Page 27 of Morfran, Dark Lord Reformed

He was right. They were simply playing dead. But Bronwen was also right. They looked dead.

He turned back towards the Ferndock soldiers, affecting a grin that he knew was menacing and maniacal, and took delight when he saw that many of them had lowered their swords, that some had already stumbled backwards.

“Don’t tell me they actually believe our men are zombies?” Bronwen whispered to him.

But Morfran knew they did. Years ago, when necromancers still plagued the kingdom, he and his men had encountered too many of the creepy dark artificers who raised one too many dead bodies. It wore on his soldiers’ minds, the trauma of it forever burned into their memories, and he knew many of them still had nightmares about the war between the dead and the living to this day.

Team Moose, seeing the way the Ferndock soldiers were stunned and nigh about to retreat, plowed forward with roars and screams and mucky, green swords thrust into the sky.

The Ferndock soldiers fled towards the gates. Some even dropped their weapons. Others had perhaps even wet themselves, judging by their mortified terror and the way they waddled backwards.

His work here was done. He urged Theopold onwards, towards a thicket of trees where Team Stink Bug and their explosives were battling against even more soldiers.

Bronwen still seemed stunned that he had effectively convinced the enemy that he was a necromancer—nasty skill, that; he shuddered—who’d just raised an army of the dead. “What just— How did you— I mean, who are you?”

He sat up straighter, pleased that she thought of him as an enigma. Then he wondered why he cared. Then Theopold hit an even muckier patch and slipped, and they both flew off into the mud.

Morfran lay there, feeling as though an ox had stomped on his lungs. From the way Bronwen was lying beside him, he figured she felt much the same.

She wasn’t lying beside him for long, however. She rolled and was up, running towards Ferndock’s troops with great eagerness. Of course, she was also running in mud, so her efforts were hampered. But still, Morfran admired her ability to run at a fully equipped army with nothing but a dagger to defend herself, as well as questioned her sanity.

He’d risen to his feet and was wiping mud off his sleeves when she launched at the nearest soldier. The soldier went down in a blur with a startled oof.

Morfran was clearly as taken aback as the soldier. She’d brought him down with a swoop of her legs and was now straddling him, raising her dagger towards his throat— Wait. Where was her dagger?

Morfran saw it the exact same time Bronwen and the soldier did: sitting inconspicuously in the mud just a few feet behind her. She must’ve dropped it.

She laughed awkwardly.

The soldier began trying to buck her off.

Embarrassed for her, Morfran walked over and kicked the dagger within her reach. She took it, too humiliated to address him, and turned the dagger on the soldier.

Morfran was turning away when he heard the soldier giggling, then “Stop it, stop it! That tickles!” followed by her frustrated shouts telling him to knock it off and just let her kill him already.

Morfran shook his head as his attention returned to the battlefield. Moose had helped clear a pathway to the back entrance, where they’d be using explosives to blow a hole in the gate. But Stink Bug’s cart was still down a wheel, and the rebels were trying to simultaneously fend off straggling soldiers and push the cart forward.

Morfran hadn’t fought face-to-face in months. Usually, he relied on tactics that prevented him from having to meet soldiers up close, as he feared they’d recognize him. But it’d been many years since he’d last visited Ferndock, and in the meantime he’d grown a devilishly handsome beard (if he did say so himself) and had sadly but necessarily ditched his seductive leather pants, so he wasn’t too concerned about that. Right then, his only concerns were 1) slaughtering men and demolishing their morale, 2) doing it with as much haste and disorder as possible, and 3) looking good while doing it.

With a broken mace that’d been sitting upright in someone’s back, he mowed through soldier after soldier, falling back into the same old routine of days past. On occasion he intervened when it appeared a soldier was about to take down a rebel, but he made sure that the rebel in question both saw him as an ally and saw themselves as a capable fighter.

When enough soldiers were cleared, the cart hauling the explosives began wheeling across the field again, the broken wheel having been patched up with nails and forest wood. Morfran eventually stopped hacking men with his mace and joined those pushing the cart.

They heaved it across the field, and once they reached the gates where Team Moose was holding the line, he shouted to Bronwen, who had joined in the pushing of the cart and was nearest to the flint and steel and powder kegs, “Light the wick!”

She nodded—a little hesitantly—and began striking the flint. It took her three times to light it, and when she did, the flame sizzled towards the powder kegs. Morfran and the men began to run.

“Wait!” Bronwen cried out. “It went out.”

Morfran and the men rejoined her. One fended off a soldier attempting to skewer her through with a sword. Morfran headbutted another and stabbed him in the gut. She stroked the flint thrice. The wick relit.

“Run!” Morfran shouted. The men started to run.

“Wait!” Bronwen cried. “It went out again.” She did two more strikes. The wick went up in a flare of healthy red. This time Morfran didn’t join the men who ran but stood and watched the wick. It let out a sputtering, wimpy cough and then gave up the ghost.

Bronwen thrust the flint and steel at him. Gone was that crazed battle look she’d had when she’d torn after the soldiers. Now she just looked embarrassed. “You do it.”

Baffled, he did exactly as she had done, striking the flint and lighting the wick. They both stood and stared as the flame ate through the wick at a harrying pace, showing no sign of stopping.