The younger priest was formidable, too. Brother Reed, his name was.
Milo watched as a midnight-black sigil that looked like a curling elm leaf floated free of the priest’s shaved head and lightened to a charcoal gray. At the same time it doubled in size, then tripled. Then it floated toward the rear of the mass of undead that was pressing forward. The gray shape continued to stretch, and when it was the size of a blanket it dropped down over a half-dozen zombies and skeletons, smothering them and driving them back into the earth. In the passing of a few heartbeats the gray shape and the undead it touched were gone.
The priests were still facing more than two dozen undead, but Milo had no doubt that their tattoos would take care of the threat. So he slipped between wagons and to the other side of the caravan. His breath caught when he saw the carnage.
Naile was more than sixty yards east of the trail, his boar-form rending zombies and shattering skeletons. Guards hired by chandlers, shoemakers, tanners, silversmiths, carpenters, potters, and more were slashing at what had become an undead army. The ground that stretched east of the trail looked chewed up, where all of the bodies had dug themselves free.
At the edge of his vision, Milo saw still more undead creatures clawing themselves out of the ground. Most of the men had been dead quite some time, as evidenced by the strips of cloth and flesh that clung to them, and most had been adults. But there were a few smaller undead, what likely had been children. Naile had just trampled a pair of slight zombies, obviously elves. And there was a squat, thick-boned skeleton missing half its skull that was making its way to the front . . . the remains of a dwarf. Milo took a deep breath of the stinking air and trudged forward, bringing his sword down hard on the skull of the dwarf, splintering the bone and hacking at the thing again and again until it was dead a final time.
Ingrge ran toward the caravan, the stranger lingering behind on the trail to gather all of his daggers. The elf grabbed his side, as he was winded from the run and from struggling with the gray-cloaked man. When he was about five hundred feet away, he stopped and drew his bow, began notching one arrow after the next and firing at the ghoulish attackers.
Each one of the elf’s arrows found their marks, he was that expert of a shot. But the arrows did nothing to slow the undead. Snarling, Ingrge slung the bow over his back and continued to run, drawing his thin-blade with one hand, and his dagger with the other.
“Hurry, you,” Ingrge called over his shoulder to the gray-cloaked man. “If you say you are a friend, now is the time to prove it.”
The stranger sheathed the last of the daggers and jogged after Ingrge. “By the braids of my sister Sherrie,” he said, running after the elf, then coming to a stop. “What manner of evil could spawn this?” From this distance it looked like a war was being waged, with the undead forces multiplying and closing in on the hapless caravan. Even from this distance the stench of the undead was oppressive, giving the stranger pause.
"Don’t want to die,” he said, as he continued to take in the fight. "I hadn’t intended to be a hero, not really. Not here.” He watched a moment more, then looked back over his shoulder, where the sun was turning the trunks of the willow birches a molten orange. The woods looked safe and inviting. “Not really a hero,” he repeated. “But certainly a fool.” With that, he ran as fast as he could toward the caravan, pulling two daggers free as he went.
Within a few minutes, the stranger and Ingrge were fighting a force of undead that had sprouted at the rear of the caravan.
More and more skeletons grew like weeds from the ground, and as Milo watched another dozen scramble out, he decided that he was going to die. Everyone died, he knew. But his time was coming any moment now.
“Never going to see Wisconsin again,” he muttered. “No more buttered popcorn.” He wondered if when he died his body would show up in his apartment. Or if he died here would he be alive back home. “I’d rather not find out. Better change my attitude fast.”
The bones from skeletons he’d slain were broken all around his feet, a detached hand had its fingers wrapped stubbornly around his scabbard. Still, he wouldn’t quit. His sword arm felt on fire, the muscles burning with fatigue as he drove the blade down on one undead after the next. When the fallen bodies became too thick around him, he climbed them and pushed forward into another mass.
He could see Naile, the wereboar, continuing his frenzied assault. And toward the back of the caravan, he could see Yevele. She was several yards away from the wagons, whirling and slashing with her long sword and a dagger. He couldn’t see her face clearly, but he imagined it was determined. Perhaps she was smiling, as she seemed to live for battle. Was Yevele different than Susan Spencer?
Ludlow Jade and his son were fighting, too, back to back near the largest of their wagons. The merchant was using a large, curved sword that Milo had not seen him carry. It was an impressive weapon, and Ludlow Jade used it with some amount of skill.
Still, despite the guards and the merchants, and despite the fact that they fought with courage and deftness, they were too outnumbered. The undead were clumsy and practically mindless, but they were relentless and difficult to stop, and more and more and more of them were appearing.
“So much for my change in attitude. We really are all going to die,” Milo breathed. “But I’ll take as many with me as the fates allow.” Somehow he managed to redouble his efforts, and he cleaved through the corpse of a young man in a military uniform. The insignia on the tabard was nothing Milo was familiar with, and so he guessed this body was from somewhere distant.
It was clear to him that the undead hadn’t come from the same graveyard. From the tattered remnants of clothes, Milo could see that some had been commoners and laborers; others had been aristocrats and warriors; and there were elves and dwarves in the mix — not likely they’d all be buried together. And what single graveyard could have held all these corpses? Some might have died . . . for the first time ... as recently as yesterday, their flesh not yet foggy gray. Others had bones so yellow and not a trace of flesh anywhere; they might be centuries dead.
‘‘Why?’’ Milo screamed, as his sword lodged in the chest of a particularly thick-chested zombie. He struggled to pull it free, wincing when the creature clawed at his face. Then he managed to tug the sword out and swing it again, cutting through the thing’s spine and a heartbeat later cutting it in two. “Why is this happening?”
Ludlow Jade had told them to expect bandits. The merchant likely hadn’t expected this. None of them had, Milo knew. Why would an army of undead strike at a merchant caravan? Certainly something controlled them. And what did that "something” hope to gain by this assault? All their deaths?
"Why? Why in the name of all that’s holy?” Milo screamed then, feeling an intense pain shooting up his leg. He glanced down, a skeleton ... or rather the remains of a skeleton from its shattered chest on up . . . had drug itself on top of a pile of bones and had thrust the needle-like fingers of both its hands deep into Milo’s right thigh.
He brought his leg up, tugging the half-skeleton with it, and tried to beat it off with the pommel of his sword. Distracted, he didn’t see another skeleton come up from behind him and do the same thing to the back of his left leg.
This time Milo clenched his teeth and fought from crying out. He dropped his sword and used his hands to pull the skeleton in front loose, then to pitch it high over the heads of more undead. He turned his attention to the one behind him, ripping its arms loose and tossing them aside, cursing to note the finger bones were still lodged in his leg. He brought his heel down hard on the offending skeleton’s head, then he retrieved his sword and paced in a tight circle to access the battlefield.
The three Glothorio priests on this side of the caravan were working in concert now, and the chandler’s two guards were keeping the undead back so the priests could work uninterrupted. Milo fought his way toward them to help.
The center priest was singing, a high-pitched dissonant tune that added to Milo�
�s pain. As he neared, he felt the air change. It was still cold and filled with the horrid scent of decay, but now it crackled with energy that caused his hair to stand up. His fingers tingled, and it became an effort to hold onto his sword. Milo managed to draw nearer and fought to keep a grip on the pommel. He thrust his blade into the belly of one zombie, raising his leg and kicking out at another.
“Help us!” one of the chandler’s guards called. He motioned to Milo with his free hand and jabbed futilely at a skeleton with his sword.
“I’m trying,” Milo returned between clenched teeth. He worked to shove the pain to the back of his mind—it hurt with every step he took on his injured legs. He tried to focus on clearing out the undead around the priests. “I’m — ”
The priest’s song rose to a hurtful crescendo, and the other two priests joined in. At the moment that they held a shrill high note, several tattoos broke free from their heads and necks and whirled in the air high above them. The center priest raised his hands like a conductor, then gestured, and one by one the tattoos glowed darkly. Tiny motes of light appeared on the sigils, winking bright, then disappearing. When the glow faded, the priest gestured again, and the tattoos became arrows that raced earthward, piercing the ground.
The earth trembled in response, and Milo watched as the black arrow-sigils melted and spread over the trail, then stretched outward like a growing pool of oil and into the grass and churned-up earth where the undead had erupted. Where the magical oil touched the undead, there were puffs of ash and hollow cries.
“They’re consecrating the ground,” one of the chandler’s guards explained. “At least, I think that’s what they’re doing.”
The blackness continued to spread across the earth, leaving in its wake piles of ash where zombies and skeletons once stood. It even reduced to ash the severed limbs of the fallen creatures, and it spilled into cracks in the earth where more undead were trying to claw their way up.
‘‘You,” the center priest croaked. His voice was a harsh whisper, and his eyes were dull and lifeless. There were no tattoos remaining on him, and his fellows had only a few on their necks and the back of their hands. He pointed to Milo. “You, man. Unhook the dead horses, and take fit horses from other wagons. Then get the people and this caravan moving. ”
“This ground is foul, enspelled,” another Glothorio priest said. "Much of our holy magic is spent, and we need to rest.”
“To get away from here,” the third priest said. "Hurry, man.”
Milo headed to the front of the caravan and started unhitching the slaughtered horses. With Naile’s help—he’d changed back from his wereboar form—they and some guards managed to tug the dead animals off the trail. Yevele, Ingrge, and the gray-cloaked stranger worked to divide the healthy horses between the wagons and get the caravan on its way.
Then Naile turned to retrieving his dropped clothes and hand axes, avoiding the gazes of surprised merchants and refusing to answer questions about how he could turn into a wild animal.
“Who are you?” Milo gestured to the gray-cloaked stranger. He remembered seeing him many days ago in the Golden Tankard, and remembered that the figure had managed to slip out before the fight spread to all corners of the room. "Well?”
Milo leaned against Yevele for support, his wounded legs throbbing painfully. He railed against a wave of dizziness that threatened to spill him to the ground. Between his efforts at fighting the undead and moving the dead horses, he’d opened up the gouges and gotten dirt in the wounds. It was becoming difficult for him to walk, and fiery jolts shot up from where the finger bones were still embedded. " I say again, who are you?”
The stranger drew back his hood. His eyes were clear and determined, and his face did not betray even a hint of fear. “You may call me Berthold of the Green. As I told Ingrge the elf, I am here to help you.”
Berthold of The Green
Milo stretched out on a cot in the common room of Wheaton Dale’s inn. It was the first time in quite a few weeks he’d had a place to sleep indoors, but this was only because of his wounds. Zechial had cut off Milo’s leggings and worked the finger bones out of his legs, then he cleaned the wounds with brandy, and said he’d visit him later and would arrange for more care.
A dozen other caravan guards occupied cots, too, all of them injured from the fight with the undead. An equal number of guards had been killed, along with the shoemaker, and all of them were being buried in a mass grave just south of the city.
“One of those Glothorio priests is tending to the burial," Naile said. He was sitting on a stool next to Milo’s cot, the stool creaking in protest under the big man’s weight. “The priests are worried that if some spells aren’t cast and the ground isn’t consecrated, the dead guards might rise up and come after us.”
“A cheery thought.” Milo propped himself up on his elbows and looked to the far end of the common room. The inn had been turned into an infirmary, and it smelled of camphor and other sharp things
he couldn’t put names to. Lanterns burned low throughout the room, showing two Glothorio priests ministering to the potter’s guard, who was in danger of losing an arm.
“They’ll come tend you, too,” Naile said. “I saw Ludlow Jade’s son pay them.”
Milo shook his head. "I’m surprised the priests didn’t charge for casting spells against the undead back on the road.”
Naile dropped his gaze to the tips of his boots. “Milo, they did. The merchants pooled some money, enough to satisfy the Coin Gatherers,
I guess. The head priest said the tattoos cost them, and all of his would have to be replaced.”
Milo eased back down on the cot. “Do any of the priests have the vaguest idea why the — ”
“Undead attacked us? No. And I asked Ludlow Jade about it, too. He just paled and talked about taking up a different route next year. Said he wouldn’t be taking his wagons this way again. 1 got the impression he’d hightail it back to the city come morning, but he said the towns north were expecting this caravan.” Naile eased off the stool and walked to a window next to Milo’s cot. He opened one of the shutters. “He thought he should keep his promise.”
“Figures they need his blankets and rugs, huh?”
“And that he needs their money, I suspect.”
“Where’s Yevele?”
Naile raised his gaze to the moon. “And the moon rose full and pearly, pearly bright," he whispered, recalling the line from a song at the Golden Tankard.
“Yevele.”
Naile closed the shutter. “Helping bury the dead, like I should be doing. Just wanted to check on you first. We’ll come back later, all of us. Later tonight. In the meantime, I’ll make sure someone brings you something to eat.” He made a move to leave, then stopped. “Milo, what did you do ... in Wisconsin? What did you do before you came here?”
Milo pretended he was sleeping.
Milo guessed “later” was close to midnight. The priests had worked their magic on his legs, taking quite some time with the left one, as they said it was gravely infected. He hadn’t liked the use of the word “gravely,” and when they muttered in a language he couldn’t understand, he worried that he might lose his leg. But one of the priests cast some sort of healing enchantment that required the use of a swirling black tattoo. Minutes later, the ache was gone from Milo’s legs and he could flex them.
They’d told him to rest for the evening, and so he was doing just that, appreciating a roof over his head, a full belly, and a somewhat comfortable straw mattress beneath him. He wondered if Ludlow Jade would tack on some additional service to his debt to pay for this, and for the healing from the Glothorio priests.
“Probably,” he said.
“Probably what?” Naile was sitting on the stool, the shadows cast from a low-burning lantern giving the big man a haunted look.
“Just thinking,” Milo said. "I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, just laying here.”
“Thinking about home?”
“And ab
out here. About the undead and our bracelets, my rings. About this world. About a lot of things. Yevele coming?”
“Soon. Last I knew she was looking for Ingrge and the guy with all the daggers. It seems they. . . .” Naile glanced at the doorway, where the trio was entering and trying to be quiet. Several of the wounded men were soundly sleeping, but a few were awake, their eyes following Yevele.
She knelt next to the cot, opposite Naile, and brushed the hair off Milo’s forehead. “You’ve a fever,” she whispered.
“Not so warm as he was a couple of hours ago,” Naile supplied.
Milo propped himself up on his elbows. “I want to know who he is.” He gestured with his head to the foot of the cot, where Ingrge stood next to the stranger.
“Berthold of the Green, I told you.” The man had his hood back, and his cloak was off his shoulders. He was displaying the slightness of his frame to them, and at the same time showing off the arsenal of daggers that stuck from sheathes everywhere.
“Well, Berthold of the Green, that’s not good enough.” This came from Naile, who leaned forward on the protesting stool.
Berthold let out a deep sigh and crept close to Yevele. He kneeled silently on the floor. “Look, 1 explained all of this to Ingrge.”
“Explain it to us,” Milo said a little too loud.
Berthold drew his face together until it looked pinched. He put a finger to his lips in an effort to keep Milo quiet. "Listen,” he said so softly they had to strain to hear. “I’m like you. I’m not from around here.”
It was clear he had their attention. "Several months ago, probably a year. I’ve sort of lost track of time. My game master back home brought out these incredible miniatures he'd received in the mail. As usual, I got last pick, and so I got stuck with the thief, as always, I might add.” He paused, apparently lost in some memory. Yevele nudged him to continue. "So I picked up the miniature, was looking at the detail. And then . . . poof ... all of a sudden I wasn’t in an imagined medieval city, one like our characters were adventuring in during the game. I was in a real one. And when I looked in a pool and saw my reflection, I found out I looked just like the thief miniature.”
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