It really was rather promising, how quickly Falls was picking up the art of Necromancy. The boy had learned more in four hours than most did in fifty, and Silenos suspected he would hit a learning curve on top of that within the next few lessons. If all went as planned, he was in the process of training one of the most gifted and powerful Necromancers to ever live. If all went as hoped…He may well, eventually, produce his own equal in the art.
That begged a great many questions, however. Too many to ignore. Silenos, like all of the most recent generations of House Shaiagrazni, was the product of some four thousand years of constant, painstakingly executed eugenics applied across a population of millions. His talent had been scoured from numerous well educated, nourished and developed humans, who had all had all of their needs and requirements met to grow as completely as they could. All to ensure that House Shaiagrazni extracted its Named from the most ideal genetic stock possible. On a purely statistical level, when measured against a more conventional human populace, Silenos’ talent was one in quintillions, perhaps less.
Falls was not his equal, but he was still an anomaly. Finding him, naturally occurring, in such a backwater world was no different to finding a strip of perfectly alloyed factory steel among a sheet of iron ore inhabiting the wall of some cliff face. Not impossible, very few physical occurrences were truly impossible, but so vanishingly unlikely that it almost defied calculation.
And that was to say nothing of the other, too. Silenos glanced over at the Necromancer, Sphera. She wasn’t quite the equal of Falls, but her gift of nature was still sufficient to leave statisticians baffled. What was it about this world that yielded such magical talent?
The better question, he imagined, was what sort of reward would await him for being the first of House Shaiagrazni to discover and suborn it for the rest of their use?
Silenos’ plotting was interrupted as his eyes came to focus upon the woman’s features, and he found something very, very wrong in them.
The woman’s typical glare was nowhere to be seen, not hers, and not the more general expression which remained in place atop the expressions of all who found themselves held captive and dragged along miles of countryside. She had stopped her fidgeting, no longer scrutinously glanced at every minor thing around her in silent search of an opening. Indeed, everything about her was…Not content, but patient. Waiting.
He thought back to the inexplicable outburst of taunting she had hurled at King Galukar, and everything clicked into place in an instant.
“Falls, go and check on the other two in town, if they’re in trouble then fly back to us as quickly as you can manage.”
“Are you just screaming at phantoms, now?” The Necromancer asked from the side, confirming all of Silenos’ suspicions at once.
“What’s going on?” Falls frowned.
“I believe our companions have been ambushed.” Silenos told him. “And I want you to verify that, if we can help them, we will. But we need to know what we’re dealing with first, and time is of the essence, now hurry up and make your observation.”
He was careful to control his temper, all too aware of how angered demands tended to leave men freezing up with indecision and worry. Falls, fortunately, was moving into action quickly.
“I can do this.” He replied. “You can rely on me, Master.”
The boy was rushing off without another word, and Silenos found a strange sensation building in his chest. Actual approval of something his Apprentice was doing?
Stranger things had surely happened, but for the life of him he couldn’t recall any off the top of his head.
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Arion’s heart was a drum, beating so loud he felt certain it would attract the attention of whoever or whatever he was hoping so desperately to avoid. As luck would have it, it did not. Not even as its volume rose to exponential heights upon his reaching the town’s outer perimeter.
There were orcs, not in front of him, fortunately, but all hurrying along and around the town to reach some point at its far end. Falls took the opportunity to slip by them even as he drew the obvious conclusions about why so many heavily armoured monsters might be moving at once.
Falls found his first source of answers in a woman, however limited such things were.
“You there.” He demanded. “What’s going on?”
The poor thing seemed rather confused, apparently not grasping that he was an outsider for long moments before she answered him.
“You’ve not heard? The General Venka came, said he’d investigate us for, for traitors, for spies. Then within a quarter-hour he ordered all his orcs to rush in on one side of the town. Most reckon he’s found one.”
Arion felt an ache appear within the depths of his stomach, mounting and convulsive in its intensity, like holding hot magma in his belly. It made him want to vomit, to scream, to run away with both arms flailing over his head and his bowels emptying themselves down his leg. Why was it that he could never go anywhere, or do anything, with Silenos Shaiagrazni without some new complication emerging that threatened to kill him?
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Why was the world so desperate to ruin his life?
He resisted the urge to flee like a terrified animal, instead forcing himself to stop, wait and think things through. Ensharia and the pirate had been gone for a few hours, at most. That wasn’t enough time for much to happen, they were almost undoubtedly still in the town, at least, and that meant there might just be some means of reaching them still.
Of course, his major issue was in actually gathering the information. Arion knew about the town, knew about its history, knew about most of the world’s facts, he often thought. But he’d never lived there, spoken to its people or actually interacted with its culture in any meaningful way. He could pass a quiz on the place a hundred times before figuring out how best to ask for directions to the nearest inn.
Which was inconvenient, but not something he had the luxury of humouring. It was another half hour to his Master, at least, and bringing in the rest of their group with an enemy army in the city would only risk capture for them all. Whatever Arion found himself doing, whatever solution this latest disaster had, he was on his own in resolving things.
Something oddly freeing about that. Arion had often been on his own before, for years during his tutoring, in fact. Walriq, may he rest in pieces, had always been a great teacher, but never a good mentor. Arion could handle doing things by himself.
Could, or would. There really wasn’t any choice besides one of those.
Arion was in the town for about half an hour before he was confident he’d gained enough information to act without being instantly exposed and clubbed to death by giant, angry orcs. Fortunately, his skin seemed to match the tone that was most common in this region, that would make any subterfuge go over a shade easier.
His questions didn’t seem to garner much suspicion, which he’d been banking on given the overall excitement with spies and imprisonment the town seemed to hold, and Arion was soon pointed to a rather large building near the town’s centre. He headed for it with a weight of fear upon his shoulders.
The building wasn’t a fortress, that much was clear. Perhaps it had been some barracks, once, or storehouse. A large, stone thing constructed sturdily enough that it might have weathered a trebuchet. For all of ten minutes. Arion saw no small number of orcs standing outside its front door, guarding the interior with a focus and patience he’d rarely heard attributed to their kind in the scholarly articles he’d consumed about them.
Arion, as subtle as he could manage and from the widest berth available to him, scanned the building for potential points of entry. In yet another stroke of cosmic misfortune, it appeared the enemy had done a fine job of covering them. Orcs stood guard around each and every doorway, as well as even the less convenient entrances through windows.
Had he been anyone else, it might have spelt trouble. Fortunately Arion was Arion, and wind mages tended to dislike the ground in any case. He looked around for a few minutes, locating a washing line hung just a street and a half from the warehouse, then conjured the strongest wind he could and diffused it across the area.
It took a moment of focus to rip the large blanket from its place along the wire, and a moment more to ready himself for its slow flight over to the space just above his head. Arion jumped, then caught his body with a conjured wind and lifted it high, carefully manipulating the sheet to be between him and any surveying eyes that might watch from below.
The flight was blessedly quick, taking only seconds before Arion came to drift over the warehouse and could let himself drop down. He didn’t land particularly gently, but the wind gave its helping hand for that too.
Around him was the roof, less cramped than might have been feared, and fortunately unguarded. Arion took a few moments to study it before deciding on his next move. There was a hatch which didn’t strain him to lift open, unlocked, fortunately, and led down into the building’s guts. He followed it quickly.
The building’s size was considerable, but it was not at all difficult to extend his magic throughout it and press at the air. Just a shade, not enough to conjure some galeforce wind, merely the minimum amount required to draw tactile sensation from his surroundings. Arion felt more orcs, a dozen maybe. He felt jagged walls, iron plate, patrolling guards. Then, after a few moments, he felt a familiar form. Ensharia.
She was deeper than he’d have hoped, as deep as a smart captor would have had her placed, but Arion swallowed his fear and forced himself down after her regardless. Every step was a victory, and he got the feeling that each one would only bring him closer to defeat.
At the deepest point of the warehouse, there was a cellar. Arion knew without even checking that it was where Ensharia would be, but he gave it a quick survey with his magic just in case. It wasn’t good to read the air too often indoors, people tended to notice the minor atmospheric shifts it caused, but a second indulgence didn’t seem disastrous to him.
Not unexpectedly, he felt the same things he had before. An unoccupied room save for two figures, one of which matched his companion. Arion moved down into it and found a stab of relief almost cutting his speech off as he laid eyes within it.
There was a great cage in the room, thick bars of iron sealing one half of it off from the other. It was within this cage that Ensharia and Swick the Swift dwelled. Both were in a poor state.
Ensharia, the least obviously wounded, was covered in minor and larger bruises. Her armour had been cracked at several points, which was terrifying given the sheer resilience of Shaiagrazni engineering, and a cut seemed etched across her skin with every few inches of it one bothered to look at. There was an undeniable fatigue to her face which left Arion’s question as to the lack of guards answered, and even still she was in a better state than the pirate.
Swick the Swift had been bleeding, and bleeding a lot. Most of his clothes were fully soaked through with his own ichor, dark and clotted, scabbing and congealed. His black skin seemed to have greyed somewhat with the exsanguination, and he was shallowly breathing in as deep and inexorable a sleep as Arion had ever seen.
His studies of the pair did not take long to be interrupted. Ensharia soon noticed him, looking up and speaking with a sharp fire in her eyes, managing only three words before realising who it was she was addressing.
“What do y- oh…” Her eyes widened, first with hope, then panic. “Arion, what are you doing here?!”
He was hardly less concerned than her, being honest.
“Rescuing you.” Arion whispered, resisting the grin that tried to take over his face as he said it. “And the Pirate, I suppose, now come on, stand and get ready to leave. I’ll take care of those bars.”