Dirge

By Tim Marquitz

Wreathed in the ashes of betrayal, forced to come of age in the dungeons of her stolen inheritance, Kallie Brynn Soren died so that Dirge might be born . . .

In the midst of an undead invasion, Kallie is gifted powers by a dying priest. His last wish is for her to use them against the Necrolords in a way his faith would not allow. Reborn as Dirge and free of the priest’s conscience, she is more than happy to do so.

But when fate brings Dirge into the employ of the emperor—the same man whose machinations brought about the murder of her father—the opportunity for revenge becomes too much to ignore.

Torn between vengeance and the need to protect the only people she dare call family, Dirge learns there is a much deeper purpose to the Necrolord’s advance. Should it come to light, it might destroy everyone.

“A gritty, tale of an female assassin that has no equal. Highly recommended.” —Speculative Book Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781618684295

Tim Marquitz

Tim Marquitz is the author of the Demon Squad series, The Enemy of My Enemy series, and the Blood War Trilogy. He has also made numerous anthology appearances alongside some of the most notable names in fantasy and horror.

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Praise for Tim Marquitz

Tim Marquitz's writing evokes the savage realism of Robert E. Howard. His vivid descriptions of physical combat combine high-stakes, pulse-pounding violence, with a colorful literary delivery. Marquitz has demonstrated a highly developed sense of pace, proportion, and conflict

-- Shroud Quarterly.

A Tim Marquitz story is going to be crisp and inventive, entertaining in escalating measures until the thunderclap climax knocks you on your back and you ask for another.

-- Timothy C. Ward, author of Scavenger: Sand Diver #1

Tim Marquitz is to Paranormal and Preternatural Fiction what Ridley Scott is to Sci-fi Cinema. Marquitz writing style often presents with such a flare that his readers compare his works to Jim Butcher or Simon Green, and while comparable, his style is vastly different both in terms of composition, characters, and dark humor. Tim's writing doesn't just use dark humor and satire to convey a story, it goes above and beyond and creates a parallel universe that draws the reader in. A universe in which bloodshed is routine, magic and mayhem are common place, and the profane is considered the mundane. With whole series already published such as Demon Squad and Blood Wars, it's easy to see why his works are Amazon Kindle Chart Toppers; especially in a cut-throat coming of age digital marketing and publishing environment.

-- Ben Terhune, author of Broken Bonds

Tim Marquitz winds action and twists around deeply flawed, sometimes unlikeable characters and finds a way to make readers cheer for them in every story. Raw, action-packed plots drag readers – laughing, yelling, and often whimpering – for a testosterone-fueled ride that always delivering the package by the last page. The fact he produces across multiple genres just reveals the level of his writing ability.

--Kirk Dougal, author of Dreams of Ivory and Gold

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A PERMUTED PRESS book

Published at Smashwords

Trade Paper ISBN: 978-1-61868-430-1

eBook ISBN: 978-1-61868-429-5

Dirge copyright © 2014

by Tim Marquitz

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by David Walker

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chapter One

Silence is a girl’s best friend.

That and a good, sharp knife.

Kallie embraced both as she hung from the castle’s turret. One hand clutched a rocky outcrop high above the parapet; the other held a blackened steel dagger. Additional knives hung tight in a row of sheaths across her back within easy reach. She lurked in the shadows, the waning moon hidden behind a ceiling of churning clouds as she surveyed her surroundings. The ghouls milled about the grassy yard below, without direction. That would last only as long as none of the living sentries spotted her, yet she was confident. The dead never looked up. Men rarely did.

A quiet click drew her gaze. A sleek raven clung to the turret’s roof just above her perch, watching with unabashed intent. Kallie met its gaze for a moment, noting the wisp of white coloring at its forehead that brought to mind a third eye. The bird bristled and shook its wings, making aggressive motions with its sharp beak. Kallie stared until the raven lowered its eyes and fluttered back a few paces, ceding the turret to the more dangerous predator.

There’ll be meat for you soon enough, Kallie whispered before turning back to her watch.

She breathed easy behind the mask that hid her features, savoring the crisp, clean air while she could. Once she committed to entering the necrolord’s castle, there would be nothing but the fetid odor of death and decay. Ever since the morbid sorcerers beached their ships on the shores of Delham, the smell had grown more and more pervasive. It invaded the air as its masters invaded the land. The wind carried the stench ahead of the undead armies that marched at the necrolords’ whims, but the warning did little to alter the outcome of the battles that followed. For every living soldier who died in the field, one rose in his place to join the enemy.

There was only one way to defeat the ghouls for good: kill the sorcerers animating them. That was why Kallie was here; against her better judgment. She’d no issue with killing the necrolords—or anyone, for that matter—but never at the behest of the emperor. She ground her teeth together as she recalled the tangled circumstances that led her to work for the man whose collusion with the neighboring Duke Freye was the cause of her father’s death and her enslavement. Kallie had been only thirteen then.

A cold chill settled over her as memories of the dungeons stormed her mind. Her knuckles cracked against the hilt of her dagger, her cheeks warming. Not even the glimmer of Emperor Valtore’s gold could stay her fury, but still she clung to the turret, ready to do the job she’d agreed to. Darren and Gaul were counting on her.

The last surviving members of the Brotherhood of Sorea, the two clerics were the only family she had left. The Brotherhood had saved her from the dungeons when the ghouls overran Averlin, her captured homeland. Now, with the fall of the clerics’ sanctuary to the undead, retribution for the Brotherhood’s stand against the necrolords, the imperial coin was needed for them to carry on their work. The stragglers who’d escaped alongside the clerics needed to be fed. As the brothers had come to her aid, Kallie felt it only right to come to theirs. She knew well enough what it was like to fend for oneself.

A flicker of movement below helped her push aside the morbid reveries she wanted no part of. A sentry stepped from within the turret as he made his rounds along the parapet. Kallie hesitated for just an instant before instinct won out. She released her hold and dropped without a sound, nothing more than a deeper shadow against the wall. Kallie reached out and grabbed the guard’s chain coif as she passed, yanking his head back as her feet hit the ground. Her blade slipped beneath the mail and sliced his throat before he could voice his surprise. She caught a glimpse of wide eyes as she pushed him between the crenels. He toppled into the night’s gloom. Only a muffled thump outside the keep signaled his passing.

Kallie sped along the walkway before another sentry could stumble across the spilled blood and raise an alarm. She scanned the inner bailey for a path free of the walking dead, and slipped into the yard, drawing her sword as she went. It, too, was stained black to hide its shimmer.

The necrolord would likely be in the keep, though given the hour, she had no doubt he would still be active. The sorcerers were nocturnal by nature. That only added to the risk she was taking by coming into this one’s lair at night, but she, too, was a creature of the darkness. If there was anything about the mission that pleased her, it was the opportunity to exact revenge for the loss of her brethren.

Rellan’s death had given her the means to do so.

With a thought, the night peeled back before her as though it were the brightest day. Her hearing and sense of smell grew acute as though she were a wild animal. Her strength trumped Brother Gaul’s, yet with none of the speed loss that hampered the colossal cleric. The combat skills she’d learned fighting to survive had been honed and made sharp by the clerics, but those she inherited from Rellan made those meager techniques obsolete. She had become a weapon. She had made his knowledge and training her own.

As she scanned the yard, she spied the ebony flitter of necromantic energies, which tugged the strings of the dead marionettes; another gift from the priest. The psychic leash was dim, active only to keep the bodies sentient, but that clue offered no satisfaction. The lord could be one of the weaker ones to come ashore, or he could simply be holding back for another purpose. Kallie sighed. She wouldn’t know which until she confronted the lord. It’d be too late to worry about it then, so she planned for the worst as she crept across the yard.

Kallie plunged her dagger into a ghoul that stumbled too close, the blade slipping into the base of its skull. The zombie shuddered and went still, its brain stem severed. It was one of only a few ways to return the dead to their graves without destroying the entire body. She left it to crumple to the ground as she weaved her way across the field, making use of what little cover there was. The other dead wouldn’t notice their fallen companion, but she needed to be inside the keep before any of the living spied the fallen corpse. She reached the wall a short distance from the sealed entryway and set her back against its cool stone. Darkness eclipsed her.

It seemed too easy.

She looked across the field and watched the ghouls as they ambled about without purpose. Their numbers appeared diminished, and there were too few of the living around to shepherd the walking corpses. The emperor’s spies had claimed the army of the resident necrolord and were on the march, which explained the lack of ghouls, but the castle felt more like a tomb, all reference to the dead aside. It felt empty. She wondered if maybe the war was taking more of a toll on the necrolords’ forces than people believed. She could only hope, but it was unlikely. There was no shortage of corpses.

The waft of death pierced her mask and stole her attention for just a moment before the wooden door to the keep swung open on weathered hinges. A guard walked out with a confident swagger to a serenade of rusty squeals, two of the dead trailing him. Kallie sunk her dagger into the man’s eye before he took two steps and shoved his lifeless body into the ghouls. They grunted and stumbled back. Neither saw Kallie before she was on them. Their inanimate bodies crumpled alongside the guard’s.

Kallie took a moment to listen, her breath clutched tight in her breast. The bitter tang of rotting flesh distorted her sense of smell, but she heard nothing moving within the foyer of the keep. Corpses on the ground, with nowhere to hide them, it was now or never. She slipped inside.

The chill of the stone floor worked its way through her padded soles as she crept toward the portal she presumed led deeper inside. Portraits hung from the walls, gray dust coating the canvasses and gathering thick at the frame. The colors were muted beneath the wear of time. A great banner hung from the ceiling. The fierce, conquering lion embossed upon its yellow face seemed to mock the destruction of its namesake clan, the Helmonds. They’d been one of the most recent to fall when the necrolords moved inland, the sorcerers raising part of their army from within the Helmonds’ own ancestral cemeteries. The family’s last moments must have been horrific, murdered by the rotting hands of their own kin and creed.

Now the castle had fallen into disrepair, like so many others before the emperor consolidated his allies and withdrew west to form a unified defense. For all the good it would do. The dead marched without rest. It was only a matter of time before the whole of Delham fell, Helmond less than five days from the first of the emperor’s forward defenses.

It sickened Kallie to think such thoughts, but she had seen the walking death that swept across the land and could imagine no other end. The necrolords had scattered to the winds once their foothold had been secured, making it nearly impossible to rein them in. They hid while the ghouls fought their battles, and she could only slay so many of the lords before humanity collapsed.

A chance sighting by one of the emperor’s spies had led her to Helmond. A necrolord settled in the castle as the war raged on. Away from the front, it was an easy presumption that he was confident in his safety. A grim smile creased Kallie’s lips as she drifted through the corridors of the keep. The sorcerers may well claim Delham, but Kallie would whittle their numbers down as best she could. By dawn, there would be one less.

The halls silent, Kallie crept on, working her way toward the chapel where she’d begin her search. What better place for a trafficker of the dead to perform his rituals? She could hear the soft shuffle of ghouls echoing through the castle, but none challenged her. A cemetery chill clung to the air as she rounded a corner and spied the great archway that led to the chapel. Its encircling stones were engraved with the silver glyphs and sigils of Allara, goddess of the sea and good fortunes. Kallie shook her head at them. The Helmonds would have been better served by following Rau, the god of war and vengeance. At least he would have prepared them for war. Kallie smirked. Though the Helmonds had chosen a different path, today, she would be their avenger.

Pressed flat against the archway, she peered inside the room. The subtle waft of acrid chemicals tickled her nose, easing the scent of old death. A twisted smile split her lips. The necrolord had made his home in the chapel.

Rows of wooden pews, covered in bright banners celebrating Allara, led the way to the far side of the chamber. The great marble statue of the goddess, which stood at the head of the altar, was defiled. A blunt instrument had been taken to its stony face, its visage shattered and undefinable. Half of the marble skull was broken away. Dried blood and feces marred the goddess’ stone dress in splatters that emphasized the disgust the necrolord held for her and those of her flock. Kallie’s gaze drifted down the encrusted statue to the man who knelt before it.

Dressed in crimson robes, he sat motionless in front the ruined altar, wisps of smoke billowing up from a dozen black candles that surrounded him. He made no sound. His head was bowed in what Kallie believed was supplication to his dark gods. Much to her delight, he was alone.

Kallie went inside, setting her feet with caution despite that. She wanted nothing to spoil her surprise. Armed with her sword and dagger, she inched closer, reveling in the feel of the weapons in her hand and the job that lay ahead. For all the effectiveness of a crossbow or hurled knife, nothing matched the feel of plunging a blade into flesh. There was grim satisfaction in riding out the death throes of your enemy up close, feeling their life drain away as they surrender to the darkness.

Did you truly think you could bring death to my door and it would escape my notice? the necrolord asked before she had crossed even half the room. His voice was a graveled pit of scraping stones.

Kallie froze, her stomach twisting into a tight knot at her foolishness. She had given no thought to slaying the guard outside. Rellan would never have been so foolish, but for all his experiences embedded inside her mind, there were none dealing with assassination. He had been a man of Oraua, the merciful shepherd of the people, who fought only to defend the weak and innocent. Brilliant and caring, he had been a great leader, a great teacher, warrior, but never a murderer. Kallie had been too confident, and she’d given away her advantage. Rellan would be disappointed.

The necrolord rose and turned toward her, brilliant pools of blue peering from his jaundiced face. So, you are Dirge, the assassin who believes he can bring the Obsidian Order to its knees? A gnarled grin broke across purpled lips. Jagged yellow teeth lurked beyond.

Kallie heard the shuffle of dead feet at her back and spied the push of ghouls massing behind the sorcerer as they spilled from a hidden door at the rear of the statue. Her breath went cold in her lungs, but she said nothing. For