The Corpse-Rat King

by Lee Battersby

  “Bit late now, isn’t it?”

  “There’s a patch of ground on the other side where they bury their dead.”

  Marius turned his stare onto his companion.

  “What?”

  “Look.”

  He pointed across the main lane of the village. At some point, while Marius had lain insensate in the trench, the fire had escaped the confines of the building and leaped the gap. There had been houses on that side of the village. Marius remembered sneering at them as he made his way towards the bar – rude structures, rough and basic, peasant dwellings of shit and sticks with patchy thatches for shelter. No glass in their windows, no symmetry in their designs, roundhouses in name but only because no name had been invented for the haphazard approximations of circles they described. Exactly the sort of hovels Marius expected from people who scratched sixteen hour days in the dirt, just to claw together enough grain and seeds to survive until morning.

  Now they were gone. All that remained was a trail of black ash and soot that stretched the length of the road and down into the first line of trees beyond. A small fire, really, to look at the trail it had left. Marius could have walked around it, and would have, if he had been walking through the wilderness and been confronted by a blaze of that size. But for a village so small –catastrophe.

  “How many?” he asked, staring at the ruins.

  “Three,” Gerd replied. “Two children. Their father, running in to save them.”

  “Two children.”

  “That doesn’t matter, does it?” Gerd asked, turning away. “They were just peasants. You didn’t even know them. What were they to you?”

  “Nothing.” Marius found himself gripping the hot corner post. He snatched his hand away, wiped it against his trouser leg, spreading soot across the fabric. “Nothing.”

  “Well then. Any more plans?”

  “I…” Marius stared down the track, as if he could penetrate the line of trees and see the villagers in their grief. He bit at his lip, turned from the sight, and strode past Gerd quickly. Without looking to see if Gerd followed, he walked quickly up the rise away from the fire, away from the funeral gathering. There were only three standing houses left, spared destruction by the path of the blaze. He was past them and leaving the village behind before Gerd caught up to him.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” he said.

  Marius said nothing, simply kept moving, head bowed, staring at the ground six inches in front of each step. The path rose, slightly but steadily. It would switch back more than once, he knew, but it would go up into the foothills and on through the Spinal Ranges. He could follow the line of hills and end up going towards the coastal towns. Or he could crest them, descend the far side, and enter the Fiefdom of Tallede, then go straight through and into the wider realms of Tal itself. He would make up his mind on the way. Gerd reached out and laid a hand on his arm.

  “We need to go back. The capital…”

  “Don’t fucking touch me.” Marius shook his hand off.

  “Marius–”

  Marius was not a fighting man. A thief does not enter the profession because he wants to fight. He was a slinker, a tip-toer. He lived for the time after the fight, when the victor had departed and all that remained were the easy rewards and sightless eyes. But his father had been a King’s Man, tied to his place by loyalty and a seal of service over the door, and Marius had spent his childhood running the alleys in that part of town where addresses were known by what tavern was nearest, not by street names. Before Gerd could complete his thought, Marius had whirled around, nudged the young man’s restraining arm up with one elbow and driven his fist into the flesh underneath his jaw. Gerd’s legs deserted him, and he slumped to the ground to stare stupidly up at his assailant.

  “Don’t. Fucking. Touch me!”

  Marius spun away, strode stiff-legged up the trail. After several moments, Gerd followed at a distance, in silence.

  They walked that way for an hour. Then Marius stopped still, staring up at the ridge running along the side of the nearest hill. Gerd managed to stop before he crashed into the older man’s back.

  “Marius?”

  “I don’t need to sleep.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I don’t need to sleep. Do I?”

  “Um… no.”

  Marius drew in a deep breath, released it through his nostrils.

  “I need to sleep.”

  “But…”

  “There.”

  He pointed further up the hillside. Off to one side of the path, set into the edge of a short defile, was a flaw: a cave, hollowed out by countless eons of falling rocks, rain and animals, a deep-lipped hole a few feet high. Gerd stared at the ground between them and the opening, and sighed. It was a climb of perhaps twenty feet in height, through gorse and rocks that looked specifically designed to snag and tear.

  “Marius…”

  “You do what you want.”

  Marius set off up the incline, quickly disappearing among the grasping branches. Gerd listened to the crash of his progress for a minute or so then, sighing once more, he followed.

  SEVEN

  The cave was as bad as Marius had hoped: shallow and damp, with a thin layer of lichen over every surface. He had taken barely three steps inside when his foot slid out from under him and he almost tumbled over onto his backside. He allowed himself a tight smile, and called back over his shoulder.

  “Find some wood.”

  “What?” Gerd stopped crashing through the underbrush long enough to reply. Marius smiled again, a hateful little thing that utterly failed to find his eyes.

  “Get some wood. And something for tinder.”

  They remained silent for almost a minute before he heard Gerd lumber away, moving along the rise away from the cave. Marius slid towards a small protuberance at the rear of the cave, winced as he settled his backside down on the slick, wet rock, and settled in to wait.

  Slowly, the pool of light outside the cave entrance grew dim, then dark. Night crept in slowly, as if delivering an apology. Already in shadow, the space became deeply gloomy, then black. Marius let his eyes adjust. Even in this utter darkness, with light only a memory, he retained some small measure of sight, just enough to make out shapes, blurred silhouettes slightly lighter than the air. A part of him noted it, filed it away for future reference. Being dead may have advantages, should he ever escape his present predicament. The part of him that was always searching for an advantage, always hoping for the one angle to set him on the road to luxury, paid attention for a moment, then receded into the background once more. Marius waited until the sounds of Gerd’s clumsy passage drew closer.

  “In here,” he called out.

  “Coming.” Gerd huffed up the final incline and appeared in the cave opening, his profile deformed by the armful of branches he held before his chest. He took a step into the cave, then another. On the third step his leg slid a foot further than he intended. He wavered, attempted to right himself. The branches went one way. Gerd went the other. He hit the rock floor with a shout, scrabbled for purchase, managed to right himself. Marius waited in silence. Gerd drew his legs beneath himself, slowly tested his weight then, carefully, drew himself up to his full height.

  “You dropped your bundle,” Marius said, no trace of amusement in his voice.

  “You could have warned me.”

  “Terribly sorry. I was sitting here, trying to come to terms with all that has happened, and my mind just plain slipped away from me. It’s a symptom of old age. Only,” he slapped his thighs, “I plumb forgot. I’m not going to have an old age, am I? Funny how some things don’t occur to you until too late.” He stood, slid one foot forward as if walking across a frozen lake. “Pick up the branches. I want a fire.”

  “Then why don’t you make it yourself?”

  “Because,” Marius slid another step forward, and another, “I’ve been entrusted with a holy task by the will of the dead community you call home now, whereas all you�
��re good for is to be a camp follower.” He slithered up to Gerd and placed a hand on his chest. “Now do it.”

  He pushed. Gerd took a step backwards to steady himself. His foot found purchase on the lichen, then half a moment later, betrayed him. With a look of shock, he fell to the rock floor. His head hit the stone with a hollow thud. Marius watched him slip about, trying to right himself, then slid back to his stone seat and sat.

  It took him longer than Marius would have thought necessary, but eventually Gerd piled the branches in the centre of the cave and sparked a fire into life. Slowly the air in the cave began to dry out. Gerd crawled haltingly around on his hands and knees, scraping lichen away from the floor as best he could, until a dry circle was viewable, with the crackling fire at its centre. Only then did Marius leave his perch, stepping forward until he was between the fire and the cave opening.

  “I’m going to sleep here,” he said, sitting down. “You can have the other side.”

  Gerd edged away from him until he was as far away as he could be and still be within reach of the heat.

  “How can you be trusted?”

  Marius lay down, rolled over so the fire warmed his back. He gazed out of the entrance at the sky. A few stars were visible, but not as many as there should have been. As he watched, another blinked out of existence. Marius frowned in sudden alarm. What was going on? Another unnatural trick? Were the dead about to manifest some new, greater, way of controlling his existence? Then he saw the edge of the clouds, and heard the first roll of distant thunder, and relaxed.

  “I like to sleep with the window open,” he said. “Besides, where would I go?”

  Gerd offered no answer. They lay in silence, listening to the night time sounds of the forest below. Somewhere in the distance, a stream of light smoke rose into the blackness. The villagers, Marius guessed as he watched the tiny thread rise. With no shelter against the night they would have to build a fire, sleep underneath the trees as best they could. The night was cold, he supposed. Now he paid attention to it, he couldn’t actually tell. He could feel the heat of the fire but he knew that was there. If he didn’t think about it, would he forget what that felt like, too? He drew his arms harder around himself, focusing upon the distant smoke. The night was no friend to humans. Too many predators hunted by night, too many creatures better equipped for the dark. Ironic, he thought, having to rely for protection upon the thing that destroyed your life.

  No, something inside him replied. The fire did not destroy their lives. That was you.

  Marius rolled away from the voice, but the fire was too close, hot and painful upon eyes that had grown used to the dark. He turned back, and the smoke was still there, like a finger thrust upwards, searching for something to point at, someone to blame. He watched it gesture aimlessly at the sky, blaming the Gods, then closed his eyes.

  “Marius?”

  Marius sighed, then opened his eyes again and stared out of the cave.

  “What?”

  Gerd was silent. Marius could feel him gathering his courage. Oh no, he thought. Don’t ask.

  “Why do you hate me so much?”

  Marius wanted to slap the ground, or slap Gerd. Instead he settled for another long sigh. Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the close-crowded trees against each other. The sound of rain stalked closer. A flash of lightning illuminated the landscape for an instant. He gazed into the night, and saw images he’d long since shuffled to the back of his mind.

  “When I was a child, maybe six or seven – we didn’t count birthdays – my father came home one evening and announced that he’d had enough of my face, and he picked me up and carried me to the end of our street and threw me into the mud. And just to make sure I got the message, he kicked me until I lost consciousness. And when I woke up, he and my mother had gone. So I had to fend for myself. I stole what I could, begged what I could. When I was nine, I killed a man. I thought he was a man. He was probably fifteen or sixteen, really, but he looked like a man to me. Killed him for a tenpenny and a tankard of cider. After that, there was no turning back.”

  “Oh, my God. You mean it?”

  “No, of course not. I grew up in a loving family. I had five brothers and two sisters and my father was a silk trader.”

  “Oh.”

  “My parents live in a nice house in a nice district of V’Ellos. I visit them any time I’m near. They think I’m an actor. I even pay a printer in Tarek fifty riner every few months to print up fake play bills so I can take them home and show my parents how well I’m doing.”

  “But why…”

  “Because you thought it would be true, didn’t you?”

  There was a long pause. The rain walked up to the front of the cave and over. Marius felt the spray against his face, but made no move to wipe his eyes. Let it wet him. Let it see what it could wash away. When Gerd spoke again it was in a voice rich with guilt, and Marius shook his head.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “I choose to do what I do,” Marius said to the dark. “I chose the life I live. And I was good at it. I made a living, and the living was sometimes bad, but it was sometimes good. I consorted with whomever I wanted, and wandered where the will took me, and all in all, I was about as free as any man might hope to be, apart from some fear and some discomfort, and the occasional run for the coast. And then I met you.”

  “But… you asked me…”

  “Yes, I did, didn’t I? Wandering around your little village, with your granny and your pigs and no idea what a diamond even looked like. And I thought there’s a happy lad. There’s someone who knows what his place is.”

  Gerd stayed silent, but the question hung between them.

  “I couldn’t believe it, I really couldn’t,” Marius said, answering the silence. “Nobody could be that happy with pig shit and wanking in the bushes.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Yes you did. Every bloody village boy does. Anyway, you could have said no. You could have said ‘No thank you, I’m happy where I am. I don’t want to see the world and learn a trade and have adventures and be rich.’ But you didn’t, did you?”

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly like you promised, was it?”

  “Because I’m a liar, you idiot.” This time, Marius did slap the ground. “I lied to you, and you believed it, and then I had to actually try and teach you something and make us both rich and happy.” He squeezed his eyes shut, biting back the images in front of them. “And you still fucked it up.”

  After that, there was nothing more to say. Marius closed his eyes and let the raindrops find their way down his face to the ground. They felt like little fingers across his skin, like Keth, the dancing girl at the Hauled Keel, a million tiny touches designed to simultaneously relax the skin and embolden the blood. Oh, the things that girl could do with her tiny, dancing fingers. If Marius concentrated, he could pretend….

  “You could have just said you didn’t hate me and left it at that.” The sorrow in Gerd’s voice banished all thoughts of pleasure. Marius opened his eyes. He was in a wet cave, in the rain, and he was still dead.

  “Yes, well, now you know.”

  They lay on opposite sides of the fire, listening to the rain thunder against the rock shelf outside. Marius stared out the dimly-lit entrance, willing on a sleep he felt neither necessary nor welcome. Anything to avoid another conversation. Then Gerd spoke once more, and the hope was shattered.

  “You know, this reminds me of home.”

  “What?”

  “This. It reminds me of being at home.”

  Marius contemplated the hard rock beneath his hip, the wind and spray chilling him from outside.

  “How? You grew up in a village.”

  “Exactly.” Gerd shifted, scraping his bulk across the rock floor. “It’s like… winter, you know. You live your whole life with the village. You know everyone, they know you. You’re with each other every moment of every day. But then, at night, in winter, you’re lying in bed, and the rain is coming do
wn, and there’s a wall of water between you and everybody else. And you just know that the whole village is like you, lying alone, wrapped up in a warm little bubble, with a wall of water between them and the world. And you’re all together and alone at the same time, and it’s comforting, you know? The sound of the rain, curving round you like a blanket. Really comforting.”

  He lapsed into silence. Marius shook his head.

  “You know, last year I spent six weeks sleeping under hedges, and probably about the same amount of time sleeping with whatever whore I could afford.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I’m just too polite to say fuck you and your homespun philosophies.” He clenched, and sent a fart towards the fire. “Now go to sleep before I set fire to your arse hairs.”

  He experienced long seconds of happy silence before Gerd spoke again.

  “You know we don’t need sleep.”

  “For fuck’s sake.” Marius scrambled to his feet and stepped to the edge of the cave.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need a shit.”

  “We don’t need to…” But Marius was outside, the water battering against his head drowning out Gerd’s voice. He waited long enough to be sure that his young watch dog was still paying attention, then ran as hard as he could, down the hillside, into the night.

  It’s no easy thing, to run headlong through strange country in the dark. Roots leap from the ground to trip you. Branches reach out to grab your clothes and scratch at your eyes. Marius crashed through the undergrowth without care for stealth, snapping twigs and branches as he lurched from tree to tree. When he had run this way for a minute or so, he stopped, and leaned against a nearby trunk. Behind him, Gerd had finally realised what he was attempting. Marius smiled as he heard the sounds of pursuit. The youngster blundered about like a blind bear, cursing as he tripped over every obstacle before him, shouting Marius’ name with increasing despair. Headlong flight in the full dark of night-time was a necessary survival skill for a man of Marius’ profession. It was one of many skills he had not bothered to pass on to his dunderheaded apprentice. Gerd tripped and fell heavily, crashing through the underbrush for several seconds at a tangent to Marius’ location. Marius listened to him sobbing in frustration. Then, with perfect stealth, he crept silently away from the cave, down the hill at an angle, aiming unerringly for the track upon which they had started their journey.