ring of gray. Gray skin, gray teeth, gray chainmail. The mass of gray swiped with their pikes and snapped with their bear-trap mouths. Raettonus drove his rapier through eyes and throats and nostrils. Limp abassy bodies fell to the ground, their rancid blood dribbling weakly from their wounds as their hearts slowed and stopped. Abassy corpses piled up around the pair. Still more and more came. For every abassy cut down five more seemed to spring up in its place, like some sort of nightmare hydra.

Black blood. Black, soulless eyes. Metal swords clashing on metal teeth.

Raettonus cried out as a spear pierced his shoulder. He struck out and killed the offending abassy and pulled its weapon from his body. Two more abassy were already upon him. One quick jab through the eye of one, a jab through the unprotected chest of the other. The two abassy fell. Dark blood gurgled up out of them, clotted like old milk.

More abassy. Always more. Fierce. Fearless. Hungry for death. They pressed forward, all ceaseless black eyes and teeth made of iron. They hissed and growled and turned toward Raettonus with their flat, mean faces. He killed them. Again and again he killed them. But they were endless.

“Are you keeping count, Magician?” called Diahsis over the din of war surrounding them. His dragon bone visor was down, masking him in the snarling white face of a wolf.

“What?” said Raettonus.

“A kill count,” Diahsis said cheerfully. “Are you keeping a kill count, Magician?”

“No,” replied Raettonus. He jammed his rapier up under an abassy’s chin. With a swift kick to its middle, he dislodged it from the blade. “Little busy here for counting.”

“But, Magician!” exclaimed Diahsis. An abassy lunged at him, and he caught it in the temple with his gladius, cleaving its skull nearly in half. “If you don’t keep a count, how will we know which of us has taken down more monsters?”

“Diahsis, we’re going to die out here,” Raettonus responded, scowling. “Does it really matter which of us killed more abassy if we’re not going to even be around to compare?”

Diahsis laughed. “A fair point,” he said, and hacked the head off another abassy.

The stench of abassy blood was thick in the air. It was the most pungent scent Raettonus could imagine. It was worse than corpses left to ripen in the sun. It was worse than putrid, bursting intestines. He was drenched in the foul, clotted fluid. It clung to his white tunic, spattered his sweaty face, and matted his hair. It was on his lips, and he could taste it in his mouth—a bitter, burning taste like lye and weeds.

It felt as if they’d been fighting forever. Raettonus parried lance after lance, spear after spear. Again and again he plunged his blade deep into abassy flesh and left them twitching on the reeking, muddy ground.

His muscles ached; it was as if someone had filled them full of caltrops. His lungs burned with effort and the heavy scent of abassy blood. His bowels felt as if they might burst, and his stomach felt as if it might come up his throat and out his mouth. Sweat poured down his face, stung his eyes, caked his lips with salt. Flames burst periodically from his skin, but he couldn’t sustain them.

Fatigue was settling in. His arms were getting heavy. His chest ached down to its deepest part. His knees were beginning to shake. Pain shot up his back, along his spine, and out into all his muscles.

Raettonus clenched his teeth hard together and fought on.

Behind him, Diahsis was tunelessly screaming out that same ballad about the shepherd’s daughter at the top of his lungs. The words were all about spring meadows and lovers basking in sunlight, and they juxtaposed surreally with Diahsis’ hoarse voice and the wet sound of his dagger and sword cutting through tongues and faces and throats.

Raettonus stumbled as his foot caught on the dead arm of an abassy. Immediately, a pike caught him in the leg. It tore through the outside of his thigh. Raettonus hissed and wheeled on the abassy who had struck him. He jammed his rapier into its cheek to the hilt. The monster swayed slightly, but didn’t go down. Raettonus pulled his blade free and then forced it into the abassy’s belly, just below where its mail ended. With a hiss and a gurgle, the abassy crumpled to the ground.

There was so much blood on Raettonus’ sword that it dribbled off the crossguard, landing on the ground in thick, black drops. Parry. Jab. Parry. A spear grazed his cheek. He cursed and ended the abassy responsible. Jab. Slash. Parry. Jab. Another horrible, gray monster with gray steel teeth fell to the ground before him. Parry. Jab. He struck out with his sword, and it slid into the nose of an abassy and pierced its brain. He pulled it clear, and it came out with a wave of chunky, fetid blood.

But there were more of them. No matter how many eyes and brains he pierced, there were more yet to pierce. The monsters came forward ceaselessly on their thin, toned limbs, clutching their pikes and their spears, grinning with their scrap-metal mouths. He stabbed into the horde as they came at him from all sides. Here and there, he managed to muster up a few fireballs, which sent the abassy reeling back, smoke coming up from the dark pits of their eyes. But these reprieves were brief. He could barely catch his breath before he was again surrounded, fighting for his life. Fighting for Sir Slade’s life.

And then things grew still.

It spread like a ripple through the army. Never taking their blank, black eyes from Raettonus and Diahsis, the abassy stepped slowly back. Raettonus and Diahsis pressed tighter together, scanning their enemies wearily. The abassy withdrew into a large circle. The line of them that had cut Raettonus off from Brecan moved out of the way, and he could see the unicorn once again. Brecan’s white fur was stained black with abassy blood and his own red blood was gushing from deep cuts on his flank, but he was not really any worse for the wear. Not that Raettonus would ever admit it, but he was glad to see the unicorn still standing.

In the citadel beside them, the war horns still blew and arrows still twanged out the windows. The abassy, however, had stopped moving completely. The ones standing were as still as the ones dead on the ground around them.

Slowly, Raettonus became aware of a heavy, rhythmic thud. At first it was faint—so faint he could barely feel it in the soles of his boots. As it got louder, the abassy backed farther and farther away from them. “What’s going on?” Diahsis asked Raettonus quietly. The shining white visor of his helm was splattered with dark drops of blood.

Raettonus furrowed his brow. “I don’t know,” he said. He didn’t like it, whatever it was.

The abassy were clearing a path as something heavy slowly approached. The trio turned their faces toward the path on instinct. Against his back, Raettonus felt Diahsis go completely slack for a moment. “Gods above,” said the general, his voice little more than a breath caught in the back of his throat.

On the back of what might’ve been a nightmare given flesh, coming leisurely toward them, was Cykkus, the Black Winged Death.

Chapter Seventeen

He rode a black jaguar all armored in bronze with eyes like ice, which must’ve stood eighteen hands tall at the very least. It had two heads and three tails, and everywhere it stepped the earth cracked and turned dark gray as the color itself seemed to wither and die. The golden reins by which Cykkus led the monster still left both its hungry maws free to bite. The jaguar snarled out of both mouths as it neared them.

As fearsome as the beast he rode was, Cykkus was even more chilling to behold.

He was almost eight feet tall from boot to helm, and all in full plate. His armor was black, but not the clumsy, stained black of a mortal’s armor. No, this was the color of sky without stars. The plates were less like metal and more like a hardened void that had eaten even all the light that had touched it. He was wrapped in steel made of nothingness. Flecks of rust, or maybe—probably—blood, were on his boots and gauntlets. Aside from that, his armor had been polished to a glossy sheen that directly contradicted the desolate deepness of its color.

Horns protruded from the forehead of his helm, arching slightly upward, and between them rose a feathery black crest that cascaded down to his back. Like the Zylekkhan helms, Cykkus’ closed in on the cheeks, stopping just beside the nose guard. Shadows obscured his face where it was visible; Raettonus was left with the impression of lips and a mouth, but couldn’t quite make them out. In thick shadows, Cykkus’ eyes shone a searing red through the eye slits. When he turned his gaze on Raettonus, it felt as if something deep inside him were being burned away. In one gauntleted hand, Cykkus held his terrible steed’s reins lightly. In the other hand he carried an axe much the same as an executioner might carry, a pocket watch wound around the shaft by its chain. His enormous black wings were spread out behind him like a cape made of leather. Light seemed to die around him, as if afraid to brush his sleek, steel casing.

“There is something unnatural here,” said Cykkus. He didn’t speak particularly loudly, but his voice echoed across them all the same. “You’re trying to keep it from me, and for that I ought to strike all of you down. If you hand it over to me, however, I’ll leave, and there need be no more casualties.”

Raettonus had always spoken bluntly. He had never feared to say whatever he wanted to any man, no matter how much larger, stronger, or higher-up that man had been. For once, however, words would not come.

He looked at Cykkus, and he was afraid.

Knees shaking, heart racing, bowels tying themselves all in knots.

Raettonus found his throat dry and tried to swallow, but managed only to make a small, choked sound. At some point, Diahsis had moved beside him and was gripping his arm tightly. For all of the general’s talk of going out brave, all his romantically suicidal notions of dying in some grand and glorious battle and being sung about, Raettonus knew that he suddenly wanted to live, as well.

Cykkus watched them with his molten gaze for a stretch of time, which might have been eons but for the fact, the sun didn’t rise and set while they stood there. Then he turned just his face—if it could be called a face—toward Brecan. “Where is it? Bring it to me,” he demanded.

“I—I can’t d-do that,” said Brecan, shrinking away from the god’s look.

“Where will you go when you die, Brecan of the forest, son of Bregdan?” asked Cykkus. “You won’t go to Hell, because, as I can see from those unnatural pale eyes of yours, you haven’t got a soul. When you die, you’ll simply cease to exist, as if you had never been to begin with. Do you want to disappear forever?”

“N-no,” said Brecan.

“Then you should fetch what I’m here for,” Cykkus told him, narrowing his eyes. He moved his axe up ever so slightly to make his point clear, and the pocket watch rattled against his gauntlet and kept on ticking. “You’ve killed many of my abassy. But I am no abassy. The merest brush of my hand will snuff you out immediately, Brecan of the forest. Bring me this unnatural thing or you will die.”

The unicorn hesitated for the barest wisp of a moment before he squared himself up and flattened his ears back against his skull. He bared his yellowed fangs and flicked his arrow-tipped tail. “No,” he said firmly, though there was terror in his eyes.

The death god scoffed—a quiet sound from deep in his throat that rang metallically as it came out of his helm. He turned his fierce red gaze on Diahsis. “How about you, Diahsis of Fybuk, son of Vaeminn Vohrtahl? Your life is precious to you, isn’t it? You enjoy living, after all, don’t you? Food, drink, music, hunting, sports, sex—these things are precious to you, aren’t they? These are things a corpse cannot partake of, Diahsis of Fybuk. Do you wish to die here?”

Weakly, Diahsis smiled and said, “Lord Cykkus, I am dead no matter what I do here. Either you kill me or Raettonus does.” Diahsis glanced down at Raettonus griping his arm. “And honestly, I feel the magician will end me far more painfully. No disrespect, my lord, but I’m with Raettonus to the end.”

“Is that how it is, Diahsis of Fybuk?” asked Cykkus. He narrowed his searing red eyes to little slits. “I am a god. To deny me is blasphemy. Perhaps your death will be less painful at my hands than at his, but what of your afterlife, Diahsis of Fybuk? Will you find relief in an eternity where you are chained to a rock to be tortured by the horrors of Hell?”

Diahsis took a deep breath. “No, I won’t, my lord,” he said. “But I have made my choice, and I will stand by it. I am for Raettonus. Kill me, chain me to a rock in Hell—my mind will not change.”

Cykkus turned back to Raettonus. “Your allies are foolishly loyal,” he said. The god let out a small sigh. “Please, give it up. There need be no more deaths but one. Do not force me to slaughter these soldiers to the last man.”

“I’m not giving Sir Slade up to you,” Raettonus told him. “Go ahead and kill them all. I don’t care. Do I look like I care? They mean nothing to me. Less than nothing, even.”

“They are lives, worth just as much as your Sir Slade,” said Cykkus.

“Not to me they aren’t.”

Cykkus stared him down, and he could feel his resolve weakening. The gaze of the god was a powerful thing. It felt as though he were seeing him not just in that moment, but in every moment of his life, both past and future, all at the same time. Raettonus gripped tight to the hilt of his rapier to keep his hand from shaking.

“Do you think the world must stop for your whims?” Cykkus demanded coolly. “Are you so special that nature itself should make an exception for your fancies?”

“It was not a whim or a fancy,” Raettonus responded, his thin lips drawing tight against his teeth. “Sir Slade was a good man—he was the best man there ever was—and he died before his time. It’s not—it wasn’t fair he should be dead. He didn’t deserve that.”

“Many men do not deserve death, and it always comes before its time,” said Cykkus. He turned his helmed face away toward the citadel, gazing toward the battlements. Beneath him, his terrible mount flicked its long tails and flattened its ears. “Sir Slade is a man like any other, no matter what virtues you see in him or what virtues he might actually possess. One way or another, men must die.”

“Not Sir Slade,” Raettonus said. “God—take anyone else. Take me. Leave Sir Slade.”

“You are not a suitable replacement,” said Cykkus. “There is no suitable replacement. He’s the one who must go with me. I will take as many lives as I need to, but I will not stop until I’ve taken his.”

“Why? He is a good man—”

“I have already told you that is immaterial,” Cykkus said, cutting Raettonus short. “Good or bad, wicked or virtuous—that means nothing at all to me. I am not interested in deeds, Raettonus the Phoenix, son of Sir Rolf. Sir Slade is the one who was brought unnaturally back to the realm of the living. Sir Slade is the one who needs to die. Now I will ask of you only once more: deliver him to me and stop this pointless, doomed protest.”

Raettonus narrowed his eyes and knitted his brow. “I am never going to let Sir Slade die again,” he said through clenched teeth. “God strike me down—he is staying here.”

With a disapproving grunt, Cykkus motioned with one massive hand toward the fortress. “Tear it down,” he said emotionlessly to the abassy. “Leave no one.” He gazed at Raettonus again. “Of course, I don’t know what I was expecting. Mortals have no perspective. No matter how much you might’ve loved someone, they’re never worth bringing back from the dead.”

The maggots and the abassy and the rats swarmed the wall again. As the rats came on, Raettonus felt his chest tighten, and he shrank weak-kneed against Diahsis. The stones began to shatter as Cykkus’ army beat at them with strength previously unknown. Raettonus couldn’t make himself move to stop them as Cykkus and his mount stared him down and the giant rats swarmed about.

“One would think you’d understand the finality of death better than most,” chided the god to Raettonus. “You’ve lived long enough, and you’ve lost enough. You searched for centuries for a way and found none. Why would you take it at face value when Kimohr Raulinn told you it’s possible when you knew by your own damn experiences that it wasn’t?” He shook his head and urged his jaguar forward a few steps. “Every time I think you mortals might not be so daft, you decide to prove me wrong.”

“Those are easy things for a god to say,” Raettonus answered, his voice so unsteady he hardly would’ve recognized it as his. “After all, who have you ever lost?”

“I’ve lost friends who were very close to me. Even gods die,” Cykkus replied nonchalantly. “But like everyone else, I learned to let go. I’m not here now out of malice. I’m here because you gave Kimohr Raulinn the power to rend reality itself. Nature’s out of balance now, and horrible things are going to happen if that abomination stays on this plane.”

“Don’t you dare call him an abomination,” said Raettonus, taking a step forward and lifting his rapier.

The abassy on the ground surrounding him which he had thought dead—certainly they should have been by their injuries—began to rise. He glanced around wildly at the abassy, readying himself for the fight. As the creatures moved, however, he realized there was nothing for him to fear from them. Their movements were jerking and unnatural—the movements of corpses aimlessly reanimated. Indeed, when he focused on it he could feel a familiar, necromantic energy permeating the air around him. He pursed his lips as his heart sank.

“Raettonus,” Slade called from behind him.

He turned. “Master,” he said, fighting to keep his voice controlled. “You should be inside.”

“Dohrleht told me what this is all about. This war,” said Sir Slade. He wore a stern expression. “You lied to me. You were going to get all those soldiers killed on my behalf.”

Raettonus scowled. “So you wouldn’t die,” he countered. “I’m fighting this war for you.”

“I never have and never would ask you to do that,” said Slade as he picked his way toward Raettonus. Noticing the abassy that had risen, he took a deep breath and withdrew his energy from them, causing them to drop, once again lifeless, to the ground. The former knight looked toward Cykkus for a brief moment and shuddered before meeting his gaze with Raettonus’ again. “You shouldn’t have lied to me.”

Without realizing it, Raettonus had begun to cry. He took an unsteady step toward Slade. “What was I supposed to do? Tell you the truth? Just let you go sacrifice yourself after all this?” he asked.

Slade lowered his eyes. “These men shouldn’t die for me,” he said. “I don’t mean anything to them. I shouldn’t even be here. I’ve lived a life and died a death already. That’s all there is to it.”

“That is not all there is to it,” Raettonus snapped. “You know what? You don’t even get a say in this. You’re staying here with me, and that’s that.”

“Raettonus, don’t—”

“No,” said Raettonus, clenching the hilt of his rapier so tight that all the blood rushed out of his knuckles. “You don’t understand. I had to watch you die once, and it’s not happening a second time. I had to watch you die and see the life drain out of your eyes and—and it’s not fair to put me through that again.”

Slade smiled sadly. “This isn’t a matter of what’s fair, Raettonus. You should know that. You do know that.”

“I don’t care,” said Raettonus. “You’re not going to die again. God damn it, Master—I had to watch you die once already. I had to kill you. Every day after that, all I thought was, ‘maybe he would’ve lived. Maybe he would’ve recovered from the plague.’”

Slade’s expression didn’t change. “I have to go, Rae,” he said softly. “Don’t be sad. We’re going to see each other again some day.”

“No, you can’t go,” said Raettonus. He turned to Cykkus. “You can’t take him. Duel me. We’ll have a duel for his life.”

Cykkus regarded him coldly. “You can’t kill me with that,” he said, gesturing slightly with his head toward Raettonus’ sword.

“Yes I can,” said Raettonus. “Kimohr Raulinn gave it to me. It’s enchanted. Enchanted weapons kill gods the same as mortals.”

“Not this god,” said Cykkus. He narrowed his eyes until they were little more than red slits. “I’m Death—the warden of Hell’s gates, the conveyer of souls to the world beyond this one. I am the only true immortal.”

“Fight me anyway,” said Raettonus, stepping forward.

“There’d be no point,” Cykkus said coolly. He turned his mount toward Slade. “Sir Slade the Gryphon, son of Lord Crolleen. I have come to collect you and to bring you back to Hell.”

“I know,” said Slade. “I will go with you without a fight. Please…please don’t hurt any of these men. Don’t hurt them anymore.”

“A fair request, which I will honor,” Cykkus said with a respectful nod. “Come to me, Sir Slade the Gryphon.”

Slade started toward the god and his nightmare mount, but Raettonus grabbed him by the sleeve. “Master,” he said pleadingly.

“I can’t stay here with you,” said Slade, looking down at Raettonus with pity in his eyes. He kissed Raettonus softly. “Be good to Rhodes. And…please—please try to be happy.”

With a half-hearted smile, Sir Slade broke away from Raettonus and went to Cykkus’ side. The god and his hell-beast jaguar towered over the man, casting him all in shadows. Looking at them side by side, Raettonus felt his knees go weak, and he had to kneel. He was trying to object, but the words choked themselves out in his throat like flames on a match that wouldn’t burn. Cykkus held up his empty hand, and the abassy’s assault on Kaebha ceased immediately.