He breathed, slowly and deeply, and then, his eyes closing, he leaned his head back. He had never felt so peaceful. Molly and Copperfield were talking to each other.
“No,” Molly was saying. “I really am impressed. I never really knew you. I would have never guessed that you’d have come out here and risk your own life to mix the mortar.”
But of course Copperfield would. The only thing more important to Copperfield than his life was his food. If he taught people how to make the mortar, they’d be able to mix it without him. If they did that, he wouldn’t get paid.
Surely Molly knows that about him.
“It just has to be done,” Copperfield replied, as if he was doing something that was somehow more admirable than the rest of them.
“But you served your time!” Molly’s voice seemed surprised. “You’re a Citizen. You’re not supposed to ever have to risk your life. It’s unfair for you to have to go back out into danger.”
Unfair my ass. Unfair is that he gets to make us do it for him.
“This is the best way,” Copperfield’s voice seemed deeper than usual. “It would be wrong for me not to make this sacrifice.”
Sacrifice! Really? I mean, come on.
Martin fought to keep his mirth on the inside. He looked to the line of his men, villagers and hunters and even a few of Constance’s people, doing the heavy lifting, getting right up there next to the Carrion. Sacrifice?
Martin looked back to Copperfield. The Citizen was bending down to pick up another bag of some ground substance or another. In doing so he ran into Molly’s butt. He stood up embarrassed. From this angle, Martin could see the inviting smile that Molly gave the man.
She’s seducing him?
No wonder she was filling his ass with smoke. Molly may be a changed woman, but she still knew how to get what she wanted.
The more things change . . .
Handfuls of loose earth broke off beneath Arturus’ grasp as he climbed quickly for cover. He could see the one horned Minotaur standing head and shoulders above the six foot dyitzu that flanked him. There was another thing on the ledge, too—a tall, humanoid thing with yellow, rotten skin.
Fire sizzled over Arturus’ head. He found Johnny already sheltering under cover he climbed behind.
Galen’s MP5 went off a few times. Then a dyitzu went toppling by down the cliff.
How does he even aim while climbing?
Arturus jammed his feet into the earth, found a rocky handhold with his left hand, and drew his pistol with his right.
“You’re going to fight back?” Johnny asked, incredulously.
“You want to just die?” Arturus shouted.
The look on the hunter’s face was despondent. He was still wearing the shirt that had caught on fire. The cloth had been burnt away on one side, exposing the horrific burns and boils below on Johnny’s skin.
He’s in a lot of pain. Death might seem sweet to him.
Arturus climbed a little to the left, looking out over the raised piece of cliff which was his cover. He took careful aim with his pistol and fired. The bullet missed, but he’d gotten their attention. The dyitzu fire started pouring his way. As quickly as he could, Arturus climbed back behind his cover. Dyitzu fire bombarded the earth above, sending clumps of mixed dyitzu fire and dirt raining down through the air behind himself and Johnny.
The earthen cliff Arturus clung to was not very tightly packed, and the vibrations of the fireball impacts shook some of it loose.
Arturus looked frantically about him.
Kelly was sheltering under a boulder to his left, and he knew Galen was somewhere to his right, but he wasn’t sure where anyone else was.
“We can’t go down!” Kelly was shouting.
“No choice.” Galen yelled back.
“Just look down!” Kelly answered.
Arturus made the mistake of doing what she said. He had never been afraid of heights, but a fall from here would surely kill him. The cliff they were on wasn’t really a cliff, he realized, but a low point in the ceiling. It didn’t actually make it all the way to the forest below. The forest wasn’t that thick, and the area beneath them was more like a giant plain. Now that he was lower, he could see that the hills were covered with a dark green grass and the occasional white flower.
On those fields were the corpses. The chamber might well contain thousands of them, even hundreds of thousands. Though they weren’t that thick below, the noise of the battle was drawing more of them.
“Oh shit!” Aaron screamed from somewhere above. “They’re coming. The dyitzu are climbing down.”
“Everyone get as low as you can,” Arturus heard his father’s voice over another barrage of dyitzu fire. “We’re going to drop to the plains and make a run for it. The dead seem pretty thick out there, but I’ve been in the Deadlands before. They should thin out.”
Arturus mapped out a path downwards and then began to take it. He looked up. Johnny was still behind the cover, pressing himself desperately to the wall.
“Come on!” Arturus shouted.
Johnny looked lost.
“Please!” Arturus pressed. “I need you.”
Johnny let go with one hand and began to climb down, but the earth gave way beneath his feet and he stopped, clinging to the cliff.
“Galen will get us through this!” Arturus shouted. “He always does. It’s going to be okay.”
Johnny nodded, seeming to snap back into alertness. He climbed after Arturus. Kelly was coming too.
It’s going to be a long drop when we make it.
A dyitzu was tumbling down the cliff. Arturus hadn’t heard anyone shoot it. Maybe it had just fallen. He tried to get another look at One Horn, but his view of the passageway was blocked.
“To your right!” Johnny shouted.
Arturus understood why Johnny wanted to go that way since it did appear to be closer to the ground. It would, however, leave them open to dyitzu fire.
“We can’t,” Arturus said. “We’ll be in the open.”
“We ain’t going to survive that fall!”
Arturus tried to judge the distance. It was difficult from their perspective. Tamara was down that way already.
Arturus shook his head. “We won’t survive the fire, either!”
“It ain’t so bad,” Johnny said. “Slide!”
He’s right.
Arturus looked up at Johnny. The hunter’s eyes were wide with terror, but he looked determined.
“I’ll see you down there,” Johnny said.
Johnny spun around, putting his back to the cliff, and then he let go. He slid by Arturus amidst an avalanche of dirt and pebbles.
Hell.
Arturus turned around as well and followed. Dirt came up in clouds around him. From the billowing dust below, he heard Johnny’s high pitched scream of exhilarated terror.
Damn you, Johnny.
Copperfield awakened.
His heavy body ached from the pleasure he’d received. Molly had been a holy horror in the sack. The woman had brought him to the edge of climax so many times he’d thought his balls were going to explode. She’d driven him to the end of his physical endurance, demanding that he fuck her against the wall. Then, finally, she let him cum.
He was sure he hadn’t orgasmed so hard since his fourteen year old self had found his father’s porno VHSs.
That’s one hell of a woman.
To tell the truth, it was about time he’d gotten her in bed. The others in the Fore wouldn’t touch her, but Copperfield didn’t give a damn about her reputation. Michael might be pissed at him for doing it, but fuck, right now, Copperfield didn’t give a damn about Michael either. It was only a matter of time before Mancini and Graham replaced him and Martin as the ruling First Citizen and Lead Hunter.
Besides, Molly was a changed woman. Changed how? He couldn’t say. It was just that she wasn’t the same Molly which had gotten her ass exiled out of the Fore for being a horrible bitch.
Oh shit, she was bann
ed from the Fore even before she left. I probably broke that.
Copperfield turned to look at her, but he found that he was alone in his bed.
She’s in a hell of a lot better shape than I am. She probably didn’t need to sleep as long.
But it felt like their sex had happened only an hour or so ago. Maybe she had left in disgust. Some of the other women who slept with him did that because they were only fucking him for food. Still, he’d swear that Molly was genuinely interested. There had been no hints at her displeasure like there had been with the other villagers. Copperfield couldn’t shake the feeling that Molly truly cared about him. Besides, he’d offered her a good job already. If she didn’t actually want him, or at least didn’t want to pretend to want him, fucking him now would make it look like she was the same old Molly. She would have erased whatever goodwill she’d earned by being a prodigal son of sorts.
She does want to be with me. She must have just gone out. Maybe to piss.
If there was one thing Copperfield knew, it was that people were self interested. Now it was still possible that Molly might be playing the long con on him. To tell the truth, he wouldn’t mind that at all. Sure her love would be dishonest, and it would end eventually, but wasn’t that the way of all love? When you got down and really thought about it, there wasn’t much difference between a long con and a marriage. But no, it had to be either love or duper’s delight which had set that warm smile on her sleeping face. He just couldn’t imagine a motivation she might have to fuck him and leave him.
I mean, she’d have to not want to stay in the village. And there’s nothing outside the village she could want . . . except.
Copperfield shot up in his bed. He threw off his covers and ran across the plush houndskin carpet to his shelf. The box was missing.
No . . .
“Staunten!” Copperfield shouted, snatching a pair of pants from the floor. “Staunten!”
He pulled his pants up under his belly, not even bothering to put on a shirt, and burst through his door curtain. “Staunten!”
Citizens woke, coming out of their rooms, but Copperfield ignored them. He burst past Herod the Gunsmith and a curious Chelsea before charging down the stairs to find Staunten’s room.
“Staunten!”
The man was one of the few people to have a door. Copperfield banged on it with both fists. “Staunten, so help me God, you had better get your ass up right now.”
“I’m sleeping, Copperfield.” His voice was muffled by the door.
“God damn it. It’s that bitch, Molly, she stole the spare key.”
“What?” the voice was frantic.
Copperfield heard items crashing in the man’s room. Staunten opened the door, his dark hair a disheveled mess, his shirt buttoned wrong, and his pants skewed awkwardly to one side.
“What did she steal?” Staunten asked.
“I don’t know,” Copperfield said.
Staunten charged past him. “Thinking with your damn dick, Copperfield.”
A line of Citizens had showed up in the hallway behind them, but Copperfield paid them no heed.
Copperfield waddled by them. He wasn’t used to exertion, and earlier this day he’d helped mix mortar, traveled back and forth from Harpsborough to the Carrion barrier, and gotten his brains fucked out by a thief. His legs were understandably shaky.
Staunten pulled the key necklace over his head when he reached the giant woodstone storeroom door. He pulled it open as fast as he could and charged in. He looked about him, checking the stacks of devilwheat sacks and picking up dyitzu hocks. He moved over to his old world paper lists and started checking his inventory. Slowly, his frantic expression was replaced by one of confusion.
“I don’t know,” Staunten said as he counted the black barrels which contained the preserved birthing milk. “If she stole something, it was small.”
Copperfield knew where to look, however. He walked past Staunten and the riches which Harpsborough’s Citizen’s kept safe from Hell. He came to a stop before a drawer. He moved a bucket of shotgun shells out of the way so he could open it.
This was where they kept the key to the Golden Door.
Staunten gasped when Copperfield opened it.
“It’s gone,” Copperfield said. “The key is gone.”
He turned around and saw Michael and Mancini standing at the storeroom’s entrance.
“The key to the Golden Door,” Copperfield explained to them. “Molly stole it. I’m sorry, I should have—”
Michael held up one hand. “Is Martin still repairing the Carrion Barrier?”
“I think so.”
Michael nodded. “Get him. Get him now. Send him to the Golden Door.”
There was a terrible pop when Johnny landed. Arturus came down just a moment later, the ground hitting him hard enough to knock the breath out of him.
Please Johnny. Please be okay.
The corpses were all around them. Arturus tried to breathe, but the air wouldn’t come into his lungs. He struggled to his feet, but he couldn’t straighten his torso. He’d lost his breath like this once in boxing practice. Galen had ordered him not to fall down, so Arturus had just stood, hunched over, doing his best to keep boxing. As always, the lessons which had seemed the cruelest were the ones that saved his life. Unable to straighten himself, Arturus drew his pistol and fired at the closest corpse. Some of these undead moved smoothly, almost like men walking. They were wearing styles of rotten clothing Arturus could not recognize.
“Johnny,” he wheezed, but he wasn’t sure if his voice was loud enough. He tried for more air and spoke again. “Johnny!” This time it was loud enough. “Can you stand?”
“I think I’m fine,” the hunter answered.
Johnny struggled to his feet as Arturus took aim at an approaching corpse and shot it down. The hunter limped over to Arturus.
“I’m wrong. I’m fucked up,” Johnny reported.
“Tamara fell over there,” Arturus managed to say.
They moved towards her, and Arturus was finally able to stand straight. Tamara had landed on top of a hill. She was struggling to her feet.
“She’s alive,” Johnny said. “That tough bitch.”
She was moving awkwardly, not like a human recovering from a fall, but like a newborn corpse standing for the first time.
“No she didn’t,” Arturus said. He dropped her corpse with another pistol shot. “Corpsedust. It’s everywhere in here.”
Arturus looked around. The Deadlands seemed different from ground level. Rolling hills, full of grass and asphodel flowers, surrounded him. Sparse groupings of trees, dirkenwood if he remembered his lessons right, raised their gnarled trunks and empty branches up into the mists surrounding them. On one side, the trees thickened into a forest. Towards the other, they thinned into a field of white asphodel flowers. The ceiling of the chamber hovered over their heads, coming down in places so that it almost touched the earth. In a few spots, the ceiling had collapsed onto the ground. Corpses were spread out around them as far as he could see through the haze. A stone structure, perhaps only containing a single room and a small watch tower, was on the edge of his vision. It had to be at least half a mile away, but there was nothing else nearby which could give them shelter.
Arturus heard more gunshots.
Kelly was trotting towards him, her pistol blazing as she passed the scattered corpses. Aaron was coming too, with Galen behind him. Galen had Avery slung over one shoulder.
Tamara was the only one we lost in the fall.
A dyitzu was getting up from where it fell, but the undead were all over it.
That’s odd, these corpses kill devils?
“Turi!” Galen shouted. “The building. Do you see the building?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then run.”
Arturus jogged down the slope of the hill. He wanted to run faster, but Johnny wasn’t moving well, and he knew that his father was burdened with Avery. The trees thickened as they moved. Co
rpses came at them, appearing suddenly from in between tree trunks or from behind the hills. Arturus shot only those that were the closest to him and did his best to outrun the rest. He cast a glance over his shoulder. He saw the rest of his group spread out behind him. They were running too, often having to shoot down the undead which Arturus had spared. High above them, on that low hanging portion of the ceiling, Arturus saw the corridor which had led them into the Deadlands. Standing in it was One Horn. Below the Minotaur, the yellow skinned rotting monstrosity of a human figure was climbing down.
Arturus turned his attention forward.
Jesus, the corpses aren’t thinning out. They’re getting thicker.
He found himself using more bullets as he ran. Johnny had drawn his own pistol and was firing as well.
“We’re not going to make it!” Arturus shouted. “We have to move faster.”
He caught a glimpse of Johnny’s ankle. Arturus was surprised that the hunter was still running. The swelling had practically torn open the man’s boot.
“Then run faster!” Johnny pointed his gun forward and pulled the trigger, but he was out of ammo.
Arturus looked ahead of himself long enough to kill the corpse Johnny had been aiming at—then he looked back again. The rest of his group had caught up. Galen and Aaron were running side by side, and Kelly was just behind them.
“Can you run faster?” Arturus asked Johnny.
“I worry about me, not you!” Johnny shouted. “You run.”
Another corpse was in front of him. Arturus pointed his gun and pulled the trigger. Nothing. And he had no more magazines. Arturus, mid stride, kicked it in the chest and then passed it by.
“I’m out!” he reported.
“Coming!” Galen shouted. “Avery, I’m going to have to put you down in a minute. You’ll have to run.”
“Take my gun!” Avery said. “I’ve got ammo left.”
There were a few more pistol shots, and some of the dead closest to Arturus dropped.
March till Death (Hellsong Book 3) Page 10