Suggested Listening

Elruin stifled a yawn despite her excitement; she had spent half the night working with Lemia, and only had a few hours of sleep. "These are yours!" She held out the pair of ebon-black gloves, oblivious to the wisps of black mist trying to burn away her life energies.

"Fingerless gloves?" Calenda lifted the gloves with her fingertips; despite being dead for the last couple weeks, she still had not overcome her aversion to obvious necromantic energy like that which bled off of these. The black smoke worked its way across her arms like ephemeral leeches, but instead of stripping her of strength, they melted into her skin and began a slow restoration of her power. "These seem... a lot stronger than I was expecting."

"Thank you!" Elruin said with her best smile. "I worked my very hardest on them!"

"We may have cheated a little," Lemia said. "Or a lot, depending on who you ask. Normal magic equipment has more failsafes to protect from magic than actual magic. Nobody wants a flaming sword that melts the hand of the guy holding it, or a charm that boosts the strength of your enemies as well as yourself, or bleeds magic into the environment because it lacks a reservoir. We included none of those failsafes. You've got an artifact which only exists to slowly generate necromantic energy, with no attempt to control or contain the power. Your body does that for us."

"Breaking all the rules." Cali slide her fingers into her new gloves, and it felt incredible. Black lightning jumped from her fingertips down her wrist as she balled her hand into a fist. It would take some time to replenish her magic reserves, but her reserves would be replenished. "This can't be legal."

"You have no idea," Lemia muttered. "If Professor Abrax heard I made a device like that one, she'd petition to delay my execution long enough to retroactively fail me out of every class I've ever taken, then have me pressed with my own books and research papers."

"You like them, right?" Elruin stepped between the adults and their conversation.

Cali reached out, and rubbed Elruin's head. Now that the excess magic had been absorbed into her, the gloves took on the dark brown coloration of worked leather hide. "Almost as good as a constant hug from my favorite little sister."

"You're welcome." Elruin gave Cali a hug anyway, to make everything that much better.

"I better get back in the gates," Lemia said. "You'll have to get 'Mister' Clackybones' saddle on, yourselves. I sized it, but I can't touch that leather now that it's been enchanted. We should be out in half an hour."

Cali laughed. "So, see you in an hour?"

They parted ways, leaving Lemia to the impossible task of herding civilians while Cali and Elruin went through the equally impossible task of weaving leather straps through a skeleton in order to keep a saddle in position on an animal lacking skin and flesh. Only after the saddle was attached did its effect become known, as black ink spread outward around the horse, cloaking the creature in darkness.

Calenda gave the effect a critical eye. "Hmm, this almost works. Maybe with some effort and more leather, we could disguise it entirely." Where the canopy did best at blocking the sun, the effect was a beast shrouded such that it was impossible to identify as a horse at all, let alone one lacking flesh and blood. Where the sun broke through, darkness failed, leaving yellowed bone clear to the human eye.

Elruin hummed a couple quick notes, which prompted the skeletal steed to its knees, and thus Elruin took her place on the saddle. "Good girl." The necromancer stroked the bones of its neck, as if imagining the horse had a mane.

"Honestly, I never had much use for horses," Cali said as she took her place behind Elruin on the saddle. "They never had much use for me, either. Who knew that dying would broaden my outlook on life so much?"

"Beats the alternative." Scratch walked out of the ground diagonally, as if ascending from a basement. "But I'd wait another century or two before I started singing its praises."

"I thought the plan was for you to go with Lemia's group."

"And I changed that plan," Scratch said. "Couple of those captives kept looking in my direction even when they shouldn't be able to see me. I doubt it's anything, but you don't get to retirement age by being by being foolhardy. 'Sides, how could I miss on the joy of watching our young mistress take her first steps into becoming a general, complete with an army at her back? Speaking of, you're about to miss the procession."

Clackybones rose to its feet, then trotted near the edge of the forest, where the gates were opened and the procession of seven carts left the safety of the walls for their trip to Sonhome.

Nearby, the morks left the edge of the wilderness and watched the wagons. Shouting and pointing at the giant beasts came from the caravan, only to quiet when each and every mork knelt on their forelimbs and tilted their heads down as if to bow as the procession went by.

Scratch rubbed his nonexistent hands together. "That'll get 'em talking 'til the day they die and maybe beyond. Gotta say, that 'dominator' lie was absolutely devious, it almost makes this 'saving people' nonsense worth the headache."

As soon as the wagons disappeared into the forest, the morks rushed the abandoned fortress, intent on claiming their prize of not-quite-fresh human meat, and whatever else they might scavenge.

"Now for the second dumbest part of the plan," Scratch said. He jumped off his perch on Clackybones' shoulder, then floated through the greatly diminished shielding.

Elruin sang in earnest, and her army began to move. Seven armored soldiers, stronger than they had been in life and incapable of defying their orders, began to march on the fort's opened gates. They stopped at the entrance, an honor guard for Elruin and Calenda. Four of the skeletons walked off in sets of two, heading for the last remaining sarite crystals on the walls. Meanwhile the largest of the morks, a grizzled and scarred veteran, stood face to face with the procession.

"Our deal is satisfactory?" He spoke without the echo-trickery his kind so preferred.

"More than," Cali said. "We will return as we can, but expect this place to attract monsters within hours of our leaving. It will all but certainly attract scouts from the human lands, who may or may not work for a man named Lord Enge, within the week. Make contact, learn what they seek, feel free to lie to them and take whatever bribes they offer. We'll make contact later as we are able, with a plan and greater bribe than theirs."

"It has been... profitable... working with you." The grizzled mork turned and returned to the rest of his pack, and their feasting upon the piles of dead.

The zombies returned carrying the four remaining shielding sarite crystals that hid the fortress and its human magical essence from the world. Soon the fortress would be overrun by the denizens of the forest, investigating the magical essence that attracted the real threats to human settlements. Such a small location wouldn't draw in the true monsters like dragons, but even a pair of chimera would be a threat too great for Claron and his people to ignore.

Knowing what Scratch had informed them of, that the essence of the dead had a habit of 'sticking' to the living, Cali considered the possibility that the monsters sought fragments of human souls to augment their own strength. There weren't many creatures with natural intelligence in the world, and all of them attracted ceaseless hordes of monster assaults. Humans, silmid, and some reptilians used sarite shielding to hide, while goblins used their toxins and prodigious reproductive speed to drive off attackers, but all natural sapient life were at constant war with nature.

She tensed her fist again, as if to test Scratch's theories. It was true, she felt notably stronger after the battles they'd fought, and she was becoming convinced that it was more than just Elruin's magic that caused it. Elruin was also stronger, and Lemia had progressed from a fragile waif to someone who could be a good soldier with some training.

"What are you thinking about?" Elruin asked.

"What Scratch said earlier, about us getting stronger thanks to all the things we've had to kill," Cali said. "I didn't want to admit it at first, but I think it's true."

Elruin thought for a moment, but couldn't decide why it was so important to Cali. "Why are you sad?"

Cali looked back at the fortress, and the small army of soldiers which followed in the wispy smoke of Clackybones' wake. "I always knew the world was violent and unforgiving, but I accepted that as the nature of life. Now, I learn that it's more than that, that nature is no different than man, slaughtering one another for power. We live in a world ruled by death."

Scratch began to cackle with a cruel, bitter laughter.

"Is something I said funny to you, ghost?" She hadn't expected Scratch to care about her existential crisis, but he could have kept quiet. "I'm having a moment with Elruin, thank you."

"Nothing funny about it at all," Scratch said. "In fact, I'd say it's the least amusing joke ever spoken by human lips, and that's saying a lot. Some day, I may even let you in on it."

Suggested Listening

The days of travel had been long, frustratingly so for the dead army which was forced to stay apart from the humans they protected. It seemed like half the day, every day, was wasted on the biological annoyances of humanity which were little or no trouble for the army of corpses. Elruin, yes, still needed rest and food, but she could sleep in the saddle while Cali carried her, if needed. Still, they kept their distance, made a week of a journey that needed take them only a few days.

During one of their many needless breaks, Scratch took a rare moment to get serious. "Hey, Dark Queen of Dollies and Death, what are you going to do? Later, after we put Claron on the proper side of the great divide?"

Elruin didn't so much as hesitate. "Cali and I go back home and live happily ever after, like both of the fairy tales where the children don't get eaten."

"That's sweet of you, Ell, but I don't have a home anymore," Cali said. "Don't feel sad, though, I like it better this way. Free."

"Oh," Elruin stopped and put more thought into the question. "Then I want a nice big farm with strong walls that won't fall over in the rain. Where we can live happily ever after, and my dollies can do the work and make lots of crops so we can feed everyone and make money and have a nice house with a big library and Lemia can be there, too, with an alchemy lab and everyone will be happy forever."

"All of your power, and that's all you want?" Scratch pretended to lean against a tree. "You could be a queen, with time a goddess, and you'd rather be a farm girl?"

"Uh huh." Elruin laid head down on Cali's lap. "Queens have to deal with nasty people like Claron and do all sorts of boring things. I want a nice farm and all the books to read. And a bed made of stuffed animals."

Cali rested a hand on the girl's head. "It's a lovely dream, Ell. I'll do everything to make it happen."