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The two of them disperse into shadows. Dark magic hurls through the sewers swifter than any wind spell I can conjure.
“The rest of you,” Heston continues, “take your positions. Wait for the signal and then direct the undead to begin their rampage. Raise all the fallen and rejoin us north of Lenwick Street. We need the numbers to take the city.”
The remaining necromancers obey his orders, each taking a portion of their forces with them. Some undead remain behind with Heston.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Heston says to Arluin, when all the necromancers are gone. “I must admit, stealing corpses from graveyards without the magi noticing was no small feat.”
I want to tell him that he’s monstrous, that his wicked plans will never succeed. But I can’t. I can do nothing but stare at the horde of shambling undead.
Arluin says nothing. He too watches the masses of decayed corpses.
Heston’s patience quickly thins. “Do you have nothing to say to me, boy?”
Arluin pauses. He inhales sharply. “You left me.” His tone isn’t accusatory. It’s flat and hollow, devoid of emotion.
“I was exiled. What choice did I have?”
“You could have taken me with you. Instead, you left me here to be shunned.”
“Is that what you wanted?” Heston asks. “To leave behind everything? Everyone?”
Arluin says nothing. I feel his gaze drift over to me.
“That’s what I thought,” Heston mutters.
Explosions roar high above. They come from somewhere in the distance. The Lower City.
My stomach churns.
Heston’s mouth twists into a cruel grin. “And so it begins.”
Before either Arluin or I can demand to know what the necromancers have done, Grizela and Virion emerge from the shadows.
“It is done, my lord,” says the orcish woman. “The magi and their guards are rushing to the Lower City to control the fires raging through the streets.”
“Then we make our next move.” Heston turns to me and sneers. “Time to pay my old friend a visit.”
He grabs my shoulder and drags me through the crowd of undead. I try to resist, but he only pulls me more violently.
As we pass the mangled corpses, I keep my eyes lowered to the stone floor. But the rotten toes and skeletal feet are almost enough to make me vomit again.
“What of this one?” Virion calls to Heston.
“Leave my son down here. Bind him to a rock if you must.”
“Again you abandon me,” Arluin spits.
Heston halts.
“Let me help, Father.”
At his words, my blood chills.
Arluin doesn’t really want to help his father, does he?
When I turn to him, I hope to see something in his expression which indicates his words are a ploy to earn his father’s trust. To enable our escape. But I see nothing. Only tempered ice.
The threat he paid Kaely echoes through my mind. That he would kill her and raise her corpse, just as his father taught him.
