The Sea Peoples(92)
“You’ve dealt with this?” Pip asked.
“No,” Deor said. “Nor any living man in the world of common day, I think. But I know them from the lore I learned in Norrheim and Iceland.”
“What do we do about ’em?” Toa said. “Bit past their sell-by date from what I saw, doesn’t seem like stabbing will get the job done.”
“There are many ways to slay Draugur,” Deor said. “But right now . . . remember they can die again! Smash their bodies or cripple them. And do as the Prince did; call on any guardian or aid you may have.”
John brought his shield up, and then suddenly noticed that it seemed to be glowing. He bent his head for an instant to look at it, and saw that instead of the usual arms of Montival with a cadet’s baton it bore a plain red surface with a white cross—a Crusader’s cross. And that was lit, slightly but unmistakably. He forced himself to calm, taking one deep breath after another:
“Haro, Portland!” he shouted.
Shadowy figures were skulking around them, more rising by the moment. At first he thought they were the same grotesquely disfigured survivors he’d seen in the city they’d just left. Then one moved into a patch of dim light, and he saw its face, the fluttering rags of clothes stiff with the liquids of long decay, the tufts of hair on mummified skin and unclean bone, and the eyes . . .
Even faced with mortal peril he flung the shield up before his face rather than look into those eyes. Toa retched, an astonishing response from a man who seemed to be carved from strength and fury. Alan murmured aloud, awestruck:
“That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
Deor’s voice belled. “Woden! Ha, Woden, Lord of the Slain, be with us! Keep moving!”
Thora moved up beside him, shield raised. “Overrun,” she barked. “Strike as if they had torso armor!”
John knocked his visor down; he could see just enough through the vision-slit, but hopefully no more than that. They braced and then leapt off their back feet in a stamping run, shoulders tucked into the shields. Deor and Alan guarded their flanks, with Pip in the center to deal with anyone . . . or anything . . . that got through, and guard Toa’s back while he held the rear. What skill and courage could do they would do. That left purity of heart. . . .
But I’m a miserable sinner! John thought as he prepared for impact. I just want to get on a ship with Pip and go introduce her to Mother!
His shield rammed into a body with his weight behind it, something he’d done a thousand times in practice and a few in real fights these last few months. It felt wrong, and so did the crunch that followed; too dry, too fragile and it stank like an opened grave. He overcame his impulse to stab around the side of his shield. . . .
Wait a minute, the reasoning part of his mind thought. That . . . thing . . . just collapsed.
Fingers like twigs clawed at him, not one of them strong . . . but there were so many, half-glimpsed in the darkness. Like a rustling forest of un-death hungry for the living. He hacked into the side of a knee and half-wheeled and cut through a tattered neck. The . . . things that had once been people . . . he’d cut dropped away, and more stepped in.
John kept moving and smashed his shield into another dry and rotting face. This time there wasn’t any doubt. Suddenly the walking thing was just honestly dead, and fell in a tangle. He hopped over it and smashed again, with the same result.
And I hope if there are souls involved, they’re set free, he thought.
“Haro, Portland! Holy Mary for Portland!” he shouted. “órlaith and Montival!”
“Thor with me!” Thora barked as her backsword flicked in economical strokes. “Yuk-hai-sa-saaa!”
“Bugger this!”
That was Pip; in the same instant her cane’s serrated head went crack into a skull covered in thin rags of hair and skin. That worked too, and she’d hacked through a spine with the kukri in her other hand at the same time, moving as gracefully as a dancer in the dimness. Alan Thurston was working in a crouch, shield up and saber slashing for knees and ankles.
He caught occasional glimpses of Toa’s spear flashing in sweeping arcs, and Deor’s shout echoed:
“Ho, la, Woden!”
He thought the figures around the Mist Hills man were moving more slowly than the others, and stumbling more. The Saxon broadsword reaped, and John remembered uneasily who . . . Who . . . was also Lord of the Gallows-Tree, and of the Slain.
“The Power that wards you is strong indeed, Prince,” the scop panted, a flash of teeth beneath the nasal bar of his helmet. “But there is more than one at work for us today.”
John was glad he was getting help; and very glad he was in full armor. He kept his sword back in the man-at-arms position—hilt-forward and over his head—and used mainly his shield, ramming with the surface and chopping with the edges.
Something seemed to change. They were still stumbling down a road in the darkness, but it had never been paved—this was more like a country road back home, though more rutted and with less gravel than most places would have tolerated. Perhaps in the CORA lands, where they had trouble agreeing on whether the sun rose in the east or west, much less who should contribute graders and horses and workers to keeping up the roadways.
John stumbled to a halt and leaned on his shield and panted, wheezing and coughing, knocking up the visor of his sallet so that he could see better and, more important, get that extra mouthful of air. The night breeze cooled his sweat a little, and he could see that all five of them were on their feet.