Original Work Mercenary's March (The Schooled in Magic Universe)

Chapter Seventeen

Eliza had expected better from a palace.

The chamber she shared with Tancella was a dusty nightmare. There were no beds, just a handful of blankets on the stone floor; the toilet was nothing more than a bucket, placed in the far corner as if they could pretend it wasn’t there when they weren’t using it. The window had been shattered long ago – Tancella cast wards to ensure they wouldn’t be disturbed – and the walls were bare stone, decorated only by claw and teeth marks. It looked more like the lair of a dangerous beast than guest chambers in a palace. She couldn’t help thinking they’d be better sleeping in the tent.

“I thought it would be more ornate,” she said, as she brushed her hair. There was no place to wash either, not even a nearby lake or river. “It’s just a … mess.”

Tancella laughed, sardonically. “The palace has been abandoned for years. What do you expect?”

“Something more,” Eliza said. She couldn’t help flushing. “I …”

“It’s not the worst place I’ve ever slept in, to be sure,” Tancella said. She tapped one of the walls meaningfully. “A couple of years ago, I was in a palace that hadn’t been abandoned for a very long time. The walls were covered in paintings, the frames lined with gold ... the ornate design used to hide peepholes, so we could be watched by our hosts. The charming rogue thought we could make him king, if he paid us enough. Perhaps he should have spent more on the army than his décor.”

Eliza blinked. “He didn’t pay you?”

“We didn’t take the commission,” Tancella said. “The kings and the aristocracy have to make a show of wealth and power, or how would the common folk know they have wealth and power? They go into debt to make a display of money they don’t have” – she shook her head – “and when one neglects the army for the splendour you know he’s just riding for a fall. We didn’t think he’d win the war, so we stayed out of it.”

She laughed. “You wouldn’t recognise a king if you passed him in the street, if he wasn’t wearing his kingly outfit. It’s just pretence.”

Eliza swallowed, unsure what to make of it. She’d been raised by people who accepted society was a hierarchy, that nobles were on the top and people like them were on the bottom – or a few steps above the bottom – and that was how it was meant to be. The New Learning had been changing that, slowly, but most peasants knew that revolts generally led to brutal suppression, higher taxes and all-around misery. Better to run away to the cities and become freemen than raise a hand against their betters. And yet … the idea a king might be nothing more than just a normal man felt wrong. It was just …

Tancella seemed to read her thoughts. “A king is legitimate as long as he sits on the throne and wields power. If someone usurps his position, the usurper becomes the legitimate monarch and the former king becomes the would-be usurper. Retroactively. And that means that knowing when to switch sides, and move your lips from one set of buttocks to the other, is a vitally important skill for the aristocracy. Move too early and the king you betrayed will kill you; move too late and there’ll be no rewards for joining the new king. Who was the real king all along … of course he was.”

Her lips twitched. “Being a mercenary is honest, at least. We fight for money and little else.”

“Oh.” Eliza wasn’t sure what to make of it. “It just seems so …”

Tancella shrugged, then leaned forward. Her voice suddenly sharpened. “And we have something else we have to discuss before we sleep.”

Eliza flinched. The last time her mother had spoken to her in that tone of voice, it was the prelude to the beating of a lifetime. She was honest enough to admit she’d deserved the whipping, every last stroke, and yet …

“You were enjoying yourself during the battle, weren’t you?” Tancella’s tone was cold. “You really were, weren’t you?”

Eliza didn’t want to think about it. The power and the exultation, the belief she could take anyone and do anything … it had been a little like being hopelessly drunk, except she could take anyone. She’d dropped the potion and burned hundreds of orcs to death, laughing all the time … she swallowed hard, unsure what Tancella meant. It had been her job. She had known it from the moment she’d been given the vials and instructed on how to use them. Was it so wrong to enjoy it?

“Yes.” It didn’t seem there was any point in denying it. She couldn’t keep her dismay at the unfairness out of her voice. “I … what’s wrong with enjoying it?”

Tancella’s eyes never left hers. “Magic is often driven by emotion,” she said. “Most early sparks of magic appear when the magician is very emotional, sometimes wanting something badly and sometimes utterly convinced that you’re going to die. It can set up a feedback loop where the emotion powers your magic, sometimes skipping steps to give you what you want, while making you addicted to the sensation of emotional magic. It’s like getting drunk” – Eliza was suddenly convinced Tancella could read her mind – “and needing to drink more and more to recapture the sensation. Do you see the danger?”

Eliza hesitated. “Can you read my mind?”

“Do you think you’re the first person to have this problem?” Tancella’s eyes narrowed. “Do you see the danger?”

“I think so.” Eliza had seen husbands and fathers drinking and then coming home to beat their wives and children. Or worse. Alcohol turned otherwise decent men into brutes, screaming and shouting and saying or doing things they would never if they were sober. “I was just …”

She swallowed, hard. “Why did it go wrong?”

Tancella leaned forward. “You have never had any real power in your life. You worked on the farm as soon as you were old enough, and grew to maturity knowing your parents had to be obeyed at all times, until you were married off … at which point you had to obey your husband instead. You had restrictions on your behaviour that might have been for your own safety, truthfully so, yet … you hated and resented them. You didn’t like being told you had to be escorted every time you left the village, while your brothers enjoyed far more freedom. And when you complained, if you dared, you were either told there was no choice or simply beaten into submission.”

Her eyes tightened. “No matter how strong you were, your father and brothers were always stronger. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“And now you have power,” Tancella said. “You can kill someone with a spell. Or worse. You can turn a man into a pig, make him love you … make him say or do or believe anything. It is all too easy to lose control and do something terrible, if you start allowing your emotions to feed your magic. You came very close to losing it today.”

Eliza said nothing for a long moment, unsure what to say. She had chafed against the restrictions … she didn’t know a single girl in the village who hadn’t. She had resented them even as she’d understood why they had to exist. She'd come very close to being raped even without breaking the rules openly … she knew, all too well, what would have happened if Robin hadn’t been close enough to hear her scream. A surge of pure anger shot through her. How dare that bastard put his filthy hands on her? If she’d known what she could do, she would have turned him into a snail and stepped on him. If …

Her magic bubbled under her skin. Eliza gritted her teeth, suddenly realising exactly what Tancella meant. It was appealing. The would-be rapist was dead – she wondered, suddenly, if his body had been discovered – and yet she wanted to hunt him down and hurt him, to tear him to pieces even through it was pointless. She wanted to lash out and … she took a long breath, calming herself with an effort. Women weren’t allowed to lash out, not back home, while men could hit whoever they liked … as long as they were prepared to deal with the consequences. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t … she found herself angry again, despite her best efforts. She had to fight to regain control.

“Good,” Tancella said. “Strong emotion can be a good servant, but a very poor master.”

She sat back, clearly pleased. “You’ll go far, if you keep yourself under control,” she added, with a faint – almost creepy – smile. “But if you lose control …”

Eliza heard the unspoken threat and shuddered. “How did you learn to cope?”

“Oh, I had my own set of resentments to deal with,” Tancella said. Her tone was light. Her eyes were hard. “Daddy Dearest knocked up Mummy and decided to acknowledge me as his get instead of giving Mummy a shitload of money and telling her to get lost. Stepmother Sadistic really didn’t like it and who can blame her, so she took it out on me. Daddy wouldn’t let her actually hurt me, not physically, but mentally …

“Turned out I had magic. Bad news for my half-brother. Good news for me. They packed me off to Laughter and washed their hands of me. I graduated with honours and never looked back.”

“I’m sorry,” Eliza said. Her parents had been strict, sometimes brutally so, but she’d never doubted they loved her. “I …”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tancella said. “I made my peace with it long ago.”

“You shouldn’t have had to go through that,” Eliza said. “You …”

“There’s no time for idealism in this world,” Tancella said, coldly. “You’ll hear far worse stories than mine, if you stick with the band. There’s a reason they call us the Battling Bastards. Daddy meant well, which is more than can be said for a lot of others.”

She shrugged. “Get some rest,” she ordered, tartly. “We’ll have a long day tomorrow.”

***

The dark city was eerie.

Robin stood in front of the makeshift gatehouse, torn between boredom and fear. The city was quiet and yet, every so often, he thought he heard a sound or spotting something inching towards the camp, something that wasn’t there when he looked closer. The lanterns produced pools of light that should have revealed anything sneaking towards him, but the local illumination only made the rest of the city look darker. He wasn't sure if being allowed to stand guard was a reward or a punishment, a sign he was trusted now or his comrades taking advantage of his graduation to get an extra few hours of sleep. It was harder than he’d thought to remain alert, despite the certain knowledge the search parties couldn’t possibly have found and killed every last orc. He had to bite his lip to keep himself from dropping asleep.

Something moved in the darkness, something humanoid. Robin lifted his pistol as the shape stepped into the light, relaxing slightly as Captain-General Sir James Hawkwood appeared in front of him. Robin hadn’t spoken to the man since their first interview, barely seen him outside a handful of briefings … a flash of horror shot through him, a sudden awareness it might be someone wearing Sir James’s face rather than the man himself. If he made the wrong call …

“Halt,” he said, sweat prickling down his back. If Sir James chose to be annoyed, Robin would be in deep shit. “Who goes there?”

Sir James smiled, rather dryly. “Captain-General Sir James Hawkwood,” he said. The voice sounded right. “You’d better call the guard captain. He knows who I am.”

Robin kept an eye on Sir James as he tapped the clicker, calling the guard captain. “This young lad stopped me,” Sir James said, as Gruber made his appearance. “Reassure him that I’m me, then give him a commendation for checking.”

“Yes, sir,” Gruber said. He made a show of inspecting Sir James, exaggerating every movement until Robin found himself wondering just what he was really doing. “Robin, have a pat on the back.”

“Thank you, sir,” Robin said.

“Go back to bed,” Sir James said, to Gruber. “I want a few words with our new soldier.”

Robin felt his stomach churn. Was Sir James angry? Or … he wanted to look at Gruber, to silently beg for help, but the officer was already heading back to his tent. Even if he didn’t go, he wouldn’t stand between Robin and their ultimate superior. It would end very badly for both of them.

“You did the right thing,” Sir James said. “Everyone who enters the camp has to be stopped and checked before they have the chance to do something dangerous.”

Robin relaxed, slightly. “Thank you, sir.”

“And you had your first taste of combat,” Sir James continued. “How did you find it?”

“It was … interesting.” Robin wasn’t sure how to answer. “I think I did well.”

Sir James raised his eyebrows. “You think you did well?”

Robin flushed. “I wet myself.”

He caught himself a moment too late. Why the hell had that slipped out? He hadn’t wanted to tell anyone … if Khan and the others had noticed, they hadn’t said anything to him. It was hard to believe they wouldn’t rub his nose in it, if they’d noticed. They had had other things on their minds than inspecting his crotch. It was …

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Sir James said. He leaned close, until his lips were brushing against Robin’s ears. “When I saw my first battle, I wet myself too.”

Robin blinked. “But …”

“You’re not the first person to wet himself in combat and you won’t be the last,” Sir James reassured him. “Did you stand in line, in the trenches, or did you run?”

“I stood,” Robin said. There hadn’t been anywhere to go, not during the first battle. He would have bumped into Khan or Mason if he’d tried. “I … I stayed and fought. Does it get any easier?”

“Not really,” Sir James said. He looked as if he were recalling something unpleasant. “Only a fool wouldn’t feel fear, when going to war. A fool ignorant of his own ignorance. You can die horribly in a small border skirmish as easily as you can die in an invasion of the Blighted Lands; you can be injured or crippled by a peasant or a knight in shining armour. The peasant is actually more dangerous, because you’d be likely to underestimate him. Chances are good anyone wearing shiny armour is very good at his job or wants you to think he is. The fear isn’t the problem. The problem is how you deal with it.”

He shrugged. “Regretting your choice?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Robin looked at the ground. It wasn’t as if they’d had much choice. They had been lucky to be taken so far from their home so quickly. “Do you regret it? Sometimes?”

Sir James’s face stilled, just for a second. “I made my choice a long time ago,” he said, in a tone that warned Robin not to press the issue. “And you?”

Robin didn’t know how to answer. There were some parts of his new life he enjoyed. He liked the idea of being part of a team, of fighting together against a dangerous foe. The last barriers between him and the platoon had fallen now, leaving him truly one of the team. And there were parts he didn’t like, not in any sense of the word. He didn’t want to think about them.

“I think I could get to like it,” he said. He’d given up a lot to join, but in truth he’d been likely to lose it anyway. He had no idea if they were being hunted, if someone had drawn a line between the dead body and their disappearance; hell, he had no idea if the body had even been found. If he’d been searching for such a one, he wouldn’t have looked very hard. “Ask me again when the mission is over.”

Sir James laughed. “Good answer,” he said. He made a show of looking around, as if he were afraid of listening ears, then leaned forward, lowering his tone until he was practically whispering. “You did well, for what it’s worth.”

Robin blinked. “You officers discussed me?”

“I would have heard about it if you hadn’t,” Sir James said. There was no mistaking the sincerity in his voice. “You never quite know who’ll prove their value when push comes to shove, when some braggart finally faces the elephant and discovers that war is more guts than glory. Some go through the fire and become experienced, some break … some just break down in tears. I knew one man who” – he smirked, as if he were recalling something funny – “fled the battle on horseback, crying all the while. He died a thousand little deaths instead of one big one.”

And final death, Robin thought.

Sir James stepped back. “You’re doing fine. Just make sure you don’t fall asleep when you’re on watch.”

“Yes, sir,” Robin said. The sergeant had been very graphic when describing just what would happen if he were caught sleeping on duty, and that was if he was lucky. An enemy raid punched through a hole in the defences could easily get them all killed. “I won’t let you down.”

“I never doubted it,” Sir James said. Robin was sure that was a blatant lie. He didn’t much care. It was nice to hear someone having confidence in him. “You’ll do fine.”

And then he turned and walked away,

 

Chapter Eighteen

James hid his amusement, with an effort, as Tancella and himself were shown into the prince’s new office.

It had been cleaned remarkably quickly, the ruined furniture removed and replaced by folding tables, chairs, and map stands taken from the ships and hastily transferred to the palace. The washerwomen hadn’t been able to disguise all the signs of enemy occupation, or cleanse the claw marks from the walls, but they had hung a coat of arms and a handful of maps, the latter dangerously outdated. The nine other captain-generals were already sitting at the table, drinking battlefield kava and exchanging suspicious glances. James knew how they felt. The only one who looked relaxed was the admiral, who didn’t have to be ashore. He could go back to his ship at any moment.

He took his seat and composed himself with an effort. He hadn’t had anything like enough sleep, even though he’d slept in worse places over his long career, and he’d awoken feeling stiff and sore. Breakfast had been minimal, of course, and the less said about the washing facilities the better. He was grimly aware he stank, although no one pointed it out. They all stank too.

A door opened at the far side of the room, a bodyguard in a fancy uniform stepping through and clearing his throat for attention. “Please stand for His Highness Prince Hadrian, Lord Protector of the Kingdom of Kentigern.”

James tried not to roll his eyes as he stood. There was nothing to be gained by showing blatant disrespect to a paymaster, no matter how many airs and graces the man wanted to put on. Prince Hadrian had donned a regal outfit, something that bothered James even though it was clear the prince was wearing a breastplate under his clothes. Was he trying to make the point he was in charge or was he just trying to impress them … or what? James didn’t know. Prince Hadrian was a fool if he thought he’d already recovered his kingdom. The necromancer hadn’t been beaten yet.

And he’s styling himself Lord Protector, James mused, sardonically. That’s a turn up for the books.

His lips twitched as Prince Hadrian motioned for his officers to sit. Lord Protectors were generally uncles of underage princes and princesses, serving as sole regents until their relatives came of age and assumed the throne in fact as well as name. They tended to make certain they’d arranged matters in their own favour before hand, something that rarely worked out very well in the long run. James had never heard of a Lord Protector being appointed when the King was alive and well … was it a subtle challenge to his father or a reminder Prince Hadrian was the Crown Prince, as well as being the one on the spot? Who knew.

Prince Hadrian sat at the head of the table. “Thank you for coming,” he said, accepting a mug of kava as if it were the finest wine. The washerwoman who had been pressed into service curtseyed roughly and backed out of the room. “We have much to discuss.”

He leaned forward. “You have all seen the survivors,” he added. “This city had a human population of nearly a hundred thousand souls, fifteen years ago. Now … we have liberated nine hundred and forty-two, all badly traumatised by their experience. They are so broken it is unlikely they will ever return to normal.”

James winced, inwardly. There had been a set of reports waiting for him when he woke, each one worse than the last. He’d seen the aftermath of battles, seen the human carnage left in their wake, but none had come close to the horror they’d found at Neptune’s Gate. There were humans who couldn’t think straight, humans who thought they were mindless animals, humans who thought they had a duty to have sex with as many others as possible … they were under guard as well as care. The sheer scale of the horror was beyond his imagination. A full sacking, after a town had refused to surrender and the invaders gained licence to rape, pillage and burn as they pleased, would be less obscene. Even the villages he’d seen during the last war hadn’t been so horrific.

“We have made arrangements to clear the harbour, bring in more supplies and troops and eventually our civilian population,” Prince Hadrian continued. “Our plan to turn the city into a lodgement, a defensible strongpoint that can be held indefinitely, is well underway. However, we do not have much time.”

He pointed to the map on the walls. “If Neptune’s Gate has been damaged so badly, if the civilian population has been so badly traumatised, how much worse must it be in Alcibiades?”

The question hung in the air, an uncomfortable reminder of just how bad things could become. It was rare for a standard occupation to inflict much damage on the town or its citizens, once the initial fighting had died down and the occupational authorities firmly established. There was nothing to be gained by destroying a city if you wanted to exploit it, most rulers knew, and they tended to leave the civilians alone as long as they obeyed orders and paid their taxes. It wasn’t uncommon for cities to change hands repeatedly without any real damage. But here …

“We need to resume the march tomorrow,” Prince Hadrian said. “The necromancer will know we are here shortly, if he doesn’t already know. He will butcher the remaining population for power and set off to kill or capture us. It cannot be allowed. It will not be allowed.”

His words hung in the air. “We must act now, before he can kill the rest of my people,” he said, bluntly. “We don’t even know how many are left!”

Not many, James guessed. The survivors had had the advantage of living next to the ocean. The orcs might not go fishing, but they’d allowed their enslaved fishermen to feed the human population. A city further south, landlocked in a desert kingdom, was unlikely to be able to feed its population, certainly not without a ruler who knew how to keep them alive. The necromancer might be alone, surrounded by death and orcs.

Captain-General Hastings had the same thought. “Your Highness, there may be none left. They might have been killed long ago.”

“Aye, right,” Captain-General Gars said. The two men and their bands had been rivals for decades, the enmity going back so far that no one knew just what had started it. “Are you saying that because you think they’re dead, or because you don’t want to take the risk of marching south?”

“You …” Hastings reached for his sword, then stopped himself. “The necromancer will likely have killed them all, a long time before we even got the call to war.”

“Perhaps not.” Tancella was the only woman at the table, but her magic made it impossible for the men to ignore her. “The necromancer needs power from sacrifice to remain alive. Most tend to head north because the only other option is running out of magic and dying. If this necromancer remains in the south, it suggests he does have a human population to draw on.”

James kept his face under tight control. Tancella was right, unless the necromancer was already dead or he’d managed to find a way to keep his endless lust for power under control. He was no magician, but he knew the basics; no one had ever found a way to make necromancy practical, or avoid the madness that eventually consumed any magician fool enough to practice it. No, Tancella was right. She had to be. It was just unfortunate she’d said it out loud. They needed to maintain a united front at all times and if Prince Hadrian was serious about advancing south quicker than they’d planned …

Prince Hadrian gave Tancella a charming smile. “How big a population would he need?”

Tancella seemed utterly unaffected by his smile. James was almost relieved. “It is difficult to say for sure, Your Highness. Humans aren’t livestock. He’d need a fairly large breeding population to support himself, but the madness would make it harder to control his feeding. The population would also be badly affected by being treated that way, which would likely damage their fertility and trigger off a downwards spiral …”

The prince choked. James didn’t blame him. Tancella was describing an atrocity beyond the imagination of most humans as calmly as she might order dinner. Even the mercenary commanders, men who had ordered atrocities and slept peacefully afterwards, thought it a little much. From a cold-blooded point of view, she was entirely correct; from just about any other point of view, no one wanted to think about it. And who could blame them?

“How many?” Prince Hadrian stumbled over the words. “Hundreds? Thousands?”

“Impossible to say for sure,” Tancella said. “There’s never been any solid research done into necromancy. The best we have are estimates, and those estimates might well be based on unreliable figures and theories that have never been tested in the field. Realistically, I’d say we could expect a few thousand humans at most, but …”

She shook her head. “That could be accurate, Your Highness, or it could be so far off that the estimate is worse than useless.”

Prince Hadrian looked pale. “Then it is all the more important we march south now,” he said, before word reaches the necromancer. “Once he knows we’re here …”

James took a breath. “I understand your concerns, Your Highness, and I share them,” he said, truthfully. Quite apart from any moral considerations, no one wanted to give a necromancer time to boost his powers and prepare for war. They were practically one-man armies in their own right and this one had a whole army of orcs behind him. “However, there are certain practical considerations.”

The prince glowered at him. “Are those considerations more important than the suffering of my people?”

“We will not be able to help your people if we run into something we can’t handle.” James stood, took the map from the wall and placed it on the table. “The distance between Neptune’s Gate and Alcibiades is roughly two hundred miles. Assuming everything goes perfectly, and it won’t, we’ll need ten days to march from one to the other. Keeping the troops supplied will pose significant problems, even if we don’t have to fight a running battle. I would be astonished, Your Highness, if we didn’t have to fight a long time before we reach Alcibiades itself.”

“We can handle it,” Captain-General Gars said. “We’ve done tougher marches.”

“This is the Blighted Lands,” James pointed out. “Finding water will be difficult. Finding water that won’t turn you into a monster when you drink it will be even harder. We’ll have to march with our supplies and that will be harder still, without any sort of preparation for the march. There are no supply depots, no bases we can draw on … no local population that can be cajoled or bullied into helping us. The march will be an utter nightmare.”

“My people are trapped in a nightmare,” Prince Hadrian said. “And the longer we give the necromancer to empower himself, the harder it will be to stop him.”

“Assuming the bastard is still alive,” Captain-General Singh offered. “He might be dead.”

“Don’t count on it,” Tancella said, sharply. “Even if the original necromancer is dead, another will have taken over by now.”

“We can use the airship to resupply the army,” Gars said. “Put casks of water onboard and use a lightening charm …”

“I doubt it can carry anything like enough,” James said. The airship was protected by an antimagic field. Would a lightening charm even work? He made a mental note to check later and leaned forward. “We need to lay the groundwork for a proper advance …”

“The ultimate responsibility resides with me,” Prince Hadrian said. James realised the prince had made up his mind well before the meeting. He supposed it shouldn’t have surprised him. “As the expedition commander, and paymaster, I have the final say. And I say we need to advance south now, before more of my people can be murdered to feed a necromancer’s insatiable appetite. Go look at the men and women recovering from their ordeal and tell me it doesn’t have to be done.”

James gritted his teeth, allowing his eyes to dart from face to face. Some supported the prince, others wouldn’t gainsay their paymaster … particularly not when they were on the wrong side of a very dangerous ocean. If the army broke apart and started fighting a mini-civil war, it would be utterly disastrous. They wouldn’t need the necromancer to kill them. They’d do it all themselves.

Fuck, he thought. He’d been certain the prince was more rational than this. The man was smart enough to listen to experienced officers. James had certainly thought as much, when the prince had given him tactical command. But he’d seen a nightmare and let his horror cloud his thinking. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He tapped the map. Maybe he’d lost the argument. It didn’t mean he needed to let the prince have it all his own way.

“I suggest a compromise,” he said. “We keep preparing Neptune’s Gate to stand off an offensive, while marching south. We make no effort to hide ourselves. The necromancer will come out to do battle and we’ll kill him, then send smaller flying columns ahead to clear the way once the orcs lose their leader. It isn’t a very good plan, but if we can lure the necromancer into the open field …”

“Nice to meet you, Lady Emily,” Hastings said, dryly.

James made a rude gesture. Lady Emily was the only person who had beaten a necromancer in single combat and no one was quite sure how she’d done it. James had no intention of trying his luck, not when there was an easier way to do it. The magitech necromancer-killer would hopefully take out the bastard before he could start sweeping the battlefield with overpowered spells. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it did have the virtue of simplicity. He knew from experience just how dangerous a complex plan could be.

His mind raced as the prince studied the map. What if he said no? James had no illusions about the consequences, if the Bloody Hands tried to leave his service in the middle of a campaign. They’d been paid, with more money resting in escrow, and there was no sense – yet – that the prince was about to lose and lose hard. The band would discover, very quickly, that no one wanted to hire them again. Their reputation for being reliable would fade away. It would be the beginning of the end.

And the rewards are worth it, he reminded himself. Assuming, of course, I live long enough to claim them.

“Agreed,” Prince Hadrian said. “We march at dawn.”

He glanced at Tancella. “Can you fly north, try and spot him?”

“I can sense a necromancer from miles away,” Tancella said. “And yes, I can look for him.”

“Just don’t get close,” James said. He tried to keep the worry out of his voice, but he knew shed be able to hear it. “He’ll be able to sense you too.”

Tancella snorted, but nodded.

“And now, Your Highness,” James added, “the time has come to discuss logistics.”

There was some good-natured grumbling around the table as they got to work, moods darkening as they struggled with the problem. They were experienced men, but most of their experience came from the north, where they could always scour the countryside for supplies if their logistics proved inadequate. There was nothing to steal in the south, as far as he knew. The crops he’d seen during the war, further to the east, had been so scrawny he feared they were poisonous to anyone who didn’t live in the Blighted Lands. He hadn’t been willing to test his theory. Who would?

He hoped, as the hours wore on, that the prince would think better of his idea, but if anything he seemed more enthused as the plan was worked out. James hoped to hell Prince Hadrian was right. He might have made a mistake, committing himself to the mission no matter the rewards … rewards he couldn’t claim if he were dead. The thought mocked him as the meeting finally came to an end. They’d committed themselves, and if the plan failed …

“It could have gone better,” Tancella said, once they’d left the room. James had to bit his lip to keep from asking her why she’d spoken up. She was under his command and … he dismissed the thought before it could pass his lips. Tancella was too stubborn to keep her mouth shut when she had something to say. “But at least we have a plan.”

“Hah,” James said. The stone corridors were empty, but who knew how many listening ears there were behind the walls? His old home had been littered with peepholes. He was fairly sure one of his ancestors had been a colossal pervert. He’d put peepholes in places that could only be used for spying on the maids undressing ... and some of the maids had barely been entering their teens when they’d been hired. “It isn’t a very good plan and you know it.”

“It will suffice,” Tancella said. She didn’t seem particularly concerned about watching eyes or listening ears. James supposed she was probably right. The prince hadn’t brought a small army of servants with him, let alone servants trained to moonlight as spies. “If we can take out the necromancer, the orcish army will come apart at the seams.”

“Yeah,” James agreed. That was true, and it was something the prince had hammered home time and time again. It had happened before and it would happen again. “If.”

 

Chapter Nineteen

The march resumed the following day.

Robin had hoped for more sleep, when he’d finally been relieved of guard duty, but he’d only managed to catch a few hours before being woken, ordered to collect his equipment and make sure he was carrying everything he needed, then eat breakfast and join the rest of the band for the march south. There’d been a great deal of grumbling as the platoon rushed around, checking everything time and time again, not remotely to his surprise. They’d all hoped for a few days in the city before resuming the march.

Not that there was much to see in the city, he thought. Daybreak hadn’t made the half-ruined city any more attractive. The engineers had started work on the walls, preparing to hold the city against all threats, but it would be years before the rest of the city returned to something resembling normal. The only real change was that the bodies had been removed to a mass grave and left there to rot. We didn’t have much to do beyond standing guard or going on patrol.

He put the thought out of his mind as they marched out of the city and headed north. The road was cracked and broken, barely a road in any real sense of the word; the handful of tiny farms surrounding the city, far too small to feed even the much-reduced population, were little more than burned out ruins. It was hardly the first time he’d seen a destroyed farmhouse, but the lack of bodies chilled him to the bone. Orcs ate humans, he reminded himself. The orcs who’d broken and fled during the battle had probably destroyed the farms and eaten the farmers before resuming their flight south. Bastards. Even a tax collector – or tax farmer – knew better than to destroy an entire farm. He couldn’t wait to kill them all.

The orcs, or the taxmen? Robin smiled at the thought. Both deserve to be destroyed.

Sweat prickled down his back, the sunlight warming his exposed skin despite the potion he’d been told to use before they’d set out. The landscape was cracked and broken, the sand dunes looking like waves that had somehow been frozen in time … he shivered as he saw the haze in the distance, a blur that made it impossible to see more than a few short miles. There could be anything out there, anything at all … he glanced back at the repeating guns, mounted on wagons, and told himself they wouldn’t run into anything they couldn’t handle. The wind shifted, blowing the stench of the Blighted Lands into his face. His stomach churned. It was hard to escape the impression they were going where no man should ever go.

Khan nudged him, then glanced up. “Your sister up there?”

Robin followed his gaze. The airship was following the army, a grey shape against the blue sky and brilliant sunlight. It looked tiny from the ground, even though he’d seen it come into land and knew it was bigger than the ship they’d taken from Tidebank to Kentigern. Was Eliza up there? He was quietly relieved she was safe, if so. There were a handful of women in the other mercenary bands – he’d met them – and they were either tough ladies who were just as good as their male counterparts and quiet women who flinched when someone came too near. Better she flew than walked with the men, he told himself, although he had no idea if she was on the airship or not. She could be anywhere.

“She could be,” he said, finally. He’d hoped to have a chance to meet up with his sister, but the march had been ordered – and started – before he’d been able to find time. The officers had been keeping the men as busy as possible. “I just don’t know.”

Khan shrugged. “What do you want to do in Alcibiades?”

“Is there anything to do in Alcibiades?” Robin had heard all the chatter about free beer and freer women, but after seeing the ruined city behind them he doubted Alcibiades would be any better. There’d certainly be no bars for eager young men. “I guess we won’t have any proper leave until we get back home.”

His breath caught in his throat. He was further from home than he’d ever dreamed of going and … there was no way back. He liked to think he could earn enough money to return in glory, with a reputation that would ensure no one would ever mess with him, but … it was unlikely. The man he’d killed had been an asshole, true, yet his family would hardly let his death go. If they’d linked Robin and Eliza to his death … he wished, suddenly, that he knew. It would be easier to make plans if he knew what had happened, after they’d fled their homes.

“Perhaps I’ll get a chance to fly,” Khan said. “You think your sister would give me a lift?”

“Only to drop you,” Robin countered. “The fall won’t kill you. The landing will.”

The march continued, chatter fading away as the men concentrated on putting one leg in front of the other time and time again. Robin had been told the secret to marching a far distance was to forget about how far you had to travel and just keep moving, but it was hard not to think about how far they’d already moved. Ten miles? A hundred? A thousand? He felt as if they’d marched right around the globe, even though he knew it was utter nonsense. His back was drenched in sweat, the back of his neck itching painfully as the sun left its mark. He wanted to stop and yet he knew better, determined not to let the side down. They’d keep going until it was time to halt.

It went on and on, small breaks for water and snacks few and far between. Robin couldn’t force himself to look around any longer, let alone do anything beyond keeping his eyes on the man in front of him and just pressing on. His arms and legs hurt, his hurt … he blinked sweat out of his eyes, hoping to hell he wasn’t on the verge of dehydration. Perhaps he’d died and found himself in one of the seven hells … there was one that was supposed to be a desert, wasn’t there? He hadn’t paid much attention to the gods, when he’d been younger; farmers generally paid their respects to the living nature instead. Now ..

Just keep going, he told himself. Just keep going.

***

“Four cases of sunstroke, sir,” Winter said. “And nine of dehydration.”

James let out a curse, even though he knew he should be burning incense in thanks. His men were used to route marches, but they’d never marched so far in such brilliant sunlight nor such high temperatures. There hadn’t been anything like enough time to prepare them properly and it had cost him … he was bloody lucky there’d been so few problems. Not that it would be any consolation to the men themselves, who would face their comrades if they recovered and returned to the ranks. It wouldn’t end well for anyone.

“Get them into the medical wagons, if they can’t be flown back to the city,” he ordered, finally. “And have the chirurgeons do what they can for them.”

“Yes, sir,” Winter said.

James nodded, looking around the makeshift camp. His men were in no state to dig trenches and prepare earthworks, leaving them utterly dependent on a network of barbed wire to slow the enemy long enough to get the troops up and ready to defend themselves. It would be enough against a human foe, but orcs were tough enough to keep coming even if the barbed wire was doffing into their leathery skin. He was lucky the cavalrymen were in good enough state to watch the wire – their horses were another story – and he wasn’t in any mood to put up with any bitching from the bastards. They’d ridden. James had walked. As had the prince.

“Tomorrow is going to suck,” he muttered. “Why can’t we set up a bloody portable portal?”

“Too expensive, they say,” Winter said. “And I’d bet good money there’s another reason too.”

“Yeah,” James agreed. It wasn’t easy to set up a portal, but it was far from impossible. The fears about the necromancer counterattacking were overblown, in his opinion, and he suspected the real reason for stalling on setting one up was to make life difficult for the prince. “If we could portal right into the city …”

He shook his head. Lady Emily had made it work, somehow, but he didn’t think the prince’s army would be so lucky. The necromancer was just too powerful to be beaten without magitech and setting it up in time would be an utter nightmare. He wasn’t sure how the Heart’s Eye magicians had made it work. Luck and ignorance, perhaps. Any military officer worthy of the name knew to watch for someone setting up a portal behind their lines.

“Check with the others,” he ordered. “If we’re in no state to resume the march, I need to know as soon as possible.”

A messenger hurried up to him before Winter could answer. “Sir, His Highness would like to see you in his tent.”

James pasted a smile on his face. The young man took a step backwards. It couldn’t have been a very convincing smile.

“I’ll be there shortly,” James told him. He didn’t want the prince thinking James was at his beck and call, even though he technically was. “You may go.”

He glanced at Winter as the messenger hurried away. “My smile wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“It was truly a thing of beauty and a joy everlasting,” Winter said, in a tone of utter seriousness. “The fact it frightened him off is nothing more than a sign of weak morale character.”

James had to smile. “Take care of the men,” he said, quietly. “They’ll need it.”

He turned and made his way to the prince’s tent, shaking his head in dismay. There was always some degree of confusion, when two or more bands shared a campsite, but this camp looked as if the tents had picked up and put down again seemingly at random. The guards outside some of the officer tents were clearly nervous and who could blame them? Normally, they knew everyone important by sight. Here, they were surrounded by strangers. James let out a breath, making a mental note to insist on doing it properly tomorrow. There was no way to know when they’d be attacked.

The temperature dropped rapidly as the sun dipped beneath the horizon, something that was both a blessing and a curse. The day had been too hot, but the night was likely to be far too cold. His men would spend the night bitching about the cold, even though they’d bitched about the heat all the way from the city to the campsite. It wasn’t really a problem. James would be more worried if there wasn’t any grumbling. It was rarely a good sign.

“Captain,” Prince Hadrian said, as James stepped into the tent. He sounded surprisingly cheerful for someone who’d marched with the men. “Come on in!”

James nodded, feeling a twinge of respect. The prince might have made a good soldier, perhaps even a good commander … he still might, with proper seasoning. He’d certainly marched when he could have easily ridden a horse or flown in the airship. Princess Mary, seated beside him, had ridden on a horse. James wondered, as he bowed to the younger woman, why the prince hadn’t left her behind? Just being so close together without a chaperone was asking for trouble.

“You marched well, Your Highness,” James said. “How are you feeling now?”

“Stiff and sore,” Prince Hadrian said. “I thought I was an expert marcher, but …”

James nodded. Marching up and down the roads of Tidebank wasn’t a bad idea – and he gave the prince credit for doing it – but Tidebank was nowhere near as hot as Kentigern. The prince would need longer than he’d thought to grow accustomed to the heat, just like the rest of them. He wasn’t complaining, unlike some others James could mention. He silently gave the man credit for that too.

“We weren’t attacked,” Prince Hadrian said. “That’s good, right?”

“Maybe.” James was in two minds about it himself. The chance to smash a small horde before the necromancer arrived was not to be missed, but his men hadn’t been in much of a state for a fight. “We don’t know how far they fled.”

He sighed, inwardly. “We’ll meet the enemy when we meet them.”

“Really?” Prince Hadrian seemed oddly irked. “That’s very unspecific.”

James shrugged. “There are too many variables to predict when we might meet the enemy,” he said. “Does the necromancer know we’re coming yet? Does he have hordes between us and the city? Or will he need time to gather his armies? How many orcs does he even have? We just don’t know.”

“I take your point,” Prince Hadrian said.

“Thanks.” James was too tired to hold a long conversation. “With all due respect, Your Highness, was there something you wanted?”

“Yes,” the prince said. “I wanted you to join us for dinner.”

James gritted his teeth. “This isn’t the time for a celebration,” he said, sharply. “We haven’t won yet.”

He sighed. They’d be marching for at least nine more days and probably more. He wanted his bedroll, not a night of chatter … he was surprised the prince had the energy. But …

***

Eliza felt a twinge of guilt as she floated high over the army.

The men below, so small she couldn’t pick out individuals, had been marching south for five days. She’d watched them march and march and march, while she flew … she’d helped to fly the wounded back to the city, when she wasn’t sweeping around the edge of the formation watching for possible threats, and she couldn’t help feeling she was having it easy. The constant patrol was draining, true, but nowhere near as bad as marching on the ground. She didn’t want to think about Robin, who was down there with the rest of the troops. If he knew she was shirking her role …

You’re not home any longer, she reminded herself. The days in which everyone had to pull their weight might not be gone, but they had changed. The rules are different here.

Tancella drifted up beside her, her blonde hair seemingly untroubled by the wind. “See anything you like?”

“No, Mistress,” Eliza said. The landscape below looked flat. It wasn’t. The dry riverbeds were a minor problem, compared to the giant cracks in the land that had to be bridged by the engineers before the army could proceed. The kingdom had once had bridges covering every last canyon, she’d been told, but the necromancer had torn them all down. “There’s nothing to see.”

Tancella shot her a sharp look, then smiled. “Follow me.”

She darted south before Eliza could say a word. Eliza turned and followed her, picking up speed rapidly. The ground below turned into a blur, the endless brown dunes hurting her eyes as she followed her mistress … Tancella moved in a random pattern, as if she expected to be attacked at any moment. Eliza matched her movements as best she could, gritting her teeth as they passed a giant rocky formation. It was so unlike anything else she’d ever seen that she found herself wondering just what magic had been used to create it …

And then she sensed something ahead. Something powerful.

The shock nearly knocked her from her broom. She’d sensed Tancella’s power, she knew her mistress was far more powerful than her, but the figure up ahead was almost a force of nature. It was the necromancer. It had to be. She cringed helplessly as she felt an eye looking at her … no, it wasn’t looking at her. The necromancer wasn’t even aware of her. His presence was just so big she was trapped within its field of vision, an insect caught within hardening sap and trapped without hope of freedom …

“Get back,” Tancella snapped. “Now!”

The sound shook Eliza out of her trance. She was suddenly aware of the orcs below her, of their archers lifting their bows to take aim at the flying witches. The necromancer was further away … it was hard to believe he wasn’t right on top of her. He was just too powerful. Eliza had wondered, quietly, why Tancella was so sure she’d sense the necromancer if he got too close. She knew now. Power on that scale was simply impossible to hide.

“Back to the camp,” Tancella ordered. The urgency in her voice was striking. “Don’t look back!”

Eliza nodded, fear gnawing at her soul. Robin was down there, on the front lines. He was going to face a power beyond her comprehension, a power capable of sweeping countless infantrymen from their trenches and ripping them apart. Her brother was going to die … no, she told herself firmly. Robin was not going to die. She would see him safe even if it cost her everything.

Tancella flew onwards, seemingly unconcerned. Eliza didn’t know how she stayed so calm. The power behind them was terrifying, true, but it was also alluring. Eliza understood, now, why so many magicians succumbed to temptation. The chance to be so powerful … she sucked in her breath, Tancella’s lecture echoing through her head. Those who set out to master necromancy found themselves mastered instead.

If Robin dies, I’ll do everything in my power to avenge him, Eliza thought. And I’ll make the necromancer pay.

But as they neared the advancing army, and landed in front of the vanguard, she knew it was a promise she might not be able to keep.

 

Chapter Twenty

James was oddly relieved to hear Tancella’s report, even though it wasn’t good news.

He scowled at her sketch of the enemy postion, all too aware she couldn’t have seen everything, then lifted his spyglass to peer into the distance himself. The necromancer and his orcs had positioned themselves behind a rocky structure that resembled a melting sandcastle, so much so that he wondered if it had been a real castle before the kingdom had fallen and tainted magic had started to poison the land. It was a good choice of position, he noted sourly, and one he'd try to besiege or outflank if he were facing a conventional foe. The enemy would always have the interior lines of communication and would be able to bring up reinforcements or fall back on the city without difficulty, if he mounted a direct attack. It would be better if he could isolate the sandcastle from the rest of the kingdom …

But I can’t, because there’s a necromancer there, James thought, grimly. He was surprised the necromancer was holding his ground, waiting for the mercenaries to come to him, rather than charging right at the trenches to capture or kill as many humans as possible. It suggested a more tactical mind than the average necromancer, which was worrying. He might have more tricks up his sleeve. We’re going to have to wrinkle him out of his lair.

The prince glanced at him, then smiled. “When do we attack?”

“When we’re ready,” James said. He’d given orders to the troops and now all he could do was wait and hope they’d be carried out. A necromantic foe should be enough to keep everyone working together but it was hard to be sure. Gars and Hastings weren’t the only ones who had their own ideas of how the war should be fought, and of course there was the prince. “We don’t want to rush this.”

He gritted his teeth. Few realised how powerful a necromancer truly was until they met them in the field, and for far too many of them it was the last thing they ever saw. The necromancer was a walking wave of destruction, his simple spells boosted to a level no conventional magician could match. The only person who had taken on a necromancer in single combat and won was Lady Emily and the jury was still out on how she’d done it. Personally, James suspected she’d cheated. Necromancers could be poisoned, or tricked into expending their magic reserves, and they weren’t the sharpest blades in an arsenal. Or maybe Lady Emily had devised her magitech years before it had been officially announced.

Gars galloped up to him, face grim. “The earthworks are well underway,” he said, his tone a calculated mixture of respect and defiance. He might take orders from James now, but there was no way he’d permanently submit to James’s authority. “The cavalry is ready to strike on your command.”

“Keep them in reserve,” James ordered, flatly. The orcs had charged a prepared position and lost badly. He had no intention of throwing his men into a similar trap. “They can make their charge when the enemy lines break.”

If they ever do, his thoughts added, coldly. The orcish position wasn’t ideal, but it was tough enough to cause problems even without the necromancer behind them. They’re showing more discipline than I would have expected, even with their master watching over their shoulders.

“Send in the airship,” Prince Hadrian insisted. “Bomb the crap out of them.”

“The airship will be blown out of the sky,” James said. The magicians insisted the antimagic field would protect the airship against a necromancer, as well as any lesser threat, but he was in no hurry to put the theory to the test. Even if they were right, and he doubted it, the necromancer would just have to throw a large rock at the airship to inflict lethal damage. “Better to hold it in reserve too.”

The prince shot him an angry look. “So what do you intend to do, then?”

“Send in the big guns,” James said, with a confidence he didn’t feel. “We’ll force them to attack on our terms or let us hammer them to pieces from a safe distance. Either way, we win.”

And he hoped to hell, as he started to issue more orders, that he was right.

***

Robin could feel the necromancer as the platoon started to dig the next set of trenches, men grunting and cursing as their shovels struggled with the sandy ground. It was like feeling the sun even when it was hidden behind a cloud, his skin prickling uncomfortably even when he was under cover. The necromancer’s brooding presence tainted the land by his mere existence … it was a force of nature, rather than a living being. Robin felt ice crawling down his spine despite the hot summer day, a sense that they were about to face something they couldn’t handle. He was no longer a maggot and yet … he was scared.

“If you sense the magic spiking, get into the trenches,” Gruber ordered. His voice was grim. “Don’t wait for orders, just do it.”

Robin nodded, hoping to hell the trenches would provide enough protection. The briefing had made it clear that necromantic spells might be simple, but they were overwhelmingly powerful and a single hit would be more than enough to devastate an entire fortress. The trenches were supposed to be more survivable than a castle – a necromancer could crack open a mundane castle as easily as Robin could crack open an egg – yet he didn’t want to gamble his life on it. The fact he was gambling his life on it …

There was no chatter now, as the guns were pushed into place and secured behind the makeshift earthworks. Robin wasn’t sure if he should envy the cannoneers or pity them. Their weapons were bows and arrows against the lightning, against a foe that could turn the entire battlefield into a hellish nightmare or blast them to pieces before they even knew they were under attack. It was hard to keep himself going, hard to keep himself from fleeing for his life. The platoon had accepted him now, and by extension the rest of the band, and he didn’t want to disgrace them and yet … he gritted his teeth. The battle was not going to be fun.

The guns started to boom, hurling cannonballs, shells and mortar rounds towards the enemy positions. Some were little more than metal stones, launched with enough force to shake a castle’s walls or smash down their doors; some were explosive, crammed with a mixture of mundane and magical concoctions, designed to make life difficult for anyone on the far side. A hint of something unpleasant drifted over the battlefield as the shells started to explode, the sandcastle-like fortress shuddering under the impact. The first barrage wasn’t entirely accurate, Robin noted, but the gunners were adjusting their positions even as they fired the second and third. He hoped, desperately, that the orcs were taking a pasting.

“Perhaps the gunners will kill them all,” Mason said, echoing Robin’s thoughts. “They’re often out in the open.”

“Not this time,” Khan disagreed. “They’re dug in too.”

Robin glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“When they charged us, they were out in the open and we cut them down like cavalry fops,” Khan reminded him. “We had no trouble hitting them. Here … as long as they’re in trenches of their own, and they keep their heads down, they’ll be safe as long as a shell doesn’t land right on top of them. I’ve seen cannoneers duels that …”

His eyes sharpened. “Duck!”

Robin acted on instinct, ducking down before the first arrows hissed through the air. He would have sworn they were far enough from the enemy position to be relatively safe, but orcs were strong and their bows bigger than anything a mere human could wield. He shuddered as he saw an arrow land behind him, longer and sharper than the average spear; his stomach churned as he noted the barbs lining the shaft, designed to do maximum damage to their targets. The medical briefings had made it clear that there were some wounds that couldn’t be healed, even with magic, and there weren’t enough healers with the army to come close to healing even a handful of the wounded. If magic could help in the first place …

He kept his head down as more arrows hissed over his head, cursing under his breath as he heard a man cry out behind him. He didn’t want to look at the wounded man, he didn’t want to see what had happened to him. Another followed, and another … an arrow thudded into the ground right in front of the trench, close enough to nearly make him wet himself again. It had been launched with tremendous force … he’d thrown spears himself, during training, and he’d never been able to drive a spear that far into the ground. The orcs kept firing, raining arrows on the trench. Robin wondered why they were holding their ground. Surely, it would be better to move rather than let the bastards keep shooting at them. But he knew that they’d be torn to pieces if they showed themselves. The arrows were more accurate than bullets.

“Let them expend their arrows,” Khan said, as the guns kept booming. The rain of shells and shrapnel didn’t seem to be having any effect on their targets, as far as Robin could tell. “They’ll have fewer for when we take the offensive ourselves.”

Robin eyed him. “Are you trying to reassure me or are you pretending to be an officer.”

“Oh, I could never be an officer,” Khan said. “You see, I knew my father’s name.”

***

James kept his head down as the rain of arrows continued, the orcish arches seemingly unbothered by the mercenary bombardment. The sandcastle had been bracketed countless times – smoke was rising from a dozen places – and yet there was no sign of any real impact. They were tough enough to survive anything other than a direct hit, to keep going even when wounded … the necromancer might be shielding them in some way too. It was rare for a necromancer to make any attempt to protect his troops, but this one was clearly a little brighter than most.

Although not that bright, James noted, coldly. Those arrows are lethal.

He kept the possible implications to himself. If the necromancer wasn’t interested in capturing as many mercenaries as possible for sacrifice, it suggested he didn’t feel he needed to. That meant … what? That he already had a large population to feed on or … he was confident he’d be able to capture at least some of the attacking army. Perversely, James hoped it was the latter. The former would be far more dangerous, if they failed to force the necromancer to burn through his power before it was too late. Their target could withdraw, revitalise himself and return to combat.

“Pass the word to the gunnery crews,” he ordered a messenger. “They’re to retarget their fire on the necromancer himself.”

The messenger nodded and hurried away. James turned his attention back to the distant sandcastle. It was unlikely the cannoneers would hit the necromancer – he was a small target and shielded besides – and if they did it was unlikely they’d be able to kill him. Most necromancers were extremely difficult to kill with any sort of physical force, but they might get lucky … he shook his head. It was wishful thinking and he knew it. If it happened, it happened; he wouldn’t place all his hopes on it.

“You’re going to make him mad,” the prince observed. “Why?”

“We want him out in the open,” James said. The guns started to boom again. “And quickly.”

He kept the rest of the thought to himself. Arrows could be recovered and reused. Cannonballs were difficult to reuse without gunpowder and bullets flatly impossible. The orcs might actually have an edge, if the battle continued for hours without a clear resolution. If his troops ran low on ammunition, they’d have to fall back and hope they made it to safety before the orcs overran them. And there was no such thing as safety in the Blighted Lands.

His lips twisted, in what might be charitably called a smile.

Prince Hadrian noticed. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking of one of my former paymasters,” James said. The would-be warlord had been lucky, rather than good, and his first gambles had paid off so well that he’d declared himself a genius and stopped listening to advice … at the same time as his enemies had rebalanced themselves, adjusted their tactics, and mounted a counteroffensive. The poor bastard had been reduced to moving imaginary armies around on a map as nemesis closed in from all sides. “He let himself be lured into a trap too.”

The ground shook, a wave of raw magic tearing into the landscape. James felt things moving under the sandy soil before the space between the two forces seemed to explode, tearing up the landscape in a manner that made it impossible to see the other side clearly. The wind shifted, driven by necromantic power to throw sand into their eyes … James felt a moment of sour respect for their foe. A lone magician couldn’t influence the weather, even a team of powerful magicians couldn’t hope to have more than minimal effect; the necromancer had done it effortlessly. And it served a useful purpose too.

James blew his whistle, two loud notes. The alert signal echoed through the air, taken up by other officers, a warning to the men on the front lines. Prepare to repel attack!

“Message to the repeating guns,” James ordered, curtly. The sand was making it hard to see anything more than a few metres from the trenches, but he was morbidly certain the orcs were already on their way. Clever, he had to admit. The orcs could get very close without being spotted, as long as the sandstorm held sway. “They’re to fire two barrages towards the enemy positions.”

“Aye, sir.”

Prince Hadrian didn’t get it. “You’re going to be wasting ammunition.”

“It depends on just how smart our opponent is,” James said. The tactic was simple, but simple was always better in war. A thought crossed his mind as he eyed the map. Tancella and her apprentice would be better for what he needed done, but they had to be elsewhere. “Captain-General Gars, reinforce the flankers and make sure they’re not coming at us from the sides.”

“Understood.”

“And keep your hand on your sword,” James told Prince Hadrian. The orcs were faster cross-country than his men, mounted or not. If he was in his enemy’s shoes, he’d send in a flanking attack in hopes of really putting the boot in. He hoped the necromancer hadn’t thought of it. “We may need to defend ourselves.”

The prince nodded, stiffly.

***

The orcs came out of nowhere.

Robin yelped as he saw the first orc looming out of the sandstorm, then shot him automatically. The orc staggered, his green face twisting in an emotion that could have been anything from agony to pure rage, and stumbled forward with lethal intent. Khan shot him through the head a moment later, then snapped at Robin to reload. Other orcs were coming now, some crawling along the ground and others running like madmen. Robin shot a second and then a third, then darted backwards as a fourth orc landed right in front of him. Mason stabbed him in the back – Robin saw the blade bursting out of the orc’s chest – but it wasn't enough to stop him. The orc spun around, giving Robin a chance to draw his shortsword and ran it into the creature’s head. It was like trying to stab stone …

The orc tumbled. Robin yanked back his sword and turned around, just in time to see another orc tear Hark’s head from his shoulders and cram it into his mouth. Robin gagged, nearly throwing up, before raising his rifle and shooting the orc through the head. The orc fell backwards … Robin was sure the dead monster was laughing at him, even as the last of his life ebbed away. His jaws had crushed Hark’s head into a bloody pulp … Robin had no time to think about it, let alone bury his comrade. He was sure more orcs were on the way.

He risked a glance south and shuddered. The sandstorm was abating slowly, revealing enemy troops advancing towards them. Khan grabbed his arm as the whistle blew, signalling a retreat, and shoved Robin into the nearest escape trench. The repeating guns were firing constantly now, sweeping bullets over Robin’s head and straight into the enemy lines. Robin hoped the orcs were being held back, just long enough for them to reach the second trench. If they managed to get there …

“Keep moving,” Khan snapped. They didn’t have far to go, but they were crawling and every inch felt like a mile. The bullets overhead felt close enough to touch. “Don’t stop for a second!”

Robin risked a glance back. The orcs were in the trenches now, some gobbling up dead bodies and others swarming after the retreating troops. A handful of explosions shattered the air … Robin saw the trenches caving in, burying the orcs … not for long, he guessed. There’d been no time to dig anything like deep enough to turn the trenches into death traps. The orcs wouldn’t be slowed for long …

“Keep moving,” Khan repeated. “Let them think we’re running.”

“We are running,” Robin gasped. It was hard to think clearly. The stench of death was choking his nose and mouth. “Aren’t we?”

And he wondered, as he crawled onwards, if they were about to lose the battle.

 

Chapter Twenty-One

“Keep low,” Tancella snapped, as waves of magic buffeted their broomsticks. “And don’t let him get a clear shot at you.”

Eliza shuddered, feeling sick in the head as she followed her mentor to where the other magicians were waiting. She had a strong stomach – growing up on a farm meant being exposed to realities wealthy merchants and aristocrats preferred to believe didn’t exist – and yet the necromancer’s mere presence was sickening, disgusting in a way that made her would-be rapist feel nice and normal. It was like looking at something fundamentally, brutally, wrong, without being able to look away. A hissing at the back of her head, a voice that whispered just loudly enough for her to hear the sound without being able to make out the words; she was caught between a conviction that, if she listened, she would be rewarded and a fear that doing so would damn her beyond all hope of redemption. It was a temptation she knew she had to ignore.

Tancella dropped down, landing neatly behind a patch of rock. “Is everything in place?”

A magician – an older man who had pretended Eliza didn’t exist, the sole time they’d met – nodded curtly. “Yes. We’re ready.”

“Brace yourselves, then,” Tancella said. She muttered a spell into the air, then reached for a single device resting on a folding table. “Start casting the spells when I give the command, lure him to us.”

Elisa eyed the device. It looked a pile of junk, a ring of iron – runes caved on the metal – linked to a set of wands, metal and wood blended together into a single pattern that felt, in its own way, as wrong as the necromancer. Tancella picked it up and inspected it carefully, her cold blue eyes missing nothing, before she put it back down again. Eliza allowed herself a moment of relief. If there had been something wrong … the battle would be lost and they’d have to flee and ... she didn’t want to think about it.

The necromantic presence shifted. Eliza groaned. She felt as if icy fingers were brushing against her brain … no, through her brain. Her body tensed, the sense of being groped all the more dangerous because she wasn’t … no one was touching her, yet it felt as if someone was …

Tancella glanced at her. “You feel it too?”

Eliza shuddered. “Is it always like ... like that?”

“So I’m told,” Tancella said. “It isn’t just that it feels ghastly. It’s that part of you wants it.”

She tapped the device. “How do you think this works?”

Eliza realised Tancella was trying to distract her, as if she were a child, but she couldn’t bring herself to be angry. “I don’t know,” she said, studying the device. The ring was humming with magic, as if it was waiting for something to happen. The wands were infused with a spell she knew from her first lessons, a charm that cancelled other charms. “It channels enough power to destroy a necromancer?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Tancella said. “You are aware, of course, that your power is held within your wards? That it must be released regularly to keep your head from exploding?”

Eliza shuddered. She forced herself to concentrate on Tancella’s words. “Yes …?”

“You are learning how to do it step by step, your control improving with your power reserves,” Tancella said. “The necromancer took a shortcut, which means he has to hold his power within improvised – if strong – wards. Those wards aren’t perfect, hence” – she waved her hand, as if she were swatting a fly – “the poisoned magical slop you can feel in the air. If something should happen to those wards …”

She smiled, cold with a hint of cruelty. “Let him come to us,” she said. “We’ll show him what we’re made of.”

A messenger ran up to them and bowed, frantically. “My Lady, the prime target has not left his sandcastle!”

Tancella nodded. “Then we must lure him out,” she said. “Inform Sir James we’ll perform the ritual in two minutes.”

The messenger hurried off. Tancella grinned. “I want you to stay behind me,” she added. “You have your own job to do.”


***

James watched, coldly, as the first set of lines disintegrated, his men abandoning their positions and falling back to the second row of trenches. It looked like a panic and he suspected it was, at least in part. His men were experienced, and so were the rest of the companies, but few had faced orcs before they’d signed up to liberate the kingdom and it was hard, almost impossible, to stand your ground when the orcs were right in front of you. The ground between the trenches and the sandcastle was littered with their bodies, scattered as far as the eye could see, but there were always more. His stomach churned as he saw an orc scoop up a dead comrade and take a bite out of his arm. James had had his fair share of comrades he’d detested, back when he’d been a younger man, but he’d never eaten them. It was just another reminder they were fighting monsters.

A messenger ran up to him. “Lady Tancella’s compliments, sir, and she’ll perform the first ritual in two minutes.”

“Good.” James would be surprised if Tancella had sent him any compliments, but it hardly mattered. “Tell everyone to keep their heads down.”

He sucked in his breath. The orcs were advancing faster now, the horde filling the gaps instantly no matter how many were mown down by the guns. It was brutal and wasteful, from a human point of view, but there were always more orcs. He smiled grimly as he saw one fall, his head split open by an arrow … an orcish arrow. Their infantry had advanced so fast they were being shot by their own arrows. He doubted the necromancer cared. The orcs were nothing to him.

Prince Hadrian glowered at him. “Why aren’t they holding the line?”

James felt a hot flash of irritation. “If you think you can stand in line with orcs bearing down on you …” He cut that off before it could go any further. “Watch. All hell is about to break loose.”

***

“Get down,” someone bellowed. “Get down hard!”

Robin pressed himself into the earth, a second before a wave of fire blasted over his head and slammed into the orcs. The sensation was so intense he was certain, just for a moment, that his entire body had been set on fire. The shockwave hit a second later, shaking the ground so violently that he feared the second row of trenches had been destroyed before the remnants of the platoon had even reached them. Horror washed through him a second later. There had been men in those trenches already.

He rolled over and glanced back. The trench they’d escaped was a burning ruin. The ground was covered with smouldering ash. The majority of the orcs were gone, a handful of burning survivors staggering around as eerie flames, a little too red, consumed their bodies from the inside. Robin had known magic was powerful, but it was something he knew rather than something he’d experienced for himself. Now … a flicker of an emotion he didn’t want to look at too closely darted through his mind. His own sister was becoming a sorceress and everything would change. How could it not?

Khan muttered a curse, then another, as something moved though the smoke. Robin could feel it, a poisonous whorl of tainted magic that ebbed and flowed around him. It was powerful and disgusting and …

He shuddered. The necromancer was coming.

“Get back,” Khan snapped. “Now!”

Robin turned, and started to run.

***

“It’s him,” Prince Hadrian said. Panic echoed at the edge of his tone, a sensation James understood all too well. “It’s him!”

James forced himself to watch as the necromancer stepped out of the smoke. His enemy was a tall dark figure, so dark James’s eyes kept trying to skip over his figure as if there was something about him they refused to see. Flashes of detail, coming and going so rapidly that it was hard to be sure of anything. No, he could see one thing clearly. The necromancer’s glowing red eyes were sweeping the battlefield, looking for targets.

“Fire,” the prince whispered. “Kill him!”

James shouted to catch the attention of a messenger, who had been staring at the necromancer as if he were a blade poised to fall, and snapped orders. The guns opened fire a moment later, the crews firing one volley and running … barely in time to save themselves. The necromancer seemed untroubled by the bullets and shells – James couldn’t tell if he’d been hit – and kept walking, raising his hand to cast a spell of his own. A towering fireball swept through the air and struck a gun position. It exploded, so violently the ground shook. The necromancer cast a second fireball, then a third. James breathed a sigh of relief the gun crews had obeyed orders. If they’d stood their ground, they’d be dead.

Prince Hadrian sounded as if he was on the verge of a panic attack. “Stop him!”

“We will,” James said. His lines were already wavering, mercenaries thinking twice about their vocation. The necromancer was strolling forward, dealing out death and destruction with every wave of his hand. It was worse than if he were running, the casual spellcasting a grim reminder he thought himself invincible. “Let us see if this works.”

And if it doesn’t, he thought silently, this whole affair is going to end very badly indeed.

***

Eliza had never been so terrified in her life, not when her father had been so mad at her she’d thought he was going to kick her out of the house and not when the wretched aristo had tried to lift her skirt and force his way inside her. The necromancer was so powerful she was sure he was already right in front of them, his steps shaking the ground as well as resonating in her mind, hammering against everything that made her who and what she was. It was hard to think clearly, hard to remember her instructions … she glanced at Tancella, kneeling in the trench in front of her, and didn’t understand how her mistress could be so calm. She looked as if she had the edge even though she didn’t.

The other magicians were already running, their magic sparking the air … Eliza wanted to scream at them, to call them cowards, even though she knew they were only following orders, even though she wanted to run herself. Sweat drenched her back, pooling in her boots as she waited … her entire body trembled and she had to bite her lip to keep her hands clenched around the broomstick. The necromancer was coming closer … she’d wondered, despite herself, how a lone man could keep so many orcs in check. She knew now. Tancella was powerful, of course she was, but the necromancer was on a whole other level. It was too much.

She whimpered, helplessly.

“Stay still,” Tancella whispered. “He can’t sense us as long as we’re careful.”

Eliza said nothing. Her parents … memories of her parents darted through her mind. They still didn’t know what had happened to her. Or Robin. She didn’t know what had happened to Robin. Was he alive or dead … was he wondering what was happening to her or was he already in the next world, waiting for her? Her earlier oath mocked her, her promise of revenge for her brother’s life beyond all hope of fulfilment … she might as well promise to murder Death Herself. The necromancer was just too powerful …

She looked up and froze. The necromancer was a shifting sheet of darkness against the blinding sunlight, an entity defined more by the way the world bent around him than anything more physical … she felt like a poacher being hunted by the gamekeeper, the latter moving quietly in hopes of finding his quarry while the former hid in the bushes or halfway up a tree. The necromancer didn’t seem to have hunting dogs, but he didn’t need them. He could sense the trails of magic the magicians were leaving as they fled. The fireballs he launched after them were so powerful they made hers feel no worse than firecrackers.

He turned and looked back at her. Bright red eyes bored into hers, so bright she felt her defences crumble instantly. He was looking right into her thoughts … Eliza barely realised she was already on her feet until Tancella slapped her face, hard enough to jerk her back to reality and realise she’d been charmed. Tancella was fiddling with the magitech device; she shoved it forward as the necromancer raised his hand, a powerful charm racing through the air. The necromancer stopped dead, his power suddenly flaring around him.

“Now,” Tancella snapped.

Eliza clutched the broomstick with one hand and caught Tancella with the other, launching them both into the air as power surged below them. The broomstick buckled under the sudden weight, but she forced it onwards, not daring to look back until they were high enough she thought they’d be safe. Tancella scrambled onto the broom behind her – Eliza was suddenly very aware of Tancella’s breasts pushing into her back – and snapped an order to go higher. The power surges were getting stronger. She looked down …

The necromancer was twisting, his body shifting in a manner that wasn’t remotely human. Bright flashes of light shattered his darkness, each one stronger and more powerful than the last … Eliza saw orcs running for their lives, throwing down their weapons as they fled, an instant before the light became all-consuming. She turned away and pushed the broomstick to the limit as the necromancer exploded, the shockwave of magic nearly knocking them out of the sky. It was hard, so hard, to regain control.

“Got him,” Tancella said, with heavy satisfaction.

Eliza brought the broomstick around. An eerie mushroom-shaped cloud, glowing with flickers of eerie light that came and went seemingly at random, was rising over the battlefield. The sandcastle was lost in the haze … she saw orcs running or fighting, their order and discipline lost with their master. The battle was over. And perhaps, just perhaps, the war was over too.

“A new age,” Tancella said. “The dawn of a wondrous and terrible new age.”

Eliza said nothing. The necromancer’s presence was gone. She hadn’t realised just how badly it had clogged her mind until it was nothing more than a fading memory, so hard to grasp that it was difficult to believe it had ever been there at all. The necromancer had been … and now he wasn’t. And they’d killed him.

“A year ago, he could have destroyed the entire army without breaking a sweat,” Tancella said, quietly. “Now, all we have to do is destroy his wards and let his magic do the rest.”

She cleared her throat. “Take us back to Sir James.”

Eliza nodded. “Yes, Mistress.”

***

Robin sucked in his breath as he clambered out of the trench and back onto the battlefield.

The former battlefield, he corrected himself. The necromancer was gone, the white light that had consumed him leaving a permanent mark on the ground. It looked to have been baked hard by the blast, the sand and stones somehow swept up and forged into different – and eerie – shapes that were both beautiful and chilling to the eye. The sandcastle was a blackened ruin, the first row of trenches were gone … and the orcs were running.

“Stay alert,” Gruber snapped. The platoons were advancing slowly, warily. The air was cold despite the hot sun. “Don’t let yourself be taken by surprise.”

Robin nodded, keeping his rifle at the ready. The bodies were gone, nothing more than ash that had been hammered into the ground; a stab of guilt shot through him as he realised they’d have little chance of finding any trace of Hawk’s body, let alone putting it to rest as he deserved. The necromancer – it irked him, suddenly, that no one knew the bastard’s name – had murdered his own orcs as casually as he’d killed the human mercenaries, his death throes taking out more of the orcs than all the humans put together. If there were any left alive, they were running … Robin didn’t blame them. He hoped they’d keep running for the rest of their lives.

“The cavalry will sweep the road between us and the city,” Khan said. “Fancy bastards will claim the honour of being there first.”

“There’ll be enough money to go around,” Gruber said, sharply. “We’re not here for glory.”

Khan spoke so quietly Robin was the only one who heard him. “We’re not?”

Robin shivered as they swept through the sandcastle and paused, waiting for reinforcements. The orcs had had a good firing position, he noted, but their archers had fled with the rest of their forces, leaving their bows and arrows behind. The weapons were too large for the mercenaries to use, so they burned them. Robin didn’t think the orcs would come back to recover them, but there was no point in taking chances …

“Take a breather,” Gruber ordered, once the reinforcements had arrived. The officer sounded worried. Robin wasn’t sure why. The battle was over and the orcs were in full retreat. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

We weren’t in the woods, Robin thought, although he was smart enough not to say it out loud. If there’s something else waiting for us …

Khan nudged him. “You think your sister helped kill the bastard?”

Robin shrugged, although he couldn’t help feeling a twinge of concern. “I hope so,” he said, keeping the rest of his thoughts to himself. “That’ll make sure no one ever bothers her again.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Two

The army entered Alcibiades two days after the battle.

James had expected they would encounter rogue bands of orcs, as they made their way to the city’s walls, but their passage had been unopposed from start to finish. The handful of farms around the city were shoddy by modern standards, the farmers on the brink of starvation as they fought to grow enough fodder to feed both the humans and the orcs, yet there had been no attempt to destroy them, not even rampaging orcs tearing through the fields and butchering humans as they fought for supremacy. It bothered him to face no resistance, even though he knew he should be grateful. It made him wonder if he were missing something.

Alcibiades had been a great city once, according to the prince, but its fabled glory was long gone. The walls were surprisingly intact – perhaps rebuilt at some point – yet many other buildings had been knocked down long ago and left to rot, while others had been converted into brothels and barracks for the orcs. The listless human population was broken, after over a decade of brutal enslavement and horrors that most couldn’t believe possible. They’d grown crops and sewn clothes and forged weapons and the gods alone knew what else for their master, all the while knowing they would be sacrificed when they could no longer work or if the necromancer needed more power, their dead bodies dumped in the feeding pits for the orcs. James suspected there was no point in asking the survivors just what had happened, why the orcs had left without explanation. They’d had curiosity beaten out of them long ago.

“Perhaps they fled rather than face our wrath,” the prince said. He’d ridden into the city, as he’d promised, but the lack of a proper welcome had disconcerted him. “They knew we were coming …”

James shook his head. Orcs didn’t act like that, not normally. They were too dumb to wonder if the advancing army had caused the explosion, let alone realise they should be afraid. They either split up or fought each other if they lost their master, with the human slaves caught in the middle and brutally murdered. They didn’t retreat in good order. And the fear and panic they’d felt at the battle would have faded by the time word reached the city.

The prince looked grim as he led the way to the palace, surprisingly intact despite being at the heart of the city. James wondered what it had looked like in its prime: a solid fortress, perhaps, or a palace intended to showcase the ruler’s wealth and sense of security. Now, it was both intact and faded, the gates hanging from their hinges and the courtyard dusty without being layered in dust and sand. Prince Hadrian had been a child when he’d last seen the palace and that had been fifteen years ago, more than long enough for accurate memories to be replaced by idealistic images that bore little resemble to reality. James dismounted and followed the prince through open doors, keeping one hand near his pistol. The interior was dark, silent and cool.

“The guests would normally walk into the Great Hall,” Prince Hadrian said, quietly. James wasn’t sure if the prince was talking to himself or James. “They would pay homage to my father and then …”

His voice trailed off. “I have returned,” he said. “And I will not leave.”

“Good.” James kept his voice under tight control. “If you will excuse me, the rest of the city needs to be checked.”

He left the prince to his memories, surrounded by his bodyguards, and strode back outside. The rest of the army was already filing into the city, weapons at the ready … James made a mental note to keep a close eye on them, particularly now they thought the war was over. There would be discipline issues, naturally, and there were too many women here …

“We completed our circuit of the walls, sir,” Winter said, as they set up the command post. “No sign of any enemy troops, not one.”

“It’s weird,” James said. He nodded politely as Tancella and her new apprentice joined them. “Do you think he hurled every orc he had at us?”

Winter snorted. “Do you believe that, sir?”

James shook his head. “They just left,” he said. “Why?”

He looked at Tancella. “Is there another necromancer around?”

Tancella’s voice was flat. “If there is, I can’t sense him,” she said. “It’s rare for necromancers to live together, certainly not for very long. The idea of a necromancer taking an apprentice is just …”

She waved her hand. James understood. There might be fools who thought they could dicker with necromancers for arcane knowledge of the darkest arts, but few survived and the handful who did rapidly learnt the necromancers had little to offer. They didn’t know arcane secrets. That was the point! He shook his head as he looked over the eerily quiet city, the only sound the endless stream of wagons entering through the gates and rumbling to the palace. Something did not quite add up, and he didn’t like it.

“I want you to check the rest of the city,” he ordered. “Fly around, see what your senses can pick up. Sergeant-Major, arrange search parties and sweep the city as best as possible. Make sure you check the sewers. We don’t want them hiding an entire army under our feet.”

“Yes, Sir,” Winter said. “I’ll make sure of it personally.”

Tancella clambered back onto her broomstick, her apprentice right behind her. “I’ll be back shortly,” she said, dryly. “Do you think he lived in the palace?”

“I don’t think so,” James said, although it was difficult to be sure. Necromancers didn’t need ornate surroundings to remind everyone they were in charge, and their madness tended to leave them uncaring of their living quarters as long as they had an endless supply of humans to murder for power. He’d heard of one who had taken up residence in an old dungeon and another who had lived in a shack … they were like hermit crabs, moving into stolen shells and not caring much about where the shells had originally come from. “Check afterwards, just in case.”

Tancella nodded, then took off.

“There’ll be rotgut tonight,” Winter said. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” James made a face. There was no point in trying to ban alcohol now. Issuing an order you knew wouldn’t be followed was asking for trouble. “Try to keep it under control.”

“Yes, sir.”

James’s mood didn’t improve as more and more reports came in from the search parties and the cavalry. The orcs had vanished, leaving the city and the surrounding farms to their fate. James would have been happier if they’d burst out of the sewers and tried to kill him, just so he’d know where they were, but the sewers had largely been collapsed long ago. The slaves had probably tried to use them to escape, he guessed. He had no idea how many had made it before their new master caught on.

“We won,” Captain-General Gars said. “Are you happy?”

“Hah.” James kept his thoughts to himself. There were too many things he needed to do before claiming his new estates, and even if they weren’t in ruins it would be years before they could turn a profit. The title would be worth it, he supposed, but a title didn’t always indicate power and wealth. King Hadrian – Prince Hadrian’s father – might be a king, yet he was dependent on the charity of his host. “There’s a lot of work still to do.”

His lips twisted. And to think they wanted me to become an estate manager.

A messenger interrupted his thoughts. “My Lord, Prince Hadrian requests your presence and that of the Captains-General in the Throne Room.”

“I see.” James let out a breath. It was going to be like that, was it? “I’m on my way.”

The Throne Room was smaller than James had expected, not much bigger than his father’s audience chamber. The throne itself was surprisingly intact, preserved by charms the necromancer hadn’t bothered to undo, looking oddly out of place against the barren stone walls and dusty floor. James’s imagination suggested the walls had once been hung with tapestries, but if that were so they’d crumbled to dust long ago. A handful of half-concealed doors were visible within the walls … secret passageways, he guessed. His father’s keep had been full of them.

“Welcome,” Prince Hadrian said. He was perched on the throne, Princess Mary standing beside him. “It has been a long march, but we have finally recovered my kingdom.”

Your kingdom? James hid his annoyance with an effort. This is your father’s kingdom.

“I have returned to my family’s seat of power and I will not leave again,” Prince Hadrian continued. “Now the necromancer has been defeated, we will start moving the supplies up from the coast to return this city to its former glory. And then …”

James hated to pour cold water on the prince’s clear delight in returning home, but someone had to. “Your Highness,” he said. “The war isn’t over.”

The prince goggled at him. “The necromancer is dead!”

“Your witch killed him,” Gars said. “I hope you feasted her well that night.”

James fixed him with a look – if he said that to Tancella’s face, he’d spend the rest of his life croaking on a lily pad - then turned back to the prince. “We hold two of four cities,” he said, sharply. “We cannot be said to have any real control outside those two cities. We don’t hold the roads between the two, such as they are, and we don’t know what might be lurking further south. And we still don’t know what happened to the rest of the orcs.”

“They ran,” Hastings said.

“Yes,” James agreed. “Ran where?”

He visualised the map. The orcs were tough, capable of surviving in places that would kill most humans. They could lurk in the mountains or the deserts, waiting to jump out and eat passing humans, or they could be up to something. They weren’t behaving normally and that bothered him. Out of character behaviour was always a warning sign.

“When they show themselves again, we will deal with them,” the prince said. “Right now, our priority is preparing this city for the future.”

James groaned, inwardly. The prince had gambled and won and he wasn’t prepared to cash in his chips just yet. Not that he had much of a choice, James supposed. Withdrawing from the city now would be a blow to his reputation, not when there was no visible threat. James had every confidence in Winter and Tancella and if they hadn’t spotted any orcs, he was fairly sure there were none to be found. And yet, where were they?

He glanced at Princess Mary, her feelings hidden behind a blank mask. What was she thinking?

“With your permission, Your Highness, I’ll keep expanding the patrols,” James said. “We do not want to be surprised by a sudden threat.”

“Of course,” Prince Hadrian said. His tone made it very clear he thought James was being paranoid. “You take care of it personally.”

***

Eliza kept her thoughts to herself as she followed Tancella through a maze of corridors, their path illuminated by a single lightglobe that bobbled in front of them. The palace had felt eerie at first, as if it was a dollhouse rather than an actual palace that had housed hundreds, perhaps thousands of aristos and their servants. Now … she was fairly sure they weren’t going to be jumped at any moment. It was just … empty.

“Stay alert,” Tancella said. “You never know what you may find.”

“It’s … bland,” Eliza complained. The last palace had been bad enough, but this … it felt like an empty space. There was no sign that anyone had lived in the building for years. The rooms were empty, lacking everything from beds and mattresses to desks and chairs. “Did they live here?”

“Necromancers don’t care about such minor things as comfort,” Tancella said. “And why should they?”

Eliza hesitated – Tancella was clearly in a mood – and then took the plunge. “Is there something wrong?”

“The whole situation doesn’t make sense,” Tancella said. “Where have the orcs gone?”

“I don’t know,” Eliza said. They’d flown around the city twice, in ever-widening circles, and seen nothing. The orcs had had two days to make themselves scarce and they’d done it. “Why …?”

“Orcs have a very brutal culture, if you can call it a culture,” Tancella said. “The strongest rules and the rest do as he says. It’s very hard for a single orcish chieftain to control more than a small band of orcs, because the more he adds to his band the greater the chance of someone overthrowing him. You have to slap them down really hard to convince them they have no hope of a successful revolt, which a necromancer can … and most others can’t. There’s no hierarchy, no chain of command … if the leader is killed, the band generally comes apart and you wind up with a bunch of smaller bands, each one with its own alpha dog. That’s what should have happened here.”

Eliza considered it. “Do they know the necromancer is dead?”

“They should.” Tancella sounded darkly amused. “That explosion could have been seen for miles around.”

She kept walking, passing through a chamber that was covered in dust. Eliza followed, her thoughts churning. If the orcs had gone … where had they gone? She had no idea. They could be anywhere …

Tancella held up a hand. “Time for a test,” she said, sweetly. The tone was so out of character that Eliza felt a prickle of alarm. “What can you see inside this room?”

Eliza stepped up beside her. The room was as bare as the rest, save for a single door on the far side of the chamber. There was no sign of anything worrying and yet … Tancella wouldn’t have told her to take the lead for nothing. She closed her eyes, gingerly reaching out with her mind. Tancella was a reassuring presence beside her, her tiny body thrumming with magic; beyond her … she stopped, dead. There was a charm on the far door.

“Well spotted,” Tancella said, when Eliza told her. “What can you do about it?”

The charm was small and simple, Eliza noted, but it’s very simplicity made it strikingly difficult to remove. It was woven into the doorknob, poised to do something unpleasant to anyone fool enough to touch it with their bare skin … too small and simple, she thought, for a necromancer. Or was she just letting her ignorance get the better of her? She thought she’d come a long way, every so often, only for Tancella to remind her of just how far she had to go. Her skin crawled as she tried to parse out the spell. It was so tightly knotted she couldn’t make out any details.

“Well?” Tancella sounded amused, rather than impatient. “Do something?”

“I’m trying to think,” Eliza protested.

Tancella smirked. “Do you have time to think?”

Eliza gritted her teeth. It was a knot. Knots could be unpicked, true, but they could also be cut.

“No,” she said, and slashed the knot of spellware with her magic. There was nothing subtle about the technique, no fancy spellware, just a simple cutting motion that eradiated everything in a single sharp movement. The door opened a moment later, beckoning her forward. She kicked it open and peered inside. The chamber was as bare as the rest of the castle. “Oh …”

“And there I was thinking it might be something important,” Tancella said, lightly. “Oh, well.”

Eliza forgot herself and glowered at her. “I thought …”

“Wipe that expression off your face,” Tancella told her. There was no real anger in her tone, but Eliza cringed anyway. She’d met too many people who took their worries out on their children or apprentices. “You always have to be careful when undoing locking spells. That one could have been connected to a second, one a little more dangerous.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Eliza said, automatically. “What was it doing here?”

“Good question,” Tancella said. Her eyes swept the room. “Perhaps a royal princess, a bastard in birth if not in behaviour, practicing magic well away from the prying eyes of her stepmother or her legitimate sisters. Perhaps a little hostage, held to guarantee her father’s good behaviour, experimenting with her gift. Perhaps a little scullery maid, trying to gain a little power for herself in a world that sees her as nothing more than a beast of burden. Or perhaps the charm was cast by a sorcerer for hire, paid to keep someone’s merger possessions safe in a palace filled with prying eyes. Or …”

“You don’t know,” Eliza said, flatly.

Tancella shrugged, too sure of herself to be annoyed by the question. “I’ve seen them all, at one time or another,” she said. “I suspect we’ll probably never know what really happened here. The charm felt decidedly feminine, and probably a newborn rather than an older magician with more experience than raw power, but otherwise …”

“You can tell?”

“Yes.” Tancella turned away, her face falling into shadow. “You’ll be able to tell soon, too.”

She stepped out of the chamber. Eliza took one last look herself and followed, feeling an odd little prickle running down her back. Who had lived in the chamber, once upon a time, and what had happened to them? Her imagination provided too many possibilities, each one worse than the last. She didn’t want to think about them. And yet …

“Mistress,” she said. “How long will we be staying here?”

“That depends on Sir James,” Tancella said. “And really, I suspect it depends on the prince too.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Three

“In here,” Khan said, as they hurried down the street. “And put a smile on your face.”

Robin shot him a sharp look. The last two days had managed to be both dull and exciting, dull because they’d been searching house after house and exciting because of the ever-present threat of an orc jumping out of nowhere and bisecting them. No orcs had shown themselves, to everyone’s surprise: no one, from the prince himself to the mercenary captains-general, seemed to know where they’d gone. The prince, judging by his proclamation to his liberated people, believed the orcs had fled into the mountains. Gruber – and by extension Sir James – wasn’t so sanguine. They’d ordered the troops to remain on alert.

He sighed, inwardly. It was easy to watch discipline start to erode, now the war was seemingly won. Mercenaries swaggering up and down the streets, looking more like bandits than trained soldiers; smaller bands even talking about marching back north, taking ship and heading back to the Allied Lands for their next contract. A handful of captains-general had even ordered the airship to transport their washerwomen – whores – to Alcibiades, setting up brothels and charging a very high price to anyone who wanted to visit. The rest of the washerwomen were apparently marching south from Neptune’s gate, according to rumour, but they wouldn’t be in the city for another ten days at least. Robin had heard the grumbling. He was sure it was just a matter of time before something exploded.

Khan pushed open the door. A burst of tuneless music greeted him, a pair of handful of men playing instruments with more enthusiasm or skill. Robin forced himself to follow his friend into the building, looking around with growing concern. It was a makeshift bar, right down to a crude counter and dozens of customers drinking the barrels dry. The sight reminded Robin of the village tavern, where men – and not a few women – gathered every night to drink and forget their miserable lives. It wasn’t a good memory. He’d seen the aftermath too many times.

“You’re one of us now,” Khan said, cheerfully. “It’s time to make you welcome.”

Robin barely heard him over the racket. There was a nasty vibe in the air. Khan had told him there was bad blood between several mercenary companies and now the war was seemingly over, old grudges were coming to the fore. It didn’t matter that Robin didn’t have the slightest idea what had caused those grudges. There were older and more experienced men, with years of service, who didn’t know either. Some grudges had outlived everyone involved.

Khan led the way over to a table, where Mason and the others were already seated, and snapped his fingers at a barmaid. Robin blinked in surprise as the woman – no, the man – turned to scowl at them. It was rare, almost unknown, for grown men to wear females clothes and yet …

“He lost a bet,” Khan whispered “Or something.”

He raised his voice. “A tray of your finest wines, Barkeep! My friend will pay!”

Robin blanched as the bartender turned away. “What …?”

Mason snickered. “Finest wines? Finest wines? Do you want them to find a better class of horse?”

He laughed, as if he’d made the funniest joke in the world. The rest of the platoon chuckled too. Robin guessed they’d been drinking before they’d arrived, even though the table was clear. The bartender returned with a tray of beers, plonking them down on the table and stamping off with nary a word. Mason wolf-whistled after him, then giggled. The table laughed again.

“You may choose your beer first,” Khan said, in a tone that suggested he was setting Robin up to be the butt of a joke. “Go on. It’s safe to drink.”

“It was a very healthy horse,” Mason added. “Fed on grains and purest water.”

Robin eyed him, then picked a tankard at random. The beer smelt unpleasant, but not foul enough to suggest it had already gone off. He’d drunk worse, back home, where no one drank water unless they wanted to get sick. It hadn’t been until the New Learning arrived that most people realised water needed to be boiled to make it safe and very few people trusted it even then. He took a sip, wincing at the taste. Mason was right. It should have come from a better class of horse.

“Dearly beloved,” Khan started, dramatically. “We are gathered together to welcome unto our number this young man, struck down in his prime, who has proven himself worthy to march beside us scum of the earth and …”

“I’m starting to think he doesn’t like us,” Mason mock-whispered. “Outrageous! Unfair!”

Khan ignored him. “Who has laid down his life and soul to be one of us brothers of bile and bile again, and risked everything to fight beside us, and shot an orc in the balls, and …”

Robin eyed his tankard. Perhaps if he got drunk the speech would actually start making sense.

“Such a big target,” Garth put in. “How could he possibly miss?”

“And has a very attractive sister who will turn you into a toad if you even look at her funny,” Khan finished. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Private Robin of No Fixed Abode!”

The table cheered, the platoon lifting their tankards in one smooth motion. Robin barely had a second to realise what was about to happen before they tossed the contents at him, covering him in beer. He stumbled backwards, nearly falling over as everyone laughed. The liquid went everywhere, trickling down his shirt and into his underwear. He cursed under his breath as he realised it wouldn’t be easy to clean, not with the washerwomen umpteen miles to the north. It was going to be a pain in the rear.

“Welcome, comrade,” Khan said. “You’re not a maggot any longer!”

“And that means you can stand guard all the time,” Mason added. He took another tankard of beer, drank it in one gulp, and belched loudly. “Welcome! A hundred thousand million welcomes!”

“He’s glad to see you,” Khan put in, dryly. “Probably.”

Robin felt torn as the others added their welcomes: some curt and to the point; some florid to the point of absurdity. He was one of the team now and he welcomed it, even though there was a part of him that was disgusted at them, and at himself for joining them. The camaraderie was wonderful and yet … did he want to stay with them forever? Did he have a choice? His heart twisted. His parents might disown him, if they ever knew what he’d done … there was little forgiveness for anyone who joined a mercenary band, even if they had no choice. Perhaps it would be better never to contact them again, to let them think him – and Eliza – dead rather than mercenaries.

He shifted, awkwardly. Beer trickled down his tunic and pooled around his feet.

“Thank you,” he managed. “I …”

“More beer,” Mason said. He tossed the contents of a second tankard at Robin, he stepped aide just in time. “Aw …”

Robin heard a roar behind him and jumped to one side, just as a colossal mercenary charged past him and jumped onto the table, trying to get at Mason. It dawned on him that Mason’s beer had hit the man and drenched him, a second before another man – an entire team – ran forward, screaming and shouting. Robin saw utter murder in the eyes of the man charging at him and lashed out automatically, striking the man in the chest. He bent over, throwing up everything in his stomach. Robin barely noticed. The entire chamber had descended into a free for all, everyone punching everyone else with neither rhyme nor reason. Tables, chairs and tankards were flying everywhere … Robin saw the bartender ditching his dress and running for his life.

“This way,” Khan snapped. “Hurry!”

Mason staggered to his feet, blood trickling from a nasty-looking gash on his face. His challenger was lying on the table, which was creaking under the weight. It cracked a moment later, sending the unconscious man tumbling to the floor. Khan snapped a command and the rest of the platoon started after him, only to be swept up in the fight as it crashed back into them. Robin felt as if he were drowning …

Blur light flared. His muscles locked painfully, then released, then locked again for a long second … he found himself tumbling down, barely managing to throw out his hands in time to catch himself before he hit the stone floor. The impact still knocked the breath from him, the aches and pains growing stronger with every passing second … he hadn’t ached so much since the first few days of training, a few weeks and a millennium ago. He wasn’t the only one afflicted either. Khan was groaning somewhere behind him, his sound of agony joining a multitude of others … Robin forced himself to look up. Tancella was standing in the doorway, her tiny shape somehow dominating the room. It was nothing, but pure relief that there was no sign of Eliza. Robin hated the idea of her seeing him in such a state.

“Enough,” Tancella said. Her voice was so stern that disobedience was unthinkable. “Return to your tents or barracks, then report to your commanding officers in the morning. Go.”

Robin swallowed, then did as he was told.

***

James eyed the miscreants as they were shown into his tent, their eyes and expressions shifting between wariness and defiance. An entire platoon, minus the sergeant … he would have been invited to the drunken celebration, as was right and proper, but he would have been expected to decline and James would have had a few sharp words for him if he hadn’t. He wanted his sergeants to be fathers to their men, but there were limits to how close they could get without losing their objectivity. He put the thought aside and allowed his eyes to move from face to face, letting the silence hang in the air. They weren’t bad men, but they had ignored his rules …

“You were caught in the middle of a drunken bar fight,” James said, without preamble. The local humans brewed beer to dull the pain of their existence … it was no surprise to him that the mercenaries had found it. The troops could be relied upon to find alcohol in the most unexpected places. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I tell you that the entire band is on the two-pint rule?”

The men shifted uncomfortably. James hadn’t banned alcohol completely, because it would have been ignored, but he had insisted that alcohol could only be consumed within reasonable limits. Two pints of beer shouldn’t be enough to impair drinkers, unless the beer was more alcoholic than they thought …

James allowed his voice to harden. “Why were you drunk?”

“We weren’t that drunk,” a young man protested. “We only …”

His neighbour nudged him, sharply. James hid his amusement. They knew better than to think that pleading or rationalising would get them out of trouble. Mostly. A couple looked to be suffering from hangovers too … poor bastards. Their throbbing heads would only add to the pain of the discussion.

A dark-skinned young man – Private Khan, if James recalled correctly – stepped forward. “We were welcoming Private Robin to the platoon, sir,” he said. “The event was organised by me and I accept full responsibility for the outcome.”

“I see.” James held Khan’s gaze for a long moment. “Are you accepting the blame because it was your fault, Private, or did you draw the short straw?”

Khan held himself still. “It was my fault, sir.”

“Was it?” James was a pretty good reader of men and there was no suggestion, in Khan’s pose, that he was trying to lie. Good on him, he supposed. Being honest was the only way to escape long-term consequences for his actions. “And you made the others drink too?”

“It is part of the ceremony,” Khan said, lightly.

James studied him thoughtfully, just long enough to make him squirm. The maggots were always welcomed formally, once they proved themselves, and in truth Khan’s little ceremony was mild compared to some others. James had never liked those, for all sorts of reasons. It was rank stupidity to humiliate the guy standing in line beside you when you went to war, the guy who might be behind you with a knife and a grudge. At least Khan hadn’t gone that far …

He leaned forward. “And how did the fight start?”

“Someone threw a beer,” Khan said. James was fairly sure Khan knew exactly who had thrown the beer. “A man was accidentally drenched. He attacked us. The fight spread from there.”

“I see,” James said. He’d been in his fair share of barroom brawls. He knew how quickly a minor dispute could turn into all-out war, all against all. “It may amuse you to know that nine men were seriously injured and seventeen more bumped and bruised. Luckily, it wasn’t any of you who inflicted the serious injuries. That would have ended badly.”

“Yes, sir,” Khan said.

“Quite,” James agreed. “You, Private Khan, will report to Sergeant-Major Winter for a sizable number of push-ups. The rest of you … perhaps you should attend with him, to show your comradeship. You may consider yourselves lucky that it was only a minor brawl. If you had seriously hurt someone from a different band …”

He let his words trail off, allowing their imaginations to fill the gap. If they had, he would have had no choice but to hand them over to the other Captain-General. There was no other way to prevent a major dispute, perhaps even armed conflict. It was better to sell out one man than risk a major disaster, certainly so far from safety. They couldn’t march out in good order here.

“Dismissed,” James said, quietly.

The platoon saluted, then turned and left the room. Tancella stepped in before they could close the door.

“You’re too soft on them,” she said, closing the door behind her. “Getting drunk here could lead to all sorts of problems.”

James grinned. “Are you complaining because you really do think I’m too soft, or because you can’t drink alcohol yourself?”

Tancella shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“They’re grown men,” James said. “They fucked up, true, but there was no actual malice in it.”

He stared at his hands as Tancella took a chair from the wall, placed it in front of the desk and sat down. Military discipline was a delicate matter, for all the brutality he had no qualms about using if the situation was truly dire. The punishment had to strike a delicate balance between being too soft and too harsh, between being unpleasant enough to drive the point home and yet not so unpleasant it ensured the culprit had no hope of redeeming himself. Or convincing the rest of the band that their CO was a martinet, even a tyrant. Getting drunk wasn’t anything like as bad as rape, as far as his men were concerned, and cutting off Khan’s head would strike them as just a little excessive. James had seen too many commanders who abused and bullied their subordinates. They often came to bad ends.

“I hope you’re right,” Tancella said. “How’s the prince?”

“Still convinced the war is over,” James said. He had done his best to ignore the prince over the last two days, trying to have as little as possible to do with his proclamations to a people who simply didn’t care. “Did you see anything on your last patrol?”

“If I had, I would have told you.” There was a faint, but unmistakable hint of reproof in Tancella’s tone. “There’s no sign of any living thing within miles of the city walls.”

“Yeah,” James said. “So where are they?”

Tancella shrugged. “I dare say they’ll show themselves sooner or later,” she said. “If they haven’t fled all the way to Strickland.”

She eyed her fingertips, as if she could find the answers there. “There might have been fewer orcs here than we thought.”

James had wondered about that. Kentigern had been a dry kingdom even before the war. The invasion had shattered the delicate irrigation channels that had kept the farms alive, leaving the farmers struggling to survive; the decade of occupation had killed almost all of the farms outside Alcibiades itself. Orcs could eat things most humans wouldn’t touch, either because they were poisonous or because they were grossly immoral, but there were limits. Perhaps they’d faced and killed nearly every orc in the kingdom. He wanted to believe it. And yet he couldn’t.

“The locals reported the orcs left after the battle,” James said. That might have made sense for a human army, but orcs …? No. Where were they? “Where did they go?”

“I can try some divining spells,” Tancella said. “But I wouldn’t put money on getting any results.”

“No,” James agreed. “Just … remain ready for anything.”

He scowled at the map. Discipline was already fracturing. They were lucky the barroom brawl hadn’t been any worse. It was just a matter of time before the smaller bands started demanding permission to leave … or the prince tried to screw the mercenaries out of their payment. Prince Hadrian wasn’t that stupid, James thought, but the entitlement of some aristos was just unbelievable. They honestly thought the entire world existed to do their bidding.

Tancella stood. “Keep your ear to the ground,” she advised. “My apprentice and I have work to do.”

“Yeah, see you later,” James said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“And don’t do half the things you would do,” Tancella countered. She started to turn, then paused. “Once the supply convoy arrives, things will start looking up.”

“We’ll see,” James said. “It could be just famous last words.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

The heat was almost overpowering.

Eliza wore the lightest tunic she had, a simple garment that felt dangerously thin, and yet her body was soaked in sweat. The summer days already felt achingly long, as if the hours of darkness were mere moments against the endless monotony of the bright sunlight, and she found herself wishing for the shorter days and cooler summers of her homeland. Tidebank was a green and pleasant land, at least where she’d once lived; Kentigern was a dry and dusty desert, the taste of sand and tainted magic permanently on the air, brushing against her bare skin. It was barely tolerable within the city, where she could take shelter in the palace and drink water from a well, but even a mile or two outside – perhaps not even a mile – it was almost unbearable. She stared down at her arms, now tanned so deeply she barely recognised herself, then gritted her teeth as Tancella called her name. Her mistress had ordered her to follow her to the farm.

Her heart sank as she looked around the tiny complex. Her father’s farm had been small but efficient, every last patch of land used to its fullest potential. Even the small pieces that had been allowed to lie fallow for a year or two, giving them a chance to regenerate to allow for a bumper crop a year or two later, had still been part of a system that had been tended by her distant ancestors and would be tended by her descendents a thousand years from now. This farm was larger, but … she tried not to groan as she looked at the row upon row of brown plants, so dehydrated it was a marvel they hadn’t died long ago. Tancella had said something about the plants adapting themselves to the Blighted Lands, yet … it seemed impossible to believe they were edible.

The farmers didn’t look much better. Her father had been a muscular man, as had most of the men in the village; these men looked so thin she thought one strong breeze would blow them down. Their clothes were rags, revealing their bodies were little more than skin and bones; she saw a young woman so thin, so shapeless, that she honestly mistook the girl for a boy until she realised there was no budge in her loincloth. They looked back at her, scared of magic … no, scared and ashamed and unsure what, if anything, would happen to them. Eliza had known she was on one of the lowest rungs of society, back home, but she’d been lucky beyond words compared to the farmers here. They moved listlessly through the crops, harvesting leaves and dropping them in baskets. Their movements appeared to be random. If there was a pattern, Eliza couldn’t see it.

Her heart twisted, painfully. A pair of mounted guards were watching the farmers and their guests and the farmers weren’t showing any reaction at all. Eliza knew what happened when strangers, particularly soldiers, entered her hometown: the women and children were ordered to hide themselves, to remain well out of sight for as long as the men were anywhere near. Here … the locals just didn’t seem to care. The worst mercenaries in the world were probably a vast improvement over the orcs …

“No animals,” she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. Back home, chicken and pigs were common, the former laying eggs and the latter eating slops before finally being slaughtered to keep the family alive over the cold winter months. There were no animals here, save for insects that buzzed around … Eliza had no idea if they were edible and she didn’t want to find out. “That’s what’s missing.”

Tancella glanced at her. “You’re a farmer,” she said. The man standing beside her, someone whose name had slipped Eliza’s mind, eyed her darkly. “Do you think this farm can be revitalised?”

Eliza felt a hot flash of anger. She wasn’t a farmer any longer and she knew, from experience, just how welcoming farmers were of outsides who came in and started issuing orders. They weren’t remotely welcoming. Farming looked easy if you’d never farmed for a living, her father had growled time and time again, but anyone who had actually farmed knew the limits of the possible in a manner no book-learned fool could possibly match. There was a reason for everything, from the patchwork fields to the crop layout, and those who tried to disrupt the pattern without understanding it always left ruin in their wake. It was no surprise that some of the fools had wandered off and never been seen again.

She controlled herself with an effort. “I don’t think so,” she said, finally. “Not in a hurry.”

The man scowled. “And how do you know that, young lady?”

Eliza flushed. “I ...”

She took a breath and started again. “Where would you like me to begin? There’s nowhere near enough water, ensuring the crops cannot grow properly. The sand is clogging the soil and poisoning the land, ensuring the crops cannot grow properly. The insects buzzing around are probably very bad for the farm, ensuring the crops cannot grow properly. The …”

“Well said,” Tancella cut in. “Lord Lepidus” – her voice was sickly-sweet, suggesting she disliked the man intensely – “there is no magic that can bring life back to these lands, not in a hurry.”

“There must be,” Lepidus said. “Is there no way to restore these lands?”

Tancella glanced at Eliza, who shrugged. She’d seen a couple of abandoned farms over the years, where the farmers had just packed everything they could carry and walked away, but none had been in quite as bad a state. They’d been taken over by second sons, once they’d been left alone long enough to make it clear the original owners weren’t coming home, and their fields had been cleared and replanted … she shook her head. The task before the farmers here was immense. It would be tricky even with magic.

“You’d need more water, for starters,” she said, finally. It hadn’t rained since they’d landed in Kentigern. Not once. “And then you’d need to clear the fields.”

“Check the rest of the farmland,” Tancella ordered. “Lord Lepidus and I have much to discuss.”

And you don’t want me to hear, Eliza added, silently. It’s probably none of my business anyway.

She turned away and walked through the rows of crops, searching for signs of hope. There were none. The rows of crops were hanging listlessly, the farmers didn’t seem to be following any sort of schedule … the taller crops, reaching towards the sky, were completely unknown to her. The leaves felt like paper when she touched them, so fragile that she feared they’d disintegrate if she tried to pull them from the plants. She crouched down beside one particularly alien plant and studied the roots thoughtfully. It looked as though they were dug deep into the soil. That was going to be a pain too, she reflected. It had been hard enough to dig up one tree, a few years ago, and there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of such plants on the farm. They might all have to be dug up.

A hand patted her rear, making her jump. “Hey!”

She spun around, nearly losing her balance as she rose to her feet. A young man was standing in front of her, grinning like a loon. One of the guards who’d escorted Lord Lepidus, she thought … he was certainly too well dressed to be a local farmer. Not much older than herself and yet …

“I saw the way you were looking at me,” he said, stepping forward. The grin on his face grew wider as he realised she was trapped, that she couldn’t get away without tearing her way through the brown crops. “You want me, don’t you …?”

Eliza nearly panicked, a flashback of the aristo who’d nearly raped her crashing through her mind … Robin wasn’t anywhere near, this time, and she had no idea how either Tancella or Lepidus would react if she screamed. Some women were blamed for their own rape, even by other women. Others were seen as damaged goods … a flash of fear ran through her, followed rapidly by anger. How dare he?

The spell was already half-formed in her mind before she quite realised what she was doing. He reached for her, pressing his lips against hers … and then jumped back, screaming in agony, as the spell tore into him. His entire body bent unnaturally, his screams growing louder as he hit the sandy ground. Eliza staggered herself, feeling the magic twisting around her. The effort of cursing the bastard had drained her more than she cared to admit …

“What happened?”

Eliza looked up. Tancella was standing there, Lepidus right beside her.

“He tried to rape me,” Eliza managed. The bastard had never spoken to her … she didn’t think he’d even seen her before they’d been called to the farm. How the hell did he think she wanted him? “I …”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” Lepidus said. “I …”

Tancella zapped him with something. He gasped in pain.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” she said. Her voice was so cold that Eliza shivered. “Never ever try to rape anyone. Or die.”

She turned, beckoning Eliza to follow her. “You did well,” she said, as they walked back to the horses. “I’m sure he won’t do that again.”

Eliza smiled. She was sure he wouldn’t do it again either.

***

James watched from the palace rooftop as the supply convoy entered the city, the mercenaries cheering loudly as the washerwomen waved from their wagons, blowing kisses and making promises that would have earned them a whipping in just about any northern city. The hypocrisy had never failed to amuse him, as a child and then a young boy; aristocrats and city fathers loudly decried any kind of wanton behaviour, all the while partaking in it and worse behind closed doors. He wondered, absently, if Prince Hadrian would do the same, when he was a married man. It was astonishing how many noblemen preached the dangers of adultery while raising whole families of bastards.

Or perhaps it isn’t astonishing at all, he mused, sourly. If you have the wealth and power to indulge yourself, why not?

He took a long breath, staring out over the darkening landscape. There were no settlements for miles around, no trace of anything that might suggest a human presence … there were no lights, not even faint glimmerings of magic or fae lights, brief glimmerings that might lure a human into a place no human could go and return unchanged. If he returned at all …

Something moved, behind him. He turned, one hand dropping to his sword.

“I’m sorry,” Princess Mary said. “I thought I’d be alone up here.”

“It is of no importance, My Lady,” James said. He had nothing against the princess and there was no reason to be annoyed at her, although he was mildly surprised she wasn’t already backing away. Her chaperones were nowhere to be seen and that meant she could be accused of all sorts of things, even if she hadn’t done them. “If you wish, I can leave you alone.”

“Please stay,” Princess Mary said. “I don’t mean to disturb you.”

James shrugged, turning back to peer at the streets below. The men were already unpacking the wagons, distributing food and supplies to the officers – who would make sure it was properly rationed – and carrying furniture into the palace. He ground his teeth in frustration. He hadn’t realised Prince Hadrian had sent for his baggage when they’d taken Neptune’s Gate – not until it had been too late to object – or that he’d ordered it transported south once his capital had been liberated. How much space had they wasted, he asked himself silently, when they’d loaded the expensive junk onto the wagons? He eyed the boxes and cases sourly. Had the prince brought his entire wardrobe with him?

“You’re uneasy,” Princess Mary said. “Why?”

James kept his eyes on the streets below. “And you’re a little smarter than you look,” he said, decades of resentments bubbling to the surface. He cursed himself a moment later. Princess Mary didn’t deserve to hear that. “Why do you hide it?”

“My father is a firm believer in women being seen and unheard,” Princess Mary said. Her tone was flat, her face artfully blank. “It is better to hide one’s intelligence than overshadow one’s husband, for the sake of his pride.”

“Charming,” James had no idea if his father had felt the same way, but his stepmother had been a whirling mass of insecurities and resentments that had poisoned her years before her death. He’d never admired her intelligence and never would, yet … he shrugged. That part of his life had ended a long time ago. “Do you think Prince Hadrian would object?”

“He has not had an easy life,” Princess Mary said. Her tone didn’t change. “I prefer not to make it harder.”

James snorted. Prince Hadrian might have been a prince in exile, with little hope of recovering his kingdom or making his title anything more than empty words, but he’d still been incredibly lucky compared to the vast majority of the population. The life of an exiled prince was still one of luxury, while a serf had to work every hour the gods sent and a whore had to let herself be fucked, in all senses of the word, by dozens of random men. Sure, it wasn’t easy to assert himself, or make a good match, when he had little to offer, but …

Princess Mary smiled. “My parents fight all the time,” she said. “I don’t want that for my children.”

“I suppose,” James said. His father and stepmother had fought too. “But why should you suppress yourself to match his whims?”

He felt a sudden flicker of sympathy. Princess Mary wasn’t a young woman, she was a tool in her father’s arsenal. Her marriage would be – no; had been – decided by her father; she wouldn’t be able to refuse, or to leave if her husband turned out to be abusive. She would have to navigate a snake pit of courtly politics, in which she would have to earn favour with her new relatives while also promoting the interests of her father … James recalled his early life, where he’d never been allowed to outshine his half-brothers, and winced. It wasn’t quite the same, not really, but it was close enough.

“One does what one has to do,” Princess Mary said.

You could run away, James thought. You could become anything …

He dismissed the thought almost as soon as he had it. Princess Mary knew little, if anything, of the life outside palace walls. She could hardly expect to blend in with merchants and other commoners and she’d be caught very quickly, if she were lucky. James’s youngest half-sister had been caught doing just that and she’d been incredibly lucky their father hadn’t been inclined to do more than scold her. It could have ruined her life.

No, James told himself. She’s as trapped in her role as my stepmother.

“You’re worried,” Princess Mary said. “Why?”

James turned to look at her. “I don’t understand what happened to the orcs,” he said, flatly. “Where are they?”

Princess Mary cocked her head. “Isn’t their absence a good thing?”

“Only if you know where they’ve gone,” James said. “It’s like knowing there’s a poisonous spider somewhere within your home. You’d be happier knowing where it was” – he allowed himself a tight smile – “even if it was in your underwear drawer.”

The princess didn’t react to his slight crudity. “It could be anywhere,” she agreed. “How do you know there isn’t a second spider? Or a third?”

James smiled, more openly this time. His younger sister had been able to hold up her end of a conversation, but he hadn’t met many other aristocratic women who could.

“I don’t,” he said. “Which is the point. Where are those orcs?”

He gestured to the darkness. “They could be out there,” he added. “Or they could still be running south. We just don’t know, and your future husband seems to have forgotten it.”

“He’s finally got a chance to shine,” Princess Mary said, quietly.

“Is that why he hasn’t called his father home?” James knew it was a little unfair, but it didn’t stop him. “He wants to play at being king?”

Princess Mary gave him a sardonic look. “Can he call his father here?”

“Maybe.” James wasn’t so sure. The quickest way to get the king to his city was through teleportation, and there were few sorcerers who’d risk teleporting into the Blighted Lands. “I’m surprised he hasn’t tried.”

“It may not be so easy,” Princess Mary said. She had a point. Without magic, it would take at least a month to get the king to the capital. Prince Hadrian was his regent until his father arrived to take control and there was no point in disputing it. “But let him have his time.”

“And I have to claim my lands,” James said. He’d heard the reports from men who’d tried to do just that, only to discover their lands were in no state to be claimed. He doubted his were any better. There were going to be all sorts of rows, when that sank in. The prince might have stiffed his fighting men without ever meaning to. “That may prove a challenge.”

“It might,” Princess Mary agreed. She looked up at the twinkling stars, her face unreadable in the gathering darkness. “We won the first round, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” James said, choosing not to dispute the use of the word we. “But I can’t help feeling the second round is yet to begin.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Five

The heat struck Robin as soon as the convoy marched out of the gate.

It was almost terrifyingly hot: hot enough to warm the water in his canteen; hot enough, at least in his own estimation, to cook an egg or fry his brain inside his skull. The distant sand dunes and mountains were hidden behind a haze that hurt his eyes, every time he looked at it, while there were flickering things at the corner of his eye, never quite coming into focus, haunting his every move. It had been growing hotter with every passing day, over the last two weeks, and there seemed to be no end in sight. It felt as if they were all going to bake.

The wagons rumbled beside the marching troops, the horses looking as tired as Robin felt even though they’d only just started their march north. The platoon was being rewarded – or punished; right now, Robin wasn’t sure which – with escort duties, taking the convoy back to Neptune’s Gate so the wagons could be reloaded and returned to Alcibiades. His superiors had insisted the wagons would only carry essential supplies, but Robin had heard the grumbling about the prince ordering a great deal of expensive crap and he feared the worst. There was no point in complaining, he was sure. Their orders were orders.

And it isn’t just us, he thought. The mercenary bands had been reluctant to trust escort duties to a single band. There were five platoons in all, each from a different unit. Are we all being punished for our role in the fight?

Something flickered, overhead. He glanced up to see a broomstick … Eliza? He wanted to think so, although the tiny shape was too high for him to be sure. He hadn’t been able to see his sister since they’d reached Alcibiades, something that bothered him. They were brother and sister and he felt responsible for her, even though they’d gone their separate ways. He should go see her … did she even know he was marching back north? There was no way to know. They were in different worlds now.

“Keep your eyes on the road,” Khan advised. “You don’t want the sun to blind you.”

Robin nodded, not trusting himself to speak as they walked onwards. The farms were slowly falling behind, revealing nothing but endless sand dunes and fields of stone … the former half-hidden in the heat. The road hadn’t improved in the last few days, of course; the wagons had probably chewed it up, leaving it worse than ever before. Something would have to be done about that … his lips twisted in bitter amusement, recalling how reluctant the villagers had been back home to maintain the king’s roads. Better roads meant more merchants, true, but they also meant more taxmen. It was never easy to strike a balance between the upsides of better facilities and the downsides, which … he shook his head. He’d changed, in more ways than he knew. He was thinking like a soldier, rather than a mercenary.

His tunic dripped with sweat, rivets of liquid trickling down his backside and inching down his legs, pooling in his boots. It was growing harder to think straight … how long had they been marching? Alcibiades was no longer visible when he glanced back, lost somewhere in the haze, but the sun didn’t appear to have moved in the sky. He wanted to believe that they’d been marching for hours, yet … he just didn’t know. It felt as if he were trapped in a nightmare …

Someone screamed. Robin looked up, unslinging his rifle, as he saw a man stagger backwards, an orcish arrow in his chest. It was larger than the spears he’d trained with, the visible barbs a grim reminder that the poor bastard was already dead or likely to die at any moment. He forced himself to duck down, taking what cover he could as he swept the horizon. The orcs had to be somewhere near, but … not too near. He’d seen them shoot arrows – accurately – over unimaginable distances.

“There,” Khan snapped. A pair of orcs were standing, raising their bows. “Hit them!”

Robin fired, several others firing at the same moment. One of the orcs tumbled, the other loosed his arrow and darted back, out of sight. The arrow struck a horse and punched right through the beast’s head, sending the animal staggering to the ground. Robin cursed under his breath as he realised they’d been ambushed, caught right in the open. He had no idea how many orcs were out there, but …

“Keep your heads down,” Captain Hendricks snapped. “Infantry, hold the line! Cavalry, run them down!”

Robin gritted his teeth as he swept the horizon, watching for threats. Hendricks was a stranger to Robin and the rest of his comrades, nominal commander of the escort after winning the coin toss. Robin hoped to hell he knew what he was doing. If Khan was to be believed, half the mercenary officers were brilliant leaders of men and the other half couldn’t put their underpants on without help. The Bloody Hands were better than most at sidelining incompetents before they got men killed, but Hendricks wasn’t a Bloody Hand. There was no guarantee he knew what he was doing.

He’s still alive, Robin told himself. Khan had noted that some officers accidentally stabbed themselves in the back several times, when they proved they couldn’t be trusted. That’s a good sign, right?

He watched, numbly, as the horsemen galloped towards the orcs … and stopped, dead, as more arrows came out of nowhere, knocking them ruthlessly to the ground. There was a whole army of orcs out there, hidden in the haze … he swallowed, hard, as he realised the orcs might have the edge. Their bows were more accurate than rifles and they could jump in and out of range as they pleased, loosing arrows and then getting back out of range before it was too late … ice gripped his heart, despite the heat, as he realised the convoy was in serious trouble.

The orcs appeared again, loosing arrows towards the wagons. Robin fired at the first one he saw and cursed as the monster refused to fall, refused to show any hint his bullet had gone anywhere near the beast. Others fired too … Robin felt a twinge of hope as he saw an orc tumble, although there was no way to know who’d fired the fatal shot, only to feel it fade away as more and more orcs showed themselves.

“They’re trying to take out the horses,” Khan muttered, as he fired a shot at the enemy. “Crafty bastards. More than I’d expect from a necromancer.”

Robin glanced at him. “Is there a necromancer out there?”

“Doubt it.” Khan didn’t sound as if he believed himself. “But who else can it be?”

“Stow that chatter,” Hendricks snapped. His face was streaked with sweat. He knew he’d made a mistake, one that could easily prove fatal. “Keep your fucking heads down …”

More arrows hissed through the air as the convoy ground to a halt. Robin saw four horses dead and knew they were stuck, perhaps trapped for good. The orcs weren’t closing in for the kill but perhaps they didn’t have to bother, not when they could keep up the pressure from a safe distance and wear the mercenaries down without risking themselves. Khan was right. It was oddly smart behaviour for orcs, particularly orcs without a necromancer pulling the strings. What the hell were they facing?

“Get the remaining horses and gallop back to the city,” Hendricks snapped. He was talking to a pair of officers, his tone flat yet urgent. “Inform the Captains-General that we need immediate help.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Infantry, provide covering fire,” Hendricks snapped. “We need to get word out before it’s too late.”

The horsemen galloped away, their horses zigzagging across the land as they picked up speed. The orcs hurled a handful of arrows after them – Robin groaned as one of the messengers fell from the saddle, dead before he hit the ground – and then continued attacking the convoy, raining arrow after arrow on the trapped and helpless men. Robin fired, reloaded and fired, time and time again, all too aware he was running low on ammunition. There was none in the wagons. They hadn’t expected a battle, let alone one that pinned them down so effectively.

If they’d charged us like before, we would have wiped them out, Robin told himself. But this time …

Khan nudged him. “Say, if we get out of this, do you think your sister would accept my suit?”

Robin blinked, unsure if he was being teased. “Sure,” he said. “If I find a frog hopping on the floor, I’ll know it’s you.”

“I like to live dangerously,” Khan said. “And a sorceress is supposed to be …”

Mason elbowed him. “You’re mad,” he said. “Go for the washer whores and …”

An arrow struck his head. Robin recoiled as Mason’s skull shattered, his brains spilling onto the ground. Mason had been a friend and a jerk and a comrade and … he was dead. Robin had seen men die before, but this …

“Keep firing,” Hendricks snapped. The orcs appeared to be closing in, crawling forward while using the sand dunes for cover and then popping up long enough to take aim and loose arrows before dropping back down again. A handful of arrows fell, seemingly at random … Robin guessed the orcs were closer now, shooting without showing themselves. “Keep firing …”

Robin shot another orc – this time, the target staggered under the blow – and cursed as he realised he was almost out of ammunition. He glanced back, wondering if there was a way to run and hide, but he could see movements coming in from all sides now. The orcs had them surrounded … he looked up, in hopes of seeing a broomstick, yet … there was nothing but bright blue sky. Hendricks screamed, an arrow protruding out of his chest … he staggered, making the wound worse, far worse, as he fell to the ground. Robin looked away as the officer practically tore himself apart, blood pouring from his body and staining the ground. It was just another horror of a horrible day.

“Draw your sword,” Khan ordered, quietly. The orcs were practically on top of them now. “And sell your life dearly.”

An orc landed beside them, tearing their rifles out of their hands and breaking them as if they were nothing more than sticks. Robin swore and grabbed for his sword, only to have it torn away a moment later. The orc glowered down at him, his face – a piggish parody of a human face – twisting in a manner that made Robin want to be sick. Up close, the orc reminded him of a wild boar – a very dangerous animal – with a mouth full of teeth that somehow managed to be both immense and yet needle-sharp. Its breath smelt foul.

“Do … not … move,” the orc said.

Robin gaped. The orcs could speak? The words were mushy, delivered through lips that were clearly designed for a very different tongue, but … he kicked himself a moment later. How could anyone give orders, even a necromancer, if the person he was bossing around couldn’t understand his words? If the orcs could understand, there was no reason why they couldn’t speak. If their lips could form the words …

“You … prisoner … you behave,” the orc managed. “You … behave.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you want,” Khan said. Robin saw the knife slipping out of his sleeve, an instant before he stabbed the orc. The blade slipped through the leathery skin and … the orc didn’t seem to notice. “I …”

“You … come,” the orc said. It pushed Robin forward, the push hard enough to make him grunt in pain. “No fight.”

Robin exchanged glances with Khan, then let the orc push him through the wrecked convoy. The orcs appeared to be organised, one team collecting the bodies and the other smashing the wagons to pieces, leaving the rubble on the ground. Their captor kept pushing, shoving them onto the sand dunes … Robin felt his legs starting to ache as he kept walking, all too aware that showing weakness might be the most dangerous thing he could do. Why did the orcs want captives? Slaves? Or … or what? Perhaps they were nothing more than livestock, walking to the slaughter.

His heart sank still further as the rest of the horde joined them, carrying dead humans and horses with casual ease. There was no way to outrun their captor, let alone the rest of the horde … it said something, he supposed sourly, that they hadn’t bothered to tie their captives up. They had no reason to think they could escape … Robin feared they were right It was a very neat trap.

The sand dunes parted suddenly, revealing a makeshift campsite. A handful of tents, surrounded by fires and swarming orcs … he shuddered, horribly, as he realised there were a handful of human captive amongst the orcs. The orcs themselves were scattered around the landscape … their campsite was much less organised than the ones he’d slept in himself, he noted, but it was a campsite nonetheless. The wind shifted suddenly, blowing a ghastly stench into his face. Human urine and faeces, mingled with something peculiar to orcs. The lectures about sanitation he’d been given, when he’d been taught how to set up camp, echoed through his mind. If the camp had been populated solely by humans, there would have been a disease outbreak by now.

“Shit,” Khan muttered. “What is this?”

There was no stockade, no fence, but there was still a very clear boundary as they stepped into the camp. Magic? Or something else? Robin couldn’t tell. Up close, the orcs were even more intimidating than before. Some carried swords taller than Robin himself, others hulked around in a manner that, if they’d been human, would have been clearly designed to show off their muscles. He recalled the town blacksmith, a man whose fists had been feared for smiles around, and shivered helplessly. The blacksmith was a wimp compared to the orcs.

And no one back home knows what is happening to us, he thought. Sir James didn’t know … his own family certainly didn’t know. They’d never know what had happened to him … he hoped, praying to gods he didn’t quite believe in, that Eliza would make it home one day. No one would dare cause her trouble if she was a sorceress. He swore under his breath. She won’t know what happened to me either. She’ll just think I went out with the convoy and never returned.

Their captor pushed them to their knees. “Respect … King.”

Robin looked up. An orc – a shorter orc – was standing right in front of them, wearing a set of armour rather than the typical orcish loincloth. Robin kicked himself for not noticing earlier that many orcs were wearing clothes, rather than loincloths, then forced himself to look at the orcish … king? A king? When had the orcs ever had a king?

He sucked in his breath. The orc was taller than him, but still shorter than the vast majority of his subjects. The face was lighter, to a degree that made him look like an exceptionally ugly human rather than an inhuman monster; the eyes, too, were disturbingly human. It was difficult to believe he was an orc …

“By all the gods,” Khan breathed. “A half-orc!”

Robin blinked. Humans could have children with orcs? The thought was disgusting beyond words. Who would willingly … the answer dawned on him before he could finish the thought. It hadn’t been willing. Eliza had nearly been raped by an aristocrat who wasn’t that much bigger than her, and she’d been unable to fight him off. An orc would be so much bigger that … he didn’t want to think about it. Or the risk the orcs might have something like it in store for them.

“I greet you,” the half-orc said. His voice was oddly accented, slightly mushy, but perfectly understandable. “Why are you in my lands?”

Khan exchanged glances with Robin. “Who are you, and why have you taken us prisoner?”

The half-orc smiled. It was a ghastly sight, revealing sharp teeth that didn’t belong in a human mouth. “I am Drax, King of these lands,” he said. “Why are you here?”

Robin had no idea what to say. He’d never heard of a half-orc, let alone an orcish king. The idea of a half-orc being able to rule an entire army was just … he eyed Drax warily, wondering if he had magic. He’d never heard of an orc with magic, but … he was starting to think there were a lot of things in the Blighted Lands no one knew existed. If Drax had magic … he shook his head mentally. Even if Drax didn’t have anything beyond his muscles and smarts, Robin didn’t fancy his chances in a straight fight.

“We’re explorers,” Khan lied, smoothly. “You attacked us …”

Drax laughed, but said nothing. Robin tried to keep his despair from showing on his face. A regular orc wouldn’t believe that lie and Drax was clearly at least as smart as the average human. Perhaps more so … how many humans could control an orcish horde?

Robin took a breath. “We killed the necromancer,” he said, quietly. He had no idea if there was any way the two sides could talk, now or ever, but he had to try. The alternative was being dropped in the stew pots. “Can we talk …?”

“These lands are ours,” Drax said. There was something final in how he spoke that convinced Robin there was no point in trying to argue. “You will be returned to your camp tomorrow. You will inform your masters that none will be permitted to escape alive. And then you will all die.”