Nathan played the game of cat and mouse with his bottle of gnome-crafted fizzy-water, opening it slightly, watching it bubble up and be about to explode, then quickly twisting the cap back on, and then trying again. Each time, the water was too fizzy, and each time Nathan slammed the cap back on just in the nick of time. But Nathan, being an experienced Black wizard who commanded undead armies, had a strategy, and he knew he would win. With each split-second that he let the cap open before closing it again, some of the fizz escaped, so that, eventually, it would lose enough fizz that he would be able to drink it. He was smart, he understood how gnomish fizzy-water worked. At long last, he sensed his opportunity. He twisted the cap off and kept it off, giving himself an opening to take a long, well-deserved swig. He brought the bottle to his lips.
The bottle of fizzy-water exploded in his face.
Nathan’s Black wizard’s robes were soaked completely through, with the lower rim of the night-black robes dripping streams of water into a puddle at his feet like rain from an umbrella during a storm. The wet black fabric of his mask made his skin feel like ice in the already cold temperatures of this mountainous region where his undead army was waging its campaign. His teeth were chattering, and his robes felt heavy because they were soaked with water like a sponge.
Nathan was facing the back of his olive-green pitched tent in Lord Lament’s military encampment, with his back to the door, his clothes still wet with fizzy-water, when one of his zombie servants walked in.
“Um, sir,” the zombie began, and then it noticed what it was seeing, and it did a double-take with its worm-eaten eyes, “Sir, um, what happened to you, sir? Should I bring in some goblins to clean up in here?”
“GET OUT!” Nathan said without turning around.
The zombie, fearing for its unlife, shambled away as fast as its decaying flesh-rotted legs could carry it.
Nathan sat down, in the puddle of water on the floor, and held his face in his black-gloved hands. He just sat there. He closed his eyes, opened them, and then picked up the empty bottle of gnome-water. He pointed at it and cast a spell, and the glass bottle began to peel and crumble, like paper on fire, until it disintegrated into ashes, which blew away into the air and vanished. Nathan smiled and, feeling much better about his life, he got up, donned a black travel-cloak, exited his tent, and went to see what the zombie had wanted.
Moments later, a few feet from his tent, he stopped walking, and froze. Oh God, my zombies wouldn’t have bothered me in my tent unless Lord Lament wanted to see me, Nathan thought. And I was wasting my time with fizzy-water? What is wrong with me? What if I’ve done something to anger that stupid idiot Lord Lament? Nathan shook his head as he navigated the path among the tents that led to Lord Lament’s command tent, dodging his way past zombies, humans, dwarves, and goblins, all of which were in a flurry of getting themselves armed and armored and ready for a coming battle. He held his black cloak tightly about himself with one arm, so that the dirt and mud that people were kicking up spattered onto his cloak, not onto the Black wizard robes beneath it.
Nathan found the door to Lord Lament’s tent. This tent was much bigger and more elaborate and grandiose than any of the other tents. It was entirely orange, instead of olive-green like everyone else’s tents. Nathan nodded to the two soldiers guarding the entrance and walked in.
The furniture within the command tent was real furniture, not the mere military equipment designed to be rapidly taken apart or put back together at a moment’s notice which Nathan had been given for his own tent. The inside of the tent was large and spacious, and its ceiling was held very high by long poles. But it seemed smaller somehow, because of how crowded it was inside. Two dozen officers and commanders of the army were gathered into small groups, seated at small tables, talking and making plans. All of these people kept a careful distance from the area at the far end of the tent, where Lord Lament and his top generals were gathered around one long table, deep in discussion.
Nathan approached Lord Lament’s private table, absolutely confident in his right to walk up to it. The table’s legs and surface were surprisingly thick and ornate for furniture in an impromptu military encampment in the midst of war and had probably had to be carried into the camp on one of Lord Lament’s personal carriages. A typical luxury for a Lord who has become spoiled, indolent and indulgent with high privilege. Why must I work for such morons? Because they pay me. The table seemed expensive and better suited for a Noble Manor House than a war zone. Lord Lament’s clothes were also inappropriate for combat: he wore a long red jacket, studded with silver buttons and with its cuffs and seams lined with actual cloth-of-gold, cut from fabric the precise shade of red of a raging fire. The jacket was pulled over an orange-red shirt, its frill puffy around Lament’s neck. Lament also had red pants pulled up sharply over his protruding stomach in order to make his waist look smaller.
Lord Lament the Red and his generals, who were dressed in a variety of Green, Red, and Black, stood around this table, at which a large military map of yellowed parchment was unfurled, the local geography drawn on it in red ink, with small wooden pegs scattered around the map to indicate where Lament’s scouts had spotted enemy military positions. Nathan bowed to his Lord and smiled under his mask. I have creeps like this eating out of my hand. I always do.
“Nathan Darkchurch, Necromancer-for-Hire, at your service,” Nathan said.
“Yes, Nathan, good to see you,” Lord Lament said, and the Lord returned to the map and his talk with his generals, as if he didn’t really notice Nathan at all.
Nathan stood there, silently. Lord Lament said nothing further to him. Lament was talking to the other generals. Nathan tapped his foot, and then had to stretch his legs, first one, then the other, as his body tired of just standing there. Still, Lord Lament said nothing to him, and the Lord was deep in discussion with his generals. They look like they could talk all night. I need some sleep. And some dry clothes. Are they ignoring me?
“My Lord, my zombie army stands ready to attack the enemy army,” Nathan said loudly, although no one had asked him to say anything or invited him to join the conversation. Finally, Lord Lament did notice Nathan. But, given Lament’s sudden, sharp, hawkish gaze, transfixed on Nathan, with one bushy eyebrow raised and a constant unblinking stare from eyeballs that reflected the red candles in the tent, Nathan shivered. Shouldn’t have said anything. Should have just had another gnome-water. This thought was facetious. Nathan was never drinking another fizzy-water. He had decided that while waiting for the generals’ conversation to end.
“I had wanted to see you… in an hour, after this more important meeting was ended, Nathan,” Lord Lament said. “I wanted to inform you that my plans have changed. My spies have learned that my nemesis Lord Gareth intends to hold his position defending his castle to our west and plans not to attack us. I had originally planned to have you move up from the south after he attacked, in order to cut off his retreat. Instead, your undead army will attack him head-on and draw him out, sweeping down upon him from the east, where he will clearly see you coming.” Nathan smiled. Easy. A simple adjustment for me to make. Why was I worried about what Lament might want to say to me?
“You will intentionally take heavy losses to soften his front ranks, but your… things are already dead, so it doesn’t matter,” Lament said. “While Lord Gareth’s army is engaged fighting your… disgusting creatures, my human, alive soldiers will circle around and surprise-attack him coming from behind the hills to the south, with support from my dwarf and goblin mercenaries. Having been weakened by fighting your… repulsive monstrosities, Gareth’s troops will fall, but my humans will actually do all the work of taking his keep. Once Gareth’s pathetic scum are butchered and I have captured his castle, you’ll get your reward of gold coins, don’t worry. I know that’s all you really care about, Nathan, not my long-running feud with his rival Noble House. I know you need my money. You don’t hide it very well. I don’t blame you, though, Nathan, given how the Darkchurch Noble House fell out of favor and into wanton disrepute. Why, it’s a miracle you’re even still alive, given what trash your House has become.” Lord Lament chuckled and shared a knowing look with the generals standing to his left and right, who met their Lord’s eyes and then gave a hearty laugh of their own.
Do not say anything. Not a word! Nathan thought, biting back some insult to answer Lament’s rudeness. He had a good one saved up too, something relating to Lord Lament’s round bald head and round bulging belly looking so similar that one might get confused about which was which. It’s true, too. Don’t say it! The thought of using his Black magic to answer the Lord’s insult did not occur to Nathan; he really did need Lament’s money.
“My master is all too kind, My Lord,” Nathan said in his soft, oily voice, and he bowed again. It was not necessary to bow out of politeness at this point in military etiquette, but Nathan did so anyway. “My zombies are yours to command.”
“Yes, I know. That’s what I’m paying you for. And make your final preparations, because your forces attack at dawn tomorrow. Now you may leave me,” Lord Lament said. Nathan left Lord Lament’s command table. None of the generals gathered around the map on the table glanced at him as he walked away.
Can’t wait for this military campaign to be over! Nathan thought as he walked back to his tent. Get paid, pay off my debt to the Smiling One, and go on a vacation! Maybe the elf lands. A dwarf mountain? Nathan’s grinning smile transformed into an angry snarl beneath his black mask. But never going back to Gnome Country ever again! Curse that gnome-made fizzy-water!
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Lord Lament said, making a broad sweeping gesture with his hand to indicate the Great Hall of Lord Gareth’s keep. Nathan turned his head left and right, his small beady eyes darting this way and that behind his mask. The Great Hall was a gigantic rectangular room which formed the main space of the inner chamber of the keep. Its walls, ceilings and floors were made of white marble polished so well that it shined and almost seemed to glow in the sunlight coming from the small round windows that dotted the ceilings. A rich, luxurious green carpet began at its entrance, a pair of tall wide-open double doors that stretched from the floor all the way up to its vaulted ceilings, and ran across the length of the room, ending at the sharp, angular golden throne in which Lord Lament was currently sitting. The green banners of House Gareth, depicting a white stag and a white unicorn on a field of green, were still draped across the rafters.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Nathan was most impressed by the enormous woven tapestry hanging across the western wall: it was so tall and wide that he wondered how any of the sentient species could possibly have taken the time to make it; it must have taken years, maybe even decades. The tapestry showed a battlefield where the bloody bodies of humans, elves, and dragons lay on the ground, and a giant humanoid hand, its flesh a dark shade of tan, descended out from a fluffy white cloud to hold an army of dragons back to keep them away from the human and elf soldiers, with the dragon army on the left side and the fae and human army on the right side of the tapestry. Beams of sunlight shined down from the clouds to surround the giant hand with bright light.
The humans had plate armor, longswords, and rectangular shields, and each wore a cape or had a feather in their helmet that displayed one of the five human colors, while the fae were shirtless and wore nothing other than yellow pants and yellow knee-high boots aside from the longswords, spears or axes which they carried. The dragons, taking the form of hideous serpentine monsters with horns and fangs and barbed tails and forked tongues from which blood and saliva drooled, had bloody mangled half-chewed bodies of humans and elves still in their mouths. But the dragon army was fleeing, their eyes wide and bloodshot with fear as they looked at the hand from the sky pushing them away, their green-scaled reptilian bodies depicted in the precise moment where they broke ranks and fled in wild panic, trampling one another to death under their own claws in their haste to escape.
At the very far most righthand side of the tapestry, there were two distinct figures, a human king and an elf king, side by side, and the two kings looked up at the divine hand from the heavens and smiled. The human, a light-skinned man in white clothes with a long mane of unruly brown hair below a gold crown, clutched against his chest a large, luminous crystal glowing with white light. The source of the light burned like white fire inside of it, and the crystal was so large it covered the king’s entire chest and he needed to wrap both of his arms around it just to hold onto it.
Next to the human king was the elf king, a very tall and very slender male fae of pale white skin, his lustrous golden-blonde hair capped by a silver tiara-like crown whose silver reflected the green light of the crystal which he held raised above him in both hands. This crystal, too, was big, so big that the elf needed both of his hands underneath it to support it. His crystal was faceted, and each facet radiated rays of green light in a different shade of green, from light green to true green to dark green. The elves and humans near the two kings were on their knees at the feet of their kings, their eyes staring up at the two crystals, their hands held together in silent prayer.
The tapestry depicted a famous scene of myth and legend, where God banished the dragons from the realm after God answered the White magic prayer spells of King Gargarez of the humans and King Zebyx of the elves. Thereafter, God entrusted the Crystal of Light to the humans and the Crystal of the Elements to the elves, with the two crystals representing and cementing the covenant between God and the sentient species.
Nathan had seen many other artists’ renderings of this scene before this one; it was a typical subject for artists sponsored by kings or nobles to produce fine art. Most artists split it into two distinct depictions, first the banishment, and second the bequeathing of the crystals by God to man and elf. But the artist making this tapestry (or, to be more precise, the chief artist directing the many other artists who had actually sewn it) had chosen to do it all as one scene, with the banishment on the center-left, and the holding of the crystals on the far right. This tapestry was itself almost as famous as its subject matter; the tapestry was at least five hundred years old and was known among art historians as “The Hand of God.”
Lord Gareth had been known to be a collector of expensive and famous works of art. Lord Gareth was now dead. Nathan’s zombies had overtaken and consumed him as he tried to retreat back to this keep, probably back to this very room. He never surrendered. I would have taken him prisoner and spared his life if he had, Nathan thought. Unfortunately, Nathan’s undead horde has been destroyed in the early part of the battle. Gareth’s men put up a valiant fight against the zombies, despite Nathan’s zombies killing most of them. Lord Lament’s ruthless soldiers had cleaned up the last remnants of Gareth’s forces after Nathan’s undead troops were spent. Lament, unlike Nathan, took no prisoners.
Blood and violence and corpses were absent from the Great Hall. Those things littered the battlefield outside the keep, but Lament and his men had wiped their boots vigorously before entering the castle after winning the battle. None of Gareth’s troops had remained inside the castle, and the other members of his family had evacuated earlier and were not to be found. Only Gareth’s servants and attendants had been left in the keep, and they switched loyalty from House Gareth to House Lament quickly and easily, especially now that the castle’s halls were full of Lament’s soldiers.
Lament’s guards stood at the various side entrances of the Great Hall, and the balconies above which looked down onto the floor of the Great Hall were also packed with Lament’s men, who, like Nathan, gazed around in awe at the spoils of war which they had won.
Nathan turned back around from gazing across the Great Hall, and faced Lord Lament, who lounged decadently upon Lord Gareth’s throne, which was so large that Lament’s large body seemed dwarfed by it. Lord Lament’s various generals knelt at the base of the stairs leading up to the throne, to show a posture of deference to their lord, ready to answer his call at any moment, but they kept expensive cushions below their knees, as was custom.
“My master, the work is done, we have won the war,” Nathan said to Lord Lament. “There is the small matter of, well, my payment? Five hundred gold coins and two thousand silver coins? My army of zombies loyally and devotedly performed exactly as you asked. My service to you was exceptionally polite and well-mannered. We had agreed upon that fee.”
Lord Lament laughed but said nothing. Nathan peered at Lament. Lord Lament’s face was white, not the bright purple-red that it became when his lord had been drinking too much wine.
“Did I tell a joke, my Lord? I don’t understand.”
“No, it appears that indeed you do not,” Lament said.
Nathan waited for clarification, but, again, only silence met him.
“Can you please explain, my Lord?”
“You assume that I intend to pay you, Nathan. You assume that I ever intended to pay you. That is an interesting assumption. One which is, perhaps, not justified. Your zombie army and Lord Gareth’s army wiped each other out, exactly as I planned, so you no longer have any zombies at your command. And, without money to spend to prepare the proper rites and rituals, you cannot raise another undead army, even if you had the corpses with which to do so. You are, in a word, powerless. And, in two words, weak and powerless. Tell me why I should pay you now?” Lord Lament laughed, and, a few moments later, all of his generals were also laughing.
Nathan’s eyes widened beneath his mask, and his mouth opened, but no sound came out. He clenched his fists, and then he raised his hands, ready to hurl a magic spell at Lament. That bastard! He’s betrayed me! I need that money!
“Look up, Nathan,” Lord Lament said, very quickly but in a calm voice. Nathan’s eyes glanced up, and saw the archers at the balconies, arrows trained on him, just before he threw a magic spell at Lord Lament. Nathan froze instantly. That disgusting pig of a man! I should have known never to trust a Red! All Reds are rogues!
“You are so pitiful, Nathan,” Lord Lament said. “To think that a member of House Darkchurch could ever be the equal of a member of House Lament. You are not fit to be the dirt beneath my hiking boots, Nathan. The only reason why my soldiers will escort you to the door and then kick you out, instead of slicing your neck open, is that I am well aware that you necromancers can sometimes bring yourselves back to life as a ghost after you die, and I desire never to see you ever again, either in life or in death. If I feared you coming after me or plotting your revenge against me, I might warn you that, at any time, I can put a bounty on your head, and have every assassin in the realm looking for you, so that you will live like a hunted animal for the rest of your days, knowing only mean cold fear, and nothing else. Death marks can be paid off, of course, but, as you and I know, you already have money problems, and you can ill afford another one.”
Nathan lifted his head up and gazed up, and he raised his arms, his fingers curled into claws, ready to strike with magic. He had a spell prepared which could instantly burn a human to cinders. He looked from one balcony, to the next, to the next, his eyes watchful and clear and flickering from archer to archer. There were not less than seven archers each with arrows trained directly at him, each of them dressed in black. Their aim looked steady and true, their hold of their bows confident, their gaze unflinching. His best sharpshooters. He had been planning this for some time. Nathan could kill, at most, five in one moment, with one spell, but then two arrows would hit him in the chest before he could slaughter all seven of them.
“Even the necromancers who return as the undead say that the experience of death is the ultimate agony, and, as I am sure you know, not every necromancer who dies is able to revive themselves,” Lord Lament said. “So, if I were to make threats, you would do well to heed them. But I do not say these threats to you, Nathan. I will not even bother to make them. Because I do not fear you, nor your revenge. You are neither smart enough nor competent enough to put on a workable plan of attack. Now, and I do so enjoy saying this to you for one final time: get out of my house.”
Nathan lowered his hands to his sides. You’ve already made the threats, you damn stupid coward! Nathan thought. Under his mask, his already pale-white face turned even whiter, like the skin of a ghost, and he was gnashing his teeth, with small specks of white foam at the edges of his mouth. His hands trembled, itching with magic, but he forcefully held his hands at his sides, and forced his hands down when his arms wanted to leap up and rain death and fire down upon the Great Hall. Lament’s soldiers came and escorted him out of the Great Hall, down the grand staircase that Nathan had been so proud to climb up a short time earlier, and through the many halls and courtyard of the castle, to the outer gate front door. The soldiers, at least, unlike Lord Lament himself, did fear the magic of a Black wizard, and so they did not treat him roughly, although their hands were always on the handle of the swords strapped to their belts. Lament’s soldiers opened the giant iron gate at the front of the keep, watched as Nathan walked out, and then slammed the gate shut behind him with a resounding boom.
I need a new job, Nathan thought, as he walked, alone, out past the blood-and-corpse-stained battlefield, the carnage still fresh and stinking, flies buzzing around the bodies, scavenger birds circling overhead. Maybe I should update my resume. If I list the Smiling One under the education section of my resume, maybe I can get a better job. The Smiling One is a famous Black wizard, and it is impressive that I studied under him. Maybe working for a White, or a Blue. Or even a simple Green. Someone who won’t stab me in the back and steal my pay. Anyone who will actually pay me. But, if I list the Smiling One, then the employer might contact him for verification, Nathan thought, and he shuddered so strongly that his black robes trembled against his body. And then they’ll learn that I left my magic teacher while still owing him three thousand gold coins of unpaid student debt. And that he’s promised to murder me if I don’t repay him soon.
Nathan came to a large pile of corpses on the ground, which barred his way. He climbed over them, getting red blood stains on his black robes. Just as he was about to clear the pile, his foot got caught on a sword, and he fell forward, face-first, into a puddle of mud. He just lay there for a moment, because he did not feel like getting up.
I need a new job! I would steal the very Crystal of Light itself out of the hands of God if someone were to pay me money for it! Nathan thought. Nathan got up, attempted to wipe the mud off his robes and mask while only getting it all over his hands instead, and kept walking forward. The sky overhead was white with clouds, the ground red with blood, and Nathan’s figure was the pure black of his wizard robes, like a dark shadow as he moved across the land.
