“We weren’t raping,” I interrupted. “We’re dead. And we’re not into that.”
“There was that one sheep,” said Meryl.
A shudder ran through me. “We never figured out exactly what happened to that sheep. But it wasn’t raped.”
“Well, whatever happened, it definitely wasn’t consensual . . .”
“Shut up!” screeched Barry. “You three are all that remain of a regime that terrorized every decent churchgoer in Goodsoil so you’re going to provide the closure everyone clearly needs. We are going to roll you into the main square in Applewheat. Then we are going to light you on fire, and the townspeople will see their tormentors brought to justice. And then this county can begin the long road to recovery under the caring eyes of God.”
“Amen, brother,” said the priest, nodding.
“Will you stop agreeing with me!” yelled Barry, knuckles whitening around the cage bars.
“What do you think this is going to prove?” I said. “It won’t kill us or hurt us. We’ll just grow another body at a church.”
“Dat’s not troo,” came the voice of the northern barbarian. He appeared at Barry’s side, leading a glistening brown horse that appeared to be constructed from bowling balls and old leather. “Slippery Yon told me it vorks differently for de undead. Dey alvays haff to coom back to de same bordy.”
“Is that right,” said Barry unpleasantly. “That’s what happens when you turn your back on nature, is it? The Almighty cuts off your second chances? Well, let’s see how many farms you can despoil when you’re piles of ash.”
Within moments the horses were harnessed and being nudged into a gentle trot. Our cage began its shaky journey through the countryside, a thick mass of mercenary bodies on all sides filling the air with the stink of meat and steroids. Barry walked in front, self-righteousness practically leaking from his ears. I leaned against the front of the cage, gloomily out-staring a gyrating horse’s arse.
“I know what you’re thinking about,” said Meryl in a sing-song voice.
“Do you.”
“And no, being burned to ashes won’t kill you properly. Remember Paul?” I did: another lost member of Dreadgrave’s horde, a short bloke with a wonky eye and an exposed brain. “Fell into the acid fountain. They brought him to the infirmary in a chamber pot. He was still conscious. Talked by blowing bubbles in morse code.”
“Not the most encouraging thing to bring up right now, Meryl.”
“No, I guess not. But don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of time to think of a way out of this. Meryl’s on the case!”
“Fight not your righteous fate in the fires of Good,” went the priest, still standing in the opposite corner with arms folded. His voice didn’t seem as loud and obnoxious as usual, so perhaps reality had begun to slowly seep through. I was beginning to get the hang of interpreting him.
Something burst wetly against the back of the cart. The remains of a rotten peach rolled to a stop near my foot. Behind us, three rascally farmer’s sons were keeping pace, giggling and clutching armfuls of expired produce. It was nice to see that some traditions remained alive.
A pomegranate bounced off the cart and exploded against the face of the female adventurer from Slippery John’s party, who was walking along on the left. She didn’t so much as flinch, but continued walking at a perfectly maintained pace, swaying her hips in exactly the same motion with each step, juicy seeds dripping off her fine upturned nose. Experimentally I leaned out of the cage and waved a hand in front of her eyes. Not a blink.
“Slippery John wouldn’t bother if Slippery John were you,” said Slippery John from the other side of the cage. “She’s got the Syndrome.”
“She looks healthy to me,” I said, watching her tea-colored thighs rotating like synchronized metronomes.
“That’s the thing. Syndrome only affects the good-looking ones. Drylda over there used to be an adventurer like anyone else. Quested part-time to pay her way through college, y’know. Then the Syndrome hit her. Out of nowhere, that’s how it always goes. They stand around like they’ve got a broom up their arse, start talking weird, lose interest in everything except quests and having the best armor. Sometimes they stop moving altogether for days at a time. Don’t even wake up no matter how many times you fondle and sniff their pert bodies.” A pause. “Or so Slippery John hears.”
“So it’s a disease?” said Meryl. “I used to help out in Dreadgrave’s alchemy lab now and then; it’s a little hobby of mine.”
“Dunno. Magic Resistance have been looking into it. They could just be depressed from all the Infusion business. But then, show Slippery John someone who isn’t. And it’s only adventurers that get the Syndrome, and only the most skilled and best-looking ones at that. And then there’s the last stage, of course.”
He put on what he probably thought was an enigmatic smile. I sighed. He clearly wasn’t going to continue until I asked and made him feel important. “What’s the last stage?”
“After a while, they go into their little trances for longer and longer. Then they just go into one and never come out. Eyes open. Still breathing. But they don’t move. All they do is stand there. And . . . pose.”
“Pose,” I repeated.
“Weirdest thing. There’re special gardens set up in the cities where you can bring them to stand around all day. Nice place to bring a date, actually. You know, Slippery John’s enjoying this little chat. Isn’t it good to actually talk and get to know each other without bringing torture and murder into it? Shame we’re gonna burn you to death. Burn you to life. Well, we’re gonna burn you to something, at any rate.”
I sensed an opening. “You wouldn’t have to burn us to anything if you’d just let us go.”
He winced and pursed his lips, as if I had offered to sell him a dodgy horse while he was in the middle of eating limes. “Slippery John’s kind of committed to this quest, now. Slippery John’s put it in the log and everything.” He produced a little black book on whose cover the words “QUEST LOG” were daubed in correctional fluid, and turned to the penultimate entry, written in an extremely neat, careful hand. Escort vicar and lynch wagon to Applewheat, burn contents, it said. The final entry on the opposite page read, Find out if anyone in Applewheat sells black pants.
“You could consider this a slight update to the objective.”
“Slippery John finds it hard to understand you when you clench your teeth like that. So what would you have Slippery John do?”
“Escort us to Lolede,” I said, inspiration striking. “You keep talking about some Magic Resistance. They’re interested in how Dreadgrave brought us back to life, right? They’d probably pay a lot of money to get their hands on us.”
“You’re probably right, dead man. But here’s the thing. Lolede City, wherein lies the Magic Resistance, is three hundred miles away by sea. Whereas the village of Applewheat is . . . where’s the village of Applewheat?”
“We’re here,” called Barry from somewhere in front of us.
“So you can see how Slippery John’s original quest is a teensy bit more straightforward.”
Among the villages of Goodsoil County, Applewheat was probably the closest thing to a capital city, in that it actually had a village square and more than one tavern. It was also the closest village to Dreadgrave’s fortress, and as such had been a frequent target for pillaging when we’d had a long day or just didn’t feel like walking very far. I had been impressed every time by how quickly the buildings would be reconstructed after a good razing, generally just in time for the next one.
It was a typical market day. Yokels clustered around the village square, skillfully circumnavigating the regular piles of horse plop. Wives in gray wool shawls stood around in small groups, gossiping and ignoring the merry apple-cheeked children who dodged between their skirts. And yelling at all of them from behind rows of stalls were the operators of the many surrounding farms.
The hubbub of shoppers and cries of traders repeatedly advertising the
luvverliness of their spuds died down as our miniature wagon train rattled into the middle of the square. We very quickly drew everyone’s attention, since we weren’t root vegetables or covered in manure and as such stuck out like sore thumbs. The adventurers started taking hay from the nearby feeding trough of a very put-out-looking horse and started heaping it into the cage and around the base.
“Come up with a plan, yet?” I hissed in Meryl’s ear.
“I’ve got it all worked out. As soon as the fire’s hot enough to melt the metal in the bars, we bend them out of the way and run.”
I let my shoulders sag. “Brilliant.”
“Seriously? I thought it was rubbish.”
“If I could have everyone’s attention,” went Barry, adopting the pulpit stance and unconsciously groping for his holy book. It was a needless statement; his voice was the only sound, save the cawing of distant carrion birds with extraordinarily good foresight. “We have great news to bring you.”
“Is that my hay?” came a voice from the crowd.
“The dark cloud that once hung over this land has been vanquished once and for all,” continued Barry. “And these minions of evil are all that remain of-”
“Is that Meryl?” said one of the shawl-clad wives at the front of the throng.
“Hi Mrs. Bindlegob,” said Meryl, waving.
“Will you be wanting pastries delivered tonight, dear? Only Colin’s in bed with a sniffle.”
“Tell him not to worry about it, Mrs. Bindlegob.”
“You’re a tresh, Meryl.”
Barry coughed indignantly. “As I was saying, all that remain of that dread regime . . . ”
“Hey, Jim!” called Anthony the blacksmith. “We found the problem with your cranial press, there was a piece of skull stuck in the screw. You want to take it back now?”
“Er . . . I’m kind of in a cage right now, Anthony.”
“Oh, so you are, lad.”
“Dreadgrave is gone!” yelled Barry, clenching his fists. “Rejoice, good people! The dark overlord will never again practice his blasphemous necromantic arts in this world!”
A shocked silence followed his outburst, broken by that unimportant person’s voice again. “Where’d he go?”
“He didn’t go anywhere! He’s been annihilated! Angels did it!”
“The white angels?” said Anthony. “Those things that disappear stuff?”
“That’s awful!” went Mrs. Bindlegob. “Has anyone told his mother?”
“She’ll be inconsolable, the poor dear,” said one of Mrs. Bindlegob’s cohorts. “She was so proud when Dreadgrave bought the doom fortress and moved out of her loft, she must have boasted it to everyone this side of the river.”
“And who’s going to look after his horde?” said someone else.
“Oh, we’re all that’s left,” said Meryl. “Everyone else got deleted too.”
“What? Even Ramsay?” said Mrs. Bindlegob.
“’Fraid so.”
“You poor ducks. If you need anywhere to stay while you find a new overlord . . .”
At this point I became aware of the air gradually rising in temperature, and glanced at Barry the vicar. I’d only seen a face like that once before, when one of my classmates confused his firebolt and water conjuration spells, resulting in his head being inflated with boiling hot steam. Barry’s reddened lips were clamped tightly together and his fists were vibrating in sync with his nostrils. Any second now he would probably either explode or rocket into the sky on a column of flame.
“What is wrong with you people?!” he exploded, silencing the rabble. “These creatures razed your homes! Pillaged your crops! Did . . . things to your sheep! Now they’ve been brought down and the peasantry is free!”
“Who are you calling peasantry?” said Mrs. Bindlegob.
“Yeah, we’re lower middle class!” cried someone at the back. “At least!”
“You want peasants, you can just roll your wagon over to somewhere like Bumbleston.”
Barry spluttered. “I’m from Bumbleston!” This, he quickly realized, had been exactly the wrong thing to say. The crowd groaned as a collective.
“Oh, that’s just typical,” said one of the farmers. “Some peasant from the sticks comes in here with no idea of anything trying to tell us how to live.”
“Dreadgrave’s horde pillaged us every Saturday after lunch, like clockwork,” continued Mrs. Bindlegob. “We all got out in the fresh air for a run around and a good scream. Did us the world of good.”
“And then on Sunday we’d all get together as a community to rebuild the houses, then have a great big picnic on the green,” said Anthony, eyes moistening. “It kept our entire construction workforce in employment.”
“My house has been burnt down and rebuilt every week since Dreadgrave set himself up,” said Giles the elder, waving a gnarled walking stick. “It’s great! I never have to clean the bloody place!”
“But I’ll tell you the one bad thing about being near Dreadgrave’s fortress,” said Mrs. Bindlegob, and you could tell from her tone of voice that she was working towards a devastating point. “All the adventurers you have to put up with.”
A grumble of agreement rippled through the crowd. One or two of the shrewder adventurers started fondling their sword hilts.
“Yeah, bloody adventurers, swanning about like they own the place,” mumbled Giles.
“Knocking on your door at all hours of the day and night, wanting to rummage through your drawers for potions and loose change,” said Mrs. Bindlegob’s friend.
“Buying up all the best armor,” said Anthony, scowling. “We had absolutely nothing for ourselves for our last fancy dress party.”
“Don’t forget the robes,” added Chris the tailor. “Bloody wizards buy up all the dressing gowns and everyone freezes half to death come winter. And they always expect me to sew magic essence into the fabric. Stuff makes me sneeze.”
“And they hang around the inn all day drinking all my stock, breaking furniture and flinging axes at lady’s pony tails because they think it’ll impress someone,” said Graham the innkeeper. “I’m trying to diversify into a family eatery and here’re these berks smashing up the barroom yelling for ale and whores.”
Barry visibly gave up appealing to the populace. “Just light the damn fire,” he growled. One of the nearby swordsmen was now holding a flaming torch—the sort that spontaneously generates whenever a mob gets big and angry enough—and he obediently threw it onto the hay. Meryl, the priest and I all scrambled for the corner, trying to occupy the same square foot of cage. A cry of outrage swept over the townsfolk.
“And now they’re picking on Jim and Meryl!” cried Mrs Bindlegob.
“They tortured and killed us! Several times!” wailed the dwarf from Slippery John’s party.
“Oh and I suppose two wrongs make a right, do they?” said Mrs. Bindlegob, drawing herself to her full height and planting her hands on her broad hips to signal the winning of an argument. “Put that silly fire out,” she added, as she and several members of the front row advanced forward.
One of the confused adventurers did something that he probably wouldn’t have done had he had more time to think and consider the possible consequences. He drew his sword.
The events that followed would come to be remembered by the locals as the Battle of Applewheat. The adventurers had more experience with fighting, obviously, but the peasants had greater numbers and were eager to demonstrate how a lifetime of soil-tilling puts the edge on your muscular strength.
It was quite instructive to watch a rowdy punch-up take place between people who had grown used to the fact that death no longer held any meaning. Barry the vicar was the first to fall, skewered by a pitchfork. He might have survived that, but it was hard to tell, because the battle closed in over him as he crumpled to the ground, where a hundred pairs of angry stamping feet quickly reduced him to a blood-smeared mass that was one inch thick and eight feet wide.
Meanwhile, I was
chanting Level 1 Water Conjuration spells as fast as I could manage, but they were designed for hikers with poor planning skills who needed to fill a waterskin in a hurry, not firefighting. Most of the water evaporated before it could make an impact, so all I was really doing was creating a small, inefficient sauna.
“Try stamping it out!” yelled Meryl over the hullabaloo outside.
“Yes, you could certainly try that!” I corrected.
“The flame of righteousness is upon me! I feel my Father calling!”
“Jim? I’m sort of burning.”
“Roll around on the floor!”
“It’s not helping, Jim . . .”
“I meant part of the floor that isn’t on fire!”
“There isn’t any . . .”
Her sentence was aborted as the cage began to tip. The peasants had firmly pushed the battle back into the village square, where they seemed to have gained a clear advantage. They were poorer equipped but had far greater numbers, and weren’t bound by the adventurers’ unspoken agreement to aim for the armor rather than the fashionably large sections of exposed skin.
I’m not sure who, exactly, pushed over the cage; the battle had become so difficult to follow that it could have been either side, by the peasants to aid our escape or the adventurers to hasten our destruction. All I know is that we and the cage tumbled heavily onto Ian the carpenter’s workbench, where a vise handle lodged itself in my brain.
—
I died again. A few moments of total confusion followed as my soul burst out of my body, tumbled end over end through a storm of flailing limbs, then flew right out of the battle and into the street. I lay on my back in the washed-out dirt, with the usual post-mortem thoughts running through my head: chiefly wondering if it was really worth standing up again.
“Well, thanks a bunch,” came a voice, reverberating with the usual hollowness of sounds in the dead world.
I glanced up. I wasn’t surprised to see him. I had discovered very early on, back in Dreadgrave’s frequently crowded main quad, that the temporarily disembodied spirits of the dead can interact. But there had never been enough time to do anything besides exchange nods and sympathetic shrugs. “Hello, Barry.”
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