Chapter 66

The Lich in the Broom Cupboard

I sit in the darkness of the small broom cupboard, my needle darting in and out of my velvet. Several weeks have gone by since I stole all the souls from Fairhaven city. Several weeks since I successfully tweaked Lord Liches’ shapely, undead nose.

I grin in satisfaction at the memory, but then my grin fades. I would like to say I returned from the city victorious, but in truth I cannot. It pains me to admit the stalemate. The people of Fairhaven might be mine, but Janvier holds the city. The meat of his conquest has been taken from him, but he is still in possession of the dead king’s crown, his castle, and arguably, the kingdom.

Technically, I suppose, this makes him the King of Einheath. If we are being picky.

My embroidery suffers for several minutes as I stab my velvet with vengeful energy. If Lord Janvier is the King of Einheath then I am Empress of the Seven Sapphire Isles, the Goddess of Downing Forest, Ruler of the Abyssal Lands, and the Crusher of Annoying Lich’s Dreams. Or I soon will be, anyway.

Whatever.

I grind my teeth. Stab, stab, stab. Sewing has always calmed me down and several visceral stitches later I feel better. All is not lost. I will return. Victory will be mine after a little planning. Squadrons of angry witches, mages and enchanted siege weaponry are not instantly available. I will crush Janvier beneath my heel. That much is inevitable. It is just time. Time, and the fact that I am now in possession of several thousand living, breathing humans.

I underestimated the sheer noise.

The sheer neediness of the living, breathing flesh bags.

The constant whininess.

This last is why I am currently seated, cross-legged on top of a barrel inside the broom closet. Not hiding. Definitely not hiding. That would be unseemly. But desperate measures are required if I am to retain a shred of sanity. As a general rule, I am trying not to murder more than absolutely necessary, but by the Whisperer, these last few weeks have tried my patience.

Living people eat a tremendous amount of food. Unhelpfully, it is also the darkest, coldest part of winter. Progress is being made, however. The Knitting Guild has been housed in the newly constructed great hall, next to the enormous fire pit. Most of the humans do not seem that keen to live at Dunbarra Keep, citing noise as the main complaint. Half the Knitting Guild is deaf, however, and the other half have speedily constructed woolly earmuffs. I am currently wearing a pair myself. It keeps the ghostly wailing to a tolerable level even at midnight when a spectral rift opens above the castle leading to the ghostly memory of the Whisperer’s lands. Hearing the death screams of various long dead heroes being torn limb from limb by house sized eldritch monsters is not for everyone.

A large group of refugees have found shelter within the walls of Greater Downing which escaped the bulk of the devastation. When Janvier marched his army past, it seems he focused his efforts on my village before moving on to Fairhaven with some speed. The great icy brute. I presume the destruction of the things I love was a mere side excursion.

The castle at Greater Downing has been commandeered for accommodation. The Baroness never returned from Fairhaven. I suspect she perished there, either during the fighting, or in the deathly cold afterwards. Or perhaps she realised that if she returned, I would plait her entrails into party chains and hang them from the roof beams in pretty patterns. Hmm. Her fate does not matter.

In her place, I have installed a ruling council of witches. Ha. We will see how long that lasts. The puppet baron was falling apart anyway. It was time for a change. You can only replace the stitching on rotting flesh so many times before it disintegrates. There might be a metaphor there somewhere. That does not matter, either.

The rest of the refugees are hard at work building temporary shelter for themselves, aided by my wights and draugr. New settlements have sprung up like wild mushrooms and a new, fortified village has risen from the corpse of Little Downing. Once more, the village of my youth rings with the voices and labours of the living. I don’t hate that. Not as long as they keep away from the ruins of my cottage.

I have not had the heart to rebuild it yet, choosing instead to concentrate on the tasks at hand. The garden I have tended, but that is all. I’m not sure what I will do long term. My current accommodation is a tower-top room in my wraith castle. But it is too easy for people to find me there.

The thought of just running away and living in a tree occurs frequently but I probably won’t. My crafting collection would be unwieldy to manage on the run. And Jenkins does like to be comfortable, as is traditional of felines, dead or otherwise.

I sigh into my velvet.

Being a ruler is so complicated. All I want to do is to beat Janvier into the ground with the hilt of his own sword, and maybe stomp on his face a bit as he dies. Is that too much to ask? His continued existence is a thorn in my soul. The feeling does seem to be mutual.

I have received several missives from King Janvier already. Just yesterday he sent one saying-

“Lady Maud!”

The door to the broom closet slams open, smashing into the barrel.

I jump and stab my finger with my needle. I don’t draw blood of course, but it does nothing to improve my mood.

“What!” I shout, then remember I am still wearing my earmuffs. I remove them. “What is it?”

A young woman’s head pokes round the door. Sara. Murdered by King Janvier out of pure spite during the Fairhaven incident. Fortunately, I was able to save her body, and her soul. Death has not slowed her down. She has a new corset on. This one is as garish as the last and clashes horribly with her hair that is a vivid red, even in death.

“Apologies, Lady Maud,” she says. “Oh, it’s very dark in here.”

“What do you want?”

“There’s a problem, Lady Maud, down in the courtyard.”

“Can’t Roland sort it out?” I ask peevishly.

I sound like a spoilt child. I can hear it, but I can’t help myself. I just wanted to finish the pattern on this skirt. It has holly leaves and tiny skulls picked out in green and white silk and I only have a few inches left to go.

“Roland sent me to fetch you,” Sara says brightly. Of course, he did.

Grumbling, I set my sewing aside and extract myself from the closet with as much dignity as I can muster. Sara waits for me hopping up and down on her toes. It is hard to tell if she is genuinely worried or just… teenager. Ug. Now she is a draugr she will be a teenager forever. “Come on,” I mumble in bad temper.

I follow the dead girl through the maze of the castle to the courtyard below. Much of my planned improvements are still just scaffolding and dreams, but it is amazing what you can build with an undead workforce that does not need to rest or eat. Funnily enough, there were quite a few architects and builders amongst the refugees I rescued from Fairhaven. Quite the coincidence, that.

The wraith that haunts the castle’s ancient stones is not particularly angry today, although that will change at four o’clock when an ancient queen is due to be pushed out of a tower window along with most of her ladies in waiting. Another reason to get this meeting over with as quickly as possible.

Quite a crowd is assembled in the courtyard. Most of them refugees from Fairhaven that I only know by sight. The drama seems to be centred around a woman who is slumped across a wagon. Both she and the wagon have seen better days. She seems to have driven it into the yard and then collapsed. Witches and healers cluck and fuss over her. Some of them are rushing about with poultices and cups of tea. Others are yelling to each other about blankets and warmth.

“Mistress,” says Roland, looking up in relief at my approach.

The little draugr looks particularly harried, but then his natural state is one of perpetual anxiety. I will say that he has taken the influx of a city’s worth of people remarkably well. Arguably better than I. Something pale and blue-tinted is floating above him. The ghost of an old woman, with translucent sea shells hanging from her neck. Old Jennet. Whatever is going on she seems to be enjoying it.

“Yes?” I ask, as politely as possible. “What is it?”

“There is something amiss in the eastern forest,” says Roland.

“Something amiss? Spit it out boy!” shouts Old Jennet, making everyone jump. Her ghost is apparently as hard of hearing as the old baggage was in real life.

“What’s happening in the forest?” I ask, trying not to grind my teeth.

“Probably easiest if Rachel explains,” Roland says. He gestures to the beaten up woman on the wagon.

Rachel is wrapped in a blanket and her eyes are staring into the distance. Some of her hair seems to have burnt off and the wooden seat she sits on is stained crimson. At her side rest’s a fire mage’s staff, a twist of walnut topped with an amber focus. There is something familiar about her. Oh yes. She is a fire mage with the Adventurer’s Guild. I remember seeing her the first time I went there.

Whatever happened to her I am surprised she made it back to the castle at all.

“Rachel?” says one of the witches, gently, and her eyes snap to alertness. She makes a small whimper of terror as her eyes land on me.

“What happened?” I ask, doing my best to look as harmless as possible.

It is quite the effort. I’m not yet used to having a fully fleshed out body and all that skin and flesh does things to your face. When I am just bones, I don’t have to worry about the behaviour of my lips, or what people think of them. Then there is the incandescent blue fire of my eyes but I refuse to cover those in my own castle.

“They came out of the forest,” she says.

“Who did?”

“Dead people,” she says. “Dead. But not… not like them…” She waves a vague bandaged hand towards Sara and Roland. Her fingers are badly burnt.

“What were they like?” I ask, intrigued. All of the refugees have spent plenty of time around both wights and draugr, and some of them encountered them in combat during the fight for lost Fairhaven

Rachel shudders.

The battered fire mage shuts her eyes, leaning back against the wood of the wagon, her breath shallowing. For a moment I think she is lost in painful memories, but then her eyes snap open and they are as hard as agates.

“Feral,” she says. “Mad. Dead like… like rabid beasts. They ripped-” her voice catches, but she swallows and continues. “They ripped people apart. Like straw dolls. But-but it wasn’t stuffing that came out. They bit people. They bit people. Crazed. We didn’t stand a chance. Everyone is gone. All of them. Theo, August. Everyone.”

Rachel starts to sob, and one of the witches puts her arm around her shaking shoulders. She glares up at me. Everyone glares at me. Do they think it is my fault? Oh. They expect me to fix this.

“She is the only survivor,” whispers Jennet, floating uneasily overhead. Her whisper is so loud it can be heard on the other side of the courtyard.

“I have never heard of such a thing,” I say. I look at Roland who shakes his head.

“They will come here next,” says Rachel. “And then you will all die too.”

The witches and healers shuffle their feet uneasily.

“The walls are very high,” says Roland. “You are all safe here.”

“It won’t matter.” Rachel pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “All it takes is one touch. One wound.”

“What?”

She looks at me, her soot-stained face as bleak as the midwinter dales.

“They are infectious.”

“Infectious?” I repeat, in confusion.

Rachel doesn’t seem to hear me. Her eyes roll back in her head and she starts to spasm. Her limbs shaking like a sapling in high winds.

“Get some wood,” shouts one of the healers. “She’s having a fit!”

Rachel snaps forward, suddenly bolt upright.

She opens her eyes and the pupils are dripping with molten flames. They sizzle as they hit her cheeks and the courtyard fills with the unpleasant smell of burning flesh, and hair. She speaks, and her voice is as deep, and resonant as a tolling bell.

“The undead plague will spread unless it is stopped. It will spread until nothing is left. The world will be consumed. Rivers will be clogged with the damned and the dying, and the earth sewn with salt and blood. Pestilence has come upon you! The shadows of oblivion are upon you.”

“This might be that new present that Janvier mentioned,” I murmur. “In his last letter.”

“What?”

The humans are clearly alarmed.

I can see what Janvier is trying to do. He wants to distract me from my goal of dethroning him while he sits comfortably with his fancy rear on his throne of ice. Well, it’s not going to work. Not for long anyway.

Rachel is smouldering gently. Sparks crackle as she moves. She opens her mouth again, to speak, but webs of darkness are veining their way across her skin. The Whisperer does not take incursions into his territory lightly, not by other gods anyway. And I suspect this poor woman has the misfortune to be momentarily possessed by the Bright One. He never struck me as the smartest of gods.

Rachel lets out a shuddering breath and she collapses into a heap. The witches rush to her side, patting at the sparks.

“A vision!” one of them mutters in awed tones.

“Is she alright?” I ask.

The darkness fades from her skin, and she opens her eyes once more. This time they are human: bloodshot and shining with tears.

“What did I say?” she asks with a cough.

I pat her shoulder reassuringly.

“That I should take this seriously. I will. You get some rest. I will avenge your friends.”

The human’s relief is palpable. The crowd of witches ripple with curtsies.

“Thank you, Lady Maud,” says Roland.

Grumbling under my breath, I turn to fetch my axe.