The Brave and the Dead

by Robertson, Dave

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One - Gahspar the Cripple

  Chapter Two - Skeletons

  Chapter Three - Gahspar Rides

  Chapter Four - Vorus

  Chapter Five - Fight or Flight

  Chapter Six - Brynhelm Falls

  Chapter Seven - Prepare To Fight

  Chapter Eight - Armies Collide

  Chapter Nine - Death and Fire

  Chapter Ten - Battle For Errborg

  Chapter Eleven - Vorus' Triumph

  Chapter Twelve - The Mercenary

  Chapter Thirteen - The Jarl's Tower

  Chapter Fourteen - Gahspar and The Outlaws

  Chapter Fifteen - Night Strike

  Chapter Sixteen - Deadly Journey

  Chapter Seventeen - Weather the Storm

  Chapter Eighteen - Marching On

  Chapter Nineteen - Sailing With The Dead

  Chapter Twenty - Audience With a King

  Chapter Twenty-One - The Sword

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Battling the Dead

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Second Crossing

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Victory and Retreat

  Chapter Twenty-Five - The Necromancer

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Epilogue

  Special thanks to Katie Grace of Maktub It Is Written for her careful editing and to Pixeldizajn Studio for the excellent cover

  Copyright 2015

  David Robertson

  All rights reserved

  CHAPTER ONE

  Gahspar the Cripple

  Gahspar moved steadily through the forest, the dry leaves crackling beneath his feet. He knelt, pushing aside the undergrowth, and picked a small brown mushroom. Gahspar liked the forest. It was quiet here, beautiful. A slow breeze rustled the branches and the smell of pine trees filled his senses. The early morning light filtered through the woods, the sunlight bright shafts between the trees. Gahspar felt at ease out here. He reached out with his left hand, picked another mushroom, and put it in the sack, his disfigured right hand held tight to his hip to keep the bag open.

  Gahspar the Cripple, they called him. His right hand had been deformed since birth. His index finger was bent slightly, fused into a permanent curve. The other three fingers were unformed, useless, barely half their normal size.

  There were many things Gahspar could not do with the withered right hand: pick mushrooms, lift boxes, use a shovel. Worst of all, he could not hold a weapon with it. A man who could not wield an axe, or a sword, was not fully a man. He would never be called Gahspar the Brave or Gahspar the Protector. He would always be Gahspar the Cripple, the poor man who stayed behind while others went off to fight.

  Gahspar had adapted. There were some small things he could hold right-handed, pinched between his thumb and his rigid index finger. He had also learned to use his right arm to pin things between his arm and body; bags, firewood, ends of rope. He managed. He could do a great many things left-handed. Gahspar worked hard and did what he could.

  There were more mushrooms a few feet away. Gahspar stood and walked toward them, eyes on the ground. A bird flitted from the trees, but Gahspar ignored it. He was focused on his task.

  A loud, heavy crash made Gahspar stop in his tracks. He tried to think what could make such a noise, out here in the woods. Perhaps a tree falling, though there wasn’t enough wind to bring down a tree. No, whatever had fallen was very heavy, the solid thump of it reverberated through the woods. Gahspar stood motionless, listening, but the forest was quiet. The breeze had stopped, the leaves and branches still. Even the birds had gone quiet. Maybe a great bear had pushed down a dead tree. That would account for the noise, and sometimes when a big predator showed up, the other animals went silent for a time. Part of Gahspar’s mind tried to cling to the explanation, but another part raised its doubts. Wouldn’t he have heard a big bear pushing down a tree? The crack of the trunk as it broke? And the quiet that followed, it was unnatural.

  Gahspar’s curiosity got the better of him. There was a small hill in front of him and he crept quietly to the lip and looked over. What he saw made his blood run cold. Down the hill, in a small clearing, stood a dead man. Or, more accurately, the skeleton of a dead man.

  The skeleton had its back to Gahspar. Its bones were old and gray, aged by eons in the grave.

  As Gahspar watched, the skeleton turned its head. He could hear the old neck bones grating against each other. The skeleton’s bony face was horrifying, its bare skull hideous to see, but Gahspar couldn’t look away. He could see all of its rotting teeth, the hole where its nose would have been, and its eyes. Its eyes were the worst; empty holes as black as pitch. Gahspar stared at the gruesome profile. No mouth, no lips, no eyelids or eyeballs. It was so unnatural, so wrong. The sight of it made his skin crawl.

  The skeleton was wearing worn leather armor, and boots. Somehow that made it all the more unreal. Gahspar noticed the sword in the skeleton’s hand. It was a sturdy, fine looking sword, but it was dirty, its finish dull. The skeleton appeared to be holding a round wooden shield. Gahspar could just see the edge of it past the thing’s shoulder. To the left of the skeleton was a low mound covered by grass. A burial mound. The huge stone slab that sealed it lay broken at the skeleton’s feet.

  Gahspar’s mind was trying to make sense of the scene. Before him stood an ancient skeleton raised from its tomb, a warrior armed and armored. Gahspar turned, and ran for his life.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Skeletons

  Gahspar ran as fast as his legs could carry him. He feared that at any moment he would feel bony hands grabbing him, or the sharp bite of the skeleton’s sword slicing into him. He ran until he couldn’t run anymore. He glanced over his shoulder, eyes wide.

  There was nobody behind him.

  He stopped, hands on his knees, sides aching and lungs burning. He looked back again, but the forest was empty. Nothing but silent trees and low green plants hugging the curves of the ground.

  Gahspar slowly caught his breath.

  “Well, I’m done picking mushrooms,” Gahspar said aloud. He often talked to himself out loud. One benefit of working on a farm was that usually the only creatures that heard you talking to yourself were horses, or chickens.

  Gahspar looked at the woods ahead of him. The forest looked like it always did, green and calm, not caring whether he was there or not. He could cut through the forest to save time, or he could go east and reach the Woodsman’s Road. It was a longer way home, but wider, more open, and better travelled. Gahspar didn’t particularly like people, but right now he wouldn’t mind seeing a familiar face, or any living person with a nose and two eyes. He decided to take the road.

  When Gahspar was born, disfigured and incomplete, it was seen as a bad omen. A judgment on his family, especially his father. It was as if the Gods had slapped his father in the face.

  His father knew that his son would never amount to much. He would not be able to work, or to fight, or do many of the things that other men did. What future was there for one like this?

  Every time his father saw Gahspar, he got depressed and angry. Why had the gods given him this weak cripple? What had he done to deserve this? Gahspar was a constant reminder of his failure, his shortcoming. If he were a better man, the gods would have given him a healthy son.

  Gahspar’s father largely ignored Gahspar. His mother was more loving. She would care for her child however she could, but still she worried. The world was a cruel place. The weak and the sick, they rarely survived its harshness.

  When Gahspar was only six, he was sent to live with his Uncle Ingfred and Aunt Helga. In their barn they set up a bed for Gahspar and a place to keep his things. Since that time, Gahspar had been their farmhand. De
spite his shortcomings, Gahspar worked hard, and he learned to do most tasks around the farm. His right arm was a limitation but he developed ways to work around it. What other option did he have? Every day Gahspar set out to prove his usefulness.

  Now Gahspar had seen nearly twenty summers. He had proven to be reliable and useful. He would never progress beyond his current station in life, but his aunt and uncle considered him part of the family now, part of their life on the farm. Gahspar considered them his family, too.

  Right now Gahspar just wanted to get back to the farm, to see familiar people and to see his horses and cows, to walk around the farm in the sunshine and to do his familiar tasks as if today was just any other day, and that he’d never seen a rotten skeleton standing in the woods.

  The Woodsman’s Road was just below him, about ten feet down a steep embankment, but something made Gahspar stop before climbing down. Sounds in the distance. Someone was on the road. Gahspar crawled to the edge of the trees and parted the foliage to peer through at the road below.

  A branch snapped behind him and something stepped between the trees as Gahspar turned. A skeleton, and only a few feet away. This one had brown bones polished smooth. Green mold grew on one of its cheekbones. It held a big round shield in one hand and a longsword in the other.

  The skeleton stepped forward. Gahspar’s breath caught in his throat. He froze. In a moment the thing was upon him, then … it just kept walking. The dead thing passed within a foot of Gahspar, the edge of its shield nearly touching him as it passed. There was a swish of branches and the skeleton scrambled down the embankment to the road.

  Gahspar was still paralyzed. It had happened so fast, the thing passing by as if it didn’t see him, passing by so close he could smell the dirt from its grave still upon it. The scent of decay and death lingered in his nose. Gahspar was fairly certain that he had wet himself.

  The sound of tramping boots captured Gahspar’s attention. He turned, pushing the foliage aside and looked down at the road. The moldy brown skeleton stood motionless by the side of the road, but that wasn’t the most startling sight. Coming down the road was an army of the skeletons. They marched in step, row after row, four columns wide.

  Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. The sound of their ancient boots echoed through the forest.

  Gahspar saw their grim faces, their tattered armor and heavy shields, the little puffs of dust raised by their boots.

  Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. This army of the dead was passing just below him.

  Gahspar ducked down and curled himself into a ball. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hide himself from the undead ranks below him. He was afraid. Afraid they would see him or hear his thoughts. In his heart, he knew they would find him. He didn’t want to think about what would happen after that.

  Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. The sound of the boots grew louder.

  Gahspar put his hands over his ears. Yes, they would find him. Somehow they would know he was there, spying. He wished with all his might that he could be invisible, just for a few moments. Gahspar couldn’t breathe. Didn’t dare. His head swam, and he felt the skeletons would never pass.

  Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. The sound was receding.

  The skeleton army marched out of sight.

  The sky was blue and bright, the day getting warm. When Gahspar arrived at the farm, his uncle and cousin were working in one of the fields. His aunt sat in front of the house, mending some clothes in the bright sunlight. Everything appeared normal.

  It almost made Gahspar feel bad. As if the whole encounter with the skeletons had never happened. How could it? Birds sang from the hedges and the animals were all safe in the pens. He felt stupid even thinking about it.

  Perhaps he could just pretend it hadn’t happened, but then what? What if the dead men came? If they attacked and the men of the farm were unprepared, how would he live with that?

  No, he had to tell his uncle.

  Gahspar walked over to the edge of the fence near where his uncle was working. Uncle Ingfred looked at him, and stopped.

  “Why Gahspar, you look as pale as death. Are you sick?”

  Gahspar led his uncle away from his young cousin who worked nearby.

  “I have seen something. Something dangerous and serious,” Gahspar said.

  His uncle was a large man, not in the fighting shape he once was, but still big. He had a full beard in various shades of gray and bushy eyebrows. Right now, one eyebrow was raised slightly.

  “Gahspar, what is it?”

  Gahspar shuffled his feet, hesitating.

  “I saw an army approaching. An army of skeletons. Dead men that have broken out of their tombs,” the words were spilling out of him now. “I saw them on the road, The Woodsman’s Road. They were heading toward Oakbridge.”

  Uncle Ingfred’s forehead scrunched together, the wrinkles forming little waves. He looked at Gahspar who he considered almost like his own son. Gahspar was looking at the ground, suddenly very interested in the tops of his boots.

  “Son, what are you talking about?”

  “An army of skeletons. I saw them. On The Woodsman’s Road.”

  His uncle crossed his arms over his chest, a look of amusement coming over his face.

  “Gahspar, you are not normally one to tell stories. Why would you say such things?”

  “I saw them,” Gahspar said, the tone of his voice rising, pleading. “Skeletons with weapons and shields. They smelled of must and old soil and they were marching.”

  His uncle looked like he was waiting for the punchline, like this was some sort of joke. Gahspar was nearly twenty years old and his uncle was treating him like a frightened child.

  “Gahspar, what am I to do? Should I go to the neighbors and warn them that a group of dead men are coming? Should we all arm ourselves to fight ghosts?”

  Gahspar rubbed the stubby fingers of his right hand and watched his uncle’s eyes.

  “I don’t … I … I just wanted you to know. To be prepared,” Gahspar said.

  Uncle Ingfred smiled slightly.

  “Tonight I will check under all the beds. If any of these skeleton men come out, I will beat them into dust. Tomorrow we will drop all this silliness. Is that understood?”

  Gahspar hesitated, looking off toward the woods. He was a grown man embarrassed that his uncle didn’t believe him. He didn’t like being treated like a child.

  “Yes,” Gahspar said.

  Gahspar worked on his chores around the farm. He found himself looking toward the tree line in the distance, expecting to see something, but there was nothing. It was a normal day, warm and bright. A good day to work.

  After the evening meal, he returned to the fields to finish his tasks. The night was calm, quiet, the animals relaxed. The events of the morning seemed far away, as if they had happened to someone else - if they had happened at all. Gahspar felt silly about the whole situation and by the time he went to sleep, skeletons were not even on his mind.

  Several miles away the dead stood in rows, waiting for a command. They faced forward, empty eye sockets fixed ahead of them, jaws clenched in their perpetual death grin.

  Vorus Blackfist stood before the gathered warriors. He had long, dark hair that hung past his shoulders, though the right side of his head was thick with scars and no hair grew there. The scars extended down his right cheekbone and along his jawline toward his mouth, the skin thick, discolored, and gnarled. The right side of his face was fearsome to look upon, his eyes were the deepest, darkest black imaginable. Looking into them was like seeing into the depths of the underworld.

  Vorus was tall and thin, clad in faded, dark blue robes. He wore only a simple dagger on his belt. A curved dagger of exceptional sharpness, he used it mostly for ceremony. Vorus was not a warrior. In one hand he held a wooden staff, its top decorated with a dull, faintly glowing orb of deep purple.

  Vorus ran a hand absent-mindedly over his scarred right cheek. His army was assembled, the greatest of fallen warriors, battle scarred
veterans, all of them. They had been brave in life and now, in death, they would be obedient. They would obey his orders without hesitation. Such was the nature of his control over them.

  He looked over the ranks of the risen. The army that would take over the world, that would put fear into the hearts of the people and make Vorus a king, a god.

  Vorus waited now for one more warrior: his secret weapon, the one who would lead the others into battle. He crossed his arms. Reanimating each one and summoning them had taken its toll on him, but soon it would all be worth it.

  A figure stepped out of the trees and walked toward Vorus. It carried a rounded, steel shield and held a curved, heavy scimitar in one hand. Unlike the others, this skeleton wore metal armor of solid plates and a helm of dull metal. Only the face was visible beneath its armor, a face of bone and emptiness, stripped of what had once made it human. The armored skeleton showed no emotion, no expression as it walked toward Vorus. It walked blindly, automatically, like the others, toward its new master.

  As the skeleton approached, Vorus called out, raising his arms high. There was silence as the new arrival walked toward him, bones creaking in the stillness. Marek Bartal, the conqueror, legendary warrior, and one time leader of the great southern army, dropped to one knee before Vorus. The skeleton laid his scimitar on the ground, removed his helmet, and hung his head, eye sockets toward the ground. Vorus set the palm of his hand on the ancient warrior’s skull. He spoke loudly, a language which no living person understood. When he finished, he removed his hand. Marek stood, replacing his helmet and sheathing his sword. The skeleton stepped back and stood there, chest out, head up, ready to obey.

  Vorus grinned. The Army of The Risen was ready.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gahspar Rides