Arc 1: Chapter 12: The Hungry Dead

Arc 1: Chapter 12: The Hungry Dead

We faced each other in silence, me and those three killers, as the night grew older and the nearly lambent mist coiled around our legs.

It was one of Vaughn’s cronies who broke that silence. “Looks more like a bear than a jackal, vice-captain. Big fucker.”

“Lot of meat on him,” the other lackey said, eyeing me with an uncomfortably hungry attention.

“Not enough fat,” the first said. “These vagabond types never eat right, makes them too tough. Too thin.” He clicked his teeth together. They were big, yellow teeth, and made an audible snap as they met.

“Now now, boys.” Vaughn had a more reserved expression than the other two, a more relaxed posture, but his gaze held a similar tint of tension, like a starved hound taught at its master’s leash. “Funny, but we were just coming to have a chat with you, stranger. It’s mighty indulgent of you to save us the walk.”

My hand flexed for the axe hidden under my cloak. I kept it hung on a metal ring, easy to get into my hand, but the cloak was in the way and I’d have to be fast. I didn’t draw just yet. Once I did, there would be no going back. “What can I say,” I said, matching the mercenary leader’s lazy Corelander drawl. “I hate it when anyone goes out of their way for me.”

Vaughn snorted. He didn’t do anything so cocky as flourish his sword — a heavy, short blade of simple dark steel with a distinctly archaic design. It was very well used judging by the nicks and scratches along its weathered surface. He held it low in one heavy fist, slightly in front of him and ready to come up into a guard with an easy movement. The other two hadn’t drawn their weapons, but their hands lingered on the swords sheathed at their hips.

“This doesn’t have to be difficult,” Vaughn said. “We just have some questions about the old man you arrived with. Why don’t you come with us, and we’ll go somewhere warmer to chat? You can be back at the Cymrian with a full tankard of mead within the hour. My word of honor on it.”

“Right,” I said. “Because I’d trust the honor of a ghoul.”

Vaughn went very still. Too still, which made sense — he didn’t need to breathe. How I hadn’t sensed the true nature of the mercenaries earlier, I didn’t know. My powers allowed me to feel the presence of Creatures of Darkness, but it wasn’t a perfect awareness. I hadn’t been looking for them, for one thing, and the stagnant atmosphere of the marshland had dulled my senses, given me a general air of paranoia while also muffling the true natures of those who inhabited it.

I’d been trained to be wary in places like this. Too often in history had Alder Knights, and other champions, ventured into environs more suited to their adversaries and found what blessings they had — be they artifacts or innate abilities — weakened or even nullified. The witch hunter who found his quarry seeming no more threatening than a young woman living in the woods, only to end up in her cauldron. The paladin who didn’t sense the fiendish thing lurking in his own shadow because the twisted labyrinth about him was so full of the echoes of horror.

I’d been unwary, impatient, and too focused on distractions. Now I was going to pay for it.

“You know what we are,” Vaughn said. Even as he spoke, his skin seemed to take on a grayish pallor, his eyes becoming less vibrant. He bared his teeth. They were overlarge and yellow, heavy and strong enough to crack bone.

“Your stooges weren’t too subtle about it just a moment ago,” I said, nodding to the two nameless soldiers. “Unless they were trying to flirt with me? Sorry, but I’m afraid none of you are my type.”

“You’re funny, stranger.” Vaughn jerked his chin at me. “Kill him. We’ll do the other two next.”

Swords slid from their sheaths with predatory, whispering hisses. Vaughn brought his own heavy blade up in a guard as the other two ghouls spread out to flank me.

I freed my axe from beneath my cloak and held it up. I murmured the words of an Oath. Clean, warm power surged up inside of me and through the uncarved alderwood branch that formed the haft of my weapon, then into its elf-bronze blade. The blade began to burn with an amber flame. The mist recoiled away from me as though it were a living thing repulsed by that light, leaving a near perfect circle about ten feet in diameter around me clear.

The eyes of my would-be murderers widened at the sight, and their sudden advance stopped.

“He’s a fucking adept!” One of them hissed. That one’s eye sockets seemed too large for the rest of his face, his eyes deeply recessed so they seemed lost within shadowy pits. He bared teeth too big for the mouth in which they were set.

I wasn’t about to hold back with ghouls. I didn’t know how these had been made, exactly, but I could guess — usually, ghouls were the product of starving or nearly dead men who, in their desperation for life, devoured the freshly dead. The lingering traces of aura left in those bodies kept the cannibal alive, strengthened them, and left them hungry for more power to stave off their encroaching end. The more they ate, the more they hungered for that energy, until they even went so far as to break into crypts and dig up graveyards, seeking any trace of soul-essence they could from rotting flesh and bone marrow.

They became trapped, forever, in a state very near death. Not of the living, not of the dead, but some purgatorial state between the two. They were always dying, always at its very edge, and always kept from that end by the aura they consumed. That stubborn grip on their ruined bodies, and the power they ate, made them very hard to kill.

Worse, my display of power had stopped them briefly, but the glint of monstrous hunger in their eyes grew even brighter. I’d just shown them I was a much tastier meal than they’d anticipated. The energy of an awakened soul was like a king’s feast to their kind.

“Ain’t this a surprise,” Vaughn said with an eager laugh. “That’s a queer magic, friend.”

“We have to share him with the others?” One of the other ghouls said, a thin line of drool beginning to emerge from his lips as he stared at me.

“Company rules,” Vaughn said. “Don’t worry, boys — we still get first taste.”

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They began to advance again, heads bent forward and backs hunched, moving with an eerie, loping grace not at all human, as though they were struggling against the urge to discard their weapons and drop to all fours. When they sprung, it would be with preternatural speed.

I was in a bad spot. Three against one, in a place that stifled my abilities, against opponents faster, stronger, and far more durable than any human, my skill at arms would only go so far. My opponents weren’t going to be like the guards in Vinhithe, unready for my more supernatural abilities and magicked axe.

If I stayed on the defensive, I’d die. They’d hurl themselves at me and tear me apart. They might take a wound or two, but fear of injury meant less to ghouls. They could keep fighting even with missing limbs or spilled guts. So long as a meal was in front of them, they wouldn’t stop — any damage I dealt to them would mean nothing once they’d eaten.

If I wanted to survive, I’d have to go on the offensive. I brought my axe up above my head, narrowed my eyes to near slits, and cleared my thoughts. I murmured words under my breath, beneath the level of hearing, and adjusted my weapon into a different stance, bringing it over my head and back. I spread my legs further apart and relaxed my muscles.

The motions were rote, a ritual all their own, and necessary to conjure the phantasmal power of a Soul Art. With every shift of muscle, every murmured syllable, each slight adjustment to my pose, my aura refashioned itself.

When I breathed out, a plume of amber-tinted mist escaped my lips. This is going to bring every ghoul in this damned village down on my head, I thought. But it was better than dying here, on this street.

The two nameless ghouls didn’t seem to notice my shaping of power, but their leader paused, eyeing me warily. Too late bastard, I thought.

“Vaughn! What are you doing, you ugly boar?”

All three of the ghouls flinched as the voice cracked across the buildings, sharp as a well-oiled whip. All four of us — me and the three ghouls — turned to see a figure standing at the top of the wooden stairs separating the door of one of the houses from the street.

She looked to be in her mid twenties, perhaps a bit older, and was of average height and thin, clad only in a white night dress. She was pale, perhaps made more so by the eerie light glimmering in the mist. Her freckled face was framed by an unkempt mop of chestnut brown hair, cut unevenly and barely shoulder length. It looked mussed, and her dress slipped from one shoulder, making me think she’d just been woken.

“Catrin,” Vaughn said, eyeing the newcomer warily. “Leave it. This isn’t your business.”

The woman tossed her mane of frazzled hair as she lifted her chin. Her position at the top of the short flight of stairs allowed her to tower over the four of us, like a queen looking down over a disappointing court. “To the Pit with that,” she said. “Baron’s expecting guests, and here he is throwing around sorcery and looking fit to rip an ogre’s head off.” She nodded in my direction without actually looking at me. “Call went out, boyo. I heard it. You heard it. So why don’t you lay off the evil minion act for a night before something nastier than you sends you off to the Caves, eh?”

Vaughn’s expression darkened. Something ugly rippled under his skin, an anger unbound by anything like restraint or dignity. It passed quickly, but while it was there it transformed his face, made him look as hideous as any demon I’d ever seen. Then it was gone, and he bared his teeth in a savage grin. “You shouldn’t toy with us, whore. Captain’s already warned you once. I’ve got my orders about him. He tells us who he is, then he dies.”

I narrowed my eyes at the ghoul.

“Looks like you were skipping right to the dying part,” Catrin shot back, apparently unintimidated by the rage that’d overtaken the ghoul. “If he’s here to answer Falconer’s call and you off him, others who’ve come will start to think they’re not so safe here. They’ll leave. Don’t know about you, but I imagine his lordship won’t be too pleased about that.”

“He was eavesdropping on me and the baron’s herald,” Vaughn growled. “He’s a fucking spy.”

Catrin blinked and turned to me. “That so, big man? You a spy?” She folded her arms, her posture challenging.

I stared at her, nonplussed. This hadn’t been a conversation I’d been anticipating. I spoke without thinking, acting on a gut feeling. “I heard the call,” I said, and shrugged. “That Lord Orson was challenging the Church, maybe even taking the fight to the Accord. I was curious.” I turned my gaze back to the ghouls. “Wanted to know more before I threw in on a rumor.”

Vaughn narrowed his eyes, unconvinced. Catrin, however, was nodding.

“Those healers you came with aren’t here for the council,” Vaughn said to me.

I met his eyes without flinching. “Met them on the road and hitched a ride. Looked less suspicious to the locals that way. I don’t think they know about the gathering.” It was close enough to the truth. I was careful not to say too much, not wanting to give away that I had no idea what this “call” they were referring to was, nor did I have any clue what this council entailed.

Eanor had told me the baron was gathering forces to him. I hadn’t considered playing at being one of those who’d heard this summons — there were too many details I wasn’t privy to, too many variables I couldn’t anticipate.

It wasn’t the plan, but I wasn’t above improvising.

Vaughn glared at me, his fingers wrapped tightly around his ancient sword. The muscles of his face shifted dramatically, almost as though they were trying to break free of the skin. I could see anger, suspicion, and sheer ghoulish hunger all urging him to kill me. I tensed, waiting for him and his comrades to attack.

Catrin rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed huff. “Bleeding Stars, Vaughn, are you that hungry? You going to act like I didn’t see you and your Mistwalkers raiding the graveyard the other night?”

To my surprise, Vaughn and his cronies suddenly looked chagrined. He glanced at Catrin sidelong. “It’s not the same as eating an adept.” He looked at me again and his voice lowered into a bestial growl. “Fresh.”

I bared my own teeth at him. “Try it. Might burn, though.” I lifted my axe to show him the golden flames playing along its edge.

“If everyone’s done comparing their cocks,” Catrin said in a dry tone, “this little spectacle is going to draw a lot of attention. The mist won’t keep the villagers asleep through anything.”

I paused at that. Tentatively, I felt at the coiling eddies of pale, ever-so-slightly lambent mist in the street with my magical senses. It was subtle. I hadn’t detected it until I had looked, but there was a power in the mist. That explained why none of the locals had come out to investigate the commotion me and the mercenary ghouls had caused.

Almost as though responding to this, a man came out of the door at Catrin’s back. He was leanly muscled and just above average height, his brown hair mussed. He was shirtless. “Cat?” He said groggily, rubbing at one eye with a fist. “What’s all this noise?”

Catrin arched an eyebrow at us. Vaughn cursed and sheathed his sword. He made a sharp gesture, and the other two ghouls did the same, albeit reluctantly. The more talkative one, still with a bit of spittle on his chin, didn’t take his eyes off me. He was trembling, I noted, physically forcing himself not to lunge for my throat.

I’d never met ghouls this disciplined, or even this sane. Though my guard was up, part of me was in awe that the half-dead soldiers had actually listened to reason and stopped the fight. Vaughn growled an order to his men, threw one last glare at me, and then the three of them marched off. He turned his head and spoke to Catrin as he walked.

“He’s your problem then, Catrin. Next time he crosses the company, he’s ours. Been too long since we’ve feasted well.”

With that disturbing remark, they vanished into the mist.

Catrin said something to the man who’d emerged from the house. He glanced at me and the retreating mercenaries, and his confusion evolved into alert concern. Catrin murmured into his ear, and his eyes became glazed. She laughed quietly, turned him toward the door, and gently pushed him back inside. Then she turned to me and the amusement in her eyes faded.

“You,” she said, “should get to the keep before the Mistwalkers decide to make a meal of you.”

While my mind was trying to catch up to events, my mouth said, “I don’t know the way.”

The woman studied me a moment, pursing her lips. “I’ll show you.”