With a groan, Duncan climbed to his feet. He nearly fell back down and only saved himself by clutching at the withered branches of a nearby tree. The back of his head ached, but, when he touched it, no fresh blood stained his hand. Wobbling unevenly from side to side, he brushed matted blond hair out of his eyes and looked around.
The ground was littered with the detritus of battle. Dented, broken armor, lying half submerged in the boggy ground, glinted in the late afternoon sunlight. He avoided looking at what was scattered among the bits of armor and shattered weapons. He could see tendrils of red streaming out through the water and muck, but he refrained from tracing any of those rivulets to their sources.
Surrounded by the remains of his first battle, Duncan struggled not to throw up.
The most important thing was to get out of the swamp, preferably before night finished falling. Unfortunately, he had absolutely no idea which way "out" was. Gritting his teeth and picking a direction at random, he let go of the tree and started to walk. Tired, thirsty, sick and in pain, it took every ounce of Duncan's strength to take that first step.
After the first step, those that followed seemed easy. Granted, he was weaving and stumbling like a drunkard, but that was at least partially due to the growing darkness and the uneven footing.
That made him think about what he might be walking on and he was almost sick again.
When he'd first put on the uniform of the mercenary corps, Duncan had thought of the glories of battle and the honors he'd win. He'd seen himself marching, victorious, from the field of battle, surrounded by his companions in arms. Instead, he'd gotten himself knocked unconscious almost immediately, and now he was completely alone. Maybe it was time to reconsider his career choice.
He forced himself to continue walking while thoughts floated dimly through his mind. He didn't know what lay in front of him, but the idea of spending the night surrounded by corpses held little appeal for him.
He had no idea how long he'd stumbled forward, when he became dimly aware of a rising noise. His barely functioning brain couldn't identify the sound, and he had no idea how long it been going on, but he had the vague feeling that it was somehow important.
Suddenly, he tripped, stumbled and fell heavily. He managed to get his arms out in front of him, and, though he sank up to his elbows in the muck, at least he kept his face clear of the ground, and the sudden jolt of falling and the accompanying rush of pain actually served to clear his head.
"Are you all right?"
Startled, Duncan looked around. He could see the pale oval of a face almost on a level with his own. He stared for a few moments and dimly made out the figure of a young man sitting in the muck a few feet away with his back against a small, twisted tree. He hadn't realized how dark it had already become.
"Wha..." Duncan began. "Who..."
"Are you all right?" the stranger asked again. "Are you wounded?"
"Uh..." Duncan pulled his arms out of the ooze and climbed to his feet, making feeble attempts to clean himself off. "Yes. I mean, no. I mean...I'm not wounded. Well...I am wounded, but I'm all right. I mean..."
"Did you get hit in the head, by any chance?"
Duncan frowned. "Yes," he said. "Who are you?"
"Would you mind untying me, first?" the man asked. "I'm starting to loose feeling in my hands. Then I'll cheerfully tell you my life story."
Duncan's hand slid toward his sword hilt, and it was only then that he realized he didn't have his sword. "Oh, no," he said carefully. "Which side are you on?"
Even in the dim light, Duncan could see the man's disgusted expression.
"Look around you," the man said. "Everyone else is dead, and you and I have been left behind, my friend. Do sides really matter, now?"
"Sides always matter!" Duncan said sharply. "Did you fight for the Duke or for Kalesh?"
The man frowned slightly. "How many battles have been fought in this swamp?" he asked.
Duncan stared at him for a moment, surprised by the sheer irrelevance of the question. "I don't know," he said. "My father said he fought in three..."
"Ten in the last fifty years."
"What does that have to do with anything?!" Duncan asked.
"With so much blood already shed for this worthless piece of ground, why don't you and I just make nice?"
"Tell me which side you fought for," Duncan demanded, his face growing red, "Or I'll--"
The man smiled grimly and cut him off. "I didn't fight for anyone. I'm a musician."
"For which side?" Duncan had by this time discovered that he still had his dagger. He drew it and held it clutched in his right hand.
"Look, you. Even in this light I can see your uniform. You're in the mercenary corps. They fought for the Duke. I could just tell you that I was on his side and save us both a lot of trouble." He paused. "I didn't fight. I don't fight. I make music. Now, are you going to untie me or not?"
Duncan inspected him carefully. He was small and dark, and his nose was a little too large for his face. Like Duncan, he was clean shaven, and Duncan had the feeling that, had the man been standing, he would have been several inches shorter than Duncan's own six feet. He was dressed in soft grey leather, and the reason he was sitting against a tree was that his hands had been pulled behind him and around the trunk, and tied there. As he examined the knots, Duncan asked, "What's your name?"
"I'm called the Harper."
"That's not a name."
"It's all the name I have."
Duncan was still examining the knots. "What is this you're tied with?" he asked. "It isn't rope."
"Gut." The Harper managed to put more venom into that single word than Duncan would have believed possible.
"Gut?" he asked.
"As in the substance lute strings are made of, yes. What's your name?"
The unexpected question caught Duncan off guard, and he hesitated before answering. "Duncan."
"Untie me, Duncan."
A rustling noise made Duncan look carefully around. The moon was just a sliver of light, and there were few stars visible. The darkness was almost complete.
About twelve feet away, a dim shape was rising out of the muck. It was almost man-shaped, but there was something...wrong with it. Duncan's first thought was that someone else had been mistakenly left for dead. Then he realized that it hadn't been a mistake. The figure was headless.
"Untie me!" The urgency in the Harper's voice was unmistakable.
Figures were beginning to rise all over the swamp. Far too many figures.
"Cut me free!"
Misshapen figures with pieces missing.
Duncan felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. He slashed downward with his dagger, so unheeding that he didn't know whether he had cut the Harper free or sliced off his hands.
"Thanks," the Harper said softly, rubbing his wrists and crouching beside Duncan. "I was wondering when the fun would start."
Duncan stared at him incredulously. "You aren't telling me," he whispered, "that you expected...expected..." Words failed him, and he gestured toward the rising figures.
"Not exactly that, but something," the Harper replied. "I regained consciousness a couple of hours ago. The armies had already left, and I couldn't get free. There wasn't much to do but look around and think." He paused. "All of the living soldiers were gone. There were only the corpses, and there were no animals. Not even insects."
Duncan stared at the Harper as if one of them were mad. "What?"
"There were no carrion eaters," the Harper explained. "Nothing came to eat the--"
"All right," Duncan broke in.
"Not even flies. So I knew something strange was going on." He looked around at the slowly moving forms that surrounded them. They all appeared to be heading in one general direction. "I didn't really expect it to be quite this dramatic, I have to admit. Come on."
He stood up and started to walk away. Duncan hurried after him and grabbed him arm. "Where are you going?!" he asked.
"Where ever they are," the Harper replied. Doing his best to mimic the slow, uneven, shambling gait of the corpses, he lurched off into the crowd.
Duncan hesitated for only a few seconds before following.
"You'll never fool anyone!" he whispered.
"Why not?" the Harper whispered back. "It's too dark for them to see well."
"Maybe they don't have to see!" Duncan said.
There was a pause. "I never thought of that."
They walked. For Duncan, the seconds seemed to stretch out endlessly. Even magic of the every day sort made him ill at ease, and what was going on around him now was so unnatural that his mind couldn't encompass it.
The Harper had to call Duncan's name three times to get his attention. "Look," he whispered, pointing.
Dimly, from somewhere ahead, Duncan could make out a flickering orange glow. "That looks like a fire," he whispered.
"Yes," the Harper whispered back. "I think we'd better pull back a little until we know what's going on."
They started to slow their shambling walk down even more. Suddenly, someone shoved the Harper from behind. He looked back and shuddered. The remnants of a man who had died from a particularly gory head wound were hard on his heels. The Harper started to head a little to his left and found the remains of another soldier pulling up beside him.
"I think we have a problem here..." he whispered.
"You're telling me," Duncan snapped back. He was accompanied by seven figures. They were spread out behind and to both sides of him. He pulled his dagger and spun to face one of the corpses. The ghoul stumbled straight toward him, and Duncan stabbed. The blade sank deep into the thing's belly, soft flesh yielding to metal. A cold hand closed around Duncan's wrist and twisted. Duncan gasped, and his hand slipped off the knife's hilt. The ghoul didn't even bother to pull the weapon free but simply continued walking.
"We're being herded," the Harper said, no longer bothering to whisper. "But toward what, I wonder."
He looked at Duncan and shook his head. "I really need to learn to control my curiosity."
As they moved forward, the orange glow intensified. They finally arrived at a small clearing with relatively solid ground instead of the thick mud that abounded everywhere else. Several crude buildings made of wood, leaves, vines, and assorted detritus surrounded the clearing. In the center was a large fire with several dozen men and women clustered around it.
Off to one side, about ten feet from the flames, was a large, gaping hole in the ground. Beside the hole was a man squatting before a large crystal orb. In the center of the orb burned a faint yellow spark.
Duncan looked around. The swamp people looked scrawny and ill nourished. He wasn't sure they would have been able to hold even two fit men captive without help. But then, he was hardly fit at the moment, and the swamp people had all the help they needed in the form of who knew how many living corpses.
Duncan and the Harper were herded unceremoniously toward the center of the clearing, where two large poles jutted from the ground. Several ghouls held the two men in place, and they were tied to the poles with their arms behind them.
The Harper sighed and said, "Twice in one day. I could get tired of this."
Duncan immediately began struggling to break free from the ropes that bound him. They looked old and half rotted, but they were surprisingly strong.
After the two men were securely tied, the man squatting before the orb clapped his hands, and the corpses fell to the ground, like marionettes whose strings had been cut. The clap had drawn the Harper's attention to the man and the orb, and he noticed that, as the corpses collapsed, the flame in the orb grew a little brighter.
"Company," Duncan said grimly.
The Harper looked away from the orb and saw two of the swamp people walking toward him. One was an old man, wrinkled and gnarled, who walked as if it were something he found difficult to do. Two paces behind him was a young boy. The boy's hands were held in front of him, palms up. Balanced on his palms was a flat wooden box. The boy stared at the box as if he were afraid it might suddenly leap up and attack him.
Duncan gave up trying to break the ropes that bound his wrists long enough to ask, "What do you think's going on?"
"Be patient and all will become clear to you," the Harper replied.
"Does that mean you don't know?"
"Haven't a clue."
The old man stopped before the Harper, turned to the boy, and opened the box. Inside was a knife. The hilt was made of bone and had been delicately carved, though the Harper couldn't make out what the carvings were supposed to represent. The blade gleamed in the firelight. Despite the overall squalor of the village, the blade was clean and had been honed to a fine edge. The old man used the knife to cut the front of the Harper's tunic open, then he turned to the boy.
"Here," he said, in a surprisingly loud voice, offering the hilt to the boy and taking the box from him. "You may do the small one."
"Could we discuss this?" the Harper asked plaintively.
The boy took the knife, his hands shaking slightly.
"You remember what I told you?" the old man asked.
The boy licked his lips and nodded.
"Don't be nervous, the old man said. "You only hold the lives of all the villagers in your hand."
"Let's not forget my life," the Harper added.
The boy walked up to the Harper, the knife clutched firmly in both hands. This didn't keep it very steady, as his hands were now trembling quite badly.
The old man looked at the Harper. "Don't move," he instructed firmly. "This is important."
"I'm sure," the Harper agreed. "What is he going to do?"
"He will do you no permanent harm," the old man answered. Then he turned to the boy and added, "Don't make the cuts too deep. We don't want to kill them."
"No, we don't," the Harper said.
The boy nodded. He stared at the Harper and said in a faint, shaky voice, "Blood for life. Life we pluck from the head." He then took the knife and made three shallow, parallel cuts across the Harper's chest. The Harper winced in pain as blood begin to well from the cuts.
"Very good." The old man took the knife from the boy, gave him back the box, asking, "Why do we make the cuts?"
"To draw fresh blood," the boy replied nervously.
"Good." The old man used the knife on Duncan just as the boy had done on the Harper. "Blood for life," he said. "Life we pluck from the head."
Duncan simply stared at the man, his face betraying no emotion as the cuts were made.
The old man cleaned the knife carefully, put it back in the box, and then took the box back from the boy. "You did well," he told the boy. "What of the dead? Will we need them tonight?"
"No, the boy replied firmly. "The ceremony requires two living men."
The old man struck the boy. It was a resounding blow to the head that knocked the boy to the ground.
"No, that's wrong," he said calmly. "You must think! You have to learn when to bend the rules. The rule says two normal sized bodies each time. Even at the rising, two normal sized men are usually enough." He pointed at the Harper "But, look at this one. He is small, and the other has lost some blood. We should add one of the corpses this time. After the ceremony is over, of course. Go ahead and start preserving the rest. And be careful! We can't afford to waste any."
The old man shook his head and looked at Duncan and the Harper. "I hope there's enough blood in you," he said softly. "We don't have time to arrange more fresh meat, and I'd hate to have to use one of my own people. That would be uncivilized."
The Harper frowned and started to say something, but the old man turned and began to walk toward the orb. The Harper's eyes followed him and watched as another villager passed his hands over the orb, causing the slight flame within it to pale once again. Several of the corpses rose. The ropes holding Duncan and the Harper were torn away, and the two were herded toward the gaping hole in the ground. As the man with the orb was near the hole, this gave the Harper a chance to get a better look at it.
The orb wasn't really a sphere, but was something between a sphere and an oval. It looked like it was made of crystal, and a pale yellow flame flickered unevenly within it. The Harper's view of the orb was cut off abruptly as two of the ghouls shoved him into the pit. Duncan dug his feet in and tried to resist, but the corpses simply picked him up and tossed him in after the Harper.
The pit was very large and extended back into the darkness an undetermined distance, apparently opening out into some kind of cave. The sides and floor appeared to be made of stone.
"What's going on?" Duncan asked.
"I don't think we want to know," the Harper told him, trying to use his ruined tunic to staunch the flow of blood from the cuts on his chest. "Look around."
The light from the bonfire above provided enough illumination to make the cracked and splintered bones scattered around the pit floor visible. The Harper bent down and picked up a jagged thigh bone.
"Lovely, he said. "I think we're meant to be an entree for something."
"Something big," Duncan added. He picked up a helm and turned it over in his hands. A single jagged hole pierced the top.
"Lovelier still," the Harper said with a grimace. "Did you see that orb?"
Duncan was searching the floor for a weapon. "What?"
"The orb," the Harper repeated. "There was a man squatting next to an orb. It must be the focus for his magic. It's how he got our late friends up and walking. Every time the corpses rose, the flame inside the orb grew weaker."
Duncan caught sight of the hilt of a sword. With a yell of triumph, he scooped the weapon up. The blade had been broken off a foot above the hilt. With a grimace, Duncan tossed the weapon away. It clanged against the stone and, in the depths of the cave, something stirred.
"Did you hear that?" Duncan asked.
Yells from above them indicated that their captors had heard the noise.
"I think..." the Harper said slowly, "that we're about to find out why we're here."
"I know why we're here," Duncan said. "I want to find out how not to be here."
They could hear the sound of something heavy sliding against the floor of the pit, and the sound was getting louder. Duncan thought he could see something very large moving in the shadows.
"If we don't do something soon, I don't think we'll be anywhere," the Harper said nervously. "What is that thing?"
"I don't know," Duncan said, as the creature slid into the flickering light. "But I think we'd better kill it."
The creature, including its spiked tail, was nearly fifteen feet long and six feet high at the shoulder. It was rather lizard-like and had four legs, each of which was as wide as the Harper's entire body. It had a long snout and a wide mouth with a full complement of very nasty looking teeth.
"That thing could swallow you in two bites!" the Harper said in a shaky voice. Duncan said something in response, but the Harper couldn't hear what it was. The creature had opened its mouth and let out a shrill bellow. From outside the pit came the sound of shouting. Someone began beating a drum, and a chant rose up through the bedlam.
"Wish me luck," Duncan said, bracing himself.
"What for?"
"Would you rather be dead?"
"Good luck."
"Thanks."
The creature hesitated for a moment, staring at Duncan and the Harper as if trying to choose between them. It had three eyes. Two of them were wide and staring, a pale blue in color. The third, located between the other two, was a baleful yellow in color and was partially covered by a heavy lid.
The Harper felt almost trapped by those eyes, as if he were pinned to a board.
Suddenly, with a loud yell, Duncan charged the creature. It turned to look at him, opening its mouth. Duncan, waving his arms and screeching, ran straight at its face.
Just when it seemed that Duncan was going to run right into the creature's open mouth, he slapped his hands against its snout and launched himself over its head. He flipped and twisted in midair and landed on its back, straddling it, and facing the Harper.
The creature went into a fury, bellowing and screeching. It slammed its body against the walls of the pit, but Duncan always managed to shift his body enough to avoid being crushed.
"What now?" the Harper shouted, hoping Duncan could hear him over the noise.
"I didn't get...quite that...far in my planning!" Duncan shouted back, panting. "Got any...ideas?"
Frantically, the Harper looked around. He kept one eye on Duncan's mount, ready to dodge should the thing charge him. He spotted the broken sword Duncan had tossed aside and picked it up.
"Here!" he shouted.
Duncan looked toward him, and the Harper tossed the sword. It spun end over end and, as it passed him, Duncan seemed to pluck it out of the air by the hilt.
With a manic yell, Duncan slammed the jagged edge of the blade against the creature's neck. The blade shuddered in his hands, and Duncan was surprised that it didn't break. The creature was uninjured. He hadn't even scratched its hide.
"All right, Duncan said grimly. "If that's how you want to play it." He laid down flat across the creature's back, leaning towards its head. "Don't roll over," he whispered. He stretched forward, inch by painful inch, hoping desperately the creature didn't manage to throw him off. Finally, he was able to look down at its face.
Startled, the creature froze for an instant, its eyes rolled up to look at Duncan.
"Hello..." Duncan whispered. Striking quickly, he jammed the broken sword into the creature's left eye. The blade again failed to penetrate. It skidded along the surface of the eye and nearly slipped out of Duncan's grip.
With a painful screech, the creature renewed its attempts to dislodge Duncan. He barely managed to hang on long enough to slide back into a more secure position without losing his weapon.
"What now?" he yelled at the Harper. His leg muscles were tiring rapidly, and the creature didn't seem to be slowing down at all.
"All right..." the Harper said, looking around for another weapon. "Think..." He smacked himself in the head. "Think!"
He stared at the monster. It had to have a weak spot, though it certainly didn't look like it. But everything had a weak spot, he just had to find it. The mouth, perhaps? And how could its eyes withstand a sword thrust? That was incredible. There was definitely something strange about those eyes.
Curious now, the Harper began to examine the creature more carefully.
"What are you...doing?" Duncan yelled, as it didn't seem like the Harper was doing anything at all.
That third eye, now. There was something odd about it. At first glance, it seemed to have no pupil. It was just a uniform yellow in color. The Harper continued to stare, and he began to realize that the glow within the eye wasn't uniform. The light shifted and flickered ever so slightly, almost as if it had a flame within it.
Flame?
"If that's an eye, its a very odd one," he said absently
"What did...you say?!" Duncan shouted, hanging on to his mount for dear life, trying not to drop the sword, and trying not to let the creature smash him to jelly against a wall all at the same time.
Almost as if it had a flame within it. The Harper shook his head. Something was nagging at him. Something the old man had said? "Life we pluck from the head." That was it!
"I've got it!" the Harper suddenly yelled.
"Well share it with me!" Duncan shouted back.
"There's magic here!" the Harper shouted back.
"Oh, thank you...very much!" Duncan yelled. "After being...chased down a hole by living corpses... I'm riding a three-eyed lizard...the size of a...horse, and you tell...me there's magic here!"
"I think there's some sort of power locked up in that middle eye!"
"So?!"
"So stab it!!"
Duncan leaned over for a better look. The middle eye was farther forward on the creature's head than the one he had struck at earlier.
"Swell." He began inching along the creature's body again. That put him off balance just enough, and the creature was prepared for it this time. The creature gave a sudden lurch, and Duncan was catapulted off its back.
Duncan slammed against the pit wall, spreadeagled, face first. He slid down the wall and collapsed in a crumpled heap. After a second, using the wall for support, he dragged himself to his feet. Blood was leaking from his nose, and one eye was already swelling shut. Looking around, he tried to find the broken sword, which had been jarred from his grasp by the impact.
The Harper winced in sympathy, and the giant lizard bellowed and charged Duncan.
The Harper reached down and grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on. It turned out to be a skull. With a shudder, he threw it at the creature's head as hard as he could. He missed, and the skull shattered against the pit wall right next to Duncan. Had Duncan not bent down to pick up the sword at that instant, the skull would have brained him. Duncan shouted, and the creature stopped and turned to cast a puzzled look at the Harper, as if it wanted to know why the Harper was helping it.
In that instant, when its attention was diverted, Duncan leapt forward and jammed the broken sword into its middle eye. All of the blade and part of the hilt sank in. The creature froze, screamed once, and then exploded.
The Harper flinched, but the explosion was without substance. There was no sound, no force, and no fragments. It was as if the explosion had blown the creature into pieces and the pieces into some otherworldly domain.
The silence was so sudden that it was confusing. Even the chanting and drums had stopped.
After a moment, Duncan lowered the sword and looked around. "What happened?" he asked.
"Let's get out of here and worry about it later," the Harper suggested.
By standing on the Harper's shoulders, Duncan was able to grasp the lip of the pit and pull himself out. He found the area deserted except for the corpses, now mercifully immobile once again.
"Hey!" the Harper shouted.
"I'm coming," Duncan called back. Looking around, he found a wooden staff nearly six feet long. Using this, he pulled the Harper out of the pit.
"Everyone's gone."
The Harper nodded. "Look here," he said.
The fire was still burning. Next to it was the man who'd been squatting over the orb. His body was horribly broken and twisted.
"What happened?" Duncan asked. "And where's the orb?"
The Harper shrugged. "It looks like the orb shattered, releasing what little power remained in it." He looked at the mangled body. "It was enough."
"What are you talking about?"
"Did you notice the orb?" he asked.
"I had other things on my mind at the time."
"It was a focus for magic. Every time the corpses walked, the flame within the orb died down. It was being drawn on to animate the corpses."
Duncan raised one eyebrow.
"Even when the orb wasn't being used, the flame within it was pretty weak. I think it was about used up. That creature's third eye looked like it was filled with a flame just like the orb, and the orb was rather an oblate spheroid."
Duncan looked blank.
"Sort of eye shaped. Do you get it? That creature was undeniably magic. That's why your sword didn't hurt it, until you hit the right spot. These people were going to use that third eye as a replacement for their orb!"
Duncan frowned. "How would they have gotten it?"
"I don't know," the Harper said. "But, judging by some of the old man's comments, the process involved feeding the thing living people. And remember how often battles took place here. That seems odd, considering how useless this piece of land really is. I think a little magic was involved there. The old man said something about arranging for more fresh meat. Battles were good for the inhabitants."
Duncan looked puzzled, so the Harper explained.
"The corpses could provide food for the creature, and a couple of survivors who just happened to get left behind could provide fresh blood. It seems obvious, now."
"Oh, yes, of course!" Duncan said drily. "Look, what do we do now?"
"We could spend the rest of the night here, I suppose. At least we'd have a fire."
Duncan shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Well, we'd better start walking then."
"You know," Duncan said thoughtfully, "you never did tell me which side you were on."
The Harper nodded. "True." He picked a direction at random and gestured for Duncan to precede him. "After you," he said.
Bio:"I am a college biology teacher living in the southeastern US with my wife, one dog, and one cat, which is plenty of cats but several dogs too few. All in all, I think the universe is a lot sillier than we can possibly imagine, which won't stop me from trying."
E-mail: benedet@esn.net
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