Necromancy worked best at night. There were myriad reasons for this, but the first and easiest to understand was that bodies which had previously been dead and decomposing did not react well to direct sunlight. Idris was not certain that the other necromancer’s green faces would balk at noon light, but he was sure that if they were only to create a distraction it would be more frightening and spectacular in the dark. It gave them ample time to get into position to spring the trap.

Riette and Idris took the camp as dusk fell. He investigated every rock in the abandoned space for signs of the other necromancer’s state or work conditions and saw nothing.

“Do you think he will return?” said Riette, her hair still loose but her helmet now on. In her full armour, she cut an intimidating figure – almost too intimidating, because when he looked at her, Idris kept forgetting what he was meant to be doing.

“Perhaps.” He sighed, standing to his full height again. “Regardless, he cast no magic here. It is a good vantage point, though.”

From the camp, they could see the quiet town of Obsidian Lake, so named for the rock that formed the basin of the body of water. It gave the lake a deep, dark shadow that looked incredibly out-of-sorts between the farms and quarries, like a black burn stain in a tablecloth. There were no formal walls or gates that allowed visitors into the town and the local council did not include a permanent weaver, so Kurellan had instead instructed the people to hide in the surrounding countryside. Soldiers had stayed; Idris could see them forming a defensive arrowhead at the main road.

“I do not see this ending well,” said Riette, beside him now as they gazed at their playing field.

“Just get me close to him,” said Idris. “I will do the rest.”

Willard was on the road and Lila was in Obsidian Lake at the beacons. When either of them saw any sign of the necromancer, they were to light the resins in House Naga’s blue. Kurellan would then have half of his commandeered forces turn inward, to the town, to watch for assassins coming from the empty houses, and the other half would bar the necromancer’s entry.

Idris planned to be behind him the whole time. He had been practicing the required stances all afternoon, with Lila and Riette assisting him while Willard mashed herbs and prepared salves. Idris had his best boots on, now, but the whole structure of his prosthetic was imbued with the hedge witch’s herbs, and his stump tingled pleasantly in the mixtures. In his pocket were two cakes of energising wart root that stank of lake silt and one vial of what Willard called ‘pure light’. It glowed white when shaken and came with specific instructions: do not drink unless the aria was overwhelming. There would be nobody to shock him out of his aria-induced stupor if anything went wrong.

Besides that, he had the remains of his travel magic pack tied to his hip and nerves in his stomach. The prospect of failing again preyed on his mind; he tried to keep it at bay by reciting the necessary angles and commands he would need to stop the necromancer in his tracks and recalling the plan. While it was a relief to be standing unaided again, he did not feel his best. The medicines did enough to push away the aches and pains but Idris’s exhausted body felt the weakness, still. When he raised his arms, his hands shook.

He felt remarkably safe with Riette beside him, though. Lila had raised her eyebrows when he suggested that she go to Obsidian Lake without him but had done as asked, as was her duty. Willard promised Idris that as soon as his beacon was lit, he would take to his feet to get to town as fast as possible, to protect Lila. Idris tried to tell him that Lila hardly needed protecting but those protests fell flat.

“I fought in the war,” said Riette, as they watched the sun go down.

“You did?”

“I held the line at Harran Pass, with my father’s bannermen.” She sighed, adjusted her gauntlet. “We started with two hundred and finished with forty-nine. Lord Orrost’s knights pushed hard and firm and it was only by the grace of geography that we managed to repel them. Their stone magicians… they are a terrifying sight.”

Idris nodded, remembering. “I heard they dug tunnels in the Harransee.”

“Oh, several. If it was not for Magus Arundale’s finest, I fear they would have brought the mountains down on top of us.”

“They sent water magicians to Braemar. They used the rain against us.”

“Formed spears, so I heard.”

“Indeed.” Idris shrugged. “By the time our forces reached the magicians and killed them, we had already lost two-hundred, and the residual work of the water magicians had caused the ground to crumble beneath their feet. When I arrived…”

When he arrived, the foundations of Braemar’s outer wall had begun to slide and the rain was so fierce that the beacons were smoking, and brick and mortar was destroyed by stone aria bombardment, and there were dead bodies everywhere. Blood was mixed into the soil, turning every step into a sticky, tarry slog. It was dark. He could not see. But he felt it. The death aria in every raindrop, in every breath.

“It was so far beyond anything I had imagined,” he said softly. “I am not a child. I know what war is. But… the chaos. The damage. The sheer carnage that humans can perpetuate on other humans.”

“Orrost threw everything he had at us, and we held,” said Riette, with a comforting smile as she turned to him.

“I held nothing,” said Idris. “I did what all carrion birds do, and I made something from the scraps that predators left behind.” He took a deep breath. “The soldiers called me The Puppeteer after that. Not fondly, either. I do not blame them. Seeing your allies, your friends, awakened from a death that should have been final to throw themselves upon the enemy’s swords again… I do not think ‘traumatic’ covers it.”

“But for the Queen?” she said.

“Yes. Anything for the Queen.”

“Do you have sword training?” Riette asked.

“No.” He stamped his heavy boot on the floor once. “I do not have the dexterity for fancy footwork.”

“You would be marvellous with a bow.”

“Perhaps I will train in archery when we return home.”

“Idris…” Riette pursed her lips. “Not all those who are outside of your discipline think it is inherently evil or unnatural. People are scared of what they do not understand. A man with a sword can use it any way he likes – to kill innocents or to protect them. As far as I am concerned, necromancy is just the same.”

Idris was just considering a response when he saw, closer to the end of the road, a bright blue flame erupt.

“Willard has seen him,” he said, moving from the edge of the ridge.

“How fast can you run?” the captain said, shouldering her shield.

“Not fast enough.”

Willard was two miles from the town. They had time.

“Something has been bothering me,” Idris said, as he followed Riette down the narrow track from the camp.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Beyond the attacks?”

“About the attacks.” He was unsure how much the soldier knew about aria magic, so he reverted to basics. “Aria magicians need an aria to work with. Correct?”

“Correct.”

“At the barracks, he maybe just leap-frogged over my energy, or he utilised the exact same aria as I did as I tried to raise the soldiers. But at Harran Pass, the death aria was far quieter. There is no way the other necromancer should have been able to create a display the way he did, never mind for the aria coming from him to be so strong.”

“Death is everywhere, especially after the war,” said Riette, the hint of a frown in her voice.

“Not like that. If you felt it, I am sure you would agree.” Idris sighed. “Perhaps it is a problem for another time.”

“Do you hear the aria now?”

“Not yet.”

“That’s a good sign, is it not?” she said, turning.

“It might be.”

Once they came down from the camp, Riette gestured for Idris to join her behind a rocky outcrop. It was nearly dark, now, and the sliver of a quiet moon presided over them. Ahead, the soldiers waited for their target, and Idris knew somewhere, Willard was trying to get to the beacon in Obsidian Lake. He had his own part to play, though. Quickly, he slipped off his coat and pulled a clarifying crystal from his magic pack. Much like a suppression crystal that sapped magical energy, a clarifying crystal worked with the inherent magic in an aria mage’s blood, giving it a central focus. In places where arias were weak, a clarifying crystal could be the boost that a spell needed to be successful.

Idris took a bandage, wrapped it so the crystal was pressed against his right palm, which itself was already tightly bandaged; Riette watched out of the corner of her eye.

“The magic will not be pretty, I fear,” he explained, his voice low. “That, and my hand is rather badly cut. Hopefully, the crystal will stop my skin splitting again.” When her eyes narrowed, he twisted his mouth and said, “By giving the magic leaving my body a central nexus – the crystal – it should limit the exposure the rest of my skin has to the energy I am producing. It is more complicated than that, but…”

“And here I thought you sang some pretty notes and the world kept turning,” she said, but this time with gentle humour.

Idris felt the necromancer coming before he heard anything, the same feeling he had when he had looked out from under the cart at the barracks – a terrible sense of dread. The aria came second. At first, it was a gentle murmur of song, like a bubbling brook, in the very centre of his brain, earworm-familiar. The crystal on his palm shimmered on its own. The song swelled with each inch closer they got to each other until, finally, he saw the dark, intimidating frame of the rival necromancer, passing the rock, approaching Obsidian Lake.

The aria was nowhere near as strong as it was in Harran Pass but it was still stronger than it should have been, and it seemed to be emanating from the black figure, and yet he walked as if he had not a care in the world.

“How close do you need to be?” Riette whispered, her voice almost lost in the death aria pulsing in Idris’s ears.

“Closer than this.”

“Follow close, then.”

They were counting on the noise of the aria to mask their footsteps, but even so they moved as quietly as possible, twenty steps behind. The necromancer did not turn.

“Halt!” shouted Kurellan at last.

Ahead, the soldiers raised their shields and waited for commands. The blue fire beacon burned, giving them all ghoulish, icy, shadows. Kurellan, at the head of the arrow, took a slight step forward.

“State your name and intention,” he said, his voice carrying like a commandment.

The necromancer said nothing. He stopped walking, dropped his shoulders.

“I am tired of your games,” Kurellan said, his face stern and cold. “And I am tired of you killing good soldiers.” He shifted his stance, pulled his broadsword; Idris held his breath. “If you are coming past me, whelp,” Kurellan snarled, “then you come through me. Like a man. Your little firework show does nothing to scare me.”

And then, through the aria, through everything, Idris was sure he heard the breath of a scornful laugh.

He had no idea how it reached him, but it vibrated through his head like a migraine. He stopped, dropped to his knees and took the deep breath he needed. Riette stood in front of him, her own sword drawn. Idris pictured the diagrams, felt the ache in the muscles he had been working all afternoon, and the crystal on his hand glittered a fiery grey.

“There you are,” the strange, inner voice said. “Too early.”

Something tugged, as if there was a rope tied around Idris’s spine and someone was trying to rip it out of his stomach.

He shouted, alarmed, knocked winded by the sensation. Riette roared and sprinted forward, sword raised, and this time, the necromancer moved.

He turned instantly, raised something green and glowing like the surface of a lake, and met Riette’s blow with it. Her arms shuddered and there was an emerald spark between the two blades.

Idris gasped, let out a guttural cough and tried to wrestle his brain back to the task at hand. The aria blared, now, louder than the clashing of Riette’s sword against the green weapon the necromancer wielded.

“Hold!” Kurellan shouted.

“Interesting,” the inside voice whispered. “What if I…?”

Suddenly, Idris’s right leg was ripped out from beneath him, and he cried out, flailed to regain his balance, and managed to twist so his shoulder slammed into the hard rock instead of his temple. His left leg was free, but his right leg…

His right leg hung like it was being held in place by an invisible force.

Idris dug his left heel into the ground, gritted his teeth and tried to drag himself back to his knees, but whatever held his right ankle would not give. The prosthetic glowed, the same green as the faces, and he felt – he felt, on his phantom limb – a vice-like grip on his right ankle.

“No!” he said, pulling again. “No! Help!”

Riette turned, her hair flashing white in the moonlight, and when she saw him she gaped. The necromancer, taking advantage of her stillness, drove the green weapon down towards her.

With a whoosh and a thuck, the necromancer cursed and turned, reaching for the arrow stuck in his shoulder. By the blue beacon, Lila nocked a fresh arrow and aimed.

Idris clawed his fingers into the earth, desperately dragging himself back, but the more he pulled, the less his right leg followed. He heard a pop in his right hip, felt the straps of the boot digging into his thigh.

“Let me go!” he shouted.

Desperate, he breathed the aria deep.

He tasted the same taint in it, the same odd tingling quality. The pins and needles ran right through his phantom foot. He raised his right, crystalled hand, created the pentagon and stared at his dangling leg. The crystal shone grey.

“Loose,” he commanded, and closed his fist.

For a moment, the grip was lost.

“Oh, no,” said the foreign voice. “Not yet.”

Idris’s head slammed back as the invisible forced pulled, hard. Through the confusion, the noise and the stars in his eyes, he only just noticed Riette.

“This will be undignified,” she said, “and I pray you forgive me for what I am about to do.”

She slammed her sword blade into the dirt, stood in a squat over Idris’s hips, grabbed both of his thighs and held tight. To his left, Kurellan bellowed and arced his broadsword down toward the necromancer. It glanced off the shoulder, and the necromancer hissed and whirled out of reach.

The pulling on Idris’s boot, though, was now unbearable, as if the invisible force was trying to tear his prosthetic right off the stump, or pull his whole leg out of the socket. Riette was shaking with the strain; the pressure was pulling her, now, too, and bringing up dust clouds beneath her feet.

“Do something!” she said to Idris.

He had one option left open, and he did not like his chances.

He closed his eyes, held the crystal on his chest, left hand flat on the back of his right hand, and he breathed the aria until it filled his whole body. It burned, like hot coals in his veins. He had never done this, only seen it in books, and only ever contemplated it because he knew his lost foot had to count for something.

The foot had died, still attached to him.

The word ripped flames across his vocal chords as he said it.

“Burn.”

The heat flared around his stump, around the boot. Riette gasped. Idris let the energy flow to one, localised point.

“You –“ said the other voice in his head. “No, stop that –“

“Burn,” Idris spat, opening his watering eyes, feeling all of the moisture in his skin evaporate in the heat he was creating.

“What are you -?”

“BURN!” he screamed, heatwaves rising from his shirt.

And the invisible hand holding his phantom foot released him, as if scalded.

Riette leapt away, gasping; the exhaustion dazed Idris, whited his vision. His boot thunked to the ground, the blood rushing furiously back to the deprived leg.

“Attack!” Kurellan ordered from somewhere.

The green glow rushed up.

Idris, lying in his own cold sweat, closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, Riette was pulling him up to a seated position. It was still dark, but the green glow was gone.

“He got away,” she said, seeing the despair on Idris’s face. “I know. But we have a gift for you.”

She held up a bundle of velvet.

“I think,” she said, with a timid smile, “you’re going to like this.”

“Idris,” called Kurellan. “Are you well?”

Idris nodded faintly, gestured to his throat. His lips hurt. When he coughed, it tasted ashy. The old judge approached, knelt beside him.

“He threw the faces at us again,” said Kurellan, his face sour. “Used them as cover and slipped away. I prepared the guards and they did their best, but nothing you say can prepare them for what that menace is.” He clapped a hand on Idris’s shoulder. “You did well.”

Idris shook his head, pointed at the velvet bundle in Riette’s hand.

“This?” said Kurellan. “I think Lady DeTrentaville here chipped part of the blade that the necromancer was carrying.”

When he flipped the velvet open, Idris thought his head was about to split.