01 - Honour of the Grave

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  Digging deeper into the pack, Angelika found what she really wanted: a fat loop of cord. It was rawhide, and there were many feet of it. “Seems like they expected to catch themselves a prisoner,” she said, taking her knife to cut off a suitable length of it. She wrapped it around Henty, who was still propped against the tree.

  “Is it wise to spare these blackguards?” Franziskus asked. He had finished cranking the bow and held it up in firing position, squinting. He had it pointed at a large burl in a tree, which would make an acceptable target for practice.

  “Are you saying we should slay defenceless foes? I’m surprised at you.”

  “They’re common cutthroats, to whom the laws of mercy do not apply.”

  Toby Goatfield stepped into the forest and advanced holding a dagger held above his head. Franziskus spun round and aimed from the hip. He shot the bolt through the palm of Toby’s weapon-hand and into a tree, fixing him to it. Goatfield looked at the wound and fainted. As he fell the bolt popped from the bark.

  “Nice shot,” Angelika said.

  “Thank you,” said Franziskus.

  “Leaving them alive might delay the Kopfs, if they come this way,” said Angelika. “They’ll want to untie them and ask some questions. With any luck, a further melee will ensue.” She and Franziskus leaned Toby against the tree and tied him up, then did the same with Elennath. Franziskus found Elennath’s elven sword and claimed it as a replacement for his ruined rapier. Angelika retrieved her lost knife. As they readied themselves to depart, Franziskus took the crossbow and bashed it into a tree, smashing it to bits.

  “What did you do that for?” she asked him.

  “It is not a weapon suitable for a gentleman,” he replied.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Angelika had to admit they lacked a plan and that their movements were essentially aimless. They tramped through the alpine wood, in search of higher elevations. They moved through tangled brush, along a narrow natural terrace between slopes. The pines crowded thickly together, as if mocking their scrappier, more tenacious cousins, who clung to the rocky slopes both above and below them. They were choosing the easiest paths, simply because they were easy. As they travelled, she occupied her mind by devising various scathing comments which she could direct at Franziskus for destroying a piece of equipment as useful and valuable as a crossbow.

  “Lukas’ movements would have been aimless, too,” Angelika said. “I know this terrain a little, whereas he grew up in privilege in some estate in Averheim.”

  “He had a pair of soldiers with him, though. They might know how to survive in the pass.”

  She stopped. There was forest to the left of them, to the right, at the front and at the back. “So where did they go?”

  “I’d look for a cave, and search for a route higher in the peaks.”

  She held her hand up. “Wait. Can you hear that?” She paused, to let Franziskus listen.

  “No, what?”

  “Running water. That’s where they’d stop, if they were here at all. They’d refill their waterskins, and maybe wait to catch any game that came to drink at the brook.”

  They followed the sound and, about a quarter of an hour later, found a stream flowing through a shallow groove of rock. They walked west along its stony banks until they reached a sheltered spot where the water widened out into a pool. A waterfall filled the pool from above; the surrounding rock, large and flat, made an obvious spot to camp. Franziskus refilled their skins as Angelika inspected the rock, then the bush around it. She waved Franziskus over.

  “Here’s where they camped,” she said, pointing at the ground. Franziskus couldn’t understand what he was meant to see—to him there was nothing more than pine needles. “They covered their tracks—as you’d do if you thought you were being chased—but this is where the fire was. And here.” She kicked at a pile of leaves and dead branches, uncovering some strips of torn clothing that had deep brown stains soaked into the fibres. “Bandages. That’s what tells me it was them, and not just any group of woodsmen or foragers. At least one of them was wounded.”

  “But there is nothing here that proves it was Lukas and his companions.”

  “What do you expect, that he’d carve his family crest on a tree?”

  “It still seems doubtful. We should return to the Castello, and seek honest labour.”

  She bounded up to the hill beside the waterfall. It was scarred with vertical slashes of mud, where the underbrush had been scraped away. “Someone made their way up this hill. Not so recently, though—you can see shoots coming up inside the marks. Those tracks could easily be eight weeks old. We’ve found our trail!” Using saplings and bushes as handholds, she made her way up the treacherous hill.

  Franziskus took a tentative hop up onto the slope, then slid back. The coating of damp needles below his feet made this just as hard to climb as the rockslide. “Aren’t you still hurting from that fight?” he called up at her.

  “Only in my shoulders, elbows, knees, chin, calves, my scalp, and my innards, and the part of my skull that joins my nose to my forehead. Let’s go.”

  “I got a hit a few times, too.”

  She lost her footing and slid, making a fresh mark on the hillside, nearly a yard long. “You’re not saying that all it takes to break you is an elf and a couple of halflings?”

  “They have two months’ start on us, we can afford to stop and rest for a few hours.”

  “The question is, how much of a head start do we have on Benno and Gelfrat?”

  “A salient point,” said Franziskus, redoubling his efforts. By scrabbling quicker, he found it easier to keep from slipping. Hands perched on hips, Angelika waited for him on a ledge, above. Water dropped down, hitting the rocky shelf she was standing on. It splattered into a shallow depression, where it collected then overflowed into the brook. The water hammered down past a chunk of sheer rock more than twice Angelika’s height. It reminded her a little of a face, with two deep-set eyes and a leering mouth. She tested it for handholds, but it was wet, and slippery with moss. They would have to skirt the streambed, and head off to the north slightly, where the going was less steep. Franziskus reached her side. She showed him where they’d have to go: a tangle of thorny briars, stunted spruce, and convoluting pines.

  Franziskus frowned at the forbidding vegetation. “Do you truly think this is the path they’d choose? Wouldn’t they look for something easier?”

  “They might climb down again, and stick to the lower woods,” she mused. “But look.” She pointed to a strip of yellow fabric that was tied to a bare and crooked pine branch, about twenty yards over and thirty yards up. “Someone passed this way.”

  She jumped down from the wet rock, into a mess of dead, dry weeds. They climbed through the brambles, stopping periodically to untangle their clothing from barbs and prickles. After nearly an hour of heavy exertion, the terrain flattened out again. On this plateau, the trees were straighter, the bright new growths at the end of each branch longer and healthier. Over on the rocks was another pool; alert grasses rose tall around it, through gaps between sheets of stone. Franziskus patted the ground to see how dry it was, then stretched out on it, with his head to one side and his mouth panting open. Angelika sat with a piece of fallen timber as her backrest.

  They heard a snuffling sound. Angelika straightened up. “What was that?”

  “I didn’t…”

  They listened—nothing.

  Angelika relaxed. “An animal, I suppose.”

  A branch snapped. She jumped up. So did Franziskus. They put their backs together defensively. He drew Elennath’s sword; she, her knife.

  They held their breath and listened to the distant chirping of birds, and the waterfall booming into the pool below.

  “Why do my guts suddenly gyrate?” asked Franziskus.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. She did not admit that she shared the feeling.

  Her ears popped. Her tongue tasted metallic.

  “Something is
wrong,” Franziskus said.

  “Sssh.” The backs of her hands felt hot suddenly; they had turned red and blotchy. She checked Franziskus’ hands; they were the same. “Franziskus, in your travels, have you ever encountered Chaos?”

  “No,” he said. Not long ago, they’d run into an undead thing, but he didn’t think undead counted. Chaos was a force people talked about, at night, when it was time to tell scary stories. It was not a thing a good person could speak of, with any certain knowledge. It was especially not a thing you were supposed to meet up with, even when you were deep in a mountain wood. “It might only be sorcery,” he said.

  “Oh, only sorcery! That’s all right, then!” Angelika’s knife shook nervously. She tightened her muscles and shouted into the bush. “If you’re going to come, come!”

  She heard a dry, rattling laugh. It seemed to be coming from just over her shoulder. “Do you see anything, Franziskus?”

  “No.” A gust of wind came and tossed grit in their faces, it seemed to be blowing in all directions at once.

  “I spit on the gods and minions of Chaos!” called Angelika. “A pack of pustulated cowards, that’s what you are! I dare you to stand and face us!”

  An object rolled from the trees. Thinking it might be a bomb, they ran from it, and hid between some trees. The object lost its momentum and bounced to a stop about fifteen feet from where they’d been. It was not a bomb.

  “It’s someone’s head,” Franziskus said.

  Though it was hard to tell without looking closely, Angelika did have experience with dead bodies, and parts of them, in various stages of decay. This one seemed human, and it had been dead for three weeks, give or take. She was in no hurry to confirm her suppositions by poking it from up close.

  “We must flee,” Franziskus whispered.

  Something made a snorting noise. They turned to see a grey shape dashing their way. It stood upright, like a man, and had a man’s torso and arms. But its head was like a mountain ram’s, with two hooked horns rising from the middle of it. From each horn, on threads of fibrous pink flesh, hung unblinking eyeballs. They bobbled erratically as the creature lurched in to swipe at Franziskus’ head with a crude wooden club in its human-like fist. Franziskus ducked. The club smashed bark and green wood from the pine behind him. Franziskus dodged. It opened its mouth, and foggy breath rolled over them. It stank, making their eyes water.

  “Beastman!” Angelika shouted, identifying her enemy. The beastmen were the most common, and lowliest, of all the Chaos gods’ servitors. They walked like men, but wore the faces and hides of animals. They had other powers, besides. That was all she knew of the things.

  The beastman swung the club downwards at Angelika. She capered out of the way, but the weapon managed to graze her ankle, sending pain shooting through her foot and up into the bones of her leg.

  It feinted at her. Finally it occurred to Angelika to use the weapon in her hand. Franziskus hadn’t tried a strike with his sword, either.

  “Die!” Angelika screamed, and pitched forward, both hands wrapped around her knife-hilt. The creature swiped at her but missed. She lost her balance, nearly colliding with a tree.

  Franziskus lunged tentatively, but it was as if he had to struggle against the wind to get at the creature. It was his fear of Chaos that was holding him back, he concluded. He clenched his teeth, shook himself, and pointed his sword-tip at the creature. Then he jerked forward, but involuntarily caught himself short. The beastman turned and bared its goaty teeth at him. Franziskus felt his mouth go dry.

  Angelika ran shrieking at it, dagger held double-handed, and this time she hit it, catching it just below its sternum. She felt her dagger bite through a tough wall of hair and muscle, then plunge more readily into innards and viscera. She tore all the way down to the beastman’s gut, then withdrew her knife. It was thickly coated in dripping blood, as were her hands and arms, right up to the elbows.

  The beastman, gutted, wobbled before them. Crimson chunks of flesh fell out of it, like sailors leaping from a sinking ship.

  “You’re not so tough, are you?” said Angelika.

  Like tentacles, severed intestines shot from the creature’s gaping body, and wrapped themselves around her. Two of them encircled her throat, trying to strangle her. They seized both her wrists, and slurped bloodily around her waist. Franziskus recoiled, and shielded his face with his arms. Angelika summoned the last of her breath to blurt out, “Snap out of it! Hit it!” Then she succumbed to blackness.

  The monster hopped up and down ecstatically as it squeezed the life from Angelika. Franziskus saw Angelika’s face turning blue. He leapt up and, with the tip of his sword, speared her attacker through its right eye. Jelly popped from the eye and oozed onto the blade. The beastman turned to see Franziskus shuffling to keep his hands on the hilt of the rune-incised sword he’d liberated from Elennath. The creature hissed at the blade, and backed away from it.

  Franziskus took a moment to theorise that the runes spelled some kind of elven charm inimical to Chaos. Then he shouted, shouldering all his weight into the sword hilt. He forced the blade in. He felt resistance when the tip reached the bone at the back of the beastman’s skull, but a moment later it fell forward, as it punched through. The sword now skewered the monster’s head entirely. A gobbet of still-pulsing brain matter dangled briefly from the tip, before dropping to the forest floor. The intestines constricting Angelika lost their vigour. They slid limply off her, leaving gelatinous trails of gore on her skin and clothing. Franziskus pulled the sword out. The beastman staggered, its hoofed feet stamping in a jagged half-circle. It turned its antlers to fix Franziskus in the gaze of their eyeballs.

  It roared and lurched at him, weakly waggling its deflated viscera. Franziskus slashed at its neck. It spun around, spraying blood on the trees.

  Angelika coughed and wiped her hands on the tails of her tunic. She launched herself upwards and stumbled behind the creature, gasping and wracked with pain. She felt herself blacking out again, then realised that she was still fighting the thing; it was as if she was propelled by instinct alone. It thrashed; she held onto it. She grabbed one of its horns with both hands and let her legs fly free, so that she became a dead weight. She heard a thud and was dimly aware that she’d hit the forest floor. Her eyes blinked. She’d pulled it down with her. She willed her reluctant hand to seize her boot-knife. Then she fell forward, and stabbed her weapon deep into the Chaos thing’s neck. Its body went slack; she stepped aside to let it fall prone. It had stopped moving, but she hacked its head off anyway, just to be safe, then pitched it far from the body.

  She floundered off, away from Franziskus, to double over and retch. But even though she felt sick, nothing would come up. Finally, leaning against one another, they took fear-drunk steps to the stream, which proved easy to reach from this elevation. They splashed chill water on their faces and sat on the cold damp rock.

  Franziskus was the first to find words. “We’ve got to leave here, at once.”

  “We didn’t go through that, just to turn tail and slink off.”

  “If Chaos is here, it is certain that Lukas has long since been devoured. We must also assume that there are more here, and that they’ll soon be upon us, to exact revenge for the one we’ve slain. We must go, at speed!”

  “We need to check if the head it tossed at us matches what we know of Lukas. If so, we’ll go.”

  “No, we must flee, regardless. These are not Averlandish soldiers, or halfling mercenaries. This is Chaos!”

  “We killed that one, didn’t we? It didn’t seem to like your elven sword.”

  “We’re lucky to be breathing!”

  She ducked her head into the pool, then shook it, sending drops of water in all directions. “To save a noble’s son from Chaos creatures—can you imagine the reward for a deed like that?”

  “Your brain is still addled, from the strangulation.” He cast a nervous glance at the woods.

  “He might still be alive.”

/>   Franziskus twisted around to face her. “By the gods, I think I understand. That rescue instinct of yours—it has come upon you again, hasn’t it?”

  Her shoulders indignantly straightened. “Now that’s a load of rot!”

  “Why else would you, of all people, be so intent on confronting Chaos? Suddenly, for no good reason, you intend to risk your skin for some fellow you don’t even know. As you did with me!”

  “You’re the one who’s addled,” she said, marching toward the severed head. “Which side of my supposedly contradictory personality are you arguing with, anyway?”

  “In this instance, not even the most stringent code of valour would command a pair of ill-armed persons with no experience in these dark affairs, to get themselves in a fight against Chaos.”

  “I agree that proving one’s valour is foolish. Fortunately, that is not my aim.”

  They stood at the foot of a trail that wound circuitously up to what looked like a cave, two-thirds of the way up one of the range’s lower peaks. For much of its length, the trail was a groove through the rock—currently dry, but cut by the rushing waters of a million spring melts. At other points, it became a ledge that wound precariously around the mountain. The higher it got, the more gaps appeared in it. A persistent, screaming wind dusted the path with snow from the surrounding summits.

  “I did not mean to suggest that you were wrong,” Franziskus said. “I merely express regret that you are right.”

  “You saw it, too,” Angelika said. “That spoor over there, it could only have been the steaming dung of a Chaos beast.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And if I were a Chaos beast, and wanted to keep a captive to torment, and eventually eat, that cave up there would be my lair.”

  “Which of us do you seek to convince?”

  “You can stay here, if you want.”

  “This is still the very peak of folly,” Franziskus replied, “but I won’t wait down here while you get yourself killed or captured.”