The Dark Lord's Handbook: Conquest Page 47

  “Would you like refreshment? Chidwick, I think I’ll have a coffee. I could do with perking up. Dark Lord Morden, can he get you anything?”

  “No, thank you. I’ve seen what happens when a person drinks too much in your company.”

  “Ah, yes. And how is Lady Deathwing?”

  “Dead.”

  The pronouncement hung in the air like a bad smell.

  “Will there be anything else, sir?” asked Chidwick, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Not unless the Dark Lord Morden’s men would like anything?”

  “They’re fine,” said Morden.

  “On second thought, Chidwick. Do we have any of those gingersnaps left?”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Stonearm gave Chidwick a meaningful glare as he left to get the coffee and biscuits, meaning don’t try any funny stuff or you’ll regret it. Morden had seen that look many times. Chidwick seemed smart enough to understand but it was hard to tell from his inscrutable expression.

  “What can I do for you, Mor … Dark Lord Morden?” asked Penbury, who remained seated behind his desk.

  Morden, having studied the ways of power and its dynamics for several years now, understood the situation well. Though notionally he was the victor, and the one in power, by being behind his big desk, with its inkwell, papers, and complicated-looking toys, Penbury was asserting his dominance. Or trying to. Morden would humour him. For now.

  “You seem relaxed for a man who has had a Dark Lord come to visit,” observed Morden, playing a finger along the desktop. His nail (more talon, really) scratched a line into the desk and Morden could see Penbury wince. Morden doubted it was due to how expensive the desk must be—and it must be outrageously expensive—but more likely due to the ruination of such a fine surface. “Many would fear for their lives.”

  Penbury’s eyes snapped back to Morden at the last comment. “I have nothing to fear. If you wanted me dead, I would be. Besides, Dark Lords don’t often do their own dirty business.”

  “Nor do chancellors.”

  “Touché. And likewise, you have nothing to fear. There are no hidden assassins here. It’s true, it did occur to me, but it seemed futile. And I am no hero.”

  “Of course, you aren’t. In fact, in many ways—”

  Penbury raised a hand. “Please, you don’t have to say it.”

  “On the contrary, Chancellor,” continued Morden, letting Penbury’s attempt to further control proceedings with his hand gesture slide. “There are times when such things have to be said. So, where was I? Ah, yes. In many ways—”

  Penbury dropped his head into his hands and let loose a sigh. “In many ways, we are the same. Yes, yes. Now can we move on?”

  “The same? Why Chancellor, you should have let me finish. I was going to say, in many ways … I am the hero. And you are the Dark Lord.”

  Penbury raised his head and looked at Morden, openly puzzled. From the back of the room, Stonearm chuckled.

  “You what?”

  “Of humble birth, born of a serving maid.”

  “Your father is a Deathwing dragon.”

  “Effectively orphaned at an early age.”

  “You went to public school.”

  “Sought out and captured by a tyrant when still but a youth, only to escape. What, no riposte to that one? Forced to flee for my life and go into exile, where I rally the oppressed peoples of the world, to return and overthrow the aforementioned tyrant, and establish a rule of peace and equality. I’d say, I’ve done rather well. True, I dress a little differently, and I do have a fortress that inspires fear and dread. And I am a dracolich. That aside, am I not as heroic as they come?”

  “If you say so.” The chancellor didn’t look convinced.

  “And as for yourself. What Dark Lord would not envy your power? How long have you held complete dominion over the civilised world? What Dark Lord would not want to be in your shoes, and those of chancellors past, to hold total control? Kings do your bidding. Through you, the poor are downtrodden and kept poor, while the rich and the well-born retain undeserved privilege. Accidents of birth. I grant you, some work hard and make good their lives, but the majority have little choice other than to scratch a meagre living for themselves and their family from the little they are given. No, Chancellor, if there is a true Dark Lord present, it is you.”

  Morden walked over to the window to look out over the gardens. They were, if anything, more impressive than those at the front of the house. He had heard Penbury spent a lot of his time working in them. If so, he had done a magnificent job.

  “Nothing to say in your defence, Chancellor?”

  “I see no point,” said Penbury. “As the victor, you may present the facts as you see them and the world will listen. I am happy within myself that I have led, perhaps not a good life, but a life worth living, and certainly one that has seen the majority live safe and stable lives. What is it that you want?”

  Before Morden could answer, Chidwick appeared with a silver tray upon which was the Chancellor’s refreshments. With his newly returned senses, he could smell the hot coffee and Morden regretted not having ordered his own, though he did note there was a spare cup on the tray and a generous number of biscuits on a white plate.

  “Actually, Chancellor, I’ve changed my mind. What I want is a cup of that coffee and a biscuit.”

  Chidwick put the tray on the table and poured two cups. He passed one over to the chancellor.

  “Milk and sugar?” he asked Morden.

  “The same as the chancellor,” replied Morden.

  Stonearm looked alarmed as he took his cup and smelled the coffee. He was sure if he had opened the Handbook at this point, it too would be screaming at him not to be so foolish. Morden took a sip of the hot brew. It was fantastic. He set the cup down on the table to let it cool and took a biscuit. It was crisp and crumbs flew when he snapped it. He placed one half on the side of the saucer and nibbled the other. Crumbly biscuit, sweet and spicy hot from the ginger, set his senses alive with pleasure.

  “Excellent biscuit. Now, where were we?”

  “You are the hero, I am the Dark Lord,” said Penbury. The chancellor took a biscuit and dunked it in the coffee. Morden thought this a bad idea. Why spoil such a crisp biscuit by making it soggy?

  “Ah, yes. And, of course, that’s nonsense. I’m patently no hero and you’re no Dark Lord. But you’re also no hero. You are also correct in your assumption that I am not here to kill you. There has been enough death in these last few months, and today in particular. We’ve all lost someone. Maybe you haven’t, but I have, and I see no reason to increase the body count. No, Chancellor, you are safe. In fact, I’m here to offer you a job.”

  “And what job would that be?”

  The Chancellor took another biscuit and dunked it like the first. No wonder he was such a big man if he tucked biscuits away like that every day.

  “Your own. Only you will have an apprentice. Namely, me. I was only half kidding in my previous remarks. I can learn much from you. If I am to be the Dark Lord I want to be, then I can only learn so much from a book. You can teach me as much, if not more. There will be changes. I have made promises and I mean to keep them. Orcs will be treated fairly and enjoy equal rights. They will also do well out of this conflict and be granted swathes of land and property. A redress of the imbalance of centuries, if you like. Other than that, and the fact that I am the supreme tyrant and enjoy rule absolute, I want you to continue much as before. Your first task will be to draw up a plan for reparations to the orc nation, and don’t be stingy. What do you say to that?”

  Morden had doubted he would have been able to surprise Penbury, but it looked like he was wrong. The chancellor was staring at him, the biscuit he held over his coffee quite forgotten. The soft gingersnap collapsed under its weight and plopped into the waiting coffee.

  “Chancellor. Do we have a deal?”

  Penbury put his coffee down, got slowly to his feet, walked around the side of
his desk and stretched out a hand. “We have a deal.”

  From the back of the room came a slap, and Morden looked to see Chidwick stagger forward.

  “Looks like we’ll be working together,” said the big orc.

  By Chidwick’s pained look, he either did not share Stonearm’s enthusiasm or the orc had broken his shoulder. It was hard to tell which.

  Morden took Penbury’s hand and shook it firmly, but not overtly so. He had no need to assert himself in a handshake; he’d done that well enough on the battlefield. He let Penbury’s hand go and walked around to take a seat in his chair. It was true, Dark Lords never sat unless it was on a throne, but this leather chair had been a throne of sorts for a long time. And it was a comfortable chair. The leather was smooth and welcomed him into its embrace. Morden pushed the chair back, stretched his legs out, rested his feet on the desk in front and clasped his hands behind his head. This new throne would do nicely.

  “I think we’re done.”

  Epilogue: A Distant Land

  When it comes to victory and defeat,

  make sure you know from which jaws the other is snatched.

  The Dark Lord’s Handbook

  Farouk had taken his ship south along the coast, eventually leaving the shore to disappear over the horizon. Zara watched the land become a thin line before it vanished, taking with it the life she’d had there. She let herself roll with the gentle swell. Having got her sea legs, Farouk had said he would make a sailor of her in time. It was an idea she briefly considered, but the ship was no place to raise a child. She gripped the rail in front of her with one hand and rested the other on her belly. No, the sea wasn’t a place for this baby. She was joined at the rail by Ferg.

  “Nervous?” he asked, looking at her sideways.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Nah. I’m glad we’re leaving it all behind. It’s time to move on and leave the past as it is.”

  “You never did say what her name was.”

  Ferg didn’t answer immediately, letting his gaze go out over the water.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” said Zara. “It’s not important.”

  “No, it is. It is important,” Ferg said, turning to face her again. “It is important I remember her, and if I can’t then others can. You never met her, but you can still know her name. Nallia. She was the ugliest orc you ever saw. And I loved her. When the dragon took her life, he took mine as well. And now I want it back. If that means travelling to the far ends of the earth to get it, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  Zara felt a tear in her eye and blinked it away. It wasn’t like her to get so emotional; it must be the baby. She realised now, the cocky, self-assured, crass, mocking orc she had first met was none of that underneath. She had thought because he looked so different, so threatening with his sharp teeth and lithe, muscled body, that he was different in all ways. There was no way he could be like Hal had been. She was wrong. Ferg was as much a man as he was an orc.

  She stretched out an arm around his shoulder.

  “No hugs,” he said, side-stepping away from her. “I don’t do hugs.”

  “Nor do I,” she answered. “Not until now.”

  She let her arm drop back to the rail and went back to staring out to sea. Above her, the sail cracked in the wind.

  “Wind’s picking up,” said Ferg. “Maybe there’s a storm coming.”

  *****

  Ferg’s speculation on a storm came to be true. When it hit, the ship was helpless in its grip. As good a sailor as Farouk was, he met his match in wind that whipped the seas into towering crests which smashed onto the deck. A mast was lost, and they were at the storm’s mercy. Zara was ordered below deck when the storm came, but she could not stay there. On deck, Farouk insisted she lash herself to something that floated as the storm worsened, and that saved her life. When the end came, it came suddenly with a crack of shattering wood that could be heard above the ferocity of the storm, and the ship split in two. Of the crew, the captain, and Ferg, she could not know. They were lost in the sea along with the ship. She clung to her chunk of wood with only one thought in her mind, and that was to save her baby. Hal’s baby. She would live to see it born. Nothing else mattered. She had to survive. At some point, she passed out.

  She woke to a calm sea and bright sunshine. Her ropes had held, as had her arms. She was afloat but barely so. Of anyone else, there was no sign. The only living thing in sight was a seabird. It came to perch a few feet away on her chunk of wood. It eyed her and squawked. It turned its head and looked at her with its other eye, as if to see if there was a difference. One more squawk and it was gone.

  In her time on board, when Farouk had been trying to convince her the sea would make a good home, he had delivered a constant stream of useful things to know about ships and the sea. One fact in particular sprang to mind: where there were birds, there was land. Most of the time. She could see which direction the bird had flown in and hoped it was heading for land. She kicked in that direction only to bump into a flat piece of wood. After much wrestling, she managed to lash it to the piece she already had and arranged the them so she had something to lie on while dangling her legs in the water. It would do. Taking note of the sun, she started a slow and steady kick. It would take time, but she would get there, wherever there was. Her baby depended on it.

  By the time the sun dipped beneath the horizon off to her right, she was exhausted and could feel panic lurking in the back of her mind. She had never feared death because she had never thought she would die. That thought was with her now and she felt helpless in the face of it. All she could do was keep going, and that was becoming harder. She needed to rest. She made sure she was tied in place on her planking, and tried to let sleep take her.

  She woke to the sound of gentle waves breaking and the feel of land under her makeshift raft. At first, she was too tired even to look up and too overwhelmed with relief to stop the tears that came. She stretched out an arm and gripped the sand that lay under it. She balled her hand into a fist and then let it relax, letting the sand slip out of her palm. Slowly, she got to one knee and looked around. She was hungry and thirsty. Any sign of people would have been welcome, but there was none. On the white beach, there was no trace man had ever been here except odd bits of wreckage that had been swept up. She must have been brought here, along with the wreckage, by a prevailing current.

  She pushed herself up from her knee to stand. The edge of the beach gave way to grasses and spiky bushes, the land rising slowly to tree-covered hills that were not far off. Apart from seabirds, she saw no sign of life. She looked up and down the beach. Perhaps there was something she could salvage. She picked a direction—southwest as far as she could reckon from the sun—and began to walk. Her walk broke into a trot when she saw a body lying farther down the beach, face-down in the sand. When she reached it, she threw herself to her knees next to it, stretched out a hand, and pulled it over by the shoulder.

  She screamed at the familiar face of Ferg. Fate was cruel to deliver up his body. She leaned back on her heels and let the tears come. She had never thought life was fair, but this was taking the piss. In frustration, she lashed out with a fist, bringing it down hard on Ferg’s chest.

  “Ferg, you bastard,” she cried.

  Beneath her fist, his chest convulsed and eyelids flickered open.

  “Ferg?”

  The orc coughed and turned his head to her. “What do I have to do to get rid of you?”

  “Ferg, you bastard!”

  With tears that had turned sweet, Zara leaned over and hugged the orc. They may be shipwrecked, and who knew where they had been washed up, but they were alive. It was going to be all right. Her baby was going to be born.

  Epilogue: A Dark Lord Risen

  It’s better to be a bad winner than a sore loser.

  The Dark Lord’s Handbook

  Good and Evil stood on the lip of the volcano, looking into the crater where a lake of lava bubbled. It was so peaceful co
mpared to the last time they had been here. Although Evil couldn’t prove it, he suspected the eruption had been Good’s doing, especially given the events that had followed. He had been there to show off the new super weapon Morden’s minion, Huang, had developed, but that had gone up in a bang which rivalled the volcano exploding. It mattered not. That was in the past and since then, with the odd hiccough along the way, things had turned out spectacularly well.

  “Is this necessary?” asked Good, fidgeting, which was unlike him.

  “It’s only fair,” replied Evil. “After all the times we’ve watched my final defeat at the hands of heroes and heroines, flukes of nature and catastrophes, now it’s your turn. My Dark Lord is victorious and I’ve waited so long for this. Given all we’ve been through over the countless centuries, I wanted to share this special moment. Look, here he comes now.”

  Below them was Morden’s fortress, still battered in places but largely intact, and being repaired where it was not. Beyond, a road stretched into the distance where it would eventually meet up with the more civilised parts of the world. Flying down it was a dragon. It clutched a metal box in its talons.

  “He’s impressive, isn’t he?” observed Evil. “Who would have thought you could merge the undead with a dragon?”

  “You obviously did,” sulked Good.

  “I did, didn’t I? Even though you tried to cripple Morden by letting Death take a grip of him, it never quite worked out, did it? Probably because Death doesn’t like you. I think I’m more his kind of guy.”

  “You think you’re so clever.”

  “Yes, I do. Now watch.”