Age of the Undead, page 8
part #1 of Zombicide Black Plague Series
The room behind the workshop proved to be used for storage. Planks of wood of varying sizes were piled against the walls and stacked on the floor. A few completed barrels were lined up in the middle of the floor. These details Gaiseric took in at a glance, his attention quickly drawn to the feature that had commanded Helchen’s interest. A wooden door at the back of the room.
“It won’t budge,” Helchen reported as she pushed against the door. She kicked a bar she’d removed and sent it skittering across the floor. “I think it’s blocked on the other side.”
Gaiseric could hear the barrier behind the front entrance being jostled as the abomination forced its way into the workshop. If whatever was blocking the back door was even half as robust, they were trapped.
“Get a running start,” Gaiseric told Helchen. She stepped away and they counted down from three. When they reached two, they could hear the barrier in the front room collapse and the zombies start lumbering into the building. Another moment and the undead would be on them.
“Three,” the survivors said as they ran at the door. Their combined weight smashed through the barrier and they went hurtling through the splintered panel.
Gaiseric had expected them to spill out into a street or alleyway. Instead, they were in a dark space that was rank with animal smell. The storage room was connected to another building!
The thief started to pick himself off the ground when a low snarl stopped him. In the gloom he could make out a hairy body and gleaming fangs. Gaiseric had broken into enough places to know a guard dog when he saw one.
Or did he? This looked to be bigger. A lot bigger. There was something else in the room too, something that had a weapon clenched in its hands. From the broad shoulders, long arms, and bandy legs, Gaiseric knew what he was looking at couldn’t be human.
Even in the dark, he could see the reddish gleam of eyes staring at him. The sort of eyes that, once seen, no one could ever forget. How it could be, Gaiseric didn’t know, but in their hurry to escape from the zombies, they’d fled straight into an orc.
•••
Helchen froze when she heard the low, bestial snarl. She spotted a lupine shape crouched only a few feet away, its fangs gleaming in the little light that trickled into the room. Then her eyes fell upon the gruesome figure that stood beside the animal. She’d heard of orcs before, seen drawings of them, even saw the pickled head of one at a traveling sideshow when she was a child. But she’d never seen a live orc before. Even in this dim light, she could sense the brutal strength of that inhuman frame.
“Wutz der rumpuz?” The orc’s voice was a deep rumble, his words twisted by fangs every bit the equal of the animal beside him. The brute ducked down and peered through the smashed door. He made an impatient gesture with the weapon he carried. “Dangle, ya mugz,” he snarled.
Gaiseric caught at Helchen’s arm. “He wants us to go inside,” he told her.
“You understand that gibberish?” the witch hunter marveled.
“Of course,” the thief answered, though there was a dubious note in his tone. He glanced up at the orc. “They’re not known for patience,” he said, urging her on.
Zombies behind her and an orc looming over her, Helchen saw no point in arguing. She scrambled alongside Gaiseric into the most miserable grog shop she’d ever seen. The smell of the liquor seeping from the barrels behind the bar would gag a rat. A scattering of rickety tables and stools made up the place’s furnishings. There was more light though, courtesy of a jagged crack in the ceiling above.
Helchen spun around when she heard a loping tread behind her. The animal had followed them out from the back room. She saw now that it was a big gray wolf, its hide mottled with old scars. One of its fangs was capped with a sharp piece of iron and it had a spiked collar around its neck.
The wolf glared at the humans as it circled past them. A moment later, its master shifted into the room.
The orc was well over six feet in height, his arms longer than those of a human while his legs were shorter in proportion. His face had a pushed-in appearance, with broad, flaring nostrils and a low forehead. The red eyes were small and recessed deep in the sockets. His jaw bulged with yellowed fangs that projected past his lips. The orc’s coloring was a deep green and the skin had a leathery texture to it.
The orc’s vestments added to his savage appearance. His head was covered by a mail coif, rents in the sides allowing his pointed ears to project past the armor. He wore a kind of jerkin fashioned from hides, to which had been added strips of mail and patches of steel plate. His left arm was encased in greaves clearly forged for a human knight and then battered and smashed to accommodate an orc. About his waist he wore a wolfskin and the boots on his feet were fashioned from the same material. Helchen could see a curved scimitar thrust under the band of his belt. Its edge serrated like the teeth of a saw.
“Ya mugz gotz der cadavaz ta ruckuz,” the orc snarled. He hefted the weapon he held, which Helchen now saw was a huge mattock with a spiked head.
“Uh… he’s not happy we brought zombies to his hideout,” Gaiseric said. Before he could add anything else, the sound of the creatures in question tearing their way out of the storeroom reached them.
“Dangle,” the orc grunted, nodding impatiently at the street outside the grog shop. Without waiting to see what they would do, he hefted his mattock and brought it slamming against the frame of the door leading into the back room. Plaster pelted down from the ceiling and a violent groan shook the building.
Helchen’s eyes went wide when she understood what the orc was doing. “That’s the supporting wall! He’s going to bring down the whole building!”
The pair scrambled for the door. Helchen flung herself out into the street, rolling as she struck the cobblestones. She just had time to look back and see the orc swat the wall again, to note the abomination stalking towards him from the inner room before the dilapidated structure came crashing down. The demolition sent a wave of dust spilling across the neighborhood and a thunderous roar booming across the town.
Helchen regained her feet, watching as rubble pattered down from the partly demolished structure. A great mound of broken wood and shattered tiles had replaced the room they’d so recently escaped. She watched for any sign of movement, uncertain which she feared most to see claw free of the pile: the abomination or the orc.
“I guess that’s one way to kill a lot of zombies,” Helchen commented as she glanced aside at Gaiseric.
Gaiseric shook his head, his eyes roving over the buildings around them. “The orc might have just brought every undead in Singerva headed this way,” he advised. “We know they follow noise, and there isn’t a chance they didn’t hear that.” He nodded at the collapsed grog shop. “At least he seems to have settled that monster that was chasing us.” Curiously, it seemed to Helchen the rogue regretted that the orc had buried himself along with the zombies.
The witch hunter frowned as she looked at their surroundings. “I don’t see how we’ll get back to Alaric,” she confessed. “After all the turns we’ve taken, I don’t even know what direction to take.”
“Anywhere that isn’t here is fine to me,” Gaiseric told her. “If the zombies think they just heard a dinner gong, I intend to get as far away from here as I can.” He spat in his palm and clapped his hands together. “Luck,” he said as he parted his hands and glanced at his damp palm. “That way,” he pronounced, pointing to a side street.
“Why that way?” Helchen challenged him.
Gaiseric smiled. “Because it’s better to trust in luck than random chance,” he explained. “Just because the town’s a shambles is no reason to be uncivilized.”
The thief’s reasoning left Helchen flabbergasted. That Gaiseric didn’t try to explain further, but just started off in the direction he’d chosen agitated her even more. Just the same, she found herself falling in beside him as he hurried along the deserted street.
“I suppose it’s better to be lost than alone,” Helchen told herself. There was a sardonic satisfaction in knowing that if Gaiseric came to regret his capricious whim, at least she’d be there to see it.
The desolate street they followed led into another even more decrepit. Abandoned shops, looted warehouses, once they even came upon a granary, the doors smashed open and grain spilled across the street. Helchen saw even worse evidence of the chaos that had enveloped Singerva. From a tree she saw a body hanging by a rope, pinned to its chest a sign that read “Usurer”. In its death throes, some of the citizenry had set themselves to settling old grudges.
“A bad way to go,” Gaiseric commented when he saw the hanged man. He prodded the corpse, setting it to swinging. As he did, the body suddenly sprang into a far more lethal animation. It clutched at the thief with its hands, grabbing him by the hair and trying to lift him up toward its gnashing mouth.
Helchen leveled her crossbow and sent a bolt smashing into the zombie’s face. The body lost its animation and Gaiseric fell onto the street. “Maybe I would be safer alone,” she sighed, shaking her head.
“You know you’d be lost without me,” Gaiseric said as he dusted himself off.
“It seems to me I’m lost with you,” Helchen replied. “What do I need you for?”
“You…” Gaiseric’s expression suddenly shifted from levity to deadly seriousness. He was staring past Helchen, at something behind her. “You need me as an interpreter.”
Helchen let the crossbow drop and reached for her mace as she spun around. Only a few yards away she saw the orc and his wolf. They were covered in dust and dark blood oozed from a cut in the orc’s forehead, but the two looked very much ready for a fight.
“Been snoopin ’bout fer ya mugz,” the orc growled. “Not lampin ya stiff ’n der road. Noodl’d ya wan’t cold.”
Helchen glanced over her shoulder at Gaiseric. The thief’s brow was knotted as he tried to decipher the orc’s grunts.
“He was trying to find us. See if we were dead or not,” Gaiseric translated.
Helchen kept her weapon ready, though it looked puny beside the mattock clenched in the orc’s fists. “Why? He wanted to kill us himself? Take a few heads back to his cave?”
The orc glowered at her and Helchen realized that while she might not understand him, the same didn’t necessarily hold true.
“Der haigh haht donna wash,” the orc scowled at her. “Imma kroak ya, ya bein’ buzzrd chow aready.” He turned and looked at Gaiseric. “Ya der abrecrumby, wot lampz wotz wot. Der town gawn louzy from cadavaz. Cadavaz makin’ all der bimboz inta slugburgah.” He hefted his mattock and his eyes narrowed. “Biggah der mawb, betta der bulge.”
Helchen shook her head. “Tell me that made sense,” she defied Gaiseric.
The thief smiled at her. “He says because Singerva is overrun by zombies, it would make sense for us to join forces.” His grin broadened. “He also seems to think I’m the smart one.” He was less pleased with himself when he found both the orc and the witch hunter glowering at him. “That’s not a direct translation. More of the gist.”
Helchen looked over the orc again, and the huge wolf at his side. “Gaiseric… I think you’d better try very hard to tell me exactly what he has to say. Because I’m pretty sure the orc understands.”
The orc took one of his hands away from his mattock and slapped his own chest. “Ya bein’ call me Radabrag.”
Gaiseric was quiet for a moment. Helchen could see him trying to work things out before speaking. “He says his name is Ratbag,” he finally announced.
The orc’s eyes widened and he stomped a foot against the cobblestones. “Booshwash,” he growled. “Lissen, ickie! Radabrag!” He slapped his chest again. “Radabrag!”
“That’s what I said,” Gaiseric snapped at the orc. “Ratbag!”
Helchen rolled her eyes. “Yes, let’s argue at the top of our voices. I’m sure there’s no zombies who’d come over to check on the noise.” She fixed Gaiseric with a stern look until she was certain he wasn’t going to persist. To her surprise, she found Ratbag almost sheepish when she gave him the same look.
“All right, if that’s settled, let’s find someplace where we can figure out our next move,” the witch hunter said. “We need to get back to Alaric. I’m sure he’ll need our help.” She pointed at the orc’s mattock. “The more warriors, the better our chances of surviving.”
Ratbag nodded to her. “Abrecrumby,” he said, then gestured with his thumb at Gaiseric. “Twit,” the orc grunted as he led his wolf down the street.
“What was that about?” Helchen asked the thief.
“Nothing,” Gaiseric grumbled. “He just seems to have reconsidered who’s the smart one.”
Chapter Seven
Gaiseric kept a careful eye on Ratbag’s wolf as it loped down the street. He’d abandoned trying to pronounce the animal’s name in orcish, deciding instead to just dub it “Fang.” As near as he could make out from the orc’s speech, the wolf was able to smell “cadavaz” from a good distance – exactly how far was a detail that he’d also given up trying to decipher. Knowing there were zombies around before the creatures knew he was around, Gaiseric didn’t think there was anything more advantageous.
Unfortunately, Ratbag was inattentive to Fang, taking little notice when the wolf became agitated. Twice now, the beast had alerted him to a pack of walkers lurking in a building or prowling an alleyway but its master had ignored the warning. Gaiseric had to concede that the orc’s mattock made short work of the undead, but had the zombies been more numerous he didn’t think things would have been so easy.
“Ya wantta miss der rumble,” Ratbag chuckled when Gaiseric broached the subject. An orc’s laugh was an unsettling thing, like listening to a lion licking its chops.
“He’s more interested in fighting than he is surviving,” Gaiseric confided to Helchen as they picked their way down the street.
“If that was true, he’d already have been killed,” Helchen pointed out. “There’s no shortage of zombies prowling Singerva.”
“Maybe he has sense enough to run away if he thinks there’s too many,” Gaiseric suggested. He nodded as he warmed to his own idea. “That’s probably why he demanded we join up with him. He figures with us along he can get into bigger fights.”
“Only a madman would think like that,” Helchen said.
“You seem to forget that he isn’t human,” Gaiseric replied.
“Neither are elves or dwarfs,” the witch hunter countered. “Yet they’re rational enough.”
“I’ve been around orcs when I was a scout on the frontier,” Gaiseric said. “They don’t think the way we do.”
Curiosity gleamed in Helchen’s eyes when she looked at Gaiseric. “You were a scout on the Duchy of Wulfsburg?”
The thief squirmed under her scrutiny. “Years ago,” he tersely replied. “I don’t like to talk about it. It wasn’t to my liking. I don’t like being responsible for other people.” He made a furtive gesture at Ratbag, desperate to turn the conversation away from himself. “Besides, we were talking about orcs. How their minds work. They see everyone and everything as either a challenge to be overcome or a possession to be controlled.”
Helchen shook her head. “And you say an orc doesn’t think like a human? You’ve never met someone who sees the world in just those terms?” For just a moment, a troubled look crossed her face, some connection she’d rather not have made that was stirred by her words.
“Whatever you think, I’m keeping my eyes on Fang,” the thief said. “Ratbag might not pay attention, but I’m going to. Next time that wolf picks up the smell of zombie, we’re going in the other direction.”
Ratbag suddenly turned. Gaiseric squirmed when the orc’s eyes met his. More than just comprehension, his hearing was also keener than the thief had thought. “Gastric,” he fumbled Gaiseric’s name – deliberately, the rogue thought, “wotz der schnozz gonna sniff if’n der cadavaz bein’ frontta der wind?” The orc gave him a toothy grin before turning back around and taking the lead again.
“So?” Helchen inquired.
Gaiseric only had a few words he understood, but he wasn’t about to admit that to her. “Ratbag said if I was so interested in Fang, I could start feeding him.” That made more sense than some prattle about noses and the “front of the wind.” At least the explanation satisfied Helchen.
Abruptly, the wolf turned to the right, its nose lifted and its hackles raised. “There, see?” Gaiseric said. “Fang smells zombies.” He glanced over at Ratbag, but once again the orc was unconcerned by the wolf’s warning. “Come on, let’s make sure this mob doesn’t catch us by surprise.”
Gaiseric had his sword at the ready as he came up to where the wolf stood. Fang gave the thief a threatening snarl. Its master might have taken up with the humans, but the animal was less certain of its new companions. Gaiseric made a placating gesture and took a step back.
“Where are they?” Helchen asked, unlimbering her crossbow.
The thief stared into the bleak courtyard Fang was looking at. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m certain they’re near.”
Ratbag ambled back down the street to join them. He peered at the courtyard, then aside at the humans. “Nah somuch cadavaz,” he grumbled. “Nah somuch tuzzle.” He squinted at Gaiseric, then at Helchen. “Ya wanna lamp der cadavaz?”
“Better we find them than they find us,” Gaiseric chided the orc, remembering the last two times he’d ignored the wolf. He looked over at Helchen. “I’m not exactly eager for a fight, but if Fang is agitated, it means they’re close. If they’re walkers, all’s well. We can avoid them.”
“But you’re thinking there might be runners,” Helchen said.
Gaiseric rapped his finger against the hilt of his sword. “If there are, we won’t be able to lose them so easily. Worse, they can keep us too busy to slip away from the slow ones.” He looked at his companions, resenting the sense of responsibility that was coming over him. It was like being a scout all over again, trying to keep others out of harm. “We need to know what’s coming this way. Hit them first and then determine if we can safely withdraw.”
