Death, Be Not Proud

by Jonathan Maberry

  Impact. Crushing force. My blade transfixed the mighty chest and pierced deep, deeper. Cold stone, hot blood, the rush of night.

  It is an easy thing to die, I thought, as sleep of the night seeped in.

  -7-

  Slowly dim spots of light grew within my eye. The pain was great, and I focused on it, grasping that pain and using it to slowly drag myself from my open grave. Soon I was able to put my back against the stonewall. I gasped as an icy hand spread its grasp across my chest—I knew ribs were broken.

  But I had fared better than the filthy sewer bear, which sprawled in death before me. The great black tongue lolled out, the eyes turned in upon themselves, it bathed in a great pool of clotted fluid. I lurched to my feet and grasped the hilt of Wick, still transfixed in the thing’s chest. Contemptuously I expanded the wound with a prying motion. The sounds of ripping flesh and popping tendons filled my ears as I strove for the thing’s heart. Soon I held the slug-like organ in my mailed fist. Whenever possible, we Variag burn the hearts of our non-human victims. This ensures their penance in the underworld. I had tinder and flint, and soon it sputtered and spit and the soul went screaming.

  Ravoc was lying next to the wall at an unnatural angle. But he breathed. His soul was still his. And mine.

  Rudely I grabbed him and shook his young body. So young, so unspoiled. His face was truly lovely and I hoped he would look like this in death. When he met his doom, I hoped his face would remain free of mutilation. He must be clean, like a fair virgin. He would sail to the shore of fire, and his eyes would burn with the nighted light. His nostrils would twitch, sniffing in the sulpher-filled smoke as the seas of black beetles infested the lake, hurling themselves against the sides of the raft. There is no water. They are a second, eternal death. Scream—have your mouth filled with them. Insect legs claw your throat. Such is the force of their violation that you would be unable to shut your screaming face. They would flood you, crawl down you, and fill your windpipe, your stomach. Perhaps you will do your penance in this way, and think yourself lucky.

  These were some of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I slapped Ravoc repeatedly, my preferred method for waking him up.

  “Your boat is prepared, young master…here, look at the sails, made from lovely black silk. They are filled with a strong wind and it shall bear you on.”

  Slowly his eyes became slits and once again, his radiance spilled forth. Suddenly he blinked awake. His eyes were tainted with pain and fear and my love for Ravoc burned strong.

  “Surely I dream…I dreamt I was dead.” Then his head jerked back, his spine arched, his soul writhed. “My leg,” he gasped out, “it feels like it is afire.”

  I leaned on my blade and regarded the lovely boy.

  “Your leg is snapped, like a twig, or a broken vow.”

  He grimaced mightily and forced himself to one foot. There he slumped against the wall, gasping his pain. “Please, elder, take me to a leech. My leg is ruined and must be set.”

  “Yes, it is ruined. Yet you have heard the name, sung the song. You are my slave. You are going nowhere but down.” I moved my face closer to his, and he bulged in horror of me. My veil had been torn off in the last fight and I felt no need to recover it. As I watched Ravoc’s face, it occurred to me…the more pain Ravoc experienced, the more beautiful he would become. It was up to me to teach him this pain. To teach him fully we would have to descend deeper into the pit of bloody Bone Manor. There, perhaps, we would discover the greater Hell.

  For we had found the fissure and from it wafted a joyous smell. Ravoc’s impact upon the wall had jarred loose a stone panel that was set between the legs of a lustful woman of stone. Beyond that crack was a deeper blackness.

  Searching about, I found a stout shaft of wood. I crammed it into the opening and began to pry. My ribs flared and I could feel their cracked splendor. It hindered me little as the scream of tortured joints rent the air. Some unseen mechanism snapped and the panel leapt outwards. The panel of stone hit the floor and shattered.

  I stood upon the threshold and gazed into the darkness. Below me, stretching deep into the thickness of enclosed space was a flight of stairs. They were narrow, choked with rubble, and dropped away at an alarmingly steep angle. This was it, the way down. I quickly knelt to my unholy bride. Truly, Ravoc’s injury had been guided by the gods. His pain was my joy.

  He had crudely splinted his leg and came up behind me, leaning on his spear. “This place must be honey-combed with secret passages. We had already found several…UUUUHHHHH–,” he gasped again and clutched at his knee spasmodically. “The pain is great—my knee twisted and ripped. And I believe my leg is snapped cleanly.”

  I turned to him and found his eyes. In those eyes was clear blue light. He still burned. “I am wounded sorely but I am still of the Variag. I have sworn my blood oath to you and all, elder one.” He sagged against the wall. “You take me to my doom, but I am with you.”

  “As you are expected to be,” I barked. “We must find the beast and meet our fate. If we die, we were never meant to live.”

  -8-

  Our descent was both slow and torturous. The steps, broken and burnt, more than once cracked into splinters beneath my boots. Carefully I tested each step with the pommel of my sword before putting my full weight on it. Such caution had saved my life more than once.

  Added to this was the problem of Ravoc. His leg was destroyed and he was constantly forced to stop and fight the fits of delirium caused by the white fire that blazed through his shattered limb. Yet he staggered on, grimly silent, his dirty face slashed with tears.

  Down into the depths we went, and as we dropped deeper, a feeling of dread began to grow in my breast. My sputtering pine torches seemed woefully inadequate in the slushy blackness. The air was proving difficult to breathe—it was tinged with an unnamable scent that clutched to one’s nose hairs and itched woefully. I was regretting leaving my veil behind. At first, it seemed like my face would serve me well in this hell, but now the exposed sores were beginning to throb at the edges. Finally, through the gloom, I could see the steps ending, and emptying into a room by way of an archway set into an iron fence. Cautiously I approached the entrance to what felt like a large area beyond. Ravoc came stumbling in behind me and immediately collapsed on the rough stone floor.

  “I can feel it,” he muttered as I scanned the darkness ahead of us. “I can feel it’s icy grip ELDER!” He suddenly screamed. “I AM MARKED, MY DEATH, MY DEA—“

  Whud!

  “SHUT UP!” I screamed, withdrawing my mailed fist. “Shut up you simpering pig! We must find the beast, not it US!”

  “But Elder, I saw him,” he groped at my breast. His face was moist, his breathing labored.

  “I saw his face, his awful face! He was deep within a shadow, I thought him hurt. I tried to help. I reached out my hand, and he grasped it,” Ravoc blustered and began crying. “His grip was as strong and as cold as iron in ice. He pulled me towards him. I saw his face; it was a thing of hell!”

  I shuddered as I remembered my vision from earlier. “You are delirious with pain, young one. Still you are strong. Be not faint of heart. You shall live through this trial and meet a glorious destiny,” But my words were hollow and I knew it. There was already a deep shadow on his face. He was as good as dead.

  The chamber was plain enough except for the one wall dominated by a large iron gate set in the middle. One glance at the fluid, twisted metalwork told me that the same artists who had crafted the upstairs stone were responsible for this. The gateway stood slightly ajar, revealing an opening into impenetrable blackness. From this darkness came an oozing, throbbing presence. Everything screamed death, and I walked to meet it.

  The grill pushed silently inwards. Ravoc lurched to his feet and stumbled past me, mumbling and drooling. The mantle of fear slipped from his shoulders as he steadily made his way into the chamber. I almost felt respect for my doomed slave. So I let him stumble towards death with open arms, and I f
ollowed.

  The boundaries of the chamber were far beyond the range of my torch but I could tell the space was enormous. I marveled that such a space could exist so closely below the city where thousands lived. It seemed as if at any moment the entire thing could be swallowed up by the subterranean void, with Bone Manor as its ballast.

  The floor was covered in stone flags that in some places had been torn-up and crushed. Some of these remains were blasted and scorched, and in some places pitted and scratched as if immense claws had been dragged across them. The earth from beneath the flooring had been kicked all over the place, leaving tracks all across the stones. Boot prints. Of many sizes, many wearers, and going in all directions. Had thieves discovered this place? I thought not. Besides the fact that my descent had been arranged by the gods, all of the boots were of the same style—a heavy war boot, much like my own.

  A great crash behind us suddenly interrupted my thoughts. I did not need to turn around to know the truth. The gate had shut behind us, seemingly of its own accord. The boom was quickly swallowed by the air around us in an unnatural manner. It was like hearing underwater, or with greatly increased air pressure…at any rate, my head was beginning to ache. Taking stock of the entire situation, I came to the conclusion that pretty much everything sucked.

  I began walking back to check on the door, nodding to Ravoc to hold his ground. I assumed it was it was now locked, and we were trapped down here, but I had to see for myself. The outlines of the wall and then the door appeared, and it was indeed completely shut.

  And standing in front of it was the figure of a man.

  The darkness began to fade from the form until I recognized the moldering green harness and missing head from the corpse Ravoc had shown me upstairs. Our old friend had come back to join us. The creature stood there, swaying slightly even though its mummified hand still grasped the door. As the torchlight hit it, it seemed to notice me, and lurched about in a drunken arc until it faced me, an undeniable symbol of the reality of undeath. It reached instinctively for a sword that was no longer there as it moved to attack. My blade lashed out and in a moment, the things arm flopped to the floor, writhed about for a moment, and then began to claw its way across the floor towards me. My second blow sheared the creature completely in half, my third, took it apart at the kneecaps. I kicked the bits in opposite directions, and ran back to join Ravoc. Soon his face loomed from the gloom.

  “Elder…what was that?”

  “The Shocker from upstairs. He has been zombified, turned into an undead slave of the lowest order. He followed us down here and then closed the door, locking us all in here together. I have dealt with him for now, but soon his various bits will be crawling up on us.”

  Ravoc gaped in horror, his brain unable to process what I had just said. A single zombie did not worry me over much. While they could not be killed, they were slow, and were only effective in battle when used in numbers. However, the magic that made them was beyond powerful, and only the greatest of necromancers could wield it. I was on the right track.

  Already the noise of the thing was reaching us, as its bits crawled through the blackness it could not see, searching for each other and us. Zombies came in many varieties and their attributes usually depended on the needs and skill of the creating sorcerer. Contrary to popular belief, killing the brain did not kill the zombie. Most of these things did not have brains, and none of them could be killed. The only way to stop them from moving was to kill their creator. You could chop them into mincemeat and every single bit would still try to kill you.

  We made our way onwards into the maw of unknown depths. Ravoc now followed me, doing his best to keep up. Every misstep, every stumble caused his leg to explode in white-hot pain. Somehow, he swallowed his pain silently, though his face bulged with the hideous contortion of it. The night revealed nothing more than the continuing floor, so when an irregularity other than the various broken and pulled up stones appeared, it was both startling and welcome.

  A thing of bone. A human skull, cast upon the floor, offering a grin that bespoke of the unknown pleasure of death. Upon the skull was a rusted helm, emblazoned with the Emperor’s crest. Finally, I had found the things head.

  And it screamed, oh, such a scream…

  It was a wailing note of hate, which reverberated to the very depth of my being. It backed me up and sent Ravoc sprawling on his face, his spear clattering along with him. In the city of Dis, in Acheron, where the dead live in hell, upon a soaring rock above the Sea of Fins, a great, warty demon raised a brass horn made of dead men’s swords to its purpled lips and blasted a note of such sonorous discomfort that it blew through the planes of existence, and found its mouth here, in the pit beneath Bone Manor.

  “SILENCE!!” I screamed and gave the death’s head a huge kick. Teeth flew and the thing bounded away, still cackling.

  “By the Gods, what was that thing?”gasped Ravoc, as he stumbled to his feet.

  “A toy in his hands. We have both seen those hands, Ravoc.”

  Again, his horror bulged through the darkness.

  HUP HUP HUP HUP

  “Prepare yourself.”

  HUP HUP HUP HUP

  “It is coming.”

  We only heard them at first, the tramp of booted feet in ragged formation. Ravoc gave me a last, agonized look, and then fell away, catching himself on his spear haft. He righted himself and settled into his combat stance, the weapon set against his foot. Grim and silent he faced the coming death as the hideous noise grew, the sound of shuffling and slapping sounds backed by a growing chorus of moans and grunts. It came on, and the din of it filled my brain. Agonized, I kept thinking it had to finally appear in the tiny arc of light our torches made but instead of showing itself it just grew louder and louder. I took the chance to stick a torch in the ground and light another. As the noise grew to an appalling din and when I could stand no more, I threw my torch at it.

  And there it was, my Gods, there it was. It whirled, it writhed, arms, legs, faces. Decayed and worm gnawed. It voiced it’s cry of many long dead throats that did have voice, have mind. Even if through it, did crawl bloated necro-worms fed by the putrescent juice of flesh somehow alive as skin stretched, tongues lolled, reddened lumps spun but somehow saw. It screamed its hate, more it screamed beyond all pain and I fell back, staggered by the enormity of the thing. I fell back and I saw it. It clanked, clacked, rolled, and swayed. It beat rusted swords upon mold-covered shields. Withered arms shook a variety of weapons, towering above us. Swaying again, it fell forward in a rush of bodies and caught itself on several legs, righting its bulk. Here a new set of bodies was displayed, rotting eternally and exulting in their undeath. I knew how these had died, all wearing the crest of the emperor, and somehow joined as one. A union of the zombified Shockers. What sick science had made them one? I longed to know.

  With a croak of nineteen tongues, it threw itself upon us.

  I leapt away and rolled. A spear barely missed me and I clashed with it to the floor. I came over in time to see Ravoc with his spear held aloft. With his shattered leg he had no chance to escape the downwards rush of the monsters main portion, bristling with the horrid men of Hell. Ravoc thrust into the bulk, transfixing on a chest. Ribs snapped and for an instant, the whole thing halted, held aloft by only his spear, which bent for but one instant. The mass heaved and forced itself further onto the shaft. I leapt in, slashing furiously, cutting deeply into it. Blows rained upon me in return. I heard Ravoc scream louder than the sound of his spear snapping. The mass of the thing fell upon him and his screams were cut suddenly short as the fused mass of undead flesh tore him apart in a great rending of ripping flesh and popping bone. It jerked and jumped, this living flesh column, and Ravoc died.

  For a few moments, the thing just kind of hopped up and down on Ravoc’s battered body, as lumps of torn flesh were occasionally spat out from under the thing. It almost seemed to have forgotten me for a moment until I screamed my fiercest war-cry and leapt in, hackin
g madly. My first stroke took off an arm, the second clove through an entire chest. Both pieces flopped to the floor and immediately began crawling towards me in any way they could muster. They bulk of the thing, with the great red stain of Ravoc’s blood covering the front of it, peeled itself off the floor and moved towards me in a shuddering mass of arms, legs, and weapons. All I could do was hack and slash wildly. The only defense being to actually remove the attacking bits and send them to the floor, where I could kick them away to a safe distance, momentarily anyway. However, there was no way to truly fight the thing. It had no fear of death or pain, just a never-ending hunger and the hope that my death could somehow fill one tiny corner of it…hacking, slobbering, it came on, and I ran.

  There was no way to beat this thing. Even if I spent the whole day at a butcher shop and had the things full cooperation, all I could have succeeded in doing was reduced the creature to lots of little creatures that still wanted to kill me every bit as bad as the bigger one. Therefore, I ran, I ran through the ever-night of the Underearth, my torch bobbing up and down, the only thing keeping the vault of blackened madness from completely crushing my soul. I reached deeply within and shut out all else until the horrid sound of the thing pursuing me was slowly replaced by the thundering of my heavy boots and the clanking of my harness. How long this continued, I know not. But the pain eventually became too great to ignore. Still I ran, blurring on, my lungs gasping airy needles. Dully I wondered when I would hit a wall.

  I saw it a split second before my boot struck it, and again it screamed. The head from our old friend, the first zombie, was directly in my path. I must have been running in circles because that was the only way it made sense that it was here…and I was still trying to make sense of things, even as I went head over heels and smashed to the ground, losing my helmet and driving my skull directly into a torn-up flagstone. My torch went flying and it’s light suddenly died. As the blackness rushed in, I wondered if it was death.