The Queen's assassin

Chapter Thirty

Rik listened to the clock tick. It sounded loud as a drum in the quiet of the apartment. He notched the tip of another truesilver bullet and put it in his pocket. He doubted he would get the chance to use it but it was best to be prepared. He had half a dozen of them now.

He wondered what was happening at the graveyard, and how Asea and his comrades were doing. He wished he was with them, but the voices whispered to him that his place was here. That tonight was the night that Malkior would strike. Out there, in the snow, the soldiers of Talorea were moving. Everything was in confusion. There would never be a better time for an assassination attempt.

He thought about the notes they had found, which had told of the ritual. They had the hallmarks of a trap. Rik was sure that Asea knew that as well as he did, but she could not afford to leave the matter uninvestigated. The risks were too great.

The ticking of the clock became louder, and it began to strike the hour. It was midnight. The chimes were echoed by every clock in the building and then Rik felt it, the tearing sensation that told him that somewhere nearby a shadowgate had opened. Now that the moment had come, he felt weak, as if all the strength had drained out of him. He realised that he might have only minutes of life left to him. The voices babbled. Some urged him to hide. Some urged him to seek his prey. He rose to his feet, and invoked the spells Asea had taught him. A moment later, he sprang out into the corridor and raced through the Palace.

Even with his metabolism accelerated by spells of speed and strength fuelled by the stolen energies of the Quan, he felt as if he was too slow. It was like being in a nightmare where he ran towards a goal which seemed to recede before him and which he had no chance of reaching.

As the corridors blurred past, he was not sure he even wanted to reach that goal. Part of him was deathly afraid of confronting Lord Malkior. He knew his chances of survival were not great. Malkior was far older and more experienced in the ways of sorcery than he. He was a Shadowblood with access to all their powers and uncanny skills. Part of Rik wanted to run off into the night and hide yet he forced himself to run on.

A great hatred burned in him, stronger than his fear. Malkior had killed Rik’s mother and would kill Asea and Kathea if he could. He had left Rik to die in the most horrible way imaginable and all the horrors that haunted Rik now could be traced to that. He planned to turn the whole world into a vast prison camp in which all the humans and all of Rik’s friends would be nothing but cattle to keep alive a race of corrupt immortals. Malkior had become the focus for a lifetime of resentment and fear. He was a symbol of all the things Rik had loathed and dreaded in this world, and he had turned out to be worse than ever Rik had imagined him to be. The Terrarch deserved killing, and if there was even a slight chance that he could do it, Rik was going to take it.

Ahead of him the Royal Wing loomed. It seemed eerily silent tonight. Rik prayed it was just his imagination.

“I don’t like this at all,” said Sardec. The mist was thicker and darker than it had been. The smell of corruption had increased. Strange noises sounded throughout the cemetery. The ground shuddered slightly under his feet. Witchlights burned greenly on the branches of trees and the tops of tombs.

“We need to keep going, and find the centre of this,” said Asea. “That’s the only place we can stop it.”

Somewhere a metal gate swung open on creaky hinges. Heavy feet crunched on snow. Sardec doubted that they belonged to any of his men. He turned around. Most of them were lost in the gloom. He could barely make out the outlines of Weasel and Sergeant Hef. That huge looming bulk had to be the Barbarian. Karim crouched by Asea, a naked blade in his hand. The sorceress looked like a warrior goddess in the gloom.

“What’s happening, sir?” asked Sergeant Hef. It was obvious that the question was aimed at Asea. She answered it. “The dead are restless tonight, Sergeant. Necromancers are at work here and we are going to stop them.”

“Oh good,” said Weasel. “I haven’t seen enough sorcery in these past few months.”

“Is there anything you can tell us about how to deal with them, Milady?” asked Hef.

“Don’t let them bite you.”

“Would never thought of that,” muttered Weasel.

“Or get any of their blood on you if you can help it. There is a curse in it that it would be better to avoid.”

“Thank you, Milady,” said the Sergeant.

“Try and keep the men together now. There’s no telling what we might encounter next.”

Jaderac looked out into the night. Dead bodies were there, dead bodies that moved, animated by the dark energy he had summoned. More and more of them emerged from the darkness, drawn by his unholy power. There were dozens of walking corpses. More of the shambling dead appeared all the time. As they did so the mist thinned, as if it were being absorbed into the lungs of his creatures, and granting power to the dark spirits within.

Sardontine and the others gazed out of the pentacle, horror written on their faces. They looked as if they wanted to run, but they knew better. As long as they were within the Elder Sign, the dead could not touch them. They had no such assurances if they strayed beyond its boundaries.

Shots sounded nearby, drawing Jaderac from his trance dreams of power. There were soldiers, just as Tamara had claimed. In a way it was good. They would provide the first recruits for his new army.

The sentries let Rik in. They knew him as Kathea’s rescuer, and they recognised Asea’s seal. No one seemed to doubt his claim that he had an urgent message from the sorceress for the Queen.

A chamberlain was summoned. Rik wasted a minute waiting for him, and then told the guards he could not wait. The matter was deadly urgent. Reluctant to shoot him or restrain him, they accompanied him deeper into the Palace. Rik was glad he knew the way.

The corridors were quiet. No one was abroad in this wing of the Palace. “Is it normally like this?” he asked one of the soldiers.

“I don’t usually come here,” the man responded. He was clearly nervous. His visitor was important but his actions were highly irregular. He was not in the mood for small talk.

They headed up another flight of stairs into the Queen’s Wing. “Surely there should be guards here?” Rik said.

“There should be Household troopers,” the soldier agreed. Rik’s worried tone was affecting him now.

“You, go and get more troops now,” Rik told one of the soldiers. “You, come with me.”

They pushed on deeper into the Palace. All around them it was quiet as the grave.

At least the mist had started to clear, thought Sardec, and then wished it hadn’t. Up ahead he could see a horde of the walking dead. More and more were erupting from the hard earth around him, their bodies covered in graveyard dirt, their heads and shoulders covered in snow. Sardec did not like to think of the horrible energy it must have taken for them to reach the surface, or the evil magic that had aided the process.

There were scores of the animated corpses now and more appearing every heartbeat. They were in every state of decomposition. Some were fresh and pale. Some were worm-eaten and decomposed. Some were mere skeletons with strips of flesh clinging to them. In every eye green witchfires flowed. Every face turned to look at the oncoming soldiers. Sardec wished that he had a lot more troops.

In the midst of the swarming, shambling host was a cleared area among the tomb stones. Within that area were great barrels the like of which they had found in the cellars of the grave robbers’ house. In the middle of the circle were a group of cowled figures. Black robed, looking like monks.

“Ready your weapons, men,” Sardec said. “Prepare to fire.”

Jaderac was a little surprised to see so many soldiers. He had expected the Nerghul to kill most of them. After all, it was night, and it was in its environment while these men were not. Then he saw the tall silver masked figure standing amid the green-tunicked men and their rather familiar looking officer and he knew exactly what had happened.

“Asea,” he shouted. “This is a pleasant surprise. I thought I was going to have to hunt you down, and now I find you have come to me.”

“Lord Jaderac. Well met. And I do believe that is Lord Sardontine too. What a strange place you have chosen for your little get together. I see your skill at necromancy has greatly increased over the last century.”

Jaderac did not like how confident she sounded. She had the arrogance of the First, just like Malkior, and he had always found that grating. “You are about to witness exactly how much it has increased. I will sweep this city clean of your soldiers. By the end of tonight there will be no Talorean army in Halim.”

“By using such weapons you have already lost. Do you think the rulers of the other nations will stand by and see a return to the practises of the Wars with Shadow?”

“I doubt they will have much choice.” She was trying to keep him talking, Jaderac thought, waiting for help to arrive. Did she not realise that the same thing applied to him. With every passing heartbeat the size of his own legion of followers increased. He glanced at the wand in her hand. Chained lightning danced within it but he was safe within the circle of protection they had created. It would keep out her magic just as easily as it kept out the undead.

“I can see you are not going to surrender,” said Asea. “A pity. We shall have to take a more difficult path. Weasel, kill him.”

Jaderac saw a tall thin scruffy looking man raise a long rifle and aim it at him. He felt a brief thrill of fear but felt certain that the circle would deflect the man’s aim. He had worked potent warding spells into it.

“Kill them all,” Jaderac ordered the army of the walking dead. His eerie followers shambled towards the soldiers.

Dead Terrarchs in the uniform of the household guard lay on the Palace floor. The sentry beside Rik muttered something that might have been a curse or a prayer. Rik pushed at the door gently. It swung open. There were more dead men within. Dead women too. Maids and ladies in waiting lay sprawled across the carpets, blood pooled around them. Rik’s heart sank. He knew where this trail was going to lead. He had arrived too late. The voices gibbered in his head, fear maddened, blood-lusting.

He sprang forward, sword in one hand, pistol in the other, racing along the corridors that led to the Queen’s chambers, jumping over the corpses. His spell-augmented speed was such that he soon left the remaining guard far behind.

The door at the end of the corridor was open. It led into a luxuriously appointed bedchamber. The body of Kathea lay sprawled on the bed. Her eyes were open. A dagger was buried in her breast. A tall figure, garbed all in black stood over here. A hood covered his head, when he turned a scarf obscured the lower half of his face, but Rik still knew him.

“Malkior,” he said. The tall figure made a courtly bow.

“If it isn’t my illegitimate offspring. I must say I am surprised and gladdened to see you. I had expected you to be food for the Exarch by now. You must tell me how you escaped it.”

Rik stared at Kathea’s body. He remembered her alive and well. He had rescued her from the Serpent Tower only for her to die here in her own chambers. A terrible rage sparked within him. “I killed the Quan, just like I am going to kill you.”

He raised the pistol.

“A simple plan, like all the best ones, but I was rather hoping for something more specific.”

“We had our little chat. That was enough for one lifetime.”

“Be sensible, boy. You can’t beat me. I have been doing this for more than a thousand years.”

“It’s time somebody did something about that.”

“And you have elected yourself. How noble.” Even with his sorcerously enhanced senses Rik barely saw Malkior move. His form seemed to elongate and suddenly he was standing in front of Rik. A slash of his black-gloved hand knocked the pistol from Rik’s grip.

“I told you, boy, you can’t beat me. Azaar himself when he was whole would have struggled to do that, and you are not him.”

Rik drew on the power within him, and increased the intensity of his own spells. He sprang away from Malkior, towards where the pistol had fallen. His body throbbed with power. He was aware of everything. The smell of urine and faeces from the corpse. The faint drops of blood congealing on Kathea’s breast. The approaching footsteps of the soldier running down the corridor.

“A nice trick. I see Asea really has been teaching you. And so much power too. You did not possess that when last we met — or have you the trick of hiding it?”

Rik drew his blade and lunged, hoping to take Malkior off-guard. His speed was like that of a tiger, yet the black clad figure eluded him easily. There was a cracking sound as another blow sent his knife spinning. Pain surged through Rik’s hand. His wrist was bent at an odd angle. Broken, he realised, even as he invoked the spell to control his agony.

“You know,” said Malkior conversationally, “I am really glad you are here. It’s almost as if there is a God and he is smiling on me.”

Rik backed away, holding his wrist. It was his right one. His concealed pistol was still there and he fumbled to get it free. “Why do you say that?”

“Asea is up in the graveyard. She was seen going there with a group of soldiers. By morning a plague of zombies will emerge from the place and descend upon the cities. The Light alone knows what prodigies of wicked necromancy she has been up to.”

“You planned that?”

“It’s nice to see you appreciate my cleverness. A few clues here, some documents there. I knew Asea would work out what was going on and rush to interrupt that idiot Jaderac’s ritual.”

“You planted those clues in the lab.”

“Indeed I did. With a little help from my doting daughter. All I really wanted was to get Asea out of the way while I went ahead with my business. With any luck she’ll kill that dolt Jaderac or he will kill her. Jaderac will either complete his ritual, or I will later on the ground he has prepared. In any case, Asea will be blamed, and your presence here is simply icing on a very rich cake.”

The sentry came puffing and wheezing through the door. There was another blur and Malkior was beside him. He broke the guard’s neck with one blow. Rik sprang for him, but a sledgehammer fist caught him in the side and sent him spinning to lie sprawling on the bed beside Kathea’s corpse. Her dead gaze was locked at the ceiling. Stars danced before Rik’s eyes. He pulled himself painfully upright. Agony surged through his side, ripping through the anaesthetic spells. Broken ribs, he thought, wondering if they had punctured a lung. If that was the case, he was a dead man. He almost laughed; it looked like he was a dead man anyway. Malkior moved closer.

“In what way?” Rik asked. His voice sounded faint even to his own ears. Everything went black for a moment.

“Try and think for yourself, boy. You’ve already proven you have a brain.”

Rik groaned.

“Very well, I shall explain it to. You are Asea’s lover. Here you are in the bedchambers of the dead Queen. With a little stage management on my part, some rearranging of corpses, very soon it shall look as if you were interrupted in your nefarious act by some brave guards. There was a brutal struggle that unfortunately ended in them being killed even as they killed you.”

“Nobody will believe that.”

“People believe what they want to believe, and the story will suit enough of the Kharadrean nobility for it to become history. Take my word for it. I have seen all this before, when the unfortunate Queen Amarielle was assassinated.”

Rik tried to sit up right, to look death in the face as it came for him. The gibbering of the voices reached a crescendo. We are going to die, they screamed. We are going to die.

“Time to end this,” said Malkior.

Weasel pulled the trigger. Smoke erupted from the muzzle of the rifle. There were sparks and eddy currents as the truesilver bullet crashed through the mystical circle, breaking it. A look of surprise passed across Jaderac’s face as the shot smashed into his body. It took him in the shoulder. Sardec supposed that the energy of the circle must have deflected it somewhat, spoiling Weasel’s aim.

Asea raised her lightning wand. The Foragers aimed their rifles. The undead began to move.

Jaderac cursed. A truesilver bullet. Such a simple thing, and he had left it out of his calculations. Who would have expected ordinary soldiers to use them? Now the thing was lodged in his shoulder, interfering with his concentration. As he tried top focus the energy of the spell, the eddies from its presence in his body caused the bullet to heat agonisingly. Its mere presence disrupted his healing spells. His army started to slip out of his control.

Worse than that, the circle was broken. The hungry corpses surged over its edge. The dead sought warm flesh and blood. The cultists panicked as the ravenous monsters tore at them. Jaderac could see Asea and her followers smash their way through the walking dead towards him. With a supreme effort, he drew his blade. All around him was chaos. He staggered towards Asea determined to make the kill.

More shots rang out. He heard screams and shouts as battle was joined between the soldiers of the Queen and his army of the dead.

Malkior touched Rik’s face with one cold hand. “It’s a pity I don’t have my equipment,” he said. “This would be so much more nourishing. Still, beggars can’t be choosers.”

Chill, cold as the grave, spread from his touch. Malkior smiled. “Interesting,” he said. “You absorbed the Quan and its memories. I wish I had more time to savour this.”

Rik felt the same draining sensation he had felt from the Quan, but this time the will behind it was much stronger, and he knew he had no chance of resisting it. Instead he let the pistol drop into his hand, pressed it against Malkior’s gut and pulled the trigger.

The Sardean reeled backwards, breaking the contact. Blood pumped from his wound. “You tried that before,” he said. “It didn’t help you then. It won’t help you now.”

With a supreme effort of will, Rik forced himself upright. Malkior grinned at him. The shadows gathered around him. His eyes glowed green. His powerful healing spell started to close the wound, and then Malkior screamed.

A red glow appeared in his belly, and other parts of abdomen. “What have you done? It burns.” he gasped. Rik lurched over and picked up his other pistol.

“Truesilver bullet,” he muttered. “I filed it so that it would break up on impact. Bits of it are all through your stomach. Healing magic will just heat it.”

Malkior had not heard him. In pain and panic he was making a fatal mistake. Rik sensed him pouring more and more energy into his spells, heating the truesilver more. A little liquid metal bubbled from his wound. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air. Darkness slashed across Rik’s vision. He forced himself to stagger forward. He was not going to black out now. He placed his pistol against Malkior’s temple and with the last of his failing strength pulled the trigger.

There was a loud bang, and the acrid smell of gunpowder filled his nostrils.

Sardec ordered the Foragers to stand firm. There were too many of the walking dead, and the fight was too close. Asea’s lightning lash licked out. Brightness blazed across his field of vision, illuminating a scene from some demented vision of hell.

The walking dead swarmed everywhere. Some squatted over the bodies of the newly dead, ripping at their entrails, cramming them into their mouths. Others fought hand to hand with bayonet-armed soldiers. Weasel smashed one with the butt of his rifle, splintering its skull. The Barbarian dodged and weaved among the tombstones, slashing with both his fighting knives, lopping off limbs, and hacking great cuts out of the side of any foe that came close. It did not help. The loss of limbs did not slow his enemies down. They kept coming. You could not kill that which was already dead.

Even as he watched, Jaderac emerged from the melee and aimed a blow at Asea. The sorceress parried it, and struck back with her own blade. Karim danced around her, trying to keep the animated dead at bay and get between his mistress and the enraged magician. Asea and Jaderac traded more blows. She was faster and seemed stronger. Her armour rippled with a life of its own, augmenting her strength and speed. Before Karim could get into position, she had severed Jaderac’s head. As the necromancer fell, his horde let out a strange wordless scream. Some stumbled and fell, some began to attack anything within reach including their fellow creatures. Without a guiding will, they seemed near mindless, consumed with an insane aggression.

Sardec fought his way over to Asea’s side. Karim almost struck him before he realised who it was. The Southerner’s blade stopped a finger’s breadth from Sardec’s throat.

“Can’t you do something about this?” he asked the sorceress.

“We have interrupted the ritual. The spell is incomplete. The magical energies should disperse.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know. Hours, maybe days.”

“Is there nothing we can do?”

“Try to stay alive, until then.”

“That might be easier said than done.”

Sardec looked around. His troops were holding their own for the moment, but it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. “Order the retreat,” Sardec bellowed. “Fall back. Rally to the flag.”

Word rippled along the fighting line, and the soldiers began to disengage, leaving the mindless army of undead horrors to rip itself apart and feast on its own entrails.

The dawn was a long time coming.