ARC: The Corpse-Rat King (32 page)

“Grandmamma…”

“Take a good stick. You can’t go wrong with a good stick.” She coughed, a sound that was as much sob as anything, then steadied herself and made her way back to the chair. “Mister Spint says he needs to go straight away, so you’d best be on the hop now, boy. Give me a kiss.”

“Grand… yes, Grandmamma.” Gerd stepped forward and kissed her offered cheek. She grabbed his neck, and held him to her for a moment.

“You be careful now, boy. Just… be careful.”

“Yes, Grandmamma.” Gerd straightened, and took the bag and loaf. He stepped past Marius to the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“I love you.”

The old woman said nothing, then, finally, “Off with you now, boy. Come home soon.”

Gerd opened the door, and stepped through. Marius made to follow.

“Mister Spint?”

“Yes.”

“See him right, you hear me?”

“I…” He saw her then: old, small, frightened; sitting alone at her table, with her only comfort standing outside, suddenly alien and terrifying to her. He stepped backwards, and silently put the door between them. Gerd was waiting a dozen steps away, head bowed. Without a word, Marius joined him.

They stopped long enough for Marius to wash the drying remains of the old woman’s soup from his face and arms. Then they were outside the village and running down the mud track towards the plains at the base of the mountains. They ran in silence, avoiding each others’ gaze, letting the lie of the land dictate their progress. The ravines closed in behind them, closing them off from sight of the village, until they ran between grey walls that pressed against their minds with solemn finality. It was not until they had left the mountains behind and were well into the long, slow undulations of the flatlands that Gerd finally spoke.

“Why?” he asked, as they crossed a trade road and leaped across the drainage ditch on the other side.

“Why what?”

“Why did you tell her?”

“Because…” Marius stared at the grasses around him, at the open horizons and the roads he could not follow, “I’m sick of lying. I mean, look at me. Look where it’s gotten me. I’m just… I’m just sick of it.”

He put his head down, ignoring the world and the sunshine and his own mind. The dead men ran on for several more minutes.

“She won’t survive, you know.”

“What?”

“Grandmamma. She won’t be able to cope with it. Your truth.” Gerd glanced at him. “You’ve killed her.”

After that, there was nothing left to say. They ran on, through the rolling plains of the Scorban Flatlands, skirting the farmlets and freeholds that dotted the plains like breadcrumbs, maintaining their tireless pace through both day and night. They travelled for six days, swinging past the distant lights of Borgho City and passing through the wonders of the Grass Fields without pausing; crossing the battlefield where their deaths had occurred with nothing more than a glance at each other and a thin-lipped tightening of their jaws; finally pushing down towards the coast, altering their stride as the smooth plains gave way to the more broken lands of the coastal ridge, tying their path to the roads that criss-crossed the lands outside the capital, following the major highway between Scorby and Borgho, all the while keeping themselves hidden from view, a hundred metres or more from the road’s edge, behind the fences and the first line of trees. Finally, as night was falling and they were no more than a day’s journey from the capital, Marius called a halt. They settled in a small clearing amongst the trees, gathered branches and leaves from the surrounding forest floor, and built a fire. They sat on either side, staring into the flames. Marius held his hands towards the fire, examining their backs in the flickering light.

“Funny,” he said at last, surprised at how loud he sounded.

“What is?” Gerd looked through the fire at him, face clouded with suspicion.

“I shouldn’t need a fire. But I do.” He turned his hands, stared at his palms. “Once it’s night, and I’m still, I still feel the cold. My hands are freezing.” He looked up, caught Gerd’s look. “Why do you suppose that is?”
Gerd shrugged. Marius stared at him for several seconds. “You do too, don’t you? Look at the way you’re huddled around yourself. You’ve been shifting around ever since you sat down, warming one side then the other. Why is that, Gerd? Surely, surely we shouldn’t feel it. We are dead. Aren’t we?”

“Well,
I
am.” Gerd raised a hand to his chest. “A Scorban soldier sliced me like a haunch of beef. I’m sure you remember.” He ran his fingers across his chest, and Marius could imagine the scar he felt. “You let it happen, after all. Did you get a good view?”

“I… I’m sorry.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m sorry.” Marius looked into the flames again, saw the battlefield laid out in its depths. “I am. I should never… it’s been a long journey since then. I’m really sorry.”

Gerd sighed. “You bloody well should be.” He stood and rounded the fire to sit by Marius’ side. “I should hate you.”

“Why not?” Marius smiled, a short, bitter movement of his lips. “You’d hardly be alone.”

“No, I imagine I wouldn’t.” Gerd held out a hand towards his companion. “I don’t hate you. I did. But not anymore.”

Hesitantly, Marius took the offered hand, and they shook. “Why not?”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think since we left Grandmamma.” He poked at the flames with a stick, watched the sparks that swirled up into the darkness. “She’s going to die, and when she does, there will be nobody there to look after her, to make sure she’s okay, surrounded by all those dead strangers.”

Marius had his own thoughts on who would need protecting from whom once Grandmamma made her journey below, but he kept them to himself. Gerd was staring off into the night, and he sensed another of his home-spun soliloquies approaching.

“Maybe I died for a reason. Maybe it’s so I can help her, once she’s arrived. It’s all I’ve ever done. I’m good at it. I like it. Besides, I’ve been thinking about it, and it’s not like you ever lied to me.”

“Sorry? What?” Marius’ eyes widened.

Gerd smiled. “You promised me adventure and riches, and seeing the sights of the world. Well, you’ve given me those. Not the riches, admittedly.” He laughed. “But adventure, sights, experiences?” He waved at the surrounding night. “You weren’t joking, were you?”

Marius stared at him in shock. After a moment, he began to giggle. Their laughter grew, cutting away their tension, their fears, until they were leaning against each other, tears streaming down their faces, howling with unrestrained laughter. Eventually they leaned back, and wiped away the moisture on their cheeks.

“See?” Marius said, brandishing his wet fingers. “This is what I mean. How is this possible?”

“What? This?” Gerd displayed his own wet hand.

“Yes. I mean…” Marius stared at his hand, glistening in the light of the fire. “Every time I forget my situation, it’s like… it’s like my body does too. When I was with Keth it was like I was still alive. I could feel my heart beating, I could feel… blood in…” He glanced down at his groin, “Areas. And the way I looked…” Again, he held his hand up so Gerd could see. “How long have we been dead? A couple of months? Where’s the decay? Where’s the degradation? I look at myself at times, see my face in a glass, and it’s there, all the ravages of death, and I have to turn away and hide myself from view. But other times, times like now…” He looked his companion full in the face. “It’s not there, is it? Not on you. Not on me. Why is that, Gerd? Why?”

They stared at each other, taking in their faces, their exposed arms, the light and vitality in their eyes. Gerd raised a hand to his face, felt the health and firmness of his skin.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I… I don’t know.”

“No.” Marius stared into the depths of the fire. “Neither do I.”

They lapsed into silence again. Marius felt deadness seeping into his skin, brought on by his hopelessness, his bewilderment. He glanced down at the back of his hand, and saw the first tinges of grey as his skin dried and shrunk over his bones. Gerd noticed, and stirred.

“So, tomorrow,” he said. “What do we do? What’s the plan?”

“Plan?” Marius replied, holding his hand up and turning it this way and that in the light, watching death spread across it like cancer. “I haven’t had a plan since this whole thing began.”

TWENTY-TWO

There are larger cities on the continent of Lenk. There are more grandiose cities. But nowhere is there one that oozes power the way that Scorby City does. At its heart is a single castle, melded together over centuries from a sprawling cascade of buildings clinging along the ridge of a single, low-lying mountain. The locals call it the Radican, and the buildings that crowd its base have taken on some of its majesty – nowhere in the Scorban empire will you find cottages more ornate, or a populace so assured of their place at the centre of world affairs. The wall that surrounds Scorby City is over twenty feet thick, although nobody has tried to invade in over three hundred years. It isn’t worth the effort. Any potential invader would be so quickly and effectively wrapped in red tape that signing the necessary permission forms just to rape and pillage – and those forms actually exist – would take up most of a season. Scorby City is an oasis of rules and regulations in a world that all too often gives itself over to lawlessness and chaos. Everything is planned, from the layout of its square-cobbled streets to the number of times the cathedral bells ring to signify prayer. The guards wear uniforms of clean, pressed material. The fruit and vegetables for sale in the markets are free of blight and deformity. The children are polite, the maidens virtuous, the politicians truthful and well-meaning. There isn’t anyone on the entire continent who doesn’t hate the smug, supercilious lot of them. But it was exactly this type of regimentation and order that gave the kings of Scorby an empire – no matter how unoriginal and rigid an army’s way of thinking might be, it was priceless when facing an army of drunken, wild-haired mountain dwellers who thought baring buttocks was an effective answer to a rain of exactly three thousand arrows released at twenty second intervals. The Scorban empire was rich in land, and materials, and men, and Scorby City was the clockwork that made it all run.

The Radican rose two hundred feet above the skyline, before ending in a cliff face that fell to the valley floor. Brightly coloured buildings ran along a central avenue all the way to the top, growing in height and grandeur until reaching the Royal Apartments, a six-story edifice that stared out across a massive square at the top. Flags hung every few feet up the length of buildings, and the cobbles gleamed from the daily washing that sent a torrent of muddy water down into the more mundane, working depths of the city. There were children who made a living from combing the mud left behind from those washes, and selling the rings and coins left behind by Radican-dwellers too distracted or proud to recover them.

At its apex, separated from the front of the Royal Apartments by thirty feet of cobbles, as if the buildings themselves wished to step no closer, stood the Bone Cathedral, the final resting place of the kings of Scorby since Scorbus the Conqueror had united the tribes below him and set out to rule the coastal plains. Eighty feet high and with a canopy sixty feet in diameter, it was constructed entirely from the bones of those who had resisted Scorbus and his successor, Thernik the Bone Collector. Those who had never seen the cathedral passed on stories of massive chandeliers made from thigh bones, sconces of hollowed-out skulls, mosaic floors patterned from countless tiny, stained, toe bones. Order is not built on humility. Nobody creates an empire out of politeness. Scholars had estimated that a hundred and twenty thousand skeletons had gone into the making of the cathedral. Scholars are known for being conservative. Had they been even remotely accurate in their calculations, Scorby City would be known as much for its haunted, drunken scholars as for anything else.

A line of people stretched from the massive front doors of the cathedral, past the Royal Apartments, and down the main boulevard of the Radican to the city floor. Every thirty seconds precisely, they took a step forward. Those who went through the doors reappeared at the side of the cathedral twelve minutes later. Then they dispersed, making their way back down the hillside to resume their lives: quiet, reflective, their eyes downcast in deep, sobered thought. Whatever occurred inside the building, for many of these supplicants, would be the defining moment of their lives.

Two robed figures joined the line in the early morning light. They had spent hours before dawn approaching those who came back down the mountain, asking each citizen what they had seen: was it the King? Was he still on display? They had received no reply other than a shake of the head. In the end, the strangers had no choice but to join up and see for themselves, one pace closer every thirty seconds.

“You think it’s the King?” Gerd asked as they took their first step forward.

“Has to be.” They waited, stepped, waited again. “Look around. These people aren’t here because they’re being forced.” Step. “What do you think it’ll take? Eight, ten hours, to climb all the way up?”

They considered the winding path before them, moved, gazed upwards to the looming bone monolith at the end of their journey, moved again. In front of them, and now behind as well, those in the line stepped in concert, a long, silent, solemn dance to inaudible dirge music.

“Ten hours at least.”

“Exactly. And look at them.” They stared about themselves. The citizens were of a single type – silent, patient, uncomplaining. They had the air of people undertaking a pilgrimage, as if they wished to breathe in every moment, roll it around their minds to draw out every sensation, to be able to gather their children and grandchildren to them in future days and say “I remember when–”

“Silent contemplation,” Marius said. “Parishioners, off to see a saint.”

“Their poor, dead King”. Step.

“Yep.”

“And we…”