Arion had never really known what it was like to hate someone. He’d thought he hated Walriq, sometimes, but that grumpy old bastard had never been more than a grumpy old bastard. Annoying, inconvenient, endlessly jealous of his apprentice's talent, but nothing truly worthy of being despised. The Dark Lord might have been, but magi weren’t taught to really care about matters as pedestrian as human suffering or world destruction, and even if they had been he was always such a distant figure that truly mustering any sort of emotion for him in the first place had been difficult.

But the Necromancer Sphera taught Arion what the feeling of hatred was. She opened his eyes to that wide, burning spectrum of human emotion and truly made him realise how such a thing felt. And how easy it was, feeling it now, to believe those stories about crossed lovers taking their own lives, or spurned brothers waging wars of vengeance.

How difficult, even, to imagine restraining oneself from acting on such a thing when it flowed with such volcanic horror through every vein of their body.

Arion did not kill Sphera, he did not hit her, he didn’t rip any of her limbs free with his magic or fall upon her with teeth and nails in some altogether bestial surrender. But he wanted to. God, how he fucking wanted to.

Evidently, she knew how much he wanted to. It seemed to amuse her.

“Something on your mind?” She asked, venomously. Arion ignored her, and she spoke again. “Oh, Galukar’s children, right? I heard the Governor talking about them, must have been interesting to see the old fool react to their corpses. Was he surprised? I wouldn’t put it past him, he did seem slow.”

“Shut up.” Arion snarled, mind surging quickly to the King and his new reclusiveness. He’d not spoken to anyone since returning, not even left his quarters, and Arion’s fury was sincere and solar in potence. But Sphera moved past his words as if he were some clawless kitten, and not the pinnacle of wind magic.

Where are you, Master? What are you doing at such an ungodly hour to leave me alone with this vicious, taunting whore?

“I do wish I’d been there, I’ll bet the face he made was to die for. Of course you’ll be reanimated too, you understand, yes? Just like your Master did. You’re simply too powerful not to bring back. Mind you we might hold you captive for a few years instead, you’re still young enough to grow stronger quite quickly. Twenty, right? So you’ll be half again as powerful by thirty. Not a bad long-term investment.”

It was pure cruelty, every word of it. He could even see it in her eyes, the same look a cat got while toying with mice. But that didn’t make it any easier to ignore.

Arion couldn’t hit her while she was bound, some things just weren’t done. He certainly wasn’t stupid enough to untie her just for a beating, either, and so he decided to fight fire with fire. He smiled.

It must have been a convincing expression, because a sliver of cold doubt made its way across the woman’s face. Her brow furrowed fractionally.

“Something funny I’m not seeing?” She prodded, clearly hoping to turn things back against him. Arion let her curiosity stew for a moment, shaking his head slowly.

“No, not really, it’s just…Well, a woman’s still a woman, I guess. Give a monkey magic and it’ll turn everything into bananas, and things aren’t really much different when power finds its way into the hands of someone whose brain is mostly used for controlling the spread of legs.”

The words bounced off her, as he might have guessed. One did not become a potent caster without dealing with one’s fair share of magi.

“Ah, the typical insult.” She sighed. “And here I was-”

“-But you really haven’t figured out that you’ll die long before I do, have you?” Arion pressed, choosing that exact moment as the best time to unbalance her. Evidently it was well picked.

Her eyes narrowed, but with caution now rather than contempt.

“What do you mean?”

Arion smiled, the way she did, he hoped, and leaned back.

“God, even with a hint that obvious-”

“-What do you fucking mean.” The Necromancer growled. He decided the time to let her stew was expired.

“I mean that my Master is a practical man, and he doesn’t quite trust you. That, and undead he creates are a great deal stronger than others. What exactly do you think he’ll do if this city starts to lose its defensive certainty? Sit around, hope he has the resources to win anyway? Oh, or were you actually hoping he’d ask for your help? Come on. Easier for everyone, except you I guess, if he just kills you and reanimates you. There’s a certain guarantee of loyalty there.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The Necromancer’s skin was darker even than Master Silenos’, but Arion still saw some subtle discoloration as the blood rushed out of her face. Her lips parted, eyes widened, shock congealed to a positively stony composition. She was a long time in speaking, and more than a little hesitant as she did.

“Any reanimation can damage the memories.” She tried. “I have information on the Dark Lord which would be useful.”

Arion nodded.

“I’d guessed as much, based on you still being alive. How long do you think that will hold weight? It might be fun to wager on it actually. I think the moment part of the outer wall is taken, and my Master needs a construct for spearheading some counter-offensive, he’ll just cut your throat and use you. What about you? Before then, after, around the same time?”

There was a certain joy to just being a bastard, he realised. It had been so long since Arion had been the most important person in any room, so long since the other magi had betrayed him, that he’d almost forgotten. In particular, it was bloody fun aiming such behaviour at someone who actually deserved it.

“That won’t help you though.” She said at last, clearly trying to move back onto the offensive. “And it won’t stop the same from being done to you when the city falls.”

Arion forced a smile.

“Who cares?” He asked, shrugging. “I certainly won’t, I’ll be dead by then.”

----------------------------------------

Governor Baird’s quarters had been surprisingly easy to sneak into, all things considered. At least they were once his guarding Rangers had fallen to the floor with temporary seizures. Silenos was careful not to cause any long-term harm or disorientation in the deed, well aware that such potent soldiers were in rare supply.

Finlay Baird himself was at his desk, smoking and drinking. He looked to be wrung out, hollowed. Beaten and eroded by circumstance, pulled in so many different directions with so much strength that he’d merely come apart rather than fly into any single one. Silenos gazed at him as he entered, and noted a lack of surprise in the man’s eyes. Did he know? Perhaps. He was that sort of man.

“Shaiagrazni.” The Governor grunted, gesturing to a bottle of drink on his desk. “You’re walking in on my rare indulgence. Care to join me?”

“I am not fond of recreational brain damage.” Silenos replied, making his way to the desk. “But thank you.” Baird deserved manners and courtesy at least.

“Here to try and persuade me again?” Baird asked.

“In a way.” Silenos shrugged.

Baird sighed.

“You can’t.”

Silenos studied him for a second.

“All you said about the savagery of a siege’s attackers, that was a smokescreen, wasn’t it? This isn’t about the city. You’d sooner fight for the slightest chance of keeping it independent than hand it over to some sorcerer-king.”

There was no denial in Baird’s eyes, only a reluctant concession.

“You’re right.” He groaned. “Of course, it was a thin pretence to begin with.”

“This is about your son.” Silenos guessed, and could see he’d struck the mark a second time.

“It is.” Baird nodded. “Seeing him like that, it…Well, made me realise that youth doesn’t guarantee he’ll outlive me. That things are more dangerous for him than they ever were for me at his age. He’ll be better than me one day, he’s close to being better already, but not if he gets gutted to death by some bastard General in the Darklands.”

Baird had grown talkative of late, Silenos saw. The sure mark of a man who knew his own convictions were half empty. That was unfortunate, there would be no reasoning with someone who already understood reason, and simply denied it.

“Kaltan doesn’t have a chance though.” Baird noted, eying Silenos coolly. “I maintain that much. We can fight, maybe we can even fight well. I’m sure the Dark Lord will bleed legions of soldiers and undead trying to take us. But he has legions more. How many, really, do you think we’ll stave off before the city falls? Ten thousand? Doable. Twenty even isn’t a problem. Thirty, though? I’d be surprised if we managed to kill that many before we were taken, and forty is practically impossible. What you’re asking is that I allow Kaltan to be crushed and made an example of, all without even halving the strength of the single army responsible. And you know that, don’t you? We’re not a people to you, just a means to do particularly great damage to your enemy. Am I right?”

There wasn’t a scrap of accusation in his tone, perhaps Baird was incapable of such a thought. He was entirely right of course, and Silenos found himself deciding that this man, of all, decided his honesty. He nodded.

“You are right. I am quite sure I could escape this city before its destruction, and my main priority is ensuring that as large a fraction of the Dark Lord’s forces die here as is possible.”

Baird grunted.

“Fifty thousand orcs.” He sighed. “Thirty thousand skeletons, ten thousand Dullahan, four thousand Fomori. Hundreds of Beladonnan Puppeteers, dozens of liches, Venka himself, of course. And a few thousand other elites, mercenaries or giants, other such things.”

He listed it all mechanically, without fear. “I’d wager this hundred thousand or so could get the better of a conventional army numbering one million. What do you say to that?”

“I’d say my own estimate is closer to twelve or thirteen million, speaking as a Necromancer.”

Baird smiled.

“A sizable fraction of the Dark Lord’s military power, indeed. I completely understand your desire to break them here, while you have surprise and potent defensive options to aid you. I only hope you can forgive my selfishness in denying you the chance. Kaltan is my city, its people are my people. I can’t use them as ammunition to cast against the Dark Lord’s Empire.”

Silenos nodded, stepping forwards and, with only a moment of hesitation, placing his hand down upon Baird’s shoulder. He did not do it out of any sense of social propriety, such things were well beyond significance now. He simply wanted to. It felt right.

“I do understand.” He murmured. “And I would do much the same thing in your position. You are a great man, Finlay Baird, wasted, I think, in your station and region of birth. I would have liked to see you study Shaiagraznian magic in another life.”

They locked eyes for a moment, and Baird was not surprised in the slightest when Silenos ran his blade of keratin and nacre through the Governor’s chest. He was very precise, passing it between ribs and clean into the hearts.

Both of them, each skewered by another of the knife’s twin prongs.

Finlay Baird died as any other man might have, gasping and spasming in bodily reflex to the sudden, terrible injury. His death took only moments. Silenos had been careful about that much.

He deserved dignity, at least.