The Mournful King

III. The Battle

The Silent could feel dread sitting deep in his stomach as he urged the horse he was borrowing from Niall forward. He wanted more than anything to turn tail and run. It wasn't simple fear of a fight. His brand had started to writhe under his skin, a hint that powerful sorcery was in the air as they approached the disturbance. The pain was not unfamiliar, but it was unwelcome. He'd picked up an axe as they went, but he was anxious about that too. What if this was Gader'el? What if he forced his unwilling servant to turn on the others?

Andraste swung down from the saddle as they reached her camp, quickly uncovering her gear. She didn't have time to don armor, but she grabbed her estoc and passed the Silent her shield before leaning down to snatch up her lance. He hadn't fought with a shield in a long time, but some things were so deeply ingrained that even Time was hard pressed to erode them away. Behind them, Iulia and Niall called for their son.

There was no answer except the rustle of leaves swaying in the wind.

"Summat in heavy armor passed this way," Niall said grimly from where he'd knelt to look at disturbed earth. "A big summat. And Gentius's tracks disappear here."

"A demon," Iulia said through clenched teeth and thin lips. "A demon has our son."

The Silent was reasonably certain that meant the demon wanted a bargaining chip in case things didn't go its way. He gripped the shield more tightly, feeling a rush of anger. The boy had done nothing, absolutely nothing. He hated the idea of an innocent dying at demonic hands more than he feared losing himself. What can you do, coward? the phantoms in his mind demanded.

"It was not alone," Andraste said after a deep inhale. A sickly sweet scent of rot pervaded the summer air. "I would guess ghouls. More than a few. Mus must have followed them."

"A long way from the City of Thorns. The Widow's reach grows longer," Iulia said bitterly as she stepped up into her stirrup. "If it headed towards town, we must return and find Gentius."

"Arduinna is not prepared for the living dead," Niall growled as he steered his horse back towards town. It was an old warhorse, but it still had fire enough for a battle.

They raced back towards town and the clanging alarm bell. They were quickly close enough to see Astor's men moving towards the western side of town. The wooden palisade was smoldering wreckage, no doubt afflicted by a demon's hellfire. The Silent caught sight of horrible beasts moving in at unholy speed, moving on all fours like apes. They resembled men only vaguely, rotting flesh preserved in part by necromantic magic. He shuddered at their drooling jaws and wicked claws. Glassy, vacant eyes looked at their human prey with only ravenous appetite. Peasants screamed and ran, and the men-at-arms were pale and trembling as they formed up to repel the beasts. Undead had never crossed the Stonemarch before. They were a scourge for the ruins of the High Kingdom and its terrified people.

Once, these things had been living, breathing people with hopes and dreams. Now they were unholy hunger personified and that terrified him. If he fell, would he become the same?

"I do not see the demon!" Niall called.

"It will see us!" Andraste shouted back. Her face seemed different now, cold and hard. The Silent found it difficult to believe that this was the same young woman who had been so quick to smile around her campfire or in Niall's home. It was an expression matched by Iulia's. Both of them had been transported to another life, another identity.

The Silent gripped his axe and urged his horse forward into a charge, keeping pace with Andraste and hoping to the gods that his fear transmuted into something more useful.

The first ghoul to lunge at his horse met his axe, the wedge-shaped head cleaving down through the undead creature's shoulder right where it met the neck. The Silent felt that incandescent rage rising like bile from his stomach. He had hate aplenty to go around.