Jackal Among Snakes

Ruleo stepped through the stone confines of the Order of the Rose fortress he inhabited with one other beside him. This place was far more elaborate and long than most fortresses of theirs he’d visited—from all he’d gathered in old books, this place had been the site of a prolonged war. The fortifications, and concurrently the number of undead, was astronomically high in this place.

Ironically, that war was mirrored centuries later—Argrave’s army stood opposite the valley, while their Unhanded Coalition defended the valley with Castle Cookpot. The exact same situation had occurred long ago, with the Order of the Rose building these fortresses beneath the earth for a strategic advantage. It had led to their victory, evidently. And Ruleo felt somewhat confident it would lead to theirs, this time.

He looked to Georgina. For some reason, she’d brought a large backpack with her. She fought for King Felipe III, but Ruleo didn’t care who won this war.

“What?” Georgina looked at him scornfully. She didn’t like being looked at, he’d found, and any compliments about her beauty might as well have been insults in her ears. Worse yet, any sort of attention she got was assumed to be lecherous. In truth, he didn’t like her at all.

“You’re wasting your time coming here, Georgina,” Ruleo told her curtly.

“The undead you’re sending out could kill tens of thousands of soldiers. I let you go unsupervised, but this could be just as big a threat to the Unhanded Coalition as it is Argrave’s forces. And you send them out… especially recklessly.” She paused, peering ahead into the darkness. “You’re throwing away a precious fighting force with such little regard for what they might be usable for in the future. I wanted to see why.”

Ruleo paused, too. “I send them recklessly because they need to die.”

“A necromancer thinks the undead are abominations?” she crossed her arms.

“I don’t care about necromancy,” Ruleo shook his head. “It’s only another form of magic in my eyes, same as any others. In fact, it makes corpses just a bit more useful. Might be considered a boon,” he mused. “But… I know something is coming. Something that corrupts all of these things against the living—makes them weapons of war in a calamity. I have to get rid of them before that happens.”

“What is this, a fairy tale?” Georgina said disdainfully.

Ruleo felt the frustration that came with someone acting arrogant when they were only ignorant. “You want to talk fairy tales? Then let’s talk about King Felipe’s prospects. Him taking the throne once more—that’s a fairy tale.”

you

on the throne the least of everyone, and you gave me the information I needed to ruin his advance,” Ruleo cracked his knuckles. “Bigger things are coming

the undead,” Georgina put her arms to her side, and Ruleo watched to see if she drew a weapon or cast a matrix. “My intuition alone

care for you—not one bit. But I’ve hurt some people I like a fair bit, and I’ve helped some people I didn’t. So long as you

own. And your designs might interfere with that. If I’m the dealer, I’ll pay attention carefully to all cards that leave my hand,” Georgina

take his gaze off

head for

#####

had valuable tricks up her sleeve. Durran used but one—she called it a Windflesh Brew, and it changed the body so that any movements didn’t disturb the air. The place was dark already and he employed illusion magic on top of that. With all those factors in tandem he’d been able to sneak through all of this so adroitly

was nightmarish. Though they’d only been plagued with fast-moving heads with arms emerging where their ears ought to be, fouler things had been gathered here into newly-made cages—chitinous humanoids with blades embedded in their flesh, gargantuan thousand-armed creatures. Durran suspected Ruleo controlled only batches at a time, sending them to fight piecemeal. Death by attrition. He had no idea

that was over, now. Durran stood over Ruleo, brandishing his glaive nimbly after hitting him with the blunt end. The blow was still powerful enough to draw blood, and he stepped over the unconscious man to confront this brunette woman—from their conversation, Georgina. He hoped to end her now. He’d intended to kill Ruleo,

cleared

it where he last saw her, then used one of the rings that Argrave had made. A ward of matching rank with the approaching spell emerged to shield him.

happening beyond. Georgina tried to cast another spell, but the matrix wobbled and shattered. Durran saw it, then—the knife had stabbed into her shoulder, barely

distance between them. She vainly attempted another spell, but when it failed once again her hand reached for the Ebonice dagger. By then, Durran was nearly upon her. Then, her body shifted dramatically—one foot planted steadily, and her momentum rotated from moving backward to forward without any loss of speed in a strange, serpentine technique. She pulled the dagger out of her

of the glaive as a quarterstaff, swiping at Georgina to contest her quick speed. She ducked low and stabbed at Durran’s knee, aiming for a gap in his armor. He shifted his leg backwards to dodge, yet the moment his leg was off the ground she raised

the dagger, and used both her hands to grab her backpack. She got her arms out of its straps quickly and slammed it to the ground. It clanged noisily, then howled as though something within had been hurt. She

low and jumped backwards, but one slashed across his thigh. He expected his armor to work as well as it usually did, but instead his flesh seared in pain while

emerging from the cage with his glaive, yet it passed through them as though he held nothing at all. He cast a spell of flame, and though that had some effect, his magic was running low after their long journey. He dodged another swipe, then used his glaive to sweep

he’d expected. She had his hands tied behind him and further bound by stabbing his palms with barbed tent stakes. Durran supposed it was a mercy the man

Good gods, he… he worked for Elenore…” Melanie looked down at him angrily.