Marching Dead

by Lee Battersby

  It wasn’t that bad, really, Marius was forced to admit. The barrels – tubs, he reminded himself, smugglers called them tubs – were only two foot long or so, and tied together in pairs by wide leather straps that fitted over the shoulders so that they hung one on either side of the body, front and back. A normal man could have carried one pair without needing to rest for a mile or so. The dead men managed two pairs with ease. He quickly fell into line in the middle of the column as it climbed up off the beach and onto the scrubby moor beyond. The nunnery was invisible from here, but Brys turned them along the cliff edge without hesitation. They trooped along in silence, a column of stiff-backed corpses led by the swaying hips of their captain, silent but for the swish of her velvet-draped thighs and the occasional creak of leather or clunk of wood as the tubs shifted with the movement of the journey.

  Marius kept his eyes pinned to the tubs on Gerd’s back.

  “What did you mean,” he projected as they walked, “about rattling?”

  The tubman’s voice came back to him, whispered and fearful despite being entirely a projection of will. “Just what I says. The tubs rattle sometimes, and that ain’t what I’m used to hauling.” He paused. “Cheggmar Pan, brother. Been running tubs from up north a dozen years till I fell asleep in the wrong whorehouse.”

  “Marius Helles.”

  “I know you, brother.”

  “What? How?”

  An invisible chuckle. “Word gets round. Heard you put the King on his throne.”

  “Well, I–“

  “You needs be careful, brother. You gets to kingmaking, you can’t help but make enemies.”

  Marius felt the wound in his chest itch. “So I’ve noticed. How many times have you made this run?”

  “Eight times this last two years. Every quarter, just before the festival days.”

  “And you’ve never seen what you’re hauling?”

  “Never once. We goes down into the lower halls after we’ve delivered our load, and waits while the captain makes merry with the white-clad bitches–“

  “My mother lives in that nunnery.”

  “Apologies, brother. We waits while the captain meets with her customers…” A pause to make sure Marius had no other objection. “She comes gets us when it’s time to leave. And we do.”

  “Do what?”

  “Leave.”

  Marius thought for a moment. “But not all of you.”

  “Now why would you be saying that?”

  He shrugged, slipping for a moment as the tubs rearranged themselves. “Because you wouldn’t feel the need to tell me you did, if it was that simple.”

  A longer pause. “There’s usually one of us doesn’t come back. We always figures that’s what they’re dealing for upstairs. Which one of us they needs for their tasks or whatever it is.”

  “And what would nuns be wanting with a dead man?”

  “Guess even nuns got needs, brother. Meaning no offence, like.”

  Marius ignored the implication. “And you’ve never been tempted to find out?”

  “And do what, brother? Escape?” A laugh flittered around the edges of Marius’ concentration. “Dead or alive, brother kingmaker, we’re still our captin’s bondsmen. We does what she tell sus, and if she wants to sell us on, well that’s her privilege.”

  They trudged on in silence for another half hour, until the low rise they were climbing levelled out. Two skeletal shapes formed out of the darkness ahead. Brys whispered a halt. They slung their tubs into a pile on the grass and stood in a circle, waiting for her next order. Gerd sidled up to Marius.

  “What’s happening?”

  “We’re here.”

  “Where?”

  “The nunnery.” Marius nodded towards the shapes looming a dozen feet ahead: two giant beams, embedded deep into the rock, rising at an angle over the edge of the cliffs until they ended six feet above their heads, and three feet out into the empty air. Two baskets dangled there in midair, suspended from ropes that ran the length of the giant beams to terminate at a wheel assembly where the massive logs ploughed into the ground. The baskets were big enough, he calculated, to hold a person and a weight of goods as well. Marius felt Gerd take in the sight.

  “How very interesting,” Gerd projected. “I expected the nunnery to be on top of the cliff.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “It’s what – halfway down?”

  “A bit less.”

  “A hundred feet?”

  “Say eighty.”

  “Hmm.” Marius’ mind was filled with a vision of Gerd nodding. “That is interesting. Very, very interesting.” Much nodding. “Well,” he said. The sound of hands clapping together decisively. “See you later.”

  “What? Wait on!” Marius surreptitiously grabbed the hem of Gerd’s shirt as the younger man tried to swing about on his heel. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m getting out of here.” Gerd pointed towards the beams. “What did you think? That I was going to get a head start on jumping off a cliff in a coal basket? Do you even know what happens to a farm boy if you drop him umpty hundred feet into a roaring ocean?”

  “Nobody’s going to drop you.”

  “You’re not wrong!” Gerd tugged at his shirt. Marius tightened his grip.

  “Stay still.”

  “Let go!”

  “Stay still, for the gods’ sake!”

  “Fuck off!” This time, aloud.

  For one awful second the cliffs rang with Gerd’s shouted command. Marius winced, then turned towards the sound of rapidly approaching Brys.

  “And what,” she hissed, “is the subject of conversation here?”

  “Nothing, nothing.” Marius made a conciliatory gesture with open palms. “It’s just my boy, here–”

  “Oi.”

  “My boy here, he’s just realised…. Well, he’s a bit nervous about heights.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Brys twitched. Before Marius could react, her cutlass had left its holder and was pressed tight up against the side of Gerd’s neck. “How nervous does he get about having his head severed from his stupid, shouting neck?”

  “Um,” Gerd choked out a response. “Quite nervous, actually.”

  “Good. Then we’re all in agreement.” She gestured, and two tubmen appeared out of the gloom on either side of the young swineherd. “You can be first.”

  “What? No.”

  As one, the tubmen grabbed him by the arms and began dragging him towards the cliff’s edge. Gerd struggled, but as large and beefy as he was, the tubmen were larger. Their dead arms had strength honed by years of manual work hauling ropes and cargo. Within seconds he was pinned to the ground, a slab-like hand placed over his mouth, his head hanging over the edge of the cliff.

  “Brys. Brys!” Marius caught up to the tubmen and put himself between them and her approach. “Give him a break, Brys. He’s a stupid farm boy, that’s all.” Gerd broke off his mental scream long enough to tell Marius to fuck himself, then continued. Marius raised his hands to Brys, palms outwards. “He’s new to this, Brys. He doesn’t understand the silence, the secrecy.”

  “Well, then.” She wheeled about in one easy motion. Marius felt the prick of her sword tip against his chest. “He’ll be glad of the bloody education, won’t he?”

  Marius pursed his lips. He reached down and grasped the rear of the blade, drawing it up so that they stood chest to chest, with the cutting edge pressed tight between them.

  “Let me do it.”

  They matched stares for long seconds. Brys snorted once and smiled, then stood back, running the blade gently down Marius’ torso before she sheathed it.

  “Proceed,” she said, stepping back and motioning Marius forward with an exaggerated sweep of the arm. Marius eyed her for a moment, then turned to the two tubmen.

  “Let him up.”

  The tubmen glanced at their mistress for confirmation, then rose as one, moving behind and to either side of her. They watched as Mari
us bent down and offered Gerd his hand.

  “Come on.”

  Gerd scrambled to his knees and crawled away from the edge as fast as he dared, stopping only when confronted by the wall of tubmen legs. Oblivious to their quiet, sneering laughter, he shook his head at Marius.

  “You can’t make me. I won’t.”

  “No.” Marius sat down next to him and gestured up at the dead sailors. “I’m not going to make you.”

  Gerd followed his glance, saw a dozen eyes staring down at him. “They can’t make me.”

  “I don’t believe they intend to.”

  “Fine.”

  “I believe they intend to throw you over the edge and make me carry your tubs.”

  Marius kept his expression as open and honest as he could without straining something. Gerd stared at him for a very long time.

  “What?”

  Marius nodded. Gerd peeked upwards. Brys smiled back at him.

  “See, the thing is,” Marius said, surreptitiously manoeuvring himself so that he sat between Gerd and any attempt at escape, “now that we’ve carried the tubs up here, she only needs one person at this end to load them in the basket and one at the bottom to take them off. And she already has plenty of people she trusts to do that. We’re only here on sufferance, which means she doesn’t actually need us.”

  “But–”

  “She doesn’t care about our plans, or any mission we might be on. Brys is a mercenary. She’s not a nice person.”

  Gerd looked at him in defeated terror.

  “I can’t–”

  “I think the general argument is that you have to.”

  “My legs won’t work.”

  “I don’t think that’s considered an issue.” He stood. The two tubmen leaned forward and pulled Gerd to his feet. Marius saw him dangling there, and sighed in pity.

  “Do it yourself, lad. Be a man.”

  “I’m not a man. I’m nineteen.”

  “You’ve been nineteen for four years. You’re always going to be nineteen.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s worked until now.”

  Marius smiled, and nodded to Gerd’s captors. “Let him go.”

  They did so. Gerd wobbled slightly but kept his feet.

  “Good lad. Come on.”

  They threaded their way between the waiting tubmen until they stood beneath the nearest beam, staring out at the basket at the end of its rope.

  “I’m going to be sick.”

  “Just look at the basket.”

  “I mean it. I’m going to be sick.”

  “Dead men don’t vomit.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “Just look at the basket. Nothing else exists. No cliff, no sky. You’re standing on a nice, flat piece of land, and there’s only it and you, nice and close and easy.”

  “You’re a lying bastard and I’m going to be sick.”

  “Just close your eyes. Go on, close them.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, Gerd did so.

  “You have no idea just how many things I blame you for.”

  “Yes, I’m a terrible person. Now, here you are, on a flat piece of land. You feel it beneath your feet?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “That’s good. Now, can you see a cliff?”

  “Of course I can’t see the sodding cliff!”

  “It’s not there.”

  “I’ve got my eyes closed, you git.”

  Marius poked him in the ribs. “It’s not there,” he said through gritted teeth. “And there’s no sky. Just you and the basket. That’s all. Open your eyes and all you’ll see is the basket.”

  “How will–”

  Marius took a step back. “Open your eyes.”

  Gerd opened his eyes.

  “Do you see the basket?”

  “Yes, I–”

  “Good. Don’t forget to grab it.”

  He pushed Gerd in the centre of his back as hard as he could. Gerd teetered for a moment then, with a scream, toppled away from the cliff’s edge and into the basket, which swung out from the cliff, then back to crash into the white stone. Slowly, in diminishing arcs, the basket returned to its original position, twisting this way then that around the taut line of the rope.

  “Gerd?”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m going to be sick.”

  Marius turned to Brys.

  “He’s all right.”

  “Oh, good gracious. I’m so relieved. Can we get the hell on with it, now?”

  “Gerd?”

  “What?”

  “You need to stand up.”

  “No thank you.”

  Marius sighed. “If you don’t stand up, they’re going to throw tubs on you until your face breaks and then they’re going to let the rope go. Is that what you want?”

  In answer, a hand appeared over the top of the basket. It gave Marius a short single-digit salute, then gripped the edge. Another hand joined it; then slowly, Gerd rose like a violently ill frog out of a swamp.

  “I’m going to be so sick you’ll have to empty this thing with a bucket.”

  “Look alive.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  The first tub was already on its way. It hit Gerd in the upper chest and knocked him backwards. Marius glanced across at the other rope. A tubman stood in the hanging basket, patiently waiting.

  “One more, and then you go down. There’ll be someone with you all the way.”

  “Good. Then he can clean up all the sick.”

  “Heads up.”

  Gerd wasn’t quick enough.

  “Ouch.”

  “I warned you.”

  “Now I am going to be sick.”

  “Can we please get a bloody move on?” Brys was at Marius’ elbow, her impatience like a hot blast of steam in his ear.

  “Yes, let’s go.” He stepped back. “Gerd.”

  “Being sick now.”

  “When the bucket stops you need to throw the tubs onto the platform.”

  “Here it comes.”

  “Gerd!”

  “Hope you’ve got a big sponge.”

  Marius sighed.

  “Fuck it.” He turned to the tubman standing at the wheel behind him, and made a circular motion with his hand. “He’ll work it out.”

  The tubman stood to one side of the toothed wheel. A short length of wood protruded from the ground near his feet, hinged at the bottom and sticking up between the teeth of the wheel, holding it in check. A large wooden handle extended from the centre of the wheel at waist height. He put both hands on the handle and braced himself. A quick kick of one foot against the chock, and the wheel began to spin. The tubman brought the wheel under his control, though not before the whole cliff heard Gerd scream and emptily retch. The sailor shook his head at the sound, then slowly and calmly began lowering the basket out of sight below the cliff.

  Twenty minutes later it returned, empty. Marius stepped forward to take his turn. Brys put a hand on his chest.

  “Not yet.” She signalled to the tubman behind the wheel. “Rexal, you’re next. Cheggmar, take the wheel.” Cheggmar took up position. Rexal swept up the next two sets of tubs, walked past Marius with a derisory glance, and jumped straight into the centre of the basket. Marius raised an eyebrow towards Brys.

  “Internal matters,” she muttered. “Got some straightening out to do.”

  Marius said nothing, simply watched as the tubman disappeared. One by one, the remaining tubmen picked up their barrels and made the journey down to the nunnery entrance, only Brys, Marius and Cheggmar remaining up top.

  “Your turn.” Brys pointed at the wheel. Marius took over while Cheggmar hopped into the basket. Brys strode over to the base of the beam and leant against it, her back to Marius, blocking the tubman from his view. Marius leant against the handle, and fixed his gaze onto her backside. It was some consolation for the work.

  “Cheggmar.” Brys waited until she had his full attention, th
en slipped her cutlass from its sheath.

  “Brys?”

  “Shut up, Marius.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Shut up, Helles. Cheggmar.” While both men watched she drew the sword across the rope in a single, sharp slice, cutting through nearly a quarter of its thickness. The wheel lurched in Marius’ hands as the rope juddered.

  “Woah!” Marius pulled against the handle, as if that might somehow make up for the sudden weakening. “Brys, what the hell are you doing?”

  “I said shut the fuck up, don Hellespont.”

  “As she says, brother.” Cheggmar’s quiet voice intruded on Marius’ thoughts. He fell silent as Brys spoke again.

  “When are they coming?”

  “Who are coming?” yelled Marius.

  Brys slid the blade across the top of the rope so that the point swung an inch past his throat. All he could see was her back, and the tip of the sabre at the end of her rigid arm. All it would take was for her to lean back, twist her hips and transfer her weight onto the knee closest to him, and she would spit Marius like a roast. He daren’t take his hands from the wheel for fear of sending the basket plummeting downwards. She had him trapped. Which, he realised, was exactly what she had planned. “Don Hellespont, I swear to all the fucking gods in the sky, if you don’t shut the fuck up…”

  “Nobody is coming, mistress.” At the same time, in Marius’ mind: Step carefully, brother. She’s fishing for enemies, is all.

  “You’re lying to me, Pan.”

  “No lies, mistress. No lies.”

  Marius moved not a muscle. Are you lying to her?

  “You’re lying to me, Pan.”

  “No lies, Mistress.” Perhaps a small one, brother.

  “I know you’re lying.” She swung the sabre overhand again. Another slice of the rope, another quarter of its width destroyed. “You ratted us out to someone, Cheggmar. I want to know who it was.”

  “What have you done, Cheggmar?” Marius, again.

  “Nobody, mistress. I swear.” You know what’s in those tubs, brother? You know what they’re worth?

  “Last chance, traitor.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Cheggmar. Tell her!”

  “I’m not your traitor, mistress.” Absolution, brother. They’re carting absolution. You know what that’s worth on the open market? A bloody fortune, and she’s wasting it on a bunch of–