Corpse Cold (Immortal Treachery Book 3)

by Allan Batchelder

  *****

  Innoman & Esmine, In the Forest

  Innoman dragged, pushed and carried Esmine as best he could, but she was large for a child and unresponsive to his threats. That was to be expected, he supposed: she’d lost her home, her mother, and her nanny. Who or whatever her father had been, Innoman had no idea, and the girl never spoke of him. Truth be told, she rarely spoke. So, what could Innoman threaten her with that she hadn’t already experienced? Well, there was one thing…but even he was not so base. His problem remained, then, how to motivate her.

  For he knew his time was running out. The longer he was away from the slavers who’d employed him, the more likely they were to suspect him of having been involved in the girls’ escape. And that was just one of his worries. Though still young, this winter had proven a bitch and gave no sign of easing up. More snow and colder temperatures would surely mean death if Innoman could not find shelter, assuming he and the girl weren’t eaten first by animals or more sinister things of the wilderness. All in all, it was a right tits-up, the very kind of affair Innoman had always sworn he’d avoid, with countless ways to die and no clear option for survival.

  Already, his toes had gone numb. Another hour or two of that and they’d go numb for good.

  “Pee,” the girl said, and Innoman slowed to a stop.

  He looked around and found a small clump of bushes just off to his right. “Those bushes, there.”

  Esmine trudged over to the designated spot and waited for Innoman to turn his head.

  And what if the girl chose that time to make a run for it? Would he be any the worse without her? Wouldn’t he actually be better off? He could travel at his own pace, have access to a wider range of sheltering possibilities and have only himself to feed.

  On the other hand, she’d been his insurance, the one thing he could offer in trade for his own life, if things went south. Best to –

  He felt a moment of overwhelming pain in the back of his head, accompanied by the image of lightening across his vision, and then he fell, face-first, into the snow.

  His ears were ringing. His skull throbbed and expanded with every beat of his heart. And he was nauseous. Without warning, he lurched onto his side and vomited into the snow, over and over, until nothing came up but bile. Somewhere in all of that, he came to understand that his hands and feet were tied and that his great coat was missing. In a rage, he thrashed about, struggling to catch sight of the girl or at least loosen his bonds. He thought of yelling her name, decided against it. The last thing he needed was to alert whoever or whatever might be listening that he was helpless. He rocked to his left and right, eventually generating enough momentum to hurl himself into a sitting position, which made the pounding in his head feel even worse. If it weren’t for the lack of blood on the snow, he’d have sworn the little brat had broken his pate. Briefly, he entertained fantasies of killing her. First, he had to catch her – again – and before he could attempt that, he had to get free of his bonds.

  The problem was, the girl had really done the job right. She’d taken the laces from Innoman’s boots, britches and other clothing and tied and double-tied his wrists and ankles. She’d put so many knots in the leather, he despaired of ever escaping its grasp. There was no way to tell time, not with the sun so obscured by snow clouds, but Innoman figured he’d been trying for well over an hour when he felt a tear of frustration roll down his cheek. It was entirely possible that he was going to freeze to death.

  In the next moment, he looked up into the faces of two very unfriendly looking giants, one of whom had the bitch, Nelby, upon his back.

  Suddenly, freezing to death didn’t seem so bad.

  *****

  The False Reaper & Omeyo, In Camp

  The boy was burning at a fantastic rate. In his efforts to stay awake, he was using so much arcane energy that his lips were fixed in the rictus grin of a wildside mushroom addict battling the urge to relapse. Despite the cold, a thin patina of sweat was ever-present on his brow, and his hands were clenched into fists more often than not. Only the prospect of violence seemed to alleviate his silent torment. “Omeyo!” he yelled.

  “Here,” the general replied instantly.

  “Find me a new target, a village or hamlet suitable to exercise my Svarren.”

  Omeyo dreaded saying what must be said. “Reaper,” he began, “a large number of local villages have emptied of their own accord, and their occupants fled south or west.” Before the Pretender could strike out in anger, Omeyo continued. “Yet, there remains one village too proud to turn tail and run.”

  The Pretender’s grin stretched into something approaching a legitimate smile. “Excellent,” he declared. “I do so love humbling the proud.”

  And how you would hate being humbled yourself, Omeyo thought.

  “Instruct my Svarren as you see fit, but we shall take that town, and woe to anyone who has remained behind!”

  A strange thought came to Omeyo just then: Is that all there is? Killing others in order to make ourselves feel better? What little men we are, how tiny, and I, the smallest of the small that I serve such ends. He bowed and left his master’s presence with haste. To the boy, that might have looked like zealous obedience, but the truth was something else: the False Reaper was changing somehow, becoming more lunatic by the day, and this business of not sleeping? Insanity.

  Glad though he was to get away from his master, Omeyo’s brief moment of satisfaction came to an end as soon as he laid eyes on the Svarren command. Out of the frying pan, into the fire, the old saying went. That kind of wisdom only comes in hindsight, Omeyo brooded. Then again, if it were possible to predict what the morrow has in store, who’d bother to get out of bed? The general marveled at himself. When did I become so philosophical? Or is it maudlin?

  Lost in such thoughts, he was caught off-guard when he walked right into the chest of an enormous Svarra. He looked up into its hideous visage, only to have the creature shove him backwards onto the seat of his trousers in the snow. Raucous laughter erupted from the Svarren’s companions. With as much dignity as he could muster, Omeyo climbed to his feet again. A hard shove from behind sent him sprawling onto his face, right in front of a second wave of laughter. Someone commented in the Svarren’s guttural tongue, and Omeyo felt taloned fingers on his hips, pulling him up to his hands and knees. A dagger of panic pierced the general’s chest. His breath came in short, staccato bursts. Before he could rise any further, more Svarren closed in and began to pull and tear at his coat and doublet.

  “Get back!” Omeyo yelled, with a strength born of terror.

  The Svarren pressed in closer still. Just when Omeyo was about to give up hope, the False Reaper’s voice bellowed, “Enough!” And the crush subsided.

  This time, Omeyo had greater difficulty getting to his feet. His legs shook more than those of a newborn colt, and he wasn’t convinced the worst had passed. He wanted to search out his master’s face in the crowd, but understood that would make him appear weak to the Svarren. Instead, though it took every bit of courage he had, he forced himself to look into the eyes of each and every savage who had abused him. He hoped they found his glare intimidating, though he rather doubted it.

  The False Reaper appeared at his side, and Omeyo exhaled, shocked to discover he’d been holding his breath since he got up.

  “I expect this stupidity to stop immediately!” the boy declared. “None of you is so valuable to my cause that I cannot afford to lose you.” Flames burst from his hands, and he waved them at the surrounding Svarren. “And perhaps I should make an example of a few of you. Who wants to die?”

  The Svarren fairly leapt backwards and lowered their eyes.

  “Pathetic as he is, I have need of this man’s services, as I will of all my human officers, when I recruit them.” And just when Omeyo’s confidence was beginning to return, the False Reaper added, “You are not to harm my servant unless and until I say so.”

  It came to Omeyo then that this would be his last
tour of duty, that he would die in the Pretender’s service – not on the field of battle, but somewhere in the day-to-day routines of camp life. It was a bitter thing to contemplate: no glory, no wealth, no power, only an ugly, anonymous death.

  The boy’s voice intruded on Omeyo’s miserable ruminations. “Find a different group of Svarren. You’ll not have much luck leading these.”

  A small mercy, but better than none at all. Why did Omeyo fear it was the last mercy he’d ever know in the False Reaper’s service?

  He made his way to the opposite side of camp and chose the pack of Svarren that seemed the least hostile to him. “The Reaper has commanded us to raid a village not half a day’s run from this spot. Which of you will accompany me?”

  They all would, of course. The savages were born for violence, and prolonged time without it was unthinkable.

  In little more time than it takes to saddle a horse – the only horse on this raid, as it turned out – Omeyo led his throng of slavering Svarren out of camp and onto the road towards the doomed village. Better them than me, he thought.

  *****

  Mureen, the Forest

  Her name was not Mureen. Of that, the giantess was certain, if she knew nothing else. And ‘Mureen’ reminded her of that fiend, Tinalia, and her equally loathsome son, Baris. No, she wanted a name of her own, the name she’d been given at birth.

  Now that her nerves had calmed, she wished she’d had the presence of mind to return to Tinalia’s cottage, though. She had nowhere else to go, and the place would have been all hers. Eventually she might have grown weary of it, but at least she’d have had time to think things through, time to figure out who she was and what she needed. Alas, she’d run so far with such frantic energy, she doubted she could retrace her steps if her life depended on it.

  But what should she do? Where should she go? She felt as if she’d only recently been born into the world. Everything was strange and threatening…and yet not unfamiliar.

  More than anything else, she needed sleep. Absent other ideas, she crawled under the snow-laden, low-hanging bows of a fir tree, spread one of her blankets on the ground and sat upon it. She then wrapped herself in the remaining blanket and used her bundle of stolen goods for a pillow. She fell asleep the instant she rolled onto her side…

  …and was somewhat surprised to awaken the next day. There were good things in the forest, she knew, but bad ones, as well. That she hadn’t been attacked during the night seemed a small miracle. Maybe, just maybe, things were starting to go her way.

  The questions of the previous night remained, however: where should she go, and what should she do? There were no easy answers, but the giantess had learned to distrust all things easy. If she were ever to discover who she was and where she belonged, she would have to continue to work at it. But how?

  All she could come up with was that other people – humans or giants – must have heard or known of her. Someone must know me, she thought. But where can I find this person? After a moment, an answer came to her: Not in the wilderness. She laughed out loud. Of course! If you want to find people, you go where the people are. It was so self-evident, even a child could have thought of it.

  A child.

  The giant’s mood suddenly soured. She remembered the crying child in the farmstead she’d attacked. Why should this bother her so? What was it about children?

  She’d had one of her own.

  The giant shot to her feet, smacking her head on the branches above and causing a small cascade of snow to tumble onto her head and down the back of her neck.

  Where is my child?

  Tears welled up in the giant’s eyes, and she felt a tightness in her chest that presaged a full-blown bout of sobbing. She would not, could not let that happen. It was time to act, to move, to find her child. With renewed energy, the giant shook off her blankets, packed her things, and gobbled down a large wedge of cheese. It was not of the best quality, but, to her, it seemed the most delicious, most important thing she’d ever eaten.

  With a sense of purpose she hadn’t felt since she’d crawled out of the frozen ground, the giant set off to find other people and, she hoped, her baby.

  *****

  Long & Company, Underground

  The gap had been wide enough to halt the advance of the supplicants, but it was useless against the gigantic mosquito-things and would likely prove so against the still charging colossus, as well.

  “Keep moving!” Long yelled. “Keep moving!”

  He needn’t have bothered. Spirk and Ron were like sled dogs, furiously dragging Yendor’s litter away with more speed than caution.

  On this side of the gap, the street sloped slightly downwards, vanishing, as all things did in this place, into the blackness beyond. As Long ran, he risked a look backwards and immediately wished he hadn’t. The dark colossus strode across the chasm as if it were no more than a hairline fissure in the rock, and Long finally got a look at this latest menace.

  The monstrosity was at least twice the size of a giant, but infinitely more ugly. From the waist down, it almost looked like a giant, despite freakish genitalia that dangled to knee-length, but from the waist upwards, it looked like an immense, festering tumor with multiple warty arms and a great, yawning maw of a mouth. Myriad jagged teeth jutted from that mouth in such profusion that there was no visible pattern to them – no rows, no clumps, and all chaos. The thing’s eyes cast a sickening yellow-white light that instilled in Long a sudden and very real desire to vomit.

  “To the right!” Long bellowed. “Find a hole, a crack or a crevice! Anything too small for this bastard!”

  The boys didn’t need telling twice. They veered sharply to the right and raced away, desperate for a wall, a building, anything.

  In Long’s peripheral vision, an ugly and massive arm swept into view, heading directly for his back. He put on an extra burst of speed and felt the thing whooshing past behind him. A crash sounded off to his right, and he saw that his friends had at last discovered a wall.

  The boys quickly recovered, changed course, and charged off in a new direction, following the wall, still looking for any avenue of escape. In another second, they jogged sharply to the right and were gone.

  They’d found a doorway.

  With the monster’s footsteps ringing in his ears and vibrating in his bones, with its fetid breath corrupting his own, Long dove after his comrades, heedless of any damage he might suffer, and somersaulted into a passage that was, as hoped, too small for the thing at his heels. To Long’s astonishment, his fellows grabbed him by his arms and dragged him another ten paces into the passage.

  The monster roared and snarled at the entrance, pounding its fists in frustration on the sides of the opening.

  “More!” Long yelled. “More!”

  And the boys dragged him still farther into the passage.

  Long had a hard time reaching his feet and thought maybe he’d cracked a kneecap in his fall. Just what we fucking need, he brooded. My shoulder, my knee…what’s next?

  At the doorway, the monster had not given up and was now attempting to widen the hole, bashing and ripping at its edges with unabated fury.

  The captain said, “Let’s keep moving. He’s not gonna give up, and neither should we.” But he passed Yendor’s litter without a word or any effort to help pull it.

  The passage continued for some time, and other doorways began to appear on the right and left. The monster was now lost in darkness behind them, though they could still hear him struggling to bust through the entrance. They passed several additional doors, when Long finally said, “Try this one,” indicating a door on his left. It was shut and locked, but Ron was able to force it. He offered a big smile of surprise at his own strength, but said nothing. Long thrust his still-glowing sword into the new space and declared, “It’s a shop o’ some kind. It’ll do. If that big bastard breaks through, he’ll have to search every one o’ these doors.”

  Long entered first, on the lookout for anything th
at might spring from the shadows and threaten him and his team any further. Behind him, Spirk took the foot of Yendor’s litter and Ron took the head, carrying the half-conscious older man into the shop. In here, the combined light of Long’s sword and Spirk’s arrow did a fair job of illuminating the whole place. A low counter ran across the back half of the room, and Long moved towards it. It rose only to Long’s hips, which, he considered, made sense, given the size of the supplicants they’d seen earlier.

  “Let’s put Yendor up here. Might be nice to get him off the floor.”

  The younger men did as their captain suggested, while Long set about closing and reinforcing the door. He found a couple of sturdy wooden chairs, which he stacked in the entrance. There was also an ancient but surprisingly sturdy ladder that was used, Long surmised, for fetching items off shelves. He shoved that into place against the chairs.

  “This won’t hold that thing back, but maybe the noise’ll frighten him away, or he’ll think it too much work to clear out. And it’ll give us a few extra seconds to contemplate our deaths…” Long joked grimly.

  No one responded.

  When Long looked over, he found the two younger men examining the crockery on the shelves. Amazingly, everything seemed intact and still sealed. Long watched as Ron took one of the earthenware pots off a shelf at random and carried it over to the counter upon which Yendor lay.

  “Dunno as I’d open that,” Long warned.

  Ron nodded. “I was gonna have Spirk check it, first.”

  Hearing his name, Spirk crossed to the counter and faced his companions. “I can already tell ya it ain’t poison,” said he. “But there is some little bit o’ magic. Nothin’ bad. I just don’t know what.”

  The captain and the archer exchanged glances, and Long shrugged. “Okay, then, might as well see what’s what, then.”

  As carefully as he could, Ron pulled his dagger and began poking and scraping against the top of the pot. Soon, he’d found the seal and broken it. The lid came off with a faint whooshing sound, and a fruity odor wafted out.