Fatal Heir

by L. C. Ireland

  This whole scenario that the Imposter had orchestrated wasn’t simply a set-up.

  It was a trap.

  I jumped off the carriage and brandished my pitchfork at the deadman. He stared at me with glassy eyes.

  “Mel?” I asked nervously. “Can’t you shoot them?”

  “Sure, I can shoot them,” Mel responded petulantly. “But I count eleven — fifteen — of them, and I have four arrows. Point out the ones you definitely don’t want to kill you, and I’ll shoot those.”

  Fortunately, the deadmen were slow. Unfortunately, we were completely surrounded by them. They lumbered forward through the trees, a couple falling flat on their face as they made their way toward us. Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.

  But I was too busy waving the pitchfork at the herald I’d accidentally killed. This was my reward. I killed him. Now he was going to kill me.

  We all stood surrounding the carriage, the nurse sitting on top with the child in her arms. The young prince was whimpering in fear, and she was doing her best to keep him calm. But he had seen the deadmen, and for obvious reasons, he was not consoled by the nursemaid’s comforting coos. Rath gripped his crutch, Mel readied her bow, Zarra drew her sword, and I raised my pitchfork.

  The deadman took another step toward me. The deadman seemed too disoriented to be immediately interested in killing me. Maybe I could use that to my advantage.

  I tried to reason with it. “Look, I know that you’re upset. You lost your son. And you’re dead. That’s got to be a downer.”

  The other deadmen were getting closer.

  “Izzy, what are you doing?” Rath asked.

  “I thought that since I’m a prince and all now that I might try some diplomacy.”

  “You can’t reason with a dead body!” Mel cried.

  “This body wasn’t moving until the spirit touched it,” I said. “I think she took it over. Maybe I can—”

  “Watch out!” Rath cried.

  The deadman grabbed my pitchfork and tugged with alarming strength. I squealed like a frightened piglet as I fell forward.

  “Don!” Mel cried.

  I released the pitchfork and tried to scramble to my feet, but a gust of air from behind flattened me to the ground. The deadman groaned as he was flung backward several feet like one of my sister’s old ragdolls.

  “Nice,” I said to Rath, giggling with relief as I regained my footing.

  “Unfortunately, that only keeps them back. It won’t stop them from coming.” He was leaning on the carriage, standing on his good leg with one palm facing toward the oncoming deadmen.

  They were now close enough that we could see them through the trees. Their skin was tinted purple from the effects of the poison that had killed them. Some had dark bruises around their necks. They slumped like there was a string attached to their spine, holding them upright against their will. Their movements were clumsy and lacked the fluidness of true life. Their feet dragged on the ground, and their arms swung like a doll without joints. They held their eyes wide open in constant surprise, never blinking.

  “Hey, I have a great idea,” I said, my voice a little high-pitched. “How about, any time anyone dies, we burn the bodies? That way, they can’t decide to get back up and kill us!”

  “I like that plan!” Zarra called from the other side of the carriage. “But what’s the plan when they already got back up and want to kill us?”

  “I haven’t thought that far!”

  The deadmen were getting closer. The nursemaid sobbed behind me. She had seen what was once her mistress and dissolved into tears.

  “They all got so sick. We had to stop,” The nursemaid said to no one in particular. “And then they rose, and the horses panicked, and old Frederick let them go before the deadmen got ’im, and then the carriage rolled, and I was so frightened, and now they’re back, and that’s my dear, dear mistress. She never wanted to go on this trip either way, and now we’re all going to die, and I am so frightened. And what will the king think, and how are we going to survive this?”

  I was seriously impressed by how long she could speak on a single breath.

  I slapped my pockets, searching for the candle Rath had given me. Fire was important, right? Deadmen were scared of fire or something. But instead of the wand, I found the biscuits Mum had stuffed in my pockets when I left home. I pulled one out, felt its weight in my hand, and chucked it at the nearest deadman. The biscuit hit the deadman square in the forehead.

  I had always had a good arm.

  The deadman paused, and I thought that maybe, somehow, I had stopped its advance. It bent forward at the waist to examine the object that had just collided with its noggin. It gave a deep groan and straightened up and stepped right over my flakey offering, one step closer to killing me. From its mouth leaked the first tendrils of the dreaded mist.

  “What are you doing?” Rath demanded as I chucked another biscuit.

  “I don’t know! I thought they might be hungry!”

  “For biscuits?!” Rath grunted as he waved a hand and sent another of our attackers flying back into the trees.

  “Deadmen don’t eat biscuits!” Mel said. “I only have one arrow left. What is the plan, Rath?”

  Rath hollered over his shoulder. “Why do I have to come up with the plan?” A couple deadmen were close enough now that Rath had resorted to whacking them with his crutch. The mist was getting thicker as more of the deadman breathed it out. Rath doubled over and dry heaved.

  “Oh! Get back!” I heard Mel gasp and her body collide with the bottom of the carriage, making it sway. The nursemaid bawled right along with the young prince.

  “Mel!” I cried, fearing the worst.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.” She clambered up on top of the carriage beside the nursemaid, waving her torch at the nearest deadman. “But Zarra’s not. The mist is really thick—” She waved her torch madly, trying to keep the mist away from the nursemaid and the baby.

  As the mist thickened, it rose up above my head. I could barely see my own hands in front of me. Rath was completely out of sight. I could hear the sounds of Zarra’s moaning mixed with the angry shrieks of the deadmen surrounding us.

  “Izzy, look out!” Rath called.

  Too late. Iron-strong hands appeared from the mist and wrapped themselves around my throat. I dropped the pitchfork and tried to pry the cold hands off of my neck, but I may as well have tried to lift the carriage up and throw it with my bare hands. I thrashed desperately.

  Rath threw his whole weight at the deadman, and the three of us collapsed to the ground. The deadman made a sound like a scream — a human scream of pain. I closed my eyes and willed myself not to think of my attacker as a person. This was definitely the wrong time to be overcome with pity.

  I inhaled deep, beautiful gasps of air when the deadman’s hands slackened. But my moment of relief lasted only a second before another deadman was upon me. There were too many of them. I saw Rath struggle to right himself, only to be dragged down by another reanimated body. Their shadows danced through the mist. The deadmen all screamed in pain every time they touched Rath, but they kept at it nonetheless.

  The young prince shrieked. The mist had risen high enough to overwhelm the three on top of the carriage. The nursemaid sobbed, and Mel gasped in imagined pain.

  I wrapped my arms around my head and curled into a ball against what was supposed to be the roof of the carriage, trying to hide my neck from my attackers. I felt the most uncomfortable sensation of human teeth digging into my arm.

  Above all the yelling and groaning and crying, I heard music. At first, I thought it was just the wind whistling through the trees, but then I heard a melody. I knew the deadmen heard it, too, because all at once, they stopped moving. The deadman that had latched onto my arm didn’t even protest as I shoved it off of me. Silently, it crumpled to the ground.

  The others continued to shriek and cry in pain, but for some reason, the mist had no effect on me. Perhaps tha
t was why I heard the music. The melody was haunting, melancholy, and somehow achingly familiar. The deadmen turned as one to face the direction from which the music came.

  A woman stood half concealed by trees and darkness and mist.

  I had seen many strange people in my life (Rath, for instance), but this woman was definitely the strangest. One half of her head was shaved bald, but on the other half she had the longest hair I had ever seen. It was golden blonde and fell almost to her ankles in a loose, hasty braid. Her outfit looked like something my sisters might throw together when all they had to work with were Mum’s leftover scraps of fabric. On one shoulder was a collar made of gray fur, which transitioned into a regular squared collar on the other side. One of her sleeves was so long it covered her hand, but she had no sleeve at all on the other side. On one arm, she wore a silver gauntlet, but her other hand was bare.

  The single pauldron she wore on the left shoulder matched the metal of the armor protecting her right thigh and knee. These matched the intricate metalwork of the shield she wore on her back. I recognized that metalwork. Where had I seen it before?

  The strange woman held a small instrument made of wood to her mouth, and from this fife, she played the most beautiful song. One of the deadmen sighed. It was the most human, most heartbreaking sound I had ever heard. The deadman collapsed, and then another, and another, until all but one had fallen into silent, lifeless heaps.

  The last deadman standing had once been a young footman, no older than me. He groaned as if in defiance of the music. I watched with silent wonder as he fought the spell that had felled his friends. Did deadmen even have friends? Why would they bite a living human, but never try to eat each other? I decided it would be better if they didn’t have friends. I couldn’t kill something that had a friend.

  The music continued, but the last deadman would not fall. His head rolled back, and he shrieked. His body convulsed. The woman stopped playing the fife. She stepped fearlessly toward the deadman. The mist seemed to have no effect on her, and I soon saw why. It wasn’t touching her at all. As she stepped nearer, I saw that the mist gave her a berth of about a pace on each side. It was as if she walked in an invisible bubble that kept the mist away.

  The woman walked right up to the deadman.

  “I am sorry,” she said. She placed her hand on its chest.

  The deadman shrieked. Golden light shot out of its eyes and mouth. The air pulsed with energy, and the mist vanished. The deadman crumpled silently to the ground.

  The woman stepped away from the lifeless body and looked around at us all. The others were still recovering from the effects of the mist. Their groans and sobs filled the air. Rath was still lying on the ground, a deadman draped over him like a disgusting blanket. He didn’t seem to notice his position. He just stared blankly at the sky, still struggling to recover from the awful trick of near-death his mind had just played on him.

  Only I saw the woman. She glanced at me with misty blue eyes, looked away, and then did a double take. Staring intensely at me, she stepped over the deadman and crouched beside me. From her belt, she pulled a dagger.

  “What are you doing?!” I gasped.

  With one quick swipe, the stranger slit the sleeve that Mel had just stitched up earlier that same day, revealing the Steward’s Mark on my arm.

  Her eyes flashed with recognition.

  “Izayik?” she asked, startled. The woman grunted in surprise when a gust of energy knocked her over.

  “Stay away from him, Banash,” Rath said.

  Banash rolled onto her bottom, propping herself up on her elbows.

  “I didn’t know he lived,” she said.

  “Good,” Rath growled through gritted teeth. “Now leave him alone.”

  “She saved us,” I said, confused by Rath’s animosity.

  “Thank you,” Rath said shortly. “Now leave.”

  Banash stood slowly. I noticed the design on her shield depicted six wings. It was the sign of the seraphim. “At least allow me to—” she began, but Rath cut her off.

  “Go! You corrupted his mother. You will not do the same to him.”

  Banash and Rath exchanged a long hard look. At last, Banash raised her hands in defeat.

  “Very well,” she said. She looked over at me with a sad smile. “Be careful,” she said. Then she was gone in the blink of an eye.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  Rath opened his mouth to explain, but he was interrupted by Mel.

  “Don!” Mel scrambled off of the carriage, shoving a body aside so she could kneel beside me. “You’ve been bit!”

  The sleeve of my coat was torn to shreds and damp with blood from the deadman’s bite. Pain shot through me every time my arm was jostled. Mel’s hands trembled as she fidgeted with the torn scraps of my sleeve.

  “Can’t you do something, Rath?” Mel demanded. She unstopped her flask and splashed water over my arm. The sudden cold nearly made me faint.

  “No, I can’t. I can’t even touch him without hurting him. If I tried to breathe life into him, I would probably kill him.” Holding his weight in the air, Rath kicked his one foot at a body, tumbling it away so he could fetch his crutch from beneath it.

  Zarra stepped around me to help the nursemaid to the ground. The child still squalled, piercing the night with his cries. The nursemaid’s face was white as milk. She absently bounced the writhing child and stared glassy-eyed at nothing.

  “Give him this.” Rath handed a vial to Zarra. “It will quiet him. We don’t want any other deadmen to hear us.”

  Zarra took the child and tipped the potion into his mouth.

  “Not too much now,” Rath coached her. The child squirmed, dribbling dark purple juice down his chin. But he stopped crying.

  “Rath,” I said through gritted teeth. Mel was still trying to clean my wounded arm. “Who was that woman?”

  Rath glared into the trees from whence the strange woman had come. “Her name is Banash,” he said. “She was a member of the King’s Order and a friend of your mother’s.” He tapped his fingers on the armor he wore around his waist as if he was afraid the mysterious woman would come screaming out of the trees and rip it right off of him. “She is dangerous, Izzy. Especially to you.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  She had seemed pretty trustworthy to me, since she just saved our lives and all.

  “If she could be trusted, your parents would still be alive,” he said.

  “Ouch!” I gasped. Mel had just applied pressure to my deadman bite. I looked away. I didn’t want to see what that monster had done to my arm. It was painful enough without the visual.

  “How did she do all of this?” Zarra asked, looking around in awe at Banash’s handiwork. There was no mist to be seen.

  Rath changed the subject. “We can’t waste any time just standing about.” He indicated the empty bodies lying gruesomely all around us. “We have to get these bodies burned before they come back to life.”

  “Stack them on top of the carriage,” Zarra suggested. “We can burn it all at once and contain the flames.”

  “Here.” Rath handed me a mysterious-looking blackish blue potion with chunks of something gray floating in it.

  I knew better than to question him. I took a deep breath and chugged the potion. It was even worse than I remembered the first potion being. It was so thick I could feel it creeping down my throat, like a slug trying to wriggle into my body and eat my insides. My tongue tingled, and I gagged.

  “What are you doing?” Rath was at my side in an instant. “Did you drink this?”

  I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe.

  Rath laughed as he bent me forward and thumped me on the back. “I didn’t tell you to drink it! It’s a salve, Izzy, a lotion. It’s meant to go on your skin, not in your mouth! You lunatic deadbrain!”

  I had never heard Rath laugh before. It was a really great sound. It was weird — the things I could appreciate when I was vomiting.

  Rath r
etrieved the bottle I had dropped. He handed it to me, still snorting with laughter. “Here, take this,” he said, “and go sit over there.” He pointed to a tree several paces away from the carriage. “And put the salve on your skin.”

  “I’ll help you with the bodies first,” I said. I was clearly the biggest and strongest of our strange little group. It would only make sense if I helped.

  “No,” Rath insisted, “you will see to your wound before you pass out from blood loss or die from deadman poisoning.”

  “Deadmen are poisonous?” I gasped.

  “I don’t think so,” Rath said, “but that makes about as much sense as anything else about them. Now go take care of yourself and stay out of our way. And take the baby with you.” He plucked the child from Martha’s arms. Ignoring her protests, he set the young prince on his feet beside me and instructed him to hold onto my pant leg.

  “Aleksander,” I said.

  “Don’t name it, Izzy,” Rath said. “Next you’ll ask to keep it.”

  “His name is Aleksander,” Martha said.

  Rath waved us off. I trudged over to sit by my assigned tree, grouchy that Rath had taken Mel’s doting attention from me and banished me in a manner disturbingly similar to the way Mum punished me as a child. Young Aleksander had to run to keep up with my long strides. When I plunked myself down on the cold ground, he sat beside me and stared up at me with humongous eyes.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said to him. “This isn’t fun for me, either.”

  Aleksander nodded solemnly.

  “You’ve had just about as bad a day as I have, huh?” I gritted my teeth as I applied the salve to my arm. Since I was tending myself, I had to look. It wasn’t quite as bad as I had imagined, but it was still ugly. It was amazing and disturbing what human teeth could do to a person’s arm. And it hurt like crazy. Maybe it was a good thing Mel was busy at the carriage. She wasn’t near enough to see the tears streaming down my cheeks.