Chapter 9 (Part IV): Rattle and Roll

Sometimes, victory simply requires one to impose an indefinite delay upon defeat. Procrastination comes easily, and death is one task most of us would do well to put off for tomorrow.

-        An observation made by Queen Azraea I during a state dinner, which is often quoted at the Caelian Military Academy, and is the basis for the 4^th Caelian Ranger Division’s motto, “Tomorrow We Die.”

Azraea had realized that any Firebrands moving along the city’s west side might end up marching into the quickly emptying neighborhoods north of Old Town. Given they needed to buy the people there as much time as possible, she suggested to Marcus that he take the best, or at least most intimidating of the remaining fighters to the North End to harass any enemies that approached. They would try to convince the attackers that they were in for a much nastier fight than they really were, and once that bluff inevitably failed, they’d head southeast back through Old Town and help the men at Schroeder’s checkpoints to fall back to the gate, one by one.

 Azraea took her own small force and led them down into the sewer system, the workers guiding them to one of the tombs. It was as the dwarf had described – bones had been packed into sacks and tossed into the room unceremoniously. If you were from a culture with any reverence for the dead, it was appalling.

“So what now?” Vinny asked, “You sing a little song and summon an army? Take them out like you did Tharkrada and his men?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Azraea said as she examined the bones, “Everyone, start finding skulls. Don’t worry about being gentle with the other bones; they really can’t be any more desecrated than they have been.” She returned to Vinny’s question, but perhaps because of the years she spent as a graduate student teacher at the college, she automatically turned it into a lesson for the whole room, “The victims of Tharkrada’s violence were treated no better than this. Their bodies had been left to rot, and their bones to scatter on the hillside where they were killed. But they were all victims of unjust, horrible deaths, so their spirits were easier to call back, and it was easy to persuade them to fight, because they wanted to – some wanted to get revenge on the men who’d killed them, others wanted to prevent any more travelers from sharing their fate. Charles and Michael, likewise, only needed my help to come back and finish the job they wanted to do. Even Tharkrada himself, when it came down to it, was easy to call back and send against his own troops because he really hated the men he had been commanding – he just didn’t really accept that until he died.

“But these are just random people,” she held up a skull, “Most have probably passed on after a good life, or good enough anyway, and have nothing to tether them here. Calling them back from the other side will be difficult, and convincing them to rise up and intervene in a complicated political situation – more difficult.”

One of the Arbarii men spoke up, “My grandfather told me that, in the old country, every man or woman that died did so with the resolution that he or she would return if called.”

“Exactly,” Lily nodded, filled with ancestral pride, “They were raised their entire life knowing that was part of their duty as citizens of their kingdom.”

“And I’m betting their bodies were treated a hell of a lot better than this,” one of the halflings said as he pulled a skull out of a heap.

“Definitely,” Azraea and Lily said simultaneously.

“Any chance your grandfather taught you some necromancy?” Azraea asked the Arbarii man hopefully.

“Only some novelty tricks,” he said, “If I try, I can maybe get some impressions about these people? How they died?”

“Oh, right now an impression is far better than nothing,” Azraea pointed to two piles she’d started, “If you get any sense that the person might still have some tie to this place, put them over there. If all you get is, ‘it’s a skull’, put it over there. I’ll see if I can refine things down more.”

She was looking for people who might still have strong ties to those being persecuted in the streets above, or people who were devoted to the city or to the kingdom itself, enough so that they would still be invested in its welfare after death. To Vinny it seemed like an impossible task in such a short time, but Azraea was willing to settle for making snap judgments based on first impressions, and Lily helped her teach their new friends an old Arbarii dirge. The syllables were nonsense to Vinny, but it made a good work song. Azraea quickly had more than four dozen skulls tidily lined up in front of her. 
Most of the people in their little band of rebels had never seen necromancy performed in person, and none had seen a master at work. The events that followed became one of the most enduring stories from this time, in part due to the faithful and repeated telling of it by those present, and in part due to the grandiose adaptations of those who weren't.

Azraea sang for a bit to her audience of heads, and then when their eye sockets glowed green she went to an almost comically straightforward conversation. It sounded one sided to Vinny and the other members of their party, but the skulls chattered and sort of… hopped… as if trying to talk. To Azraea they were apparently succeeding in that endeavor.

“I know, I know. But I just need you to startle them. Make some noise, wave your arms, and maybe try to grab someone to really give them a good scare.”

One of the skulls chattered anxiously.

“Yes, it is possible that one of these people is your grandson. But if so, isn’t that all the more reason to try and cut this short? Are you okay with him killing someone? Or being killed? Because the longer this draws out, the more likely that is.”

The skull paused for a moment, and then hopped one more time as if to nod.

“Thank you. Now, obviously, I can’t sort out your own bodies, so this is going to get complicated, and I’m going to need everyone’s help.”

She motioned the others over, “We weren’t teaching you that song for fun,” she explained, “Our ancestors here are willing to help, but we need to make them temporary bodies out of what’s available, and that’s going to take more energy and will than I alone can summon. I’ll take the lead, but when I give you the cue, I need you all to join in with the song we taught you.”

The song she sang now sounded much like the one she’d sung the night Kaira killed Tharkrada. The words were unintelligible, so Vinny didn’t know if they were the same, but the tune was memorable, even as she transitioned it to match the one she’d taught the others and cued them to join in.

The bones in the room rattled. First it was just a few small ones jittering about, but it built, gradually, until they were all shaking and rolling, knocking against each other and tapping on the stone. Finally, they began to move towards the skulls lined up at the tomb’s entrance. It was as if the whole room had tilted and the bones were sliding out. As they poured across the floor, many more skulls, eyes glowing, popped out of the heap and bounced along.

Azraea smiled, pleased at the unexpected skulls rolling out. She briefly interrupted her song, “Thank you for joining us!” she said to the chattering volunteers. Out in the main tunnel, the bones built up around and under the skulls, raising them into the air. The bones rattled together loudly, but eventually Vinny realized there was a rhythm – they were moving to the music. The bone constructs rose to human height and began to walk, but they were in no way anatomically correct. It was as if they’d been assembled by someone either totally ignorant of biology or with a bizarre sense of art. They were just plugged together any which way that 'worked'.

To see it, though, was less humorous and more terrifying. Some of the shambling skeletons had multiple arms, or fingers made out of long curving ribs. One skull had replaced its missing lower jaw with an array of finger bones, and all of them had worked broken bones into themselves to make a chaotic mess of spikes sticking out at strange angles. Vinny couldn’t understand at first why any being visiting from the other side would want to assemble itself so hideously, but then he remembered what Azraea had said – she wanted to scare their enemies. The spirits she’d summoned were not just doing as she'd asked; they seemed to be having some fun with it. Dead people were not at all the way Vinny had imagined them.

Just as he was thinking that, a small skeleton ran past him and offered a salute – it was a long dead halfling, scampering after the rest to join them. Vinny remembered something one of his mentors in the Dexter Legion had said to him when teaching him the necessary virtues of leadership, “When all else fails, just be scary as hell and the rest will fall into place.”