He shook the sword at the undead nearest him, and spoke some strange words in the elven tongue. The dwarf started away on his short stumpy legs. The rotting soldiers cringed back, as if the sword might suddenly flare to life and waste them where they stood. The ruse didn’t last long, and soon, Vaegon was turning to run after Dugak. The undead were swiftly in pursuit.
On his own, Vaegon could have easily outpaced the soldiers. They ran on atrophied muscle, moved by decayed tendons that were covered with putrid skin. The armor they had worn proudly as a second skin in life, now encumbered their failing bodies, making them slow and clumsy. Dugak, however, was churning his little legs madly, and was still falling behind. Finally, after gaining the top of a small hill, the dwarf stopped.
“You know the way! Go on!” Dugak said, between huffing breaths. “I’ll lead them astray. I’m only slowing you down.”
“I won’t leave you, dwarf,” Vaegon said sternly. “So save your breath.”
With that, he turned, ran out into the path of the leading soldier, and swung Ironspike with all he had in him. The silvery steel blade bit into the mushy flesh and bone at the shoulder and the undead soldier’s arm fell away. The thing toppled forward, and Vaegon had to kick it away from him with a booted foot. The stench was so strong that the elf’s keen senses revolted. He could almost taste the rot on his tongue, and he doubled over to vomit.
A rock, twice the size of Vaegon’s skull, went sailing over him, at the approaching knot of undead soldiers. Dugak’s strong arms had thrown it as if it were a child’s toy. It impacted with a thumping smack, which sounded both wet, and bone crunching. Two of the attackers fell from the blow. The others hesitated then. The next rock caved in the side of one of their heads and splattered the others, with grayish yellow goo.
Vaegon stood, raised the sword, and charged towards them a few steps. There were four of them left. Two of those turned, and loped away, as if the encounter had never happened. One of the others moved forward to meet the elf’s charge. The last one just stood there, as if it had been suddenly frozen in place.
Vaegon cut down the soldier before him with one vicious swing of Mikahl’s blade. The remaining undead stayed stock still. It just stood there as motionless as a statue. Not so far away though, mumbles and grunts could be heard. There were more of them out there in the hills.
Neither Vaegon nor Dugak cared to know why the thing had just stopped. They were too busy running towards the little passage that was hidden in the rocky foothills, almost a mile away. If they could get to it, it would lead them back into the relative safety of Xwarda’s walls.
Chapter 54
Mikahl’s dream about his half brother, Glendar, wasn’t far off the mark.
The ship that the young King of Westland’s undead body was on was drifting aimlessly at sea. The bodies that were being thrown overboard, however, were not willing to stay dead. Nor were the ones doing the throwing. The other two ships had abandoned the King’s plague-stricken vessel. They had gone so far as to pull down most of its rigging with a half dozen well placed harpoon shots, and even made an attempt to set the craft on fire, by hurling clay pots, full of flammable oil at it. No one wanted to chance the King surviving his ordeal, making shore, and then calling them out as mutineers or deserters.
Just as Mikahl had seen him standing at the prow of the doomed ship, Glendar, or Inkling, or some measure of them both, stood in the wind at the front of the craft. He was calling out desperately to Pael.
Pael was a thousand miles away, and too busy to notice the pleas. Even if he could have heard them, he was too preoccupied to care anymore about the fool, Glendar, and his bond with Inkling had fizzled to insignificance.
Glendar had gained a bit of control over the undead men by sheer force of will, but that meant that he could only keep them from attacking him. He couldn’t stop them from attacking each other. The tainted hellcat meat that Pael had let them eat, had left its bit of evil inside them, and chaos prevailed onboard the ship. Soon, it was all out battle for everybody just to stay out of the sea.
When the first of them went into the water, the sharks came. After the first man was hit, and shredded, into a rotted brown cloud of gore, the sharks fled in search of a more wholesome meal. The scavengers came though. A whole flotilla of crabs and sucker fish arrived and most of the undead men were skeletons, before their still animated bodies had hit the sandy ocean floor. Now, only a few of King Glendar’s men remained on the ship. None were really alive.