Dark Rot
Page 6
Her skin had toughened, somewhere between the shell of a crab and flesh. Only her head remained the same, except for the white milky substance that trickled from her eyes. The queen had bestowed her dreadful gift upon her.
The thought terrified her. She must get back to the farm. Her parents would help her and send for a healer who would brew a potion to make her normal again. Anabeel dug the points of her legs into the earth and used the sharp spurs on her arm to drag herself up a twisting tree root. The new legs were like stilts, and she wobbled and fell back against the gnarled roots until she found her balance.
From the gloom of the cavern, the chomites appeared and nudged her back to her bed of roots. They stayed close, taking turns to mind her while others came and went leaving behind gifts, strange fruits and vegetables, dead animals and bugs. Anabeel was too grieved to eat. She missed her family, and her transformation frightened her.
Her keepers would not let her starve. They held her down—too many to resist despite her growing strength—and dribbled masticated food into her mouth.
Well nourished, her body transformed. The legs doubled in size, her torso became wasp like, and when she did walk, it was on all six legs like the other chomites. Her skin hardened and became black and glossy, gleaming in the light of the moon and the sun. She’d become a chomite queen.
Chomite queens are prodigious breeders. Anabeel filled the cavern with eggs. Her offspring were resourceful and strong, and in time, they found a place in the forest hierarchy of predatory species.
Despite her success, Anabeel remembered the person still inside her. Someone that craved the love and affection of her parents and the security of the village where she’d grown up. Why couldn’t she have both? She didn’t want to live in a damp hole in the ground like the old queen. She wanted to be around the people she loved, in the place of her birth, and with her children at her side.
Under the cover of night, surrounded by the chomites, Anabeel made the journey back to the village of Mournburn. She was proud of what she had achieved, and surely the village would welcome her. Her chomites would be indispensable in defending the village from its many enemies.
She bade her army wait while she climbed the porch steps and tried the door. It was locked—there had been no lock when she’d lived there as a child. She rapped on the door. A bolt slid across and the door opened to reveal her mother and father. Behind them, the glow of a warm fire lit the interior of the farmhouse. They both looked much older than she remembered, stooped, their hair now grey and faces lined with wrinkles.
They were still her parents. Overjoyed to see them, she rushed to embrace them.
They backed away through the door, their eyes wide with terror. She followed them, squeezing her massive bulk through the doorframe. “It’s me, Anabeel, your daughter.”
Her mother’s mouth yawned in a soundless scream.
“You killed our daughter,” her father roared. He took an axe leaning against the wall and raised it to strike her.
“No,” Anabeel screamed raising her front legs in defence.
He brought the blade down and hacked off a leg. Her mother’s scream found voice, joined too by Anabeel’s.
Enraged, her father swung the axe again and severed another leg. She was on the ground now, a milky white puddle spreading out beneath her. “I am Anabeel,” she begged. The axe was raised for a killing blow.
The house became alive with her children. They streamed through the doors and crashed through the windows, burying her parents beneath their numbers. Anabeel screamed and sobbed, pleading with her offspring to leave them alone, but the chomites would not stop. Their queen had been threatened. She lay there, helpless, listening to them feed, and wept. When they’d finished she dragged herself to her parents’ corpses. Nothing left but bones picked clean.
She knew she was different now, no longer Anabeel, the girl, but Anabeel, the chomite queen. All that mattered to her was her children. The villagers would seek revenge for the murder of her parents.
“Kill them all! Leave nothing alive!” she said in the strange language of clicks the chomites used to communicate. She dragged herself through the house and down into the darkness of the cellar. Her limbs would grow back, and in time, she would fill the fields of Mournburn with her offspring.
Szat raised his hand to fling a fireball at the monstrosity. “No, not yet,” Morwen hissed and grabbed at his arm. She was not threatened by the monster despite it having the body of a chomite killing machine—legs like sabres and plated armour.
“At last,” the monster said. Stooped nearly double she began to rise as if Morwen’s presence was renewing her.
“Who are you?” Morwen asked.
“The queen…I am Queen of the Chomites…” She paused. Her stare glazed over as she added, “And a woman.”
“You don’t look much like a woman.” Morwen moved closer to inspect the armoured body and spiked legs.
“More like a demon,” Szat added undiplomatically.
“Yes, I was cursed. Anabeel was my name, and I lived in the nearby village with my parents. When I was a girl, one of the chomites captured me, and his dying queen imbued me with her power.” The stairs creaked behind Morwen as Goron shifted his bulk onto them. “It feels like a lifetime ago.” The queen dragged the swordlike tip of her leg across the stone. The harsh grating sound was magnified tenfold in the underground room. Morwen noticed there were similar marks on the surrounding stones. “I’ve done terrible things.”
“The village?”
“Yes, and I killed my parents.”
Morwen shrugged. “We’ve all thought about killing our parents.”
Another creak on the stairs—Goron was no cat.
The queen watched Morwen intently. “I don’t want to live with the guilt of what I’ve done anymore, but I can’t abandon my children. They need a strong queen, somebody that will ensure their survival and help them grow, not someone who hides in a dark cellar, brooding and wallowing in sorrow and guilt.” The queen stopped worrying the stone. “I’ve waited a long time for someone like you, so I may join my parents.”
“Me? Why me?”
“I can give my power to you, and you could make the chomites strong again.”
Power, the word rang in Morwen’s ears. Thoughts whirled in her mind as a world of new possibilities opened up. The queen and the chomites didn’t appear to be affected by dark rot. She looked formidable too—Morwen could pull that off. And imagine what she could do with an army of loyal foot soldiers. “I’ll do it,” she said enthusiastically.
“Wooh, hang on a minute. What’ll become of me? Who will feed me?” Szat said.
“Shut up, you’ll still get fed,” Morwen hissed.
Szat’s round eyes narrowed to slits at the brisk tone. “That’s okay then, just so long as it’s not bugs and vegetables,” he said sulkily.
The queen scraped a step closer to Morwen. It was obvious from the stiffness of her legs, she had not moved for some time. She was still magnificent though—the stuff of nightmares. Morwen couldn’t wait—she was sure her head would look more attractive on the chomite body, though.
“What do I have to do?” she asked.
“Receive my gift.” The queen’s mouth opened, and a long proboscis unfurled from its depths. “This may be a little uncomfortable, but when you wake the transformation process will have begun.”
Morwen crossed her legs tightly and grimaced. “Oh, what the hell, it’ll be worth it. She hitched up her robe and began to take down her knickers.
The queen’s lips curled in disgust. “No, it doesn’t go in there. It goes in your mouth.”
“Oh. Well, that’s much better.” Morwen opened her mouth instead and closed her eyes. It wouldn’t be as unpleasant, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to see what was about to be done to her. The thought occurred to her she was being very trus
ting. What if this was all an elaborate story, so the queen could devour her? She shrugged and kept her mouth open. You don’t gain anything without risk.
Something whizzed past her head. There was a sickening thud followed by a crash. Morwen’s eyes flew open. The queen was lying on the ground, dead, with Goron’s axe embedded in her head. Oh hell! She’d forgotten about Goron. Furious, eyes ablaze, Morwen swung around to confront the warrior. “You absolute shit,” she screeched. “That could have been the solution to all our problems. I could have protected Wichsault with my army and sent out chomites to find the source of the dark rot.”
Goron raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I think you would have enslaved us all.”
That sounded like her, Morwen agreed, but she wasn’t going to tell Goron that. “Where’s Caroc?” she asked her face still scrunched in a scowl.
“Upstairs making sure they don’t burst through the front door.”
“What a surprise.”
Goron took an axe to the eggs. Morwen couldn’t watch; it was like killing babies. Instead, she glanced at the queen and wondered fleetingly if Anabeel found the peace she sought. When his grisly task was finished, they searched for another exit from the cellar. The space had obviously been dug out for storage only. Dejected, they returned to Caroc who, as Goron said, still leant against the huge wardrobe.
“You were down there a while, find a casket of wine?” he asked.
“If I had, I would have drowned Goron in it,” Morwen muttered.
“And I would have let you, so I didn’t have to spend another minute in your company,” Goron retorted. Morwen shot him an angry glare that switched to Szat when the demon sniggered.
Goron peeked through a gap in the window. “There are hundreds of them out there. Any idea what we’re going to do?”
Morwen maintained a sullen silence, but a jet of flame shot out of Szat’s hand. “We set fire to the fields and burn them all,” he said.
Goron shoved the wardrobe away from the door. Once the heavy obstacle was removed, the weight of the chomites, crowded against the door, flung it wide open. Two of them burst through, desperate to protect their queen. Goron was ready. A swing of his axe cut both in two. He charged out onto the porch, dodged a thrust from a leg, and put down another three.
Morwen thought she’d better help and sliced into the inside of her forearm. The warm blood ran over her hand and dripped from her fingers. She sucked up the surrounding shadows and released two shadow bolts in quick succession. The bolts struck the two remaining chomites. One crashed into the porch railing, and the other sailed over the top of it and thumped down into the grass. Others hurried to take their place. The companions had to move quickly, or they would be overwhelmed. “Light it up,” Morwen yelled to Szat.
The demon fired off a succession of fireballs over the porch into the dry grass. It lit up like a tinderbox shooting up flames ten feet high. Dozens of chomites were caught in the blaze. Panicked, they lurched around spreading the fire. One ran into the barn. The flames spread rapidly through the dry timber and turned the building into an inferno.
The companions watched as the flames spread and enveloped the army of chomites.
“Someone should have done this years ago,” Caroc said.
Morwen couldn’t be as excited as Caroc. She felt a sense of loss as the chomites died—they could have been hers. Something else concerned her. The wind had changed, and the flames had altered direction, blowing back to the farmhouse.
Morwen could feel the intense heat bite at her skin. To remain on the porch or retreat inside the farmhouse’s wooden walls would be certain death. They needed to flee. Conveniently, the blaze was heading to their next destination.
They vaulted over the porch and joined the fleeing chomites—hostilities forgotten. The fire matched their stride. A chomite, its wings smouldering, passed Morwen. Behind her, she could hear terrible, high-pitched screams as the slower chomites were overtaken by the flames. She turned around and saw Goron was only feet from the flames himself. His muscled frame was built for bursts of speed, not endurance. To her surprise, the fleet-footed Caroc offered to carry the warrior’s backpack for him.
Morwen fared little better than Goron. Her own burdens slowed her down considerably. “Aren’t you fireproof?” she asked the demon clinging to her back.
“Naturally, but I don’t want to have to walk.” Morwen made to put Szat down. “Don’t even think about it.” The demon leaned in close. “Or I’ll tell Goron I saw you checking him out when he went for a swim in the river.”
There wasn’t that far to go. She was sure she could make it. The houses of the dead, as large as any of the houses in Mournburn, rose out of the grass ahead, such luxury just for bones.
She wasn’t sure Goron was going to make it. Caroc was practically dragging him. The warrior breathed in great gasps. “Drop the axe, it’s slowing you down too much.” Goron still had energy enough to glare back at Morwen. The hem of his cloak caught alight as the fire bit at his feet. It gave the warrior the boost he needed, and the three of them hurdled the rusty iron fence into the cemetery with its houses and lanes of stone.
The wind, in league with the fire, blew sparks and smoke over the fence at them, but stone can’t burn. The three collapsed on the cool ground, letting its chill seep into them. They stayed like that until they couldn’t stand the burning of their parched throats and searched their packs for their waterskins.
It was then that Morwen noticed a chomite had also managed to outrun the blaze. It had jumped the fence and sat on top of a tomb adorned with a statue of Night Mother Odia. The chomite’s stunted wings had been burnt off and steam rose from the shell. The cooked meat gave off a sweet fragrant smell. How fitting, thought Morwen, the last of its kind throwing itself on the mercy of the night mother.
The chomite made a low whining sound as the three approached and lifted its front legs to rise but fell back down. “It’s suffering. We should do something to help it,” Caroc said.
Goron raised his axe and lopped of its head. The chomite’s legs twitched once, and it was still. Caroc opened his mouth to say something, but Goron walked away to examine the graves.
Morwen followed, keeping her own pace, and inspected the tombs. The bigger the tomb the more important the person. She stopped by the mausoleum of Siwan the Ninth High Exarch of Wichsault. It boasted fifteen-foot-high columns carved into the intricate shapes of demons.
“Bones inside, just like everyone else. I don’t see the point,” Caroc said sidling silently up to her.
“It’s so people know how important you were in life…that you did great things and were respected and feared.” Morwen was almost looking forward to being buried here herself in a particularly large and magnificent mausoleum, so people would be humbled by her importance. She’d already made a few preliminary sketches of the building she had in mind. It could house a whole village and its livestock. She doubted now that it would ever become a reality unless they found out the cause of the sickness that infected Wichsault.
Caroc shrugged, not impressed.
“So you’re happy for your body to rot under a tree somewhere? Gone, forever forgotten.” Morwen snapped.
“I had hoped I would be remembered by my deeds,” Caroc said his eyes downcast.
“I don’t think there’s any chance of that.”
The two continued the melancholy walk in silence and found themselves at the same tomb as Goron. Goron read from a plaque on the wall, “Here is imprisoned Piran Fourteenth High Exarch of Wichsault.”
Morwen was surprised that Goron could read.
“Do you think he’s really still alive?” Goron asked. He grasped the iron bars of the gate and stared quizzically down the stairs which emitted a strange blue glow.”
“In a way, necromancers don’t die, not like we do. When natural death occurs they become lichs,” Morwen said.
Morwen was sure Caroc knew the story and simply wanted to delay going into the tomb, but she humoured him anyway. “Piran was a necromancer. The act of necromancy was strictly forbidden in Wichsault. When the Sisters of Murdus found out about his midnight jaunts to the graveyard, they imprisoned him in the catacombs, and he’s been there ever since.”
“Does he really have an undead army down there with him?” Caroc asked.
“What else would a necromancer do with his time while imprisoned in a graveyard?” Morwen tried the rusted iron gate. It was locked.
“Do you really need this staff?” Caroc asked. He’d gone very pale and the familiar tremble in his hands was back.
“It’s mine by rights, and we will need it for the trials ahead.” She tapped the gate with her dagger. “If you’d put those muscles of yours to some practical use, Goron, and get the gate open
Goron gave the gate a kick. It fell over and clanked down the stairs.
The three descended. The twisting stairway led to a tarnished bronze door from which a faint blue light emanated.
Morwen reached out to push the door open.
Goron grabbed her firmly by the wrist. “It’s magic,” he warned.
“No magic that will affect us. It’s a ward on the door to keep the necromancer and his dead trapped within the catacombs.” She brushed his hand aside and pushed with both hands. The door grated on stone as it swung open, and sour air rushed past them. Szat’s hands lit up the darkness.
Siarl shuffled down the long corridor. The stone beneath his feet was smooth, sculpted by centuries of his passing. His eyes were on the puffs of dust, a medley of corpses and stone, that floated around him and settled softly on all the surfaces in these halls of death.
“Everywhere,” he muttered deftly flicking a soiled cloth at the yellowed bones that rested in the recesses of the corridor. The dust motes took flight like a flock of startled birds only to resettle as the wizened figure passed by with his undead retinue.