Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology

by Eric S. Brown

  Probably because it had originally been paired with Excalibur, the most potent weapon of its time, the scabbard would not provide weapons. Therefore, the Crusader’s sword, dagger and shield were neither magic nor illusion, but merely the best that the lord abbot’s gold could buy. Old Jack returned them to their secret compartment in the cart. He gathered up the outlaw band’s weapons and the leader’s helmet and tossed them into the back of the cart, and then set about hitching the horse between the poles again. He could still reach the abbey in time for the evening meal, if only the weather would hold.

  It was raining heavily when Old Jack finally arrived at the abbey. He turned horse, cart and cargo over to the monk in charge of the stable and headed straight to the refectory. It was dark and empty, but there was light coming from the kitchen, giving him renewed hope. There was bound to be something left over from the evening meal, he told himself, and with any luck it might still be warm.

  He found the lord abbot himself standing by a cooking fire, stirring the contents of a small pot with a wooden spoon.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” Old Jack said drily. “Again.”

  “Do not mock the Sacrament of Penance, John.” The lord abbot’s words were plainly a command, though his tone was not unkind. “How many was it this time?”

  “Five. Their leader would have relieved me of the strongbox along the forest road—without hesitation or remorse, he said.”

  “Then he was the one everyone has been seeking. They were outlaws all, wolf’s heads.”

  Old Jack knew as well as anyone what this meant. To be an outlaw meant exactly that—outside the protection of the law. Outlaws were referred to as wolf’s heads because their legal status was equivalent to that of a wolf, the most feared and hated animal, which was to be killed on sight. Even so, his conscience was not completely eased.

  “There was one, a bowman. I put my dagger into his back as he ran away, to protect the Crusader’s secret.”

  “I will take the rest of your confession after we have eaten,” the lord abbot replied. “How much time remains to the Crusader?”

  “About an hour and a half. Why do you ask?”

  “Because you will in all likelihood be needing it, and soon.”

  The lord abbot was a man of great influence and power. The abbey’s honour—the land it held—was large, extending into the two adjacent counties. Since there could be no land without a lord, that role naturally fell to the lord abbot. As such, his immediate superior was the king.

  In ecclesiastical terms the lord abbot was of even higher de facto rank. Normally an abbot was subordinate to the bishop of the diocese where the abbey was situate, but like a number of other abbeys it had been declared exempt from episcopal control. So it was that in affairs of the Church, the lord abbot was responsible only to the Bishop of Rome—the Pope.

  For a man of such high degree to share a private meal with one such as Old Jack was unthinkable. Yet dine together they did, simply but well. From this, a subtle mind might have come to suspect that Old Jack’s station in life was far higher up in the feudal pecking order than it seemed.

  They had finished off all of the stew and most of the bread before the lord abbot finally explained himself. “There has been some trouble to the west.”

  “What manner of trouble?”

  “That I do not know. Sir Hugh was here when we first received word a week ago, but the news was second-hand. I sent him to find out what was going on, and I haven’t heard from him since.”

  “Then this had best be my last cup of ale. If I leave at a decent hour tomorrow, I should get there sometime in the afternoon.”

  Had the lord abbot travelled the road to Altondale he would have met many people only too willing to tell him the nature of the trouble that had driven them from their homes. He would not have believed any of them. By the time Old Jack reached the village he had heard their stories many times. Three things led him to accept what the villagers had to say. First, his military experience had taught him never to dismiss intelligence out of hand, whatever its source. Second, he had heard similar reports before, while returning from the Holy Land. Third, and most important, all of the testimonies he had heard that day were, in their essentials, the same.

  Almost twenty years ago, an elderly villager died with no heir save his equally elderly wife. She struck a deal with another small landholder to take over the half-virgate of land her husband had farmed; in return he would maintain her tiny house in good repair, and provide her with three and a half quarters of mixed grains every year for the rest of her life. The villagers had thought these terms fair. The man would become one of the larger landholders in the manor, although he would see very little return from the newly-acquired half-virgate while the woman was still alive. She, in return, would be adequately provided for and could enjoy a life of relative leisure for the few years remaining to her.

  But the woman had not died; indeed, she thrived. Over time, the villagers came to believe the woman was occupying her time with the study of the black arts, and was by such means unnaturally prolonging her life.

  Eventually she outlived the man who’d struck the bargain with her. His eldest son, upon inheriting his father’s holdings, refused to honour his father’s side of the agreement any longer. He also kept the land, maintaining it had been paid for many times over.

  The woman took her case to the manorial court, but by this time the villagers feared her. Not only did the jurors find against the woman, they declared she was no longer welcome in the village. The shocked and angry crone gathered her few portable belongings and left, but not before she cursed those responsible for her sudden change in fortune.

  A day later the young man was bitten by a rat. He soon developed a strange sickness, and despite the best efforts of his family, he died. The villagers buried him in the churchyard the next day.

  That night, he rose from the grave and commenced attacking the villagers, paying special attention to the twelve jurors of the manor court. The villagers defended themselves with their staves and scythes and pitchforks, but to no avail. Although slow and clumsy, the revenant managed to catch a handful of villagers who had fallen, allowed themselves to be cornered, or gotten too close. One he killed and ate, or ate and killed; the villagers were not unanimous on that point. The others survived, albeit with bite wounds. As dawn approached the revenant shambled off into the darkness of the forest.

  The revenant’s victims did not live for long. The villagers held more funerals and more burials that day. Shortly after nightfall, the newly dead clawed their way out of their graves and joined the original revenant in his hunt for villagers. The women and children took refuge in the tower that was the village’s only fortification, while the men renewed the fight against the revenants. The result was another half-dozen men bitten.

  At daybreak the villagers, who by this time realized they were outmatched, sent their fastest runner for help.

  Two days and four more deaths later Sir Hugh arrived, confident that he and the handful of infantry he’d brought with him could abate whatever nuisance the villagers were on about. The villagers buried their dead, this time under heavy stones.

  That night all the village menfolk joined the fight. Sir Hugh, as befit his station, led the charge, flanked by his soldiers, with the villagers right behind them.

  Both the soldiers and the villagers took courage from Sir Hugh’s presence, which only served to increase their casualties. For his part, Sir Hugh managed to destroy two of the monsters by beheading them. Eventually he was brought down by sheer weight of numbers, and the villagers broke and ran. He continued to struggle for a time, but one of the revenants bit him through the leather palm of one of his gauntlets. After a while he stopped moving, having been rendered either unconscious or dead.

  The next day was cloudy and dark, and the villagers feared to leave the safety of the tower. When the growing ranks of the undead staggered off at the end of the following night, Sir Hugh and his
soldiers were among them.

  When the villagers finally emerged the following day the revenants Sir Hugh had dispatched two nights earlier still lay where they had fallen, the other revenants having shown no interest in their nutritive value. Since burial in graves under heavy stones had not worked, the villagers decided to burn them. The remains had taken fire easily and burned completely, leaving only ashes.

  For the next several nights the few remaining villagers barricaded themselves in the tower, but when no more help was forthcoming they decided to abandon the village.

  Old Jack pushed the pace and arrived in the empty village in mid-afternoon. He first inspected the tithe-barn to see what of the Church’s goods and supplies were on hand. Then he went through the modest manor house where the lord abbot’s steward stayed during his annual visit. There he found a cache of weapons, from which he selected a sword, two longbows, and a goodly supply of arrows.

  He then looked at the tower, and liked what he saw. It was a narrow cylindrical stone structure built on high ground behind the village, essentially a defensible watchtower. Its large double door of thick oak planks was provided with a stout beam that could be placed across it to keep it closed, fitting into brackets carved out of the inside wall of the tower. A wooden stairway, solid-looking but with no railing, climbed in a tight spiral through two intermediate floors of pine supported on wide oak beams to the topmost level, from which a garrison could defend the battlements.

  He used the cart to ferry supplies from the tithe-barn. After removing his sword, dagger, and shield from their compartment, he unhitched the horse from the cart and brought both into the tower. There was just enough room for them without blocking the door or the stairway. Then he set himself to preparing for battle.

  When sundown came, Old Jack was sitting on a log by the entrance to the tower. One of the double doors was held closed by a wedge. A torch, set just inside the doorway, burned brightly. A second lit torch was set into the ground close to hand. The base of the Crusader’s shield was driven into the ground as well, with his sword and dagger leaning against it. Another sword leaned against the wall inside the tower.

  When the first of the revenants appeared, Old Jack took up the torch and lit the firewood he had laid out and smeared with pitch that afternoon. Two walls of fire rose up, starting on either side of the tower doors and extending out for some twenty paces. The distance between the two lines of flame increased gradually until they were eight paces apart. He had no intention of fighting in the dark, and no wish to be surrounded. If the revenants burned easily, he reasoned, they would not want to walk through fire.

  He replaced the torch and waited until the revenants reached the mouth of the fiery walls. Then he pulled down his cowl to effect the transformation. He tucked his dagger into his sword belt and took up his sword and shield, all the while watching the approaching group of four creatures. He took note of where they were when they sorted themselves into single file. This was as far forward as he could safely fight without risking their getting behind him.

  The revenants advanced like stiff, clumsy sleepwalkers, their arms held out straight in front of them. The Crusader used his shield to deflect the right arm of the first one away from him, and swung down hard at the extended left arm. It fell away, severed at the elbow. Lowering his shield by a foot, he used the space thus created to take a wide backhanded cut with his sword at his opponent’s neck. The stroke decapitated the creature, which fell in a heap.

  The next revenant in line stumbled over the no-longer-animated corpse and staggered sideways. The Crusader raised his boot and kicked him in the side, causing the revenant to lose his balance and fall on one of the flaming logs. In an instant he was a mass of flame. The unfortunate creature looked as if he was trying to flee the fire that consumed him, going through running motions while writhing on the ground on his back, but soon he moved no more.

  With this the remaining revenants became agitated, and the Crusader took advantage of their distraction to behead them. Judging by their clothing, both had been among Sir Hugh’s soldiers.

  By this time another group of revenants was approaching. Their leader had been Sir Hugh, for he wore full armor and carried a sword. The Crusader backed off a few paces and waited as the undead knight approached.

  It was a prolonged and frustrating battle for both combatants. Sir Hugh’s great helm prevented the Crusader from beheading him, but at the same time it negated the undead knight’s most potent weapon—his bite. Although the Crusader managed to inflict several wounds which would have disabled a living opponent, they did no visible harm except to Sir Hugh’s surcoat, which fell from his body, hacked to shreds.

  On the other hand, the revenant was too slow and clumsy to wound the Crusader. Although he still carried his sword he did not use it effectively, and the Crusader’s shield kept him at bay.

  Still, the Crusader realized he was going to lose this fight, for time was on the revenant’s side. The Crusader had only minutes left before the Scabbard of Excalibur ceased to sustain him; Old Jack could not hope to defend himself against the least of these undead monsters. It was time to retreat.

  Backing off several paces, he picked up the torch and flung it at Sir Hugh. Although his mail kept the fire from igniting him, he instinctively recoiled from the flames. Using the time he had gained, the Crusader ran for the tower. Slamming the door shut, he heaved at the beam and seated it firmly in its brackets. Tossing his shield into the cart, he seized the torch from the wall and raced up the stairs to the top of the tower. He had barely reached the top when he saw his cowl reappear.

  The Crusader had run out of time.

  Old Jack lit two more torches from the one he carried, and set all three through crenelations so they illuminated the ground below. Then he took up one of the longbows and a fistful of arrows. He had prepared the arrows by wrapping cloth around their shafts just behind their heads and then dipped head and cloth into a bucket of pitch. He spent the rest of the night shooting flaming arrows at the remaining revenants whenever they approached the tower. He didn’t try to take down Sir Hugh; as Old Jack, he couldn’t draw a longbow far enough to put even a bodkin arrow through mail. Instead, he targeted the foot soldiers and the villagers. As long as he could hit one of them, the arrow would stay put long enough for its target to ignite. While the revenant burned, the remaining ones would back off. As the ashes started to blow away, the rest would return.

  Old Jack quickly learned to shoot at revenants in groups. Not only did this increase the chances of a hit, but occasionally the one struck would manage to set one of his companions on fire as well.

  By the end of the night, only a handful of the undead creatures remained, among them the one that had been Sir Hugh. As soon as they retreated into the forest, Old Jack emerged from the tower. He had a lot of work to get done before nightfall.

  Over the day Old Jack used his cart to move the supplies he needed from the tithe-barn to the tower. After his preparations were complete, he got back into his cart and drove it around and around the village to build up time. He had very little of that commodity left, especially since he had become the Crusader several times that afternoon to do heavy lifting. By this time, however, he had been awake for the better part of two days and a night, so he dozed off. When he dropped the reins, the horse stopped as well.

  He awoke with a start late in the afternoon. He drove the cart into the tithe-barn and barred the door, securing the bar in place with spikes. Then he walked back to the tower, castigating himself for falling asleep when he should have been keeping the cart moving. He would never have done such a thing, he knew, when he was younger. Getting old, he decided, was a sad fate for a warrior; the only thing worse was the alternative.

  He prayed he would not experience that alternative tonight.

  As he had done the night before, Old Jack lit two lines of firewood when the revenants appeared. There were no more than ten of them now, with Sir Hugh leading. Old Jack waited until the last poss
ible minute before becoming the Crusader; when he had checked the wheel at the tithe-barn, the golden sword had pointed almost straight up.

  After a single pass of swordplay, the Crusader threw his shield at Sir Hugh and ran for the tower. Without pausing to close the doors, he raced up the stairs. By the time he reached the top, he heard them thumping slowly up the stairs after him. He looked down to make sure all of the revenants had followed him in, and then dropped the torch to the ground, where it landed near the doors. He picked up a coil of rope and threw the free end over the wall; the other end was tied off around a merlon. He backed through one of the adjacent crenelations and dropped over the side.

  Climbing down a rope would have been a difficult feat for an armored knight, but it was no problem for the Crusader until he became Old Jack again halfway down. If he had not had the foresight to tie knots in the rope every foot or so, he would probably have fallen. Even so, the remaining climb was painful and exhausting.

  Once on the ground he half limped, half ran to where the torch had landed. As he picked it up he heard the revenants coming back down the stairs. Suddenly one of them fell from the open stairway, missing the half-dozen open barrels and landing instead on the thick bed of straw that covered the stone floor. Unhurt, the revenant rose and turned toward the open doors. Old Jack threw the torch through the doorway and backed away as quickly as he could.

  The dry straw caught fire immediately, and flames took over the inside of the tower. They ran up the stairway, the outside of which was liberally coated with pitch, and spread across the wooden floors and beams, which Old Jack had given similar treatment. He felt the heat from the fire as he continued to back away from the tower. By the time the barrels of pitch caught, he was far enough away from the tower to stop and watch the spectacle.