Strength of Swords (First Cohort Book 2)

by M. R. Anthony

  There were windows to either side of the door and without warning, pale shapes crashed through both, bringing with them wickedly-sharp shards of glass and splintered wood. Beamer was to my right and chopped at one of the shapes where it had landed – it was an old man, naked, withered and thrashing, with glass embedded in his face and abdomen. The soldier’s sword almost cut him in two, and the old man stopped his writhing immediately. No blood spilled from his wounds.

  To the left, the second shape was that of a woman – I couldn’t see her age, but she sprang to her feet with the vigour of an athlete. Trusty knocked her flat with his shield and crunched his sword into her sternum. From the corner of my eye, I could see her arms and legs kick as the magics that had commanded her back to life fought against the destruction wrought upon her body.

  I heard more sounds and within moments there was bedlam in the room. Through one of the broken window frames, I could see the massed bodies of dead as they clamoured to climb inside, fog shrouding them and making their eerie silence all the more appalling. The nearby door racketed open and more of them spilled in, their bodies a ghostly, unnatural white. I saw the face of one man – his skin was smooth and unlined and his features were unravaged by decay. His eyes were open, but there was nothing behind them – I saw no emotion, nor recognition. In a way, it made things easier for me, since I realised that there was nothing left of the people they had once been. Now they were no more than sacks of flesh. I killed this man, pushing my sword into his neck, almost cutting off his head as I drew back the blade.

  Three more of the creatures scrambled through the doorway. Cricks killed the first quickly and I flattened the other two with a shield charge. I saw Weevil finish one of them off, but I didn’t see what happened to the other, as I had to contend with more of them forcing their way through the window close to me. They were dead almost before they’d set foot on the floor. I caught sight of tiny shapes, which floated almost serenely through the air before my brain identified them as severed fingers. They fell silently to the floor, unimportant and instantly forgotten.

  It was the young ones that were the hardest to kill. They were there with the others – with the men and women who could have been their parents in life and cherished them beyond all else. Now, they were driven by nothing more than a need to kill us. Next to me, a dead young boy had fastened on to Beamer’s sword arm and clubbed at the soldier with a small, clenched fist. I saw the look of horror on Beamer’s face and his indecision earned him a hard punch from a stocky man who had used the distraction to get beyond the soldier’s guard. The pale figure of a teenage girl bit him on the arm, pulled and spat out a lump of Beamer’s blue-inked flesh.

  I killed the boy, refusing to let myself see him as anything but a tool for whatever had attacked Nightingale. In fact, it made me furious that I’d been made to do so, and I flung his small body away, watched it crash against a wall ten feet across from me.

  “They’re dead!” I shouted at Beamer, who now grappled with the two others who assailed him. He headbutted one and punched the other with the hilt of his sword. They scrambled to attack again and I slaughtered them in my anger.

  Beamer recovered his balance and I saw that my fury was matched by his own at what we were required to do. His lips were pulled back to reveal his white teeth, the muscles of his jaw clenched and tightened.

  “This is shit, Captain,” he said, as he kicked away another child, his foot connecting with its stomach and sending it to the floor. It sprang up again and Beamer knocked it away once more. I met his gaze for a split second. I knew all the men, but we two had been all the way to Blades and back. We’d learned about each other. He saw my resolve to do what we had to do and I think he took strength from it.

  “You’re doing them a favour,” was all I said.

  He had no time to reply, as the dead townsfolk continued to hurl themselves in through the windows and the open door. I heard Sinnar shout orders and my voice rose to give commands of my own. Still they came at us, throwing themselves at our swords and our shields, fruitlessly trying to destroy us. I rarely got satisfaction out of killing, but I must confess that I enjoyed being the victor. This fight in the town hall gave me no pleasure at all. My mind fell within itself and I hewed left and right, cutting our assailants to pieces. I had sheathed my sword and drawn my dagger instead, as had many of the other men. There wasn’t quite room for swordplay with so many of us close together, but we found a middle ground where some used swords and some used their daggers.

  The bodies of Nightingale’s townsfolk kept on coming, but once we’d got over the shock of who we were fighting, it became such a one-sided battle that I could almost feel our motivation droop. Like a man with a scythe will quickly become bored cutting long grass. Lieutenant Sinnar felt it too, and he did his best to keep his squads keen. If we lost even one man it would be a great failing.

  Across the room, I saw several of Lieutenant Craddock’s squads descend from above, looking for an opportunity to reinforce us if we were pressed. There was nothing for them to do and one man returned upstairs, presumably to let Craddock know that everything was under control.

  After a time, the attacks stopped, or at least they petered out to the level where only the occasional body would attempt entry into the town hall. No one really wanted to kill them now, but we had little choice.

  “Fuck this,” I heard someone behind me say.

  The room was suddenly quiet, or at least as quiet as a room can be with two hundred armed men in it. No one spoke and we contemplated the scene of carnage around us. The dead were everywhere – on the floors, splayed out over tables, slumped in corners and over the windowsills. Their remains were a mess – cut, severed and deprived of any dignity they might have had in life.

  “Clear them out!” I said. The fog continued to drift lazily in from outside, bringing with it an icy cold moisture that settled upon us. “And find something to block up these windows!” I said.

  Men jumped to obey, hoping to find solace in the distraction of work. Some turned over the tables and tried to prop them over windows, while others got down to the dirty work of carrying the bodies outside.

  “Where’d you want them, Captain?” asked Trusty. He had the corpse of an old woman across his shoulders. She was dressed in a shawl, with one leg missing. Her eyes were closed, as if she was finally at peace. Except she was not at peace. Before I could open my mouth to tell Trusty to put her back in the square outside the compound, the old woman’s eyes snapped open and she fixed on me with her pale, green eyes. She started to thrash herself free of the soldier’s grip and his eyes widened at the shock.

  Other men cried out, too. From all areas of the room, they shouted in surprise and disgust. There was a pile of bodies underneath each window, where the destruction of these creatures had been the greatest and within these piles, arms and legs moved. Heads swivelled and turned, looking for us.

  24

  “Beware!” I shouted. It was the only thing I could think of in the circumstances. At my feet, the body of a young man struggled to rise with both of his arms missing. I kicked at him viciously, striking him the temple and sending him straight back onto the floor.

  Lieutenant Sinnar began shouting too and I heard Lieutenant Craddock’s voice echo down the stair well, as we came to terms with this new surprise. Many of us had already laid our swords and shields to one side, but we had our daggers close at hand. They tucked away easily in their sheaths and we didn’t allow ourselves to be without them.

  Trusty flipped the old woman over his head and dashed her onto the floor. She tried to tear off his ear as she fell, but only managed to pull it half away from his head. He stamped on her chest, buying himself a split second to draw his dagger. I didn’t stand and wait for the killing blow. I felt something punch me in the side of the helmet. I punched it back, smashing my fist into the face of a teenage girl and catapulting her off her feet. Another body jumped onto my back before I could turn to meet it. Arms reached arou
nd my neck, but they fell away almost at once. I didn’t know what had happened, but assumed that one of my men had killed it.

  I didn’t try to recover my shield and swung about me as the dead sprang up again. Even where they lacked limbs, they still possessed a repulsive vigour and they used anything they had available to renew the attack. I stabbed at them, again and again as they rose up, knocking them back to the floor as quickly as they could rise. My battle sense took over my actions and provided me with the time to assess what was happening around me.

  We must have killed hundreds of the townsfolk – in reality they’d had no chance at all against trained, hardened soldiers. They were unarmed and we had been defending a position where they had to come through windows and doors to reach us. Now, they were amongst us and we were not so prepared. They had caught us almost completely by surprise, but they were still less than us in their strength and they were entirely lacking in skill. I saw as well that not all of them returned to the fight – those who had been most badly damaged stayed where they’d fallen and did not come at us.

  Ten yards from me, one of my men struggled under the weight of three or four of the town’s citizens. They pummelled at him and tried to pull away his helmet. I saw a dagger in the soldier’s hand, and he plunged it unceasingly into them, leaving long slashes where the steel met flesh. Another man stabbed through the skull of one of the attackers. They all fell in a heap, but by then I was distracted by the sight of five of Lieutenant Sinnar’s squads, who swept across the room in tight formation. Each man had a sword and shield and they inflicted terrible injuries upon our foes.

  My own squad struggled for control. We were hemmed in as more of the bodies punched and clawed at us. Beamer’s helmet was gone and he took several punches as his enemies grappled with him. Tinker was there to assist, cutting through dead sinew and tissue until the dead fell away once more. We held them back and I didn’t see any of my men suffer a serious injury.

  We were brawlers as well as soldiers. Not every fight is a clean exchange of blows until one side runs away. Sometimes it’s the side who are most willing to wade through shit that come out on top. Our opponents punched, bit and kicked at us, but they were disorganised and their attacks futile. Though we were outnumbered, we laid about with our fists and our daggers. Many of us recovered swords and shields and gradually we slaughtered the townsfolk, until they fell back to the ground in crumpled, broken heaps. Any shock we might have felt at having to treat the children with such brutality was gone and they joined the others in death again.

  Someone shouted for me, and my brain recognized the voice, telling me it was time to listen. “Captain! There’s something outside the compound!”

  It was Ploster. He hadn’t made himself clear enough and I shouted back for him to tell me what I needed to know.

  “It’s bringing them back!” he shouted again.

  That was enough for me. “Out! By squad!” I shouted. “Lieutenant Craddock! Down! Now!” I was sure my voice would reach him. I didn’t think they’d been hard-pressed upstairs, so hoped they’d be able to break off the fighting easily.

  I trod on something, nearly slipping over it. I could tell from the crunching that it was fingers or something else fragile and didn’t bother to look down. Three squads had already exited through the front door and it was our turn next. A body flew past, smashing head-first into a wall. There was probably only me or Lieutenant Sinnar left who were strong enough to have done that, now that Heavy was assigned to our lady. The body didn’t rise and I took my squad outside into the compound.

  There was fighting here already. It looked as if most of the dead had got inside, with only perhaps fifty left in the compound. The first three squads were on top of things, hunched behind their shields, thrusting with deadly precision as the pale shapes threw themselves at the unmoving metal barriers. A few of the dead had spilled round to the sides, but my squad caught them in the flank. I beheaded one woman and kicked another in the hip, knocking her over. Two more fell to the ground with her and the other soldiers finished them off.

  More men spilled out of the doorway. “They keep getting back up, Captain,” said Radge as his men filed to one side in order that the next squad could follow. “We chopped them down and now they’re back at us,” I heard him say.

  “Fuck all we’ve not seen before,” growled Beamer. I could tell he hadn’t approved of Radge’s words.

  It was chaos around me, but from where I was standing, I could see back through the windows into the town hall. I suddenly understood what Radge had meant – the bodies were getting up again, for the third time. They might as well have not bothered and I was able to see them butchered once more, by swords wielded in tireless hands. When my squad had exited the building, I reckoned there were still well over two hundred of the dead attacking us – probably over three hundred. If they kept on coming, they’d likely get one or two of us eventually. More if they got lucky, or if one of us made a mistake.

  Ploster had moved next to me and I spoke to him quickly. “What’s doing this?” I asked. “Or do we have to dismember each one of these poor people so that they have no arms or legs with which to attack us again?”

  “It’s outside the compound,” he said, repeating what he’d told me earlier. “Something powerful. I don’t know what.”

  As my men came out of the town hall, they gathered into a single group. We didn’t need anything so defensive as a square and we did our best to maximise our ability to strike at our attackers. Those of our assailants we had left inside rose again and flung themselves through the windows into the compound. Whatever magic it was that animated their bodies, it demanded their obedience and denied them peace until our swords had inflicted so much trauma that the bodies could not rise again. Even so, I saw at least one shattered corpse staring upwards from the ground, eyes open but the body unable to move.

  Lieutenant Sinnar’s squad emerged from the doorway.

  “Where’s Lieutenant Craddock?” I asked.

  “He’s getting here,” called back Sinnar.

  I didn’t want to move towards the compound gates until we’d all escaped. I heard someone call out that more were coming and I saw that he was not mistaken.

  “Watch the wall!” I shouted as pale shapes climbed over, dim and indistinct in the heavy fog. I realised that the corpses we’d fought so far were likely only a fraction of those who had died in the town.

  “We have to get away,” I told Sinnar. He’d evidently come to the same conclusion and nodded his head.

  With relief, I saw the first of Craddock’s squad come through the door and enter the compound. They were dogged by the dead townsfolk, but two other squads nearby moved to assist in Craddock’s safe withdrawal.

  “Are we all out?” I asked him.

  “Everyone’s out, Captain,” he confirmed in a loud voice.

  “Let’s get the fuck away from here,” I said.

  The compound yard wasn’t too wide and we marched across it quickly. The dead continued to spill from the windows behind us and more joined them by climbing over the walls from the town square. We’d soon be outnumbered and I didn’t have the appetite to spend the whole night fending them away. The light from the oil lamps in the town hall was faint in the distance as we approached the gate, and Ploster threw up his own sorcerous illumination so that we could see where we were going. Fog surrounded it in a nimbus, as if it sought to extinguish the magic. The light faltered for a moment and I thought it might go out, but then it shone bright again as Ploster bolstered it with his power.

  “Giving myself away,” I heard him say under his breath. Whatever was out there was definitely much more powerful than Ploster and he wouldn’t want it reading his signature.

  We got to the gate and I was now only faintly aware of the corpses which continued to throw themselves at us. It was as if they were no longer a threat - we knocked them to the ground as quickly as they came, inflicting horrific injuries on their dead flesh in the hope that we�
��d be able to sufficiently debilitate them that they would stay down and not come back.

  As one man lifted the bar from the gates, three others used their shields to protect him from a pale shape which threatened to jump on him from above. The soldier was able to complete his task safely and he pulled open the twin gates so that we could make our escape.

  We were able to get through four abreast and this we did, holding our shields outwards. The blades of our swords were given no time to rest. The dead knew no pain, nor did they care what damage they suffered. Their onslaught was relentless, but they were not able to slow us significantly, nor prevent us from maintaining our formation as we entered the town square. Ploster’s light hardly reached far enough, but I could see that the two women I’d first noticed on the bench were gone. I wasn’t fanciful enough to think that the connection I’d earlier felt with them would have protected them from the magic that drove the others, but I was still foolish enough to look at the place I’d seen them. Most of all, I was glad I hadn’t faced the body of the young girl. I’m not sure I could have stayed strong if I’d had to do that.

  We gathered in the square, the light suspended above us small and insignificant against the darkness. There were noises all around - footsteps upon stone - as bodies from throughout the town ran towards us at full pelt. They appeared from the gloom, giving us little visible warning about the direction they were coming from.

  I made us form a hollow square, since we didn’t require any weight at the centre. We were two ranks deep on each side and I stood in the middle with Craddock and Sinnar. The townsfolk swarmed from the compound, only to have their bodies struck again. Our opponents were looking ragged and weakened now, with each slash or thrust reducing their ability to rise to the summons of their unknown master.