“Tallis,” Soneste said at last, the first to break the silence after many long minutes.
After a long silence, he glanced back at her.
“What happened back there?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, she spoke again, “Tallis?”
“We’re somewhere below the Commerce Ward. Far below.” He looked back at her for a moment, shaking his head. “It’s nothing. Just another war story. We all have them.”
“Tell me.”
Soneste could sense Halix paying close attention. The prince remained quiet, his thoughts no doubt consumed by their predicament and concern for his sister. She could hardly digest the fact that King Boranel’s youngest son was in her charge.
At the end of the corridor, they found a stone staircase spiraling up into the dark. Tallis stared up. “I led a mission into Thrane, but you know that already, don’t you? I was court-martialed for turning on my own men.
“Well, I didn’t. At least, not living men. My unit was five good soldiers, the finest I’d ever known, but by some cruel joke, Warlord Dehjdan had insisted a rot squad be assigned to us.”
Soneste shook her head. “I don’t know what that is.”
“The animate dead,” he said. “Sons and daughters of Karrnath, given the ‘glory’ to fight for their nation again. The undead legions kept us alive early in the war, and we all owe Kaius the First and his cursed arrangement with the Blood of Vol for saving us. I hate it, but it’s true. I’ve never denied that much.
“Most undead companies consist of the mindless sort, fit only for following basic orders-like those who were guarding Prince Halix-not as adaptable in combat, but much easier for necromancers to raise. Those, in turn, are led by more intelligent commanders, skeletons and zombies augmented with stronger magic and alchemical compounds. I couldn’t tell you how they do it.
“We called units of the intelligent dead rot squads. I had one of them assigned to me on this mission, and I had my orders to complete. When I lost every living man and woman under my command to a Thrane’s fireball, aborting the mission was not an option. It was too important, so I continued on. My days and nights were spent in the company of Marshal Serror, an undead officer, and his rot squad.”
Soneste imagined herself traversing a battle-scarred terrain, looking right and left, seeing figures of armor and bone marching tirelessly behind her, and each one lusted for bloodshed, sought it out like rats seek food.
“I kept my distance as much as I was able. I spoke to Serror only when I had no other choice. I did not address his … subordinates. I despised them. One night his group captured some Thranes, a soldier and his family, refugees.”
Tallis grew quiet again.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Until that night, I’d never seen what the undead were capable of when unchaperoned by the living. I was the mission commander, but I had no authority over the specific actions of Serror and his squad unless it pertained directly to the mission-and I tested those limits. That night, I watched as they tortured the Thranes for ‘information.’ When they’d learned what they needed, they … just didn’t stop. They enjoyed it.”
“Gods,” Soneste muttered.
“I tried to get away, tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. I needed them to complete my mission. One man alone couldn’t hope to survive where we were going, but I couldn’t stand by and just watch. At last I returned, commanded the marshal to relent, to end the Thranes’ torment. He refused. I looked, really looked, at them … the zombies of Serror’s squad, standing there in the regalia of my nation, flaying the skin from their living victims. Out of sheer … entertainment.
“I lost it. I turned on them, all of them. My mission ended there, with the destruction of Marshal Serror, his subordinates, and the Thrane captives. I’d do it again.”
Soneste could not find the words to follow this. She wanted to reach out her hand, offer some comfort, but this wasn’t the time. She remained silent for a moment, leaving him to his memory, though a question had been gnawing at her for some time.
“Tallis,” she asked, her voice low, “when I was searching the Ministry’s archives, I found the record of a Captain Tallis, slain in a battle near Scion’s Sound.” She fished through her pockets and pulled out the faded Sentinel article. “This battle. Were you-”
“Recruit number 966-5-1372,” the Karrn answered softly without glancing at the clipping. “My sister. Captain Valna Tallis.”
Tallis smiled sadly and looked back at Soneste. “I worshipped her. She was the only true flying arrow in my family. Good in a team, dreamed of becoming an oathbound. Said she even would someday join the Conquering Fist or the Iron Band, but she died in 974, five years before I joined the army myself.”
Tallis’s eyes drifted. There was a darkness there, of deep-rooted fury barely held in check. “I saw her again, Soneste. She was one of those serving under Marshal Serror on my mission, an elite daughter of Karrnath given the … ‘honor’ of reanimation.”
Soneste’s blood grew cold. She couldn’t imagine that, didn’t want to try.
“Some Karrns see their slain loved ones again, raised by magic to serve their country, as I saw my sister’s face again that day-the dead remains of her beautiful face, frozen by some necromancer’s alchemy. I saw Valna’s … joy as she joined the others in their torture of the Thrane captives. My sister.”
Rhazan never liked waiting, but in his line of work he’d had to get used to it, especially working for Lord Charoth, who’d pulled him out of a very delicate situation back home in Droaam. The man had a frigid patience like no human he’d ever known. Rhazan didn’t like the smell of the factory either-the stink of human industry-but he’d grown used to that too. His master spent nearly every waking hour here, and that was a lot. The man had stamina beyond his age.
It was Rhazan’s job to guard Lord Charoth and had been for years. The bugbear sometimes missed his home in the Great Crag, but he lived better than any tribal chief in the Byeshk Mountains. To Khyber with all of them. Lord Charoth treated him with respect, recognized his skills, called him “Master Rhazan.”
He wrinkled his nose for the thousandth time and pushed his bulk back into the shadows behind one of the heating tanks. It was unusual for his master to order him to do anything but protect him directly, but tonight he’d ordered Rhazan to mingle with the priestess’s rancid minions.
So here he was, crouched in the shadows with the Night Shift. Although the largest of these was punier than he, Rhazan was not comfortable around them. He knew neither their battle strategies nor their priorities, and they smelled wrong.
“The Night Shift will attack at your command,” his master had instructed, “but do not attack until you have surrounded them. None are to escape, not even the prince. Death first, Master Rhazan. I will not be interrupted.”
One thought excited him, however: facing Tallis in hand-to-hand combat. When his master had tried to hire Tallis for “mutual protection” some time ago, Rhazan had wanted nothing more than to cave the half-elf’s head in and drink from his empty skull. The bodyguard job was his alone, and he wasn’t going to share it. When Tallis turned down the offer, Rhazan’s job was secure again-but the incident had rankled him. Worse, Tallis had killed the feral yowler-Rhazan’s only companion from back home.
He’d wanted this opportunity for a long time. Tallis, the undefeated. Tallis, the ghost man who walked on the fringes of the Low District, untouchable. If he died, everyone would learn who’d done it.
Charoth had given him permission to kill Tallis at last.
So Rhazan waited.
The increasing temperature and muffled drone had been suspicious, but they made sense when Tallis picked the lock and pushed the final door open. An unpleasant and vaguely familiar tang polluted the air. He beckoned the others to follow, pressing a finger to his lips, and stepped out of the stairwell into the chamber beyond.