Leo set the pace, though Brook kept him within a close enough distance with their mind link. It was a skill she was still working hard to develop and had come a long way with since Leo was a tiny pup. It was almost to the point where she could actually put words to what Leo was thinking and not just feel the dog’s emotions, but her skills were far from perfect. It was how Leo had gotten away from her on what should have been a routine foraging trip. It had brought them a good ten or so eye-spans south of the Axe Man’s River, right into the heart of the Borderlands.
“Make sure crazy doesn’t get too far ahead of us,” Crow said.
“Don’t you worry your bucket-beak sized head, big brother. I have him.”
“That’s what you said before, darling sister.”
“That was different. He must have got the fear scent. I’m still trying to work out how to calm him when that happens.”
“Do you think he sensed those roots?” Crow shifted the fawn to his other shoulder. Though it was well into autumn and the air was cool and crisp, Brook’s brother’s long dark hair was glistening with sweat. The long black capes and thick wool vestments worn by Black Wing men might as well have been clay ovens, in stark contrast to the cool cotton dresses the women wore under their cloaks. “Have you seen them before? In a dead dream perhaps?”
Brook was what the Black Wings called a dead dreamer. While she was asleep, she could see the world as it was through the eyes of a person moments before they died and joined Elon in the Dusk. The ability was seen as both a blessing and a curse, for though the Black Wings could learn much of the old ways from them, the subject of the dead dreams often met with a violent death, usually from the teeth of a killim, the name the Black Wings gave to the undead that feasted on human flesh. Though she was never more than a mere observer and safe from the dangers the dreams contained, Brook would always wake from the dead dreams trembling under her furs, wide-eyed and out of breath, grasping for her journal to write of what she saw before the visions slipped away.
“It’s very possible I’ve seen the roots in a dead dream before, though I can’t remember for sure. There is something about them that is very familiar, and Leo may very well have sensed them, as he does with things I’ve witnessed in dead dreams. I’ll have to consult my journals when we’re back at camp.”
“Maybe Old Wren will know something about it.”
“Yes, perhaps he will.” The siblings quieted their conversation, instead listening to the sounds of the land around them, on alert for anything that could pose a threat. The Borderlands were dangerous: besides roving bands of brigands, mercenaries and Karyatim wild men, there were also killim, the undead, if you were from the western cities. Not nearly as many as in the Blight to the south, but even one killim, its teeth gnashing for your throat, was more than enough.
The dead never wandered north of the Axe Man, the poisoned river that ran between the Borderlands and the Green Lands, or hadn’t since the General Godwin’s war three decades before. They stuck to the plains in the south, to the Blight and the dead cities that lay beyond it.
The trail they followed was an old one and not much used. It had been a road paved in black stone once, when man had driven carts made of steel that drank the black blood from the earth; now it was merely a clearing through the trees, the black stone broken to pebbles and covered by dirt and sod. After several hours of silent marching, the nameless trail finally met with the Mountain Road, a wide strip of tramped earth which ran parallel to the Axe Man before angling north and crossing over the river’s choppy waters by way of the Bridge of Haynes.
“Another half day’s march to camp,” Brook said. “Should we break?”
“Might as well keep on. Evening is coming quick and some may worry we’ve been gone too long. Don’t want to ruffle any feathers, now do we?”
They kept to the woods, walking at the bottom of a ridge just out of sight from the road. Black Wing scouts had recently seen killim in the area around the Bridge of Haynes, stumbling around the ruined and razed buildings that over a century of neglect had reduced to crumbling piles of stone and steel. The undead were drawn to old buildings and relics, but not to the extent they were to humans, whose flesh they had an insatiable appetite for. If there were any killim lurking around the ruins, Crow and Brook would do their best to avoid them. If that proved impossible, Crow’s knives, Brook’s bow and Leo’s teeth would get them through to the other side of the Axe Man and into the Broke Tooth Hills.
They could see the highest spires of one of the burnt out buildings rising above the trees when they heard voices. Crow dropped the fawn’s carcass to the ground and pulled Brook down into the leaves. Leo was close to them too, his snowy blue eyes searching Brook’s face for an explanation of her palpable trepidation.
“Men’s voices,” Crow said in a hushed tone. “Lots of men. It sounds like an army is up there, in the buildings.”
“Are they blocking the way to the bridge?” Brook asked.
“I have the same line of sight as you, Brook, so I can’t see a damned thing. I know that the buildings with the roofs still intact are closer to the bridge, so if they’re setting camp here for the evening, they’ll be right in our way.”
There was a wind coming down from the Broke Tooth Hills, bringing with it the voices of the men camped out in the ruins. “Cat again? Man, I can’t stand cat.” The man spoke with the rasp of a habitual leaf smoker who had yet to grow a full beard. “If Salty makes cat one more time, I’ll cut his ouevos off and make him cook them for our next meal.”
“Ah, shut yer piehole. You know there ain’t nothing but cat round here. All them rotters chased all the other four leggers away.” This man was certainly older and spoke in an accent that neither Crow nor Brook had ever heard before.
“Man, there’s fish in that river, right? We could each of us be eating a big fat grilled fish, that’s all I’m saying.”
“You don’t eat the fish from the Axe Man’s River, boy. This ain’t one of your damned Seven Streams. That there is a poison river, that is. Even the rotters don’t cross it.”
“Yeah, well…” Raspy trailed off. “Man, you think Dusty Yen will come through with all he’s promising? I mean, eye-spans of land for every man serving in his army, plunder from Ithaca, women from Lazarus Township… it all just sounds too good to be true.”
“Aye, boy, it most likely is too good to be true. I’ve served under many a warlord in my day. They’re good at promising you the world but giving you shite in return. Still, what other choice do men like us have? We fight or we starve.”
“I have other choices. I have family in the Seven Streams up north, by the Chalabad River.”
“Oh, flesh-eaters, are they?”
“My family aren’t cannibals, man. Flesh-eaters live in the Aderon Mountains, not in the river valleys, where I’m from.”
“No matter they be cannibals or canaries, they sold you to the Wandering Bastards for some shiny trinket or promise of protection just the same. Same with most of these men here. Ain’t no shame in it, boy. It’s just how it is. Lucky you’re in good shape and were ready to go willingly, too. I’ve seen our man Matchless slaughter whole tribes of men and take their women as his whores if nobody came willingly...” The wind changed direction and carried the voices of Raspy and the old man away. Brook looked at her brother and the deep furrows of worry that were in his brow.
“Those are slavers,” she whispered to him.
“I know. The Wandering Bastards, a particularly bad lot. I can’t believe they’re this far south.”
“What do we do?”
“I’m going to scout closer to their camp and see if we can get by them. If not, we’re going to have to keep going west until we’re past them. They’ll move from the ruins tomorrow and then we’ll be able to get across the bridge with no worries.”
“That would mean we have to set camp in the Borderlands?”
“Hopefully we can get past them, but if we can’t, I’ll set us up the
most well-concealed camp ever made by human hand. No killim will eat you up, dear sister.” Brook rolled her eyes at the smirk that appeared on Crow’s face. While her brother was certainly capable and a good ally to have in a dire situation, his impressive abilities always came coupled with a cocksure air and a puffing of his chest feathers. The worse the situation, the bigger his grin became, so that now it looked like the edges of his lips were about to push his eyes up into his hairline. He lived for challenges, thrived off proving himself. Many of the Black Wing girls fell for his act, but Brook knew her older brother too well: while he had the makings of a natural leader, he was still riddled with a youthful insecurity that made it hard for him to show any vulnerability. It was a weakness Old Wren was very aware of, and was the reason the elder Black Wing hadn’t yet named Crow his heir, or so she believed.
Though a cautious fighter, Crow had a knack for taking unnecessary risks, for overvaluing his prowess and underestimating whatever obstacle was before him. Brook wondered if her brother was about to make too rash a decision. Before she could voice her concern, Crow spoke.
“Look, before you say anything, let me just say that I’ll be fine. I’m just going to the top of the hill to have a little peek, then I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” Crow had seen twenty winters, Brook three less. Though they bickered constantly, they were close, having lived by a silent oath of protection, the one for the other, their entire lives. “Just be careful, Crow. Don’t go too close. They might have men patrolling the area as a watch.”
“Right. I’ll be back soon.” Crow turned and dashed soundlessly up the hill, his black cape rippling behind him. Brook and Leo sat in the leaves of the darkening wood. Soon it was just them and the smell of wet mulch and the trees around them. Or so Brook thought.
Leo started to growl. “What is it, boy?” Brook whispered. The woods were as quiet as a tomb, and all that moved was the occasional orange or yellow leaf floating to the forest floor. The trees were a mixture of beeches, marpels and bum yum; most of their branches were bare. If something were approaching, she should be able to see it, unless…
“Is someone hiding?” She asked Leo. The pit bull growled again. He was looking into the forest, his eyes focused on something only he could see. An uneasy feeling was blossoming within Brook’s stomach.
She took her bow from around her chest and notched an arrow on its string. She was a good shot, so good that her friend Rainfall had taken to calling her Falco on the archery range. Even so, if some of the slavers were waiting to ambush her she’d have no chance. Slavers were notorious in the Green Lands for their ferocity and effectiveness, the Wandering Bastards particularly so. Comprised of cutthroats, mercenaries and capable young men sold by their families or villages, Brook would rather slit her throat and venture into the Dusk than be captured by the Bastards and sold into slavery. She’d heard stories of what the slavers did to the women they captured, before they auctioned them off in the towns or along the riverfronts. She knew what had happened to her mother, long ago, when Brook had been but a babe...
“Come on, Leo. Let’s go a little bit this way.” She took her arrow tip and carved an arrow into one of the beeches she was standing by. Once Crow came back, he would see the arrow and follow the direction it was pointing, west, away from the slavers. She barely took a few steps before something quickly whipped around her ankle, flipping her entire world upside down.
She was hanging by her leg from a thick hemp rope tied to a tree branch high in the eaves. It had been a trap, hidden beneath the leaves, and she had stepped right into it. Leo was whining and running in circles below her. Brook had to do everything in her mental power to keep him calm despite her own mind reeling with panic.
“Well, well, what have we here,” a man said, coming into the clearing. He was bald except for a few wisps of hair on the sides of his head, the three layers of grimy, patched sweaters he wore doing little to conceal how skeletally thin he was. His fingers were like slivers of grass, his nose as fat as a turnip. “A pretty little lass all by her lonesome, done did a little cha-cha into my cat trap.”
Leo was growling. “Hold, Leo,” Brook said. She was already feeling the pressure in her head, could feel the blood pounding in her temples. Brook saw how the bald man was eying her exposed legs, her skirt coming up over her head.
“I do like that dress you have on, but I like the lacy linens underneath even more.” He licked his lips before pulling a long knife from his back pocket. He patted the side of his belt as he walked closer, a knot of dirty fabrics hanging from the leather. “Wouldn’t mind adding it to my little collection of pretty lassie linens, no I wouldn’t.”
The ferocity in Leo’s bark was enough to make even Brook start, as she had never heard such a powerful timbre in the dog’s voice before. It stopped the slaver from coming any closer.
“Bastard boys back in the camp will be extra happy to have dog for dinner. ‘Specially one as meaty as yours. Come here boy, let Salty give you a pet.” Leo was close to leaping up and ripping Salty’s throat out, but then all eyes turned to the woods, where there was a curious rustling of leaves. Brook felt sure there were some other slavers who had heard them and were looking to help their comrade collect his dinner, but she wasn’t to be so lucky.
Stumbling through the forest with ataxic, disjointed steps were a group of killim. Their bodies were as pale as the moon, their flesh covered in perforations and moldering wounds, obvious even in the encroaching evening. Their moans had been traveling into the clearing like a subtle wind, unnoticed for what they were until the killim were nearly upon the humans that had drawn them there.
“There be so many of them...” Salty said, taking a few steps back. He was right: in her two decades of life, Brook had never seen more killim in one place than were now coming towards her. “Sorry lass, but you’re on your own here.” He took off running, up over the hill, leaving Brook hanging by her leg, her face and torso within easy reach of the killim’s hands and teeth.
Leo was standing his ground, directly beneath Brook, his teeth bared. “Leo, you have… you have to run…” She struggled with the rope, trying at first to get her ankle loose of it, then to untie the noose’s many knots. None of it was to any use.
“For once in your life, Leo, this is when you should listen to me! Run!” The pup only entrenched his front legs into the mulch that much further. She shrugged off her quiver and threw it to the ground where it joined her bow, did the same with her pack. Lighter, she was now able to reach even higher to where she could grab the rope from above her leg. If only she could climb it, up to the branch it hung from, and wait there until Crow came back. He’d take care of the killim, just like he said he would. If only she could do it…
...but she wasn’t strong enough. The way she hung made it too awkward and too difficult for her to make any headway with the rope. The best she could do was grab the knot from above her ankle and hang like a folded hammock. It still left her back exposed to the killim, who were getting so close she could smell the rot of their bodies. Leo wanted to pounce on them, but Brook knew it would be suicide for her pup. She was trying to keep him back for as long as possible, hoping against hope that Crow would come and save them.
Two of the closest killim were almost upon them. Brook could see the sharpness of their teeth, the vacancy in their black eyes. One of them, what looked to be an older man, had only one arm, and his right leg was bent at an unnatural angle. The other was a young woman in a dirty floral-print dress not unlike her own, a gaping wound in her chest. They were coming right for her, hands raised, teeth clacking together. Brook closed her eyes and braced herself. She thought of her mother and father, neither of whom she had seen since she was a child. She thought of Old Wren, her brother, and all the Black Wings. She thought of her home, of all the Green Lands, of growing old and having children, grandchildren, before dying an old woman with her Black Wing clan around her, sending her off into the Dusk and Elon’s welcome embrace...
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“No, not yet…” She said, the tears pouring freely from her closed eyes. She still wanted to see so much, to travel, to learn and love. She wanted to see the ocean. She waited for the cold hands of the killim on her back, for their teeth to find her skin, hoping against hope that they had grown dull and useless over time. She waited… and waited.
When she opened her eyes, she realized that her fear had been so great it muffled all the sound of what was going on beneath her. Leo had jumped into the fray and was tearing the throat out of a killim, but he wasn’t alone. He was joined in his fight against the undead by a young man with a sword.
The man cut through the killim with speed and precision, felling one after another in quick succession, as though his blade knew every movement the murderous corpses were going to make before they even made them. The two killim who were closest to getting their teeth into her lay in a pile of severed limbs and viscera right below her, while around them was a circle of their slaughtered brethren. Brook watched this man and her dog with wide-eyed awe. It wasn’t Crow; Crow was a more cautious fighter than the swordsman, attacking from the outside rather than full-on despite his greater size. Was it a slaver? Was her savior merely a man here to protect his potential profit and dog-meat dinner?
But no, or else Leo would be acting differently. Leo fought with this man as if the two were on the same side, watching each other’s backs against the oncoming killim. Leo had a few close calls, but the man was quick with his sword, lopping off a hand or head when the killim came too near the dog. Soon, the entire area was without movement, save for the heaving backs of Leo and the man, their hot breath forming clouds in the air.
The man cleaned his sword on the shirt of one of the fallen killim before walking towards Brook. He was slim in build but his shoulders were strong under the flannel shirt and patched sweater he wore over it. His hair was shorter than Crow’s but still long, stubble peppering his angular face. He was handsome but troubled, Brook could see it in the way his brow hung heavy over his hazel eyes. “Are you okay?” The man asked.
The Undead King: The Saga of Jai Lin: Book One Page 2
