Dead Must Die
Page 6
“Of course it is. I am a knight, and I live and die by my honor.” He swung again, the sword slicing through one of the Barrow King’s arms. The Barrow King screamed as the limb fell away, dissolving into ectoplasmic goo before it hit the ground.
“I only ask, cuz I noticed that you’re not breathing.”
Oh crap, Verreth thought, a deep unease growing in his stomach.
“What?” Sir Humperdinck blurted, causing his swing to miss its mark.
“You’re not breathing,” the Barrow King said. “And your heart isn’t beating. You realize you are undead … right?”
Sir Humperdinck stopped his next attack, letting his sword clang to the ground. His eyes widened and his mouth hung open. “What?” he said rather stupidly. His mouth may not have known the truth, but his eyes did and his fingers went limp and his sword clattered to the ground. He fell to his knees and beseeching eyes looked up, locking onto the silver glows inside the Barrow King’s skull.
“Yeah, sorry dude. I thought you knew,” the Barrow King said.
“I’m dead.”
“Undead, hence why you can still walk around and threaten and such.”
“I am the evil I despise.”
“Come on guy. It’s not that bad, really. Beats the alternative, right?”
Sir Humperdinck wept, his shoulders pumping up and down as ragged sobs flowed through him. After a moment he calmed, grabbed his sword and stood. The Barrow King backed away, but Sir Humperdinck did not attack. Instead, he looked at the lich with eyes that begged forgiveness. After a moment he looked away.
“I cannot live as one of the accursed undead,” the knight said in a low voice, and then swung his sword at his own neck. The blade bounced off his shoulder, deflected by the pauldrons of his armor. He tried again, and again, with no further success. Chopping off one’s own head was apparently harder than it looked. After a few more tries, Sir Humperdinck fell to his knees and wept.
The Barrow King knelt by the knight’s side. After a moment he placed a spectral hand on the dead knight’s shoulder. “If you need someone to talk to, I’m a good listener.”
“I just want to die.”
“Yeah, saw that. Kinda hard to do it that way though.”
Sir Humperdinck looked up at the Barrow King. “Will you help me?”
“Uh … you sure you don’t wanna hang around? We could be pals.”
“I just want to die.”
“Suit yourself then.”
Verreth watched as the Barrow King stood, picked up Sir Humperdinck’s sword and gave it a few practice swings. The revenant nodded in appreciation as Sir Humperdinck knelt, grabbing the sides of the throne and exposing his neck.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” the Barrow King said in an unexpectedly kind voice and brought the sword down in one quick, terrible blow.
Sir Humperdinck’s head plopped onto the seat of the throne and his body slumped to the floor. The tin amulet slipped from the neck stump and clattered to the floor. The Barrow King bent down and picked it up. Then it began to glow.
“Woah, what the…?” the Barrow King shouted, dropping the amulet.
The amulet bounced and hummed and spun. It gyrated faster and faster and then imploded into a singularity. The singularity pulsed and frothed and then suddenly a corpulent man, naked as the day he was born, popped into existence.
“Ahhh,” the Barrow King said in a tone most unbecoming of a lord of the undead and watched as the man moaned, vomited and then collapsed onto his face. The singularity stopped spinning, expanded back into the amulet and thunked off the newcomer’s head and clattered to a stop a few inches from the Barrow King’s foot.
“Who the hell is this guy?” the Barrow King blurted.
Verreth didn’t know what was going on with the Barrow King. He was nothing like the ancient tales suggested, even accounting for the exaggeration and liberal treatment of facts those tales often fell victim to. It was time to gamble with the prize being his life.
“It was a curse,” Verreth said.
“Oh, shit, I forgot you were there,” the Barrow King said jumping. He stared right at Verreth and despite the creature’s juvenile nature, Verreth felt his blood chill. “You know who this dude is?”
“I do. His name is Bahldreck, he’s the least favorite son of a minor local noble family, and he unwittingly carried the burden of that family’s curse.”
“Tell me about this curse.”
“His family was once very powerful, but they reneged on a promise to help the Knights of the Blazing Fist, leading to all but one member of the order being killed right here in the Barrow. The lone survivor used powerful magic to bind the soul of one of their greatest warriors to the amulet.” Verreth pointed at the amulet.
The Barrow King stopped, gingerly picking it up. “Did Bahldreck deserve the burden?”
“No, by all accounts he was a good guy.”
“Yet you still used him?”
“I did,” Verreth said. “I never said I was a good guy.”
Bahldreck moaned and opened and closed his mouth like a suffocating fish.
“Is he gonna be okay?” the Barrow King asked.
“Do you care?” Verreth asked.
“I don’t like bullies,” the Barrow King said, looking down upon Bahldreck.
A shock moved through Verreth’s body as a realization hit him. “Someone did this to you,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
The Barrow King looked up, eyes drilling into Verreth’s soul. This wasn’t hyperbole. He felt his soul being analyzed, parsed and cataloged. Verreth had never been so afraid in his life.
“You have one chance to walk out of here with your life,” the Barrow King said in a voice that was much surer than it had been.
Verreth froze. “I’m listening.”
“Maybe you’ve figured it out already, but I’m kinda new here. I took over from the last asshole and I’m looking to do things differently from the way he did them. I’m a people person.”
“You mean you eat people,” Verreth said, hoping he hadn’t overplayed his hand.
“That’s not technically correct. The Barrow doesn’t eat people, it dissolves those who die in its environs and absorbs their energy and experiences. But I can see how that bit of minutia wouldn’t make much of a difference to you.”
“It makes me feel better, oddly.”
“Good, that means we might be able to work together.”
“What do you have in mind?” Verreth asked, a whiff of hope pushing through his feelings of dread.
“I’m looking to expand. But, I have a marketing problem, being a murderous dungeon who consumes people and all.”
“And you want me to what, convince people to come here?”
“The right kind of people.”
“And what kind of people is that?”
“The strong kind. Like you. You came here. You must have had a reason?”
Verreth nodded. “Treasure.”
“I suspected as much. I can provide people with a chance to achieve their dreams of wealth and power, but I want you to vet them?”
“Vet them?” Verreth asked.
“I will not continue the tradition of the powerful preying on the weak. I will not allow lords and slavers to send people in here against their will so they may reap the benefits of their slaughter. Any man or woman, or shambling bit of fungus may enter the Barrow of their own accord. Some will get their treasure, others will die and feed us, but it will be fair.”
Verreth buried his surprise, sensing an opportunity, not only to extend his lifespan but to increase the size of his coin purse. “You want me to be your gatekeeper?”
“I was thinking the Grand Poobah of Awesome, but your title sounds more official.”
“What’s in it for me?” Verreth asked
“Apart from your life?” The Barrow King stared at him until Verreth nodded. “You get to tax those you bring to the Barrow at a rate of 10% of all the swag they take, wi
th the caveat that any weapons, armor or other items that specialize in killing, protecting people from or even mildly inconveniencing the undead are mine. What do you say?”
Verreth’s heart thudded in his chest. In all his years of hustling, cheating, and scheming, he’d never imagined a moment like this one. He looked up at the Barrow King. “Make it 15% and we have a deal.”
The Barrow King stared for several long heartbeats, and Verreth feared he had overplayed his hand when the Barrow King extended a spectral hand that turned to bone. “Done.”
Verreth hesitated for the merest of moments before he reached forward and took the hand. A chill pushed into his bones. I’m going to live, he thought and realized that until that moment he truly believed he would die. He looked up at the undead horror and smiled.
“The name’s Verreth.”
“Good to meet ya man, I’m Simon.”
THE END
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