Saker

SAKER FLUSHED EVERY time he remembered throwing up after the battle at Spritford. If he was to take back this land for its rightful inhabitants, he had to get over his squeamishness. So he followed his ghosts, his little army, down into Carlion determined to be detached; to be strong.

What he saw tried his resolution. The people of Carlion were mostly asleep, although a few late drinkers were on the streets, making their way home. They died first, Owl and his followers smashing into them before they realized what was happening. They didn’t even have time to raise the alarm.

Owl gave the first blow: a backhanded sweep with a sword which cut open a man’s neck to the bone. There was no scream, just a gargling sound as the blood spurted on the street, covering Owl. He grinned and spun to strike at a woman. But he stopped in mid-stroke and pushed her aside, moving on swiftly to another target.

Ah, Saker thought, noting her dark hair as she ran, sobbing with fear, into an alleyway. The spell is working. It protects those of Traveler blood. He concentrated on the feeling of satisfaction that gave him, so he didn’t feel sick at the terrible noises coming from the battle around him; so he didn’t feel at all for the man who had just died. That man was an invader, he reminded himself. Living off the profits of murderers. Deserving of death.

Then the ghosts went to the houses. Carlion was a peaceful town. It had its share of robbers and tricksters, but they tended to concentrate on the country visitors and traders who passed through. The residents left their doors on the latch, except during the big Winterfair. That was why Saker had chosen it as the first city, instead of Turvite, where crime flourished and householders put good stout bars across their doors before they went to bed.

The ghosts simply walked in for their slaughter. They disappeared from the silent, moonlit street into houses all along the main street and a few moments later the screams started.

Saker began to tremble, but he breathed deeply and admonished himself, imagining what his father would say if he could see him. Just standing still wasn’t enough. He had to be part of it, to see it.

So he followed Owl into the next house.

It was a brick house, well-to-do. The front room was used as a carpentry workshop but there was a big standing loom there, too. Stairs led up to the sleeping chambers. As the door crashed back and Owl rushed in, a voice was raised in question from upstairs. A young auburn-haired man ran down, staring blankly at Owl and Saker. He was tying his trousers as he came; he had no weapon. Behind him was a red-headed woman in a nightshirt: tall, with a strong, attractive face.

Owl raised his sword and the man, quicker than he looked, jumped the last few steps and caught up a long piece of wood which lay on the workbench. He brought it up in time to block Owl’s stroke, but the wood shattered.

“Merrick!” the woman screamed. She grabbed Owl and pulled him back, giving the man time to recover and find another weapon. All he could find was a chisel with a long point. Sharp enough, but no use against a sword. As the woman grabbed him Owl turned and raised his sword to strike at her, then stopped as he had done with the woman in the street. He pushed the red-headed woman away. Saker couldn’t believe it. This red-head was one of the old blood? No, surely not!

“Maryrose!” the man cried, and slid around Owl to her side, helping her up.

Owl grinned, satisfaction on his face as he prepared to strike the man. As the sword came down, knocking aside the chisel, the woman threw herself in front of the man. The sword almost cut her shoulder off and she dropped straight down, dead already. Merrick screamed in anguish and launched himself at Owl, but two more strokes stopped him. He fell beside her, but he wasn’t quite dead. His blood flowed out across the woman’s hair, turning it dark, like a Traveler’s. He tried to turn himself toward her, but only managed to slide his hand along the floor to touch her face. Her eyes stared blindly, green as grass. The man’s fingers slid, shaking, along her cheek and fell.

“Maryrose,” he whispered. “Wait for me.” Then he died.

Owl smiled and turned to the door. Saker was shaking, but he reminded himself that this was necessary. This was no more than the invaders had done to his people.

He followed Owl outside.

There were people on the street now, rushing out to see why their neighbors were screaming, some men already armed, as though they had been expecting trouble. There was confusion, shouting, men trying to form groups to fight, women collecting children who had wandered out in their nightclothes, yawning.

Many died. Mostly it was quick. But sometimes it wasn’t. Even the men who had come ready for fighting were soon overcome. Those with swords didn’t know how to use them. They did better with the tools of their trades: knives, hoes, scythes, axes. They fought with desperation but could not do well enough to save themselves. Not when a ghost could take a stab to the heart and still keep fighting.

Yet Saker was astonished to see how many the ghosts passed over. Traveler blood must account for it, because there was no visible difference — the ghosts slashed down at one man but merely shoved another aside; they ripped a scythe across a woman’s throat and leapt over her almost identical neighbor.

No matter what the people of Carlion did, they could not defend themselves against his army.

The only house untouched was a stonecaster’s house with a big red pouch hanging outside, which Saker’s Sight could tell had a spell on the door against ghosts. So. Something to think about.

He had seen enough. He walked through the dying and the dead, past people cowering behind carts and children bleeding over the bricks of the street. Dawn would come soon and he suspected that the ghosts would fade, then. He had to be ready to leave as soon as they faded.

When he stood by the burial site and looked at the bones laid out before him, he had a revelation. He had raised Owl’s ghost by simply using his skull. He didn’t need to go from place to place, raising the local dead against the living. He could take them with him. A bone, just one bone from each, was enough. If he used fingerbones instead of skulls, he could carry an army in a sack!

Frantically he began to collect fingerbones, laying them on the sack he had wrapped Owl’s skull in. He sent out his Sight so that he could feel the spirit of the person who had owned the bone — when he felt the tingle that said the ghost was walking, he put the bone on the pile. In the end, he had a pile of bones which would fit into his smallest coffer. He pulled out the scrolls he kept there and put them in the sack. They weren’t as precious, now, as the bones.

By the time the sun edged above the blood-red horizon, Saker was ready, horse harnessed, reins in hand. As he felt the spell dissolve and the ghosts fade, he started off, leaving behind a carpet of bones cast across the disturbed earth.