EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (17 page)

Horror filled her mind.
Besides, how do you kill the living dead? I doubt stabbing it will do much good, and the body’s practically headless already.

Sara sobbed as the lifeless body desperately tried its best to kill her. And yet she was still keenly aware of her surroundings as they struggled. She couldn’t do much with the sword in close quarters, so she dropped it as she quickly grabbed her knife from her belt. She knew that the weapon wouldn’t do much good with the dead, but there was one more person alive in this home. She pushed her mother’s body back with a jolt of strength and quickly threw the knife at the necromancer with all of her might. The aim was true. It flew straight for his head with enough force to pierce his skull directly between the eyes. He fell to the floor, as dead as she was sure Chrimrale was, and her mother’s body tumbled back to the floor, lifeless once more.

Sara slid down the wall to her knees and sobbed. But she didn’t do so for very long. She heard booted steps coming up the side street minutes later. She didn’t know who they were, but it couldn’t be good. Sara rushed up the loft ladder to grab her remaining weapons and thrust everything else hastily in a bag. As she jumped down to the main floor, she had only moments to spare. She knew she needed to get out of here quickly. But she would be damned if she would leave her mother on the floor for strange men to desecrate her remains once more and trample through their home.

So Sara gave her mother the only burial she could. She grabbed the files and stuffed them in her shirt so that she had two hands free for any fights. One to hold her sword and the other to grip the scimitar on the back, if necessary. Then she grabbed the lamp full of kerosene from the stove and tossed the lit missile to the floor. Fire immediately spread in all directions. With her home burning in the night, Sara fled to the only other place she knew she would find refuge.

As she fled into the night, she was careful to keep to the dark shadows as she made her way to the fisherman’s wharf. When she came to the warehouse, she didn’t know what to expect. Her only hope was that Ezekiel would be there. Looking over her shoulder, she waited tensely until the door creaked open. She knew the warehouse had mage protections on it and the new watcher would probably rely on them as his primary protection. He would be wrong to do so, but on this night she was glad he was a fool. He opened the door, and with barely any effort, she disarmed him then forced him to stagger back into the building.

Ezekiel stood to the right with his red bag slung across his shoulder and a large piece of wood in his hands. It looked like he had been preparing to leave before he had thought to fight.

She gave him a wry glance even through the pain of her memories. “What were you going to do with that?”

Ezekiel looked at her, opened his mouth a couple of times, and then looked back at the wood in his hands.

“Club you with it?” he said helplessly.

“What do you want? I though we left you at the plaza,” said the disgusted mercenary she had at sword point.

Sara gave him a glare. “Oh, good, you recognize me. I wondered why you were fool enough to open the door.”

He stopped talking then.

“Sara, what are you doing? Here? At night? I was just about to leave. Mark is all set with his training now…”

His voice trailed off as he got a better look at her appearance. Particularly the blood splattered on her clothes.

“What happened?” he asked.

She shook her head.
 

“Tell your friend to take a walk,” she said harshly, dropping her sword tip from the mercenary’s neck.

Ezekiel glanced over at the new watcher. Then he said, “You heard her. Check the perimeter in the back of the building.”

Without protest, the new watcher left.

“Now, Sara. Tell me,” Ezekiel said firmly.

She took a deep breath. “They ambushed my mother. Killed her in her home.”

She couldn’t bring herself to say
our
home.

She was on the verge of tumbling over into a darkness so deep she didn’t know if she could ever rise from it. From the worry on Ezekiel’s face, he could see it, too.

“What? Who killed her?”

“The Red Lion guard.”

Ezekiel asked, “Why would they do that?” Confusion reigned on his face.

“I don’t know,” she shouted, waving her sword about and pacing.

“Okay, calm down.”

She gave him a look filled with death.

He shook his head. “You can’t think like this. You have to calm down. Deep breaths. We need to know what threat we face.”

“We,” murmured Sara as she breathed in and out. The one word validated her choice to come here. To seek help.

“We,” echoed Ezekiel firmly, looking at her with compassion and anger in his eyes. He didn’t approach her. He wouldn’t dare do that while she had her bloodied sword at her side, but she could tell just from looking at him that he felt her pain.

“What did they want?” Ezekiel asked.

She reached inside her shirt and pulled out the file. She threw it down on the floor in disgust. “My father’s death records.”

He looked at her horror. “For a guard to come after you so blatantly, there must be something in there they don’t want found.”

He gestured at the file. “May I?”

She nodded. “What do you think you’ll find?”

“Something that links your father to the Red Lions, and maybe something more,” Ezekiel said.

“What about the Corcoran guard?” Ezekiel asked as he reached down to pick up the scattered papers.

“What about them?”

“Was it just attackers from the Red Lion guard?”

“Does it matter?” she said tightly. “They’re all mercenaries.”

He quickly shook his head. “Those companies
hate
each other. They’re the fiercest rival guards of all the mercenaries. I shudder to think what it would be like to have them on the same battlefield. In case it wasn’t clear, I’d be really surprised if they were working together. So if you saw the guards from both groups together, it’s really bad news for us.”

“It was just the Red Lion guard and his pet necromancer.”

“Which means for now we can hopefully trust the Corcoran.”

She started pacing again as she asked, “What else do you know?”

“Well,” said Ezekiel as he thumbed through some pages, “who’s Farst?”

“What?” she said, distracted.

He waved a page with a death certificate labeled
Cabel Farst
in large black letters.

“Oh.” She remembered with a wave of her hand. “I stole that to cover up taking the Fairchild file. Look for anything that mentions Vincent Fairchild, my father, instead.”

“Right,” Ezekiel said. “Well, now I know your father was the commander in charge of all the mercenaries on the field of battle.”

She turned to him. “That could be important.”

“I daresay it has to be,” he said as he scanned the file. “As is this.”

She stopped pacing and waiting as Ezekiel began to read aloud. “‘The Red Lions found a temple two miles west of the battlefield, four days before the great battle. Commander Fairchild ordered an investigation.’”

“Why is that important?” she said.

Ezekiel looked over at her. “It says here that he ordered the investigation be opened a day before he was accused of desertion and five days before he died.”

Sara’s mouth tightened in anger. “Then in addition to my mother’s death, the Red Lion guard had something to do with my father’s.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Is there anything else in there?”

“Just a certification of execution,” he said uncomfortably. “Do you want to see it?”

“Just tell me,” she said quietly. “How did he die?”

“By hanging on a low-rising hill,” he replied.

She nodded and turned away to hide the moisture in her eyes. She didn’t want him to think she was weak. She
wasn’t
weak, and she didn’t have time for tears.

Clearing her throat, Sara said, “What else?”

“An officer signed the death certificate and personally transported your father’s body away for cremation. Officer Matteas Hillan.”

“What about all those other papers in there? That file is stuffed with dozens of single sheets that even the inclusion of the Farst file couldn’t account for,” she said numbly. “Did they rip my father’s journal apart and stuff them in the file?”

When she turned to look at Ezekiel, she saw his face the palest she had ever seen it. “What is it? Did you find the journal entries?”

“No,” said Ezekiel. “They’re blank.”

“What’s blank?” she said.

“All of the rest of the papers,” he said helplessly as he held up blank page after page.

Mouth agape, Sara quickly walked over. “How can that be? You said the mercenaries kept meticulous files.”

“And they do,” assured Ezekiel.

Turning, he grabbed the sheath of papers belonging to the man called Farst that he had set aside. He thumbed through page after page before holding them out to her.

“Look at them. All of these pages are filled. Here’s Farst’s military service record. His honors. His death certificate. His next of kin and even his personal notations.”

Sara stared in disbelief. “Then where are my father’s?”

Ezekiel looked at her and back at the files he held in his hands. One set of files was practically empty of anything. The other bursting with knowledge.

“I don’t know.”
 

Sara stepped back and set her bloody sword to rest on a nearby bench. Always close at hand.

“None of this makes sense.”

“You’re telling me,” said Ezekiel.

Sara thought aloud. “Why would the Red Lion guard come after me? What do they want with my father’s files? There’s
nothing
in there.
Why
is there nothing in there?”

She paced and thought.

“Maybe it’s whatever he was investigating,” offered Ezekiel. “Maybe they thought he had some information on the temple and had put it in his journals.”

“But the journals aren’t in there!” shouted Sara.

“I know,” said Ezekiel. “But
they
don’t know that.”

“The question is where are they,” said Sara as she paced some more.

Ezekiel muttered so low that she almost didn’t catch it, “Well, where were they last?”

She turned to him as hope sparked amidst the anger raging inside her. “On the field of battle.”

Ezekiel quickly said, “Well, I’m sure they’re not there now.”

“How do you know?” demanded Sara.

“I don’t,” spluttered Ezekiel. “But that was months ago.”

Sara shook her head in irritation. “My father kept his journal close to his heart…
always
. If he went to his execution willingly, then he had it on him. He knew that the mercenaries were contracted to handle all death benefits. As such they would remove all of his possessions and transport them back to his family. At least they were supposed to.”

“I can see that, but how do you know he went willingly?” ventured Ezekiel.

“Because he had
honor
,” spat out Sara. “Unlike these damned mercenaries. And besides, if he hadn’t gone willingly there would be a trail of dead bodies from the battlefield to the capital city in his wake.”

Ezekiel couldn’t dispute that.

“So he had the journal on him when he died,” Ezekiel prompted her.

“Which means this Matteas Hillan would know where it is now,” Sara said fiercely.

Ezekiel was silent for a moment before he admitted, “He might.”

“Then I need to find him,” Sara flatly. “Before the Red Lion guard does.”

Chapter XIV

“N
O
OFFENSE
TO
YOUR
AWESOME
planning skills, Sara,” Ezekiel said, “but you have
no
idea where he is.”

“But we know someone who might,” said Sara darkly.

“We do?”

She looked toward the door. “Our new watcher is a Red Lion mercenary.”

“That’s true,” Ezekiel said, coming up to stand beside her. “But it’s a large company. He might not have any idea who Hillan is.”

“And he might be his best friend,” said Sara calmly.

Ezekiel nodded and looked over at her with a pained expression on his face. The kind of expression that said he really hoped she wasn’t going to kill someone.

“Look, I’m just going to talk to him,” she explained. “If he’s amicable, nothing unsavory needs to happen.”
 

Ezekiel narrowed his eyes while crossing his arms. “And if he’s not?”

Sara turned her dark gaze on him. “I’m going to find out what happened to my father whether you help me or not. Whether this man is willing to tell me or not.”

“All I’m saying is don’t put the cart before the horse, and don’t kill a Red Lion guard and bring the whole company down on your head in retaliation,” he said flatly.

She cocked her head. “What makes you think I haven’t already?”

A frustrated look crossed Ezekiel’s face. “This is nothing to joke about.”

“I’m not joking. I killed a rithmatist and a necromancer on the same night. They should fear
me.
I’m not sure the necromancer had anything to do with the Red Lion guard, but the rithmatist did, and they’re certainly aware he’s dead now. So I need every piece of information that I can get before I leave this city. Got me?”

Ezekiel nodded reluctantly.

“Can you call him in?”

Ezekiel unfolded his arms and walked to his door to stick his head out. She paced away and back before the new watcher came back in.

As he walked through the door, the mercenary took in her agitated state. She knew her clothes, stiff with blood, didn’t help matters. His hand tensed near his weapon, but he didn’t stop Ezekiel from closing the warehouse door.

Standing between Ezekiel and Sara, the man was silent. She didn’t move toward him because she knew it would be taken as an outright threat.

Instead she spoke from where she stood. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just need some information.”

The man’s face turned to stone. “Is that why you hired me? For information?”

Sara tensed. “No, actually. Some interesting developments have recently come to light tonight, though, and I believe you’re just the man to help shed more light on them.”