Dirge for a Necromancer - By Ash Stinson Page 0,102

Raulinn.

“Why’s it so dark?”

“You have a candle,” said Kimohr Raulinn. He turned his gaze on the flickering flame. “You could make it brighter.”

“I could,” said Raettonus. The thought hadn’t occurred to him, but it seemed like a solid idea. He reached out toward the dancing fire only to find there were now two candles before him. He reached out toward the second candle, only to find a third lit a little way away from it. As he turned his attention toward this new candle, another one down the table lit, and then another; spontaneously, candles all along the table burst into flame.

By their light, he could see the food on the table, all covered with flies and teeming with maggots. Everything was green and rotting, and all the pitchers were cracked and leaking blood. The tablecloth was stained red and green and gray. Swarms of mice chewed at the festering carcasses laid upon the tarnished dishes. Farther down, Raettonus caught sight of some rats, and his stomach rolled over and filled with dread. Near him—near enough he could brush it with his fingertips if only he reached out his hand—a tray of something sat quivering as if it were alive. The putrid food on the tray burst open, and maggots surged out of it by the thousands and began to march across the tablecloth, a disgusting, ravenous army of devourers.

And there in the seats all around him, corpses with their skin sloughing off in great, wet chunks were silently staring down at empty plates, pantomiming eating or drinking. To either side of Raettonus, the corpses were dried and eyeless, with thin, greasy hair and bare, yellow teeth. He looked across the table at Kimohr Raulinn and found that beneath his mask he too, was a corpse with pale, blue-tinged skin that looked as though he’d been a long time under water. His drowned flesh made Raettonus’ bowels turn over in revulsion.

“What is this?” demanded Raettonus, unable to keep the alarm out of his voice.

“A dream,” said Kimohr Raulinn. When he spoke, his lips moved stiffly and unnaturally. Raettonus felt his stomach clench and turn. “But, happily for you, it’s not that kind of dream.”

A horn was blowing hard somewhere beyond the feast hall. “What’s that?” Raettonus asked, peering upward into the still-thick shade all around them.

“A death sentence,” Kimohr Raulinn told him. “But not yours. Stay awhile longer. You haven’t eaten.”

“I don’t want to eat,” Raettonus said. The horn blew again, and he stood up. “They’re calling me.”

“Stay,” said Kimohr Raulinn, grabbing Raettonus’ hand. His flesh was cold and clammy—not at all as Raettonus had known it. “Everyone’s here. We’ve been waiting for you, Raettonus. Everyone’s been waiting for you. We’ve been waiting so very long…”

“Let me go,” said Raettonus, tugging away, but Kimohr Raulinn held tight. The magician reached up with his free hand to shoot a fireball at the god, but nothing came. “Let go!”

Kimohr Raulinn’s cracked blue lips, once so soft and warm, pulled back into a sneer. “We’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

The horn blew again, louder.

Raettonus’ eyes shot open, and he found himself in his bed, all in darkness aside from the soft glowing of his own flesh. His pillow was wet with sweat, and his cropped blonde hair was matted and sticking to his forehead. His heart thumped so wildly his chest hurt. The details of his dream became hazy as he thought about them, but he didn’t particularly care. Now he was awake, however, he was certain he had dreamed a normal dream—nothing more.

Outside his door hooves were pounding on stone—hundreds of hooves, beating like hearts against the cold stone passages of the citadel. Beyond the sound of that he could have sworn he heard the faint, dying clicks of a lonely clock.

The horn blew again somewhere above him.

War was upon them.

Chapter Sixteen

Dawn was breaking by the time Raettonus got onto the battlements. Centaurs in plate and scale mail were bustling about, maneuvering the catapults and ballistae into place. Diahsis was up on the roof, directing the action and looking very much like he hadn’t slept at all the night before. When he spotted Raettonus, he came jogging over. “Thank the gods you’re here,” he said.

“Thank them? The gods got us into this mess,” Raettonus said.

“There are a lot more of them than we thought,” continued Diahsis without pause. “They’ve got trebuchets, and they keep—”

He was cut off as a large rock slammed into the metal cage atop the citadel, causing the