B3Ch90-Death potion (Patreon)

Harold came off the end of the rails at the same easy lope he’d held for hours, and the loading hall opened up around him in lantern light and old smoke. The guard spilled out of the bore behind him two abreast. Behind them, a long way back and closing, the Legion filled the tunnel with noise: hobnails on stone, shield rims knocking together, the hoarse bark of centurions keeping the files closed, and ten thousand men in armor all sucking air at once.

His own people were barely breathing hard. They’d put eighty kilometers under their boots in eight hours, and Ren was breathing through his nose. Jack Churchill had his helmet tucked under one arm and was working his way through an apple.

It was still early morning. The Legion would have most of the day to lie down in the tunnels and sleep before anyone moved to the assault positions, and Harold meant for every man of them to use it.

A piece of the shadow under the nearest arch stood up and became Jace.

He didn’t say anything. He lifted one hand, tipped it toward a side passage on the far wall where firelight moved on the stone, and waited.

“Jace.” Harold crossed to him and caught his forearm in a hard grip. “Good to see you on your feet.”

“Sir.”

Harold held on longer than the greeting called for. Jace slouched against nothing with his weight on his back foot, and Harold let his mana senses spread out and settle over him.

Jace had always managed his mana better than the others. A consequence of his stealth technique. But as Harold examined him, something pinged against his senses, and it hadn’t been there a week ago.

A grin spread slowly across Harold’s face. “You picked up a perk.”

Jace let out a long sigh through his nose.

“Wait.” Harold’s grip tightened. “The potion worked?”

“Oh, it worked.” Jace pulled his arm free and rubbed it. “Robert took the beating of a lifetime. Fought a gloomreaver.”

The grin fell off Harold’s face.

“A gloomreaver?” He stared at him. “Those things are damn near invulnerable, Jace. The shell on them is a hand thick, and none of you have mana blades.”

Jace snorted. “Like Robert needs a mana blade. He’s got that axe perk of his figured out so well he can see the cut before he makes it. His visualization is good. Goes through most things just as good as a mana blade usually.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Found the seam in the back of its neck and buried the axe in it to the haft.”

Harold’s shoulders relaxed. He scrubbed a hand down his face and chuckled into his palm.

Boots rang on the rails behind them. Carter came out of the bore with Maren at his shoulder, and the lead cohort’s standard bobbing along behind them, and both of them were blowing harder than the guard. Hale still led the 1st Corps and the army overall, and for the first time, Maren led the Legion.

Jace came off the wall and stood up straight. “Lady Maren. Captain Carter.”

Maren looked him over from his boots to his hood, unhurried, and turned to Harold. “One of your sisters?”

“Their rogue,” Harold said. “Almost as good as Lukas.”

Jace’s face fell. “So tired of being compared to him.”

Harold laughed. “Aren’t we all tired of being compared to somebody? If it helps, you’ll almost certainly end up stronger than him.” He cocked his head. “What’d you get from it?”

A slow smirk spread across Jace’s face. “I’ll let Sarah tell you. I love it. They’re less keen.”

Harold snorted. “Ambush perk, then.”

Jace looked at him with real malice. “Sir. Has anyone ever told you how annoying you can be?”

Harold walked past him and slapped him on the back hard enough to rock him a step. “All the time, Jace. Keep up the good work.”

Carter and Maren fell in on either side of him as he crossed the hall. Maren already had her notebook out, and her quill was moving.

“Lead cohorts are closing up now,” she said. “Give the tail about five hours, and we’re set for the assault. The scout century’s already out marking the positions.”

“Good. Feed them and put them down. I want every man who isn’t on a picket asleep.”

“Order’s already passed.”

The side passage ran twenty paces and opened into a low tool room cut square into the rock. Empty iron racks lined the walls, and somebody had turned the cold forge pit in the corner into a cookfire. The rest of the advance party was packed around it on crates and bedrolls. The smell hit Harold before he cleared the doorway, and he turned toward it.

“God,” he said, walking in. “Give me a cup of that.”

Down at the end of the bench, a silver coin went from Robert’s hand into Theo’s, and Theo tucked it away without looking at it.

Sarah smiled and lifted a tin cup off the stones by the fire. “Made you one.”

He took it in both hands and sat down on the bedroll beside her. The first swallow went down hot enough to hurt, and he closed his eyes for a second.

“So—”

“HI, COUNT HAROLD!”

Mira was already up and bouncing on the balls of her feet. “How was the run? Was it long? It was long for us, and I was soo bored. Did you hear the news?”

“Hi, Mira.” Harold smiled up at her over his cup. “I see you’re as excited as ever. Please don’t ever lose that. You’re a joy to be around.”

“Ohhh, Harold.” She pressed both hands to her chest. “If Sarah wasn’t your sister, I’d jump you right now.”

A Redcap was standing behind Harold’s shoulder who hadn’t been there a moment ago. His glamour was slipping a little at the edges, and he grinned down at Mira with a mouthful of needle teeth.

Mira leaned back an inch. “And, uh. If you weren’t dating Ms. Adeline.”

A second Redcap stood beside the first, grinning wider.

“And, uh—” Mira’s eyes darted between them. “If I wasn’t dating Jace?”

Sarah had her face buried in both hands. “Please stop talking, Mira.”

Harold laughed softly into his coffee.

He turned to Sarah. “Ambush perk?”

She peeked at him through her fingers and groaned.

He looked down the bench at Robert, who sat propped against a rack with his thigh wrapped in bloody linen from hip to knee and his ribs strapped tight. Two black crusts of dried blood ran down out of his ears into his collar. He looked half dead, and he also looked very very satisfied.

“You got beat up pretty good, huh.”

“Ehh, give me a few hours, and I’ll be good as new, my lord,” Robert said.

“How did the potion do?”

Balfiel hadn’t been in the room, and now he stood at the end of the bench with his robe rolled to the elbows, his head tilted at Robert’s bandaged thigh.

“How long did it keep your regeneration off?” he asked. “And how much did it dull the pain? Be precise, boy. ‘A lot’ is not a number.”

Robert opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again. Then he sat up with a wince and started counting on his fingers. “It held the whole fight, Mr. Balfiel. Maybe a quarter hour after that. And the pain, well—”

Mira had dropped onto the crate beside Theo and was telling him about the goats in urgent detail, and Theo kept half turning away from her to talk over Sarah, and both of them came at Harold at once.

“It’s called Stillhunter,” Sarah said. “When we hold still—”

“Completely still,” Theo said. He cleared his throat. “It doesn’t work if you fidget.”

“—when we hold still, we can hear everything. Through the stone, Harold. Heartbeats. I heard a rat in the wall earlier, and I could tell you which way it was facing.”

“And the first strike from that stillness hits A LOT harder,” Theo said. “Jace tested it on the rock outside. The knife went in to the hilt.”

“It snapped the knife,” Sarah said.

“And I have to hold still,” Sarah said, deeply offended.

“And it doesn’t turn off.” Theo’s face went pained. “Mira snores.”

“I DO NOT,” Mira said, without breaking off her story about the goats.

Harold rubbed his jaw. “It’s still a powerful perk. Honestly, the best part of your build so far is that your perks keep getting upgraded. You’ll never really have to worry about your mana quality.” He tapped the rim of his cup against her knee. “Quantity, though. That one you’ll have to work for.”

Balfiel turned away from Robert, who was still talking. “Taking down a gloomreaver solo, even a young one like that, is impressive.” He looked back down at Robert for a long moment, thoughtful, and Robert trailed off. “This workaround of yours, Harold. Splitting a team across your human perk system’s Roles and binding them back together. It’s an impressive idea. Something we should look into together.”

“I’ve been chipping at it for a while.” Harold turned the cup in his hands. “I wish I still had a sample of the original potion to show you. It took a miracle of blood mana to make it work.”

Balfiel snorted. “Of course it did. Those lizardmen are always sniffing around the stuff.” He rubbed his thumb along his jaw, and his eyes went somewhere else. “Still. Even for them, that’s impressive work. I’m tempted to say a sponsor had a hand in it.”

Harold’s cup stopped halfway to his mouth.

He made it keep going. Nobody in the room looked up except Sarah, and she was already turning toward him on the bedroll, leaning in with her lips parted to ask.

Balfiel was walking for the door. “I’m going to prepare the room for our work,” he said without looking back. “When you’re done lazing about, we can start, Stray.”

Harold snorted and waved a hand at his back.

He stood before Sarah could get the question out, tipped the cup back, and finished the coffee in three long swallows. “Where’s Jampa?”

Cassian spoke up from the corner, where he sat with his spear across his knees. “By the far exit. He went pale as milk when we got here and sat down, and he hasn’t gotten up since.”

“Hmm.” Harold looked at the far wall for a moment.

“Thanks for the coffee, Sarah.” He set the cup down on the stones. “Theo. Mind if we have a word real quick?”

Theo looked up in surprise. He cleared his throat, put down his cup, and stood.

“Ooooh,” Mira said. “He’s in trouble.”

Harold was through the doorway with Theo behind him when he heard her scramble across the room, her voice dropping. “Sarah. Sarah, what’s that about? Is he in trouble?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said curiously.

The Legion was coming through the hall in earnest now. Cohort after cohort jogged past along the rails with shields slung and spears sloped and gear rattling. The men were gray with dust and breathing hard. The centurions peeled them off into the side tunnels to drop where they stood. Ren and Jack stood at the mouths of the alcove behind a folded crane and turned their backs to it, and anyone who looked like they were headed that way found a reason to go somewhere else.

Harold waved his hand.

A barrier of mana snapped up around the two of them, and the rattle of the Legion went away. Then the pressure came. It pushed in on the ears and behind the eyes and at the back of the throat, and Theo’s face went tight as he swallowed and worked his jaw. Harold frowned and waved his hand again to thin it, and the pressure stayed exactly where it was. Theo had started to sweat.

Harold swore and swept his hand through the barrier, and it came apart. The noise of the column came rushing back in around them.

“Sorry.” He shook his fingers out. “I’ve been trying to copy a trick of Master Balfiel’s for keeping a conversation private. I can’t get the knack of it.”

“No problem, sir.” Theo pressed the heel of his hand to one ear. “How can I help you, Count Harold?”

Harold looked at him. The boy who’d left the Basin had been all earnest grin and a shield too big for him, and the road had ground that off him one fight at a time. A man stood in front of him now, but the things that had driven the earnest boy were still underneath.

“This is going to be a difficult conversation.”

Theo went pale, and Harold could see it even by lantern light.

“I won’t tell you any details,” Harold said. “But soon, you’re going to be forced to make a very hard decision.” He kept his voice low under the noise of the column. “I care a great deal about the oaths we’ve all sworn. But honestly, I care more about free will. I know what it’s like to be locked into something you didn’t want.” He held Theo’s eyes. “So if, when that decision comes, you want to be released from your oath, you only have to ask, and I’ll release you. What happens after that is up to you. And it may well not be good.”

Theo stared at him. His hand had come down from his ear and hung at his side with the fingers curling.

“Sir, have I done something wrong?” His voice cracked on it. “I don’t understand. What decision?”

Harold shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you. But if things play out the way we expect, you’ll have a choice to make.” He paused. “I just wanted you to know you have more options than they’d give you.”

“Sir, I don’t understand. Please.” Theo took half a step toward him. “You have to tell me.”

Harold put a hand on his shoulder, squeezed, and looked him in the eye.

“Courage, Theo. Of everyone on your team, you’re the heart of it. You protect all of them, and not just their bodies.” He tapped two fingers against Theo’s breastplate, over his heart. “Their hearts and their souls too. That’s you.”

Theo’s jaw was moving up and down soundlessly, and he couldn’t seem to make it stop.

Harold leaned in close and dropped his voice.

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light,” he said. “It’s always there. And the path back to it is there as well, if we go looking for it.”

Theo looked at him for a long moment and nodded slowly. Harold let go of his shoulder and walked back toward the column.

“Who said that?” Theo called after him.

“Aristotle,” Harold said over his shoulder. “I’ve been finding myself inspired by the classics.”

Harold ducked under a low lintel at the end of the side tunnel and found Balfiel already pacing.

The old elf had taken an assay room off the main hall, a stone box with a slab bench down the middle and a smoke hole bored up through the ceiling, and he’d scrubbed every inch of it. The place reeked of lye. Glassware stood in two neat rows along the slab, a squat brazier glowed under a copper stand, and a chalk line ran unbroken around the whole floor, with Balfiel’s small, tight sigils set into it every pace. The Legion came through the rock as a low, steady mutter.

“Finally.” Balfiel spun on his heel. “Come on, boy, let’s do this. You only have two sets of the ingredients, so we need to get this right.”

“I was gone ten minutes. How did you get all this set up? Did you imbue these sigils?”

“You were gone fourteen. Over the line, and mind the chalk.”

Harold grumbled under his breath, stepped over the line, and unbuckled the pouch at his hip. He laid the ingredients out on the slab one at a time, nine of them in a row. Four sat in glass so thick and dense it bent the lamplight, and each held a twist of something that shone green from the inside. After those came a jar of grey ash, a bundle of root bound in black thread, a tin of oily seeds, and a stoppered horn of something dark that moved slowly when he set it down. Last came a small lead box, and when he thumbed the lid back, a low black haze crawled out over the lip and pooled on the stone.

Balfiel had the first green vial in his hand before Harold’s fingers left it. He turned it in the light, and the glow ran over his knuckles.

“Always so curious,” he murmured, “that so many death potions are built on something this full of life.”

He set it down and picked up the lead box. The haze curled around his wrist and slid back off it, and he watched it go.

“Mm.” Harold leaned on the slab. “I always thought it seemed normal. For death to thrive, life has to allow it.”

Balfiel looked at him over the box for a long moment.

“Yes,” he said. “Well.” He set it down very gently. “It’s also what makes this potion so devilish to make. You have to let the death corrupt the life, in the right measure and at the right pace. That is a hard thing to curate.”

Harold rubbed his temple. “It’d be a lot easier if you let me use my cauldron.”

“Stop taking the easy way, boy.”

“It’s not the easy way, it’s the sensible way—”

“It’s a crutch with a lid on it.” Balfiel planted both hands on the slab. “Let’s do this. Talk me through your process.”

Harold blew out a breath and pointed down the row.

“Black goes first. Cold, into the base, and I bring it up slowly over the brazier until it stops smoking. I need to burn it with my mana and fire at the same rate. Then the life ingredients, one vial at a time. I need to make sure they don’t mix too much too fast as I add the other ingredients.” He tapped the jar. “Ash after the second vial. Root after the third. The seeds go in whole after the fourth, and the horn goes last. Three drops to bind it. The trick is allowing the death mana to spread at a constant rate even while the life mana infects the other ingredients and I have to empower the other ingredients at the same time.”

“Three. Not four?”

“Three.”

“Hm.” Balfiel nodded. “Go on.”

“That’s the whole thing.” Harold looked at the four green vials. “And every time, I lose it on the fourth. Around there, the life mana starts to resist my control.”

“So your control sucks.” Balfiel straightened and looked down the row again, and his lips moved silently over the count. “Your process is correct. You know the timing and the method for every one of these.”

Harold opened his mouth and shut it again mulishly.

“We will use the first set as a test of your control,” Balfiel said, “and the second as the actual attempt.”

Harold had reached for the lead box, and his hand stopped over it.

“Wait.” He looked up. “You aren’t going to help me make this?”

Balfiel snorted. “Of course not. I’m here to teach you, not to do it for you. If it doesn’t work, you’ll need to find a new ploy.” He stepped back to the wall, leaned against it, and folded his arms. “I know what you want to do with this potion. It’s a stupid plan.” The corner of his mouth went up. “But it would be funny to see happen.”

Harold stared at him.

“Now enough waiting,” Balfiel said. “Make your death potion.”

Harold rolled his sleeves to the elbow, tipped the black haze from the lead box into the cold base flask, set the flask on the copper stand, and fed the first breath of mana down into the coals.