The dead tore out of the ground, rending the earth to match their torn, decayed flesh. They dug their way out of their graves, swimming to the surface with slow, methodical, brainless strokes. All over the graveyard, hands suddenly broke free of the earth and rose quickly upwards like so many worms blindly burrowing to the surface. With their arms free, the dead braced themselves on the hard-packed surface and pulled themselves from the earth’s womb, celebrating a new birthday. Their mother, the earth, groaned to be releasing them from her care. She knew her birthing that night was unnatural and evil but could do nothing to prevent it.
There were no moans, no cries. The dead returned to the world in silent surprise. With no minds of their own, they quietly followed some invisible guiding hand and shambled silently together into long lines out of the graveyard and towards the town.
Widow Hatcher was glad for the night’s bright moon. She would have visited her husband’s grave without it, but she was thankful for its light, that comforting glow of white light, a holy aura in the sky. If only those cursed women would stop harassing her, she wouldn’t have to visit her husband by the cover of night. But they had said she mourned too long, wasted her time visiting the graveyard every day to speak with her husband’s shade. They had said it was unnatural and unholy. They had even gone so far as to suggest that she might be up to witchcraft and had sent the village’s holy man to visit her.
She was a meek woman, a pious and loving wife, so she refused to stop visiting her husband simply because of those women. But, they had involved the holy man, and he could cause problems for her. He obviously understood her devotion and didn’t blame her for her acts, but influenced by those women, he had asked her, had pleaded with her, to let her husband rest and to reserve her visits for special occasions. Well, holy man or not, she loved her husband and knew a wife’s duties better than anyone. Widow Hatcher would say a prayer for her husband’s soul by the moon, if not by the sun.
Those women, though, oh those infuriating women. They still hadn’t taken their spying eyes off her even after two weeks. Still they watched, waiting, hoping to undo her for their own petty amusement, simply because she cared more for her dead husband than any of them cared for their living husbands. And, the town knew it. Widow Hatcher received praise, and they were chided, told to follow her example.
When Widow Hatcher saw the shadowy figure approaching her along the town’s main road, she froze in her tracks like one of the town children caught at some mischief. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t have time to hide. Whoever it was up ahead had surely seen her. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t doing anything wrong, and once she realized that all important fact, she found the strength to continue forward and greet whoever else was out that night.
The figure was not alone, however. Widow Hatcher suddenly saw another vague, shadowy shape behind the first, and then another. Her first thought was of those women, those accursed women. Somehow they had discovered her and had been waiting all night for her pilgrimage to the graveyard. Well, they would not deter her. She would push right past them without a word.
It would have been better for the Widow Hatcher, though not for the town, if she had decided to confront the figures. But, her resolve was stronger than the town’s oldest foundations, and she began shouldering her way past that first figure without even taking in the figure’s appearance. But the smell. She couldn’t ignore the overpowering odor. Death and decay stung the Widow’s nose, and she gagged, retched, and turned her questioning eyes to the figure she had just brushed past.
Widow Hatcher knew Polly Spring. Polly had died three years before, her body burning up in a fever that had never subsided. So, when Widow Hatcher realized Polly was standing before her, she took in the dirt, the worms in her hair, and the loose flesh that hung on the young woman’s reanimated bones. She was no magician, nor was she a scholar or a great warrior, but the Widow listened in the holy house, and she knew a zombie when she saw one.
Her recognition came too late. Thin, waxy hands grabbed Widow Hatcher from behind. She screamed out in surprise; in fear at death’s touch; and her cries were a warning for all the village to hear. Widow Hatcher didn’t stop screaming even as the dead around her used their teeth on her. Whether or not her god heard her last words is unknown, but she went into death screaming her prayers.
Jet burst into the Empty Barrel, banging through the door and hitting everything on his way into the tavern as if he was tossed through the doors instead of carried in upon his own power. His entrance wasn’t enough to warrant too much surprise from the handful of townspeople drinking and eating in the tavern’s sparse common room, but his words were strong and forceful. Before most of the townspeople fully realized what had been said, they were already doing what had been demanded, so assured was Jet’s command.
“Your dead have returned to this world and have encircled this town. We need to barricade all the doors and windows, and if we can’t do that, then we need to find a spot where we can shut ourselves in.” Without waiting for anyone to join him, Jet pulled the nearest table towards the tavern’s door. He was neither surprised nor pleased when he saw another man helping him, and together, the two men turned the table up on its side against the door.
Sparing a moment to glance around the tavern, Jet noticed the barman’s disappearance. The man had been standing behind the bar when Jet had entered. Jet’s words had been spoken more to him than to any of the others in the tavern, hoping that as the owner, he would help Jet rally the villagers. Minus the barman, Jet saw a man and woman pushing another table to the common room’s rear entrance. The man who had helped Jet with his own table was already pushing another table towards the windows. A young serving girl, the inn’s only other occupant, stood frozen in the common room, still holding a mug of ale she had been carrying to one of the tables. Ignoring her for the moment, Jet helped lift another table up, blocking the common room’s only window.
Jet glanced around the common one once more. With the rear entrance, main entrance, and ground floor window blocked, Jet saw only the door behind the bar still unprotected. Jet knelt before the frozen serving girl, and gently took her stiff arms in his hands.
“What’s beyond the bar, dear? Does that door lead outside?”
“No.” A strong voice spoke from behind Jet. He turned and found himself facing the robust bartender who had disappeared moments after his own entrance. “It leads to the kitchen and food stores, and then outside. But, I”ve already taken care of that way.” Jet had no doubt the man had done exactly as he said. The barman’s disappearance was explained in his two possessions. First, a young boy was tucked in the barman’s left arm. In the other arm, he hefted a large hammer that Jet recognized. Horse owners used it to shoe their horses.
Before Jet could ask the man if he had any nails for the inn’s other doors, strong hands began pushing open the common room’s rear door, scraping the table holding it slowly across the floor. Before anyone else could react, Jet was across the room, long legs carrying him there with three swift strides. He threw his body against the table, forcing the door shut and braced himself for the inevitable shove from the other side that he knew must be coming. Jet could hear several fists pounding on the door from the other side, but what he did not hear were cries of help.
In smooth motions, the barman removed thick nails from the folds of his apron and hammered them through the table, into the wall–stakes in a wooden coffin to keep evil locked away. With the door secure, Jet moved to the table before the front entrance already held by the townsman who had helped him drag it there. The barman finished with that table and the one blocking the inn’s window with no interference from outside. All the attention seemed to be on the inn’s backdoor for now.
“What are you doing? How do we know those aren’t villagers out there trying to get in?” A man spoke, and when Jet turned, he saw the man who had helped him earlier with the tables.
“Do you hear any cries for help, Rust? Cause I don’t. Those are zombies out there, and they want in here.”
“He’s right.” They were safe for the moment, but they didn’t have long. Jet knew that. Now, he had to make sure the others did. “I have to thank you, all of you, for helping me. You didn’t have to listen to me, but you did and that means a lot.”
“Well, now that we’re secure, it might be time for a story.” It was the man again–Rust. Jet looked him over, and he knew the man was going to become a problem. His dress and build marked him as some sort of town guard. Here was a man whose job was authority and protection, and in the face of overwhelming danger he had been one step behind Jet so far.
“And I think it might be time for you to adjust your tone, Rust.” The barman’s voice was gruff, strong. He had gathered both of the young children into his arms, but now he pushed them aside and rose up to his full height, sticking out his meaty gut like a weapon. “This is still my inn. And, this man may very well have saved all our lives, including yours.”
They were all gathered now. The man and woman who had blocked the rear door were holding hands. Husband and wife then, Jet thought. Both children, surely the barkeep’s, were staying close to his side. That left Rust to the side, stuck between Jet and the barman, but he had been overruled for now. He had no authority, so he waited to hear Jet speak.
“As I said when I entered, your dead have risen and have taken over the town. I was with your blacksmith when we heard a scream somewhere along the eastern road that leads past the cemetery. We both looked outside and saw them. They move slow, but they always come in great numbers. I headed in this direction, but your blacksmith wouldn’t follow. He clutched his hammer in his hand and stalked off to join your defender.”
“Defender Thorn! How did he fare? Was his apprentice with him?”
“Does he need our help?”
The married couple had spoken, first the husband and then his wife, and Jet hated having to dash the hope he saw on their faces. Even worse was the sudden light in the children’s eyes. They knew Defender Thorn’s name. Here was their hero, something they finally understood amongst the adults’ talk.
Jet motioned to the barman’s children. “Is this your son and your daughter?”
Without hesitation, the barman understood Jet’s gesture and turned to the woman. “Letty, could you take Daniel and Violet upstairs to one of the rooms?” The woman, Letty, nodded gravely at the barman, and then turned a beaming smile upon the children and scooped them into her arms like precious jewels. Once she disappeared up the stairs, the barman nodded once more to Jet. “Thank you.”
“They didn’t need to hear. Your defender is dead, and so is his apprentice, and unless the blacksmith gave up saving them, he’s also dead.”
“How is that possible?” Rust again, but now his tone was changing. Events were beyond him now, and hopefully he had realized that only by following the others, especially Jet, was he going to survive.
With as much force and emphasis as he could, Jet spoke a warning that everyone in the room needed to hear. “Because strength will not overcome the dead. Your defender and his apprentice swung their weapons and fought ferociously, but I saw them torn down, overwhelmed by the dead’s superior numbers. You can’t fight the dead with your arm. Even if you cut them down, someone leads them, guides them. The dead are simply puppets, and your only hope is to outsmart them.”
“Well, you’ve helped us do that so far, young man. I’m Harry, the owner of the Empty Barrel, and those were my children, Violet and Daniel.” The barman introduced himself, and the others took his cue, working around the room.
“I’m Burt, and my wife, Letty, took the children upstairs. We’re just simple farmers from down the road, stopped in for a warm meal from Harry’s kitchen, and I’m glad we did. Out on our farm we would surely be dead by now.”
“You reacted quickly and without question earlier, so you might have survived. You’ve got good reflexes, and that’s another edge over them.” Jet motioned to the rear door where they could still hear fists banging against the well-blockaded door. “As for me, you can call me Jet. I’m a Traveler.”
Rust was silent. Jet already knew the man’s name, but he guessed withholding it was the only resistence the man had left. Harry put a quick end to that. A steady stare quickly caught Rust’s attention, and he dropped his defensive exterior like a child before his parents.
“Name’s Rust.”
“Are we going to have a problem, Rust?” They already had a problem. Rust knew it, and Jet knew it. What Jet needed to know was whether it was going to continue, escalate, or stop right now. “Because I’ll be honest, I need your help, and so does Harry, Burt, Letty, and those two children upstairs.”
“We won’t have a problem. These are my people, and I’ll take care of them.” Jet now saw the pride in his face and knew that his earlier assumption had been correct. This man didn’t want anyone else defending what was his. These were his people.
“Good.” Jet returned to his feet. Now was a time for action and preparation. “We aren’t as safe as you might think. They might be out there, but we aren’t exactly going anywhere. We have food and shelter, now we need weapons and a plan. And the weapons are urgent because I can’t promise that whoever’s behind the undead doesn’t have other minions–more capable minions.”
Harry rose his shoeing hammer into the air. “I can use this well enough. There’s an old sword out in the stable, but that’s lost to us now.”
In answer, Rust pulled his own short sword from the scabbard on his right hip, and he retrieved a small wooden shield from behind the bar where Harry must have been stowing it for him. Jet kept his own sword in its scabbard but pulled aside his cloak, revealing the simple, smooth silver pommel of his own sword. Twice Rust’s short sword, it was a serious weapon.
“What else do you have?” Jet spoke to Harry who began leading them back into the kitchen.
“There are knives in here, even some larger cleavers.” On a much-used chopping block, a meat cleaver stained with rust and dulled from years of service bit into the wood like some torn-out monster’s tooth. With some sharpening, the cleaver would make an excellent weapon.
“That cleaver has a good grip, and you’ll have a lot of leverage when you swing it. Give Burt a whetstone to sharpen it with, and Burt, if you sharpen that cleaver, you should be able to bite clean through someone’s neck in a single swipe, but you’ll have to swing it hard. No holding back.”
Burt nodded and set about his task. When Harry and Jet returned to the common room, Letty was just coming down the stairs, and Rust had his ear pressed against the rear wall. He was concentrating intently, and Jet saw a look of real terror.
“What is it, Rust?”
“How many, Harry? How many do we have buried out there?”
Harry’s realization was like a plunge into icy water. “This town’s been here for almost 300 years. I’ll bet there’s at least twice that many dead buried out there, but I don’t know, Rust. I don’t know.”
“What are we going to do, traveler? How are we going to fight our way past 600 of our dead?” Rust was screaming, the panic in charge now, and Jet saw that if he had been standing closer to the man, he would have been covered in Rust’s spittle. Jet didn’t have time for tantrums. He wanted Rust strong; the others needed him. What Rust needed to understand, was that Jet did not need him. So, he pulled back his cloak, reminded the man of his sword, and spoke cool, calm words like the undisturbed surface of a pond lying about the churning masses below.
“There’s always the sword, Rust. Dying at their hands is a horrible way to go down. It’s not a quick arrow in your chest or a sword in your gut. They’ll tear you apart with their teeth, and you’ll die slowly. But, I can spare you that, if that’s what you want.” Jet placed a single hand on his sword pommel, a light caress to show Rust that he meant what he said. The effect was instantaneous. A new light came into Rust’s eyes. Instead of giving up, panicking, he became defensive, remembered how dear his life was. Jet reminded Rust what it meant to fight for your life, gave him an opportunity to do just that.
“No. No, traveler, I don’t want your easy way out. I said I’ll fight for these people, and that’s what I’ll do.” And whatever else might happen, Rust would now die fighting.
“Good, because I can tell you how to fight 600 dead, Rust. Fire.”
A new light now came into everyone’s eyes. Here was something they all understood, something familiar. While they might not understand swordwork or the magic required to raise an entire graveyard of dead, fire was no mystery. They knew how to make it, and they knew how well it burned, how quickly it could spread.
“There’s an entire cask of oil in my stockroom. I use it for the inn’s lanterns, and I’ll bet it’s nearly full.”
“Good. Harry, you get that. Letty, Rust–I need both of you to gather up all the lanterns you can find in this inn. Find what you can on your own and then ask Harry if he has any extras stored in that stockroom. When you’ve found all you can, bring everything and everyone up to the roof.”
Rust looked as if he might argue with Jet’s plan, but the traveler was glad when he hesitated only briefly and then joined Letty. The man surely felt he belonged on the roof with Jet. He was wrong.
With everyone busy about some task, Jet ascended the dark stairway alone. The shadows here were thick and fitful. They tossed and turned like a witch’s brew pitting light against dark. Jet waded through and climbed out upon the Empty Barrel’s solid roof. He was immediately glad he had left the others to their tasks. Inside the inn, their fear was a banging against the rear door and imagination. Out here, fear was solid and overwhelming.
On his stomach Jet wriggled to the roof’s edge and saw the dead spread out before him like a giant flock of birds, perched upon this unfortunate town for an evening’s rest. They traveled in large packs like wild dogs. Some were a hundred strong, and Harry’s estimate of their numbers looked fairly accurate. Jet would guess somewhere between six hundred and seven hundred dead clamored about below him. To his relief, Jet saw that several of the larger packs were besieging other buildings just as they were battering upon the doors of his own stronghold. Others had survived, and that was good. That would help calm the others, give them some hope. They were not alone in their fight for survival that night.
Those houses not defended, not boarded up, were beyond hope. Jet could see the dead leaving empty houses, wet sticky blood covering their mouths. The traveler was glad he had spared the others this sight. That blood did little to affect him. It reminded him of his own mortality, but as a traveler he was well-aware of his weaknesses. The others, though, wouldn’t simply see blood. They would see the blood of their townsmen, blood of friends and lovers. The defender was already with them. Jet spotted his massive frame in the midst of chaos. Defender Thorn was like a rock battered by waves of undead, but he stood firm in the town’s center. Jet knew what new role the defender played. Here was the shell the necromancer must have chosen. Defender Thorn’s body was well-muscled, well-toned, well-worn, and the man was still equipped with a vicious great axe. With such a powerful shell, the necromancer could guide his new army with little fear of Jet destroying his vehicle.
“Traveler!!!” Defender Thorn’s voice struck the village like a thunderclap, and although Jet did not jump when the voice startled him, his eyes widened, and his hand instinctively shot to his sword pommel. “Know fear, traveler! Know that you delay the inevitable!”
To strike his point home, Defender Thorn wheeled around and turned his gaze to meet Jet’s own. At the same time, Defender Thorn’s soldiers rose their heads as one and hundreds of dead began the slow march to surround the Empty Barrel and Jet. Locked in Thorn’s gaze, Jet rose to his feet, his cloak whipping ever so slightly behind him.
“The dead cannot stop me, Necromancer.”
“Ha, Ha, Ha!!! The dead are not for you, traveler!” Defender Thorn broke into an evil cackle, and Jet realized his earlier fears were true. Whatever else the necromancer might have to throw at him, the inn would not be safe for long. Two long strides carried Jet to the inn’s window, and he bellowed inside for those within to hurry, to join him on the roof. They would have to act fast, burn as many of the dead as they could and hope it would be enough.
Rust was first to the window, and he climbed through before Jet could voice any objections. He had found a sack somewhere, presumably in Harry’s stockroom, and Jet was pleased to see it full of lanterns. As soon as he stood upon the roof, Rust saw the hordes advancing, and Jet left him alone to his panic. The sooner the man dealt with it, the better. Meanwhile, Jet began pulling lanterns out of the bag. Harry, Burt, and Letty all arrived together moments later. Burt carried the cask of oil, while Letty had another bag of lanterns. Harry, on the other hand, had a box full of empty bottles.
Burt and Letty joined Rust, their gaze sweeping out over the dead, probably beginning to spot men and women they had known a few hours earlier–men and women who were no longer their friends. Harry took it all in, but he didn’t dwell. He helped Jet finish pulling lanterns from the bags, and then the two men worked together to turn Harry’s empty bottles into lethal weapons. Jet held each bottle as Harry poured a hearty amount of oil in–a metallic, liquid weapon cast in the moon’s glow. Rust joined them, dipping a strip of cloth into each bottle, the rough, dry fabric greedily swelling with oil.
Moments later, lanterns flew from the roof in all directions. Where they shattered, the oil spread over the dead and burned their rotten flesh. It wasn’t a quick end, and the smell of human flesh baking in the night must have been overwhelming for Letty, Burt, and possibly Harry and Rust. But, each lantern tossed into a heaving mass of dead bodies often covered twenty or thirty bodies in fire. At that rate, Jet thought, they could take care of four or five hundred of the dead below.
When the first lantern struck and the first group of dead began to burn, Defender Thorn bellowed his rage. With the same fierce speed he must have possessed when alive, the large man began loping towards the Empty Barrel’s front door, his great axe held high above his head, ready to bite into the now flimsy protection between the dead and the living. Jet watched the man coming, he waited for Defender Thorn to begin hurtling through a tight pack of dead. He chose that moment to cast a lantern.
The flame inside flickered between life and death as the lantern sailed through the air, but it stayed lit and struck Defender Thorn. Jet watched a strange transformation overtake the defender’s body. He scratched viciously at his body where it burned, showing the pain that none of the other dead could feel. Suddenly, the defender stopped and a new, vacant purpose took over his movement. The man stopped screaming in pain, stopped rubbing his burning flesh and appeared to be just another one of the dead. Jet didn’t know what the connection was between the necromancer and his shell, but from what he had just seen, he had hurt the necromancer. He might just have given them another important edge.
But then Jet saw the goblins approaching, racing out of the night into the red, fire tinged village. Their clan was a small one, only thirty or forty strong. They were stupid, small creatures who were only dangerous in large numbers. But, if the necromancer was guiding their thoughts, they would be able to think clearly. Usually chaotic attacks would become well-orchestrated with his instructions. And, Jet saw that the goblins had bows. The smoke would help with that, should make it harder to spot them and draw a clear bead on any of them, but Jet knew it was time to retreat inside. They had done their damage.
“Inside! Hurry, inside now!” Burt, Letty, and Rust all appeared from the roof’s other side, disappeared inside. Harry joined Jet, two flaming bottles in his hands, and when the traveler pointed to the goblins, the innkeeper knew what to do. The two men hurled their fiery weapons into the masses before the inn, hopefully delaying the goblins for a time, long enough for those inside to take defensive positions. Arrows clattered against the rooftops all around, little black spears that might or might not have been coated with poison. Somehow, Jet pushed Harry through the window and fell through right after him without a scratch.
“We don’t have much time. There’s a small clan of goblins outside, and they’ll have no problem climbing the walls outside and getting in these windows.”
“We should have nailed them shut.” Harry was enraged, and Jet knew that was good, knew they could use that in a short time.
“We could have, and then we wouldn’t have been able to burn so many of the dead. Was that the right thing? I don’t know. But we have to accept it and make a new plan because those goblins are coming, and they have weapons.” Everyone was waiting. They knew Jet was running the show now, and no one had any objections. “Letty, gather Harry’s children. Everyone else, downstairs. You need to find a place to make a stand. Under the stairs, in the stockroom, behind the bar–it doesn’t matter. Find a place to hide.” The first goblins leapt into the inn’s upper rooms, swords drawn, expecting their prey to be waiting. Some of the archers even shot arrows through the unprotected windows, hoping to catch one of the stupid humans. When they found the upstairs abandoned, they came pouring in like bats screeching into some dark cave. The archers searched frantically for something to shoot. None of them looked up, though. They should have. They would have seen Jet perched on the wooden ceiling beams like a giant bird of prey. But they didn’t look up. They headed down because that’s where they knew the humans must have gone. They could smell them down there, could smell their sweat and their fear.
Evil, beady little eyes appeared at the top of the stairs like a swarm of fireflies. The goblins were hesitant at first, searching for the humans. A single lantern, placed in the common room’s center was the only light. Shadows battled across the walls, warriors of light and darkness. The goblins couldn’t see the humans, but they knew what they had to do. They had been...instructed. A wave of stinking goblin flesh poured down the stairs, weapons forgotten, and small, powerful hands began tearing at the tables blocking the doors. A few goblins sniffed about–the human smell was strong, almost overwhelming–and hefted their weapons uneasily. They knew the humans were hiding, stuck their noses into the hiding places and were the first to die.
No one had needed to tell Harry and the others what to do after they hid. They killed. Each became a warrior, swinging his or her weapon of choice, cutting down goblins before they could react. Harry’s hammer cracked skulls and sent limp bodies to the ground; Letty and Burt worked together, springing out from behind the bar. Letty forced enemies back with a chair while Burt went to work with his sharpened clever. And Jet had been right–the knife bit cleanly through goblin arms and necks. Meanwhile, Rust was putting years of sword practice to work. Whatever other failings the man might have had, his swordwork was tight, his thrusts hard and sharp.
The first goblins fell quickly without a real fight. The tables were firmly fastened to the walls. They hadn’t been expecting that. They were to have the dead as reinforcements. Without them, the goblins retreated back up the stairs. But, Jet was walking down, his cloak thrown over his shoulder, the scabbard on his hip empty. Jet’s sword was out. It cut. It hacked. It maimed and killed. Bodies became wasted corpses with each swing of Jet’s sword. Small goblins fled before the sword, and they were split in two at the waist, from the crotch, or at their neck.
“Strike now! Finish these vermin!” Jet’s words emboldened the others. With his sword, Rust was finishing off the last two or three goblins by the rear door, and Harry was holding his own against those at the front door, but he would need help soon. As a team, Burt and Letty seemed to be doing better than anyone. Until the runt.
He was smaller than the other goblins, and he was smarter. While the others turned the bar’s corner, bottlenecking in a tight group like animals waiting for the butcher’s cleaver, he climbed. Onto the bar stool, a small leap up to the bar, and he was on Letty. His small sword slashed and stabbed at her exposed neck. She was dead seconds after hitting the ground.
Burt saw it all. The corner of his eye wouldn’t lie as much as he wanted it to. He wasn’t sure what he had seen, but when he turned, his wife was dead. In his rage, in his final moments of helplessness, Burt turned his cleaver upon the runt. He hacked the small goblin into pieces, screaming out for his dead wife, even while the remaining goblins at the bar descended upon him. Their rubbery skin pressed tight against Burt’s body, pressing him to the ground, and he was held there, suffocated by their stink, filled with visions of rotten teeth and inhuman eyes in his final moments.
Jet didn’t see their fall. He fought his way to the ground floor, caked in goblin blood, his sword flinging beads of it to paint the walls red. Harry still had five enemies to tend to, and they had backed him into a corner. Several long lines of red marked the man’s body. He had been cut. All of Jet’s attention was on Harry, but Rust was alone in the common room’s rear. Rust saw the runt climb onto the bar, and he watched in horror, his feet moving too slow, his sword suddenly useless in his hands, as Letty and then Burt fell beneath the bar. Rust didn’t know they were dead. He suspected. He feared. But, he didn’t know, and that’s what kept his feet moving, that’s what pushed him into a run.
When Rust crashed into the remaining goblins behind the bar, they must have thought the ceiling had fallen down on their heads. Rust’s weight was more than enough to bowl over the small goblins. Once Rust pulled a goblin he had accidentally skewered off his sword, the slaughter began. Burt had been the one wielding the cleaver, but Rust was the one doing the real cleaving. His sword hammered up and down behind the bar. He was a cook slicing meat, and he sliced it thin.
Jet and Harry stopped him. They saw the bodies, understood what had happened. Rust fell into their arms, exhausted. His sword clattered to the floor like a dinner bell, and the townguard pressed all-too-bloody hands to his head, ran his fingers through his sweat-drenched hair, streaking it red.
“You did what you could, Rust,” whispered Harry. Jet knew there was nothing he could say. He hadn’t known these people. They hadn’t been his. Burt, Letty–they had been Harry’s. They had been Rust’s. “You couldn’t defend us all, Rust.”
“He’s right.” Jet needed this man, and he needed him now. “And your job isn’t done, Rust. Harry’s still alive, his children are still locked in the stockroom. You can still protect them because I can’t, Rust. I need to make my move, and I need to make it now. So I need you to stay with Harry and his kids, Rust. You watch them, you protect them. Take them into the stockroom, lock the door and don’t leave until the sun rises.” Harry turned to Jet, clapped his hand and shook it firmly.
Jet was up the stairs while the others disappeared into the kitchen. He was a red shadow of death. With his cloak closed, the hood thrown up, the only glimpses of Jet’s face revealed an intense, hate-filled, bloody visage. If the dead could know fear, they would have when Jet dropped down amongst them from the rooftop. Alone, he easily cut his way through their slow-moving numbers. Getting through them was never a problem. Defending yourself against their greater numbers was suicide though, and Jet wished the Defender had known that.
* * * * * *
The holy house had been corrupted. Jet could sense it from a distance, could feel it on his skin when he stood at the double arched doorway. All the holy symbols had been blasted from the building’s face. Now, the holy house looked like a man with the rotting disease, the flesh falling from his face. And Jet knew he would find rottenness inside, a source of decay.
Jet was no magician, but he knew better than to enter by the front door. A chunk of holy symbol on the ground gave him an idea. With the symbol in his hand, Jet twisted his body and then slung the symbol through the holy house’s front-left window. As glass shattered, falling and breaking apart like raindrops, the traveler sprinted and hurled himself through the front-right window. Jet hit the ground and rolled to a standing position. He was in the rightmost aisle of the holy house, and as he pulled his sword, he could feel small cuts all over his body. Glass fell from his hair, his cloak, and his skin like grains of sand announcing the passage of time in an hourglass.
“Raaarrggghhhh!” The necromancer’s scream was like the dying of some great demon. From inside the holy house, Jet could see that he had been right to avoid the front doors. An evil yellow aura outlined the doors’ edges. Jet could see another spell’s remnants on the walls and floor where the holy symbol had crashed into the holy. The necromancer had wasted yet another spell.
With two of his spells wasted, the necromancer was enraged and weakened. The man stood upon the holy house’s altar, a skull-topped staff held in both hands. Behind that staff, the necromancer’s body was a wasted shell. Like so many of his kind, the necromancer ignored his flesh, honing his mind, and as a result, his skin was tight on his body, and Jet guessed the man had the physical strength of a child. The necromancer’s hands shook and he breathed heavily. The man could barely hold himself upright and probably wouldn’t have been able to without his staff. He was weak, and Jet’s work was almost done.
From the back of the holy house, Jet charged down the rightmost aisle. He could see the necromancer summoning a spell, and Jet readied himself to move quickly out of the way of whatever might come. Before the spell was cast, Jet saw something important. Parts of the necromancer’s face seemed to be burnt, the wounds recent. When the necromancer’s spell–a magic arrow that split into three on its way to Jet–crackled through the air, the traveler hit the ground, tucked into a roll behind the holy house’s long wooden seats, and popped up running. Where the arrows crashed into the wooden seats, they sent splinters of wood spraying in a wide arc like a million tiny arrows. Jet felt the blast on his back but continued forward. He didn’t intend to give the necromancer time for another spell.
At the altar, the necromancer collapsed. Jet saw that he had been right. Large burns covered the man’s face, and the traveler finally understood how much damage this man had suffered from within Defender Thorn’s body. When he had failed to remove his essence from its shell, the necromancer had physically suffered the same as Defender Thorn. Now, the necromancer was helpless at Jet’s feet. With his first swing, Jet severed the necromancer’s staff, still clutched in both his hands where his limp body was draped over the holy altar like a sacrifice to the gods. Jet’s second swing severed the necromancer’s head. His sword covered in the magician’s polluted blood, Jet dipped it into a basin of holy water and wiped it on the necromancer’s own garments.
Fire marked Jet’s departure from the town’s edge. The holy house could not be allowed to stand after what the necromancer had done to it. Jet had made sure to soak the necromancer’s body in enough oil to turn even his bones to ash. It wouldn’t do to have him rise again. Lich king’s were notoriously impossible to kill.
The night’s fighting was finally at an end. Surely Harry and the others were now safe. Perhaps enough of the townsfolk had sought refuge and the town would heal. Jet didn’t know and wouldn’t be around to find out. His path was ever westward, and he had to continue. He was a traveler.
