Chapter 11b: The Unwilling Servant

Guilt wracked him. Years before the battle of Sipha, Eyliasa had been abducted by the Ryshans. They were a barbaric people men who would hold a fifteen-year-old girl for ransom as blackmail to assure their victory, men who sent pieces of her as evidence with taunting messages of how they abused her in every way imaginable. He hadn’t given in then. His heart had felt like it would burst through his chest, but he hadn’t given in. The good of the kingdom weighed heavier than the abuse and murder of his daughter. Or so he kept telling himself. He wanted to believe it, but underneath the hard exterior, it tore his soul apart.

In the end she had died, her head mounted to a staff at the forefront of the enemy formation. He made them pay for the abuses. With tears wetting his cheeks, he had made every one of those bastards pay. When the battle ended corpses covered the field. They showed the enemy no mercy. He had their villages razed and their people killed; down to the last child. The vengeance only fueled his self-loathing, but he couldn’t make himself stop, torn between mercy and a hatred he couldn’t stop.

General Faygen had his revenge, but it didn’t matter. He had wanted to die. A boon he didn’t receive until decades later.

He couldn’t live through that again. Undead or not, he couldn’t repeat that burden.

He raised his clouded eyes and glared into the necromancer’s cowl. Hatred burned in his heart that he hadn’t felt in ages.

The wolf smile widened, fueling Faygen’s anger and hate.

The creature motioned him off the table with a wave of his hand. “Dispise me all you want, General. I wouldn’t expect any less, but act on that hatred and you will find your daughter’s head once again left on a pike. Now, do as I told you and stand up.”

The plight of his daughter broken his will. He kept a hand on the stone to support himself as he slid off the table and stood on legs that wobbled, legs that hadn’t been used in centuries. He would obey.

He pushed the dark memories to the back of his mind and watched his two companions step off the ship. They were an odd pair. The first one looked like a wolfhound that had been crossed with a saber tooth tiger, a massive creature whose shoulders stood almost chest high. The beast carried itself like a predator, shoulders swaying with each step, sniffing the air and constantly glancing back and forth as if in search of something to hunt. Huge fangs stretched and deformed its lips and jutted below its lower jaw. Faygen would have thought it was alive if not for the gray, mold-covered skin showing through the creature’s thin hair and the milky eyes that didn’t miss anything.

His other companion seemed to be more wraith than human as it glided down the gangplank to the dock. Cloaked like its dark master, nothing could be seen of the creature beneath. Unlike the necromancer, it gave nothing away within the blackness of its cowl. Neither the eyes or teeth gleamed. The robe contained a moving void as far as Faygen could tell.

I wonder if that demon has some hold over him, something the wraith would do anything for, or is the creature helping for its own ends?

During the voyage they had stayed in their separate quarters. Faygen could sense everyone on the ship, the five lower undead and these other two, as if their return from death created a bond in their souls, shining like a sickly green beacon in the darkness. None of the undead had made any attempt to communicate with the others. He hadn’t expected the lower undead to even try. They only lived to feast on living flesh. Of coarse, he hadn’t expected the mutated wolfhound to try and communicate either, but he had expected more from the wraith creature. It seemed to have a mind of its own, like himself, having desires for things other than the destruction that the necromancer pursued.

He turned away from his companions, following the dock along the waterfront toward Renier’s Port Gate. For the last two days he had heard the sound of men working on the dock, ships coming in full of cargo or fish. Now all he heard was the lapping of the water, the wind gusting over the ocean waters, and the boards of the dock occasionally creak as his companions followed behind him. Are they following me, or do we just happen to be going in the same direction?

He didn’t know their purpose and didn’t really care. He only knew that they had nothing to do with him directly. No orders had been given to him concerning them.

Within minutes the three stood before the Port Gate. Faygen looked through the gates and saw a silent city, a dead city. If his ancient tear ducts hadn’t dried up centuries ago, he would have cried.

A thing that was once a man trudged through the drizzle further down the road, aimlessly walking from one side of the street to the other in a haphazard, zigzag pattern. Faygen sent out a mental command. Come. The thing stopped, its balding head turning toward the three. It turned and stumbled toward Faygen, eyes locked on the general. The creature didn’t zigzag or deviate, walking straight to the three. The ghoul’s feet drug along the ground, making even the straight path take some time. Within moments he stood before Faygen.

He had just started to turn, to see what his companions were going to do, when the wolfhound bolted around him and grasped the mindless undead in its wide jaws. Bone cracked as fangs sank deep into its skull. The wolfhound swung the undead back and forth, popping vertebrae and slinging half-congealed blood. The beast slung it back and forth several more times before allowing the corpse to fall onto the ground. Without a pause, the creature’s head dove to the ghoul’s stomach. Massive teeth bit into the soft flesh and pulled. The corpse jerked up and down with the jerking of the wolfhound’s head, until flesh ripped and a stew of organs oozed out of the ragged hole. The beast swallowed the flap of skin then dove into the quivering innards, yanking out a length of intestine and devouring it, as any dog would do to a string of sausages.

Faygen knew the sight should have sickened him, but he felt nothing, or at best puzzled. Why would the creature kill one of the undead? Is the beast that vicious, or does it need food before continuing its mission?

He turned to the wraith, hoping to get an answer, but the mysterious man simply bowed his head and walked down the wall, away from the gate.

The wet snapping and swallowing continued for several more seconds before it pulled its bloody muzzle up and trotted after the other.

He watched the two walk down the wall until they disappeared around the corner, towards the mountains. Their presence would remain a mystery until another day.

Without sparing any more thought for his companions, Faygen walked into Renier. He had work of his own to do.