When dawn came and Idris had managed to change and reacquaint himself with using crutches instead of his prosthetic, he took himself out into the barracks to do his own investigation of the destruction. In the foggy morning, the corpses looked ethereal and grey, and hopping along with only one foot made him feel like an initiate, again, as if he was doing this for the first time with Magus Arundale beside him.

Idris heaved himself back to the gate where Captain Farley fell, so he could do a cursory inspection of his injuries. He expected to see nothing – some magic devastated a person’s innards, with no outward signs of distress – but when he tugged the captain’s armour away, he saw quite clearly that Farley had been stabbed in the jugular. Idris frowned, put his tongue in his cheek and pulled at the wound. A neat, clean incision, made with a sharp blade. Not the work of undead soldiers.

Idris sat back, looked at the bodies lying around him. Even from distance, he saw blood.

A whole barracks of the Queen’s soldiers, stabbed and left for dead. The horses, slaughtered. No thrall was that strategically adept. The green glow, whatever that had been, did not kill these men, and Idris was certain that a single man, however powerful, did not have the ability to murder this many trained guards.

He changed the scope of his inspection. He looked in on the rooms and dorms, and found what Willard had meant when he said the place had not been looted. It was more like there had been an earthquake. There was still coin in the coffers and food in the pantry, but the bread was rotten as if it had been lying out for three weeks and the fish was putrid; Idris gagged when he opened the barrel of salted bream. Nothing had been deliberately destroyed or taken, except weaponry, which had been burned on the racks and reduced to molten lumps, and carts and carriages. The saddles in the stables were cut and split. There was no sign of the royal carriage.

By the time the fog had burnt away, Idris was done, and he was tired again. Crutch-work was harder than he remembered, though his left ankle felt renewed. He had the evidence he needed to send to the Queen, but he needed another bird.

He found Willard sleeping in a hammock on the wall’s guard tower, his straw hat over his eyes and his thick hide coat lying over his torso.

“Good morning, hedge witch,” Idris called; he could not climb the ladder.

Willard tilted his hat, peeked down. “Ah, morning, Idris Dead-talker.” He stretched, yawned and grinned. “Bright dreams?”

“I slept well. Yourself?”

“Mmm, like a baby bird.” He swung his legs down, surveyed the land. “No visitors?”

“None. Just…” Idris gestured to the thralls, still patrolling. “My grey friends.”

“Well, you look hale and hearty today,” said Willard, looking rather pleased with his work. “Your voice sounds less knotty, too.”

“I need your assistance, if you can aid me?”

“I’ll be down in two shakes.”

They sat on one of the blacksmith benches; Idris shared his findings while Willard tended to the glass cuts again.

“Rotted food,” said Willard, twisting his mouth. “That ain’t sensible. Why’re they keeping rotted food?”

“Death magic can do that sort of thing,” said Idris.

“Like…” Willard nodded to Idris’s wrapped stump.

“Like that, yes.”

“So it passed through and rotted the food?”

“It must have.” Idris sighed, shifted his half-leg, and finally voiced his fear. “Maybe… maybe I did do this. The green glow, the rotted food, the destruction. It would not be the first time, and…”

“But if the green glow was you, and that’s what shook the place, who killed the soldiers?”

“Not my thralls, and not the magic. Something else.”

“You were doing death magic at the same time?” Willard asked. Idris nodded. “Waking up your grey friends?” He nodded again. “If it were you, wouldn’t all these fine men of the Queen’s be grey friends, too?”

“That…” Idris hesitated, thought for a moment. “That is a surprisingly nuanced point, Willard.”

“Eh?”

“I mean, you are correct.” It did make him feel better, to think that he was not responsible for the terrifying events of the night before, but the hedge witch’s observation was precise. Arias did not act on their own, they were directed, and Idris’s directions to the aria were clear and focused. “But that creates new questions that I am too tired to consider. Willard, can you shoot?”

“Shoot? Bows and arrows?” Willard cackled his earthy laugh. “I can throw rocks, if that’s any help?”

“To what degree of accuracy?”

To demonstrate, Willard lifted a pebble and slung it artfully from his hand. It hit a bucket with a tuneful ting, ricocheted off and hit a propped-up shield, and a set of aria bells some twenty feet away shattered on the rock’s impact.

“Oh,” said Idris quietly.

It took some time, still, for Willard to be persuaded to fell a bird. He was morally opposed to the killing of innocent creatures and did not think sending a letter was worth the snuffing out of a life, but Idris assured him that the bird would feel very little if the rock was accurate enough and explained some simple avian anatomy to illustrate his persuasions. Comforted but sulky, Willard complied, and killed a gull at thirty feet with a pebble propelled from a sling. It thumped to the ground in a flurry of white feathers.

“You get one dead bird,” Willard said firmly, holding it out. “No more.”

“I am grateful.”

“You gonna use him?”

“I am. Do you want to see?”

Willard nodded.

Idris wrote his letter, first.

CLN,

Do not believe what you have heard. Never doubt my loyalty.

It pained him to begin that way, but he did not know what news had reached her ears since his last letter. If Farley believed Idris was behind the attack and some of the soldiers or squires escaped, they would believe the same, and rumours travelled faster than letters. He detailed what he and Lila saw and his time with Willard, and the results of his paltry investigation, and ended in the only way that made sense.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Necromancy did not kill the soldiers. Good steel did.

I send this letter with my signature.

Always yours

IYE

Willard craned his neck as Idris rifled in his trunk for his signature – a pressed black clematis – and positioned it just so within the rolled missive so that if someone took the letter off the bird’s leg, the clematis would fall. He sealed it with his signet ring and sealing wax and attached the paper to the gull.

Idris beckoned Willard closer to observe the aria magic. Willard watched how Lila used to, with wide-eyed fascination and a healthy dose of concern; he jumped when the gull shook itself back to motion and stood, still and stoic, on the desk.

Once the gull was gone, Idris checked his cut hand. The scars were still intact.

“Now what?” said Willard.

“We track the horse,” said Idris.

But he had hardly picked up his makeshift crutches when he heard a noise outside.

Willard perked up, turned. “Idris?”

They listened for a moment. The intruder, whoever they were, was moving too quietly for Idris to discern intent. What if it was the assassin, coming to finish the job?

“The thralls will take care of it,” he said, half-believing it. “That is what they are for.”

“What if it’s friendly?”

“Help me up,” Idris said.

He got two steps when he heard footsteps on the planks outside, and then, in the doorway –

“Idris!” Lila cried, and before he knew what was happening, he was flat on his back on the floor and she was hugging him so tightly that he could not breathe.

“Ouch,” he said, coughing out his breath.

“Oh, bells,” she said quickly, scrambling up so she was not on top of him, grabbing his hands. “Are you hurt? Are you well? Where were you?”

“Gently, Lila, please – please,” he said again, this time with a laugh, as she opened her mouth again. She blushed, bit her bottom lip and remembered her position with a guilty start.

“Sir Idris, forgive me,” she said, and bowed her head. “I failed you.”

“No, no. Here.” He held out his arm, and she dutifully hefted him up. “I am alive,” he said, gripping her shoulder, “and I am in one piece. Or rather, I have not lost any further limbs or extremities than you left me with.”

Her gaze turned to his leg, then to Willard. Willard, in the doorway, held his grass hat tightly in both hands, his face in a tentative smile, and he bowed his head.

“Lady,” he said.

Lila’s blush increased. “I… Sir Idris?”

“This is Willard. He rescued me from a bandit trap. He is quite the experienced hedge witch. Willard, this is my friend Lila. You do not have to bow, she is not used to that.”

“I always bow for respectable ladies,” said Willard. Lila laughed slightly, then chewed her lip and tried hard not to look at him. “’Specially friends of my friends. It’s a right pleasure to meet you, Miss Lila.”

“Is he teasing?” she asked Idris. Idris smiled.

“No. He… does not see many people.”

Lila’s appearance was a balm. Initially, all she wanted to do was serve – she interrogated Idris about his prosthetic and his leg and the medicines that had been used, and she demanded to know when he had last eaten and whether or not he had bathed – but once she realised that Willard really was responsible for Idris’s relatively unharmed condition, she calmed. The whole time, Willard stood in unfeigned admiration of her, and when she eventually addressed him, he seemed unsure what to say.

“Sir witch,” she said, standing, “you have done my master a great service. It will not be forgotten.”

“Oh. I…” He twisted his mouth, looked at Idris, who waved his hand in encouragement. “You’re right welcome, it was my pleasure, Miss Lila.”

“I can get you a fresh boot, Sir Idris,” Lila said, turning back to him.

“I thought they were all in the carriage,” said Idris.

“They are. It is some distance from here, though.”

“First…” He pushed himself to his single ankle, so he could sit on the edge of the bed. “First, tell me what happened.”

Lila hesitated. Her hair was tangled, falling from its bun, and she had dried mud and ash scraped along her left cheek. There was a bruise coming up beside her eye and her trousers were torn. Without her saying a thing, Idris knew that the last two nights had been traumatic for her, and he felt responsible, somehow. She had gone through it alone.

“I… permission to be informal,” she said. He nodded. “Where should I start?”

“Exactly where we last met,” said Idris. “Come sit. Tell us. Willard…” He gestured to the chair by the desk, and the hedge witch sat. Lila sank onto the bed and took a deep breath. “Go slowly, from the start. Omit nothing,” Idris said.

Lila closed her eyes and spoke.

“I ran, like you said. I wanted to get ahead of the thralls, so I could tell the soldiers that the thralls were yours, on our side. I wanted Kurellan to give them orders. But by the time I got back, this place was already done. The soldiers were panicking, trying to fight enemies they couldn’t see. The green light, it…” She shivered, did not look at the men. “It had faces in it,” she said.

Idris frowned, alarmed; Willard sat forward, elbows on his knees. Wiping her mouth, Lila shook her head.

“I couldn’t see them right clearly, but… but they looked like people. Just faces. Swooping. Coming for us. Like there should have been a body beneath. The soldiers were swiping at them, firing at them, and it did nothing.

“Kurellan was already at the carriage with some of the guards. I called for him to get out. Something spooked the horses before he got in, though, and the carriage sped off without us. Kurellan… he grabbed my wrist like he was going to strike me,” she said, staring at Idris now. “I thought he was going to beat me bloody. In all that madness, he was angry at me. At…”

“At me,” Idris finished.

“I tried to tell him, I did,” she said, her face flushed and her tone half-furious, half-distressed. “I said it wasn’t you, that the thralls were ready and coming to help, and he said it was too late now and I had better learn my loyalties right quick. When I said I wasn’t going to leave you behind like that, he pushed me and told me to find a horse and get us out of there, that we had to get back to Her Majesty.”

“Captain Farley?” said Idris. Lila shook her head again.

“Said he’d kill you if you came back here. Said he should never have let a necromancer into his camp, that it was only inviting trouble. That you were unnatural.”

Willard scoffed; Idris waved the insults aside.

“But what was killing the soldiers, Lila?” he said, trying to get to the point.

“I… I don’t know. The green light was so awful, and the smoke so thick. I couldn’t see. I found a horse, Kurellan dragged me onto it, and we ran.” She smoothed her hands on her knees. “I saw the carriage run off the road, the horses dead. We made it all the way back to the inn and Kurellan commandeered the whole building, for the Queen’s business, he said. He… he told me if I came back for you, he wouldn’t let me back in.”

“Did he write to the Queen?” asked Idris.

“I expect so.”

“Black bells,” he whispered, rubbing his eyes.

“Sir Idris,” said Lila, taking his hands and looking earnestly at him, “I know you did not do this. I know it. I saw him, too. The black figure? I am not going to abandon you, not again.”

“I honestly appreciate that, Lila. I am glad to have you back with me.”

“And I did look for you. I got out of the inn and stole a horse; I rode out and searched, but the forest was so filled with fae that I… I thought you were dead. I did not hear your bells.”

“Shattered, unfortunately.”

He told Lila what had happened, about the trap and Willard, and the investigations they had done.

“I hope your letter gets to Her Majesty before Kurellan’s does,” she said.

“Me too.” Idris considered their next moves. “Lila, are you hurt?”

“No. I have my sword still, too. Oh, and…” She reached into her shirt and pulled out Idris’s coat. “I recovered your cane, too, but I took that to the carriage.”

“We will go to the carriage, collect the tent and some supplies. Then, we will go to the inn.”

“But Kurellan –“

“Perhaps if we can talk, he will feel differently.”

Or at least Idris hoped so. Kurellan often saw things in black and white; speaking with the necromancer he sneered at about a situation where a whole battalion of the Queen’s men died probably was not going to change his mind. But Idris had to do something. If he did nothing, the kingdom would happily call for his head on a spike.

“I think I am an enemy of the state, now,” he said quietly. Lila’s dark eyes shone; Willard twisted a curl of his hair around his finger, frowning deeply. “I would understand if you did not wish to be associated with me. Willard, if you need to go home –“

“No, no,” he said, reaching and patting Idris’s knee. “I know these lands. If you’re alone, you need my herb lore. If you’ll have me, Master Dead-Talker, I’ll gladly stay.”

Lila simply smiled at Idris like he was extremely stupid, and she squeezed his unharmed hand.

“Thank you,” he whispered, squeezing back. “Then, we have work to do. As equals,” he added to Lila. “Please. We do not need hierarchy here now. Lila, would you find a good horse for me to raise? Willard, we will need your herbs. As soon as we can, we should leave here and head for the carriage.”

“You shouldn’t be bringing up any more grey friends with your hand the way it is,” said Willard.

“There, our friend is right,” said Lila.

“Well… let me burn the dead,” Idris said, “so that no other necromancer can raise them again.”

Lila nodded. “Willard, is it?” she said to the hedge witch. He smiled and nodded.

“Aye.”

“Let us gather what Sir Idris needs. Will you assist me?”

“Oh, right certainly, Miss Lila.”

He jumped up, winked at Idris as they left. Idris smiled, shrugged. He didn’t much fancy Willard’s chances – Lila was notoriously picky.