The Dark Lord's Handbook: Conquest Read online

  “Kristoff. Good to see you, my friend,” Morden said.

  A flick of Kristoff’s eyes gave recognition to the lie. Morden couldn’t say he looked forward to their meetings of late, especially as he was certain what Kristoff was here to discuss.

  “Lord Morden. You know why I am here. I have a boon to ask.”

  “And you must know I cannot grant it.”

  “Nevertheless, I wish to go and find Edwin.”

  “You cannot,” said Morden. For close to a year now, Kristoff had made the same request and received the same answer. Did Kristoff think he was going to change his mind? Maybe he would wake up one morning and, in a sudden epiphany, decide what had always been a terrible idea was now a good one? Infuriating.

  “He’s my son. He needs me,” said Kristoff, his tone matching his demeanour.

  “He’s also a hero, and would, given the chance, hack me into small pieces.”

  “He was possessed. How could he harm you now?”

  Morden could think of a few ways, but this argument was not even the best of the many reasons he had to refuse the request. “It’s not just that he would, even without his cursed sword, try in every way to take you and Griselda from me, but more of who you are and what that means.”

  “I am a harmless poet, a threat to no one.”

  Morden could feel his ire rising. Did he not listen? “You are a threat to me in the wrong hands because you are Griselda’s father. There are those who would try to get to me through her, and thus through you. I cannot have you roaming the world in search of a crazed son for your own safety, and the safety of your daughter. Think of her.”

  “And you. For your safety.”

  “Enough.” Kristoff’s mouth locked and his body went rigid as Morden gripped him in a burst of compulsion so strong he thought he may tear the poet apart. He’d had enough of this. He was a Dark Lord. He didn’t have to suffer fools, least of all those who were of no other use than to write mediocre poetry. “You will go and you will not bring this matter before me again. My word is final. You will remain in this fortress. You will keep Griselda happy and you will not mention this conversation, or any other regarding this matter, to her. Now go.”

  As Kristoff marched off under Morden’s grip, outside there was a distant rumble and the tower shook slightly, enough for Kristoff to wobble. The poet paused, his head slumped, until he was stable. Firerock was having one of its more active days to be felt from such a distance. Morden watched Kristoff go. The flicker of remorse he felt was only that, a flicker, quickly extinguished. He had a fortress to complete, an army that was growing but not yet fully formed, and a world to conquer. He couldn’t afford to waste time and effort concerning himself with the well-being of a man and his son who, incidentally, had tried to kill him. Not to mention Morden had not yet come into his full power. It was a lesson etched into his mind from the Handbook and it was a worry. He could not come forth and lay waste until he had that power, whatever it was. He had thought it may be a thing, like a magic staff, or a globe, or some ancient artefact of inestimable power, but nothing had presented itself. It was well known that all Dark Lords had a source of power. If that were true, so far his had eluded him. While all else was going well, this power issue was troubling.

  “Lord Morden.”

  Morden looked up. Ironfist, his guard captain, was standing at the foot of the dais. “What is it? Can’t you see I’m brooding?”

  Ironfist’s face was unreadable behind the black dragon-winged helm he wore. He had risen to his position because, as the Common translation of his orc name suggested, he was an orc made of stern stuff and would not let a rebuff stop him from his duty.

  “My lord, the demonstration is ready. You asked to be informed. Weaponsmith Huang is ready in his courtyard.”

  This is more like it, thought Morden. Since his encounter with the eastern orcs, and the harpoon responsible for his current condition, he had at first cursed the weapon and then realised its potential. The eastern orcs had a black powder which they used for festivities in brightly coloured fireworks and, in the case of the sea-faring orcs, for the harpoon. It had not occurred to the orcs to apply the fisher orcs’ adaptation to a land-based weapon. Morden had taken Huang, the inventor of the new harpoon, and instructed him to come up with something that could be used on land to fire projectiles. Huang had been at it for close to three years with no success and an increasing death toll. Volunteers to work on the project had long since dried up and now it was seen as a death penalty to be sent to work with the enthusiastic, but accident prone, Huang.

  Morden had thought this might be the power he was meant to have before he issued forth to lay waste, but given the disastrous results to date, that notion had long gone. The potential to create something that might terrify an opposing army was offset by the likelihood it would have a bigger effect, and not a good one, on his own troops. Still, perseverance was something he had in abundance. Given the general low quality of the material he had to work with, he had no choice but to plug away.

  “Thank you, Ironfist. Lead on. Let’s go and see who Huang is going to blow up today.”

  They had reached to the top of the stair when an explosion rocked the tower. It was louder than anything Morden had heard before. Instinctively, he put his hands to his ears. What the hell had Huang done this time? Something flew past a window arch, trailing fire and smoke, and crashed into a curtain wall. Morden could feel the shock of impact through the floor. This wasn’t Huang. Morden went over the window for a better view. From the distant Firerock mountain, a massive column of smoke was roiling into the air and fiery projectiles were being spat from the crater. Lightning lit the black cloud as it mushroomed. A particularly large rock, flaming debris falling from it as it rose, arced with terrible grace towards them. Morden was transfixed. It was beautiful to watch, and it was coming directly at them. It would crush them all.

  “My lord.” Ironfist’s voice had a hint of urgency in it. “My lord, we should go. Now.”

  “Indeed,” said Morden, forcing himself away from the spectacle.

  They ran. Seconds later, a blast of ash and rock fragments blew them tumbling down the wide staircase. Morden felt several of his bones crack as he rolled. When he finally came to a halt in the lower antechamber, he had to roll quickly to one side to avoid being crushed by Ironfist, and then once more to avoid a sizeable lump of masonry. Lying flat on his back, he stared at open sky filled with ash, fire and rock. It was the apocalypse. The top of his tower was completely gone. The guards, his throne, everything. His throne. Never mind. This time he would have it made more comfortable, and with a dragon motif. All those demonic forms were too much.

  “Are you all right, my lord?” Ironfist had come to kneel at his side. Blood trailed from the orc’s helm and one arm hung uselessly at his side.

  Morden got to his feet. His ribs were cracked but he felt no pain. It was yet another benefit of being a mostly dead Dark Lord lich. Pain was something he inflicted but did not experience. In time, his bones would fix themselves and he would be fine. Unlike his fortress. Now he was standing, he could see the devastation being wrought by the volcano’s eruption. The Handbook had said a nearby volcano was a good thing. It was meant to be the forge for his dark arsenal. Watching rock rain down on his fortress, though, he thought it not the smartest bit of advice the otherwise reliable Handbook had given. At the earliest opportunity, he would have a read and see what it had to say for itself. In the meantime, he had to take charge and salvage what he could from this catastrophe.

  “It takes more than an exploding volcano to bring me down, Ironfist. I am unhurt. Go and find who you can and bring them to me. There is work to be done.”

  Rocks continued to hammer down. One squashed an unfortunate orc into paste. Then a dreadful thought struck. Griselda! Where was she? Was she safe? He half remembered she had told him her plans for the day, but he hadn’t been paying particular attention. What had she said? Something about food. She had been suff
ering from an irritable tummy and thought the cook was trying to poison her. Morden’s own thoughts were that her irritations were not confined to her stomach. Anyway, she was going to draw up a menu of acceptable foods and then set the kitchens in order. That was it. Which meant she should be safe, as the kitchens were at the base of the tower. He’d better make sure though. He didn’t know what she’d do if she was hurt and he wasn’t there to comfort her.

  A group of survivors had regrouped with Ironfist and straightened themselves out, waiting for instruction. The air was full of dust and smoke, and the orcs looked stunned and confused. Time to take control.

  “Captain Ironfist. The queen. Where is she?”

  His guard captain snapped away from mustering his orcs. “Below in the kitchens, my lord. She is unhurt but not pleased. She’s in one of her …” Ironfist coughed and waved a fist. “The smoke …”

  Ironfist didn’t need to finish his sentence for Morden to understand both his embarrassment and trepidation. No one liked being around the queen when she was in one her tempers, least of all Morden himself. But that’s what you got when you lived with the woman you loved.

  “I’ll take care of the queen. You go check on Huang and his devices. I will join you when I can.”

  Ironfist tried to hide his relief and failed. “My lord.”

  Standing in the ruins of the upper part of his tower, Morden watched his captain go. Firerock was still in full flow. The day had been turned to night, lit by the mountain’s fire. It was entrancing, but he had work to do. Much as he’d love to sit and watch the mountain belch destruction, he had a queen to pacify and a fortress to salvage. A Dark Lord’s work was never done.

  Chapter 4 Raven

  Economics is for bean counters. Conquest is for Dark Lords.

  The Dark Lord’s Handbook

  There were times when Chancellor Penbury wondered if his genius would be recognised by history. He hoped so. Even if history failed him, he had ensured the chancellors who followed him would be under no illusion as to his greatness by writing everything he did down in the archives, highlighting those parts he thought most important. His handling of the box crisis was one such episode. History would not give him credit, as he was one of only two people who knew how close to total ruination the world’s economy had come. Unfortunately, it was more likely he would be remembered for the worst recession in recorded history—even if recorded history, his archive aside, did not stretch back that far given mankind had only been putting pen to paper, in a non-pornographic way, for a few hundred years. Only he and Birkenfeldt knew the recession had been the unavoidable consequence of so many institutions having wiped clean bad debts when their records had been lost in the great fire, which had been his rather elegant solution to the box crisis.

  What Penbury was sure history could not fail to credit him with was the manner in which he had overseen the recovery in the last three years, turning a disaster into a period of unprecedented growth. It was a tricky business pulling the strings of world economics when the vast majority were clueless as to what economics even meant. Most would guess it had something to do with cooking. Only the chancellors who followed him would be able, with perfect hindsight, to give him due credit for the remarkable work he had done. It was a shame he would be dead.

  “Are we there yet?” he asked Chidwick. They had to be close now. They had been travelling for weeks, which seemed like months, for his appointment in Xanthos, home to de Luca and his newly built fleet. In a grand ceremony, de Luca’s flagship, Helena, would be the thousandth ship of the new fleet launched. While only a fraction would be in the harbour, it would nevertheless be a spectacle.

  “Another hour, sir,” said Chidwick. “Would you like a pamphlet to read?”

  “I’ve read them all. I’m bored.”

  They could have sailed down the coast from Firena and arrived much sooner, but he disliked sailing for a number of reasons. The potential for drowning came only a little ahead of the dreadful food at sea. And even if the food was remotely palatable, he would have heaved it up in no time due to seasickness.

  “We could play a game,” suggested his personal private secretary.

  Penbury looked out of the rocking carriage window. “I spy, with my eagle eye, something beginning with ‘o’.”

  “Olives.”

  “Exactly.”

  While Penbury was eternally grateful for the olive, and its multitude of culinary applications, not much else grew in the dry, rocky terrain they were passing through. Mountains were pretty enough but, after two days of nothing else, they were boring. Metalled roads had been left behind in the west and the rutted road, more a track, defied the best sprung carriage in the civilised world. Every knock and jolt played havoc with his back.

  “I spy—”

  “Don’t you dare,” said Penbury. “Hand me that pamphlet. I’ll read Bonehead again.”

  “—something beginning with ‘o’.”

  “Olives,” said Penbury, humouring his secretary.

  “No,” said Chidwick, and from his expression he was not trying to be funny.

  Penbury’s curiosity was piqued. His seat was facing backwards, because that’s how he liked it, and it was clear whatever Chidwick had seen was coming up ahead. Penbury leaned forward and out of the carriage window to take a look. The ‘o’ was an orc, a dead one, hanging from an olive tree. Its feet were only a short distance off the ground, the trees being stunted in such a parched environment, but it only took a few inches to hang a man or, in this case, an orc. There was a placard around its neck. Penbury opened the small, shuttered window above his seat to address the driver.

  “Stop here.”

  Penbury stepped out into the dry heat and almost got straight back into the carriage. The midday sun was fierce. Chidwick, with typical efficiency, had a parasol up in a blink, which helped tremendously. He walked over to take a closer look at the orc. It was sunburned and had been pecked at by birds. ‘The only good orc is a dead orc’, read the placard. The statement had become a mantra in the more vitriolic pamphlets, credited to Sir Edwin, Hero of Bostokov. It reflected a political stance in the places where Morden and his army had caused the most havoc in their passing. Orcs had gone from being a marginalised and downtrodden segment of the population to one that had been driven out and hunted in places, and made into virtual slaves in others.

  From the front of the cavalcade ahead of the carriage, the captain of the escort rode up.

  “Is there a problem, sir?” he asked.

  “Cut him down,” said Penbury. “And bury him.”

  The captain’s horse shuffled in place, the dead orc seemingly upsetting it. “It will delay us, sir,” said the captain.

  Penbury turned to face the man. He was sweating profusely under a plumed helm and leather armour. He was about to sweat more. “Cut him down, Captain. And bury him yourself. Not your men. You.”

  The captain’s eyes widened. Penbury held his gaze.

  “Sir,” said the captain, and he dismounted. He drew his sword and cut the orc down. “Bring me a shovel,” he barked at his men.

  Penbury stepped over to the body, drew his fruit knife, and cut the board from around the orc’s neck. He handed it to Chidwick. The captain began stripping off his armour in preparation for his work. Even though he was a lean, muscled veteran, it would take him some time to bury the body; the ground was hard and rocky. While Penbury did not wish to spend more time than he had to in the carriage and heat, the captain had hit a nerve and they would wait.

  “I’ll take lunch, Chidwick,” said Penbury as he climbed back up.

  There was a trunk strapped to the back of the carriage with provisions that would grace most good restaurants, and lunch would improve his mood. It wasn’t a dead orc that had upset him but more the problem it represented, which he had been ignoring. Of all the issues he dealt with on a daily basis, this one was different from the others; it was a problem of morality. When it came to business, morality was rarely an issue
for him. While he was aware his economic decisions had far-reaching implications, and doubtless brought suffering to some, they were also driven by a truth he considered fundamental to life, and that was wealth generated more wealth—normally his own, but also more generally. He did not see his role as one that directed the moral compass of society, or dictate only political policy—except where it impinged on his economics—but to manage wealth. It’s what he did, and did very well. His business efficiencies meant things got made and people got fed. He had his detractors, and haters, but he slept well at night—though that may have been due to a late night tipple of twenty-year-old brandy.

  Maybe he was getting old, and his own mortality was getting to him. He had noticed of late a worrying tendency for his amorality to slip, such as now. It was a dead orc. Clearly the orc had been hunted down and lynched, in all likelihood as a reaction to political scaremongering. There were a group of disjointed and disorganised politicians who had seized on the business with the Dark Lord Morden as a means of making political capital. Penbury would not have normally given it a second thought. He may have even encouraged it as, although not a squeak had been heard from Morden for a few years, it was certain the Dark Lord was going to come back at some point. It was in recognition of this that Penbury himself had not been idle.

  It also wasn’t as though death was not a daily threat for many, whether from starvation, or disease, or an oppressive king. Life was cheap. In fact, in many industries the raw materials were more valuable than the labour force. The life expectancy of a miner was well below that of a tailor or cook, and the metal rich ores were far more valuable. So why did one dead orc bother him so much? It shouldn’t. The orcs were the enemy. Many had fled east, but not all. Some had remained, to continue living and working as they had before. Many had no choice as they effectively became slaves. ‘Tenured workers’ was the expression being used, but it was slavery by any common recognition of the word. While he was not entirely comfortable with it, he had been as guilty as any when it came to the use of semantics to further his own aims.