Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North (15 page)

Jerek shrugged. ‘I ain’t fussed. We’ve dealt with wizards before.’

Kayne nodded. ‘Right, that settles it. We ride for this tower. Worst comes to the worst, we can hole up there and try to hold them off. Their horses won’t be no use to them in a swamp.’

Brick’s freckled face went pale. ‘But the dead walk the swamp!’

‘Fuck the dead,’ Jerek spat. ‘We got forty man after us. Easier to dodge a stroller than a storm of arrows.’

‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Kayne muttered. He walked over to Grunt. ‘You can ride double with me. Or you can take your chances and continue north on your own. The bandits might let you be. Course, they might not.’

The big mute made a hand signal to Brick, who responded with a gesture of his own. ‘He thinks the swamp is the better bet,’ the red-headed youngster said. ‘But he really hates wizards.’

Kayne grinned and slapped Grunt on the back. ‘You and me both.’

Grunt gestured at Brick again, a more complex series of movements the old Highlander could barely track.

Brick’s lips pursed in concentration. ‘He says you mentioned some ruins.’

‘You mean Mal-Torrad?’

‘Yes. He says that last time he was there...’ Brick’s brow furrowed in puzzlement and he repeated the hand signs. Grunt nodded, a profound look of despair on his face.

‘What about Mal-Torrad?’ Kayne asked again.

‘He says the Mal-Torrad that he remembers wasn’t in ruins.’

They rode hard and fast. It wasn’t far to the coast but Kayne’s mare was sweating and shaking by the time they reached the outskirts of the swamp. Riding at a mad gallop with a big green savage clinging to him wasn’t Kayne’s idea of a good time, not with the recent farce of their flight from Farrowgate still fresh in his mind. To make matters worse, even at the breakneck pace Jerek set the bandits were closing fast.

‘Place looks like a right shithole,’ the Wolf grunted as Kayne’s horse drew level with his. Both animals were breathing hard.

‘Do you think they’ll follow us into the swamp?’ Brick asked. He looked terrified, though it wasn’t clear if that was due to the bandits, the threat of undead horrors lurking in the swamp or just sharing a horse with Jerek.

Kayne shrugged. ‘Only one way to find out.’

The ground grew soggier as they proceeded deeper into the wetland. Soft mud quickly disappeared beneath stagnant water that stank worse than the streets of Dorminia on a hot day. The vegetation grew thicker, monstrous willows casting baleful shadows over the group in the light of the dying sun. Mangroves dipped their spiderlike roots into the rising water, forming a treacherous web that threatened to snare their unhappy horses. When the swamp reached knee height and thick patches of reeds began to block their way, they finally dismounted in order to clear a path. Buzzing insects swarmed around them. Every rustle of movement from the swamp had them glancing around nervously. All except for Jerek, who seemed preoccupied with the state of the boots he’d purchased back in Ashfall.

‘Twenty silver down the shitter,’ the Wolf declared bitterly. ‘Leather will be ruined now. Best pair of boots I had in years, these.’

‘I’ll buy you a new pair,’ Kayne said wearily. Something had bitten him on the ear; it was itching and starting to burn. The water rippled nearby and a cold reptilian head bobbed up for a moment before vanishing. ‘There’s snakes in this water. Hope they ain’t poisonous.’

‘There are giant snakes that can swallow a man whole down in the Sun Lands,’ Brick said, not particularly helpfully, if Kayne was being honest. ‘My uncle told me about them.’

‘Your uncle spouts a lot of shit,’ Jerek growled.

Brick’s face went bright red but he said nothing.

Jerek muttered something and swung an axe viciously at the thicket of reeds clawing at him. A good handful sprang right back up and slapped him across his bald head. Face twisting in rage, he proceeded to stamp them all into the swamp, raising a hell of a racket.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Brick whispered as Jerek splashed around, uttering curses raw enough to make a sailor blush.

Kayne frowned. ‘The Wolf sometimes lets his anger get the better of him. You get used to it.’

‘Motherfucking swamp.’ Jerek tore a handful of reeds out of the water with his bare hands and flung them away. Even his stallion shied back in the face of his rage.

‘I know it was you that spared me,’ Brick said quietly as they watched the Wolf take out his frustrations on the swamp. ‘He would have killed me.’

‘If Jerek really wanted you dead, you’d be dead. There ain’t much me or anyone else could do about it.’

Suddenly, Grunt moaned and pointed a thick green finger at a cluster of trees up ahead. A large band of ragged figures had appeared in the distance. The shadows cast by the trees overhead obscured their faces, but their lurching walk was unmistakable.

‘Shit,’ Kayne muttered. ‘Strollers. Dozens of ’em.’

‘Strollers?’ Brick repeated, dread in his voice.

‘The walking dead, lad.’

Kayne released his horse’s reins and reached over his shoulder to draw his greatsword. Grunt raised his club. His cat eyes seemed to burn orange beneath his brutish brow.

‘Getting sick of this shit,’ Jerek rasped, though if anything he looked fairly pleased at this latest development. He’d failed to get the better of the reeds and seemed eager to get stuck into a less stubborn foe.

Kayne placed a comforting hand on Brick’s shoulder, noting the way the boy’s bow trembled in his grip. ‘Strollers can’t be stopped by arrows. Not unless one takes ’em right through the brain. I figure the poor light makes that a tough ask, even for you.’

‘What should I do?’ Brick asked, voice shaking slightly.

‘Stay behind me and make sure the horses don’t bolt. You ready, Grunt?’

The big mute bared his tusks in reply. The gesture would’ve looked mighty impressive, except just then the water rippled ominously right in front of him and he jumped back, almost dropping his club.

Another handful of corpses emerged from the swamp around them. Worm-eaten eyes stared hatefully from bloated faces the colour of old vomit, rancid water dripping down decomposing bodies teeming with parasites. Despite the fact they had them surrounded the strollers seemed strangely hesitant to attack. Never one to pass up an advantage, Kayne kicked out at the corpse of a middle-aged woman just in front of him. Her left breast had half rotted away, giving her a lopsided appearance. The corpse went down with a splash, taking another stroller with it.

Grunt swung his huge club, a mighty sweep that snapped bones and lifted two of the corpses clean out of the swamp. Jerek was a whirlwind of steel, axes cleaving rotting limbs from bodies.

‘Watch out for the teeth!’ Kayne warned as a stroller lunged at Grunt, too close for the mute to bring his huge weapon to bear. The greenskin turned as the corpse reached towards him, bit down suddenly with his own tusks and ripped half the stroller’s head clean off. That won a grim nod from Jerek, though Grunt himself looked as if he wanted to heave, utter disgust on his bestial face.

Kayne sliced the head from a stroller. Then he spun and cut another in half at the waist, black blood spraying all over his leathers. He looked around for more of the creatures but they were all accounted for, bloated torsos and flopping limbs making an unholy soup of the swamp around them. The approaching horde slowed its advance.

‘Something’s wrong,’ said Brick. ‘They’re not attacking. Maybe we should hold off—’

Jerek’s axe glittered through the air and split the head of the stroller at the front of the nearby group. Together he and Grunt charged forward and hurled themselves into the corpses.

There was another splash behind Kayne. He turned to stare into the mouldy face of a boy around Brick’s age. This newest stroller wore a black tunic that was still in good repair. To Kayne’s surprise, the corpse opened its mouth and spoke.

‘Enough of this.’

Kayne stared at the creature. The deep, cultured voice that had just sprung from that broken-toothed pit of a mouth didn’t belong to any dead child. The words seemed to come from far away, as if they had travelled through a long tunnel before spilling from the stroller’s rotting maw. ‘You can talk?’ Kayne asked uncertainly.

‘This corpse is but a conduit for my words. I am Nazala, the master of this swamp.’

‘The necromancer,’ Brick whispered.

Kayne’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you want with us?’

The corpse gestured towards Jerek and Grunt, who looked to be having a hell of a time brutalizing the unresisting corpses. ‘My tower is not far from here. I offer safety from those that mean you harm. But first you must cease destroying my minions!’

Kayne hesitated. He’d learned the hard way that wizards weren’t to be trusted. But they had forty bandits hot on their heels and he reckoned the swamp held enough of the dead to drag them all to a watery grave if this necromancer willed it so. Better to take a helping hand when it was offered, even if the hand in question was decidedly slimy and missing half its fingers.

‘Hang on.’ He waded across to Jerek and Grunt. The greenskin twisted around, a severed arm hanging from his mouth. He relaxed when he saw Kayne and let the arm drop with a splash, something like shame in his amber eyes.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ the old Highlander said. ‘I’ve done worse when my blood’s up. Turns out the strollers want to help us. Could be why they’re not slavering after our flesh like the dead usually do. You hear me, Wolf?’

Jerek had one of the corpses in a headlock and was punching it repeatedly in the nose. ‘Yeah.’

Kayne waited patiently for a moment. ‘You can probably let go, then.’

‘Huh.’ Jerek released his grip on the stroller, half the corpse’s face now smeared over his knuckles. ‘That’s for my boots,’ he spat.

They splashed back to where Brick waited with the horses and the necromancer’s undead mouthpiece. The boy had done an admirable job of keeping their mounts calm despite the fear in his green eyes. The youngster had some steel in him, Kayne thought. It was to easy to forget how terrified he himself had been the first time he had come face to face with a stroller.

If a corpse could look peeved, this one managed it. Nazala’s voice sounded unmistakably cheesed off. ‘You destroyed twenty of my minions.’

‘Sorry. We got carried away.’

The necromancer was silent for a time and Kayne feared he might be reconsidering his earlier offer. But eventually the corpse raised a putrid hand and gestured towards the horde. ‘My minions will intercept your pursuers. I hope the Bandit King’s men are not so nonchalant in the face of death.’

Kayne shrugged. ‘Death’s face ain’t the ugliest I’ve seen. It’s the living you need to worry about, in my experience.’

Another slight pause. This time there was a note of melancholy in the hollow voice. ‘Night will soon arrive and with it horrors beyond even my authority to command. My grandson will show you to my tower.’

Kayne glanced at Jerek, who only scowled down at his boots. Grunt seemed preoccupied with checking that his sack was in order. Brick stared wide-eyed at the talking corpse before turning to Kayne.

‘Did he just call this thing his
grandson
?’

It turned out the necromancer’s tower was in fact an ancient keep set atop a hill, surrounded by ruins that appeared to have once housed living quarters before they flooded. Here and there debris poked up above brackish water. The roof had collapsed around most of the perimeter, but there was a section of building to the right of the decaying gatehouse that seemed mostly intact. Their cadaverous guide slowed as they passed through the crumbling archway. ‘The stables are still serviceable. You may leave your horses within.’

Kayne peered into the stable building. The thick walls were green with algae and the smell was awful, but several enclosures contained livestock and there was fresh horse feed in a sack in one of the stalls.

Brick secured their mounts. Grunt was reluctant to leave his mysterious burden behind, and after a brief exchange with the red-haired youngster he decided he would remain with the horses. Their guide led them out of the stables and up the overgrown path that curved up the hill. The tower loomed ominously above them, reminding Kayne of the great citadel that dominated Watcher’s Keep. ‘Seems a bit out of place in the Badlands,’ he observed as they neared the entrance.

‘This castle was once an Andarran outpost,’ Nazala’s mouthpiece explained. ‘The lord of the castle had it constructed to keep watch on the Yahan, and to pursue relations with the underfolk of Mal-Torrad to the north. During the Godswar the sea rose and flooded the coast. All here perished.’

They reached the huge iron doors. They were free of rust, and Kayne wondered if the necromancer had placed some magic on them to guard against the depredations of the swamp. Without warning the doors creaked slowly open – and out stepped Nazala.

‘Not one of you bastards,’ Jerek muttered.

The black-skinned southerner staring back at them raised an eyebrow.‘Don’t mind him, he just don’t like wizards,’ Kayne said hurriedly. He was about to ask what a Sunlander was doing this far north when he heard Brick gasp behind him.

‘You... I’ve seen your face before...’ The young bandit’s voice trailed off; his brow creased in confusion.

Now that it was no longer projected through the decaying throat of a corpse, Nazala’s voice was welcoming, pleasant even. ‘Ah. You’ve met my twin, Shara.’

‘The Seer is your twin?’

‘Only by way of blood. Everything else we once shared is as dead as the bodies that litter this swamp. Tell me, child. What did she say?’

‘She said I was a catalyst. That I would bring blood and fire to the north. I was only four years old, I don’t remember much. My uncle stole me away soon after.’

Kayne didn’t like the sudden hunger in the wizard’s bloodshot eyes as the southerner stared at Brick. ‘Why are you helping us?’ the old warrior demanded.

‘The four of you… interest me. Two Highlanders, far from home yet casting shadows long enough to stretch to the Trine. A green-skinned humanoid the nature of which even I am unfamiliar with. And this child of prophecy.’