The Lady's Man

by Greg Curtis

  “A useful inheritance.”

  “It was for that reason that I was chosen to be your guide. The elders did not know where you might go, and they thought my nature might be of some help. There are a number of copses of dryads within the Hammeral Forests.”

  “The elders are most wise.”

  And they were. He didn't know where he was going, and with the Lady guiding his feet, it might well be that he would be heading through dryad lands. And the very real magic of dryads was said to be confusion. They could send the straightest of messengers off course should they choose to, and a strange paladin heading too close to their homes might well have found his feet guided in another direction.

  But who he wondered, was this prophetess she spoke of? And how had she been chosen to be his guide when he hadn't been certain of needing one? Or for that matter how had the elders known where to send her to meet with him when even he hadn't known he was returning this way? Naturally he knew he would get no answer, and the strange thing was that he wasn't even completely sure he wanted one. It was enough that she was here, and that wasn't just the Lady speaking.

  In her Yorik also saw one thing he hadn't seen in months. A future.

  Chapter Seven.

  “Shhh! Stay very still and don't make a noise.”

  Yorik didn't know what lay ahead of them, but he knew it was bad. Bad enough that he wanted to face it on foot with his great sword in hand. He could feel it like a chill wind blowing against him. Worse, his spelled armour could feel it, and it glowed golden against the threat. Whatever lay ahead was not just an enemy, it was of magic. Dark magic.

  Yorik slid off his horse and silently drew the great sword and held it before him. It too was glowing like the armour, another sign of dark magic ahead.

  With a set of well practised hand signals, he ordered Genivere to grab the reigns to his two horses and back away into the trees behind them. Strangely it seemed that she didn’t want to follow his order. Instead she drew her longbow and trained it on the clearing. For all her vaunted peaceful ways and lack of warrior skills, she apparently wanted to fight, and for once she was almost willing to cross him on it – though she did have the sense not to say anything. But having been ordered to remain silent and thus unable to argue with him he had the advantage. A few more intense stares and rapid gestures and she did as he asked and backed away, leaving him free to enter the clearing alone.

  He knew that she would do as he asked, and say nothing against him even if it turned out badly – even though she surely would want to. In the two weeks they had travelled together she had not once contradicted him, even when he said something stupid. She had merely asked her questions politely, perhaps made a few suggestions and then followed him loyally no matter what idiocy he walked into.

  It was a strange arrangement for a mere paladin like him to understand. He was used to a much more direct manner from his companions. And if he was doing something foolish he expected to be told as much. But Genivere wouldn't do that. In fact he suspected she was treating him as she would no doubt treat an elder – or a foolish child who had to learn his lessons by experience. He wasn't quite sure which, always assuming that it wasn't both. Whichever was right, he was to be obeyed, even when he was ordering her to do something completely addled. The frustrating thing was that no matter how many times he asked her to be more direct with him, she seemed unable or unwilling to do so.

  Thus he had foolishly wandered into a patch of wild bee hives on their second day travelling together, and spent a day scratching at the stings, wondering why she didn't seem hurt. Perhaps her resilient dryad skin had protected her, or perhaps the bees had recognised her as a follower of the Mother, and therefore not a threat. And he couldn't even blame her for not having warned him of the danger ahead. She had, in her own roundabout way, simply suggesting that a slightly more westerly path might be more pleasant.

  The following day he had led them into a patch of peat bog while a path through it lay only fifty paces further on. It was only when he'd idly wished that there was a path through it, that she'd volunteered the information.

  Thereafter he'd learned one thing about travelling with Genivere: If she made any comment at all about the route or the land ahead, no matter how trivial, he needed to ask her about it. The same was true of practically everything else. She would not volunteer anything that seemed to go against his decisions, no matter how right she was, and no matter how many times he asked her to.

  But this time for once, he knew he was right. All his years as a paladin – his training, and his own finely tuned magical senses – told him there was dark magic ahead, and while he might not be an elf with a natural instinct for travelling in unknown forests, this was his domain and he needed to be free to fight it.

  Yet the clearing showed not a single sign of evil. Not a sign of anything other than a perfectly normal, beautiful clearing. Everything looked so peaceful; the long grass looked soft and inviting in the midday sun, the single tree in the middle stood tall and proud and beckoned to the weary traveller to sit beneath its shade. Yet the sight of the clearing made his skin crawl as though a million centipedes were marching beneath his clothes.

  “Lady, guide me.”

  Yorik took a few very cautious steps out into the open, and then when nothing happened, a few more. But he didn't venture very far from the safety of the woods behind him. Instead, once having moved perhaps five paces from them, he began circling the clearing, step by cautious step, looking for the first sign of anything dangerous. Behind him he knew, Genivere would be sitting astride Aphallia, bow in hand, covering his back. Though he hadn't seen her use the weapon yet, if she was anything like the rest of her people, she would be capable with the weapon. It was a comforting thought.

  A sudden growl instantly stole that comfort from him.

  It was a wolf growl he knew, but not like that of any wolf he'd ever met before. It was loud and ferocious as it should be, but it was also strangely unworldly, as though the wolf was from somewhere else entirely. A heartbeat later he knew why.

  Out of the long grass immediately in front of him the wolf's great bulk rose like that of a giant suddenly standing up. Behind it half a dozen more such shapes rose out of the ground. But these were not true wolves, though they once had been cousins of them. Instead they were as large as a small horse, and with a grey pelt and jagged white streaks along its side.

  Yorik recognised them as dire wolves, a dangerous enough foe but not unbeatable. He'd seen and fought such creatures before. But those he had fought had been natural dire wolves. These weren't natural. These were undead. Abominations that shouldn't exist.

  It showed in the jagged holes and wounds he could see through their pelts, where blackened blood had dried. The places where arrows had once pierced their hearts and sent them to the afterlife. It showed in their black eyes that had not a trace of the yellows or whites of normal wolf eyes. And above all it showed in their grinning mouths full of rotten teeth. They had been dead probably many weeks or months by the smell of festering corruption, and yet they were ready to attack. More than ready.

  The leader lunged at him with all the speed its living kin were famed for, and Yorik barely managed to dodge its vicious bite. But somehow he did and as it passed by he scored a direct hit to its front leg with his great sword, severing it at the knee. Just an instant before he had known fear as he'd seen these things rise out of the ground, even as he had felt the dark magic that possessed them. But the moment the leader lunged at him however that fear was gone, and all that remained was the calm of the hurricane's eye and the knowledge of how to defeat these creatures.

  “Lady guide my arm.”

  Even as he uttered the small prayer instinctively, he felt a rush of strength and power filling him, enough to leap right over the head of the second wolf as it charged him, and enough speed with it, that he managed to sever half its neck on the way by.

  Landing as lightly as a cat just behind the mouth of a ravenous, slavering t
hird wolf, he had time enough to see that the other two still weren't finished. Even as he cut off the back leg on the third wolf he could see that the first was coming back on three legs, while the second, even with its head hanging at a ridiculous angle was also returning. The only way to stop these brutes he guessed was to cut them into tiny pieces.

  A quick roll brought him right under the belly of the third wolf which was trying to turn around to bite him, and directly into the side of another. Caught by surprise by his angle of attack it soon surrendered the dried out remnants of its insides to his blade, and then its tail before he vaulted its remains to take on the next pair. Meanwhile he could see arrows sticking out of the eyes of yet another wolf, and knew that Genivere was busy. But while the wolf might have been blinded, it wasn't as dead as it should be. It was undead and so could not be killed – only destroyed.

  Another flip brought him right onto the back of one of the pack followers, and before it could even react he'd sliced right through its neck. Thankfully its head fell off and he knew it would pose no more risk. Its body might still work, even its teeth, but it could do nothing with them. He was somewhat disturbed by the way blood failed to gush from such a wound. Instead what little there was oozed sluggishly. Without a beating heart to pump, it couldn't. And to make things worse it was dead blood. Rather than being bright red in colour, the blood was dark almost to the point of being black. Dead, congealed blood simply oozed slowly through the creature's veins.

  Happily there was no time to reflect on whatever dark magic made this dead thing walk, as he had another six or so wolves to dispatch, several of which were already making their way towards him as fast as they could. Their great size and weight had made it difficult for them to change directions once he had dodged past them but they had always been going to succeed in time.

  The first pair were easy to stop as he simply brought the great sword straight down on the skull of the first, cleaving it wide open, and then with a deft and well rehearsed pivot, turned the sword sideways to slice right through another neck, letting its head find the ground. Before the others could reach him, he chopped off the head of the first wolf whose skull he'd just cleaved.

  After that only five wolves remained, and all were injured. Two were hobbling on three legs, one had lost its insides which were dragging along the ground behind it like a fishing net filled with black eels, and the last two were more or less blind with arrows sticking out of their eyes. It wasn't even a contest as he simply took each wolf in turn and beheaded it while its comrades charged as best they were able, directly into the path of his great sword.

  A minute or so later he stood there alone in the clearing, surrounded by the still standing but thankfully motionless bodies of the dead dire wolves, wondering what to do next. They were all defenceless – dead but in actuality no more dead than they had been when he'd entered the clearing. In fact parts of them might still be able to cause trouble. Mouths even on the decapitated heads might still be able to bite. He couldn't leave them like that.

  Movement caught his eye and he looked up to see Genivere entering the clearing on her horse, and a sudden sense of dread hit him as he abruptly realised the battle wasn't over. The true enemy had spied her, hungrily, and he could sense his malice so near to him. He could feel the malevolence like a cold, clammy blanket clinging to his back trying to wrap itself around him.

  “No! Get back!”

  Yorik screamed it at her as he suddenly heard the creature behind him rising, and then had to spin for all he was worth, to greet the new threat. Despite his fear and the uncanny speed of the wolves though he still proved fast enough. More than fast enough. And he stood there, sword in hand, waiting. And then he had to keep waiting. It took him a few very long and nervous heartbeats to spy the enemy in front of him.

  It took him so long because this time there was no pony sized dire wolf rushing him as he'd expected. There was just a human shaped figure, approaching him slowly. But despite that it still threatened them. All the hairs on Yorik's body were standing on end as the dark presence closed in on him, and when he finally caught sight of it he knew why. The creature wasn't the wolf he'd expected. But it was the same. It was a man. A dead man, but someone who had once lived and now existed once more. He was undead. Moreover, he was someone who had once had magic of his own; necromancy. He also apparently still had it in death. This was the wolves' master.

  It took a few moments for the truth to sink in. That this undead mage was the one who had raised the wolves. It was he who had controlled them, and he who had directed them to attack. He was the reason they actually walked. And yet he too was dead. It was impossible. He was a necromancer. He was dead or undead, and yet he was raising more dead. Such a thing had never happened before. It couldn't be. The dead could not raise themselves.

  Dead or not however, the mage was still dangerous, and Yorik watched with shock as the headless bodies of the wolves started walking towards their heads at the necromancer’s direction. He didn't need to ask to know that once they'd found them, they were going to somehow magically reattach themselves, and attack again. That he guessed was the point of an undead army. Each time you killed it, it was still able to be raised once more to kill.

  But not, he suddenly realised, if its master was also destroyed.

  Ignoring the wolves entirely, Yorik ran with all the speed the Lady could lend him, and in less than a pair of heartbeats he reached the mage. A single powerful blow with the great sword cut right through him at shoulder level, and the mage fell in pieces all around him. Arms and head scattered like leaves in the wind under the power of the blade, while his trunk simply collapsed where it had once stood.

  The sounds of bodies falling to the ground all around him made him look up to see the unnaturally active wolves once again lying at peace as they should be. Those heads which had somehow begin to reattach themselves, parted company with the bodies once more, and all that was left was a series of great fleshy mounds of fur, black blood and bone.

  The mage however, was still not quite dead and Yorik watched with horror as he saw the bodiless head start mouthing some sort of spell, even though it had no voice to do it with, while its arms started wriggling on the ground, heading for its body. Yorik realised that the battle was still not finished. Given enough time, this macabre creature would reassemble itself, and then gather its army of dire wolves once more.

  Fortunately he had an answer. Fire! He'd never fought the undead before, had never even heard of them being in the land except in the history books, but from somewhere in his past lessons he knew that fire was their enemy. Properly burnt flesh, especially ashes, could never regenerate.

  With a single well practised spell he cast fire on the great sword, and then pointed it directly at the mage's still moving head. The result was everything he'd dreamed of as the fire shot out like an arrow released directly at the head, causing it to explode in a ball of righteous flame. It burnt well, and better yet, the headless body parts quickly stopped crawling towards it.

  A few moments later he decided to complete the job, and with a branch he found under the nearby tree, he knocked the burning head, into the rest of the mage's body and watched it catch fire as well. After that came the mage's arms, and all of them caught fire easily. Soon there would be nothing left of the undead necromancer.

  As for the necromancer’s army Yorik quickly decided that they too could join him in the flames. Their bodies were too large to move, but with a few more spells they all caught fire and burnt alongside their master. After that he set about finding all the remaining parts of the dire wolves and tossing them into the flames until soon he had a dozen blazing bonfires. This was one army that was never going to return to life.

  Once all of the bodies were well alight, he returned to the forest where Genivere and the horses were waiting for him. His companion had returned to the safety of the forest when he'd given the order and he was glad of that. Even though he'd been able to easily defeat the undead necromance
r, had it been something else that had been coming for him he would have wanted her to be safe.

  Genivere looked shocked by the ordeal, her normally tanned face almost ashen, but then even the normally placid horses were nervous. And who could blame them? Yorik was also still reeling from the shock of what he'd just faced.

  Undead! Such things hadn't been seen let alone fought in many long years, and even then he'd never heard of the necromancer himself also being undead. It made no sense. Had the dead mage somehow raised himself from the dead? Or had someone else raised him in turn? There were no answers, but then this wasn't the time for questions. It was time simply to accept one's survival and be grateful.

  “It's all right. It's all over.”

  He tried to reassure Genivere with his words, even though she could see for herself that nothing new was coming from the clearing. Then again she seemed calm. Perhaps he was simply trying to reassure himself.

  “No honoured paladin. Whatever this is, it's far from over. It's a nightmare just beginning. Reanimated mages raising undead armies. Such a thing has never happened before in our lands. Or any others as far as I know.”