Dirge for a Necromancer - By Ash Stinson Page 0,107

rotated his upper body toward the young soldier, sucking his lower lip against his teeth as he did so. “They’re getting across the trench!”

Raettonus leaned over the parapets and saw that the abassy had assembled wood and stone tunnels to cover the giant maggots, which had stretched their long bodies across the ditch. Hidden beneath the tunnels, the abassy were slowly wheeling them across the maggots as a shield. “Quickly,” shouted Lorum, rearing up. “Aim for the maggots! Loose at will! Before they finish getting that armor over them!”

A thousand arrows rained on the maggots, stuck in their slick, white flesh, and clattered on top of the armored tunnels. The maggots hissed as green blood welled up around the shafts. Raettonus followed the arrows with a blast of fire. The flames struck one of the creatures, causing it to slip with a roar into the trench and be impaled on the stakes set therein. The armored tunnel and the abassy pushing it across slid forward and crashed inside the trench. Raettonus threw a few more fireballs down at the other maggots, whose heads were unprotected, as arrows thundered down like a dangerous waterfall. And then the first of the armored tunnels was across, and the abassy were beginning to file into them, bringing ladders with them. Lorum cursed quietly and gave the call for the soldiers to start dropping boulders and pitch.

War horns were echoing all across the citadel, in the halls and the courtyard and on the battlements. Arrows and hot oil came rushing out of the arrow slits along the fortress’ face. Raettonus sent a few more fireballs down to light the pitch, which left him feeling lightheaded and drained. Then he turned and retreated inside to find Brecan.

The hallways along the exterior walls were crowded with soldiers, their bows aimed outward. Braziers were set up, heating oil. Raettonus hurried past them wordlessly. Deeper into the fort, messengers galloped with intelligence and commands from higher-ups on different sides of Kaebha, or carried supplies back and forth with great haste. Dohrleht stopped Raettonus outside the doors of the infirmary, now bustling with movement and full of the pained voices of injured men.

“Tell them to let me fight,” said the centaur.

“What, this again? Get out of my way,” said Raettonus, starting around him. Dohrleht caught him by the arm.

“It’s not going to be enough. We’re going to need more soldiers,” said Dohrleht. “If I don’t fight—”

“You’re only one boy—not even a man,” said Raettonus coldly. “You think you’re going to turn the tide of battle when you can’t even run? This isn’t the sort of thing you can discreetly poison your way to victory in. Let go of me. I need to get out there. Unlike you, I’m actually worth something in a war.”

Dohrleht furrowed his brow. “At least I didn’t bring Death’s very own army to our fucking doorstep,” he said, tightening his grip. His hand was partially over a wound, and Raettonus winced and gritted his teeth as the injury reopened. “You said you can’t actually bring someone back from the dead. Is this why? Gods, did you know this would happen, and you brought him back anyway?”

“I don’t have time for this,” Raettonus said. “And I don’t think you have room to act superior. At least I never murdered my own father because some captain made bedroom eyes at me.”

The young centaur glared at Raettonus for a several long minutes. Somewhere beyond the stone walls, barely audible beneath the babble of war, a clock was ticking.

“I did what I did for the good of this fort,” said the young centaur, hissing the words out through his teeth. “I did what I did for the sake of my father’s men. It was one life or a hundred and Kurok strike me dead this instant if I made the wrong choice.”

“So you murdered your own father in cold blood for the greater good, then.” Raettonus sneered. “Bravo. Does it help you sleep at night when you tell yourself that? Or does it help you sleep at night when your beloved, lying, scheming Daeblau is railing you? Does he whisper that greater good line into your ear when he does it?”

Dohrleht narrowed his eyes and looked as though he might punch Raettonus. After a moment, however, he merely let go of the magician and silently skulked back into the infirmary. Without a second thought, Raettonus continued looking for Brecan.

In the courtyard, he found Deggho and Diahsis talking beside a gryphon