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Daemona, Harlin, and Ghul Lykos prepared for the worst, looking with suspicion at the townsfolk’s weary faces.
“No!” yelled Ivy. She stood on top of her bar, glaring at everyone assembled there. “We won’t! The time has come for us to fight back. We ought not be paying any tithe to the witches and their dark lord. We built this town from the mud, we’ve raised our children here, and I’ll be fish food before I just roll over and let them strip it away from us again. I say we fight!” She held aloft a rolling pin and swung it about as if it were a sword.
The crowd murmured, none too sure about what to do.
“Listen to me!” called Harlin. “The witches think you will give up; let us surprise them and trap them. If we work together we can beat them. Trust me.”
“Trust you? Who are you?” asked a long-faced townie.
“I am Harlin! The royal huntsman of King Graymont the Third.”
“Never heard of you.”
“Shut up, Weasel,” shot back Ivy. “These folks are heroes, here to do some good in our rotten part of the world. We must stand by them and fight! Or we will have no future!”
Some folk cried out in support of Ivy and her daring words, but others were not so easily swayed.
“You don’t understand the forces they can bring to bear against us. They have terrible powers and monsters. The Necro Priests animate the very dead to walk and assault us.”
“Aye, they do,” cried another. “I’ve seen them, big bloated things that can explode in gore and offal.”
“There’s much worse than that, I’ll wager,” added another.
“And how would giving up make it any better?” argued Ivy. “Peter Murkwood, you lost all your cows on Dry Island to the zombies. You aren’t getting them back. Tory Snailskin, you lost your father and your daughters to the witches, must you hand over your sons too? Wilum Pike, are you willing to give up your home and family? We must fight.”
The crowd murmured, but the sentiment grew. They would fight.
“Show us what to do,” someone said.
“Follow me,” said Harlin.
Chapter 10:
They gathered every conceivable weapon they could, from shovels, hoes, and pickaxes, to hatchets, crude, old bows of yew, and rusted swords moldering in their grandfathers’ closets. Some were armed only with wide, old paddles and nets for swamp fish. Harlin gave basic thrusting and chopping training to those capable of wielding such weapons, while Ghul Lykos led a party of others to build some makeshift defenses. They roped great logs and rigged them to swing when ready. Sturdy constructs were made to defend archers on the rope bridges and balconies. Some of the lower planks were set to break at the first sign of the attack so that the enemies might fall into a pile of harsh debris. They all knew this was a matter of life and death, and Harlin told them there could be no quarter given or expected.
Daemona took it upon herself to be the lookout and watch in every conceivable direction for the coming attack. She felt so full of energy from Harlin’s fuck last night that she kept a continual vigil, circling far around the town, porting from treetop to treetop. It was more tiring than she expected, but she guessed she would be just as exhausted if she were helping Ghul Lykos build the defenses. She’d refused to train anyone; she fought in her own style, and she doubted that any of the backwoods yokels could learn her subtle craft.
Daemona had circled the town in an ever-growing spiral more than five times when twilight fell. That’s when she heard it. A horrendous crashing through the brambles and swamp below. Something was coming. It sounded like a whole army was tramping through the muck and crushing any of the small shrubs and trees beneath their feet. The cracking of branches reminded Daemona of bones snapping.
She ported to lower branches to see who these foes were.
A huddled mass came through the reeds: gaunt bodies with mangled limbs atop ragged torsos, and slack-jawed faces with dead, blank eyes that were white like spider eggs.
Daemona shuddered. She had heard of zombies before, but never seen one, let alone a troop of them before. The sight was ghastly. They each looked terribly different, and yet, the same. None of them noticed her up in the tree, but they were heading straight to Tall Town. Mindless as they appeared, they knew where they were going.
Among the shambling creatures, Daemonas potted a bizarre figure. He was different; he wore a top hat with a small skull riding on the front of the brim. A few feathers were also on the side giving him a magical fetish-like appearance vaguely similar to what had been hanging in the trees near Tish’s. His face was painted to look like a death’s head, a skull . . . at least, Daemona thought it was painted. He wore black and white striped pants and a dirty maroon jacket. He carried a skull in his hand like a lantern, for a weird green glowed from the eye sockets and open mouth, lighting his path with a dreadful gleam.
Behind him trudged a throng of especially fat zombies, and the stink of them wafted up to Daemona’s hiding place, making her gag.
Their curious master heard her and looked about, but he did not look up. After a tense moment, he continued following his disgusting horde.
This is terrible. She hoped that being up on stilts and above water would be a strong enough defense against the zombies. She ported back toward Tall Town as fast as she could.
She heard a ruckus before she could see the town. Voices shouted, and bizarre zapping sounds flashed in time with faint hints of light like fireworks dancing through the trees as Daemona approached.
The Witches are already attacking from the opposite direction! A few flew about on broomsticks zapping at the townsfolk with their wands while others were in boats attacking from the Swamp below. Some were cloaked in maroon and looked almost skeletal. Daemona knew these to be Dust Mages, and she was wary of their dark arts.
“Harlin! Zombies are coming from the east!” shouted Daemona once she found him. He held a bow but was unable to use it as he huddled behind a shield to deflect the witches’ blasts.
