Legion of the Undead

by Michael Whitehead

  “You know there was an animal track that runs alongside the stream, don’t you?” he asked, genuine amusement in his voice. The other two boys remained silent, letting Horst’s quiet laughter go unchallenged.

  Harold settled himself into the fork of one of the largest branches. He found that if he hooked a leg over one side, the curve of the tree limb held him in place like a hammock. He wasn’t sure how comfortable he might be if they stayed up in the tree all night, but for now he was fine.

  He looked down at the dead thing on the ground. Its rotten, grey face stared back up at him, goading him with its blackened eyes and mouth full of broken teeth. He wished they had thought to move it, or at least cover its face.

  He wondered what it might be, was it really a demon? If it was, that would make the three of them heroes back at the village. He imagined the respect they would get when word got out that they had killed a demon on their test. People of every tribe would speak of it across Germania. Their reputations would be such that they would never have to prove themselves again.

  He lay back on the branch, smelling the night air and listening to the forest. At first, it was silent, then he heard the insects, the night birds, the movement of small animals in the undergrowth. Before long he realised that the silence he had heard before had never really been there at all.

  At some point, he must have drifted off into sleep. He woke from a dream where he had been falling. Grey hands had reached out to him, not to help him but to grab him. He had fallen, tumbling over and over, the hands grasping and pulling at him. Then he had jolted awake, wondering where he was and how he had gotten into the tree.

  The night had turned cold and his feet were numb. A shiver ran through him and he wondered if it might be safe to climb down and bank up the fire. He looked across at the other two boys, they were both asleep, and Harold cursed himself, for their stupidity at not setting a watch. Their fathers would stripe their hides for their foolishness, of that he had no doubt.

  Careful not to move too far and fall out of his branch, he twisted so that he could look down. The clearing was filled with a rolling fog that obscured everything below him. It swirled in the night breeze, giving it a look of the sea. The moon lent the mist a silver sheen, and in the centre of the clearing a soft orange glow marked the remains of their fire. To Harold it looked like he could reach down from his perch and scoop up a handful of cloud.

  Something moved at the far side of the clearing. Harold held his breath, watching to see if it had really happened, or if it had been a trick of the dying fire. A darker patch of grey drifted toward him, nothing more than a shadow. He waited, eyes trained on the shade below. It wandered closer, floating in the sea of mist.

  A breeze cleared the fog a little, rolling it away only for it to be swept in once more. As it parted, he saw another of the demons. It did not see him, it was walking, head down, seemingly with no idea where it was going. Harold watched it pass beneath him, his stomach turning to ice.

  Another shadow followed the first, then another and another. The demons followed each other in a silent parade of death. Their decaying flesh hung with tattered remains of clothing. He saw a woman in what remained of a dress, a man followed her, hung in a tunic that was torn down one side, on their heels came a huge man in the uniform of a Roman legionary.

  Harold slowly released his breath, feeling his heart hammering in his chest. It sounded so loud in the misty silence that he was sure the demons must hear him and look up. If they did, all would be lost.

  The procession of monsters seemed endless, they followed each other soundlessly, without deviating from their path. A young girl, no older than his own sister’s seven summers, moved amid the demons. Her head was twisted to one side, as if her neck had been broken, still she walked on.

  As she reached the orange glow in the centre of the clearing, she simply walked through without stopping. She continued on toward the far side of the clearing, carrying the light of the fire with her. Harold couldn’t see her now, but the orange aura grew as her dress burned.

  Horst stirred, grunting in his sleep, then settling down once more. Harold felt a fist of fear squeeze his insides. He watched the march of the dead, waiting to see if they had heard.

  A woman’s face looked up from the mist, staring straight in to the tree. Her eyes were blackened, depthless pits and Harold saw their death in them. She stopped with no expression on her face but blank wonder.

  Harold held his breath, not daring to move a muscle, and silently praying to any of the gods that might be listening to keep his friends still. If one of them woke at this moment, their lives would be measured in seconds.

  She stared for the longest time, seemingly unable to distinguish them from the tree branches in the darkness. Harold’s chest burned and he was sure that he would have to gasp out and give them all away. Then below him another of the walking demons bumped into the staring woman. She seemed to forget why she was looking up, and moved on.

  Harold buried his mouth against his shoulder and released his breath. He panted in and out, feeling the pressure on his chest slacken with every intake of air. Below him, the silent demons walked on.

  He had no idea how long he lay there, cradled by the tree, but eventually the demons passed. First the main procession, at one point so thick that they were knocking each other to the ground as they moved between the trees, then they thinned. Finally in ones and twos, before Harold dared to believe they had all gone.

  He waited, waited, waited for the longest time, unable to imagine that so many of the creatures had been beneath him. Unbelieving that none of them had looked up and seen them in the tree. Maybe, he thought, Horst was right, the demons could not see so well in the darkness. Either way, the gods had looked over them.

  “Hey! Gervin!” he hissed through clenched teeth. He cringed as he heard the sound of his own whispers and braced himself against the sudden appearance of more of the monsters. Nothing happened and Gervin slept on, cradled by the limbs of the huge oak.

  “Gervin! Horst!” he tried again. This time both boys stirred, but neither woke. Finally, not wanting to make any more noise than he had to, Harold reached to take one of his boots from where they dangled over the branch next to him. He loosened the leather ties and slipped it from its place.

  The throw was short, and even from his recumbent position, aiming was easy. He swung the boot by its tie, and it hit Gervin on the side of the face. There was a moment, as Gervin woke with a start, that Harold thought he might slip from his place and crash to the ground. Instinct made his friend reach out and grab a branch to steady himself, however. He looked around, saw Harold staring at him, then rubbed the side of his face.

  “What did you do that for?” he asked, his eyes a daze of half-sleep.

  “There were more of the demons” Harold whispered.

  Gervin twisted, trying to look below him, as if he might see the creatures.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “They were here. They walked right underneath us. I was scared to death.”

  “How many were there?” Horst asked, his voice thick with sleep. Harold turned to see him still with his eyes closed.

  “I couldn’t count so many, they were like a swarm, or an army. They followed each other like sheep.”

  Horst opened his eyes and lifted his head, “Which direction did they go?”

  Harold pointed across the mist shrouded clearing, between two heavy trees. “They came from over there and headed through there,” he pointed to a gap in the wall of low samplings and undergrowth.

  “Do you think there might be more?” Gervin asked.

  Harold thought but the answer seemed obvious. “I’d guess there must be,” he said.

  They lapsed in to silence, each boy coming to terms with their predicament. Harold found his eyes drifting back across the clearing, watching the space where the demons had entered. A chill gripped his heart at the thought of seeing more of the creatures.

  “What do we do?�
�� he asked.

  “We could wait here, until our fathers come and find us,” Gervin offered, quickly looking abashed at a glare from Horst.

  “I will not wait to be rescued like a child,” he growled through gritted teeth.

  “Then what?” Harold asked. “We can’t fight them, not as many as there were. We barely managed to kill that one.” He pointed down beneath them where, as if the gods were listening, a strong gust of wind cleared away some of the mist to show the dead demon. He still lay on the grass but thankfully one of his kind must have fallen over him, or kicked his head so that it had rolled to one side, and the eyes no longer stared up at them.

  “Then we hide and we run, there is no shame in it,” Horst barked back. “Our fathers would do the same. We wait until first light, and carry on with our journey. I still plan on being first back to the village, nothing has changed.”

  Harold wanted to argue with him, to tell him that everything had changed. He didn’t know what these demons really were, but he had seen something tonight that had changed his world. Monsters were real, not just things that the bards sang about around the fire, or puppets that were used to tell stories at festivals.

  “If they find us, we will die,” he said simply. The other two boys were silent for a moment, each feeling the words, tasting them.

  “It has to be better than sitting in a tree and starving,” Horst said, the anger gone from his voice. Gervin nodded, wordlessly giving consent.

  “I’ll watch until dawn,” Horst added. “Get some more sleep, if you can.”

  Neither Gervin, nor Harold argued. They lay back, trying to fall back to sleep after the excitement and fear of what had just happened. Harold stared up through the branches of the oak, watching the stars as they looked back down at him. He hoped the gods were watching him, hoped that they would help if they could, and that he might die well if it came to that.

  Despite Harold not knowing he had closed his eyes, Horst shook him awake. The mist had cleared and the morning was much colder than the night before. His feet felt like they had no blood in them and he reached across to slip his boots on. They were still damp from their walk in the stream but he had borne worse discomfort.

  He dropped from the tree and paced the edge of the clearing, silently checking for demons. When he was sure that they were alone he spoke to Gervin’s back as his friend dropped to the ground.

  “How much of the meat is there left?”

  “Enough for one good meal each,” came the answer that made his heart sink.

  The test was supposed to be about surviving by themselves, Gervin shouldn’t have brought the food at all, but most fathers cheated a little and sent something with their sons. They could have trapped a rabbit or other small animal easily enough, they had all been taught such things long ago, but now they might be the hunted as well as the hunters and that left little time to gather food.

  “We should save it for tonight,” Horst said, dropping between them.

  “What if we don’t get chance to eat it later?” Gervin asked. “I would rather start the day with a full stomach. If we have to sleep without a fire tonight, we will be starving.”

  Horst thought about it for a moment, then turned to Harold with an unasked question on his face.

  “The fire is still glowing,” he said. “It would only take moments to get it going again, maybe Gervin’s right.”

  Horst shrugged, resigning himself to being outnumbered, and turned to find wood for the fire. Harold gathered a few smaller twigs and cleared the layer of grey ash from around the glowing centre of the fire. The fire caught easily and within minutes they were sitting around it, cooking the last of the beef and catching as much of the heat as they could with their cold bones.

  Within the hour the three boys headed out from the clearing. They picked up the animal track that Horst had used the day before, weary of noise or movement. The canopy of trees grew denser as the track moved away from the running water, first mottling the forest floor with shadows, then darkening it completely.

  Soon the sound of the water was nothing but a faint hiss to their left, but the track did seem to be running parallel to the stream.

  “I’m worried,” Gervin said, his voice loud in the murky silence. “My father said we had to follow the stream. If we get too far away from it, we might not find it again.”

  Horst snorted and laughed, “What would you rather have us do? Wade in the water like a trio of ducks?” He stopped and took a moment to look about, checking they were still alone. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “We need to eat tonight, and think about tomorrow. We don’t have time to fish, so the best we can hope for is that we cross paths with something we can kill on this track. The only hope of us doing that is if you stay silent. Now walk carefully and stop talking.”

  The three of them set off along the path, Horst in front and Gervin bringing up the rear. Harold turned back to his friend, wanting to make light of Horst’s harsh words, but one look at his face made him stop. Gervin had a look of hatred in his eyes that a joke, even a harmless one, might make worse. The three of them needed each other and would just have to learn how to get along.

  His father had told him there were many men in the village that he disliked. He had also said that he had learned to trust those men, in battle and while hunting. A warrior didn’t need to like his fellows to understand that he needed them, it was a lesson that both Horst and Gervin would have to learn.

  Around midday, or as close to it as they could judge without the sun to aid them, they stopped for a break. They unslung water skins and silently lamented their lack of food. It was after they climbed back to their feet and resumed their journey that Horst disappeared.

  Harold was leading the way along the path, the boys having swapped about so that nobody spent too much time in front, or at the rear. The path began to slope downward, steep enough that Harold had to look for protruding tree roots to use as foot holds. The drop wasn’t long, nor particularly difficult, but as they reached the bottom he stopped to make sure everyone had made it to the bottom. It was then that they noticed there were only two of them.

  “Where is Horst?” he asked Gervin.

  “I don’t know,” his friend replied, looking puzzled. “He was here when we started down the hill, I heard him behind me.”

  “But you didn’t see him?” Harold asked, panic starting to settle in his stomach.

  “I...I don’t know,” Gervin said, his own anxiety showing on his face.

  Suddenly from above them, the sound of fighting broke the dusky silence. They both stared up the slope, then at each other, before they both drew their knives and started back up the path.

  It was much harder going on the way up. By the time they reached the middle point of the climb, both boys were out of breath. They could hear fighting but couldn’t see anything over the crest of the hill, panic began to take a grip on them. Finally, Harold reached the top, his lungs burning.

  Horst was on the path, his arms raised to ward of the snarling mouth of a demon. It was a girl, she was almost half the size of the boy beneath her but she fought with a frenzy that he seemed to be unable to ward off.

  As he reached the struggling pair, Harold realised he would be as likely to injure Horst as to harm the demon. Instead, he grabbed her shoulders and rolled her away from his prone friend.

  She tumbled to the ground, rising to her feet and coming in to attack almost immediately. Harold brought his knife across her in a slash, feeling the fine edge of the blade slice into the flesh of her face.

  Any man of his tribe, even the greatest warrior, would have been ended by such a wound, but the demon showed no sign of pain. The cut ran from the bridge of her nose and bisected her face along the cheekbone and across her ear. A thick flap of flesh opened and hung loose, thick black fluid drenching the remains of the child’s tunic she wore.

  She came back at him so quickly that he was almost caught off-guard. He managed a rudimentary defensive stroke, throwing o
ut his arm and sidestepping as he did. The thrust caught her off balance and she was carried past him to land on the ground once more.

  Horst ended the fight. He had managed to get to his feet while Harold was battling the demon. He had found a short, thick length of branch which he wielded like a club. There was a distinct cracking sound as he swung the makeshift weapon. Harold was unsure for a moment if the noise was made by the wood or the demons skull, then she crumpled to the ground and was still.

  The three boys stared at the demon child at their feet, all of them panting and out of breath, even Gervin who hadn’t actually fought as far as Harold knew. The moment held, nobody spoke, then there was the sound of a twig snapping in the trees to the side of the path. Harold had a vivid flash of memory from the previous night, the army of devils that had passed beneath him, then fear broke him.

  “Run!” he hissed, and fled before terror froze him where he stood. He headed down the path, his feet sliding in the spaces between the protruding roots. When he found anything he could use as a foothold he did little more than control his fall.

  As he reached the bottom, he dared a glance over his shoulder. The other two boys were halfway down the slope, followed by three more of the demons. Gervin was at the rear and was no more than an arm’s length from the grasping, clawing creature that followed him.

  Harold wanted so badly to run, to leave his friends to their fate and save his own life if he could, but honour and friendship held him in place. He gripped the handle of his blade, feeling the weight and knowing what he must do.

  Horst passed him, skidding to a halt and turning as well as he could manage while stumbling from his run down the slope. Harold felt rather than saw him take his stance and ready himself for the fight to come.

  As Gervin reached his friends, the gods favoured the boys. The lead monster tripped on a tree root, tumbling to the ground and spoiling the run of the two behind. The three demons tumbled the last few feet of the slope, landing in a heap.

  “Attack their heads,” Horst growled through clenched teeth.