Nothing happened.
Peter braced himself, though he didn’t know what to expect. He blinked foolishly, despite the silence, and waited. Still, nothing. The seconds counted on.
What did he expect? Some Court weapon to change him, endow him with some strange power, or give him a jackal head?
He shivered at the thought and looked back down at Van Gutter. The old man looked peaceful now that he passed on. That was good; he had soldiered through those last moments of agony and given Peter a second chance. Peter felt horrible about leaving him down in the sewer, but there wasn’t exactly anything he could do about it. He wanted to honor Van Gutter somehow, not abandon him.
Peter, suddenly feeling naked without his hat, took the tattered Hardee hat from Van Gutter’s head. It had a single long pheasant feather, which was ruffled and cut in half.
Really? Honor the man by stealing from him?
If this man were with Nine Fingers, he would have friends among them. Peter would need proof that he had seen him. Besides, Peter needed a hat.
Peter’s bloody hand pulsed with agony. When the cool air passed his severed nerves, he felt like screaming, and it was getting worse with every second.
Peter couldn’t just stay in the sewer. Iris was somewhere in Stalpia, mindless and vulnerable. Peter needed to find some way to get her crop ring off, preferably without a knife. But he couldn’t exactly walk around with Nine Fingers. He would be taken and executed in a second. He had to stop and clean the blood and somehow hide the fact that he was missing a finger.
Peter looked skeptically at the sewer water. He remembered studying germs and bacteria in school just last month — well, a lifetime ago — but he couldn’t stay here forever.
He looked at his clothes and grimaced in disgust. Time had rotted and shredded his once-new coat. Peter couldn’t comprehend how he didn’t retch at the mere smell of it, even as a crop with dulled senses.
He had to prioritize. Getting Iris out of Stalpia had to come first. Their escape could be daunting as she couldn’t run. Apparently, half of Nosmeria was free of Rahashel’s rule. The Nine Fingers and Van Gutter’s final mission would come later.
In the distance, Peter heard the splash of many footsteps from deep within the dark sewer coming his way. The footsteps weren’t random and casual, the way men walked, but heavy and rhythmic, the way sentinels marched.
Peter looked down at Van Gutter’s body. His wounds could easily have come from one of Rahashel’s sentinels. Peter recalled that Van Gutter had said someone was pursuing him, and a tingle of panic momentarily made him forget the pain in his hand. Quickly, Peter tore a ribbon off of his filthy coat and hastily bound his bloody hand where his ring finger was gone. His hand made him want to scream in pain, and it brought tears to his failing eyes.
Behind him, he heard someone struggling with the lock of a man-gate. It was probably an enforcer, as sentinels had limited dexterity.
“Search down that way! He can’t have gone far!” a man called, confirming Peter’s theory. The clicking acknowledgment of the undead followed the order.
In a twisted way, with a patrol in pursuit, Van Gutter was lucky to be already dead.
Peter started for the opening but stopped, hissing at himself. What was he doing? He wasn’t a nine-finger operative. If enforcers caught him running, there would be no telling what they might do to him. Maybe he could give the armband up willingly? Perhaps he would be rewarded? They might let him and Iris go. Rahashel tended to reward those who proved useful, as was demonstrated by the Nosmerian human enforces who worked for the court.
“That’s the wrong key!” a voice challenged from behind.
Peter saw his mother's aged body fall to the street in his mind’s eye, and he ground his teeth. Peter snatched Van Gutter’s knife and donned the man’s hat. “Goodbye, Van Gutter,” he whispered before turning and stumbling out of the spillway.
Despite the pain in his hand, knees, and back, it felt good to move again. He was still a malnourished, bleeding old man, but without the mind fog of the crop ring, it didn’t take tremendous amounts of effort to force himself on. After all these years of mindless drifting, he felt he could fly.
Peter clambered up and out of the garbage gulf and back onto the road. He staggered and tripped once as he tried to regain control of his legs. Several glaze-eyed crops moved in a haze, not sparing him a second glance.
Realizing how out of place he must look, running around like a free mind, he tried to adopt the indifferent manner in which the crops moved, but returning to his old way of movement felt impossible. It was as if he had lost the use of his legs for his whole life, only to be suddenly struck by a miraculous return to full mobility. Settling back into his customary shuffling gait was nearly unbearable.
The city had plenty of Nosmerian free minds, mainly consisting of enforcers and overseers — he could just act like them — but the clothes he hadn’t changed in ages would make him stand out. Plus, he would have to make sure nobody noticed his missing finger, now bound in a filthy rag.
Peter’s breaths suddenly became heavy, and he tried to get off the center of the road. Peter searched from the road to a bridge to the windows in the buildings around him. His movements were uncharacteristically jerky as he searched for sentinels and enforcers. He didn’t see any at that moment, but he suddenly became aware of the acute bite of the cold.
A little bit of light filtered through the clouds, meaning there was probably total sun exposure, unblocked by Din or Churr. The overcast skies must have been blocking what heat the landscape desperately needed. Peter blamed Rahashel for the clouds. He struggled to comprehend time as a crop but had never seen sunlight anywhere in Stalpia besides the oasis.
Peter slapped himself and forced himself to take deep breaths. The blood that had soaked through his hand-wrapping didn’t help him retain heat. He felt prickles of sweat form on his neck despite his shivers.
“Pull yourself together,” he hissed out loud. “You can’t stay here.”
His heart pounded in his ears, but he forced himself on, trying to wander like a crop. He crossed the bridge and headed up to higher Stalpia. Iris wasn’t at the sewer, so where was she?
Peter forced himself not to make eye contact as he passed a pair of men stalking past with their heads down. Traditional dark long coats hung from the men, and their heads were adorned with top hats. These Nosmerians moved freely in Stalpia without crop rings, meaning they were probably overseers or Court Rahashel’s agents. Peter actually had no clue who they were, and that made them dangerous. They didn’t acknowledge him.
Where was Iris? She couldn’t move fast.
Peter hurried much quicker this time to check her usual spots. He tried to act inconspicuous when passing the mummified sentinels that dotted the city. Luckily, the reanimated corpses weren’t very coherent unless one blatantly broke the law or an overseer gave them a direct order. The living Nosmerian enforcers were a different matter. More than one turncoat agent or overseer glared at him as he fumbled on unpracticed legs. No doubt his scent, though excusable as a crop, was unforgivable as a cognitive human.
He kept his head down and moved quickly, casting hasty glances across the way, hoping to catch sight of Iris. At times, they had returned to the academy schoolhouse drawn by their subconscious routine, but Peter found the old grounds abandoned and neglected. Looking for her was much easier as a free mind. It was a wonder they ever encountered each other as crops.
He stopped by his small apartment near the rail station but froze. Like the rest of the city, it had been warped into a sinister, twisted copy of what it used to be. The small apartment looked twisted, dark, and rotted. He had grown up on the top right unit. He could see the kitchen ceiling through a wide, broken window. Enforcers and agents had looted most of the buildings in the city. He had never gone in as a crop but passed it frequently. Why hadn’t he come home as a crop? He was more familiar with it than the sewer. Was there a part of his mind that steered him away from it?
Peter felt a lump form in his throat as he looked at his disquieted home. Could Iris have come this way? It was almost as much her home as his.
He wanted to run to the door and claim the apartment — his apartment — but he knew if he set foot inside those familiar walls, it would be as if a stranger had been living in it for decades. His mother worked hard to provide the modest home, and they made it theirs. The hollow shell stood devoid of the memories and honest work that made it his home, like a reanimated corpse in mockery of its living predecessor. Peter shook his head and turned around.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
He saw Iris walking over an old bridge spanning the second story of two twisted buildings across the road. Her youthful enthusiasm had been stolen, and a mindless slate had taken its place. Her once golden hair hung white and filthy, courtesy of decades of neglect. Her formerly vibrant face, unmistakably Iris, was now etched with the lines of time, an echoed memory of the girl she once was. The only constant was her lopsided shamble, demonstrating she favored her right leg.
Peter choked back a groan when he saw her.
Iris, passionate and wild Iris, had been replaced by a husk little more self-aware than a cow.
“You! Come here!”
Peter stiffened and cursed inwardly at himself for the motion. Crops moved lethargically, and generally wouldn’t warrant such a response. He must’ve been walking too fast. He didn’t know who was speaking, but it was probably an enforcer or an overseer. Should he run? Could he try to bluff his way through a conversation? Both options carried substantial risk, considering the metal band on his arm was inevitable contraband, and his missing finger branded him a criminal.
With nerves hissing like a gas leak, Peter elected to ignore the command and pretended not to hear.
A line of eight work slaves walked past him on the opposite side of the street. They carried long clay jugs of water on their heads, holding on with both hands for stability. The startled workers turned and looked at the speaker.
“Not you! You, in the filthy coat!”
Peter ducked his head, turned, and walked briskly up a rotted staircase on the exterior of a building that led to the bridge Iris was crossing.
“Hey!”
Peter jogged up the steps. Whoever was speaking followed, struggling to catch up. What was he doing? He wasn’t a resistance fighter. He hadn’t been trained to blend in.
Peter reached for Van Gutter’s knife in his pocket, which was still sticky with his blood. Peter had never been in a fight in his life. He hadn’t even come close in the schoolyard, probably because Iris’ shouted insults usually worked as a pretty effective deterrent. Could he even bring himself to hurt or even kill a man? Probably. It was logical: fight or die. That was an overgenerous thought; his odds of success were practically nonexistent.
“Hey!” The man’s footsteps pounded up the staircase behind him.
Isolate, Peter thought, tightening his grip on his knife. If he had to fight, he had better choose somewhere private. Peter ducked into a room that, thankfully, was empty.
The man grabbed Peter roughly and spun him around. Peter tried to whip his knife out as he was brought to face an enforcement agent, but it snagged in the folds of his pocket.
The enforcer fell back, his face twisted in horror as he grabbed Peter. A strange hissing filled the air, like a thousand people gasping for air. A fierce flare of purple light drifted from the agent to Peter.
The enforcer fell back, and the light dispersed. To his surprise, Peter saw that the agent looked several years older.
“Forgive me!” he cried. “I didn’t know you were a lich! Please don’t leech me!”
Peter stood dumbfounded for a moment. “Er, um. You’re forgiven?” He muttered in his gruff voice.
The man bowed apologetically and gratefully, but he kept his distance.
Peter stood awkwardly momentarily as the agent made no move to leave.
“You can go,” Peter said, waving a hand of dismissal, but froze as he realized he used his left hand, keeping his right tight around the concealed knife. His left hand only had four fingers and was wrapped in a blood-soaked ribbon.
The agent saw it.
Peter quickly hid the hand in the folds of his shredded coat, though he knew he was too late.
“Well?” Peter demanded.
The man nodded, ducked out of the building, and jogged down the stairs.
Peter watched the enforcer as he jogged back to the road and shot troubled glances down either side of the street.
Looking at the bridge, Peter hurried across before the man could change his mind.
What just happened? The guy tried to grab him, but he somehow grew older. Peter tried to connect the dots as plainly as he could. The armband. Had he leeched the man? What did that even mean? The circlet of metal lay concealed by his coat sleeve.
In any case, the agent was convinced that Peter was a lich. Whatever that was, it merited some kind of authority. Maybe getting out would be easier than he thought.
Peter opened the top door of the building opposite the one he just left and found Iris staring idly out the window. He took a pained breath when he saw her up close.
She was there. Mindless, glazed over, and old. Rahashel had stolen her life by forcing her to live for years in a near-comatose state.
“Iris,” he breathed painfully. Formerly so young and full of life, she was now empty and bent.
As tangibly as a burglar breaking in and stealing the family silverware, Rahashel had robbed Iris. Never again would his friend give him sarcastic excuses when he rebuked her for turning in complacent homework. She wouldn’t listen, enthralled as he explained the theories he justified in his school reports.
Iris smiled innocently when she saw him, recognition sparking in her eyes.
He stepped forward and reached out for her —
A faint wisp of purple light siphoned from her and into his fingertip. The high-pitched noise of a thousand people groaning sounded faintly.
Peter gasped and leaped away from her. She smiled, ignorant of anything that happened, and shuffled toward him. Once Iris got within six feet of him, the purple leech mist returned, growing stronger with each step she took closer to him. She grew frailer and bent with age every second she was near him.
“Get away!” he cried as he ran for the door. He wasn’t going to unintentionally kill his best friend the way Anubis murdered his mother.
Iris looked at him, confused. He fumbled to pull the armband off, but a noise behind him caused him to turn around.
An undead sentinel stood in the doorway, looking at him through lifeless black eyes that reflected a faint purple glint. It was dressed in a skirt and wrapped in yellow bandages, Peter saw the tar covering the dried skin around its eyes and mouth.
The sentinel didn’t make any noise; it unflinchingly drew a short sword and ran it through Peter’s chest.
Captain Tobias Visser walked up the cobblestone streets of Stalpia, struggling to balance the blasted bucket properly on his head. Seven of his men were in line with him. Gaining access to the city was easy enough; the trick was remaining undetected as you got deeper in.
The bucket teetered to either side, and each step caused the water to throw itself from side to side, making it even harder to balance. How did real workers do it?
A slosh of water jumped out of the bucket to splash on the road below.
Some agents were shouting something, but Tobias kept his cell on their objective: to find and exfiltrate Captain Van Gutter and any other Nine Fingers agents. Van Gutter was last seen in this area before disappearing.
“You! Come here!” the agent snapped, definitely in their direction.
Tobias froze for half a heartbeat but turned, feigning ignorance. Their mission's security could depend on maintaining their cover.
“Not you!” the man snapped at him. “You, in the filthy coat!” Tobias turned to see an old man frozen on the stoop of a dilapidated hovel. The old man ducked away in a visible panic and headed for nearby stairs.
Tobias allowed a sigh of relief. It was not that guy’s lucky day.
Tobias started. The old man was most definitely wearing Captain Van Gutter’s hat.
“Take a break,” he grunted to his men, who nodded gratefully for the chance to put the long water jugs down.
The captain nodded in approval as Private Van Dijk carefully concealed his left hand inside the top of the jug, as he only had four fingers on it, a dead giveaway to their true identities.
Tobias watched as the Rahashelian enforcer followed the old man into a room at the top of the outdoor staircase, only to come back trembling less than a minute later. Something had happened up there.
Tobias kept his fierce, dark eyes on the agent as he looked around uncomfortably. Rahashel only had a modest lich staff and a sizable ghoul army. He used native Nosmarians as enforcers and overseers, bridging the gap between the two. Every Nosmerian who served Rahashel was a traitor to their country.
The old man crossed the bridge to the top of the three-story building opposite the ally in jerky, unpracticed steps.
The clacking of hoofs announced the presence of several overseers. Leading them was traitor and executioner, disgraced Mayor Espen Hummel himself, astride a black horse. A posse of mounted enforcers accompanied him, marching stag-sus ghouls and human agents.
Tobias bit back his hatred as he turned away. With their history, Espen could very well recognize him. The agent who had approached the old man ran frantically for Espen, calling for his attention.
“Captain, what’s going on?” Private Isabella Vandersteen hissed. She had her golden hair done up tightly like a worker woman. Though inexperienced, soldiers’ zeal burned in her eyes.
“We may have found what we are looking for,” Tobias responded in a low voice.
He glanced up at the broken window to the room the man entered and saw a flicker of purple light.
Tobias made a signal with his hand casually by his side, curling his ring finger and keeping the others straight. Vandersteen nodded and passed it on to the others. A mirror flash from the rooftop down the road signaled that Owen was in position.
Tobias’ heart hammered in his chest. He itched to avenge the thousands of innocent people whom Espen Hummel had treacherously sold to Rahashel as crops.
Espen gave a muttered order to a sentinel and it jogged past the resting work party and up the stairs. Tobias noticed beads of sweat gathering on Private Van Dijk’s forehead. Not just Van Dijk — everyone was rigid with apprehension.
The mounted entourage continued down the road and stopped in front of Tobias’ cell, where they watched the ghoul push the door open. Tobias knew he had to confirm, but his hand itched. Hummel stood just in front of him, with two overseers, three enforcers, and five more ghouls. That many undead was a suicide mission if they stood to fight. But they just had to get the weapon Van Gutter couriered, and possibly assassinate the executioner.
The ghoul on the bridge drew its blade and stabbed the old man through the doorway. The man stumbled back, but a thick stream of purple light siphoned out of the ghoul was the confirmation Tobias needed.
He plunged his hand into his long water jug and pulled out the short sword, which lay point down in the water. He lunged for the nearest ghoul.
On this unspoken cue, and with seven following splashes, the rest of his unit drew their hidden weapons and charged the Rahashelians.
Tobias’ blade was short and stout to accommodate its concealment method. It was not long and thin enough to stab properly like his officer’s sword and not broad enough to chop off limbs like his falchion. Basically, it was a horrible mix of two perfect weapons that fell far from both trees. He overcompensated as he thrust it through the back of the ghoul and into its heart.
The ghoul hissed as it went down. A whiff of dark acrid purple smoke puffed from its back.
Another ghoul dropped by Vandersteen’s blade, but Van Dijk completely missed his ghoul's heart. The mummified corpse whirled on Van Dijk, unaffected by the broad blade protruding from its chest.
Tobias was too far to reach Van Dijk, so he continued his momentum and leaped at Espen, who had only just realized what was happening. Surprised behind them, Tobias lunged at the former mayor with a scream, striking his blade down with both hands and sheared through Espen’s gauntlet. Tobias cleaved through Espen’s wrist, and his blade cut across the traitor’s face.
A rifle shrieked in the distance, and the one-handed executioner fell to the ground on the opposite side of the horse. To his dismay, Tobias noticed Espen scuttle back, holding his bloody stump to his chest and his teeth bared in pain.
Overseers, enforcer agents, and ghouls, now all with drawn weapons, turned to meet the ambush.