Chapter Five: Part Three

Continued from Chapter Five: Part Two

The quarrying cranes and buildings had stood there since beyond history, slowly decaying. No stone had been cut there since the old days. It had been cold and empty for centuries when the Zombie Corps had built a complex in it. The Zombie Corps complex was three buildings and a series of pits. One of the buildings was a barracks for the Zombies. A second, more luxurious building was a stable for the steeds bred in the third building.

Standing on the edge of the Gorge, with the wind whipping his cloak around, Twig looked down into the shadowy Gorge at the three buildings. The Gorge yawned some hundred and more feet deep, swallowing the buildings. The low-angled sun hardly reached the bottom of the Gorge. The snow-covered roofs of the buildings rose just high enough to be easily seen. Cranes, gurneys, and catwalks clung to the far wall, ancient and mostly broken but built well enough to have held themselves together for all the long years. Twig could see through the dark to the series of pits in front of the luxurious stable. He knew that the dark obscured the sight of the pits and the hefty iron grates over them from Digger. Digger stood next to Twig and looked down into the Gorge.

“Why here?” Digger asked.

“It is secret,” Twig said. “It is defensible.”

“It’s a daft place for a cavalry,” Digger said, raising his eyes. Twig had told him the day before that the Zombie Corps Cavalry Regiment made its base Cankerous Gorge. “Horses couldn’t get out easily.” Nor could they get in easily either. Silk was just finishing tying his horse to a near tree with Bones and Digger’s horse. They would descend on foot.

“The Zombie Corps Cavalry does not ride horses,” Twig said. He began the walk down the narrow, zigzagging road cut into the wall of the Gorge. Digger followed. Silk did as well, looking around as if entering a site of some architectural interest.

Silk had spoken a great deal over the last couple of days. He mostly told war stories, with a creepily joyous attitude. He enjoyed many of the details that implied horrific details. He told a story of destroying a dam to take out an enemy camp, though there had been a town nearby that was also flooded—he told a story about killing a war chief in single combat, but never mentioned what happened to the war chief’s soldiers—he said he caused a landslide that blocked a canyon road to stop an enemy supply chain, and never mentioned whether it cut off supplies from anyone else. Rather than malicious, he seemed ignorant of the unintended effects of his actions. Twig thought that almost seemed worse.

He had fallen in with strange company.

“It looks abandoned,” Silk said. It did look abandoned. None of the buildings had any light coming from them. No heat either. Even before, with his old senses, Twig had felt the heat rising from the pits and the building where the steeds were bred. The artificers had somehow crossbred polar bears with the fire impelled from an explosive powder manufactured by the Scarpy. And, for good measure, the underemphatically named sparking bears had also been given a crown of spiking horns. The resulting fire-breathing bears made the Zombie Corps Cavalry steeds. Twig would have had one. A bear named Frango. Twig did feel a little heat from somewhere in the complex, enough for a fire or two. It was nowhere near enough for even one sparking bear.

Reaching the end of the zigzagging way down, the three of them walked across the Gorge. Now down in the shadows they could see a little better. The floor of the Gorge had been filled with gravel and earth so that the Zombie Corps buildings could have a flat foundation. The nearest building was the barracks. It loomed like an artless block in the shadows. Snow piled against it—jagged icicles draped its every surface, their surfaces rough with windswept frost. A dead silence only a quarry could conjure pressed into every space. It smelled of ice and concrete. Heat like a campfire came from somewhere ahead—Twig could not be sure where.

As they went toward the barracks they passed some of the pits. Some of them had the iron bars broken from within—mangled to make a hole big enough for a bear to pass through. Digger looked down into the pits.

“Bears?” he said. “They ate each other before they escaped. They were enormous.”

Twig went to look. The bears should have been released long ago, put into the stables to wait for deployment with their Zombie Corps riders. When he saw into the pits it confirmed that they had not been ever let out. Skeletons lay on the floor of the pit, their bones gnawed. The bars on top had been broken from within. Some of the bears got away, but none had ever been freed from outside. Twig walked past every pit to check them. All held the gnawed skeletons of enormous, horned bears. Not all of them had broken bars.

“This is not a good place,” Digger said.

“The Zombie Corps would have freed the bears,” Twig said. He walked with haste to the barracks, determined to find the campfire and ask for information.

The door to the barracks had chains on it—ancient chains and a rusted lock. It felt as if the campfire warmth came from inside the building. There must be a window broken through which the intruder had climbed. “Let me,” Silk said, approaching the door. Before the big man could get near, Twig raised his foot to kick. He thrust it at the middle of the two chained doors. They flew in, the handle of one breaking away from the wood. “Well, never mind,” Silk said.

They walked into the barracks, Twig leading the others. Silk hefted his big sword onto his shoulder, his black composite bow and arrows slung on his back—Digger with his long straight sword—Twig clutching his cloak around his shoulders.

A long hall yawned from the broken doors. Snowflakes blew into the shade around Twig’s black cloak, scattering across the dust-covered wooden floor. Open doors led off the hall to both left and right, leading into two long dorms. Boots had disturbed the dust in the hall.

“Can’t be older than two days,” Digger nodded to the boot prints. A cold draft brushed Twig’s right cheek. He went to the nearest of the four doors leading into the dorm on the right. The room, when he entered it, had more light than the hall—every few feet on the far wall a tall window looked out on the sparking bear stable. The glass of several windows lay shattered on the floor. Snow blew in across the bunks filling the room, in two columns and many rows. The boot prints busied the floor around some of the bunks.

“That window got broke in,” Digger said, pointing at one of the windows. The glass scattered into the room from the window. “That one there got broke outward, though.” He pointed at the window next to it, where the glass scattered out onto the snow. “That’s somewhat destructive.”

Silk had come into the dorm through the next door down the hall. He crouched, his sword resting on his neck, and scrutinized the boot prints in the dust. Digger walked toward him. “What can you see, eh? The lad had some business made him run about in here,” he said, pointing with his sword point at the footsteps. “Moved hither and yon like a sparrow building a nest.”

Twig agreed. At a glance, the boot prints—large and solid—described a man with a task to finish. He’d gone around the room twice and back and forth from the window several times. Twig glanced at the shadier corners. Paper-wrapped packages hung between the rafters, tacked up gently. Twig assessed them and began thinking about them. He’d never seen them before. They smelled chalky and salty—faint, but Twig smelled it.

The warmth like a campfire came from near them—almost in the room. Someone might have built a fire on the second floor. Twig looked at the warmer spot of ceiling. He took a step toward the stairs to the higher level.

The spot of warmth moved.

“Did you hear footsteps?” Digger asked, looking to the ceiling. Silk looked up from the footprints in the dust at the ceiling as well. He caught sight of the paper packages in the shadows. They made him frown.

“Scarpy?” he said, his voice bending to a question.

A sound came from the floor above: like a peal of laughter that had been held in for a while by a voice shredded from years of smoking. Silk stood. “Out of this building! Get out!” he shouted, running to the broken windows. Digger followed. Twig hesitated, unsure what to expect.

The footsteps on the floor above stopped at the end of the building. Twig heard a pop, then a sparking sizzle, moving at a walking pace toward him. He had no memory of any such noise. It frightened Silk—already outside the building. Twig turned and ran out of the room, opting for caution. Before he had reached the snow, the sizzle hit the first package in the rafters. Twig barely made sense of the rush of burning burst from the packet. Flash like lightning—heat like sunburn—pressure like a thousand punches knocking him off his feet. The effect multiplied the cloud of fire from the first packet hit the second. The expanding fireballs built upon each other. The building caught on fire—it splintered before the rushing orange cloud.

Twig almost got out of the broken window. The invisible force slammed into his back. He lifted off his feet. Amid a fog of burning air, he flew out of the building. The crush disoriented him. He only found his feet again when he whumfed into the snow. A heat wave blew over him. He kept still for a second, letting the noise of the explosions go over his back. Keeping motionless, he waited in case more explosions occurred. None did. He heard only the rumble of the barracks behind him burning, and a chuckle. Raising his head, Twig looked through the shadows. In the firelight, Silk smiled at Twig’s prone body, standing at a safer distance from the crumbling barracks.

Such a peculiar man, Twig thought. Twig got to his feet and walked toward Silk. He looked back over his shoulder at the burning barracks. It crumbled in on itself in the snow. The shade around it looked darker against the bright, orange flames eating the building’s two stories.

“Look, in the fire,” Silk said, pointing with his sword. Twig came to stand next to Silk—Digger stood a little further away, the fire reflected in his eyes. Unaffected by the inferno, a slim figure strode to a gaping hole in the second floor wall. The flames licked his muscled body—they hid his face. He held his hands close to them as if they comforted him like beloved hunting dogs. On reaching the gaping hole he paused, looking down at Twig, Silk, and Digger. A deep laugh broke the night. Twig knew the creature’s nature. One of them caused enough threat. He needed no companion to worry Twig. But answering laughs broke from the Gorge, behind them and on either side.

“Lord of Chaos,” Digger swore.

Continued on January 18...

Chapter Five: Part Two

Continued from Chapter Five: Part One

Having cleaned the last of his knives, Digger put them away. He sat cross-legged on his bedroll, leaning on his folded hands and watching the fire flicker. He contemplated it. Under his eyes, the flames couldn’t get away unnoted. Changes in the patterns attracted his attention. Digger learned things from how the fire moved and how it consumed the sticks. Twig could tell that much from the intensity of his gaze. It was like Digger thought he could divine the secrets of winning fights from the way the flame traveled up and down the sticks.

A few minutes later, Digger turned away from the fire, so that the glare wouldn’t make it hard for him to see in the night if something should happen. Twig could still see part of Digger’s profile. Almost an hour passed in silence. Then Digger glanced over his shoulder at Twig.

“What’s your story?” Digger asked. Twig thought about a good answer. He felt disassociated with the life he had left. Before boot camp, Twig Lithnmark led a common enough life. He had grown up on a ranch, the son of a lord but rarely treated differently than the other boys on the grounds. When time came, he found a wife. When duty called, he joined an army. He joined the Wildhagen Militia first. After only a few weeks with the Militia, a man approached him and invited him to join the Zombie Corps. The man assured Twig Lithnmark that the training program of the Zombie Corps fitted Twig Lithnmark’s talents. The Zombie Corps was an elite fighting force unlike any other, the man said. Excited by the proposition, Twig Lithnmark joined the outfit. He shipped to Camp Younes in a secret location far to the north. Training blurred together after that.

The whole course of experiences felt distant to Twig, like a life lived and finished. It all sat in his mind like the vague wisps of dreams. He sometimes doubted any of Twig Lithnmark’s story had ever happened to him at all, it seemed so disjointed from his current reality. Though he knew it all had happened. He was Twig Lithnmark, and the same who had been born more than sixty years earlier and lived in Wildhagen for twenty and more years before ever going into the military. It felt strange.

That might be the story that Digger wanted, asking for Twig’s story. Twig felt disinclined to share it. It belonged to him. He wanted to keep it.

“I have been in a rebuilding hibernation,” Twig said.

“What does that mean?”

“I am not certain. Some magic worked on the Zombie Corps to add to their preparation for the Wars.”

“Do you know what kind of magic?”

“No,” Twig said. He put new snow in his empty cup and erected the little tripod he had made earlier. “They told us it would occur at some point. We would be magicked to be less afraid and more fear-striking. We thought it sounded superfluous after the training we received.” Digger nodded. He was no stranger to hard training, Twig could see it in his posture and the small scars all over him. “The magic never occurred during training. I began to think they used the term magic as a metaphor. The Zombie Corps never saw fighting. Those bold soldiers would have reckoned hard against any enemy. Any who fought us would fear our cries.”

“You never saw the War?” Digger asked. Twig shook his head. “You’ve been, say what like, hibernating for these years?”

“For many years. The magic worked on us while we slept, it seems. I have not always been like this.”

“Ah, I see.” Digger seemed comforted by the information, knowing Twig had once looked different. His back relaxed a touch. Twig thought he ought to be offended. He failed to conjure the energy. Digger seemed to have thought of a few more questions. Hesitating, he asked one that sounded like not his first choice. “The magic worked on the whole Zombie Corps, did it?”

“I do not know. I have not come across any.”

“Perhaps the ghoul wandering the hills is one,” Digger suggested, turning halfway around to look at Twig.

“Perhaps,” Twig said.

“Why don’t you look for him, then?”

“I could not track him. Just as he would not be able to track me.”

“I tracked you,” Digger said, smiling sideways.

“I lured you to me, Wiggend Lordling,” Twig said, lowering his chin. Digger’s face was blank, his posture unamused. “And there is a Zombie Corps rallying point near here,” Twig looked west, toward the mountains, where the road led them. “He would have checked in there.”

“You’re sure?”

“No. It is protocol, however. It is the most likely place to find members of the Zombie Corps.”

Frowning at the idea that he had been lured anywhere, Digger looked back out into the night. Twig found it curious that Digger refrained from asking why he had been lured out into the hills. All the obvious questions that Digger refrained from asking gratified Twig. They were points he preferred leaving dark. “Where is this rallying point?” Digger asked.

“Cankerous Gorge.”

Digger’s sideways smile returned. “That is the quarry where most of the gods mined the stone for their castles in the mountains.”

“Yes,” Twig said.

“There are stories of awful things happening to people who have recently desecrated those grounds,” Digger said.

“That is reasonable. It is the kind of technique which the men funding the Zombie Corps would have used to discourage prying eyes.”

This time seeming to misbelieve, Digger shook his head again. “Likely we’ll see, then, eh?”

Twig stared at the fire. It hardly mattered if anything calamitous had occurred in Cankerous Gorge. If Zombies had been there, they would have weathered, averted, or avoided the calamity. They would either be at the barracks built in the Gorge or they would have left clues. Either would be useful to Twig. He felt confident that the Gorge would provide answers.

“Why are you alone?” Digger asked. Twig looked at Digger. He had no immediate answer. The question seemed peculiar. He was alone. That seemed logical. Digger glanced at Twig’s eyes, raising his eyebrow. “If there’s a whole Zombie army, where’s the rest of it? Weren’t all of you wakened at once, eh?”

“I do not know,” Twig said.

“Seems strange,” Digger said. He looked back out at the night.

Twig thought about that for a second. His brain began running through reasons why the Zombie Corps would have been wakened without him. Perhaps he had been kept in reserve. There would have been at least a few others kept with him, probably, at least. It could be. The people giving the orders might have placed him to execute a solo mission. They were trained to do that. But the Zombies had been always assured by Geving—who had always claimed to be Ferryman’s representative—that there would be orders to follow.

It confused Twig to operate without orders. He knew he looked like he operated with steely calculation. His head worked with a steely calculation that would have been useful during the confused months of boot camp. Inside, befuddlement kept him from predicting his next step.

Digger’s quiet posture indicated that he lacked any desire to speak any more tonight. Twig rolled onto his back. The stars began to be hazed over by thin, misty clouds. Hours passed. Digger gave up his watch to Silk and Silk sat in silence. They swapped watch twice in the night.

With his eyes open, never blinking, Twig stared at the stars and the slowly gliding clouds. He recalled the details of Cankerous Gorge he knew from a visit.

It was a two day journey to Cankerous Gorge, a canyon cut in the foothills of the mountains. Legend told that Groesn, the Stone God, had rent the Gorge in the side of a hill, so that the gods could get to heavy, grey stone buried in it. The grey stone Gorge yawned deeper in these centuries than ever. The stone had been quarried for the great citadels of the three chief gods: Ythig, the god of chaos; Groesn, called the Stone God; and Ferryman, also called Morthweorc, the god of death, who stood at the end of things.

Continued on December 15...

Chapter Five: Part One

Continued from Chapter Four: Part Four

Chapter Five

They only met one group of thieves along the road. On a plateau on a higher hill, as they passed a fence between two ranches, ten or so shivering men rose from bushes on either side of the road. The men ran shoutingly to the road, waving staves and pitchforks. Digger took up his own staff, ready to blunt some skulls. Long before the thieves reached them, Silk drew the largest of his swords—nearly five feet long including the handle, its blade stout and curved. With the sword in hand, Silk got off his horse. His deep frown was an impatient one. He walked toward one of the groups of thieves and began scolding and threatening them. “Think you have problems, do you? Some of us have the weight of worlds on our shoulders. You’ll find your fingers in awkward places less you run off right at this moment. Get back to your wives and strumpets,” he shouted. His voice rose to such a gargantuan level and he looked so big that the thieves all slowed up, their eyes widened and confused. They broke the loose ranks they’d formed and retreated, at first only one and two at a time. The fight went out of the whole group of thieves then, however. They all fled back to the bushes.

Silk returned to his horse. He put his sword away and remounted. Without a word or a glance at his comrades, he began riding along the road again. A feeling of wishing to be left alone generated from him.

“Well, that was a display, wasn’t it?” Digger muttered. Twig agreed in his head. The outburst sounded like Silk taking frustration out on a third party. The new arrangement irked him. Probably Twig was to blame.

The rest of the ride that day passed in silence. Digger cleared his throat every now and then. By his muscle tension Twig surmised Digger found the silence awkward. The quiet also seemed to rankle on Silk’s nerves. At least he grew more agitated as the sun angled across the sky. Shadows lengthened. They never stopped for a midday meal—Silk and Digger ate something while they rode. Evening began to rise as they entered an area of woods that had burned sometime the autumn before. The blackened skeletons of trees filed away from the road.

Twig knew that the road made a turn two thirds of the way around the left hill. From the slight tightening of their skin and unsettlement of their stomachs—audible under the rustle of their cloaks—Digger and Silk would soon need to camp.

“I will begin making camp near the next bend in the road,”Twig said. He handed Digger the reins of Bones. Dismounting, Twig walked into the burned trees. Going straight over the hill, Twig began gathering wood. It was quicker to walk than ride. The road took a long sweep around a stone ridge that could be easily scaled on foot.

Knee-deep in snow, Twig reached the top of the stone ridge, his arms mostly full of wood from the burned trees. He was out of usual audio range, where people should be unable to hear behind them. Digger chose that moment to talk to Silk.

“Have you asked yourself why this darkling let Novoselic away in favor of you?” Digger muttered.

“Now that you mention it, I might have done well to give it some attention,” Silk said sarcastically.

Digger left it amiss. “What reason do you think?” he asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” Silk said.

“Can’t have your good will in mind,” Digger said. “Best sleep with both eyes open for a spell.” Twig passed to the other side of the ridge. He could still hear their voices, but the words became too distant to discern every one. Gathering the last firewood he could carry, Twig ambled to the bottom of the hill. He found a flat spot, empty of trees or underbrush. There he made a fire, using matches he’d taken from the Holy Assassins. The only supplies he’d taken from every corpse was fire making tools…and tea, if they had it. Only the Holy Assassins had tea. He also had from them a tall, narrow tin cup. When he had made his fire he balanced the tin cup on a tripod of sticks over the fire. Filling the cup with snow he waited for it to boil. He lay on his belly close to the fire on his cloak, which he had spread out on top of the snow. The road bent around the hill, visible through the heat above the fire.

Silk interested Twig. Certain sure. A target of the same Holy Assassins as the Assassins who targeted Twig—Silk interested Twig as much as anything in the new world. The dying request of a fellow dealer in death meant something to Twig—similarly, the implied conflagration of interest between him and another soldier hunted by the Assassins.

Digger walked around the bend in the road. The shadow of the hill cast over him. His silhouette showed black against the grey snow on the side of a farther hill. Sticks of wood filled his arms—he’d dismounted to gather them. The father of his great granddaughter interested Twig as well. The son of the Wiga thrown in with an enemy of the state whose reward would scare off all but the most brutal hunters. Times had certainly changed. “The state”possessing enough scratch to offer so large a reward implied of it things that had never been true before. The size of bounty offered by this new state had only ever been offered by gods before. Engelkind’s state was a higher level of civilization that Twig had ever known. It implied vast cities—standing armies—infrastructure only every afforded by the gods. Things like that had begun appearing, funded by only men, when he had gone into boot camp. Engelkind’s had greater worldly influence than any man. The lands south of Wildhagen’s borders must look different than the rolling plains and sweeping forests of the old days.

What he had seen of Wildhagen looked the same as it ever had. That was a comfort.

Digger walked into the circle of fire glow. His expression flat, he looked at Twig. Digger nodded, dropping the wood he’d gathered. Crouching next to the fire, he took off his gloves and began warming his hands. He glanced at Twig’s back. Twig lay on his cloak—only his leather clothes protected him from the cold, the many mismatched straps crisscrossing his body.

“Are you cold?” Digger asked.

“Yes,” Twig said. “It never worsens. Nor do I warm.”

“That is strange,” Digger said. Silk arrived, carrying two bedrolls and a bag that smelled of the salty meat and bread going into traveling rations.

“Yes,” Twig agreed. His water had neared a boil.

“Are you hungry? We noticed you have no food.” Digger’s voice had concern. It sounded genuine. Twig was inclined to smile, to try comforting Digger. He felt no certainty that he could smile on purpose without looking peculiar. He left his face blank.

“The smell of food twists my stomach,” Twig said. He took the tin cup of boiling water from the fire with the corner of his cloak, dropping a few large pinches of tea leaves into it. The tea he had was a dark tea and most of the leaves sank to the bottom of the cup. He set it before his nose on his cloak and let it steep.

“Surely you must eat anyway,”Digger said.

“Surely I must,” Twig said, copying Digger’s inflection. He agreed with the statement—sure he must eat. He very much did not want to eat and had not eaten for weeks now. It seemed to have no effect on him. He inhaled the dusty smell of the tea’s steam.

“Leave him alone,” Silk said.“He’ll eat if he wishes.” Tossing Digger a bedroll, Silk set the sack of food on the ground. He unrolled his own bedroll and lay on his side on it. The gold lace on his hood flickered to the fire. He glanced back and forth from Twig to the flames.

Silk and Digger ate in silence, drinking from a skin of wine that they passed back and forth. Digger offered it to Twig. Twig shook his head. He stuck to his tea. None of them spoke while they ate. When they had finished, Silk wiped his beard with snow and rolled onto his back, his eyes open to the stars. Though Digger wore his cloak with the hood up, he had pulled the blanket from his bedroll over his head as well. He oiled his knives. They needed it. He had four knives with him and none had been oiled recently. Being sheriff of Súthende had absorbed much of his time, Twig supposed.

“I’ll take first watch,” Digger said after a while.

“You might,” Twig said. “I do not sleep. I will watch all night.”

Silk smiled. He didn’t believe Twig.

“All men sleep,” Digger said.

“I do not sleep,” Twig repeated.“I am willing to watch all night. He is not willing to allow me to watch all night.” Twig said, looking at Silk. Silk looked back, listening. His eyes were thoughtful.

“Silk’s has trust issues,” Digger said.

“You should not trust me,” Twig said. Digger kept his attention firmly on his knives. The forced relaxation in his posture betrayed agreement: he mistrusted Twig too. “Watch with me.”

Digger nodded, wiping the oil from his knife’s blade. Silk, smiling, looked back up at the stars. The situation amused him.

Continued on January 12...

Chapter Four: Part Four

I am sorry for the delay, gentles. Busy holiday. Conclusion of Chapter Four, continued from Chapter Four: Part Three

While Silk spoke, Twig stared like a stone at him. At this point, Twig looked at Digger. Digger had been watching. He nodded to confirm Silk’s story. Silk spoke like a liar. He couldn’t help it and he’d never try to do anything about it. Digger’s honest face helped Silk’s position. The lad showed his use. Silk smiled again. “I’m sure that Ferryman got your notes,” Silk puffed on his cigar. “If you want a reply to them, you’ll have to go find it personally.”

“I do not know where to look,” Twig said.

“I do—it’s further north,” Silk said, looking Twig straight in the eye. Silk’s heart beat unevenly. It had since the wars. No one who heard his heart could judge anything from it. It never sped nor slowed. Twig looked like the kind who heard heartbeats. His eyes saw more than other men. Silk smiled. “Did you say Zombie Corps?” he said.

“I did,” Twig said.

“There are other members of the Corps?” Silk asked.

“I do not know.”

“If you’re here, shouldn’t they be?” Silk asked, grinning around his cigar. With a straight face Twig stared silently at Silk. “It seems like it to me. There never was a Zombie Corps active in the War. If you are here now, somewhere the Zombie Corps ought to be waiting. Shall we rally them?”

Twig stared at Silk’s smiling face for a second. He turned to Digger. “This man is strange. There is no reason for him to help me.” Twig walked away from Digger and Silk toward the woods.

“I have a venture that may prove compatible with yours,” Silk said at Twig’s retreating back. “When you learn more of the new world.”

“I am sure that you do,” Twig said. He disappeared under the shadows of the pine trees. Silence filled the void.

Silk’s and Digger’s horses huffed. Silk felt the sides of Lortie—his own horse—relaxing. Everything stood still for a while, the breathing horses and men the only sound. A few minutes later a rustle disturbed the undergrowth among the trees, like a rabbit ascending from a hiding place. A bird took wing across the road. Silk heard a fox chirrup.

“Has he gone away?” Digger asked. Silk frowned. The voices in his head nudged him forward, telling him not to give up yet. Tapping his horse’s sides, Silk rode on past the boulder in the road. Past it, the road took another turn into a wide flat in the hills. Without speaking, they cantered for a few minutes along the easy stretch of road. The pine woods along the road thinned as they went. Some hundred yards could be seen in both directions.

“Look there,” Digger said, nodding sideways. Keeping pace with them, on a mottled grey mustang, Twig rode through the thinning pine trees. He angled his mustang to get closer to the road. When it began rising over the next low hill he had rode just ahead of Silk and Digger. Silk noted a distinct lack of weaponry on Twig’s saddle, while Digger carried several knives, a sword, and a bow and arrows—Silk would not begin listing the plethora of weapons about his person. Twig lacked supplies of any kind. He must be starving.

“I will go to the nearest Zombie Corps rallying point,” Twig said. “You may accompany me.”
Silk’s lip curled at the back of Twig’s head. The flat nothing of Twig’s voice peeved Silk. Twig wasn’t supposed to have the power here. Silk didn’t know quite what to do just then. “Fine,” he said, slowing his horse so he fall a little behind Digger.

Taking a long breath, Silk filled his lungs with cigar smoke, watching the heads of the two young people ahead of him. Cheeky bastards.

Continued on January 9 (shall now be posting every third day)...

Chapter Four: Part Three

Sorry about the delay. Busy holiday. Continued from Chapter Four: Part Two

 “You wear the trappings of a Holy Assassin,” Digger said. The white man’s cold eyes drew away from Silk and fell on Digger. “Do you go about the Ferryman’s work?”

“I am not a member of his congregation,” the white man said.

“Then what’s your business killing off people in the area, eh?” Digger asked. The white man stared at Digger for a few seconds before replying.

“In the light you are bold,” the man said. Digger sniffed, frowning at the implicit accusation of lacking boldness at darker moments. He made no argument. The white man turned his eyes back to Silk and said, “You do not know me.”

Silk took his cigar out of his mouth. He breathed a wave of smoke out of his nostrils. “I don’t,” he said through the middle of the smoke. “Should I?”

“No,” the white man said. “The outlaws I have confronted recognized me, mistaking me for some rumor they heard I presume. You do not recognize me. You expected me to be who Novoselic, Bartley, Aaltonen, and Burgan mistook me to be.”

“You expected to find someone specific out here?” Digger said to Silk, frowning and annoyed. Silk looked Digger in the face. Digger took it as an affront that Silk had refrained from divulging the information earlier. The sentiment made sense, Digger having been sheriff of Súthende at the time.

“Yes,” Silk said. “I thought I knew who’d been killing your outlaws.”

“Friend of yours, was he?” Digger said, unable to keep the shortness from his voice.

“Well, an occasional business partner, at best,” Silk said.

“Who was he?” Digger said. “Is he still nearby?”

“His name is Younes,” Silk said. “I have no idea where he is.”

“You thought the messages in the murderers’ mouths came from him, eh?” Digger asked.

Silk looked back at the white man on the boulder, wondering. His unnatural, corpse-white skin looked like Younes’s, as did the raven-black of the hair just visible under the hood and the darkness around his eyes and mouth making him look utterly spent. The face, the build, the eyes, his very bearing: everything else about this man was different. Poised, practices, elegant, where Younes would be messy, angry, and forceful.

“What’s your name?” Silk asked him.

“Twig Lithnmark, a soldier in the Zombie Corps,” Twig said.

“You’re very trusting,” Silk said.

“I am in a position of power,” Twig said. “You are Silk Golinvaux. You are wanted dead by the Holy Assassins of the Ferryman.”

“Hmm,” Silk raised his eyebrow. “That’s news.” Although…Silk began to think of what he knew of the Holy Assassins and their recent movements. A handful of them had recently headed north to hunt Younes. To lend him a hand against them provided Silk with a primary motivation for coming north.

“I do not know the name Younes, except as the name of my boot camp,” Twig said.

“You’re hardly missing anything,” Silk said. He slid his sword into its sheath. “Rather the reverse of a charming fellow.” Resting his hands on the horn of his horse’s saddle, Silk considered this Twig. He wore the leather and voluminous black cloak of a Holy Assassin—staring down from the deep hood as if born in it. If he said the Holy Assassins wanted Silk dead then—though this was a logical leap—Twig must have encountered Holy Assassins and put them in a position to give up their clothes. Silk could think of no reason a Holy Assassin would relinquish their hard-earned trappings—and those leathers came at a bloody price—except if the Assassin no longer had breath and heartbeat enough to wear the clothes.

And Holy Assassins never fought a fight unless they meant to fight one. If baited, they would run. They never made mistakes choosing their targets. A fight with them is a fight to the death—usually the death of anyone but them. Clearly not in the case of Twig.

“Did you encounter Holy Assassins?” Silk asked. Twig nodded. Silk, frowning, thinking, flicked his cigar to knock the ash from the end. He put it back in his mouth. The Holy Assassins that had hunted Younes might lie not far away killed by Twig. They would know the difference between Younes and Twig.

Younes had been bringing Silk a weapon: the only weapon that could destroy Engelkind. “Trust me, it ain’t what you think,” Younes had said of it. “It can’t do anything directly. Shall need to be understood and then wielded.” Silk had thought perhaps Younes knew of a book or scroll that would describe the story of Ferryman marking Engelkind in greater detail, perhaps. From such a story Engelkind’s weakness could be divined and applied. Looking into the eyes of Twig Lithnmark, Silk began wondering whether Younes was as nuts as he seemed, and what could be done with a man, even such a strange one as stood on the boulder before them.

“Who are you writing to, then?” Digger asked, holding up one of the messages from the throats of one of the murderers. Twig looked back at Digger.

“It is an old rite. You should know it,” he said.

“Enlighten me.”

“I am sending messages to Ferryman. The ghosts of the felled men carry the words in their mouths to the next world. It is an old story.”

Digger’s eyebrows lowered. He seemed confused and somewhat dumbfounded. His hand went involuntarily to rub above his eyes as if he had heard something so utterly illogical he had no idea what to do with it. “That means the body’s own last words, not any words that happen to be there,” he said in the tone of one arguing a scriptural detail. Which it was.

“The story says the words in his mouth are carried to Ferryman,” Twig said flatly. That was also true. It was the literal translation in the story: “the words” without specifying any particular words. Silk knew the story.

“You can’t do that,” Digger said, his voice rising.

“I have done it,” Twig replied. Silk began to chuckle.

Digger shook his head. “That’s ridiculous,” he muttered.

Twig looked down with his face blank. Digger’s face tightened with frustration. He tried to master himself. Silk watched his struggle, his chuckles quiet. “Is something funny?” Digger asked, sniffing and glancing at Silk. Though the situation tickled Silk to no end, he chose not to reply. He looked back up at Twig.

“The boy is right, though. You actually can’t do it,” Silk said. Twig met Silk’s eyes without any curiosity. “Ferryman no longer replies to supplications, you see. Not in this world.”

“It is so,” Digger said, his eyes lowered to the snow at the base of the boulder where Twig stood. “None of the gods can. Not actively. They never show themselves these days. How do you not know this?”

“I have been away for a while,” Twig said. “There are many things in the world that are new. I am removed from my time.”

“What do you mean?” Silk asked.

“The War ought to be in full swing,” Twig said, then hopped off the edge of the boulder. He landed with a whumph in the thick snow on the ground. Digger raised his bow a little higher. “I am told that it has ended.”

“Yes. Many years ago,” Silk said. “You missed the end of it, then?”

“Yes,” Twig said, approaching Silk and Digger. The horses nickered and frisked as he came closer.

“The gods lost,” Silk said. “They were exiled. They went back to their city past the end of the world, forsaking their keeps to razing and ransack,” he smiled, hiding his thoughts while he considered how much to tell about the new god, Kunig, and the control that Engelkind had over one of the greatest cities of the gods. Silk decided to leave that for later. Too much too fast would do no one any good. “The gods are never seen in the world anymore.”

Happy New Year. The narrative shall resume in New Year.

Chapter Four: Part Two

Continued from Chapter Four: Part One

“You know, price the size they’ve put on you, you’re not to be attracting just any mercenary,” Digger said. They rode their horses through the hills, along the highway where the murderers had turned up dead.

“That’s reasonable,” Silk said, puffing on a cigar.

“There are only two or three scalp hunters willing to pursue a warrant so expensive,” Digger took a thoughtful tone, waving three fingers to emphasize his point. “Low-Ball and his lads might,” Digger said. Low-Ball was one of Silk’s people, from the far southern peninsula, who’d turned his skills learned pirating into a mainland trade. Though Silk knew that Low-Ball had turned governor and spent most of his time attempting to unite the southern islands into a republic, and make “honest” trade—honest understood in a diplomatic sense. In any event, Silk had little fear of Low-Ball. “Then there’s Bogeyman,” Digger went on, mentioning one of the scary stories that had graduated from merely haunting the nightmares of children to tainting the stories that hard men told each other around campfires. For years no one believed that Bogeyman existed, and the few raving men who talked of him received the “mad” label. Digger believed Bogeyman existed—as did Silk.

“He’s been tied up with business, they say,” Silk said.

“Aye, so I hear,” Digger agreed. “He’s still a danger. He isn’t already rich and he always needs money.”

“That is true,” Silk said, scratching his cheek. Bogeyman always had some expensive venture on his platter, or so folk believed.

“And my father,” Digger said with thought in his voice. “He’d be up for the chase.”

“Yes,” Silk drew out the word, smiling. “That would be a worthy chase.”

“Aye.”

“Do you think he’d take it up?” Silk asked. Digger shook his head.

“He’s distracted with his own affairs,” Digger said.

“Pity.”

“If you actually wish to be caught it is,” Digger said as they rode past some huckleberry bushes frosted with old snow.

“You have very little faith in me,” Silk said, smiling.

“I hardly know you,” Digger said. Silk chuckled.

“You forgot someone,” Silk said.

“Did I, eh?”

“Tetch Slander and his boys,” Silk said.

“There is them—gods preserve you if they like the scent,” Digger said.

“Why? I think it’d be rather a lark evading old Slander and the Scarpy,” Silk snuffed, taking his cigar out of his mouth. “I fought beside them often enough. Fighting against them presents all new puzzles.”

“You are an odd one,” Digger shook his head, raising an eyebrow. He clearly could not believe that Silk was serious. Silk chuckled again. “Do as you like. I’d really like to clarify this Engelkind point.”

“I have declared war on the man.”

 “Right, you’ve declared war on Engelkind’s institution,” Digger was saying as they rode. Silk interrupted here.

“Just the man, not his institution,” he said, snuffling. He puffed on his cigar and looked around at the pine trees growing up the sides of the steep valley. It was the only highway out of town, Digger had said. Silk was not sure it smelled believable, but it didn’t matter much. The dead murderers had been found on this road.

“Declared war on Engelking the man—greater tang of blarney to that, but I’ll leave it aside till I know better of your character,” Digger continued.

“Most gracious,” Silk said.

“What I’m hearing as the moral to the grand story is Silk wants to see Engelkind killed, eh?”

Silk nodded. He heard something in the woods roundabout. Or, rather, heard an empty where scurrying critters ought to be audible. The silence had surrounded them for some minutes now. It had washed the valley suddenly half a mile back.

“Engelkind is a dictator and a scourge on future generations—does the young lordship’s conscience like the ‘tang’ of that?” Silk said, concentrating on listening to the woods rather than to Digger.

“Nay, I find it hard to understand. Legend tells us that Engelkind is a marked man, and that Ferryman’s own instrument is the only end he’ll meet.”

“And you have trouble believing I’m Ferryman’s instrument?”

“Aye. The story says Engelkind can only be killed by a thing unknown to this world.”

Digger was quite true, of course. Silk knew the story. He found it fascinating and he’d seen enough things try and fail to kill Engelkind the warlord to believe the legend. Ferryman occasionally marked men as his own quarry. The fact was well known. Those men only died according to Ferryman’s own design. No one had ever succeeded in directing or predicting the designs of Ferryman, the god of death and the end of things. What with Ferryman disappeared from the world, and Engelkind simply proceeding to age—he must be eighty or ninety already—it presented Silk a pretty puzzle.

He thought he had perhaps cracked it. The silence around him seemed familiar. As a clue, silence was wretched. It hardly told Silk anything. He paid attention to it, though.

“Well, we shall see,” Silk said.

“It’s too quiet,” Digger said.

They let the silence lower. It breathed through the trees—a scream with no breath, no throat, no voice. The icy sky pressed down on the snow covered ground. Before them, the road lay clear like a bated snare.

A noise like a hiccuping sob interrupted the silence. Stumbling from the trees, a man fell onto the road. His coat had ripped—he held a bloody hand to a too-limp shoulder, trying to steady the dislocation. With red shot eyes leaking frustrated tears, he stared at Silk. A grin cracked his face.

“He saw you,” the man said—Krist Novoselic gone far past the edge. Novoselic ran at Digger and Silk. Stumbled, though his legs appeared uninjured he had trouble walking. His breath came in grunts and snuffs. Digger’s hand fell on the handle of his bow, but he left his arrow un-nocked. Novoselic posed no threat; he loped past Silk and Digger, smelling of blood and sweat—muttering, “ha, he saw you, ha,” as he went. They let him go.

Digger looked sideways at Silk, raising an eyebrow. No words seemed required. The mad murderer spoke frighteningly for itself. Digger loosened his big knife in its sheath. Silk drew his curved two-handed sword, so that he looked prepared, although he thought he knew what had beaten Novoselic. With the mumbling, hiccuping breaths of Novoselic falling behind them, Silk and Digger rode their horses forward at a walk.

The road rounded a bend. Thick bushes blocked the view forward till they had made they turn. Twenty yards further on, a boulder stood in the middle of the road—the road parted around it. The boulder stood ten feet tall. On it, with no apparent weapon, stood a slim man, clutching a voluminous cloak like enough to a Holy Assassin’s around his shoulders. He had the hood up, though his face--youthfully shaped but shadowed around the cold eyes and sharp lips--stared out from the dark hood. His skin had the white cast of a corpse frozen in the snow on the ground. Silk recognized the pallor and nothing else about the person. That seemed strange. Silk expected to see someone else. His surprise, damnably, showed on his face for a second. The man standing on the boulder didn’t react. He stared passively at Silk. Silk gained control over his surprise after only a second. The man probably saw it.

A brief hiatus will be taken for Christmas. Continued on December 27...

Chapter Four: Part One

Continued from Chapter Three: Part Five

Twig contemplated the last words of the last Holy Assassin he had killed: Silk the Beast. It was the name of the next target of the Holy Assassins. Twig trusted the killer’s dying words. For some reason, the Holy Assassin had felt the need to tell Twig to kill Silk. “Carry on since we no longer can,” the Assassin had said. Sometimes, people called the Assassins the Ferryman’s Messengers.

Night surrounded Twig. He sat on a stone sticking out of the side of a hall. It commanded a clear view of the road north out of town and the woods around it. With only one break, he had been sitting on the stone for three days watching the valley for motion. Animals that moved among the woods caught his eye--wind moving the trees around--occasional resettling of snow as it melted or froze. From the stone he could see a mile to both the north and south. In the time, though Novoselic the murderer had been quiet in his movements, Twig had watched him move here and there in the valley. Novoselic checked his several snares for rabbits and ferrits and birds. He caught nothing for the first two days—his hunger must have been ravening. On the third day, Twig watched the subtle bending of bracken and the rushing of little creatures that indicated Novoselic’s passage along one of the gametrails on the far side of the valley. Novoselic must have found some creature in his snare because after a short time Twig saw the glare of a small fire, lit behind a pile of stones and whitening the already white snow only a tiny bit. Cooking his meal Novoselic would remain still for a time. That suited Twig.

Rising, Twig jumped off the stone jutting from the hill. He landed in loose snow—snow from the nights on the stone fell off his shoulders. Where he landed the hillside fell steeply to the road. In the powdery snow, Twig slid down the hill, keeping his feet and pushing off the trees that got in his way. Soon he reached the flatter bottom of the valley. He scurried across the road. When he reached the far side of the valley he began running up the rising ground. It soon became too steep to run straight up the hillside. He began grabbing onto trees, swinging to the higher side of them, and leaping further up to the next tree. Soon, he gained the snow-covered pile of rocks providing Novoselic cover for his cooking fire. Twig felt the flickering heat from the fire and the gurgling heat from the murderer. The smell of a quaill being skinned tinged the mostly still air.

Landing from his last leap on a craggy stone, Twig climbed the pile. Gloves tucked into a strap on his pants, he pried his cold fingers into the snow-filled cracks in the stones, the rough edges threatening to cut his skin. He kept his movements light, protecting his hands. Soon he reached the top of the stones and crouched just past the apex, looking from under his hood down at the rough man and his little cooking fire. Novoselic had a waxpaper poster in his hands. He examined it close to the cooking fire—the quaill half-skinned in the snow beside him. The poster had the face of a far southern man, with thick black hair and a trimmed goattee. In the etching his eyes looked intense and he smiled wildly. The poster said, “Wanted: Silk Golinvaux, enemy of the state. Known psudonyms: The Beast, Garrote, Black Ghost…” The list continued. It never listed his crimes--though it offered a huge reward. Far larger than Novoselic’s. Novoselic no doubt wished to turn in Silk and hoped to gain his own pardon.

There was the face of the man a dying Assassin asked Twig to kill. A strange suggestion. And Silk an enemy of the state. With the new turn his life had taken, Twig almost thought he’d do it.

Novoselic rubbed the back of his neck, as if he felt a chill. He glanced behind him as he did. Twig’s silhouette caught the corner of his eye. For a moment, Novoselic paused, looking sideways toward Twig. He then dropped the poster of Silk. Wheeling on the balls of his feet, staying in a crouch, Novoselic spun to face Twig. With the wheeling momentum, he drew and launched a knife at Twig. The knife flew well—Twig watched it spin toward him. It flipped through the frigid air. Novoselic began moving away from the fire the moment he released the knife’s handle.

The knife came within Twig’s reach. He moved aside. While he did, he raised a white hand. His fingers touched the cold, unpolished blade. Brushing the coarse metal, he slowed its flipping momentum. His hand found the handle; his fingers wrapped around the old bandages winding round it. Looking back at Novoselic, Twig stood. Novoselic had already started running.

Words seemed unnecessary during the last few weeks in the hills. Twig killed three murderers and gave them his message to carry. Each of them, with frighted recognition widening their mad eyes, attacked him like he had walked from their nightmares. They feared someone else who looked nearly like Twig. None of the desperate murderers had been willing to tell him anything. When he caught up to them, they fought tooth and nail—big rough men that they were—and went into a mad rage. He tried to preserve them long enough to inquire. The first died of stress—he had been starving and freezing for weeks. The second ran off a cliff. The third began to babble; he had already lost his mind and fought till Twig subdued him. Each were more fragile than men usually are. They were cold, mad men, and Twig got no wisdom from them. Their ghosts, he hoped, carried his messages. Ghosts have more stability of character, or so the stories say.

Novoselic ran from his little fire, his half-skinned quail, ran from whoever it was he mistook Twig to be. Twig began to hunt, Novoselic’s old knife loose in his hand.

Continued on December 23...