Take the body and give me the rest (16 page)

The man turned
and went to the woman he’d called and returned to normal life, she
looked just like he remembered, except her beautiful face was
covered in blood and meat. She had retained an animal gleam to her
eyes.

She wiped some
of the blood of her face and taking him in her arms kissed him
deeply and strongly. She was back with him once again and now his
army of men would be an unbeatable force on the battlefield.
Stronger and more skilled than any ten men of any other
challenger.

A guard stepped
forward, holding a young girl by the hair. ‘This is the daughter of
one of the shamans. She was watching from the bushes and saw us
all.’

‘Good.’ The
woman replied. ‘We want to keep a living memory of the glory my
husband has brought to earth. Now let’s and get back home, we have
work to do.’

Keep her to be
a living memory they did. Even their deepest secrets they wanted to
be recorded and now Seth knew this one. It was possible to bring
someone back from the land of the dead if you were willing to pay
the price in blood, the recently dead were also fair game and worst
of all this man now had one of the most powerful fighting forces in
the land.

Seth stood up
in the room again and looked at his men. ‘How long was I off
for?’

‘A long time,’
said Goldie. ‘Your eyes went off and you couldn’t hear us.’

‘It’s okay. I’m
fine now, but we have to do one more thing before we leave
here.’

‘What’s
that?’

‘Burn this
fucking place to the ground.

Chapter 18

The next day at
daybreak, as the hot sun began to rise above the city, Seth and his
well-fed and very well-armed Northmen approached the rear city
gates. They were still on foot and trudged along with packs heavy
with looted swords, books and trinkets from the house. To someone
standing close by, they would have smelt strongly of a campfire. At
the gates stood a very long travelling caravan. There were two
major cities along the way from Pelloss to the Black Rock, and Seth
imagined there would be a lot of these caravans stopping along the
way.

As they trudged
passed the caravan, an older lady put her head out of one of the
covered wagon’s windows and called out, ‘Seth!’ They turned to see
Duchess Elizebetha smiling at them.

‘Found some new
friends, I see?’ She said cheerfully

‘Hello there.
Duchess, this is Goldie, Grimm, Flint and Stone, good Northern lads
each one. Boys, this is the Duchess Elizebetha of Black Rock. Told
you I knew her’

They were a
little shocked that they were now travelling with nobles, and that
a noble lady was leaning out of a wagon chatting with them.

‘Nice to meet
you, but no titles on this trip. My visit is a great surprise. Now,
I have some horses tied up for you at the back of the caravan. I
knew you’d be five,’ she said. ‘And Seth, we’re heading out right
now as our other friends from back home have just arrived in the
city.’

‘Don’t worry,
lady,’ said Grimm with a giant grin. ‘We kept their beds warm for
them.’

Seraphina and her two companions
didn’t even alight from their carriage as they
drew up and into the driveway of the manor house. No guards stood
at the gate, which swung open and deserted. She had travelled by
private ship once she had gotten word from their blade in Dacar.
The house itself was a smoking ruin of bricks, collapsed ceiling
and burnt wooden beams. From inside the carriage, she
surveyed
the
wreckage and then screamed with anger.

In front of the
house, sitting in tattered black robes on the black scorched
stairs, was the house steward. He stood to attention as the
carriage had appeared, and, after composing herself, Seraphina
opened the door to the carriage and spoke to him. He was a nervous
wreck and looked like he was close to sick from breathing in too
much smoke.

‘What the hell
happened here, steward? We were expecting to come to collect the
woman who was supposed to have solved our problem for us,’ she
said.

‘If the problem
was Brother Seth, then he came himself, and with four Northern
slaves as well.’

‘Why do you refer to him as Brother Seth
?’
she asked.

‘He claimed to
be one of The Guild.’

‘Do you suppose
one of the Guild would do this to our own library?’ she said.

‘I guess not.
He did a lot more than this, anyway,’ he said.

‘Tell me what
else he did, from the start to the end.’

‘He came and,
at first, he was very strange. He had four Northern slaves with
him, but he treated them like troops in his own little army, even
took their slave collars off and gave them swords and had them
bathed and clothed well. They wouldn’t eat any of our food and
brought food from the outside. Then, after two days of him studying
in the main library, they found the memories room at night and they
attacked it. They killed around fourteen guards and the memory
herself was also killed. Then they looted the house before setting
it on fire.’

‘Did he talk to
the memory?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know
for sure, but I think so. He was very angry as they burnt the place
down, it felt like he was trying to get revenge. He was screaming
and yelling things as they set fire to the library, all those lives
and memories all gone.’

‘Now, where did
they go?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,
but they will be easy to find; everyone will notice them in this
city.’

‘Get in the
carriage. We are going find these Northerners, and you’re going to
help us.’

‘Yes, mistress,
But where do we start?’

‘The back city
gate and anything going to Black Rock, of course, he wouldn’t have
done this unless he was told to’ She spat at him.

The caravan
ride was bound to be a long one. The countryside of Pelloss was
lush green with a hot sun but plenty of rain to keep it fertile. It
was a nice place to gaze across, even if Northerners weren’t used
to this hot weather and having to drink so much water. Still, they
were good at doing what needed to get done, and Seth felt better
for every mile the caravan put between them and the city gates.

He wasn’t
tricking himself, though. There was no way Seraphina, Dirst and the
other unknown but equally dangerous man, were not going to catch up
with this caravan. He’d dodged them this far, but they would catch
up to him now for sure. Still, now the odds were in his favour. He
just had to make sure that they were aware of every new person who
joined the caravan and not get caught sleeping. He didn’t know why,
but he felt that their plans for him were changing from alive at
all costs to dead if alive was too much work. He was becoming a
major pain in their side. For his part, he was feeling more and
more like he would soon have to stop running and bring the war
directly to the Guild. He could see now that they were an evil
force in the world, and one that needed to be stopped by
someone.

Seth was feeling a growing, gnawing, painful hunger inside of
himself as he rode. It was so very deep and awful he knew that its
source was the creature and not his own hunger for a normal meal.
He knew the creature had fed on the woman in the Guild room. The
woman who hadn’t even remembered her own name, but had been always
referred to as the memory. He’d never felt this hunger before,
although while they had travelled on
The
Opulent
, the creature had gone
unfed.

Seth rode on,
feeling the pain sharper and sharper in his stomach until he felt
he might be sick. The caravan was starting to pass through an area
that was a densely wooded. The trees were all uniformly spaced as
if grown just to cut down. It was dense and dark though, and with a
few muttered curse words, Seth spurred his horse off the road and
nudged it hesitantly into the woods.

Within a few
minutes of a slow walk and ducking under branches, he was alone
with only his horse in the forest. Turning his boot in the stirrup,
he dismounted from the large white charger, branches and leaves
crackling under his feet. Taking the black leather reins, he lashed
them around the white trunk of a small willowy tree and tied them
up; he didn’t want his horse around when he called the creature.
Seth passed farther into the forest, parting branches with his
hands and getting a hundred minor scratches. When he stepped into
an area with a little more space, but still not anywhere near a
clearing, he started the summoning.

He focused his mind, saying the words of calling and, thinking
of the lupine
creature,
he pulled it through. The air barely darkened or rippled at all.
The rift was nearly invisible, as if the creature had been there
all along, just not able to be seen.

It was still a
shocking sight. Giant, wolf-shaped but hairless, with mottled white
skin, intelligent yellow eyes looking at him, rat-like thin whip
tail and rows of sharp teeth. And it still smelled of the
graveyard. As he called it, the hunger, instead of increasing,
stopped dead.

The words clanged in his mind like sword on shield.
‘
You call me with no
sacrifice.’

‘I had no
choice; the hunger was too intense. What was that?’ Seth said.

‘
That is what I feel at every moment
except when I feed. We are closer now, and I can share it with you
if I need to.
’

‘You fed only a
few days ago.’

‘
My first meal in so long. Years I
waited for you to call me again.
’

‘Not years.
Months, yes, but not years’ Seth said.

‘
Time passes slower up here in the
sun, but still I need to feed again and soon. Then I can be at
peace for another while
.’

‘I’m not a
killer; I can’t just throw people to you to appease your
hunger.’

As Seth said
the words, that terrible hunger hit him again and forced him to his
knees.

‘
That is what I feel all the time.
The only reason you don’t is because I protect you from it. You had
no problem killing the General, The man, his woman and the lady on
the boat
.’

‘They were my
enemies; it was them or me. And I won’t kill people for no
reason.’

‘
Then go find some new
enemies.
’ With those words still ringing in
Seth’s head, the creature turned and walked out of the world, the
rift closing behind it.

Chapter 19

He had spoken
with Elizebetha that first night about what he had found out in
that library. She was shocked to say the least. It was clear that
her own knowledge was clearly lacking as to just what the Guild
were capable of.

Now she knew
that a dead lady walked the land again and that some unknown noble
in the Guild had an army of men like Seth without morals at his
beck.

‘Who do you
think he is?’ She asked

Seth had spent
much of the night sifting through the memories of the General and
had a pretty good idea of who it was. ‘I think it’s someone called
Luthor, he’s the Duke of Twin Plains and even the General was
scared of him.’ He said

‘That makes
sense’ she said ‘he’s been first brother for more than twenty years
and from what I’ve heard more than capable of what you’ve
described’

‘So what do we
do about him’ Seth asked

‘We just hope
we don’t cross his path Seth.’ She said with some tangible fear in
her voice.

Seth had put
that conversation out of his mind and tried to do what he could to
enjoy the travelling. It felt good to be on a horse again, and even
his men seemed at home in the saddle. Most Northmen would have done
some army training when they turned of age.

‘So what’s the
plan, Boss?’ asked Grimm as they rode slowly along in pace with the
caravan.

‘I have an
idea, if you boys are interested in gaining some extra coin and up
for some extra excitement,’ he said.

They all perked
up at that. ‘You have our ear, Boss,’ said Goldie.

‘Well, these
guild people will soon be joining the caravan to find and kill me.
Best bet for us is to patrol this caravan up and down making sure
we know just who is joining it. Also they might well be setting an
ambush ahead of us and just fill me with arrows as I ride past, so
we’d better patrol the passes.’

‘Sounds like
work. Who’s paying?’ said Grimm.

Seth laughed.
Yend had given him an idea: always try to get someone else to pay
for what you want done. ‘We’ll go to the caravan master and hire us
as guards. He can pay us for doing what we need to do to survive.
There aren’t half enough swords on this caravan, anyway.’

‘I had noticed
that,’ said Flint.

‘So you boys
in?’ Seth asked.

‘Sounds like
we’re asking to get paid for something that needs doing anyway.
Bloody great!’ Grimm said.

Seth rode
closer to the Duchess’ wagon. He called out to her, ‘Elizebetha, I
was thinking we could—’

‘It’s a great
idea, Seth,’ she said, cutting him off and without even leaning out
to show her face. ‘Make sure you scout ahead as well. I have a
feeling they might be enlisting some help from the local
brigands.’

‘Well, boys,
now we have her blessing, let’s go see this caravan master about
how deep his pockets are.’

The steward
spoke to Seraphina in hushed tones as she sat in her carriage. He’d
just stepped in from the street and was dusty from the road. As he
brushed the flecks of dirt from his once black robes and spoke.
‘They are with the trading caravan headed along the long road to
Black Rock,’ he said.