Age of the Undead, page 16
part #1 of Zombicide Black Plague Series
Hulmul sagged against his staff. “A rare spell,” he told the others. “Be grateful that Vasilescu gave me access to it.”
Alaric started forward. “Most effective,” he commented as he looked over the flash-frozen undead.
Worry still nagged at Gaiseric. At his side, Fang remained tense. It was only when he felt something dripping down his face that he realized why. His sweat was thawing. He looked at the mob of frozen corpses. Helchen had joined Alaric now in examining the icy bodies.
“Get away!” the thief called to them. Nothing alive could survive being frozen like that, but the zombies hadn’t been truly alive to begin with. “They’re not dead!”
The warning was given just as the first walker cracked free of its icy casing. Its clutching hand snagged Helchen’s coat. She twisted around and smashed its hand with her mace, the frozen limb snapping off at the wrist. Alaric delivered a more permanent resolution, cleaving the creature’s head in two. The warriors hastened back, watching as the thawing zombies resumed their shambling march.
Gaiseric still sensed a great menace from the bloated zombie. They couldn’t let that monster get close. “Drahoslav, shoot the big one!” he told the duelist.
Drahoslav nocked an arrow and let fly in one smooth motion. The missile slammed into the zombie’s head, but merely quivered in its flabby skin. “I still hit my mark,” he declared. Quickly he put another arrow to the string.
The second arrow pierced the zombie’s eye, tearing so deep that the feathers sank into the socket. The bloated corpse crashed to the ground. In that moment, Gaiseric discovered that his fears were anything but unfounded.
The swollen flesh burst when it slammed against the cobblestones, splitting open like a wine-skin. Only instead of wine, it was a sizzling green muck that exploded from the zombie. The caustic filth showered the walkers around it, rapidly corroding their decayed flesh. In a matter of only a few moments, the entire mob collapsed, eaten away by the acids.
“Wotun, if I’d struck that thing with my sword.” Alaric shuddered.
Helchen shook her head and looked over at Gaiseric. “Did you know it would do that?”
“I didn’t,” the thief confessed. “It just looked so much like a dead toad after a hot day, it seemed the thing would burst any moment.”
Drahoslav looked across the group. “It may have escaped your notice, but it was my shot that killed the thing.”
“Your second shot.” Gaiseric couldn’t help but try to deflate the duelist’s pomposity.
“When it exploded, it took six others with it,” Drahoslav said. “That makes it seven for two.”
Helchen rolled her eyes. “Let’s hope there aren’t more like that. Otherwise, his ego might burst.”
•••
The doors to Ironshield and Company looked like they could withstand a drunken troll with a battering ram. Alaric had seldom seen anything so robustly built. The building around it was more like a fortification than a business. He knew dwarves built with an eye to durability, but he hadn’t expected anything like this.
“There’ll be no forcing our way in there,” Alaric declared. He looked over at Gaiseric. “Well, you’ve broken into places before. What do you think? Can those locks be picked?”
“Fortunately, they don’t have to be,” Hulmul said. The wizard rummaged in his pack and withdrew an iron flask. He motioned for the others to step back as he unstoppered the bottle and stepped to the door. Dipping what looked like a tiny femur into the flask, he slathered the door in a pungent, gooey blue muck. When he’d covered a section two feet across and about five feet high, Hulmul stepped back and threw away the empty vessel.
“Avoid looking at the door,” Hulmul instructed. He ran his hand down his spade-shaped beard. “You’ll have no problem knowing when it’s safe to look.”
Alaric turned his back on the building, as did the others, while Hulmul began to conjure. The strange inflections of the eldritch chant were unsettling, causing the hair on his arms to prickle. Yet it wasn’t nearly so disturbing as the sizzling sound that soon followed. The smell of hot metal soon reached his nose while the wizard continued to chant.
Finally, there was a loathsome, slopping sound and Hulmul fell silent. Alaric spun around, ready to confront whatever had interrupted the ritual. When his eyes fell upon the doors, he nearly dropped his sword in amazement.
The ritual hadn’t been interrupted. It had been completed. The portion of the immense metal doors that Hulmul had treated with the blue paste was gone, reduced to a mass of steaming slag at the base of the doorway.
Helchen stepped forward, gingerly testing the edge of the opening with the flat of her sword. The corrosive force appeared to have dissipated, for the blade was unmarked when she withdrew it. “The bile of a beithir,” the witch hunter mused, as she gave Hulmul a sideways glance. “More of mummery than magic in this trick.”
“Agreed,” the wizard conceded with a bow. “Anyone accustomed to the right cadence could have agitated the stomach parasites into activity.” He raised his finger for emphasis. “But is there not a certain magic in being able to mimic the gastric rumble of a cave wyrm?”
Gaiseric whistled as he checked the gap for himself. “Now there’s a trick I wouldn’t mind learning.”
“You’d have a hard time finding something valuable enough to warrant the expense,” Helchen told him. “There’s a short list of people who’ve managed to harvest bile from a live beithir.” She glanced back at Hulmul. “It does have to be alive to collect the parasites?” The wizard answered in the affirmative with another slight bow.
Alaric drew Gaiseric away from the door and stepped through. “Whatever its provenance, it worked. Let’s find those records and get out of here.” He looked over at Drahoslav. “Do you have any idea where the dwarves would keep their accounts?”
The duelist shook his head. “I only know the room they escorted Ernst to when he had business with them. It could be that’s where they kept their records, but it’s also possible they have an archive somewhere else.”
“At least it’s someplace to start,” Alaric said. He peered into the chamber beyond the doors. Or would have, had there been one. There was only a broad landing followed by a stairway plunging down into the earth. He could just make out the glow of lights below. “Drahoslav, take the lead with me. The rest of you follow. Ratbag, stand watch here. If Fang detects any zombies, let us know about it before you start chopping them up.” It was a good excuse to keep the orc away. Alaric might have developed a grudging acceptance – even respect – for the renegade, but he didn’t think the dwarves would be so understanding.
Keeping close so he could guard Drahoslav’s left flank, Alaric followed the duelist down the stairs. Only a few steps down, they were greeted by the sight of a mangled body. The stocky build and short legs indicated the corpse was dwarven rather than human. Sword at the ready, Alaric turned the corpse over with his shield. He let out a sigh of relief when the body remained inert.
“At least it doesn’t look like the contamination has passed into him,” Helchen commented as she peered down at the dwarf.
“He was clearly bitten though,” Alaric said, indicating the ugly wound on the dwarf’s thigh. The flesh was charred and blackened, but at the edges there were still the distinct marks of teeth. “Looks like he tried to burn the wound to kill the infection.” The knight shook his head and stepped back. “The cure might have been what killed him.”
Gaiseric glanced over the dwarf, then pointed at the illuminated hall below. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the dwarves would leave him like this?” The thief fingered the hilt of his sword. “I don’t think he’s the only one we’ll find who’s dead.”
The thief’s logic was hard to refute. Alaric had seen the reverence dwarves paid to their dead. They wouldn’t leave one of their own lying around without good reason. “Something happened here,” he said. “Until we find out what it was, stay vigilant.” He didn’t need to stress the warning. The mangled dwarf at their feet did that for him.
The steps led down to a vaulted hall, somewhere between a mine and a royal palace in appearance. The dwarves had spared no effort on the decorative carvings that covered every archway and column. The walls were of granite but polished to such an incredible sheen that they shone like marble in the flickering light. The illumination, Alaric noted, was provided by glowing crystals housed within iron cages that hung from the ceiling at intervals of thirty feet or so. The hall, as far as he could see, stretched away for hundreds of feet. Intermittently, doorways opened into the main passage, at least a dozen within the immediate proximity.
All of this, Alaric noted in passing, for his attention was quickly commanded by the carnage strewn about the hall. Bodies and blood were scattered throughout. The corpses of dwarves gnawed and dismembered. The remains of humans, corrupt with decay, smashed and pulverized as though they’d been caught in an avalanche.
“So who won here?” Drahoslav commented. “Whatever else you can say about them, the dwarves gave a good accounting of themselves. They must have destroyed hundreds of zombies down here.”
“Maybe the survivors fled,” Alaric proffered, though he sounded uncertain even to himself.
“There couldn’t have been many left then,” Drahoslav said as he marched through the havoc. “Otherwise they’d have seen to their own dead.” He shook his head and pointed to a doorway some fifty feet ahead. “That’s where they brought us when Ernst had business with Ironshield.”
Alaric started toward the doorway, then stopped. He looked down at one of the destroyed zombies. Its chest had collapsed from a terrific blow. It wasn’t the nature of the wound that disturbed the knight, but rather the suggestiveness of the outline. The zombie might have been crushed under an enormous boot.
Alaric looked up, staring ahead not at the doorway but a little farther down the hall. On either side of the corridor, poised upon pedestals set before each wall, were two massive statues. They were each ten feet tall and were some abstract representations of a dwarf warrior in design. Both stood with their hands folded over the peen of an enormous warhammer, leaning over the weapons… as though standing vigil.
“Drahoslav, wait,” Alaric said. The duelist, however, was already moving toward the doorway. Alaric’s gaze remained fastened on the statues. He thought of Gaiseric and the subconscious realization about the bloated zombie’s menace. He was experiencing a similar sensation. He was seeing something, but not recognizing its importance.
Then it came to him. There was blood on the warhammers, more blood on the stone boots! “Drahoslav, come back,” Alaric hissed.
It was too late. With a rumbling groan, one of the statues turned its helmeted head, staring at the duelist.
“Golem!” Hulmul shouted from back down the tunnel, fear in the wizard’s cry.
Golems. As Alaric backed away, he realized this was the answer to who’d prevailed in the battle of dwarf against zombie. Ironshield had brought stone automatons to guard his hall, mindless sentinels that had been roused to battle when the undead attacked. They’d prevailed, though too late to preserve the lives of their masters! Now, without anyone to command them, they were ready to attack any intruder, living or undead.
Drahoslav ran back, his arrogant poise broken by the heavy footfalls of the golems as they stepped down from their pedestals. One after the other, they raised their hammers and lumbered towards the humans.
“I think we have a problem,” Drahoslav said.
Alaric looked at the doorway where Ironshield’s records might be held. “We can’t run,” he declared. “Too much depends on getting that tome for Vasilescu.”
Helchen shot a bolt into one of the animated statues. It merely glanced off the golem’s chest. “I’d like to know how we fight solid stone!” she snarled.
Alaric continued to back away, racking his brain for an idea. Solid stone. In a siege, sappers would use fire to undermine castle walls and bring them crashing down. He turned his head. There was a burnt smell to the air. It wafted out from one of the nearby doorways. He couldn’t read dwarf runes, but he recognized the image of an anvil etched into the cornerstone.
“Drahoslav, lead them in here!” Alaric told the duelist. “Hulmul, come with me!”
The knight and the wizard ran into the anvil-room. It was as much a shambles as the hall outside, bodies strewn in every direction. From the furnishings that remained intact, it looked to have served as both forge and workshop. Alaric smiled when he saw what the burnt smell had led him to hope would be here. A great stone pot hoisted over a smoldering fire. Within was a bubbling mass of molten bronze.
“Get to cover and be ready with that ice spell,” Alaric told Hulmul. He dashed around to the side of the fire, his longsword clenched in both hands. He’d only have one chance. He wasn’t going to waste it.
Drahoslav backed into the room, loosing arrows from the elven bow. Close behind him came the golems, mindlessly fixated on the antagonist who had first drawn their attention. Alaric could feel the floor tremble as the hulking statues marched.
“Drahoslav! Get clear!” Alaric shouted to the duelist. The man didn’t need to be told twice. Spinning around, he sprinted for the back of the chamber. The golems stomped after him, but they didn’t get far.
“Now, Hulmul!” Alaric swung his sword at the chain holding the pot of boiling bronze.
The pot slammed to the floor, its molten contents flooding toward the golems. The statues stepped through the boiling metal without regard, intent only on their quarry.
Then Hulmul’s spell swept through that corner of the room. Alaric dove for cover as the icy blast spiraled in his direction. The golems were quickly covered in frost. Their stony bodies were unphased, but not so the molten metal on the floor. It was instantly hardened by the arcane cold, tightening around their feet, fastening them to the floor. Not comprehending why they couldn’t move, the automatons strained to free themselves and continue their remorseless march. The strain finally told, and it wasn’t the clinging bronze that finally yielded.
A loud crack echoed through the room as the first golem broke its own foot off at the ankle. It stumbled forward and its body slammed against the floor with a thunderous impact. The statue tried to raise itself with its hands, but the vicious fall had sent cracks throughout its monolithic frame. As it tried to move, the cracks became even greater fractures. Bit by bit, the golem crumbled away, still trying to reach Drahoslav as it disintegrated.
The second golem, without the initiative to learn from its companion’s destruction, mindlessly copied the other statue. Soon both were naught but a heap of rubble.
“Give me a horde of zombies any day,” Drahoslav commented as he wiped dirt from his coat.
Alaric shot him a grim look. “That’s a wish this town is certain to grant,” he said. The knight looked over at Hulmul. “Are you all right?”
The wizard nodded back. “I just need a moment to recover. That spell’s power isn’t so simple to evoke as others. I’ll be fine though.”
“Good,” the knight said. “Then let’s go search for Ironshield’s records and get out of here.”
After their encounter with the golems, it was a plan of action that brought no argument from his companions. It was a matter of moments before they were in Ironshield’s office. Here, as elsewhere, the struggle between dwarf and zombie had left many grisly reminders.
“If you see anything, let Gaiseric check it first,” Alaric advised as they started to search the room. “If Ironshield designed traps for the witch hunters, he’s certain to have kept a few for himself.”
Gaiseric sighed. “If he did, they won’t be easy to find,” he cautioned.
The thief’s warning quelled the haste Alaric wanted to conduct the search. The urgency was still there… and the fear that there were more golems somewhere in the hall. But they’d be just as dead if they triggered a hidden trap as they would under a statue’s heel. The knight was judicious as he inspected the tables and shelves that dominated the room. The others were equally cautious.
“How will we know it when we find it?” Drahoslav asked, turning from a desk in frustration.
“Any transaction with the Order is sure to bear our seal,” Helchen reminded everyone. “Look for the emblem of a skull impaled by a wooden stake.”
“It seems to me there’s not room here for the accounts Ironshield and Company must have acquired,” Hulmul suggested as he set down a sheet of copper he’d been examining. “Certainly, it would be a weighty collection if everything is etched into copper.”
Alaric nodded in agreement. As he did so, he stumbled over a thick rug lying on the floor. Recovering, he saw that the corner had been kicked back by his tripping feet. There seemed to be a faintly larger gap between the paving stone beneath it and the one next to it compared with the rest of the room. “Gaiseric, help me move this,” he said, leaning down and gripping the rug. When it was drawn away, they could all see the outline of a trapdoor. Under normal circumstances, it probably would have been nigh impossible to spot, but just now, the severed arm of a zombie was pinned beneath its edge, propping it up ever so slightly.
“Take a look,” Alaric said, nudging Gaiseric.
The thief pressed himself to the floor, circling around the trapdoor like a dog sniffing at a bone. His hands hovered around the edges, his eyes peered into the cracks. Finally, he pressed his ear against the surface, listening for better than a minute for the murmur of a hidden mechanism. “I can’t find anything, but that isn’t a perfect guarantee there isn’t something there.”
Alaric took a moment to nerve himself to the implied risk. “I found it, it’s my job to open it.”
Gaiseric gave him a respectful nod. “Step back and I’ll show you where the catch is.” A wry smile curled his face the moment the knight withdrew. His hand dipped to a particular spot on the slab, depressing a concealed button. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, but the only result was the stone popped a few inches up from the floor around it.
