The Screaming Skull

by Rick Ferguson

  It was Amabored, of course, who found an angle. He explained it to Lithaine and me, and then the three of us approached the leader of a group of about two hundred refugees who were guarding the thousand or more children currently camped outside the city walls. Their vigilance had slowed the vanishings to a trickle but hadn’t sealed the breach; three more children had disappeared the previous night, leaving their mothers in hysterics and their fathers with their throats cut.

  The vigilantes’ leader, a short and burly farmer from Kent named Barlan, called together ten of his trusted mates to meet us at Lithaine’s clearing. When they arrived at dusk, we built a campfire and passed around the elf’s last flask of mead. Then Amabored addressed the men.

  “We’ve heard what’s been happening to your children,” Amabored said. “Like you, we’ve also heard that children within the city walls aren’t being snatched. We think we can help get your kids inside.”

  “Do you mock us?” Barlan asked. “I lost my youngest daughter, only three weeks gone. Some here have lost their entire families. And you say you can get the other children inside? How? Will you grow wings and fly them over the walls?”

  If only he knew. Thus far wingless, Amabored crouched down with a stick to draw a rough diagram of the city in the dirt.

  “It’s like this,” he said. “A wizard acquaintance of mine is being held captive in a chapel near the Dragon Gate. A gang of half-imps is guarding him. During the evening watch, there are only two mongrels on guard while the rest are out looking for drink. If we can bust him out, he has a spell that will help us all get inside.”

  “A wizard? Why did they pinch him?” one of the men asked.

  “He got in a few days ago, and the hellspawn grabbed him for ransom,” Amabored said. “They think his family has money.”

  “If it only took a few half-imps to bring him in, then he’s not much of a wizard,” said Barlan.

  Amabored towered over the farmer and jabbed a finger at his chest. “If I vouch for him, then he’s vouched for. Got it?”

  To his credit, the farmer stood his ground against the tall barbarian. He regarded each of us in turn and then nodded. “So, we form a posse and fetch your wizard?”

  “We’ll bust out the wizard,” replied Amabored. “You need to confiscate every wagon, mule, and wheelbarrow you can find in Doomtown. Gather the kids, get them into whatever transport you can muster, and then line them up near the Chimera Gate, about a quarter-mile back and well away from the road. Do it piecemeal, throughout the day tomorrow, so as not to draw attention. Be ready by dusk. When the spell goes off, you’ll know it. The gate will open, and the guards will be occupied. Just get the kids into the city as quickly as you can.”

  “What happens if you fail, barbarian?” the farmer asked. “Whoever is taking our children will see what we’ve done. We’ll have angered them.”

  “Winter’s coming,” said Amabored. Still young and largely untested, he cut an imposing figure even then; with his chin jutting just so and arms akimbo, he looked like the leader he would one day become. “The food’s running out. The city fathers won’t let us in voluntarily. If this doesn’t work, your children are going to die one way or another. What choice do you have?”

  “Then godspeed, barbarian,” said Barlan. “I pray your plan succeeds.”

  “Nothing succeeds like success,” said Amabored.

  23

  The next evening, Amabored, Lithaine and I wound our way along the perimeter of the great city, the western Butcher’s Wall of Redhauke looming large over our right shoulders. I was wild with excitement and fear. Back in my own land, I had been afraid of neither man nor beast; I was afraid only of my father, who fell somewhere between the two. Out here in the world, following felt safer than leading. Amabored already seemed the most natural-born leader I had ever met, while Lithaine knew his own mind better than I could ever hope to know my own.

  Along the walls of the great city, tiny hamlets and villages had sprung up over the centuries like patches of weeds at the perimeter of a garden. In normal times, these villages housed servants and laborers who worked within the city walls by day but couldn’t afford rooms at night. Since the influx of refugees, however, the villages had become home to gangs of mercenaries hired by the city to police Doomtown and dispense their own form of rough justice. The village we now approached had become such a place: emptied of peasants, pitted with military tents, and lit by smoldering campfires. At the near end of the village square, a rough banner snapped against the wind—a cartoonish scrawl on a red field showing a yellow smiley-face with pointed ears and an arrow piercing the round head.

  We crouched behind an overturned hay wagon to scope out the scene. Lithaine peered at the banner through the spokes of a shattered wagon wheel. His eyes narrowed to black slits.

  “Bully Boyz!” he hissed. “You were holding out on me, Amabored.”

  “I didn’t want you leaping over here to start the killing before you had heard the plan.”

  During the Quest, I would introduce hundreds of Fourth Reich Bully Boyz to my axe-blade. Imp-spawn couldn’t get work in decent society, but they were always available for killing. Consequently, a dozen or so half-imp mercenary bands had risen to prominence as a cheap alternative to fielding a regular army. The Bully Boyz, Lithaine told me, were particularly fond of gutting elves. This lot had rampaged up from the Daggerlands and through the neighboring elvish kingdom of Helene, burning fields and putting the occasional elf village to the sword. Now they had joined the fray outside of Redhauke in the service of a city noble who carried a grudge against elves. The half-imp that Lithaine had skewered the night of our first meeting had, in fact, been a Bully Boy. Too bad for him.

  “I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of them,” said Lithaine.

  “In due time, honey-bunny,” said Amabored. “First, we need the wizard.”

  The chapel, Amabored told us, stood at the far end of the village beneath the shadow of the Butcher’s Wall. We needed only to sneak in, dispose of the two Boyz guarding the wizard, free him, and then use his spell, whatever that was, to blow down the Chimera Gate. If Barlan and his boys had done their jobs, they’d have the children lined up and ready. They’d need to get the kids inside before the guards rallied or the mob realized that the gates were open. The window between calm and chaos would be maddeningly short.

  We slunk like wharf rats around the squalid huts made of straw and mud or cow shit dried hard as cement. As we crept past the half-imp mercenaries sprawled drunk in the offal or drawing steel over a knucklebones dispute, the anger smoldered off Lithaine like steam from a bog. Creeping past the open maw of a deserted blacksmith shed, we slunk into a crouch behind a moldy woodpile.

  Across a sodden expanse of muddy alleyway, we spied the chapel. What we saw nearly sent Lithaine’s head spinning from its shoulders. There weren’t just two guards, as Amabored had promised, nor five, nor ten. It was a full platoon—fifteen half-imps gathered in a semicircle, cheering on a pair of starving dogs locked in a death-dance over what I could only guess was a human thighbone.

  Amabored grinned. “I was misinformed.”

  “If this wizard is so powerful,” I whispered, “then why doesn’t he blast himself out?”

  “Who said he was powerful?” asked Amabored. “I said he had a spell. He’s First Level, just an apprentice. That’ll be enough.”

  “We’re only First Level,” Lithaine hissed. “Those fuckers have eight health points apiece!”

  “You have enough arrows. Just don’t miss.”

  “From this range, I can put two into your eye socket.”

  “Not before I shove my sword up your asshole.”

  “Will you two put a sock in it?” I said. “Maybe we should just hide out until nightfall. They’ll have to thin out sometime.”

  “No dice,” said Amabored. “We need to spring the spellthrower in half a bell, or we’ll miss our chance. What we need—” and at this, he threw us a sidelong glance that
I would come to recognize as inevitably preceding a great bloodletting— “is a diversion.”

  The Adventurer’s Manual devotes a whole chapter to creating a successful diversion. Diversions require an alchemical blend of skill and luck; in your calculations, you must consider the number of your foe, their strength, the terrain, the weather, and the potential for collateral damage. If you have the means, one diversionary tactic has become de rigueur for all adventurers looking for the shortest distance to their goal: a big-ass fire. Start a big-ass fire, and like gnomes to a Chinese buffet, your foes will go running to it. We used the tactic so often we even had a code name for it: Old Reliable.

  At this moment, however, we were merely three greenhorn fighters who didn’t know dragon shit from Shinola. A fire was simply the only thing we could think of. Creeping into the smithy shack, we uncovered a still-smoldering forge, threw some wood chips on the coals, nursed them into a few infant flames, and then tossed in some pitch-soaked rags. When the flames snarled and crackled, we kicked the whole mess over into a stack of hay bales lining one wall. Soon the shack was ablaze.

  “Run for your lives!” cried Amabored. We scattered. The barbarian bolted for the tavern across from the chapel, Lithaine went long, and I ran behind an empty cottage. The arduous process of half-imp brain chemistry commenced, and the platoon of mercenaries began wandering over to stare slack-jawed at the blazing smithy. Bracing my back against the cottage wall, I peered around the corner. Three soldiers remained behind to guard the chapel—one apiece unless somebody got greedy.

  By prearranged signal, Amabored leaped out of the tavern door directly in front of the three soldiers.

  “Hey, zipperheads!” Amabored shouted. “Feast on this!”

  With that challenge, Amabored whirled around, bent over, and flipped up his loincloth. If there’s one thing that can send hellspawn into spittle-flinging apoplexy, it’s a full pair of white, pimpled, human glutei maximi mocking him to his face.

  The sight had the intended effect. Howling blood-oaths, the Bully Boyz raced forward, scimitars at the ready. One fell promptly into a tumbling heap with three of Lithaine’s arrows piercing his back. The other ran headlong into the wide arc of Amabored’s broadsword; the dogs would later find his head.

  That left one for me. As a teenager, I had slain scores of kobolds, which infested our island kingdom like termites. I had fought and killed wolves, bears, cougars, sharks, and even a were-boar—my father’s personal chef, whom I speared with a fireplace poker while Dad was out campaigning. Never had I purposefully confronted an enemy, however, with the intent of sliding steel into his belly before he did the same to me. The thought of slaying another intelligent being, of depriving him of all possible futures by violating his body with my sword, struck me momentarily stupid. We pass our lives both certain of our own end and paradoxically convinced that we’ll live forever. All the while, Death creeps ever closer behind, waiting to drown us in four inches of dirty water, explode a blood vessel in our brains, choke us on a chicken bone—or stop our hearts when we’re squatting on the fucking toilet. The noose is already around our necks the moment we leave the womb.

  Is it really this poor bastard’s fate to meet eternity at the end of my sword? I wondered in those few seconds. Is it mine to die at the end of his? Why were we trying to kill each other? What was in it for this guy, other than the chance to serve as an arbitrary obstacle between my goal and me?

  The half-imp saw me leap from behind the wall with knees knocking, and he charged. Can I take him? I wondered. I wore the girdle, but strength alone is of middling importance in a melee. More important is speed, and brains. I had a little of both, but not a lot of either. Then introspection ceased; instinct took over. Bellowing like a bull moose, I charged him with my sword whistling above my head.

  My foe raised his buckler to meet the blow. The girdle tightened around my waste. Power surged from my belly, flowed up my torso, and raced down my sword arm. My blade split the soldier’s buckler in two, then bit into flesh and bone. The half-imp’s shield arm flopped into the mud. He had only half a second to stare in horror at the blood spurting from the stump before my sword sliced through his breastplate and into his heart.

  Okay, so the girdle did tell the tale. What of it? The moment I realized my blow had been true, I understood my true purpose: To seek out evil and send it back to Hell. I have lain with all manner of women; I have taken every drug known to man, elf, and dwarf; and I have quenched my blade in the blood of the Violet Queen, who can turn your heart into cinders and your brain into ashes. None of it compared to the moment when my blade claimed its first hellspawn. It was better than any orgasm I’d ever have.

  The corpse fell back so abruptly that I lost my sword grip. I stood there dumbfounded, watching the hilt vibrate in the poor bastard’s chest. Amabored, his own bare chest dripping with his enemy’s blood, came up and clapped me on the back.

  “Fine sword work, my friend,” he said. “But don’t admire it so plainly—it looks like masturbation.”

  Lithaine approached, and the three of us high-tailed it into the chapel.

  24

  We found the wizard Redulfo asleep in a man-sized steel cage on the second floor. He made a poor first impression: drab gray robes, a slight and frumpy frame, a face you couldn’t pick out of a lineup. So average was he in every respect that we would soon dub him Redulfo the Redundant. His only distinguishing feature was a pair of round-rimmed spectacles, which were distinguished only because no one had invented them yet. Later, after he opened the wrong magic egg, became irrevocably evil, died, and was reincarnated into the body of a 300-year-old black dragon, he became quite distinguished indeed. From the moment I saw him snoring in that cell, however, he was just Redulfo—a good friend who was handy in a pinch.

  “Redulfo!” Amabored called, rattling the bars of the cage. “Wake your ass up!”

  The wizard’s eyes blinked open. He stretched. He stood. He took his time.

  “You paid the ransom?” he asked Amabored.

  “Yes. They asked for a pair of nickels and a chicken. Is there a key?”

  “It’s a Cage of Keeping,” Redulfo said, his eyes rotating dolefully around his cage. “Galerian has a wizard on the payroll. You need a charm of opening.”

  “Why don’t we drop the cage from the belfry?” asked Lithaine.

  “Let me try,” I said, approaching the cage. Redulfo stepped back, and I took a grip on two of the bars. Over time, I would learn that it was dangerous to pit two enchanted items directly against each other. Wizards are a vindictive lot, known to code booby traps into their spells that do something unpleasant when encountering a rival’s spellcraft. Nothing ruins your day faster than an enchanted item that explodes in your face.

  I called up as much power from the girdle as I dared. My heart filled with molten lead, my veins with lava, my head with hot steam. The cage bars burst into flame. There was a flash of light, smoke, and noise, and I found myself resting a good ten feet away, singed but alive.

  I had opened the bars a good six inches, but the wizard was still trapped inside. Amabored looked askance at me; he probably realized then that I was packing.

  “You’re wasting time,” said Redulfo, as I clambered to my feet. As if on cue, we heard a sudden chorus of bellowing half-imps down below.

  Lithaine bounded over to the shattered remains of a stained-glass window now open to the elements. “The cage will fit through here,” he said. “Let’s toss him out.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” I said.

  “Now, hold on a minute—” said Redulfo.

  We ignored him. Lithaine clambered out the window, down the protruding stones in the chapel wall, and leaped to the ground to stand watch. Then Amabored and I picked up the cage with Redulfo in it, got a running start, and heaved both cage and wizard through the window. The resulting crash was masked by the hubbub of the crowd that had gathered to watch the smithy burn. Amabored thrust his torso through the window.
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br />   “Is he free?” Amabored called down.

  “No,” we heard Lithaine call back, “but he is unconscious.”

  “Fucking hell!” Amabored looked back at me. “We’ve got ten minutes to wake him up and get him to the gate.”

  So, it was a bad idea to toss the wizard out the window. He lived, didn’t he? Next, Amabored and I both attempted a Lithaine-style gambol down the church wall. As we were not lithesome elves, we both fell on our asses. We untangled our limbs, and then the three of us made it to Redulfo’s battered cage just as the remainder of the half-imp platoon, having tired of staring at the blaze, wandered back to the chapel in time to see us stealing away with their charge.

  The platoon captain shouted in our direction. “Oy! What’s all this then?”

  “Grab the cage, you slack-jaws!” Lithaine shouted to Amabored and me.

  We grabbed the cage. As we ran with it, Redulfo’s dead weight careening from side to side like a marble on a roulette wheel, Lithaine leaped atop the cage roof. Balancing himself as if on the prow of a trireme dancing in the sea, he rained bowfire upon the charging mercenaries. Two of them dropped with arrows through their throats.

  “That’s giving them the fucking business!” Amabored cried. Lithaine continued to drop hellspawn until the remainder broke off the pursuit. We kept running toward the outer Shield Wall, the smithy fire receding behind the horizon, then dropped the cage with a jarring thud near the Chimera Gate now looming large before us. Lithaine hopped from the cage roof as Amabored and I bent over, wheezing.

  “What about the wizard?” I asked. “He’s in a coma!”

  “I’ll wake his ass up.” Amabored motioned with his chin toward the way we had come. “Look, we’re right on time.”