Four Beheadings and a Funeral

by Ugland, Eric

  Yuri nodded, like that made sense.

  The mancer snorted, but held in whatever else he might have been about to say.

  “Yes, be that as it may,” the mancer continued, “I have heard that your lord is tolerant of practitioners of the arcane arts.”

  “That might be true.”

  “Then you might be willing to take me to your lord and ask if I might be of service to his court.”

  “Aren’t you under contract or something here?” I asked.

  “I’m an Imperial citizen, faux-Northwoods. I’m a mancer of the Empire, I go where the Empire wants me. But a man like you, or your lord, would have no trouble pulling the strings to get me out of Osterstadt and into your holding.”

  “If I do that,” I said slowly, “you’ll help us on this little hunting expedition?”

  He frowned. “I don’t like to admit this, but I probably would regardless. I hate vampires. All creatures of the darkness, really. But I am curious about these monsters. I would prefer to keep at least one corpse for study. If possible.”

  “So you want to move to Coggeshall and study vampires.”

  “Like most of my kind,” the man corrected, “I want to study everything.”

  I looked over to Yuri. “What do you think?”

  “I think we are too short on time to wonder about taking on help,” he replied. “Especially if it is someone who might have a way to assist us with the arcane.”

  “I agree,” I said. “Welcome to the party, uh, what’s your name?”

  “Arno Carlyle,” he said. “At your service, my lor—”

  “Let’s just use my other name out loud, eh?” I interrupted to say.

  He smiled, nodded, and put his finger to his nose. “Now,” he said, “vampires and sausages.”

  “Preferably the latter than the former,” I said. “If you don’t mind.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  The four of us headed west towards the Emerald Sea. I hadn’t brought Bear out of hiding, and I wasn’t exactly sure why not. If I trusted the two men with fighting the vampires, I should probably be willing to let them know all my secrets at play. But there was something about spilling the beans that went just against who I was. So Bear continued to ride on my shoulder, invisible.

  We didn’t find the woman lady who’d served me initially, but we did find another diegplysa cart. And they were nearly as good. Once stuffed, I did the kind of awesome touristy thing, and took Yuri up to see the Emerald Sea.

  He had heard about it, being that it was one of the wonders of the world here. But even knowing what he was about to see, and even seeing it in darkness, the lion man was awed. He just stared out at the trees, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “It is hard to comprehend what we see there,” Arno said softly.

  “Why is it here?” I asked. “I mean, is there anything else like it in the world?”

  “There may be things that are similar in scope, but there is no other forest like it. At least, none that I know of.”

  “Ask him about the necropoli of Tïbeutō,” whispered a small brownie in my ear.

  “Um, what about the necropoli of Tïbeutō?” I asked.

  He titled his head at me. “I would not expect you to know about that. Nor that I would know about it.”

  “What is it?”

  “They are dead-lands to the east. Across the sea and south of the Shattered Lands…” his words just sort of drifted off while his eyes took on a thousand-yard stare.

  “Is there,” I said, almost afraid to break his trance, “I mean, what’s there?”

  He shook his head, and looked at me.

  “The dead are there.”

  “Like, and I don’t mean to sound as stupid as I am, but if I died here, would I end up over there?”

  He shook his head with a wry smile. “It is not that land of the dead. It is not the underworld, nor the pathway to the realm of the dead. No, it is a land of the dead. Or the undead. How it formed is a myth wrapped in a legend, but I have seen its shores, heard the screams of the creatures that prowl its dead forests, and I know it exists.”

  “You went there?”

  “I went near there. Near enough to know I would never have the power to step foot on those lands. Even standing on board a ship, surrounded by Imperial Marines, I was shivering in terror. And that was before the winds shifted shoreward, and the dead smelled we few living. Then it was a horror I hope I will never experience again.”

  Yuri had overcome his tourist moment, and was listening intently at Arno.

  “I would see these dead-lands before I die,” Yuri said.

  “I hope you do not get your wish,” Arno said.

  “But what’s there?” I asked. “Vampires?”

  “Perhaps,” he said. He shook his head, and then grabbed at his eyebrow, yanking a hair out. He yelped in pain, and then smiled. “Back.”

  “Wha—” I started to ask, but he put his hand up.

  “Would you rather ask about the quirks of an old man or find a few vampires?”

  I looked at Yuri.

  “Vampires?” I asked.

  “Vampires,” Yuri agreed with a nod.

  “Vampires,” I said to Arno.

  “Vampires,” he repeated with a smile.

  And then we stood there. I think we all had the idea that some sort of action would happen right then. I mean, we’d just had a rousing agreement that we were ready to fight, hunt, and kill the vampire menace of Osterstadt.

  But it was abundantly and immediately clear that we had no idea of our first step.

  “Okay,” I said, deciding it was going to have to be me to break the awkward silence. “I think I’m the low man on the totem pole, because I don’t really know anything about vampires. Or at least what I thought I knew doesn’t seem to apply in this case.”

  Yuri looked over at Arno, and Arno looked at Yuri.

  “You’re the monster hunter,” Arno said.

  “Okay,” Yuri said, nodding, “but if you know something I do not—”

  “I’ll interrupt.”

  “Vampires. They are one of the earliest races, at least according to—”

  “Are we starting there?” Arno asked. “Going back to prime races?”

  “I don’t know the prime races,” I said. “Is it important?”

  “You don’t seem to have much of an education,” Arno said, “considering your position.”

  “Hey man,” I replied, “I don’t have much of an education regardless of position.”

  That got a smile from Arno, and a confused look from Yuri. I knew I should just tell him that I was the duke, but I didn’t want to ruin the fun. There was something refreshing about having someone around who wasn’t disappointed that I was important. I felt like an equal with him, and that was a feeling that was sorely lacking in my current life.

  “We can have a history lesson later, boys,” Arno said, “let’s focus on what we do to kill the vampires.”

  “Beheading seems to work well enough,” I said. “I think finding them is the bigger issue.”

  “There are plenty of ways to find them,” Yuri said. “The problem is finding them in time. Arno, do you have any spells to locate vampires?”

  “I only have a particularly large one, and I don’t think it will work the way we want it to,” Arno said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “When I use it, it will send a red thread up into the sky above every vampire in a one-mile radius.”

  “Really? That seems close to perfect.”

  “But every vampire will see as well. And since it only remains in place for two minutes, I doubt that will be enough time to get them all.”

  “Then they’ll just go into hiding or set up an ambush,” Yuri said.

  “They will also see where I am, and know that I am one of the ones hunting them.”

  “Yeah,” I said, thinking, “that could be bad.”

  Arno nodded.

  “Did the brother provide anything o
f use?” I asked.

  “Little,” Arno said. “He was a bit of an emotional wreck, what with the death of his brother and trying to understand his new place in the world. I can imagine it is challenging to discover your brother was an agent of evil, especially since the young Coleman wished to follow in his brother’s footsteps.”

  “If I was in a small town,” Yuri said, “I would look at locations where blood was common. The vampire has trouble resisting such places, because it is such an important element to him. A slaughterhouse, perhaps. But this city is too big for that—”

  The bell rang, and my head snapped to look out across the Emerald Sea.

  “Gods be damned,” Arno said.

  “What does that bell mean?” Yuri asked.

  “Monster-killing time,” I said, walking towards the edge.

  “I would be better served searching for the vampires,” Arno said, “while you two dispatch whatever comes up the wall.”

  “You think they might be nearby?” I asked.

  “I think there will be plenty of blood spilled in the coming minutes, many of it from men and women from whom the vampires would like to feed. I think there might well be new vampires who are not sufficiently disciplined to avoid such a potential feast.”

  I nodded. ”Yeah, that makes sense. You go, watch for vamps. Yuri, you can do the same if you want.”

  “Or?” Yuri asked, watching Arno dart away.

  “We join the Legion in fighting whatever comes up the wall.”

  “Which is?”

  “Usually something remarkably unpleasant.”

  I went over to the edge and peered over carefully.

  “Yep,” I said, looking down, “definitely unpleasant.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Climbing up the cliff face, and moving rather quickly, were creatures that resembled spiders. Scratch that — they were probably what spiders had nightmares about. These things had ten legs, long thin tendrils with between four and six segments each. The body was one piece, long like a caterpillar, and I could see spines coming off the top, leading into what I supposed were stingers on the back. Two of them. The front was a sea of eyes and small, sucky-looking mouths.

  “You ever seen those before?” I asked.

  Yuri peered down into the Emerald Sea. He nodded.

  “I have heard them called clackscreams,” he said, “but I thought they were confined to the Gloom. Seeing them in the Overground is... disconcerting.”

  “The joys of the Emerald Sea — seems like any monster is fair game to come through here.”

  “How often does this happen?” Yuri said, stepping back from the edge and rolling his shoulders, moving like a boxer before a fight.

  “Too often lately,” I said, pulling my sword from my belt and going through some warmups of my own.

  Yuri felt along his pouches until he found what he was looking for. He opened up an apple-sized pouch and pulled out a long pole-arm. It had a long and thin axe blade on one end with a heavy spike on the other.

  “Nice pouch,” I said.

  “This is all it fits,” Yuri said. “But it does the job.”

  “It’s a, uh, halberd?”

  “Glaive,” he said, giving his weapon a flourish and a spin.

  “How tough are these things?”

  “Alone they are ambush predators,” Yuri said, walking back to the edge to look down again. “In groups they are much more dangerous. They have good reach, but there are no ceilings here, so we don’t have to worry about them dropping down on us. They will likely grab and run, take their prey back with them. Except, I don’t know. I don’t know where they might have come from.”

  “That’s just it, man, at least as far as I can tell. These things don’t really make sense. I’ve fought some weird things here. And most of the time, something huge comes along for the party, so hopefully we don’t have a behemoth or something here.”

  “Like from the Great Plains?”

  “I don’t know — I was using as a more general term for big motherfucker. I don’t know what a Behemoth Behemoth might be.”

  “They are gargantuan monsters that roam the Great Plains in numbers far too large for anyone to be comfortable with. And they are vastly different, both in size and temperament with—”

  A clacking noise echoed out from below, followed by a shrill shriek.

  The shriek rose in volume as more, well, I suppose you could say voices, but more creatures joined in the shrieking, until it was almost deafening. And also really eerie, because it kind of sounded like a song. A horrible song, but a song nonetheless.

  “They are hungry,” Yuri said.

  “That’s their dinner song?” I asked.

  He nodded and smiled.

  The Legion finally tromped up the stairs behind us. I noticed many of the soldiers noticing me, and big smiles spread across their faces. Some of them pointed, and there were a few whoops and hollers.

  “You are famous here,” Yuri said quietly, pulling his hood up over his maned head.

  “I wouldn’t say I’m famous—” I started.

  “The Hero of Osterstadt!” someone called out.

  “Maybe a little bit famous?” I corrected myself.

  The first of the clackscreams clawed up and over the edge, and all concepts of what we were dealing with changed. The creature, when standing upright, was much taller than I expected. Without its legs even all the way straight, its body was at least ten feet up. If it straightened all the segments on all ten legs, it’d be closer to fifteen.

  Now I could see that the front two legs had three pincers on the end coming together in a sort of claw, with a shiny viscous sort of goo dripping off. Also, the front of the creature, where the head was, well, the heads were, was just odd. Lots of small mouths coming off of the small heads, all of which seemed like they could extend out on necks. Relatively speaking small, because I’d wager they were each about the size of a human skull. And the back of the beast was covered in eyes of all different types. And color. Looking nearly iridescent. Terrifying and bizarre and hard to look at.

  As their segmented legs moved, clacking and snapping noises came from their joints. Then there were the screeching noises coming from their various mouths. I was willing to be that a single clackscream could probably manage an entire concert on its own.

  The Legion was still getting their line set, so I looked over at Yuri and gave him a nod.

  “Let’s kill us some monsters,” I said.

  He nodded, and charged.

  Fearless motherfucker.

  He went straight toward the first clackscream that had come over the edge. The creature pulled itself up a little higher, bringing its front two legs and the three-pronged pincers out to grab Yuri. But Yuri juked to the left, and the clackscream bit at the fake. Yuri was right under the main body of the beast. He trust straight up, and kept running forward. His glaive sliced the body wide open, and the internals of the clackscream poured out in a nasty goosh.

  I followed quickly behind, but where Yuri had gone high, I went low, ducking under a claw attack and slicing through three legs, unbalancing the clackscream. As it started to tip, I stabbed out, driving my magical sword right through the thing’s head.

  The creatures weren’t working together, and it was that lack of cooperation that allowed the two of us to be so effective. When a segmented leg reached out for Yuri, I was there to cut it off with a hard swing of my sword. When I got my sword stuck in the somewhat gooey surface of the clackscream, Yuri was there to slice off a bunch of the creature’s heads.

  Slice, stab, dodge, death. It was almost like a dance. The choreography wasn’t even that hard. While I was in the midst of fighting, my mind wandered, and I thought about what could be sending all these creatures? Why were they chosen? Why were they sent? What was behind this? It made so little sense.

  Soon enough though, the Legion was formed and ready. As they pushed forward, bristling with twenty-foot spears, Yuri and I slipped through their line
s until we were safely at the back.

  Captain Czubakowski was there, a pained smile on his face.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Tired,” he said with a bit of a win. “But here. Who’s the friend?”

  “Monster hunter brought in by Léon.”

  “Yuri,” the lion man said.

  Czubakowski gave Yuri a nod, then turned his attention back to the fight. The Legion wasn’t in any sort of danger. Their long spears kept the clackscreams at bay, and it wasn’t long before the fight turned into more of a mop-up effort. There was plenty of goop and gore from the battle though. It almost seemed like the clackscreams were kind of like large bugs — nothing too hard inside, just a lot of juicy stuff to spill across the stones. But they also didn’t have much in the way of a carapace. It was more like the thick skin on jello that’s been in the fridge way too long. Weird creatures.

  “Thanks for the holding the line while we got ready,” Czubakowski said, walking over to his men to get things moving the way he wanted.

  Yuri looked at me for a moment, then shrugged. He cleaned his blade on a cloth and slid it back into the tiny pouch. He held the cloth out to me, and I used it to clean my sword before, well, putting the naked blade in my belt, careful not to slice through the leather.

  “You need a scabbard,” he said.

  “You’re telling me,” I replied.

  “I am telling you.”

  I shrugged. “Yes, yes you are.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Finding Arno again was easy. He was the only old man in robes standing on a roof. Plus his white hair shone brilliantly in the moonlight. He was busy staring at the Legion cleanup, completely unaware of myself or Yuri calling his name.

  I threw a small rock at him, and it bounced off his head.

  Arno looked around, pissed. His eyes finally found me, and I waved.

  He harrumphed, but started his descent.

  A moment later, I felt a weight settle on my shoulder.

  “He’s a bit useless in all this,” came a quiet voice in my ear.

  I sighed. Bear was right, and I wanted to talk with her. But I also wasn’t ready to let her existence become common knowledge. Instead, I blazed through my notifications.