The Sorcerer's Bane Read online

  “I’ll hide her, Gruum,” Nadja said softly. “No one will ever find her.”

  “Ah…thank you, princess,” Gruum said. “If you will lead the way to a safe spot, we will follow.”

  Nadja hesitated. Her eyes slid from one of them to the other, then finally came to rest upon their clasped hands. Finally, she nodded. “All right. Follow me.”

  They did as she asked. Walking into a small grove of trees, she led them amongst gnarled trunks that had survived dozens of grim winters.

  “Who is she?” Gawina whispered to Gruum. She still held his hand, and he did not see fit to spurn her.

  “That is Nadja, Therian’s daughter,” Gruum whispered back.

  The priestess made a small, choked cry. “That can’t be. She’s only a little girl. How can this young woman—”

  Gruum quickly hushed her. “Some things are best left unquestioned,” he said.

  Nadja led them into the trees, to a spot neither adult had ever seen before. It was a tiny graveyard. Tumbled headstones, thin and gray, lay upon the grass.

  “What is this place?” Gawina asked.

  “The children of Corium used to bury their beloved pets here…” Nadja explained. “Before the snows killed them all.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Gawina.

  “I saw it in a dream. I’ve had many pets—in dreams.”

  Nadja stepped close to an oblong hole which had been dug in the grass. It appeared as if one of the forgotten graves had been left open. It was filled with darkness.

  “Down there,” Nadja said, pointing. “None will find you if you hide down there.”

  Gruum stepped to the edge of the pit and stared down doubtfully. “Does it lead somewhere?” he asked.

  Gruum heard a stealthy step behind him. He knew it was not Nadja, as he rarely heard her footfalls. He craned his neck around to look.

  Gawina approached with a curved, glinting blade in her hand. She leaned forward with a smile as if to say something sweet. Nadja appeared at her side. She slipped her foot in front of Gawina and with a small shriek, the priestess fell into the hole.

  Gruum stood up and pushed Nadja back. The girl glared at him.

  “What did you do?” he demanded. He turned back to the hole which did not look especially deep. “Gawina, are you all right?” he hissed.

  Inside the dark hole, nothing moved. Could it be deeper than he thought? “I apologize for the princess,” he called down. “She is not herself.”

  “Don’t lie for me,” Nadja said, standing near. She smiled at him.

  “What did you do to her? Where has she gone?”

  “Nowhere at all,” Nadja said.

  “You mean…?”

  “No silly, she—”

  Gawina lunged up out of the hole. Gruum could see her eyes by the light of their tiny lantern. They were black and full of madness. Gawina tried to stab his foot with the blade she had kept in her hand. Gruum barely slid his boot out of the way in time.

  “Dammit! Humusi’s bile? Did you release the pouch down there? Damn you, girl!”

  Nadja pouted. “She had a blade. She meant to kill you.”

  Gawina had climbed out of the hole now, and crawled toward him. Her robes had pulled up, revealing the fine skin of her shapely legs. She hissed and laughed at once. Gruum had to retreat constantly from her advance.

  “She’s gone mad,” Gruum said. “I must find your father to release the spell.”

  “Not likely in the middle of a battle. You should kill her—to be on the safe side.”

  “You are as dangerous as she is.”

  “Much more so,” Nadja laughed. She squealed as Gawina came after her, the small blade flashing in the priestess’ hand. “She really is mad! Why doesn’t she get up on her feet?”

  “As you say, she’s not herself.”

  Nadja paused as the priestess crawled closer, making odd sounds. “If she catches me,” Nadja asked, “will you kill her to save me?”

  Gruum looked at the princess sharply. The girl was teasing Gawina. Nadja danced amongst the jasmine and nightflower, dashing close then away again. Gawina frothed, saliva running from her face in strings. She kept crawling and slashing. She made unnatural, guttural noises. Looking upon her, Gruum knew pity. He knew what the madness felt like. He knew that it hurt one’s mind.

  He strode forward and landed his knees on Gawina’s back, pressing her down. He pinned her knife arm. She tried to heave him off, struggling with shocking strength for a small woman. She twisted her neck, and her black-filled eyes bulged.

  “She’s going to bite you,” Nadja said, coming close and leaning over the struggling pair. “She’s going to latch onto your kneecap. You should knock her out.”

  Gruum considered the situation. He was going to have a hard time getting away from the priestess without injury. She showed no signs of tiring.

  “Go get help, girl,” he told Nadja.

  A small smile played over Nadja’s face. “Do you wish to be alone with her?”

  “I wish you hadn’t led her here to a hole filled with madness. Did you have permission to handle Humusi’s bile? Your father will be angry when he learns of this.”

  Nadja pouted. “Fine,” she said. She turned and vanished into the nightflower bushes.

  “Nadja?” called Gruum, but she had gone. He looked down at the mad woman who heaved under his legs, straining and groaning. She could not harm him, but he had no desire to spend the night in this awkward position.

  “Sorry, Gawina,” he said, and he slammed the hilt of his saber down upon her skull. She fell insensate, and he tied her with strips of cloth and took her away to the palace. He covered her with his cloak so that none would see she was a priestess of the Black Order.

  In the servants’ quarter, he locked her in the bedchamber of a sour scullery maid. He left Gawina in the care of the old woman, who had wiry hair and bulging arms. He laid three silver crowns into the maid’s palm, and she assured him she could handle the priestess and her madness in secret. If he should live through the night, Gruum promised to return and try to help break the enchantment in the morning.

  As he was leaving, he thought to hear intelligible words come from the priestess. He bent close to catch them.

  “The Bane will take you,” she whispered.

  -13-

  Gruum’s master shot him a reproachful look when he arrived. Gruum made no apology. He had decided to keep quiet about the princess’s antics and the mad priestess until later.

  “It is only a few hours until dawn,” Therian told the assembled officers and nobility. “I believe they will surge up into our streets before the Sun returns. They have spent the night gathering their strength, even as we have.”

  Gruum noted that Sir Tovus was among the nobles. He wore his black battle armor. Gruum saw the wisdom of the ancient armor clearly now, and for the first time wished he’d let the old warhorse provide him with a suit. The dead would have a hard time biting through full plate.

  “There are three ways down into the Necropolis,” Therian told them. “Each of the two temples, both Red and Black, pass through it. There is another way, down the central stair. We will block each of these exits with five companies of troops.”

  “What of the dungeons, milord?” Gruum asked, for he knew the dungeons were deeper still than the Necropolis.

  “The lower levels are overrun,” Sir Tovus interjected. “The debtors who dwelt there will trouble their landlords no further.”

  A few of the nobles chuckled harshly. Sir Tovus’ smile was crooked.

  “There is a fourth stair, sire,” Gruum said.

  All eyes moved to him. Briefly, he told them of the secret passages down to the Necropolis which went through the servants’ quarter of the palace.

  “Interesting thrice over,” Therian said. “Interesting that such a connection exists. Two, that I did not know about it…and three, that you did.”

  Gruum tried not to look any of the assembled dignitaries in the
eye. He hoped he would not have to explain how Nadja had showed him the secret passages. Any story that involved him wandering secret passages with the princess at midnight would not please anyone.

  “Very well, Gruum,” Therian said. “You have earned yourself a captaincy. You will command the unit guarding the servants’ quarter—since you are so intimately familiar with that region.”

  Gruum nodded and dared not make a comment. Within half an hour he found himself at the head of a company of men. These were mustered recruits, rather than regular guardsmen. Each man was issued a blue cloak—most were stained by the blood of the previous owner—a sword and a leather pouch full of smoked cod. Gruum eyed the surly lot of shopkeepers, beggars and peasants. He felt quite sure none of them had hacked the limbs off a ravenous dead thing.

  When they reached the servants’ quarter, Gruum was unsurprised to find it abandoned. The word had traveled ahead of them. The doors stood open, the laundry baskets were overturned and numerous brooms lay forgotten in the halls.

  Gruum found the passage to the Necropolis vacant and unused. He posted his men, and wondered if he had managed to remove himself from the greatest battle of his life. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? He could not decide.

  Each moment that passed by while waiting in the quiet, musty halls left his mind wandering back to a single thought: Gawina. Was she all right? He’d left her with the washerwomen—but they seemed to have all abandoned this place. Had they taken her with them, or had they left her on a filthy bed?

  The question that truly burned in his mind was of her intentions toward him. He was not sure if he had been a dupe from the first, or if she had true interest in him. Had she been attempting to assassinate him when his back was turned and Nadja had intervened? Or had the matter all been a misunderstanding? He was not certain.

  “Looks quiet here, men,” he heard himself saying to a rat-eyed sergeant with a beard like broom-straw. “I’ll scout the other levels. I’ll be back shortly.”

  The sergeant nodded and Gruum left him in charge. He walked up to the level above, where the washerwomen and kitchen maids lived. He counted doors to locate the one behind which he had left Gawina. If he could only see her—perhaps her eyes had cleared of their madness with the passing of time.

  What he found there in the dirty bedchamber left him shaken. The scullery maid with mannish arms lay sprawled upon the stone floor. Her right foot was missing just above the ankle. The wound was clean, as if it had been chopped away by a headsman’s axe. There was no sign of the foot and no sign of the blade that had removed it. Emptied of blood, she had expired quickly.

  Gawina herself was tied to the straw mattress, just as he had left her. The oily-black madness was gone from her eyes. She stared at the ceiling, her face cold and still. Death had glazed-over her lovely, almond-shaped eyes. The manner of her death was abundantly clear. A broken broom handle, snapped to form a crude stake, had been rammed home into her chest. Gruum fell to one knee and reached up to close the priestess’ eyes with a trembling hand. He questioned the emotions he felt. He had witnessed countless deaths…why did her passing trouble him so?

  “Why?” he asked the empty chamber.

  “Because a debt must be repaid, silly Gruum,” said a voice behind him.

  Nadja stood in the doorway. Gruum turned to face her. He had not heard her arrive. He had not found anything living in these passages, save for a few rustling vermin.

  “You did this?” he demanded. “You slaughtered an innocent raving in her bed?”

  “You cared for her?” Nadja asked. “Even after she plotted to kill you?”

  “Why would you do this thing, Nadja?”

  “I did her a favor, really,” the girl sniffed. “She was mad. The dead would only have found her and devoured her later.”

  Gruum shook his head. He did not know what to say. He considered killing Nadja—if he could. Then he had a new thought. “You said this repaid a debt. How so?”

  “You did the same to my mother,” Nadja said. “Don’t you remember? I cared for her as you cared for this woman.”

  He stood up and rubbed his face. “How could you possibly know…?”

  “I’ve seen it in father’s dreams. He dreams of my mother often—of her final moments.”

  Gruum stared at her with fresh horror, knowing her words to be true. “I’m sorry, but you should not have—”

  “You must leave this place, Gruum,” she said. “There is nothing good left in Corium.”

  Gruum stared at her, and watched as she did a most surprising thing. She reached out her hand to the nearest wall of crudely-mortared stones. Where she touched the wall, a hole opened. A moment later, she stepped into the space thus created. After she had vanished, the hole vanished behind her.

  Gruum stepped to the wall and ran his hand over it. He found it intensely cold to the touch, so cold that it burned him. Moving quickly, he went out into the hallway to examine the far side of the wall. It was blank and undisturbed.

  “Void magic,” he whispered to himself, wide-eyed. He raced out of the room and left the silent servants’ quarter.

  When he reached the central plaza of Corium, Gruum found Therian standing at the top of the central stair. Nearly a thousand armed soldiers and citizens stood with him.

  “Milord, can we speak?” he asked. “It is urgent.”

  “Why have you left your post, Captain Gruum?”

  “I bring grave news. Step aside with me, and I will tell you, sire.”

  Therian reluctantly did as he was asked. He stood looking down dourly into Gruum’s face. “Say your words, man.”

  “Void magic,” whispered Gruum.

  Therian eyed him. “What of it?”

  “There is another here who wields it. I have witnessed it.”

  “There are many dabbling sorcerers here, Gruum. Now, please return—”

  “She made a hole, sire. A hole in the wall right in front of me. Then she stepped inside and the hole vanished behind her. The stones were so cold to the touch after she’d gone….”

  “Who did this?”

  Gruum hesitated. He opened his mouth slowly, looking around to see if any others might overhear.

  Therian raised his gloved hand to stop him before he could speak. “You accuse Nadja of this?”

  Gruum nodded.

  Therian’s nostrils flared. His chin rose high, and he looked as if he were about to strike Gruum. Gruum knew the look well.

  “Sire, I saw her do it. She stood right before me, and stepped into nothing—into a void.”

  “A hole?” echoed Therian, as if having a further thought. “I realize now the depths of your delusion. You suggest that she—a little girl caused this invasion beneath the palace? She opened those countless holes that led to nothing?”

  “I don’t know, sire. I would suspect it however, yes.”

  “Tell me why I should believe you, barbarian from the steppes.”

  “Trust, sire. Trust me as I have done you, with my life in the balance, a dozen times over. And know that I saw her do it—standing before me even as you do now. If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it possible.”

  Therian stared at him for a long time. Finally, he nodded. “One strange thing puzzles me,” the King said at last.

  Gruum breathed more easily. It was a relief to be believed, even if the implications were truly awful. “What is it that troubles you so, sire?” he asked.

  “Why did she show you what she can do? She must have known that you would come tell me.”

  Gruum tried to think of an answer, but could not. Before they could speak further on the subject, the cobbled street beneath their feet lurched and shifted.

  “What was that?” Gruum asked in alarm.

  The citizenry of Corium looked around their city fearfully, for it shook and moved beneath them as if an angry giant had taken hold of the world. Therian turned toward the central stair, which swayed and cracked as they watched. Chips of ston
e fell and clattered onto the cobblestones.

  “It is the beginning,” the King said.

  -14-

  When the invasion came, an hour before dawn split the sky, it came not just from one stair—or even from all four. It came from the buildings themselves, from the homes of butchers, from the ironworks and from the tallow shops. Everywhere a shrine to the dead existed. Everywhere bodies had been stashed and stacked in secret. The closet which Gruum had located in the servants’ quarter had been thick with dead. They rose as one to shamble into the heart of the palace. The dead that had resided upon shelves, slabs of marble and in cold drawers within every family crypt or temple mausoleum exited their places of rest. Centuries worth of dead walked. Even those of the royal families dug their way free of their tombs upon the mountains of Corium. They marched and shuffled down the long stair where Therian had walked to bury his sire two years ago. With little thought and heedless of one another, ancient dead kings and queens jostled one another. Many fell tumbling from the steep mountain stairs. They still squirmed and thrashed at the bottom of cliffs where they lie broken, leaking the last ounces of fluid from their desiccated bodies.

  The living clubbed and slashed the waves of dead, but still they came on. When one was hacked to bits, a dozen more took its place. Those in Corium that still drew breath were dragged down, one at a time.

  Therian still held within him the strength of many souls he had consumed during the night. He chanted spells and hacked with his twin blades. None of the dead could face him. He reaved through them, as unstoppable as a winter storm.

  Gruum stood at his flank, protecting the King’s blind spots. He kept the few grasping hands that managed to get close from closing dry fingers upon the lord’s ankles. It was all he could do. The men around them stood wisely back, and they fought the stragglers as they came from shops and shrines up and down the street, chasing townsfolk who thought to hide in their homes and ride out the horrors of this night.

  “Burn them when the fall,” Gruum urged, “keep your oil at hand, do not waste it!”