The Marching Dead

by Lee Battersby

  “Fight?”

  “Ah, but you’re being overrun. Enemies everywhere, panic in the streets, women, children, fires in buildings, corpses in the gutters. What then? What do you do? Quick!”

  “I… I don’t know!”

  “Good answer.”

  “What?”

  Marius gave him a wry grin. “Half of life’s mistakes happen because someone important doesn’t know an answer and is too pigheaded to admit it.” He glanced at Keth, standing a few feet away from them and most deliberately not paying attention. “Trust me, I know.”

  “So what do I do?”

  He pointed back out across the city. “Fall back to the first rise, use the ring road as a palisade, give the people behind you a chance to move back towards the Radican. Hold position as long as possible, then fall back to the second rise, use the ring road as a palisade there. And so on…” He mapped out invisible warfare with sweeps of his hand, the young boy at his side following the long-forgotten actions across the cityscape. “Two hundred years ago, the invaders weren’t repelled until they reached the Doge’s Walk. Nobody has ever scaled the Radican.”

  “But…” Billinor frowned. “What happened to all the people? Down there?”

  Marius shrugged. “A lot of those streets are named after martyrs.”

  “But you said the streets out there…” he pointed towards the edge of the city, “don’t have any names.”

  “What does that tell you?” Marius stood, offered his hand to the young King, and hauled him upright. “These people behind us,” he said. “They’re just getting their retreat in early. No sense in dying for a street without a name.”

  They walked slowly back down the alley. Keth was waiting for them, leaning on the wall with her arms crossed. She tilted her head to look at Marius as they approached.

  “What?”

  “You’d have made a wonderful…” She stopped.

  “Made a wonderful what?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, turning away. “Nothing.” She pointed up the avenue, towards the fires in the square. “So what are we going to do? Can we use a tunnel?”

  Marius turned his gaze across the ground of the square. There were surprisingly few grey lines, and none within thirty metres of the Bone Cathedral, as if the presence of that brooding mausoleum was enough death for anybody, even killers. He grimaced. “Nowhere we can come up where we won’t be seen. I’d have to be inside the cathedral already before I can see if there are any entry points in there, so…” He shrugged. “That would slightly defeat the purpose.”

  “Then what?” Keth nodded down at Billinor. “It’s not like he won’t be recognised. And his pyjamas are hardly handmade.”

  Marius glanced at the Boy King. His pyjamas probable were handmade, he decided. But there was a noticeable difference between hand-tailored imported silk sewn by the finest tailors from the royally-appointed major houses, and patchwork made by stitching together whatever you could afford from Mrs Miggins’ rag cart into enough layers to hopefully keep out the cold in place of a fire. He chewed his lip, then stopped. His lip was coming off between his teeth. The dead don’t puke, he reminded himself. And brave leaders with nervous ten year-olds looking to them for guidance don’t erupt into violent retching fits either

  “You’re right,” he said slowly. “We can’t get him across without being noticed.”

  “So what do we do?”

  He looked between them both, and broke out into a grin. “We make sure he’s noticed.” He ushered them back across the avenue to the spot where he was sure he remembered the secret door opening. “Billinor, how many kitchens does the Radican have?”

  “I don’t know. I always eat in the dining room.”

  Marius raised an eyebrow. “You’re a ten year-old kid, half-pint. Don’t tell me you never sneak out and grab yourself a midnight snack.”

  Billinor smiled. “Well… I do know where one is.”

  “That’ll do. Lead on, noble Majesty.” He turned to the wall and ran his hands across the surface. “Where’s the handle for this thing?” Billinor and Keth moved half a dozen feet further down the avenue. They glanced at him as Billinor reached a finger into a small pockmark in the stone, and the secret door swung open before them. Marius nodded. “Ah, yes. Right. There. Lead on there.”

  Billinor led them through a maze of corridors, deep into the bowels of the palace. They emerged in a small dark kitchen looking out over the cliff that ran alongside the building.

  “I can’t see anything.” Keth hung back as they entered.

  “Stay there.” Marius could make out the dim grey outlines of all the furniture, and baskets of food waiting to be prepared. Most importantly, he could see all the metal pots, pans, and implements that had been hung about the room, just waiting to be clattered into and sent across the stone floor to bring all the guards within hearing distance running. Billinor, who had obviously visited the room for a million-and-a-half midnight treats, skipped past most of them and started rummaging around in a basket near the doors to a small balcony. He squeaked in victory and began gnawing on something Marius recognised as a Phyllis fruit, a rare crop renowned as the juiciest fruit in the entire six continents. For a moment he wished the dead could slaver. Instead, he snuck across and tapped the young King on the shoulder.

  “Bring the lady one of those when we leave,” he whispered, “and you’ll have a friend for life.”

  Billinor smiled. Marius could smell the thick line of juice coating the boy’s chin, and added Phyllis fruit to the long list of things for which he would revenge himself upon Drenthe. But he reached into the basket and pulled out another one.

  “Good lad. Now…” He looked around the kitchen, scanning the shelves. “Any chance you’d know where they store the loaves around here?”

  Billinor took his hand, and carefully lead him to a thin door in the corner. Marius indulged him. He couldn’t know about his dead sight and besides, this was the first time since they’d met that Marius could sense the young King taking control, revelling in the chance to lead. The door opened into a deep cupboard. Marius felt the cool, dry air within. Perfect. The cupboard was overflowing with bread, enough to feed the boy beside him for months.

  “And you eat all this?” he whispered, and saw Billinor shake his head.

  “We’ve got three bakeries, I think. There’s a bunch of people working in them. We give a lot of this bread to the staff to take home, and everybody eats breakfast here, you know.”

  “Well,” Marius began to pull loaves from the shelves, “someone’s going to have to have Phyllis fruit tomorrow morning.” They quickly loaded up two baskets, and Marius deposited them before Keth in the doorway.

  “Where did all these come from?”

  “The cupboard.”

  “No, I mean…” She shook her head. “Isn’t the city under siege? Are they eating like this in here, while out in the streets–”

  “No.” Marius shook his head. “Scorbus isn’t conducting a siege. He’s waiting, just like he did last time. He could ring the city if he wanted, even put soldiers under water at the entrance to the river and sink anything that comes over them; but I’d lay money he’s got his entire army in one tight little group at the eastern gate, and he’s not even bothered to stop goods coming in and out by the Farmer’s Gate or the docks.”

  “Then what are these for?”

  Marius smiled. “Good will. Speaking of which…” He nudged Billinor. The young King stepped forward and shyly held out his hand.

  “I got this for… for you.”

  Keth saw the Phyllis fruit in his hand and smiled. “Oh, thank you, sweetheart.” She placed her hand on his cheek. “I’m afraid I don’t really like them. But that was such a lovely thought. Why don’t you have it for me?”

  She hefted a basket and began to sneak down the corridor the way they had come. Marius and Billinor stared after her.

  “Doesn’t like Phyllis fruit. And I’m supposed to be the one wi
th the dead stomach.” Marius picked up the other basket, and they hurried to catch up.

  THIRTY

  The three figures stood in the shadows at the corner of the avenue and looked across the square at the citizenry huddled around their few small fires. The two taller figures carried baskets piled high with loaves of bread.

  “Tell me again,” Keth said, “what we’re doing?”

  Marius watched the dispirited, frightened crowd.

  “Did you ever read Hactium’s History of Dek’s War Against the North?”

  “I must have forgotten,” she replied.

  Marius glanced down at the King. “You, young man, should make sure you have a copy.”

  “Okay,” Billinor said, and nodded.

  “Dek’s army drove into the northern reaches so far that when winter arrived his supply lines were too long. His army was stretched out across almost eight miles of mountain defiles. The northern militiamen wiped out the supply lines. Snow and cold and disease did for most of the rest. Dek retreated in disarray. His army marched almost three hundred miles during one of the worst winters ever recorded, through snow that blackened their toes halfway up to their knees. By the time he crossed the border back into the Scorban Empire, he had lost over eighty per cent of the men he set out with. Nearly sixty thousand dead, all without once engaging the enemy.”

  “Gods.”

  “Ten years later, after he had been deposed and exiled, Dek invaded the Scorban Empire in an attempt to reclaim his throne. Every single one of those soldiers who marched with him on that northern campaign rallied to his banner. Do you know why?”

  “Serious head injuries?”

  “Every night of that ten-week march back through the mountains, no matter where they were or what losses they suffered during the day, Dek visited his men. He threw his tent away, distributed his blankets amongst the troops, even had his own horse cut up and added to the stew pot when the meat began to run out. But most of all…” He brandished a loaf at them. “He sat with them around their little fires, swapping stories and talking. Not as a king to his subjects, or as a commander to his subordinates, but as one soldier to another. When there was bread to break, he broke it with them. When they were down to chewing on their undershirts, he sat with them and chewed his. When it was all lost, and they had nothing else, he was with them. And they loved him for it.”

  Keth stared across the square. “They think it’s all lost.”

  “Not all.” Billinor reached into the basket and withdrew a loaf. Marius nodded to him.

  “After you.”

  Billinor nodded back, wiped his nose on his pyjama sleeve, and stepped out into the square. Keth followed. Marius tucked in behind her, doing his best to look inconspicuous.

  They saw him coming. How could they not? He was the only thing moving on the entire plaza. And they would have leaped to their feet, to bow and curtsy and make obeisance to this tiny boy. But Billinor gave them no chance. He closed quickly upon the closest fire, and thrust a loaf clumsily at the big, beefy man who was struggling to rise.

  “I’m Billinor,” he said. “I’m, um… Who are you?”

  The man looked at him. His lips formed the beginning of a word, then another, finally gave up. He tried to bow, take the loaf, and slap his children into obedience all at the same time.

  “Guh… Gint, your Maj… Gint Hern. I… Roads…”

  Keth stepped forward and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Gint,” she said softly. “May we join you?”

  “J… join?” The man’s voice went up an octave. His eyes looked twice their size in the flickering fire light. Marius nudged Billinor.

  “Please,” said the King. “May we?”

  “Y… Of course, Your Majesty.” The man made fumbling attempts to divest himself of the blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders. Billinor held up his hand.

  “Please don’t,” he said. “You need it more than me.”

  Marius winced. It could be worse, he thought. Give the boy a chance.

  The King sat and gestured for the others to sit by him. There was an awkward silence.

  “So…” Billinor began, and glanced up at Marius with a pained expression. Marius sighed, and leaned forward into the light.

  “I know,” he said, before the sight of him could register fully upon the others. “I’m horribly disfigured. Don’t let it concern you. What His Majesty would like to know is, how far have you come to be here tonight? What have you left behind? How can he help?”

  “He wants… to help us?”

  Finally, Marius saw the penny drop. Billinor took his loaf and broke it in half. Gint had two children, neither one of them older than the young King. He passed each half to one child and smiled at them. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

  Just like that, the dam was broken. Gint talked, and Billinor listened, and learned, and after a while he thanked the road-repairer and his family for their company and their time and moved on to the next cold, hungry, tired group. Keth and Marius followed him as he slowly drifted across the square, handing him a loaf of bread each time he sat down. They watched in silence as the slip of a boy began to grow into his role as father to the frightened rabble of dockhands, seamstresses, weavers and more, hearing their stories, offering his small moment of friendship and comfort to each of them in turn. And finally, somewhere near the rear edge of the crowd, a child found the temerity to ask him, “Why are you here?”

  And Billinor paused, as those around the child froze in sudden fear. He smiled a small, sad smile, and glanced behind them to the forbidding walls of the Bone Cathedral.

  “I wanted to talk to my father,” he said. In that moment Marius knew the young King had them, as surely as Dek has won his troops, and that forevermore the citizens in the square would think of themselves as Billinor’s people, no matter whether they outlived him or otherwise. No matter how many kings they might live through, they would be his. The child’s father nodded, and stood.

  “Thank you for being with us, Your Majesty,” he said. Marius heard a sound like the passage of wind through a forest. Five thousand people were standing, facing their King. As Billinor rose, they bowed.

  “Um, thank you,” he said. “Thank you all.” He turned to Marius. “What now?” he whispered.

  “Now you proceed,” Marius whispered back. “Don’t run. Just… proceed.”

  Billinor sketched a quick nod, and walked towards the cathedral entrance twenty feet away. Keth and Marius fell in behind him, shielding the crowd from the fact that their now-beloved monarch’s pyjama trousers were too long for his legs. With five thousand faces at their backs they proceeded into the foyer of the Bone Cathedral, and promptly collapsed against the wall.

  “This place creeps me out,” Marius said. Keth glanced upwards and shuffled closer to him. Marius resisted the temptation to reach out and draw her into a hug. He no longer knew how she’d react, and really didn’t want to find out.

  “Me too.” She reached out and poked the bone-covered wall with a finger. “So many dead.” She frowned. “But why does it disturb you? I mean…” She tilted her head in the vague direction of the outer wall, somewhere towards “out there”. Marius knew she meant the waiting armies, all those silent, chattering souls who trailed in his wake. He glanced up at the nameless dead, glued together in random abandon.

  “That’s just it,” he whispered. “Look at them.” He ran a finger down a nearby femur, followed it onto a scapula and directly onto a floret of patellas. “All this, made from the bones of thousands and thousands of corpses.” He looked at her. “And I can’t hear a single one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He stared at the vast walls of the Cathedral, arching overhead towards infinity. “The dead talk.”

  “Oh, that is so disturbing.”

  He glanced at her. “No,” he said. “It’s disturbing when they stop.”

  She shivered. “Now I see why it makes you uncomfortable.”

  Up ahead, Billino
r was standing in the centre of the main hall, staring at an empty space in the centre of the room.

  “I remember standing here,” he said. “My daddy… the King… they brought him in on a big bier. I… I remember…” He sketched a salute. “I didn’t know any better, really. There was the flag over him, and he’d always taught me… you salute the flag. So I saluted the flag. And then I realised…” He waved in short, jittery arcs. Marius stepped up next to him, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “He would have been proud.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Would you like to ask him?”

  “What?” Billinor looked up at him, eyes wet. Marius nodded.

  “Would you like to ask him?” He nodded towards the entrance to the Hall of Kings, at the rear of the main building. “We’re here to see him, after all.”

  “But…”

  “Trust me.” He held out his hand, and Billinor took it. “I’ve got you this far, haven’t I?”

  “Yes. And if my mum finds out I’ll get in so much trouble, and you’ll be…”

  “What? Killed?”

  Billinor looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or feel guilty for something. Marius spared him the problem by pointing towards the Hall of Kings.

  “Come on.”

  They set off across the massive floor, Keth in their wake. Billinor turned his head from side to side as they approached the entrance.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Why aren’t there any guards here? There are supposed to be guards at the entrance all the time.”

  “They’ve gone home.”

  “How do you know?”

  Marius gestured to the world outside. “The world’s about to end. Where would you rather be at the end of the world, guarding some dead guy or with your family?”

  Billinor turned down his mouth. “I’m King. I have to go out and fight and stuff. I don’t get to be with my family.”

  They snuck into the Hall, and Marius looked at the corpse-white crypt at the far end. “And yet, here we are.”

  Billinor followed his gaze, saw his father’s tomb. The grip on Marius’s hand tightened. “Yes,” he said in a very small voice. “We are.”