The Brat's Final Gambit

Davin sprinted up the steps after Joachim, who barreled down the hallway shouting orders for everyone to get out of the manor. “Out! Out! I’m not losing another man to this maggot-infested death trap! Out! Send word everyone out! Form up and prepare to fight!”

Davin ran to keep up with Joachim, taken aback by the raw power carried in his voice. Soldiers filed out at his command, quickly, neatly, efficiently, and with a stony look set in their faces.

Outside, as the last of the troops poured out of the building, an officer snapped to attention. “Make sure everyone’s out,” the count ordered. “Now, what do we have?”

“The north, sir. The men and animals are approaching from the north very slowly, and there’s no sign of the guards stationed around the central perimeter of the estate.”

Joachim nodded briskly. “They’re between us and the road,” he said and stepped forward to see for himself what they were facing.

“I want lookouts on all sides of this thing,” he said, motioning to the now empty manor. “I’ll not have any of us trapped inside by this bastard’s sorcery, not while we’ve got it out here coming to kill us too.”

The sergeant made a salute and began sending men to all four corners of the manor. The rest were now standing in a long, rectangular formation, waiting as the officer declared loudly, “All accounted for, sir.”

Joachim nodded and moved around the carriages to take a look at the approaching foe.

Davin moved with him. Kine blew out an audible breath of air. “This is interesting,” he said dryly.

“This is about the time I usually start running,” Niam said in a low voice.

“Maerillus’s foot can’t take running,” Davin reminded him.

“That’s why he’s bait,” Niam said dryly.

Ahead of them, about three hundred yards away, an uneven line of troops moved in slow, unsteady gaits. Their faces wore blank expressions. By the soiled appearance of their uniforms, each man appeared to have suffered some kind of terrible bleeding sickness before succumbing to the effects of whatever magic had been worked on them. Their noses were blood stained, as were their mouths, and a long trail of dried blood ran from both openings onto the fronts of their saturated tunics.

“You ever seen anything like this,” Joachim asked the Hammer in a flinty voice.

“Not as such, but I’ve heard about it enough.”

“These men haven’t been turned into tralls,” Joachim observed. “Nor the animals either.”

Better a trall than this,” Kine said with an obvious edge to his voice.

“They can’t have been . . .” Joachim’s voice trailed off. Where he left the sentence, Kine finished it for him.

“Raised.”

Davin felt a shock of revulsion hit him like a hammer. “They’re the walking dead!” he blurted out.

Joachim turned a withering stare upon him. Davin clamped his mouth shut.

“Yes,” Kine agreed. “We won’t know for sure until they’re on top of us and trying to kill us, but that’s undoubtedly what we’re seeing.”

Before anyone could say anything else, a horn blew from the south. “That’s a warning call!” Joachim swore an obscene oath that was followed by a soldier shouting, “Riders! The south guard! Two of them!”

“Keep an eye on those things coming from the north!” Joachim spat, and strode in long strides to the corner of the Sorcerer’s lair. Davin hurried along with him. Evidently the men that had been guarding the inner periphery of the estate just on the other side of the wood line were now galloping pell-mell to the main body of troops perched atop of the cursed hill.

“Report!” Joachim shouted before the horses pulled up to a frightened, wide-eyed halt.

“Something came out of the woods, sir! At first we thought it was villagers, but they were . . . there were three of them—” The man stopped as he realized the absurdity of the words he was about to speak to his commander. “Sir, they were all—”

“Dead,” Joachim finished for him.

The man licked his lips, and pulled the helm back from where it had fallen across his ashen face in the mad gallop to get to the Count.

“Like the life was drained out of them. They were all empty, and before we knew it they had killed Bren and Sayers. They’re slow but powerful, sir.”

Joachim looked at them for a moment. The man who spoke looked down, and his lips trembled. “I know we shouldn’t have left the post, but we managed to cut up the men . . . the things that did this. We . . .”

Joachim held his hand up. “You did fine,” he said. “We need all of the help we can get right here.”

Both men looked at him and gaped, realizing that their flight to safety had only brought them into more danger. “Sir?” the frightened soldier asked.

“More coming our way.”

The man looked ready to be sick, but his next question impressed Davin. “How can we help, sir?”

The Count’s answer was as simple as it was straightforward. “Around front. Fall in formation. Fight. You do that and you’ll make it home tonight, son.”

The soldier made a visible effort to steel himself and both men saluted. “Yes sir!”

Joachim turned to face the boys. “Now for you three,” he said in a quiet voice. “No one here has seen your eyes. I kept my men from coming too far into the basement while Maldies assisted Mr. Kine. But I’m afraid that if you step into this, these men are going to see something they’re not prepared to see right now.”

“What are you saying sir?” Davin flashed, fearing he knew where this was going to go.

“I need you to stay in the rear. Don’t get into this. Let my men do what they’re trained to do.”

Heat suddenly blossomed within Davin. “You can’t be serious! We’re the only ones besides Jolan Kine who’ve faced things like this! We’re here for this reason,” Davin nearly shouted.

Joachim’s face remained expressionless. “You’re not the only ones here who’ve fought supernatural things in your lives,” Joachim told him in a voice the let Davin know the decision was final.

“Who else, then?” Davin protested. This wasn’t right, not right at all. They had been contacted by the source of the Voice and give these . . . these endowments for a reason. Davin couldn’t in good conscience watch them face death while he stood and watched.

“Me,” Joachim said as silent and undeterrbale as a river current.

Davin felt his face flush, “Of course, but—”

“But my men are professionals and you aren’t even properly trained with a sword yet. And I’m not as worried about you as I am them,” he said jabbing his finger back in the direction of his troops.

“But we are ready to face this!

The Count shook his head. “Lots of different kinds of undead exist, Hapwell, and you’re not as ready as you think. It’s a situation that’s about to be remedied, though.”

Davin saw that the shambling figures had slowly closed the distance between where they stood on the hilltop and the wood line below. They were now less than two hundred yards away.

“Archers in line!” Joachim ordered, and Davin noted with a bit of relief that the soldiers held longbows—six feet long with heavy arrows that hit with enough force to knock an armored man down and punch through steel plate. At least six other men stood at their flanks with shorter cavalry bows. In front of the archers and standing ready down slope, three rows of soldiers stood with swords drawn, tensely anticipating the fight to come. The rest of the men stood ready to swing around from the rear and come in behind the advancing enemy.

“Loose at a hundred and thirty yards,” Joachim ordered. “Aim for the heads.

Time seemed to slow down as the corpses moved senselessly forward. As his mind processed the insanity of what he saw, seeing the dead shambling toward him, moving under the power of an unholy and unnatural force, he grew uneasy, and it had little to do with the shock that this was actually happening.

Yet . . . something was off about this.

“Release!” Joachim shouted. Bowstrings made soft fffting sounds as arrows rose in lazy arcs through the air and came down where several struck home, knocking the bodies of three men to the ground. The animals and remaining men continued dumbly onward, driven by a supervening will.

Davin swiftly moved to where Maerillus stood next to Jolan Kine.

As Joachim ordered another volley and sent his soldiers moving to trap the walking dead in a pincer-like maneuver, Davin whispered urgently, “This just doesn’t make sense!”

Kine nodded his head. “Something else is up.”

“Why send something like this at us that villagers with axes and pitchforks can handle? I thought there would be more of a threat.”

Davin and Kine’s eyes met. “Diversion.” And at that moment one of the guards at the nearest corner of the house started shouting.

As Joachim wheeled around and began shouting orders for the handful of remaining troops waiting with them to the rear of the manor, Niam looked up, his eyes wide with alarm. “The manor!” he shouted. “Something’s happening inside!”

“I feel it, too!” Kine said, cursing.

Maerillus swore an oath and Niam growled in a panicky voice, “We’ve got to get back inside.”

“Let’s do this!” Davin snarled, and bolted for the front double doors with his feet pounding the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth. He took the steps two at a time, drawing his sword as he went, and slowed down in the spacious foyer, allowing the others time to catch up. From the hallway leading to the secret entrance to the basement, Davin saw a commotion. Several men wearing riding cloaks with hoods drawn over their faces backed quickly out of the large closet containing the secret entrance, and one of them paused long enough to hold up a glass vial in his hand. He looked up and Davin caught a brief glance at who was concealed beneath the hood.

“Ravel!” he shouted. “It’s Ravel!”

Bode’s father locked eyes with him. His face was thinner and more worn, but his eyes burned with fanatic’s glow. He laughed coldly and crushed the glass tube in a convulsed fist.

Instantly, a billowing cloud rolled and boiled out from his enclosed hand in impossible volumes, thicker than the oily smoke of burning tar. It sped toward them, filling the hall with no sign of stopping.

Davin shouted, “Look out!”

Three sets of running feet slowed suddenly as the roiling mass enveloped them. Davin held his breath as the room filled suddenly with a noxious, obscuring fog.

“Careful!” Kine called out. ’This is magical. I can’t tell what’s happening!”

Davin placed a protective arm over his face, covering his nose so he could breath through the fabric of his sleeve. The thick vapor pressed around him, and immediately his eyes, lips, and nose began to burn fiercely. Behind him, someone must have gotten a full lungful because one of his companions began gagging and retching.

“Out!” Kine bellowed. “Out now!”

Davin turned and began making his way back in the direction he came. The air swirled around him in a thick miasma of constant motion, causing him to lose his bearings.

“Here!” the Wizard’s Hammer called out.

Davin walked headlong through the billowing fumes with his eyes and throat aflame. Just as he started to panic, he emerged suddenly into fresh air and daylight, coughing and gagging.

A few feet away, Maerillus sat on the ground coughing so hard his body shook with spasms.

Joachim helped Kine out as the sorcerous smoke disgorged itself like a dark serpent from the manor. “What’s happening around back?” he said asked between choking fits.

“An attack,” a sergeant answered. “The guards were killed by something.”

“Someone,” Davin said savagely. “It was Ravel and several other men. They had hoods, but I saw him clearly enough.”

Joachim looked away, back toward the fighting for a moment. Davin could tell that things were going well because many of the troops were now in a ring around the Sorcerer’s mansion.

A soldier stepped up and cleared his throat.

“Report,” the count growled.

“I’m sorry, sir,” a nervous infantryman said. “Several men came rushing out with this foul mess. They didn’t seem to be affected by it. We lost them somehow.”

“We’re not going on a rat hunt, not with Kreeth’s corruptions running around loose. Search the servants quarters and kitchen.”

The soldier saluted and retreated around the manor. Davin craned his head over the cart so he could see what was happening below. The soldiers were now working in groups to hack apart anything that still moved, taking care to remain out of reach of their quarry.

“I knew this was too easy when I saw how slowly these things were moving,” the Count growled.

Jolan Kine arched an eyebrow. “It could have been worse. Hazad Ghol used Kozacht undead in the attack on the Feythean city of Galadjin in 1023.”

“That is something I hope never to see,” Joachim grunted.

“You and me both,” Kine remarked soberly.

“We need to get in there to see what they were after,” Joachim said bitterly. The longer I have men here, the more they die.”

When the vapors at last cleared out, Davin walked behind Joachim, who allowed Jolan Kine and Niam to lead the way as they kept themselves open to whatever spellwork might be waiting to deliver a deadly surprise. For once, Davin wondered if this was what it felt like to be Niam now that he was the one who had to stand aside while others got to do something.

When they made their way into the landing at the top of the flight of stairs, Niam let out a moan. “They’re gone!”

Davin saw immediately what he meant. The stack of bodies that had been piled up on the floor were all gone.

Kine let out a sigh of frustration. Davin scanned the room quickly, noticing something else that had been disturbed. “Look,” he pointed to the center of the inner circle. The seal we dislodged—it’s broken.”

“Yes it is,” Jolan Kine said, making his way swiftly down the steps and over to the shattered disc of masonry. Looking up, he said, “The centerpiece was removed.”

“It didn’t radiate any magic,” Niam said.

“Hard to tell,” Kine murmured. “The place is still saturated with sorcery, and will be for years.”

Niam shivered involuntarily.

“Do you see anything else?” Joachim asked. His voce simmered, and Davin understood how he must feel. All of this happened virtually in his own back yard. Now he had to tell more families that their loved ones wouldn’t be coming home.

“No,” both Niam and Kine said.

“Let’s go, then.” Joachim said. “I have to spend the next day helping arrange funerals.

“What do you think he’s going to do about this estate?” Davin asked Maerillus quietly as they rode back in Joachim’s carriage.

Before Maerillus was able to respond, Joachim turned his hard face to Davin. His eyes brimmed with fury and grief. “I’m cutting down every damned scrap of wood on this property and burning it all. Everything standing. And then I’m sprinkling the ground with salt. Every maggot riddled acre of it.”