[65]

“Look out!” Joy shouted as we crested the hill to join her.

Hidden from sight behind the other side of the hilltop was yet another group of zombies. Without thinking, I slammed my poleaxe down one-handed upon the nearest one, bisecting its upper half. Raxx’s follow up wind blades took out another two, but instead of pulling back I leaned into the momentum. My horse and I followed behind the five cavalry men, stomping, and hacking the remaining undead with practiced brutality.

When we originally departed Ashmere, the thought of getting infected by these creatures had terrified me. To avoid the possibility, I had hung back, letting Raxx and Joy do the grunt work from a distance. However, after learning from the troopers that it was only their bites that introduced the blight to your body, I became bolder.

Yesterday I finally picked up the Horse Riding skill. Between the rank 3 Magesilk Attire armor, my newfound ability to guide the horse and a burning hatred for Reynold Kestev, the undead became my replacement target.

Beyond the vanquished zombies was a pack of ghouls. As much as I wanted to crash into the new threat with the troopers, I held back. My horse did not have armor like their warhorses. Instead, I launched a crossbow bolt at a ghoul off to the side, knocking its leg out from under it. By the time it got up, I was almost upon it, and casually decapitated it.

My horse was breathing too heavily to continue, so I jumped off its back and ran into the melee on foot to join Raxx. The Harak spotted me running toward him and slowed his charge into the remaining ghouls long enough to let me catch him. Together we crashed into them, weaving death and slaughter.

A growling sound caught me off guard, right as I speared the third undead from behind. It, along with its pack mates, had been running after the horses that had just destroyed half their number. Throwing the monster to the ground, I caved in its head, then gave a quick look to Raxx, only to realize from his concerned face it was not him that was making animal noises.

It was me.

Embarrassed by my lapse, I turned back to the fight to see Joy had already finished our remaining foes. I did not bother trying to explain myself, mostly because I could not, and went off to help Joy retrieve her arrows.

Almost three days of moving and fighting still had not vanquished my spirit. The pace wore the troopers with us down, but not their war horses. Though admittedly, I think Raxx’s energizing ability had something to do with our desire to push forward.

“Let’s take a break,” Joy said, and we all obeyed.

The hills had become less elevated the further north we traveled, and that made it harder for the ghouls to ambush us from below. I read that the tunnels of the old cities below became deeper the closer you went to the mountains. At the foothills of the Blacknails, that would change. The threat of surprise attacks would endanger us again with interest under the shadows of those profane mountains.

Atop the small hill, the nearest undead were almost like a mirage in the distance. Little shadowy pinpricks moving ever southward, opposite the flow of the river that separated us. That first day we proudly set out for justice, ghouls and zombies had been everywhere we went. All of us had questioned the wisdom of going forward, worrying that the tide would only get worse.

Thank the Gods it had not.

Along with the others, I led my horse to the riverbank, deep in thought.

Things had gotten better for us, but that did not change the fact that everything about this operation had been a disaster. I could not help but keep wondering how it happened. Ashmere was not the noble engine of unity and defense that I had once believed it to be. In opposition to its purpose, the academy was a machine clogged down because of its diverse and fragmented factions. An unseen agent had taken advantage of their unwillingness to offend, using the nucleus that the tower represented to wreck political carnage.

Florence had killed four Jalmese students from wealthy families with no reprisal. Having had time to think it over, I could not help but admire the cunning of her manipulation. To an outside political observer, it looked like they tried to attack the daughter of a duke, then disappeared. Now, I would have bet my horse that the Republic of Jalma was getting pushback from the families of those boys to join with Ankest and the Kestev family. Jalma already hated us; Nicolai’s disappearance would just elevate the emotion into action.

No matter how I looked at it, Florence came out ahead. If Nicolai had succeeded, the head of the RRS would be furious enough to start a war on his own. She ensured that Reynold and Elaine would not get together, ending the chance of brokering a peace through marriage. The meek-looking woman played on Reynold’s pride by setting him at odds with Elaine.

And then she did it again.

The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that she had been the one that told Reynold where I grew up. Evidence pointed toward her, wanting Ergentein at war. Anyone could have found out where I was from with a little spy work. But Florence had already known. Reynold, being the useful idiot that he was, probably lept at the chance to lead a strike force at Weston. Florence probably ensured the army identified him as the culprit nearly as soon as the fires were lit, too.

I had no evidence, but she had been at the core of too many of these disasters for me to not suspect her.

The real question for me was why?

By the time they finally dealt with the undead incursion, Ergentein would likely be under the threat of war from two countries. Bandits roamed our roads in prodigious numbers—that at least, I did not suspect her of having any part of. Ashmere was too afraid to get involved, standing around posturing like a teacher no one listened to.

The only answer I could fathom was that she was a demon cultist.

“What’s eating at you, big guy?” Joy asked.

“I’m not the big guy, he is,” I said pointing at Raxx, who stood a dozen feet away telling a raunchy joke to the soldiers.

“Nah, Raxx is average sized for a Sea Dog,” Joy said, grinning. “You are ridiculous for a human. Just look at those men over there. You tower over them.”

She was right, so I just shrugged.

“So?” Joy insisted.

“I was thinking about Florence,” I said.

“Ew, why?”

I told her what had been on my mind, unloading my suspicions about Florence’s role in Weston and demon worship.

“Most of what you said makes sense,” Joy said after listening to me. “The only problem I have is with your assessment of her as a demon cultist. Cultists are not mindless destroyers, sowing war and discord for nothing but pleasure like Florence seems to do. That’s the sick crap a warlock does.”

Emphasizing her point, Joy waved a hand in the air to the corpse monsters on the horizon.

“I don’t know that she got pleasure out of it,” I retorted. “Everything she does seems to have a good reason behind it. Ruining the marriage between Angelina and Elmont? The waste from that breakup sent the prices of our exported grain sky high for the Republic of Jalma. They were our biggest importer of barley, and they have shifted some of their money to Ankest. Money that we might never win back.”

“How do you know that?”

“In my free time I did a little talking shop with the merchants in town,” I admitted. “Earl Snelling, Angelina’s father, is taxing the living hells out of Earl Whitby for use of his roads to Jalma. Almost like he is taking the dissolution of their marriage personally. I thought nothing of it then, but in hindsight Florence’s motives are clear. And scary. It speaks to a level of planning far outside what a normal student is capable of. Throw in the fact that the Ministerium can’t seem to pin anything on her, and you have a well-equipped, smart agent of ruin.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot,” Joy stated.

“Yes.”

“Well, she is out here, just like the rest of us…” Joy said, giving me a meaningful look.

“Let’s focus on Reynold, for now. She may be the puppet master, but it was his decision to attack my father.” I said.

“You think Izzy is, okay?” Joy asked suddenly, changing the subject.

“I’m sure of it. If anyone could kill that Doom Champion, it would have been that idiot Gene,” I said, laughing at the thought.

Joy laughed with me.

“Besides, I think she knew what we were going to do,” I said.

“Me too,” Joy agreed. “A guard with her level of perception would have spotted me feeding the horse's cyan berries. I think this was her way of getting revenge on Gene for ignoring her command. He’ll have no one to blame but himself.”

“All right, you get some sleep. I think we are going to need you to pull an all-nighter again.” Joy said, slapping me on the back and stalking back to the others.

Nodding in agreement, I found a pleasant spot near the river and laid down. No one could see in the dark as well as I could, and it had become my role to keep watch each night.

I ate a trail ration, then began dozing off. I dreamt of butchery and carnage.