The proper disposal of thralls was mostly theoretical to Idris. As a student, the only thralls he had to practice on were his own, as the only necromancer around for three kingdoms, and the dispelling of his own aria was like remembering to breathe out once he had breathed in. He knew how to burn them and how to stop them, but again, he had only practiced with thralls he had raised.

  Idris told Riette to make some ‘kill-pills’, a method Uncle Haylan had taught him just before he passed. It involved the wrapping of certain herbs and seeds into leaves, in certain quantities, and forcing them down thralls’ throats if they got too close.

  “Do they eat?” said Riette, surprised at the revelation.

  “Yes.”

  “How do they... digest?”

  “The aria provides,” said Idris. It was more complicated than that, but the death aria took the energy from the food and spread it equally between the limbs.

  “I am not sure I want the answer to this next question, but... what do they eat?”

  Idris gestured to the mangled animal corpses. Riette wrinkled her nose.

  “People?” she whispered. He nodded tersely. “Oh, bells.”

  While Riette made the leaf-wrapped pills, Idris felt through the aria for the thralls’ melodies. Carefully, he picked across a corn field and found a thrall, both legs sliced off at the knees, dragging itself doggedly with its bloody fingers. It stank like a stagnant pond and could not lift its own head.

  “My lady,” Idris called. Riette came, hand on her sword. “A lesson, if it pleases you?”

  “If I have to kill these things, then yes.”

  “A clean cut through the neck will do for this one.” Idris pointed to the legs, bleeding. “The aria runs even if there is no blood left in the body, but it collects in the head and connects through the neck to the chest. When you see me cast, that is what you will notice – I need air in my lungs, clarity in my head. Once the head is gone, the thrall cannot function, and the aria spills out.”

  “Understood.”

  “Otherwise...” He pulled some caustic salts from Benny’s supply pouch. “This should take care of him. Stand back.”

  Idris flung a good quantity of the red salt over the thrall’s back. As soon as it touched the aria around the body, the salt burst into bright orange flame; the thrall squealed and squawked and tried to flail to save itself. The overriding sound to Idris, however, was the tumbling of the death aria as it fell to ash, like notes falling off a stave.

  “It is not burning the body,” said Riette, frowning, taking her hand off her weapon.

  “Caustic salt burns the aria,” said Idris. “Much more effective. See?”

  The flames danced half-an-inch above the corpse, burning the black smoke of the aria to nothing. By the time the fire was out, the thrall was still and silent.

  “We do not hate the vessels,” Idris said, repeating a mantra Haylan had drilled into him. “We only hate the intent forced upon them. This man deserves a proper funeral pyre.” He noted the olive-green shawl, still wrapped around the dead man’s waist, tainted with blood and dirt and dust. “And he shall have one,” Idris said.

  He took the shawl, tied it to a broken fence post and made a flag, so that he could find the body later, and moved to the next.

  They worked methodically, without much conversation. The thralls were everywhere – in water butts and wells, hanging out of first-floor windows, trapped in barns. A few, Riette simply had to decapitate, as they were still able to run and grab. The rest, they used a mixture of caustic salt and kill-pills.

  “I want to leave one alive,” said Idris. “Or, undead. I should be able to learn a lot from it.”

  Occasionally, they came across a villager who had passed. Idris did the same for them as he had for the thralls – a flag marker made of the Eremont shawl.

  “So,” said Riette, as they wandered towards the southern edge of the village, on the hunt for the final thrall, “The Remaker... he targeted Eremonts. We have seen too many green shawls.”

  “I think once he got Polly under his spell, he simply took what he thought he needed,” said Idris. “I expect Temple Hill looks the same. We will have to hit every village on the way.”

  “You are allowed to be upset,” she said, seeing the stony expression on his face. “These are people you grew up with.”

  “I do not have the time or the energy to be upset about this. I can only be rational.”

  It did hurt, though. Each corpse burrowed deep into Idris’s chest. Each green shawl fluttering in the autumnal breeze was a scar.

  The final thrall was pinned to a tree trunk by a pitchfork, straight through the chest. It was female and older, her eyes yellowed, her tongue swollen and purple. The death aria coming from her was weakening but Idris was certain he could use it. He knelt before the tree, looking intently into the old woman’s grey-fire eyes.

  “Can you see me, Father?” he whispered.

  He would be surprised if Layton was not looking. The whole Eremont affair was designed specifically to break Idris, he knew that – Layton was probably sipping tea, experiencing Idris’s slow walk through the village through several pairs of eyes, enjoying every second.

  Idris knelt in his casting stance, took a deep breath.

  “Watch my back,” he said to Riette. She nodded. “Pinch my ear, just here, if it looks like I am struggling.”

  He indicated a nerve cluster on the top of his ear.

  “I will,” she said.

  Idris took the aria in. He took a second breath, right into his stomach, and the music tumbled in with it, hot and insistent. It pounded in his ears, wailed in his blood. As he listened, he learned. The old woman had died of natural causes; she had been animated like this for three weeks. With the state of the body, he could get speech from her, but that would be secondary to his purpose. He had more difficult things to achieve, first.

  He delved deep. He listened intently. There – Layton's music, like a master on the violin, repetitive and careful. The intent was to disrupt and harm, but he somehow infused terror into these thralls, made them believe they were under attack.

  “Father,” he said through the aria.

  He waited. Maybe Layton was too far away. Idris already felt hot; the sweat ran down his face, down his back, in the tension in his neck. His phantom foot burned.

  “Ah, Eremont,” said Layton’s melody. “You went home.”

  Idris gritted his teeth, held his concentration on Layton.

  “This is senseless,” Idris said.

  “Only if you have no imagination,” said Layton.

  “You...”

  He realised in a surge of stupidity.

  Layton wanted him here, away from Veridia. He was moving and he did not want Idris to find him. Better to send him to the edge of the kingdom, where he would be occupied, than to have him sniffing around Layton’s lair closer to home.

  “Watching you think is a marvel,” said Layton’s voice. “You are so tired that you are seeing only one move at a time. You are not a stupid boy, Idris, but you are making this rather simple for me.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Bells!” Idris burst aloud, and the aria whumphed out of him, shoving the fallen leaves away in a flurry. Riette turned, alarmed.

  “What?”

  “The man played me for a fool,” Idris hissed, climbing to his feet. “Leave this one, she is still useful. I need something dead. An animal, preferably.”

  “I think I saw a dead dog by the last barn.”

  “Fetch it.”

  He felt instantly guilty, ordering Riette around like she was Lila, but Riette did not seem to mind. She returned with a sheepdog lying in her arms, its tatty fur hiding the deep bite in its neck. Idris took a piece of parchment from his pocket and grabbed a twig, and stabbed the twig hard into the dog’s neck wound. With the blood, he wrote,

  Return to Veridia immediately. Remaker on the move.

  TH a distraction.

  IYE

  This, he slid under the rope collar of the dog, and he went back to his casting stance and put a hand on the animal’s chest.

  “I will need the water after this, Riette,” he said before he began his work.

  “Absolutely,” she said, moving away.

  Raising a dog was the first real piece of controlled necromancy Idris had ever done (the difference between that and necrotising his own foot was that the latter had been accidental). It was not a difficult task, but he was already finding that his focus was slipping, partially due to self-loathing and partially due to the lack of sleep. If he was to get any answers out of the old woman, he needed to rest after this.

  He took off his cloak and coat, shook out his arms and made a pentagon with the fingers in his left, ungloved hand. With his teeth, he took off the glove on his right, and he placed it on the cold fur again.

  “Rise,” he said, through the aria.

  It burned his throat. He felt a rush of dots flurry over his face, pulling his remaining energy out through his chest.

  The dog twitched. Idris felt its muscles, its empty heart, and bid them wake. Once the dog was up, he moved his hand to the dog’s head and said, “Remember.”

  He thought of Kurellan, Lila, Cressida and Willard, and transmitted their faces through the aria.

  “Deliver,” he said, thinking of the note.

  The dog, instructions received, bounded off at an unnatural speed. Hopefully, it would intercept his friends in time.

  The whiteness of unconsciousness swarmed in on Idris. He breathed shallowly, trying to stave off the faint, but his body was done. He just about saw Riette returning with the water jug when he felt himself fall forwards, with no ability to stop himself even though he desired it.

  “Steady there, Idris,” said Riette’s voice from somewhere, muffled and strange, and he was sure he did not hit the grass.

  When he blinked himself back to the real world, Riette was holding him up, with the water jug in her other hand.

  “Welcome back,” she said, tilting the jug to his lips. He drank obediently, his thoughts still fuzzy. “I think we should finish this old lady off and call it a day.”

  “I can -” Idris whispered, but Riette shook her head.

  “No more. You need a meal and a bed. This is too much for one man to do alone.”

  “If I cannot manage this, how am I supposed to stop Layton?” he said, feeling stronger with his self-hatred fuelling him. “He can... can raise thralls from two-hundred miles away and not break a sweat -”

  “He is also deranged,” said Riette. “You are too valuable to lose like this.”

  “Necromancers have no value,” said Idris, sitting up out of her grip.

  “I did not mean as a necromancer,” she said quietly, watching him. “I will not tolerate you talking that way about yourself. We have discussed this.”

  Idris shifted his jaw and kept quiet. He drank deeply from the jug, tipped some of the water on his head and turned back to the old woman.

  “This first.”

  Riette sighed, but she did not stop him.

  I am not going to be beaten by this spiteful idiot, he thought, putting himself into the correct stance. I am better than this.

  He raised his left hand in a pentagon and breathed deep.

  The aria came swiftly, but it felt heavy, pressing on his spine and shoulders. Idris struggled to keep his arm aloft, to focus on the notes – it all felt dry, hot, too loud, too much. His heart pounded as if it filled his whole chest.

  The same voice that told him he had to stop, now, was the voice that pushed him to try anyway.

  The music was all through him. It seared through his blood, slammed in his skull. He focused his streaming eyes on the form of the old woman and he thought he was going to explode – and he clenched his fist and was about to form the word when he felt a sharp, awful pinch in his ear.

  The aria blasted out from his body in all directions, and he fell to his hands and vomited all the water he had just drank. It felt like his skin sizzled; then, there was a heavy splash over the back of his head, and he heard the water come off as steam.

  “No more,” said Riette again, firmer, and he nodded and gasped for air.

  Without waiting for confirmation, she put her blade clean through the old woman’s neck. The thrall’s head rolled unceremoniously to the floor.

  Idris felt deathly. Even though he knew he was hot, he shivered. Riette put his cloak back over him and helped him to his feet, and she took him to a quiet corner of a nearby barn and went to get Benny. Idris watched her speak to the farmer, who turned to the barn, nodded hastily and pointed to a small house close by.

  Idris sat, shaking, close to tears, while Riette set them up with food and a house to rest in. The villagers emerged quietly, looking his way and then quickly turning their heads, like his presence burned them. His head was too sore and too empty to care.

  Eventually, Riette had him tucked up in a rocking chair in a farmhouse, with a plate of fresh bread and preserves, and was picking through the medicines Idris had asked Benny for. It was a sparse little house but it served a purpose.

  “They are collecting the bodies for the pyre,” she said.

  Idris nodded. His throat was too sore for him to talk.

  “You frightened me today,” she said, looking right at him this time.

  Idris would not have answered this, even if he could.

  “You do not need to punish yourself the way you do,” she said fiercely. “You do the same thing when we do sword-work. You push and push and push and you have no idea when to stop – or maybe you do, and you just do not care. It is as if anything less than perfection is death to you. The aria could have killed you today. You were not in control. That is not good enough, Idris.”

  Her cheeks were pink, her hazel eyes wet.

  “When you have worked yourself to death,” she said, “we will be left. Your friends. People who love you. I am not going to watch you burn from the inside out for – for Layton Vonner, a man who does not love you, who loves nothing but his pride. That is not a good reason to die.”

  Idris wished he had the strength to reach out, hold her hand, tell her that he understood why she was upset – but he was ashamed and humbled, and afraid of her kindness. Instead, he bowed his head and looked at the knit of the blanket, at the burns still on his palms from the destruction of the Spirit Staff.

  “Her Majesty cried when you did that, you know,” Riette said.

  Idris closed his eyes, nodded. It had been difficult for everyone in the room. Lila had turned away; Cressida watched, but in tears.

  “Does it hurt?”

  He shook his head. The burns did not hurt. They looked ugly, though. He hated looking at them.

  Riette pulled up her stool, put the herbs into a bowl and presented them to Idris.

  “Are these the right ones?” He nodded. “Which ones do you eat?” He separated out a few leaves, put them in his palm. “The rest for your leg?” He nodded. “I put them in the prosthetic cup, correct?” Another nod. “Idris...” Riette took his free hand, gripped it tight. Her hands were large, warm, strong. Comforting. “We are going to fix this. Look at me.”

  He glanced up. Riette’s face was determined but honest.

  “The Remaker needs you weak, so you must be strong,” she said. “You have allies, he has none. He may have distracted us today, but he will not distract us again. We are smarter than this. You are. Think of all you have done. It is not in vain.” Her eyes softened. “I know you asked for none of this,” she said, “but what we do with adversity is just as important as what we do when we have power.”

  She pulled her hand away.

  “You must be tired. Sleep. By the time morning comes, perhaps Lila will be here.”

  Idris was not sure that would help. Lila was, after all, her own person.

  He slept fitfully – not with dreams, but with worries. He kept thinking of Layton’s cold music, of his mocking thoughts, and of the old woman against the tree trunk, her tongue swollen and grotesque. When he finally gave up, it was to hear Riette talking to someone at the door.

  Quietly, he struggled up – he had not brought crutches on this trip and they had not put his foot back on yet – and used the furniture to hop to the hall. The soldier at the door saw him and saluted; Idris hid his right leg behind the adjoining door and nodded back.

  “Sir,” said the soldier. “Was told I’d find you here. I’m part of the contingent that was sent to Temple Hill.”

  Of course – Riette had sent soldiers ahead of them. Idris’s throat still hurt, so he indicated with his hand to continue in a rolling motion.

  “No obvious destruction and very few, uh... undead,” the soldier said uncertainly. “But definitely signs that they went through there, sir. Trampled gardens and a few broken fences. Reports from villagers state that a man came with a few undead some weeks ago and then left.”

  “Description?” said Riette.

  “Said he was thin and kind of small, Commander,” said the soldier. “Carried a... a skull?”

  Idris sucked his cheeks.

  “But once he left,” the soldier said, “the attacks started happening. The undead had a purpose and it looks like it was to leave Temple Hill, though. Might be why they concentrated here? At any rate, the Eremont estate is safe, like you asked. We checked all the houses and the Eremont home. Place is a little dishevelled but not burned down or anything, Commander. Sir.”

  “The rest of your unit?” said Riette.

  “Checking the other villages.”

  Idris indicated to Riette that she should tell the soldier about how to effectively kill thralls (he drew a finger over his neck and nodded outside), and she nodded and began instruction. Idris retreated to the small room he had been sitting in and ran his tongue over his false molar.

  He hoped his message reached Cressida in time. He did not want to give Layton any more of a head start.