Brotherhood Saga 03: Death (62 page)

“I,” Nova replied, the sound of a melody beginning to cloud his skull. “I don’t—“

The creature extended a bulbed finger.

The dog barked.

Nova gasped.

A starburst of icicles began to sprout along his body. Enveloping the skin beneath his rolled-up sleeves, spreading beneath his clothing, branching out along his chest—he shivered as the creature continued to near and as the ice began to crawl up his neck.

Magic,
he thought.
I… I don’t—

“Hey fish-breath!” Carmen cried. “Take this!”

The creature turned.

Its hold was released.

The icicles exploded and Nova fell to his knees just as the creature let out a shrill, ethereal cry.

Carmen stood no more than three feet away, bloodied mace in hand. The creature’s kneecap was a ruined mess.

“Carmen,” Nova gasped. “Mah-mah-
madge—“

The Dwarf slung her mace into the creature’s chin.

It screamed.

Carmen swore.

She brought the but of her weapon down atop its skull and forced its head to the ground.

Nova witnessed carnage before his eyes.

As Carmen killed the creature, slowly bludgeoning its skull to nothing more than a pulp, the innocuous hold Nova had felt upon his mind began to dissipate. Within his skull there was no melody, no sound, no atmosphere which he compared to a great civilization that existed—who, with sound, created an orchestra upon which the entirety of life was governed. The brief illumination of a barren underwater landscape decorated with twisted spires of rock entered his mind just before the dog began to lick his face.

“What,” he gasped. “I—“

“We need to get out of here,” Carmen said, taking hold of his hand. “Now.”

Nova didn’t realize the screams until he got to his feet. “What’s going on?”

“They drowned them!” one of the men screamed.
“They drowned them and brought them back to life!”

Nova looked down at the mangled creature before them. “That,” he said.

“Not now,” the Dwarf replied.

She took his hand and dragged him to the doorway.

Outside, the world erupted in chaos.

From all sides of the plantation came the shambling masses of the living dead. Skin bloated, clothes waterlogged and bodies leaving moisture with each step, they
pushed through the withering stalks of corn and grappled with the king’s men in an attempt to drive them away. Panic ensued among the peasants. One ran forward in a desperate attempt to drive a creature off only to have vomit upon him, its surface decorated with urchins that stabbed, then began to burrow into the man’s flesh.

“Oh God,” Nova said.

“By the will of the Great Creators in which you all believed,” Father Mercutio said, holding his staff high. “I bless you, your souls, your mortal bodies and your eternal souls. I command you:
give heed of these vessels and release yourselves to the Gods!”

The constellations upon Mercutio’s staff began to spin.

Yellow light burst from its surface.

The dead recoiled.

The guards, bearing spears, advanced.

Carmen started forward.

She ran with speed and grace Nova couldn’t have imagined with her small and encumbered form and took advantage of the flanking maneuver she instigated. As she approached the undead, smelling of fish and the rotten sea, she slammed her mace into their kneecaps and topped them to their feet. Nova, in pursuit, was quick to make short work of them, as the moment they came within reach he lopped their heads off with his scythe.

The world was alight with battle.

Nova fell into the role he knew he was most apt to do.

The number of corpses within the clearing did not intensify as the battle
raged on. One felled by an arrow, another decapitation, the third trampling by a horse that ran forward as its owner became overwhelmed—the small populace that had once lived here numbered only in the dozens, so the work required to put down the dead was little. So far as Nova could tell during the times he was not killing the creatures, the only man that had been injured was the one infested with urchins, and even then that could possibly not be a life sentence.

He swung his scythe.

A head came off.

A rammed his scythe behind him as the sound of footsteps came clear before turning and slamming his blade into the creature’s chest.

He cut it in half instantaneously.

The horrific reality came clear.

People,
he thought.
Like before.

Pure, innocent people—individuals who had done nothing to deserve the punishment that had been inflicted upon them. It had obviously been the work of dark magics that had shrouded these people’s lives, but were they of Herald’s bidding, of his command? And if not, just who, or
what,
were the things that had done this—the thing that had nearly killed him with but one thought?

Nova raised his head.

A corpse drew near.

He slammed his scythe into its skull and watched its putrid insides slides out a moment later.

“Are they dead?” one of the men asked, breathless.

“I think so,” Carmen replied, panting, rubbing sweat from her brow. “Is everyone ok?”

“I think so,” the blonde hunter said. “No one’s hurt except—“

“Look out!” someone cried.

Nova turned.

A corpse lashed forward and wrapped
its hands around his neck.

Fuck,
he gasped.
Fuck.

He couldn’t kill the thing. His weapon was too long, its blade too sharp and curved for him to be able to get it between him and the undead monster, so for that he dropped it and reached up in an attempt to pry its hold from his neck. Its flesh was
waxy, its bones brittle. Its sagging face held a forlorn expression that reminded him, oddly, of his wife, as in that moment it seemed he would never again see the woman he loved.

“Luh-let,” he managed, “go—“

A snarl cut through his struggles and a blur of movement flashed at his side.

The corpse was knocked to the side.

Nova stumbled and fell to the ground, his elbows jarred into the dirt with enough force to make him squeal.

He looked up just in time to see the dog wrestling with the corpse, its mouth around a mangled wrist.

“Are you ok?” the blonde-haired hunter asked.

“I,” he gasped, “it—“

Carmen screamed and ran forward.

She slammed her mace on the creatures head again and again.

When it ceased to twitch, she let out a long exhale, then looked at the dog. “Hey buddy,” she smiled. “Pretty honorable of you, huh?”

The dog barked and wagged its tail

“Honor,” the Dwarf nodded. “Yeah. That’s it. Honor. There’s no better name for a dog like you.”

Yipping in joy, the dog ran over to Nova, pressed its nose against his cheek, then gave him one long, slobbery lick.

“Thank you,” he coughed.

The dog tackled him to the ground, licking his face the whole way.

The afternoon was spent in silence. Performing minor surgical procedures on an unconscious civilian, whose urchin-infested body was plagued with sores that oozed a grim liquid; tending to the injured, the few and far between; mourning the loss of the people of Kaprika and tending to the dead that plagued the grounds—Father Mercutio wandered the plantation blessing the homes and preparing funeral rights over the bodies, his face a mixture of pain and peace.

“How are you feeling?” Carmen asked.

“Fine,” Nova said. “I’m all right.”

The dog—rightfully named Honor—pressed its head against Carmen’s side as the Dwarf continued to rub its back. Its condition was favorable, despite its troubled circumstance. Already it had eaten several pieces of jerky and even a few slices of fruit, a sad testament to how long it must have gone without food.

“He saved my life,” Nova said.

“I know,” Carmen replied. “When I saw I was on my way, but I was on the other side of the plantation. He was faster than I could’ve ever been.”

“He’s a good dog,” Nova agreed. “But you saved my ass twice today. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

“Comes with the territory. You watch my back, I watch yours—or, in this case, your ass.”

Laughing, Nova slapped the Dwarf’s shoulder and raised his head just in time to see one of the hunters cover the civilian’s body with a cloak. “He’s dead,” the blonde-haired man said, confirming
what everyone already knew. “Poison.”

“We need to get away from here,” Father Mercutio said as he came forward. “Now.”

“What was it?” Carmen asked.

The priest raised his head from his place in front of the fire and looked at the Dwarf with troubled eyes. Lips pursed, body a sculpture of unease, he took a moment to compose himself before sighing and saying, “An Anamdala.”

“Anamdala?” a civilian asked. “One of the Merpeople?”

“The Anamadala are not anything like the Mermen or maids that inhabit our seas,” Mercutio replied. “As legendary as they are, it would seem the great sea people do, in fact, exist.”

“Who are they?” Nova frowned. “And why did one of them attack the plantation?”

“It is thought that the Anamdala are much like human beings. They live in groups, raise their young from birth until adolescence, and make society much like we do. Famous rendition paint the cities they live in as—“

Barren landscapes, great towering spires, twisting and turning in formations of rock that is said to be living but is also not dead, where the great and wonderful creatures of the sea gather around this great quagmire to worship the things that command with their very eyes the lives and souls of—

Nova blinked. The image fading, he gained sight just in time to find the entire camp looking at him—most particularly Mercutio, who frowned as he studied his recovering expression. “Son,” the priest said. “Are you not blessed with the Sight?”

“Yes, Father.”

“And were you not touched by one of these creatures?”

Trembling, Nova nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I was.”

“The Anamdala are heralded in legend for their cruel and strange tenacity to feed off the free will of other living things. Lady Carmen said this creature did not possess a mouth.”

“No. It didn’t.”

“And when approaching you, it stunned you in place with melody and magic?”

“Yes. It did.”

“I don’t understand something though,” Carmen said. “What would a race of sea people want to do with the people who live on land? Why come all this way just to attack a plantation?”

“That I do not know,” Mercutio sighed.

“Do you think this has anything to do with the war?” another man asked.

“Likely not,” Mercutio replied. “I see no reason for such creatures to meddle in our affairs. What purpose would it serve them? They are but a sea-dwelling people that supposedly… well…
seem
… to wander on land.” He lowered his hand and clasped his fists around his staff. “Friends… if I may… let us have a moment of silence for those this great country has lost.”

Bowing his head, Nova closed his eyes and placed his hands on his thighs.

Just as he began to pray, a single low note hummed through his head.

The shiver it brought was not a result of the cold. It was of something else.

*

Time seemed endless beneath the slight canopy of trees and the b
ushes under which they hid. A man could have breathed his final breath, a child could have been born, a mother could have led her children along the street of a freshly-crowned Ornala and toward their home, and perhaps even a dog could have given birth to a litter of puppies that would soon grace the homes of several happy children. People could play, people could live, people could die and, most certainly, be reborn, if only a bit of dark magic were used. However, in that moment that there could be none of these things, for beneath the canopy of trees, bushes and the open fresh air that lay not smelling of bark and needles, there existed nothing but madness—pure, isolated madness, which could consume one whole and then spit them out with nothing but their bones.

Between the realms of consciousness and sleep, Odin pressed the book as tightly to his chest as he could and rolled onto his side, near where Virgin, too, remained somewhat awake but mostly asleep. In response, the older Halfling set an arm across his shoulders an
d pulled him close, though there was little room the two of them could have shared with the book mashed between their chests.

“Are you awake?” Odin whispered.

Virgin offered a slight nod that sealed his question.

You need to be quiet,
he thought, offering a nod of his own as he bowed his head against Virgin’s brow.
They might hear you.