The Grim Company

The Right Thing

Squelch.

Brodar Kayne lifted his boot, placed it down in front of him. Felt it sink down into the mud. His skin was on fire and his body shook as if it was about to seize up, but they were almost there. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. One foot-

Sasha yelped as he stumbled into her, almost knocking them both into the muck. He kept his balance, but the effort caused some of his stitches to split open. Agony exploded around the wound in his stomach.

‘Sorry, lass,’ he gasped, trying futilely to disguise the pain. The village was further than it had initially appeared. The sun had disappeared some time ago and now they struggled on in the darkness, battered by a merciless downpour that had turned the hills into a slippery marsh. He’d fallen on his arse several times and was covered in filth, and over the last hour he had developed a fever. Only the lure of the faint glow of torchlight in the distance had kept him moving.

‘Fucking rain.’

The Wolf was in obvious discomfort, the downpour causing his burns to itch uncomfortably. His mood had started off foul and had only deteriorated the closer they got to the village. Isaac trudged along at the rear of the despondent group. The torrid conditions seemed to have subdued even his perpetual cheerfulness.

‘You all right?’ Sasha asked Kayne. She looked annoyed. He pulled his hand away from his stomach and stared at it. It was hard to tell in the poor light, but it looked red.

‘I reckon I might’ve opened this damned scratch back up. Nothing to be done about it now. No use grumbling.’

‘You don’t have to do this, you know.’

‘Do what, lass?’

‘Keep up this macho act. You’re not made of stone. You shouldn’t even be moving around, never mind marching in this kind of state.’ Her tone softened a fraction. ‘You need a physician.’

‘We have Isaac.’

‘Yes, and his supplies are exhausted. If you need to rest, just say it. We’ll leave you here and go on ahead. Isaac can gather what you need and bring it back here. We shouldn’t be long.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m all right.’

Sasha made an exasperated noise and turned away from him. He clenched his teeth. How much further? Can’t be more than half a mile. Come on, you old bastard. Walk.

A rumble of thunder suddenly split the sky overhead. The lightning struck a moment later, illuminating the small settlement ahead of them in blue fire. The village wasn’t much to look at, but it would serve.

The girl had the right of it. If he didn’t rest soon he would collapse — and there was no guarantee he would get back up again.

By the time they finally reached the village his legs had turned to water and he was shaking like a leaf in the wind. There was no one around. Fortunately the rickety old gates were unlocked. Sasha frowned.

‘That’s odd,’ she said. ‘These villagers evidently don’t care much for security. There isn’t even a guard posted.’

Jerek spat. ‘I ain’t surprised. Bit of rain and you Lowlanders curl up in your holes like worms.’

‘There’s light over there,’ said Isaac. ‘By the farmhouse.’

Kayne squinted, but it was no good. All he could see was an indistinct yellow blur. ‘Guess we should go and have a look,’ he managed.

There was a barn next to the farmhouse. The doors were flung wide open, revealing a pair of torches hanging from brackets on the walls just inside. The place reeked of dung, but there was no sign of any livestock within. The old barbarian wanted nothing more than to collapse on a mound of straw in one of the empty stalls just then, cow shit be damned.

‘Might want to wait here, Kayne-’ Jerek began, but a piteous whining noise cut him off. It came from one of the stalls at the very rear of the barn, where the light from the torches couldn’t quite reach.

The Wolf pulled one of his axes from its harness. ‘Wait here,’ he said in a gruff whisper. He wrenched a torch from its sconce and approached the shadowy corner. He stopped as he drew near, stared for a second, and then spat. ‘Now ain’t that a pretty sight.’

Brodar Kayne stumbled over to see what his friend was referring to. He immediately wished he hadn’t.

A cow rested on its side in the middle of the stall, pink tongue lolling out of its mouth. Its eyes were wide and staring madly at the roof. From its rear end, glistening obscenely in the torchlight, long tendrils of intestine snaked out over the blood-matted straw. Someone, or something, had reached into the rear of the animal and literally torn half its innards out from its rectum.

He heard Sasha gag behind him. ‘These villagers got some queer ways and no mistake,’ he said. He noticed someone was missing. ‘Where’s Isaac?

‘Here,’ came the manservant’s voice from outside the barn. He was barely audible above the drumming of the rain. ‘No one is answering. I think this place is deserted.’

‘Bullshit.’ Jerek raised his axe and brought it down on the cow’s head, splitting its skull in half. The animal jerked once and went still.

Sasha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her face was pale. ‘The villagers can’t all have left. Where would they go? And why?’

‘Perhaps they’re hiding from us,’ Isaac suggested.

‘Could be. Or could be that they’re hiding from something else,’ Kayne muttered. He stared at the ruined body of the cow. Ain’t no man did that. Something ain’t right in this village.

The warmth of the torches and the temporary respite from the rain had calmed his fever a little. He felt gingerly around his stomach, prodded at the wound. The sudden pain made him grunt. He looked down and winced. The left side had opened up and was leaking bloody pus.

‘Urgh,’ he said.

Sasha bustled over and examined him. She shook her head. ‘It’s become infected. You’ll die if this isn’t treated.’

Jerek scowled. ‘Then we’ll turn this village upside down. Any of the locals got a problem with that, they can go fuck themselves.’

Brodar Kayne sighed and pulled the filthy dressing back down over the festering wound. Back out into the rain. Again.

And to make matters worse, he needed to piss.

‘Empty.’

It was dark within the modest dwelling, the fire in the small hearth having burned out long ago. Clothes were scattered across the floor. A chair was upended next to a table covered in the abandoned remains of a meal. Thick black flies hovered over the table and crawled over a large ham that had begun to putrefy.

‘They didn’t even stop to lock the door,’ said Sasha. Her face was troubled.

‘I don’t reckon we’ll find anything in here.’ Kayne turned and walked back outside. They had searched half a dozen homes already, and every one of them had been abandoned. Jerek and Isaac emerged from a nearby building. An angry shake of the Wolf’s head confirmed that their search had also failed to turn up anything useful.

‘Looks like they all just upped and left.’ Kayne’s body was trembling again and he had begun to sweat. His insides felt as if they were on fire. For once he was grateful for the rain, which cooled his burning skin.

‘Kayne,’ Jerek rasped from across the way. ‘You should see this.’

He hurried over to where the Wolf crouched over a row of mounds in the earth. There must have been a dozen of them, at least.

‘Graves,’ Jerek grunted.

He examined the mounds. They looked fresh, and shallow, as if whoever had done the shovelling lacked the time to make a decent job of it. A couple of the mounds had been disturbed: the graves had been dug up and since filled with rain. There was no sign of the occupants.

Sasha bent over one of the empty graves and stared into the filthy water sloshing around within. ‘What’s happening in this village?’ she whispered.

There was a scrabbling sound. The mound Jerek was crouching upon suddenly shifted, sending wet earth sliding away. The Wolf leaped backwards just as a hand emerged from the soil, grasping wildly at the air. The other hand followed a second or two after, pushing up through the earth to clutch and claw like the talons of some wild animal.

‘Someone’s alive down there,’ Isaac exclaimed. He scrambled over and began scooping away dirt. ‘Don’t worry — we’ll get you out of there!’ He reached down to try and take hold of one of the flailing hands.

Brodar Kayne felt a deep sense of foreboding. Everything about this village felt wrong. You didn’t reach his ripe old age without having a good instinct for this kind of thing.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, lad…’

With a blood-curdling moan, the head of the villager burst out of the ground. Worm-eaten eyes stared from his ruined face with undisguised hatred. The villager opened his mouth unnaturally wide, revealing a cavernous hole full of maggots and broken teeth. Isaac yelped in surprise as the thing grabbed hold of his arm and pulled itself out from the grave.

‘Fuck this,’ Jerek snarled. He barrelled into the creature, slamming it down onto the ground. His head snapped forwards, shattering the thing’s nose. It moaned pitifully as he dragged it along the ground for a few yards before bringing his boot down repeatedly on its head, breaking its skull open. One more stomp and its head collapsed with a sickening crack. It twitched a few times and went still.

Sasha screamed. Kayne glanced across to see a rotting figure lumbering towards her. He closed his eyes for a second. I thought I’d left this shit behind me. He tugged his sword free of its sheath.

A crossbow bolt thudded into the villager. It staggered from the impact but otherwise displayed no sign of having felt the quarrel. Sasha looked at her crossbow in disbelief.

‘Strollers, we call them up in the High Fangs,’ the old barbarian said. He raised his greatsword high in the air, swept it around and cut off the creature’s head in a single swing. ‘They appear sometimes after an abomination shows up in one of the Reachings. They’re none too bright and stubborn to kill, but they’re slow. Take off their heads and they die easy enough.’

Isaac had stabbed another of the shambling things multiple times, but it kept on coming at him. ‘The head, lad,’ Kayne shouted.

Sasha raised her crossbow again and fired.

The bolt sailed through the air and would have taken the creature dead in the back of the skull had the Wolf, who had been busy smashing another into the side of a tree, not inadvertently stepped into its path.

Brodar Kayne froze. Time seemed to stand still.

The bolt sank into Jerek’s shoulder in almost the exact spot the Watchman’s quarrel had struck a week before.

‘Fucking whore,’ Jerek snarled. His face was rage personified. ‘You’ll pay for that.’ He stalked towards her.

‘I didn’t mean-’ Sasha began, but his backhand snapped her head around and knocked her to the ground. He reached behind him, pulled an axe free with his good arm.

‘Jerek.’

The Wolf spun around. ‘Stay out of this, Kayne.’

‘I can’t do that.’

His old friend scowled. Blood ran down his arm from the bolt in his shoulder but he hardly seemed to care. ‘You gonna try and stop me?’

Kayne shrugged. ‘I reckon I will.’

The Wolf chuckled, a horrible grating sound devoid of humour. ‘Always the hero.’

‘I ain’t no hero and I never claimed to be. I’m an old man trying to do the right thing in what little time I got left. I ain’t letting you harm the girl.’

‘You’re half dead, Kayne.’

‘And you’ve only got one good arm. Hardly a duel for the ages.’

Jerek snorted. ‘Like in the sagas of the great Highlanders of old? I reckon we’re both too old for that shit.’

‘Aye.’ The sword quivered in his hands. His arms were shaking.

Brodar Kayne had lost count of the number of men he had killed over the years. The young and the old, good men and bad men both — the latter when he could, but the Shaman was a capricious master and it wasn’t for his champion to decide right from wrong. He had been the Sword of the North, a man feared and respected in equal measure.

The time was well past when he took pride in any of that, but facts were facts. He had never lost a fight, though others had possessed reputations to rival his own: Borun, his sword-brother; Mehmon, who had been as hard as the ice that covered his Reaching before he had grown old and soft. The Butcher of Beregund was said to be peerless on the field of battle, and if there was one Highlander he would have relished matching steel against it was that murderous, raping bastard.

They were hard men all, but he wouldn’t have backed any of them against the one staring him in the face just then. Jerek was as relentless as the Reaver himself, and as tough and brutal a fighter as Kayne had ever known.

He drew a deep breath and gasped at the pain in his stomach. Readied himself for a fight he was certain would be his last. The sword hilt felt slick in his fevered palms.

Jerek’s eyes narrowed. ‘Fuck this,’ he said. He lowered his axe. He turned to Sasha, who was struggling back to her feet. She had an angry red mark on the left side of her face. ‘You ain’t heard the last of this. For now, keep the fuck out of my way.’ That said, he stormed off into the night.

Kayne heaved a weary sigh and let his sword dip towards the ground. That didn’t go too badly, all things considered.

They walked over to Isaac. The manservant appeared to be unharmed. He had succeeded in lopping off the head of the stroller that had been attacking him and was scanning the area for more of the creatures. ‘I think I’ve read about these things,’ he said. ‘Sometimes, when enough wild magic is present, souls will cross over from the realm of the dead and return to their former bodies.’

Kayne glanced down at the headless corpse near Isaac’s feet. ‘Huh. They don’t seem very grateful for another crack at life, all things considered.’

There was another flash of lightning and the manservant jumped. He smiled sheepishly. ‘The spirits are consumed with hatred and rage. Their deaths were not happy ones.’

‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

‘I read a lot of books. It’s one of the perks of working at the depository.’

‘I ain’t never read a book in my life.’

‘But you’ve fought these creatures before?’

‘Aye. Them and worse. Strollers ain’t the worst of what plagues the Fangs. The demons that come down from the Devil’s Spine, they’re as tough as most abominations and a good deal smarter. And there’s been more of ’em as the years go by.’

‘Demons are little more than children’s tales in these parts.’

Kayne shrugged. ‘The witch doctors say the barrier between the realm of men and the realm of demons is weak up in the Spine, and getting weaker. They say the murder of the gods broke the world.’

For a moment Isaac’s dull face seemed to register a keen interest. ‘What does the Shaman say?’

‘Nothing. He don’t talk about the gods. He don’t talk about the past at all.’

Isaac was about to say something else when a loud gasp nearby drew their attention. Kayne turned, afraid he would find the Wolf making good on his promise to Sasha. Instead the girl was staring off at something across the village.

‘What is it, lass?’ he asked.

She pointed through the rain to a large building in the distance. ‘There’s a granary over there. I saw a light flickering inside. And… there was something else. It didn’t look human.’

‘One of these?’ Isaac asked, pointing at the motionless stroller Jerek had battered against a tree. The Wolf was nowhere to be seen.

Sasha shook her head. ‘Bigger. And it had too many arms.’

‘Can’t say I like the sound of that,’ Kayne muttered. His voice shook. The fever was getting worse and, with the adrenalin from the recent excitement wearing off, he was feeling as bad as before. His wound needed urgent attention. There was nothing else for it. ‘If there’s light, could be there’s villagers within. One of them might be a physician, or know where we can find supplies.’

‘What about the thing I saw? What happens if it attacks us?’

Brodar Kayne gripped his sword tighter and tried to disguise the weakness in his voice. ‘I ain’t dead yet.’

The granary was an old cylindrical structure set back near the fence that surrounded the village. It was built on a low platform accessible by a short set of wooden steps. A couple of holes set high in the structure emitted the faint glow of torchlight, but no one answered when they knocked on the door. On further investigation they found it was barred from behind and likely barricaded within.

‘Shit,’ said Brodar Kayne.

A twig snapped behind them. He whirled around, his sword in his hands and up to strike before his ears had barely registered the noise.

It was the Wolf. ‘Like that then, is it?’ he asked. He sounded almost hurt.

‘Where did you get to?’ Kayne asked.

‘For a walk. Needed to let off some steam.’

Kayne noticed Sasha and Isaac staring at him. ‘What?’ he said.

The girl had an astonished look on her face. ‘I’ve never seen you move like that before,’ she said.

‘Like what?’

‘Like… that. I thought you were hurt.’

‘Ain’t the first time I’ve been hurt, lass. I got a lifetime’s experience of not dying. My body’s learned to take care of itself without any help from my old brain. There’s no substitute for experience.’

‘You must teach me!’ Isaac said excitedly. ‘Oh, I’ve read a lot about swordplay, but to learn from a legend such as the Sword of the North… Now that would be a dream come true!’

‘If we manage to survive the night I might just do that,’ the old Highlander replied. ‘Now probably ain’t the time, though-’

‘Saw some nasty shit,’ Jerek cut in abruptly. They all looked at him. ‘Villagers choked to death. Some with entrails hanging out of their arses,’ he added darkly. ‘Just like that cow. Killed a couple more strollers, too.’

Brodar Kayne felt a shiver run up his spine. ‘That thing you saw, lass. Think it might be responsible?’

Sasha thought about it for a moment and nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And it’s out there somewhere.’ Her hand went to the crossbow under her cloak.

Kayne rapped on the granary door again. ‘Let us in,’ he said as loudly but amicably as he could manage. ‘We’re friends.’

There was no response.

Jerek strolled up to the door and slammed a boot into it. It hardly budged. ‘Open the fucking door!’ he bellowed. When there was no answer, he reached behind him and unsheathed an axe.

Kayne was about to restrain him when suddenly he heard it: a susurration, as of a handful of snakes slithering over snow. The air smelled rotten, like a dozen corpses left to rot in the sun for a week. He knew that odour, had learned to read the signs when he served the Shaman as the protector of the High Fangs.

An abomination was approaching.

As one they turned. There it was, emerging from behind rain-swept trees like a nightmare made flesh. Its torso was humanoid in shape but supported on two thick tentacles instead of legs, and it spouted a dozen writhing tendrils in place of arms. They twisted and curled obscenely, probing as if tasting the air. A small and vaguely human head perched on top of the body, but it possessed no eyes or nose or ears — only an oversized mouth frozen in a death rictus.

One of the tendrils snaked out in their direction, paused for a second, and then retracted. Suddenly the lower tentacles pushed down hard on the muddy ground, raising the abomination high into the air so that it hovered above them. The head began to vibrate, faster and faster until it became a blur.

Jerek shifted and then his axe was hurtling towards the horror, end over end. It sank into the puffy grey flesh, splitting it open. From the sundered chest of the abomination poured a torrent of pus, as though a giant blister had burst. The stench made Kayne want to vomit. The head continued to vibrate, and then the abomination was writhing towards them on its hind limbs like some gigantic spider preparing to engulf its prey.

‘Get out of here!’ he yelled, pushing Isaac and Sasha away. Jerek had his other axe in his hand. The Wolf looked at him, nodded once, and then sprinted forwards, ducking under one flailing tendril to roll and come up just behind the abomination.

His old bones protesting with every movement, his abused flesh slick from fever and the relentless rain, Brodar Kayne lifted his greatsword and strolled to meet the horror. Just need to hold it off long enough for the girl and Isaac to escape, he thought grimly.

A tendril shot down, reaching for his head, but he leaned back at the last moment and it passed in front of him. Another darted towards his chest. He pivoted, felt it brush harmlessly against his leather. Foul mucus dripped from its length, which tapered to a hardened barb at the end.

Jerek was to the right of him, a dozen feet away. The Wolf was chopping away at two of the probing tendrils. He severed one. The other wrapped itself around his ankles and jerked upwards. Uttering a stream of curses, the Wolf was tugged from his feet and pulled along the mud as he tried desperately to line up another slash at the grappling appendage.

Isaac suddenly sprinted into view, a torch in one hand and his longsword in the other. ‘How do you like this?’ he shouted at the apparition, and hurled the torch at its lower tentacles.

Kayne watched the torch land and brush against the wormy flesh of the abomination’s leg-tentacles. He half expected it to catch fire and flare up like a pile of dry old kindling. Instead the flame flickered for a second and fizzled out. He looked across at Isaac.

‘What was that lad?’, he was about to ask, but a tendril swooped around and lashed the manservant across the chest, sending him flying. He struck the ground hard and didn’t get back up. Jerek was still struggling unsuccessfully nearby.

‘Shit,’ said the old barbarian again. He raised his sword and held it horizontally before him. ‘Come on then. Just you and me now.’

The eyeless head turned away from Jerek to face him. He gritted his teeth. That damned vibrating was giving him a headache.

Tendrils shot down, one from the left and then two from the right, grasping and probing. Kayne stepped back, ducked under one, leaped another, brought his sword around and was rewarded by the sight of a twitching appendage flying away into the night. His momentary satisfaction evaporated as another limb flailed down and raked his hide armour with its barbed claw. It sliced through the leather with ease, scoring a deep gouge in his chest. He felt blood well up from the wound. Something snapped inside him.

‘That the best you got?’ he snarled. He whirled around, ducked under one tendril and severed it. He switched his sword to his left hand, reached out and wrenched Jerek’s axe from the monster’s torso with his right. It came loose in a spray of vile fluid that coated him from head to foot, but he was beyond caring.

‘I’ve been half drowned,’ he said, bringing the weapons together with a clash. ‘Gutted like a fish.’ Clash. ‘Got a fever that’s left me feeling worse than death.’ Clash. ‘And to add to my woes, this fucking rain is making me piss like a horse.’ Clash. He pointed both weapons at the abomination. ‘So — I ain’t in the mood to stand here and be buggered up the arse by the likes of you.’ Clash.

He burst into motion, each weapon dancing independent of the other, swatting away and slicing at the snaking limbs that converged on him. He rolled away from one, dived under another, somehow keeping ahead of the torrent of spongy flesh. He was buffeted in the shoulder and back, one tendril locking around his leg before he hacked it away an instant later. His heart hammered in his chest and his breaths came in laboured gasps, but he didn’t dare stop moving for a second.

Before he knew it the attacks slowed and then stopped completely. He blinked rainwater and foul discharge from his eyes, in time to see Jerek free himself from the last remaining appendage. He looked mighty pissed off and was covered in filth, but he was otherwise unharmed.

The torso of the abomination loomed before him, now bereft of limbs save for the two tentacles supporting it from the ground. The head suddenly ceased quivering.

‘Had enough?’ he panted. He doubled over, his heart feeling like it would tear free of his chest. Just need to catch my breath.

‘Kayne,’ Jerek rasped. It sounded like a warning. With a mighty effort, he raised his head back up.

‘Shit.’

The severed tendrils were growing back with alarming speed, sprouting from the shoulders of the humanoid torso like unholy vines. Jerek shook his head and spat. He looked worried. ‘How the fuck do we kill this thing?’

Brodar Kayne didn’t have an answer. He was spent, his body pushed to breaking point and beyond.

‘Out of the way!’

The shout came from behind them. The girl. He tried to turn, to yell at her to flee, but the effort was too great. He saw Jerek grimace, dive to the side. A crossbow twanged, and suddenly the magical horror had a bolt lodged in the back of its mouth.

‘Run!’ Sasha screamed. Jerek took hold of him, pulled him away-

Not for the first time that week, the world exploded.

‘Urgh.’

‘Easy, now. Your body has endured a great deal of abuse. Even a young man would be lucky to survive the wounds you have suffered.’

He didn’t recognize the voice. It sounded like it belonged to an old fellow. An older fellow, at any rate.

He tried to open his eyes. Couldn’t. ‘Where am I?’ he asked, battling a rising sense of panic.

‘The village of Farrowgate. You’re inside my home. Your friends are with me. The combustion temporarily blinded you — or it may have been the ichor in your eyes. In any case, I am confident your vision will return.’

‘I’m here, Kayne.’ It was Jerek’s voice — gruff, unfriendly and, at that moment, the most comforting sound in the world.

‘What happened?’ he managed.

‘I had some of Vicard’s powder,’ said a woman. It was Sasha, he realized. ‘I took it from his backpack just after the Rift. Isaac hollowed out a bolt head for me a while back and I filled it with the stuff. I didn’t really think it would work.’

‘It was purely theoretical,’ droned Isaac. ‘You might just have revolutionized warfare. Imagine — a mere girl blowing apart a magical abomination!’

‘A mere girl?’ Sasha’s voice had turned frosty.

‘Uh, no offence,’ Isaac said quickly. ‘I was trying to pay you a compliment.’

‘Don’t.’

Silence.

‘First useful thing the bitch has done, shutting you up,’ said Jerek. More silence. ‘The second,’ he amended grudgingly. ‘Though I reckon we’d have taken the fucker ourselves if it came to it. Right, Kayne?’

Kayne sighed. Somehow they’d all survived. With any luck, the remainder of the journey back to Dorminia would be uneventful and they would collect their gold and be on their way. Assuming his sight returned and he didn’t die of his wounds between now and then.

Well, a man could hope.