Ruin and Rebirth

by Michael Whitehead

  The door did not open, it twisted on its hinges. He stepped through the gap left by the broken wood, and a rotten, festering smell assaulted him, making his eyes water and his throat clench in an urge to vomit.

  The wooden floor of the hut was sticky with drying blood, the walls were damp with festering mould, and the wooden windowsills were shiny with slime.

  On the walls images of torture and death hung in frames of twisted black glass, the same material as he'd seen in the temple of blood. In the centre of the room was a table, and though worn and aged it was otherwise unblemished among all of the corruption. On it sat a wooden box whose sides were adorned with pictures of grotesque, tortured beauty so intricate that it seemed impossible that they could have been carved by living hands.

  Regulus did not even notice Vitus and Lucia enter the hut as he opened the box. In a very real sense they were not even in the same world. The effect of opening the box was the same for both him and the people he loved, however.

  He lifted the lid and inside was a bloody heart, beating as he took it in his hand. It was rotten and corrupted, the vessels that would carry blood to and from the heart were frayed and torn. From it dripped the same oily black tar that bled from the Risen.

  The hand that held the organ began to ache and feel lame. The heart did no longer beat, it sucked and sputtered, gasping at the air around it, filling the room with a noxious, festering decay. He felt bile rise in his throat as he stared at the heart but before he could empty his stomach he was sucked from reality, spinning and flying into blackness.

  Despite all of his efforts to stop it from happening, his friends travelled with him.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  It was the largest army any of them had even seen. They poured over the crest of the low hill in front of Otho’s legions like rats out of a burning building. Endless rows of walking death. They did not run, they did not charge. They appeared on the field of battle like well led units of rotting, salivating monsters. There was no banging of swords on shields, no shouting of insults. This was not an army of barbarians.

  The clothes they wore were mostly the togas, stolas, and high quality tunics of respectable Romans. They were dirty and torn but they were unmistakably Roman. They did not carry swords, there were no bows in sight. Only those that had been in the legions when the city had fallen wore any armour. Their faces were corrupted and rotten. A lot carried savage injuries that the men who faced them could not hope to survive, like missing limbs, and even open chest cavities that showed internal organs.

  All the things that the living army had come to expect from the Risen were the same, except the calm manner in which the undead walked onto the field of battle. They showed no sign of the animal fury that they had used to destroy the empire. There was no uncontrollable hunger and primal rage. Instead they emitted a force of controlled destructive power that was utterly terrifying.

  Otho sat atop his horse and stared across the field at the ever growing enemy force, staring in wonder at the death and violence it represented. Each man, woman and child was the victim of a untimely end, a vicious murder, and now they were standing ready to bring that same end to the last men of the empire.

  Shame and a distinct impression that their resistance was futile ate away at the emperor, weakening his resolve. He had brought so much of this about through his pride and greed. Now, in the face of this sea of walking corpses, his folly was almost complete.

  Oh, he had hatched his plans, he had thought himself so clever. In the end it would come down to this; the remnants of his army facing the largest, most brutal force of which any of them had ever heard.

  “Sir, what do we do?” Ursus asked Otho, his horse shifting uncomfortably as he spoke, showing the nerves they all felt.

  The emperor began to laugh. What did these men want from him? What could he possibly do in the face of such imminent destruction. Who was he really, and what did they see when they looked at him, a god?

  He turned to look at Ursus, a man who had followed him across the empire despite all his failures. Why? Why had he followed him, instead of doing what he should have done and falling on his sword in the night, ending a miserable life? He had failed them at every turn and still these people looked to him to lead them, and he thought that it was the biggest joke of all.

  “Sir?” Ursus tried again, looking uncomfortable.

  “My suggestion is that you make things right with the gods, Ursus. You will be meeting them soon enough. Then you decide how best you wish to die and make it happen. Don’t let those creatures get you, my friend.”

  “Caesar...Otho. You can’t just give in now,” Numarius said from behind him.

  The emperor turned his horse to face the legate, beside whom a young man sat astride his own mount, watching the conversation with a look of disbelief.

  “You’re a good man, Numarius. Why not take your boy and find yourself somewhere safe? I’m sure you could carve out a life somewhere far from here.” He turned back to the undead army. They filled the grass plain, staining the land as dark as their blackened blood.

  “You have an army of men out there, willing to fight and die for you, Otho,” Ursus said. “All they need is a leader, a man to show them the way.”

  “The way to die? Oh, I have no doubt those creatures over there would be far better teachers than I would if it came to that,” Otho replied. He stared at the ranks of undead, unable to take his eyes from them. They were hideous, not only in appearance, but what they represented. The fall of humanity was an ugly sight, there was no honour or glory here, so even winning this fight would be of no consequence. Even if they could defeat this mass of destruction before them, they would just go back to hiding in their city, living like rats in a trap.

  “You lead them, either of you,” Otho said, still with his eyes on the Risen.

  “No!,” Ursus almost shouted at Otho. He looked at the man he had followed for so long, the man who had taken the empire from Vespasian, not with an army but with a single knife. Was he now to watch that same man just lay down without even putting up a fight? What had happened to the man who had walked into the senate, drawn a blade across the emperor’s throat and taken the world? What was he thinking?

  He knew what had happened, the world had been over-run by these death filled monsters, leaving behind an empty husk. Still, to fight was to be alive, and therefore Ursus would not submit.

  He reached across from the back of his horse and grabbed Otho by the edge of his armour. He pulled the emperor toward him, until they were nose to nose. Otho did not put up a fight, he simply allowed himself to be manhandled. That was the moment when Ursus knew all was lost.

  “You cannot just abandon us at the moment we need you most,” he shouted into the emperor's face.

  “What difference would it make?” Otho asked, his face slack and resigned.

  “These men need you,” Ursus said, lowering his voice but growling at his commander.

  “These men need to run away. They need to find a life away from these things,” wafting an imperious hand toward the massed ranks of undead.

  “They are going to die today, they all know it. The least you can give them is the respect of dying with them. You caused all of this. You played your games, you allowed this to happen, so be a man and die with the rest of us!” Ursus spat. He leaned back and saw a sight more frightening than the undead, and worse than the legions that were waiting to die; Otho just did not care and he was beyond reason.

  Ursus cursed himself for a fool. He had followed his emperor across the empire, he had supported him in all that he had done. Why? Because he had believed, no, he had known that he was a great man - a man who could flirt with disaster and remain in control. Now shame pricked at him as he realised he had been terribly wrong, and that this emperor was no more than a pathetic and weak harrier who had finally been found out. He released his grip and turned his back on the man who had once been emperor.

  “Very well,” he said, quietly at first.
Then again with more conviction, “Very well. If all we have left to do is fight, then we will fight. If everyone of us is left dead on the field, at least we will know we died trying.”

  “Where are we?” Lucia asked, looking around her. Her voice echoed back at her, coming back amplified and making her wince. A moment before she had been standing in the rotten hut looking at Regulus as he opened a wooden box. She had been about to say something, to warn him against lifting the lid, then suddenly she had found herself here. There was no sense of lost time, but she had no idea how they had gotten where they were.

  They were in a tunnel with walls of smooth black glass and thick red liquid that could only be blood ran down the slick, sheer surface. It kept flowing, but never pooled at the bottom. The passage was lit by a sickly glow, and a few steps in front of them the tunnel turned, sharply to the right.

  Vitus drew his sword, turning around, checking for danger. “I don’t know, but I have a good guess,” he said.

  She nodded, they had both heard Regulus tell his tales of visiting the temple, in his visions. He always described the black walls that ran with blood.

  There was an oppressive feeling, as if some unseen power was exerting an influence over them. The air seemed to be corrupted, like breathing in the stink of rotting food or stagnant water. Lucia drew her own sword and waited for her brother to decide what they should do. He checked once more and then moved toward the end of the tunnel that turned the corner.

  A sick feeling began to envelop Lucia’s stomach. She had been severely ill once, caused by eating fish that had been stored badly by one of the slaves in her father's villa. The way she felt now wasn’t as bad as that time, but it was the way she had felt when she had first realised she was becoming ill.

  “I’m scared,” she admitted to Vitus.

  “Me, too,” he answered, reaching behind him and briefly taking her hand in his, squeezing it gently.

  Their boots were obscenely loud on the floor of the temple where the glass walls seemed to make everything echo. When they reached the corner they found another passageway, the same as the one they were leaving, and to each side of the new path were a number of new turns. Vitus kept moving, Lucia behind him, glancing back nervously from time to time.

  They moved through the labyrinth of black glass, each turn looking much like the last, not knowing which way they had come or where they were going. Time lost all meaning, stretching out, then contracting, bringing with it a sudden sense of panic and anxiety. They had no idea how long they wandered through the maze before a sense of doom began to creep across them both, a sense of hopelessness.

  “We can’t keep doing this,” she said, quietly.

  “What do you suggest we do?” Vitus snapped back, almost violently. The sound of his shout echoed off the tunnel walls, gathering volume as it came back on itself. Lucia looked up at her brother, hurt and shocked. For a moment he didn’t seem to realise he had even spoken, then a look of dawning horror crossed his face. He reached forward and took her in an embrace, holding her close to him.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered across the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I shouted. This place is doing something to me.”

  Lucia nodded from inside the safety of his arms. He let her go, and she stepped back with tears in her eyes but a determined look on her face. As they stood looking at each other there came a sound as if from far away, sending a spike of fear down both of their spines, and they detected the noise of running feet, distant but getting nearer with every step.

  “Come on, we need to keep moving,” Vitus said.

  The two of them started down the corridor, checking each turn they came to. They didn’t know where they were going, or from which direction the sounds of running were coming. The noise echoed off every wall, and bounced around every corner, filling their minds with maddening fear and panic. Before long they felt surrounded, unable to tell if they were travelling to or from the sound.

  They turned a corner and a long passageway stretched off to the right. For as far as they could see there were no turns, no doorways, just one long tunnel of glass and blood. From behind them the sound of footfalls finally coalesced into a definite direction.

  “Run,” Vitus said to Lucia, but his words were pointless as she was already pushing against his back, urging him forward. They added the sound of their own running steps to those behind them, panic and fear driving them forward.

  The Risen rounded the corner and seemed to tumble down the corridor toward them. Some ran, some scrambled on all fours, one seemed to cling to the ceiling for a moment before dropping and joining the hunt once more. A rolling, thundering wall of death.

  Lucia ran, trying to make her legs move, despite the terror that paralysed them, and the sickness in her stomach lurched and tried to overwhelm her. Finally, Vitus stopped, pushing Lucia behind him.

  “Keep running,” he barked, gasping for breath and waiting for death to find him.

  “I can’t,” she cried, tears making her vision of him blurry. She rubbed at her eyes, clearing the tears.

  “Please, Lucia, run,” he tried again, pleading with her.

  “I’m not leaving you,” she said. She turned her back on him, trusting him to protect her for as long as he could, and wanting to guard against being attacked from the rear.

  The passageway was narrow and that was Vitus’ only advantage. The Risen came at him in too great a number for him to defend had they been out in the open, but in the confines of the tunnel he had a small chance.

  The first creature struck him a little ahead of the rest of the Risen, snarling as it leapt. Vitus had once seen a fight between a gladiator and a large cat at the arena, and the beast had pounced to attack much as this undead monster did now. It was a long, low jump that would have hit Vitus in the chest had he not been ready, but he stepped back giving himself more space and chopped down onto the back of the monster's neck. The sword bit deep, driving into rotting flesh and the bone beneath.

  “Keep moving,” he snapped over his shoulder and Lucia started to move along the passage, keeping time with him so that she could turn and help.

  The second Risen, a large man who had a huge open wound where his stomach should have been, lumbered in to attack Vitus. He was slower than the first, and blocked a lot of the passageway behind him. Vitus drove the point of his blade up and into the underside of his chin. The sword was torn from his hand as the bulk of the attacker fell forward. Vitus was momentarily unarmed but the undead behind were stumbling over the big man who lay on the floor and each other in a rush to get to their prey.

  Lucia reversed her blade and held it out in front of Vitus. He took it without thinking and swung the blade across the face of one Risen before dropping to one knee and chopping the leg off another.

  They moved back down the corridor, leaving behind them a trail of rotting corpses. She drew her knife from her belt and kept them moving forward. There was a lapse of a few seconds before the next Risen came in for an attack, and they used the time to turn and run again.

  Up ahead, just visible in the dim otherworldly light, Lucia saw a turn in the corridor, or maybe it was a doorway. She took hold of her brother's tunic, guiding him as he stepped backward, waiting for another attack.

  Another Risen came at them and Vitus swung wildly at it, cutting deep into its face. It collapsed onto the ground, its lower jaw hanging by a piece of rotting flesh and tendon.

  As they reached the opening Lucia saw a heavy iron door barring their path. Vitus continued to desperately fight off the Risen as they came in to attack. He kicked out at one, knocking it sprawling into the two that followed.

  She pushed at the door and it moved but only a little, revealing a gap of only four or five inches. Not enough for the two of them to squeeze through. She put her hands to the door and pushed as hard as she could, and behind her she could hear Vitus fighting. She put her shoulder to the door, leaning in to it, pushing with all of her strength.

 
; All at once the door gave way so that Lucia tumbled into the room beyond. She hit the ground hard, losing any sense of up and down. Before she could recover, a Risen was on her.

  The undead that bit her was almost the same age that she was. She would have been beautiful in life, but now her face was torn and one eye was missing, leaving an ugly, blackened hole . As she landed on top of her, she raised her arm, desperately trying to fend of the snarling, snapping mouth. Lucia felt the teeth bite into her flesh, they broke the skin painfully, but almost as soon as it happened the weight of her attacker was thrown off her.

  Vitus stood over her, a gore streaked sword in his hand. The undead girl was crumpled in the corner, her skull broken like an egg. The door to the room was closed, and for a moment they were alone.

  “Let me see,” her brother said, kneeling down next to her. She could have screamed with frustration. Anger welled up in her but she held out her arm, seeing the black-edged teeth marks that spelled out her doom.

  Vitus used his dagger and wordlessly cut a strip of cloth from the bottom of his tunic. He wrapped her arm and tied the ends. Lucia couldn’t speak, fear and anger fought to overwhelm her. As they huddled together on the floor, the wall behind them began to glow with a brighter light than they had seen since they entered the forest.

  They both turned to see the wall dissolve and become transparent. The view beyond was of a large chamber with pillars that supported huge arches. The ceiling above was a view of the night sky, and it seemed as if every star ever created was alight above them.

  To one end of the room was a massive creature that looked like something from a nightmare. It was four times the size of a man, twisted and grotesque. Its flesh seemed to be rotting as they looked at it, a continual cycle of growth and death. A huge slobbering mouth hung open and its blackened eyes stared down at Regulus. He looked so small and insignificant under the gaze of such a creature. Had they thought the Risen horrific? They were nothing in comparison to this monster. As they watched, Regulus knelt before the creature, allowing his sword to drop to the ground before him. The monster reached toward Regulus and Lucia began to scream.