Chapter 15 - As the Crow Flies

Commander Peshka stared at the red, blotchy-faced reflection looking back at him. His comb over of greasy, balding orange hair was looking thinner and less convincing by the day. The uneven tips of his frazzled mustache drooped down under bleary, bloodshot eyes with puffy the color of a bruised plum.

He’d been up all night. As a commander, you never really sleep. It was something he had gotten accustomed to in his years at command, although it still took its toll. Constantly disturbed by the needs of the men, a fight in the barracks, a decision needing to be made about spoiled food, and always at the most obscure hours.

Peshka glared at his reflection like it was a stranger that had slighted him. Long gone was that young military officer that he used to see in the mirror. Brave, clever, bold, perhaps a bit reckless, but he’d had a bright future ahead of him at one point. And now this man, this stranger in the mirror, had robbed him of all that. Now he was just the commander of nothing, in the middle of nowhere. Then he lifted the bottle of wine up to his mouth and took a long drink, drinking from it like water. He wondered if he could ever get drunk enough to bury his contempt for himself, wondered if he could really even get drunk anymore.

“Well, this is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” Peshka said to his reflection. “A half-demolished fort left to defend from an army of gnolls and a damn, bloody giant, with barely any men left to do it. And now, an agent of the Holy Inquisition locked up in my wine cellar, and the only person I can get to help salvage this clustershit of a situation is a bloody necromancer!” Peshka slammed his fist down on his desk.

“Have I even made the right bloody choice?” He sighed. “Not like there were any other options.”

He looked at the bottle in his hand, a nice, full-bodied, Baskavian red, year 1326. “Good year. Right after I became a Major. Not too many of those left.” This bottle was already half gone, and he knew the other three he’d taken from the cellar wouldn’t be as nice as this. Peshka wished he’d taken a closer look, made sure there weren’t any other bottles hiding, but everything had happened so damn fast. He knew they should have done a better job checking the Inquisitor too, but at least they had gotten his sword. He could be as angry as a nest of hornets, but couldn’t do much to anyone locked in there without his sword. Except maybe help himself to some of Peshka’s wine.

Peshka took another swig of wine, then looked back at himself in the mirror. He decided there was a good chance freeing that necromancer may be his last real decision as commander, maybe even his last day in command. The walls of the fort will take weeks to repair, maybe months. Whatever happens next will be the kind of last stand battle that gets written about in military strategy manuals, the kind he’d had to study in Austerland’s officer’s academy. Maybe he’d even end up on one of those pages, forcing entire classrooms full of fresh cadets to have to study his strategic decisions that led to the saving of this fort against all odds, even though they were greatly outnumbered by an overwhelming force of savage gnolls. They could just gloss over all the parts about necromancy…

Peshka sighed, he knew the truth of it, he wouldn’t be on any pages of any books. No one really gave a shit about him or any of his men out here in the Farlands, in the bloody middle of nowhere. They would die and be left for dust. If the Duke ever did send reinforcements, they’d get here and find a tomb, or even more likely, a bloody white gnoll with his own fortress.

“That bloody necromancer better be keeping up his end of the bargain. Hope he realizes his skin is in this too.” He wasn’t sure what the necromancer was capable of but knew it would just delay the inevitable.

Peshka took another swig from the bottle of wine, then tried to think of what he’d tell the men once they realized there were shambling corpses of their recently deceased comrades walking around all over the camp. But nothing came to him except for a sharp pang in his stomach as it growled, threatening another painful bout of indigestion. “Come on… not now.” He pleaded, then groaned and clutched at his stomach.

He had released most of the men to get some rest, only leaving behind a few for guard duty, even though he knew the gnolls could come back and attack at any time. Peshka told First Sergeant Goren to handle talking to the few men on guard duty before they saw the undead and sounded the alarm, but Peshka still had to come up with something to say to the men when the rest of them woke up in the morning. He hoped they’d understand, although there were hardly many left to disagree with him now, anyway.

Peshka had faced death before. Plenty of times had he seen its face throughout his military career, but never had it seemed closer than it did now. It didn’t matter how many of the gnolls they had managed to kill, their numbers seemed to be endless, while the number of soldiers he had left dwindled away like sands in an hourglass. With the fort’s defenses destroyed, he wasn’t sure they’d survive another direct assault from the gnolls in number, especially if they came back with that damn giant.

That white gnoll, Ghostface, had proven to be a smart tactician and a much cleverer opponent than Peshka had faced on the battlefield before. He knew Ghostface wouldn’t squander this opportunity with the gate destroyed. He’d wait until nightfall, perhaps not even that long, then press the offensive. “That’s what I’d do.” Peshka sighed. “Well, if this is likely to be my last day in command, may as well stand on decorum and look the part.” Peshka opened the doors to the wooden armoire next to his desk, pushing through his clothes until he found his dress uniform.

The dark navy blue uniform that had been re-tailored quite a few times throughout his career, but still managed to fit tightly. After putting on the overcoat, he smoothed out the roping hanging from his golden epaulets on his shoulder, then absently brushed his fingers over each medal and ribbon pinned over his breast, remembering the battle for each one that was awarded. He put on his silk sash of command over his prodigious belly. It was a bright sky blue piece of cloth that was embroidered with his name and the date he took command of this miserable dump. Even still, he beamed with pride once he put it on. Lastly, Peshka grabbed his bastard sword hanging from the wall, coughing as a cloud of dust came down with it. He strapped it to his belt, then stood back to admire himself in his uniform. “A bit tight in some spots, but still rather dashing I must say… even if this old battleship has a few more scars to show from the years at sea.” Peshka tried to smooth out his uneven mustache, but the side frazzled even more from his fidgeting refused to cooperate. He sighed and took another swig from the bottle of wine, but right before the bottle was about to be pressed to his lips, a sharp rap on the door made Peshka jump, spilling the wine on his silk sash.

“Gods dammit!” Peshka set the bottle down on his desk, looking at the spreading purple stain on the blue silk. As he searched frantically for something to wipe the stain, Peshka turned, and the hilt of his sword hit the mostly empty bottle of Baskavian red. It shattered as it fell onto the floor.

“Dammit Goren! Do you always have to knock like a damn battering ram?!” Peshka growled. “Come in. It’s unlocked.”

First Sergeant Goren came into the room and closed the door, then he stood there alternating looking at Peshka in his dress uniform and the wine-covered shards of green glass on the floor.

“Well?! What bloody is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?” Peshka bent over, using a dirty shirt to pick up the shards of broken glass.

“Just finished my rounds, then checked back on the necromancer… He’s done it. The undead are by the smashed up gate. You’re going to need to say something to the men before we have a mutiny on our hands. Have you thought about what you’re going to tell them?”

“I’m working on it, dammit.” Peshka snapped, then clutched at his stomach, his indigestion flaring up again.

“I released most of the men to get a bit of rest, but the sun is coming up now. They’ll be up again before long.”

Peshka’s stomach growled again and he let out a rumbling, acidic burp. Peshka put his hand up to his mouth as several more aggressive burps followed after it, doubling him over. Goren took a step forward to help him, but Peshka held out a hand as he righted himself.

“I’ll work on what to say to the men.” Peshka stifled another burp. “In the meantime, go have the cooks whip up something special for breakfast this morning. Take some of that salted bacon from the reserves. Double portions. Seeing as how we won’t have to be as strict with rationing now…”

“Yes sir.” First Sergeant Goren turned to leave.

“And Goren…”

“Sir?”

“Keep an eye on that bloody necromancer… and the Inquisitor. Both of them, dammit. I’m not sure who I trust less.”

******

It was morning now and a crowd of crows had gathered to loudly protest Malfus’s grisly performance. They didn’t come near, perching on the wall and rooftops cawing angrily instead, having felt cheated that their easy meals were now mobile. Only a brave few came close enough to perch on the pile of gnoll corpses pecking around for some free morsels.

Malfus said the last few words of power from the spell, feeling them drip from his lips as thick as lantern oil. The arcane words left a rotten taste in his mouth, like spoiled milk, but at least they no longer made him retch anymore, he had gotten used to it.

The next cadaver rose from underneath the bloodied white sheet. This soldier had a big, cleaving wound on the top of its skull large enough for Malfus to stick his hand inside, but that didn’t seem to bother the zombie at all as it started to shuffle off toward the gate to join the others.

“Wait.” Malfus commanded.

The zombie stopped. Malfus walked over to it and reached into his belt pouch, pulling out the empty glass vial and scalpel. Malfus made a small cut on its wrist and then held the vial up to it, waiting patiently for it to slowly fill with blood.

“That should do.” Malfus said, waving his hand dismissively. The zombie continued walking toward the gate, where the others were still working. Its muscles moving in jerking, erratic strides to a strangely timed gait. Like the awkward son of a rich cloth merchant heading to the ball for the first time. Oh, how we’ve all been there…

Malfus wasn’t sure why only zombies seem to be afflicted with this problem. Even without any broken limbs, they were all subjected to these jerky, erratic movements. The less rotting muscle they had left, the less of a problem it was, while completely skeletal remains are much more coordinated, agile even, without the husk of rotting meat to slow it down. Although skeletons were also significantly more fragile, one good blow from a mace could ruin hours of work and preparation.

It didn’t seem to make them any less strong though, quite the opposite. In fact, undead seemed to be able to use more of the strength in their muscles that the brain’s of the living inhibits. The rigor mortis of their muscles, perhaps? An experiment to study another time. Malfus turned to the next body. He was nearly done with the dead soldiers, halfway through the last row of them now.

Malfus looked at the score of undead he’d already raised. They’d nearly finished building a barricade of the rocks and rubble left over from the wreckage. It’s amazing what the combined force of a score of bodies can do when they are all working in unison, instead of independently. Just like ants. Big undead ants. Malfus smiled, feeling a swell of pride at the small family he created. Let’s see that big metal ox come back and say something now.

He’d never raised this many dead at once before. Malfus smiled, feeling his expanding ego pressing against the confines of his skull, looking for room to get out and stretch. He closed his eyes, taking a moment to embrace this newfound power. His connection to the plane of death had never felt this strong before. In the past, he could feel the strain of each corpse he animated taxing the strength of his connection, now he hardly noticed each time he added another. He could feel these connections radiate outward to each zombie at the gates, each one a tiny pinprick of conscious awareness. He felt like a spider in the middle of a giant web, feeling the minute vibrations of wind in the strands. It felt like a tiny piece of him was in several places at once, stretched out and… vast. Like an ocean of awareness.

He couldn’t see what the undead were seeing, unless he closed his eyes and took a moment to focus on one of the individual threads, but he could feel tiny bits of information constantly flooding into the back of his mind. His subconscious worked overtime, sorting them out to present only the relevant pieces.

Malfus pressed his free hand to his temple and rubbed it. This hyper-awareness and stronger connection to the plane of death was a bit overwhelming. He was sure that the rod was responsible for it, a granted boon for helping it to feed. The star ruby had stopped flickering and now glowed a steady crimson, radiating not only red light, but a powerful magic aura as well. Several times, Malfus had caught himself hypnotically staring into the gem. It was only the size of Malfus’s fist, but it seemed to have a depth inside it that was much greater than its apparent size. He almost felt as if he could just reach out and climb inside, climb into a vast red sea. He felt a strange bond with it now, a thread gnawing at the back of his mind, connecting him to it and it to him. A connection very different from the one he shared with the undead. He could feel something else emanating from it as well, a sense of both resting and awaking at the same time, like an egg or cocoon.

It seemed to be content and satiated now, but it certainly didn’t mind when Malfus drained the blood from another corpse to replenish his focus. Every time his fatigue started to catch up to him, or he felt his concentration starting to ebb from the constant casting, he’d just drain another corpse. Perhaps every fifth corpse he’d raised, he would do it again, but he lost count at this point. He was getting more used to that feeling now, it wasn’t quite as overwhelming as it was the first time anymore, but it still invigorated him anew each time. Even now, he could feel his heart pounding harder, stronger, faster. Time to move to the next one. Perhaps I’ll reward us both with a little more blood again after this.

Malfus closed his eyes, concentrating for a few seconds. Once he was ready, he reached out to his connection to the plane of death, pulling a strand away from it, then focused his will on the corpse. Like trying to thread a needle in the dark using only your mind.

“Caw! Caw! Caw!” Malfus’s eyes snapped open, and he lost his mental grip on the thread. He glared at the crow perched on the top of the gnoll corpses for its interruption. Malfus reached down, grabbing a stone by his feet, then threw it at the offending crow. The rock missed the crow by a good distance, but Malfus still managed to at least hit near the bottom of the gnoll pile. It became immediately clear then that draining blood only improved his will and mental acuity, he was still cursed with the same sub-standard eye-hand-coordination he’d had since he was a child. The crows got the message though. Black wings fluttered in unison as they took off in flight.

“Caw! Caw! Caw!”

Except for one. The same black bastard was still perched on top of the bodies. It glared at him with piercing black beady eyes. Malfus sneered back at it, then turned around to look for another rock.

“Caw! Caw! Kay! Caw! Lee!”

“What did you say?” Malfus whipped back around. The crow cocked its head, continuing to perch there, unflinching, his eyes piercing into Malfus’s soul. “How could you know that name?” Am I just imagining things? Am I talking to a crow right now?

Malfus shook his head, clearing it from his mind. Just tired. Letting a bird get in my head when I still have so much to do. Malfus closed his eyes, trying to focus once more.

“KAWWAYLEEE!!”

Malfus’s eyes snapped back open, his arm lashing out instinctively at the distant crow. The crow cawed in surprise and then gurgled. Malfus looked up to see the gnoll’s arm on top of the pile grasping the squawking and surprised crow, its claw piercing its breast.

“Gently now. Gently.” Malfus said. I’ll have a use for you yet, you diseased, feathered rodent.

The gnoll’s arm dropped back down, limp and dead, still clutching the crow which was no longer moving. No longer accusing me. No longer saying HER name. It wasn’t my fault.

He’d never done that before, never spontaneously animated a corpse like that. No preparation, no arcane words, just through sheer force of will alone… even if it was for only an instant. Malfus had only read about that kind of power before, from ancient necromancers of old.

The clawed hand on top of the pile of gnolls held onto the feathered body like a treasure. Malfus gripped the rod tightly in one hand, then carefully climbed the slippery, shifting, unstable pile of bodies. After some effort and a somewhat embarrassing display of dexterity, Malfus made it to the top of the pile, managing to uneasily maintain his balance.

He plucked the crow from the gnoll’s grasp, then looked down at the bundle of shiny, black feathers. Malfus concentrated, grasping a thread from the back of his mind, focusing it into the pile of feathers, still warm in his hands with fading life. He uttered the necessary arcane words to complete the ritual of undeath, then tied the thread back to his connection to the plane of death, anchoring it there. A few long seconds passed before anything happened, then he felt the first weak flutter as its wing stretched out, then the other, growing unalive in his very palms. Its glossy beak snapped open and closed, but no sound came from it. It fought and thrashed for a few seconds, then it grew very still and looked at Malfus with those same piercing eyes from before… waiting. Malfus threw it up in the air, visualizing for it to fly around the camp. It launched high into the air from Malfus’s throw, quite impressive compared to his previous attempt with the rock from earlier. It went higher and higher into the air, but then reached its apex and began sailing back down to the earth, quite like his rock from earlier.

Right before it hit, there was a flutter of black feathers. It flapped its wings furiously and took off into the air. It flapped a bit clumsily and uneven at first, fighting against gravity with every beat of its wings, but then it found its rhythm and took to the air like it was relearning to fly all over again.

Malfus visualized the sky above the fort and then the crow flapped its wings harder in response, taking off upward, until it was flying high above the fort. Malfus could feel the thread connecting to it stretching out, like he was letting out string on a kite, but kept control so it didn’t fly too far off, then disconnect and disappear.

Malfus stretched his conscious awareness through the thread and into the crow. He had never attempted this on something so far away, or ever on an animal before, much less a flying one, but in theory there was no real difference between doing this on an undead crow as there was on an undead human.

Malfus felt his consciousness slip from his body, then was jarringly disoriented from suddenly being up so high and moving so fast, but it passed after a few more beats of the crow’s wings. The fort looked so distant and insignificant from up here. He could see the broken walls and tiny toy soldiers manning them. Is this what we all look like to birds? Like little insects? Their entire struggle against the gnolls seemed so much more trivial from way up here. The crumbled wreckage of the tower where he was being kept prisoner was just a tiny pile of stone far below him. Even the giant’s broken corpse strewn on the bottom of the cliffs looked as small as a normal man from up here. Malfus beckoned the crow in closer to the camp while maintaining the remote viewing.

Below, on the opposite side of the courtyard, Malfus could see a gathering of soldiers standing in formation. As the crow soared overhead, Malfus saw Commander Peshka standing in front of them. The crow continued flying over the camp, back toward Malfus.

As the crow got closer to Malfus, he saw Morten standing up and stretching his arms, then start walking towards him. Malfus released his consciousness from the crow and sent it to continue circling above the camp, keeping an eye out for signs of any gnolls, or from the Inquisitor…

Malfus turned to Morten just as he was walking up, still stretching his arms and yawning.

“I-is that them?” Morten asked, looking uneasily at the corpses moving by the crumbled gates, busy at work and completely oblivious to both of them. “How do you know they won’t hurt us?”

“Don’t worry. I’m in control.” Malfus said, doing his best to sound ominous and foreboding.

Morten recoiled from him. “Your eyes, they’re…”

“What?” Malfus asked.

“The white parts are all red now. And your veins on your face…”

Malfus pulled up his sleeve and looked down at his forearms. All his veins looked swollen, bluish-red underneath his pale skin, and visibly pulsing.

“Side effect of mass production, I guess.” And a more than acceptable one. Even his voice sounded slightly different. Not quite his own, like a quiet whisper was speaking at the same time as him as well. Malfus cleared his throat and ignored it.

“What’s going on over there?” Malfus pointed at the other side of the camp where the soldiers had been forming up.

“Looks like something big for morning formation.” Morten said. “Guess I’d better go too.”

*******

The Inquisitor groaned and clutched at his aching head. It throbbed back painfully in response. He ignored the pain, gritting his teeth as he pushed himself upright.

The room was dark and damp, smelling like a cross between vinegary sour wine, moldy books, and more distantly of onions. Inquisitor Deza reached up to his neck. It wasn’t there. The cord tied around his neck was gone.

He reached out blindly into the darkness with his hand, frantically searching the stone floor around him. “Where is it?” He hissed.

His hand made contact with something, there was a grating sound as metal slid across stone. The Inquisitor let out a sigh of relief as he felt the familiar object in his gloved hand. Four links of brass chain that were fused together to form a diamond, the all-seeing eye of Vesenia. The edges had been ground down and sharpened, with small barbs at the ends, a reminder of the pain and difficulty of remaining true to the path of the righteous. He took his glove off, feeling the sharp edges of the fused chain links. He closed his hand around it, tightening his grip until he felt the burrs digging into his palm. He gripped the symbol tighter until he felt the pain fade into a burning warmth and blood trickle from his clenched fist.

He closed his eyes, clasped his hands, praying to the blind mother for her guiding light. “Dolor aldus lux-caecorum.”

The brass amulet glowed with a golden light, growing warm to the touch until a soft amber light gradually filled the room, illuminating the darkness. Inquisitor Deza searched around him frantically, but didn’t see it anywhere.

“Where is it? What have those blind fools done?”

The Inquisitor absently reached down to his belt for his sword and saw it was gone too. “Those bastards...” He would make them all pay for aiding a heretic. The Commander, the First Sergeant, the entire camp would be sent off to some Inquisitorial penal colony once he made it back to Castillea, but he would need to get out of here first.

Inquisitor Deza reached down and picked his crumpled hat up from the floor and placed it back on his head, then looked around the room. The room was small, the only entrance or exit was the stairs leading up to the thick wooden door at the top. Being able to get enough strength behind a kick or charge to break the door down would be next to impossible while running up the stairs. The room was filled with wine barrels and debris, none of which looked immediately useful.

The Inquisitor reached down to a pouch on his belt, relieved to see that it was still there at least. He reached inside, his fingers searching through the contents. He smiled as his fingers clasped around a small glass vial.