The Grim Wanderer (7 page)

Logan turned left and hurried away, towards the stables, Taem ran after him. As he stepped out into the night, he heard more spine-chilling cries. They seemed to come from all directions. A great shadow loomed out of the dark. The giant Narg loomed over Logan. This Narg seemed even more sinister than the last. Out of a shaggy mound of hair, protruded two massive horns, a huge snout of sharp teeth, and two red eyes gleamed. Taem saw Logan’s sword flash in the torchlight. Logan ducked as the Narg swung its club. The Sodan Master drove his sword forward and up. His Sodan blade speared the monster through its gut and up into its heart. Taem looked back, and saw more looming shadows running towards them from the Boot and Fiddle Inn.

‘They’re behind us!’ Taem shouted. ‘We can’t get to the stables!’

Fire sprung to life in Hirandar’s fist, and she launched it at the charging shadows. There was a terrible shrieking as one of the Nargs was engulfed in flame.

‘Run!’ Logan pulled Taem and Hirandar along with him.

They sprinted down the street. Taem saw Nargs off to one side, tearing a corpse to pieces, feasting on the flesh and drinking the blood. Taem felt his stomach turn, and he thought he was going to be sick
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The Nargs looked up with beady red eyes, and soon began running after Taem. Up ahead, some townspeople ran screaming from a house. Two Nargs came bounding after them, pouncing on the people. The Nargs hacked and slashed and ripped out the people’s throats. Logan was too far away to do anything, and Taem had to avert his eyes. Logan knew the old Wizard would never be able to keep this pace up. Up ahead there were clashes of steel on metal, as many shadows battled in the dark. Taem saw men fighting the Nargs in the dark street, outside a large inn.

‘Head for the inn!’ Logan shouted as they ran.

Taem watched in horror as a Narg skewered a merchant’s guard with a great spear. The Narg screamed as it hurled the dead guard away like a ragdoll. Two other merchant’s guards managed to hack a Narg down with their swords, by coming at it from both sides. But most of the guards were backing away in terror. The Nargs were surrounding them, huge shadows coming forth from the night, red eyes glinting with evil intent. One Narg leapt forward and brought a great axe down. It cleaved one of the merchant’s guards in two. The Nargs roared and screamed, calling for more blood.

Logan ran at the Nargs, his sword trailing behind him. The Nargs had their backs to him, as they faced the dozen merchant’s guards. The Sodan Master leapt up high and decapitated a Narg. Logan landed, turned and thrust his sword through the back of another. From behind Taem, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck go stiff. There was blinding light. Hirandar launched lightning bolts into the two Nargs either side of Logan. The monsters were lit up with blue light, and screamed as they burned.

‘Inside the inn!’ Logan shouted at the terrified merchant’s guards, and everyone followed him through the door.

Taem saw many horrified townspeople in the inn, all looking up as if they had seen their worst nightmares come true.

‘The Light protect us,’ one of the shaking merchant’s guards mumbled.

‘Bar the door!’ Logan shouted at the guards, shocking them, and they jumped into reinforcing the door with benches and tables.

‘Taem, go with those two,’ Logan pointed at a couple of quivering merchant’s guards, ‘go and check the back door is locked.’ Logan grabbed Taem’s arm, ‘Be careful! Don’t hesitate. Go!’ Logan pushed him towards the door behind the bar.

Taem crept into the dark kitchen. Nothing moved in the shadows. All he could hear was the sound of his own breathing, and the frightened gasps of the two guards behind him. Every moment Taem expected a Narg to jump him. From under one of the tables, out from the corner of the worktop. Taem’s heart was thumping through his chest as he slunk to the other side. He could hear one of the merchant’s guards shaking so much that his sword was knocking against the metal on his belt. They reached the other side of the kitchen and started down a passage. One of the guards picked up an oil lamp and lit it. Taem was expecting the light to reveal a great Narg hiding in the corridor. But it was empty. Taem could see a door to a larder, and at the far end of the corridor the back door was open to the outside.

‘Light!’ One of the guards gasped. ‘How long’s that door been open for?’

Taem edged forward, as quiet as he could be. His eyes were fixed on the black of the outside night. He kept expecting a Narg to come through any moment. He reached the larder, and motioned for the guards to go in. Taem waited outside and watched the open back door. The guards seemed to be ages in the larder, and Taem began to wonder if something had happened to them. A shadow popped its head out into the corridor. Taem jumped back, bringing his sword up. But then he realised it was a man not a beast.

‘Sorry,’ the guard whispered, ‘it’s a big larder, but there’s nothing in here.’

‘Let’s shut the door then,’ Taem began creeping towards the back door.

A pair of glowing red coals appeared in the night beyond.

Taem reared back in terror.

‘Arrrgghh!’ The guard with the lamp leapt away, and fled from the Narg. The other guard followed.

The Narg stepped into the corridor, into the lamplight, filling it with its massive bulk. This Narg was over seven foot tall, covered in dense black fur, and had blood dripping from its gaping maw. It carried a giant butcher’s cleaver in its club of a hand. Its rusted armour seemed to be an extension of its body. The Narg moved nothing like a man: it seemed to carry a primitive power in its monstrous body. Taem felt frozen to the spot. He heard the two guards running away behind him. Taem backed away a few steps. He raised up his sword, with shaking hands. The Narg stepped towards him, snarling. Taem had never been more terrified. He could have run back to Logan. But the back door had to be closed. He had seen his Master kill the other Nargs, and that gave him the shred of courage to stand there. He began to plan how he would attack the Narg. Would he throw a horizontal slash, a downward strike? But the Narg rushed him. The monster swung its cleaver for his head. Taem just managed to duck. Instinct took over, and he did not have time to be afraid.

Taem brought his sword up to a high side block, just enough to deflect the Narg’s wild swing. The juddering force jarred his wrists, and it took all Taem’s will to hold onto his sword. He jumped back, out of reach from a blow that would have cleaved him in two. Taem realised that the Narg might be strong and big, but it was slow and ponderous. And he was Sodan, he had trained for years for this moment. The Narg swung again, and Taem deflected its cleaver off to the side, leaving the Narg wide open. Taem brought his sword up high and chopped down in one movement. The end of his Starblade cut down between the Narg’s red eyes. The monster collapsed to the floor. Taem stared down at the dead Narg in disbelief. He had acted by instinct alone. He had survived! He had defeated an enemy!

The two merchant’s guards edged back out from the corridor, gaping at Taem in amazement.

Taem rushed to the back door, pulled it shut and bolted it. The three of them ran back to the kitchen to get tables to wedge the door shut, and went back to the common room.

Logan had made the townspeople push the tables up against the windows, and he had gathered fifteen merchant’s guards, and another twenty men and women who were armed with anything they could find. There were a hundred other townspeople crowded at the end of the room, far from the front door. Taem saw Big Nose and Grey Hair amongst them, saw the look of absolute horror on their faces. They would never again be laughing about Nargs being stories to scare children. Taem dreaded to think what had happened to any people that had not made it to this inn. They were surely dead. Murdered, ripped to pieces, and being feasted on by the Nargs outside the inn. Taem heard the Nargs roaring, from all around the inn. It was the sound of pure bloodlust. Taem was still scared, but not as terrified now he had defeated one of the monsters himself. Now, he was more frightened by the fact they were outnumbered.

‘Why do they not attack the inn, Logan?’ Hirandar asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Logan peered through the side of one of the windows, and saw great shadows moving in the darkness of the street. ‘It makes no sense. They could easily smash their way through our barricades. So what are they waiting for?’

Townspeople at the far end of the common room began screaming, and running back from the wall. Taem turned to look, and saw the far wall was on fire.

‘Light!’ Logan saw flames licking up the inside wall, ‘They’re going to smoke us out!’

People in the common room started panicking and shouting, and the Nargs outside began bellowing louder. Everyone in the common room was looking at Logan.

‘We’ll have to attack them,’ Logan pointed his sword to the front door.

‘Attack them?’ merchant’s guards looked at each other in shock.

‘Would you rather burn to death?’ Logan gestured to the far wall, which was now engulfed in flames.

All the merchant’s guards and townspeople looked at Logan with dread in their eyes. But Taem could see they realised they had no other choice.

‘When we go through that door,’ Logan pointed to the outside, ‘spread out in a line, but keep your backs to the inn. The sooner we go the better. Our only chance is if we fight together.’ Logan looked at the merchant’s guards, and he doubted some of them had the courage to do this. ‘If we don’t all charge out together, we’re dead already. And so is everyone else in here!’ Logan pointed at the Townspeople cowering back from the fire.

The men stayed silent, staring at Logan with terrified eyes. Taem could see some of them faltering, but they stayed out of shame, and fear of looking a coward.

‘If you won’t fight,’ Logan said strongly, ‘then the Nargs will come in here and butcher you anyway. Or they’ll just wait until the flames become unbearable, and people start running out into the street.’ Logan gestured to the women, the children and the old, cowering in the corner, quivering back from the flames. ‘If we don’t fight, then all these people will be slaughtered. If the Nargs take them alive they’ll drink their blood and devour their flesh.’

Some of the merchant’s guards looked horrified and nauseous at that thought.

‘It’s quicker to die with a sword in your hand,’ Logan raised up his sword, ‘than be pulled apart slowly and eaten alive. If we all fight together, some of us have a chance of surviving. Do you understand?’

No one spoke.

‘We are with you warrior,’ one of the merchant’s guards whispered.

‘Aye,’ cried a few of the others. Many of them stayed silent, their faces pale and terrified, but they looked at Logan as if they would follow him.

‘Let’s do this,’ Logan gestured for two merchant’s guards to remove the benches wedging the front door. They pulled the door aside, and Logan went sprinting out. Taem was the second man behind him, not because he was feeling brave – he felt as terrified as the others looked – but he followed out of loyalty. The outside of the inn was going up in flames, so the Nargs surrounding the inn were shadows in the flame-light. Taem saw rows of hungry eyes that glittered red, eager for more slaughter. He was so afraid, but he would fight alongside Logan whatever happened. Being alongside the Master gave Taem the strength to charge at the first Narg he saw. Logan’s sword smashed through the front Narg. Taem stayed alongside Logan, running at his Narg, lifting his sword up high and hurling it forward. To his surprise, Taem caught the Narg out with his speed, and his Starblade buried deep into its torso.

Most of the merchant’s guards ran with Taem and Logan, charging into the Nargs, and swinging swords and axes. Hirandar hurled magic fireballs at the Nargs, consuming them in fire. Townspeople followed after the merchant’s guards, with kitchen knives, sticks, hammers and woodsman axes, shouting as they leapt on the Nargs. Many men got destroyed by Narg axes and hammers, or cut in half, or had their skulls caved in by the monsters. But many of the Nargs succumbed to the ferocity of the desperate townspeople.

Logan made swift work of any Nargs he found. He had killed hundreds of Nargs before, and they were always slow and predictable. The Sodan Master’s blade smashed through one Narg, and lopped the head off another. Taem stayed close to the Master. Seeing Logan kill Narg after Narg was inspiring, and it kept him safe. A Narg charged Taem with a wild swing of a huge hammer. Taem leapt to the side. He pivoted, bringing his Starblade out and round, and cutting clean through the Narg’s flank. Taem rushed the next Narg, coming across with a devastating blow. The Narg used its rusty axe to turn his sword away. Taem reversed the swing back across, and the monster just managed to deflect the Starblade to the side. Taem used the momentum to bring his blade full circle, down, back, up, over and down, cutting straight through the Nargs head.

Through the melee, Taem saw a man walking towards him. But this man moved as if he were a snake. Taem realised the man was coming straight for him, oblivious to all the other men and Nargs fighting around them. This man emanated menace. Taem’s hands began to shake. He felt a deep terror that chilled his blood. Taem knew this man was Dark and evil – and he had come to kill him. The man strode closer, and Taem gasped when he saw the man’s face. His eyes were black. They had no soul. Taem felt rooted to the spot in sheer horror. This was a demon walking in a man’s body. The demon pulled out a black sword from under its black cloak. Taem raised his trembling sword into the guard position. The demon hissed and leapt at Taem.