by C. M. Carney
“Very wise your holiness,” Verreth said. “I will remove our unworthy souls from your presence and give you leave.”
“Yes, that would be for the best.”
“Until tomorrow then, when we journey to the Barrow and assail the vilest of the lords of undeath.”
“Until then … wait what?”
3
Verreth and his crew left the idiot Bahldreck standing in the middle of the road, mouth agape like a slack-jawed yokel. They kept up the game of humble supplicants until they rounded a corner.
“You can’t be serious,” Serraia said. “This guy will help us defeat the Barrow King?”
“Yup,” Verreth said with a grin and eased his head around the corner to make sure he didn’t lose sight of Bahldreck.
“What, do you plan on throwing him at the Barrow King?” Gerryt asked.
“Not sure that work. Preacher am be dumb, so head probably very hard like Brahk’s, but me not sure that would be enough to kill dead lord.”
“You mentioned that tin amulet earlier,” Serraia said, eyeing Verreth. “You know something about it, don’t you?”
“I do,” Verreth said with a smug look.
“Want to share with the rest of us?” Gerryt asked.
“Nope.”
“That no um seem fair,” Brahk muttered.
“It isn’t, which is why I’m the boss and you’re the underlings.”
Gerryt walked up to him and with a flick of his wrist had a dagger pointed at Verreth’s jugular. “Why don’t we kill you, take that fancy map in your bag and go it without you?”
“For several reasons. One, you have no idea what the amulet does. I do. Two, the map is a fake, a pretty prop I had made up to impress that idiot. Three, the real location of the Barrow is in here.” Verreth tapped his head. “And last I checked none of you lot is a thought mage.”
Serraia eased Gerryt’s knife away from Verreth’s throat. “How do you even know the Barrow exists?”
“Yeah. How? I’ve never heard of it, and I know these parts better than most.”
“Because it only recently moved into the neighborhood.”
“What?” Gerryt asked.
“Yeah, what?” Brahk agreed. “Dungeons no move. Ain’t got no legs.”
“Trust me it moved, and I know where.”
“Again, how?” Serraia asked, impatient.
“Let’s just say I overheard a drunk gnome with an irritating imp bragging about it. They were heading there the next morning. So when he passed out, I pilfered his map, memorized it and gave it back.”
“Why’d you do that? He could end up getting the treasure.” Gerryt whined.
“That’s not how dungeons work. They generate monsters and treasure to lure adventurers in. They’re like those plants that create sticky sap to lure flies.” Verreth paused until his companions had all nodded in understanding. “Some adventurers get killed and the dungeon feeds upon them, using the energy to sustain itself and spawn new monsters. Then, the process begins anew.
“So even if the gnome and his buddies survived, the Barrow will have regenerated by now,” Serraia said.
“Yes,” Verreth said with a smile. “But they are likely all dead. They were way underpowered to handle the Barrow.”
“And we’re not?” Gerryt asked.
“We are, but Bahldreck or more accurately Bahldreck and that amulet are more than a match for the Barrow.”
“You sure about this?” Serraia asked.
“I am,” Verreth said.
A tense silence fell across the group until Gerryt spoke up. “Okay, I’ll play along, for now.”
Verreth looked at the others, who both nodded. “Good, for now, we need to keep an eye on him. He’ll try to flee once his pea-sized brain realizes what he’s gotten himself into. So Gerryt, you track him, find out what inn he’s staying at and send word to us.”
“Why me?” Gerryt asked.
“Because you‘re the best tracker we have and as payment for your grievous and unprovoked assault on my personage. Be happy I’m the forgiving type.”
“What do we do when Gerryt finds the inn his holiness is holed up in?” Serraia asked.
“We find a nice woman to liquor him up and keep him company until we leave tomorrow.”
Brahk looked at Serraia, who flushed in anger.
“No not her you idiot,” Verreth said. “He already knows her, and she’s not that nice.”
“Up yours Verreth,” Serraia said.
“Ha, ha, Verreth is right, you a bitch Serraia,” Brahk said, laughing like a dying cow.
“I will shank you, orc.”
“And prove you bitch? Ha.” Brahk chortled happily to himself.
“I’ll catch up with you guys later,” Verreth said, pulling up his hood. “Do not lose him.”
“Where are you going?” Gerryt asked.
“There’s one more part of this plan I need to arrange.” Verreth rounded a corner and vanished into the crowd.
Gerryt sighed and peaked around the corner to see Bahldreck climbing up on his cart. “This had better be worth it,” he said and melted into the shadows.
•••••
Bahldreck slept on a raft floating on the slowly rolling sea of his mind. It was a peaceful, if dull sea, barely lit and wrapped in a thick fog. Bahldreck felt happy. He was never happy, and he wasn’t sure why he was happy now. A voice bubbled through the surface of the sea, a voice from the part of his brain whose job it was to ensure that the happiness did not continue. Get up you worthless slug. The voice sounded different to Bahldreck, its tone was harsher and more hostile than his normal self-loathing internal critic. In his mind, Bahldreck waved the irritating voice away.
“Just a few more minutes Mommy,” Bahldreck mumbled and rolled onto his side, the raft shifting under his weight. Distant rumbles of thunder rolled over him, but his dulled danger sense failed to sense the coming storm. Then the raft overturned and his eyes flashed open in time to see the filthy dirt floor his face was about to make friends with.
His face hit the floor hard and one of his teeth bit through his lip. The raft, that was no raft at all but a filthy mattress, landed on top of him cascading him in a cloud of dirt and dust. The copper taste of blood mixed with the sting of dust in his eyes combined to drag his mind to alertness.
“By Ganneth,” the preacher barked in alarm, and pain surged through his head. Other sensations followed. A foul, mucky paste soured his parched mouth, bitter nausea roiled his stomach and the wet patch on the crotch of his robes started to furiously itch.
“What?” was all he said before a pair of none too gentle hands lifted him up and sat him on a rickety chair near the overturned bed. He forced his eyes to focus and saw a large half-orc staring down on him. The massive green tinged man was scowling at Bahldreck, but whether it was from the preacher’s current state or the orc’s natural disposition Bahldreck couldn’t say.
“I don’t have any money,” Bahldreck said in a panic.
“What, just cuz me am half-orc mean me thief?” the half-orc, who Bahldreck now remembered was named Brahk, said in an offended tone.
Bahldreck just stared, his bladder threatening to further foul his robes. “Ummmm ….”
“Ha, Brahk kidding. You broke. Brahk already search you when passed out.” The half-orc slapped Bahldreck on the back and then grimaced. He brought his hand to his nose and sniffed. “Eww, you be gross.”
“Ummmm … What is happening?”
“Verreth says time to go, so we go. Time to go Barrow kill undead.”
“The Barrow?” Bahldreck said and then a slew of memories from the previous evening came rushing back in a disjointed mishmash. He remembered meeting up with Verreth and his admiring pals and celebrating his continuing battle against the undead with a very nice lady the previous evening. Downing many, many pints of ale, and then several rounds of a potent liquor called Jayger Meister concocted long ago by a legendary player. But amidst all of this one memor
y was the most potent. “The Barrow?” Bahldreck sputtered again and a tremble from deep in his bowels threatened to add further stains to his robes. “Yeah, I don’t think today is the best day.”
“No care. Get up,” Brahk said.
Sometime later, after acquiring clean robes and adding the previous night’s exorbitant tab to his father’s line of credit, Bahldreck emerged into the warm early morning sun and joined a crusade against the dead.
*****
Several hours passed as they followed Verreth through the foothills and up into the mountains. They encountered little resistance, and at noon they stopped for lunch in a small glade near the entrance to a well-hidden mountain pass that Verreth assured them led to the Barrow.
Gerryt had snared several rabbits and Bahldreck’s stomach growled as the Aegyptian passed the steaming spits around. His hangover had made eating that morning impossible, and he was halfway through the first rabbit when the stealthy hunter spoke up. “Save some for the rest of us you greedy bastard.”
Bahldreck looked up at the man in bewilderment. Surely, he did not expect a man of his breeding and class to subsist on a single rabbit. It was a well-known fact that the common folk required less food to sustain their thin frames and ill health. Conversely, it took quite a bit of food to sustain Bahldreck’s own round physique. It was high time that someone educate these common folk the way of the world, Bahldreck thought. It was clear from the foreigner’s grim stare he needed that lesson sooner than others.
“Leave him be Gerryt,” Verreth said. “His holiness will need his strength.”
“Thank you Verreth,” Bahldreck said, sucking the last bits of greasy meat from the rabbit’s leg bone before tossing it over his head. “Perchance, is there any more rabbit?”
Serraia gripped Gerryt’s arm preventing the hunter from leaping over the fire. “Now, now Gerryt, listen to Verreth, his holiness needs his strength if he is to stand at the head of our party and hold the undead at bay.”
“Front? Undead? At Bay?” Bahldreck sputtered and his full stomach was suddenly a lot less satisfying.
“You do know that’s why you’re here, right?” Serraia said in the same tone Bahldreck’s father used when explaining obvious concepts to his serfs, employees and, now that Bahldreck thought about it, to him as well. “You’re a consecrated priest of the High God Aluran. Who is better equipped to use the holy fire within them to push back the plague of undead on Korynn than you?”
Unease flowed through Bahldreck, and it took several moments for him to understand its source. “Yeah, about that. I’m not sure I’m actually, formally, according to the official priests of the High God Aluran, technically a priest.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Gerryt sputtered. “You’re not consecrated?”
“Oh, no I am,” Bahldreck said, the nervous twinge in his voice causing it to rise several octaves. “I was initiated into the Holy Order of the Turnip by my father’s cook. Or was it the gardener?”
“Turnip?” Serraia asked, her voice nearly as alarmed as Gerryt’s.
“Brahk no like turnips.”
“Yeah, not really the thing to get hung up on big guy,” Serraia said. She turned to Verreth. “Did you know about this?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” Gerryt spat.
“I have faith in a power greater than all of us, and it is very, very close to our friend here,” Verreth said, idly stroking at his neck as if he were wearing a necklace or an amulet. “Very close.”
“Okay, I’m gonna need more than that,” Serraia said.
Verreth smiled and looked up. The sun dipped behind the mountains and ominous shadows crept over the glade. “I think you’ll be getting your “more” any minute now.”
Serraia and Gerryt looked around suspicious. Brahk retrieved the discarded rabbit bones and chomped them, each echoing crunch causing Bahldreck to twitch or jump.
Bahldreck stared nervously at his hands. Hands that had never seen an actual day’s work in their life. I’m not cut out for this, he thought and had it been said aloud, anyone who’d ever set eyes on him would have heartily agreed with the sentiment.
He strained his mind to find a way out of his predicament. He’d never been on an actual adventure. In fact, he’d never been anywhere except the family estate and Erram and the road between the two. He told the others as much, and upon getting no response, he looked up to discover he was alone in the glade, and a half dozen rotting corpses were shambling towards him.
4
A squeal tore through the air, echoing back and forth along the thin mountain pass where it heightened in volume and intensity. Had there been any knights-errant wandering the wilderness, they would have been compelled to seek the source of the scream, expecting to find a damsel in distress in need of saving. Alas, it would greatly disappoint them to discover that said maiden was in truth a portly middle-aged twit.
Unfortunately for the not quite consecrated priest of the High God, there were no knights about, just the group of pilgrims he’d entered the glade with, and they were hiding behind a nearby outcropping.
“Are those zombies?” Gerryt asked.
“Actors,” Verreth replied casually and took a sip from a wineskin before passing it to the hunter.
“Ha!” Serraia exclaimed before clapping a hand over her mouth. “That was the other part of the plan you were setting up?”
“Yup,” Verreth said with a grin as Bahldreck tried to stand, tripped over his robes and nearly fell into the fire.
“Nnngghh. Rarrghh. Groowwwll!” the various zombies said, arms held stiffly before them as they ambled closer to the panicked preacher.
“No very good actors,” Brahk said before upending the wineskin and squeezing a jet of wine into his open mouth.
“True enough, but they work cheap,” Verreth said.
“Okay, I get it, this is hilarious. But how in the Abyss does it help us fight the Barrow King?” Serraia asked.
“Watch, and learn,” Verreth said with a grin, grabbing the wineskin from Brahk and taking a deep drink.
The actor zombies believed they had been hired by Bahldreck’s father to teach the boy a lesson in bravery, honor, and manliness. If they succeeded, they were promised further contracts. Seeing Bahldreck scream and flounder in the dirt, not one thespian in the group expected to earn those contracts.
They’d been told to scare the lad as much as possible without getting close enough for him to see through their shabby costumes. That order was proving difficult to achieve, as none of them had ever seen someone so ineffective at fleeing, or even standing upright for more than a few seconds. Perhaps that was why they failed to notice the tin amulet at Bahldreck’s neck had started glowing, dimly at first, and then slowly brighter.
“By the nine winds, what is that?” Serraia asked.
“That is salvation,” Verreth said.
The actor zombies saw the strange glow and a creeping fear crawled up their spines. They abandoned the zombie part of the act and gave each other nervous glances.
Bahldreck had regained his feet and was now shaking like a man wracked in the throes of an epileptic seizure. His eyes rolled back into his head and he turned towards the sky to scream. This time the scream was deep, manly and very, very angry.
“Gerrold,” one zombie said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“As do I Percy, but we are professional actors and we do not abandon a performance because of fear.”
“Since when?” Percy asked.
“I worked hard on this script. Let us at least finish the scene.”
“Wait, you wrote a script for this?” Percy asked, but no answer came as all eyes in the glade flashed to the preacher.
Bahldreck fell forward and his entire body shook and morphed. Shining golden light exploded from his mouth and eyes and beneath his robes as he grew and expanded.
“I suggest a compromise, Gerrold. How about we finis
h the scene way over there?” Percy exclaimed. “It has been some time since we have practiced fleeing with dignity.”
“Huzzah, that is an excellent suggestion,” the man named Gerrold agreed. He brought his hands to his mouth and in a clear, sing-song voice, yelled, “Run away, run away.”
The zombies tried to flee, but it was too late.
The figure that had been Bahldreck stood and had those present not witnessed his transformation with their own eyes, they would never have believed there was any commonality to the two men. Where Bahldreck had been paunchy, pale and fragile, the mountain of a man now standing amidst the shredded remnants of priestly robes was a paragon of masculine virtues.
He wore a battle-scarred suit of plate mail that shimmered with an internal moon blue glow. He stood 6’9” and weighed at least 400 lbs. With a snick of steel on steel, he drew a massive great sword. In any other’s hands, the blade would have been a two-handed weapon, but the man swung it in a lazy one-handed arc, bisecting the closest zombie at the waist.
“Dead must die!” the man screamed in a voice that would have scared off a dragon, had there been any dragons left to frighten. He thrust the sword forward into the guts of another zombie
“What in the Abyss?” Serraia asked, panic creeping into her voice.
“That, my friends, is our weapon against the Barrow King,” Verreth said with a grin. “Meet Sir Herman Heinrich Humperdinck, or what remains of him.”
Sir Humperdinck grabbed another of the zombies by the head and squeezed. The sputtering howl that came from the actor’s mouth was horrific but ended abruptly when his skull popped amidst the sound of grinding bone and explosion of blood and brain matter.
“That glow, he’s … dead.” Gerryt said.
“Yes and has been for centuries,” Verreth said. “But, I wouldn’t mention that to him.”
“Why not?” Gerryt almost squealed.