by Ember Lane
“Oi!” said the man, but he didn’t protest too much, just dissolved into laughter.
He did have a big nose, hooked too, and now that Billy had said it Merl couldn’t stop staring at it.
“What?” the man challenged Merl. “What you looking at? What you doin’ here, anyway. You’re one of them, ain’t you. I can see yer shine.” He howled like a wolf during a full moon. “I can see yer shine—yer don’t fool me. I know who yer are.”
Desmelda grabbed the torch from Frank, and then grabbed Merl. “Follow me,” she said, striding deeper into the mine. “I’ll hear no more of this fool’s rambling.”
Merl stumbled after the witch, but Frank hesitated. “Will you be alright?” he asked.
Mushroom hopped into the cave. The man lunged, grabbing Mushroom’s stalk and pulling it close to his face. Gloomy Joe growled. Frank whipped around, smashing the Staff of Morrison White into the man’s side; however, the man sunk his teeth into Mushroom and tore a great bite free.
Merl looked back, swapped glances with Billy. Frank drew away, hesitating. Gloomy Joe carried on growling, and Quaiyl stood impassively by.
“What?” Desmelda snapped, looking back. “Oh no!”
Mushroom struck. Its fangs sped downward as its cap folded. They stabbed into the man’s back before any of them could move. A great scream of pain howled around the mine as Mushroom drained the man of his life.
“Mushroom!” Merl screamed, but the man’s body was already gone, sucked of its essence in one foul slurp.
They all swapped glances. Frank shrugged. Desmelda retched.
“Anyone want his hat?” Billy asked, staring down at the dried husk.
Mushroom straightened. Its fangs retracted and it stood dead still.
“I suppose he did murder Mushroom’s people,” Frank said.
“Never again,” Desmelda muttered. “Not a single mushroom will ever pass between my lips again. This, I swear.”
26
They followed the witch into the mine that wasn’t a mine at all. Frank guessed it was a smuggling route of some kind, though quite what purpose it had served eluded him. The sole idea of a smuggling route would be to avoid the lord’s—in this case, Deathpunch’s, port taxes, and as far as any of them could see, the great big estuary should have served that need well enough.
Billy had his theory. “Someone must ‘ave been stealin’ from the castle. I heard that them legendary lords had so much stuff they just plain fergot ‘bout half of it, so if you’d a mind and a neck that’d risk it, you could have away a small fortune. That’s what I heard, Merl, didn’t I?”
Merl wasn’t too impressed with the mine, tunnel, whatever it was, or what Billy had heard. He was more concerned with the ominous black hole they were just about to march into.
It was just wide enough to squeeze a couple of hand carts down, but not much more than that, and it was as damp as his tunic. Desmelda’s torchlight played merry havoc with its shadows, making the hewn rock look alive. It was the color of flesh too—which didn’t help—and made it exactly how Merl imagined walking into a monster’s throat would feel like. Not only that, but as it descended it got wetter and wetter.
Billy didn’t make things any better, just rambled on and on. “I heard they often had traps n’ stuff too—pits with spears at the bottom that would spear you up the what’s name as yer fell. That’s what I heard, like.”
What Billy heard tended to be things that had been spoken at least a hundred times over, and Merl knew every set of earholes heard things differently. By the time they got in Billy’s bonce, what was said was nothing like what was heard and the truth had been long cast aside. For all Merl knew, the lords could have been as poor as paupers and the tunnel just a tunnel, but he doubted it. “Perhaps it was an escape tunnel ‘case the castle got sieged or something.”
“P’raps it was, Merl,” Frank said, but Merl couldn’t tell if Frank was just mollifying him.
It didn’t really matter why the tunnel had been dug and carved. Whatever the reason, Merl still didn’t like it. It smelled like a damp wash rag, water was dripping from the walls, and the floor was littered with small puddles.
Great, big, jagged white stripes traveled along the rock at shoulder height. They looked like stains. Merl ran his finger along one, touching it to his tongue and recoiling. He remembered the tasted. It was salty, and he recalled having some salty meat once. His face screwed up as he remembered how it had ruined the broth with its sharp taste.
“That’s bloody…” Merl started to say, then eyed Billy’s back. “Lovely. That’s bloody lovely, that is.”
“What is?” Billy asked.
“Tha white powder. Tastes like those sweet crystals the spice peddlers used to sell.”
Billy’s eyes lit up. “Sugar! he yelped, as he scraped the edge of his hand along the wall and let the crystals fall into his open palm.
“I wouldn’t—” Frank made to say but thought the better of it and swallowed the rest of his words.
Billy shoved the dirty pile into his eager gob. His face contorted. He stiffened still as a dune cat stalking a dune rat. His mouth exploded out in a burst of white foamy gob. “Water, water!” he shrieked. “Water! Damn you all!”
Frank conjured his water canteen. He tossed it to Billy as he wiped down his salt-and-spit-splattered cloak. Billy gulped at the water like he was going to eat the bottle down. He gasped as he pulled it away, and then vomited the whole lot up over his feet. The stench billowed up, trapped within the small tunnel. Desmelda’s hand slapped straight onto her stomach.
“That’s disgusting,” she groaned, and began retching herself.
Frank turned all sorts of shades of green and clung to the tunnel’s wall like it was the only thing holding him up. Merl looked on a little bemused. Sure, it smelt foul alright, but no worse than breaking an old cow pat on a hot summer’s day.
“I’m gonna get you, Merl Sheepherder,” Billy spat, still wiping his lips on his sleeve.
Desmelda gasped and then retched violently once more. She stumbled away from Billy, turning and pointing. “Stay back until you clean your boots.”
Frank staggered after the witch, pointing as well. Mushroom hopped onto the pile of bile and breakfast leftovers. His disgusting slurping noises filled the tunnel. Desmelda staggered on.
“Oh, good God! Andula save me,” she muttered between convulsions.
Merl grinned from ear to ear. It wasn’t often he got one over on Billy. It wasn’t often he got one over on anyone.
They resumed their walk down. Desmelda wretched. Billy grumbled. Merl sniggered. Mushroom hopped. Quaiyl and Gloomy Joe walked behind all, silent but there. The path underfoot grew wetter. An inch of freezing cold water soon covered it, then two, then more, until they waded through, knee deep.
“Best not get much deeper,” Frank growled.
“At least it’s cleaned Billy’s boots,” Desmelda pointed out.
“Remember the zombay that fell down the well,” Billy said. His words echoed around Merl, who shivered and glanced around.
The water rose. Quaiyl picked up Gloomy Joe, cradling the dune dog in his arms. Only the sound of rippling water and slow, deliberate breaths broke the still. Frank held the Staff of Morrison White high. Merl copied him with his firestone axe.
“You know,” said Billy, “if that sea gets any higher, we’re kinda buggered.”
Billy had a knack for stating the obvious. Merl thought he enjoyed it, especially if it was bad news.
Merl waded on, waiting for something to happen. The taps turned to turns, but whether they ventured for one phase or two, he couldn’t tell. He was too busy expecting a doom that never came—after a little while, the water became shallower, and after another, Quaiyl set Gloomy Joe down before a set of upward, stone steps that led into an uncertain darkness.
Frank placed a foot on the bottom one, as if claiming them as his own. Desmelda passed him the torch, and the Staff of Morrison White vanished in favor of Fr
ank’s crimson-steel sword.
“Get ready. Whatever’s at the top, it ain’t gonna be pretty.”
Billy shook himself down. Merl tried to pump the blood into his cold muscles, stamping his feet, but his clothes were soaked with freezing water, and his mind was numb from the tedious drudge of the tunnel. He practiced a few axe strokes and fooled himself into feeling ready. Frank trod up the steps.
They followed him up. The gloom lightened. They came to a small landing where light streamed in from under what appeared to be a doorway.
“Hold tight,” Frank whispered back. “I’ll bet we’ve climbed up to Deathpunch’s quarters.” He fumbled about. “Definitely a door. I can feel the cracks. Hang on, I can feel a handle.”
The door opened with a dry pop, but Frank immediately tugged it closed before easing it ajar just a twitch. He peered through. Frank raised his fingers and pointed to his eyes, then bunched his hand to a fist. One finger popped up, and he waved it to his right. Another, and he waved that to his left. The third, he wagged and pointed forward.
“Got it?” he asked.
“Got what, Frank?” Billy asked.
Frank repeated his strange actions, and then looked at them, arching his brows and shrugging.
“Are you feeling all right? Did the cold freeze yer brain?” Billy climbed up the last of the steps.
“No, you bloody idiot,” Frank spat through clenched teeth. “I can see three zombays in there, one that way, one that, and the other straight in front.”
“Well why didn’t you say that, Frank?” Billy asked, looking back at Merl and rolling his eyes. “Come on, Merl, we’re good at this. Let’s go splat some zombays.”
Billy barged Frank out of the way. He kicked the door open and burst into the room, hammer raised and lungs emptying. Merl ran up behind him but stopped dead in the doorway.
“Thought you said there were only three, Frank.”
“I said, ‘I can see three’,” Frank growled.
“Oh,” said Merl, and he ran in.
Before him, a great chamber had already descended into chaos. Merl had never seen such a fine room. Bookshelves spanned the opposite wall. Huge, leadlight windows, all lined up like soldiers, let the muted, stormy light in along another. The third wall was punctured by a great set of doors that hung open and through which a number of zombays lurched. Merl raised his firestone axe high in the air and ran forward.
Billy stood on a low table in the middle of the room. Chairs lay scattered. Billy powered the troll hammer down onto a zombay and half the zombay’s head vanished, crushed by the great hammer. The undead beast staggered under the weight of Billy’s blow as his hammer plunged down, shattering the zombay’s shoulder. Wasting no time, Billy pulled the mallet back, raising it to shoulder height and sweeping it around to smash into another. That zombay careened toward Merl as it stumbled over its own feet. Merl whipped his axe around and buried its head right in the zombay’s guts.
Merl spun with the momentum of his strike, and he forced the axe head through the rotten zombay guts. A flash of ruddy steel told him Frank had joined the fight. The Wizard of Quintz ran through the room like a streak of lightning, hurdling upturned chairs and planting himself by the huge doors. Merl instantly understood his intentions, and darted forward, slashing out, plowing through the crowding creatures. He positioned himself next to Frank.
Quaiyl and Mushroom were soon with them. Quaiyl twisted heads, wringing the crawling life from the undead bastards. Mushroom drained and tossed, his cap dipping, his stalk bending. A huge grunt came from the room’s center as Billy’s earlier efforts demanded their dues. His labored strikes slowed as the zombays crowded around him.
“Get the doors, Merl!” Frank screamed. Black blood splattered Merl as Frank beheaded a foppish courtier. “Help Billy!” Frank cried to the Witch of Falling Glen, and he simultaneously sent a bolt of emerald magic to one side of Billy, reducing three zombays to a mere mist of foul ichor.
A corridor lay beyond the doors, leading away both left and right. A pair of shut doors sat dead opposite, but Merl only had eyes for the mayhem that was surging in from both sides. He grabbed the first door, pulling it closed. Quaiyl leapt next to him. The construct became a blur, speeding up his efficient combat to stem the tide of filthy undead aiming for Merl, who was busy carving a way through to the second door.
A grisly looking head bore down on him. One eye dangled from its sinewy socket. A mix of wood and blackened enamel teeth chomped out at him. Foul spittle flew in Merl’s face. Merl tried to bring his axe up and chop the bastard’s head off, but the weapon’s head was still snagged in the dry liver of his last victim. Clamping his hand around its black-veined neck, Merl held the dripping maw away from him, but the press of the zombays behind forced his attacker on. Merl arched his back as he growled in frustration. Frank hollered. His blood-red blade shone, slicing and dicing while he desperately tried to forge a path through to Merl.
The zombay closed. Its sweaty, matted hair draped in Merl’s face. Its fetid breath washed over him in foul gusts so thick he could taste them. As his eyes widened and a scream brewed in his throat, Quaiyl’s hands clamped either side of the zombay’s head and ripped it from its rotting neck. Merl’s horror completed as stump’s gaping throat spewed foaming bile over him, and its blackened arteries pumped the last of its tainted blood.
Frank grabbed Merl, pulling him back to standing, and shoved him toward the door. “Now, Merl!”
Merl wiped the ichor from his eyes, reaching blindly toward the door’s leather-strap handle. Quaiyl twisted heads, kicked bodies and chopped necks as the construct fought to keep Merl safe. The dead undead blocked the door. Merl made to scream in frustration as the door snagged on their foul bodies, but Gloomy Joe was already there, pulling and dragging the dirty bastards away. Frank unequipped his sword, yanking more bodies from the narrowing gap, and finally the door inched closer to shutting, which allowed Quaiyl and Merl to retreat. Reaching hands clawed at the gaps. Hideous hands adorned with yellow fingernails, bloodied and broken, reached for Merl. Hunger-filled eyes and raging, foaming mouths filled the open slit. Frank grabbed the door’s leather strap from Merl.
“Clear it with your axe,” the wizard yelled.
Merl scrambled around for his firestone axe. Quaiyl joined Desmelda, Billy, and Mushroom as they set about the remaining zombays. Gloomy Joe barked at the reaching zombay hands, all trapped in the door. Merl lifted his axe and set about them with clinical strokes, severing them easily with its razor-sharp blade. Behind him, Billy grunted and Desmelda screamed. A window shattered and the howling wind and driving rain whipped through. Frank finally slammed the door shut with a satisfying thunk. Howls of frustration erupted on the other side. Fists pounded the sturdy door.
“I wish he’d stop doing that,” Desmelda said as Quaiyl twisted the final zombay and popped its guts. The witch of Falling Glen began picking foul flesh from her hair. “Wet, covered in guts, and curiously hungry,” she muttered.
Billy was hunched over his hammer, gulping breaths like a starving man gobbles his food. Quaiyl began tossing corpses out of the broken window. Merl slid down the closed door until he was seated on blood-soaked flags. He rested his head back and shut his eyes, taking a breath and calming his pounding heart. Frank slumped next to him. Gloomy Joe picked up the severed arms and took them over to Quaiyl.
“More than three, Frank. You need new gawpers, you do,” Billy panted. “Needs gawpers like Brains McShane had.
“Brains only had half a pair of gawpers,” Merl reminded Billy. “But then he only had one eye.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my eyes. There were three zombays in view,” Frank replied. His voice was easy, not a hint of retribution coloring it. “There were three. I pointed them out. My plan was this, Billy. We sneak in, slit throats, decapitate, whatever we need, but we’re silent, like mice in a barn full of cats. After that, we dart for the doors, closing them quietly and leaving all the zombays outside. We drag the
three dead away, shoving them into the tunnel and closing the secret door. We then rest.”
“Not a bad plan,” Billy admitted.
“Not bad at all. It gives us a clean and tidy room where we can plot and plan our next moves. Perhaps, and I say this because we’ll never know, perhaps it might have even allowed us to sneak outside and get to a room overlooking the city.”
“Great plan, Frank.” Billy looked up, straightening and hopping off the low table. “Shame you didn’t tell us about it.”
Merl glanced at Frank, expecting his head to be as red as a Three Valley beetroot. Instead, Frank was grinning. Then he began laughing and pushed himself up. “It’s lucky we’ve got Mushroom.”
The huge fungus was slurping up the blood and guts as it slowly glided around the room. Merl wondered why it had stopped growing. It was about the same height as him now, and its cap was an impressive three feet around, but despite draining every body it could get its stalk on, it wasn’t shooting up anymore.
“Is that a nose?” Merl asked, studying Mushroom’s stalk.
Frank peered close. “No, I don’t think so. Just a bump. Don’t like to get too close. It’s hard to know what’s going through its bonce.”
“Assuming it has a brain,” Desmelda said without looking around. She was busy poking a fire that sat in a great, stone hearth along the wall that held the secret door. “Have you got a little of that kindling? Actually, never mind.” She snapped her fingers and a small stream of crimson magic flowed into the fire. “There,” she said, “now we can at least get dry.”
Quaiyl tossed the last of the corpses out. Merl stood and approached Mushroom. “It’s definitely nose-shaped.”
“Looks like a nose to me,” Billy said.
The bump was just under its cap. Merl leaned in, well aware of Mushroom’s protruding fangs. He shrugged. “Nope, you might be right, Frank. Probably just a wart or somethin’.”
“Mushrooms don’t get warts,” Billy said. He began righting the chairs.
Merl furrowed his brow. “How the heck do you know that?”
