Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles (24 page)

¹
The Cleansing of the Heavens

²
And the gods gathered around The Power with Exaltation, Love, and Final Things, and cast him into the other place.
³
The Power lashed out at them, and split the Tree of Life in twain.
⁴
Arin planted the half without wickedness and chaos in the heavens, where it grew to wondrous heights and formed the Plane of Peace.

⁵
Zubuxo took the other half, the wicked half, and cast it down from the heavens, where it grew barren and thirsty and formed the Plane of Humankind.

- The Mukhtaar Chronicles, attributed to the prophet Habakku

Origines Multiversi, Emergentiae 9:1-5

There are two problematic translations with this passage that I will point out for the sake of consistency. The first is the translation of Jah’ham as “the other place”, when it is translated as “hellplace” or “the hell place” in other passages. The second is the recurrence of tabad’ul translated as “planted”. There is no clear explanation for the former, but I find the latter acceptable. After all, whether Arin’s half of the Tree of Life was “planted” or “transferred” seems of little import.

- Coteon of the Steppes, “Coteonic Commentaries on the Origines Multiversi” (circa 520 RL)

Aelron lifted the tarp and stole a peek out the back of the wagon. The rain had slowed to a mist, obscuring Blackwood in the distance until it was no longer visible. If he could remain undetected until the wagon reached its destination, he’d be able to slip out the back and off the side of the road.

Easier said than done with all this junk laying around. He stretched his leg a fraction of an inch an hour earlier and managed to knock two cooking pans together and topple a block of knives. If it weren’t for the heavy rain, the noise would have alerted whoever was in the closed carriage.

Aelron didn’t know who was in that carriage, but the muffled snippets of conversation gave him the impression they were Shandarian soldiers. They spoke about a garrison in Caspardis and rations from Shandar. Civilians didn’t utter the words
garrison
and
rations
in close proximity to one another.

Laughter came from the carriage, and Aelron strained to hear the voices more clearly.

A high-pitched tenor that sounds like a bird chattering. A cackle and snort. A bellow from a barrel-chested man. And an older voice talking over the others.

Five men, including the wagon driver. But something bothered Aelron. An army wouldn’t transport four soldiers like this. Enlisted men or conscripts would bloody well
march
their way to their destination. They wouldn’t travel by covered wagon.

Officers. Has to be. Four Shandarian army officers, one of them probably a senior officer. Going to Caspardis. But why?

“Ambush!” the wagon driver yelled.

The wagon lurched to a halt as shouts rose from all around. Aelron tried to see what caused the commotion, but whatever was happening must be confined to the front and sides, because nothing but muddy road and barren land lay behind him.

The Shandarians must have been doing a good job of defending themselves, because the voice of a man with a strange accent—definitely not Shandarian—started shouting something about a time limit, as if something bad would happen if they didn’t defeat the Shandarians more quickly.

“How did you miss them?” the older Shandarian officer asked. His question must have been directed at the wagon driver. “There’s no place they could have been hiding!”

Between the lack of a response and the muddy splash that followed, the wagon driver would have to answer that question from the afterlife.

The wagon rocked, sending a stew pot rolling into Aelron’s head. He brushed the pain away and looked out through the tarp.

The four Shandarian officers were surrounded by twelve men in strange outfits; tight-fitting white trousers, white shirts with black vests—vests too small across the chest to button—and large wide-brimmed hats, each with a foot-long black feather protruding from the side.

One of the foreign men stepped forward.

“General Bradford, his executive officer, and close advisers,” the foreign man said. “Now, which one of you is the General?”

“There’s no time for this, Basilio,” another foreigner said.

“Who shall I kill first?” Basilio asked.

“Leave them alone,” the older Shandarian man said. “It’s me you want.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, General,” Basilio said. “We want you all.”

Basilio nodded and four deafening
booms
in rapid succession made Aelron duck behind the wagon’s rear gate. Acrid smoke blew toward him, and his eyes watered.

Four foreign soldiers, standing behind the dead Shandarians, placed smoking metallic tubes into their vest pockets.

“Time?” Basilio asked.

“I lost the count, but soon,” a foreign soldier said as he approached the wagon where Aelron was hiding.

Aelron weighed his options.

He could slip out of the wagon and run south, but the land was barren and there weren’t many places to hide.

He could slip out of the wagon and attack. But what if they used those metal tubes on him? He wasn’t sure what they were, but the Shandarians were dead all the same.

He could wait to be discovered. It should be obvious he’s not a Shandarian soldier. Maybe he could convince them he was a stowaway. Maybe that would buy him time to escape.

No. They’d killed a senior military official in the middle of the day on a road between two cities. They weren’t going to give a festering shite about the life of some wayward drifter.

“At least the job’s done,” Basilio said. “Be quick about it. I’d like to know what they were hauling.”

A soldier tossed the tarp to the side, giving Aelron no place to hide. As the tarp fell to the ground, their eyes met, and the soldier’s face paled.

“Captain!” he yelled. “There’s a—”

The soldiers vanished. One moment twelve soldiers surrounded Aelron and the next they were gone.

Aelron climbed out of the wagon.

What in Malvol’s festering name did I just witness?

He approached the four dead Shandarian soldiers. Each of them had large wounds in the back of their heads. Blood and brains oozed onto the ground, creating a ghoulish slime in the mud. If those metal tubes could cause this much damage, he didn’t care to ever find himself on the receiving end.

He bent down and started rummaging through General Bradford’s coat. Did he have one of those mystery tubes as well?

The drumming of adda hooves drew his attention west, toward Blackwood.

Three riders approached. Shandarian soldiers from the Blackwood garrison, if Aelron had to guess.

He shook his head.

Off of the spit and into the pit
.

Once again he was trapped. They’d see him if he ran, and they’d see him if he stayed.

Which should he do?

His hand moved to his pocket where he kept the coin, but he stopped himself, testing his boundaries. It was getting harder to resist of late, as if the coin had a will of its own. He moved his hand away from the pocket, telling himself it was all in his head, but the farther his hand moved from the coin, the more certain he became it wouldn’t end well if he didn’t follow through.

His neck tensed up. The coin would soon be the only thing on his mind.

He sniffed and pulled the coin from his pocket.

If it comes up adda, I run. Adda-ki, I stay.

Flip.

Adda-ki. Of course.

The dagger in his cloak bounced against his side as he straightened.

Maybe I’ll get out of this without killing someone with it.

His shoulders tensed, and he swore.

Why did I have to ask myself that?

He tried to convince himself it didn’t count because it hadn’t been phrased as a question. But he knew better. It was no use. The urgency and anxiety were proof the question had been asked, and it needed an answer.

Adda, I use daggers. Adda-ki, no daggers.

Flip.

Adda-ki.

Festering hells!

Some said he was crazy. But they didn’t understand how
real
a force
chance
was. Aelron didn’t dare trifle with it. He’d done that years ago and it came back to bite him. Literally. He was lucky he could still walk. The coin had told him not to approach the
rockhound
, but he just
had
to get a better look. The miners called him an idiot, and the rockhound had proved them right. Six long months of recovery had convinced him to never disobey the coin again.

That and the constant anxiety; the incessant nagging at the back of his head that told him something horrible would happen if he didn’t heed the coin’s call.

The soldiers dismounted and circled Aelron, who was leaning against the back of the wagon. One of the soldiers, an officer, knelt in front of the corpses several paces away from the wagon.

“What happened here?” the soldier asked.

Aelron cursed the coin toss, as he surreptitiously rummaged through the wagon behind his back.

“I said
what happened
?” the soldier said louder.

Aelron looked at the kneeling man, pointed at himself, and mouthed the word “Me?”

“No, I’m talking to the adda!”

“The driver’s as dead as the General,” one of the soldiers said.

“I was…” Aelron nearly told the officer the truth; that he’d been hiding in the covered trailer when fighting broke out. Only one problem; stowing away on a military vessel was punishable by flogging and one year in a Shandarian prison. A year in which the Rangers could find him and execute him for killing Letcher. The Shandarian Justice Protocols weren’t known for being merciful or forgiving. But then, neither was the Shandarian Army.

“You were
what
?”

They weren’t going to leave him with many options. He was standing over a pile of corpses, and even the truth wasn’t in his favor.

“Secure this man,” the officer said.

Best case, he’d be publicly tortured and sent to prison. Worst case…he didn’t want to think about worst case.

Two soldiers reached for Aelron’s arms.

Aelron leaped onto the flat wagon, narrowly avoiding their grasp. He picked up the iron stew pot at his feet and grabbed a ladle. As the two soldiers closed, he jumped off the wagon, over the nearest soldier, and planted the stew pot on the soldier’s head. His momentum pulled the man down into the bloody mud.

Aelron kicked him in the ribs, spun, then struck the other soldier in the jaw with the ladle, sending a tooth flying in the process.

As the soldier held his mouth and yelled, Aelron pivoted toward the one on the ground and struck the iron pot several times with the ladle. The ringing sound had the fallen soldier kicking his feet to get away.

Aelron pulled the stew pot off the man’s head and swung it toward the other, striking him in the jaw and knocking several other teeth lose. When the soldier grabbed his face for the second time, Aelron swung the ladle upward, hitting the man between the legs.

The first soldier had recovered and was rising to his feet.

Aelron flipped backward over the rising man, placing the pot back on his head and driving him into the mud. With the soldier on the ground, Aelron removed the pot, lifted it over his head, and drove it straight down into the soldier’s face, spraying blood outward onto Aelron’s legs.

The soldier twitched a few times then went still.

Doesn’t count. I didn’t use a blade.

The officer, who was kneeling next to the dead general, stood and drew his sword.

The second soldier, having recovered from the blow to the groin, was back on his feet and charging at Aelron, sword also drawn.

Aelron yelled at the top of his lungs and ran straight for the second soldier, wielding his ladle and stew pot like a sword and shield.

The man hesitated for the briefest moment, then raised his sword and swung toward Aelron’s chest.

Aelron dove, rolled under the swinging sword, flipped the ladle around to the cupped end, then drove the handle up into the man’s chest. As Aelron came to his feet, the soldier fell lifeless to the muddy road.

Still doesn’t count.

Aelron flipped the ladle back around to the bloody handle. He walked toward the officer, who stood gaping.

“Who in Arin’s name are you?” the officer asked.

Aelron raised the pot and ladle. “The cook.”

The officer raised his sword and charged.

Aelron flung the heavy ladle, striking the officer on the forehead.

The officer fell.

When Aelron reached him, the officer was rubbing his head.

Aelron kneeled, placing his knee in the back of the officer’s neck. Would this one make the right decision if given the chance?