William King - Shadowblood

“We’re running short of food as well, sir. The Barbarian and me are doing our best, but game is scarce and these hills are pretty barren. It would be hard enough to feed half-a-dozen of us on what we get let alone this whole crew. If we had some of the old Foragers with us we might do a bit better but some of the new lads are not so good at scrounging and the kids and the women are no use at all.”

“You’re not suggesting we abandon them, are you?” Weasel shrugged.

“It’s more of a choice between them starving quick or starving slow, in any case. Hunger will be like torture for them if we don’t get more supplies soon. There’s no way around it, sir.”

“You said there’s a town not too far from here.”

“The Barbarian spotted it when we were scouting this morning. Place looks dead and it would not surprise me to find corpses walking in the street. Parts of it are in ruins. Fire would be my guess. Don’t know whether it was put to the torch or it was an accident. The result’s the same in any case.”

Sardec weighed Weasel’s words and came to a decision. They needed to investigate the town. They might find food there and there was a remote possibility of finding a magician who might be able to help the sick. If Rena was coming down with the plague, Sardec was prepared to take any risk if there was any chance of saving her. He could not see what further purpose would be served by skulking in the hills anyway. It looked like the Sardean army had bypassed them.

“I think we should investigate the town. At very least we might be able to pick up some supplies there.”

“What if the locals are not friendly or they’ve gone over to the Dark Empire. We were none too popular when we passed through this country before, sir. I doubt the natives have come to love us any better now that the Sardeans are swarming all over their country and the walking dead are everywhere.”

“We’ll just have to keep our eyes open and deal with those contingencies if they arise, won’t we, Sergeant?”

“If you say so, sir. If you like the Barbarian and I could scout ahead and try and get a feel for the place. He’ll need someone with a brain with him to keep him out of trouble.”

“I need you here now, but you could send him with Toadface or Handsome Jan.”

“As you wish, sir.”

Rik stood by the abandoned mansion in which they had taken refuge and listened to the sounds of the night. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted and something moved through the underbrush, perhaps a fox in pursuit of prey. He felt alone, like the last man in the world, for once not even the voices in his head troubled him.

Tamara touched him lightly on the arm. “We’d best proceed if we are going to get these lessons finished by a respectable hour. People are already starting to talk.”

He could tell from the tone of her voice that she was making a joke, but she was also impatient for some reason to begin. He knew he should be eternally suspicious around her but he found he was incapable of it. He suspected that it was just that she had a talent for teaching and was pleased to be able to use it, although as ever that seemed far too mundane a notion when applied to Tamara to be really plausible to anyone else but himself.

They made their way along a path, deeper into the surrounding wood. Rik glanced around to make sure they were not about to be ambushed.

Tamara moved quietly ahead, pausing occasionally to take deep breaths of the night air. Odd scents were there, unfamiliar blooms that grew in these lands but not in his own mixed with more familiar fragrances such as bitterblooms and witch roses. Overhead the moon beamed down through the leaves, its ancient face a skull.

They found a quiet spot in a clearing where some large boulders emerged from the earth, and Rik set the lantern down on top of one of them. Tamara looked thoughtful for a moment. “On a night like tonight who would believe the Servants of Shadow are abroad in our world or that the dead walk the surface of the earth.”

Rik could have done without that reminder of potential danger but he could see what she was getting at. There was a stillness and beauty to the night that moved him, and it came to him that even if the whole world fell to the Shadow that places like this would still remain, and that there would still be mountains and deep forests and seas untainted by evil. At that moment it seemed to him that evil was a very human concept, that it was a property unique to living beings to see things in those terms.

Somewhere nearby a mouse screamed as an owl dropped upon and broke its back. Perhaps he was wrong. The natural world was savage in its own way, and perhaps the Princes of Shadow would say that they were just owls preying on mice.

He had heard people argue that way before, robbers in Sorrow among them, just as he had heard others argue that it was the duty of the strong to prey on the weak, to winnow them out from the race. Those were easy arguments to make when you saw yourself as the strong one. Most such people never seemed to imagine there was someone stronger than themselves.

“You’re right,” he said to Tamara, bringing his mind back to the present. “I suppose in the end even the Princes of Shadow will pass. “

“Apparently they have not managed to do so on Al’Terra yet. They still seek new worlds to conquer.”

“Would it make a great deal of difference if they did?” he asked suddenly. “For most people in this world, I mean?”

“Did Asea put you up to asking that, to test me?”

“No. I came up with it all by myself. I am curious about what you think, that’s all. Would rule by the Princes be so different for most folk than the present regime?”

“I don’t see how you of all people can ask that? They propose to use humans as cattle.”

Rik felt a sourness rising up in himself. “People die anyway, of illness, of overwork, will the method of their death really make much difference?”

“I suppose that depends on whether you believe they have a soul, and whether having that soul eaten by a cosmic vampire is a fate worse than death.”

“It’s possible that people don’t have souls. That thanatomancy works simply by extracting nutrition from their bodies in a way analogous to the way we gain nutrition by eating food.”

“Is that what the voices in your head tell you?”

“Perhaps — but I suspect that I came up with that by myself too.”

“It might work that way, but then again it might not.”

“Looked at on a cosmic scale does it really make that much difference? One being will not live for a very long time. The other will pass in its normal span or something close to it anyway.”

“You are in a strange mood tonight, Rik,” said Tamara. She sounded wary. “Are you saying that you want to join with the Princes?”

“No. I am not. I hate them for what they have done. I hate what they are doing. I hate the fact that they have killed friends of mine by their actions and would kill me if they could. I am just wondering whether, in the long term, opposing them will make any difference.”

“I am not sure whether that’s a question that’s even worth asking?”

“What do you mean?”

“As far as we are concerned we can only affect what happens in our time.”

“You are not concerned with future generations then?”

“That’s a very human way of thinking, Rik. Take into account that I am a Terrarch. It’s possible my life will be scores of human generations.”

“That is not a problem I think I will have,” he replied.

“You do not know that. In any case, we should leave the philosophical discussions to one side for the moment and consider other things. I believe that you are ready to shadow-walk. You have mastered the basics.”