Along with the terrified faces of those under control was another form, again dressed in black. With a horrified yelp running through the room, it pulled its hood back.
The body was obviously dead. Sagging, pale skin covered it, blotches and marks marbling the skin.
His face was dark purple and bloated, indicating he had died face down, the blood pooling in the lowest points. His belly was distended with gases and looked ready to explode.
"Subjects!" The dead man called out in a voice that could have been Grethron speaking. "I am Prince Malthrom Molindara, rightful heir to the Rothmurian throne. All may rejoice at my impending return."
Squeals of fright and rumbles of worry flowed around the room, men shielding women as they drew weapons. Grethron stepped forward as did Dumar, his finger resting on the trigger of his semi-automatic as he approached.
"Brother," the Malthrom proxy growled in a wet voice. "Sorry to break up your little party but I wished my subjects to know of my impending arrival."
"Leave here and never return," Grethron spat. "Set foot on this mainland and your life is forfeit."
"And who will accomplish such a feat?" He asked the room. "You?" He asked Grethron. "I am on another continent but have infiltrated this place with ease," he gloated. "A demonstration," he added.
As one, the other three people went to a candelabra and took a candle each, stepping together to stand back to back.
"Please kill me!" One woman begged Dumar as she stood there.
Again as one, the trio lowered their candles and set fire to their clothing. Unable to move but able to feel everything, their screams were awful to listen to and the black smoke rising off them stank of cooking meat and burning fat.
Royal guards grabbed draperies from the walls to smother the flames but Dumar could smell the evidence of some kind of accelerant and knew they were finished.
A strange calm fell over his senses, his horror and disgust falling away to leave nothing but rational calm and he regarded Malthrom's proxy.
He only wants to spread fear. Dumar thought. That's the only reason to come here. He's nothing but a bully in the end.
Dumar stepped up to the dead man, his face inches from the rotting flesh.
"You're frightened," Dumar said in a calm voice, but one loud enough to carry to all those in the room. "Otherwise you'd be here in person. But no, the all powerful, scary necromancer, Malthrom needs to use dead bodies to threaten and scare.
"Sadly for you it doesn't work on me. So some here, bitch! Come and see what's waiting for you when you do.
"Oh and this army you're gathering, why not just let them go? Cos when you get here I'm coming straight for you."
Dumar slammed his finger into the corpse's chest hard enough to shove it back a few paces and the atmosphere in the room shifted as those gathered looked on, realising Dumar was speaking the truth.
"Why do you even need an army if you're so powerful? Why not just come and kill us all right now?" Dumar asked, his voice rising as anger started to burn inside him.
"Pathetic! Weak! Coward!" He yelled into the dead face.
Rumbles of assent rolled around the room and the corpse looked around, Malthrom seeing his plan was failing.
He's going to have to do something. Dumar thought.
As if on cue, the corpse lashed out, one hand aimed at Dumar's face.
Yet time seemed to slow for the big man and he caught the thing, gripping the forearm and crushing the bones together.
With one hand he wrenched and tugged at the arm twisting and riving it as with the other he slammed the blade of his hand down.
With a sickening crunch, squelch and pop the entire arm separated from the corpse.
Dumar held the limb up before them all but especially Malthrom's proxy.
"This?" Dumar asked with sarcasm and disdain. "This is the best you can do?" He asked.
"You will pay," Malthrom growled, apparently unaffected by the corpse's lack of an arm.
"See, I don't think so," Dumar said in a conversational tone.
With a mass of power, Dumar lunged, stabbing the severed limb through the belly of the corpse, the shoulder end exploding from it's lower back. Gobbets of congealed blood fell to the floor and the gathered crowd moaned at the gory sight. The stench of decomposition doubled as the gas inside the corpse was released.
Still the corpse stood.
"That's a good look for you," Dumar said as he looked at the dead hand flapping from Malthrom's guts. If you do come here, if you actually manage to conquer your fear, I'll do the same to you properly."
"What have you done, brother?" Malthrom asked. "Where did you find such a man?"
Grethron said nothing but remained alert as Dumar spoke again.
"I'm bored with this," he said offhandedly.
In one fluid motion Dumar drew the semi-automatic, aimed and fired a single round into the corpse's chest.
Malthrom flew backwards, blood and dark ichor flying in an arc as the people in the room screamed and gasped, clapping hands to ears at the explosive sound.
Cordite, decomposing flesh and greasy smoke filled the air as Dumar went to check on the corpse.
The chest had been blown to shreds, the round smashing the ribs and sternum, forcing them back through the lungs and heart as shrapnel. The bullet itself had shattered the thing's spine, rendering it useless. Even so it spoke.
"You have sealed your fate," it said in a gurgle. "When I arrive, you will be the first to succumb."
"No," Dumar said. "When you arrive I'm going to stamp on you until there's nothing left but a stain on the floor."
As if to iterate his point, Dumar drew the Dal's tooth dagger he had only just been given and slammed it down into the corpse's right eye. The crunch echoed around the room as the blade entered, shattering the orbital bones and piercing the brain. The corpse's remaining arm trembled and shook, the fingers clawing as Malthrom's connection was severed.
***
Leagues away, surrounded by his army of forced soldiers, Malthrom felt a flash of something as his sight returned.
I am not afraid! He thought as he shot to his feet.
Yet the chill that grabbed his chest contained the memory of being scared before. His hand rose to the eye Grethron had taken eighty years before, rubbing at the scar tissue as if it itched.
Who was that and how did Grethron find him? Malthrom wondered as he approached a trio of women standing in the corner of his tent.
Trembling with fright and the chill brought by the evening outside, all three looked away, staring at anything but his terrifying, maimed face.
"Who was he, hm?" Malthrom asked the girl before him.
She was young, maybe in her fifties, and supple. Lithe but curved as a woman should be. She stood naked before him and he felt his body respond to her nudity. A single tear rolled down her cheek as he watched in satisfaction.
"Now, now, there is no need for tears, my love," Malthrom said in a calming voice. "Come and join me for a little talk."
The girl walked deeper into the tent, the remaining two women whimpering at the loss of their friend and in relief they had not been chosen.
She sat, arms loose by her side as if she had chosen to, as if she was happy to be there. If not for the terror on her face, it might have been difficult to tell.
"What is my brother planning?" He asked the girl as if she had any idea what he spoke of. "No answer?" He asked. "It is a perplexing conundrum," he added, counting things off on his fingers.
"He was unafraid of me, larger than anyone I have seen before, his clothing was strange, as if it was not from here and…"
Malthrom sat back on the couch beside the sobbing girl.
"Oh, Grethron," he said in a deep voice. "Greth, what have you done? I doubt very much Jarhine would have approved of this and Celouise certainly not.
"It is an incredible idea, however," he said, turning to the girl. "Come here, my love, we have things to celebrate."
The young woman, wife and mother of three young children choked out a sob as her body crawled into Malthrom's lap.
Outside, the remaining two women snivelled and flinched at the screams that split the night.