The Marching Dead

by Lee Battersby

  “No,” she said.

  “I haven’t tried yet.”

  “Don’t.” She shook her head. Not a denial, a warning. “If you love me…”

  “Why?” Marius frowned. “What will I find?”

  “That’s the point.” She glanced up at him, and he saw a flare of hidden anger. “It doesn’t matter what you might find. You shouldn’t be able to. Whatever’s in here,” she tapped the side of her head, “It’s mine to give or not as I please. My thoughts belong to me, Marius.”

  “Okay, okay.” He raised his hands. “I won’t.”

  “But you would have. If I hadn’t warned you off. You would have tried.”

  Marius said nothing. Keth turned back to the waiting army. “Is that all?” she asked, her voice a tight little squirt of sound. Marius glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

  “I can see where a body has lain. You’ve seen me do that. I’m…” Connected, he suddenly understood. In a way I’m not to the living world, not anymore. It didn’t matter if he could read Keth’s mind. Were he alive, he wouldn’t need to. He could know her thoughts as truly as his own, via the myriad of sensual indicators the living shared, the panoply of little signs that living bodies use to communicate. But he was dead, and he realised with a sudden shock that he could no more read her now than he could any other living creature.

  They fell into silence. Finally, Keth shivered.

  “We should go.”

  “Yes.”

  They stepped away from the edge of the wall and made their way down to the street in silence, separated by a foot of space and two worlds of belonging.

  Three thousand worried soldiers-turned-mothers were waiting for them when they arrived, all but tapping their toes and waiting to be told exactly what time Marius called this, and where did he think he’d been, and did he not give a thought to how worried they all were? It was Gerd who hurried forward as they exited the tunnel and spread his arms in enquiry.

  “What the hell took you so long? We were worried sick.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Shut up, Granny.”

  Marius brushed past him, making his way to the centre of the cavern they had carved out while he was absent. He took a moment to look around himself, at the ragged collection of victims, discarded souls, and outright bastards he had gathered. I should offer them something, he thought. Some great speech to mark the occasion, some stirring words to drive them on and give them heart for the coming battle. I’ve been in armies. I’ve seen it done. I’ve felt the blood thunder through my head and bring strength to my sword arm.

  Instead, he turned to Gerd and offered a simple nod. His young friend stepped forward. Marius pointed to the ceiling above them. Gerd concentrated, then tilted his head back. He raised his arms, placed his palms together above his head, and in one quick movement, swung them apart in wide arcs, finishing at his waist.

  Above him, the earth split asunder. The sounds of the world came tumbling in. Marius screamed back at it. He punched the air and his army pushed past him, a stream of silent bodies that roared pure bloody murder inside his mind.

  Within seconds they were out of the pit, and visiting seven kinds of shit upon their enemy.

  THIRTY FOUR

  The nuns came first.

  They poured forth like a plague of skeletal cockroaches, a flood of silent bone armatures clad only in wimples – and where the hell had they come from? – swinging spare femurs above their heads like hammers, crashing them down on the backs and legs of the stunned invaders who surrounded the hole. Arnobew strode ahead of them, his cardboard robes flapping in the wind, bellowing “Repent! Sinners repent!” fit to raise any dead who weren’t already wide awake and wondering just what the holy hell had risen up and engulfed them.

  Within seconds they had carved a swathe through the ranks of the enemy, an ever-widening circle of soldiers brought to their knees behind them. And in their wake came the tubmen, with Brys astride the shoulders of the foremost, whooping like a child on her first visit to the city as they reached into the tubs around their necks and scattered handfuls of bones as if feeding corn to chickens.

  “Salvation,” she screamed, cracking the flat of her twin swords against the skulls of those genuflecting about her. “Salvation!”

  And slowly, after the first shock of attack had worn off, the circle of dead began to glance at the offerings on the ground about them. Then stare. And then, as the army began, however slowly, to react to the threat posed by Arnobew’s women, they dove forward, to scoop up the indulgences, and to weep with joy and thank their gods.

  Beneath them, Marius waited. When the first prayers reached him he signalled to Fellipan. She nodded, and waved to her followers. They surged out of the hole, three thousand bodies in a single stream. As the last one left, she ran a leather-clad hand down the side of Marius’ face. Marius snapped a nod towards the hole. She arched an eyebrow at him, then turned and slinked upwards out of his vision. Marius resisted the very great temptation to watch her ascend. He turned to Gerd and Keth. Gerd was examining a particularly interesting stretch of the wall somewhere nearby. Keth was staring straight at him, arms folded, face as closed as he had ever seen it.

  “Give them a minute,” he said, “and then we follow.” He looked past them, to the small coterie of bastards still waiting: the thugs and cutpurses Brys had rescued from the bottom of a dozen docks. She stood at their head, cutlasses drawn, a wild grin distorting her features. “They’re ready?”

  Brys ran the blades of her sword together. Behind her, a voice crackled, “Ready as a virgin in a whorehouse, sonny.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “She insisted,” Brys replied, just as Granny stepped out from behind her.

  Someone had outfitted her with a bandolier and stuffed it with knives. Someone had provided her with a cigar. Now she took it from her mouth and pointed the soggy end at Marius.

  “Ready to cut and thrust, Kingy-boy.”

  “Please.” Marius pinched the bridge of his nose. “Never pump your hips like that again.”

  Granny snickered. Marius turned away, straight into Keth’s gaze. He busied himself in listening to the sounds above, very deliberately not looking at her.

  “Okay,” he said after a few moments. “Let’s go.”

  Up above, all was carnage. The nuns had cleared a space nearly one hundred metres across. They held the line against the nearest ranks of the enemy, who had finally realised what was happening and engaged them. Arnobew ran around the ring like a human whirlwind, bellowing orders to his troops in between imploring those outside to accept salvation. The tubmen strode around the circle, flinging their remaining favours into the crowd beyond. Those soldiers subjugated by the first wave of nun assaults had either joined their new sisters or had laid down their arms and now hailed Marius as their saviour as he clambered past them. Granny pushed into them, Brys at her elbow, and set her troops to clearing a path for him towards the centre.

  A dozen feet ahead of them lay a small hillock overlooking the surrounding plain. Marius climbed it, and stopped to wait. Around him the battlefield had resolved itself into something he was comfortable with: the sounds of fierce battle, at a distance; orders lost within the confusion of combat; the cacophony of screams, whether they were of the dying, the injured, or simply those trying to make themselves understood over the din of combat. He caught sight of Keth’s confused face beside him and suffered a sudden realisation – it was all inside his head. She saw only the clash of weapons, saw combatants fall silent to the ground or run suddenly from one spot to another with nothing to direct them other than the bellowing voices of Brys and Arnobew. Marius had unleashed them for the sole purpose of sowing disorder, which purpose they were fulfilling splendidly, judging by the way the nuns and tubmen were keeping a hundred thousand directionless enemy at bay.

  Then Marius saw it happen, at the far edge of the field, at the point furthest from the gates of the city: a sudden stiffening of the enemy li
nes, as if those at the back, who had been straining to get forward and at least view the action, were suddenly pulled into order. He pointed. Gerd and Keth followed his finger.

  “Uh oh.”

  Marius smiled, a short, feral twist of his lips. He turned to Keth.

  “You need to be somewhere else now.”

  He saw her jaw firm, and a flash of anger light her eyes. Her gaze flicked downwards, across the battle, then back to Marius. He followed it, saw Fellipan astride two of her largest minions, directing the flow of human traffic from one side of the small circle to the other as she supervised the reinforcement of the lines.

  “Do you really need to envy the dead woman right now?” He took her arm and showed her the commotion coming towards them, getting stronger as it approached, as if some great shark was swimming through a shoal of fish who had the sense to get out of its path and let it through. “Or do you want to become one?”

  Still she said nothing. Marius gave in. “Please,” he said. “Whatever it’ll take to make you safe. Just tell me, and then do what I need you to do, this once. Please.”

  Now she looked directly into his eyes. “Okay,” she said. “Are you sorry?”

  Gerd projected an image of a hand slapping a forehead. Marius ignored it. Instead he lowered his eyes for a moment.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  She eyed him from a million miles away. “Why are you sorry? Because you’re actually sorry, or just because you want me out of the way?”

  He stayed silent. Keth nodded. “I see.” She turned away from him. “You don’t even think they’re separate.”

  She moved past Gerd and began to climb down into the hole. Marius kept his eyes on the spot where she had been. Gerd coughed.

  “Right, then,” he said. “She’ll just… to the King… like we… Right.” He closed the hole behind her, and then stood by Marius’ side. “So we’re just going to wait right here, yes?”

  “Shut up now.”

  “Shutting up.” He fell silent. Ahead of them, the enemy lines were folding back, opening up a channel for something that approached at speed. Marius cleared his mind and felt, rather than heard, the elongated cry of rage that bore down upon them.

  “He’s coming,” he said. Gerd shrugged.

  “Gods, I hope so. I’d hate to think who it is if it isn’t him.”

  Everyone on the battlefield could hear it now: the anger of a tyrant challenged in his own den, thundering down to deliver judgement. Marius felt all the voices inside his head dribble away, stuttering into silence at the wall of fury. He smiled, waited until he could sense even his own supporters falter and look towards him for his reaction. Only then did he project an image of a hand, held up for silence. For the tiniest moment it caused the onrushing fury to pause, and in that moment he broadcast.

  “Scorbus!”

  A break in the projection of hatred, and Scorbus the man came through. “Don Hellespont? Is that you?” Marius saw the thoughts of the enemy ripple in confusion, saw his progress towards the line of nuns momentarily arrested.

  “Scorbus the Pretender,” he projected, and just for a moment was taken aback by the power in his voice, and by the way it made the entire battlefield pause, turning towards him just for a moment with awe in their minds. “Give me back my fucking crown!”

  And then there was no more time to think. Scorbus’ roar reverberated across the horizons. Before his own army had time to react he was driving forward towards Marius’ lines, crashing through the ranks of his own soldiers at such a pace that they were driven sideways against each other. Chaos broke out as those who were forced aside crashed into those who were not. Discipline was abandoned and fighters simply swung at whomever they collided with, everyone assuming everyone else was an enemy without strong voices to guide them. The invading army shattered as if struck by a hammer.

  Marius’ troops did not.

  As Scorbus closed with the line Arnobew was already there, shouting orders. The nuns held just long enough to provide token resistance then gave way, dragging the point of Scorbus’ attacking wedge aside with them so that the formation found itself peeled apart even as it burst through into the empty space beyond. As each nun tangled with a soldier, the tubmen moved in behind, pushing the combatants further away from the breach. They pressed an indulgence upon those the nuns had exposed, and disarmed them either by brute force, or – Marius was gratified to see – by the power of their words alone. And still the majority of Marius’ line held. And still Scorbus pushed onwards through the tiny gap. The few soldiers he’d managed to keep with him trickled through in a stream no more than four or five bodies wide, to be picked off and separated by those who were waiting.

  Then Scorbus broke into the space beyond. Granny’s troops reassembled behind him and went to work on the gap itself, a small band of nastiness that drove into the troops attempting to consolidate the breach. Marius turned his attention away from them. He knew what they were doing: slipping past the first few ranks of enemy troops before turning to smash shins and ankles with the iron bars Marius’ father had provided. They would build a wall of immobile suffering dead to plug the gap, then disperse as quickly as they had assembled, sneaking in amongst the nearby troops to smash any exposed limb they could find, sowing discord and confusion, a guerrilla force driving by the sheer, base joy of bastardry; tied to his cause, but only so long as it mattered to them. Faced with such pickings, the chain would be loosed. So be it. It all counted, all added to the chaos Marius needed. And there was Scorbus, exactly where Marius wanted him: isolated, surrounded by enemies, and foaming at his non-existent mouth.

  He projected a wolf whistle. Scorbus turned his head towards him. Just for a moment, Marius saw the Scorbus of old superimposed upon the staring skull: a massive, bearded visage; thick brows folded over his eyes in rage, thin lips opened wide as he roared. He even had time to see a solitary, recognisable figure steal out from behind the giant King and dissolve into the madness beyond. Drenthe. Of course, he thought. Both sides finally playing directly opposite the middle. Exactly what the traitorous advisor had wanted. Then Scorbus was surging across the empty space between them. The circle closed, held firm against further invasion. It was just Marius and Scorbus, alone, fenced in by a hundred thousand faces, with nothing left to do but destroy each other.

  Except that as fast as Scorbus ascended to the top of the little hill, Marius was no longer there.

  Instead he was three feet behind, close enough to smack the enraged King across the back of his head with the flat of his sword.

  “Here, stupid!”

  But as soon as Scorbus swung around, Marius was gone again. He reappeared a dozen feet away, threw a muddied rock that hit the skeletal King on the knee and dislodged the patella completely. Scorbus staggered, righted himself, charged down the hill with his sword raised. And Marius wasn’t there either. He was six feet to the side, charging Scorbus from his blind side to crack his scapula with a single blow. Again the King staggered, roared in frustration, and turned towards his assailant only to find empty air.

  Three feet below ground, Marius stopped to listen to the cry of aggravation. Gerd was waiting, and Marius went over to his side.

  “It’s working.”

  “And this is what you want, to make a psychotic homicidal giant even more unhinged than he already is?”

  Marius smiled, and felt insanity at the edge of his lips. “I wasn’t doing anything today, anyway.”

  Gerd sighed, and opened up another hole above them.

  And so it went. Marius drew the King from point to point across the circle of observers, never staying still, never stopping long enough to be engaged. He picked Scorbus apart bit by bit – a slap to the back of the head in front of the tubmen; reaching through a hole to grab his foot and bury his leg past the ankle; taking a chip off the top of his pelvic girdle right in front of those converted soldiers who had once formed the advance of his invasion. And slowly
, as the combat continued, and the once-demonised King of the Dead began to look increasingly clumsy, as he continued to swing at fresh air and stumble from one miniscule defeat to the next, something in the atmosphere changed.

  Where the battlefield had been charged with violence and desperation, and countless tiny struggles for survival, suddenly all focus was switched to the two single combatants. The opposing lines wavered, and dissolved, as even Arnobew’s nuns could no longer escape their curiosity and turned inwards to watch. Arnobew, Brys, and Fellipan continued to circle, but now it was with soft words of friendship. They drew weapons out of the hands of their enemies and shepherded them forward for a better view, providing a running commentary. They drew people together, first in small clumps, then in larger groups. Soon what was once a plain of death began to resemble the site of a well-attended travelling show. Marius heard laughter as Scorbus swung his sword at the space where Marius had been standing and fell over. A few picnic blankets and we could start charging, Marius thought as his latest fleeting appearance brought them back to the top of the hillock where they had begun. He brought the jewelled hilt of his father’s sword down across Scorbus’ back and watched him fall to one knee. Almost there, he thought, and stopped for the merest moment.

  Scorbus shot out a hand and grabbed his trouser leg.

  The audience gasped.

  Marius tried to pull away. Scorbus tightened his grip and hauled him off-balance. The giant King turned his face towards him.

  “Got you,” he said, and brought his sword arm over. Marius swung his blade up to block it. They clashed, and he watched as the tip of his blade shattered at the terzo and went spinning away.

  “Cheap piece of shit!” He struck forward, grinding the broken tip against Scorbus’ radius, but the King had him now, and nothing was loosening his grip. He swung again, and again, battering at Marius’ sword until the shock of repeated blows dropped it from his hand. The crowd, sensing some sort of completion, began to find its feet. Arnobew had turned from his diplomatic duties and was beginning to run towards them. Brys was unleashing her twin blades from their scabbards. Marius could feel Gerd beneath him, tensing. He went to hold his breath, realised he had none to hold, and tensed anyway.