Suggested Listening

"Cali, you're hurt." Elruin's concern over the boy was a matter of curiosity over the strange magical distortions going on, which she now had an answer to. If he died, then it was his fault for hurting her and her sister. "I'm hurt, too. And Mister Clackybones."

Calenda sighed, and with one last glance at this stupid kid trying to save his sister from the wrong foe, then went to help her own sister. She knelt down, and examined how the bolt entered her. It wasn't deep, but there was no way she could push in through the center torso mass without hitting something important, and risking Elruin's death in the process. Which made this a great deal more complicated.

"Okay, I'm going to need you to hold very still and be a brave girl." She gripped the shaft, then with a burst of power snapped it off with about an inch sticking out of Elruin's armor. The necromantic energies revitalized her own wounded body in the process.

"Okay, now help me roll you over so you're laying on my lap." Cali planted her knees in the dirt near Elruin, feet spread so she could sit on the ground. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but it would work for her needs. With only one arm, she needed Elruin's help.

Elruin grunted in pain, but they did manage to get her in position. Now her back was on Cali's lap, with what of the arrow in the gap between Cali's legs. "Like this?"

"Exactly like that, now this is going to feel strange, but hold still." Cali reached her one remaining hand down to touch the remains of the arrow. With some concentration, she found the fibrous plant origins of the projectile, and changed them with her magic. Working dead plant material was difficult, worse was the metal of the arrowhead.

She concentrated on her earth magic, and through it the weak power she had over metal. It was enough to alter the arrow's composition to a material more akin to rubber, then to a gel, then to a substance not unlike water in fluidity, but retaining the other properties of wood and steel, including weight. The liquid fell out of the hole in Elruin's back, forming a pool of brown, silver, and crimson..

"There you are, now all you need is a little time and you'll be fine." It was a good thing they found a regenerative shard that could actually work on the girl, though like all healing magic that it didn't work well when the weapon was still inside the body. "But stay still for now, that was in your spine." She looked over at the dead boy. Whatever his faults, he was quite the marksman. Her next glance was at Clackybones, also rendered lame by the severing of it spine.

Elruin smiled up at her. "Thank you."

"Hey, what are sisters for?" Perhaps not the best comparison, given their actual families' actions. "Well, you look healed enough to stand, just take it slow."

Elruin climbed to her feet, cautious not to move her back any more than she had to until she felt more confident. "My legs feel funny."

"That's normal, should pass in a few minutes." Cali had dealt with many spinal injuries in her career as a Scout. Sometimes she was known to treat one. "If you feel any pain, tell me. And keep your back straight, I don't want you bending for a few more minutes." Even as she gave those instructions, she made her way to her severed limb and what was left of her guisarme.

"Oh." Elruin looked down at her violin, then with great care kneeled without allowing her back to bend.

"Pity, I liked this weapon," she said as she grabbed her arm. With as much spare necromantic energies bled off from her improved gloves, she didn't need Elruin's help reattaching her body part, but finding a good weaponsmith to restore her guisarme was going to be a pain.

Meanwhile, Elruin began to play for the corpse, to capture glimpse of the history that led him to be here. Flashes of a face, young, innocent, and with eyes of sapphire blue looked back at her amidst a chaotic jumble of anger, pain, and confusion. She stepped back, dropping the violin in the process. "W-what was that?"

"That, oh Lady Elruin na Cali, was drugs. Even in death, they ruin you." Scratch drifted down from his vantage point above them. "With as much of the stuff as he sucked down, I'm surprised he hasn't melted. He was a tough one."

"Oh." Elruin picked her instrument up for a second time. "If he's strong, then I can use him." She began to play again, twisting the necromancy in the atmosphere. In addition to doing what little was needed to finish repairing Cali and Mister Clackybones, Elruin let her song pass along and through Scratch, taking just a little of his taint along with that from the other undead, and adding it to the boy's body. She knew not to use her own soul to empower the undead, or it, too, would be infected by the taint, so she took existing taint, like using coals from an old fire to start a new one.

"Ell? What are you doing?"

Lemia watched on in horror while the body twitched, his fingers clenched, and he began to sit up. Muscles which had been charged with, then destroyed by, the magical energies in Fairy Dust, were now infused with necromancy and taint.

Elruin looked at her new minion, who didn't seem any different than the soldier's corpse she had control over. "It's normal."

Calenda, now holding both halves of her guisarme, approached. "Elruin." She trailed off, unable to find the words she needed.

Ketak, aloof as she typically was, watched as well. She'd grown accustomed to the use of violent enemies and animals as tools, but to turn what was ultimately a misguided child into a tool did not sit well with her. She clenched her sword, and considered incinerating it as a mercy.

"What?" Scratch looked at the people who were watching the new 'dolly' climb to its feet. "It's just a corpse, like any other. Even Claron wasn't special once he became a meat puppet. Now, let's get moving. We've got a necromancer to put into a grave and, maybe, drag him back out. Then perhaps do it all over again, they can be tenacious when they wanna be. We've let this brat waste enough of our time, already."

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Suggested Listening

"Having trouble sleeping?" Cali remained in the tree, looking out across the irregular terrain. Here, where the trees became sparse, was where they would face the most dangerous leg of their journey. The largest beasts did not do well in dense forests, where humans could best exploit their natural agility and small size. In the mountains, and further out the plains.

"I don't need to sleep, thanks to my sarite." Moments later, she stifled a yawn. "Besides, both of you are still up."

Ketak grunted. She, too, watched the plains, but dwarven eyesight was weaker than humans. Instead, she devoted herself to hearing the forest around them; a sense humans were notoriously weak with. "Dwar'es are ca'e dwellers, we sleep in naps. Can sleep while walking i' we ha'e to."

"You expended a great deal of energy today." Calenda kept looking outward, at the desolate foothills. The things out there were tough enough to survive where dragons hunted, and there was precious little for them to eat aside each other. They were the main reason Engewal never tried to expand the empire. "Your sarite's good enough to recover focus faster, or let you skip out on sleep, but not both."

"I know, I know, I'm just having trouble sleeping."

"Still thinking about that boy." Calenda couldn't say she was close to Lemia, but the two had worked together with the hospital and other tasks of the 'estate' over the last year and a half, so she was comfortable calling her a friend, and knew her moods.

Lemia kicked a rock away, which failed to make her feel better. What she wanted to do was scream, an act which might get them all killed, perhaps that's what she was hoping for. "I can't get him, what's left of him, out of my mind. I've seen more people than I care to count die to drugs, but with them, they were like slow suicides. They died to escape from themselves, it happens, it was their choice. He died for a cause."

Ketak had seen such a thing many times in the past. Death was never easy, but the first death of an innocent struck people particularly hard. Especially when it was followed by what Elruin did. "He died a warrior, like many children have. It's a war out here, and there's never been a war without casualties on both sides." Perhaps it was her own conscience she was trying to assuage.

"Then Elruin turns him into an abomination. Uh..." Lemia stopped, realizing what she implied. "Sorry. I think it's because you still act like you, so it's easy to forget you're not alive anymore."

"Funny," Cali said. "As time goes on, I'm finding it easier to forget I ever was alive. I was as disgusted as you were, but without the heartbeat, or upset stomach, or even the ability to feel like I was going to cry. You ever been so passionately emotional about something that you knew was stupid, but couldn't help but obsess over even though you knew better?"

"Yes, I have been in love before, and you're still not my type."

Ketak remained silent. Not because she didn't care, but because had nothing to say. She had realized long ago dwarves didn't have the same emotional behaviors as humans, the idea of a sick stomach was alien to her, but the feelings of a walking corpse must be even more alien.

"Imagine that, but the opposite. I know I should be upset with what she did, but I can't seem to find the fire to make myself care much. I've even begun to forget what hunger feels like. It's disturbing how comfortable I've become with not being disturbed." Cali kept looking out for threats in spite of the nature of the conversation. Besides, the full moon was beautiful on this comfortable summer night. "Speaking of, you've been spending too much time around Scratch."

"I think it's Elruin who needs to spend less time around Scratch. I think we can lay most of the blame for this mess on his metaphorical shoulders. What I still can't understand is why he was okay with turning that kid into another of her 'dolls', but he was so opposed to doing the same to you?"

"I don't know, but I think it's because I was made intelligent," Cali said. "Whatever else, Elruin didn't tamper with the boy's soul. She just borrowed some taint from Scratch's pool, and used that. I'm different, somehow. I was never much of a theologian, and from what I remember, what Elruin did in making me was impossible according to the church."

"There are no answers in thaumaturgy, either, and I've been looking as hard as I can without crossing into 'ways to get yourself burned alive' territory. You are an impossibility there, too, near as I can tell. All I can confirm is that the act of creating undead by definition creates a permanent taint which is detectable and will ultimately consume the mage who does so. I guess it doesn't count if you're just spreading already existent taint rather than making it yourself, and also not for... whatever it is that you are."

"I'm still undead." Now Calenda took her eyes off the terrain for a moment. "That boy knew just enough necromancy to slow me down, but it proved I'm as vulnerable to it being used against me as anyone else. An unscrupulous necromancer with the right skills could reach inside and rework my everything, even change my thoughts and beliefs."

"Do you think that Elruin's done that to you?"

"No." Cali looked back out at the external threats. "She doesn't have the sophistication to build the lie she'd need to build, and even after I died, I've given advice to her that she would have to have already known if she rewrote my mind. Advice she often ignores, as children do. If she inserted false thoughts into my head, why would they be ones that make me argue with her?"

"But you're afraid she might, some day."

"If you had asked that question yesterday, I'd have threatened to punch you, but now... now, I don't know. I thought I knew her better than this."

Ketak considered now a time to speak. "Perhaps she 'ears she needs to. People do terrible 'ings in 'e name o' war, and we 'ace 'e most terrible enemy, one e'en more horrible 'an 'e goblins." It surprised her to hear herself say it, but goblins only violated and ate the dead, they didn't make them rise as weapons to slaughter their remaining family. "She is a child. Children need teachers."

"I look back at the things I did at her age and let's just say I'm not proud of them." Lemia tried to see something in the black emptiness of the foothills, but the moon illuminated only small features to her eyes. "Remember what I said about drug overdoses? I sold to most of them, but here I am today, a successful professional Artisan. And I had to turn myself around, while Elruin has us to help her."

"You're right, she's still young," Cali said. "I'll talk to her in the morning and try to get her to understand that it's not okay to turn innocent people into monsters. Please, promise me, if it turns out we're wrong about her and she changes me, that you will end me. And her."

"I can't make that promise." Lemia hoped she wouldn't be judged too harshly. "I wouldn't know how to begin to accomplish such a thing. As you are, now, would even Lord Garit and Lady Juna be able to stop the pair of you? At best, I might be able to get Erra to have Lyra hunt you down. Even then, I'd never make it back to Arila from here."

"I swear, one warrior to ano'er, I will 'ind a way to kill you both," Ketak said. "I' I ha'e to destroy mysel' to do so, 'en she cannot turn me into an abomination alongside you."

"I understand." Cali closed her eyes, took a breath which achieved nothing. "Well, good thing I'm a Scout. Walking into impossible situations without backup is our duty in life. Why should it be different in death?"

Meanwhile, undetected by the three women, Scratch observed from the ethereal realm. He had revealed to them his ability to cloak his taint, but had always been careful to remain detectable by other means before today. He learned long before these ladies were born to keep a few secrets. Now he had to decide what to do with this one. What he knew for certain was that Elruin must be kept ignorant of this murder pact. She couldn't be trusted to lie, not to her abomination amongst abominations of an elder sister.

So he would do as he always did: observe, remember, and wait.