A Shout for the Dead

by James Barclay

  'Conquord!' roared Davarov. 'Let them come and hack them down.'

  Julius and Harban launched their flasks. Behind Roberto, an engineer was trying to relight a pitch barrel that smouldered on. Detonations rattled debris against the broken walls. Roberto hurled his flask down. Dead were obliterated in the force of the blast.

  if you want me, Gorian, you'll have to come up and get me.' Roberto bent down to the crate to grab another flask. 'Let's use these while we still can.'

  The dead moved forwards.

  it's up to you, Paul. Again.'

  Ocenii squad seven held the dock at the base of the south fort. When the fires had died, the dead had moved to shore across charred planking, or landed from Tsardon vessels driving through choking smoke to strike the dock. The fort artillery pounded down on the enemy within the harbour, battering triremes to the bottom of the dock. Hundreds had perished in flames but still they came and the courage of the ordinary soldier was beginning to falter.

  More ships were coming through the harbour mouth. Dead who had gone down with theit ships were beginning to emerge and climb the metal ladders that littered the sheer wall of the harbour side. Sights none had thought to see. For some it was too much. As many turned to run as the dead who forced their way on to dry land. Hundreds.

  Kashilli lifted up a dead and broke his back across his knee. He threw the corpse aside, picked up his hammer and brought it down on top of a dead skull. The head disappeared in a spatter of bone and gore. The body jerked and twitched, driven to the ground under the sheer force of the blow. Kashilli kicked the body into the water. Thirty more were coming to take his place.

  'Come on then.' He beckoned them to him. 'One or all, it makes no odds to me.'

  Next to him, Iliev was a counterpoint to Kashilli's brutal strength. He balanced and pivoted, planting a kick into the midriff of a Gesternan militia man. He was catapulted backwards, taking two more with him to fall back into the water. In the half pace of space he had, Iliev moved, dropped low and whipped his blacksmith's hammer into the knees of the next dead, smashing one kneecap. The dead crumpled on the broken limb. Iliev darted back and brought his axe down on the dead's lower back, sending his legs into brief spasm before they were still.

  A gasp ran the length and breadth of the dock. Iliev paused to take stock. Every single one of the dead had stopped moving, frozen in their next act. Kashilli laughed and crushed his hammer into the side of one and through the back of another who had stumbled. He made to move into the pack of standing dead but Iliev's shout stalled him.

  Iliev stared into the eyes of the dead in front of him. They peered from a face thirty days decayed. Flesh had rotted on his face. Maggots crawled in his skin. The smell of him was eye-watering but Iliev had grown used to that. Those eyes should be hollow spaces but remained. And they showed Iliev a moment's confusion followed by a lifetime of pain.

  The dead's mouth opened. And his voice was joined by all the others in a juddering shout. Bodies jerked and shuddered. Mould burst out on their bodies, ran the length of their legs and began to bleed into the concrete of the harbour.

  'Back, back!' ordered Iliev.

  Squad seven responded. Out in the harbour, the sounds of timbers creaking dragged his attention to the enemy ships. He heard splintering but for a moment, could see nothing.

  'There!'

  Kashilli was pointing to where green had sprouted on the hull of a trireme rammed on the harbour. It raced across timber and deck, clawed up mast and over sail. The canvas dripped, rotted to nothing in an instant. Everything the mould and moss touched decayed. Ships began to sink, to break apart. The squealing of nails pulling out of wood echoed across the harbour.

  There was a scattering of cheers but Iliev knew this was not victory.

  'This is a weapon. Back. Back off fast.'

  He glanced to his left along the harbour. A dead reached out and gripped the arm of a distracted legionary. Mould and disease poured over his body, engulfing him- in a cloying mass of sick green and brown. He screamed until the mould reached his mouth, eyes and covered his heart. And then he turned on his friends.

  'Go, go!' said Iliev, urging them back towards the fort. 'Don't let them touch you.'

  Iliev felt fear. For perhaps the first time in his life. It was an ugly, uncomfortable emotion. Legionaries and harbour guard were dying under rampant disease. The dockside was clearing, those who had seen the new attack not pausing to wonder if they could combat it. Panic moved faster than the mould. There was a stampede out through the yards and into the streets beyond. The sounds of fighting and dying had been replaced by the harsh sounds of terror and the drumming of thousands of feet.

  Squad seven stormed into the castle courtyard and up the slope towards the roof. Iliev ran in behind them barking at scared guardsmen to close the gates, an order they were only too happy to follow. The Ocenii spilled onto the roof. The artillery had fallen silent. Iliev joined Vasselis and Stertius at the wall overlooking the harbour. The wall was crowded with engineers and guards. None could find a word. None acknowledged his arrival.

  It was a scene from the worst images painted by the Order's artists depicting a world fallen from the Omniscient's grace. The water had been reduced to a muddy pool of rotten timber and algae, spreading slowly out of the harbour mouth. A fine mist of spores rose from whatever had sprung up there.

  Dead men were still pulling themselves up the ladders and on to the docks where hundred upon hundred now stood unmolested. No artillery could reach them there. From their feet, the mould spread out slowly, never reaching too far ahead. But far enough that only a sarissa would be long enough to do damage. They were leaving the dockside which was tainted an unhealthy green. It covered cobbles, grew along cracks and extended its fingers a short distance up the outside of the fort.

  Ahead of them, the living ran to they knew not where. Flags were waving at the north and south gates. Both were breached. Iliev did not raise a flicker of surprise. Civilian and soldier poured away from the dead. They would not stand. The battle was as good as lost.

  'We have to get to the palace,' said Vasselis.

  Iliev turned to him, saw the paper in his hand. 'Why?'

  'Because that's where the young Ascendants are. And Hesther says they have a plan.'

  'There's no escape,' said Stertius, gesturing to the putrefaction on the dock. 'Touch that and you're history.'

  Kashilli was already moving to the sea wall. Iliev saw him and gestured Vasselis and Stertius to walk with squad seven.

  'Lucky I've got a boat then, isn't it?'

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  859th cycle of God, 12th day of Genasfall

  'Forty stroke constant, Ocenii. Like you're outrunning a tidal wave.'

  Iliev's orders carried over the flowing strokes of seven's oarsmen. Marines in harmony and in a desperate rush. They had pushed away from the fort into clear water, beaten a route around a narrow headland and were powering into the south beach where the dead had landed. It wasn't a place you could land an invasion fleet but a small force had all the room they needed. Not a man moved on any of the twelve ships canted over on the coast. Gangplanks were empty, decks clear. Sails flapped idly in a gentle breeze. The sand and pebbles were clear of mould. Iliev had thought they might be.

  Sitting aft with him, Stertius and Vasselis gripped hard to the gunwales. Kashilli was taking great heart from their discomfort. A spiked corsair in full flow was a sight to behold and an exciting but very unstable place to be. The two landborn were in awe of the speed and in fear of their lives. And Kashilli moved his marines up and down the centre to give the corsair a little slap and roll before Iliev told him to stow it.

  Even in the face of annihilation, Kashilli was unbowed. He stood at the prow now, one foot on the spike and his fist pumping the air, daring the dead to come to him and face him. Dead or alive, it was not something Iliev would willingly choose to do.

  'Hard up the beach, skipper,' urged Kashilli. 'Let's hit it running.'
/>   Iliev looked down on Vasselis who had gone a shade paler, if that was possible.

  'I think not on this occasion, Kashilli. Soft landing. Back to fifteen stroke, lift on my command.' 'Aye, skipper,' said the stroke.

  The corsair began to slow. Kashilli moved away from the spike as it settled naturally closer to the waterline.

  'Would have been an experience, Marshal,' he said.

  'And probably my last, Trierarch Kashilli. But thank you for the offer.'

  'Ship oars,' said Iliev.

  The thirteen sets came to the vertical. The corsair ground up the beach, juddering to a halt just a little too fast for the landborn's comfort.

  'Marines, let's stow and run,' ordered Kashilli. 'Guard our guests and watch for the sludge.'

  'How far to the hill from here?' asked Iliev.

  The squad dispersed into a defensive curve, eyes on the path away and the silent enemy ships.

  'Two miles, no more. This is the closest gate,' said Vasselis. 'But we don't want to take the main streets or we'll be knee-deep in Kashilli's sludge. Any ideas?'

  'I was born here,' said Stertius. 'I'll get us there in front of them all if I can.'

  'Good. Can you both run?' Vasselis and Stertius nodded affirmation of Iliev's question. 'Then let's move. Kashilli, on the harbour master's instructions. Let's double it and more until I tell you to stop.'

  They ran up and away from the beach, following the path the dead had taken. A straight line up to the gates. Here the slaughter had been fierce indeed. Scattered remains of dead lay in a wide arc around the gates. Victims of flaming stones and bolts and of Gesteris's wonder powder, now apparently spent or in very short supply. Dozens had been dismembered here but enough had survived and when the mould weapon was deployed, they had simply rotted the gates.

  Only the great iron and steel bands and hinges remained. The timbers were nothing but detritus on the packed ground. The catapults were all silent now, sentinels overlooking a disaster they had been unable to avert. The squad ran in. The mould was gone, just as it was gone from the main street up towards the forum. Just as Iliev had guessed.

  'It doesn't last,' he said. 'And it travels in front of them. Stertius, which way?'

  Stertius pointed left and they ran up an incline inside the walls. Here, in a street packed with empty buildings and flapping shutters, the noise towards the centre of the city was dulled. The stench, though, was not, and evidence of the flood tide of invading and newly created dead was everywhere. How many faithful had been taken and turned towards the palace, the place that was surely the dead's target.

  'We must be following the Gor-Karkulas,' said Vasselis. He was barely out of breath. An ageing man but a fit man. He needed to be. 'If we can find one, take him out, then we can seriously restrict them.'

  'Not going to be easy,' said Iliev. 'Just look at all this.'

  They'd turned right up a narrow tenement street that led to a small square containing a fountain. The evidence of discarded life was everywhere. Buckets lay on the ground. Hats, bags, dolls, food. The paraphernalia of the citizen. Dropped because it was no longer needed. And the fountain still contained algae.

  Stertius directed them around the main forum, away from the heart of the invasion. Noise of the dead march and the flight of Estorr's populace came from ahead and right. And it was moving away left, west towards the only gate that had not been attacked.

  'Best place for them,' said Iliev. 'Keep moving, Ocenii.'

  Estorr was built in a series of rings, with central spokes spearing out from the dock. Even with Stertius's knowledge of the city, they had to cross a main highway. It led out to the west gate and it was full of terrified people still running at full tilt though the dead were long behind, making their slow advance, in no hurry.

  Squad seven and their guests were in a tiny side street. No mould and no death had walked here. Not yet. But the terraces were all empty, their occupants joining the headlong rush out of the city. It was a seething mass ahead. Iliev shivered in spite of himself. All it would take was the touch of one dead hand.

  'Kashilli? Make a path. Seven, in his boot prints. Mind our guests.'

  'Already as good as done, skipper.'

  Kashilli and two others, hammers held horizontally across their chests, barged into the crowd, shouting people aside. There was anger, screaming and punches were thrown. Iliev led Stertius and Vasselis after him. The rest of the squad filling in, trying to keep the path open.

  Kashilli was a bull. He snorted, put his head down and heaved forward, the shaft of his hammer connecting with arm, midriff, rib and head. Iliev could hear the protests building as they made halfway.'Then move!' bellowed Kashilli. 'Ocenii sailing here. Move, I said, are you deaf as well as stupid?'

  Iliev felt their rate of progress increase. He nodded his satisfaction. To his right and down the hill, they'd brought the street to a halt. To the left, a gap was beginning to appear.

  'Run round the outside, Marshal, Master Stertius. We'll hold them. Ocenii, your right hands, press in and keep moving.'

  The crowd at the front were letting them go, seeing their insignia in addition to Kashilli's bulk. The squad moved freely. The crowd began to edge around their rear. A scream from growing thousands of mouths travelled up from the base of the hill, near the exit from the forum approach road. Iliev looked again.

  The crowd were bunching, rushing. It was a wave and its crest was misted with spores and spattered with green mould. In front of it, the living crowd surged. Squad seven's marines stood no chance of holding it back. Kashilli and a few others had reached the other side of the road.

  'Fight your way,' called Iliev. 'Buddy up and move.'

  The squad's path was washed away by the weight of people fuelled by a rightful panic. Iliev dived forwards, got in between Stertius and Vasselis and pushed them headlong into Kashilli's arms.

  'Get them away up the street. Sludge coming.'

  'The squad,' said Kashilli.

  ‘I’ll get them. Go.'

  Iliev turned back. People were whipping past his vision. Looking deep into the crowd, he could see squad members struggling against - the tide of humanity trying to sweep them away west. He pulled in one, two, and another two, sent them a street west to see if any were carried further up.

  The screaming had intensified. The sludge was coming. How hollow the half-joke was now. Iliev took another look. An arm flailed into the street, low down. Iliev crouched and pulled. The marine came shooting through. People fell over him, and others over them. More tried to climb the piling bodies or run round them, jamming the street.

  Iliev saw another squad member inching around the squirming, shrieking pile, three deep and struggling. He beckoned with his hand, made to take a pace out but the marine grabbed him hard, sending them both sprawling backwards. The mould engulfed the street and spattered over the alley walls. Iliev scrabbled backwards still further. He got to his feet, cursed and spat.

  'How many more have died,' he said. He put out a hand to the marine, who took it and jumped back to his feet. 'But thank you. You saved my life.'

  Instant quiet had overtaken the main street at which they stared. Corpses covered in the stinking fetid mould were strewn everywhere, clawed down to their deaths even as they thought they might escape.

  'They're moving,' said the marine.

  'Then so must we. Let's see who we have left and get to the Hill.'

  They turned and ran, dead eyes following them away. Iliev counted on the run up to the processional avenue. Stertius planned to take them through the parks and come down to the palace gates at the last moment along the processional approach at the junction with Del Aglios Way. It would be their moment of greatest risk.

  The noise in the city was startling. No one could be unaware of the manner of the death that stalked them all and the timbre of the shouting and calling was genuinely unsettling, even for hardened veterans like the Ocenii. Iliev had lost seven of his squad and it could have been much worse. He prayed to O
cetarus that he wouldn't have to face them and the thought lent him greater determination.

  The remaining twenty-six and the two Estoreans ran towards a growing clamour. Although they had expected citizens to be in front of the gates demanding entrance, they hadn't expected the sheer weight. People had stormed up Del Aglios Way, pouring on to the apron in front of the Victory Gates. They were still coming down the processional approach in droves. The gates stood open and citizens were funnelling inside, yelled on by guards on the gatehouse. Enterprising guardsmen had dropped ropes and ladders down the sides of the walls in dozens of places. Knots of people gathered under them, waiting their chance to climb.

  'Straight through, Kashilli,' said Iliev. 'They're going to have to close the Victory Gates and we need that understood.'

  'Aye, skipper.'

  Kashilli began shouting long before he encountered the edge of the crowd that was swirling and moving as people sought to find the quickest way through the gates.

  'Ocenii squad coming through. Stand aside. Stand aside for your Marshal and your Prime Sea Lord. Stand aside.'

  Bless the conditioned reaction of the ordinary citizen. People prepared to beat each other to death for a final chance of life melted aside. Citizens tapped each other on the shoulder, indicated the charging Kashilli and his charges and a path began to open up towards the corner of the left-hand gate. Whether it was the sight of him that did it or the words he was shouting, Iliev didn't much care. All he knew was that they were within twenty yards before their momentum dissipated and the hammer was waved and used as a crowbar.

  Iliev tried to maintain some sense of civility and order. He did not seek to push, using his hand to gesture people aside from this path.