by C. M. Carney
“No care. Get up,” Brahk said.
Sometime later, after acquiring clean robes and adding the previous night’s exorbitant tab to his father’s line of credit, Bahldreck emerged into the warm early morning sun and joined a crusade against the dead.
*****
Several hours passed as they followed Verreth through the foothills and up into the mountains. They encountered little resistance, and at noon they stopped for lunch in a small glade near the entrance to a well-hidden mountain pass that Verreth assured them led to the Barrow.
Gerryt had snared several rabbits and Bahldreck’s stomach growled as the Aegyptian passed the steaming spits around. His hangover had made eating that morning impossible, and he was halfway through the first rabbit when the stealthy hunter spoke up. “Save some for the rest of us you greedy bastard.”
Bahldreck looked up at the man in bewilderment. Surely, he did not expect a man of his breeding and class to subsist on a single rabbit. It was a well-known fact that the common folk required less food to sustain their thin frames and ill health. Conversely, it took quite a bit of food to sustain Bahldreck’s own round physique. It was high time that someone educate these common folk the way of the world, Bahldreck thought. It was clear from the foreigner’s grim stare he needed that lesson sooner than others.
“Leave him be Gerryt,” Verreth said. “His holiness will need his strength.”
“Thank you Verreth,” Bahldreck said, sucking the last bits of greasy meat from the rabbit’s leg bone before tossing it over his head. “Perchance, is there any more rabbit?”
Serraia gripped Gerryt’s arm preventing the hunter from leaping over the fire. “Now, now Gerryt, listen to Verreth, his holiness needs his strength if he is to stand at the head of our party and hold the undead at bay.”
“Front? Undead? At Bay?” Bahldreck sputtered and his full stomach was suddenly a lot less satisfying.
“You do know that’s why you’re here, right?” Serraia said in the same tone Bahldreck’s father used when explaining obvious concepts to his serfs, employees and, now that Bahldreck thought about it, to him as well. “You’re a consecrated priest of the High God Aluran. Who is better equipped to use the holy fire within them to push back the plague of undead on Korynn than you?”
Unease flowed through Bahldreck, and it took several moments for him to understand its source. “Yeah, about that. I’m not sure I’m actually, formally, according to the official priests of the High God Aluran, technically a priest.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Gerryt sputtered. “You’re not consecrated?”
“Oh, no I am,” Bahldreck said, the nervous twinge in his voice causing it to rise several octaves. “I was initiated into the Holy Order of the Turnip by my father’s cook. Or was it the gardener?”
“Turnip?” Serraia asked, her voice nearly as alarmed as Gerryt’s.
“Brahk no like turnips.”
“Yeah, not really the thing to get hung up on big guy,” Serraia said. She turned to Verreth. “Did you know about this?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” Gerryt spat.
“I have faith in a power greater than all of us, and it is very, very close to our friend here,” Verreth said, idly stroking at his neck as if he were wearing a necklace or an amulet. “Very close.”
“Okay, I’m gonna need more than that,” Serraia said.
Verreth smiled and looked up. The sun dipped behind the mountains and ominous shadows crept over the glade. “I think you’ll be getting your “more” any minute now.”
Serraia and Gerryt looked around suspicious. Brahk retrieved the discarded rabbit bones and chomped them, each echoing crunch causing Bahldreck to twitch or jump.
Bahldreck stared nervously at his hands. Hands that had never seen an actual day’s work in their life. I’m not cut out for this, he thought and had it been said aloud, anyone who’d ever set eyes on him would have heartily agreed with the sentiment.
He strained his mind to find a way out of his predicament. He’d never been on an actual adventure. In fact, he’d never been anywhere except the family estate and Erram and the road between the two. He told the others as much, and upon getting no response, he looked up to discover he was alone in the glade, and a half dozen rotting corpses were shambling towards him.
4
A squeal tore through the air, echoing back and forth along the thin mountain pass where it heightened in volume and intensity. Had there been any knights-errant wandering the wilderness, they would have been compelled to seek the source of the scream, expecting to find a damsel in distress in need of saving. Alas, it would greatly disappoint them to discover that said maiden was in truth a portly middle-aged twit.
Unfortunately for the not quite consecrated priest of the High God, there were no knights about, just the group of pilgrims he’d entered the glade with, and they were hiding behind a nearby outcropping.
“Are those zombies?” Gerryt asked.
“Actors,” Verreth replied casually and took a sip from a wineskin before passing it to the hunter.
“Ha!” Serraia exclaimed before clapping a hand over her mouth. “That was the other part of the plan you were setting up?”
“Yup,” Verreth said with a grin as Bahldreck tried to stand, tripped over his robes and nearly fell into the fire.
“Nnngghh. Rarrghh. Groowwwll!” the various zombies said, arms held stiffly before them as they ambled closer to the panicked preacher.
“No very good actors,” Brahk said before upending the wineskin and squeezing a jet of wine into his open mouth.
“True enough, but they work cheap,” Verreth said.
“Okay, I get it, this is hilarious. But how in the Abyss does it help us fight the Barrow King?” Serraia asked.
“Watch, and learn,” Verreth said with a grin, grabbing the wineskin from Brahk and taking a deep drink.
The actor zombies believed they had been hired by Bahldreck’s father to teach the boy a lesson in bravery, honor, and manliness. If they succeeded, they were promised further contracts. Seeing Bahldreck scream and flounder in the dirt, not one thespian in the group expected to earn those contracts.
They’d been told to scare the lad as much as possible without getting close enough for him to see through their shabby costumes. That order was proving difficult to achieve, as none of them had ever seen someone so ineffective at fleeing, or even standing upright for more than a few seconds. Perhaps that was why they failed to notice the tin amulet at Bahldreck’s neck had started glowing, dimly at first, and then slowly brighter.
“By the nine winds, what is that?” Serraia asked.
“That is salvation,” Verreth said.
The actor zombies saw the strange glow and a creeping fear crawled up their spines. They abandoned the zombie part of the act and gave each other nervous glances.
Bahldreck had regained his feet and was now shaking like a man wracked in the throes of an epileptic seizure. His eyes rolled back into his head and he turned towards the sky to scream. This time the scream was deep, manly and very, very angry.
“Gerrold,” one zombie said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“As do I Percy, but we are professional actors and we do not abandon a performance because of fear.”
“Since when?” Percy asked.
“I worked hard on this script. Let us at least finish the scene.”
“Wait, you wrote a script for this?” Percy asked, but no answer came as all eyes in the glade flashed to the preacher.
Bahldreck fell forward and his entire body shook and morphed. Shining golden light exploded from his mouth and eyes and beneath his robes as he grew and expanded.
“I suggest a compromise, Gerrold. How about we finish the scene way over there?” Percy exclaimed. “It has been some time since we have practiced fleeing with dignity.”
“Huzzah, that is an excellent suggestion,” the man named
Gerrold agreed. He brought his hands to his mouth and in a clear, sing-song voice, yelled, “Run away, run away.”
The zombies tried to flee, but it was too late.
The figure that had been Bahldreck stood and had those present not witnessed his transformation with their own eyes, they would never have believed there was any commonality to the two men. Where Bahldreck had been paunchy, pale and fragile, the mountain of a man now standing amidst the shredded remnants of priestly robes was a paragon of masculine virtues.
He wore a battle-scarred suit of plate mail that shimmered with an internal moon blue glow. He stood 6’9” and weighed at least 400 lbs. With a snick of steel on steel, he drew a massive great sword. In any other’s hands, the blade would have been a two-handed weapon, but the man swung it in a lazy one-handed arc, bisecting the closest zombie at the waist.
“Dead must die!” the man screamed in a voice that would have scared off a dragon, had there been any dragons left to frighten. He thrust the sword forward into the guts of another zombie
“What in the Abyss?” Serraia asked, panic creeping into her voice.
“That, my friends, is our weapon against the Barrow King,” Verreth said with a grin. “Meet Sir Herman Heinrich Humperdinck, or what remains of him.”
Sir Humperdinck grabbed another of the zombies by the head and squeezed. The sputtering howl that came from the actor’s mouth was horrific but ended abruptly when his skull popped amidst the sound of grinding bone and explosion of blood and brain matter.
“That glow, he’s … dead.” Gerryt said.
“Yes and has been for centuries,” Verreth said. “But, I wouldn’t mention that to him.”
“Why not?” Gerryt almost squealed.
“Because he doesn’t know he’s dead. Don‘t think he‘d react too well to the news.”
To punctuate that warning Sir Humperdinck tossed the now headless corpse at several of the other zombies with such force it just didn’t knock them from their feet, it knocked their feet off of them.
“Brahk never want talk to big shiny man.”
“Probably for the best,” Verreth agreed. “In life, he was the most fearsome slayer of the living dead ever seen in this realm or any other. He nearly wiped out every undead creature on Korynn, but the Arch Lich Negvaar cursed him and he became a spectre bonded to his own amulet.”
“That crappy bit of tin has contained that monster all this time?” Gerryt asked.
“Yes. It was a symbol of his order. They were a humble folk uninterested in wealth or fame. They donated every bit of gold, silver, and copper to charity. All they had left was tin.”
“They be a bunch of dumbasses,” Brahk said, before ducking behind the outcropping as Sir Humperdinck tore another zombie in half with his bare hands.
“His zealotry is our gain,” Verreth said with a smile.
“Wait, why did he come out now? Those poor schmucks aren’t undead, just horrible actors,” Serraia said.
The rogues hiding behind the bluff searched for signs of guilt on Verreth’s face. He simply stared back at them. “Would you feel better if I pretended to be upset about it?” He paused, but nobody spoke. “As expected.“ He took a deep breath and looked at Brahk. “Remember the remains of the skeleton I had you collect?”
“One haunting crypt in Erram?” the barbarian orc asked. “Yup, Brahk remember.”
“Well like all undead those bones give off a low-grade field of death magic. Our mountainous pal there can sense that energy, and when he does he pops out of the amulet and goes on a killing spree.”
Blood-curdling screams of terror rose in the glade and then suddenly ended as Sir Humperdinck swung a zombie actor by his ankle into his last compatriot again and again. Both bodies pulped under the force and soon the spectral knight stood alone in the glade.
“You gave each one of them one of those bones, didn’t you?” Serraia said in shock.
“Sure did, told them it was part of the costume. Help make it more authentic and such. Once enough of them got close enough to ol’ Bahldreck, it was only a matter of time before he turned into Sir Humperdinck.”
“You killed them,” Serraia said.
“No, I didn’t. He did.” Verreth pointed at Sir Humperdinck.
“And here I thought I was an amoral prick,” Gerryt said.
“I said I felt bad about it.”
“No you didn’t,” Serraia said.
“No?” Verreth watched as each one of his companions shook his head no. “Huh, thought I did.” With a shrug, Verreth stood, raised his hands above his head and walked towards Sir Herman Heinrich Humperdinck. After a pause Gerryt followed, keeping Verreth between him and the giant knight.
“I will be damned to the Abyss,” Serraia muttered to herself and stood as well. She looked back at Brahk who was still cowering behind the outcropping of rock. “Brahk, come on,” she said. He shook his head no, and she waved her hand vigorously. After a moment, the half-orc reluctantly got to his feet and followed.
*****
Sir Humperdinck’s shoulders moved up and down as he calmed from his blood rage. He looked down at the remains of the zombie in his hand, a part of his mind wondering why so much fresh blood dripped from the leg of the corpse. Before he could dwell too deeply on the matter a voice called out to him.
“Hello, my brave and worthy knight, I beseech thee to let we humble pilgrims aid you in thine quest.”
Sir Humperdinck turned to see a gentleman smiling up at him. Behind him walked a thin man dressed in the dark green of a hunter, a charming looking sea elf maiden and a brutish half-orc whose wide eyes showed admiration, or mayhap it was fear.
“Well met pilgrims,” Sir Humperdinck said as he wiped the blade of his sword on one of the zombie’s cloaks. “I am Sir Herman Heinrich Humperdinck, Seneschal of the Order of the Blazing Fist, hunter of the undead and slayer of necromancers. Perchance could you tell me where I am? In my holy rage, I seem to have forgotten.”
“My name is Verreth, and these are my compatriots. We are near the hamlet of Erram, fine Sir, close to the dread Barrow, the lair of the evil lich known as the Barrow King.”
“A lich you say?” Sir Humperdinck spat eyes wide in anger. “They are the foulest of the lords of undeath. Where is this Barrow?”
“Well, Sir Knight, as chance would have it we were en route to that oubliette of horrors. Like you, we are slayers of the undead. We would be glad to guide you if you would deign to spend time in our ignoble company.”
Sir Humperdinck eyed the pilgrims, whose garb suggested neither holiness nor humbleness, but he had spent a lot of time in strange and foreign lands and learned that appearances could be deceiving. He stepped forward and shook the man Verreth’s hand.
A tickle of doubt built in the back of his mind as his boot sunk into a patch of blood-sodden grass. He looked down at the closest zombie corpse, noting the eyes staring back up at him held the last vestiges of fear. They seemed so fresh and lifelike, apart from the being dead part.
Have the death priests created a new type of zombie? He wondered to himself and began to kneel.
The man named Verreth grabbed him by the forearm, turning Sir Humperdinck’s eyes down to him. “Do not worry yourself over the foul remains. My people will tend to them.”
“They know the proper cleansing rituals to perform so they will not rise again?”
“Yes, of course,” Verreth said and motioned to the half-orc. “Brahk here is an expert on … cleansing. He knows to pour the blessed water he stores in his wineskin upon the corpses.”
The half-orc looked from Verreth to Sir Humperdinck to his wineskin and back at Verreth before his eyes widened in understanding and he poured the blessed water onto the corpses. It was redder than Sir Humperdinck remembered, but then Verreth spoke again drawing the knight’s attention from the curiosity.
“Serraia will burn the corpses if you would like to discuss our plans for assaulting the Barrow.”
“Burning the undead is no
job for such a fine and comely maiden,” Sir Humperdinck said affronted.
“You are right of course. I will have Gerryt tend to the task.”
“Yes, that sounds much more proper,” Sir Humperdinck said, not seeing the scowl Gerryt gave to Verreth over his shoulder.
“And perhaps you would enjoy Serraia’s company. A small chat or a neck massage.”
The huge knight flushed as the sea elf walked up to him and took him by the arm. He was so charmed by her he missed the angry glare she cast at Verreth.
“While that would be lovely, our time would be better spent journeying to this Barrow. Lichs are ancient and highly intelligent. They are masters of foul magics and though they are despicably evil their long, unnatural lives have gifted them with a perverted wisdom. This master of the Barrow will be cunning. We will need to be more cunning still if we hope to slay it.”
5
Deep in the Barrow, the master sat on his throne. His flowing robes of black smoke seemed almost alive in their movements. A spectral hand moved up and formed a fist. The skull that was the only physical component of this new Barrow King plopped onto the fist with an exaggerated annoyance only a teenager could muster. The silver light flickering in the empty eye sockets grew more agitated.
“I am soooooo bored,” Simon whined and tossed part of a leg bone at the nearest dread knight, the one he’d ordered to stand on one leg and hop up and down. His aim was true but the desiccated corpse didn’t even notice as the bone bounced off its face.
He held out his free hand and the reanimated corpse of the man named Dirge handed him another bone. “We could engage in some witty repartee, master.”
Simon tossed the bone at another dread knight. This one was rubbing its stomach in a circular motion with its right hand while patting the top of its head in time with its left. Again Simon’s aim was true, and the bone smacked the undead warrior in the eye, causing it to dangle from its socket. Like his brethren, the dimwitted undead didn’t seem to notice.
