by Dylan Doose
* * *
Chapter Twenty-One
Upir
“If you won’t burn the ghouls then you damn well better burn that,” said Theron as he dipped his chin to the Upir. What a fiend it was. Naked and white as snow, purple veins bulging beneath its absurdly muscled flesh, belly grotesquely distended from gorging on blood over the days past. It bared its teeth, a mouth full of fangs, red eyes glowing in the dusk. The Upir circled, studying them, obviously no mindless threat. “So stop your sniveling and get ready. Here comes a hell of a fight.”
“How do we go about this?” Ken asked, twirling his weapons.
“Circle it. Ken, go right, I’ll take left,” said Chayse. She notched an arrow and sidestepped slowly, her eyes fixed on the Upir.
“Don’t you miss and hit me,” said Ken, only half in jest.
“I’ll try not to,” she said. “Though it would be easy to mistake you for a fiend.”
Theron wasted no time on words and went at the thing straight on. He swung from the hip. Not even close. The Upir sprang back so quickly it was hard to see, and then swung a clawed hand at Theron. It struck him in the head, but his mighty helm took the blow well. He stood strong, and sent another swing, and again the Upir dodged.
Chayse let fly her arrow.
Ken gaped as the devil caught the projectile midair, then snapped it.
Bloody hell.
He lunged, thinking this would give him a chance to strike. He was wrong.
The Upir spun back round, ducking under Ken’s axe, and pirouetted away from his mace. Somehow the creature managed to get round to his back and create a good distance from Theron and Chayse. Ken sensed the fangs coming down for his exposed neck, but there was a bestial cry and the fangs did not come.
Ken spun round to see the boy driving his sword into the Upir’s ribs. But the boy was completely lacking battle experience, and left himself completely open to attack. In defense of him.
The Upir steeled itself and sent the wizard flying with a heavy forearm strike to the chest. He hit the ground, limp, and did not move again.
Aldous, no.
Ken swung each of his weapons, and missed with both again, but an arrow whistled over his shoulder so damn close he could feel the goose feathers touch his neck. The missile struck the fanged fiend in the chest, making it stumble back.
Theron delivered a heavy downward strike, with no success. Two heavy wounds and the Upir was just as spry as it was at the start of the fray.
“I thought you said it was going to be slow,” Ken said to Theron.
The Upir slashed with a claw most vile. Theron rolled under it and sprinted away ten strides, loading his hand crossbow as he did. The creature took pursuit, but Ken hooked it around the arm with his axe, turned it around, and gave it a good bludgeon across the mouth with his mace. Fangs crunched and purple blood sprayed.
“Take a bite out of me now, you fucking bastard,” Ken said. The Upir seemed to have a mind to obey the taunt, and opened its devastated mouth wide, growling from the throat and lunging at Ken.
Ken struck twice. The Upir caught each blow by the wrist, and they wrestled. Ken pushed forward, the muscles in his legs snapping into action, as he fought to drive the tangled fiend toward Theron.
Its teeth gnashed closer and closer, and it was as strong as ten men as it pushed against Ken’s might. The head of Theron’s bolt burst through its eye, sticking right through the back of the skull. It weakened from the shot and Ken pulled his arms free. Chayse re-entered the melee, her short swords piercing the Upir’s bloated gut with a double stab, and blood burst from the holes like waterfalls of deep red. Chayse and Ken got painted head to toe, and the Upir screamed.
The fight was yet to leave it, though, and without the extra weight of bloat it only increased in speed, frantic now, desperate to survive. It sprang on Ken, grabbed him with both hands, and, like he was a rag doll, slammed him into the ground. He hit the ground with such force he feared for his spine; the wind sprinted free from his caving lungs. The fiend dug its talons into the boiled leather cuirass that covered his chest and hauled him up, fetid breath fanning his face. Ken’s strength had left him with his air, and though he fought, he could not resist a second slam.
Theron came to his aid, and with an immense upward sweep he lopped the Upir’s right arm in two. It dropped Ken, took its mutilated limb in hand, and thumped Theron hard across the helm with it, dropping him to a knee. Ken watched from his hands and knees, breathless, unable to speak as Chayse wiped the blood from her eyes and sprang to save her brother.
* * *
Aldous shook the haze from his head and sat up. He took a breath. It hurt. He saw four figures, fuzzy, indistinct, moving apart, then together, then apart again. An inhuman shrieking filled the air, followed by a thud.
Where am I—
The mission. The ghouls. The Upir—
He blinked and his vision sharpened. Ken was down. Theron was down, and the devil beast was using its own mutilated arm to clobber him.
He glanced toward the distant trees. He could run. While the thing was busy killing his comrades, he could run. To the east. To the north. He could run and he could hide.
He never asked for any of this.
Get up. That is the man who saved you, the man who took you in, the man who has faith in you.
And he, a warrior of such renown, was on the ground before the monster.
What hope did Aldous have?
He should run. The Aldous in the basement of the church would run.
Aldous crawled up onto his hands and knees, the world spinning around him.
Chayse sprang and slashed, got in two good strikes, spraying the thing’s blood in wide arcs, drawing the Upir’s attention from her brother for the briefest moment. But still it would not fall.
The Upir dropped its arm and lashed with the claws of its remaining hand.
Aldous pushed to his feet, heart pounding, muscles tensing.
Chayse was not quick enough.
The razor talons bit into her mail.
The iron rings split.
Her flesh was exposed.
She hit the ground bleeding.
Chayse.
Theron.
Ken.
And Aldous knew he had never intended to run. He saw the staff of wolves and ravens in the grass. He dove to it, rolling as he took it in his hands. There was no specific intent. No decision. It simply was. The power of the staff entered him, became him, and he became it. He could feel its life, and it could drink from his.
The fiend battered Theron back to the ground as he started to rise, and then it turned on Chayse. She was hurt, struggling to rise.
It hurt Chayse and it will kill her.
The wolves howled in his mind and his heart; the ravens cawed in the marrow of his bones and the sinews of his muscle. The wooden staff began to glow. It was hot, burning his flesh, but he did not blister. His shirtsleeves caught flame.
Chayse. Chayse. Chayse. All he thought was her name. All he knew was the need to keep her safe. Keep them all safe.
The Upir turned, sensing danger.
Fire burst from the staff so quickly it was hard to say whether it did at all, or whether the energy of the flame transported from the staff directly into the Upir. The red-orange glow of the flames engulfed it from the inside out. Fire burst from its mouth as it opened on a silent scream. It flailed as it burned, stumbled aimlessly, stumbled to the blood on the ground that had spilt from its eviscerated gut, and, still burning, still screaming, it dropped to its hand and knees and tried to lap it up. The red puddle boiled beneath the writhing, living torch.
Melting to boiling plasma, boiling, burning to ash, it died the truest death.
Aldous heard his name, a distant whisper. Ken. Theron. Chayse. They were calling him, but he did not—could not—answer. He walked to the dying flames in the Upir’s remains and put his hand into the fire, the staff still clutched in his other hand. The pain was so fierce Aldous wished to
scream and howl, to sever the burning limb. He did none of that, for the flaming hand did not blister, and the fire did not spread. He walked to the hill of ghouls and placed his hand upon it. The fire was hungry, and it climbed the mound of dry flesh with ravenous speed.
He felt the drain, the singular drain he had felt the night he set the chapel ablaze, the first night he had ever used his magic. The mountain of gray meat was burning before him and then it wasn’t. He was flying through black clouds, over rotten fields flooded with a sea of rats. She was among them, emerald green, everything so green. And then she turned and looked up and up to the sky. And he felt like she looked into his eyes, into his heart.
Aldous gasped and dropped the staff. The image faded.
“Fucking hell, now that was a good bit of wizardry,” Ken said.
Aldous turned to him, then looked back at the fire. Wizardry. He was a wizard. He was a wizard.
Ken coughed and got to his feet. Theron was up next and rushed to Chayse, reaching her a second before Aldous did. She was standing before they got to her, staring at the bonfire. The wound was not nearly as bad as Aldous had thought; the splintered chain mail had cut her more than the Upir’s claws. She was scraped but not gushing, and he thought she would be fine.
She looked in awe at their smoldering enemy and the pile of flaming ghouls.
“Aldous?” she said, the fire glinting in the reflection of her beautiful eyes.
“Aldous indeed,” said Theron, the pride abundant in his voice.
“Fucking Aldous indeed!” shouted Ken, as he ran up and shook him by the shoulders. Aldous had never seen the large man so enthusiastic.
They were all looking at him, not the way they looked at a boy. The way they looked at a colleague, a comrade in arms.
He was well and truly one of them.
“You saved us all,” Theron said, bowing his head and dragging off his helm. His golden hair was sweat-plastered to his skull. Blood splatter freckled his face in the places the helm had not covered. “Never have I fought an Upir such as that. I truly hope we never cross its creator.”
“You would have figured it out without me,” Aldous said, truly believing it.
“I really doubt that.” Ken laughed, the sound like nails in a bucket. Aldous had rarely heard Ken laugh. He swept Aldous into his massive arms and squeezed. If he hadn’t laughed first, and were Theron not ruffling Aldous’ hair as if he were a puppy, Aldous might have thought Ken meant to crush the life from him. But it was a hug, and Aldous forgave him in an instant for his earlier hardness. This was the way of the pack.
“What stirred it in you? What gave you the key?” Chayse asked, looking at him in a way he had never seen her look at him before. It made him feel a little uneasy.
“You,” Aldous said. “When I saw you fall, when I saw you were wounded… I don’t know… I just knew what I had to do, and Theron and Ken, seeing you like that… I could not remain idle.”
“Aldous, you truly did save us. I know that you have thought all along that you owe me something for that night in Norburg, but you owe me nothing. You owe none of us anything. Except, of course, an excellent written recounting of my exploits.” Theron grinned.
“Perhaps Ken would like to try his hand at writing of our exploits,” Aldous said.
“I could try, lad, but I think the task is better suited to you, wizard or no,” said Ken.
“I have yet to document a single one of our adventures,” Aldous said, looking at the ground.
“It’s in your blood,” Theron replied, poking him in the chest.
Aldous opened his mouth, closed it, and then he turned to the burning bodies. He even took in a deep breath through his nose, for he wanted to smell it now. He wanted to be sure. Then he thought of Wardbrook, and laughing and eating with his new family. He thought of the chapel, of Father Riker. He thought of his own father, not a sorcerer, just a man. He thought of him burning on that stake, screaming and begging as the fire climbed up his legs. He had stopped when his face began to blister and boil.
Then Aldous thought of the man he needed to become, for never again would he be a victim. Never again would he allow those he cared about to be victims.
* * *
It doesn’t matter how many thousands of troops are on the field; it doesn’t matter what they’re armed with or what type of mail they’re wearing. The side that wins is the side with a few good men. That is all it takes: a few good men can rally a thousand that are of the lesser making, the typical making.
Fighting is won by killers, by good, savage killers, the type of fellows who bend but never break. The type of blokes who walk into the thresher, and before they’re out, they become it. If you can’t kill with your bare hands, don’t ever pick up a sword. Turn around now and become a baker, or a milkmaid.
* * *
A speech given by Marshall Theodore Rosehammer to new recruits the day Kendrick the Cold joined the king’s army, in the second Norburg battalion, as documented by a scribe of the Honorable Count Salvenius.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ken’s Specialty
They were back at Dentin just before dawn. The duke had acted on Theron’s warning, at least somewhat, for though they were not as ready as Theron would have liked, some preparations were in the making. Although the sun was yet to rise, the villagers were bustling their way toward the keep. Soldiers holding shields bearing the sigil of Dentin—a red fox on a black field—conducted and ordered the villagers to take only the bare necessities of food and water. A column of peasants, some carrying their goods, others dragging foodstuffs and small children in carts, wended along the road. Theron was impressed with how composed the soldiers were; he hoped they kept that composure when they set eyes upon the swarm. Aldous had seen them, a sea of rats, and Theron believed it.
The party spurred their steeds and galloped to the house of Duke Duncan.
The guards recognized them this time, and at a distance.
“Hunters, you have returned. What of the Upir?” asked the one named Sam.
“Dead,” said Chayse. “The Upir and the mob of ghouls are but smoke and ashes.” They trotted through the already open gate alongside the column of peasants, and this close, Theron could read terror and panic in their faces.
The order to move to safer ground within the keep’s walls had fed their terror.
“Huzzah! The hunters have killed the devil,” yelled Sam, fist in the air, but the tired and confused peasants did not take up the cheer. They eyed the group of hunters warily and rushed through the gate.
The duke was right where they had left him, sitting in his chair in the study covered in his blankets, looking more haggard than he had the previous night.
“Mother died last night.” His tone was hollow and distant, his expression vacant, for he was lost in his grief.
They sat around him and gave a moment of silence to show their respect.
“The Upir is dead,” said Theron. “I do not intend to sound cold, but you must rise, Your Grace, you must rise and address your people. You must tell them what they are soon to face.”
“What if you’re wrong, Theron?” the duke asked. “I do not doubt your knowledge, but for the sake of joy and happiness, could you be wrong? Must I build fear in my people without proven cause? The rats were a plague that has passed. I see no rats now. Perhaps they will not come.”
“They will come,” Ken said with a long look at Aldous.
Theron could see in the duke’s eyes that they were losing him, that terror and heartbreak would soon render his decisions incomprehensible.
“I could be wrong,” Theron said without much conviction. “And for the sake of joy and happiness, I hope I am wrong.” Theron shook his head and paused. “But I doubt it. The Emerald Witch wanted you to believe she would save your mother. It was her way into your confidence. Then she would steal your mind, your power, your dukedom. Dentin is a vast and profitable place, perfectly located to reach her tendrils into a
ll of Brynth. Her plan was to do to Dentin what she did to Norburg, to bring your lands to ruin, to establish a firm foothold in Brynth. The Emerald Witch herself is plague. She desires to destroy this nation from the inside.”
“But how do you know that as truth?” the duke asked. “It is pure conjecture.”
“Logical conjecture,” Theron shot back.
There was an overlong silence and the duke looked highly doubtful.
“She will take your women for demonic rites most foul,” Aldous blurted.
This statement roused the duke as Theron’s had not. “Foreigners taking our women?” he asked. “Why?”
Chayse rolled her eyes, and Theron frowned at her. This was the most life the duke had shown since their arrival. If talk of women was what it took, then talk of women it would be.
“The young ones,” said Ken. “That is what she did in Norburg. Took the young ones, but we know not why.”
“Yes,” Theron said, his tone grim. “I don’t as of yet know the method in the devil woman’s madness, but she took the young women, and I can only fear for what. Something terrible is being designed in our realm of Brynth, Your Grace, and I am near to certain that your land and its people are set to be destroyed for it.”
Tears welled in the duke’s eyes at this. “How can we face such monsters? How can we win such a fight? I have but eight knights in my court, forty men-at-arms, and thirty-six archers under my command. If we gather men capable of fighting from the peasantry, we will stand with two hundred, perhaps a few more. How many of the rats do you think shall descend upon us?”
