Nightlord: Shadows (58 page)

I’m not going to get into whether or not she has a soul. I’m both ignorant and apathetic about that: I don’t know, and I don’t care.

She regenerates that vital essence over time in some fashion I don’t understand, much like a biologically-living being does. I started the process going by pouring the lives of several horses and a bit of mine into her during her creation. I didn’t really understand what I was doing when I made her, and I’m not sure I could do it again.

Today, I added more from my own storehouse of physical vitality.

She didn’t like it. She didn’t want me to go to the trouble.

I don’t often tell her to shut up and do as she’s told. Actually, I can’t think of a single occasion I ever have, until now.

“You’re wounded,” I told her. “I’m fixing you. Yes, I know you’re fixing yourself, but I’m going to help, because I want to help, and you’re going to let me, because I want to help. Don’t argue with me. Just suck it up and get better as quickly as is metallically possible. Got it?”

Can a horse look sheepish? Yes.

I settled down next to Bronze and drew circles, symbols, and lines on the floor. I would transfuse some of my living force into her while I rested. It meant I wouldn’t really rest; it was like working at a constant level, just enough to keep me feeling tired. Kind of like pedaling one of those generator-bikes at a pace that keeps your heart rate up, but isn’t exhausting.

I had a nap while Bronze regenerated.

Sunset woke me early on in the process, still alive. I sat up slowly, tired and still hungry. I disconnected my transfusion spell to Bronze and stretched. Most of my physical needs would self-correct in a bit, but it was an ugly sunset. Hot needles stabbed through me and especially through my nonexistent hand. As darkness fell outside, black tendrils of spiritual force extended from the end of my arm, writhing into the shape of bones, blood vessels, nerves, muscles. They formed a nightmare hand of writhing, tight-knit tendrils, quivering at the end of my arm. I flexed it, opening and closing it, almost fascinated enough to ignore the sunset.

The sunset felt like a thousand electric sparks crawling over my flesh, making it twitch and ripple. I didn’t quite convulse, but I did tremble and shiver violently throughout the process. Oozing, gooey sweat formed a yellow-grey layer over my skin.

The sunset finished. All my miseries diminished with the last arc of the sun on the horizon, faded as it crept lower, and vanished when darkness fell.

Slowly, everything settled into the normal silence of a nightlord’s corpse. My tendril-hand unraveled, withdrew. I wondered for a moment if I could have used it like a hand if I hadn’t been so distracted. Was that my body’s way of marking out everything that needed to be fixed? Did that happen every night, internally, as my regeneration took stock of how I didn’t match what I was supposed to be? Or was this just a reaction to actual missing pieces?

I got up, careful not to breathe, and cleaned myself thoroughly. I didn’t bother with my disguise spells; it was going to be that kind of night.

Bronze had two functioning legs. The other front leg was already partly recovered, leaving only that and one rear leg to finish. I was very pleased. It was obvious from the color where the legs were repairs instead of originals, but she was certain that would fix itself. A number of dents and dings had also filled in. She was still missing an ear, but the damage no longer looked like a fatal head wound.

I stroked her nose and cheek.

“Are you going to be okay here while I go kill everything?” She nodded. She didn’t like me going alone, but she, too, wanted them dead. Hers was a simple desire to make them dead; my emotion had cooled from a roaring fire to bright coals. I tried not to let that interfere with my thinking.

“I’ll bring you back anything they have that isn’t iron,” I promised. Some bronze belt buckles or copper coins, possibly; those would be fine. She likes crunchy bits with her combustibles, the way most humans like condiments on their food.

I made a mental note to get her something flammable to munch on, too.

I wrapped a set of requests in a spell, pushed it into the mountain, and left it to its work while I went to get my sword out of the canal.

When I opened one of the outer door, there was a lot of clanking and scuffling. I stuck my head out to see what was waiting for me and found about half my knights in the upper courtyard. They had an impressive collection of captured weaponry, all of it pointing at me. I stepped outside and they shifted from attack stances to salutes. I beckoned to Torvil, Kammen, and Seldar. They approached and did the one-knee, fist-to-floor thing.

“Get up. Didn’t I tell you to get everyone back to Mochara?”

They traded a glance. Torvil answered.

“Sire, you ordered us to see to the safety of the people.”

“By taking them to Mochara,” I added.

“No, Sire. You only said to see them to safety. Once they were safely away from the enemy…”

“Yes?”

“Well… it was pointed out that we were leaving you to do battle alone.”

“Really.”

“Yes, Sire. Those with horses chose to return; most of the rest continued to escort the people down the canal.”

“Hmm. And what have you been doing since you got back here?”

“Killing the enemies of our King.” There was murmured agreement from everyone.

Actually, I thought that might be a good thing, but I didn’t want to encourage them. Still, how many of the opposition might have been outside when I locked the mountain down? A hundred? Two hundred?

“How many did you find?” I asked.

“One hundred and sixty-two, by our count,” Torvil said. “We have not lost anyone, but a few are still sorely wounded.”

“I see you managed to get hold of some real weapons.”

“We saw a number of dead
orku
along the western canal,” Torvil told me. “We salvaged much from them, then went hunting for smaller patrols. We overwhelmed each of them and took their weapons, as well, rather than attempt an attack in force.”

“And we kicked their balls up between their ears!” Kammen added. There was enthusiastic agreement from the rest and a few blades waved in the air; I half-expected a
oo-rah!
from someone. To be fair, it was a little bit impressive. I might be dismayed that they went into battle before they were ready—well, before
I
thought they were ready; I was obviously mistaken—but they did a good job. A damn fine job, in fact.

“Fine,” I sighed, pretending to an unwilling agreement. “All right, you can make yourselves useful. Torvil, send someone down to the western bridge and search the canal for my sword; it’s probably between the bridge and the mountain. Also, look around for some iron shot. If you find any with magic in them, bring them here, but be careful; the magic is very fragile and instantly deadly if it fails.” I held up my shortened left arm. “You’ll be careful, right?”

“Yes, Sire!” he assured me, staring at the injury.

“Good. Also, send someone else down to the main gate to collect any of the square-ish things—the magical ones. While you’re at it, if you find any pieces of my horse down by the main gate, I want those brought up, too. Any questions?”

“No, Sire,” he lied. He had a
lot
of questions, just none he was willing to ask.

“Go.” He went. “Kammen, do we have any prisoners?”

“Nope, Sire. Sorry. They didn’t care to be captured. And, ah, nobody really wanted to, I guess, Sire.”

“Well, it’s your first engagement, so I suppose I can let it go. In the future, it’s usually a good idea to capture anyone that looks like he’s got some level of rank. They may know things. Got that?”

“Got it, Sire. I’ll let ’em know.”

“Good. How are we on defenses?”

“We’re manning the inner courtyard; we can hold that. The city? Sorry, Sire, but you’ve got a big-ass city.”

“I noticed. We really need more people. Okay, keep a lookout for anyone sneaking up or sneaking away; you may have a few stragglers that haven’t been found and dealt with. Do we have the manpower for that?”

“I’d think so, Sire. I’ll get on it.”

“Go.” He went. “Seldar. Where are the wounded?”

“We have them in some of the higher houses, with guards. We thought it prudent to keep them from the upper courtyard lest something deadly emerge, Lord of Deadly Things.”

“And now I have,” I joked with him. “Let’s go.”

The first few buildings along the downward road were probably intended as houses; they had running water and toilets, anyway, so they made good hospitals. A dozen men and two women lay on pallets on the floor. Mostly stab and slash wounds, with a few blunt traumas and breakages. I double-checked the healing spells on everyone, then held class for anyone interested in the finer points of flesh-welding.

“To work with a surface wound is one thing. To work on deeper wounds, we really need a complex of two or three spells. One to see what you’re doing, a second spell to manipulate things you don’t want to cut your way in to touch, and a third that actually does the flesh-welding.

“It does work on bone,” I pointed out, “but it’s tricky when you can’t actually see or touch what you’re trying to do. If you don’t know a spell to look through flesh,
learn one!
In the meantime, if you absolutely have to, you can make an incision, like so, but always cut along the lines of the flesh. That will make it easier to seal it again once you’ve mended the bones a bit.

“Also, have a care about where you fasten the flesh together. I’ve seen some awful scars from bungled jobs; make sure you’re attaching the severed ends of the same muscle back together, rather than one muscle to another!

“Very important, remember that the arteries and veins have to be kept intact. If you cut one, you have seconds to weld it back together, which is why having an assistant is always a good idea.

“Now, note here that bones are not solid all through. You have to weld them together
carefully
, because they form a sort of tube…”

Once class was over, I dismissed the healthy and sat down next to Beltar. Someone had done a good job getting the arrows out of him and sealing the holes. The stab wounds were similarly treated. And, since I had just finished putting his leg back together, he would get to keep it.

“Just as a point of curiosity,” I said, settling comfortably next to him, “how did you get so mangled?” As we spoke, I continued with the after-work on him, threading a fine-meshed net through his system to catch infections. I was pretty sure he would be okay… after a while.

“Some of the
galgar
were retreating toward the mountains, Sire.”

“Right. And?”

“They were getting away, Sire.”

“Go on.”

“Some of your enemies were escaping, Sire,” he clarified.

“Ah. And what did you do?”

“Sir Seldar was kind enough to let me ride double with him when we returned,” Beltar said. “He was dismounted, tending to wounded in the battle for the city bridge. When the
galgar
on the west bridge broke and ran, I pursued them and attacked. They turned to battle, and the delay allowed others to catch them,” he finished. I nodded, finishing my antibiotic working and checking his healing spell.

“How many did you kill?” I asked.

“Uh… none, Sire.” He added, “The horse kicked at least three.”

“None? Why none?”

“I have no sword, Sire. The horse was my only weapon,” he said. I think I stared at him. He blushed and added, “I stabbed one with an arrow.” He tapped a former wound in his arm.

It took me a minute to realize what he was saying. Apparently, he pulled an arrow out of his arm and used it like a dagger. When I fully grasped it, I still couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I’m going to partner you with a guy I know named Paddew,” I told him, finally. “I think you two have a lot in common.”

“As you wish, Sire.”

“You get some rest. I’ll talk to you later.”

“As you wish, Sire.”

I moved over to the girls, sat down in between them, and looked at them both.

“Well, do you still want to be knights?”

They nodded in unison, as though puppets on the same string.

“Good. We’ll start work on your sword style. Are you trained as wizards?”

“Just the things we’ve learned here,” said… one of them. I may need to get them some sort of ID tags.

“All right. I may have an idea. Wait a moment.”

I stepped into my headspace. The place was looking much better. My butler-ish persona was still sorting, but it was all on shelves, now, rather than stacked in piles everywhere. I considered it to be excellent progress.

I nodded to him and he nodded back, still sorting.

What I wanted was something like him, but with a few small changes. What I needed was a teacher, one who knew a lot about fencing, or, even better, about the weapon styles of the female
dama
. Someone who could train people to use light, fast weapons; we have enough people who already understand the basics on big, hacking ones.