Castle Roogna (29 page)

       Dor's return thrust skewered him. But the damage was done. The sash was buried under the body, and the hippogriff was bearing down on him. There was now no way Dor could distinguish himself from the Mundanes.

       The hippogriff had the forepart of a griffin and the hind part of a horse. That gave it excellent fighting ability, coupled with superior running ability. The eagle's beak and claws stabbed viciously forward. Dor danced aside, then cut at a wing with his sword. He didn't strike too hard, because he did not want to hurt or kill a creature on his own side, but he had to defend himself. It was the hippogriffs turn to take evasive action. But then it closed its wings and bore in again, and Dor knew he could not survive the onslaught long. The monster was too big, too fast, too strong; it was wary of Dor's sword, but able to dodge it. The hippogriff was tired, but so was Dor.

       "Jumper!" Dor cried. But then he saw that Jumper was engaged with three unsashed Mundanes, and could not extricate himself, let alone come to Dor's rescue. The four-footed whale rose up between them, opening its huge cetacean maw to engulf-gulp a Mundane; it incidentally blocked off Dor's approach to Jumper. Now he had nowhere at all to go. Oh, this was terrible!

       But the Zombie Master, high in the castle, was watching out for him. Millie's fault scream came, and there was a spark of sunlight from her swirl of hair; then the Magician's faint command: "Egor!" And the zombie ogre charged out of the castle, bearing a gargantuan club. He swept aside Mundanes and monsters alike, bearing down on Dor.

       Until he encountered the land whale. This monster was simply too big to move, and it was not about to give way to an ogre, even a green-sashed zombie ogre, The whale did not attack; it just hulked. It had the head and tusks of a boar, and rows of spikes on its body, with powerful lion's legs: a slow but formidable creature. The ogre had to make a detour around it-and in that critical period of delay, the hippogriff spread its wings, fanned a cloud of battle dust into Dor's face so that he was momentarily blinded, and clawed swiftly at his sword, disarming him. Dor threw up his arms in a futile defensive gesture-

       And found himself lifted high, unharmed. Startled, he blinked vision back into his watering eyes, getting the dust out, and discovered himself hooked on the long tip of the Dragon King's tail. Fifty feet away, the dragon's snout growled, emitting puffs of smoke.

       "What's he saying?" Dor demanded of a stone as he was being carried past

       "Better be more careful of your sash, Magician!" the stone translated.

       The Dragon King had recognized Dor, and saved him. In a moment Dor was dumped beside the moat, out of the fray. The tail snaked back, to emerge with Jumper. "With your concurrence," the Dragon roared, "I will personally slay a few sashed men. There are none here on your side, apart from the zombies, correct?"

       "Correct!" Dor cried, thankful for the dragon's perspicacity. The regular monsters might not know the difference, but the Dragon King obviously did.

       "No wonder he is King," Jumper chittered. The spider had lost a foot, but was otherwise intact, "We must get back inside the castle; the monsters will prevail."

       "Right. Should we call back Egor?"

       "He is having such a good time; let him rampage."

       They re-entered the castle, where Millie was waiting with healing elixir. In a moment the spider's foot was whole, and Dor's many abrasions were gone.

       Millie hugged Jumper briefly, turned to Dor, and refrained from making a similar gesture. After all, she was now betrothed to another man. They returned to the upper ledge to watch the conclusion of the battle.

       In this installment, the monsters were mopping things up. The tough Mundanes became less tough as they perceived defeat looming, and finally they broke and fled. The monsters pursued, cutting them down without mercy. The vicinity of the castle was deserted, the ground strewn with the bodies of men and monsters, and with struggling pieces of zombies.

       "Now I must work," the Zombie Master said. "Dor, if you will supervise the carrying of bodies to my laboratory, I will render them into loyal zombies. It will require a few minutes and some effort for each, so you need not hurry-but the faster we perform, the stronger the zombies will be. Also, we shall need to march within a day, to reach King Roogna's castle in time to be of service."

       Dor nodded agreement. He saw how tired the Magician looked, and remembered that he had spent all the prior night making new zombies. The man needed a rest! But that would have to wait. After all, Dor himself had had no more rest.

       They organized it and got to work. Millie spotted the best corpses of man and animal, now so accustomed to the gore that she worked without even token screams. Dor carried the bodies to a staging area. Jumper attached lines and hauled the objects across the moat to the castle. They concentrated first on Mundanes. When a number of these had been animated, the new zombies took over the labor of transporting corpses, and the pace accelerated. Soon there was a backlog of bodies awaiting the Magician's attention.

       The Dragon King returned. He was spattered with blood, and several of his mirror-scales had been hacked off, but he was in fairly good condition. "That was some fun!" he growled. "There is not a man alive, here." There was no flame when he spoke; he had used it all up for the nonce.

       "Oh, let me give you some elixir!" Millie exclaimed. She sprinkled some on him, and the dragon was instantly restored to full health. Then she went to the other monsters straggling back, and restored them similarly.

       "One could almost get to like a creature like that, human though she be," the dragon said reflectively. "There is something about her-"

       "The dead we shall reanimate as zombies, as promised," Dor said quickly.

       "No need. The survivors will consume the dead, as is our custom. We do not care to become zombies."

       "We have been taking the intact corpses. If you are satisfied to eat the dismembered ones-"

       "They will do nicely." And the monsters fell to their repast, crunching up bodies. It was a strange and grisly scene: dragon and griffin and serpent, ripping into corpses, while zombies carried other corpses around them in sepulchral silence, and the pretty maid Millie wandered amid it all sprinkling healing elixir.

       "Where is Egor?" Jumper chittered.

       Good question! There was no sight of the zombie ogre who had fought so valiantly to rescue them. They spread out, searching.

       "You mean the ogre?" the Dragon King inquired, ripping the delicious guts out of a Mundane and smacking his long lips. "He got in a bit of trouble down by the Mundane camp, last I noted."

       They ran down to the deserted camp. There, in pieces, was Egor Ogre. The last surviving Mundanes had hacked him to quivering pieces.

       "Maybe we can still help," Dor said, his stomach roiling. He had become acclimatized to gore, but this was a friend! "Let's collect all we can find of him, put it together, and sprinkle some elixir."

       They did this-and the ogre was restored, except for part of one hand and foot and some of his face they had not been able to locate. The zombie could no longer speak, and walked with a limp. But in his condition that was not too noticeable. They trekked back to the castle.

       "Would you monsters care to join us at Castle Roogna?" Dor inquired. "I'm sure the King-the Man King-would welcome your help."

       "Fighting whom?" the Dragon King inquired, slurping a tasty intestine.

       "Goblins and harpies, mostly."

       The dragon snorted a smoke helix. "Now I do have a gripe against the Goblin King, but let's not lose our perspective. Killing men is fun; killing other monsters is treason. We cannot join you there."

       "Oh. Well, sir, we certainly thank you for-"

       "Our pleasure, sir." The dragon dipped a tooth into the body and brought out a splendid liver. "I haven't eaten this well in fifty years. I'll catch my death of a stomachache." He slurped the liver down.

       "Uh, yes," Dor agreed. Liver had never been his favorite food, and after this he doubted that taste would change.

       "Since we monsters will not be participating, but do have a grievance against the goblins and no liking for harpies, I feel free to make a comment," the dragon said, fixing a bright eye on Dor. "This battle for the zombie castle has only been your rehearsal for the siege to come. The goblins are tougher than men.

       Prepare well-better than you did this time, or you are doomed."

       "Tougher than Mundanes? But goblins are so small-"

       "Heed my warning. Bye." The Dragon King moved off in quest of another succulent corpse.

       Dor shook his head, ill at ease. If the dragon thought the upcoming battle would be worse

       They returned to the castle, where the Zombie Master was still hard at work. A new zombie army was shaping. The others helped all they could, but this was the Zombie Master's labor, and his magic alone sufficed. He worked through the day and into the night, growing even more gaunt than usual-but the zombies continued to shuffle out of the laboratory and form ranks in the courtyard. There had been a great number of Mundanes!

       They ate a restive supper of poached jumping beans and bubblejuice, with the beans jumping into the juice at odd moments. Millie forced some on the Magician, who continued working. Most of the bodies were gone from the surrounding landscape now; the monsters had gorged themselves and staggered off to their lairs with toothy smiles and a final fusillade of belches. A zombie detail was burying the uneaten, unusable fragments. The night settled into morbid silence.

       Finally the last corpse was done. The Zombie Master sank into a sleep like a coma, and Millie hovered near him worriedly. Dor and Jumper slept too.

       In the morning, early but not bright, they set off for Castle Roogna. It would have been easiest to have the roc carry them singly to the Castle, but two things argued against this. First, there was an army of about two hundred and fifty zombies to transport, and for this number marching seemed to be the only way. Second, the skies were now being patrolled by aerial sentinels, harbingers of the harpies. The roc, huge as it was, would be torn apart in midair by the vicious creatures, if they decided it was an enemy. As perhaps it was.

       The Zombie Master had lived as a recluse so long that he was only vaguely familiar with the terrain, and Dor had not viewed the scenery with an eye to zombie travel when he rode in. The zombies tended to shuffle, and then: feet snagged on roots and vines, tripping them or even ripping off their feet. The majority were Mundane zombies, sounder of body than the older ones; but these were as yet inexperienced and prone to accidents. So it was necessary to scout ahead for a suitable route: one more or less level, avoiding dangerous magic, and reasonably direct.

       Dor and Jumper did the scouting, with the man checking the lay of the ground and the spider reviewing the threats lurking in the trees. They worked together to flush out anything uncertain, to determine whether it should be ignored, eliminated, or avoided.

       When they had determined a suitable portion of the route, they set magic markers along it for the zombie army to follow. All they had to do was stay well ahead, so that they had time to backtrack and change the route if necessary.

       The wilderness of Xanth was not as sophisticated now as it would be in Dor's own time; the magic had not had as much time to achieve the devastating little refinements and variations that made unprotected paths so hazardous. But there was plenty of raw magic here, and no enchanted paths to follow. Overall, Dor judged the jungle to be as dangerous for him as anything he had known-if he allowed himself to get careless.

       One of the first things they ran afoul of was dog fennel. The plants had evidently been taking a canine nap, noses tucked under tails, but woke ugly when Dor blundered into them. First they barked; then, gathering courage, they started nipping. Angered, Dor laid about him with his sword, clearing a circle. Then he suffered regret as the creatures yiped and whined, for they really were no threat to him. Each dog grew on a stem, rooted in the turf, and could not move beyond its tether. Its teeth were too small to do much harm.

       Jumper had jumped right out of the pooch-patch, unnipped. The dogs were whimpering now, cowed by the sight of their dead packmates. It was a sad sight. Dor strode out of the patch, bared blade held warningly before him, feeling low. Why did he always react first and think last?

       "Yet an animal plant who bites strangers must suffer the consequence," Jumper cluttered consolingly. "I fell among aphids once, and their ant-guardians attacked me and I was forced to kill a number of them before the rest gave over. Had they any wit, they would have realized that my presence was accidental. I had been fleeing a deadly wasp. Spiders prefer consuming flies, not aphids. Aphids are too sickly sweet."

       "I guess ants aren't very bright," Dor said, comforted by the analogy.

       "Correct. They have excellent inherent responses, and can function in societies far better than spiders can, but as individuals they tend to be rigid thinkers. What was good enough for their grand-ants remains sufficient for them."

       Dor felt much better now. Somehow Jumper always came through, rescuing him from physical or intellectual mishap. "You know, Jumper, when this quest is over, and we return to our own worlds-"

       "It will be a sad parting," Jumper chittered. "Yet you have your life to pursue, and I have mine."

       "Yes, of course. But if we could somehow stay in touch-"

       Dor broke off, for they had suddenly come upon the biggest fennel of them all. It was as massive as Dor himself, with a stem like a tree trunk, reaching its horned head down to graze in the nearby grass.

       "That more closely resembles a herbivorous animal," Jumper chittered. "See, its teeth are grazers, not flesh renders."