Chapter Nine
Sikras
OKAY. TIME HAD RUN out. Four years came and went, he lived a pathetic life of stagnancy, and now Vessik had to die.
Vessik, who had spent his early twenties reading to displaced children in the almshouse, not only to lift the kids’ spirits but to help Vessik better practice his reading comprehension.
“It’s like the letters are all jumbled when I try to read them,” Vessik would say.
“I wager that’s why I make a terrible wizard.
If I could learn to better pronounce the verbal components and read to the kids at the same time, it’ll be like feeding two birds with one scone.
” Because, to Vessik Holm, even the phrase kill two birds with one stone was too violent to utter.
Vessik, who would’ve offered shelter to a shrieking banshee wielding a butcher’s knife if he saw one standing outside in the rain.
He almost had once, until Sikras had stopped him.
“Her screams were so sad,” Vessik had said, his expression crestfallen.
“What kind of heartless monster would leave her out there?”
Vessik, who had kindly welcomed Sikras into his and his parents’ home and had treated him like a brother since they were nine and ten years old.
“I’m sure your parents don’t mean to be cruel,” Vessik would say as he invited young, starving Sikras into his humble house.
“Everyone’s fighting battles we can’t see.
Until they feel better though, I’ll share my parents with you. ”
That man. That sweet, gentle, forgiving spirit. That was the man who had to die.
Repeating it in his head didn’t accelerate the acceptance process.
Normally, an unplanned adventure into a nearby city would’ve been cause for celebration, but Sikras dragged a hand down his face as he walked, the faint sound of Benjamin and Helspira rustling through the tall grasses an arm’s length behind him.
The Red Sentinel had faded from view hours ago.
At first, he had found it odd that only the three of them parted from the company of the R.S.
, but why question a good thing? The more distance he put between himself and Rowan, the better both of their survival rates became.
Alas, Vessik did not share the same survival rate.
Because Vessik had to die.
They had been walking toward this mysterious wizard’s hometown for so long that the mantra Sikras repeated in his head matched up with the sound of the swishing grass they marched through.
Vessik. Had to. Die.
Vessik. Had to. Die.
It should’ve been easy. So fucking easy.
Vessik had killed Imri, after all. Killed Benjamin.
In a roundabout and cruel way, he was also responsible for Sikras’s first death as well.
So, why was it this hard? It wasn’t as if murder made him squeamish.
He had killed plenty of people with and without the help of undead minions.
Vessik. Had to. Die.
Vessik. Had to. Die.
“Enough!” Sikras shouted, hands balling into fists.
“Enough what?” came Benjamin’s concerned inquiry.
Embarrassment squeezed his guts, and by the time Sikras pivoted, he ensured a believable smile and a calm, not-at-all-psychotic tone replaced all outward traces of his anguish. “Enough walking. For now, anyway.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Helspira said, turning her gaze skyward. “It’ll be nightfall soon, and you humans can’t see in the dark. Theodore’s castle is still half a day’s walk away.”
“The man has a collection of rare, arcane artifacts and a castle? Well, la-dee-dah.” With the aid of his scythe, Sikras collapsed onto a thick, gnarled root that crawled up from the grassy thicket like a well-placed chair.
Benjamin proffered a hand. “Pass me the pack. I’ll set up our tent.”
Sikras waved him off. “I can do it. Rest those bones of yours.”
“Bones don’t get sore, my friend.” Benjamin finagled the pack off Sikras’s back. “That flaw belongs specifically to muscles, of which I have none.”
“Yet another thing we have in common. At least let me help.”
“Please.” Benjamin knelt. “This is a standard-issue R.S. tent. I could erect this thing with my eyes closed, if I still had any.”
As Benjamin separated the canvas from the poles, Sikras faced Helspira.
She had settled into a cross-legged position atop the tall grass, smiling at a delicate wastrus plant that managed to thrive despite competing for resources with far more substantial florae.
It was good to see her smile. She had been quiet for much of the walk.
Sikras tilted his head as he assessed her for supplies.
No pack. Unless she had managed to squeeze a bedroll into the same scabbard that housed her sword, it appeared they only had two beds for three people.
“You can take my bed roll tonight if you’d like. ”
She lifted her mismatched gaze to meet his. “Pardon?”
“My bedroll. Couldn’t help but notice you don’t have one. I know for some folks that creates an earthshattering dilemma, but I’ll be honest, I’m in my thirties. My back will hurt whether I sleep on the ground or a thin piece of padded cloth.”
“Oh, no, that’s very generous, but”—she shook her head—“if I slept in your tent, I’d miss the sky.”
“I can say with a marginal degree of certainty that it’ll still be there in the morning.”
Helspira only smiled and returned to admiring her plant.
The gurgle of a growling stomach pulled Sikras’s focus in another direction. They would need a fire. He slapped his knees, and with the aid of the scythe, he stood.
An expansive field flanked by thick forest surrounded them on all sides, a veritable graveyard for Siaphara’s feral beasts over the centuries.
He felt them through his boots, in the soles of his feet, all the bones nestled below the soil.
So many slumbering in their dirt and loam beds.
Sikras leaned the scythe against his shoulder, closed his eyes, and positioned his hands.
Helspira’s voice found his ears. “What are you doing?”
It sounded far off, ethereal, as he focused on the task at hand. His mind sifted through the soil, the clay, the dirt. Prey, prey, prey. Where, oh where, had the predator bones gone?
When he mentally latched onto the bones of a shavugin—a savage beast whose claws and teeth remained heartily intact—he smirked. “Tending to dinner,” he finally replied, before adding, “An’stisei tus necrouz.”
The grass rustled as the soil spread, and a fleshless corpse crawled from the earth with all the grace of a baby bird pecking free from a shell. Upon breaching the surface, it shook the dirt from its joints and crevices, sat upon its boney haunches, and awaited its orders.
Helspira brushed away particles of dirt that landed on her legs. “If that’s your idea of dinner, I think I’ll pass.”
Sikras chuckled until the backlash hit, a little lightning strike of pain that streaked through his veins without mercy.
Fortune favored him in that the scythe made it easier to hide his weakness by propping him up.
He glimpsed his new, undead companion and nodded toward the forest. “Dry wood and whatever meat you can find, please and thank you.”
The shavugin bolted, clattering bones ringing through the air as it vanished into the black, twisting trees.
“Oh.” Helspira revealed a sheepish smile. “I suppose I should’ve known you had no intention of eating a corpse.”
“In your defense”—Benjamin readjusted the canvas over one of the poles—“Sikras and eccentricity go hand-in-hand. I wouldn’t rule out corpse consumption entirely.”
“Apologies for any discomfort my methods bring,” Sikras said, concentrating on the steadiness of his voice, as he slowly returned to his seat. “If being surrounded by the symbolic embodiment of death gives you the creeps, it’s going to be an awkward trip. That’s sort of my whole schtick.”
“Oh, no.” Helspira’s expression softened. “I actually find bones comforting. I had a, well, a pet of sorts when I was a child in Chthonia. Except”—her cheeks and ears flushed a perfect shade of pink to match her hair—“it was less of a pet and more the remains of someone else’s.”
Something between a laugh and a snort shook Sikras’s shoulders. “There’s a story that begs telling.”
Helspira waved her hand. “Forget it; it’s silly.”
“All my favorite stories are.”
Hesitation delayed her response, but she relented with a sigh and a shrug.
“When I was a child in Pio Chamila—that’s one of the five territories in Chthonia—I found the remains of a burrowing howler that’d been killed in one of the countless skirmishes there.
I can still remember the little handmade collar it wore around its neck.
Probably someone’s pet that got left behind.
All I could think about was how scared it must’ve been.
Even in death, it looked so ... lonely.”
Enthralled, Sikras leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I couldn’t bear to leave it,” Helspira continued, her somber monotone shifting to airy nostalgia.
“So I carried its skull around from hiding place to hiding place. It felt nice giving it a second chance at a loving home—as much of a home as a child constantly on the run could offer a dead howler, anyway.” She pressed a hand into her chest, her smile broadening. “I named her Osta.”
“It’s a comfort to know women can still find room in their hearts for corpses,” Benjamin said with underlining mischievousness.
Helspira laughed. “I’m rooting for you, Ben, but I don’t think it’s a popular trait.
The other abnormals in our troop found it macabre.
Even my parents were a bit put off, but they ultimately decided carrying a skull around was the least of my problems. After all we’d endured, they’d take whatever win they could get. ”
“Hold up.” Sikras raised a finger. “Abnormals?”