Chapter Eleven
Chapter
Eleven
The
Black Eye
It did
not take long to find the signs of conflict.
As
Isaac ran through the streets of a dead city, he saw footsteps caked through
the dust and dirt, each of them depicting the paw print of a different
zoanthrope species. Soon after, he saw signs of tampering in the surrounding
architecture—a broken door of a mausoleum, a shattered, eye-like window, market
stalls tipped over, apothecaries burst open, a few scattered jewels vomiting
from the mouth of a skull-shaped house. Someone had been attempting to pilfer
through the ancient buildings.
Isaac
was so focused on the vandalism of the pirates that he almost slipped on a
sudden streak of ice, feeling his boots lose traction with the knuckled
pavement. Zaria managed to catch him by the arm. When he regained his balance,
he noticed the ice was shaped like a cone. It was not a natural accumulation.
It had burst from a central point. He looked further on, and there was a body
of a pirate lying in the street, most of his fur burned into a blackened char.
Flames licked across the leather armor.
Elemental
magic.
There
was another mage here.
In a
way, this was good, because it meant the pirates were not fighting the
necromancer. They were not yet incurring the wrath of the ancient woman who
still claimed this city as her dominion. In another way, this was very bad,
because it suggested the puppeteer sorcerer had managed to enslave a bevy of
fellow mages, which would allow them to wield the magic of their thralls as if
it were their own.
There
could be an army of magic wielders ahead of them. How many would control the
elements? What of enchanters? Illusionists?
Another
explosion rang through the city, shuddering the old bones. There was a dull
thump of cannon fire.
Isaac
paused, biting his lip.
“No
slacking, squire!”
Zaria
ran ahead, slapping his back as she went. Isaac was forced to follow. As they
turned the corner into an adjacent boulevard, he saw a grisly collection of
bodies, all of them pirates, all of them killed through elemental destruction,
their faces crusted over with ice or the burning remnants of their fur. Beside
them, a few human bodies lay dead in their own blood. The humans were wearing
black robes. Their faces were empty. One had been chopped through with a
cutlass, from shoulder to sternum, without making a single wince of pain.
Another had four quarrels sticking from his chest.
A
parasite sigil was carved in each of their heads.
“Fuck!”
Zaria cried. “They got Hopkin!”
“Who?”
“My
crew!” She stopped, looking at the pirates. A growl escaped her. “Soren, you
cunt!”
“Did
you like them?” Isaac asked, confused.
“Some
of them!”
The hyena
tapped the black tip of her nose, mouthing a prayer. When it was done, she went
sprinting up the street, no longer slowing her pace. Isaac was soon left
behind. He almost shouted for them to remain together, but ended up following
in silence.
His
mind raced with the sight of the dead mages.
The
puppeteer sorcerer, who had arrived nearly a day ahead of them, clearly
possessed a very large legion of thralls. This would make them extremely
dangerous. Because the thralls were trained in magic, the sorcerer could
selectively imbue them with energy stolen from the others, increasing the
strength of specific thralls until they were capable of nearly unlimited
casting, like an arquebus which required no time to reload.
It
appeared that all the mages were elementals. Isaac was only prepared for
necrotics.
This
would not be easy.
He
raced through the streets of bone, his feet slapping over brick and twisted
bodies alike. Rivers of blood flowed over a pavement bathed in the soft color
of gold. Eventually, the rows of houses and shops ended in a wide open plaza,
the ground paved and studded with the metatarsals of a human foot. Ahead, the
open space ended with the high-walled courtyard of a palace. Over the wall, the
palace itself looked like an overflowing mound of skulls, each of the
individual heads the size of a building.
He
remembered glimpsing this pyramid from the watchtower. Isaac guessed, purely on
instinct, that it had once served as the center of government for the
necropolis.
By now,
a new regime had taken hold.
A ring
of fortifications had been built around the palace walls, which largely
consisted of makeshift ramparts, slapped together with whatever odd bits of
wood could be scavenged and nailed into place. The rib-shaped bars of the gates
had been barricaded with stolen furniture. In the center of the courtyard wall,
someone had draped a black pirate standard across the pelvis-shaped parapets.
Isaac could barely discern the crumpled symbol of a canine skull over
crossbones.
The
fighting was taking place just on the other side of the courtyard. He could not
see it from here, but he could hear the sounds of crackling ice, see the orange
blooming of fire, feel the punch of explosions and screams. After a moment, he
noticed Zaria slinking beside the outer wall, her shadow occasionally
lengthening beneath the streams of fire.
There
was an automaton ahead of her, standing guard outside the courtyard wall. It
appeared like a suit of armor. It was three times the height of a man. Its
shape was vaguely malevolent.
“Zaria!”
Isaac shouted.
She did
not hear him.
He
cursed to himself, adopting a crouched run as he attempted to clear the
distance across the surrounding plaza. When he was halfway through, the roaring
thump of a cannon came from the palace, and a portion of the courtyard rampart
exploded outward, split apart with a ball of chain-shot, which swung wildly
into the city beyond. Moments later, the legless torso of a human splattered on
the pavement.
“Gods!”
Isaac said.
He gave
up the low crouch, now sprinting openly across the plaza. By the time he
reached Zaria, she had climbed halfway up the leg of the automaton, finding purchase on the intricate carving of runes across its
stonework exterior. The golem stood like a slashing of shadow, its form unmoved
by the chaos. He saw a protuberance on its face, like the mouth of a mosquito.
He saw a lipless mouth rising vertically along its chest.
“Zaria!”
Isaac hissed. “Get down!”
“Need
some vantage,” she replied, grabbing the rim of the golem’s hip. “Need a good
look on Soren. Can’t just go strollin’ through.”
“That’s
a golem of the necromancers! It’s supposed to guard the palace!”
“It’s
dead, I think.”
“That
doesn’t matter! Get down!”
She
pulled herself to the hip, pushed up until her elbows were straight, and
reached out to grasp the mouth on the golem’s chest. It yawned at her touch.
Suddenly, a vomit of skulls erupted from its belly, spilling over the pavement.
All of them shattered like pottery.
“Xotra’s
cunt,” Zaria said, wobbling for balance, bracing against the stream of rotten
bone.
“What
have I been telling you?” Isaac yelled.
She
waited until the skulls stopped pouring and grabbed at the golem again, this
time catching her paw on the edge of a lower rib, which appeared to be spiking
out from the side. Isaac now noticed that a dozen ribs were poking through the
creature’s torso, like someone had gone through and individually wrenched the
cage, working until the bones represented the legs of a centipede. He did not
want to imagine if the necromancers had ever done this to actual, living
people.
“Come
on,” Zaria said, beckoning with a hand. “Let’s get a look.”
Isaac
was dismayed. “You want me to climb that thing?”
“If it
wouldn’t tax the young lord.”
He made
a face. After a moment, he glared up at the extruding shadow of the golem’s
skull, as if warning it to comply. The golem did not stir. Slowly, Isaac
grabbed at the runes curving along the stonework, doing his best to climb. He
made an awkward, halting job of things. By the time he reached the hip of the golem, Zaria was already at the shoulder, dangling herself
along the automaton’s chest like a cat clinging to its owner’s shirt.
“Please
help me,” Isaac asked, straining.
Zaria
reached down, grabbed him by the arm, and yanked him bodily onto the opposite
shoulder of the golem, where he floundered for a grip. The tall automaton
creaked with their shifting weights, and Isaac heard the distinctive sound of
crunching bone. When he looked, he saw that the protuberance on the golem’s
face was actually the mouth of a smooth-bore cannon. Its entire skull had been
shaped into a gun.
He
remembered the skulls in its belly. He guessed there was a loading mechanism,
somewhere within the tortured chest.
Isaac
shuddered in disgust.
“Ain’t
lookin’ good,” Zaria said, pointing over the golem’s shoulder.
They
now had an excellent vantage over the battle. Below,
over the walls, the palace courtyard was a scene of carnage. It seemed as if
the sorcerer’s thralls had mounted a full assault. Robed human figures were
slowly advancing across the open space of the interior plaza, shooting spears
of ice and flame. At the palace itself, crouched between the jaws of several
massive skulls, the pirates were returning fire with crossbows, occasionally
flinging grenades of black powder. None of the human thralls attempted to seek
cover—they kept marching forward, heedless of the bolts and explosives.
As it
stood, the pirates were losing ground. They were receiving an overwhelming
amount of fire, much of which was literally fire, and the amount of elemental
discharge was quickly eroding anything they could use as protection. From his
vantage point, Isaac could see that many of the pirates were beginning to
panic, watching the jaws of the skull catch into flame. A fox screamed as her
fur came alight.
Across
the courtyard, the thralls continued to advance in a single line, showing no
signs of fear.
The
puppeteer was winning.
“Fuck
me,” Zaria said. “It really is Soren. I knew she had a cactus up her cunt about