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Sellers of Swords, Buyers of Souls by
rioliogio
Ian watched as the men ran by, carrying a vaguely human-shaped bundle on a stretcher away from the field. The sight did not surprise him now. After two months of fighting, the tide of corpses coming in from the battlefield hadn’t slowed in the least.
Sighing, Ian looked away from the medics and their gruesome burden. He knew that the clerics did their best to save the lives of the dying, or to resurrect them through the holy power of their god or gods. If they failed, however, the corpses went straight to the necromancers. Though they were allies, Ian could not repress a shudder when he thought about that most unholy art.
For nearly a year now, a small war had been going on between the two neighboring kingdoms of Kord and Karden, small nations on the southernmost tip of the continent of Arresyl, not even a few miles east of the Arresyl-Inia border. Due to the nearby location, many mercenaries, such as Ian, had been hired out to the warring kingdoms.
Ian smiled grimly, remembering how out of place his mercenary band had looked in their mismatched armor among Kord’s knights in their well made steel plate armor. Still, as Ian well knew, a marksman with a decent long rifle could pierce that armor as easily as a knife through warm bread. Fortunately for the knights, personal firearms, especially long rifles, could only be afforded by the wealthy. Only chance anyone else had of owning one was to take it off someone’s corpse.
Remembering his own weaponry, Ian checked to make sure his pistol, a well-made one he had purchased after about a month fighting in Arresyl, was loaded, and that his short sword was still strapped securely in its sheath. It, fortunately, was. Ian knew of some of the other mercenaries who would love to get their hands on a well made weapon like it.
Satisfied that his weapons were safe, Ian turned back to watch the crude path, along which supplies, soldiers, clerics, and the occasional artillery weapon traveled. After a while, he began to think about that road and what it meant to some of those who traveled it. Death, and undead service to the necromancers, to those unlucky enough to come back in pieces.
I have to travel that road tonight, Ian thought bleakly, and maybe I’ll come back as nothing but a corpse.
Ian laughed sardonically at the thought. “Even if I don’t come back,” he said bitterly, “who will care? I’m a mercenary, with no more family left. No one ever mourns us. No one even cares if we live or die! In fact, I bet that the necromancers will thank me for kindly providing them with a decent corpse!”
“Ian, quit whining,” came a voice from directly behind Ian. “After all, you did sign up for all of this!”
Ian spun around to face whatever had been sneaking up on him, but relaxed almost instantly. It was just one of his fellow mercenaries, Lorkk, who, though an orc, was one of Ian’s closest friends among the mercenary group.
“You have to quit doing that,” Ian said, grinning. “I have never known an orc who sneaked around so much!”
Lorkk was extremely small for his kind, not much taller than Ian, who wasn’t all that tall in the first place. Lorkk’s skin was also a much paler green color than most of his kin. While their skin was more the color of evergreen leaves, Lorkk seemed more like grass beginning to wither. Even with Lorkk’s differences to the rest of his kind, he still was an odd sight when standing next to Ian, who was somewhat short, had darkish-brown hair and green eyes, and all-in-all could well have had noble blood running through his veins, if no one knew any better.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” said Lorkk, a smile edging its way along his beastlike face. “Captain said we’re supposed to tag along with the next group of footmen headed for the field.”
Ian nodded. “The next group should be coming in an hour or two. Might as well wait here ‘til then.”
Lorkk grunted, and then, glancing around sharply, pulled Ian close. “I have a really bad feeling about this,” he muttered. “Something’s wrong with the captain. I think it has something to do with them damn necro-things, but I’m not sure what. Just thought you should know.”
Lorkk released Ian, who stepped back, rubbing his arm. Orcs, even ones as small as Lorkk, were exceptionally strong. Lorkk, calm now, reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. “Care for a game?” he asked.
Ian just nodded, shaken. He had a pretty bad feeling about all of this.
Part 2
A couple of hours (and several steel, the common currency of most kingdoms at this time) later, the pair was ready to move out. The sun was beginning to set on the horizon, its light already beginning to fade on the war-torn lands of Arresyl. Fortunately, or, much more likely, unfortunately, the battleground was not a very long distance away.
Ian, trying to rid himself of the fear of the oncoming battle, began to whistle an old marching tune he had learned as a child in Inia. The words wouldn’t come to him at the moment, but that didn’t matter. The tune would suffice for the moment, though the memories that the words carried wouldn’t come, not as strong, not as clear.
Ian whistled alone for a while, trying to make the memories come. He didn’t care if the memories were good or ill. They were his memories, they belonged to him. Does one abandon their child because the child disobeys the parent? No, and in the same way, Ian would not abandon the memories.
Suddenly, Ian noticed a sound from the back of the column. It was faint at first, but then grew louder, as it came from the mouths of others. Ian felt tears forming in his eyes, and shut them hastily. There was no need to have the others see him weep.
For a moment, Ian allowed his soul to be flooded with the memories of those he had lost. His father, who was killed in a bandit raid when Ian was only eight. His mother and two sisters, taken by the plague not even a year later. His eldest brother, killed as a knight in the service of Inia’s king, dying as he would have wanted to, gloriously on the field of battle, the corpses of the foes he had died fighting surrounding his body.
The sound he had heard was what had brought all of these memories back. It was the song.
The hawk heeds the call to war,
The crow, it flies behind us.
Eyes lost unto the night,
Look up, again! Do what you must!
Hark! The call to daylight!
Behold! The force of night!
See the banner of our sky!
Our sky! Our light! Our fight!
To war! To battle! We ride today!
Ignore the crow behind us!
It comes to battle, as it knows it must,
Following the hawk who leads us!
Our battle is near, our glory, alive!
The day is dark, the night is bright.
Honor is called for, courage is needed,
The hawk heeds the call to war!
The song finished, the soldiers prepared to sing another, when a couple of the mercenary groups began to sing a song of their own. Though it annoyed many of the actual soldiers, it cheered Ian immensely.
Some say it’s wrong to fight this way,
No one wants to die this way.
Oftentimes, we’ll say to they,
It’s okay as we get paid.
Money! Money! Glorious steel!
Its power is to bite and heal!
Take it, Steal it, Kill for it!
We’ll do anything for good ‘ole steel!
Use it to give us food to eat,
Keeps the home all nice and neat,
Shiny, solid and cold as sleet,
We’ll do anything for good ‘ole steel!
Laughing, Ian and Lorkk joined in on the last verse with gusto. A few of the soldiers looked shocked by the end of the song, but most of the veterans just shrugged, or even joined in.
Suddenly, the group fell silent. The commander of the group raised his hand, signaling them to halt. Off in the distance, Ian could hear… nothing, which frightened him, as well as almost all of the soldiers who had previously seen fighting in the area. As far as Ian could see in what light remained, the battlefield was over the next hill, but they could hear no sounds of the battle.
As silently as possible, the commander ordered one of the men forward. Ian could hear him tell the soldier to go scout over the next hill, to see what had happened. The soldier, having received his orders, dashed off to the hill.
Reaching the hill, he had begun to sneak carefully along, so as not to become a target for an enemy which likely lay in ambush. But, on reaching the top of the hill, he did something completely unexpected. Standing straight up, he stared for several moments, completely still. Then, he turned back to the army and dashed back.
Ian heard his report, and was struck by a great fear. The scout reported no sign of either army, though their encampments were still on the edges of the field. He did not even find any bodies, except for a single corpse lying near a small tent on our side.
Hastily giving out orders, the commander had Ian’s mercenary group and a unit comprised mainly of medics to go forward and see what they could find out about what had happened. Moving swiftly, the mercenaries moved over the hill, the medics following.
What they found about the body frightened even the most veteran soldier in the group.
The body did not seem to be wounded at first, but upon examining the body closer, a medic gave out a gasp, not even being able to hide his fright. The corpse seemed to be cracked in several places, with miniscule bone fragments sticking out from the wounds. According to another medic, “The deceased’s body has been torn to shreds on the inside, but only on the inside. It’s as if… as if someone tore him apart, drained out the blood, then sewed him back up on the outside. That’s why you don’t see any blood on him. However… what scares me is, only an extremely powerful mage could have done something like this, and, assuming that the entire army is gone, we have at least a few dozen mages on our hands. Probably…” the man stopped, shocked.
“But that’s impossible…” Ian heard him mutter, “I am almost certain all of the nearby necromancers are with our army, and they had very specific orders to stay away from the field.”
Ian spun around. Coming out of a tent, not very far away, several cloaked and hooded figures made their appearance. Fearing for his life, Ian ducked behind another nearby tent, concealing from view.
“So, our bait has drawn some more game….” He heard one of the cloaked figures say.
“Damn you!” Ian heard his captain yell. “I knew you necromancers were in this for more than money!”
“You’re right,” the necromancer in the front said. Ian could almost hear him shrug. “What of it? We need the corpses for our Art.”
“I’ll give you art!” Ian heard his commander say. He heard the drawing of swords, and then the clatter of them as they were dropped to the hard ground.
Ian heard the necromancer laugh, and then the screams of the dying soldiers and medics. An even greater fear stole over him, and Ian ran.
Ian escaped, but most of the army was not so lucky. To this day, the land has been known as the Graverealm, where the dead walk and the living sleep, never to awake.
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