William King: The Queen's assassin

He looked at Asea and her lover and that arrogant cripple Sardec and wished that his new Nerghul was with him. He would have set it on them, and had it slay the lot of them. Even though it seemed flawed and slow compared to the first one, it would be more than capable of killing all of them. But his creature was up in the cemetery, guarding the stores for the ritual against any interlopers. In any case, he told himself, he would not risk it now, not when he was so close to ultimate success.

Tomorrow, after the completion of his great plan, there would be time to settle all scores.

Rik lay on the couch in Asea’s apartments and stared at his feet. The massive old clock ticked loudly. He felt useless. Even the voices seemed depressed. They murmured quietly at the back of his mind, but failed to intrude fully onto his consciousness. To distract himself, he ran through one of the sorcerous exercises that Asea had taught him, calming himself, touching his inner strength. It seemed to have dwindled a little. Perhaps this was how it was with thanatomantic energy. Perhaps it dissipated over days and weeks on disuse.

He felt threatened, as if they were all on the edge of some great abyss. Kathea’s coronation was tomorrow and they were still no closer to working out their enemy’s plan. Asea had been closeted in her chambers for all day and most of last night, and had not emerged. Only Karim had entered to take her food. She turned away all messengers. She talked to no one. She seemed driven in a way that he had never seen her before. Sometimes he has caught a glimpse of her through the door, and she looked haggard. All he could so was sleep here, outside her chambers, like a faithful watchdog.

He was afraid, and not just for himself. He sensed that Malkior was coming, and he would kill Asea and him too if he got the chance. Rik had prepared for that eventuality as best he could. His hidden blade was poisoned. He had prepared a truesilver bullet in his concealed pistol. He carried another pistol with another special bullet. He had the blade Asea had given him. He knew they would mostly likely not be enough. Even the stolen energy of the Sea Devil would most likely not be enough, but he was determined that if Malkior came he would be as well prepared as he could be. He was not going to be taken so easily this time.

The door to Asea’s chamber swung open. She emerged. Her face was pale and drawn. Her eyes looked huge. Her pupils were dilated from the potions she took against fatigue.

“I have solved it,” she said softly.

“You’ve broken the code?”

“I did that hours ago. Now I have translated the notes.”

“What do they say?”

“The machines were used for preparing a special serum, a component in a necromantic ritual.”

“The book says that?”

“No but reading between the lines of the descriptions of the experiments and extrapolating from them, I am sure I know what the serum is to be used for. Whoever created it intends to raise the dead and do something worse. There is some component of the ghoul’s disease that can be used to make undeath spread like a plague. They’ll need to do it soon because the serum won’t hold its potency for long.”

“How soon?”

“Tonight, perhaps.”

“An army of the walking dead, that can infect the living?”

“Yes. I think so. All they need is bodies and a potent locus of necromantic energies.”

“If they intend to make an army, they will need a lot of corpses. As for energies…” Rik said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew exactly where those could be found. “The Grand Cemetery.”

Asea began inscribing a note to General Azaar. “Go and get Lieutenant Sardec,” she said. “I think we should visit the graveyard as soon as possible.”

The voices whispered and gibbered and sometimes he thought he could make out words. I smell death. Death and sorcery. Things stir beneath the ground. Wrong place. Wrong place, whispered the voices. A thought insinuated itself into Rik’s mind.

“What if this is just a distraction? What if Malkior is already here and makes a bid on the Queen’s life? He could get in easily enough while we are trying to deal with this.”

Asea’s features froze for a moment as she considered his words. “You might be right, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. If Jaderac plans to raise an army of the dead, I have to stop him.”

“I will stop Malkior,” said Rik. “At least I will try.”

There was silence for a moment. Rik wondered if she thought he was simply trying to get out of this duty. Surely she knew him better than that right now.

“I don’t think you could beat Malkior if you met him.”

“There will be soldiers here, and somebody has to protect Kathea. Otherwise there may be no Queen to crown. I can sense shadowgates. At least I might be able to warn the guards.”

“You could be wrong.”

“If I am wrong we have lost nothing. If I am right…”

“Very well. Good luck,” she said and swept out the door.

“To you too,” Rik said to her departing back.

“This is getting to be a habit,” said Sardec. The Foragers marched at double time towards the cemetery. They had been reinforced with all the soldiers of the Seventh that Sardec could have rounded up at short notice. Some of them were groggy with sleep. Some drunk. None of them looked happy.

“I am sorry to disturb your rest again, Lieutenant,” said Asea. She spoke in the High tongue of the Terrarchs so none of the men could understand. Once more she was garbed for war. She held her glowing wand. Chained lightning glittered within the blue gem at its tip. “But I can assure you this is important. The safety of Queen Kathea and our entire army may depend on it.”

“There is a plan to stop the coronation tomorrow?” He replied in the same language. If there was something she wanted kept secret it was doubtless for good reason.

“Unless we find what we are looking for soon, there may not be a coronation. By sunrise the whole city may be in the grip of plague and something worse than plague.” The night suddenly seemed very dark and cold. The snow crunched ominously beneath their boots.

“What do you mean?”

“I think our old friend Lord Jaderac is performing a ritual right now that will raise all the bodies in this graveyard and turn them into an unstoppable army — he is or some of his associates are.”

Sardec felt a shudder of fear pass up his spine but he kept his face straight and his tone nonchalant. “You are talking of sorcery of the darkest sort, Milady.”

“I am, Lieutenant. Does it surprise you that our enemies would use it?”

“These days nothing would surprise me, Milady.”

The gates of the Grand Cemetery loomed ahead of them. Sardec shuddered remembering the ghouls they had encountered here. The memory of them was as vivid and as frightening as if it had only happened last night.

“What are we looking for?” he asked her.

“It will be easy enough to recognise when you see it, Lieutenant. Look for Terrarchs working sorcery. I would not be surprised if one of them was Lord Jaderac and another was Lady Tamara.”

“What shall we do if we see them?” Sardec suspected he already knew. Her answer came as no surprise.

“Don’t take any chances. Kill them — if you can.”

Sardec nodded and began bellowing orders to the soldiers. They were to split into squads and search the graveyard for intruders. If they saw anyone performing rituals they were to shoot on sight.

“Just hope there’s nobody in there having a funeral,” muttered the Barbarian.

“If they are, they’ll soon be having a few more,” said Weasel.

Sardec watched the soldiers fanning out among the gravestones. He had a bad feeling about this. The night was misty. Frost glittered on gravestone and tree branch. Only occasionally did the light of the moon shine through.