by Eric Ugland
When the first zombie arrived, I had no choice. I just backhanded the girl as my hand left the bag, and she tumbled back, stumbling into a fellow zombie before falling off the side of the open stairs.
Two zombies back into the horde below, but none dead. Er. Re-dead.
I reached back into the bag, and I thought of a pick.
Boing, there was a pick in my hand.
It wasn’t a pick in the mining sense. Rather, it was a military pick. Which was essentially a more refined warhammer with a big point. On its opposite side was a small hammer head.
As the next zombie reached me, a young boy — or more precisely, a previously young boy — I swung the pick overhead, and as soon as it crushed the skull, the zombie dropped. Dead again. I shook my head as I looked across the throng.
Mister White Robes still stood across the room, looking smug.
I gave him a jaunty salute, twirled the pick around my arm, and then I got into the swing of things.
The zombies were not a great choice for, well, much of anything. They had little in the way of strength, dexterity, or intelligence, and nothing in the way of constitution. I carved my way through the throng, inadvertently covering myself in a very disgusting coating of blackish gore. It was gross. I got a few scratches, but that was the extent of it, they just didn’t have the strength to do much of anything.
Five minutes of high-intensity death-ercise and the zombies were down. Not all re-dead — some were still groaning and pulling themselves towards me — but they were, in essence, out for the count.
White Robes was gone.
I stepped up to the door, and kicked it in, going through into an old-style lab of sorts. I saw alchemical agents and reagents, beakers and glass tubing curling up around everywhere. A large bookcase was overflowing with books. A work table was set up along one wall, where there were plenty of body parts, some stuff that looked like it glowed, and an open book with a quill to one side.
Given how everything in the place looked, I could only assume this was some wizard’s lair. That meant the books were valuable. Perhaps, and this was wild conjecture on my part, perhaps they were even spell books. Spell books were seriously valuable. Like, tons of money valuable. Though in my current financial straights, they weren’t super useful. I needed more liquidity, not more goods to sell when I had no real means to sell them. Still. Waste not want not.
I put all the books into the bag. And any of the jars that seemed like they’d remain sealed. And all the empty jars. And excess glassware. And the journal. As well as the quill — what’s a journal worth if you can’t write in it? And then I put the bookshelf and the chair and all the furniture in, except the worktable and the body parts. Trust me, I thought about that as well, but I figured, at some point, I had to get all the crap out of the bag, and there’s no way slightly rotted body parts were going to make that mess any easier to handle.
There was only one way to go, so I went through the door. Again, someone had tried to lock it, but wooden doors weren’t exactly going to stand in my way. A swift kick, and the door crashed in.
I saw a bright blue flash. Something hit me in the chest, and everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I came to barely a second later, flying through the air until I smashed into the far wall, all the way above the door.
It hurt.
I smelled burned flesh, and I looked down to see my ruined torso. Some of my hair was on fire.
The figure in white appeared in the doorway, smug look plastered on his face.
He started speaking, “Now you know the power I com—”
I stood up and I brushed myself off.
“No,” the figure in white said. “No, you cannot—”
I crossed the room in a heartbeat, and lashed out with my fist, hard as I could putting all my strength behind my punch. I felt a hard crunch, and the man crumpled to the ground.
Blood poured from his face, but ragged breaths came out of him, so I got some rope out of my bag and I tied the man up, then laid him on his side. Wouldn’t want him to choke on his own blood. It made me curious: if he choked on blood and died, would I get the XP for that kill?
The room I’d been attacked in had scorch marks all over it, and the wooden door still smoldered. The place was small, almost like a waiting room of sorts. There were two doors I could go through, both wooden. Both significantly nicer than the doors I’d encountered so far. A plush chair was in one corner of the room, with a small end table to the left and a high candle burning gently to the right. A small stool sat next to the chair.
I chose the door on the left, because why not? It was not locked, but as I pulled it open, I realized that it didn’t open in the normal way, notably because of how incredibly thick the thing was. At least a foot, and solid wood. The hinges were huge, and silent. I stepped into a very quiet room. I was at the top of a staircase, and, down below, a naked woman relaxed in a bath. A huge bath, almost like a Japanese soaker-style, but instead of hot water, this was full of blood.
The woman reached her hand up, languid, and grabbed a small cord. She pulled gently, and I heard the ringing of a bell.
I gave a slight smile, involuntary, and I walked down the stairs as delicately as I was able in the armor I wore.
Stopping next to the bath, I watched the woman for a moment. She was beautiful, if severe, and I had to admit, she had an incredibly youthful body. Everything high and tight and taut.
“I can hear you breathing, Cade,” she said, her eyes remaining closed. “I thought we spoke about your leering.”
“He did seem like a bit of a lech,” I replied.
Her eyes popped open immediately, and she did her best to cover up while scrambling out of the tub at the same time.
“What are you doing here? Who are you? Where are my guards, my servants? GUARDS!?!? You will perish most grievously! GUARDS!”
“Yeah,” I said, putting a foot up on the edge of the tub and striking what I thought was a rakish pose, “your servants are hiding, your guards have fled, and all those zombies you have, well, they’re dead. Again.”
“Who—“
“Let’s save that for later,” I said. “Right now, I’d like to have a little chat with you.”
“Are you a brigand?”
“Why is that what people always think of me? Is it the hair?”
“You have broken into my place of residence and threaten me—”
“Mainly because you’re killing little kids. That’s kind of the crux of the matter here, lady. I’m not here to steal from you. Though, you know, I might need to liberate a little something something from—”
“You will not get away with this.”
“What is it you think I’m getting away with? Justice?”
She settled on the edge of the bath and looked me up and down. She looked pretty disgusting, what with being covered in blood. Especially in her hair. It was just, well, foul. Especially because it was coagulating in places.
“You, brigand, are clearly here to extort gold from me. And had you come through normal channels, perhaps I might have considered adding you to my payroll. Obviously you have certain skills. Yet, you cannot have knowledge of who I really am. Otherwise you would not have been quite so foolish as to come here and confront me. You do not know who—”
“Wait,” I said, holding my hand up in her face as impolitely as I could possibly make it, “are you about to tell me about the master?”
“The master? No. He is not my master. He is my lover.”
“Okay, not sure who HE is, but I’m pretty sure he’s gross.”
“He is glorious.”
“Has he seen you like this? Because if he still loves you when you look like this, you found a keeper.”
“You are insolent.”
“Can’t say that I know 100% what that means, but I’ll agree with you on principle.”
“And a fool.”
“That is a common refrain here. Fool and brigand. Thing is
, I’m not exactly either. But I am kinda impatient, so, can we go?”
“Go? Where do you—”
“Yeah, tired of this.”
I grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up onto my shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
“Unhand me!” she screeched.
“Nope,” I said, and I started back through the house.
“I will destroy everything you value,” she shrieked. “Your family is dead. Your mother, dead. Father, dead. I will—”
“Lady, someone beat you to all that already. Only thing I care about is my beard, and your pet mage burnt the shit out of it today. And after it got melted from that wyrm gut acid, and burned by the fire in the bath, slimed by the mimics in the dungeon, and cut by a hundred people swinging blades at me, I’m just about ready to shave the fucker off and start over.”
That shut her up. It’s also possible she was just confused by what I’d said.
The dude in the white robe, ostensibly Cade, had yet to wake up, but had made quite the bloody mess on the floor.
“Want to bathe in his blood?” I asked over my other shoulder, getting a good look at the lady’s butt.
She didn’t choose to answer, so I chose to take it as a yes, and I hoisted Cade up on top of the woman. She started shrieking again. I figured I could have put Cade on the other shoulder, but then I wouldn’t have any hands free for punching or defending myself.
While walking through the gore-strewn zombie room, I noticed I’d left more than a few moving around. For giggles, I grabbed one as I passed by, one that had no arms and only a smidgen of upper torso remaining. It snapped at me while it swung back and forth from my fist by her hair. I felt bad about things. I didn’t like having to have killed them. Rekilled.
“Question,” I said, “while you’re a captive audience, what do you say when you kill a zombie? I mean, it’s already dead? Destroy? I destroyed the zombie? Not quite as evocative a phrase.”
She didn’t say anything, perhaps because she was thinking, but perhaps she didn’t really care. Either way, I thought she was being rather impolite.
Chapter Thirty
A mass of people were waiting for me in front of the mansion. Quite a diverse collection really. The largest group was the city guard, all the guards from the mansion, and a small number of Legionnaires and one Imperial Viceroy.
“What is the meaning of this?” the dude at the front of the city guards snapped out. He was a shorter man with a paunch, something that made his armor look hilarious because it had to go out and around his gut. He had a vile look on his face, a mix of smugness and rage.
I stopped where I stood as several crossbows were up and aimed at me, and I set the two living detainees on the ground.
Lady Von Boek stood up immediately.
“I demand you kill this villain,” she shouted, pointing at me. “He has assaulted me and—”
There was a twang, and a bolt shot across the empty space right at me. Without even thinking about it, my hand spun in a wax-off motion, knocking the bolt out of the air.
“Hold your fire!” Léon shouted.
The City Guard commander gave a dirty look at the soldier who’d fired. The soldier looked away.
“Look at what he has done to me!” Von Boek shouted.
“Look at what she has done,” I snapped, and tossed the torso on the perfectly manicured lawn in front of me. The jaw on the thing worked back and forth, almost as if it was trying to pull itself forward with its teeth.
“UNDEAD!” came the cry from the guard, and all the bolts were launched at once, whistling through the air and puncturing the torso and the head. They destroyed the zombie. (I suppose it sounds better in context.)
I pointed at Cade.
“That’s the guy who made these monsters,” I said. “And this crazy lady bathes in the blood of children. Which, you know, is all over her. And if you want to see all the bodies, most of them are inside the house.”
“This is an outrage,” the city guard commander said. “These are nothing but outrageous lies—”
“Are you calling me a liar, you pudgy motherfucker?” I said with a little more force than I had intended, taking a step towards Paunch.
The house guards took a step back as the city guards pulled some weapons.
“Kill him,” Von Boek yelled. “Kill him and earn my favor!”
Crossbow bolts were loosed in my direction, and though I tried that wax-on/wax-off thing, more than one punched through my meager defenses.
I roared with rage and the city guard responded by charging me, en masse. Though it was clear each man was actually out for themselves, everyone trying to get the killing blow in order to get that juicy Von Boek favor.
The first man to step up swung wild, and it was an easy dodge. I snapped a jab out, and the man’s head spun around as he dropped. If boxing was a thing in Glaton, I’d make a killing.
I slipped my toes under the man’s sword and kicked it up, grabbing it out of the air just in time to parry an oncoming blow. The swords were coming at me fast and furious, and it took every ounce of the training I’d received from Cleeve and company to keep the worst cuts from landing. Even still, my upper body was a mess of minor wounds.
Then there was the incredibly loud sound of shields smashing against the ground, and the Legion advanced. There weren’t a ton of them, but unlike the city guard, they operated as a unit, walking forward together behind their huge shields, shoving the city guard to the side until the Legion surrounded me.
I was breathing hard while sweat and blood fairly poured off me.
Léon looked at me, but he didn’t smile. He just gave me a grim nod.
Lady von Boek and Cade the white mage were being held by Legionnaires in a center of a shield wall circle. Von Boek had a Legion cloak around her in a modicum of modesty, and Cade’s bindings had been relaxed somewhat.
“Did you make it to the mage in time?” I asked.
“It is why I am here and you are living,” Léon replied. “I saw the second child be slaughtered for that vile fiend. I am sorry we could not stop this before now, but we are here to arrest this monster and escort you from the city, though I fear you might not survive your—”
“From the city?”
“For your safety, but it appears we are too late.”
Léon stared at the bolts sticking out of my body.
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “I’m fine.”
“There is no way you are fine—”
I started pulling out the bolts with a slight grunt as each one pulled a little extra of me with it, and I dropped each to the ground.
“This is a matter for the city guard!” yelled the fat commander on the outside of the circle.
Léon grimaced at me, and shook his head.
“On me,” Léon said, and started walking out of the estate.
The Legion matched Léon’s pace, and the shield wall remained in place until we were in the street, and that’s where we stopped. I noticed that the Legion outside the gates filled the streets. All the shields slammed on the street, and the sound was deafening.
“This is the Empire of Glaton,” Léon said loudly, stepping through the Legion lines until he was face to face with the City Guard commander. “And I am the voice of the Emperor in this city. I am tasked with keeping this city to the laws the Empire has made, and you have broken them.”
“Wait—” the commander said.
“Quiet,” Léon interrupted. “You are relieved of duty, Commander Dunlevy.”
Legionnaires stepped forward and grabbed the blustering commander.
“You cannot—” the commander started.
“Silence him,” Léon snapped.
One of the Legionnaires back handed the commander. It did the job. Nothing quite like a metal gauntlet to the face to make the point of not talking.
Cade looked down at his feet, while Lady Von Boek looked around, eyes wide as if she wasn’t quite able to believe what was happening around her.
He walked away to chat with a member of the Legion, someone who had more impressive armor than the rest, so I assumed was the leader of the group. The two men spoke quietly for a few moments. Then there was a split — a small grouping of the Legion went with Léon and me, while the rest went with Von Boek, Cade, and the commander elsewhere.
“Do you need us to get you a healing potion?” Léon asked, looking over me.
“Nah,” I said, showing off my un-punctured torso. “Totally fine by now.”
He peered at me, looking for any marks, but, finding none, he just gave a slight nod in my direction.
“Impressive.”
“Just me.”
“We must go quickly,” he said, starting to walk. I noticed the Legion looking around, very alert. “I am afraid you have made quite a mess of things.”
“Me?” I asked. “I just stopped a child killer from—”
“Be as that may, she is a very influential person in the city. Her gold goes a long way in keeping the city guard in their cups.”
“So I’m the asshole here?”
“The truth, when it spreads, will quell their, uh, distaste of you.”
“Didn’t you say the whole city wants to kill me. Distaste might be a bit weak to describe things.”
“There is some truth to that.”
“What about the woman who—”
“Rebecca and her husband are being escorted from the city as well. I cannot say for sure that anyone knew it was her who reported Lady Von Boek, but I also cannot say their identity is not known—”
“They’re coming with me?”
“There is little recourse for me.”
“I thought you were the voice of the Emperor—”
“The Legion is outnumbered by the city guard three to one, and though I would be willing to bet those odds are still in favor of the Legion, they cannot be everywhere at once.”