“He doesn’t like being called that,” the Duke reminded him.
“Tell someone who cares,” said Lughor. “Just send them out as fast as you can.”
“But - don’t you think you should wait until they’re here?”
“No time,” said the warrior. “The once-deads will be too close to the palace. Once in, they will be impossible to get out.”
Clutching a broadsword in both fists, Lughor nodded with grim determination. “You better have that bottomless bag ready in case any of them get past me.”
“Quite, quite,” said the Duke. But Lughor was already out of earshot. Seconds later, the Duke cringed to hear the swish of his blade through the air and the clatter of armour, and to see severed heads flying into the air like so many champagne corks.
At the far end of Potlar plain, Argolef repeated his question. “Who the bloody hell is that?”
Smedlock squinted. “Oh, him. He won’t be any trouble.”
***
“I don’t believe you!” Gonda cried. “I can’t. What even are you?”
She was cradling Tiggy against her chest as they climbed the steps from the altar room. Broad followed, imploring the girl to listen.
“Why?” she rounded on him. “Did you know about this?”
“No!” Broad insisted. “I don’t know what he’s talking about but I think we should hear it. You can trust him, Gonda; he’s my best friend.”
“Really!”
They reached the apartment of Carith Drombo but decided against staying there lest the witch surface from below. They went instead to seek the Duke, hoping to find him in a stateroom.
“Believe me, Miss Glissop; I am telling the truth.”
Gonda glared at the smoky, misty countenance hovering in the air. “Who told you my family name?”
Shade smiled. “Why, your father. Or rather, the man you believed to be your father.”
“My dad?” she blinked. She seemed to deflate then. She placed Tiggy on a chair and steadied herself against it.
“Gonda?” Broad was worried.
“We never told anyone about that,” she said quietly. “They - my parents - wanted everyone to believe I was their very own. My dad found me in a turnip field when I was just a day or two old. My mother was unable to bear children - or perhaps the fault was in Glenward’s breeches. I would never have known the truth but one night after my mother died, my dad got roaring drunk and out it all came. I was a foundling, he said and he hoped I had come to love him as my father. Which, of course, I had. He was afraid I would leave him and he’d be all alone.”
A tear coursed down the goose girl’s cheek. She let it fall and looked directly at Shade. “When did you speak with him? Is he here?”
Shade hung his head. “Glenward is dead. I’m sorry.”
Broad gaped in horror. “You didn’t!”
“He didn’t what?” said Gonda.
“Tell me you didn’t,” cried Broad.
“Tell you he didn’t what?” said Gonda.
“You killed her father!” Broad accused. “Unbelievable!”
“He was a goner anyway,” said Shade. “He was in a lot of pain. He had two minutes left, tops.”
Gonda stamped her foot. The sound it made was disproportionately loud. A crack ran up a wall and across the ceiling, threatening to dislodge an ornate chandelier. Broad and Shade stared at her. Gonda froze. “Did I do that?” she whispered.
“Let’s keep calm, shall we, Miss Glissop.” Shade invited her to sit on a chaise beneath a gilded portrait of Marmellion’s great-grandfather.
He explained what he was and what he had to do to stay alive. Through it all Gonda shook her head slowly, not wanting to believe.
“It was during one of my late-night sorties that I sensed someone was near to death beneath the palace. I found a man in the canal, wrapped in carpet, mortally wounded and more than half-drowned. He truly was in agony. Even if I had raised the alarm, there was nothing to be done for him. So I went inside him in order to find out who he was and who had done this to him. No prizes for guessing it was a certain lady we all love and admire.
“As I say, he hadn’t much life left in him but every thought was of you. I saw it all flash by in an instant. Someone in the village had got wind of the truth. There was a malgrim among them and they wanted rid of it. A trap was set: an orphaned boy in a house fire. The malgrim would be unable to resist such easy pickings only to be trapped in the house itself.
“But you, not knowing what you are, behaved the way Glenward and Hilbah had brought you up to behave. Your dad still felt a surge of pride at the memory. How brave you were! Hurling yourself into danger to save a child’s life.
“The villagers of course took a different view and sought to hunt you down.”
He stopped. Gonda was sobbing. She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and sniffed.
“It’s true. We were chased. Tiggy and me ran to that fortress place - Tullen whatsit. And all of a sudden, there was a clap of thunder and the men flew through the air to their deaths. And then there was the inn: everyone killed on the spot. Deep down I thought Tiggy had done it but I didn’t want to believe such a sweet little boy could be a monster. Guess what!” she gave a bitter laugh. “I was right. He’s not the monster; I am.”
Broad moved to take Gonda’s hand but she pulled away. Instead she looked to Shade.
“Thank you,” she said. “For ending my father’s pain.”
Shade coughed as though experiencing a lump in his throat, which was of course impossible.
“Friends,” said the Duke, entering the stateroom. “The Principality has need of you. I have need of you. The dread forces of Tullen Spee have risen and are upon us. Broad, Shade, the time is now.”
“Yes, Your Grace!” Broad stood to attention. Shade waved goodbye to Tiggy and streamed into the ring. Gonda watched, astonished.
“And the malgrim?” said the Duke, looking at the boy. Gonda stood and bobbed in a curtsey.
“That would be me, Your Grace.”
The Duke’s eyebrow curled upwards. “Indeed. I was unaware that they could live to reach your age.”
“And I was unaware I was one,” said Gonda. “Perhaps that accounts for it.”
“Are you willing to - you know - should the need arise? Only as a last resort, of course.”
Gonda looked at Broad and then at Tiggy. She could not let them become once-deads.
“Yes,” she said.
***
Lughor quickly developed a method of despatching the once-deads. First: lop off the head. Next: slice the torso in twain at the waist. Thirdly: sever any and all limbs within reach. The body parts would of course continue to crawl, roll, and stagger around but they were almost harmless by that stage and could be dispensed with by archers on the palace walls shooting them with flaming arrows.
They were unwholesome, unholy things. Beneath the rusted armour and rotted leather, their faces were stretched and grey, their eyes blank and yet animated, their cheeks sunken and their teeth black. They creaked as they shuffled, a sound like the wind moaning across a desert landscape, rising from their insides.
Even with his systematic approach Lughor found it hard going. Several times the antiquated blade of a once-dead’s axe or broadsword succeeded in striking the embattled warrior. Lughor shrugged off the blows like so many gnats’ bites although lesser men would be mortally wounded several times over by this point. Lughor did not notice at first but each palpable hit slowed him down, weakening him by the loss of one of his two hundred lives.
The Duke watched via a spyglass from the palace walls. Acrid smoke poured into the sky along with the noxious stench of once-dead body parts frittering away to ashes. He strained to see the warrior amid the fray. He is slowing down, the Duke thought,
and Broad and Shade have yet to reach their target.
Marmellion became aware of the tiny curved sword dangling against his breastplate. It gleamed as it caught the light of a flaming arrow arcing into the horde and he recalled the warrior’s words.
It renders the wearer impervious.
Damn it! There was nothing else for it. Lughor needed assistance and the Duke was the only one who could give it - provided that what he’d been told about the goldinium trinket was true. He ordered his horse to be readied and, despite the protests of his men, prepared to ride out onto Potlar plain.
As the gates opened, the Duke mounted the saddle and looked back at the palace. It would have been good to see his beloved Carith one final time. To say farewell - What am I saying? Lughor’s pendant will protect me and I shall have my wedding night at last, however delayed it might be.
He spurred his horse into battle. Behind them the western gates clanged shut.
Within minutes the horse was hacked down and the Duke toppled from the saddle. With a scream that was almost human, the horse died.
And got up again.
It headed blindly for its rider, snorting and groaning. On the walls, the archers witnessed the Duke’s plight and plugged the horse with enough arrows to fell it again. The horse, on fire, got up and lurched toward the Duke until the flames engulfed it completely and the once-dead creature fell to pieces.
Once-dead flesh burns fast, the Duke observed. He hacked and slashed at the eldritch soldiers in his path and they put up no resistance or defence. It was as though they did not know he was there.
The goldinium!
The Duke laughed and continued merrily to chop and slice his way through to the warrior. The once-deads swarmed around Lughor like slow-moving but persistent wasps. A single impulse kept them going as though they shared one mind and, in that mind, one thought alone.
KILL!
When living, centuries ago, the army had never been this single-minded or united by one purpose and that was how the great wizard Vargus and his sect had been able to defeat them and keep them within the fortress at Tullen Spee, building the walls thick and strong around the battleground. The army was enchanted - invulnerable, even - but individuals within it could be picked off and separated from the rest. One by one, Vargus and his men isolated soldiers and cast them into a pit through force of will alone.
Gradually the army was whittled away to nothing and Argolef the First was routed. The king escaped over the mountains and the pit was sealed. At first, the fortress was manned but, with the Principality founded and the members of the sect dying off from old age, it was abandoned, its deadly secrets forgotten. But there was so much magic in the ground, seeping up from the bewitched bodies that anyone or anything that died at Tullen Spee would come back as a once-dead. Furthermore, anyone or anything subsequently killed by a once-dead, even away from the tainted ground of Tullen Spee, would become a once-dead too. Only total destruction of the body and all its parts could stop a once-dead and, even then, Smedlock knew something remained. A spark of evil, an animus in the air ready to infect, to pollute, and destroy.
“He’s doing well,” Argolef the Seventh commented in reference to the big, bold warrior cutting down all comers.
“He’s tiring,” Smedlock was dismissive. “He won’t last forever. Well, not until he becomes a once-dead, of course.”
Argolef pointed again. “And who the bloody hell is that?”
Smedlock stared. He too gaped and laughed. “It’s only that fool of a Duke himself!”
“It never is!” said Argolef.
“I’m telling you,” said Smedlock. “It’s him.”
“What does he think he’s doing? He can’t win. Can he?”
“Not a chance. Give it ten more minutes and he’ll be fighting on our side.”
“Oh,” said Argolef, who would have preferred to see Marmellion defeated and, in abject surrender, relinquish his dukedom.
Oh well, can’t have everything, he supposed.
***
Broad ran as best as he could, grimacing with his injury and shoving his way through the legions of the once-dead. It was no different from a busy market day. The youth found he could elbow and push his way through. The sword and dagger he held at the ready were not called into service. The once-deads were paying him no heed.
“I feel snubbed,” Broad whispered to the ring. “Why are they ignoring me?”
Shade didn’t answer so Broad had to think things through for himself.
“It’s the shit! Isn’t it? I’m covered in it so they don’t notice me. Is that it? They don’t know I’m here.”
He took Shade’s silence as confirmation of his hypothesis and continued to plough his way across the plain, against the flow of traffic.
The rain set on in earnest. Round, cold drops fell like coins. A spot of clean skin appeared on Broad’s arm. The grime and filth began to smear and streak.
How much farther?
Broad was winded when a once-dead elbow struck him in the sternum. He shoved the unnatural soldier aside. “Excuse me!” he snapped. A second once-dead banged into him. Broad staggered back into a group of others. They turned, looking for the human among them. Broad dropped down and scrambled between their legs; they were too slow to react but react they did. More and more of them turned away from the warrior and sought this new quarry.
Broad crawled on all fours. The plain was all mud and puddles and so his hands were soon clean. The rain continued to splatter his back and hair, every drop removing a little of the muck that had disguised him. He bowled into knees and shins, toppling once-deads like skittles in a tavern game. He expected to be seized at any second or run through by an antique weapon, but he kept going.
The disturbance in the horde did not go unnoticed by Smedlock. The tide of once-deads was swirling in the wrong direction, away from the warrior, away from the palace.
“What’s happening?” said Argolef, against his better judgment, nudging the stinky wizard.
“It appears we have been infiltrated,” said Smedlock. “By whom I do not know.”
“Hadn’t you better find out?”
Smedlock seethed. “Majesty, I am in control.”
“Looks like it,” said Argolef. “Half of them are coming back this way. Do something!”
Smedlock pushed up his sleeves. It wasn’t his style but a power blast from his hands, Bradwyn style, might do the trick. It was the kind of flashy magic that impressed the easily amused. It would at least illuminate the scene.
He pointed both palms at the plain and, planting his feet on the ground shoulder-width apart, he summoned the energy from deep within. Argolef moved away to be on the safe side - if there was such a place.
Nothing happened. Smedlock, looking embarrassed, rubbed his hands together and held them out again. Again, nothing.
“It’s you,” he glanced at Argolef. “I can’t do it if you’re watching.”
Argolef rolled his eyes and turned away. Smedlock clapped his hands and held out his palms. This time he felt the tingle rising through his feet and up his legs, growing in his gut and surging along his arms. Two streaks of white light shot from his palms and into the boiling mass of once-dead bodies, glinting off their armour and lighting up the rain like falling sparks.
“Pretty,” said Argolef.
Smedlock was about to mutter something scathing when he was surprised by a blow to his legs. He toppled over backwards - the streaks of light went skywards and winked out. The wizard lay on his back, his knees in the air. Over him was the broad-shouldered youth, striped and spotted with sewage, brandishing a dagger and a sword. Smedlock kicked out, his foot connecting with the youth’s chest and knocking him back. Broad dropped his dagger but did not seem to mind. With his now empty hand he unfastened the clasp on his bulbous ring and held
it out toward the wizard.
Shade streamed out like a dart, his arms extended before him, hands ready to seize on Smedlock. The wizard scurried backwards on his backside, trying to get away. He screamed as Shade poured into his ear. His eyes rolled and turned white. His body convulsed. Broad and Argolef watched in fascination and horror respectively.
Smedlock gave a few violent spasms and lay still.
But Shade did not come out again.
Twenty-Seven
Gonda was watching from the balcony outside the stateroom. Tiggy was on his chair, as good as goldinium, but the goose girl fretted about leaving him on his own while she - while I what, exactly? She did not know what to do for the best. Go out there? Fight? How can I fight? I’ve never wielded anything more deadly than the long-handled crook I used to keep the geese in check.
You’re forgetting you’re a malgrim, she scolded herself.
Yes, but what do malgrims do? Apart from talking to themselves, evidently.
We bring thunder.
We kill people with it.
But in doing so, surely I destroy myself - and worse! Tiggy! If I bring thunder, will I be demolishing the bathroom as well as chucking the baby out with the bathwater?
The Duke had said he’d never heard of a malgrim living to be my age. Why is that? Because they destroy themselves when they’re young - too young to control the power at their disposal...
Hope sprang in Gonda’s mind. If I can control it, perhaps I can use it to my advantage...
Her shoulders slumped. I don’t even know what I can do.
Whatever I decide, I want Tiggy with me. If it all goes wrong, at least we’ll be together at the end.
She turned to him but his chair was empty.
Tiggy was gone.
Gonda gasped and searched the room in panic. No, he wasn’t under the chair or a table or hiding behind a tapestry. She called his name over and over but since when had the boy answered to it, or answered at all?
Her blood ran cold as she noticed a portion of the wall that was not flush with the rest. A service door, wallpapered to look like the rest of the décor... It was slightly ajar.
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