Swords v. Cthulhu

by Jesse Bullington

  Jiang Wei lifted his spear and swept it ahead of him. If there were wolves, he would not be easy prey. He carefully retraced the path he had taken, and when his spear did not touch anything, he knew the way was clear.

  Ahead of him, something smelled. Oily, like burning fat. A moan broke through the fog, followed by a soft cackle and the squelching of something wet. Jiang Wei did not remember signs of anyone else on his way up the mountainside, nor did the noise-maker seem particularly intent on remaining hidden. Uncertain of his — or its — allegiance, Jiang Wei crept toward the shuffling and smacking, taking care to prod the air with his spear so he would not walk into something he could not see. The fog had been so dense at first that he could not make out anything past arm’s length, but as he grew closer to the sound, he could see it thin. A little more of his spear came into view, then more.

  Shapes formed in the mist. Hunched and bony, and clothed like beggars in old silks, they squatted around a pile of soiled clothes that they picked at with clawed, red hands and canine teeth. Slop dripped from their jaws, and they lapped it back up with long, sinuous tongues.

  The pile moaned, and as Jiang Wei neared, he saw that it was still human in shape, though soft, as though the flesh would not hold to the bones. The air no longer smelled solely of fat, but of blood as well. And the silk hat that sat atop the head of the quivering mass, the feathered fan that lay beside the body... He recognized them both.

  “Prime minister!” Jiang Wei shouted.

  It should not be possible. Zhuge Liang was dead. Jiang Wei had seen the placement of the body in its box himself.

  He did not know what the creatures were, pale-skinned with the bodies of men and the faces of wolves, but he charged at them. It did not matter if it was six against one, not if the prime minister was alive.

  The group scattered, howling, some of them on two legs, others on four. Jiang Wei had heard of beasts of such advanced age that they became demons, but despite their silk robes and the jade pendants he now saw hanging from their throats, these creatures did not give any appearance of wisdom. Just savagery.

  He caught one with the blade of his spear and it writhed away with a hiss. Out of the corner of his eye he saw another leap at him, and he bludgeoned it with the butt of his weapon. His spear gave him a good reach — he often wielded one from the back of his horse, and any part of it could be used to attack or defend.

  Jiang Wei dodged a slavering pair of jaws, and impaled his next assailant in the soft of the belly. He stepped back, pulling his weapon free and letting the whimpering creature fall. He had no time to rest. The tassel around the base of his spearhead bobbed and wove with every strike, blurring the movement of the blade.

  One of the monsters grazed him. He could feel the blood run along his upper arm, in the gap between his forearm and shoulder guards. It felt hot, painful beyond what it should be. There had probably been filth in that creature’s nails.

  And these monsters had been tearing with them into his mentor.

  He didn’t know how long he had been fighting, but they kept standing up. Nothing stopped them. Not slices across the throat, holes in the gut, nor broken bones. Jiang Wei panted, feeling his head swim. If these were men they would be dead by now, but if they took just a moment’s rest, they gathered to their feet, little more than winded.

  Then one of them sat back and gibbered at him as though it expected he would understand.

  Jiang Wei did not let it continue. His spear buried itself just beneath the creature’s collarbone.

  One of the other beasts howled, and he wrenched his spear back to block it, only to feel the blade catch. The jade pendant...

  He raised his left arm and felt the creature’s crushing jaws bite down on the leather forearm guard. Jiang Wei gritted his teeth and heaved the spear with his right arm, hard enough to break the cord. He swung it over his head and jammed the point down into the monster’s back.

  The wolf-thing let go of Jiang Wei and he flung it away from him. He turned to the others, but their eyes were not on him, instead watching the one who had spoken, who now scrabbled at the dirt with its long nails to grab at the fallen pendant. Triumphant, it gathered its trinket in its hands.

  Jiang Wei smashed it with his spear.

  “I’ll do worse,” he said.

  The creature bared its teeth but did not attack, and now the others gave him a wide berth, restlessly padding from side to side.

  Shoulders heaving, Jiang Wei was not certain he could live up to his words, but the pendant had obviously meant something to the wolf-thing, and if fear of losing their own pendants would encourage the others to reconsider, he was more than willing to shatter the next one to come within reach.

  His enemies seemed to reach the same conclusion. They bounded back into the fog, eyeing him as they fled. The speaker shook and curled its lips, then turned its head in disgust and loped into the void.

  When he could no longer hear their footsteps, Jiang Wei turned to the crumpled mass behind him.

  “Prime minister!”

  Jiang Wei had seen men disemboweled and mutilated on the battlefield, but never anything like this, where the very flesh had turned to sludge, and Zhuge Liang was still alive!

  “Your student, Jiang Wei, is here,” he said, kneeling by his mentor.

  He wanted to help him, but he wasn’t sure how. The prime minister lay face down, and his liquefying body could not be explained by wounds alone. Maybe there was something in the book he’d used. Jiang Wei had left it by the Sign of Qi, but the fog was thinning now. He would be able to find it shortly.

  Battle cries rang in the distance. The ambush must have started.

  His mentor murmured something Jiang Wei did not catch, so he set down his spear and steeled himself as he gripped Zhuge Liang’s shoulder. The flesh slid beneath his hand.

  “Hold on. I’ll turn you over, prime minister. Shall I prop you up? I see a place you can rest.”

  There was a sound he thought was assent, and he carefully lifted his mentor. The prime minister’s face was wasted, his cheeks hanging loosely from his skull, but Jiang Wei could still recognize him. He supported Zhuge Liang’s head and shoulders as he dragged him to a steep slab of stone, and tried to ignore the wet trail they left behind, the sticky dampness that seeped around his hands and into the crevices of his armor.

  “You can rest here,” said Jiang Wei. “I’ll go look for my horse, and if I can’t find her I’ll go get the men... ”

  “You are kind,” said the prime minister, “but what you see is no longer all of Zhuge Liang. This is only his spirit. His body is where it should be.”

  “Even so, I am not leaving you to those creatures.”

  The prime minister looked at Jiang Wei with eyes that could no longer see, as though someone had taken sand and scratched the color from his irises.

  “I do not want you to delve further into the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan,” said Zhuge Liang. Jiang Wei did not recognize the word Hsan. It did not sound Chinese, not in any of the dialects he knew.

  “I did not tell you of them because I do not want you to pay as I have. This old fool was fine with the coming of the ghouls. It is payment for a true understanding of the books.”

  “Why?” Jiang Wei demanded. “Why would you do such a thing? You were already a great scholar when our First Ruler came to you, when we were still one empire beneath one emperor!”

  “Jiang Wei... you know the size of Shu Han. Wei has always held the power. We could only win by out-thinking them, by using powers they could not match, and when we could, by winning over talented officers like you.”

  It was not right. Jiang Wei did not know what hurt more, knowing what his mentor had bargained with, or what he had been willing to sacrifice. He squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head.

  “These powers do not care about Shu,” said Zhuge Liang. “They are beyond the wars of men, but they will use us when it suits. They have already taken most of what they wished, and when the fog lifts
and you are no longer beside me, they will take the rest.”

  “Prime minister,” said Jiang Wei, his voice ragged. “Am I not to follow you? Is not the campaign in the north my responsibility now?”

  “Would you do anything for Shu, as I have?”

  Jiang Wei swallowed. “I do not know enough, and perhaps I do not wish to, but I used one of the books to call this fog, even knowing that the consequences might be dire, because I wish to protect our people.”

  “Pull me up,” said Zhuge Liang. “Take me to where you wrote the sign.”

  The fog was almost gone. Jiang Wei slipped an arm around the prime minister’s sagging back and draped one dripping limb across his shoulders to help support him. Together they walked. It was not comfortable, feeling the sloughing body of his mentor seep against his skin, but he would not complain.

  “The Wei army is still there,” said Jiang Wei when they got to the overlook.

  A part of him wanted to disbelieve. He thought the fog together with the ambush would have been enough. Only the prime minister had been able to command the elements.

  “Sima Yi has often had good intuition,” said Zhuge Liang. “It will take more than a little fog to make him disbelieve the stars.”

  “What more can we do?”

  “You can set me down and return to your soldiers. You are leading the rear guard, are you not?”

  “The rear guard should have already engaged. If Sima Yi has not retreated by now, many men will die. Though I can run to join them, I do not think that I alone could change the tide of battle. Prime minister, can you not do one more prayer? Use me as your hands if you must.”

  “There is not enough of me to serve as a proper vessel,” said Zhuge Liang, “and what I did to myself I cannot ask of you. Those things you fought were once men, and if you follow this path as long as I have, you will become either them, or me. It is not enough just to read the Books of Hsan. To master them one must partake of another human’s flesh. It is a most unholy thing.”

  Zhuge Liang spoke calmly, as though the matter truly was that simple, when it wasn’t at all.

  “There was always flesh in abundance on the battlefield,” the prime minister noted wryly. “But there are no enemies close by you now, and I know you are not the kind of man who would slaughter his own. For both those things I am grateful.”

  But Ma Yun was fighting down below, if he was still alive. Jiang Wei sagged to his knees, Zhuge Liang sliding down along with him.

  “Then I will have failed,” said Jiang Wei.

  Zhuge Liang shook his head. “No more than I. But I can make you an offer.” The prime minister twitched, struggling as he shifted to better face Jiang Wei. “My spirit flesh will soon be gone regardless. It is not what the books desire, but it will be enough to allow you to command the elements, just this once, for a short while.”

  It was anathema. The very thought made Jiang Wei’s stomach churn.

  “I asked you before,” said Zhuge Liang. “Would you do anything for Shu?”

  Jiang Wei swallowed. “I would.”

  “Then lay me down and pull back my robes.”

  “How much?” asked Jiang Wei as he set down his mentor and tried to keep himself from shaking. His hands trembled as he loosened the prime minister’s sash and uncovered his pallid torso.

  “Four mouthfuls. You must not be meek, and do not waste what you take.”

  Jiang Wei wanted to turn away, but knew he could not. He had asked for this. He wanted to protect Shu, to give Ma Yun and Yang Yi a fighting chance, to save the lives of men who would otherwise be called to battle.

  But still... His mentor’s pale flesh was thick and viscous, like congealed gruel. It would come away easily in his mouth even without a predator's fangs. Jiang Wei wanted to close his eyes.

  He did not.

  He bowed his head and tried not to think anything about the texture, the taste, only caring that each mouthful went down, and that his stomach did not reject it. This was Zhuge Liang’s sacrifice, and Jiang Wei was going to make the most of it.

  On swallowing the last bite he felt sick, and hot, like he was burning, and he did not know if his earlier injury had caught up to him, or it was something in the spirit flesh.

  “Now, remake the Sign of Qi,” said Zhuge Liang.

  Jiang Wei did not see him anymore, did not see anything except the sigil carved in the dirt and the roiling battle in the distance. He traced it again, clearing the damage done by his horse, and cut himself without hesitation to feed the sign with blood.

  Then he stood, and through the haze of heat, felt powerful, as though the prime minister was rising at his back, surrounding him, enveloping him. He didn’t need to restore the fog.

  Jiang Wei spread his arms and called on the wind, blasting away the remnants of the fog and sending it hurtling northward up the canyon and through the Xiagu Pass. The gale was so strong that he could see the tiny figures of soldiers turn to face him, and in the back a rider madly wheeling about on his horse. Sima Yi.

  The Wei tactician laid eyes on him, the figure on the overlook, and then turned, shouting and waving to fall back. A roar rose up from Yang Yi’s men as the Wei army fell in after its commander.

  Jiang Wei wanted to smile, but he was burning, and was not certain how much of him was still standing. He needed to go back, though. He had promised Zhuge Liang that he would continue the campaign in the north, after the Shu had rested, after they had time to mourn. Jiang Wei staggered away, not seeing, only dimly aware that he had taken a horse on the way up and that he probably should look for it.

  When he came to, he found himself riding in the crowded confines of a carriage. He struggled to sit up, and peered out the window. The white banners of mourning hung from the standards of nearby soldiers, and he knew that he was with the Shu army. They had withdrawn to safety. And riding beside the carriage was Ma Yun.

  His friend smiled on seeing his face and brought his horse close. “You are awake! Thank Heaven!”

  “You found me?” Jiang Wei asked.

  “Your soldiers went looking when your horse came back without you. They said you were feverish and rambling. Was that you up on the hill? People are going to be talking for years about how a living Sima Yi ran from a dead Zhuge Liang.” Ma Yun chuckled. “I didn’t think you were going to take it seriously when I suggested putting up a wooden figure. Or did you yourself dress up as the prime minister?”

  Jiang Wei looked away. “What do you think?”

  Still, he was glad to see Ma Yun, to know that his dearest friend had survived.

  “Probably you,” said Ma Yun, “but I’ll tell everyone that it was a wooden statue. It makes for a better story. But tell me, how did we get that wind and fog? I thought only the prime minister could call that.”

  There were supposed to be no secrets between them, but Jiang Wei had never been entirely upfront with Ma Yun. He could not help wondering what his friend had been like as a woman, what made him want to live as a man, but he never asked. He sensed Ma Yun would not appreciate the intrusion, and Jiang Wei valued him too much to risk it.

  So, he could not tell Ma Yun this either. At least his friend was alive. Jiang Wei wanted to believe he had saved him.

  “That wasn’t me,” he said. “It was the prime minister’s final gift.”

  The King of Lapland’s Daughter

  Nathan Carson

  1

  The elder women of Kvenland peered at King Mauno through the smoke of torchlight and veils of grey braids. Their looks were shifting: one moment stern, the next ripe with disdain. The windblown skin around those eyes was cracked as the polished hide they wore which shone wherever two furs met and iron fastens failed. Those eyes saw a weak king planted where a strong queen had sat a fortnight before.

  For his part, Mauno at least feigned ignore the body that ruled his hall. He had only collapsed into power of late, the first man to rule Kvenland in living memory. His focus was squarely on the exotic figure of the bishop
before him, garbed in cloths and markings that still felt anachronistic, even alien in the northern wastes. Henrik’s words oft promised pots of gold, but there was something of the serpent in him.

  Mauno spoke.

  “Henrik, comfort me. I cannot allow my grief to undermine our defenses any longer. My queen was lost to us in her campaign to the north. She sought to protect our people, yet the only soul to return was a young shieldmaiden who babbled of ‘haystacks with blades for hands.’ So frozen was she to her steed that both bled out when we finally prised them apart.”

  He shifted on his hardwood throne, swathed in rich brown furs. Red-jeweled rings on thick gold bands circled his fingers, which dug into the grips of his seat. Black pitch and bird bones were the only ornamentation on that throne.

  “I sent our own village priest to do battle on the mere. Neither has he returned. The Jötunn are restless. They stir and stumble south, and our kin are in their path. Pray tell me once more how your One God can smite them!”

  The bishop smoothed his raiment and raised both hands, palms forward.

  “Your Majesty, it is no frost giant incursion. These are damned things from beneath the soil. Stay your sword. I need no army to command them back from whence they slumbered. Only provisions, an escort, and this…”

  Henrik drew one hand to his neck, caressed and polished the silver cross on the end of his onyx rosary. Mauno placed a palm on the hilt of his great sword.

  “You shall have warriors too, Henrik. This evil must be sent away. Cast it off the edge of the world, and soon. I will follow if I must. Go now, and Ukko be with you!” Suddenly his sword slid from its sheath and aimed at the firmament.

  Henrik winced at the pagan blasphemy, crossed himself and stole a glance at the tiny disc of solid grey sky that beamed down from the chimney in the center of the roof above. A gust of torch smoke blotted it out; now the ceiling was nothing but rafter and shadow. The great wooden skeleton was a shelter for the surviving leadership of Kvenland. Henrik turned and exited the building’s ribcage with an entourage of hefty, bearded warriors, marching face first into the howling cold of morning. The ruling women watched them go, eyeing their firm and muscular legs.