Ричард Кнаак - The Veiled Prophet

Elsewhere, spheres of light lifted men into the air, then dropped them onto their comrades. Tendrils of energy encircled throats, tightening enough to strangle.

Some of the edyrem’s defenses looked mundane, such as the use of bows, but even here, their powers came into play. The arrows, guided by the bowmen’s will, struck their targets’ hearts perfectly.

The attackers also had their archers, but it startled Uldyssian that they waited so long to use them. There was a whistling sound high in the air, and then the first bolts finally began arcing down toward the edyrem. The skills of the enemy bowmen were questionable, but with so many defenders, they no doubt did not fear too many misses.

Without even a gesture, Uldyssian seized control of the arrows. They turned sharply, heading toward the jungle.

One after another, the bolts struck those converging on the encampment. A line of six men dropped simultaneously, each pierced through the throat.

The ambush was swiftly turning into a debacle, as hardly any of the edyrem had suffered even a scratch. The shields that Uldyssian had trained his guards to create were impenetrable to mortal weapons, something that he was astounded the attackers would not have taken into account. More and more, they seemed exactly as they appeared: simple peasants, farmers, and the like. They were the type who should have been eager to join the edyrem’s ranks, not slaughter them.

Yet still they came, their ferocity now touched with desperation. Most were dark-skinned, like the Torajians and many of their cousins, but among them were also the first few light-skinned lowlanders he had seen, so light-skinned, in fact, that they could have passed for Ascenians such as himself. Those were said to be from an area that included the northern part of the capital, but other than Lilith’s false identity of Lylia, Uldyssian had seen none in all his time down in the jungle realms.

Still, their similarity to him did not save them from suffering as their darker comrades did. Uldyssian rewarded their base ambush with death a hundred times over. The bodies began piling up in a manner both grotesque and shameful, and yet he had no notion how to put an end to the struggle. The attackers refused to cease coming, and his people, well certain of their victory, had no inclination to end what was becoming pure butchery.

From behind him came words muttered in a tongue Uldyssian did not in the least understand. A faint glimmer arose at his back.

One of the dead attackers leapt to his feet like a marionette whose strings had just been pulled taut. At first, the macabre figure appeared ready to attack the edyrem, but then he whirled about, facing instead his former allies.

A second corpse and then a third did the same. Several others joined them.

The first took a step toward the enemy, and the sight of the dead walking was at last enough to put an end to the assault on the encampment. First one, then several, then all the attackers turned and fled in panic. They ran with no rhyme or reason, their only intent to escape what they thought was a rising army of ghouls.

A few of Uldyssian’s followers sent balls of flame or flying tree trunks at the stragglers, but the enormity of what had just happened finally began sinking in. The area surrounding the encampment lay littered with bodies, not one of them edyrem. Triumphant cheers arose from the defenders.

Uldyssian turned to Mendeln, the one who had been murmuring in the strange tongue. His brother looked as deathly as the risen corpses, and clutched in his hands was the unsettling dagger that looked as if it had been carved from ivory…or bone. Mendeln held the dagger point down. The blade was the cause of the sinister illumination.

The younger brother turned the blade upward, then muttered a single word.

There was a heavy thud from the direction of the jungle. Uldyssian glanced over his shoulder to see the animated dead dropping in horrific heaps among the other bodies. Some of the edyrem instinctively made signs from either the Triune or the Cathedral, old habits dying hard even in the face of the sinister truth concerning both sects.

“I had to attempt something,” Mendeln stated bluntly. “This was becoming tragic and demeaning.”

“They attacked us. Ambushed us, if you recall.” Still, Uldyssian could not fault his brother for wanting to stop the massacre, even if it was of the enemy. “They got what they deserved.”

“Perhaps…”

Uldyssian knew that tone and found himself frustrated by it more and more. “They may look like us, but make no mistake, Mendeln. If they’re not Triune, then they’re somehow Inarius’s minions.”

“A pity we can’t question any of them,” remarked Serenthia, prodding one body. “The edyrem are getting very good, Uldyssian. There’s not a living one among these.”

“There wasn’t supposed to be.” Now Uldyssian’s own tone startled him, if only for its coldness. “But yes, it would’ve been good to have someone who could tell us how this came to be. They had the power to mask themselves; that means demons or angels. But they fought like farmers and craftsmen…” He suddenly saw Mendeln’s point. “That makes no sense. They should’ve known that they’d be torn to pieces by us. Word’s spread by now of what we did in Toraja and the other cities where the Triune was…”

“If I may?”

That it was his brother who seemed ready to offer a suggestion concerning the truth behind this attack disturbed Uldyssian more than he revealed. “What?”

Mendeln kept his voice low, for the rest of the edyrem still stood waiting for commands. “Allow me a moment among the—defeated—to choose. Then have the others begin removing the bodies for burning or burial.”

“Choose?” Serenthia’s face paled. “What do you mean, choose? Choose for what?”

“Why, questioning, of course.”

Uldyssian kept his own expression unperturbed as he quickly commanded his followers to begin dealing with the dead. In a whisper to his brother, he added, “Go right now. Pick two…only two. I’ll help you bring them to where we won’t be disturbed.”

“They might not be the ones with the knowledge. It would be best if I could survey a few more—”

“Two, Mendeln! Two. Just tell the others not to touch the pair. No more.”

The black-clad figure let out a momentary sigh. “It will be done as you say. I’d best go now, then, while the majority of the dead still lay available.”

Serenthia waited until Mendeln was out of earshot before finally saying, “I love him as a friend and almost a brother, Uldyssian, but I worry about him. This is not right, this constant dwelling in spells touching upon the dead.”

“I’m not happy about it, either, but nothing he’s done has ever been evil. He’s saved many of us, including myself.”

“And he brought Achilios back to me, if only for a few short moments…” Her eyes moistened.

“I’m keeping watch over Mendeln, make no mistake. If he—or that damned Rathma—do anything I feel crosses the line, I won’t let it stand, Serry. I won’t. Not even for my own sibling.”

He meant it, too, even more than she would realize. If Mendeln’s studies brought him to the point where he did something ghastly—at the moment, Uldyssian dared not think just what that might be—then the elder son of Diomedes would have to see to it that the younger was stopped.

Permanently, if necessary. Uldyssian would have no choice.

There was no possible way to keep Mendeln’s intentions completely secret, but Uldyssian and Serenthia did what they could to occupy the edyrem’s attention while his brother located the two corpses he desired. The moment Mendeln found them, Uldyssian helped him remove the bodies from the sight of the rest. Serenthia remained behind in order to keep any of the others from wandering over to where the two worked.