The Undead King: The Saga of Jai Lin: Book One

by Rinaldi, Jared

  “Young Poe’s Keep? I’ve never heard of this place.”

  “It’s a trading outpost, mainly. It’s so close to the Axe Man and the Hud, as well as to the Mountain Road fork, that they get a lot of travellers passing through with coin to spend. The ruins of an old ghost city are close by it, in the hills. Old Poe’s Keep. Some say there are still treasures to be found in the old shops there, but that they’re haunted by malignant spirits trapped in the city by greed.”

  The beginning of 23 ran close to the Axe Man, so it was a relatively flat and easy going. Still, Leo was panting heavily. “He’s tired,” Mercer said.

  “We should think of resting for the night in Young Poe,” Brook said. “I know many of the traders. The Black Wings do much business with them.”

  “Sounds fine to me.” Mercer was tired too. Slaying as many dead men as he did earlier was taxing work, as was navigating the Axe Man’s River, which he had been doing since early that morning.

  The road was illuminated here and there with soft white lights, technology left over from the old days that miraculously still worked. The lights had black panels atop them and were attached to stakes in the ground, no bigger than one of Leo’s legs. In the middle of the road, two of the lights shining upon it as though they were sentries on watch, was a shapeless pile of meat, maggots thickly squirming in its folds. Leo’s neck bristled and began to growl.

  “By the talons of Elon…” Brook’s mouth fell open once she saw what had made the dog stop and snarl. “That’s… that’s a human leg!”

  Mercer drew his sword. “I would notch an arrow, if I were you. Something is very wrong here.”

  “Is that so, Mr. Scholar?” Mercer cocked an eyebrow and took her in with a side glance; sarcasm had been Nina’s language of choice, her acerbic wit never failing to make him laugh. Mercer smiled.

  They walked cautiously into Young Poe’s Keep, which was but a collection of clapboard huts, freestanding or adjoined to preexisting, ruinous houses. The buildings gathered closer together as they moved further along 23, as if conspiring in silent, unseen gestures over what to do with these nighttime nomads.

  While the small streetlights kept the path ahead lit, it consequentially blinded them from seeing into the shops and ruins surrounding it. It made Mercer especially nervous. He hadn’t expected there to be so many old houses still standing. Though most of their roofs had caved in and the roots of trees snaked deep into their foundations, the homes had not been razed by vandals or armies passing through as many of those in the Borderlands had been. These were peaceful lands, Mercer had to remind himself, hardly touched by warfare. So it didn’t seem right that things were so quiet, and that the homes were so dark. What had happened here? He didn’t have to ask himself; he knew. All the evidence was there but he didn’t want to believe it. Dead men weren’t supposed to come north of the Axe Man, but since when had the world worked as he had wanted it to?

  They came to a shop that was attached to an older building by plywood boards and metal siding. Its wood door was covered in chipped red paint and bent at an angle on its hinges. A piece of rusted iron hung outside with crude letters painted on it. It said blaksmith.

  “This is Darnell’s shop. He’s a metal worker and a good friend of my brother. I hope...” Brook didn’t finish her thought, but Mercer answered her as if she did.

  “I hope he’s okay too. Come on, let’s give it a look.” Brook nodded. She reached out to Leo through their mind link, told him to keep watch outside. Satisfied that he had listened, Brook turned to see Mercer trying the handle of the red door, which clicked open effortlessly. They walked into the room, which was ten shades of pitch darker than the outside. Jai Lin caught the little light there was and glowed like a beacon in the gloom.

  “Darnell?” Brook’s sotto voice hung in the darkness like a sheet on an updraft of hot, stuffy air. From out of the heavy silence came a terrible moan, and then the crash of a table of glasses and iron tools falling to the floor. The dead man was upon Mercer before he could see him.

  “Brook, get out of here!” Mercer yelled as the dead man’s momentum pushed him over and into another table of tools. Mercer dropped his sword, while a heavy wrench from the upended table found the windowpane behind it, shattering it into jagged pieces. A larger shard found the head of the dead man trying to get its rotted teeth into Mercer’s skin. A river of rank blood started pouring from the wound the glass made in the dead man’s head. It was making Mercer’s hands start to slip from the already slick, rubbery flesh around the corpse’s neck. He didn’t think he could hold him much longer.

  There was a muffled thunk, and the writhing of the dead man ceased. Mercer found himself holding aloft nothing more than a motionless, albeit very heavy, bundle of putrid meat. He blinked a few times, and saw Brook’s silhouette standing above him. She had found a long awl and stuck its spike through the dead man’s skull. Sticking a blade through a dead man’s brain was the surest way to kill one, some said the only way, and he was glad that Brook knew this.

  “Are you alright?” Brook asked him as he pushed the corpse off.

  “Yeah, never better.” He was soaked with the stale blood of the dead man and saw that his hands were shaking. He hadn’t been taken by surprise by a dead man in some time, but as he looked himself over and saw no bite marks, no scratches or scrapes, his nerves calmed. As long as the skin wasn’t broken, you wouldn’t turn, his father had always told him as a child. It was why Willis Crane had worn such heavy armor against General Godwin’s army, in the style of the sprocket knights of Ithaca, years before Mercer was even conceived. It was a necessary precaution for all soldiers to wear armor, as Godwin had an army of dead men at his disposal and had been able to make them do his bidding. Godwin had been a zombie-tongue, or so the stories went.

  “Well, we found Darnell.” Brook was eyeing the corpse Mercer had pushed into the corner. Darnell wore a heavy burlap smock and was a beer keg of a man. Mercer now understood why he had been knocked over so easily. Besides the place where the glass shard had embedded itself in his head, Darnell also had a large wound on his forearm, what looked to be inflicted by a pair of ravenous teeth. “Poor man. He had such a kind heart.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Mercer said, standing up. He took his blood-soaked shirts off and threw them into the corner of the room. He could see more clearly now, his eyes having adjusted to the darkness. The room was in chaos from the melee: two tables had been upended, broken glass carpeted the floor while Darnell’s blood coated the walls like a fresh layer of paint. “Why are there dead men in the Green Lands?”

  “I don’t know,” Brook said, her voice sad and distant. She wondered if there had been any of Darnell left in the living corpse she had just killed. Had some of her friend still been in there, a prisoner to a nightmare he had no control over? Or had Darnell died, the killim in his place merely wearing the metalworker’s skin as a vestment for its insatiable appetite? None of the thoughts comforted her.

  “Perhaps the Bastards or some other slavers passed through here and left killim behind?” Brook proposed. “Slavers have been known to catch dead men in the Borderlands and keep them as pets. I read that they put their necks in harnesses and attach them to wooden rods so that the dead never get close enough to bite or scratch them.”

  “That’s true, but I don’t think that’s what happened here. Slavers are vicious, true, but you saw how the Wandering Bastards were back there. They were absolutely terrified of dead men. No, I think there’s something bigger at play here. I just don’t know what.”

  “Where there’s one killim, there’s going to be more,” Brook said. “We should get out of here before any more find…” Her mouth opened and her eyes went wide. “Oh no, Leo! Come on!” There was a sledgehammer with a long handle propped up by the door which Brook grabbed as she ran outside. Mercer followed right behind her, Jai Lin in his hand.

  Brook was right to be alarmed. Leo was gnashing his teeth and darting out of the way of a g
roup of five killim. He was unhurt but these dead men were fast and a few swipes of their claws came within inches of the dog’s black fur. They moved as if their joints had not yet grown stiff, as if they had only just turned.

  Mercer caught the dead man closest to him off guard, lopping off the corpses head before it could even smell the sweat on his skin. A fountain of blood spurted out from the dead man’s neck, the dark red of a summer sunset. Brook swung the sledgehammer deftly, knocking the lower jaw off the fastest of the killim. It didn’t stop it; the green-skinned woman with fiery red hair turned quickly and was upon Brook before she could dodge out of the way. Leo was quicker though, biting the corpse woman’s leg and dragging her off. Mercer finished what his Black Wing companion had started, finding the dead woman’s skull through her tangle of red hair with one swift movement of his sword.

  They were all three back to back in the center of a circle of limbs and unmoving dead bodies when they were finished, panting heavily. “Well, that sure was a nice welcoming party,” Brook said. Mercer grinned despite the taste of blood on his tongue.

  “Can we make it to the Black Wing camp tonight?” Mercer asked. Brook reached out to Leo to gauge how her friend was feeling. The battle seemed to have given her pup a renewed energy, her as well. The Black Wings were only a few hours march from Young Poe’s Keep, in a camp hidden in the Broke Tooth Hills.

  “If there are killim in the Green Lands, and this close to the camp of my clan, then there’s no time to waste. We have to get there as soon as possible and warn them.”

  “Fine by me,” Mercer said. “But first, I need to find a shirt.”

  After Mercer had braved Darnell’s house to find a shirt, and came out successfully with a faded denim button-up and a heavy wool cardigan, they continued on 23. Soon, they were beyond the soft-lit road of Young Poe’s Keep and back into the full dark of the night.

  Chapter Three

  The Black Wings

  THEY STOPPED AN HOUR OUTSIDE OF YOUNG POE’S KEEP to fill their skins with stream water, but didn’t dally long. 23 was beginning to leave the Axe Man’s River valley and climb into the Broke Tooth Hills. The Black Wings camp was near the summit of one of these hills, at the end of a trail that diverged from 23 through a thick forest of pines, bum yum and oak. They took this trail when they found it, behind a criss-cross of felled trees and long dead ‘lectric lines smothered by vines.

  The trail was steep, direct, and got them up the hillside quickly, leveling out when the moon was highest in the sky. “We’re here,” Brook said. Mercer looked about, not sure where the tents or huts were, the fires, the people. This looked like any other stretch of knotted trees they’d just walked through, not a camp.

  “How can you be sure?” Mercer asked, but Brook had turned from him, her ears pricked to the owl screech which had come from the darkness. Brook clicked her tongue on the back of her teeth, mimicking the chatter of a squirrel. After a few moments, a sentry came out from behind the trees, a long spear in his hand. He wore the same black cloak that Brook and Crow wore, his long, raven hair in a loose pair of braids.

  “Welcome home, Falco,” the man said.

  “Good to be home, Rainfall.”

  “I see you bring a friend.” There was suspicion in the sentry’s statement. “And where is your brother Crow?”

  “Yes, this is my friend Mercer. As for Crow, much has happened since I left camp. I need to see Old Wren at once. There are urgent matters I need to discuss with him.”

  Rainfall came closer to them, his furrowed unibrow rising like a bump in a rug when he could see them clearer in the moonlight. “Brook! Your face! What happened to you? You are covered in blood!”

  “There are killim in the Green Lands, Rainfall. Many of them. Now please, I need to see Old Wren. Where is he?”

  “He left with a search party for you and your brother when the two of you did not return by evening. They should be back soon to replenish their supplies. You two should wash up and rest until they get back. It looks like you’ve had a very difficult time this past day.”

  “We have. Thank you, Rainfall. I’ll go to my room in the long house to wash up. Don’t wake any of the children or old ones, but spread the word to all the able-bodied Black Wings: there are killim in the Green Lands and we must be extra vigilant of our camp. I fear all of Young Poe’s Keep was massacred.”

  “All of Young Poe… massacred…” Rainfall let the words play in the open air, as if he was unsure of how to rein them in. He was old enough to be Brook’s father, but Rainfall had grown soft in the ways of war. The War for the Green Lands was almost three decades ago, and many had forgotten what a kin’s death by sword or killim was like. “And what of your brother? Was he…” Rainfall couldn’t finish.

  “He’s alive, Elon be praised, but he was captured.”

  “Captured? By who?”

  “A band of slavers,” Mercer said. “The Wandering Bastards. Making their way for the lands east of the Hud. There’s an army gathering there, and I’m afraid the Green Lands might be their battleground for the war they plan to wage with Ithaca and the other cities to the west.”

  “By the talons of Elon, what is the world coming to?” Rainfall said. He was leaning heavily on his spear, which made him look far older than he was.

  “Get the word out, Rainfall,” Brook said. “Come get me when Old Wren returns.” Rainfall nodded and let them go on their way into the camp.

  “He doesn’t trust me,” Mercer said as Brook led him into a thick grove of prickly pine.

  “I wouldn’t take it personally. You’re a stranger with a sword, covered in blood, bringing strange, sad tidings. You wouldn’t trust you either.” Mercer nodded, the motion making his head ache. Gods, was he tired, aching in places he didn’t even have names for. Sleep would be a most welcome friend.

  Mercer wasn’t sure what he had expected from the Black Wings camp, but it still managed to surprise him with its elegant simplicity. Hidden behind a thick row of hedges were three long houses, curved like crescent moons, each making up a third of a circle with small paths between that led to a central courtyard. They were built of hide and boxelder, and had iron tubes for chimneys spouting from their roofs. Smoke rose from all but a few.

  “Come on, let’s get you washed up,” Brook said, pulling a flap away from the doorway of one of the houses. Inside was one large room, with small partitions of hide at regular intervals behind which entire Black Wing families slept on large beds of down-feather and hay. They walked quietly to the middle of the long house, where there was a metal washtub filled with fresh water. A plastic bottle of blue soap was next to it which had the words “Dawn” printed beside a picture of a baby bird Mercer had never seen before.

  “Soap from before the Time of the Great Dying. This will get all the blood off,” Brook said, gesturing towards the bottle of blue liquid. She was taking off her cloak. In the soft glow of the fire embers, Mercer saw the curves of her small but defined arm muscles, made strong from the use of her bow. Her skin was a light brown, her shoulders lightly freckled. He looked away when she caught his eyes on her. “What is it?” She asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. He peeled off his new shirts and began to wash quietly. Brook only splashed water on her face and arms. She felt something around Mercer she never felt with anyone else, Black Wing or otherwise. Was it embarrassment? Modesty? Black Wings all bathed together in the open. There was no shame in it. Yet, she couldn’t help but notice how Mercer kept his eyes averted from her, would half-smile at her as he scrubbed the blood away from his calloused hands. She decided that she’d wait until he was done washing, then ask him to wait in Crow’s room so she could wash the rest of her body. It seemed like the right thing to do.

  She brought Mercer to her brother’s sleeping area and then went back to finish her wash. Crow’s room was neat, the bed’s sheets folded in perfect squares. Besides the bed was a small dresser with towels folded atop it with the same angularity as the sheets. Mercer grabbe
d one of the towels and patted himself dry. This room belonged to a man who liked things a certain way, who liked order and control. Hanging from one of the hide partitions was a belt of knives. Upon closer inspection, Mercer could see that some of the knives had silver threads connected to their hilts, the threads attached to the belt. An interesting way to wield blades, Mercer thought, one which he had never seen before.

  “Admiring my brother’s knife collection?” The long house was so quiet that Mercer jumped at her voice, though Brook had only whispered. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay. I guess I’m just a little jumpy today after all that happened.”

  “It’s one of two belts of knives that my brother has. Both were actually my father’s from when he was a young man. He was just a little older than Crow when he died. October fever.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mercer said. At least he had known his father while growing up, though he had lost him at a fairly young age as well. His loss was of a different variety, however: his father had been needed out west after the poisoning of the wells at Ithaca, after his mother and many of the city’s other brilliant minds had died of burning bowels, bleeding eyes and cracking skin. His schooling had been cut short, he and his father having to switch places, the highlands for the city. “What of your mother?”

  “I never knew her too well. She was… taken by slavers when I was very young. It would seem slavers have a particular fondness for my family.” Brook tried to smile but it made her face look that much sadder. “You have everything you need?”

  “Yes, this is more than enough. I was sleeping in a tent for the past few years. I expect I’ll sleep like a king tonight.” Mercer saw her sad smile shift into a look he hadn’t seen since he had been little, when his father had taken him into the Karyatim Wild Lands surrounding their home. Brook’s look was the same his father had when he shook the hands of young Karyatim men made crippled by disease or hunting accidents, the teeth in their white-painted faces rotted black, their hair matted nets of lice and dirt. The look was pity, and Mercer felt his face redden. He didn’t want anyone to take pity on him and how he had chosen to live, especially not Brook.