The King's Watch (The Adventures of Carmen Delarosa Book 2)

by Kody Boye

  “You know we can kill them by hand,” Stella said.

  “Yeah,” Anna replied, “but it’s easier—and safer—for me to do it at a distance.”

  Carmen attempted to push herself into a sitting position and groaned when it refused to budge.

  “Here,” Adrian said, reaching into a pack and pulling out a nutrient vial. “Take this. That way you can just swallow it all in one go and stop moving.”

  “Thank you,” Carmen said, accepting and then uncorking the vial. The glow worm—nestled into an attached case at her waist—sparked to life upon the man’s approach.

  “Why do you carry a glow worm around with you anyway?” Anna asked as Carmen sipped from her vial.

  “It was a gift,” Carmen said, “from a little girl in Ehknac.”

  “Why did she give it to you?”

  “To light my way when it’s full dark,” she whispered, mirroring the line without even intending to. She lifted her eyes when she felt the group’s gazes upon her and sighed as she uncorked the vial to place a few drops of the nutrients inside for her invertebrate friend. “It was Vaskrday this year. I was crying. The little girl saw me. She gave me the worm and ran off. Simple as that.”

  “Have you seen her since?” Ignatius asked.

  Carmen shook her head.

  “Maybe she was one of the Uldwin,” Adrian offered.

  “The Uldwin?” Stella replied. “They don’t exist.”

  “People say they don’t exist, but that doesn’t mean they don’t.”

  “Says who?” Anna asked.

  “Says me,” her brother replied, “and the dozens of other people who’ve claimed to have seen them.”

  “Wait,” Carmen said, clearing her throat as she looked across the glassfire at Adrian. “You think the little girl was an angel sent from Folkvang?”

  “How else would it explain you not seeing her again?”

  “Me not walking around town. Her not coming to see me when the Sisterhood allowed the public to come greet me—”

  “But don’t you think you would’ve seen her again?”

  “I—”

  She stopped, pausing to consider the likelihood of being visited by a being from a realm other than their own. While they said the Gods were very much real—and that they, within their grand kingdom of the Heavens, ordained over them all with pride and malice and benevolence—she never considered the idea that one of them would send an angel, much less an Uldwin child, to visit her.

  They said the Uldwin were born pure and innocent—that they never aged, that they never paled, that they never faltered—and that they always came bearing gifts to those who needed them in the most inopportune times.

  Her glow worm was something special. This she knew, because the colonies outside of Ehknac had been plagued with a blight that had killed off many of their numbers. For her to have one here, in the now, and for it to be so healthy, was unlike anything she could’ve ever possibly imagined.

  Could the child have been an Uldwin? And could the glowworm have been a gift from the Gods?

  While she was very much a woman of faith, Carmen’s belief could only stretch so far. “I don’t think so,” she said after a moment, then raised her hand when Adrian made move to argue. “But that’s just me.”

  “I think it’s cool,” Adrian replied, “that the gods would watch out for someone special like you. Especially someone who helped so many people.”

  “And is continuing to do so by serving in the watch,” Colby said, fingering the pendant of Thor’s Hammer around his neck.

  Ignatius sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Regardless of what anyone believes in,” the man said, “we have a very real and very important task ahead of us in the coming days. We must be cautious, assume nothing, and always be vigilant. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes sir,” everyone but Carmen said.

  When Ignatius’ eyes fell upon Carmen, she nodded and closed her eyes.

  “I’ll take the first watch,” Anna said. “If there’s any other buggers out and about, now’s the time they’d start to show themselves anyway.”

  With that, Carmen rolled onto her back and passed out—all without tucking herself into her bedroll.

  - - -

  They began to encounter more of the undead creatures the following morning. Though easily dispatched by Anna and her expert marksmanship with her blunderbuss, it was unsettling to see the creatures appear on the horizon, meandering about as though drunk before finally appearing from the darkness. With his sunstone halberd in hand, Ignatius continued to lead them on, beckoning forward any and all who wished to be drawn by the light. Carmen found it almost impossible to remain complacent or even the slightest bit calm, for every time she settled back into that mood, Anna’s blunderbuss went off.

  Just how many bullets does she have? Carmen thought.

  She hadn’t been counting, but Anna had shot at least four of the creatures this morning, if not five. How many more could there be?

  “More,” she mumbled to herself. “There can definitely be more.”

  “Muttering to yourself again?” Stella laughed.

  “Yeah,” Carmen replied. “Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize to me.”

  “It’s a nervous tick I developed after… well… you know.”

  “There’s no need to say it.”

  Nodding, Carmen crossed her arms over her chest as best as she could and continued to follow behind at a casual pace—not wishing to stay alongside Ignatius but knowing that if she did not keep up that she would get lost in the dark. After a day’s worth of travel, she was sore, but definitely feeling far better than she had previously. She actually didn’t feel as though her legs were about to fall off.

  The blunderbuss discharged again, culling one of the creatures ahead. As they neared it, Ignatius bent, aligned the heard of his halberd at the creature’s neck, then chopped its head off before gesturing Colby to spray the corpse with a handheld flamethrower.

  “Isn’t it cruel for us to just leave them here?” Carmen asked.

  “We can’t do much for them now that they’re dead,” Ignatius said as they began to walk away from their most recent kill.

  “They don’t care anyway,” Stella replied. “They’re gone—resting in whatever Utopia came for them after death.”

  “Still,” Carmen replied. “It seems like we should be doing something.”

  “Say a little prayer, ask the Gods for their forgiveness, and call it a day. There’s literally nothing more we can do.”

  With a sigh, Carmen raised her eyes and continued to watch the darkness—knowing, without a doubt, that it would not be long before they reached the Old Grounds.

  Once there, she had no idea what they’d do.

  - - -

  The Old Grounds appeared within the following day. Rising from the snarled cliffside of a jagged chasm, the mausoleums appeared like gravekeepers meant to watch but never to intervene in the actions committed upon their concescrated property. Ignatius—who’d been leading stalwartly and without pause—raised a hand to bring them to a halt before lowering it with a sigh. “Now that we’re here,” he said, “we need to go over a few base rules, otherwise we risk getting ourselves thrown in jail for disturbing holy ground.”

  Carmen and the rest of the Fifth Battalion nodded as they waited for Ignatius to continue.

  “One,” he said. “Don’t remove anything from the graves, even if it’s something you feel doesn’t belong there. It isn’t our place to say if something should be in a particular place or if it should not be. Two: only disturb those corpses you feel may be present to or have fallen prey to corpse bugs. In these cases, you may deal with the reanimated body appropriately—preferably by killing the bug and then severing the head from the body.”

  “What about the graves?” Carmen asked. “Should we try to inter them again? I mean, if we know who’s who and where they’ve come from?”

  “There’s no point in interring co
rpses who have already been forced from their graves,” Ignatius sighed. “Though I would like to think that we are doing them a kindness by ending their preternatural existence, we are only further desecrating their persons. Secure what gravesites or mausoleums you can, but do not attempt to rebury or inter the dead anew. There is no point in angering the ghosts here or betraying the Gods’ confidence.”

  “Anything else?” Colby asked.

  Anna raised her blunderbuss and fired a shot into the distance.

  “Stay together,” Ignatius said. “Don’t split apart. We don’t know how many graves have been opened or ow many corpses have been pulled from the ground.”

  With that settled, Ignatius started forward—allowing Anna to follow closely with her blunderbuss held high. Though there were not many corpses to be seen as of yet, the noise caused by Anna’s weapon was quickly drawing attention. As soon as she took one down, two more appeared, sometimes three. It was at this point that Ignatius and Stella began to gravitate away from the group in order to properly dispose of the corpses with their longer-ranged weapons.

  “Stay with Carmen and Colby,” Ignatius instructed Adrian as he dismembered one corpse before decapitating another. “You have the longer reach with your hammer.”

  “Understood,” Adrian said.

  Carmen drew her mace as a precaution and slung her shield off her back before drawing closer to Anna—who, exposed from her one side, would not be able to defend herself if a creature happened to avoid her gaze.

  “There’s just so many of them,” the redheaded marksman said, firing another shot off into of a corpse bug and the individual to whom’s head it was attached.

  “Just keep shooting,” Carmen said, “and everything will be fine.”

  A corpse—one of whom had evaded detection by the group—came up behind them.

  Carmen immediately spun and rammed her shield into the creature the moment its hand slapped down on one of her pauldrons. “Behind us!” Carmen cried, slamming the hilt of her mace into the creature’s face.

  Fragments of bone exploded under the weight of her strike and blood spurted from the remaining aspects of its brain as Carmen slammed the head of her weapon down into what little remained of the front of its cranium. The corpse bug within—attempting to retreat as soon as it realized its host was no longer viable—crawled out on severely-damaged legs, but was immediately put down by Colby as he slammed his foot atop the creature’s bulbous body.

  Anna fired.

  Ignatius swung.

  Stella decapitated a corpse and Adrian crushed the skull of another.

  From all around came dozens of corpses—all bearing upon their surfaces the wreak and aspect of decay. Many were mummified husks of their former selves—little more than skin and bone—while some were fresher and still rotting. Those who appeared more Dwarvenlike were even more terrifying than their skeletal counterparts—whom, somewhat comical in their appearance, could easily be regarded as monsters and not the people they once were.

  Carmen used her shield to deflect one’s advance and then swung her mace about to club it over the top of the head. This tactic—which she soon adopted in order to maintain distance and effectively kill the creatures—became commonplace as they approached the center of the Old Grounds, upon which stood a series of relics marking the presence of the Gods upon the world. Thor’s Hammer, Loki’s knife, Hel’s pyre of flame and even Odin’s sickly cross rose from the ground—but here, in this moment, Carmen felt completely and utterly alone, regardless of the fact that there were still very-living people around her.

  If magic can do this, she thought as she put another creature down, then what else might it be able to do?

  She would hate to come into contact with a truly wicked mage—who, enslaved to their own twisted devices, would attempt to replicate this of their own accord. At least the bugs were stupid creatures who wanted only to feed. Men, though—they were a different animal entirely.

  Anna screamed as a corpse grabbed and began to drag her into the crowd.

  Carmen, having strayed from her side, ran forward, pushed the brunt of her weight into her shield, and slammed it into the creature’s side, knocking it off-balance and allowing Anna to safely retreat back into the center.

  “Make a circle, people,” Ignatius said. “Don’t let them get too close.”

  They stood—nearly back-to-back—and divided sections of the dead to their immediate reach, culling the herd as it came and only pausing to take breaths when a break in the numbers came. They appeared from the darkness like wraiths—wanting, watching, reaching, their dead eyes and their distended heads throbbing as the creatures within spurred them to do things they normally wouldn’t do. Always Carmen swung, and never did she relent—fighting, constantly, without regard for her surroundings or the people around her. She only strayed from the group to defend Anna when a corpse drew too close for her comfort, but never did she falter or back down from her post.

  Soon, the corpses stopped coming.

  By the time it ended, Carmen counted at least fifty, not including those whom they had dispatched upon their way to the center of the grounds.

  “It’s like someone went and opened all the graves,” Carmen said, sighing as she surveyed the carnage around her.

  “It seems like someone did,” Colby said. “Look.”

  He pointed.

  A nearby mausoleum showed obvious signs of broken entry. Though the darkness hid most of the damage, it was obvious that the wear was not caused by the elements or by any sort of animal who had attempted to break in.

  The stone appeared to have been blasted apart with explosives.

  “Someone purposely came here and opened these graves,” Carmen said, taking a few steps forward.

  “Are there any personal affects within?” Colby asked.

  Carmen pulled one of her sunstones from her pouch and shone its waning light within the mausoleum. “No,” she said. “There aren’t.”

  “Grave robbers,” Ignatius growled. “Damn bastards.”

  “But it seemed like the entire cemetery was upon us,” Anna said after a moment’s hesitation. “Can you imagine the work it would’ve taken to pull this off? Let alone the amount of explosives?”

  “Dwarven tombs aren’t known to be broken into,” Colby agreed.

  “Then we can only assume that someone,” Ignatius said, “or several someones came in, took what they wanted, then left the corpse bugs to their own devices.”

  “Do you think they might be preying on the farmers through the corpse bugs?” Carmen asked.

  Ignatius considered this option with a frown, then sighed. “It’s an idea we’ll have to consider, but right now, we need to deal with these corpses before any more bugs attempt to reanimate them. Chop their heads off, drag the corpses into the center, and arrange them in a pile. We’ll burn them before the Angels show up.”

  Carmen grimaced at the thought of those monstrosities showing up to finish the bugs’ work off.

  If they came—especially in a massive flock—there’d be no chance for survival.

  With that in mind, Carmen stepped back and allowed those with the bladed weapons to begin amputating the corpses from the neck-down.

  - - -

  The stench of charred meat and swelling flesh filled the air soon after they left the Old Grounds. Cursed by a wretched gale, the scent followed them on their way back to the farmlands and brought with it the scent of a second unnatural death.

  Not knowing whether to be pleased or mortified with her actions, Carmen remained silent—following without comment on the situation at hand and only speaking when she was personally addressed. Most left her in silence, as though knowing she was morose within her thoughts. Colby, however, refused to budge.

  “You’re sure you’re ok?” the Dwarven man asked as he drew up alongside Carmen. “That was some pretty heavy stuff back there. I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

  “I don’t think I can be all right with
what we did,” she replied, looking up and into the man’s eyes. “If you’re asking if I’m ok… then yes, I am. At least physically.”

  “All right then. If you’re absolutely sure.”

  Though she admired Colby’s persistence, she wondered whether or not he wanted something to be wrong with her. It seemed unlikely, considering, but she didn’t know the man. She knew Stella was strong, that Ignatius was the leader, that Adrian was the womanizer and that Anna was the hellraiser. But Colby? He was the smart one. Was he attempting to charm her through kindnesss, or… what, exactly?

  Rather than dwell on the matter at hand, Carmen pushed herself to the front of the group to stand at Ignatius’ side. “Hey,” she said, tapping his arm a few times to get his attention. “You think the farmers are going to be ok?”

  “I’m hoping that we took care of the worst of the problem,” Ignatius replied, “and that, if any did happen to attack the farm while we were gone, it was only a few—and not, say, like the small army we faced back there.”

  “They’d never be able to handle something like that. Not the three of them, anyway.”

  “There’s more than three of them on that property, but they’re no soldiers.”

  That’s for sure, Carmen thought, thinking back upon the meek and squirrely-looking young man who’d handled that blunderbuss as if it would go off at any moment.

  Colby—still watching her with calm yet unsure eyes—bowed his head when Carmen turned to look at him.

  Was he trying to send her a message?

  Unable to know if he was unwilling to be forthcoming, she directed her attention forward and tried to think of nothing but the mission at hand.

  Something felt amiss in the air—and horribly, horribly wrong in her gut.

  She prayed she was wrong.

  - - -

  That all-consuming feeling that something horrible was about to happen continued to follow her all the way up until the farmlands appeared upon the horizon. Undisturbed, save for the winds that cascaded from the overhead crater, it appeared as it had before: completely immaculate and not in the least bit harmed. But beneath its wholesome appearance lay an uncanny silence—which, when presented to them in conjunction with their expected return, was enough to make Carmen’s skin crawl.