49
Chella’s Story
The towns and villages along the Danoob grew close together as Chella’s column approached Vyene. Soon they would join into one unbroken sprawl, washing up against the walls of the imperial city.
‘Stop!’
It irked that she had to shout her commands but the necromancy still festering in her had retreated too far for the dead to respond directly to her desire.
The cavalry came to an untidy halt. The horses didn’t take well to dead riders, even if they were the same riders they had carried on the previous night and for weeks before that. Some had refused, screaming and bucking when their dead owners tried to reclaim them. Chella had thought to cut their throats, but Kai convinced her to turn the animals free and send the spare riders back to join the Dead King’s advance.
‘Why have we stopped?’ Kai leaned in toward her, guiding his horse with both knees.
‘I need to ask Thantos a question,’ she said.
There’s a slope down toward evil, a gentle gradient that can be ignored at each step, unfelt. It’s not until you look back, see the distant heights where you once lived, that you understand your journey. Chella looked up from her depths in sudden epiphany. Such moments had punctuated her life, her half-life, drawn out over a hundred years and more. Not once had they given her more than brief pause. Not once had she stepped back.
‘Come,’ she told him, a touch of tenderness in her voice. It should have been enough to set him running.
They went together. Kai not wanting to, but pushing down his fear.
Chella set her hand to the carriage door. The metal handle made her skin dry, made it old. She pulled it open.
‘Now?’ she asked, speaking into the empty horror of the carriage.
And by way of answer a grey contagion flowed out. Kai screamed as it wrapped him. For an instant Chella glimpsed the lichkin, its slim bones insinuating themselves into Kai’s flesh, through clothing, past armour. It took a while. Too long. Ages. Kai’s choking screams drowned out all other sounds, his flesh writhing to accommodate its new occupant, until finally his jaw snapped shut and left her ears ringing.
Thantos turned Kai’s head to look at Chella, bones grating. He didn’t speak. The lichkin stood beyond words. Nothing that interested them could fit within such mean packages.
‘He’ll last. He’s strong,’ Chella said.
Thantos climbed back into the carriage. Even drugged, the team drawing the carriage were skittish. Two had died and been replaced. There was no possibility that a horse would bear him to the palace, not even now he was clothed in flesh.
‘Can you hear me in there, Kai?’ Something in the eyes said he might be listening now that his screams were silent screams. ‘Did you never wonder that we came with five votes but only two delegates? Could not the Dead King spare three more necromancers, or cleaner men bound to his cause? We came in a pair. One host, and one to guard the host, ready to move against him if he should anticipate his fate.’ Secrets are best kept behind a single pair of lips.
Thantos reached out and closed the door, an awkward motion within his stolen flesh.
‘But you never did anticipate.’ Chella spoke the words to the closed door and shook her head. ‘You should have learned to fly,’ she spat. To fault him made it easier.
Above the outlying spread of Vyenese houses, neat little homes with wooden shingles and log piles stacked to the eaves against the coming of winter, came the stink of burning. In many places hearth-smoke rose white from stone chimneys, but in others the smoke lifted in black and angry clouds. Horror stalked the streets, rose earth-covered from family graves, crept in from field and forest. The Dead King’s tide swept in from the west, true enough, from the Drowned Isles, through Ancrath and Gelleth, through Attar, Charland and the Reichs, but it also rose from the very ground, as if a dark ocean waited below the soil, fathoms deep, and now swelled from the depths at the Dead King’s call, lifting the fallen from their tombs.
At Vyene’s gates guard units in their golds thundered past in both directions. News came from west to east. Reinforcements, regular army units from Conquence in the main, made the march east to west. More Gilden Guard manned the gate than would be necessary even at Congression. Additional troops lined the walls, archers with an even mix of longbow and crossbow. They’d clearly had little experience if they thought arrows would stop the dead.
Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)
Lawrence, Mark's books
- The Emperor of All Things
- The Emperors Knife
- Ascendancy of the Last
- Blood of Aenarion
- Broods Of Fenrir
- Burden of the Soul
- Caradoc of the North Wind
- Cause of Death: Unnatural
- City of Ruins
- Dark of the Moon
- Demons of Bourbon Street
- Edge of Dawn
- Eye of the Oracle
- Freak of Nature
- Heart of the Demon
- Lady of Devices
- Lance of Earth and Sky
- Last of the Wilds
- Legacy of Blood
- Legend of Witchtrot Road
- Lord of the Wolfyn
- Of Gods and Elves
- Of Wings and Wolves
- Prince of Spies
- Professor Gargoyle
- Promise of Blood
- Secrets of the Fire Sea
- Shadows of the Redwood
- Sin of Fury
- Sins of the Father
- Smugglers of Gor
- Sword of Caledor
- Sword of Darkness
- Talisman of El
- Threads of Desire (Spellcraft)
- Tricks of the Trade
- Visions of Magic
- Visions of Skyfire
- Well of the Damned
- Wings of Tavea
- Wings of the Wicked
- A Bridge of Years
- Chronicles of Raan
- Dawn of Swords(The Breaking World)
- A Draw of Kings
- Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity)
- Lord of the Hunt
- Master of War
- Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)
- The Gates of Byzantium
- The House of Yeel
- The Oath of the Vayuputras: Shiva Trilogy 3
- The Republic of Thieves #1
- The Republic of Thieves #2
- Edge of Dawn
- A Quest of Heroes
- Mistress of the Empire
- Servant of the Empire
- Gates of Rapture
- Reaper (End of Days)
- This Side of the Grave
- Magician's Gambit (Book Three of The Belgariad)
- Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files
- Murder of Crows
- The Queen of the Tearling
- A Tale of Two Castles
- Mark of the Demon
- Sins of the Demon
- Blood of the Demon
- The Other Side of Midnight
- Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7)
- Cold Burn of Magic
- Of Noble Family
- Wrath of a Mad God ( The Darkwar, Book 3)
- King of Foxes
- Daughter of the Empire
- Mistress of the Empire
- Krondor : Tear of the Gods (Riftwar Legacy Book 3)
- Shards of a Broken Crown (Serpentwar Book 4)
- Rise of a Merchant Prince
- End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3)
- Servant of the Empire
- Talon of the Silver Hawk
- Shadow of a Dark Queen
- The Cost of All Things
- The Wicked (A Novella of the Elder Races)
- Night's Honor (A Novel of the Elder Races Book 7)
- Born of Silence
- Born of Shadows
- Sins of the Night
- Kiss of the Night (Dark Hunter Series – Book 7)
- Born Of The Night (The League Series Book 1)
- The Council of Mirrors
- Born of Ice
- Born of Fire
- Born of Defiance
- Gates of Paradise (a Blue Bloods Novel)
- A Very Levet Christmas (Guardians of Eternity)
- Darkness Eternal (Guardians of Eternity)
- City of Fae