by Ember Lane
Merl doubted that was possible. He didn’t have a door in his bonce that he knew of, and even if he did the pair of them wouldn’t fit anyhow.
“Now, dear,” Desmelda said, switching her focus onto Elidier. “What does the future hold with you?”
Elidier fluttered down and perched on Merl’s shoulder. “I must forge a new agreement with the Firthingers. One that will see us free. Now that Merl has killed the troll, we will no longer cower—we will fly free.”
“And…” She waved her had at Mushroom. “That?”
“Well,” Frank said. “It can’t stay here. We either kill it or take it with us.”
Merl sprang up and raced over. He stood in front of Mushroom. “You ain’t killin’ it. It saved me from the spider and the troll.
“Then it has to come with us,” Frank said.
Merl smiled from ear to ear. They were seven now, and seven was a better number than six. He had no idea what lay in store for them, but he knew it was evil. Dark Ones, Daemon Mercer, and other challenges his over their horizon. No, seven sounded far better than six.
Even if the seventh is a mushroom, he thought.
“Mushroom,” he said. “We shall call it Mushroom.”
25
Spray splattered them in washes of salty water. Merl hunched down in the back of the rowboat as Billy fought against the incoming tide. Rain clouds gathered overhead, stifling the sun and bringing an early dusk. Everything was brushed with gray. Nothing could hold any other pigment.
“Over, Billy, over!” Frank cried, his words battered by the wind and swept away upstream. “Over, else we’ll be dragged out t’sea.”
Billy growled some obscenity or the other at Frank, but his words vanished too.
Gloomy Joe squeezed himself into the boat’s stern. Mushroom angled its cap over the miserable dog, sheltering it from the worst of the blinding spray. Desmelda sat hunched over, her cloak’s hood drawn down. Frank carried on gesturing, urging Billy into a reed-edged inlet. Billy fought the powerful current, and they finally found respite from the howling wind.
Billy eased his back into a curve as he slumped forward. He crouched, his hands on his sides, while he gulped urgent breaths. Frank helped him up, quickly swapping places with him and rowing them up the creek.
Merl had seen a lot of things in the recent days, but none so dour as the approach to Erreden. He’d yet to see the city but held out little hope that it was anything but as soulless as its bleak surroundings. Frank steered the boat, beaching it on reed-dotted mudflats. Billy groaned and forced himself up. He had the look of a man at the ends of his tethers, but a man that knew he carried responsibility. Merl wondered when things had changed. He wondered when Erreden had become another hurdle instead of a salvation, a wonder, or an adventure.
Billy half-heartedly sprang from the boat’s bow, clawing at a grassy shelf and pulling himself up. He lay there for a few taps before forcing himself up into a crouch and offering his hand to Desmelda. One by one, they disembarked, leaving the boat behind.
Four cramped days on the vessel had removed any enjoyment from the journey. Merl stretched his legs. Mushroom stretched its stalk, and Gloomy Joe wagged his tail as he sniffed at the long, reedy grass. The riverbank was flat and bland. It was a soulless place where the wind gusted, snapping at your skin and sapping your will.
Erreden revealed itself. It sat across the flat plains, the gray of its city wall giving little away. A black spire reached up to the sky. A tower surpassed its height, both reaching and leaning at the same time. Merl tried to imagine how large it was. He attempted to put it into context and reckoned it would stretch from one end of Three Face Valley to the next.
“That’s the port one end!” Frank shouted over the wind, and then pointed up at a hill to his left. “That’s the castle.” Frank set off, stomping through the mudflats. “We’ve got to get off these flats before the tide comes in.”
“How long?” Desmelda asked.
Frank shrugged.
“Fantastic,” she said, pulled her hood even farther over her head.
They headed away from the river and toward a slight rise of dunes that looked like they might provide shelter from the gusting wind. Merl turned to check up on Gloomy, and jumped back as Mushroom, fangs dripping, loomed large over him.
Getting used to Mushroom was proving harder than Merl had originally thought. Like Quaiyl, Mushroom seemed to be everywhere Merl turned. Admittedly, they had been on a cramped rowboat so it wasn’t exactly Mushroom’s fault, but Merl was constantly jumping out of his skin as he’d turn, and Mushroom would just be there.
His life had taken a few strange turns of late, not least the strange sensations he’d been feeling. Something had awoken in him. He was sure of it. It was like his stomach thought he was constantly on the verge of a great fall, like he was teetering on the edge of the great drop to Bucket Lake.
Frank kept tugging at his consciousness, yet he knew it wasn’t Frank. Something inside of Frank called out to him. Ever since the strange feeling he’d encountered in the Firthing Village, it had been there, teasing him with its gentle pulls. Merl knew it wasn’t Frank.
It was the Staff of Morrison White.
The staff was fed up with being hidden away. It wanted to be wielded, for its force to be used. Frank, though, was adamant he couldn’t tap into its power. Merl was beginning to think he was actually more worried about taming it. He suspected Frank didn’t trust his wizarding prowess and was waiting to get back to Quintz so he could study the staff alongside his fellow wizards.
He’d also been drawn to several places during their trip downriver. A ruined castle had nearly pulled him out of the boat. A tributary had sucked at his attention. The summit of a close mountain had invited him into its belly. He’d tried to get his head around what Desmelda was saying about him, and how he wasn’t Merl—and it was clear Frank agreed with her. Merl, on the other hand, was quite sure he was Merl, and as such, he thought they were talking rubbish.
“Over there,” Merl said, catching up with Frank and tugging at his cloak.
“Over there what?”
“There’s something,” Merl said.
“Important?” Frank asked, but Merl only shrugged.
It was just another feeling, and he couldn’t quite explain it. He’d accepted he was drawn to certain places. But it wasn’t like a bee being drawn to a flower, or a bear to its honey—he was drawn with a mix of immense anticipation combined with overarching fear. Merl’s instinct was to run away from danger, but this new sense inside him wanted to surge straight toward it.
It didn’t seem like the type of feeling he’d have, but something had changed within him, and it had all started when he’d finished the troll off and the peculiar sensation had rippled through his gut. It was like he was a slightly better Merl than he had been before. He felt stronger. His thinking was much clearer. He was much more… bendy, and he plain felt great. He was a new, improved Merl, and he was beginning to question things the old Merl never would have.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Merl said, and he strode off toward it.
Billy raced up beside him. “What, Merl?”
“Somethin’ up there, Billy, an’ I don’t know what.”
Frank pulled Merl back. “Don’t you remember? Do you forget the dreadnail so easily? Daemon Mercer wants you dead, and yet you run to where his lines might be.”
Merl glared up at Frank. “It’s the only way to find out what’s in my bonce, Frank,” and as Merl said it, he realized he’d accepted there was something going on. Rather than tell him no, Frank began nodding.
“As may be, Merl, but we can’t have you putting yourself in danger.”
“We can’t all be afraid to find out the truth!” Merl spat, and in doing so, surprised himself.
“What does that mean?” Frank grabbed Merl, spinning him around, but Merl immediately shrugged him off.
For just the tiniest of moments, Merl wanted to back down, but then his spine straighte
ned, and his voice only trembled a little. “Why don’t you use the staff? Why don’t you even look at it? We climbed a mountain to get it, yet you just hide it away.”
Frank’s expression crowded with pain. Merl reached toward him, wishing his words had been gathered up by the wind and carried far away. Frank took a step back. It looked like thunder was brewing between his ears.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped, but Merl could tell he was defeated. Frank kicked at the spongy dirt. “You can’t know.”
“I do know.” Defiance rippled through Merl. But even as the clouds of his frustration gathered, his storm petered out. He could never be that angry with Frank. It just wasn’t possible. “I do know, Frank, because every day something new is shoved in front of me, or bursts out of me, and I have to deal with it. Sure, y’all help me, but I still have to stop myself runnin’ away. You got the Staff of Morrison White, alright, but you’re too scared to find out if it’ll help us. What the heck good is that?”
Frank produced the staff. “This, Merl? This what’s upsetting you?”
Merl shuffled on his feet, averting his eyes. He turned away, his face searching out the gusting wind. “That’s just a stick, Frank. Stick never done no one no harm. That’s my point. We need t’make it into a spear before the wolves start runnin’ toward us, because if we wait, we might find we’re up ‘n dead before we’ve sharpened the bloody thing.”
“What if the spear turns and plunges into my gut?”
Merl cocked his head. His eye twitched. “Then you gone and thrown it wrong, Frank. Now, can we go see what my strange feeling’s all about?”
“Three days without any battles, and you’re chomping at the bit. You’ve got the taste for excitement, Merl. You’re getting to be a true ‘venturer.”
“If you say so, Frank,” Merl said, as proud as a peacock. “If you say so,”
Frank often said things that made no sense, at least on the surface, and Merl was convinced he’d just spouted a load of rubbish. Frank paused. Merl wondered if he was going to get a beating, but then Frank smiled. The staff of Morrison White vanished.
“You know, Merl, you keep growing those brains and you’re going to need a bigger bonce. I’ll start on the staff as soon as we stop for the night. Deal?”
“Deal,” Merl said.
“Merl!” Billy exclaimed. “You just out-‘telligented someone with ‘telligence. Never saw that comin’.”
“Me either, Billy,” Merl told his friend, and he finally let a smile crawl onto his face.
Frank smiled too. Desmelda joined them in the grinning. Mushroom hopped over, and Quaiyl loped up silently.
“It’s not like I have to do it on my own, eh, Merl,” Frank said. “I’ll have you by my side.”
Merl’s chest swelled until it matched his grin.
They headed the source of his feeling, which in itself, Merl thought, was an odd thing to do. Nearing what Merl had previously thought dunes, he soon realized they were creases in a long, grass-coated bank. Frank forged into one, climbing its fold and coming out on top. “This place?” he asked.
Merl reached the crease’s top and looked about. The odd feeling in his gut grew. It was like a sense of anticipation, not Merl’s, but the land’s. The land was eager for Merl to discover its secret. “It’s here somewhere,” he said, and began walking around.
He stumbled across a lumber-and-gravel road that stretched along the riverbank. Over it, the ground continued to rise and was dotted with knotted copses and bursts of brambles. The strange feeling wallowing in the pit of his stomach intensified, but now that he was on top of its source nothing physical appeared untoward, apart from a line protruding stone, which he nearly tripped over. Once he’d seen it, more lines became apparent.
“Foundations,” Frank said, as if reading Merl’s mind. “Must have been a waystation, tavern, perhaps even an excise point, here at some time or the other.”
“What happened to the building?” Merl asked but he knew full well. If a building ever became derelict in Morgan Mount, then its stone was soon stolen to use on other buildings. Stealing was easier that quarrying.
“Looks bleak,” Desmelda said. “Let’s find somewhere sheltered to put up the hut. It’s time to call it a day.”
As she said it, Gloomy Joe’s hackles rose. He bared his teeth and began to growl.
“What is it, Gloomy?” Merl crouched down beside the dune dog.
Gloomy backed away. He slipped from Merl’s grasp, and Merl followed the dune dog’s wide-eyed stare. A skeletal hand reached out of the mud in the center of the foundations. Merl’s morbid fascination froze him to his spot as another clawed its way out of the ground, scraping furrows in the soil. The ground then sort of popped upward and a skull appeared.
“Oh my good god,” said Billy, then he charged forward, troll hammer primed, and brought it straight down on the bony noggin. He turned. A huge grin graced his face. “There, that weren’t all that, were it?”
As he said it, another bony hand reached up and snatched his foot away, upending him. Billy went down with a thud and a lung-emptying bellow. The ground boiled as more hands reached up, grabbing and clawing at him. Five, ten, then twenty skeletons broke free of their graves before Merl fully comprehended his friend’s peril.
Words tumbled through Merl’s mind.
A soft voice whispered its instruction.
“You have entered Smuggler’s Inn. Amy Wainwright, long suffering owner of this grimmest of establishments, was killed by the Johnson Gang and buried by the smoke house. Amy wants her revenge but has little to offer in the way of recompense. Will you avenge poor Amy, kill all the gang, and place their heads on her grave that she might rest; Y/N?”
Billy screamed. Merl accepted the quest with a twisted grin.
“Well, Merl?” Frank asked.
Merl pointed. “Kill them all. Break their bloody bones.”
He ran to Billy, who’d lost his grip on his troll hammer and was fighting to stop himself being dragged under the mud. Merl hacked at the reaching arms with his firestone axe. Its fearsome head shattering them into exploding shards. More clawing fingers kept reaching up from the heaving ground. Merl screamed at Quaiyl to drag Billy away. Bony hands grabbed at Merl’s ankles. He jerked backward away from the foundations and onto firm ground. Quaiyl pulled at Billy, tearing him free and sliding him out. The bones of the Johnson Gang rose up, and their skeletons marched forward. Each now had a curved cutlass in hand, and Merl had no doubt that if they had been able to, they’d have murder in their eyes.
“They only rise inside the foundation line!” Frank shouted as the first of them advanced.
Merl ground his teeth, ready to strike. He set his stance and lifted the firestone ax, soon swinging it with cold determination. Quaiyl danced in the heaving center as if the ever-changing ground meant nothing to him. The construct tossed Billy his hammer while ducking and diving around the swiping cutlasses. The Johnson Gang attacked, streaming from the spawning ground. Cold, silent, horror rippled through Merl as the skeletons surged forward in silent battle, but soon the ring of metal on metal, of grunts, and labored breath filled the air as Frank, Merl, and Billy fought back. Desmelda sent forth her crimson magic, sprouting vines and brambles that tripped and bound the Johnson Gang. Billy let out a feral growl, racing back in and clobbering skeletons, easily crushing them to bones but getting tangled and trapped by their sheer number. Merl saw panic color Billy as his bravado fled. Frank yelled a great battle cry, swung Scaramanza with fearsome power and forged a furrow through the massed skeletons toward the stranded Billy.
But the Johnson Gang kept rising, their number without end. Quaiyl started twisting heads, the construct’s cold efficiency matching their bony enemy. Gloomy Joe snapped and pulled, but Mushroom merely looked on. The skeletons were already drained dry. There was nothing there for the fungus. Frank finally reached Billy and pulled him free.
“Sever their spines!” Merl shouted. “Lop the
ir noggins off.” His body swarmed with adrenaline. He narrowed his eyes, determination now his greatest ally.
No matter how hard Merl and the others fought, the Johnson Gang just kept coming at them. Merl backed away under a flurry of cutlass blows. Frank went down on one knee, and Billy was tiring fast. Gloomy Joe yelped and scrambled backwards as three skeletons lurched for him. Desmelda sent a punch of crimson magic at the advancing army, but the blast just made them stutter, nothing else.
Mushroom began bouncing up and down on its stalk, as if it was warming up. Just as the party was about to be over run, and just as Merl gave up hope of every seeing the end to the fighting bones. Mushroom bounced forward. It sprang once, twice, three times, and then launched himself at the gang like a fungal battering ram. With its cap dipped forward, Mushroom powered through with one almighty hop. It smashed into the first of the Johnson Gang, shattering him and sending bony shrapnel through the air that demolished those close to it. Mushroom continued forward, knocking all of them out of its way, and when its momentum began to ebb, it dropped its stalk to the ground and sprang forward again.
Frank surged toward the channel behind Mushroom and rallied Merl and Billy to join him. They all crashed in, hacking, slicing, and smashing the Johnson Gang to smithereens. Seeing what was happening, Desmelda focused her magic either side of the ruin’s boundaries. A thorny wall rose up, hemming the vanquished skeletons in. Billy crushed all, while Merl started throwing the skulls out.
“Don’t smash the skulls, Billy!”
Mushroom broke free of the skeletons, but immediately sprang back into action and began stomping the bones to ash with its stalk until all was naught but powder. Frank went down on one knee again, but this time it was to grab a welcome breath. Merl stacked the skulls up outside of the foundations, and then went back and retrieved his axe.
“What yer doin’ that fer?” Billy asked.
“Part of the quest, innit,” Merl replied, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what the rest of the quest was. He knew he had to get the skulls and put them somewhere but—