The fall of Highwatch

CHAPTER TWENTY

Behold your new army," said Argalath.

Guric swallowed hard. He had to take careful breaths through his nose to keep the contents of his stomach from coming up. The stench in the enclosed cavern was overpowering.

"Not an army proper, perhaps," said Argalath. "But the troops at your back will be only for show. These"-he motioned to the standing corpses, still starting at them-"will be all the army you need, once the Damarans see what they do."

Their eyes had the same look as his beloved Valia's, that horror staring from the black eyes of her lovely face.

Before becoming a squire, Guric had studied with the clerics of Torm in Damara, and he knew of demonic possession. He'd never seen an exorcism himself, but his fellow students had told him that their teacher had once been famed in his crusades against evil spirits. Whatever profane pacts Argalath worked with his northern devil-gods, it was nothing like any possession Guric had ever heard of.

"What is this abomination?" said Guric.

Argalath frowned. "Not an abomination, my lord. When the rite to restore your beloved Valia… did not go as planned, well, we seem to have stumbled upon this rather happy accident."

"Accident?" Guric seized Argalath's robes in both his fists and shook him so hard that his hood fell back. "Happy accident!"

The acolytes began to approach, weaponless but fists clenched tight, but Argalath shook his head, and they stopped.

Guric lifted Argalath off the ground until their noses were only inches apart. "Give me one reason I shouldn't snap your neck right now."

He saw no fear in Argalath's eyes. Only a little surprise, but he buried it in what Guric was suddenly sure was an entirely false deference.

"I have three, my lord. The first and most immediate are your new troops. Killing me would rather upset my acolytes, I fear, and they might not be able to control our new creations."

"Without Valia, I don't care."

"Which brings me to my second reason, my lord," said Argalath, and the bastard even had the boldness to smile. "The forces we are dealing with… they do not know pity or remorse or fear. Only hunger. Their only delight is in death. The power is great, but the pacts we make with them… they are not bargains or alliances. We force them to bend to our will by words of power and deeds of blood. But they hate it. Hate it. It only fuels their hunger and malice. That thing up in the castle? The being using your beloved Valia's body like new clothes? Do you really think it will give her up unless we force it? It is trapped, my lord. We called it forth-"

"You!" Guric said, and shook him again. "You did this!"

"At your behest! At your command."

"Because you said it would bring her back."

"And it will! It will, my lord. But not without sacrifice. These things you see before you. Abominations, you named them. They are… an experiment of sorts. And it worked. It worked, my lord!"

Guric's resolve fractured. He kept a tight hold on Argalath's robes, but he lowered the man's feet back to the ground. "Explain."

"That thing in your wife, I do not think it will leave as promised. Its hunger is insatiable, and now that it has come into the world, surrounded by so much life, it will not go back willingly. And truth be told, it is beyond my skills to force back. But we can send it elsewhere. Give it a new home. A new body. A body we can control."

Guric looked to the creatures, none of which had moved during this confrontation. "We can control them?"

"A new army, my lord. One that does not know fear or feel pain or cold. One that can endure injuries that would kill the hardiest soldier. We were forced to allow such a being in Soran. But I realized, if this can be done once, why not twice? Or thrice? Or a hundred times? Yet with even one of them at your side, you will not need me to take the cities and forts of Damara. We will need to devise a new ruse, to be sure. So there are my three reasons." Argalath's voice softened. "All true. And all give you your heart's desire."

Guric let it sink it. "Yet every one requires murder."

Argalath sighed and looked away. "So it does, my lord. But if you will look"-he pointed to the first of the creatures on the left-"there is Lakan, one of the Creel responsible for the mishap with Valia's rite. The man you ordered slain, as you'll recall. Next to him is another of the same order. That hulking brute beyond him was found raping the hostler's wife in Kistrad-which was strictly forbidden, and by your orders punishable by death. You see my point. Is it murder if we use those deserving death anyway? This is Narfell, my lord. There will be no shortage of such men."

Had it really come to this? Guric had told himself that the death of the house of Highwatch was only justice for what they had done to Valia-and a small price to pay to get her back. But this…

Still, if it was the only way to get her back…

"Show me," he said.

"My lord?"

"You ask me to put great faith in these things. Show me what they can do for me. Show me now."

Argalath smiled. "As you command."

Guric let him go. Argalath pointed at the creatures and said something in a language Guric did not understand. All but one of the creatures walked out of the bowl, stepping through the body parts and vermin with no reaction. The one who remained had once been a Nar warrior-average height for his people, but this one was unusually muscular. He was dressed only in a ragged loincloth that fell to his knees. The strike that had killed him-a precise thrust of a knife between the ribs and into the heart, had been expertly stitched over.

Argalath turned to his acolytes. "Bring them."

Three of the Nar walked around the edge of the room and disappeared behind the altar. Guric looked to Argalath.

"A storage area below the altar, my lord," said Argalath. "Quite sizeable."

"What are they doing?"

Argalath nodded in the direction of the altar, and Guric looked. The Nar were returning, one leading and two following a procession of five men, all with arms bound and joined by a chain that ran through a collar around their necks. All of them were Nar-Creel as near as Guric could tell-but they were a dejected, disheveled lot.

"Criminals, my lord," said Argalath.

"Nar deal with their own criminals."

"Ah," said Argalath. "These five did not break any laws of their own people. They violated your commands, my lord."

Guric grunted in response. He knew what those were likely to be. He had very few commands enforced on his Nar allies. During the taking of Highwatch, they had killed and pillaged at his command. Everything in the village and every weapon taken in battle was theirs for the taking. He placed only two restrictions upon them. Women and children were to be spared, and raping was strictly forbidden. Breaking either of these commands was a death sentence.

The prisoners were led into the bowl. Their eyes went wide at the sight of the carnage, and their steps faltered, but the Nar pulled them on. At the sight of the creature standing amid the charnel and more of his fellows looking down upon them, two dropped to their knees and screamed for mercy. The others tried to run.

"Be still!" Argalath shouted. He raised one arm, and the sleeve of his robe fell back. The mottled blue patches of skin along his arm and head began to glow. His reputation among the Creel was well known, and the prisoners stopped. "Hear me," Argalath continued. "You men are condemned to death for crimes against Lord Guric. But your lord is not without mercy. Among his people of the west, his gods of justice allow trial by combat. This man"-Argalath pointed to the creature, still standing motionless several feet from the prisoners-"is Lord Guric's champion. Kill him and prove your innocence. Stay alive, and you will leave here free men."

Argalath stepped away and called to one of the Nar. The man untied the prisoners and removed the collars from their necks, then he and the other Nar stepped back. The prisoners still looked scared, but they were warriors. The thought of leaving this place had enlivened them, and the promise of a fight seemed to have given them strength. But as they rubbed blood back into their arms, every one of them kept looking at the torn body parts all around them. Guric knew such a sight would have completely unmanned one of his own knights.

"Argalath?" said Guric. "You said this… experiment was a success."

"Yes, my lord."

"Then whose are the body parts?" He pointed at the carnage in the bowl. "And why are they… in pieces?"

Argalath shrugged. "The end result was a success. But I fear it took… several attempts."

"Criminals all?"

"Of course."

Guric didn't believe it. But he realized that he no longer cared. They were Nar after all, and Creel-the lowest of a low people. If killing a few of them brought Valia back, he would lose no sleep over it.

Two of the acolytes stepped to the edge of the bowl. They had long wedges of sharp steel that Guric supposed were some sort of swords, though they seemed to him more like cleavers. The Nar tossed the blades down to the prisoners. They picked them up, dropped into defensive crouches, and surrounded the creature.

The man directly in front screamed and charged, while the man behind him came in quietly, but just as quick.

The creature didn't move. Didn't even flinch.

The Creel prisoners knew their business. The one charging head-on brought his blade around in an arc and buried it in the flesh between the creature's neck and right shoulder. Guric heard bone snap, but the creature did not fall, barely even stumbled at the blow. The man coming in from behind showed less skill, but put much more strength into his blow, aiming for the creature's back.

The creature moved at last, with a quickness beyond anything human. He turned to the man behind him. The one in front still had hold of his blade and was dragged along, apparently so surprised that he didn't think to let go. The second man's blade fell, but the creature's arm shot up and caught the man's wrists. The creature squeezed, and even over the man's screams Guric heard bones crumbling. The first man still hadn't let go.

The creature brought the second man around, smashing him into his companion. Both went down. The creature stepped over the second man's discarded sword and reached up to grab the handle of the blade still embedded in his shoulder. As the blade came free, the men at his feet screamed and scrambled in different directions.

Swinging the blade sideways, more like a paddle than a blade, the creature swatted the nearest man onto his back. The prisoner raised his arms to ward off the next strike, but the creature threw the blade aside-with such strength that one of the Nar acolytes standing on the rim had to jump out of the way-and leaped on the man. It reminded Guric of the time he'd seen one of the local tundra tigers take down a swiftstag.

Guric looked away, but he could still hear the man screaming as if he were being flayed.

"Forgive me, my lord," said Argalath, "but you should see this."

Guric clamped his jaw shut, took a deep breath through his nose, and looked up. The man was quite dead, his head hanging limply from the remains of his savaged neck. The creature standing over him-still chewing, Guric noticed with a grimace-was black with blood from his face down to his waist. But even as Guric watched, the creature's grievous wound closed. A stunned silence had filled the room so that Guric was able to hear the broken bone snap back into place.

"You see," said Argalath, "the spirits inside are able to keep their bodies alive by feeding on living flesh. They can heal from the most savage wounds-though the greater the wound the more… um…"

"Food?"

"Very good, my lord. The more food required to repair the damage."

The four remaining prisoners-one of them now weaponless-were not fools. They saw the hopelessness of their cause. All it took was one to make the first move-turning and charging the rim in hopes of escape-and his fellows followed. Each chose a different spot to try to escape, but each met with the same fate. One of Argalath's monsters simply grabbed the man and tossed him back into the bowl.

Guric did not need to see the rest. He turned his back on his counselor and walked out.