The Conqueror's Shadow (19 page)

“In a minute,” Davro said, sudden glee evident in his voice. “I just thought of something.”

“Arhylla help us all,” Seilloah muttered.

“Not us all, Seilloah. Just him.”

Corvis's eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about, Davro?”

“One of the reasons you
requested
I accompany you,” the ogre reminded him, “was so I could help you talk to my tribe, get them to accept you as the Terror of the East, returned from obscurity, to lead them all into glory. So you wouldn't have to pay for their help.”

The former warlord frowned. “Not quite how I'd have put it, but—”

“If that's the plan,” Davro continued undaunted, “they have to see you as the great warlord, Corvis Rebaine, from the very start. A lanky, grey-haired human won't impress them.”

A voice began to scream in panic in the rearmost chambers of Corvis's mind, but he couldn't quite make out what it was saying. “So?”

“So, my people guard their lands well. Carefully. The scouts and guards will probably have their eyes on us as early as tomorrow.”

Corvis suddenly understood exactly what his companion was suggesting. “Davro, you can't possibly be serious …”

The ogre was openly grinning now, his entire face stretched, his horn jutting obscenely from above his eye. “I am indeed. And you damn well better do it, too, or even I may not be able to convince them.

“Besides, what's a little heat to the Terror of the East?”

With a groan that came all the way from his toes, Corvis swung down from his saddle, made another futile attempt at scraping the sweat from his face, and began, with obvious reluctance, to open his saddlebags and unpack his black, heavy, stifling armor.

Seilloah skillfully directed her lizard to step beside the ogre as they watched Corvis, grunting and swearing, buckle on the first pieces of the bone-and-metal contraption. Davro glanced at her and smiled.

“Yes?” he asked, his tone chipper.

“Are you happy now?” she asked him, her own voice hovering somewhere among sympathy, anger, and amusement.

“Not by a long shot,” he told her seriously. “But a damn sight closer than I was ten minutes ago.” And then he settled in to watch, determined not to miss a minute of Corvis's suffering, and began—badly and out of tune—to whistle.

HIS NAME WAS URKRAN.
One of Davro's tribe, he was in fact a cousin of the long-lost warrior. Put a good sword in his hand, and he could take the head off a live snake, blindfolded. Give him a solid spear, he could put it halfway through a tree trunk at fifty paces.

Today Urkran stood watch, eye constantly alert, scouring the edges of the tribe's territory. In all living memory, no enemy had ever caught the ogres by surprise, and this, with an unknown army conquering anything and everything it came across, was not the time for that traditional diligence to lapse.

From his post by a gnarled cypress on a small knoll jutting from the marsh, Urkran spotted a trio of figures moving sluggishly but steadily along the waterline. It was difficult to make out any details at this range—the swamp frequently belched up a film of sticky mist—but he determined that two were mounted, while the third, much larger, walked beside them.

Urkran squinted, peering intently through the mists. The larger figure in the group
might
be an ogre, but it was impossible to be certain. His fists clenched on his spear, the sentry slogged into the swamp, moving rapidly and with surprising silence. Three strangers didn't seem to pose any great threat, but duty demanded he make certain.

The marsh gasses and surrounding miasma swirled as he moved through them, eddies forming around his legs. It was a common phenomenon in this fog-shrouded fen, so it was only when Urkran felt a sudden chill on his thighs and saw the sheen of blood coalescing on the water's surface that he realized something was terribly wrong.

The raucous call of a carrion crow was the only audible sound as Urkran vanished beneath the murky, sludgy waters. The liquid rippled outward, mist swirled and spiraled as though agitated. Slowly, a thin trickle of blood rose to the surface, pooling and twisting as it gradually mixed with its environment—and then, with far greater rapidity than it had appeared, the crimson stain shrank, vanishing once more beneath the murk.

The travelers, unaware of the drama playing out twenty yards to their left, continued on their way, the faint sounds of bickering drifting through the miasma to vanish into the swamp.

Smoothly, two forms broke the surface of the water. The first was Urkran; his eye was stretched wide with shock, his breathing shallow, his formerly red skin a sickly shade of pale. Here and there, a few stubborn spots of blood clung to his limbs or his clothes. His weapons were gone, embedded in the mud, not that they'd have done him any good. He was too weak even to turn his head, much less raise a hand in defiance of the creature slowly murdering him.

The other form emerging from the heavy murk was his killer. Less than half the ogre's height, it appeared almost human. A face that didn't quite qualify as round—
puffy
, perhaps, was a better word—was topped by a matted mane of black hair, plastered to his scalp by the surrounding waters. His eyes were cold, piercing, and tinted with the faintest hint of crimson. His lips, fish-pale and thin, gaped open to reveal perfectly white and straight teeth.

The thing leaned over the ogre, those narrow lips a hairbreadth from Urkran's ear. Placing his mouth against the ogre's cheek, it inhaled. Urkran moaned in revulsion as he felt the pores of his skin stretch wide, felt his own blood flow through the newly opened gaps. He shuddered as the creature's tongue danced over his face, determined not to miss a single drop of the ogre's draining life.

He tried to thrash, to fight, to prove he wasn't dead yet, that this hideous thing hadn't killed him, that he was still an ogre. A loose flopping of his limbs as they hung in the water was the best he could manage. When the air in his lungs was finally depleted, he lacked even the strength to draw another breath. His chest burned, and yellow spots danced at the edges of his vision.

“Oh, my,” the thing beside him said, its tongue quickly flicking over its lips to lap up the last few dewdrops of blood; the faint slobbering would have made Urkran shiver, but his body lacked the energy for even that. “I seem to have taken a bit more than I intended.”

It bent once more toward Urkran's ear, as though confiding a dark secret to an age-old friend. “I don't think Mithraem would be happy with me if I let you die before I accomplished my assigned task,” it said,
its voice little more than a whisper, a breeze of wind reeking of rancid blood. “It's a shame, too. I'd grown accustomed to this form. I'll miss it. Ah, well, such is life …” It giggled briefly. “Such is life!” it repeated, cackling. “Oh, that's rich.”

A dark mist gathered around the creature's head, as though it was returning to its prior insubstantial state. But this was different; even Urkran, on the verge of blacking out, could see that. For rather than shifting into mist, the thing appeared to be
exuding
it. From its mouth, nose, eyes, ears—even from beneath its fingernails—the mist flowed; and even as it emerged, the body it left behind began to putrefy, rotting from the inside out. The face sank inward, splitting apart as things inside bubbled rapidly to the surface. Thick, noxious fluids drained from the shriveling corpse, pouring into the marsh. Gobbets of putrescent flesh—literal pieces of the corruption that had infested the body-rained downward, bobbing about on the water.

And then nothing remained but the nauseating smell of decay and a vaguely man-shaped stain, slowly dispersing into the stagnant waters. The body, and the mist, were gone.

For long moments, “Urkran” floated benignly, limbs splayed to provide buoyancy. He allowed himself a full five minutes to recover from the ordeal; that sort of thing was always immensely tiring. Then, with a swift jerk, he was upright, his feet planted firmly in the mud.

He'd have to retrieve the weapons; it would look bad if he returned to the tribe without them. Large as they were, it took but a moment of digging about in the muck to locate them. Once equipped, Urkran resumed his original task of slogging toward the shore. He must get back before the new arrivals spoke with the chieftain at any great length.

His feet once more on solid ground, Urkran peered after the travelers, his single eye gleaming a deep red in the diffuse light of the day. Then, his first few steps awkward as he gradually accustomed himself to his new proportions, he set off after them.

“Gods damn it to every curdled, lice-ridden hell!” The Terror of the East shoved his way through a mob of civilian prisoners overseen by several of his guards—not too difficult, really, since they cringed away even as he neared—and stalked across the open courtyard. His boots alternately rung on the bloodstained cobblestones and squelched on the flesh of the fallen—many of the enemy, yes, but far more of his own soldiers than there should have been. “What were you thinking, you idiot? Do you actually use that head of yours for anything other than keeping your horn out of your throat?”

/You tell him, you raging font of fury, you!/

“How many times do I have to order you to shut up, Khanda?”

/At least one more, obviously./

Corvis clattered to a halt, the expressionless skull staring up into the faces of multiple ogres, all of whom snarled down at him with varying expressions of fury.

“Watch your tongue, little human,” Davro barked first. “You will
not
speak to—”

Gundrek raised a hand.
“Davro! Uld tharosh vir! Nem Rebaine akka.”

“Che, szevok.”
Still scowling, the larger ogre retreated, leaning back against a wooden wall coated with the smoke of distant burning neighborhoods.

The ogre chieftain nodded. Then, “What's your problem, Rebaine?”

Corvis crossed his arms and snarled, a sound audible even from behind the helm.

“
Lord
Rebaine,” Gundrek corrected, with only a hint of reluctance.

“My problem, Gundrek? My problem is that I'm standing in the middle of a field of bodies that includes over a hundred of my own men!”

“This is war,” the ogre said with a shrug.

“Oh, is it? I'm so bloody glad you noticed! And do you know what soldiers like you and your ogres are supposed to
do
in a war?”

“You mean besides kill the enemy?”

“You're supposed to
follow orders
, you half-wit! And you were
very specifically
ordered to head off the defenders over at the temple of Kassek to keep them off Commander Ezram's flank!”

Again, the old ogre simply shrugged. “This force looked like the larger threat.”

“This force
was
the larger threat! I'd taken that into account! You left us open, Gundrek!”

“Honor demands—”

“No. Honor demands that you abide by your agreements.” Corvis stepped away. “Swear to it, Gundrek. You and all your lieutenants.”

“Swear to what?”

“To obey. You swear to obey my orders—swear in the Night-Bringer's name!—or you're out of this war.”

A rumble of anger rose like thunder from the assembled ogres. “And how are you going to make us leave, exactly?” Gundrek challenged, his voice suddenly low. Instantly Corvis's own soldiers tensed, bristling suddenly with freshly drawn blades.

“Soldiers,” Corvis said simply. “And Sunder. And a demon who, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't ever tasted an ogre's soul before and might relish the opportunity.”

/Actually, they're really pretty rancid. I—/

“Or,” he continued, “you swear to do what you've already agreed to do, and you continue to enjoy as much fighting as you could possibly ask for.”

Long was Gundrek's stare. The courtyard was utterly silent, save for an occasional prisoner's whimper. Until, finally …

“Very well.” First Gundrek, then the other ogres, and finally Davro bowed their heads.
“Kvirriok thenn, Chalsene voro—”

“In Human, if you don't mind,” Corvis interrupted.

Gundrek's scowl deepened so far it was a wonder his horn didn't droop over his eye, but he nodded. “Fine. Witness our oath, Chalsene, called Night-Bringer. I, Gundrek, swear that I and my tribe shall obey the orders of our general, Corvis Rebaine, for the duration of the war—
to the extent
,” he added, with a quick glare, “that any soldier could be expected to do so.”

“It'll do,” Corvis said. He turned, cold eyes sweeping the courtyard.

They can't be allowed to spread rumors of dissension in the ranks …
He honestly couldn't tell if it was his own thought, or Khanda's.

“Kill them.”

Gundrek's scowl flipped itself into a nasty grin. The sudden terrified screams, and the wet impact of steel on flesh, drowned out the staccato ring of Corvis's departing steps.