It was as dank and uncomfortable in the hole as I had imagined it would be, and rather than try and sleep, with all the risks that brought, I chose to meditate instead. It was restful but easily dispelled, and didn’t risk stirring up any sorcery that a passing wizard might sense. I’d had precious little time to myself recently, so the opportunity to just rest and think was a welcome one, mud notwithstanding. Making myself as comfortable as I could, I let my eyes close and began concentrating on my breathing, willing myself into an alert but hopefully still restful meditative state; if nothing else, the challenge of achieving it would be a distraction.
I’d expected to be sharing the space with all manner of insects and worms, but the only threads of life I could sense were those of the nearest wizards; everything else had either fled the area or died in the attempt. I shook the thought away and felt myself slowly relax, and as my breathing slowed, long suppressed memories seeped into my restive mind.
The day was more beautiful than autumn had any right to offer. The sun hung in the sky as if reluctant to move, warming the air even in the deepest parts of the valley one last time. The breeze was gentle and carried the sound of birdsong to where I lay on the sunning rock, languid and splayed out with no thought of dignity, only the need to expose as much of myself to the light before winter began to assert itself.
I had been there for some time when I heard her above me, a moment before I saw her shadow race across the golden canopy of the forest below. I didn’t hear her land though, I never did, for her grace was such that she could come down behind a herd of gazelle without so much as an ear being flicked amongst them.
Her tail squirmed in under my wing and dug into my ribs. I sighed and folded the wing back to give her space to stretch out next to me, her neck pressed against mine and her head tucked under my chin. Neither of us spoke; there was no need to, not on a day like that. We lay there until the sun eventually relinquished its hold on the sky and slowly sunk beyond the end of the valley, then watched the stars emerge as night settled across our world. In the morning I would leave for the southern coast for a final hunt to ensure our larder was stocked for the winter, as I had done every year for as long as I could remember. I didn’t like being away from her for any length of time, but I liked being cold and starving even less.
Neither of us knew then that it would be our last day together.
‘I should have stayed.’
My own words ended the meditation. I sagged against the mud, uncaring of its slimy touch, and tried to remember the feel of her skin against mine. Her scales were finer than mine, and where the edges of mine were brushed with red, hers had been chased with gold. I bit back an unexpected sob and rubbed my face vigorously, if only to distract myself from thinking about the painful hollow that the memory had opened within my breast. My beautiful Anakhara.
She was why I was here, lying in the mud. Or rather, her death was. Her terrible, lonely death, that most awful event which had driven me mad with rage for so long, the embers of which still lived on within me. My mind, once so miserly with its hoard of memories, now offered too much. I forced the cruel images away with a cry, grinding my palms into eyes until all I could see were stray motes of light. More than eight hundred years had passed but the pain was still as fresh and unbearable as the first day. I lowered my hands and forced myself to concentrate on my breathing until the thickness in my throat and rekindled rage within my breast both subsided.
Once I was recovered, I peered out from under the covering, and the fall of shadows told me that most of the afternoon had passed. I could hear a constant rumble of sound from the surrounding camp, the combination of men and horses sounding almost indistinguishable from the camp where Prince Jean’s soldiers had once taken me.
I wasn’t interested in the army though. I splayed my hands against the mud and dug my fingers in as deep as I could before sending a few threads of sorcery out through them, each of these splitting, then splitting again until they fanned out in a web that would make a spider jealous. I closed my eyes and began sifting through the vibrations I could sense through them, filtering out those of the main camp and concentrating on the soft thump of human feet closer to me.
It was a fairly delicate construct and not something that could be rushed, and the sun had set by the time I collapsed it. The wizards were nowhere near as active as the army was by any measure, and that lack of activity had made my subterranean scrying all the harder by denying me distinct vibrations to focus on, but I knew far more about them now than I had when I arrived. I knew that at least half the wizards had not left their tents at all that day, which I assumed was due to the fatigue from their spellcasting the night before. I also knew that every other wizard spent most of their time clustered in or around the second of the big tents. Having so many wizards in one place sent my skin crawling and sent memories that I really did not want to revisit crowding my mind. What were they doing in there?
I’d sent a gentle probe towards the tent where they’d gathered, but the strength of the wards set around it was staggering. Spreading my web of sorcery to probe at it had also yielded one last nugget of knowledge: Tatyana was not here. If she had been, I was confident I would have felt something, but there was simply no echo from the sorcery within her. The connection hadn’t called for any more healing energies either, so at least I knew that she hadn’t been harmed again. I would have to find her trail anew, but that was something I could only do once I left the suffocating sphere of the dark magic surrounding the camp.
After making sure no one was close by, I edged out from my improvised shelter. The stars were still hidden by the poisoned clouds, but I could just about see the sunset, a blood red strip shot through with gold threads, and I found the sight of it uplifting. After another check to make sure I hadn’t missed any roving sentries, staked heads or necromancers sneaking about, I made my way along the edge of the camp, moving from rubbish pile to rubbish pile. There wasn’t much cover beyond the outer fringe of their camp, which posed a problem as there were far more guards about than the night before, both living and dead, as well as more lamps of the wizard-made variety, each burning with a steady silver light that left the area around them entirely devoid of any sort of shadow. I didn’t think that snuffing them would be too difficult, but someone was more likely to spot their failure. At least there weren’t any dogs here.
I wanted to know what they were doing in the large tent, and from where I was, the most promising route I could see would have me cross over an entirely exposed path, then pass through two lines of tents. That would, however, let me use a natural dip along the edge of the camp to come up behind the next array of tents which, by my reckoning, would then bring me to a point where I could see inside the large tent. I thought it a fine plan, and taking care to do it slowly enough that I could stop if I felt any wards reacting, I woke the construct to blur my shape once more. It took some time to coax to life, but maintaining it was not as taxing as I feared it would be given the magic saturating the area.
I rose from where I had been crouched and moved across the path, keeping my pace steady and the glow of my eyes hidden beneath the rim of my hood as best I could. The nearest guards were two living soldiers, and the temptation to freeze in place when one of them looked in my direction was almost irresistible, but I kept moving, trusting to my sorcery and the hope that moving at an entirely normal pace wouldn’t elicit the same suspicions that running would.
I risked a glance in their direction as I passed behind the first tent and saw that they were now walking towards the path I had crossed. I crouched and picked my way between the tents until I was out of their line of sight taking care not to catch myself on any of the ropes crisscrossing the path.
I could hear the men within the tents as I passed, either snoring or talking quietly amongst themselves. Most of the latter was inconsequential, the sort of talk that I could have overheard from any gathering of men, but a mention of Navar gave me pause.
‘Navar’s changed.’
‘War changes everybody. Why should he be any different?’
‘Doesn’t it worry you?’ A pause. ‘Wait, you haven’t done it, have you?’
‘So what if I did?’
‘Gods. You promised we’d talk about it and decide together!’
‘Oh come on, what is there to talk about? He’s our master. I don’t know why you insist—’
‘Navar Louw was my master. He’s the one who I looked up to, not this damned Worm Lord character. It’s not right.’
‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Or what? I’d end up in a basement somewhere stitching crawlers together for the rest of my life?’
‘At least.’
‘You see? This is what I’m talking about. Anyone who questions anything he says is labelled a spy or agitator these days. Or worse.’
‘Ach, you’re overreacting. Just go to sleep, Herman. You’re on the morning rotation.’
I had hoped for more tangible information but their whispered conversation spiralled off into stories and rumours of wizards who meant nothing to me. I stepped over the last of the ropes and hurried towards the dip I wanted to follow.
There were a handful of ghouls on the far side. They were unmoving, but the glint of light in their moon-white eyes meant they weren’t dormant like the serried ranks behind them. I took extra care as I moved forward, my every sense attuned to the slightest noise or change in the scents carried by the breeze. I crossed to the lip of the ditch without incident and quickly lowered myself into the depression without really paying much attention. The ground was strangely cold and lumpy as it shifted beneath me, swallowing my legs and sending them plunging into cold liquid. A liquid burbling preceded a waft of foetid air as I struggled to find my footing amongst the sponginess. I fed some power into my vision and gasped out loud as the shadows receded and resolved themselves into a sea of dismembered human bodies. I reached for the edge, pushing a limp hand out of my face as the layers shifted, releasing another belch of gas from the congealed blood beneath.
The nearest of the ghoul sentries lurched into life at the sound of my scrabbling, its eyes flaring into new brightness as it stepped up to the very lip of the ditch.
I didn’t know how deep the ditch was, but as far as I could see, it was entirely filled with human bodies, some dismembered and savaged, some whole, but each as pale and lifeless as marble. I couldn’t find enough purchase to put myself in a position to silence the ghoul, so had to settle for lying very still, ignoring the putrid fluids soaking into my robes and the sensation of slowly sinking into the pit.
Eventually it stepped back, the light in its eyes dimming once more. I shook myself loose and moved to pull myself out, but the fluids and fats that had leaked out of the bodies had saturated the walls of the pit, making it a slippery nightmare that saw me sink deeper with every failed attempt. Worse than that though was that noise of my efforts to get out had brought the ghoul back. I lay as still as I could as it came closer, clinging to a limbless torso like a drowning man would to driftwood. I had intended to let it move away again, but the anger that simmered within me was rising now, provoked by the indignity of the grotesque spectacle I found myself part of.
My sorcery flexed as the anger burned away the caution I had held so dear, and manifested as a spear of burning energy that lanced upwards through the ghoul’s head, the white heat of it turning half its brain into steam even before the tip burst out the top of the skull. It stood for a heartbeat more, temporarily held up by my sorcery alone, then fell in a heap as the spear dissipated.
A sense of calm settled on me as its body tumbled into the pit, enough so that I had the clarity of mind to extend the long, black talons that nestled within my forearms and drive them into the slippery walls. They punched through the slippery mud and anchored me while I crouched at the lip and extended a thin fan of sorcery ahead of me to warn me if the ward, or even any wizards, were reacting to my foolish attack. There was nothing; perhaps it had been too sudden for them to notice amidst the constant murmur of spellcasting that emanated from the second tent.
I held my talons in place as I considered my position. No part of me had escaped the foul soup that had drained into the depths of the trench, and as much as I wanted to scrape myself clean, I had to accept that it would take a day standing under a waterfall to cleanse this stench from my skin. I chewed my lip as I considered this and immediately regretted it. Spitting the taste from my mouth, I pulled the closest of the whole bodies to me. He was beardless but a fairly stout specimen, typical of a farmer or soldier. His neck was sound, and there were a number of bruises on his body and his knuckles were scraped, but I could find no wound to suggest how he had died. I rolled him back into the pit and examined two more bodies.
The first showed signs of having been gnawed on after death, and the second had several deep cuts that had been closed with rough stitches, but again after their death. Neither of these showed any killing wounds, which meant that magic had slain them. There were hundreds of bodies discarded here, and while I had no true understanding of how necromancy worked in practice, it was no great leap to imagine that so much death and the power being gathered here were related.
I needed to see what was in that tent.