The Brat's Final Gambit

Davin pulled his sword from its scabbard so quickly that it almost leapt into his hands. He saw Maerillus draw his, too, and where Davin held his blade in low defensive stance, Maerillus held his high and aggressively. Bug screamed again.

“Niam! Niam!” she cried out in a voice that could have frozen a fire at full blaze.

Davin spun around, praying that she was wrong, and his heart filled with dread as he did. Standing in the entrance behind them, silhouetted by the light pouring in from outside crouched a partly human, partly vulpine form. Scythe-like claws tipped impossibly long arms. The beast had an elongated snout with tusks curling up from its lower jaw, and it was panting like an old mountain lion hungry and desperate for food.

The air within the cave became thick with the putrid stench of rotting meat. Filthy, tattered clothing still clung in places to the creature’s frame, and Davin recognized it immediately. He had seen the thing once before in Kreeth’s manor.

“Jalt!” he called out, hoping to distract it, but the thing’s eyes continued to focus on Bug. White frothy drool ringed the best’s mouth. It was too far-gone now to respond. Niam lifted his staff and twirled it around furiously a he sprung between the trall and bug, letting out a savage cry of rage. “You stay away from her!”

The trall snarled, but Niam was undeterred. He drove toward it, jabbing the end of his weapon in its face, causing the thing to back away, snapping with bared teeth at the staff, trying to grab it in its maw to shake it loose from Niam’s grip.

Davin wasted no time, pushing Bug to the safest spot in the cave, praying that nothing else set its sights on her. He then leapt toward the first undead creature that emerged from the opening, refusing to give it time to rise. “Go for its head!” he yelled to Maerillus. When his weapon struck the copse, the force of the blow travelled all the way up to his shoulder.

Maerillus swiftly liberated the thing’s head from its body, and moved in two graceful steps to the next target, where he brought his blade down across the abomination’s neck, severing it. The head rolled like a ball across the cave floor in a macabre game of nine-o-pins.

Two came out at the same time, brainlessly clawing at one another as if they were passionately groping themselves like lovers White bone portruded through the fingertips of both corpses where they had worn away the bloodless flesh clawing at the cold rock. He almost barked out a hollow laugh at the insanity of the sight. This was what they had heard scraping at the wall from the other side.

Backing off, Davin allowed the things to come forward. He wanted to get them into the open, to destroy every last one of them. In order to do that, he couldn’t allow the bodies to pile up at the entrance. More came pouring through the opening. Davin took out one with a sideswiping blow. Maerillus pushed another to the wall and drew his blade across its neck in a clean slice. The blade only managed to partially decapitate the thing. Its head fell backward, held to the body by a dry flap of tough skin and muscle. All force animating the cadaver fled, and it collapsed like a sack of old root vegetables.

Davin danced back just in time to avoid the outstretched hand of a corpse that had wormed its way across the ground like a drying leech. Maerillus grunted. He fought off two at the same time. As one tried to get an arm around his middle, he slipped out of its grasp before it could crush him in its powerful grip. Davin instantly moved in and brought his sword down on the thing in a powerful arc, cleaving its head in two like a tough melon. Then, he spun around and took out the other one’s leg by severing its tendon below the knee. The thing collapsed and began trying to regain its footing. At the same time, the lifeless husk of woman hitched toward Maerillus. She wore a filthy smock now stuck to her body by fluids that had long ago leaked out of her and then dried, gluing it to her form. His nose crinkled in disgust. He kicked her corpse, tripping it over the abomination lamed by Davin.

Maerillus was on the woman’s corpse in an instant. He stepped on the thing’s back to keep it still. Wearing a rictus of disgust, he levered his blade beneath the corpse’s neck, savagely drawing it up and to the side.

Davin dispatched the last one as it still tried to pick itself up with one working leg. “You think that’s all of them?” he growled.

Maerillus rasped, “No idea!”

From the corner, Bug squeaked, “Niam!”

Davin cursed. His friend was alone outside with the worst threat facing them. “I’m on it Madeline!” he said quickly and sprinted to the entrance. As he ran, he heard Maerillus warning her to keep away from the corpses.

Davin emerged into the waning afternoon light. Above them the setting sun painted a bloody tableau across the sky. And in front of him, Niam pulled back just in time to avoid being gutted by a furious sweep of the trall’s long arm. With a terrified yell, he moved in and brought his staff down in a series of one-two strikes across the trall’s body.

The creature let out a high-pitched cry of pain that sounded disturbingly human. When it flinched, Niam used the reaction as a chance to move in and launch a crippling blow at its jaw. He miscalculated the angle of attack, and the bottom of his staff sailed harmlessly past its head. The trall’s eyes narrowed in pure hatred and it launched at Niam, raking his leg with a wicked blow that took his feet out from under him. Niam screamed in pain and went sprawling across the ground.

The monster jumped, and Niam barely managed rolled out of its way. Hooked claws dug into his coat, nearly ripping the fabric from his body.

Davin rushed into the fray before beast had a chance to mangle his friend. The trall looked up and growled. A mane of bristling hair stood at the back of its neck like the stiff quills of an angry porcupine. “Come on you stinking sac of guts! Come at me!” Davin screamed, waving his sword in its face. Backpedaling each time the thing lunged, Davin yelled, “That’s right, pay attention to me!” He desperately needed to remain the trall’s main focus, so he taunted it, drawing it farther and farther away from Niam, who scrabbled across the rock to a more defensible position.

A trail of blood followed Niam as he pulled himself up on a rock. The sight terrified Davin. The jolt of fear caused the power flowing through his body to suddenly dissipate. His gift evaporated. Now only fear remained, but Davin couldn’t let up. Gritting his teeth, he drove the monster back to gain enough space to shout in a panicky voice, “You okay Niam?”

“Just finish this thing,” Niam moaned.

Davin knew he was going to have to do something to bring this to a terminally quick end. Niam was hurt and Maerillus might still be in trouble. They were too divided and Davin couldn’t put an arrow through the trall’s head. The last thing he wanted to do was to get inside of its reach. He knew the thing would rip his guts out if he did.

At that moment, he Suddenly realized where they were, and he knew how to end this. “Come on!” he bellowed. “Come on Jalt! I never liked you as a person and the only difference now is that you smell better!”

The trall’s lips rippled in fury. It only had eyes for Davin, and a primal anger rolled off of the thing like heat from a smith’s forge. That was exactly what Davin counted on. He launched himself at it, allowing one more long-armed sweep to whistle past his face. Then, instead of backing away, he darted inside of the beast’s reach and brought his sword up in a well-timed uppercut that sliced shallowly into the thing’s flesh just above its elbow.

The trall screamed in fury, retreating quickly. As it stepped backward, never taking its eyes off of Davin, he continued to press it, meeting its swipes with the cutting edge of his blade. The monster’s face stretched back in pain and blind rage. Beneath its lips, rows of teeth extended, coated with a murderous froth. That was when Davin made his final move. He ran at the trall, counting on the thing’s instinctive reactions. He wasn’t disappointed.

The trall instinctively leapt back . . . back and over the rock’s edge, where it plummeted forty feet down, bouncing limply across the rocks below with bone breaking impacts that made Davin wince even as his heart beat in triumph.

Quickly, Davin bent and picked up a heavy, oblong stone. He hefted it into the air over his head and threw it down to where the trall lay sprawled but still alive, and watched with murderous satisfaction as the rock landed on the monster’s squirming form with an audible crunch.

The trall jerked once and moved no more.

Davin made his way back to Niam and was relieved to see that there wasn’t as much blood as he originally feared.

“It’s not too bad,” Niam told him. “Lucky for me Jalt was a bad aim.”

Davin took Niam’s hand and helped him up. His smaller friend winced as he slowly put his weight on the leg. “Climbing up’s going to hurt,” he muttered.

When they emerged into the cave, Maerillus was checking the bodies of the undead he had dispatched. Only one more had crawled out of the darkness, and its head lay several inches from its body. “I think this may be it,” he said grimly.

“We’ve got to check and see,” Niam said distastefully. “I saw something else within the cavern on the other side.”

“Seeing is going to be a problem, Davin said.

Niam removed his tattered coat. “You still got your flint?” he asked Maerillus.

Maer nodded his head. “I can use the wood here to shave off some kindling and build a fire. We can make a couple of torches that might burn long enough to have a short look inside.’

“I’ve got to go in there and look,” Niam said in a resigned voice. And while Maerillus worked quickly to set up the fire, Niam pulled Bug aside to soothe her frazzled nerves. Davin looked down at the corpses. More women than men lay across the cave floor, and most of them had tattoos inked into their leathery skin at various places along their bodies. He could only guess at the significance of this.

After Niam lit his torch he took a deep breath and bent over, disappearing into the opening. Davin followed closely with his blade ready. The short passage opened up into a larger blackness, and Davin could tell by the echo that they had stumbled onto something big.

“How big is this place?” Davin wondered aloud.

“I can just make out several branches ahead,” Niam said, moving father into the bedrock beneath the hillside.

Davin saw where the edge of the firelight kissed the rock. In places around them the stone overhead wept fat tears, which formed small pools, pellucid and clear as the finest crystal or glass. The rock ahead sank into itself where passages pushed farther into the distant darkness. Davin heard the crunch of feet moving over wet gravel.

“Movement!”

“I heard it too,” Niam told him. His voice grew weary and dropped an octave. “And I see them. They glow like dying embers. They’re the walking dead.”

Both he and Niam began backing out toward the entrance, which was good, because the torches were almost spent. They turned and Davin allowed Niam to exit first. Ahead of them, the sound of footsteps moving in the inky blackness brought death and the dead inexorably nearer. Davin turned and bent to make his way into the light. Once he was there, he joined with Niam and Maerillus to push the stone seal back.

Maerillus exclaimed once the thing grated back into place. “What did you see in there?”

After Niam and Davin told him, Maerillus whistled uncomfortably. “Where do you suppose the passages lead?”

“Those go in the direction we travelled,” he said.

“Toward my family’s estate,” Maerillus frowned.

“And Joachim’s . . . and Kreeth’s,” Niam said.

“Where are all of those bodies coming from?” Niam complained. “I mean, if they all were taken from the Lake Valleys, people would notice . . . wouldn’t they?”

“Yes,” Maerillus said. “They would. Unless the Sorcerer can animate bodies after they have died.”

Both Davin and Maerillus looked at Niam as if they thought he had an answer. “That’s one for Kine to say.”

“Then that leaves us wondering where they are from. Most of the corpses we took down were women, and none of them had anything that might identify them beyond tattoos on their hands and arms.”

“Tattoos?” Maerillus’s voice held an inkling of an idea.

Davin took him to the closest female’s headless cadaver, where he looked down and said, “See, on the hand?” Then, looking at the damage his blade had done to a human body, he mumbled, “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep anytime soon—if ever again.”

Maerillus bent to examine the small symbol drawn in blue ink into her skin. “I know what these are,” he said solemnly. “This tattoo is the mark of a sailor’s woman.”

“She was married to a sailor?” Niam asked.

Maerillus’s laugh held no humor. “No. Think of her as property that belongs to the sailor’s guild. She was a prostitute.”

From behind them, Bug spoke up in a worried voice, “It’s going to be dark, soon.”

“You’re right,” Niam told her. “And we’ll be going shortly.”

By the time they got back to Joachim’s property, the sun had set and the sky outside had been solidly dark for hours. Searchers combed the woods, and the first soldier to spot them recognized all four of them immediately. His name was Brian, and he had a port wine birthmark covering half of his face like a livid red scar, and a long furrow ran from his temple all the way down to his jawline, courtesy of a bar room brawl. Despite his fierce appearance, Brain was a kind man, quick with a joke or a pat on the back.

“We’ve been turning the woods and buildings upside down!” he called out with relief.

“We haven’t been missing that long,” Davin said. “Or have we?”

Brian shook his head. “It’s not a matter of how long you’ve been missing—it’s a matter of how long the Count’s been looking for you. He’d have your maggot riddled carcasses strung up if it weren’t for the fact that there’s bigger trouble, now. Eason and his toadies are hopping around the Valleys, and Mr. Kine has word that there is another Wizard’s Hammer on the prowl for the three of you.”

Davin met Niam’s gaze, and his friend nodded his head slightly. Niam knew what was on Davin’s mind: the Hammer that Kine implicated in the attempt on his life. He had let it slip during one of their practice sessions that his order was no longer safe.

Brian frowned. “What have you four gotten yourselves into, anyway?” he asked after noticing the bloody stain on Niam’s calf.

“We killed a trall,” Niam said nonchalantly.

“And took out a lot of undead,” Maerillus added.

“And found one of Kreeth’s secret hideaways,” Davin told him.

“And found out someone actually has been following me,” Bug piped in.

Brian looked from one to the other and gave an uncertain laugh. Then looked down at Niam’s injury and noticed the definite pattern of claw marks where the creature’s talons tore into the fabric of his pants.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he asked after an uncomfortable silence.

“As a trall,” Davin said. His voice was haggard and grim.

“You hurry this way,” Brian said, picking up his pace. “The Count will want to talk to you for sure,” he said. “And may not have you strung up after all.”

As they drew closer to the manor, the lights of the estate blazed brightly. Members of Joachim’s staff bustled about, and it looked to Davin as if the entire garrison had onto the estate proper. Dozens of tents sprouted up across the grounds, especially within the innermost complex, containing the kitchens, barns, storage buildings, and staff housing. Indeed, several fires blazed outside of the barns, and it looked as if a good many soldiers had bedded down in the lofts and empty stalls.

Niam felt a growing sense of dread taking seed within his stomach. “This can’t be about us,” he said quietly.

Brian escorted the four of them into the manor, and Gaius walked down the hall with several officers and local businessmen. He looked up briefly, and the worry lines creasing his handsome face lost some of their hold on his features as his eyes first locked onto his son and then slid to Niam.

Gaius politely stopped the officer who was talking to him. He immediately walked over to Maerillus and embraced him. “Where have you four been?” he asked in a voice that hovered halfway between anger and fear.

“We killed the trall, Dad.”

Gaius’s face blanched. “You did what?”

“Well, actually it was Davin and Niam who did that. I fought a lot of undead corpses.”

Gaius blinked.

Twice.

“This . . . isn’t some kind of joke is it?”

Maerillus looked down. “No.”

Gaius placed his and on his shoulder. “Look at me son.”

Maerillus raised his eyes to meet his father’s. Gaius said, “I should know by now that it’s no joke. The three of you—Madeline included—have a knack for trouble. And I’m proud of all of you.”

Niam was as shocked as Maerillus was. In the least, he had expected another hard lecture.

“A lot is happening right now. We need to go see Joachim.”

“Dad . . . what’s going on?” Maerillus asked as Gaius ushered them into Joachim’s office. Joachim was seated with a number of his officers, and they were arguing heatedly with members of the town council. The topic appeared to center around the search for the trall.

“I cannot be divided between the hunt for that beast and what’s happening in Havel’s Dock,” Joachim said angrily. “They’ll not make a move this far into my province unless he has an official sanction from Pallodine, and I will guarantee you he does not have that!”

Joachim looked around as Gaius cleared his throat. “I think our young friends here might have the answer to part of this mess we’re facing.”

Joachim arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Davin spoke up. “We found one of Kreeth’s hideouts and killed the trall. Niam and I did, I mean.”

“Not really,” Niam interjected. “You ran it off of a cliff. I just ran it out of the cave. And you and Maerillus killed a lot of dead people.”

Joachim stared at them for a moment, silently. “You mean to tell me the damned thing that’s been terrorizing my province is dead?”

Davin nodded his head. “At the bottom of Siler’s Gorge, in one of the harder to reach spots. But that’s right, sir.”

A councilman dressed in dark red britches and a satiny brown coat with puffy sleeves clapped his hands together in triumph. “Ha! Now this matter can be brought to a close!”

Joachim stood up. He told his officers to gather several squads of men and to prepare a wagon. Then he turned to face Niam and his three friends. “Madeline, I’ll have one of my men escort you home. Your father is very worried about you. And as for the three of you, don’t get comfortable yet, you’re taking us back to where you killed the trall.”

“And you can fill us in on whatever made you go down to the gorge to begin with. The trials are deadly this time of year,” Gaius rumbled.

Maerillus broke in before Gaius or Joachim could say anything else. “Can someone please tell us what is going on?”

Joachim’s voice was strained with fatigue. “Eason began moving his troops into the Lake Valleys this morning after the Mayor of Havel’s Dock sold out to him and requested his intervention.”

“Oh,” was all Maerillus could say.

Niam leaned in to his rich friend, and asked, “This is bad isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah,” Maerillus told him. “Very bad.”