Death After Death

Chapter 125: The Way North

That morning, he went down to breakfast early to make sure he didn’t miss an opportunity, so he was still working his way through a mug of watered-down beer and a plate of biscuits and sausages half drowned in a peppered gravy when the other mercenaries came down. The gossip about last night started almost immediately, though Simon pretended to ignore it.

It sounded like a couple of guys were working themselves up to challenging ‘that fatass’ to a rematch because the honor of the Butcher’s Bill was at stake. That only came to a stop when a man sat down next to Simon and introduced himself as Kell. Simon recognized him; he should have, of course. He’d seen the man with Freya last time he was here.

“I heard you kicked Hodge’s ass last night,” Kell said, pretending to sound impressed. “Quick fight, too. Not a lot of people can say that. What’s your secret?”

The leader of the mercenary company was a tall, handsome sort, and Simon could see the blonde man’s natural charisma from the first moment. There was a sense that he’d seen him somewhere before, but at this point, Simon got that all the time, especially in Schwarzenbruck, so he ignored it.

“Goblins mostly,” Simon nodded. “I’ve cashed in plenty of ears over the years, and they’re quick little bastards.”

“They are,” Kell agreed. “Got any tips on beastmen? Near as we can figure, that’s what we’re up against for our next little stretch.”

“I heard about that,” Simon nodded. “Why do you think it’s beastmen and not something bigger, like an ogre?”

“Nah, ain’t been nothing that big in the northern lands in an age,” Kell said with a smirk. “It’s just a few farmholds and a lonely road until the hills give way to the mountains. Nothing more scenic than the occasional swamp, and if we get as far as the Bahamed Pass and the fort up there, well, then it's a northern Kingdoms’ problem, and we can let those desert dwellers deal with it. King Wilden’s charter only covers to the edge of Brin, so if we go that far and find out it's a civil war or something, well - we get paid just for showing up. Interested?”

Simon doubted very much that it was something as simple as a few beast men sacking trade caravans. In fact, he was almost certain it was zombie playing out, just like before, but on a slightly different timeline, and in a slightly different way.

He didn’t say any of that, though, because it would sound crazy. Instead he just said, “Well, I’ve rooted out a couple den’s of gnolls. Can’t be much different than that. You just gotta pick your ground and bait 'em, and they fall easy enough.”

“Good to hear!” Kell said, shaking his hand.

They chatted a while longer and agreed on a 3% stake, which was pretty good since the man had tried to talk him into a 1% cut on account of him being so new. Fortunately, for all his talk about how easy this was going to be, some part of Kell seemed to think they didn’t have enough people for whatever it was they were up against.

Still, Simon was pretty good about the whole thing until Freya came down and kissed the man on the cheek. He introduced her as Frey and described her as the most vicious shield maiden you ever did see, but Simon wasn’t really listening. Instead, he was shaking her hand with wooden fingers while he willed his expression into something approaching normalcy.

He avoided her after that and fell into line somewhere near the rear with Hodges while they crossed the wide stone bridge and started heading north. Simon had gone this way before once, so he mostly knew the way. Still, it took several days to reach the place he thought they’d find trouble. There, at least, he wasn’t disappointed.

In their slow trip north, he chatted with the guys and did a little sparing. He even taught some of the guys a few things and started the long, slow process of making new friends, one joke at a time. All that came to an end when they found signs of a fight, and damaged buildings.

They all stopped to investigate the first burned-out farmstead. It showed plenty of damage and blood, but no sign of corpses, which fit Simon’s zombie theory precisely. When tracks were pointing further north, they all agreed that it was the right move to follow them.

“These don’t look like beastmen to me,” Simon said, pointing out the flaw in their assumptions. “Not unless they’ve learned to wear boots.”

Boots on a beastmen was literally impossible, of course, and that gave everyone pause. “Maybe it’s bandits, then,” he ventured. “They don’t usually get this brave, but then this would hardly be the first time that we’ve had to take bandits down a peg, is it?”

The men largely agreed with that, and even though Simon pointed out that the beastmen might take the corpses, but the bandits would only take their valuables, he was largely ignored. Only Garth asked him what he thought it was after they started moving again.

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“Well, a man wearing boots that doesn’t leave corpses behind…” Simon said like he was trying to think. “Either we’ve got some deranged cannibals, or maybe something worse than that.”

“Worse than deranged cannibals?” Garth laughed. “Like what?”

“We’ll, there’s lots of things worse than cannibals,” Simon shrugged. “I’d rather fight a dozen cannibalistic highwaymen than a single orc. Those things are insanely strong. In this case, though, I was thinking… what if it’s like a warlock? What, however, is killing these people is taking the bodies for some other purpose.”

Garth shuddered at the thought and made the warding sign against evil with his hands as he said, “Well if you think that, why aren’t you telling the boss. Kell needs to know.”

“He does,” Simon agreed, “But he probably doesn’t need the new guy to try showing him up by telling him in front of everyone.”

The man got the hint and nodded sagely. They didn’t speak of it again, but that night, Kell informed everyone that, based on the signs he was seeing, they could be dealing with something more evil than man or beast and that, somehow, the risen dead might be involved in all of this. He took complete credit for the idea, but Simon didn't mind as long as people were warned about what was coming.

The stories that night around the campfire were told in hushed tones, and the guards were extra vigilant. That was good, because the first alarm rang out some time after midnight.

Simon was on his feet immediately, with a sword in hand. His first thought was to use a word of light to illuminate the situation, but he knew that with everyone so on edge, being branded a warlock would make for a bad end. Instead, he ran to the fire, pulled out a burning brand, and tossed it in the direction of the guard who was calling for help, then used the words of minor fire to set the underbrush on fire so that he and everyone else could take in the situation.

The result painted a grim picture. The group had left behind the flat lands and camped on top of a hill, almost a day’s walk north of the trade road. It was a good, defensible spot, with good sight lines in all directions. That wasn’t enough to deter the mob of at least two or three dozen zombies advancing on them in a wide arc, though.

There was plenty of room to retreat, theoretically, but Simon didn’t think that they were too terribly outnumbered, and thought it was probably worth the fight. “You take their head’s off!” he yelled to the other men struggling to wake up and figure out what the hell was going on. Even as they did, though, he was charging the nearest zombies.

He’d killed plenty of these bastards and was no longer afraid of them. Honestly, he was happy to put them down. His only regret was that with so many other people present, he couldn’t use words of force to scythe them down like the pests they were. Still, he hadn’t gotten to use his mace much in a long time, and the sickening crunch that each of the zombies made as they fell before him was very satisfying.

Part of him had worried this was going to be a massacre for these men, but it would seem that aside from Riggs, who’d been the man on watch, everyone else was fine. It turned out that his call of warning had been his last, and moments later, his throat had been ripped out by an almost skeletonized ghoul.

While the rest of the Butcher’s Bill mourned him and discussed what they should do next, Simon went through the bodies. This was both to make sure that they were really and truly dead, but also to see what he could learn. He recognized a few ancient dead from the barrows, but there were what looked to be bandits, soldiers of Brin, and more than a few farmers. There were even children among the bodies. Those were the ones that weighed on his heart the most.

“How did you know there would be zombies?” he heard Freya ask behind him.

“Why do you think I know anything about anything?” Simon played dumb, not turning around to look at her as he continued to study the corpses because he didn’t trust his expressions where she was involved.

“Don’t play dumb with me. I heard what Garth told Kell over lunch,” she said, sounding more pointed and direct than he ever remembered her being in all their lives together. “He as much as said that you knew there was going to be a warlock and zombies coming up.”

“Know is a strong word,” Simon said, finally rising and turning to face her. “Let’s say I had a feeling, and we’re lucky someone listened to it. Otherwise, it could have been a real bad time.”

“It was a bad time for Riggs at least,” she said with a sad shake of her head like she was disappointed in him. “Wasn’t there more you could have done?”

“You put together companies like this, and people die,” Simon shrugged, ignoring the fact that there was a lot more he could have done. “I had a feeling and shared what I knew. Thanks to that, almost everyone lived. You’re welcome.”

She opened her mouth again, thought better of it, and closed it. It wasn’t until much later after the sun had risen, that Kell got him alone and said, “Well, it looks like we lucked out bringing you along, Simon. Tell me, where do you think all this is going? Do you think there’s an evil wizard somewhere up ahead? ”

Simon could see the suspicion in the man's eyes. He was looking for someone to blame, and Simon was determined not to be it, more than that, though, that phrase, ‘evil wizard’ rebounded through his mind giving him a terrible sense of deja vu.

Then it hit him. Kell was the asshole that had tried to kill him during the run he’d solved this level, and he was the guy that had opened the gate the time that Simon had been stuck as a zombie. For a moment, he was filled with rage, not just because he had to help this loser but also because Freya ended up with him.

Whoever said life wasn’t fair never met Helades, he thought to himself. If they had, they would have said that life was the opposite of fair.

Simon didn’t say any of that. Instead, he gestured at the bodies and said, “There’s plenty of clues here to a careful eye. We should study them before we burn them.”

“Burn them?” Kell said. “That could take all day.”

“It could,” Simon nodded, “But better than this spreading, and having to deal with even more zombies, right?”

“Fine,” he agreed. “Now tell me what you see.”