The Weapon

Chapter 5 - Long Nights

"What's she doing with a dagger." Mage was staring at me with murderous intent. "Wait is that my dagger?"

I uncovered my ears, and noticed the dagger they were staring at. "Uh…"

"Were you going to stab me?" Mage had a chill in her voice.

I looked down like a child caught stealing cookies. "No…" Warrior took the dagger from me.

I only had a moment to react before I found a bolt of flame flying at me. I dove to the side. Looking up I saw Mage being restrained by Hunter.

People didn't attack me. I was the weapon. No one harms the weapon, her majesty said so. I sometimes hurt myself or others, but I never meant to… usually. I wasn't safe here with these people. I needed to find my chair, everything was fine when I was in my chair.

My eyes were wet and I ran. The light of the camp disappeared to be replaced by the glow of my bindings. I was tired and weak. I hadn't been eating well with how often I had been magically sleeping. I didn't have the energy in my frail body to go far enough.

I tripped over the dark ground and fell twisting my ankle. I hated this. I hated the Mage. I hated Brute for not keeping me safe and Healer for not being here to help me. I sobbed loudly.

"Kallista are you alright?" Warrior said as he approached me. "I promise Taena won't-" He started gasping and gurgling. I heard him fall over.

In the dark I saw the faint glow of purple eyes. Cold undead hands scooped me up.

"Are you alright weapon?" It said.

"I have a twisted ankle, a bruised wrist, and I am under fed." I dutifully explain.

"In that case I shall carry you back. Mira, Regi we're leaving." The wight spoke to its companions.

"And the body?" Another asked.

"Leave it. Our mission was to retrieve the weapon and ensure her safe return." The wight holding me said before sprinting off into the night with supernatural speed.

Wights were feared not just because they were intelligent like revenants, but because they were powerful. Few living could match their strength and speed, and they were each capable of low level necromancy including creating their own dregs. A single wight could slaughter a village and turn them all into dregs and very few people could stop them.

The great weakness of wights was, apart from her majesty using me, no one was strong enough to create one. On top of that, only those who were powerful in life could become wights, and the number of people who could defeat a wight was a little smaller than the number of people who could become a wight. Otherwise they end up as revenants regardless of the amount of magic used.

Her majesty was stock piling wights all loyal to her. Something that if other kingdoms knew, they'd unite to stop her. A secret two girls a little older than me now knew unless the wights had found them.

I was sad Warrior died. I liked him and Hunter too, but this was inevitable. I was the dark lords weapon and they were adventurers. We couldn't be friends. I didn't get to have friends, only guards and healers.

I wasn't tired enough to fall asleep in the cold arms of the wight, and thus remained awake for the trip back. I found a dagger on the wight and started stabbing it in the back.

"Weapon please stop." It asked me.

"No." I kept doing it the whole way back. Wights also had regeneration unlike revenants and dregs. It was perfectly fine to be stabbed over and over. I wanted to stab something and this was my only chance at having a sharp object in hand for probably a long time.

The gates to the city opened to us and I was quickly taken to the castle. There were a number of people awaiting us. Her majesty was the first I recognized. A large portion of her honor guard was here. I couldn't tell if Brute was among the faceless warriors. I also noticed Healer by his signature ponytail. If he changed his hairstyle again I'd be so lost in trying to recognize him.

"Status." the demand washed over the wights.

"She has light injuries. We found her injured in the dark, a swordsman standing near her."

Her majesty motioned and Healer approached me. His first spell was to identify my injuries and the next actually helped. The pain and soreness faded as my injures were patched up. My ankle was the last thing he got to fixing. He nodded that I was fully healed and stepped aside.

I lost control of my body as I was set down. My hand gave the dagger to the wight. I started walking as she turned to enter the castle once more. Most of the guards went to their various posts except four guards. Healer and I also followed as we were brought to a more private chamber.

"Weapon explain what happened." She commanded and I could control my face again.

I explained Brute leaving to drink and the ensuing kidnapping. I was light on some of the details of the camp and Hunter. I explained they tried to kill me and I fled where I was injured and taken back.

Her majesty didn't sigh, that was beneath her. She stated definitively. "Nell will be executed for her incompetence. As for you Calder, you will remain her physician but do not fail me again. Jorah, Eve you both are her new body guards. Do not fail me."

"Yes your majesty." They echoed.

I had never had two guards before. Additionally the girl seemed to be a revenant. Now I had one living and one dead guard. Hopefully the dead one wouldn't go drinking and leave me to get kidnapped by a mean mage.

Her majesty had no words for me. There were no expectations for me beyond being alive. I did not mention that I had tried to stay away but I remembered her threat from last time I ran away. I wanted to keep my legs.

My new guards escorted me back to my room. I had spent months learning what I could get away with from Brute and now I needed to learn two new guards at the same time.

"Brat." Brute said to me.

I turned and yelled at her, "Shut up you stupid bitch. This is all your fault. If you didn't run off I wouldn't have gone through all of that."

"Weapon?" Said the man I had yelled at.

"She does that. Don't worry about it." Healer told him. "Kallista, Nell's in the dungeon. Not here."

"But she said…"

"You're hearing things again." He said flatly.

"Sorry." I mumbled out and kept walking.

Making it back to my room I curled up in my chair. Healer sat down on my bed while my new guards stood.

Healer started explaining things. "So I don't know how much you two know about Kallista but I'm going to go over the things you need to know to not end up where Nell is."

"Much appreciated." The man said. The undead remained silent.

"First off, one of you needs to have eyes on her at all times. She's prone to run off or get herself injured. The blame falls to you two if that happens. Second, call her Kallista not weapon. She's easier to deal with when you use her name. Third, she hears things sometimes. She'll snap at people or thin air. You'll start to recognize it, it's important to remind her that it's not real. Fourth, she's going to come up with nicknames for you both. Don't bother giving her your names she won't remember them." The guard man kept turning his head every so often to look at me while the undead was fixed on listening to Healer.

"Fifth, this is a standing order from her majesty, Kallista is not allowed access to sharp objects. No knives, no forks. She will try and steal them to hurt herself or others. Sixth, after serving her purpose to her majesty she has bad episodes. She needs extra supervision, she gets hostile, and it's when most of her self-harm happens. Nell had me knock her out, but I've been doing that too much. You'll both need to restrain her for up to hours on end depending on how much magic she channeled. She'll scream about it, ignore her when she gets like that."

Healer looked over to me. "Oh, and that chair is special to her. Don't mess it up. We also bring it with us which will be the responsibility of you two. If she tells you to get out of it so she can sit just do it. Did I get everything Kallista?"

"I don't know." I told him. My stomach growled. "I'm hungry."

"Let me guess the kidnappers didn't feed you."

"No."

He stood up. "I'll handle her food, her health is my job." He left to go get me dinner in the middle of the night/early morning.

"So Kallista was it?" The man said. "You seem to have a lot going on. I didn't realize Nell handled so much."

"Shut up." I really didn't want to talk to him right now. Tonight sucked. "I'm going to see Brute's execution tomorrow."

"You don't have to force yourself to go." He continued.

"Shut up. I want to watch her die."

He didn't talk after that. I was thankful the wight wasn't talkative like him. The wight was the shorter one but only slightly, otherwise they had nigh identical armor and outward appearance. The big difference was the wight was perfectly still and the guy moved around a bunch. Shifting his weight, looking around. I was going to need names for them but I didn't know enough to pick them yet.

Healer came back and showed the other two how he feeds me utensil food. I didn't complain this time, I was just hungry. Afterwards he left to go sleep next door and told the other two to come get him if something happened.

I looked out the narrow windows and saw the rising sun.