“Sister,” he said. “Hail. Well met!”
Ashnak stared in disbelief.
The nameless necromancer let his hand fall, unclasped. He smiled. Somewhere in the curve of his lips, and the shine of his green eyes over high cheekbones, were implied features not his own. “Sister, you have the victory here, I think.”
The orc-faced woman stepped to one side as others of the company walked out of Guthranc’s ruins. Elves, Dwarves, Men—and halflings. “Yes, brother. And I have your thieves to thank for it.”
Ashnak, unshockable now, recognised the two halflings.
The younger had black curls, expensively cut and pomaded. He wore an etched and gold-inlaid breastplate over rich, three-piled velvet doublet and breeches; his ruff was of the finest cloth; and gold and silver rings decorated every one of his ten fingers. Neither his armour nor his expensive silk half-cloak had battle-dirt on them. He smiled.
His brother, standing beside him, wore rich brown velvet; his hair was tied back in a tiny horse-tail, fixed with a golden ring. He wore no armour, and a heavy gold S-linked chain showed under his silver-embroidered cloak. He appeared rather more plump than when Ashnak had seen him in the wild.
Both halflings wore new swords.
The Named rested a gloved hand on the shoulder of each halfling. “You see I have rewarded them for their sufferings incurred in coming to me. Though I cannot reward them as they truly deserve.”
“No,” Ashnak growled under his breath.
A kind of exaltation filled The Named’s misshapen features. Saliva trailed down unnoticed where a tusk distorted her mouth.
“These two halflings it was who brought me a weapon from Dagurashibanipal’s hoard. You did not expect that, brother nameless, but even thieves may turn to the Light.”
Her face shone.
“Master Will Brandiman told me that you had weapons not sorcerous, but more powerful than sword or bow, against which magic was no protection. And Master Ned Brandiman it was who, demonstrating such a weapon, proved that, not being magical weapons, they have no protection against magic.”
The Named smiled wetly.
“No protection against magic at all. Not even against the simplest ’fail weapons’ spell.”
Ashnak nuzzled his protruding jaw and beetle-browed eyes against the freezing earth. Then he lifted his head, looking down the length of his body—charred webbing and combat trousers fused into open wounds, bloodstained boots—to where his helmet lay on the grass, the RT unreachable. Orc berserker instincts contending with marine training, he muttered under his breath: “Bug out! Fall back. Fall back.”
Ashnak strained the muscles of his hunched shoulders until he thought they would crack. Pain hissed into his skin. The magical bonds bit deep. Green blood trickled down over his webbing, staining combat boots, slow in the cold air. He raised his head, staring at the nameless necromancer.
“Master…” the orc whispered.
“See the recalcitrance of evil,” the brown-haired halfling announced. “Lady Named, you see what comes of serving the Dark Lord. His creatures are unable to hear your words of virtue.”
Ashnak with difficulty turned his head. “And I suppose taking payment for the Dark Lord’s most loyal servant, the nameless, enables you to be virtuous?”
Ned and Will Brandiman looked at each other with extremely pained expressions.
“Such calumny.” The Named shook her head, tutting. “Never fear, my halflings. Evil cannot trick me. I know your hearts, and they are pure.”
The black-haired halfling squatted, just out of reach of Ashnak’s fangs, his round, apple-cheeked face smiling.
“The dragon’s curse was powerful indeed, Master Ashnak. The Order of White Mages have detected the curse that Dagurashibanipal laid—it is ‘You will become what you steal.’ As the dragon collected the terrible weapons of evil, so you have become their user, and one of them. It’s tragic, truly tragic. For I am not one to believe even an orc beyond salvation.”
Ashnak spat. The halfling avoided his acidic saliva. Ashnak wrestled himself around, freezing pain searing through his wrecked body. “Shazgurim was right. Dark Lord, yes! Tricksy halflings. She said you’d do for us in the end. And I do regret stopping her killing you! Master!”
The nameless necromancer ignored him.
A breath of warm wind blew, smelling of dead leaves, summer’s end, cornstalks, and the sea. Frost melted.
“Sister…”
On thawing, blood-wet grass, in late-afternoon sunlight grown suddenly strong, the nameless necromancer fell to his knees. His dark head bowed, and his back bent. He touched his pale forehead to the turf.
His voice came plainly audible:
“Sister, even the darkest may turn towards the Light.”
Disgust and anguish brought a roar from Ashnak. “Master!”
“These orcish scum are nothing.” The nameless necromancer spread his pale hands, still kneeling. One hand grasped the neck of the silicon bottle. He drank, waving the bottle in the general direction of the last fighting. “A few less to battle on the Dark Lord’s side when Samhain comes. But if you will have me, sister, the Army of Light shall be increased by one, and my power is not small.”
Silence breathed over the field. Ashnak heard it, despite the screams and shouts of the massacre, the hoarse sound of his own protest, the crack of thawing ice. The silence of destiny.
“I have waited long for this, brother.”
The female Man stripped off her remaining plate gauntlet, dropping it on the turf. She stood in the hot sun, among bodies of fallen orcs and Men, with the miasma of corruption rising from corpses in the moat. Her golden hair blazed.
“Duel me,” she challenged. “Single combat, brother. Your Dark power against my power of light. Come—combat, hand against bare hand. Fight me!”
“She’s stronger—” Ashnak’s fierce warning cut off as an elven hand clamped across his mouth. Witch-fires singed the horn hide of his face. He opened his mouth to bite.
“I will not.” The nameless necromancer rose gracefully to his feet. There were patches of orc blood on his silver-thread-and-skin robe where he had knelt on it. He flicked a spell-finger and was again spotless. “I have surrendered to you. To your mercy and honour.”
“I don’t trust—”
“And if you will it,” the pale Man said, “I shall wear my own shape again, sister, and you shall wear yours.”
The Named stared for a moment as if into bright light.
“Yes.” Her blotched fingers fumbled at her wet lips. She dragged the back of her grey-and-white-skinned hand across her mouth.
The elven mage demanded, “Lady, how can you trust him!”
“Has he not humbled himself before us? Knelt, in the humiliation of his defeat? And come defenceless amongst us? You do not know me,” the female Man said, and her surcoat shot back the crimson of the setting sun. “I am always merciful to those who serve the Light. Brother, be welcome.”
In his last pain, blood soaking into the hot earth, Ashnak made the effort to cry out: “Master, no! You betray us!”
The nameless necromancer did not even turn his head. “Be silent, scum!”
The tall elven-mage with the much-lined face stepped out from where he stood behind Ashnak, and bowed, and smiled.
“No,” The Named said. “Elinturanbar, the nameless shall not be subject to the inquisition. I say he shall not. He has proven himself our friend here today. Brother, come.”
One of the tall Men said, “Lady, you must use Guthranc’s power first, to send out the war-summons to the Northern Kingdoms—”