The Marching Dead

by Lee Battersby

  “Now,” he projected. Around them a maze of holes opened up, blocking any approach, Gerd running from one tiny corridor to another beneath them as fast he could, not bothering to look before he spread and closed his arms with a clapping sound like a broken shingle. Marius sensed the cessation of movement from beyond the hillock. He felt his companions slow and stop at the edge of the circle of holes, slowly sheath their weapons and stand in helpless amazement. He spared a moment to smile towards them. Scorbus was almost to his feet, bringing his sword about in a low, flat arc ready to separate Marius’ head from his neck. Marius stopped fighting against the slow drag of his leg towards his enemy. He leaned into it, braced himself for a moment, and leaped towards Scorbus’ neck.

  And was caught.

  As soon as he jumped, Scorbus let go of his trouser leg and swung his hand up to grab Marius’ throat. Now he stood to his full height, lifting the smaller man like he was no more than a chicken to be beheaded and plucked. Marius grabbed at his wrist, tugging at the thick bones that pressed against his flesh. An invisible gasp ran around the watching armies. Scorbus raised his hand, and turned to display his prey.

  “Observe,” he commanded, and a hundred thousand minds obeyed him, a hundred thousand consciousnesses pouring into the little tableau. “Observe what happens to those who betray their King.”

  Marius felt the attention of every dead soul on the battlefield. He narrowed his focus, and projected the slightest of smiles deep into Scorbus’ mind. The great King faltered, just for a moment, and looked down at him.

  And Marius played his final trick.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Never steal what you can’t swallow. It had been Marius’ mantra for as long as he had been a thief. It was a way to conceal the spoils of his trade, to escape retribution. Now, for the first time he could remember, he used it not to hide, but to reveal. He raised his hands to Scorbus’ wrists as if tugging feebly at them, cupped them, and coughed. And caught the thing he had swallowed, back when he had lifted it from his mother’s grasp. A single finger bone, carved with indulgences.

  Marius had been a thief for more than twenty years. He had stolen from soldiers while they held him at sword point. He had stolen from the Caliph’s virgin daughter while she had him tied to her bed. He had even, once, stolen from a hangman as he adjusted a noose around Marius’ neck. Now he stole from Scorbus, even as the King raised his hand to deliver the blow that would destroy Marius for eternity.

  It was a small theft, and quickly achieved. Marius simply gripped the hand that held his throat, found the second bone of the index finger, and with one quick movement of his fingers, pushed it out and slipped the carved bone into its place. Less than a second had passed. Scorbus began to roar, began to bring his sword down towards his captive’s skull. Marius allowed him a small projection: himself, grinning. Scorbus paused, momentarily confused. And was defeated.

  “Hold!” Marius projected as hard as he dared. “What’s this?”

  For half a moment, the battle paused. Marius focussed on Scorbus’ hand, projected the sight of the indulgence bone nestled halfway along its finger.

  “An indulgence?” he cried. Scorbus snatched his hand away from Marius’ throat, dropping him to the ground. Marius fell heavily, sat with his legs splayed apart, and stared in triumph as Scorbus held the offending hand up to his blank skull in shock. “Why does your King need an indulgence, if God tells him that this world above ground is Heaven?” Scorbus was shaking his head: visible to the few troops that surrounded them, but unseen by the majority of the battlefield; and, Marius noted gleefully, he was too shocked to offer any sort of denial or counter accusation.

  “Why does he hide it?” he broadcast. “Why do so many of you accept indulgences from my troops?” He found his feet, took the risk of turning away from Scorbus to address the surrounding combatants directly. “Unless you know,” he said to them. “Unless you know that this man is a usurper, and has betrayed you.”

  Finally, Scorbus broke free of his shock and propelled himself to action. But it was too late.

  “Now!” Marius cried. Directly underneath them, Gerd opened up a hole. Marius and Scorbus dropped into it, and as Marius’ feet found solid ground below, Gerd closed the hole up around Scorbus’ pelvis, trapping him. The fissures that had separated them from the rest of the battleground shut. All of a sudden, the hundreds of penitents who had crept forward to their edges, clutching their own tiny proofs of their disbelief in Scorbus’ vision of Heaven, broke forward with cries of betrayal. Marius barely had time to close his mind to the sounds of their assault before they climbed the little hillock and threw themselves upon the stranded King.

  What followed was short, and brutal. Even trapped, with the world against him, Scorbus was a warrior of prodigious strength. He swept up his sword and lashed it against the first bodies to reach him, scattering them back down the hillock in a confusion of limbs. But the dead are not so easily discarded as the living. Those who were repelled found their feet once more, and joined the great angry wave that crested the hill and washed over the solitary figure at its peak. The great King was torn apart in a matter of seconds, his roar of rage lost beneath those of his dead compatriots. In less than a minute his voice was silenced by the crunch of something heavy thundering down upon his skull. Marius closed his eyes for a moment, as the King’s voice was cut off inside his head, and the dangling legs that kicked and scrabbled for purchase in front of him became just a ragged collection of bones. Then they were not even that, as the life force that had animated them was borne away on the wind, and they fell in clattering profusion to become just a pile of yellowed sticks on the floor before him. Then the earth above him opened, and he looked up to see a ring of dead faces looking down upon him, a familiar one-eyed visage at their centre.

  “Your majesty,” Drenthe said, leaning into the gap to offer Marius his hand. Marius stared at it for long seconds. The battlefield, he realised, was unnaturally quiet. A hundred thousand minds were holding their breath, waiting to see what he would do. His actions now would decide the war, one way or another. He glanced up into Drenthe’s face, saw only calm assurance.

  “Your Majesty,” the dead soldier repeated.

  Marius nodded, and took his hand. Drenthe hauled him up, until he stood at the exact centre of a hundred thousand faces.

  Someone, somewhere, retrieved the crown. The legions of the dead sheathed their weapons. Drenthe stepped forward, golden circlet in hand.

  “Your crown, Your Majesty.”

  Marius took it from him. He stared down at it: a battered, misshapen circle of dirty metal, with a gap at the front where the largest jewel had been dislodged and lost in the fighting. He hefted it gently. A few ounces of gold, nothing more. Not even a true crown, really. A headband, at best. Wouldn’t get more than a couple of hundred riner if he melted it down and sold it to some backroom fence in a barroom in Borgho. Give you maybe fifty for the jewels, as long as they could be recut. Damn thing was trash.

  Slowly, he lifted it and settled it on his head.

  Beaten out of shape as it was, it still slid down. He adjusted it, tilted it back so the front sat above his brow.

  “Thank you, Drenthe.”

  Drenthe nodded and stepped back. Marius stared at the dead warriors around him; felt, at the back of his mind, the anticipation of the thousands who filled the plain; gazed over their heads at the city walls beyond. Behind them crouched thirty thousand souls, terrified and praying. He refocussed on those nearer to him.

  The dead were waiting, he realised. For him. For his first proclamation.

  “Stop,” he said.

  And just like that, the invasion was over.

  THIRTY-SIX

  And now, at last, the great East Gate of the city opened, and an army poured forth. But not the army Scorbus would have wanted. Not a vast wall of terrified men in armour, looking to equally terrified men on horses to guide them into the horrifying attrition of battle. This was an army of a differ
ent sort. Ten thousand strong, they flowed outwards in a disorganised stream, scattering in all directions. They moved in amongst the stony corpses who turned to them, confused and uncertain, half-raising weapons against what should have been a threat but was so patently not. An army of the people, their young King at the vanguard, dispersing on foot; each one holding a treasured painting, or locket, or etching. Children with hand-drawn images on scraps of paper. Housewives with cigar box lids. Merchants with framed portraits. Every citizen bore an impression of a loved family member. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren, they pushed through the astonished dead, calling names, holding their pictures up to rotting and time-destroyed faces and asking, “Uncle Gemis? Do you know him?”, “Aunty Lof? Have you seen her?”, “Mother?”, “Father?”, “My baby?”

  We miss her. We love him. Have you seen them? Do you know them? Are they here? Can we find them? Have you met them? Are they here? Are they here?

  Slowly, in dribs and drabs, the dead came together with those they had left behind. And slowly, as wives and husbands were reunited, as grandchildren raced through the ranks to throw themselves at dirt-encrusted grandparents, as brothers hugged, as wives and husbands embraced like they had thought never to do again, the dead found their humanity restored. They dropped their weapons. They turned their backs upon their army. They sat, silent, as their families talked and talked and talked, and Marius’ mind was full of dead weeping as he watched Billinor approach.

  “Your Majesty.”

  “Your Majesty,” The King smiled, and pointed at Marius’ bent and battered crown. “It suits you.”

  Marius glanced up at it, and frowned. Around him the war was dissolving like salt into water. He took a moment to stare at the joyous reunions that had ended it, and sighed.

  “We need to talk.”

  A small marquee was erected on the hillock at the centre of the former battlefield. A table was placed within, with two chairs of equal height at either side. Two kings faced each other, with a phalanx of sidekicks around them.

  “So.”

  “So.”

  Marius gazed past Billinor to the fields outside. A hundred and fifty thousand people milled about, ranks swollen by city dwellers who came to gawp, and wander, and give themselves a reason to say, years from now, that they were there on the day it happened, that they were a part of it. Marius shook his head.

  “The living have become too used to the dead.”

  “Do you–”

  “You have no claim on this land. You must leave immediately.” To Billinor’s left, a tall and spectacularly moustachioed man leaned in, jabbing an index finger towards Marius. Marius stared at Billinor for several seconds, then allowed his gaze to take in the interloper.

  “And who,” he drawled in his best street-fighter voice, “the fuck are you?”

  The tall man reddened at the insult. “I am Lord Denia. I am the King’s Chamberlain. I decide the King’s policy when it comes to matters of…” he sneered, “politics.”

  “Really.” Marius jerked a thumb at Granny. “This is my chamberlain. She can fart sea shanties.”

  Granny smiled at Denia. He visibly blanched.

  “Granny, why don’t you remind Lord Denia who I am?”

  “With pleasure.” The old woman stalked around the table, until she was close enough to flick the buttons on his jacket.

  “You can’t do that,” Denia spluttered. “This is an outrageous breach of diplomatic…”

  “Denia.” Billinor was impersonating him, Marius realised with delight. The same drawl, the same nonchalant recline against the chair. I do believe the little bugger’s enjoying this, he thought. “Be quiet and let the King’s Chamberlain speak.”

  “But Your–”

  “Now, Denia.”

  “I… I… Your Majesty.” Denia, finally, realised that everyone but him had remained very quiet indeed, and that it did not represent any form of support.

  “Are you comfortable?” Granny glanced around the wall of advisors. Satisfied with the fear in their eyes, she smiled. “Good.” She turned back to Denia. “See the lad, there?” She pointed at Billinor. The Chamberlain nodded. “When he dies – and not too soon, I hope…” She reached back and patted Billinor on the head. Denia looked very much like he’d like to protest but that, for the sake of self-preservation, he might just keep it to himself for the moment. “He’s quite cute, for a city boy.”

  “Thank you, Granny.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetie.”

  Billinor leaned forward and said to Marius in a stage whisper. “I like her.”

  You little shit, Marius thought with a smile. You are enjoying this. “You can keep her, if you like.”

  “Oh no,” Granny said. “I already have one immature, short-arse king to knock sense into.”

  Billinor laughed. “She called you a short-arse.”

  “Can we get back to things, please?”

  Billinor snickered. Granny shot him an indulgent smile, and turned back to Denia. “When this lad dies, he’s going to the Bone Cathedral, high up on the top of that big hill overlooking the city, to lie in a shiny white crypt in the bosom of his ancestors, where he can spend his eternity in quiet contemplation of his deeds and the love of his people. Won’t that be nice?”

  “I…”

  “You, on the other hand.” She flicked a button. “I bet you’ve got a family crypt somewhere, haven’t you, sonny? I bet it’s made of imported stone, and it’s at the posh end of the graveyard, away from all the common people and their dirty, common graves, isn’t it?”

  She flicked another button. Denia became very interested in something fascinating way over there, far away from having to look down at Granny’s grimy hands all over his freshly-pressed jacket. Granny grabbed a button and tugged it. Denia, faced with bending down or losing a button, opted to bend.

  “Doesn’t matter where you end up,” she said. “In the end, you all come down to us. And when you do…” Quick as a snake, her hand shot out and grabbed Denia’s ear. She twisted, and held it, so that he had no choice but to look across the table, straight at Marius. “He’ll be your King. For the rest of time.”

  Marius waggled his fingers in a wave. Granny let go. Denia shot up straight, tottering backwards with the shock of sudden release. Granny walked back down the line of advisors, smiling as each one followed her with their eyes.

  “So my advice to you,” she said, “would be to shut the fuck up, and try not to piss off the King you’ve got now or the one you’ll have for all eternity. Savvy?”

  “Thank you, Granny.” Marius waved a finger to her. “You can come back now.”

  Granny sauntered back around the table. As she passed Marius, she winked.

  “Savvy?” he asked.

  “Brys,” Gerd muttered.

  “Ah.” He returned his gaze to Billinor. “The dead and the living should not coexist.”

  Billinor looked afraid. Marius smiled sadly. “This world belongs to the living,” he said, and the crowd across the table visibly relaxed. He looked past them to the fields beyond. “The living have become too used to the dead.”

  “They have their loved ones back.”

  “Not just that.” Marius shook his head. “The last three years. It’s been seeping into the world. I’ve been shown.” He glanced at Drenthe, who inclined his head in the merest of nods. “People integrating them, using them. The dead have become your donkeys, your resource to exploit.” He thought of his father, of the vast riches of V’Ellos. “Your slaves. People don’t fear death the way they did. People need to fear death.”

  There was a rustling in the tent: the brush of cloth on cloth as hands fell to the hilts of swords.

  “What do you mean?” Billinor crouched in his seat as if ready to bolt.

  Marius held up his hand, turned it this way and that while he looked at it. “Look at me,” he said. “How dead do I appear to you?”

  “Ah.” The young King glanced at his advis
ors. His advisors were terribly interested in the stitching that held the corners of the tent together. “You look, ah, fresh?”

  “I was killed six weeks ago.” Another glance at Drenthe. Another nod, as inscrutable as the last. “Do you know what state a body should be in once it’s been dead for six weeks?” The King shook his head. Marius glanced at his entourage. “Lord Denia?”

  “I…” the Chamberlain blanched, sought his liege’s reassurance. Billinor gave him none. The old man swallowed. “Your forgiveness, Majesty, but…” He swallowed again. “The corpse, that is, to say, the deceased… decays, Your Majesty. The flesh swells, then falls back in upon itself, gives itself up to ruin. The eyes, and the soft parts–”

  “Thank you, Denia.”

  “Majesty.”

  He fell back relieved. Marius saw him glance across the table, saw Granny wink and blow him a kiss. Denia turned pale, and shrank to the back of the group. Marius smiled to himself, and recaptured Billinor’s attention. “Look at me. Look at my hand. Do you see any swelling? Have I given myself up to ruin?”

  “No.”

  Marius felt some sympathy for the lad: face to face with the King of the Dead, discussing the ruination of the body. Nobody should converse with a dead man, least of all the boy before him. How could he talk to a dead monarch and not think of his father? Come to that, how could he not look at Marius and see his own future?

  Pursing his lips in compassion, Marius pressed on. “The world is not right, Billinor. We are not right. We shouldn’t be walking around, getting in the way of life.”