B5 Chapter 83 – Death Rising

Merigold bit her lip and tried to stop her hands from shaking, gripping the pommel of her saddle so tight her knuckles turned white. In the distance, obscured by swirling miasma and golden light, the two forces clashed over and over again, yet even mounted she couldn’t see well enough to tell how the battle was progressing.

I brought them here. They are dying because of me.

Moisture welled in her eyes and she shook her head, trying to dismiss the thought. No. She was not responsible for this. Members of the Golden Legion would have come regardless of what she had done. Were it not for her intervention, only a thousand would have come, two thousand at best, and all of them would have died.

And worse than died.

“H-how is it going?” she asked hesitantly, not for the first time.

Mounted on his own horse, which seemed as implacable and expressionless as its rider, Honoured Stennis peered into the distance, no doubt seeing all of the details that escaped her. Without any flicker of emotion in his eyes, he scanned the field for a moment before he replied.

“Something is wrong,” he said shortly.

Merigold waited, heart frozen in her chest, but nothing more was forthcoming. Stennis did not elaborate, only remained, seemingly unmoved, on his stallion.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded, her voice rising to the edge of being shrill.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

Which was likely why he hadn’t said anything.

“How… how do you know something is wrong?” Merigold tried a different angle. Sometimes the Honoured Stennis was as forthcoming as a welded-shut clam. Most of the time. Heart thundering in her chest, she couldn’t help but curse the man for being so reticent.

“The undead are powerful, stronger than I would have expected them to be. A platinum rank Necromancer is just as frightening as the texts would lead us to believe. Even so, I do not believe the Golden Legion should be struggling as much as they are. Unless their standards have fallen, or the Empire’s Soldiers are weaker than I recall, they should have driven far deeper into Foxbridge than they have.”

At this time, the battle had been raging in the streets for over an hour. A significant amount of ground had been gained, driving the miasma and undead back, but it appeared as though the pace was much slower than what Stennis had expected.

“Can… can you go and… help them?” she asked, hesitating.

She knew she shouldn’t ask. Merigold was not in command of Stennis, not by a long shot! Should someone of her station even attempt to give him an order, they would have their head removed in an instant. Yet he was here, by her side, by order of the Emperor, protecting not only her, but the Imperial Seal that she carried.

“No,” he replied shortly, then seemed to consider a moment, one finger tapping on the reins. Once, twice, three times… then–“My orders are to remain by your side and ensure you are safe. With a battle in progress nearby, and ghosts in the vicinity, I may not leave your side, even for a moment.”

Merigold hadn’t realised there were ghosts nearby. A shiver ran down her spine as she glanced about fearfully. Being here was her responsibility, and was only right, but she hated it, hated the death and the destruction, the smell of smoke and the faint cries of the dead and dying. Smooth vellum under her hands, the soft glow of enchanted globes in the dark, the smell of fresh ink, organised columns and tables, these were the things she was familiar with, the things she loved.

She didn’t want to be here.

“Shouldn’t we at least tell them that there is something wrong?” she asked him. “I can go in with you to speak to General Crow. That way you don’t need to leave my side.”

Honoured Stennis shook his head.

Right now, they were at the rear of the formation, with archers and reserves around them, far from danger and well protected, but the General was only a few hundred metres away, right in the heart of the army.

“I’m sure they already know,” Stennis told her.

“But what if they don’t?”

“Then they will soon figure it out.”

Not for the first time, she was struck by how callous Stennis was towards the lives of the Golden Legion. At times it seemed as if there was a loose sort of respect between them, and at others he seemed to think of them as less than worthless.

Not wanting to push him any further, there was nothing Merigold could do but bite her lip, grip the pommel of her saddle, and hope that nobody else would die.

***

“Found it!” Elinon exclaimed, sweat dripping from his brow and running down his face. Battles were always so damned hot.

Before him, sat on the ground with their armour off, was a wounded Soldier, leaning forward while the Mage Captain pressed his hands into their back. Physical contact wasn’t necessary to try and search for internal magick, but it did make the process easier, and tracking down this particular infection had been more than difficult.

“What did you find? If you don’t mind me asking, Mage Captain?”

Understandably nervous, the Soldier he was examining, a Sergeant named Reynold, asked.

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How to even describe it? As the battle had dragged on, Elinon had only become more convinced that something was deeply, worryingly wrong. Yet, stretching his senses out over the battlefield had revealed nothing unusual. Of course, magick was flying everywhere, dragged up into the sky, raining back down again, being produced by the Mage Corps and pushed into the Golden Dome, along with hundreds of spells flung back and forth every minute.

Finding anything subtle amidst all of that chaos was difficult, but Elinon had confidence in his abilities, he was sensitive to the flow of magick, and no matter how much he had suspected foul play, he hadn’t been able to find anything.

When the General had pulled him from the battle and tasked him with searching, he had examined dozens of individuals, each of them weakened, with a strange lethargy in their limbs. Yet tracking down the source had been exceptionally difficult. Had they been afflicted with some sort of curse or spell, it should have been readily apparent.

Only now, on his twentieth attempt, had he finally managed to find the source of the problem.