The Complete Twilight Reign Ebook Collection (364 page)

‘You’re a man of conscience and compassion, my friend. Are you sure you want a part in this, and all it entails? More important, maybe: I may not have much humanity left, but how can I share this with those I love so dearly?’

‘Anyone else still find those buggers creepy?’ General Daken stared towards the knot of undead soldiers twenty yards away, just beyond the perimeter marked out by Amber’s bodyguards.

‘Aside from the fact they’re not much more than preserved corpses?’ Nai asked. ‘Not especially.’

The six figures were dressed in mismatched pieces of armour and ragged clothing as faded as their own grey skin. Nai had taken a closer look that morning, before anyone but the sentries had risen. Though the drifting song of daemons and spirits was strongest around dusk, most mornings Nai awoke to the sound of distant voices, his senses long since attuned to the daemons he and his former master had treated with.

Up close to the Legion of the Damned, Nai had seen nothing but withered limbs and jutting bones, skin turned to leather, emptiness in their cold eyes. Only when he embraced his magic did Nai find much more than a dead body inexplicably standing; only then did the warrior notice him, shifting the pitted, rusted axe a fraction.

Daken ran a hand over his shaved head. ‘Aye, well, you’re used to shit like that, necromancer. Us normal folk, we prefer our dead things to stay still.’

‘In their defence,’ Amber said in a rumbling voice that took Nai by surprise, ‘they’ve not moved all night.’

‘And that’s also more’n a bit weird. They ain’t moved an inch; they’re in the exact same damn position since I turned in for the night.’

‘Hold on a moment,’ Nai interjected, ‘since when have you been considered part of “normal folk”, Daken?’

The broad white-eye smirked. ‘Since I started to keep bad company,’ he said, looking at Nai and Amber in turn. He pulled out a flatbread, smeared it in oil and as he proceeded to eat it, turned his attention back to the Legion of the Damned.

Daken had ridden in to the Menin camp just as the sun went down, bringing Amber news of the enemy’s progress before tackling what little beer remained to them.

The Devoted armies had met and merged not far from where the Menin now camped; the unwieldy mass tens of thousands strong had barely stopped as it entered Chetse lands. They guessed there’d been no confrontation; the Chetse had lost many of its best in the past year, and the Devoted troops alone numbered seventy thousand, and they were backed by a protective curtain of perhaps twenty thousand of Ruhen’s ragged, exhausted followers, whose burning faith would not let them turn back.

It had been too late last night for Daken to return to his own men, camped several miles ahead near the Chetse border, but Nai had been glad of the ebullient white-eye’s company; Even Amber reacted to his natural charisma.

The enemy avoided even skirmishes now, except when Daken’s cavalry could force a fight on them, and the lack of violence was taking a toll on Amber. Without the savage struggle of battle to energise him, he was almost as lifeless as the Legion, who stood close at hand and watched over their ally.

‘They don’t interfere with your appetite then,’ Amber commented after Daken had lapped the last of the pale oil from his fingers.

‘Takes more’n creepy for that,’ Daken declared. ‘I’ve got a reputation to maintain after all.’

‘What’s being a mad axeman got to do with breakfast?’ Nai wondered aloud.

Daken waved an admonishing finger towards him. ‘An empty stomach’s good enough reason t’ kill, best there is – but so’s interrupting me when I’ve got a face-full of anything sweet!’ The white-eye laughed coarsely. ‘I’m a man o’ many reputations, as many as Morghien’s got spirits buzzing round his head. If I fell today, it wouldn’t be just mercenary captains who’d doff their caps and mourn. Whores and chefs alike would grieve my passing!’

‘A fool and his money, eh?’

‘A connoisseur!’ Daken protested, ‘a man of appetites and enthusiasm – show folk with taste some quality to appreciate and we’re faster’n any fool to hand over our money. Difference being, fools never learn and I make damn sure I’m paying attention while I’m enjoying myself.’

‘No likely the courtesans of Narkang will celebrate one fewer rival while your whores and chefs weep.’

Daken hauled himself up and began to brush down his horse, readying the beast for the day to come. His clothes were torn and dirty; the shadow of a bruise was still visible on his cheek, but he tended to his horse rather than himself. ‘Fucking necromancers,’ he said with a smile, ‘always missing the point.’

‘Which is?’ Nai asked as he readied his own meagre possessions. Amber remained where he was, watching the two of them with a faintly curious expression; Nai thought he looked like a man trying to remember what it was to have friends and comrades.

‘Simple: life ain’t that they cheer or weep you, it’s that they notice you passing and you had yourself a damn good time on the way! You lot sneak through the shadows, gathering power and money too, and most importantly, prolonging the inevitable, but you forget to spend all you’ve gathered. Power’s fun enough, but it ain’t nothing compared to an immoral woman in your bed and fine food in your belly. Where’s the use in your long life if it ain’t fun?’

‘So speaks a man who’s never held true power in his hand,’ Nai countered, slender spindles of light erupting from the fingers of his upturned hand. ‘You’ve never tasted that fire on your tongue, never learned the secrets of the Land while magic echoes through your bones.’

‘Pah, fire on the tongue? Prefer the taste o’ some girl’s sweat misself. Once this is all over, I’ll introduce you to some ladies I know – they’ll show you there’s something better than magic t’ have echo through your bones.’

‘I’ll take that offer,’ Amber joined, his words hesitant and awkward. ‘Got to be better than the aches I’ve got right now.’ There were dark rings of fatigue around his eyes, rings that had been there for many days now.

‘Be a pleasure, General,’ Daken said, smiling. ‘The girls like a man with scars too, which makes it easier.’ He nodded towards Nai. ‘And this one’s funny-looking – best there’s more’n just my beauty t’ distract ’em from his weird feet.’ He heaved his saddle up onto his horse’s back and secured it, slid his long-axe into a hook, offered Amber a sloppy salute and mounted.

‘Time to go greet my king,’ he announced. ‘He’ll probably need my help with the diplomacy t’ come. Messages for him?’

Amber stared at the white-eye for a long while, long enough for Nai to be about to reach out and touch the Menin on the arm when he finally spoke. ‘Messages? No, I have none.’

‘So just your humble greetings and request for further orders? Or shall I just ask what took ’em so long?’

‘Ask what you like,’ Amber said, at last seeming to focus on Daken and stand a little straighter. ‘He is my ally, not my king. My price was that he got my troops through Chetse land and supplies on the other side. How he does that is his concern.’

‘Aye, guess it is.’ Daken leaned forward on his saddle, noting the eyes of Amber’s bodyguard as they all fixed upon him. Behind their curling beards and steel helms he could see little, but the white-eye appeared to find enough to confirm what he was thinking.

‘It’s what happens on the other side I’m more interested in,’ Daken said lazily. ‘So may be time you asked your men which way they want to march.’

‘My men are Menin,’ Amber said, ‘and they follow their commander – or they kill him. There is no asking.’

‘Aye, well, ask yourself then: there’s a fight coming, either in Chetse lands or out the other side. If it’s the one, you’ll be with us, but the Devoted have a start on us, so I’m guessing it’ll be the other and then—’ He jerked his reins and wheeled around. ‘Well, ask yourself, is all I’m saying. You here for glory or safe passage?’

‘You don’t think we’ve earned both?’

Daken grinned. ‘Anyone who walks away from the fight to come, they ain’t likely t’ be remembered. The rest of us’ll be so shining with glory Tsatach hisself won’t need to lift his eye over the horizon for years to come!’

‘Or you’ll be dead,’ Amber called, ‘dead, forgotten and cursed for all eternity.’

The white-eye laughed and pulled up his shirt, revealing the tattoo of Litania covering much of his chest. The tattoo there was still, the Trickster Goddess still weak, as all her kin were, but Daken’s point was made.

‘Nah, must have a few favours saved up – I’ve done some dirty work for this immoral bitch over the years. The rest o’ you bas tards might be fucked though, aye!’

Two days later the Narkang army arrived at the Chetse border. King Emin rode with General Lahk and Vesna ahead of a legion of Kingsguard heavy cavalry, each in full armour. Emin and Vesna were resplendent in their ornate plate; Lahk, in his usual austere battle-dress, Lord Bahl’s black-and-white tabard, was as famous a sight as the extravagant lion’s head helm hanging from Vesna’s saddle. King Emin’s armour echoed that of the Kingsguard, but was suitably finer in every aspect, surpassing even Vesna’s for artistry; mage-engraved runes incorporated into a design of bees and oak leaves.

Behind them, nestled within a screen of Kingsguard, rode the less prepossessing: Isak in his tattered leathers, Legana with a shawl covering her face from the weak sun and Daken in plain armour and a stained green scarf. Carel’s cream uniform was emblazoned with Isak’s crowned dragon crest, but weeks of travelling meant it was far from pristine.

‘King Emin,’ called the ageing Chetse at the head of the receiv ing delegation, ‘I am General Dev. I command the armies of the Chetse until a new Lord of the Chetse is Chosen.’

Dev’s thick arms were uncovered despite the cool air and steady drizzle, and gold and copper torcs framed the ritual scars on his biceps. He wore a warrior’s kilt, but carried no weapon. He stepped forward to bow low. Those behind him followed suit. Their clothing indicated they were ruling landowners and the remaining Tachrenn of the Ten Thousand, but they held back to make it clear the general spoke for all of them.

The Chetse borders were aggressively defended; their slow-burning war with the Siblis ensured that every man grew up a warrior and any Chetse would feel naked when unarmed. Emin knew it was a deliberate gesture of friendship, that Dev had met them without his axe in hand.

‘General Dev,’ King Emin replied in surprisingly good Chetse, ‘your reputation precedes you. I am glad to finally meet you.’

‘Yet you do so with an army at your back,’ Dev pointed out. ‘Not an auspicious start, would you say?’

King Emin inclined his head and dismounted, Lahk and Vesna doing likewise. ‘It remains my hope that I can prove Narkang’s friendship to your tribe,’ he said as he advanced a little way on foot, ‘if you would agree to hear my offer?’

‘I’m a soldier, not a politician. Friendship is something that is earned, not bought with gifts.’

‘A soldier’s friendship perhaps,’ King Emin replied, unruffled by Dev’s gruff words, ‘but a nation is a different beast. The business of a nation is improving the lot of its people, and the gifts I intend are to the Chetse tribe as a whole.’

‘It isn’t my tribe you need to persuade, it’s me,’ Dev said.

Emin nodded. ‘And if your reputation were that of a greedy man, I’m sure your friendship would be far more cheaply bought.’

Some of the Chetse gave an angry start at that, and more than one hand tightened around an axe-shaft until General Dev raised a hand without looking back.

‘I might not be greedy, but the Menin left our armies badly depleted and our capital city in turmoil. The expense of invasion is considerable.’ He ran a hand through his thinning grey hair and spent a while regarding the Narkang force stretching out for miles behind King Emin, no doubt looking for the Menin.

‘I’m not here to fleece you,’ Dev continued at last. ‘Well, not entirely. You want to take an army through Chetse lands, almost past the Gate of Three Suns itself, and you’ll pay, and you know that – so not a surprise to you, that one.’

He sighed. ‘But that’s not the problem. Money and concessions don’t buy off the blood oaths many under my command have sworn.’

‘The Menin,’ Emin stated gravely. ‘Is your hatred really so great that it defies reason?’

General Dev gaped at him. ‘You of all men can ask that? They
obliterated
Aroth! They slaughtered most of the population, civilians and soldiers alike, all wiped out without mercy. How can you ally your people with such monsters?’

King Emin turned back towards his troops and looked at the faces of his soldiers before replying to the general’s question. ‘How? Because I must. Do you think it was easy? Do you think my people are sheep, to be led unthinking whatever I decide? This war
must
be fought, and I am outnumbered. My choice was to kill them all and accept grave losses, or bring them to the fold and use their strength for something greater. You are a reluctant ruler of your people, but a king must make such choices.’

‘Why is this war so important to you?’

‘Because the child Ruhen will overturn the Pantheon of the Gods if we do not stop him. Because
all
of the Gods are threatened by his actions – your own patron included.’

‘Tsatach?’ General Dev said with sudden venom. ‘Then why does our God not warn us, or act? Do you claim greater knowledge than the Gods, or is he so weakened he cannot even find the dreams of his chosen people, his priests? Or does he not care? Are all the promises of the cults so empty our God himself will not stir to warn us?’

Emin looked into the ageing warrior’s eyes and saw the terrible strain Dev was under, and his heart softened at the sight. Here was a man struggling to hold his people together, alone, and no doubt challenged at every turn. The priests would prove little use, that powerful élite more of a hindrance than anything.

Have you prayed – is that the source of your anger? Does your God not answer you – now in your time of need, are you abandoned?

‘The Gods do not fully comprehend the threat,’ Emin started to explain. ‘Right now they are at their weakest; they fear any confrontation where artefacts powerful enough to kill them are used.’