William King - Shadowblood

Weasel spread his huge long fingered hands and shrugged, pantomiming a total lack of knowledge.

Handsome Jan stopped admiring his profile in his shard of mirror long enough to say, “It seems like we’ve doing nothing else but deal with bloody sorcery since we crossed the Kharadrean border.”

“Since before that,” said Toadface, licking his lips with his long tongue. “Since the mountains and Achenar.”

The words filled the room with silence. None of them liked to remember that evil place and the Elder World demons that had filled it. They had all of them lost a bunch of friends to the spiders, and the Barbarian had come damn near to losing his life. He still carried the scars from where those huge claws had bitten into his flesh and it was not like he didn’t already have enough scars.

“I’m guessing we’ll see a deal more dark sorcery before this campaign is out,” said Weasel, always one to delight in bringing bad news. “The Sardeans are famous for it.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” said Toadface. “Like that bastard Jaderac up there in the graveyard, and that Nerghul thing that almost killed us all back in Morven. There are times when I think this whole bloody company is cursed.”

“Well, at least we’ve got the Inquisitor with us,” said Handsome Jan. “That fire of his put paid to the shadow-spawn.”

“I put paid to them with my blade,” said the Barbarian.

“Funny, that’s not how I remember it,” said Weasel.

“Well, I did my part, which is more than some here can say.” The Barbarian glared around, daring anyone to gainsay him, and as usual no one did.

“When do we move out?” Toadface asked.

“Day after tomorrow,” said Handsome Jan.

“No way,” said Weasel. “It’ll take weeks to get the provisions ready, and for the Terrarchs to make up their minds as to what to do.”

“Maybe the Sardeans will be here before then,” said Handsome Jan dubiously.

“Only if they come on dragon-back,” said Weasel. “It’s scores of leagues to the Eastern border, and the roads will be muddy as hell with the spring rains.”

“You don’t think they have enough dragons to move their entire army, do you?” the Barbarian asked. He didn’t mind fighting many things and he feared nothing, but the concept of roughhousing it with a dragon gave him pause.

“No. They’ll all be hibernating anyway, if our own are anything to go by.”

“Reckon there’ll be much plunder?” Handsome Jan asked.

Weasel shook his head. “Imperials will grab any they find on the way in, and Eastern Kharadrea is as poor as an honest magistrate anyway.”

“If the Imperials do have anything we can always take it from them,” said the Barbarian. He did not like to think that they might have to fight a battle without any prospect of loot. It was one of the few things that made a soldier’s life worthwhile.

“Nice that somebody is looking on the bright side,” said Weasel. “Now if I have answered all your questions, I am going to go and get a drink.”

“Smartest thing you’ve said all evening,” said the Barbarian. “I think I’ll join you.”

As ever Rena’s lush human beauty astonished Sardec. She looked lovely in the new green dress she had bought in the market. It had probably once belonged to some rich merchant’s wife. There were a lot of them selling clothing and jewellery to raise money for food on the black market. Times were hard all over.

She twirled around, raising the hem of the skirt slightly with her hands so that it swirled around with her. Her ankles were revealed, an effect which he found surprisingly erotic after all this time. He forced himself to clear such thoughts from his mind. This conversation was going to be hard enough as it was.

“What do you think?” she asked, a smile lighting her face.

“It looks fine, very nice.” Something in his tone must have told her something was wrong.

“What is it?” she asked.

“We got our marching orders today,” said Sardec, making his voice as grave as he could. “The Imperials are over the border. We are going to meet them.”

Her smile vanished and she slumped down on the bed. Her hands clutched the quilt crumpling it. “How long till we go?”

“I do not want you to go,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.

“You do not want me?”

“It will be dangerous. There will be very little food. There is plague in the East, far worse than here.”

“I want to go with you. Don’t you want me to come?”

“Aren’t you listening, woman?” he said, exasperation and concern making his voice rougher than he would have wanted it to sound. “I said it will be dangerous.”

“I don’t care how dangerous it is.”

“I do. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“But you might be hurt, killed even.”

“I am a soldier of the Queen. It is my job.”

“And I am a whore. It is my job to follow the army.”

“You are not a whore to me,” he said, unable to say what she really was to him. If truth be told there was no future to their relationship. She was a human, he was a Terrarch. There could be no marriage. Even putting aside all the problems of birth and class, there was the fact that he might live a thousand years if he did not fall in battle. She would be lucky to live past forty, the way the world was now.

“I want to go with you,” she said.

“I can’t allow you to do that,” he said. “If anything happened to you…”

“What?” There was imperiousness to her tone that no human should ever use to a Terrarch. He ignored it, trapped by his inability to express how he really felt, to take the risk of saying what she meant to him, of putting himself in her power, of risking ridicule not from the world, but from this one particular human being.

“I just do not want anything to happen to you,” he said lamely. He forced business-like briskness into his tone. “There is gold in the purse on the dresser, and script that can be drawn on any bank.”

“So it does come down to money. I am to be paid off,” she said unreasonably.

“I just want to make sure you are all right,” he said. “That you can pay for safe passage back to Talorea when the passes are open, and that you will have enough to live on once you get there.”

“This is cruel,” she said. He looked at her, not quite sure what she meant.

“I do not mean to be.”

She stared at him, meeting his gaze in a way that none of the soldiers under his command ever could. “No, I can see that you do not,” she said softly. “You just do not understand at all.”

“Understand what?”

“What you mean to me. What has happened between us. What you’ve done to my life.”

He stepped back a little, not wanting to face what she was saying, not really understanding what she meant anyway. She was a human, after all. He was a Terrarch. What claim could she possibly feel she had on him? Even as that thought crossed his mind, he realised that she did have one, based on the simple fact that he did care about what happened to her, more than he did for anyone else in the world.

He wanted to tell her that, but that would lead to other things, to her insisting that she come with him, on a march there was every chance that none of them would come back from. The Queen’s army were outnumbered, ill-equipped and facing an enemy that had no scruples about using the darkest of sorcery. Since Kathea’s death, they lacked local allies and many of the locals would rally to Khaldarus’s cause and fight for the Dark Empire simply because he was the only local claimant for the throne. And he’d heard other rumours, that if they won they were to continue marching on into the East, to invade Sardea itself, which would be suicidal.