The General's Legacy

Chapter Seven: The Storm (part 2)

The orchestra house was normally a bright place with daylight streaming through glass sections of roof. With the storm overhead the whole audience had front row seats to a remarkable display of nature's finest light and sound show. The chatter of excitement at the spectacle subsided as the conductor tapped the lectern with his baton.
Cory and Sebastian were in their usual places when the first piece of music found itself drowned like an unfortunate sailor in a tempestuous sea by the thunder.
Carn slid into his seat, unusually late, nodding to the new face sat next to Sebastian. Xolt nodded back.
When the first piece was over the conductor and some members of the orchestra in the front row had their heads together in discussion. When they broke apart Greta took a seat at the front with her cello. The lead violinist, a tall blonde haired man who could have been anywhere between thirty and forty years old, took centre stage. It seemed they were going to depart from the published program.
They began to play and Cory recognised it as the piece of music Julia had brought with her. It was a good choice under the circumstances, something loud and dramatic to compete with the storm. It sounded different with the blonde man playing, somehow harder and less forgiving.

*

Mrs Samshaw marched through the corridors of the palace carrying a tray of stew, breads, wine and water. The darkness was lit periodically by a pulsing staccato lighting invading through the windows. Her footsteps added their own percussion to the distant sounds of the orchestra. The cello and the violin were doing their deft dance, the sounds like spooks following Mrs Samshaw down the corridor.
'Big breakfast, nonsense, I haven't seen that boy eat all day.' Mrs Samshaw thought to herself.
She had no fear of ghosts or shadowy demons lurking in her stark shadows cast against the wall by the lightning. The only thing that haunted her were her memories of Norvale's streets lined with desperate pleading eyes holding whatever container came to hand in the hope the liberating army might have food to spare. Another scar Mrs Samshaw bore. She remembered a whole crop burning and the looted empty Norvale grain stores after the Nearhon army retreated to their own kingdom. That was after the last Battle of Beldon Valley.
'I'll will see anyone starve if I can help it. Not again.'
Arriving at Pragius's office door, she cleared her mind of past unpleasant thoughts, executed her rapid knock and pulled the latch open with a clack.

The knocking and the clack shattered Pragius's concentration. A concentration that had lasted a time he could not measure, but felt like half an eternity. His pathway through the ephemeral, deceptive text was lost. Pragius felt no fear but rage bearing horns charged right out of the abyss.
He heard Mrs Samshaw's irrelevant words about food and how armies and Princes alike march on their stomachs. He turned, expressionless despite the rage and saw it. Wavering in the doorway like a silk sheet teased by a gentle summer's day breeze. A delicious beautiful thing all white, glowing and determined to feed him.

'RUUUUN!'
A voice in Delilah Samshaw's head screamed.
Did it sound like Jack? She spoke to his memory often this way.
A cold clammy hand gripped her throat but didn't squeeze hard enough to choke. Like one of those nightmares in which she couldn't run to escape, she was paralysed, her fingers locked on the tray she carried.
'Where are you?' her last thought was sucked into blackness.

Pragius stood like a statue. Ecstasy beyond measure. The high point of his existence.
'I MUST do that again. It all makes sense.'
At his feet lay what was Mrs Samshaw, her face like a dark grape dried and wrinkled in the sun.
Pragius saw himself in the mirror.
'Interesting.'
His own face and hands had changed just like Mrs Samshaw's. Eye balls hung down his cheeks on red fleshy strings. Bright orange lights floated in his dark eye sockets like burning coals. He flicked away the useless dangles with a shrivelled hand and picked up the book.
'Time to... leave,' it suggested.
Pragius looked down at what was once Mrs Samshaw.
"Follow me," and there was magic behind the words.
Sliding the book into its leather bag, he hooked it over his shoulder and left the office. The thing that had been Mrs Samshaw jerked and dropped the tray onto the floor where spilled stew lay forgotten. She clambered upright with stiff movements and followed him.
Pragius walked into the waking nightmares of others screaming, running, shutting doors, their flame-like souls all a quiver. None were as beautiful as Mrs Samshaw, though may be worth having if he had the time. But of course, he had all the time in the world, just not right now. Standing in the grand reception hall Pragius faced the front doors. Behind him he sensed someone approach.
"Pragius?" said King Coeric.
"Yes... father." Pragius didn't turn.

From behind, King Coeric saw only what was familiar and never noticed what had been Mrs Samshaw shambling across the hall.
Coeric placed his hand on his son's shoulder.
Pragius turned and had Coeric by the throat before he could blink.
From behind, there was a crash of a tray hitting the floor, then the sound of shattering plates followed by fleeing footsteps.
The king's soul certainly had a different flavour, if the sensation could becalled that. But it didn't thrill like Mrs Samshaw's.
King Coeric was even wearing the crown and his royal blue fur trimmed cloak for the occasion. Pragius took them.
'Maybe Magdeline's soul might work.'
Pragius walked out the main doors of the palace onto the manicured lawn placingthe crown of Valendo on his head.
'Burn it all down,' said the book.
Pragius dropped the fur trimmed cloak and leather bag containing the book onto the grass. Despite the rain, a small audience had gathered in the dark like curious nocturnal woodland animals. Lightning flickered, freezing the animals inplace.
He intoned a solemn announcement mimicking the cadence of the archpriests voice only a few months before at Ceoric's coronation.
"Long live... the king."
Speaking incomprehensible angry words he thrust both hands skyward as if the grab the lighting above.
An explosive roar erupted from the first floor of the palace. It blew out the windows and sent glass fragments hailing down on the perfect lawn like a million little diamonds snaring the bright firelight as they fell.
Pragius repeated the magic and the ground floor right through to the stables burst apart in flame. More glass showered the lawn as fire jetted from the windows.
The audience, shocked out of their trance by hot wind and firelight tried to flee. A few disappeared into the streets, others were knocked to the ground with bright energy bolts pulsing from Pragius's pointed finger.
Shrieking people in the palace drowned in fire that stripped meat from their bones in an all-consuming confusion of pain. Screaming their last whinnies, horses battered at stable doors with their hooves and failing strength.
Suddenly the only sounds became the crackle and roar of mage fire.

'You need... an army that's yours to command,'said a thought from the book.
"I will start here." Pragius sent his senses through the palace and the grounds finding burning bodies.
"Come to me."
Nimble, quick moving, blackened skeletons slick with grease from burning body fat gathered on the lawn. Some fell from the first floor windows breaking their bone bodies on the stone steps.
Pragius looked at what remained of Mrs Samshaw and then the nearest and newest of his recruits. Moments later the once Mrs Samshaw returned from the fire, bones smoking and withered flesh gone.
Placing the crown on top of the blue cloak on the grass by the book, Pragius walked back into the palace.
Bathing in the flames he spoke a few words of magic and the fires were thrown back as a shimmering sphere popped into existence.
Still smoking, Pragius, now only discernible from the other black skeletons by the orange coal eyes, replaced the crown on his head, drew the blue cloak around his shoulders and retrieved the book.
An enlightening thought dawned on him. There was something he had to put to the test. Looking at the lodge on the opposite side of the lawn, he spoke angry words again and it too was consumed in blossoming yellow and orange.
'I feel no pain at magic's flow. I have... no limits,' he thought.
'The pains of stress... are a weakness of the living,' said the book.
Crossbow bolts zipped through Pragius's cloak. A handful of the town guard reloaded crossbows in the shadows of nearby buildings. Pragius recalled everything he knew about being a battle mage, which was, he thought, everything there was to know. Within moments the crossbow bolts bounced away on a new magical shield.
The town guard ran. Then they burned. Then they followed.
'I'll try Magdeline, maybe she will be as pleasing as Samshaw.'

Pragius strolled with a regal calm through the streets of Tranmure, his retinue of the dead forming up behind him in a neat column at his commands delivered by thought. He watched the bright souls of the city's residents. They quivered at the sight of him, then shook and flared as they fled from his path. Flooded the streets ahead with his battle sense, a map formed in Pragius's mind of every road and pathway. The realisation came to him that he already knew every corner and crossroads of his city. If he still had lips, he might have smiled. He also sensed on his map all the people moving off the streets and into buildings.
His procession continued down the road on the river bank. Then it turned away from the river at the flour mill that contained many memories. Memories that were once bitter sweet, but now seemed no more than curiosities to be studied. Pragius strolled down the narrow alley between the mill and the warehouse yard. It was the scene of his first experiment with battle magic and a rat. He contemplated that event with amusement as he walked around to the front of the mill house,spoke a few growling words and burnt down the wooden door.
Two souls rippled on the staircase as the people stood frozen in place at his entrance.
Magdeline.
A man holding a wooden pole blocked his path up the stair to her.
'A stick. He wants to fight me with a stick,'Pragius thought.
The man's soul flared brighter and appeared more beautiful at Pragius's approach. He contemplated what this might mean as he caught the pole swung at him with his left hand while locking his right hand around the man's throat.
His soul felt quite good.
He followed the screaming Magdeline up the stairs into a bedroom. Picking up a wooden chair by its back, she pointing the legs at him. Her long waving hair trailed down her face. Why did her face not fill him with a sense of yearning like it once had?
"No, not Jeremiah... not Jeremiah!" she yelled with her back to a cot.
Pragius grabbed a wooden leg and yanked the chair from her hands and then cast it aside. Hauled her away from the cot he pinned her against the wall with his black bony hand at her throat. Magdeline's watery bright soul flowed out of her body and into his.
She was good, but not that good.
High pitched mewling came from the cot beside Pragius. Looking down, he dropped Magdeline's withered body. A tiny soul lay there like a delicate shimmering flower. A baby only a few weeks old. Pragius made a quick calculation. Magdeline had been married to the miller's son only seven months. He thought about the last time he had been with Magdeline, less than a year ago, and the child was named after past kings of Valendo. The thought intrigued him. Turning his back on the crying infant, he left the mill. Magdeline and the miller's son followed. Two more in tow behind the 'dead mage', the name that people cried out in the rain. He ignored them.
Pragius recalled what he was supposed to be doing.
'I need an army that is mine to command. Mine.'
The dead mage led his followers through the city and past the Church of the Sun. There was nothing in the churchyard but pots of ash. Out to the east, under the mountains lay another prize.

[Chapter continues...]