Down Among the Dead Men (Forest Kingdom Novels) (20 page)

MacNeil tore his gaze away from the great mound of bodies, and tried to think with his mind instead of his gut. There was something about both the gold and the bodies that worried him. How did they get down here? Somebody must have brought them. Perhaps the crawling giants … MacNeil frowned and shook his head. The giants were little more than animals. Besides, they were too large to have managed the ledge on the cavern wall, never mind the last tunnel.

“Bring your lantern over here,” said Jack suddenly. “I’ve found something interesting.”

MacNeil moved back and crouched down beside him, and looked at the cave floor that Jack was studying so intently. It was bare rock, with a faint pattern of dust. There were a few vague traces that might have been tracks, but they were too faint for MacNeil to read them.

“Well?” he said after a while. “What do you see, Jack?”

“Footprints,” said the outlaw quietly. “Human footprints. Men, women, and children—so many they overlap each other again and again. There’s no other tracks at all. Nobody brought these bodies down here, Sergeant. They walked here.”

MacNeil gaped at him, and then snapped his head around as something stirred on the edge of his vision. One of the corpses opened its eyes and looked at him. Another drew back its blackened lips in something that might have been a smile. Jack and MacNeil straightened up from their crouch, and the dead eyes followed them. There was a slow stirring in the mound of bodies, and all the hundreds of corpses opened their eyes and turned their blood-smeared faces to look at the living interlopers who had stumbled upon them. MacNeil felt a cold hand clutch his heart as his imagination showed him how it must have been: an endless line of walking dead, making their way through the dark tunnels and along the narrow ledge, and finally filing into this cave to drop and lie still. And then more coming, to fall on top of the first, and on and on until the mound of bodies was complete. The last few would have had to climb the mound to reach the top… . MacNeil swore dazedly and backed away. Jack moved with him. The corpses followed them with their unblinking eyes.

“Bait,” said MacNeil hoarsely. “The gold and the missing bodies … just bait, to lure us down here and destroy us.”

“But why go to so much trouble?” said Jack. “What makes us so important? Why didn’t the Beast just drive us mad as it did the others?”

“I don’t know!” said MacNeil. “There must be something the Beast wants from us; maybe we’ve got something that could harm it… .” His eyes widened suddenly. “Of course! The Infernal Device! It doesn’t want all of us, just Hammer and his damned sword!”

“Wait a minute,” said Jack, glancing nervously at the watching liches. “This can’t be the Beast’s doing; it’s still asleep, remember?”

“It’s not human,” said MacNeil shortly. “Its mind doesn’t work like ours. It must have recognized Wolfsbane when Hammer first came to the border fort to deliver the gold. The Beast knew how powerful the sword was, and saw it as a threat. So it sent its dreams out to destroy the people in the fort, to gather some bait that would lure the Device back … so that the Beast could destroy it.

“Get into the tunnel, Jack. We’ve got to collect Hammer and then get the hell out of here. If the Device is the key, we can’t risk losing it to these creatures. Go on, move it! I’ll be right behind you with the lantern!”

Jack nodded quickly and divided into the narrow tunnel. MacNeil gave him a count of five and then hurried after him, scrambling along the tunnel as fast as he could on hands and knees. But even as he struggled through the tunnel in his little pool of light, his imagination replayed the last thing he’d seen as he turned to the tunnel mouth: the great pile of bodies shifting and stirring like so many seething maggots. The dead were rising to walk again. Jack and MacNeil scrambled desperately through the tunnel. It seemed much longer than it had on the first trip through, and they’d barely reached the halfway stage when they heard something else enter the tunnel behind them. Somehow they found a little more strength and speed, and a few moments later the tunnel mouth fell away behind them as they threw themselves out into the outer cave. Hammer spun around, startled by their sudden entrances. He took one look at their shocked faces, and his hand fell automatically to the sword at his side.

“What is it? What have you found?”

“Walking dead men,” said Jack breathlessly. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

“And leave the gold?”

“The gold will keep!” snapped MacNeil. “Those liches want your sword, Hammer! The Device! The Beast must be frightened of it. That’s why it had the gold brought down here, to lure you into its clutches.”

He stopped suddenly and looked back at the tunnel, and as he did a bare dead white arm snaked out of the tunnel mouth. MacNeil put his lantern down on the floor and drew his sword. The tunnel was full of soft, slow, scrambling noises. MacNeil swung his sword with both hands and cut cleanly through the lich’s wrist. The sword rang dully on the stone floor, and the severed hand flew away across the cave. It scrabbled briefly on the floor, and then pulled itself back toward MacNeil like a huge pale spider. Jack kicked it away. The lich burst out of the tunnel mouth and threw itself at MacNeil. Its pallid skin was flecked with long-dried blood, but no blood pumped from the handless stump. Hammer handed Jack his torch and drew the sword at his hip. MacNeil cut at the dead man’s neck with his sword, but the lich blocked the blow with its bare arm. The blade jarred on bone, but the lich just smiled. MacNeil backed away as the lich reached for his throat, and the dead man went after him. Another lich crawled out of the tunnel. MacNeil cut again at the advancing lich, but still it kept coming. Hammer moved in beside MacNeil and cut at the lich’s legs. It finally fell to the ground as a half-severed leg collapsed under it, but already the second lich was moving toward MacNeil, and more of the dead were emerging from the tunnel mouth.

Hammer and MacNeil tried to stand their ground, but faced with an endless stream of opponents that wouldn’t stay dead, they were forced back step by step. The only way to stop the liches was to hamstring or behead them, and even then the crippled bodies would drag themselves along the floor to try to pull down the living that dared stand against them. Most of the liches had once been men, but there were also women and even children. MacNeil found it almost impossible to cut down the first child, but then he looked into the dead child’s eyes and saw there a blind, unreasoning malevolence that had nothing human in it. After that, he dealt with the dead children as methodically as he took on the adults, and with every child lich he faced he renewed his promise of vengeance against the Beast that used them in this way. Hammer didn’t seem to care whom he was fighting. He swung his sword with grim competency, his only expression a slight, satisfied smile.

Jack stood to one side, holding his torch out before him and waiting for any lich that managed to get past the other two. He’d already guessed his knife wouldn’t be much use against the dead, but he’d had some success with the torch. Their cold flesh felt no pain from the blazing brand, but their hair and clothing were bone dry and burned fiercely. Already the cave was brightly lit by half a dozen burning corpses that thrashed weakly on the floor as the fire slowly consumed them.

And still the dead crowded into the cave from the narrow tunnel, forcing the three defenders back. The cave floor was strewn with mutilated liches that still crawled determinedly after their prey. MacNeil felt an old fear stir within him again, threatening to unman him—the same fear he’d felt when the demons came swarming out of the endless night in a nightmarish assault that seemed to go on forever. Fear and panic tore at his courage until he wanted to scream at the liches, but somehow he held on to his self-control and continued his slow, cautious retreat to the tunnel behind him. Hammer moved back with him, and Jack guarded their rear with his flaring torch.

And still the dead came crowding into the cave, their pale faces contorted by the dark dreams of the Beast that controlled them.

“We can’t hold them off much longer,” said MacNeil tightly. “Draw your other sword, Hammer. Drawn the damned sword.”

“Yes,” said Hammer. “I don’t seem to have any choice anymore, do I?”

He cut viciously at a lich as it reached for him with clawing hands, and decapitated it. The head rolled away across the floor, its mouth working silently. The headless body staggered back and forth, groping blindly about it for its enemy, until the other liches jostled it out of the way. Hammer seized the few moments the confusion gave him, and sheathed his sword. He breathed deeply once, and then reached up and grasped the long sword hilt behind his left shoulder. His mouth twisted, as though tasting something infinitely bitter. The sword hilt seemed to fit itself into his hand as though it belonged there. He drew the longsword from its silver scabbard with one supple movement, and held the six feet of gleaming steel out before him as though it was weightless. The long blade glowed brightly with a sick yellow light.

“Wolfsbane,” said Hammer softly. “Wolfsbane is loose in the world again.”

The liches stopped their advance. Their empty eyes fastened on the glowing longsword in silent fascination, as something else studied the Infernal Device through their dead eyes, and knew it for what it was. The hellsword had been brought down into the depths of the earth, and now they would take it and bury it so that the Beast need never fear it again. The liches surged forward, hands outstretched, and Hammer met them with Wolfsbane. The glowing blade swept back and forth with inhuman speed, cutting through the liches as though they were nothing more than wisps of smoke. They fell helplessly before Hammer’s attack, screaming silently as the sword cut through flesh and bone alike. Their dead flesh decayed and fell away into corruption at Wolfsbane’s touch, and soon the cave floor was littered with fragments of rotting flesh and discolored bone. But still the liches came swarming out of the narrow tunnel, their numbers growing faster than Hammer could destroy them. Hammer and MacNeil and Scarecrow Jack continued to back away, fighting desperately all the while, knowing that if they gave the dead an opening, even for a moment, the liches would tear them apart. Hammer lunged back and forth like a man possessed, Wolfsbane glowing more and more brightly as the dead fell before it and did not rise again. Jack and MacNeil defended his blind sides as best they could, for Hammer seemed to have no thought for anything but attack.

And still the dead came on, driven by the Beast’s dark dreams. Hundreds of men and women and children had died in the border fort, and Hammer and MacNeil and Jack couldn’t destroy them fast enough to stem the tide. Step by step they were forced back out of the cave and down the tunnel, and finally out onto the narrow ledge itself, looking out over the long drop to the cavern floor. Jack went first along the ledge, carrying the torch, then MacNeil with his lantern, and finally Hammer, blocking the liches’ way with Wolfsbane. The Infernal Device glowed blindingly against the darkness, its bitter yellow light reflecting from the thousands of crystals embedded in the cavern walls. The three men backed slowly away along the narrow ledge, and the dead came after them.

Down below, deep in the earth, something stirred in its sleep.

Flint and Wilde and the Dancer swung their swords with aching arms, fighting on long after most would have collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Their swords grew heavier every time they raised them, but they wouldn’t give up. The trolls came swarming through the doorway in a never ending stream, their blood red eyes glowing hungrily. Tall, bony cadavers lay scattered across the bloody floor, but as yet none of the creatures had got past the defenders to reach the trapdoor. Only a few trolls could get through the door at a time, and so far Flint and Wilde and the Dancer had managed to keep the trolls bottled up by the doorway. But they all knew it was only a matter of time before one of them fell, and then they would be unable to hold the trolls back.

The Dancer was having the time of his life. His sword was everywhere, a bright, shining blur that mowed through the crowding trolls like a newly sharpened scythe through wheat. He was grinning broadly, and his eyes blazed with a dark and deadly joy. He was doing what he was best at, doing what he was born to do, and loving every minute of it. The overwhelming odds just gave a spice to the occasion. He was the Dancer, and he was content.

Flint fought at his side, substituting strength and stubbornness to match his skill and speed. She kept turning the situation over and over in her mind as she fought, searching for a solution, an answer that would give them victory over the trolls, knowing all the while that this time there was no answer, no way out. They were doing all they could, and the odds were that wasn’t going to be enough. Tough. That was the way it went sometimes, especially if you were a Ranger. She fought on, ignoring the pain and blood from a dozen minor wounds. It wasn’t over till it was over, and just maybe MacNeil would get lucky and kill the Beast. Yeah. Maybe.

Wilde fought on Flint’s other side, wishing he hadn’t run out of arrows so early. He was good with a sword, but he was much better with a bow. Besides, using a bow was a damn sight less dangerous than fighting at close quarters with a sword. He hacked at a troll and clove its skull from brow to jaw. The creature collapsed with a startled expression on its bony face, and Wilde grinned nastily. Stupid-looking things. He’d teach them to get between him and his share of the gold. He fought on, wishing he’d kept at least one arrow for the Dancer. Still, he needed the Dancer’s fighting skills for the moment. Maybe later, when the trolls had been taken care of … yeah. Maybe later. He swung his sword, and the trolls surged about him, trying to drag him down. Blood soaked his shirt, only some of it from dead trolls.

Constance chanted one spell after another, her voice grown harsh and indistinct. Her throat was raw, and her aching head swam as she fought to make the last few remnants of her magic do far more than it was ever meant to. The few trolls that got past the fighters at the door shriveled up like moths in a flame as they drew near the witch. One troll kept on coming anyway, even while its flesh ran like wax down a candle. Constance gestured sharply, and the troll exploded in a shower of blood and guts. Constance moaned as a stabbing pain began in her forehead, just above her left eye. Blood spurted from her nose. She was pushing her magic to its limits, and she was paying the toll. She’d once seen a witch overstrain herself and die of a cerebral hemorrhage. It hadn’t been pretty.