Of the Necromancers Swick had met, all two of them, he had to say the Sphera woman was probably his favourite. Certainly, she was the best adjusted. Which wasn’t hard. She didn’t wear a coat made out of human pain, and that was more or less where the bar was.
All things considered, though, he might have preferred Shaiagrazni as a companion. They were back in the darklands, surrounded on all sides by pitch-coloured dirt and dying air. There was a sinister touch to everything that made him remarkably eager for the most potent ally he could get at his side, and recent events had rearranged King Galukar’s position on that particular pecking order, even in terms of single combat.
Ideally he might not have been there at all, and most certainly wouldn’t have been were it not for two simple facts. The first was, of course, his pay. There were very few things Swick wouldn’t do for money, very few things anyone wouldn’t do for enough.
The second factor, possibly the larger, was that they were in the plains in search of repairs for his ship. The moment he’d heard that particular plan, he knew he’d had no chance of escaping it.
It had been quick work in retrieving the wreckage from where they’d crashed and having it hauled back to Kaltan, thanks to Shaiagrazni’s monsters. Quick work, and borderline useless. Swick had been impulsive when he’d crashed it into the Flying Fortress, and more than half drunk. The speeds involved in such an aerial collision had left little to salvage.
Little, but more than nothing. The most important, valuable pieces were all functional, more or less. The inertial core and most of the flight magics at least. That meant little when most of the superstructure was destroyed, and much of the connective constructs allowing the entire vehicle to function as a holistic piece, but it was a big leap in the right direction.
It was by far the most irreplaceable aspects they’d salvaged, after all. And there was every chance of scrounging what more was needed from the various cities and towns around them. Thus the fucking trip.
“You haven’t travelled with Master Shaiagrazni any longer than I have.”
Swick blinked, having grown so used to the silence that it took him a moment to realise the Necromancer had spoken. He turned, eying her, blinking. He hadn’t had a drink in weeks, kept himself carefully sober and sharp. It was the most miserably agonising experience of his life, like trying to lever his own brain out through the top of his skull, and upon asking the Fleshcrafter for some help he’d been informed that it was only the Vigour in him that had even kept him alive through the experience of withdrawal.
But somehow, Sphera still had him on edge. She had that sort of feel to her, like a big pile of knives waiting for the nearest back to turn.
“No I haven’t.” He grunted in response, studying her from the corner of his eye.
“But you’re a man.”
What? What was she on about? Swick had to resist the urge to just grunt and leave the conversation there.
“Well noticed.” He grumbled, “What are you getting at?”
The woman hesitated a second.
“Well, I was wondering if he’d expressed any sort of…Interests to you. In women, I mean. Preferences, that sort of thing.”
Swick understood instantly, and decided that he wanted no bloody part in that of all conversations within the same moment.
“As far as I’m aware, he never has, and has none.” He replied, quickly. With a stroke of luck it seemed the Necromancer was satisfied to leave things there.
“I don’t like the look of that city.” She breathed, changing the subject with about as much subtlety as her Master’s larger creations. “Rather similar to the one you all got ambushed by Venka in, easy to approach with a big force and little warning.”
Swick agreed, and chewed at a lip in thought. He glanced over his shoulder to the contingency he and the Necromancer had arrived with. There were certainly stranger things in the world, these days, but it was still quite novel to be taking reassurance from a mass of waiting undead.
Not such a great mass, mind. There were apparently limits to Necromancy. A man like Silenos Shaiagrazni could haul out thousands of powerful reanimates potent enough to crush even a Fomori. His apprentice was somewhat less impressive. The hundred or so at their back was a sizable fraction of her potential, and not a one would have been even a match for the lithe monstrosities which had caused Kaltan so much trouble.
But a hundred undead were a hundred undead, one way or the other, and these ones were still strong enough at least that their combined might was more than Swick would have even tried fighting. Just another reason to be very bloody wary of the insane woman controlling them.
“I say this time, we bring some more muscle.” Swick decided. She scoffed at that, as if he’d suggested they call for backup from Shaiagrazni himself.
“We’re trying to remain covert, you realise?” The Necromancer sighed. “Covert, not overt. A hundred undead of this level are the sort of thing you march to an army, not a shopping trip.”
There was a certain logic there, Swick had to admit, but it wasn’t enough to sway him because there was simply no actual logic behind his urge. Just a simple, vague belief- no, knowledge- that things would go wrong and that he would need an extra hundred axes swinging away at whatever problem emerged.
“We’re almost finished gathering the supplies.” He noted. “This will be one of the last towns we try for, possibly the last. And your Master is building up his forces by the day. Soon enough it’ll be a moot point whether we attract the Dark Lord’s attention or not.”
And the quicker they got their work done, the sooner he’d have his beautiful vessel once more. And when that happened, Swick would be once more watching danger unfold as an abstract thing from high above, just as God intended.
“If you’re so concerned with speed,” Sphera replied, “Then surely you realise we’d be a lot faster if we weren’t driving everyone away from us in a blind fear of the undead horde marching at our back.”
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Swick had been worried most about hearing what she’d just said. A logical argument, he sighed.
“Fine, let’s go.”
It was a tedious search, long and thought-demanding. The scrounging of skyship components often was.
For one thing, Swick needed bracing. Ordinary ship making would render you a sky vessel capable of making all the usual turns, at the cost of snapping itself in half. He didn’t want that, for obvious reasons, and so he took the extra time to search for some arctenite. It was a rare material, made by the dwarves- or perhaps only mined by them- and impossibly light. No good for weapons or armour mostly, but excellent in construction for how much could be used while only adding the same amount of mass. Perfect for anything skyborne.
Well, he’d been ready for a difficult task in tracking it down. Having searched every city he’d already passed through for the stuff, Swick was beginning to grow convinced it would never reveal itself to him.
Sometimes surprises came, and very occasionally they were actually nice ones. Swick found his arctenite after only an hour of asking around.
The stuff was held by some metallurgist, expectedly, and put on display only behind a thick wall of steel-braced glass which looked as though it might have resisted a catapult. Though refracted by the sheer thickness of its guarding display, he could still make out the metal’s texture well enough. Lighter than iron, lighter even than steel. Almost a silvery colouration as if the lack of grey pigmentation to its sheen were some indicator of the stuff’s lack of weight.
“A fine eye for quality you have there, sir.” The owner grinned, clocking instantly that Swick had come for the metal in particular, and no doubt raising its price the very instant he realised as much. He sighed, and did business.
By the time Swick left, he had gained around one tonne of the precious metal he’d come for. And lost almost its weight in gold. It was a stinging swindle to be wrapped up around, but one that had its bite reduced by the knowledge of what it meant. Soon enough, he’d be a skycaptain again.
Sometimes, though, surprises came. And only very occasionally were they actually nice ones. He and the Necromancer had not gotten even halfway through the town when they caught sight of a familiar group, and had to resist bolting at that very instant.
All dressed in dark armour and uniforms, walking with raised chins and arrogant sneers, a coterie of the Dark Lord’s thugs made their way down a street. There were a dozen in all, and behind them marched a half dozen more men. The latter group were not dressed in their clothes, so much as vaguely hovered around, and had the tattered features and states that Swick had seen so often in Venka’s camps. The back men were manacled, the front holding their chains.
Slaves, he’d bet anything on it. He turned to the Necromancer and found her staring daggers at him.
“You want to do something stupid.” She guessed. It was a lucky hit on her part.
“I’ve seen too many slaves in my time, not in a mind to watch anymore carted away.”
“Give it a few weeks then.” She snapped. “They’ll be taken back to the Dark Lord and make the transition from slaves to undead.”
Swick’s pulse spiked, and he took a moment to identify the blend of anger and surprising desperation now giving his heart such a racing pace. He forced himself into as close a proximity to calm as was possible before answering her back.
“We’re saving them.” He said, sharply. Swick didn’t think of his men, how they’d died in the crash. But their faces hit him all the same.
Apparently Sphera had a sense for when she wasn’t going to be persuading someone, because she only sighed.
“I can direct my undead to circle the town.” She growled. “Hit them from one side just as they exit it, hopefully leave some confusion as to what happened.”
“Then let’s.” Swick nodded, already turning to follow the men- subtly of course- to the point of ambush.
It was not a difficult fight, and that was a nice change from the recent pace Swick had found in his conflict. Within moments the Dark Lord’s servants were either dead or surrendered, all of them well trained and powerful, but none the equal of such a battle as dropped onto them then. Undead were circling their kneeling forms when Swick swaggered over to make himself known.
“Alright, alright.” He grinned, with all of the calm arrogance he didn’t feel. “That’s enough, everyone can calm down now. It’s over. Now, Sphera, would you mind having our friends here freed?”
An undead was already moving to obey when he asked, cutting free one of the bound slaves, then the rest. Soon enough all of the men were standing, hesitantly flexing wrists and testing their bodies in the unaccustomed freedom now upon them.
It was not the most heartening sight. Swick had expected, if not gratitude, then at least some healthy joy at such an unforeseen liberation. Instead these men seemed even more nervous than before.
Something, he surmised, was wrong.
“You’ve changed nothing.” One of the Dark Lord’s thugs snarled, then groaned as Swick hit him. The man fell into the dirt, spitting blood and coughing at the shock of his strike. Swick turned to the slaves.
“What does he mean?” He asked. The men looked worried enough to know what he was talking about, he had a strong wager that whatever was gnawing away at their relief was likewise fuelling their captors’ confidence.
He was proven right with the first answer.
“You haven’t heard?” One asked, looking more confused than Swick. “The Dark Lord’s coming. This changes nothing, you haven’t saved us, only doomed us to another bout of struggling.”
None present seemed to disagree, but Swick had to see for himself. He got the details quickly; direction, speed, size. Then he headed off to take a look at the nearing army and confirm what he’d been told.
There were plenty of hills in the region, the source of Swick’s fear of ambush just short hours ago. Now they were a boon, because he was quick in scaling one to get a better sight of the horizons.
What he saw was a punch to the gut.
There was, indeed, an army approaching. An army big enough to rival, even exceed the scale Venka’s had boasted when it marched on Kaltan. He felt a chill as he peered through his telescope, better sighting the density and width, identifying individual undead within. Fomori, Dullahan, plenty of lesser reanimates. There were liches near the front and Winged Reavers circling overhead, as well as some even he had never encountered before.
And ahead of them all, leading the entire procession, was a single figure that he didn’t mistake for undead even an instant. Towering over most everything around it and clad from head to toe in armour too blemishless and pure in its dark lustre to be the apparel of mere Dullahan, over his back there lay strapped a sprawling mace, by his side a short staff.
Swick counted himself lucky enough to never have actually seen the Dark Lord before that moment, but he’d heard stories and read accounts enough that he didn’t take even an instant to identify the man. He was the scourge of the continent, perhaps the most dangerous creature alive.
And he was heading right his way.
With no hesitation, Swick scurried down the hilltop and scrambled back for the slaves. They had a while before the Dark Lord reached anything of note, even the town Swick had just shopped in was a good ten miles or more from his army. Ten miles, with a force that size, meant maybe a day. Accounting for marching speed.
There was time to get ahead of it, to report, to warn, to plan. Granted there were only so many plans a man might make when the Devil decided to insert a mace in him, but Swick was eager to at least get a start in the making. He seized one slave rather less gently than before, grabbing the man by his collar and hauling him off his feet to interrogate the poor bastard from mere inches away.
“Who are you, and what do you know of the army?”
He was a big man, this one, towering over Swick and well built. He didn’t seem half moved to be plucked so easily off the ground, only empty.
“Kaltan.” He replied. “Soldiers of Kaltan, all of us. And that’s where the bastard’s going if his men were to be believed.”
Swick tossed him aside, turned his focus to the Dark Lord’s men and started asking his questions more harshly still. The answer didn’t change, though. The truth didn’t wilt.
The Dark Lord was heading to try Kaltan a second time.