“What are you implying?” Arion growled, and she looked at him in much the way he might expect a woman to look at some barking puppy.

“What exactly do you think I might be implying?” She asked, dryly. “Have a think, a good hard one, and try to recall the things of note our late Governor has done since we last spoke. The list isn’t very long, being honest. I’ll even give you a hint, the main attraction begins with the letter D.”

Arion had caught her meaning before she’d even gotten a tenth of the way into her condescension, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“You think my Master killed the Governor.” He hissed, keeping his voice low for fear of being heard. She grinned wider.

“Finally, yes, I do. Do you not?”

“He can’t have.” Arion replied, his defence seeming a pathetic thing even to him.

“Why? Would he have been impeded by his strong moral character, or his glaring empathy? Perhaps his scrupulous, squeamish attitude towards violence and final measures?”

She was enjoying herself, he saw, and she was making one good point after another. It felt very much like being on the receiving end of a beating, sent stumbling so hard and far with each blow that he could do nothing but blink and maintain his balance before receiving the next.

It was, he knew, because she was right. Arion never had a chance at beating her out in this rhetorical game of cards, because he’d been holding a losing hand to begin with. And she was not a woman to miss it.

“I’ve got you convinced, I can see.” She noted. “You realise, yes? You’re just a pawn to him, you and everyone else. Just pieces on a board to be moved, taken and sacrificed as he sees fit. Your only value to him is what you can do.”

“That’s not true.” Arion stabbed back. “He’s fought with us, he’s protected us.”

“Because you’re useful.” She countered. “Because keeping you alive at his own risk in the short term is a worthwhile investment in the long term. That’s why he was so unmoved by your Paladin being captured, that’s why he’s not even paid the good King Galukar a visit. Really, it’s impressive. I’d say he thinks like me but I think that would be giving myself undue credit.”

It was disgusting, the amount of sincere admiration there appeared to be in this one’s voice. As if everything she thought good was bad, and everything she thought bad was good. How did one even reason with a person like that?

“You’re working too hard on this to just be fucking with me.” Arion noted, eyes narrowing. “And you’re not stupid enough to give information away for free either way. What are you planning, what are…What are you about to suggest?”

She seemed surprised, almost amazed, but he was in no mood to derive any measure of satisfaction from the state. Arion just watched and waited for her reply.

It wasn’t long in the making.

“What do you suppose your Master will do to you when this city’s defences start to crumble?” She asked. “I’ll spare you the effort of thinking, it’s the same as he’ll do to me, and any other Heroes or near-Heroes. Because undead are more powerful than the living.”

Arion found himself once more unable to answer.

“Venka could find use for a windmage of your power.” The Necromancer continued. “As could the Dark Lord himself. If nothing else, you would be spared a painful death-”

“-Don’t treat me like an idiot.” Arion snarled. “If I try to leave instead of fighting alongside you all, I’ll just be killed and reanimated like the Toxicologist.”

She blinked, hesitated, then shrugged.

“Fair enough, yes, you would be. But fighting alongside us is a much safer bet than fighting under your Master. I mean, he is powerful, don’t get me wrong, but do you honestly see him overcoming the Dark Lord? He’s not even doing well against Venka here. How long do you think Kaltan will hold? How many more futile attempts at disrupting my Master’s plans do you think yours will be permitted before he’s hunted, caught and…Well, turned into the most powerful soldier in our army.”

It was all so sickeningly logical, and Arion hated himself as he got to his feet and stepped towards her. He concentrated on her shackles, applying sharp pressure down in on the locking mechanisms and doing what he could to wrench them apart. The great steel cuffs binding her hands and fingers fell away at once, and the Necromancer flexed her freed digits, grunting.

“Ah, cramping, they’re cramping. God, you have no idea how good this feels.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Arion didn’t let his guard down, however much she may or may not have been cramping.

“You’ll introduce me to General Venka.” He pressed. “Like you said, yes?”

Her eyes flickered up to him, and she smiled.

“Of course I will.” The woman sighed, as if he were being horribly foolish. “Really, what sort of madwoman do you think I am? Everything I said was true, you know, I have just as much-”

Arion did not see her punch coming, and only really deduced that it was a punch at all by the particular place and way in which it connected. She was stronger than she looked, this one, perhaps augmented a shade by some Vigour along with her magic. Strong enough to send him stumbling with the surprise blow in any case, Arion growled, glared back at her, readying his power and conjuring forth more wind. Then the stone ceiling crumbled, and a block of debris caught him clean in the back of the head.

He was pinned, face mashed into the floor, vision blurring with the concussion as he gasped and groaned. Above him, Sphera looked down, grinning still.

“I had a feeling you’d be too durable to knock unconscious with brute force.” She noted, as if it were a mere interesting tidbit, and not a fact which had very nearly left her trapped. “So I improvised, glad to see my guess was right. Your Master enhanced your body, yes? I’d have done the same.”

Shadestuff, she must have splashed the ceiling with shadestuff as she hit him, letting it weaken and fall. Arion should have seen it coming, it was such an obvious use, he’d been stupid. Stupid in more ways than one.

“...Stop…You.” Arion grunted, but he could scarcely even summon the focus to speak, let alone wield magic. His vision was growing less focused by the moment, but he could still hear the Necromancer’s smile in her voice.

“Unlikely, but don’t worry. You don’t need to, and you won’t be dying here.”

Arion remained pinned as she took her leave, gasping, spitting, feeling the salty blood fill his mouth ever more.

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Crucifixion, it was called. General Venka was fond of it.

His orcs, the renegade orcs, had returned as a tattered mess from their attempted assault, and Ensharia almost felt sorry for them. Many were missing limbs, or else limb-sized chunks torn from their bodies. Most had some measure of soot or scorch marks darkening their pale grey skin and slowing their movements. Exhaustion was present in every step they took, both the physical kind borne from running miles in heavy armour, and the mental kind. The kind held by beaten men, and fearful ones.

It was wise to be fearful, because General Venka’s fury had been indescribable.

He had ordered much of the camp gathered up to witness as he passed judgement on the survivors, just a thousand from the three or so who had attacked the walls.

Venka did not waste time in his address, always a man to value economics in his doing of anything. He simply stood high, gazed out at the watching army, and spoke.

“The orcs you see now,” He began, gesturing to the rows and rows of arrested renegades, “Disobeyed my orders. They thought to charge ahead, without my command. To try and take Kaltan themselves, perhaps earn a reward in the seizing of glory, I really couldn’t say. They disobeyed me, that is what matters. Had they succeeded, they would be punished just as they are now, because what I value in all of you is your obedience.”

He paused, then screamed the word again, his fury coming on in an instant.

“OBEDIENCE!” Venka howled. “Is that understood? You are scarcely more than animals, and I would not have my hounds of war making their own decisions. Such things lead to the disaster we experienced today, our hand tipped for the enemy, their men’s morale bolstered by a petty victory. Such things lead to punishment.”

Venka turned his gaze to the orcs, as did all others present, and Ensharia watched with horror as the work was done. Great wooden crosses pressed down into the dirt, high enough to leave a man- or an orc- dangling as their arms were bound to the crossbar near its top. But they were not simply bound, instead each orc was nailed to them, driven into the wood with crude iron hammered brutally through the wrists or palms. They screamed, moaned, howled their apologies and pleas.

The General heeded none of it, merely watched with a stony face until the work was done. Ensharia watched too, feeling bile threatening to rise in her throat.

“Sharganh.” Garutan whispered, beside her. Ensharia turned to see him staring ahead at the display, his face tight, his eyes wet and wavering. “That…Sharganh.”

His friend. Ensharia’s heart broke as she saw the grief on his face, and she found herself placing a gentle hand down on Garutan’s shoulder.

“Come on.” She breathed. “We don’t need to see this, we-”

A tear rolled down his cheek as he interrupted her, voice a mess of confusion and misery.

“Why…Why does he do this?” Garutan turned, staring at her, lips trembling. “Humans…You build so much, so many wond full thing…Why do things like this? Why…Why are you cruel? What did we do to make you so cruel?”

Ensharia thought about it, and couldn’t tell him. Years of education seemed somehow useless, seeing the orcs for herself. They weren’t snarling animals, and yet her order still treated them as if they were. How could she fall back on the old justifications of raids and barbarity after seeing what she’d seen and learning what she’d learned?

“Because we are cruel.” She said at last, finding herself speaking from the heart.

Ensharia’s mind drifted back to earlier days, spent coughing in a gutter, starving on the streets. To a little sister who failed to wake one morning, to a little brother who failed to smile.

“Even to our own, we’re cruel.” She continued. “And we always have been. But…We can learn.” Ensharia felt the tears building, the guilt growing. “I think, at least, we can learn. And a lot of us try to do better.”

Garutan eyed her, silent. Ensharia could bear the sight of his sadness no more and spoke again, more fiercely.

“Garutan, I’m going to get you out of here. I’m going to get you all out of here, if it’s the last thing I do, I promise.”

It was a ridiculous thing to say, an impossible promise to make, but somehow Garutan’s face lit up with hope all the same. Ensharia felt a curious feeling in her gut, an impossible strength in her spine, and found herself repeating the words.

She was a coward, a weakling, an idiot. But by God, she was a Paladin. Her vows might not have meant much, seeing now the things they deemed monsters, but the promise she’d made to herself…That still did.

Ensharia got to her feet, tightening her hands to fists. She was a Paladin, and whether the Order agreed or not, there were people around her in need of protection.