Tale of the Necromancer by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

14

Marguerite awokenaked and covered in blood.

Smoke stung her eyes the moment she blinked them open. She rolled onto her side and coughed, trying to clear the taste of soot from her mouth.

And found herself staring into the gaping, empty, bloody eye sockets of Tomaz. They were nothing but gory pits where his eyes should have been. When she screamed, she choked on the smoke in the air and instead could only scramble back away from him, heart pounding in her ears in terror.

Her hand fell into something thick, ropey, and viscous as she frantically tried to escape what was before her. Looking down to see what she had touched, she found her fingers pressed deep into…intestines.

Oskar lay beside her, or what remained of him. His stomach was torn open, nothing remaining of the skin that should have held his organs in place. His face was caught in a silent scream. Unlike Tomaz, he had known he was dying. His eyes were locked wide in terror, staring sightlessly at the starry sky overhead.

For a moment, it seemed Fritz was missing. But then she saw a hand lying by her foot. A hand it did not seem the other men were missing. The stump of a leg sat in the grass a few feet away. It was as though a giant cat had caught and dismembered a mouse.

She could only sit there, frozen in shock. She was covered in blood. Their blood.

Turning, she retched into the straw, unable to stop herself. Only water exited her, thankfully, as she had nothing in her stomach to surrender. When she was finished, she found herself unable to do anything but simply stare at the bodies around her.

It was after several moments of her mind simply failing to grasp what was happening before she realized she could see clearly. The straw pile she had been placed upon was no longer obscured in the darkness of the night. But neither was it daytime.

Another coughing fit caused by smoke catching in her lungs jarred her out of her frozen state. Everything around her was illuminated in a flickering, orange glow. As she turned her head, she realized why.

The village was on fire.

All of it.

Climbing out of the gore, she desperately tried to find her dress, or at least her underthings. But her hopes fell as she saw they were soaked through with the viscera left behind by the three mercenaries who she had been about to…

She shook her head, forcing the thought from her mind. They were dead. Very dead. And there was nothing she could do to save them. Something had attacked them, and she was lucky to be alive. She needed to escape, naked or not! Perhaps she could find something in the charred remains of the village when it burned itself out, if she could just find somewhere to hide long enough to wait it out, and—

A sound set her teeth on edge and tore every thought from her mind without warning. But it was not a true sound. Or it was not one she heard with her ears, perhaps. It felt like it ripped through her. When it finished, nausea washed over her again, but that time she managed to keep it down.

What had done that? What could produce such a—a sensation?

Turning, she quickly discovered her answer.

And she was not glad she had.

There, outlined against the blaze of the burning buildings, the pyres of orange stretching high up into the night sky like perverse summer bonfires, was darkness. Cut out like the night sky had come down to reclaim some of its rightful kingdom, a silhouette of nothingness was stamped against the brightness of the fire.

It was tall—easily twelve feet or more. A hood seemed to be draped over its head, long black flowing robes of purest nothing that tapered off into swirling tendrils of smoke that raised from it along the edges. Its arms were long and thin, far longer than they should be to truly resemble a human. Around its wrists hovered silver circles, like bracelets, but that seemed to defy all sense of the natural world.

In its hand—it was more of a claw, long, viciously pointed things that had no business being real—it held the head of a man who dangled several feet from the ground, kicking and screaming.

She did not know the man. She had never seen him before. Nor would she ever have the chance.

The creature squeezed, crushing the man’s skull in his grasp like an egg. She could hear the sickening crunch from where she stood. The man went instantly limp.

And the creature tossed him away as if he were nothing more than chaff.

It was when the man landed on the ground like a child’s doll that she realized he was not alone. Scattered about the center of the town was…death. Bodies, lying where they were killed or discarded. Easily two dozen that she could see. She knew there were more.

This thing has been sent by Gideon to find me. Will it kill me for its master? No. It left me alive. It has come to retrieve me. I must run!

Turning to try to do just that, she made it only a few feet before her body, unable to cope with what she had witnessed, gave out on her. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the ground before retching once again. Nothing exited her that time, but it did not stop her stomach from making the valiant attempt.

A shadow fell over her, a ghastly silhouette of the monster. She turned to face it, sitting in the dewy grass, and lifted an arm to protect herself, for what good it would do.

The creature loomed over her like the product of a nightmare, the shadowy and shifting robes it wore curling in some unseen breeze. It stared at her.

Where she found the strength to speak at all, she did not know. She was mildly impressed with herself that she found the ability at all. “Wraith, if you have come to kill me or take me back to your master, then—then do it.” Tears stung her eyes.

Long, ghoulish hands curled into fists. She watched in horror as the monster…shifted. It shrank and changed as robes made of darkness turned to those of fabric. And before she could truly understand what was happening, one fiend from her nightmares had turned to another.

Gideon.

Silver hair draped from the shadow of the hood he wore. Backlit by the inferno that was the village, she could not see his face. But his posture was drawn tight as a bow. She could feel his fury from where she was, just as bright as the flames.

And just as dangerous.

He is a wraith. I am truly married to a monster.

“I—”

“Silence!”

Shrinking back at his voice, she curled her legs up into herself. The single word had been a hiss of pure rage. I am to die here. I am to die here with all the rest. I am certain of it.

Undoing the clasp of his robe, he whirled it from his shoulders and hurled it atop her. In one swift movement, she was draped in the thick black fabric. She was happy for the garb, glad to hide her nudity, but as she saw his features, she suddenly wished he had kept it.

Fury. That was the only word for it. His chest rose and fell in deep, fast gasps. His lips were pulled in a grimace, and those silver eyes reflected the all-consuming white-hot orange and reds of the fire, giving him all the illusion that he was made of the destruction he had wrought.

Cowering, she wrapped the robe around herself and waited for his anger to turn itself upon her. She did not have to wait long.

“Explain.”

One more word filled with such seething hatred that she could not help but duck her head and try to hide within the veil of her hair. She could not think of how to respond.

“Now.”

Shutting her eyes, tears streaked down her cheeks—likely cutting paths through the drying blood she could feel spattered there. “I need to escape—”

“Escape me.”

“You are a monster.” The words were whispered, but she knew he could hear her all the same.

Silence for a long moment. “And the instant you make your bid for freedom, you spread your legs for three men?” A growl left him. “What were you thinking, you naïve child!”

“I had no choice!” Some manner of anger came up in her in response to his. Murdering her was one thing. But he did not need to insult her in the process.

“Oh? They were defiling you against your will?” He huffed a sarcastic, cruel laugh. “I heard no cries of protest. I saw no resistance.”

“There were none.” She finally lifted her head to look up at him. “They are—were—mercenaries. They agreed to take me far from here. To keep me safe. But they are soldiers of fortune. What else could I pay them in? I have no other currency with which to barter.”

Snarling, he reached down and snatched her left wrist. Without warning, he yanked her roughly up onto her feet. He held her wrist up between them, clenching tightly enough that it stung.

Jaw ticking, silver eyes flashing in hatred, he said nothing. He did not need to. He was holding up her wedding ring.

“I would break my holy vows to see myself spared from an unholy beast,” she murmured.

Grimacing again, he yanked her toward him until she was only inches away. She tugged on her wrist, but there was no use. He was far too strong. “They would have used you and left you here or slit your throat and left you for dead once they had what they wanted, you ignorant fool!”

“It was a chance I had to take.”

“No. It was not. Nor was it one you will ever have the opportunity to make again.” He yanked her into him, his other hand fisting painfully in her hair at the back of her neck. He craned her head back to face him. “Listen to me carefully, Marguerite…you belong to me.”

* * *

Gideon wasuncertain if he had ever been so angry in his life as he was in that moment. He had found his wife beneath another man, surrounded by two more. Her eyes were wide in fear, but…also in anticipation.

Three men seduced his wife with promises of safe harbor, and she had agreed out of a desperate need to escape him. Had it been only that? Or was there something more wanton at play? Did she desire them? To be used by them? To be ravaged and pillaged like nothing more than a common harlot?

Even if her words were correct, and she had only been viewing the tryst as a transaction where her flesh was the currency provided, a simple fact remained true.

Three men had been easily successful where he had only failed.

Jealousy had consumed him in a way he had never known was possible. The first man was dead before he had even realized he had moved. It was a shame, as he wanted them to suffer for what they had done and nearly done.

The other two had died far slower. He had enjoyed their screams. The first one he eviscerated and allowed to die slowly, watching in terror and agony as he plucked pieces from the third as if he were nothing more than a daisy in a field.

She loves me, she loves me not.

She loves me, she loves me not.

Their screams had been a small balm to the wound Gideon felt torn open in his chest. She was willing to give up her body to escape me. She was willing to pleasure three men if it meant escaping me. She was risking her life with them, and she found it preferable to my companionship.

He wished to raise them from the dead only to make them suffer more, but then there had been the issue of the village itself. She had known to flee to its safety. While she would never leave his castle again if he had any say in the matter, she was wily and more resourceful than he gave her credit for.

No, he needed to remove this option of escape.

So, he did exactly that. In the simplest, most succinct, and cathartic way possible.

By taking the life of every man, woman, and child, and then razing their structures to the ground.

Marguerite was shivering in his grasp. When he had reminded her of the simple fact that she belonged to him, her words had failed her, and she had descended into quiet tears. Not once had she asked for mercy or claimed she felt any regret for her actions. At least she would not go so far as to lie to him.

It did not stop him from digging the proverbial knife between her ribs, as she had done far more literally to him, as he turned, thrusting her ahead of him, still fisting her hair cruelly in his grasp. “They are dead because of you, Marguerite. All of them. Every life in this place is lost because of your actions.”

“I did not do this!”

“You sought to use them as shelter. You should have known what would happen when I found you.”

“No. Their deaths are on your hands, not mine. How was I to assume you were a wraith, sent from the grave to torture me?”

“Tortureyou?” He laughed harshly and yanked her back to him. Grasping her jaw in his other hand, he forced her to look at him. “How have I tortured you? Hm? I have given you everything you could ever desire. I have trusted you. Shown you all that I am. I have shared with you my home, my wealth, my knowledge. I have been patient—I have been kind—have I once lain a hand upon you?”

Those large green eyes watched him in fear and grief. But not in regret. “No.”

“Do you wish for me to show you what it means to be abused, Marguerite?” He tightened his grasp on her hair. By her hiss of pain, he knew his point had been made. “Is that what you desire from me? From those men for whom you so readily spread your legs? Is that what they offered that I have not?”

“N—no.”

“Then do not speak to me of torture. You know nothing of the word!”

“Let me go, wraith. Please, let me go.”

He laughed. It was harsher than he intended it to be, but his anger still ran unchecked, and he was too consumed by it to care much for her tears. “No, Marguerite. You shall never be free of me. Nothing shall take you from me.”

“I do not belong to you. My life is mine.”

“Oh? I beg to differ.”

“Then I shall find a way to rid you of my life, even if it means I must surrender it as well.”

“Not even the grave shall free you of me, my princess.” He sneered. “For the kingdom of death is mine.” With that, he let his human form dissolve. The cloak that wrapped around her dissipated, but she was not much aware of it. As she found herself in the clutches of a wraith, her eyes once more rolled into her head, and she surrendered to the rigors of the world around her.

Grasping her bloodied, naked body in his talons, he headed back to his home.

You will never be free of me, Marguerite. Even if it means I must wall you up in a tower, you will be mine.

No matter the cost.