“I can try that spell I used during their first attack,” Morgan said. “But honestly, I’ve never used it before. I have no idea if I can do it a second time, or how many I’d take out with it.”
“Still, that’s about half,” Cordelia said. “We can take half.”
“Not to be Debbie Downer here, but we can only see the fifty-seven of them in this room,” Jack said. He pointed toward the different doors below them. “Who knows how many are just out of sight but within earshot.”
“I’m beginning to understand why you say the ghouls need to be culled,” Morgan said to Murtok.
“I don’t understand why he’s done this,” Murtok said. “Constian used to show more restraint. This is uncalled for. It’s irresponsible.”
Jack fiddled with his new bow and brushed his hood back away from his eyes.
“Maybe we can go around them,” Jack said.
“There were no branching paths before this aside from the deep run where the river flows through,” Murtok said. “It’s how we made it this far so quietly. I’m not sure if my kin don’t know this tunnel leads outside, or if they find it inconvenient, but they don’t use this pathway.”
“What if I charge in, berserker-style, and see how many I can get to chase me?” Cordelia said.
“That’s a terrible idea,” Morgan said.
“I know. I’m setting the bar low,” she said. “Also, I’m not hearing any better ideas.”
“This is awesome,” Morgan said. “Our friends are going to be eaten like veal because we can’t come up with a plan.”
“Hey, Eriko, anything to contribute?” Jack said, looking over his shoulder.
At nothing. Eriko was gone.
“Are you goddamned kidding me,” Jack said.
“Where did she go?” Morgan said.
“I’m going to kill her. I’m literally going to kill her,” Cordelia said.
Murtok held up a hand, then pointed at the stone wall. Faintly, with the edge of a blade, a few words had been scratched into the stonework.
They read: “Idea. Need 10 min. Wait.”
“I’ll go get her,” Jack said.
“No,” Morgan said. “Give her the time. She’s reckless but she’s smart. We know this.”
“She split the party again,” Cordelia said.
“We’re already split,” Jack said. “This is more like asunder.”
“So, what do we do?” Cordelia said.
“I think we wait and see what our rogue has up her sleeve,” Morgan said.
Chapter 15: Bait
The sky had truly opened up by the time Eriko made her way back out of the tunnel, dumping a heavy rain down onto the town square. Pulling her hood up over her rain-flattened mohawk, she pulled the two short, curved daggers from her belt and walked silently, but almost brazenly, up the leaf-covered slope toward the town.
It was a short trek, and without working to stay hidden, she arrived quickly, the large central building where the prisoners were being kept rising more clearly under the gray near-light of day than it had been the night before. Everything about the town was gray, she thought. Gray mud, gray buildings, a hopeless gray mood draped like an ugly blanket over the whole place.
As she strode boldly into the street, she heard the distinctive half-crazed sound of a ghoul running her way. She sensed, in her supernaturally roguish way, exactly where the threat was coming from, and danced out of the way without ever looking at the creature, lashing out with one dagger to open its throat, planting the other into the ghoul’s eye. She left the body on the street twitching in the mud.
She felt no fear. She couldn’t tell if it was from knowing that most of the ghouls seemed to be gathering underground, possibly to hide from the growing light of day. Perhaps it was simply not caring about her own safety, the weight of knowing Tamsin and Tobias were in danger outweighing her self-preservation instincts. In either case, her pulse never even seemed to spike. Let them come, she thought. I’m here with a plan.
She heard more ghoulish heavy breathing and trotted out of the street to stand quietly against a nearby building. She traded one dagger for a throwing knife from her belt, and as soon as one of the creatures turned the corner, spotting the bleeding corpse of its pack mate, Eriko let the knife fly, embedding it in the ghoul’s brain. Another undead beast, one Eriko hadn’t detected previously, tore around the corner and ran right for her. The knife pierced the creature’s skull but seemed to have no effect, comically sticking out of the ghoul’s forehead as it charged at her. She readied herself and, just as the ghoul reached striking distance, she sidestepped him, horse-collared him and opened his neck ear to ear.
And that is how you play a DPS class, man, she thought, recovering her throwing knives and slipping them back into her belt. Rogue for the win.
She darted to the front door of the town hall and examined the way it had been barred shut. She used her dagger to pry open the first of several wooden planks that had been nailed on either side to keep the door closed, not particularly caring how much noise she made as the wood splinted and snapped. After yanking several planks free, letting them clatter to the ground loudly, she found what she suspected might be underneath—a clunky, but effective, metal lock sealing the door.
Rogue stuff, Eriko, you got this, she thought, drawing her lock-picking tools from the pouch where she kept them. She set to work, relying on feel and the faint sounds of metal on metal as she worked the rough, inelegant lock, looking over her shoulder for roaming ghouls while she tinkered. Finally, there was a soft click and the lock came loose in her hand. She threw it into the street angrily and yanked the door open.
Inside, there was nothing but darkness. The smell of frightened humanity was palpable, though, ugly and acrid in the silence.
“Hello?” Eriko said. “Who’s in here?”
An older man, a long, matted gray beard framing his face, turned the corner, his eyes haunted.
“Who are you?” he said.
“It doesn’t matter. You need to get out of here,” she said.
The old man eyed her suspiciously. Eriko threw up her hands.
“Do I look undead? You gotta get out of here. There isn’t much time,” Eriko said.
The man looked as if he might speak, but then he disappeared back around the corner he’d emerged from. When he returned, he held the hand of the small girl Eriko had seen earlier. Behind them, several more children, a young woman around Eriko’s age, and an older woman, haggard but sturdy, followed. More children followed, older ones carrying or leading the younger children. They all looked tired, terrified, and hungry, pale with bruise-colored bags under their eyes.
“Go on,” Eriko said. ‘Get out of here.”
“What about you,” the young woman asked.
Eriko tried to offer her a reassuring smile, but she couldn’t bring one to her face. I could use a little bit of reassurance myself, she thought.
“I’m going to get the monsters’ attention so you can escape,” she said.
“There’s too many,” the older woman said.
“I have friends,” Eriko thought. Not here, but… “Just go on. I’ll be fine.”
The group of survivors ran out the front door and headed into the forest nearby. Eriko waited until they were all out of sight before she started looking for what she needed.
Inside the town hall, she found several half-used lanterns, each with a bit of flammable fluid sloshing around inside. She smashed these on the front steps of the hall, took a deep breath, then ripped a bit of curtain from one window and drew her tinderbox from her belt pouch.
“This is so stupid,” she thought as she sparked the flame and lit the curtain on fire.
She threw the burning fabric onto the front steps where the lantern fluid waited hungrily.
The fire came to life easily.
Eriko darted around into the alley between buildings and scampered up to the landing on the second floor where she’d first seen the little girl inside the window
. Cupping her hands over her mouth, she started yelling.
“I stole your lunch, you stupid zombies!” she said. “What are you going to do about it?”
Ducking low, she waited, hoping the creatures would take the bait. It didn’t take long until she heard their hissing voices growing closer.
A lot of them.
I think I just got myself killed, she thought. She tried to take comfort in knowing she’d set the town folk free, but she knew, in her heart of hearts, she had too much of a sense of self-preservation for that.
I don’t want to die here, she thought. Come on, guys. Get our friends and get out. I’m gonna need you.
Chapter 16: Treasure trove
Tamsin was lost.
Really lost. This was like one of those levels in a video game where you had to remember which turns to take to get out or else you kept circling back to the same rooms. When she played those games, she’d look up a tutorial online and write down the instructions, not even bothering to try to figure out the puzzle herself. She hated those levels.
And now she was living in one.
Being lost was concern number one. Concern number two was that she could not remember how long her invisibility spell would last. Or did it last as long as she chose to maintain it? If it was the former, would it simply drop without warning? If so I guarantee it’ll happen while I’m was sneaking past a group of ghouls, she thought.
And the third concern was that she had abandoned her brother to the ghouls, probably to be eaten, and she had no idea if she could find her friends fast enough to mount a rescue mission.
I should go back, she thought. Yes, the smart thing to do would be to go find the others. Together we might be able to stop these creatures from turning Tobias into veal cutlets. But I’m lost, and he’s alone, and…
She turned a corner and entered an alcove that was nothing like she expected.
I think I found their treasure trove, she thought.
There were bags of gold coins, opened at the top to display their contents, the sacks as big as bags of grain. Sealed crates lined one wall with no indication what they might hold. Beautiful weapons were strewn about like toys. And in one corner, stacks of books.
Books, she thought.
Without thinking, she cast a spell that would identify magical properties in objects, and immediately, a dozen items in the room began to glow. Among them was one of the books, a leather-bound tome she immediately snatched up and tucked into her satchel, the runes on the cover glimmering with golden light as she picked it up. For good measure, she added two more books to her bag as well, even though they did not react to the spell the same way. A shield, leaning against the crates, glowed as well, its face adorned with a fanged beast. Tamsin found it almost too heavy to pick up, so she set it aside. A small leather pouch lit up, which she opened to peer inside of. It contained gems and a few pieces of jewelry, but she didn’t have the time to figure out what was magical or what that magic did, so she simply tucked the pouch into a hidden pocket in her cloak.
A single dagger, jammed into the wooden frame of a box, glowed brightly, straight-edged with a sculpted bird’s head for the hilt. She yanked it from the box and closed her eyes, trying to sense what sort of magic it offered. She knew instinctively it was a fighter’s weapon, not a wizard’s magical focus, but she slipped it into her belt anyway.
A few of the larger weapons she knew she couldn’t wield effectively lit up as well, but she left them. Useless for herself, and who knew if she’d find Morgan or Cordelia soon enough to use them.
And then she noticed a small leather case gleaming from within.
Anxiously, she approached it, looking over her shoulder to see if any ghouls had noticed her ransacking their trove. Still alone, she took a breath and snapped open the case.
Within was a magic wand that looked like it had been made just for her. An elegant handle, hand-carved to have an almost scale-like quality and ending in what was clearly the pointed tooth of a huge reptilian creature. The shaft of the wand coiled like a tight spiral. It gave off a fiery reddish-gold light under her spell.
“Vine. Ten and three-quarters inches. Dragon heartstring,” she said. “Okay, I’m just guessing, but that’s what I’m going to tell myself it’s made of.”
She picked it up and gave it a few swings with a twitch of her wrist. Closing her eyes again, she tried to understand the magic it contained better, and this time she had more luck than she had with the dagger. Immediately she understood what it was for.
“My friends are going to think I’m a pyromaniac if this keeps up,” she said, gripping her new wand tightly. “You’re a wand of fire control, aren’t you my new friend? Yes, you are.”
Don’t cuddle the wand, Tamsin, she thought. Do not hug your wand. No one at Hogwarts ever hugged their wand.
Okay, she thought. I have a wand of “burn this place to the ground,” a magic knife, I’m invisible, and my brother’s in trouble. Time to go get him. Steeling herself, she started to leave the alcove and head back to where she’d come from.
Something tackled her from behind, throwing a bag over her head and sending her into darkness.
Panicked, she felt her invisibility spell begin to slip, but she fought to maintain control. She threw an elbow at whatever it was that attacked her, but she hit only cloth. Rolling over, kicking her feet, she separated herself from her attacker and prepared a lightning bolt spell, stealth or no stealth.
Floating in the air in front of her was a sky-blue cloak with no wearer.
“Are you kidding me,” Tamsin said, biting her tongue as she realized she’d spoken out loud.
The cloak leaped at her again. Tamsin bolted backward, but the cape was too fast. But this time, instead of covering her head, it wrapped itself around her shoulders, coiling like a particularly well-behaved cat.
“This is not acceptable,” she told the cloak, but it remained. I swear it just purred, she thought. Great, I’ve found a knockoff of Doctor Strange’s cloak, too. “Okay, look, cape. If you’re going to hang out with me, you’re going to have to pull your weight, okay?”
The cloak hummed as if to signal its approval.
“We’re going to go save my brother. If you don’t want to come with me, that’s fine, but you better decide now, because I can’t have you getting in the way or backing out later.”
Again, a hum of approval.
“Can you do anything interesting? Cast spells? Banish ghouls to another dimension?”
No response.
“Okay, whatever. Just… you do your thing when I need you to, okay? We have a deal?”
The cloak rippled in a way that strangely seemed like a nod.
“Well then,” Tamsin said, squaring her shoulders. “Now I just need to figure out where they took my brother.”
The cloak, hearing this, lifted one corner of its fabric and pointed down the hall to Tamsin’s left.
“That way?”
An affirmative ripple.
“Well, cape, you’ve already proven your worth, then,” she said. “Lead on.”
Chapter 17: Hungry for five hundred years
Morgan, Cordelia, Jack, and Murtok stood in a very awkward silence, waiting for some sign of what Eriko was up to. Cordelia’s body language became more and more aggressive the longer the silence went on; twice Morgan reached out and grabbed Jack by the sleeve of his armor as the ranger tried to slink off to go find their friend.
“Don’t,” Morgan said. Why am I always the voice of reason around here? He thought. At some point one of these chuckleheads needs to step up. Particularly these two, Morgan thought angrily. Jack could be mostly counted upon except where his hero complex kicked in, like now, and Cordelia needed to rein in whatever anger issues becoming an orc barbarian has done to her mental state. Back home, she was always a voice of reason, but she’d become less and less reliable, at least when patience was involved, the longer they were trapped in the game.
Finally, Jack broke the silence.
“How did you do it?” he asked, whispering to Murtok.
The ghoul hunter seemed to be caught off guard, cocking his head at Jack curiously.
“Do what?” he said, also keeping his voice low so the creatures down the hallway wouldn’t hear.
“I know that eventually you regained your consciousness, your human memories,” Jack said. “But clearly the others still… y’know.”
“Ate people,” Murtok offered.
“I wasn’t going to say it quite so bluntly, but yeah,” Jack said.
Murtok took a moment to consider the question, his grayish brow furrowing.
“I have been hungry for five hundred years,” he said.
“That legitimately sucks,” Cordelia blurted out.
“You haven’t eaten for five hundred years?” Morgan said, trying to keep the shock out of his voice and failing.
“No, I’ve eaten,” Murtok said. “I hunt. Deer or elk. I fish. I try to sustain myself as I did in life. And it helps a little bit. This immortal body does take some sustenance from animal flesh. I can even eat bread, fruits and vegetables, just like I did in life. And it helps somewhat, briefly. But the curse has made it so my body is never satiated unless…”
“Unless you eat humans,” Jack said.
“Sentient beings,” Murtok said. “We don’t discriminate. Elves, dwarves, orcs, gnomes, catfolk, anything that speaks and thinks as a human would will suffice, because they are beings we never would have consumed in life. It’s the cruelty the curse requires. The disgust in ourselves.”
“Wait, hang on—catfolk?” Cordelia asked.
“Is now really the time to ask for a zoology lesson, Cordie?” Morgan said.
“Talking cats, Morgan,” Cordelia said. “You know how I feel about cats. A talking cat is my worst nightmare.”
“They’re really a nice people, on the whole,” Murtok said, his casual tone almost comical. “They don’t get along with the ratfolk, but…”
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