“I am sorry to disturb your rest again, Lieutenant,” said Asea. She spoke in the High tongue of the Terrarchs so none of the men could understand. Once more she was garbed for war. She held her glowing wand. Chained lightning glittered within the blue gem at its tip. “But I can assure you this is important. The safety of Queen Kathea and our entire army may depend on it.”
“There is a plan to stop the coronation tomorrow?” He replied in the same language. If there was something she wanted kept secret it was doubtless for good reason.
“Unless we find what we are looking for soon, there may not be a coronation. By sunrise the whole city may be in the grip of plague and something worse than plague.” The night suddenly seemed very dark and cold. The snow crunched ominously beneath their boots.
“What do you mean?”
“I think our old friend Lord Jaderac is performing a ritual right now that will raise all the bodies in this graveyard and turn them into an unstoppable army — he is or some of his associates are.”
Sardec felt a shudder of fear pass up his spine but he kept his face straight and his tone nonchalant. “You are talking of sorcery of the darkest sort, Milady.”
“I am, Lieutenant. Does it surprise you that our enemies would use it?”
“These days nothing would surprise me, Milady.”
The gates of the Grand Cemetery loomed ahead of them. Sardec shuddered remembering the ghouls they had encountered here. The memory of them was as vivid and as frightening as if it had only happened last night.
“What are we looking for?” he asked her.
“It will be easy enough to recognise when you see it, Lieutenant. Look for Terrarchs working sorcery. I would not be surprised if one of them was Lord Jaderac and another was Lady Tamara.”
“What shall we do if we see them?” Sardec suspected he already knew. Her answer came as no surprise.
“Don’t take any chances. Kill them — if you can.”
Sardec nodded and began bellowing orders to the soldiers. They were to split into squads and search the graveyard for intruders. If they saw anyone performing rituals they were to shoot on sight.
“Just hope there’s nobody in there having a funeral,” muttered the Barbarian.
“If they are, they’ll soon be having a few more,” said Weasel.
Sardec watched the soldiers fanning out among the gravestones. He had a bad feeling about this. The night was misty. Frost glittered on gravestone and tree branch. Only occasionally did the light of the moon shine through.
“What was that?” Asea asked. “I don’t like the smell of this.”
There was an odd scent of corruption in the air, sickly sweet. There was something about it that made his skin tingle and his lips feel numb. “There is devilish sorcery in the air. We’ve come to the right place.”
“A lot of people would think we were in exactly the wrong place,” said Sardec.
“And I would be tempted to agree with them. But if I am right, we have to stop this. Nobody else can. If we don’t, coronation day will be spoiled for a lot of people.”
Jaderac strode around the perimeter of his pentacle. The smell of the mist from the great canisters filled the air. He could sense the corruption in it, and it thrilled him. There was so much power there. Power to raise the dead. Power to make them into an army. Power that would smash the Taloreans before the night was out.
He raised the flask to his lips and drank. The elixir had the curdled consistency of the congealed blood that was one of its components. It had the sweetness of blood. Energy filled him, energy that had been drained from dozens of captives along with their blood. He felt a little disgusted, not by the fact he was imbibing blood but by the fact that it was human blood, and tainted by their weakness. He told himself it all served a greater purpose, and that purpose was winning the coming war for Sardea and seeing that he was installed back into the Queen-Empress’s favour.
He looked at the others with contempt. They were mostly sheep. Lord and Lady Sardontine so desperately trying to keep in with both sides, and finally forced to take his side. They knew the ritual was going ahead, and that by tomorrow Jaderac would be master of the city. They wanted to be on the winning side, and they knew that he would remember them if they betrayed their obligations to the Brotherhood now. All of them looked at the massive hulking figure of the Nerghul with fear. It was even larger than his first one, with monstrous claws and long white fangs showing in its fleshless face. Its eyes glowed darkly. It radiated evil energy.
The nobles and their bodyguards and followers were beneath his contempt. Only Tamara stood out among them. She was different. It was not just that she belonged to one of the oldest and highest families in Sardea. She was confident where they were sly. She was capable, like her father. He still wondered whether she had really chosen to side with him, or whether she was still her father’s agent. Her comings and goings had been even less explicable than usual recently.
Not that it mattered now. Things had come too far for him to fail now. He noticed then that she was looking at him, with a sly smile on her face.
“There are people coming,” she said. Jaderac smiled scornfully. What fools had chosen tonight to wander into the graveyard? Perhaps it was ghouls again.
“It does not matter,” he said confidently. He could see Sardontine and his fellow cultists were getting skittish. They were nervous, and they might run if they got frightened enough. He was not about to let that happen.
“I think it does,” said Tamara. “There are soldiers out there.”
“Have we been betrayed?” Sardontine asked. His voice quavered a little. Jaderac looked at Tamara. “Have we?” he asked.
She stared at the Nerghul. She knew what it was capable of. She had seen its like before. “Not by me,” she said. Her smile was enigmatic and as always he could not read it. He spoke to his undead creation. “Go kill everyone who you do not see here.”
The huge unliving creature growled and moved to obey. Jaderac’s enemies were as good as dead. Nothing that lived could best such an engine of destruction by night. It had cost him greatly to make the creature but now it would prove its worth.
He looked at the cultists. It was time for them to earn their share of the power they coveted. “Take up your positions,” he said. “Ready your censers. We begin.”
He focused his mind, and concentrated on the ritual. Some time passed before he noticed that Tamara had vanished.
Suddenly Sardec heard screaming. Muskets flared in the gloom. There was a sound of bones breaking, men dying. A group of soldiers broke and ran. “Stand firm,” he bellowed. He heard Sergeant Hef shouting the same. Something hideous erupted from the brush in front of him. Before he could react it was on him, and he was caught in a grip that made him feel like a mouse in the jaws of a cat.
Red eyes burned into his. Yellow teeth grinned down out of a lipless smile. He stared into the face of death. He knew he faced a Nerghul, and he doubted he was going to survive this second encounter.
He slashed at the thing’s face with his hook, peeling away part of its cheek, and letting the white of the teeth shine through. He continued to tug but the blade seemed to have caught on bone. The Nerghul lashed out with its free hand. He went flying, heard the sound of bone crunch as his body impacted on a gravestone.
Lightning flashed, dazzlingly close. The smell of ozone filled his nostrils. His hair stood on end. He looked up and saw the charred form of the Nerghul reeling away from Asea. Lightning arced from the wand in her hand, smashing into the creature, keeping it at bay even as it stripped the flesh from its body. It tried to get closer but, for all its ferocious speed, it could not move against the flow of deadly energy. Asea did not let up. She knew that if she did the thing would be on her in a flash. Blue sparks flickered from the side of the Nerghul’s head. The snow sizzled where they landed.