The Black Knife

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I see the haze,” he said, in some frustration. “Are they zombies?”

  “It seems likely,” Master Adam said. He was making elaborate gestures with his hands, casting spells in the air. “I don’t know why they’re not attacking.”

  “The powers of evil are always strongest at midnight,” Eric said.

  “Superstition,” Adam said, briefly. “Some magic grows stronger at different times of the day, but never anything powerful enough to make a dead body get up and move under a sorcerer’s will.” He grinned, darkly. “Or perhaps it’s a trick intended to keep our eyes focused on the zombies and away from the real threat.”

  Eric scowled at him. “And that would be?”

  Adam grinned back. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have to guess,” he said. “In fact, I rather think” – he drew his hands tight, as if he were snapping a tiny thread – “that I have broken the spell.”

  Eric watched in horror as the shimmer faded away, revealing hundreds upon hundreds of zombies standing there in the moonlight, cold dead eyes fixed unwaveringly upon the fort. Some of them looked as if they were rotting away, the flesh falling off their exposed bones; others looked as if they were almost living. They didn’t move, or breathe; they just stood and watched. He used the telescope and realised that they had completely surrounding the north side of the gap. There would be no hope of escaping into the desert without being caught and bitten.

  “There are thousands of them,” Adam said, in horror. “I was there when they unearthed zombies that had become frozen in ice, but there were only a hundred or so by the time they were all hunted down and destroyed. Here…who would be mad enough to unleash so many zombies on the world?”

  Herod, Eric thought. He’d heard about that outbreak, up in the far north where it was so cold that lakes and rivers froze completely and remained frozen throughout the year. An exploration team looking for new places to live had accidentally discovered dead bodies – or what they’d thought were dead bodies – and freed them from the ice, only to discover that the zombies were alive and hungry. They’d devoured the exploration team and fallen upon the villages below before they knew what had hit them. Eventually, a group of Freelance Mages had destroyed them, but not before hundreds of people had been killed, their bodies destroyed to prevent them from reanimating.

  “That’s not the important question,” Eric said. He’d issued orders that any bitten soldier, regardless of rank or status, was to be instantly decapitated, but it was an order few were going to be willing to obey. “The real question is what are they waiting for?”

  As if they had been waiting for his question, the ranks of zombies rustled unpleasantly and moaned, producing an eerie sound that echoed out over the mountains. Eric saw grown men clutching their ears in a desperate attempt to block it out, their eyes wide with nightmares and horror. The zombies seemed to be calling to them, their voices so unnatural, so wrong, that to hear them meant terror, even physical pain. The once-human creatures shifted, altered their pose slightly and then parted, allowing a single man to step into view. Eric thought, at first, that he was still human, but when he focused the telescope on his face he knew the truth. The man had died recently enough that he looked almost perfectly human. Only the slackness of his face and the odd unsteady gait gave him away.

  “That man was a magician,” Adam commented, from beside him. There was a deep anger in his voice. “He was a Healer, by the robes; perhaps a good one who was sworn to do no harm. What did he do to deserve to be bitten and turned into a zombie?”

  Eric shrugged. There was no way to know.

  The singular zombie advanced towards the fort, undeterred by the arrows pointed at it, the archers ready to loose their shots at the first command. Eric watched it come; bracing himself, knowing that whatever was coming wasn't going to be good. Adam’s fists clenched, as if he wanted to pop the zombie like a grape. Eric couldn’t blame him for the desire, even though he knew that it would be futile. The soul that had once inhabited the body was long gone, leaving only…a zombie.

  “There’s no such thing as a thinking zombie,” Adam said, as the zombie stopped, well within the range of the archers. “What is he doing?”

  The zombie’s head seemed to scan the walls until it saw Eric and locked its eyes on him. “Your Highness,” it said. It was a weirdly flat voice, almost as if the zombie was unsure how to speak…or, perhaps, as if the person speaking through the zombie wasn't used to the mouth. That seemed alarmingly possible. “You have no chance of resisting the attack. Stand down, place yourself under loyalty spells to me and you and your lovely wife can survive.”

  Eric didn’t have to think about his response. “Go to hell,” he said. Enslaving himself to Herod would mean a slow descent into madness and servitude, unable to even think of the possibility of resistance. “Archers – take aim.”

  “Think about it,” the zombie crackled. “You cannot win this fight. How many must die to save your life?”

  Eric gathered himself. “How many must die, Herod, to prevent necromancy from spreading across the land?”

  There was no direct answer. “Then die,” the zombie said, and started to advance on the walls. Eric brought his hand down hard and a dozen archers fired as one, riddling the zombie with arrow shafts. It should have been destroyed instantly, but somehow it kept moving, advancing towards the fort until it was finally blown apart by a second swarm of arrows. Its mocking laugher echoed in Eric’s ears until it finally disintegrated into dust.

  “You need fire to burn them,” Eleanor said. Eric turned to discover that she had scrambled up beside him, rather than remain in the strong room where she would have been safe. He opened his mouth to rebuke his sister, but she cut him off before he could speak. “I saw these things and you have to hit them really hard to kill them.”

  Eric looked up. The zombie horde was starting to walk forward, their moaning announcing their advance against the fort. He gestured for the archers to hold their fire, knowing that even if they crippled a few hundred zombies, the remainder would simply walk over the disintegrating bodies and keep coming. They would have to destroy all of the zombies to win, a task that would have been impossible elsewhere, but if they wanted to get at the fort, they would have to come through the gap. They would only be able to send a few zombies at a time towards his defence line.

  “They’re about to hit the wards,” Adam said, with heavy satisfaction. “We have reinforced it to deal with them.”

  Eric spared him a glance and then watched, as dispassionately as he could, as the first zombies walked into the wards. Blue flickering light, shading rapidly to bursts of fire, flickered into existence as the zombies pushed against the wards, but they didn’t stop. Hundreds of zombies were slowly burned to death, yet there were always replacements and the wards were starting to grow brighter. Adam looked pale and staggered as a particularly bright flash of fire cascaded over the wards. They were breaking down under the sheer number of zombies pressing at them. Herod’s willingness to sacrifice them was chilling, yet understandable. They weren’t soldiers, who needed to be trained and taught how to fight, they were just…zombies. They could be replaced, perhaps even from the dead of the fort they were attacking.

  “They’re going to break in,” Eleanor said. Eric decided to take her word for it, knowing that her understanding of magic was considerably greater than his own. His kid sister had grown up a lot over the last few months, even though it was somehow hard to believe, or face. “The wards can’t take much more.”

  Eric looked down at Adam, who was kneeling on the ground, blood pouring from his nose and ears. “Drop the outer wards,” he ordered. If all of the wards collapsed, the fort would be as naked and helpless as a kidnapped maiden in the less civilised kingdoms. “Do it now, before they force them down!”

  The wards snapped out of existence and the zombies stumbled, tripping over themselves and falling to the ground. Eric heard laughter echoing along the battlements, which faded as the zombies picke
d themselves up, fixed their dead eyes on the fort and started to advance towards the walls. Many of them looked to have been burned by the wards, but wounds that would have stopped a living human were nothing to zombies, who just kept coming anyway. Eric stared into the lifeless eyes and wondered if Herod was looking through them at him, laughing his head off as the zombies started to tear away at the walls. For a moment, Eric believed that they would stop there, unable to get through the stone, before they started piling up in front of the walls. Given time, they would get up the walls and into the battlements.

  “Drop the oil,” he ordered. The soldiers obeyed at once, pouring boiling oil down from the walls onto the zombies. The zombies slipped and slid around, but they weren't deterred. “Ignite it…now!”

  Adam snapped his fingers and the oil caught fire, burning hundreds of zombies. Eric covered his nose from the stench, reeling backwards as oily black smoke billowed up, but the zombies kept coming, smothering the fires under their own bodies. The pile of dead or frozen zombies was growing higher, allowing them to keep working their way up the walls. Some of the zombies, still burning, staggered around as if they’d lost their mental link to their master, but others just kept advancing.

  “Form a line,” Eric ordered, as the zombies grew closer to the battlements. “Aim for the heads. Slice them off and keep moving. Don’t let one of them bite you.”

  He drew Morningstar as a zombie hand appeared on the battlements, pulling a dead face up to peer over at the humans. Morningstar slashed out and the zombie was suddenly decapitated, falling backwards into the heaving mob. Another zombie appeared and another, climbing over the dead as if they were nothing more than climbing steps. Eric and the soldiers slashed and slashed, but there were always more zombies coming right at them. A zombie leapt towards him and he jumped back, almost falling over the battlements before the zombie’s head vanished in a flash of light. He gave Eleanor a grateful smile and then looked down at Adam.

  “Adam,” he called. “Master Adam, how much power can your mages summon?”

  “Enough, I hope,” Adam said, pulling himself to his feet. “What do you want us to do?”

  Another zombie appeared, only to be cut in half by Morningstar. Eric swore as he saw the top section fall one way and the bottom go the other way. A zombie without legs could still be dangerous; they had to be burned or decapitated to kill them for the second time. The head section would just start crawling up the pile of bodies again, threatening to grab an unwary soldier by the leg.

  “Burn them,” Eric ordered, knowing that it was a risk. The zombies just kept coming. Here and there, soldiers were caught and bitten, only to be killed by their own side to prevent them from reanimating. It was the only form of warfare where a death on one side translated to a new soldier for the other side. The living were holding their line, but the more they lost, the harder it would be to prevent the zombies from breaking through. “Get rid of that pile of dead bodies!”

  A scorching wave of heat blasted up from the bodies, sending incinerated zombies flying everywhere. A burning zombie stumbled right at him and Eric slashed it apart, sending the body falling back into the fires. The zombies suddenly stopped as their pile of bodies collapsed into dust, before they started to regroup and try again. They couldn’t get past the fort, but they had infinite patience and they never gave up.

  ”Get the wounded down to the infirmary,” Eric ordered, tightly. “The magicians on duty are to perform a check for infection before they do anything else, and then heal the wounded.”

  For a long moment, silence fell; even the zombies stopped moaning. Eric allowed himself to hope that it was the end, that even Herod wouldn’t keep wasting his zombies like this, just before the zombies turned and started to advance again. The maths just didn’t work. There were thousands of zombies and only a few hundred soldiers in the garrison, some of whom were dead or wounded. Sooner or later, the line was just going to break. And, when it did, everyone in the fortress would die and, if they were unlucky, join the ranks of the undead.

  “Get down to the stables and take a couple of horses,” Eric ordered Eleanor, who glared up rebelliously at him. “I want you and the Oracle on your way out of here, now. Don’t argue, just go.”

  Eleanor opened her mouth, perhaps to argue, when one of the mages shouted for Eric. “Your Highness,” he called, “we have a report from the southern force. They’ve got zombies behind the line!”

  Eric stared at him. “How the hell did they get through the mountains?”

  “They don’t know,” the mage shouted back. “All they know is that the zombies are moving to cut us off! We’re trapped, right here, right now! There’s no way out.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Hind took one look back at the fort as she rode away and then turned her face to follow the track down to the river. She couldn't afford to think of Eric, not now, not when she needed all of her concentration to stay alive. The evening was falling, making it harder to see the telltale shimmer that marked a pack of zombies concealed within an illusion spell, so she brought up her third eye and kept watch for any possible threats. Unless the zombies had particular orders to attack anyone who stumbled within range, she should be safe enough as long as she kept her distance. If Herod’s control slipped once, she’d probably find herself being chased by a pack of hungry zombies.

  She found herself considering the problem as her horse slowly picked its way down to the pool, just under the mountains. There was little information available about just how the necromancers controlled the packs of zombies they used as ground troops, but she was sure that it had to take considerable concentration, perhaps even total dedication. Necromancy might offer power, but raw power alone was useless; it needed a controlling mind to shift it into something useful. Herod had to be expending most of his attention on the zombies, if only to prevent them from attacking his own army. He wouldn’t be able to hire more mercenaries if his forces accidentally turned them into fodder.

  The sound of the Churning Pool could be heard as the pool finally came into view. The Water-of-Life, the massive river that swept through the Desert of Death, flowed into the mountains there and went underground, appearing again on the other side of the mountains. Apparently, quite a few young fools had tried to swim under the mountains, but most of them had vanished without trace. A handful of bodies had been washed out at the far end, yet none had ever survived the journey. Hind paused long enough to take in the starkly beautiful sight and then froze, staring down at the pool. Hundreds of zombies could be seen heading down into the water, as if they were committing ritual suicide. For a long moment, she just stared blankly at the scene and then she realised what was going on. The zombies intended to allow themselves to be washed through the underground river and appear on the far side of the mountains, outflanking the defenders.

  Hind paused, intending to head back to the fort and warn Eric, but before she could spur the horse into movement she felt the impressions of a battle in the distance, centred on the fort. There was nothing she could do to help Eric now – riding back would only have delivered her into the arms of the zombies – and so she resolved to head onwards. If nothing else, perhaps she could buy Eric some time. She followed the trail of zombies and finally saw the camp, watched over by mounted troops. Herod had moved his entire army close enough to give the troops some rest, while making it difficult, if not impossible, for Eric to sally out and harass him at night. She watched until she saw where the slaves were working and how they were operating, before finally slipping off the horse. It was time to begin.

  “You know where to go,” she said to the horse, which regarded her with uncannily intelligent eyes. She slapped the horse’s rump and it neighed at her. “Go.”

  The horse cantered off into the distance, leaving Hind alone. Carefully, she pulled off the robe she’d donned, revealing the rough garments of a slave girl, barely enough protection from the eyes of men. She took a moment to inspect her disguise and pray that it was suff
icient to escape attention, before she reached into her pocket and drew out the gem. She’d taken it from the castle and modified it herself – she would never have trusted anyone else to carry out the modifications – but now the time had come to use it, sheer terror held her still. If she’d made a mistake, she was about to give herself to the enemy, quite literally. Taking a breath, fighting down her fear, she pressed the gem to her forehead and spoke the words of power.

  Instantly, just for a long chilling second, a haze draped itself over her mind. When it cleared, she found herself kneeling on the ground, as she was kneeling before her master. The gem had been dampened enough to make it nothing more than a nuisance – it would definitely pass a cursory inspection, even though it wasn't working properly – yet she still hated it. She wanted to remove it, fighting the gem’s insistence that she could do nothing to remove it, but she needed it to stay in place. Pulling herself to her feet, she began to walk down towards the other slaves. The only advantage of the slave gems, as far as she could tell, was that no one would question what she was doing; they’d just assume that she had been ordered to do whatever she was doing by her master.