Chapter 15. The Dark Lands
From
the eastern flanks of the World's Edge Mountains, the Dark Lands revealed
themselves to be a featureless grey tundra beneath a featureless gray sky. The two blended together making it impossible
to discern a horizon.
With
a ginger tap from Mahtis, the Rune Hammer 'o Anti Magic removed the rune which
bound
the
solar engine. The apparatus flared back
to life.
As
Bessie stepped out of the last of the foothills, Rychek put the weak sun at her
back and the heroes started to follow her long shadow. After a short time, the sun abandoned them to
their fate beneath the thickening haze.
The
Lizardmen spoke with hushed voices, when they chose to speak at all. The air seemed hostile toward any sound which
would disturb the brooding silence. The
grey downs were not as featureless as they had appeared from afar. The ground was creased and folded like a
rumpled blanket, which made following a true course difficult. Rychek would peer at the sky periodically to
work out the position of the sun, then curse at the shroud of lowering
stratus. It was difficult even to judge
time, because there was little to distinguish day and night under the murk.
Bessie
alone, seemed sure of herself as she picked her way forwards. She had some instinct or gift for holding a
more or less straight course as they crossed from desolate ridge to thorn
choked gully and back again.
On
one occasion the party approached what appeared to be a copse of bare
trees. As they drew closer it revealed
itself to be the titanic ribcage of a long dead beast. The only creatures of such size that they
knew of were the thunder lizards of Lustria.
Later
they crossed a broad, shallow depression which had the stubs of mighty trees
jutting up like broken black teeth. As
Bessie shouldered past one, it crumbled into rubble.
"I
think..." Rychek startled everyone
with the sound of his voice. "I
think there was a jungle here once. A
long time ago."
The
others pondered this in silence.
On a
few occasions they saw ragged bands of greenskins. These took one look at Bessie's size and
splendour before fading away to pursue easier prey. Rychek felt it was safer to have some of the
party scouting ahead, rather than risk an ambush if the greenskins were part of
a larger war party.
***
Bob
and Joe were taking point, some one hundred yards ahead of the plodding
bastiladon.
"Joe! Careful!
Stop!"
Joe
paused mid stride with his clawed foot hovering above a brown mass. Bob peered at it. "I think it might be rhinox dung."
Joe
carefully retrieved his foot. "It
could be Rhinox dung, but it could be something else."
The
Saurus Warrior scooped up a large blob of the sticky substance with a clawed
finger and stuck it in his mouth. He
considered briefly. "Yes,
definitely Rhinox droppings. It was
lucky that you saw it, Bob."
"Why
is that?"
"Otherwise
I might have stepped in it!"
Bessie
had caught up to them now, and sniffed at the pile. She wrinkled her nose and sneezed. Rychek and Mahtis tumbled down from the
howdah, and the four investigated the area.
A
churned trail twenty yards wide ran roughly perpendicular to their course. Here and there were piles of dung and other
detritus, and the occasional gnawed bone.
There were the marks of large cartwheels and many huge footprints. Some were rhinox, some were the hobnailed
boots of ogres, and some were the jaguar like pads of sabretusks. Occasionally there were a scattering of tiny
boot prints, which surely came from scurrying gnoblars.
One
perfectly preserved footprint excited much discussion. It was not large. Its three toe prints were punctuated with the
marks of small talons. Rychek pressed
his own foot into the dust beside it and lifted it again. The indentations were almost perfectly
matched.
"Is
it a skink footprint?" asked
Mahtis.
"It
must be, but how did it get here? Why
would he be travelling with ogres?"
Rychek wrinkled his brow in concentration. "The ogres who kidnapped
Taisteslaikch'ken could have come this way.
If they sailed past the Dragon Isles, then the fastest land route to the
North would be through the Dark Lands.
They could have captured a skink from Los'tmabo'tl, too. Maybe one of Taistelaikch'ken's attendant priests."
"We
didn't see any sign of skink prints when we followed their trail in Lustria,
and besides, it can't be the same group.
They sailed off months ago, and this...." Joe scooped up another glob of rhinox dung
and tasted it, "...is still quite
fresh."
"Maybe
they got delayed somehow..." Bob
suggested.
"What,
worse than we did? They had a huge
warship and a small army. They could
have made the journey in weeks."
"It
doesn't matter if it was the same ogres,"
Rychek concluded, "We can
follow their trail at least to the Ogre Kingdoms, and then we can try to find
our slann. It's a better idea than
wandering aimlessly in this place of the dead."
The
last four words seemed to hang ominously in the air. None of the others had the will to speak
further, and so they continued their journey, now heading north on the trail of
an ogre band and one skink.
***
After
several periods of relative light and relative dark, the ogre trail took a
sudden turn to the east. Bob nodded to
dark clouds that glowered from the north.
"They didn't want to go that way, for some reason."
That
evening they became aware of figures shambling parallel to them on the
right. At that distance and in the gloom
it was impossible to tell what race they were.
Rychek called Bob and Joe back from point duty, and the four clutched
their weapons anxiously until the weak daybreak. Their shadowy escort disappeared before the
light could reveal them.
The
following night, the shadows grew bolder.
At times they would mass into a tight knot, as if ready to charge,
always from the right. When they did
surge forward threateningly, they would pull back as soon as Bessie shied
away.
One
time they closed into the range of the solar engine's glow, and the heroes had
their first clear view.
Zombies. The corpses of the unrestful dead. Their gruesome ranks were filled by the
fallen of many races, from goblin size up to ogre. Some wore tattered clothes over their
tattered flesh. Most carried a rusty
weapon of some kind, or a club formed
from the femur of an unfortunate meal.
Rychek
guided Bessie back to the ogre path after each zombie feint. After being diverted for the fourth time, the
zombies' purpose dawned on him.
"They
are herding us. They want us to turn
north."
"I
don't want to go that way." Mahtis
rumbled as he eyed the thicker darkness in that direction.
The
next time the zombies surged, Rychek held Bessie steady. She actually crunched over the top of a few,
leaving the rest of the cordon milling about in confusion in her wake.
"Why
don't they attack?" Joe gripped his
spear tightly.
"Mahrlecht!" Rychek pulled Bessie to a sudden halt. Their path forward was blocked by a large
force, at least four ranks deep.
"Rychek,
do you remember how you used the solar thing to warm us up? Back at the outpost?" enquired Bob.
"Yes. So?"
Rychek responded distractedly.
"How
did you make it go?"
"I
put my claw in the print at the back."
"Thank-you!"
"Why
do you ask? What the....." Rychek shrank down on his perch on Bessie's
shoulder as a very hot beam of sunlight scorched through the space recently
occupied by his crested head. The effect
on the zombie horde ahead of them was dramatic.
The pure light stripped rotten flesh from bone, and ignited dry bone
like tinder. The hitherto silent zombies
shrieked as their unlives were cut short.
Again.
"Can
we go on now?" Bob called as he removed his hand from the handprint.
Rychek
whispered something to Bessie. She
bellowed in wide eyed fear and surged forwards through the smoldering remnants
of the zombie ranks.
Again
and again the zombies barred their path, and twice Chotec's light lanced
through them. On the following occasion
the solar engine failed. It had not
received a full charge from the sun's rays since they had entered the dwarven
realm. The undead surged again, and this
time they did not pull away.
The
party on the howdah flailed with their weapons and Bessie stomped and swept
with her mighty tail. The zombies were
dying, again, like flies, but more clambered over the frames of their fallen
comrades to swarm the lizardmen. The lizards
bellowed and cursed at the silent throng.
"Eat
flint, Ugly!" cried Joe as he jabbed at the misshapen face of a dead chaos
dwarf.
"Bite
me!" yelled Bob as he ran a rotting elf through with the Sword of Abstinence.
Without
warning the zombies broke off their assault and drew back into the
shadows. Bessie picked her way out of
the mound of body parts and halted a short distance away.
"Thank
the Old Ones! We've scared them
off!" panted Joe.
"I
didn't think they could be scared off,"
Mahtis grunted. "They're not
afraid of dying. Again."
The
kroxigor wiped a gobbet of gore off the Rune Hammer 'o Anti Magic. The big weapon had proved very suitable for
dealing with the magically animated dead.
Every two handed hammer blow had flashed with golden sparks and a zombie
was reduced to its component parts.
Admittedly, he would have got the same result if he had used his regular
great weapon, or a tree trunk, but the sparks were a nice effect.
Rychek
shifted his grip on Gork-on-a-Stick. The
sceptre had also served well as an improvised club, although without the
gimmicks. "Some of them had
weapons, but they didn't use them, not even to block our blows."
"Is everyone okay," asked Joe.
"One
of them bit me! That was uncalled
for." Bob pulled his hands away
from a wound on his neck.
The
zombies did not return, but over the next few hours Bob weakened. The injury should have been trivial. The saurus warrior's constitution would
normally easily deal with such a wound, and he would be left with another scar
and an amusing story of a lucky escape.
But not this time. Despite the
care given by his cold blooded kin, he faded away and died at daybreak.
Under
normal circumstances, the honoured dead of the Lizardmen were interred in the
waters of the pool that spawned them, for their essences to mingle with the
generations to come. It was their final
act of service to the Old Ones.
The
trio could not do this for their brother.
Instead they scratched a grave for him in the barren soil and erected a
stone to mark his resting place.
Rychek
mumbled a few words, and turned back to Bessie, his crest lowered almost to
touch his spine. Joe stumbled away
wordlessly. Mahtis paused over the grave
for a moment longer.
"Goodbye
Bob. I guess your luck finally ran
out."
***
Not
long after Bessie had trudged away to continue the quest, something approached
from the north. Two large and very
obviously dead horses drew a cart with an open basket-like frame on the back. A number of zombies clambered down and started
to load zombie body parts from the scene of the battle. Another set of feet alighted onto the gravel
and crunched over to pause in front of the tomb stone.
With
a foul incantation, the owner of the feet extended the ferrule of his staff to
hover above the disturbed soil. Heavy
purple flames wreathed the staff and dripped liquidly onto the ground where
they quickly soaked in. The ground
rumbled and shook in protest. The earth
does not willingly relinquish that which it has consumed.
A
twisted, blue, scaly claw burst from the grave.
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