Blood and Life (and other short stories)

The witch climbed the steps to the warden’s quarters, leaning low against shadows as she peered into the hallway. Her eyes drew to slits; there were no monsters in sight, but there was a trail of blood leading around the bend. She breathed in stuffy air, picking up traces of lingering thaumaturgy.

She glanced to the bottom of the stairs, where her minions feasted on the remains of a necromancer and its skeleton crew. They sat in awkward postures, gnawing on bones with toothless mouths.

They were stupid creatures, mindless altogether, and she had made the mistake of trying to guide them against those who would harm her like a mother coaxing children to play. It had made the climb towards Axiom Prison slow and tedious, if safe; each step the zombies took left behind a layer of skin, each strike lost them a gob of rotted flesh, and every now and then they had lost so much tissue they simply fell apart and she needed new ones. They made for splendid covers from the arrows of the undead legions, once the witch had learned to stop thinking of them anything but tools.

Wraeclast had no respect for the dead. Corpses were food, and soldiers for those with a talent for the dark arts. The witch didn’t know from where the diabolists drew their power over the dead; hers came from a small sapphire lodged in her circlet.

Treating them like children had been a waste of effort, but treating them like the dirt they rose from didn’t work either. She had found an effective middle ground upon discovering their taste for bones. Three humeri gathered from former Axiom inmates hung tucked against her sash. She took one, whistled quietly to catch her minions’ attention, then rapped the bone against the wall when they roused. At once all three were afoot, dropping their treats, as if the witch’s offering was somehow tastier than any of theirs. She tossed the bone down the hallway, and at its clatter the zombies shambled upstairs. She repeated the gesture to direct them further in, picking up the first bone once they had rushed after the other.

The trail of blood came to an end around the corner. There lay a body, and she knelt down to inspect it before the zombies would notice and devour it. She frowned: it had been beaten to a pulp, dragged like a macabre paintbrush. What were the blackguard doing here? thought the witch, recognising the sigil on battered armour. More importantly… Is this the warden’s work?

“An exile, here?”

The witch started, raising the bone like a mace. The zombies ceased quarrelling over their bait, tensing with a chorused snarl.

On a caged platform ahead stood a woman, hand on her hip. Though she wore strange headgear which covered her eyes, the witch felt uneasy, as though the helmet did nothing to keep the woman from studying her.

The witch cried out when each zombie bumped into her, knocking her over when they surged forth. They crashed against the bars, growling madly as they grasped for the woman. She took a step closer, letting loose a shrill laugh as the witch gathered the bones scattered by her fall.

“And such a sorry exile, too.” Her gaze — the witch presumed — swept over the zombies. “You ought to pick fresher bodies. Perhaps you wouldn’t have to resort to such… creative ways to manipulate the horde if they had some semblance of spirit left.”

“Step away, thaumaturge,” said the witch, brandishing a bone. “My pets might not be able to reach you, but I’ve gotten good at throwing these. We’ll see who laughs when I knock you out and you wake as one of them, without guts.”

“You’ve quite a mouth for someone without skill,” the woman said, coming one step nearer so that the fingertips of the zombies scraped her boots. “Gems are borrowed power, exile. Don’t mistake them for anything more…” She drifted off, tilting her head, then brought a hand to her chin. “Hm, but it is quite a gem. Maybe you aren’t as hopeless as I thought.”

She stamped down suddenly, breaking off the fingers of one of the zombies. They continued to writhe, trying to climb up her heel.

“A shame the warden won’t leave anything for me to examine,” she said with a flourish of her hand, turning to leave. “Make sure to tell our host that Piety of Theopolis sends her regards.”

She walked off into the shadows, zombies pressing harder against the bars the farther she went. They stopped when the bone clattered from the witch’s enervated grip and swooped to it.

Such suffocating power! the witch thought, rubbing her arm. She couldn’t tell if the pain in her elbow was from throwing things for half the day, or if Piety had cast some subtle curse upon her. No, she’s not the source. There is something far fouler ahead… but a fragment of it still remains here.

The corridor continued ahead, and she went on, calling her minions along by rattling a bone against the bars. The path led onto Piety’s platform, and there the witch found a lonesome book raised on a pedestal. She hadn’t seen it from down below — this close, its radiance was unmistakable.

“Shavronne,” the witch whispered, leafing through the pages. The journal spoke of Brutus, the warden also mentioned by the exiles in Lioneye’s Watch. She made a mental note to come back for it later. For now, there was something more important to do: investigate the oppressing corruption emanating from up ahead before it choked her. Approaching its source, she found more slaughtered blackguard, but paid them no mind — until she realised her zombies weren’t as focused as she was. The lure of fresh bodies was more tempting than the witch’s command, and so she had no choice but to wait for them to finish their meal and explore ahead on her own.

There was only one way forward, and she had trouble believing Piety could have slipped past the source of the miasma — but that must’ve been what had happened, for the gate was unlocked. It was bent out of shape, but the lock had held against time and force. Against a key it was powerless. It slid open with a creak, and darkness stirred.

The zombies came to her with newfound obedience, and followed her into the chamber. There awaited the incarcerator, more vile than she could have thought: Brutus was massive, greater even than the monster Hillock, body of engorged flesh bound with metal bands as if to keep the power within from disintegrating his form. She couldn’t tell whether his hands had been replaced with hooks, or whether it was a weapon held by deformed fingers. This was shortly answered when, with a roar, the warden flung out a hook and chain, severing the torso of a zombie. She swore aloud for not thinking of resurrecting the blackguard and flung the bone. Her remaining two zombies chased after it… and were swiftly reduced to a bloody mess when the warden’s fists fell upon them.

The witch didn’t care. Piety had slipped past the brute, so she could too. At the back of the chamber was the route out, daylight burning bright at the end of the tunnel. She dashed for it as quickly as her legs would carry.

Until they didn’t.

Something tugged at her and she fell, smashing her jaw against stairs, then was dragged against the ground back to Brutus. Her head spun when he raised her in the air, and she couldn’t make out the words he rasped.

Then he punched her. The strike should have split the witch in two, but by some miracle the chain unwound and she was sent flying, broken but alive. Her forehead throbbed. There were lights floating all around her, Brutus reduced to a mere shadow, growing and growing as he came to finish her. She shut her eyes, cursing Wraeclast with her dying breath.

The breath turned into a gasp when Brutus cried out. Through the haze of pain she watched the giant thrash, and as her vision cleared, she found the upper body of her zombie hanging onto his leg, claws sunk deep into meat, and the warden trying to shake it off in vain. When he finally managed to squash it, the witch had vanished. Stomping with anger, he rampaged around his cell, but found no trace of her.

The witch stayed unmoving in her crevice, forcing herself to breathe as quiet as possible as she uncorked a life flask. It was involuntary but unnecessary: not even the pop of the cork could be heard as Brutus dispensed his fury on the walls. She drank greedily, and the worst of the pain melted; but her body was frail, and there was only so much a flask could do. Her head was still swimming, surrounded by ghastly lights on the edges of her vision.

She blinked as one of them floated in front of her. There was a skull inside the glow. She reached for it, barely keeping from making a squeak when her fingers seared. The throbbing intensified, and she realised part of the glow came from the gem embedded in her circlet. As she touched it, she found it pulsating.

It’s drawing spirits in, the witch thought with shock. More and more floating skulls entered her hiding place, and she feared the brute would notice the congregation. That, or they would fill the space and her hair would catch fire.

She grasped for the nearest skull, groaning when her fingers slipped through, but burned all the same. Taking deep breaths, the witch whispered, “Are you the victims of the warden?”

The spirit did nothing to reply. A few paces away, Brutus was starting to calm down — and made a confused sound.

“Help me,” whispered the witch, “and I will avenge you.”

The skulls simply floated towards her, numbers growing.

“Help me,” the witch hissed, “or I will take your aid by force.”

When the spirits still showed no sign of understanding, the witch lashed out. She grabbed the skull, holding in a cry as her skin boiled, nothing but fire in her fist. She forced her fingers to open, close, open…

Until they closed around something solid.

The spirit let out a shriek as it was torn from the plane of the dead into the realm of mortals. She was certain she’d caught Brutus’ attention by now, and grabbed the next skull with both hands. Each one was easier to force through the veil than the previous, but their ire and spite was as great, and Brutus’ stomp approached. He started to pound the wall above her, tearing it to pieces, until he finally faced the witch. Both her arms were horribly burnt up to the forearm, and she was surrounded by a throng of fiery skulls screaming wordless hatred at her.

She looked up and, lip twisting into a sneer, said, “Behold my army.”

The spirits turned to the warden as one, and they forgot their anger for the witch. For the span of a few heartbeats, it was silent. Then the screaming resumed, and the flurry of souls was upon Brutus.

They bit into him, one at his jaw, one at the throat, scores all over his body. They faded quickly, just as soon as each had meted out as much pain as was their mortal share.

But the warden had been cruel, and so was his fate in turn.

There was little left of him when the witch emerged from her hideout. All that remained of his face was a skull malformed by thaumaturgy, thrice the size of those which slew him. He slept in a lake of blood that coalesced around the witch’s feet. All that flesh was with the spirits now, but there was just enough to begin rebuilding.

The witch emptied another flask, undoing some of the damage the spirit flames had done on her arms. Then she knelt by the corpse, digging her hand in a wound and sifting around the entrails for an organ. “Had you been my creation, brute,” she murmured, “you’d not have fallen so easily.”

Life pulsed from her palm into the corpse — life of a twisted kind — and it began to animate. Skin and tissue melted, reformed into a new being. Its birth began at the arms, so that it could pull itself free from the old form. Then came the head, body, and last the legs. It was smaller than her old ones, but it was quieter, too, and there was certain intelligence to its bearing.

“Perhaps Piety was right,” she said, inspecting her minion. “A fresh corpse does help.”

The zombie growled, as if to reply, and followed without command when the witch headed to where she’d seen daylight.