Chapter Ten #3
Grandmother began shouting at me as she attempted to get off the quadoth.
Teryn looked back at us as I argued with her to stay put until the beast could lower itself.
Things got rather tangled for a few moments as our travel came to a fast halt.
The old woman was not having any arguments from me—not that she understood me—and was determined to toss herself off Razgol’s humped back.
Teryn arrived, talking to the old woman in soft, placating tones, as I tugged on the reins to lead Razgol downward.
“She wishes to take what remains of her husband to the Saanin tal Rustam,” Teryn told me as the weathered old woman held up a small tightly wrapped package, no bigger than a small dog, her cheeks wet with tears. I had many questions. Sweat ran into my eyes.
“What is a Saanin tal Rustam?” I asked, watching Grandmother set off across the dune, her tiny feet sinking into the black sand. She was determined. I had to credit her for that.
“House of the Resting Dead,” Teryn explained as we set off after the old woman.
“Here in the outlands, the people lay their dead to find eternal slumber in these holy places. The doors and roof are open to invite the vultures and desert scavengers to claim the body so that it does not taint the soil or sands as your city dead do in vast cemeteries or vaults under your temples.”
I had heard of similar practices for the wood elves, only they placed their dead in trees for nature to retake. “It should not take long. A short prayer to the goddess to guide him over and we can set off again.”
“That is fine.” I hurried up to one side of her, Teryn on the other, and we made our way to the ancient circular building. There were no carvings of any kind on the worn black bricks. The vultures took to wing at our approach. The stench of death leeched out of the open doorway.
“She will enter alone as there are no kin with her. She’ll pray and lay his remains on a short rock bed.
The birds and gray hyenas do as nature intends, and his soul will be freed to join the goddess.
” Teryn and I let go of her bony arms. She tottered inside, humming a song that was low and sad, and I turned to Teryn.
“What happened to her husband that all that remains is a bundle the size of a pair of boots?” I asked in a whisper as the old woman began chanting.
Teryn never did reply. He turned slowly to gaze into the house of the resting dead, his eyes widening at whatever he saw inside the doorway.
“Damnation,” he muttered, stepping backward out of my line of sight.
“What? Did the old woman fall?” I bolted through the doorway to scan the area for the feeble old thing when a monster made of sand and bones wrapped in dried skin like leather lunged at me, its hand finding purchase on my chest plate.
Long fingers slid under the edge by my neck.
The reek of death billowed off the unholy thing as it clutched at my armor, vacant eye sockets filled with swirling dark purple energy locked onto my face.
Its jaw unhinged, falling to its chest, and a foul cloud of rot hit me in the face.
It made a sound akin to the death peal of a hundred widows. The howl made me wince.
“Sand wraiths! Do not let them touch your flesh or they will drain your life force!” Teryn bellowed from behind me.
I fumbled for my sword at my hip. My shield was hanging off Razgol.
Who needs a shield to escort a tiny elderly widow to a burial temple?
I was a dolt. My sword shattered a bony arm, dislodging its hold on my armor, but not before a finger raked over my skin.
The slice was small, barely a nick, but it began to bleed copiously.
“How do we kill what is already dead?” I shouted over my shoulder as the doorway filled with sand wraiths. A dozen, perhaps more, many in terrible states of decay, while a few were newly dead. The chants inside the building grew louder.
“Kill the necromancer!” Teryn bellowed as I retreated back to place myself between him and the wraiths.
“It’s an old woman! She gave me rosewater cookies!” I yelled over my shoulder just as a whipping wind thick with sand engulfed me. He was shifting form. What help he felt a tiny fox would be in this kind of confrontation, I had no clue, but—
The sand settled. A large hissing sound pulled my attention from the mass of undead rushing at us.
I’d never heard a sound such as that, so when I shot Teryn a glance, my sight landed not on a fox or even a bird but a massive red scorpion, tattered bits of robing stuck to its carapace.
It was easily the size of our quadoth but far more terrifying.
The curled tail carried a stinger as long as my leg, venom leaking from the tip to its hard outer shell.
I gaped in wonder and no small amount of fear as it skittered forward, mouthpieces rubbing to produce that unearthly hiss before striking out.
It—Teryn—drove its stinger through the head of a wraith. The skull exploded, and it went limp.
Right. Aim for the head. Heads. There was no time for precision or strategy.
We struck out wildly, dropping wraiths one by one, only to see more falling over themselves to exit the building.
Teryn was right. The necromancer must be slain, or this battle would turn quickly as the bottleneck at the door was the only thing slowing them down.
“The dark sorceress is mine!” I shouted at the scorpion, and it chittered back at me as it ended another wraith.
I dodged a bony hand, using my sword to knock it aside, and began making my way to the side of the building.
I did not fear for Teryn. He was well able to defend himself against this horde of walking corpses.
If only my entire body was covered in chitin as his was.
The blood seeping from the gash on my upper chest had soaked through the thin tunic under the chest plate.
Several of the wraiths followed me, drawn by the smell of blood perhaps or just to my possessing a soul.
I scrambled up to where the sand had drifted up the side of the wall, ran at the dune, and leapt.
One hand found purchase on the top of the wall, and the other swung back and forth at the grasping fingers that were trying to tug me down.
I kicked out, knocking a wraith backward, then began to slide downward as my fingers began to slip in something pasty.
Vulture shit no doubt. Using the shoulder of a wraith as a step, I pushed upward enough to get my chest onto the top of the round wall.
A wraith grabbed my ankle as I hefted myself upward, wide mouth gnawing at the coil root greave on my left leg.
I moved to my back, kicked upward, and busted its skull into bits with the heel of my boot.
Getting to my feet, I glanced down to see Teryn battling through the throngs of undead.
Many were on his back, but their gaping mouths and long nails could not find the flesh below the plating.
Seeing that he was well for the moment, I spun, nearly going off the side of the wall as my boot came down on a pile of bird shit that stank of rotting flesh and the contents of their stomach as the birds vomit when threatened.
The necromancer looked up, her braids loose and floating around her head, eyes now black as the sand.
She looked nothing like the sweet widow woman who gave me cookies.
This dark witch was intent on using the dead to kill us.
For what reason remained to be seen. The chanting continued on, her hands wreathed in glowing sigils, the long dead rising from the hundreds of stone slabs where they had been laid to rest.
She threw her hand at me. The undead turned from the door to the wall and began trying to scale it.
Most were too rotted to walk properly as the newer dead were outside being torn to bits by a scorpion as big as a war horse.
Eyeing the witch, I jumped, coming down with my sword, my goal to drive the blade through her head.
Midway through the leap, a hand found my ankle, tugging me down to the ground, where I landed on my side at the edge of a stone slab.
I heard and felt a rib crack. The pain was sharp, and when I moved, drawing a breath made the agony flare, but there was no time for pain.
The undead were racing at me. I rolled off the slab, gasping at each movement, and got to my feet.
The witch continued chanting as she moved in reverse, her little sandals catching on the bodies of those she had raised but were unable to walk well.
I charged at her, using my sword to cleave the heads from two wraiths, sand exploding into the wind as I ran her down.
Her eyes flickered from darkness to light brown just as my sword sliced through her shoulder.
With a shriek, she buckled under the blow, her magick wavering then fading as she went to the ground, blood flowing from the wound on her shoulder.
Her focus lost, the undead collapsed around us, some falling into me, others tumbling down the steps into what looked to be a pit thick with random bones and skulls.
The air was quiet save for my heated breaths and her rasping one.
Now, lying under my blade, she appeared as she had when we had taken her with us.
Frail, ancient, incapable of such a dire thing as dark magicks, but I had seen the proof.
Necromancy was looked down upon throughout the lands of Melowynn, and for good reason.
It corrupted. It led mages down dark paths.
It twisted doctrine. No mere elf should have the power of life and death.
The gods, whichever ones a chosen man or woman worshipped, had domain over birth and passing.
Still, even knowing what kind of sorceress she was, I removed my blade from her shoulder with care. The blade dripped her blood onto the stained floor of the house of the resting dead. An old woman gazed up at me. Not in confusion or fear. No, her gaze was rife with disgust.
“I see the dark mage has been felled,” Teryn said, stepping over the body of a woman lying behind me.
“The wound was not fatal,” I said, never taking my sight from the sorceress at my feet. “That is not to say that another would not be.”
She spat at us. Then opened her robes to bare her breast, fingers slick with her own blood.
“Strike true, mainland scum, for once I am able, I will find you and the ambassador wherever you think to hide, and I will see you both pulled into the grasp of death.” She smiled a toothless smile as her sagging breasts lay exposed for my blade.
Teryn, silent now, his robes hastily wrapped around his middle, enchanted earring dangling from his fingers, dropped down to a crouch.
He asked her a question in Sandrayan. She laughed in his face before replying in the same tongue.
I held my blade at the ready. I wished not to slay an old woman if it could be avoided.
Teryn rose, sighed, and wrested the sword from my hand to drive it into her chest. The witch twitched, smiled, and expired without another word said. Eyes wide, I turned to stare at Teryn in dismay.
“She said the Court of Gray Ice are cowards that seek discussion over action. The blood of the nobles must flow to ensure the people rule once more.” He handed me my sword as a sadness fell over him.
“They know who we are and where we are. I fear for the children. We must ride hard and fast, Pasil, as I worry that any chance of negotiation with the Gray Ice melts with each rabid pronouncement of hate directed at those who differ.”
“Yes, I understand.” And I did. If allowed to live, the necromancer would heal and return to her dark magicks, using the dead as puppets to further her radical beliefs. Still, it had not been easy to watch the life leave her eyes.
“We will do what we can with those who were desecrated by her magick, then we must push on. The sooner we meet with Porgo, the better,” Teryn stated.
He looked exhausted. I slid my blade into its scabbard.
We then picked up the bodies as best we could to return them to their resting places.
Even the necromancer was given a slab of stone to lie upon before we went to find our mounts.
With the wind in our faces, we mounted up after Teryn dressed in new robes and insisted on wrapping my torso in my last clean shirt.
He tore it into strips, cinching me tightly, the binding helping to lessen the pain of drawing a breath.
After he was satisfied with his nursing work, we moved out.
As we rode, the vultures began circling Saanin tal Rustam.
I left the package of rosewater cookies in the sand for the jackals.
I found that I no longer had a desire for them.