The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [17]
“I’m sorry for that,” said Awa, cheeks darkening. “But I’ve thought of something better. If I distract the bonemen by trying to go over the glacier and down the far cliff they’ll follow, and if they leave a few behind you’ve gotten good enough to stop them.”
During a recent sword session Halim had smashed in the skull of one of the skeletons, and to his immense pleasure it did not rise again. Awa had further determined the nature of the creatures’ mortality—if their existence could be described in such terms—by focusing on decapitating her undead sparring partners. When she had finally succeeded that very morning it had simply picked its bony head off of the dirt and reattached it, proving that the destruction of the skull itself was required to fell the monsters.
“So we get to try and fight our way out?” said Omorose. “That’s an even better plan.”
“I’ll fight,” said Halim, perking up.
“You two go ahead,” said Omorose, bundling her blankets around her, “but I’m through being punished by him. We don’t seem to be in any more danger now than we were the first night.”
“But don’t you worry about what he’s planning?” asked Awa. “No good can come of staying here.”
“He’s going to eat us,” said Halim, a far longer chain of words than he was normally wont to link.
“Fattening us doesn’t make sense,” said Awa. “We’ve already eaten more than we’ll ever put on, no matter how much we grow.”
“He seems to like his bed companions seasoned,” Omorose said. “He probably wants a little more age on you and I before adding us to his collection.”
Omorose smiled at the horrified expression on Awa’s face. Being young, pretty, and vivacious had formerly been assets instead of detriments in currying a keeper’s favor, and though Omorose was in no way disappointed to be excluded from that particular arena of the necromancer’s attentions, she found herself struggling with alternative methods of pleasing him. If you were not the favorite you were a glorified servant to the favorite, and she would sooner hop onto the bear and try her hand at changing his perceptions of living partners than be forced to dote on her own slaves. Or so she told herself when she was cross.
“Perhaps he’s simply bored, and this is how he amuses himself,” said Awa, making her mistress flinch. Omorose had recognized the familiar markings of ennui on the necromancer’s gnarled face from the outset—the way his snotty eyes lit up when he provoked a reaction from his wards, the way he chortled to see them cry. That her rival now suspected the same could complicate Omorose’s task of proving herself the most interesting pupil. The methods of allaying the necromancer’s boredom might differ from the customary variety, at least for they the living, but she had done little but combat her own boredom in the harem, and knew many a diversion and trick yet to be employed.
“Bored?” Omorose sniffed at Awa. “Oh yes, I’m sure that’s why he teaches us his sorceries and everything else, and why he sends us out every day to spar with the bonemen. Bored. Really, girl, what a stupid thing to say.”
“Oh,” said Awa, wondering how she had scared her friend. Omorose only became nasty when she was frightened or upset, otherwise having thawed toward Awa on the chill mountainside. Her former mistress might still eschew using her name instead of “girl,” but the tone of that word had warmed to Awa’s ear, and she felt a rare heat on the coldest nights when Omorose would murmur, “Hold me, girl,” and their prickly skin would touch and—
“Just stupid,” said Omorose. “Don’t you think, boy?”
Halim grunted his assent, amazed as ever at how they pretended everything was alright, how they played the little games Omorose knew instead of casting themselves over the cliffside the first chance they got. Still, he would not abandon his duty even in the hell he now inhabited, although, truth be told, the times he had slunk off to the cliff while the young women slept he had felt a fear even worse than what the necromancer inspired in him to see the moonlight glinting