Isle of the Undead, page 8
part #2 of Zombicide Black Plague Series
“Ahoy to shore!” a sharp voice cried out to Gaiseric. The ship was still ten feet from the edge of the pier when the speaker vaulted over the gunwale and landed on the planks. She made for an imposing sight, cutlass and axe swinging from the belts that circled her waist. Unlike the other pirates, her garb was more somber, sealskin leggings and a loose leather shirt. An assortment of gold and silver necklaces hung about her throat and dangling from her ears were gold rings so big they looked like bracelets.
The woman’s skin had a dusky, warm brown hue that further offset the grisly adornment that covered her face. For, across her features, the pirate had inked a leering death’s head in white dye. Her dark eyes smoldered from the sockets of the painted skull.
“Lucky for you I told my boys to take a hand,” the pirate said as she walked toward Gaiseric. Her painted lips peeled back, displaying her teeth beneath the painted skull’s smile. “Now I need to know if we were just wasting our time.”
Gaiseric reached to his belt. The sudden motion brought the pirate’s cutlass flashing from its sheath. Up on the ship, he could hear bows being drawn taut and knew the archers were taking aim. If the skull-faced woman didn’t finish him, they would.
“Just seeing what I might have to offer so gracious a lady,” Gaiseric said. Before he could retrieve anything from his belt, however, the pirate lunged at him. He only had an impression of motion before he felt her arm around his throat. She spun him around, using him to cover her own body. Facing back toward shore, he saw Alaric and the others approaching with weapons drawn.
“That would be far enough,” the pirate declared when they were halfway down the pier. Her eyes roved across the group, wavering between Alaric and Helchen.
“We appreciate you killing that monster for us,” Alaric said, nodding toward the impaled lurker. “But if you don’t let my friend go, you’ll–”
“Now’s not the time to be making threats, von Mertz,” Gaiseric called out as the pirate brought her cutlass against his neck.
“Your friend’s right about that,” the woman said. “You’ve no time at all. My boy in the crow’s nest has spotted the undead closing in on this village. If you want to get your people out of here, The Demoness is your only chance.”
“Demoness?” Helchen gasped. “Then that would make you Captain Sylvia Samdei.”
The pirate laughed and released her hold on Gaiseric. Rubbing at his bruised throat, he staggered a few steps away and grimaced. It went against his grain, and might only be delaying disaster, but for the moment he knew they had to trust the buccaneers. He looked over at Alaric. “Introductions can wait,” he coughed. “If she’s willing to take everyone aboard, then we’re not in a position to argue.”
“You said it yourself,” Alaric objected. “They’re pirates. They’ll just rob and murder us.”
Sylvia laughed again. “At least we’ll rob you first. If you just want to be murdered, you can stay here and wait for the zombies.”
Gaiseric thought it was a gruesome sort of logic, but it was hard to refute. “There’s no good bet here,” he said, “but if we have to gamble, I say we get aboard.” He held Alaric’s gaze and said something he knew would sway the knight. “This way at least we know we won’t be joining Gogol’s horde when we die.”
“And I might only maroon you,” Sylvia suggested. “But make up your mind fast. I know my people don’t intend to stick around and join the undead.”
Alaric bowed his head, accepting that he really had no choice. “Get everyone moving,” he shouted, his voice carrying back to the refugees on shore. “We’re taking passage on Captain Sylvia’s ship.”
The choice made, some of the tension left the air. The archers on the quarterdeck lowered their weapons and the artillerists aimed their ballista at the street leading down to the pier. Gaiseric watched as the pirates lowered a gangplank and the refugees hurried aboard the sinister ship.
“Loaded dice and marked cards,” Gaiseric muttered as he clambered onto the ship. Their only hope now lay in the capricious whims of a pirate crew.
Gaiseric wondered if the Black Plague was still a threat if you ended up at the bottom of a river with a chain around your feet.
Chapter Seven
Helchen watched as the village of Schweinhoff receded ever farther into the distance. She could see the spectral walkers swarming about the shore. Sylvia had been right about how little time they’d had, but looking at Alaric, she could tell he felt regret that they’d been unable to check for any of the people who’d fled when the swamp lurker attacked.
She was grateful they were out of earshot when a handful of the missing refugees ran out from the village, desperate to escape the zombies. The sight of the doomed wretches brought screams from the survivors who were on the decks of The Demoness. They pleaded with the pirates to go back, to rescue the townsfolk. Helchen knew it was a futile effort. Even if they could persuade Sylvia to turn back, they’d never make it in time to do any good. All any of them could do was watch the wretches be surrounded and overwhelmed. There were some things that the Order’s training could never quite inure someone to. Watching a witch or necromancer burn was far different from seeing simple townsfolk ripped to pieces.
The witch hunter turned and climbed up to the quarterdeck where Alaric was talking with Sylvia. The scene reminded her of times when Captain Dietrich had conducted negotiations with street gangs in Mordava to help track down a suspected necromancer. Each gang leader had brought his own retinue in a show of strength. Alaric, with Ursola, Gaiseric, and Ratbag positioned nearby, faced off with the skull-faced pirate and her own cadre. The hook-handed, wild-haired quartermaster, a man named Korsgaard, kept fingering the collection of throwing knives sheathed across his sharkskin vest. The bosun Raubin had a kraken inked across his bald pate and a brace of crossbow pistols hanging from his belt. The first mate, Mendoza, had as cruel a visage as any Helchen had ever seen and a rope burn around his neck that his colorful scarf couldn’t quite hide. Then there was the ogre, nine feet and eight hundred pounds of barely restrained carnage. The way Brog and Ratbag glared at one another, she felt it was nothing short of a miracle that the two hadn’t come to blows already.
“Of course, we could take advantage of you if we liked,” Sylvia pronounced, lounging in the wicker chair Brog had brought on deck for her.
“You could try,” Alaric retorted, his hand tightening about the sword sheathed at his side. “It might not go so well for you.”
“Be sensible,” Helchen told the knight as she stepped onto the quarterdeck. “If they were going to try anything, they’d have disarmed us when we were coming aboard.”
“Then maybe it would be a good idea to stop joking about robbery,” Gaiseric said, frowning at the words almost as soon as he spoke them.
“Unless I very much miss my mark,” Sylvia commented, her eyes roving up and down the wiry rogue, “you’ve not done much honest work yourself.”
Gaiseric bristled at her words. “I’ve never sent a shipload of people to the bottom of the sea,” he shot back.
“Neither have I,” Sylvia told him. She shrugged. “It’s a poor pirate who does that sort of thing, like a milkmaid who kills the cow. A sunken ship brings no more shipments to be waylaid.” Her smile grew colder. “Naturally, from time to time it’s necessary to remind ship captains that there’s worse things than robbery, but when you resort to those measures, you always want to leave some witnesses around to tell others you’re not one to be trifled with.”
Helchen thought the pirate was being truthful enough. It made a vicious sort of sense, from an economic perspective, that there wasn’t a margin in wholesale murder. Profit appeared uppermost in Sylvia’s agenda. Cost versus gain. However, she decided maybe the buccaneer needed to consider the other side of that equation. “We’re not ones to be trifled with either,” she said. “There’s a dead necromancer in Singerva who learned that the hard way. So, it would be smart to lay off the threats, even in jest.”
Sylvia made a dismissive wave of her hand. “When you live in the shadow of the gallows, you’re bound to develop gallows humor.” She leaned forward. “The fact remains that we didn’t save your bacon from the goodness of our hearts.” Helchen didn’t like the way her eyes kept lingering over the bulky leather case hanging from her shoulder – the one in which she kept the arcane books Hulmul had charged her with preserving. She hadn’t heard of The Demoness being a ship that was connected to any practitioner of the black arts, but even the lowest initiate of the Order knew about The Ghoul, a vessel reputed to be captained by a sorcerer and crewed by inhuman fiends. Perhaps Sylvia had an inkling that she could enhance her ship through dark magic, and make her vessel as infamous as The Ghoul?
Helchen laid a protective hand across the case of books and glowered at Sylvia. “That I can well believe,” she told the pirate. “So, what do you expect?”
Sylvia smiled at her officers. “Straight and to the point. Just like one of the Order’s dogs.” She pointed to the foredeck where some of the refugees lingered. Most of them had gone into the hold to find a spot to rest and to get away from that last grisly view of Schweinhoff. “They’re what I expect. All of you really… though I’m not sure about the dwarf and the orc.” The statement brought a scowl from Ursola. Ratbag gnashed his fangs, provoking in turn a growl from the ogre. Sylvia brushed her hand across Brog’s arm and waved him back.
“I will explain myself,” Sylvia apologized. “As you can imagine, people in my profession depend upon a certain normalcy to prevail. Without that, we can’t thrive.”
“You’re saying the Black Plague has made it difficult to conduct piracy,” Gaiseric supplied.
“Impossible would be a better word,” Sylvia corrected him. “What few ships dare venture out now do so in fleets of such size that only a fool would attack them. Moreover, even if there were opportunities to plunder, the usual avenues to sell what we capture have been cut off.”
“I’m not surprised.” Helchen shook her head. For a long time the Jolly Brotherhood had offered sanctuary to all manner of outlaws. Many a suspected necromancer had last been seen as part of a pirate crew. When the Black Plague descended on the kingdom, such villains wouldn’t hesitate to turn their sorcery against the same criminals who’d harbored them.
“So what kind of trade are you about now?” Ursola asked. “I doubt it’s anything honest.”
“When the serpent stirs, the shark makes common cause with the whale,” Sylvia quoted an old maritime proverb. She sat up straight, puffing herself with pride. “The Demoness is temporarily engaged to gather up survivors of the zombie plague. We bring them aboard and take them back to our employers.” She motioned for calm when she saw the anger her speech evoked. “No, I’d sink my ship before hiring her out to a slave ring. We’ve been commissioned by the templars of the monastery at Korbara. They’ve established a sanctuary there and are trying to bring as many people as they can find to the stronghold.”
“We be gettin’ two pieces o’ silver f’r e’ry man, woman, ’n nipp’r,” Korsgaard chuckled. “By me reckonin’, that lot yer brung ’ll nab us one hun’rt ’n eighty-five coin. More if’n them templ’rs ’ll pay fer the likes o’ dwarves ’n orcs.”
“So it’s only about the money,” Gaiseric said. From the way he said it, Helchen wondered if maybe he wasn’t taking it a bit personal. Perhaps in the pirates he found a dark reflection of his own lawless proclivities.
“Ratbag saw several places that had fortified themselves between Wulfsburg and Singerva,” Alaric informed Sylvia. “We’ll try for one of those instead.”
Sylvia pursed her lips and played with one of her earrings. “I’m not doubting the reliability of your orc,” she said, though her tone put the lie to her words, “but you might consider that many things could have happened. Places that were safe last week might have been overwhelmed or abandoned since then.”
“We know Korbara’s all right because we made port there only yesterday,” Mendoza stated, his voice a dry whisper as it crackled up his scarred throat.
“Impertently, we get paid to brung yer to the templ’rs,” Korsgaard emphasized. “We be gettin’ noth’n fer dumpin’ yer willy-nilly ’pon shore.”
Alaric glared at the quartermaster. “You’ll understand that we don’t precisely find you trustworthy.”
Helchen pressed her hand against the knight’s chest, pushing him back. “It’s her ship and her decision,” she said, meeting Sylvia’s gaze. “She’ll land us where she chooses. Otherwise, if there’s trouble, the people we rescued from Singerva will suffer for it.”
Sylvia stopped toying with her earring. “I’m glad we understand each other,” she said, staring into Helchen’s eyes.
The witch hunter favored her with an icy smile. “So that we understand each other, if there is any trouble, know that you’re the first one going down.”
The quiet mockery in the pirate captain’s expression vanished. Helchen was glad to see that Sylvia understood what she’d said wasn’t a threat, but a promise.
•••
Spectral walkers lined the shore, their soulless eyes turned toward the river. The zombies had been thorough in their conquest of Schweinhoff. Behind them, the village was as lifeless as a tomb. The few dozen survivors from Singerva who’d tried to hide among the ruins had been ferreted out and slaughtered. With a necromancer’s black magic to guide them, there was no hiding from the undead.
The horde of zombies parted with silent, eerie uniformity as their master passed among them. While his legions might be indefatigable, Gogol was still a mortal man with many of the limitations and vulnerabilities common to the living. To accompany his undead in their ceaseless pursuit of Alaric von Mertz and his followers, he’d found it necessary to offset his own need to rest. When the cadaverous throng parted, a gruesome sight lumbered between their decayed ranks. Four immense brutes, among the largest zombies Gogol could find, supported a curious and grisly contrivance. Metal poles pierced the chest of each creature, joining them together into a square formation. Between these poles, a rough framework had been assembled to support a large chair hooded by a thick canopy.
Gogol reached out and pulled aside the black curtains of his crude palanquin. He paid no notice to the undead all around him, but fixed his attention on the ship sailing away down the river. “Forward,” he snapped at the brutes bearing him. With lurching, swaying strides, the zombies carried their master out onto the pier.
“You’re there,” Gogol snarled. His living hand tightened until a bead of blood oozed from his palm. He didn’t need magic to know Alaric had eluded him. He could sense the knight’s presence on that ship. Had the man been killed by his spectral walkers, the necromancer would have known it. The debt he owed to Baron von Mertz wouldn’t be satisfied until the whole rotten family was exterminated. Proper redress for the pious nobleman who’d once condemned Gogol to hang. Next to the father, it was the eldest son he felt embittered against. It was at once both vexing and appropriate that Alaric should be the last of the line, the last to suffer the necromancer’s revenge.
“So you still think to escape me?” The zombie-lord shifted his gaze to the water beside the pier and the ship lying there. “Not this time,” he vowed. “There is still an accounting to be made between you and I.”
Exerting his will, Gogol compelled his undead arm to shift and link fingers with those of his living hand. Curled against his breast, one hand over the other, he drew upon his magic. He had work for his zombies, labor more nuanced than simple massacre.
The spectral walkers surged into motion, their corpse-candle glow casting eerie reflections on the river as they trudged into the water. By the dozens, by the hundreds, they swarmed about the sunken ship. Through sheer numbers, the zombies accomplished a feat that should have been impossible. Gripping the hull, the undead dragged the flooded cog up onto the shore.
Gogol refocused his commands, sending his deathly minions back through the village. Not to seek victims this time, but to bring back tools and timber. They were going to repair this ship that misfortune had so kindly left at the necromancer’s disposal.
Then they were going to continue the hunt for Alaric von Mertz.
To the very throne of Darkness itself, if need be.
Chapter Eight
Fog billowed across the river as The Demoness headed downstream. Alaric’s view from the ship’s deck was limited to only a few dozen yards, not enough to afford a glimpse of either shore or to judge how far they’d journeyed since leaving Schweinhoff the previous day. It was an unfamiliar thing for the knight, trying to judge distance and speed while sailing when night and fog blotted out any sign of land. He knew, of course, that Sylvia had such navigational skills. It would be a poor pirate who didn’t.
“We’d better get where we’re going soon,” Helchen said as she walked up onto the foredeck and joined Alaric near the prow. Even at such an early hour, the witch hunter was alert, with one hand curled protectively against the bag of books she’d brought from Vasilescu’s tower. “She might take a longer view, but I’m dubious how long Captain Sylvia can keep her pirates under control. They might need us alive, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to rob us.”
Alaric was less skeptical of Sylvia’s command over her crew. “I think that’s a needless worry. I’ve watched her giving orders and her men obey without question. You might wonder whether they obey out of confidence or fear, but either way they do what she tells them.” He shook his head. “Even the ogre does what he’s told. Probably the only reason him and Ratbag haven’t killed each other.”
“Gaiseric’s doing a good job keeping Ratbag away from him as well,” Helchen reported. “From what I can tell, with an orc it’s very much a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ As long as he isn’t looking at the ogre, Ratbag isn’t on edge.”
“One thing my father always said about orcs is that they always have to know who’s the toughest in the tribe,” Alaric commented. He was quiet for a moment, the memory of Baron von Mertz occupying his thoughts. His fingers brushed across the pommel of the sword he wore, feeling the dragon engraved there. The heraldry of his family. A family claimed by the Black Plague, their corpses transformed into undead horrors.
