Down Among the Dead Men (Forest Kingdom Novels) Read online

  “We should have looked for a room with an adjoining bath,” she said quietly. “We could both use one.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said the Dancer.

  “I am,” said Flint. “I once fought a walking corpse that had been buried in soft peat for six months, and it smelled better than I do right now. But that can wait till tomorrow. Get some sleep, Giles. I’ll wake you when it’s time for the next watch.”

  The Dancer nodded sleepily, laid back, and closed his eyes. Flint smiled at him affectionately for a moment, and then drew her sword and rested it across her knees, ready to hand. Flint believed in being prepared.

  Constance came back from the closed-off corner they’d designated as the latrine, and clambered stiffly between her blankets, next to MacNeil’s. “First thing tomorrow morning we find a room with its own jakes and move there,” she said determinedly. “That soup tureen is no substitute for a chamber pot.”

  MacNeil chuckled drowsily without opening his eyes. “Good night, Constance. Pleasant dreams.”

  The dining hall grew quiet as the four Rangers settled down for the night. The only sounds were the rising moan of the wind outside and faint snores from the Dancer, who was already well away. The Dancer could sleep through a thunderstorm, and often had. Constance tossed and turned for a while, unhappy with the hard stone floor, but eventually grew still. Her breathing became slow and regular, and some of the harshness went out of her face as her features slowly relaxed. MacNeil lay on his back, comfortably drowsing, occasionally staring up at the shadowed ceiling past drooping eyelids. Sleeping in the fort was a calculated risk, but he didn’t think there was any real danger in it. Not yet. Whatever it was that had gone on a killing spree, there was no sign of it in the fort now.

  Whatever it was … The Demon War had awakened a great many creatures that might otherwise have slumbered on, undisturbed by the world of man. The Forest’s past lay buried deep in the earth, but after the time of the long night, the past no longer slept as soundly as it used to. Some of the deeper mine shafts were still sealed off because of what the miners had found there.

  There were giants in the earth in those days… .

  MacNeil stirred restlessly. If by some chance he was wrong, and whatever it was hadn’t left the fort yet, well, at least this way there was some bait to draw it out of cover. Bait. MacNeil smiled sadly. That’s what Rangers were when you got right down to it. Rangers were expendable troops, used to draw out an enemy and expose its strengths and weaknesses. The only difference was that this bait had teeth. MacNeil glanced across at Flint, who was staring straight ahead of her with one hand resting comfortably on her sword hilt. He was glad Flint had volunteered to take the first watch. He trusted her. The Dancer meant well, but if he got too comfortable he had a tendency to doze off. Which meant he spent most of his watches pacing up and down to keep himself alert. Things like that didn’t help at all when you were trying to get to sleep. And Constance … was untried. MacNeil closed his eyes and let himself drift away. He could trust Flint. She was dependable. He yawned widely. It had been a long, hard day… .

  Time passed. Flint watched over the sleepers, and the lights burned steadily lower.

  The demons came swarming out of the long night, vile and malevolent, and the guards at the town barricades met them with cold steel and boiling oil and what little courage they had left. Duncan MacNeil stood his ground and swung his sword in short, vicious arcs, cutting down creature after creature as they threw themselves at the barricades in a never-ending stream. Shapes out of nightmares and fever dreams reached for him with clawed hands and bared fangs, and their eyes glowed hungrily in the endless night. Blood flew on the air in a ghastly rain as the guards swung their swords and axes, and the demons died, but there were always more to take the place of those who fell. There were always more.

  A tall, spindly creature with a spiked back and talonea hands reared up before MacNeil. He ducked beneath a flailing blow and gutted the demon with one swift cut. Long ropes of writhing intestines fell down to tangle the demon’s legs, but still it pressed forward until MacNeil sheared off its bony head with a two-handed blow. Its mouth snarled soundlessly on the blood-soaked ground, and the body swung this way and that for long moments before realizing it was dead. None of the demons made a sound, even when they died. Forever silent, in life or death, like evil thoughts given shape and substance.

  Something the size of a man’s head, with thick black fur and a dozen legs, came flapping out of the darkness on bat’s wings. MacNeil cut it out of the air and it exploded wetly, showering him with foul-smelling blood that burned where it touched his bare skin. And while he was distracted, shaking and cursing, a patchwork demon with a vast corpse-pale body and huge scything jaws slammed into him from nowhere and threw him to the ground.

  For a moment all MacNeil could see was a confusion of human and demon feet all around him, slipping and stamping in the crimson mud. He lashed out at the pale demon as it bent over him, and screamed shrilly as its claws tore through his ragged chain mail. He wriggled away through the mud, then drove his boot up into the creature’s gut, desperation lending him strength. The demon lurched backward, caught off balance, and MacNeil surged to his feet. By the time he had his feet under him again, the pale demon was gone, carried away by the shifting press of bodies, but there were still more demons to be faced. MacNeil wiped blood and tears from his face with his sleeve and hacked about him with his sword to try to clear himself some space. He put all his remaining strength into his blows, and the power from his muscular arms and broad chest drove his sword deep into demon flesh and out again in steady butchery.

  The demons came from all sides now, vicious and unrelenting, and the night wasn’t dark enough to hide the horror of what they did. MacNeil fought on. He had no idea of how many demons he’d killed. He’d lost count long ago. It didn’t make any difference. There were always more. He swung his sword double-handed now, and the hilt jarred in his hands as he hacked through a demon’s spine. There were screams all through the night, and somewhere close at hand a man was cursing endlessly, his voice thick and empty. A woman sobbed, loud and anguished, until the sound broke off suddenly. And then the demons were retreating as suddenly as they’d come, melting silently back into the endless night.

  MacNeil lowered his dripping sword and leaned on it, fighting for breath. The air was full of the stench of blood and death. The great muscles in his arms and back ached horribly, and he was deathly tired. There was no end to the demons, and the intervals between their attacks were getting shorter. They came to the slaughter like pigs at a trough, and there was no end to their appetite for carnage. And strong as he was, MacNeil knew there were limits to his strength, and he was fast approaching them.

  He slowly straightened up and looked about him. There were bodies everywhere, and the barricades had been all but torn apart. The dead and the wounded lay where they had fallen on the blood-soaked ground. No one had the time or the strength to drag them away. Many of the bodies showed signs of feasting. The demons were always hungry. The long night was bitterly cold, and MacNeil pulled his tattered cloak about him. His hands shook, not entirely from the cold. High above, the Blue Moon shone down from a starless night, and the Darkwood held dominion over all the Forest. Demons swarmed everywhere in the darkness surrounding the small besieged town of King’s Deep. The town had been cut off from the outside world for so long its defenders were no longer sure how long it had been. The nightmare seemed to go on forever, as though it had always been happening and always would. No sun rose or set in the Darkwood; there was only the endless night and the creatures that moved in it.

  MacNeil clutched his sword tightly, but it had lost all power to comfort him. He’d always thought of himself as brave, but that was before the Darkwood. In the past he’d fought footpads and smugglers and Hillsdown spies, and never given a damn for the danger. He was strong and fast and good with a sword, and he’d never once backed down from a fight. Unlike many of hi
s fellow guards, he’d always looked forward to going into action; he loved the thrill in his blood and the chance for glory. But that was before he came to defend King’s Deep and found himself facing a ravenous horde of inhuman creatures that came swarming out of the dark in never ending numbers. He’d taken his place at the barricade and fought and killed and slaughtered until his sword arm ached and his armor was soaked with demon blood, and none of it mattered a damn. One by one the defenders fell, and a growing desperation gnawed at MacNeil as the siege continued with no end in sight.

  He leaned against the barricade and closed his eyes for a moment. His whole body trembled with fatigue, and sweat and blood trickled down his face. He couldn’t face another attack. He just couldn’t. He opened his eyes and glanced back at the town behind him. Here and there in King’s Deep a few lights flickered defiantly against the darkness, but the light didn’t carry far. There weren’t many people left to look at them anyway. MacNeil looked down at his sword. Demon blood dripped steadily from the long blade, but he couldn’t find the energy to clean it.

  He’d always thought he was brave. For almost two years he’d used his sword to enforce the king’s law, hunting down criminals and keeping the roads safe. He was proud of his strength and his courage, and neither of them had ever let him down. Until he came to King’s Deep, and the demons taught him fear. He killed them over and over again, and still they came swarming out of the darkness, driven by hatred and a never-ending hunger. MacNeil had given everything he had to stop them, and it hadn’t been enough. He looked out into the endless night and waited for the demons to come again. He thought he would die soon, and he doubted his death would be easy.

  The demons had taught him fear. It felt like panic and despair.

  He looked at the broken barricade before him and wondered why he still stayed at his post. King’s Deep was nothing to him, just another small country town in the back of beyond, of no importance to anyone but its inhabitants. The town was bound to fall sooner or later, and if he stayed he’d fall with it. If he stayed. He turned the thought over in his mind, studying it warily. He didn’t have to stay. The guard captain who’d given him his orders was dead and gone, along with most of the other guards. He could just slip quietly away from his post and run, trusting to the dark to hide him. No one would ever know. Except him.

  MacNeil shook his head to clear it. In all the minstrels’ songs the heroes never once considered turning and running. They just stood their ground and died nobly It was different here in the darkness, facing an enemy without end… . He looked up sharply as he sensed rather than heard a stirring in the night. There was a clatter of running feet around him as others sensed the disturbance and moved forward to block some of the larger gaps in the barricades. MacNeil gripped his sword tightly and wondered vaguely why he was crying. The tears ran jerkily down his face, cutting furrows in the drying blood. He tried to stop crying and couldn’t. He was cold and tired and hurt so badly he could hardly stand up straight, and still he had to fight. It wasn’t fair. They had no right to expect so much of him. He’d done his best for as long as he could, but he just couldn’t do it anymore. Not anymore.

  Demons came boiling out of the darkness, throwing themselves at the barricades in a silent, murderous frenzy. MacNeil stood his ground and swung his sword double-handed, the long blade biting deep into demon flesh. Foul-smelling blood flew thickly through the air, and his footing grew slippery. His arm and back muscles screamed in agony, but still he fought, his sword rising and falling again and again. He started to whimper, and bit his lips until the blood came to keep from crying out. The demons burst through the barricades, and he was forced to retreat. He fell back, fighting every step of the way, and all around him the town’s defenders were pulled down and slaughtered. Their screams lasted a long time. MacNeil swung his sword with failing arms, and the demons came at him from all sides.

  No. No, this isn’t how it was. The long night broke, the dawn came, and the demons and the darkness retreated. King’s Deep was saved, and I survived. I remember! I was there! This isn’t how it was!

  The demons swarmed over him and pulled him down, and there was only the blood and the darkness.

  A low wind murmured across the deserted moor, and moonlight shone silver on the early morning mists. The sun would be up in less than an hour, and still Jessica Flint stood alone in the old graveyard. She pulled her cloak tightly about her, and vowed that once she got back to her nice warm barracks nothing short of a declaration of war would get her out on night duty again. She also vowed to do something extremely unpleasant to the sergeant who’d volunteered her for this duty.

  Flint looked about her, but apart from the graveyard the open moor stretched away in every direction, all silver and shadows in the half moon’s light. Half a mile away, over the down-curving horizon, lay the small village of Castle Mills, to whom the graveyard belonged. It was on the villagers’ behalf that Flint was freezing her butt off on the moor at this unearthly hour of the morning. Six months before, they’d caught a rapist and murderer attacking his latest victim. The villagers dragged him out onto the street and hanged him on the spot, amid general celebration. Rather than pollute their graveyard, they threw the body into a peat bog out on the moor. One month later the dead man dug his way out of the mire and made his way back to the village. He killed four women with his bare hands before the villagers banded together and drove him off with flaring torches. He returned to the peat bog and disappeared beneath the mud. But the next month he rose again, and every month after that. The villagers learned to patrol their streets as soon as the sun went down, and the lich turned his attentions to the local graveyard, which comfort he’d been denied. He dug up graves, smashed coffins, and violated the bodies. The villagers sent to the guards for help, and Flint was the unlucky one.

  She glanced at the oil-soaked torch standing unlit beside a tombstone. She didn’t dare light it before the lich appeared, for fear of frightening him off. In order for it to be effective, she’d have to use the torch at very close range.

  Flint frowned and rested her hand on the pommel of the sword at her side. She’d never fought a lich before. Fire was the usual defense, but by all accounts the lich had proved too elusive for that, so far. Maybe if she hacked him into small pieces first… . She shrugged and looked around her.

  It wasn’t much of a graveyard. Just a wide patch of uneven earth, with a dozen weatherbeaten headstones and a scattering of sagging wooden crosses. It smelled pretty bad too. Flint doubted if the people of Castle Mills had even heard of embalming.

  A faint noise caught her attention, and she spun around, sword in hand. The peat bog where the murderer’s body had been dumped lay less than a hundred yards away, its dark, wet surface gleaming coldly in the moonlight. Flint licked her dry lips, and then froze where she stood as a claw-like hand thrust up through the mire. Mud dripped from the bony fingers as they flexed jerkily. The hand rose slowly out of the mire, followed by a long, crooked arm and a bony head. Flint snapped out of her daze, and drawing flint and steel from her pocket, she lit the torch she’d brought with her. For a moment she thought it had got too damp to catch, but the oil-soaked head finally burst into flames, and she turned back to face the peat bog with the flaring torch in one hand and her sword in the other. The mire’s surface parted reluctantly with a long sucking sound, and the dead man pulled himself out into the night air. He stood wavering on the edge of the bog, and slowly turned his head to look at Flint. His skin was stained and shrunken, but had been mostly preserved by his time in the bog. The eyes were gone, eaten away by decay, but Flint somehow knew that he could still see her. The lich wore a series of filthy tatters that might once have been clothes, held together by muck and foulness. Mud dripped steadily from him as he started forward, heading for Flint.

  All right, thought Flint. This is where I earn my pay.

  She stepped forward to meet the lich, holding the torch up high. Moonlight shimmered brightly on the curved blade of he
r scimitar as she held it out before her. The lich walked unsteadily toward her, his bony fingers clenching and unclenching spasmodically. Flint waited until the last possible moment, and then cut at the lich with her sword. The dead man swayed aside horribly quickly, and the blade whistled through empty air. Flint quickly recovered her balance and jumped backward, but the lich’s hand shot out and fastened onto her left wrist. The bony fingers sank deep into her flesh, and blood ran down her hand, but she wouldn’t drop the torch. Flint swung her sword down in a short, brutal arc and cut through the lich’s wrist. She fell backward, the dead hand still clutching her wrist, and landed awkwardly. Somehow she still managed to hang onto the torch and her sword.

  The lich stopped and looked at the stump of his wrist. No blood spurted from the severed arm, though bone fragments showed clearly in the moonlight. Flint stealthily drew her feet under her and shook the dead hand free from her wrist. Cut off the head and then the legs, and the thing would be helpless. Burn the remnants to ashes with the torch, and the lich would never trouble the villagers again. All it took was a steady nerve and a steady hand.

  She scrambled quickly to her feet, and then tripped on the uneven ground. She fell heavily, jarring the breath from her lungs, and dropped both her sword and the torch. The flame flickered and went out. Flint struggled to her knees, gasping for breath, and reached for her sword. The lich got there first. No. That’s not right.

  The lich picked up the sword with its remaining hand and hefted it thoughtfully. The eyeless face turned slowly to grin at Flint. She scrambled frantically backward.

  No! That isn’t the way it happened! I heat the lich!

  The walking dead man loomed over her, huge and dark and awful. Moonlight gleamed on the sword as he lifted it above his head, and then the blade came flashing down and blood ran darkly on the moonlit ground. The sword rose and fell, rose and fell… .