Bone Lord Page 4

  This was what I’d been waiting for.

  “The Lord of Light guides me!” The paladin charged at the skeleton with his sword raised high above his head, aiming to bring the heavy blade down onto its skull and split it in half.

  As I’d predicted, his sword came whistling down in a vertical arc, and I waited until it was almost at its head before I made my skeleton sidestep the blow. Through my skeleton’s body, I moved at breakneck speed as I spun on my heel, crouched down, and exploded forward, surging under the paladin’s right arm and around his back. Stepping with a dancer’s grace, I glided behind him, and before he could spin around and counter my move, I’d already hooked both of my skeleton’s arms under his underarms, after which I locked its fingers behind his neck, holding him in place.

  The paladin struggled and kicked, but he was helpless against the skeleton’s strength. As quickly and as easily as I had slipped my soul into the skeleton’s body, I retracted it, leaving the skeleton to operate independently. It knew to simply hold the paladin there, trapped.

  I walked slowly up to him. “It appears, my holy friend, that you’ve lost the game.” I twirled Grave Oath in my right hand. “Any last words?”

  “You will pay for your evil deeds, sinner. The Lord of Light will punish you most severely for the foul things you have done, and verily will he rain down his righteous wrath upon you, and your tainted soul will spend eternity in torment in—”

  I stabbed the dagger through his ear, burying it up to the hilt in his skull, and watched dispassionately as his head shriveled up and his body deflated.

  “I asked for last words,” I muttered, “not a last lecture.”

  As soon as my dagger had drunk in his soul, a strange jolt rushed up my arm into my heart, and once again, Isu’s unseen presence electrified the air around me. This time, a wind rushed across the ground and dragged with it whatever dry leaves, broken twigs, or other debris lay in its path. It swirled up in a little tornado, the stuff it was carrying forming the constantly whirling familiar shape. Isu’s boobs and ass looked a bit weird when made out of dry leaves, dust, and twigs, but I could still appreciate their shapeliness.

  The tornado sucked up a few drops of blood from the dead paladin, and these formed into gleaming red eyes like a cobra’s on the face of dry leaves. Was this snake about to strike, or was it ready to sway as if hypnotized by a charmer’s flute? It was hard to tell with Isu. But I wouldn’t become the plaything of a goddess, so I planned on ensuring it would be the latter.

  “Impressive,” she said. “You discovered how to control the skeletons. Much faster than the last thread who crossed mine.”

  “Yeah, the skeleton turned out really useful. The throwing stars are great, but they need a bit of work. I can definitely see the potential, though.” I pulled one from its holster on my belt and spun it through my fingers.

  “The necrotic magic I infused your stars with is powerful, but your opponent was no mere paladin. The man you just killed was Ser Rosewood of the Shining Order, a particularly venerated paladin… among that band of fools, anyway.”

  I shrugged and tucked the throwing star back into its holster. “He didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.”

  “Well, you are no ordinary necromancer, I suppose.” Her eyes gleamed with a sudden hunger, and her lips curled into a seductive smile. “In any case, the fact that you have given me his soul means that I am now able to provide you with a gift of great value.”

  “In here? You really want us to have our first romp in a crypt? I suppose it is fitting, you being the Goddess of Death, after all.”

  Isu did something approximating an eye roll before reaching out with her right hand and touching my chest with her tornado finger of dust and debris. I felt a brief but intense jolt of pain, as if a needle had been jabbed into my heart, but as quickly as the pain appeared, it was gone. Isu stepped back and beamed a strange smile at me.

  “It is done.”

  “What’s done?”

  “Link your mind to the skeleton’s body again.”

  As I had done before, I made my soul stretch out of my body to “possess” the skeleton. It felt a whole lot easier this time, and a lot less weird too. It actually felt pretty comfortable; linking myself to undead skeletons was something I could get used to.

  “Now,” continued Isu, “pick up Ser Rosewood’s greatsword.”

  I willed the skeleton to do this, and unlike the time I had tried to pick up the rock before the fight, the skeleton obeyed, grabbing the greatsword with its right hand. I gave the sword a few swings, testing its weight and balance. It was a fine weapon, and wielding it via the skeleton’s hand felt just as natural as holding and swinging it myself.

  “Hey,” I said, “this is pretty cool!”

  “I have increased your powers, Vance. Now, your skeletons are able to wield melee weapons in one of their hands.”

  “Just the one?”

  “In time, they will be able to do more. For now, you’ll find that a skeleton wielding a single weapon is a most useful attribute—yes, a most useful and deadly attribute.”

  I performed another few test cuts, thrusts, and lunges with the greatsword. The skeleton’s prodigious strength made wielding such a heavy, cumbersome weapon in one hand as easy as swinging a rapier.

  I felt like a kid who had just been given a new toy. Soon, the skeleton was running and diving, performing jumping slashes and spinning attacks, ducking under phantom foes and performing defensive maneuvers against multiple opponents. I got so carried away, I almost forgot Isu was even there.

  When I’d had my fun, I slipped back out of the skeleton’s body.

  As soon as I was in control of my own body again, the tornado dissipated into the air, and the gust of wind whooshed away. The leaves and debris fell to the ground, and Isu was gone.

  Immediately after, I heard another sound: the distinctive crack of a twig snapping behind a nearby bush, followed by a muffled curse.

  “Whoever you are, you’ve got five seconds to show yourself before I send my skeleton and his sword over to carve you up,” I said. “Five… four… three… two… one. All right, that’s it. I gave you your chance, and you just blew it. Say your prayers.”

  I linked my will to the skeleton and commanded it to charge over to the bush. It obeyed, its sword raised above its head, ready to cut down whoever—or whatever—was hiding there. But as the skeleton parted the bush with its left hand and prepared to bring the blade whistling down, a scream sliced through the silence.

  A distinctly feminine scream.

  “No, please!” screamed the mystery girl. “Please don’t hurt me!”

  “Step out and show yourself, and maybe I won’t.”

  The girl obeyed… and for a moment, words failed me.

  Chapter Four

  To say that the blond dame who stepped out from behind the bush was jaw-droppingly beautiful would be an understatement. But I didn’t give two shits about fancy words or lah-di-dah poeticisms. So instead of falling to my knees and singing her praises like some sappy, limp-wristed bard, I said just one thing to her.

  “You have exactly 10 seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”

  Panic washed over the girl’s stunning oval face, her big hazel eyes opening wide with sudden fear.

  “I’m… I’m not with him,” she stammered, her full, red lips quivering as she pointed at Ser Rosewood’s corpse. “I was just… just following him, so that I could… find you!”

  As she spoke, my eyes traced the outline of her form. She was dressed in a long white cleric’s robe that covered her from her shoulders down to her ankles. It clung to her curves, revealing the shape of her large, pert breasts. A slim waist flared out into curved hips, below which were a pair of long, shapely legs. It was a figure that was far too sexy to be covered by the matronly ugliness of a cleric’s robe. This gave me yet another reason to hate the Church of Light; it was a crime to keep bodies as exquisite as this one covered up.

&nb
sp; I didn’t care that she noticed me looking; beauty like hers was rare, and being so close to it was something I didn’t mind showing I enjoyed. I did realize that, with all the staring, I hadn’t been paying attention to her explanation.

  “I told Ser Rosewood that I also wanted to see you burn in hell for your, uh, your sins,” she was saying, “and he said—”

  “Get to the point, blondie,” I growled. “Didn’t I say ‘10 seconds’ earlier? Check your sundial; I’m pretty sure you used up that time slot several times. You’re living on borrowed time, and I charge some pretty hefty interest on loans.” I had no intention of killing her, but a little fear did a lot to loosen tongues.

  She gulped, and her delicate hands trembled. “Okay, okay. Forget about how I got here, let me just tell you why. I need your help. And I can help you in return.”

  “Oh, really?” I asked. “And what exactly can a novice cleric do for me that I couldn’t just do myself?”

  Looking at her tantalizing body, concealed so frustratingly beneath that frumpy white robe, there were many things I’d love for her to do that I couldn’t do myself.

  “I’m no novice, I’m a bishop!” The anger vanished from her face as quickly as it had appeared, and her shoulders slumped as she continued. “But I guess you wouldn’t know that by looking at me. Yes, I’m wearing the simple robe of a novice, but that’s only because I was stripped of my former rank by Bishop Nabu of Erst.”

  I thought about cracking a joke about another kind of stripping I wouldn’t mind watching her do, but I kept my mouth shut. I was intrigued as to why a bishop of the church would come looking for help, from me of all people. I was pretty sure that by this point, I was at the top of their heretic hit list, or whatever those pompous assholes called it.

  The woman sighed and shook her head, and for a moment, it seemed that she was going to give in to the grief that was obviously weighing on her shoulders. But instead, quick, hot anger seized her.

  “That viper stole everything from me,” she said as she clenched her fists. “That greedy, lying, thieving, murdering snake! He took everything I worked so hard for. The vile bastard just snatched it away from me!”

  Maybe this girl wasn’t quite as meek and spineless as I had thought. In fact, it seemed she actually had quite a feisty side to her. I wondered, grinning slightly as I did, if this feistiness could also be seen in other activities she engaged in. Activities that were strictly forbidden for members of the clergy, true—but if this girl was willing to seek out the help of someone at the top of the church’s shit-list like me, I figured she might be willing to bend the rules in other areas, too.

  “Okay,” I said, doing my best not to break out into a shit-eating grin, “so, this Bishop Nabu ruined your life. I get it. But what does that have to do with me?”

  Her hazel eyes became as hard as granite, and the muscles of her face tightened with a deep fury.

  “I want you to kill him,” she said calmly. “That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

  I chuckled. “That is what I do, yeah. But I’m not a psycho; I don’t just go around killing people for no reason, despite what your shit-for-brains church superiors have no doubt told you. I mete out justice, blondie, justice—do you understand me? I’m not some wine-sotted cutthroat you find in an alley behind a tavern who’ll gladly take a few coppers to stick a rusty knife between the ribs of the man who’s putting his prick in your wife while you’re plowing day and night on your dusty, barren field—well, in your case, er, woman, husband, you know what I mean. I deal in justice.”

  “I’m well aware of your ethical code,” she said.

  I was a little surprised to hear this, to be honest. It seemed that my reputation was growing.

  “Isn’t killing a man who’s a greedy, unrepentant liar, thief, and murderer justice?” she asked. “He’s done a lot worse things than many other people you’ve killed, I’d bet.”

  “Right now, it’s your word against his,” I said with a shrug. “How do I know he’s guilty of any of the things you’re accusing him of? And before you answer that, I also want to know just what kind of ‘help’ you think you can offer me.”

  “Well, I, um… I didn’t realize you were a necromancer, in addition to being an assassin. I thought that maybe, um, we could work together for a while. My holy powers—”

  “Call it ‘magic’ like everyone else does, sweetcheeks.” I twirled Grave Oath in my right hand. “Listen carefully: the first thing you need to understand about me, if you’re proposing this ‘working together’ thing, is that I cannot fucking stand the holier-than-thou bullshit-talk that you churchies use. Seriously, just using that language in my presence is grounds for your soul to get sucked into this dagger in my books, got it?”

  The young woman swallowed slowly and nodded. “Okay. I understand. So, I was thinking that my, er, magic, could complement your assassin skills pretty well, but I guess, since you have a few magical abilities of your own…”

  She trailed off, looking dejected.

  “My magical powers are actually brand spankin’ new,” I said. “As in before I stepped into that crypt, I didn’t have ‘em. I was never much of a magic fan before, but now that I’ve had a taste, I have to say that I’ve—how do you church people put it?—seen the light.”

  “It’s quite something, the first time, isn’t it? The feeling of… real power. It’s quite addictive, to be honest. Um, anyway,” she continued, blushing, “I guess that since you’ve got your own magical abilities, you wouldn’t really be needing help from someone like me.”

  While I certainly didn’t need any help—especially with the new powers I had obtained from Isu—the truth was that, I was feeling pretty sympathetic to the young woman’s situation. If this Bishop Nabu was even half the asshole she said he was, he deserved to taste Grave Oath’s cold steel. There was more to my sympathy for her situation than simple justice though; I knew how she felt right now. I knew exactly how she felt.

  “I’ll be honest with you… uh, what’s your name?”

  “I’m Elyse.”

  “Okay, Elyse, I’ll be honest: I don’t need anyone’s help. But, you and I, we have something in common, something that makes me think that maybe we should work together.”

  “What exactly is it that you, Vance, an assassin and a necromancer, could possibly have in common with me, a bishop? I… I mean no disrespect, but it seems obvious to me that we are, well, quite different.”

  “Different people, yes, but we’re both victims of the same crime. Your bishopric was stolen from you by a scumbag priest. My lordship was stolen from me by a scumbag uncle.”

  She gasped. “Lordship? You’re a nobleman?”

  I flashed her a smug grin. “Vance Chauzec, Lord of Brakith, at your service, Bishop Elyse.”

  “I… I had no idea.”

  “Why would you? The church pricks want you to believe that I’m nothing but gutter scum. Actually, come to think of it, the Bishopric of Erst borders the lands of one of my—well, now my uncle’s—vassals. I wouldn’t be surprised if my uncle and Bishop Nabu know each other and scratch each other’s crooked backs from time to time.”

  I had made up my mind; I was going to help Elyse, and not just because I wanted to get her out of that unflattering cleric’s robe. She and I had both suffered the same injustice, and I wasn’t going to let a valid excuse to stick my dagger into some corrupt bishop’s flabby neck fly.

  “Does this mean that… that you’ll—”

  “Yes,” I answered with a swift smile. “I’ll help you get your bishopric back. And when I’ve done that, you can help me get my lordship back.”

  Elyse’s face broke into a radiant smile before she raced over and threw her arms around me. Before I could reciprocate, she had released me and stepped back, blushing furiously and staring at my feet.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  I winked. “It’s an effect I regularly have on women. Don’t beat yoursel
f up over it; you’re a woman too.”

  Her embarrassment morphed rapidly into indignation—faux indignation, but quite convincing.

  “What? No! No, it’s nothing like that at all.”

  “If you say so, Elyse. Anyway, the sun is getting low, and if we’re going to be visiting the Bishopric of Erst, we may as well set off now. There are some good spots to camp out in the woods around five miles from here.”

  “Fine,” she huffed. She was still pretending to be offended, but pretty soon, I caught her checking me out when she thought I wasn’t looking.

  Throughout this whole conversation, my skeleton had just been standing around with the dead paladin’s sword in his hand. An amusingly wicked thought entered my mind as I glanced over at the weapon: wouldn’t it be fun to run this Bishop Nabu through with a paladin’s sword? That would be a deliciously appropriate way to deliver justice to the man who stole a bishopric.

  “I’m bringing him with us,” I said to Elyse, nodding in the skeleton’s direction.

  She stared at the skeleton, and a shudder of unease rippled through her.

  “Is it really necessary to bring that… unholy thing along?”

  “You can do things my way, or you can do them alone,” I said, folding my arms. “Your choice.”

  Her eyes remained locked on the skeleton, but she knew there was no way around it without losing my help.

  “Just keep that abomination far away from me,” she muttered, turning to the bushes to retrieve her knapsack and staff.

  I gathered my things together and prepared to set off. Before I left, I shot one last look down into the darkness of the crypt.

  “Thanks for the awesome gifts, Isu,” I murmured. “I’ll make damn sure I put ‘em to good use.”

  I wasn’t really expecting a response, but just as I was about to turn away, a sudden gust of icy wind howled out of the crypt and swirled around me. This time, the currents of air did not take on her shape, but it was her voice being carried on the whirling wind.

  “Why are you wasting your time helping this flaxen-haired airhead?” Isu’s voice hissed. “She is a servant of the Lord of Light.”