A Practical Guide to Evil

Moro Ifriqui squinted through the Baalite eye at the horizon, then put it down to pat the neck of his Segovian shortmane. A beautiful beast, though he had never named her, and from a breed that the Brigand’s Blood had been riding for more than a century. The Segovians were Procerans, but they were also old allies against the princes Orense. They had long traded fine horses and steel to Vaccei at generous prices so that their common enemy would continue to suffer raids at the southern border.

“Anything?” Siraj asked.

Moro’s younger brother looked wary, as he often did these days. It had not yet strayed into cowardice so he had not spoken of it, but he would have to if the men noticed. The heir to Vaccei felt for his brother, who only wanted to return to his wife and daughters, but the Brigand’s Blood could not show weakness. Theirs were a hard people, and those who ruled over them must be harder still.

“Not yet,” Moro said. “The dead send no vanguard.”

None that he could see, anyhow. The poison clouds obscured much of the view.

“Would that Yannu Marave did the same,” Siraj sighed.

Moro sent his brother a sharp look and the younger man – only by two years, but younger still – hurriedly straightened. None of the riders come with them had been close enough to hear, but it had been a risk.

“There will be honour to be found in the shield wall, vanguard or not,” Moro evenly said.

“I await it eagerly,” Siraj replied just as evenly. “Mayhaps I will even take a Revenant’s head, tug honour my way instead of yours for once.”

Moro nodded, satisfied, and guided his horse closer to his brother’s.

“Mother will have you commanding the archers,” he murmured. “You will hold them in your arms again, Siraj.”

The younger man grimaced, twisting his face paint: umber brown and basil green, the Vengeful Brigand’s own colours.

“It is not the dead that worry me,” Siraj said, leaning closer and lowering his voice. “What Mother plans…”

Moro’s jaw tightened.

“It is too late to hesitate,” he replied. “The order has already been given.”

A small cut and a quick poison. In the chaos of the fight neither be noticed. It is necessary, Moro reminded himself. For our Blood, for our family. It was a grim business, but grim was the business of the Brigand’s Blood. Doing anything it took was how they’d survived without bending to Tartessos or Malaga when both were stronger. Poison, night ambushes, killings without honour. Sometimes even bargains with dark powers. Mother had never admitted outright, but she’d hinted enough he was sure the rumours about having paid the Marauder to kill Aquiline Osena’s older brother were true.

“If we’re caught, it is the end of us,” Siraj murmured.

“If we do nothing,” Moro tiredly said, “it is the end of us as well. Or do you think the Osena will end our blood feud after they claim the Tattered Throne with the Tanja?”

Siraj grimaced again, a silent concession. Razin Tanja was no enemy, but neither was he a friend. And with him so obviously taken with his betrothed, the old Ifriqui game of playing Malaga against Tartessos would find no purchase.

“Stay out of it and keep your silence, brother,” Moro said, leaning close. “I’ll do what needs to be done so you can go home to your family.”

“You’re my family too, Moro,” Siraj softly replied.

Part of him ached to pull his brother close, to let him know it would be all right, but he knew he could not. Eyes were watching. Eyes like poison, heart like stone, the Anthem of Smoke went. By his hand a thousand graves sown. Honour to the Blood, Moro reminded himself. He was a son of Vaccei, and there weakness was death.

“Then listen to me,” he replied.

Shaking his head, he carefully returned the Baalite eye to its leather sheath before glancing at his brother.

“Return to Mother,” Moro ordered. “Tell her the dead advance without vanguard and I am riding to report this to Lord Marave personally as a courtesy.”

She would know what it meant. He was, after all, following Itima Ifriqui’s plan.

Yannu hated the smell here.

Even after the Lanterns burned the poison out of the air, even through the cloth mask, the Lord of Alava could smell a residual stench in the air. One not unlike the smell near the hill mines, the kind that stayed against the roof of your mouth and tasted of blood. He glanced at Rima, seeing that under the cloth she was scowling as well. Of all his cousins he had long liked Rima best, ever since they were children playing together in the grass. Though a Marave in name she was too far from the main line to be considered as his successor, but he had brought her up as much as he could when he came lord of Alava. She was the captain of his sworn swords, now, and the many scars she’d taken guarding his back had proved his trust to be without error.

“Do you remember,” the Lord of Alava said, “the first time we ever saw the mines?”

Rima’s scowl deepened, pulling at the scar that went through her left eyebrow. The red of it was just a shade different than the red of the Marave colours, though she was careful never to paint the ashen stipes close so it would not stand out.

“I remember thinking they were foul as Below’s asshole,” Rima said, “and that only a devil would send anyone in those pits.”

“That makes me a devil, then,” Yannu grunted.

“We are what we are,” Rima shrugged, unconcerned.

He’d hated those mines too, as a boy. The sight of men and women going down into the pits to break their bodies breaking stone so ore could be ripped out of the earth had disgusted him. Yannu had never thought to inherit Alava as a boy, for though his great-aunt Sintra had named his father heir he had an older sister. But he had thought that when she became Lady of Alava he might speak to her of the mines and quarries. Of closing them, perhaps. Then a wound gone bad during an honour war with Malaga had taken her a year before his father fell to old age and Yannu Marava, Lord of Alava, had learned a bitter lesson.

His lands were known for orchards and cattle, but they alone were not enough for Alava to stand. Malaga had cattle herds as well and Levante’s orchards almost as fine. It was the wealth hidden in the hills, the ores and the stone, that kept Alava’s warriors in steel and the people fed through cattle-fevers and lean seasons. Mines and quarries were his blood’s backbone, and to close them would be as breaking his own back. He had done what he could, sending prisoners to work instead of men of honour, but never closed a single one. The memory of that added an intimacy to his distaste for the scent, though the smell was not the only thing lately that had left a foul taste in the mouth.

He glanced to the east, where the banners of Tartessos and Malaga were raised together. The eastern flank of the column was shared by the warriors of the Slayer and Binder’s blood. Rima followed his gaze without difficulty – she was even taller than him, though slimmer in build.

“The banners are nothing,” his cousin said. “A gesture. It’s the shield wall that worries me, Yannu. No one else has blended companies in our lifetime.”

“They do the same with their skirmishers,” Yannu grimly said.

Before going east into Praes, the betrothed pair had kept their captains separate. Malaga’s warriors under Malagan captains, Tartessos’ under their own. No longer. Warriors of both lands served under captains of either. Though Razin Tanja had claimed the measure had come from the losses in the Wasteland, that it had been simpler to blend companies than be forced to disband some by insistence on keeping sworn warriors separate, Yannu knew it to be an excuse. The two youngbloods were tightening their alliance, getting their warriors used to fighting as one host.

And so those banners raised together to the east were one of the most dangerous things Yannu Marave had ever seen.

“You could have split them,” Rima said. “You have the right.”

He did. Lord Yannu Marave held command over all captains of the Dominion in this battle, twenty-seven thousand warriors marching in a loose column across the great dusty plains around Keter. Land that men called the Ossuary, after the many armies had had died here only to rise again as a host of bones.

“It would have been a mistake,” Careful Yannu said. “I do not hold the only command on the field, Rima. The Warlord and General Pallas would have seen through my reasons and word spread. That is more dangerous to us than leaving them together.”

Too many people already had eyes on the Dominion. Yannu had been pleased of Rozala Malanza’s coronation as First Princess, for their years of sharing a front had ensured he was closest to her of the Blood much as Itima Ifriqui had once been closest to First Prince Cordelia, but it was clear she had no intention to involve Procer in Levant’s affairs after the war. It was the League that troubled him, for Empress Basilia was already making advances. She wanted the League of Free Cities to fill the void the Thalassocracy had left as the Dominion’s closest ally and sign defence pacts against the Principate.

For such pacts to be signed there needed to be someone seated on the Tattered Throne, and that meant Basilia Katopodis had to gain in securing a quick succession should she be given an opening – and it would not be the Champion’s Blood she backed, if it came to that.

Yannu would have liked to bargain with Callow, but he could not. The Black Queen was said to be fond of Razin and Aquiline, even rumoured to call them ‘her lordlings’ in council. She had even ensured they stood for Levant at the talks with the Dread Empire, an honour that had once belonged only to those of the Pilgrim’s Blood. If she was brought in, where her favour would lie was clear as springwater. No, Yannu must keep other powers out of the matter at all costs: the only one likely to aid his cause had no hunger for getting involved. And that meant giving no excuse for the rest to involved themselves.

An excuse like weakening the Dominion’s fighting strength because of internal matters.

“They did not fight me when I sought the command, Rima,” Yannu continued. “That says much.”

It meant neither Razin Tanja nor Aquiline had thought it worth a quarrel to have either of their names attached to a great battle against the dead instead of his. Worse, Yannu found he did not disagree with their decision.

The two of them had accolades enough to their name they did not need to take risks to earn more. They’d fought well before and during the great offensive in Hainaut, ending in the battle at the capital where Lord Razin – the weakest reputation of the two – was said to have faced a Scourge and lived. Since then the Black Queen had dragged them east into her campaign to settle Praes, where it was said they had fought with distinction at the Battle of Kala. After they had stood for Levant at the Tower’s fall and the talks that followed, speaking for all of the Dominion as neither the Champion’s or the Brigand’s Blood ever had.

Most unsettling, though, was the distant amiability with the Barrow Sword. They’d pushed hard for the Bestowed to be given a chance to earn a place in the Rolls in the service of the Dominion, which looked to Careful Yannu like an alliance in the making.

“They’re looking past the battles here,” Rima grunted in agreement. “The boy, that. Aquiline’s a fine killer but she thinks in blood and prize heads. Tanja’s as clever as his father was.”

And nowhere as proud, Yannu thought, which made him more dangerous. As Rima had grasped, they were preparing for the days after Keter, he understood, for what would come after the war. When the captains and their warriors returned home and the truce birthed by Cordelia Hasenbach came at an end. There would be blood, that much was certain, for the Tattered Throne stood without any Isbili left to claim it for the first time since the founding of the Dominion, coming with it the prize of rule over Levante: the largest, wealthiest city in all of Levant. Yannu knew it would come to war, for the heads of two great lines of the Blood were set to wed and with the Isbili dust there could be no better bid for the Tattered Throne than such an alliance.

And he had no intention of letting them make of the Dominion their kingdom.

There was noise behind him, so Yannu reined in his horse and glanced at Rima. She snorted and went to have a look, leaving the Lord of Alava to stare at the western flank of the marching column. There his own warriors and Vaccei’s marched, distanced and under their own captains. Further west the great glittering snake that was the Clans under the Warlord was keeping up with his own host, while the thick of cataphracts under General Pallas screened the sides of both armies as they advanced. Rima returned quick enough he did not have time to grow bored by the sight.

“Moro Ifriqui’s back from the scouting trip,” she said. “Coming to report in person.”

“Not necessary,” Yannu frowned.

“The report, the man or the entire lot of them?” Rima drily replied.

He did not answer. Like most Alavans his cousin cared little for the Ifriqui, even less so now that his talks with them had come to nothing. His attempts to bind the Champion’s Blood to the Brigand’s in answer had been frustratingly unsuccessful. Yannu himself kept only to men, a preference shared by none of Itima’s sons – the oldest of which, Moro, was over a decade younger than him anyhow – and though both lines had other kin the ages did not align. Itima’s eldest granddaughter was three years old too young for any of his nephews, and though her youngest son was still unwed he was in his twenties while Yannu’s oldest niece was twelve.

Matches further from the main line could be made, but to what purpose? They could not bind an alliance or hope to eclipse the prestige of a wedding between the Lady of Tartessos and the Lord of Malaga. That left their alliance one of circumstance, held together only by common enemies.

“They are allies still,” the Lord of Alava finally said. “And have reason to remain so.”

Itima and Aquiline hated each other like poison over the matter of the deaths of the Osena’s brothers, so the Lady of Vaccei had much to fear from her enemy’s ascension. Yannu himself had slain Akil Tanja in an honour duel, which would make Razin his enemy until death, though that was not the reason he opposed the youths.

“They’re Ifriqui,” Rima scathingly said. “They have no cause, not like you do. It’s not hunger or fear that sets you against the married banners.”

Yannu had no intention of seeking the Tattered Throne for himself or the Champion’s Blood. He would prefer it if neither Itima nor her sons sat it either, though he might not get that choice. His preference would be for the Painted Knife or the Valiant Champion to be raised to rule of Levante as a reward, though he knew Rafaella would not be a popular choice. Though the Valiant Champion had gone as far as eschewing face paint to distance herself from the Marave even after Yannu had executed everyone involved in the betrayal, she was still a Champion. It would be seen by other lines as Yannu reaching for the Tattered Throne through a cheap trick. In truth, Yannu did not much care who sat the throne so long as it was neither of the betrothed.

They would be too strong, that was made their claim unacceptable. Malaga was second in wealth only to Levante due to its canal while Tartessos controlled the access to the Brocelian Forest and its treasures. If they gained Levante and through it mastery of the Gulf trade, they would hold the entire Dominion by the throat.

It was even worse than it looked, he had realized over the year of war. Alava traded the ore and stone of its hills to Levante for grain from its fertile fields, while Vaccei traditionally imported cattle and steel from Malaga and Levante. If the Tattered Throne fell into the hands of the betrothed, they would not need war to bring the rest of Levant to heel whenever they wished: they could simply close their doors and let their foes wither on the vine. The Majilis would grow meaningless, no longer a council of equals guided by the Holy Seljun but instead a court with a king and queen ruling over it. It would be the end of the Dominion, the dream sung of in the Anthem of Smoke.

Let neither queen nor prince rule over our dominion, the Grey Pilgrim’s daughter and successor had pleaded, and for that plea Yannu would go to war. He was not certain, however, that he could win that war.

Though the alliance of Tartessos and Malaga was surrounded, to the north by Vaccei and to the south by his own Alava, it had strong bones. Malaga was wealthy and the home of the binders while Tartessos strengthened its forces with free captains and adventurers that tried their luck in the Brocelian. Even if Itima Ifriqui could be counted on to stand against them – which she could not, the Brigand’s Blood were snakes and Itima the most cold-blooded of the nest – it promised to be a long, brutal slog of a war. The kind that broke realms. Better to kill one of the betrothed and snuff out the alliance before it took flight, Yannu had thought, and Itima had unsurprisingly agreed when he brought her into the plot. She’d already killed enough Osena not to balk at one more.

But, after Moro was brought forward and discarded the excuse of the report to carry a message from his mother, Yannu’s heart clenched with the cold fear that he might have made a mistake.

“This is drivel,” the Lord of Alava flatly said.

Moro Ifriqui, eldest child to Lady Itima and heir to Vaccei, had a hard face that life had seen fit to further scar. The redness of them was striking against his brown and green face paint, as another stripe of colour.

“We must act now, Lord Yannu,” Moro said, speaking his mother’s words with his own mouth. “They will wed when Keter falls and killing them when victory is won will only draw more attention.”

They were not yet married, Yannu thought, precisely to discourage knives being sent after them. Aquiline likely meant it a deed of honour, not beginning the fight when the Grand Alliance bound them all still, but Lord Akil’s son had grown canny as his father. He had done it so that any attack on them would be seen as so thoroughly unprovoked it would draw the ire from all the world. And that was the very trap Itima was stepping into now.

“Neither can be killed while we war against the dead,” Yannu said. “There will be trouble when we kill Tanja after the victory, but it will only be a stain on our reputation. To kill him now would be betraying the Grand Alliance.”

“Only,” Moro Ifriqui said, “if we get caught. We have men who-”

“Enough,” the Lord of Alava harshly replied. “I have refused, Moro. There will be no arrow loosed.”

The heir to Vaccei shrugged.

“That choice is no longer in your hands,” he said.

Yannu considered killing him, then and there. The Ifriqui had come with only a small escort of riders and Yannu’s own sworn swords were closer and better armed. None were close enough to overhear them speaking, which meant none would be close enough to stop him from slaying the other man should he strike first. It would cause much trouble and solve little, the Lord of Alava decided after a moment. Anger was not enough of a reason to kill.

“Should I warn them,” Lord Yannu said, “your entire line could be ended today.”

“You won’t,” Moro replied, appearing unworried. “If you try to bury us, we’ll drag you into the grave with us. And it won’t even matter if it’s true: they’ll use it to get rid of you regardless.”

That was, the lord grimly thought, likely true. He had slain Akil Tanja in an honour duel, and though his son had forsworn vengeance that did not mean there was no enmity between them.

“We’re in the same boat, Lord Yannu,” Moro smiled. “So let’s not fight, else we’ll both end up in the water.”

“This is not what we agreed,” Yannu insisted.

And, to his shame, his eyes drifted to the side. Past the column of warriors, up in the sky where a lone silhouette flew in lazy circles. The Warden, on her black-feathered mount.

“She has greater worries than us,” Moro said, following his gaze.

“Pray that she does,” he replied.

It was a dismissal and the younger man heeded it. Too many risks, Careful Yannu thought, as he watched Moro’s back and Rima returned to his side.

He would have to act.

Map of the Kingdom of the Dead had remained largely the same over the last three centuries, though few of them extended far to the north of Keter itself. The most comprehensive extended all the way to the shores of the lake some called the Chalice and the outskirts of what was now known as the Duskwood, but rare were the maps that went any further. Mostly Ashuran ones, as the Thalassocracy’s sailing ships sometimes circled the north of Calernia and their captains were particular about chart-making. The heartlands of the Kingdom of the Dead, though, were as much known territory as any land that was death on all who tread it could be.

It was why Hakram had several fine maps of the large plains surrounding Keter, the so-called ‘Ossuary’, coming from different nations.

He had halted to consult them atop a low hill, in particular an Arlesite map from the Ninth Crusade that bucked the reputation of Proceran maps being horribly unreliable by proving to be by far the most accurate of the lot. An hour past they’d marched across a long-dry riverbed that had been marked on it and no other parchment, which had only reinforced Hakram’s trust in the mapmaker’s work. The northwest of Keter had been fertile lands, once upon a time, and there were still traces of that. Dry riverbeds now only ever filled by rain were one, but there’d been more than grass and fields here during the days of Sephirah.

“That,” the Warlord muttered, “could be trouble.”

Sigvin leaned over his shoulder, peering at the parchment. She wore good chain mail that went up to her neck, hiding her ritual scars, and there was an axe at her hip. Unlike a warrior, though she had no shield. As a shaman, she was not to join the shield wall.

“What does the symbol mean?” she asked.

“Ruins,” Hakram said. “The remnants of a city.”

She looked understandably skeptical. Poison clouds obscured sight over long distances on the Ossuary, but a city so close to Keter would have been noticed. Troke Snaketooth, standing to the side of them and listening closely, looked as if he had an inkling.

“How old?” the chief of the Blackspears asked.

“Old enough there’s no one left that speaks the language,” Hakram replied. “There’s almost nothing left and what remains is largely buried. I doubt anyone who notice the ruins without walking over them.”

“And yet they are to be trouble,” Oghuz the Lame said, frowning.

The chief of the Red Shields had come out in warrior’s mail, though he was unlikely to fight in the shield wall. Juniper’s father was yet an able champion, though, and might choose a worthy fight to step into so that his clan would continue to hold his name in high regard.

“General Pallas sent word the dead are marching our way,” the Warlord said. “At our current pace, in two hours we will clash over the ruins or close.”

Hakram spat to the side, into the dust.

“The Hidden Horror does not deal in coincidences,” he told them

Word would have to be sent. General Pallas and Lord Yannu should be told, he thought, but his eyes moved to the sky to the third in need of telling. A cloud of green hid away Catherine’s distant silhouette but she was out there. Had been since dawn when they set out to march. The ruins were not from any of the thirteen great cities of ancient Sephirah, Hakram knew as much from their walk through the shards in Arcadia, but there had been other cities and towns in the kingdom – and there was no telling what the Dead King might have hidden in their ruins, buried under ash and dust.

And what the Warlord could not sniff out, the Warden might.

It would take more than a shout to reach her, but fortunately, Hakram had the means at hand. His gaze swept down the hill, where his warband had halted to wait for him while the rest of the warriors continued in the column led by Dag Clawtoe. A ring had formed, warriors leaning close as two people struggled, and the Warlord almost sighed. Hidir Bearkiller, a champion nearly seven feet tall with muscles like tree trunks whose favourite thing to do while drunk was be thrown into a pit with a steppe razor bear and kill it with his bare hands, yelped in pain cursed as Archer caught his thumb and began to bend it back. He gave in after there was an ominous crack, to the cheers of half the onlookers as Indrani beat her fourth consecutive challenger to the finger-game.

None of them had believed a human would have the strength to beat an orc at it, Named or not, which was why Hakram was now owed several bottles of Sleeping Bonesaragh no younger than five years.

“She is a menace,” Oghuz complimented.

Juniper’s father looked genuinely impressed. It was only a game, but the sight of Indrani twisting the arms of warriors with at least a foot on her repeatedly had made an impression.

“So far only to my champions,” the Warlord drily replied.

He had assembled a warband of champions from all the clans as his retinue, since it would have been an insult to keep relying on the Howling Wolves and the Red Shields forever – if not to them, then to all his other followers. They were not as well trained as a Howling Wolves warband, even after regular drills, but the warriors had markedly improved. The heavy armour bought from Praes and reforged by clan blacksmiths had only made his warband of a thousand fiercer, though apparently only so that Archer might better maul them.

The devil in question was headed his way, strutting triumphantly after having clapped Hidir’s back with affection, and Hakram rolled his eyes at her.

“Aren’t you supposed to be with the Levantines?” he asked.

All the Blood had retinues to protect them, but there were enemies sworn swords could little again. Worry had been that the Hawk might try to bag one of the great lords of Levant during or after the battle, Archer had been brought along as much to keep the Blood alive as to face the Scourge. Losing any of them would be a hard blow to the Dominion morale, on top of a headache to sort out – neither Razin Tanja nor Aquiline Osena had clear successors to their title.

“They’re all over anyways, except for the lovebirds,” Indrani easily replied. “Better to be out here where I can watch over the entire lot at once.”

There was some sense in that. There was no telling when or from where the Hawk would loose its arrow, so taking the Scourge out before it shot was unlikely. Better for Archer to take a defensive posture and aim for the arrow instead of the Revenant. It was still, Hakram thought, a decision she would never have thought to make a few years ago. You’re changing, he thought. It was a bittersweet thing, for it to happen only after he had left. The Warlord cut through the thought.

“I need you to send a message,” Hakram said.

Indrani pointed upwards, cocking an eyebrow. He nodded.

“You know I’m always game for an excuse to shoot at Cat,” Archer cheerfully said. “What do you need to say?”

Sigvin shot her a warm look, charmed by the romance of it. The mage from the Split Tree Clan had not met enough humans to know that violence did not usually take much of a role in their courting. Mind you, Hakram was not entirely sure she was wrong in this case.

“I’ll write it down,” the Warlord replied. “Wait for me.”

“Sure, sure,” Indrani dismissed, then slid a sly look at Sigvin. “So, Siggy, I hear tell you’ve been riding the Deadhand.”

“I have,” Sigvin nodded, then flashed a grin. “There are worse ways to pass the time.”

Indrani laughed. He should, Hakram only now realized, never have allowed those two to meet. A tactical mistake of some weight had been made. One obvious enough even Troke shot him a sympathetic look.

“So is he any good?” Archer asked. “’cause Tordis said so back in Callow, but she was sweet on him I think and when a girl’s sweet she-”

Hakram tactically retreated in search of ink and parchment before he could hear more. The quicker he was rid of Archer the better.

General Pallas whistled loudly, her escort smoothly coming to a halt around her as they joined with the riders that had been awaiting her. The word from the outriders had been interesting enough that she had decided to come in person even as word was sent to the other commanders. Her kataphraktoi had told it true, she saw with her own eyes. The dead had ceased their march. Across the plains an army of the dead stood in silence, arrayed in a firm battle line with a reserve at the back and constructs to the side where a living host would place cavalry.

Behind them all, looming tall as a mountain, the Crab belched out smoke that filled the sky,

“They do not advance when provoked?” Pallas asked, turning towards Captain Dion.

The young man led the outriders, and had been the one to first send word.

“Not even when we enter bow range,” Captain Dion confirmed.

It seemed, General Pallas thought, that the dead had chosen where they would give battle. In the distance behind her, she saw the trail of dust from the advancing columns of the orcs and the Levantines. Less than an hour away now. The Warlord had not mentioned what the ancient city said to be buried near here was called, if Deadhand knew at all.

“A simple name, then,” Pallas mused. “The Battle of the Ruins should do nicely.”