Book 3: Sound And Fury

  Chapter 20 The Boys Of Summer

  For hours they streamed forth from a small wrinkle in the landscape; a shadowy little cleft tucked behind a large, oddly smooth, round boulder. Men and women in rags, wearing crude iron collars and lashed on by their overseers’ ruthlessly flying whips.

  Once out in the warm summer sunshine, most clawed the blindfolds from their eyes and gasped deep, grateful breaths of real air into their lungs.

  Most of them did, anyway. Among every group of five hundred or so slave soldiers, a dozen or two remained silently catatonic, standing still and swaying mindlessly. A few others wailed and screamed incoherent gibberish or struggled violently, desperate to slay or injure their fellows… or themselves.

  “Onward, form up and sit still until your pens are built… And silence that shrieking lunatic. Knock him cold or cut his throat. I’ve no patience left.” Overseer Sandring barked at his five hundred mostly silently obedient slave soldiers.

  At least a few always went too mad to be useful, after a forced march through the void… Culling those and sacrificing them to be raised as zombies was as much as they were good for usually.

  One of the males punched the screaming slave in the temple, sending the wretch crashing to the thick, dark soil around the gateway. He stooped to run his fingers through the soft, rich soil. “I’d swear this was some good-wife’s garden bed…” He muttered, rich, black loam staining his fingertips.

  With a sigh, Sandring looked up at the distinctive triangular peak that soared over the pleasant alpine meadow the army was rapidly overrunning. “First five rows, come with me. You will build your pen. The rest, sit there, or be punished.”

  One hundred exhausted, ragged slaves staggered to their feet and followed their overseer to the supply depot to be issued tools.

  Axes, mauls, picks and shovels gripped in unwilling hands, they marched to the designated bivouac site and began felling slender trees to build a simple enclosure.

  They worked in silence, lashing saplings together with crude cordage of twisted bark and erecting fence posts.

  Sandring deliberately failed to notice, when they built a number of primitive shelters from the boughs stripped from the felled trees. It was against regulations, but no one would notice out on the edge of camp.

  A half hour later, Overseer Patterson’s construction squad settled in beside his, sharing the work and their tools.

  “We’re really doing this?” The slim, young man asked his older, more experienced mentor, once two slave pens and the overseer’s encampments were finished.

  “Trust me, kid. This is a one way trip for all of us… The signs are plain to see. Cult leadership is throwing us away for some goal of their own.” Sandring grunted.

  “Did you see the heavy hauling crew lined up, waiting for us to transit? They are here to collect something and leave, we are here to make sure they leave unimpeded.”

  He locked eyes with the younger man and grinned. “Notice how no one has made any provision for our return home? Read between the lines. They leave, we stay… probably as zombies, once those legionnaires are ready to sacrifice us all.”

  “Surely the church of Light wouldn’t…” Patterson began to stammer, his hands fiddling with his whip in nervous agitation.

  “They would.” Sandring laughed softly, while watching his slave soldiers quietly march into their pen. “In this army, rumor and scuttlebutt will keep you alive. Word is, the cult is being pressed hard and needs something from here, something big and hard to move. Once they secure that, we will be a liability.”

  He sat on a boulder and sighed happily. “This is a nice country, not too crowded, probably pretty far from any big towns or powers... Between us, we have around a thousand slaves, more than enough, if we march them off at the first chance we get… and never look back.”

  “With no food or supplies? You never explained how we’ll manage with nothing!” Patterson stammered in a furious whisper.

  “Brother… In a slapdash, half ass operation like this? We both just hit the quartermaster’s tent and draw supplies and rations twice, maybe three times. They won’t find the double dealing, until after we are long gone.” He grinned wickedly at his comrade.

  “We’ll raid whatever towns we find on this road for supplies and just keep going, til we can build a little kingdom for ourselves in the middle of nowhere.”

  “It seems risky… won’t the legion chase us?” The younger man asked weakly.

  “No chance. They’d need to send at least half their force. With no cavalry, that means sending them off for at least a week. General Trask is too smart for that.”

  The cagy veteran looked around the woods, as evening’s light began slanting through the trees. “I like the look of this country… except for those damn spiders! Big, ugly horrors!”

  There were a large number of very large, but not monstrous spiders in the upper boughs of the taller trees. They lurked in their webs and didn’t seem a threat, but many in the swiftly growing encampment felt uneasy under their many, many eyes.

  /

  “The human invaders are penning up their fellow humans the way our human neighbors pen their sheep and cattle…” It’ziyl muttered softly across the evening breeze. “Is this the ‘slavery’ thing we have heard of?” He asked his fellow arachnid observers, who were scattered among the trees, speaking in tones humans were incapable of hearing.

  “I believe so… Lord Hermit said these humans engage in such… behavior. I have heard darker things, as well... I'm going to slip away and make my report.” Ticly’ntich sang back, before spinning a skyline from his spinnerette and flying away toward the human town, scudding along on the wind.

  /

  Hermit accepted the scout’s report, spelled out in a very nice scarf of sheer silver spider-silk. It would make a fine gift for one of Ghnash’s wives, once the battle was done. “Thank you, go rest and find something to eat.” The massive spider murmured to his much smaller kin.

  Hermit stood four feet tall, at his white, furry abdomen and massed as much as a fair sized horse… His subordinate was barely larger than a small lap-dog or house cat, covered in a shiny green and gold carapace that glinted in the late afternoon sun. “I have a web strung up by the waterline, there should be something dangling there.”

  “Blessing of lady Thirp on you, Lord Hermit.” He murmured reverently as he withdrew to find the promised snack.

  “I wish you would all stop with this ‘lord’ nonsense…” He grumbled.

  “Yes, lord Hermit. It shall be as my lord directs.” The garden orb weaver whispered back in his people’s unique dance. Hermit also noticed the cheeky, sassy little flourishes he added, in an attempt to conceal his jest from the fuming arachnid giant.

  “Would you care to repeat that?” He asked coldly, stepping in time with the dance speech of the local orb weavers.

  “I feel I may have been misunderstood…”

  “Apologies, Lord Hermit… Your lordship’s relationship with lady Thirp, the blessed Weaver in Darkness will not permit me to be so familiar.” The green and gold jerk danced gently, almost cheerfully.

  “She has touched you… To so casually address your lordship would be an unforgivable insult to the divine Weaver.”

  “What?!” Hermit demanded, in bold and furious moves that shook the plum tree they were meeting under. “She said what? She did, What?”

  “Calmly, sweet Hermit. You are frightening the poor fellow.” A vaguely familiar, feminine voice murmured from the boughs above the arguing arachnids. A moment later, from the upper limbs, a small human woman dropped, landing lightly on the soft, rich soil with a smile.

  Draped in robes of deep purple and rich, golden silk, adorned with a small jewel of golden amber that sparkled and glowed on her brow, below a garland of blooming plum boughs. She smiled sweetly, her bright, violet eyes sparkling with pleasure at the sight of the huge, white spider.

  “We meet once more; now in the waking world, sweet child.” Plumeria, the Plum-Grove murmured softly, stroking his closest foreleg with her tiny hand.

  “The stricture barring my presence here is broken. Now my sisters and I may appear in this place without fear of causing our host harm.”

  She purred sweetly and rubbed herself against his foreleg with a smile of delight on her face. “I am one of the few of us to have been gifted a doll body, by your delicious Fool. Thus, I enjoy the benefits of being here in a physical body.” She sighed and continued petting the enormous spider and cooing softly.

  “I have not tasted these wild energies in some while; since the Fool was slain and returned to his family… He really should break that habit of dying.” She tutted softly, while dancing among his legs with childlike laughter spilling from her lips.

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  “Lady Plumeria…” He stammered weakly, in the face of an immortal spirit, present in the physical world.

  “Hush, my silly spider friend.” She scolded him gently. “In this place, many of the normal rules no longer apply. In my body of once living trees, I may act as I wish… as mortals do.” The tiny woman stroked her chin with her index finger and hummed a short snatch of a melody that seemed familiar.

  “I might even partake in this feud between your clan and that detestable cult. I am not so warlike as dear Willow or sweet Maple, but I have become quite fed up with those idiots.”

  “Lady Plumeria…” Hermit began again. “A significant army of light cultists has appeared approximately fifteen miles away. They are encamping a few miles from the Wheatford road, standing between us and the nearest friendly human domain.”

  Plumeria roamed his makeshift command post, under the arching rose arbor while the spider lectured. She was fondling the petals, and running her hands over his latest reports, enjoying the silky textiles with unashamed glee. “... as such, I am coordinating the local spider folks, as they scout the enemy… are you even listening to me?”

  “Not even a little, sexy boy.” She murmured. “Do feel free to continue… Your voice is soothing and more than a little erotic.”

  “Lady Plumeria, I have important work to do…” He stopped, when she slipped over and entwined herself among his legs again, draped in the latest dispatch from the team of recon recluses, currently working their way stealthily into the hostile encampment.

  “You have made Contract with Aclintherios, our sweet Thirp’s prime deity… That is much more important than any silly battle between mortals.” She purred warmly, as she clambered atop his furry abdomen.

  “I disagree, and need to get back to work… I also need that status of forces report back. Please don’t wear my secret documents as accessories. These are not scarves.” He mumbled, frustration and embarrassment stealing his usual self-discipline away.

  “Not until you listen to me.” She whispered from high atop his back. “Lady Thirp needs you, as do your people as a whole… Finish this squabble and return to your dungeon world.”

  She spoke a little more crisply, snapping her words out with authority behind them. “Lord Beast himself urges you to comply. That is a thing that never occurs. Beast does not interfere in mortal lives, under normal circumstances.”

  “With all respect and deference to your divine ladyship… I have work to do and an army forming up just about two days’ march from here, as humans go. Please let me work.”

  A flittering, fluttering butterfly drifted under the rose arbor, borne on wings of flame, as Plumeria prepared her next attack.

  “Mother, leave poor Hermit alone. Can’t you see he’s very concerned? Mortals place great importance on armies and such!” Mariah insisted, once she was perched on a rose blossom, gently fanning her wings to send the sweet scent wafting through the garden on a warm breeze.

  The perfume was accompanied by the spicy, smoky aroma that followed her everywhere, creating a soothing and tranquil sense of utter peace.

  “Lady Mariah, please stop casting glamors at your mother, she will only use that as an excuse to further abuse me…” Hermit sighed.

  “I would never… It is simply a matter of showing you the correct course, despite your stubborn resistance!” The tiny woman in purple and gold insisted gently, while she gathered her tiny daughter into her hands. “Since my beloved Mariah is so adamant, I will leave you to your work…” With that, she turned away and slipped from beneath the arbor. “You should know that your powers will not affect me, my sweet little blossom…”

  Mother and daughter strolled away toward the busy inn, chatting and cooing together as they walked, leaving the spider in peace.

  “My secret report…” Hermit whispered at the departing dryads. Since Mariah was busily making herself comfortable in the silken drape her mother had swiped; Hermit suspected he would not be getting that sensitive document back.

  /

  Captain Skander silently cursed his luck, as he marched through the horrid aperture in reality and joined his troop on a pleasant alpine meadow, in the shadow of a triangular peak. “Lister, we’ll encamp to the east, nearer the road. See it handled while I meet with General Trask.”

  He left his second officer to manage his troop of five hundred templar knights, as he slipped away to check in gratefully and with a measure of guilt in his heart. The men were bound to be cranky… No knight enjoys being deployed on foot, especially templars.

  The legion regulars were already encamped between the slave pens and the gateway, which left a lovely spot that would have been perfect for their horse-lines as well.

  That was no doubt calculated by the legion engineer who laid out the camp. A subtle jibe and constant irritant to his men’s pride, so long as they lingered here as foot troops.

  “Bloody legion…” He grumbled sourly, on his way to the command tent to pay his respects to the general...

  /

  The lord and lady of county Kinnis found their friend and former mad wizard sitting by the back door, with an embroidery hoop on his knee. He hummed softly to himself as he tucked tiny stitches through his project and wound intricate knots with his fast flying needles.

  “Oh, hey… Nice to have you, Tawny!” His enthusiasm and pleasure were genuine, though he continued stitching his small, dark object of soft chamois leather.

  “I gotta finish this project before sundown, otherwise things could get rough.” He yawned and stretched, while eyeing his workpiece with a mixture of pleasure and distaste all over his face.

  “Is this some weapon or ritual object that will help in our coming battle?” Liam asked earnestly.

  “Battle? Heck no. I’m not getting involved in any battles!” Gary snapped fiercely. “I gave my life for the realm once already. Burn me before I’ll help slaughter slave soldiers in service to a damned cult.”

  “So you plan to flee?” Liam asked softly.

  “Ace had a nice long chat with your two prisoners and the goons we caught.” He remarked blandly, instead of answering the question.

  “It seems that the cult has a brand new pontiff on their homeworld, that’s making the rank and file troops nervous, as they push hard against the Tarots, their ancient foe.” He switched to a bright silver, undyed spider silk, threaded on a fresh needle of purest gold, then resumed his work and his tale.

  “Well… really, the new pontiff is probably the same asshole, on the inside. It’s probably a body jumping demon, like we had in the empire. These clowns do love their tropes and low effort plots.”

  “A huge army is encamped on the side of the valley, between us and Wheatford… so naturally you are sewing a pet collar.” Liam sighed wearily.

  “I’d hoped you had some mad scheme or device cooked up to turn this situation around… In hindsight, I see that was unreasonable.” Tawny murmured, sounding desolate.

  “Well, I have all my brothers here…” He chirped merrily. “I’m sure that they have a plan cooked up for this eventuality.” Gary smiled warmly at his two friends and chuckled.

  “There are quite a few of them, but no matter how formidable they may be… We face an overwhelming force on our very doorstep.” Liam insisted gently. “Perhaps a few of those thunder arrows…”

  “No dice. Those take a lot of time, effort and magic to make and I wouldn’t hand those out if I had them. I won’t provide weapons to kill living men, even evil ones.” He smiled weakly. “Especially not slave soldiers in magical iron collars bound to their bodies and souls. That’s not happening, even if I could.”

  “You have in the past…” The count pressed his friend harder, desperation driving him on.

  “I’m unranked. The weapons you want would take me years to make… And I still won’t do it.” He smiled at the two nobles and shook his head sadly. “Nobody is dying a slave, if I can help it… Nobody at all.”

  “You are planning something!” Tawny hissed with delight. “Is your dragon friend going to swoop down and…”

  “No dice, Tawny. He won’t, not until they are marching on our gates. He will only slay living sentients to protect the innocent. Until they attack, he won’t act against them. Even then, we have a lot in common, when it comes to our attitudes on slavery and bondage.” Gary shook his head and smiled sadly. “We’re going to try something tricky…”

  “Battle of the bands?” Liam asked, his hand pressed to a suddenly throbbing brow.

  “Battle of the bands.” Gary replied warmly.

  /

  “...I fully expect at least ten percent of our slaves and conscripts will try to desert tonight. Put the entire slave and conscript force on quarter rations and withhold water. That should keep them grounded.” Trask ordered the gathered overseers, as captain Skander of the templar knights ducked into the command tent.

  “Ah! The templars have arrived! Excellent!” Trask loomed over the other officers and clerics, standing nearly eight feet tall. With a booming voice and no reluctance to use it, the man dominated the gathering, leaving little opportunity for disobedience or questions.

  “The transit and hauling teams report they should be ready to begin operations in two days. The object should be en-route to the capital within hours of their arrival.”

  The handsome and smiling giant fell quiet, as the overseers left the tent, returning to their troops in silence. When the last of the whip wielding men departed, Trask smiled again at the young captain of the templars.

  “This is your first campaign through the void?” He asked, gesturing for the captain to take a seat on a supply crate.

  “Yes, sir.” Skander replied carefully.

  “You seem especially nervous, lad… Your troop too. What has you all so twitchy?” The general demanded gently.

  “It’s this portal, sir…” He muttered, eyes downcast. “We discovered it a few weeks ago, sir. I was in charge of a detachment investigating some anomalous magical readings in the area. We found the God-Stone and the portal… just as you see them.”

  “Yes? The stone is very… uncanny. Is that all?” Trask asked, his voice hardening and growing cool.

  “No, sir. We ran the usual rituals and read the residual energy from the void, sir. Did you read my report?” The nervous knight answered very carefully indeed.

  “I skimmed it, sir Skander.” The general sighed. “Paperwork is the domain of scribes, accountants and politicians, I leave it to them, largely.”

  “General, Sir… Mere hours before my team arrived on site on the other end of this void, several S-ranked individuals transited the void, from this realm.” He took a deep breath and went on.

  “And with them came something unranked… unranked but with a power level that burned out my man’s scouter module. Over nine thousand, sir. It was over nine thousand!” The man’s discipline broke at last, as he sank down on his crate, sagging and wretched. “Over nine thousand, sir…”

  “That is troubling… are you certain the device was functioning correctly?” Trask demanded, his eyes becoming sharp and hard. When Skander nodded, the general sighed. “You know, the Necromancer is the highest confirmed power level… At one thousand and twelve.”

  “Yes, sir.” The knight captain answered, sitting up straighter, with a little help from his armor and a cup of tea with a splash of brandy from his commanding officer’s flask. “I still feel it, sir… All around, the touch of something uncanny, something vast and unknowable.”

  “I’m a soldier, son… not a poet, priest or mage. I deal in steel, men and chaos, not sensations and feelings. Get your shit together.” The giant grumbled.

  “Due respect, sir, but every one of my knights who was there that day, feels it. It’s like my bones are just a little wobbly and jiggly and like I can almost sense where the watching eyes are looking from…” The younger knight glanced up to the light at the tent’s peak. He gasped a moment later, as if he’d been jabbed with a pin.

  Skander reached into his cloak and pulled a white headband with an orange, crystal eyepiece over his brow and settled the monocle in place, his face drawn and pale.

  “Sorry, human… That was me.” A tiny voice sang out from somewhere near the lantern at the high peak of the tent.

  “I went through this void in my physical form… I guess that made a little bit of a mess around here.”

  A small humanoid figure with butterfly wings of yellow and orange flames fluttered down from the lamp, to perch on the central support pole at eye level to the giant man.

  “Auntie Pine is super upset… She says I screwed up the magic locally and caused a bunch of monsters to spawn around here too.” The creature waved at the two men and giggled merrily. “I’m Mariah, the Wildfire Plum… I’m barely a month old!”

  “Skander… What is this thing? Why is it talking to you?” Trask demanded.

  “Sir, I have no idea who she is… but I think we found our power anomaly. Over nine thousand, sir.” Skander whispered.

  “Power level, schmower level… I’m the immortal dryad of the Wildfire Plum! I am a divine handmaiden of Beast!” She snorted at the two men as she looked them up and down, as though fitting them for their shrouds.

  “Don’t bother attacking me. I’m just a glamor, projected here by my will.” She snapped, when the general’s hand moved to the sword at his hip.

  “I’m here to tell you to pack up and leave right now. Otherwise, my aunties and uncles are gonna be big mad at you… Well they already are pretty pissed, but they can get madder!” She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled. “If you skedaddle right now, they will let you go. Once things pop off, you won’t get another chance.”

  Faster than Skander believed possible, the flat of Trask’s sword flashed out, crushing the tiny creature against the pole she clung to, crushing her in a gorey display of splattered, tiny limbs. Slowly, she slid down, leaving a wet, red streak on the stout tentpole.

  “Just a bug, after all.” Trask muttered crossly. “Now to figure out how the little pest got in here…”

  “Nasty big man!” That tiny voice scolded them again from up by the lantern. “That was super mean and gross!” The tiny girl sassed the men, as she fluttered down from the light.

  Of her previous wreckage, there was no sign at all, save a dent in the stout wooden pole where the general’s blow had struck.

  “My papa was watching from the shadows, you know. He is not pleased with you.” She glared at them and sniffed. “Well message delivered! You two are really stupid, if you stick around.” Her words lingered in the tent only slightly longer than she did.

  The figure dwindled away, becoming a flickering spark and then vanished, after making a very rude gesture at them both.