A/N: I was just twiddling my thumbs one evening, when suddenly a plot bunny ambushed me and went for my jugular. I tried to fend it off, but the darn thing just wouldn't let go. Guess who won the fight? To cut a long story short, I think that "Five Great Charters" will now be over 30 chapters upon completion. Damn you, wretched plot bunnies!
Fighting Free Magic
Abhorsen watched in amusement as Prince Dantalion attempted to shave with a cracked little mirror, some soap, and a knife. The expression of acute discomfort on the younger man's face was simply priceless. Abhorsen was used to roughing it, what with tramping all over the countryside in his younger days. But a Prince of the Kingdom who usually stayed at the palace was not used to such sordid living conditions.
Dantalion cut himself again, and cursed fluently.
Abhorsen grinned, and put another log on the fire. It was three hours to dawn. "I didn't know that men of such high birth knew that one," he remarked. The younger man merely glared at him, and went back to his shaving.
Around other flickering campfires, soldiers were eating and drinking and talking quietly. The usual camaraderie from earlier in their journey had dissipated now that they'd reached their destination. For many years, small villages on the outskirts of the Great Sickle Wood had complained of attacks by Dead hands. These attacks had never been serious, with at most a dozen of the things stumbling into the villages, and as such had not required the attention of Lord Abhorsen. He had more important things to do. He was only one man, and the Kingdom was full of the Dead and Free Magic scum. And so the King had sent out troops of soldiers to deal with the problem – which was all standard procedure – but every man who had been sent to investigate this relatively minor problem had simply disappeared. After the third troop had vanished, the King had determined that Abhorsen himself was needed for this.
And so here he was now, accompanied by a full contingent of men with the Prince as their Captain. "Have you had much experience fighting?" Abhorsen asked suddenly, not caring how rude he sounded.
"Yes," the Prince said through gritted teeth. "I was a champion swordsman, in my day."
"In your day?" Abhorsen repeated, raising his eyebrows as high as they would go. "You cannot be past your prime so soon, Lord Prince. How old are you, anyway?"
"Thirty," the younger man grunted, returning to his shave.
Abhorsen leaned back against a stump, putting his hands behind his head. "You're still young, then," he pointed out, "so don't go talking about what happened 'in your day'. It's still your day. As for me, I'm nearly forty. How do you think talk of 'your day' makes me feel?"
Prince Dantalion said nothing, but Abhorsen thought that the younger man nearly smiled. So, there was some hope for him yet.
"How is your family?" Abhorsen asked, casting about for a topic that the Prince would actually like to talk about.
The young man really did smile this time. "They are well," he acknowledged, but did not care to elaborate.
Abhorsen nearly rolled his eyes, deciding that it was up to him to keep this pathetic excuse for a conversation going. "You and your wife had a child last summer, did you not?" he asked. "Girl or boy?"
"A girl," said Dantalion. "Her name's Farelle."
"Does your wife want more children?" the older man questioned. "I know mine does, but Cassiel's birth was so hard that the midwife thinks it unlikely."
The Prince shrugged. "We are trying for another," he said. "Penemue wants a son."
"Good luck with that," snorted Abhorsen indelicately. Malia would kill him if he ever snorted like that in front of her, but nobody cared what you did in a soldier's camp. "If your wife's anything like her mother, you might have to go through a lot of daughters before getting a son."
The younger man cringed involuntarily. "I thank the stars every day that my wife is not like her mother."
Abhorsen threw back his dark head and laughed. "Lady Tirelle is quite a terror, isn't she?" he chortled. "I could never understand why she had so many lovers. A man would be mad to bed a woman like that."
They both laughed this time, and Abhorsen did not immediately notice when a gangly dark-haired boy stepped into the firelight. "Cassiel!" he said to his son. "Welcome back! What have you found out?"
"The villagers say that the Dead come out of the trees," answered Cassiel, pointing at the edge of the Great Sickle Wood. "Only a dozen or so at a time, but all the parties of men who have gone into the wood to hunt for them haven't returned. Now they just board up their windows at night and try to ignore it."
"And we're camped right on the edge of the wood waiting for the Dead to come," the Prince said grimly. "Not exactly the smart thing to do."
"It's smarter than going into the trees," Abhorsen countered brightly. He was used to fighting the Dead, and grim conditions never dampened his spirits. "Besides, the last three troops who came here didn't have me with them, did they?"
The Prince looked like he was trying very hard not to roll his eyes. Abhorsen reached out to turn a log on the fire, when his Death sense twitched. He paused. A second later, Cassiel's head jerked up as he sensed it too. Prince Dantalion noticed their expressions, and his hands shot automatically to his shortswords.
"Dead hands," Abhorsen confirmed.
The Prince let out a low whistle, and at the signal soldiers got to their feet and readied their weapons. In addition to being excellent fighters, Dantalion's men were all accomplished Charter mages, and half-sketched spells crackled at their fingertips to be cast at a moment's notice.
All was silent, with not even a breath of wind in the trees. Then Abhorsen heard it: the unmistakable shuffling tramp of rotting feet. He drew his sword as Prince Dantalion whistled another command, and the soldiers efficiently stepped into formation, with spearmen at the front and archers behind. Abhorsen frowned when he realized that several rows of soldiers were obscuring his view. He wanted to be on the frontlines!
He turned angrily to the Prince, who shook his head sternly. "No, my Lord," he said, anticipating Abhorsen's protests. "You're much too valuable to the Kingdom."
Abhorsen glowered but said nothing. It would look undignified to yell at the Crown Prince in front of the soldiers and his son. Instead, he turned to face the trees, tapping his foot with impatience.
The first wave of Dead staggered from the shadows. Abhorsen's breath caught in his throat, and several of the soldiers gasped: there must have been a hundred of them! Prince Dantalion barked out an order, and Charter spells blazed through the air. The Dead gurgled as they were hit, and staggering into one another, flesh sizzling. Arrows flew over the heads of the spearmen, piercing rotten limbs.
"These are not just a dozen or so Dead hands!" Abhorsen yelled at the Prince over the tumult.
The younger man nodded. "It's an ambush," he confirmed grimly. "There must be a necromancer in there somewhere."
"Sir!" A lieutenant had pushed his way to the Prince's side. He held up a tarnished helmet adorned with a tattered feather that had at one time been red. "You should take a look at this, my Lord Prince. Many of the Dead are wearing them."
Prince Dantalion took the helmet and examined it closely. "This was worn by a soldier of the King," he murmured.
Abhorsen was suddenly hit with a horrifying realization. "They must be from the three troops that vanished here!" he cried. "The necromancer used smaller attacks on the villages to lure out larger forces, which he killed to add to his Dead army."
"And now in addition to who knows how many villagers," Dantalion murmured, "He has three of the King's troops under his control." Abhorsen and the Prince stared at one another, then at the same moment they whirled around to join the action. Abhorsen drew his bells, and he could hear Prince Dantalion shouting orders. Facing the combined strength of Charter magic, bells, and arrows, only a few of the Dead had actually managed to reach them, and these were quickly dispatched with swords and spells.
There was a lull in the fighting, but Abhorsen knew that this first attack had been merely a test of their strength, and that a larger fighting force would be coming soon.
He was right. Frightened murmuring ran through the ranks, and Abhorsen stared as hundreds of Dead hands emerged from the woods under the light of the half-moon.
"Soldiers!" the Prince yelled. "Stand fast! Have courage, and serve your Kingdom!"
To Abhorsen's surprise, the soldiers immediately stopped muttering and stood at attention, jaws set resolutely as the wave of Dead approached. It hadn't really been that good of a speech. He looked questioningly at Prince Dantalion, who gave a wan smile. "The power of command flows in my veins," the young man explained quietly. "Sometimes that can be a very useful thing."
Abhorsen weighed his options carefully, and watched as the Dead stumbled towards them. "I'm going into Death," he announced, and both the Prince and his son stared at him.
"You – you're what?" Dantalion spluttered.
"I'm going to find the necromancer and kill him," explained Abhorsen slowly in a voice usually reserved for very small children. He received a glare strong enough to burn a hole in his forehead, and amended his tone. "Once I do, these Dead hands will have lost all direction," he explained. "It's our best chance of defeating him. I'm counting on you to hold them off while I'm gone."
The Prince nodded slowly, and Abhorsen prepared himself to go into Death. A small hand on his arm stopped him, and he looked down at his son. "I'm going with you," the boy said stubbornly. "I can help."
Abhorsen shook his head. "No, you're not," he replied, voice firm. "And no, you can't. Not yet, and not now. You're staying right here behind the lines."
"I'm ten years old!"
"Precisely," the exasperated father said. "You're ten years old. And besides," he continued at Cassiel's mutinous expression, "We have only one set of bells between us."
"If I had my own bells, would you take me?"
"Of course," Abhorsen lied.
He closed his eyes, and went into Death.
Abhorsen moved quickly through the waters, knowing that the soldiers could not hold the Dead off forever. He struck out, every sense on the alert for any sign of the necromancer. After an indefinite amount of time, a faint metallic smell tickled Abhorsen's nose. He drew his sword and stalked forward through the grey river.
He could see the necromancer, a broad-shouldered figure wearing old-fashioned armour. The other man was in the midst of raising more Dead spirits to do his bidding, and was so immersed in his work that he did not notice Abhorsen until the other man was twenty paces away. The necromancer suddenly spun around and shot out his hand, and a ball of yellow fire blazed from his fingers. Abhorsen managed to deflect it with a spell of his own, and felt the heat scorch his arm.
"Well met, Lord Abhorsen," the necromancer said in a deep voice. "I did not think you would come here to meet me. I thought you would remain in Life, aiding those pitiful soldiers."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you," Abhorsen replied amiably. "Are you quite done with your speech, or will I have to wait a little longer to kill you?"
The necromancer stared at him from under his gilded helmet, which sported an unfamiliar spiralling logo. "So confident," he hissed, drawing his sword. It was a corrupted blade, and looking at those spiky runes made Abhorsen's stomach flip-flop unpleasantly. "You and the bratty little Prince fell right into my trap, did you not?"
Abhorsen blinked in surprise. "So this – all of this – was just a plan to kill me and Prince Dantalion? Why?"
The necromancer did not reply, and the two enemies circled each other slowly. "No matter," said the necromancer. "You have just made my job much easier, Lord Abhorsen. Killing people one by one is less problematic than killing them together. Would you not agree?"
"I wouldn't know," sneered Abhorsen. "I don't kill people, you see – only Free Magic scum."
They ran at one another, swords raised, and Abhorsen staggered back under a blow from the necromancer. This guy was strong! He ducked another deadly swipe, and darted in to slash at his opponent's ribs. His sword clanged harmlessly against the necromancer's armour, and he cursed. All he had managed to do was dent his enemy's breastplate and create a lot of sparks. He barely parried another blow, stumbling to the side. The cold water pulled at his legs, and he just managed to keep his footing in the icy current as the necromancer backed off for another charge. Abhorsen stared, panting, at his armoured opponent. There had to be some vulnerable spot…
The necromancer rushed him again. At the last moment, Abhorsen straightened up and extended his arm, executing a perfect stop-thrust that left his right side wide open. The swordblade ripped through the necromancer's throat, impaling him like a chicken on a spit.
With the man still skewered by the end of his sword, Abhorsen drew Saraneth one-handed, flipped it, and rang. He considered ringing Dyrim to question the necromancer about the plot to kill him and the Prince, but decided against it. He did not know how the soldiers were doing on the edge of the Great Sickle Wood, and perhaps they needed him. Instead, he rang Saraneth and Ranna together, freezing the necromancer in place. He would come back to question him later. With a satisfied look at his handiwork, Abhorsen turned and jogged back to the border of Death.
Abhorsen opened his eyes and wiped frost from his eyelashes. He could see the soldiers slaying the Dead hands, who were running wild now that the necromancer was bound. Prince Dantalion, who had been alerted by his movements, strode to his side.
"It's done," Abhorsen told the younger man, shaking icicles from his clothing. "The necromancer told me something strange," he carried on. "He said that he was here to kill you and me – I don't know why. I've bound him, and will question him later. It looks like it was all a trap."
The Prince frowned. "You shouldn't be so reckless," he snapped, utterly surprising Abhorsen. "If indeed his plan was to kill you, then how smart was it to go into Death alone? He got you right where he wanted!" As if to punctuate this point, Cassiel turned up to glare at his father, apparently still furious at being left behind.
Abhorsen looked from one angry face to another, then gave a fatalistic shrug. "It worked, though. Didn't it?"
Cassiel and The Prince gave him disgusted looks, but said nothing. They did not need to – their expressions told him everything. The Prince walked off to speak with his Lieutenant, and Cassiel left to pack his belongings for the trek home. As soldiers bustled around him, Abhorsen puzzled over why the necromancer had wanted to kill only himself and the Prince. What did they have in common?
Behind the lines, the sun peered over the eastern horizon.
A/N: Do any of you know where you've heard Cassiel's name before? Well, you'll find out in chapter 19, I think. I've given you a little hint already. Kudos to anyone who answers correctly!