The sound of someone beating heavily on the wooden door startled them all.
Sir William doused the overturned candles with what was left of his drink. Rosila came barging into the hall from the kitchen to see what the racket was about, saw the lizard flopping on the table, and screamed loudly. Her daughter, who had come in on her heels, fainted at the sight of the bloody thing.
Thump! Thump! Thump! at the door again.
This time, Captain Layson went to answer it. On his way, he attempted to bat the ash from his shirt, but only manage to smear it across the front.
“Kill it!” Lord Ellrich commanded as he raised his bulk from his seat.
The Widow Worm was still straining and snapping at him. He stumbled drunkenly backward and nearly fell over his chair. He wasn’t sure which was worse, the insistent swamp creature, or Rosila’s ear piercing shriek.
Sir William was still coherent enough to keep from pulling his dagger out of the writhing thing to stab it again. It wanted to get at his Lord too badly. Instead, he grabbed his empty goblet, and began pounding the creatures head. Blood, and pieces of wet goo-covered scales flew everywhere.
Rosila backed away, and fell backwards over her daughter. Captain Munst made an alert move, and managed to catch her before she went all the way down, but her screaming continued in loud, hysterical bursts. Sir William hammered away at the creature as Captain Layson opened the door, and let in a terrified looking, sweat-covered young soldier.
“Enough!” yelled Lord Ellrich.
Captain Munst recognized the boy and immediately began trying to ease Rosila’s ample body into his empty chair. This couldn’t be good news.
Sir William hadn’t heard his Lord, and was still pounding the lizard into the table. Its body was twitching now, and its hiss had become a gurgling, spewing sound.
“Enough!” Lord Ellrich roared it this time.
Everyone in the room froze in place. Sir William was a sight, with his bloody cup raised for another blow, his expression, a mixture of childish glee, and utter befuddlement. The newly arrived young soldier’s heavy panting, Rosila’s whimpering sobs, and the slow scratching of the dying lizard’s claws as they raked across the table, filled the sudden and relative silence.
The young soldier looked desperate to speak, but afraid to make a sound. One could only imagine how he was interpreting the scene before him. Captain Munst unceremoniously dropped Rosila into his chair, and stepped around.
“What is it?” he asked, with a tinge of fear in his voice. The boy, he knew, had come a very long way to bring whatever message he was carrying. “Tell us now!”
“They’ve come out of the marsh, Captain!” The words came like water, bursting through a breaking dam. “I’ve run all the way from the Mids. It was happening at Half Point when I passed, and now here. Dane, a rider from Last Post, has just come into the yard bearing the same news from the other end.” The young man gasped for another breath, before continuing. “They’re armed to the gills and coming in swarms. We haven’t the men left to stop them.”
“What in all the bloody hells are you saying boy?” Lord Ellrich asked.
Neither of his two captains waited for the answer. They were bolting out of the hall to assess the situation for themselves. Sir William understood that something was very wrong and waited, still frozen in place, with his cup held high over his head, for the young soldier to answer his Liege Lord.
“We’re under attack, milord,” the boy said, with tears pooling in his eyes. They were obviously tears of terror. “We’re being overrun by the Skeeks!”
“The Zard?” Lord Ellrich looked to Sir William stupidly.
The Weapon Master’s arm finally fell to his side, and his mouth formed a perfect “O.”
The Zardmen had been hunted to extinction in the days of Lord Ellrich’s grandfather. Or so they had thought. Sightings had been reported from time to time over the years, but they had been dismissed as hoaxes or mistakes. In all his life, in all of the treks into the marshes to hunt snapper, dactyl, and geka, during all the deeper excursions to hunt wibbin and skirlsnake, not one of his men, nor any of his father’s men, had ever produced a shred of evidence that the Zard still lived. Ellrich couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and neither could Sir William.
“Master William,” the boy went on, after wiping away his tears. “They number in the thousands, we should see to our Lord’s safety.”