Parallax Realms - Gal'barre - A Death in the Swamps

              

Gal’barre

              Gal’barre flexed his hand. “Undead…” he muttered.

              He turned his desiccated hand over. The veins were dried. Once-plump flesh stuck fast to the underlying bones. Tendon stood in stark contrast on the grey-black skin.

              He imagined his appearance, at least in the eyes of others. His once-pale skin, blonde hair and overall fair complexion had rapidly degraded into a steel-gray pallor surrounded with limp onyx hair and pale eyes. He had seen one reflection a few days earlier before smashing the mirror and walking away.

              He had cut his hand in the process and as he’d imagined – no blood.

              He opened his palm, eyeing the dark speckles on his palm – blood stains or other disease spots? He didn’t know.

              “Turn around and walk away.”

              “My name is Gal’barre. I’m not a zombie. I’ve been cursed.”

              “I don’t care what your name was, infected. I want you to walk away or I will burn you.”

              Gal’barre closed his hand and glared at the guard, who was visibly shaken. “I am a citizen of this city. I own the Lower Docks. Allow me entrance.”

              “The ownership of the Lower Docks has passed to Gal’barre’s son. Gal’barre is dead, has been for years.”

              “I am undead. There’s a difference. And I haven’t been gone two weeks!”

              “Your soulless husk has no claim here, infected. Begone, corpse.”

              Gal’barre felt his hand clench tighter. “You will address me with the respect befitting my station.”

              “Your threat rings as hollow as that shell. Now, leave.”

              Gal’barre thrust a single hand forward and clutched the guard by the collar. A sickening snap rang out, quickly absorbed by the encroaching forest. The guard’s eyes lolled in his head, which slumped awkwardly to the side. A sword fell from his limp hand, clattering against the ground.

              Gal’barre gaped at what he had done. He dropped the body, stumbling back in horror.

              Screams rang out from nearby. The cry of “murder” resounded off the gates. Soon, the city would be in a panic, and the wall-mounted ballistae would be brought to bear on him and anyone nearby.

              He fled back across the field, his cape billowing behind him. The sensations of his feet touching lightly across the ground barely registered. It was as if the outer levels of his senses were miles away. His feet were someone else’s, passing through a distant road far away. His hands, clenched on empty air, barely registered the feeling of his own dry, parchment-like skin rubbing against his fingertips. He truly was a shell of what he had been – yet so much more.

               He stumbled off the roadway and tossed himself into a ravine, pulling himself up into a culvert to avoid detection. He only prayed that his now-nearly-mummified form would be beyond stinking, so as to not give away his location.

              The humans, screaming and shouting, swords drawn and firearms at the ready, thundered past on their horses and other modes of transportation. Apparently, the rumored steambikes had finally been put into full production. They had missed him.

              He leaned back against the root of a tree and listened. A small group of soldiers traipsed above him. He could hear their conversations rumbling down to his location.

              “He got back up… snapped neck and all… he got back up! What’s that mean? I didn’t even know he was sick!”

              The other guard muttered something. Gal held his breath. As he listened to the men’s conversation, he realized that his body no longer screamed for air. It no longer desired the release of breath. Confused, he pressed a finger to his neck. The ever-present pulse that had accompanied him his whole life was… absent.

              He felt fear constrict his gut, but pressed himself deeper against the wall of the ravine.

              “…nothing worked…”

              “What did you do?”

              “The other guards chopped him to pieces. What will we tell his wife?”

              “We’ll tell her that ghouls did it.”

              Ghoul? What was that?

              Gal kept his body as still as possible. They thought he was… something… called a ghoul – but what was that? And who were the infected?

              “Still not right… how can he bring someone back from the dead by killing them and running away?”

              “Powerful magics, we’ve got to call Covitch, they’ll help…”

              Gal had heard enough. He crouched, pulled his hood up over his scalp, and rushed off down the ravine, following the meandering path of the creek. He hoped he would avoid detection long enough to find a sympathetic ear… and some help. He hadn’t eaten in days. His stomach was beginning to roar at him.

              A small cottage. Inside, a warm glow produced by a series of small lights invited him in from the darkness. Gal stepped cautiously onto the porch, lifted his hand, and rapped gently against the screen.

              “Who is it?”

              “Gal’barre Dockkeeper.”

              “Of the Lower Dockkeepers?”

              “The same,” he replied with a hopeful chuckle. “May I come in?”

              “We’d heard you’d vanished. Are you well?”

              And older woman appeared at the door. Her hair was held up by curlers, and a small toothbrush propped in her hand. She stared into the darkness, seeing Gal through the slight glow of the porchlight.

              “I… think so.” He replied. “Apparently I’ve been gone for twenty years… I only remember it as two weeks.”

              She nodded, “Come in!”

              He nodded and entered the warm, stuffy room. He pulled his hands up into the folds of his jacket and shuffled to the proffered chair.

              Her hair – the strands not in curlers – hung to her shoulders, showing she had once been a factory worker – regulation standards to prevent accidental damage. Steel strands, silvery-white, spread through her once-jet tresses. Occasionally, strands of a darker shade still peeked out here and there. She looked up at him.

              “Your eyes…” he muttered.

              She nodded. Milky blue eyes stared back at him. “They’re mostly blinded now… I’ve been losing my vision over the past few years.”

              “The factory?”

              She nodded. “We’ve been making great strides technologically… but all progress has cost.”

              “Why did you have to be the one to pay it?”

              “Someone had to, and all of my friends are dead – well, you’re back – but I thought you lost after the accident.”

              “Accident?”

              “Years ago, there was an explosion on the docks – an entire district was vaporized.”

              Gal listened in stunned silence.

              “Was I there?”

              She nodded. “You had gone down at my request to check on one of my shipments. The ship was a trap – it exploded. You and your crew were killed, and the entire region of the docks vanished into the ocean. We couldn’t even find your bodies… at least yours. Pieces of your crew were … reassembled … enough for us to figure out what had happened.”[1]

              Gal stared down at his hands. He now noticed small scars tracing their lines across his flesh. Was that from the explosion?

              The elderly woman smiled. “It’s so good to have you back. Our hopes are now pinned on you.”

              “Why me?”

              “You’re an outsider now, like us. You can help free us from this life.”

              “I’m a fugitive. What could I even do?”

              “Find the truth. This technology that built the town wasn’t from the genius of any normal man. They made a terrible pact. The Delta will harbor the truth. They needed you out of the way to do this… but you can’t be silenced that easily.” The woman shuffled over to him and placed a hand on his skin. It felt warm – almost hot – against his lifeless flesh. She balked momentarily, but then resumed her motion.

              “Let me give you some ideas, my undead friend…”

              A few hours later, as late afternoon settled over the forests, he found himself shambling off through the marsh. Dense forests welcomed him in their cool embrace. The old woman had given him ideas and plans, stratagems and plots. He had first marveled at her seditions, until he realized that she had been given years to rot here in the swamps, and vengeance may have been the only thing keeping her warm these days.

              He gazed down at his lifeless hands. Small scars… from what battle? What had happened to him the past years? Why did he only just now realize that he was alive? Had he been roaming the forests as one of the infected, only to suddenly have his memories return? If so, why?

              A few shambling forms startled him, until he realized they had no aim. They wandered through the marshlands until body parts began to break off, then they’d crawl until the foliage absorbed them. A few plants twitched and squirmed. He didn’t want to confirm whether there were half-alive ghouls rotting under there, so he continued back toward the city.

              Something shuffled nearby. His senses, for all his undeath, were heightened. Scents, musky rotting scents, bombarded him. His sight could make out the intricate patterns of the bark on trees, see the resonant remains of heat glimmering off nearby rotting logs, no doubt the last vestiges of decay releasing heated gasses into the swampy air. But this sound was new, and came with a slight sprig of excitement… interest. He turned his head and spotted a void in the heat patterns of the marshland. It was vaguely humanoid – hunched, with a head or bulb protruding off the top of a torso.

              It came into view. Some new sort of ghoul.

              The beast released a slight, breathy questions from the depths of its rotting throat. Pungent rot, sickly-sweet, met Gal’s nostrils. In spite of himself, his nose wrinkled.

              The creature paused, examining his face. It let out a low, shuffled grunt and stepped forward again. Its bare feet ended in small, sharp toes – the bones of the feet had rotted away, leaving spiky protrusions in their place. These carefully picked their way through the rotten wood and moss.

              “So silent… what are you?”

              The beast paused. Its human-like face was gaunt and drawn. Slight lights glimmered somewhere deep in the back of its eyes.

              “So… you still have a soul of some kind…” he muttered. He reached out a scarred, disease-flecked hand and placed it on the balding scalp of the creature.

              “Leathery…”

              The creature bowed its head to him, as if accepting him as its king. He smiled. “But what are you?”

              “D… rawr.”

              “You can talk?”

              “Rawr…” it growled in its exaggerated way, it’s jaw opened wider than it needed to, extending the Adam’s Apple and baring teeth as it did.

              He felt around its throat, then ran his hands along its face like a mother examining a dirty child.

              “No vocal cords to speak of. Voice box destroyed. Skin like leather. You’ve been like this for some time.”

              Wink of acknowledgement.

              “Do you have a name?”

              It’s eyes closed overdramatically, again, as if it were trying to wink by using its entire face to so.

              “Can you tell me it?”

              No wink.

              Gal. “Then I shall call you Drawr.”

              Wink.

              “I need to go back to the city, Drawr. Do you know how to get in?”

              Wink.

              “Lead on.”

              The creature turned and picked its way back along the marshes toward what Gal assumed was the city. Off to his left and right, he saw other shapes similar to Drawr closing around him. “What have I gotten myself into?”

              It was a short trek through the marsh to the shore. Massive tracts of water stretched out as far as the eye could see. Drawr stared toward a narrow stone wall and let out a growl. Gal followed his gaze.

              “Yes, but how do I get in?”

              Growl.

              He looked around, several of Drawr’s kin stood hunkered down in miserable positions around the edge of the forest.

              “I don’t know what you’re pointing at,” he whispered, taking on the tone of a mother with an incoherent two-year-old.

              Drawr growled again, staring at the same spot.

              “I told you…” he turned back to the wall to point and just barely spotted it. There, at the base of the outer wall, was a drain. A small rivulet of brackish water trickled under the wall. It was protected by a metal portcullis set a short distance back into the wall.

              “I can’t get in that way. Is there no other entrance?”

              Growl.

              He looked back. The portcullis was opening! A small dinghy boat rowed out toward the ocean. Periodically, a man probed at the muck with a spear, drawing something back into the boat before rowing farther out. No one on the wall appeared to be watching.

              “Drawr, I’ve got a plan…” The boat continued out down the stream, rowing closer to the forest. “now is our chance.”

              He pointed farther up the castle wall, toward the edge of the wall nearest the front, just as the forest began to encroach upon the wall. “I need you and your people to strike out at the city farther up the wall while I take control of that boat.”

              It was getting closer now, rowing its way back and forth on the waterway, cleaning up the dead and infected bodies that they came in contact with. Any that were suspicious were stabbed or shot. If he could only get close enough… “Can you do it? This will cause them to recall the boat before any harm comes to the man. I can slip back in with the boat and meet you when I’m done my quest.”

              Full-face wink.

              “Then go.”

              Drawr looked back at its brethren and growled a wheezing moan before shambling quickly back into the darkness.

              Gal crouched, feeling his hand clench absently beside him. He could see familiar features on the face of the man – at least what parts of his face were visible beneath the hooded cloak he wore pulled tightly across his face.

              Had he known that man in his previous time in the city – when he had been Gal’barre Dockkeeper, not Gal the undead monster? He slogged his way quickly through the marsh’s boundary before tossing himself into a stream that flowed from between the trees. He swam through the silty waters, staying just out of sight of the walls – behind the river banks. He slipped his way through the grey dunes, coming to a stop in the water streaming from the city. He peered up toward the low walls. One guard stood there, his back turned. A small puff of smoke – a cigarette or a pipe – showed he was currently otherwise-engaged.

              The boatman paddled his way through the waters toward the ocean now.

              The man leaned over the edge, stabbed in the water, and dragged something back up into the boat. He slashed at it with his knife and dropped the thing back into the water. Gal watched, memorizing the movements. The man was stabbing a hook-like blade into the water, pulling up slightly-twitching bodies, and slitting their throats or bashing in their skulls. He would then toss the body back into the water to hopefully float out to sea by one of the branching streams. One set of streams collected and flowed through the wall of the city while the others snaked their way through the sand of the beach and off toward the ocean.

              Horrified, Gal pushed swiftly through the water, waited for the man to spear at him with the blade, and struck. He latched his powerful hands onto the metal of the weapon, wrenching it free and nearly pulling the man into the water with him. The man gave out a shout that Gal would have feared the guard would hear had not the sounds of Drawr’s attack trickled from the northern edge of the city.

              He splashed up out of the water, latched a single hand around the man’s throat, and jerked it sideways with a violent shake. There was a crack, and the man’s body slumped.

              The body slumped into the bottom of the boat as he hauled himself up into the man’s place, whipped the scarf and mask from his corpse, and wrapped it around his own face. He then turned back toward the castle, noticing the guard from the wall signaling him.

              Night had started to fall. He could see lights popping up around the edge of the city.

              He waved back and was about to pull the paddles out when he felt a tug on the base of the boat from underneath. The boat was traveling some underwater track back toward the city

              He covered the body with several rolls of cloth that had been in the bottom of the boat. They were sopping wet – had the man recovered them from the water?

              The wall loomed above him – it may have been a low wall comparatively, but it still stood nearly thirty feet with matriculations threatening any attacker. He stared up into the eyes of the guard.

              “Y’all right Gal?”

              “The mission went fine,” replied Gal, realizing that he felt no thrill of fear like he should have at being called by his name when concealed behind a mask. He attempted to reply calmly. “What’s happening?”

              “Getting too dark. Couldn’t see you. Sorry I didn’t pull you in earlier, some draugr started attacking out of the blue. We don’t think they’re after anything in particular. Did you find it?”

              “I found several corpses in the water – made sure they were dead, and some cloth.”

              “Good. Anything else?”

              Gal racked his brain. He hadn’t seen anything else in the boat. “Just some trash.”

              The guard nodded and stepped up to the dock. Gal stepped out. He was inside the wall, in a sort of gatehouse that allowed access to the main city beyond. Steam pipes hissed from the walls and a general humid feel hovered around him. He coughed.

              “The System is going down again,” groaned the guard. “Are you good from here? Everything seems clear. Nothing followed you back in.”

              “Yah,” croaked Gal. He felt a slight dread deep in the pit of his soul. “I can take care of these things.”

              The guard left through a side door. Had Gal been alive, his heart would have been pounding. He reached into the floor of the boat and shuffled the cloth aside. The body of the man lay here, his neck bend unnaturally. With trembling hands, Gal pushed the body over, revealing the face. It was his own!

              Gal’s own, pre-face stared up at him from the body. He quickly swept a sheet over the corpse. He looked back down the tunnel toward the portcullis. It hadn’t lowered yet. He stepped out onto the dock. The arch of stone that made up the gatehouse rose above him.

              “Corpses! Along the wall, coming down from the forest!”

              “Set out the fire traps!”

              He crept out the door nearest him and looked out across the battlements. A soldier watched, in partial interest, and others poured boiling oil over the battlements. Small orbs toppled over soon after, igniting the oil and setting a fire to the surface of the stone wall – not doubt to clear off any attacking ghouls.

              Gal stepped down the battlements and began to stride across the city – apparently, he was known in this town, and yet not as feared as he was by the gate-keepers. He slipped his way into the dirty side-streets, slowly creeping through the ash and fog until he came in view of the palisade – or what had been a palisade two decades earlier – when he had died.

              Now, a modern wall, steel and concrete, rose up before him. It had been textured to appear made of brick, but had a shimmer to it that no dry brick could have had. He touched it gently with his fingers. It felt warm, yet dry.

              He pulled his fingers away and rubbed them together. His senses were… strange. He continued down the length of the wall and approached the gatehouse. A soldier stepped forward. “What’s your business, Gal?”

              He thought for a moment. “Checking on my ships.”

              “Your ships?”

              If Gal had had a heartbeat, it would have quickened. Is it was, he could keep his face stable as he thought of another lie.

              “Yes, ownership was transferred to me just this morning. My partner is getting a little skittish now that the undead have been showing up at the gate.”

              “I’m terribly sorry about that, sir.”

              Gal cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

              “You haven’t heard?”

              He shook his head. “No.”

              “The ghoul… at the front gate… he had the face of your deceased father.”

              Everything clicked together in an instant, and a sharp pang rang through his chest. “My… what?”

              “Your father, sir. I’m so sorry. But congratulations on inheriting your own ship. She’s docked down the way on the left.”

              He looked down the docks in either direction, then back at the soldier. “Did you move it?”

              “I’m sorry?”

              “I left it that way,” he pointed off to the right, completely bluffing.

              The soldier smiled. “We didn’t. We just can’t be too careful if someone’s walking around with your face.”

              Gal glared at the man. “Indeed.” He smirked from under the hood, then stared at the man one more time – just to make sure. “Soldier?”

              “Yes?”

              “Where is my ‘father’ now?”

              “We’re not sure… maybe the Eastern Strand? We’re seeing some increased activity from several areas at once.”

              Gal nodded. “Let me know if he shows up.”

              He exited through a portcullis after staring down a cranky gatekeeper, wandered past a large man cutting fish, even with the night setting and ghouls attacking the walls, and strolled down the dock toward where he had died.

              Gal stood before the ship he had assumed was the one the guard had described. He couldn’t quite make out the markings, but something about it seemed familiar. Had the explosion spared this ship? Had any ships on the wharf survived? Could they have?

              Looking around him, he could see where the rebuilding had begun – the buildings in that area were still shoddy, soaked with salt water and smoke, slimed with mold and mildew, but he could still see that they’d been rebuilt. The entire wharf must have collapsed and been rebuilt – over a decade ago by the looks of it. New pylons had been dropped into the water, new boards and planks laid out – reinforced with steel and, in places, concrete. That technology had usually been reserved for the locations closer to Covitch, far to the north, or the remains of the Old Empire’s buildings, far to the east. But they’d never waste such luxuries on a place half-dead and buried under ages of sediment like Dock.

              How long had he been “dead”? Had it really been twenty years? Where had this technology come from?

              He strode up the ship. It creaked and sighed in the waves. The rigging lay in scrappy heaps.

              What had he come to see? The evidence of the explosion had long been cleaned up. He’d never find anything twenty years later.

              He paused and sat in front of the ship. The waves lapped against the dock, rocking the ship up and down. A memory flashed over him – a fiery explosion. He felt himself smash through the shoddy wall of a shack and topple through the rotten floor into the waves below. The cold water extinguished the flames blazing on his body.

              He snapped back to reality and turned around.

              Gal turned and walked toward the alley where the shack had been. He placed a hand against the stone of the wall. They hadn’t rebuilt this with metal and concrete yet. He knelt and stared at the boardwalk that made up the floor around here. The boards were soaked and weakened – abandoned to the ravages of time. Peering around to make sure he wasn’t being watched, he brought his fist back and struck it swiftly. The boards cracked and broke under his repeated jabs. He pried back the broken boards and dropped down under the boardwalk, landing in the water as quietly as he could.

              Wetness – he felt that! He stood, waist-deep in water, and looked around. Ancient pylons stretched down into the centuries of mud, anchored on who-knew-what in this ever-filling place. He sloshed his way toward the ships, staring for something – anything – that would trigger a memory – any memory.

              He paused. Water dripped from above. He could feel a moment of pain across his face. His hand rose – a hand covered in blood. He coughed, took in a rasping breath, and blinked against the red seeping across his vision.

              He toppled, feeling water fill his lungs. He coughed and tried to get out of the water, but his hand wouldn’t respond. His arm twitched uselessly as his head fell back under the water again.

              Gal stared up. He had drowned here. His body had fallen under the boardwalk and had drowned. Had he washed out to sea afterward? He stepped forward in the muck again. The water was far shallower now. Years of silt buildup had raised the land under the boardwalks, and the new construction apparently hadn’t cared to dredge out the old silt – they may have even heaped more up under this old pier.

              He raised a blackened finger and ran it along the underside of one of the few remaining old boards. This one had been there. It was dark with rot and perhaps a scorch-mark. He ran his hand along the underside and stared at it. Small flecks of mold, a barnacle, some ash?

              He sighed, though he didn’t need to, and stepped another board over. He paused.

              There, underneath the boards… he paused and looked to see where the ship had been. The docks had gone out a bit farther back then… but he would have definitely stood somewhere about… he looked up. There. He stared at the boards. There was something there. Something… box-like… buried under two decades of salt, silt, and barnacles.

              He was able to force his fingers up under the box. It fit neatly in his hand. He clenched his fist and tugged. It gave a slight bit of resistance before popping free. A wire stretched back toward the water a short distance before snapping free.

              He pocketed the box and followed the wire.[2] It ended pretty quickly as he reached the new section of the boardwalk. He slipped under the water and tromped through the muck. He passed a few ships and continued to walk. Then the alarms began to sound.

              Gal’barre sloshed through the shallows and pulled himself onto the dryish ground of the forest’s edge. He clutched the box to his chest. Alarms still rang out in the city – he had gotten out – not needing to breathe had its advantages!

              He looked around. There were a few ghouls wandering around, and he thought he saw Drawr limping its way away from the wall. He had survived!

              Gal rolled himself over, eased himself upright, and made his way through the soft earth to the draugr. It glared at him and made what almost looked like a smile – manic and wide, teeth all visible and yellowed.

              “Thank you,” Gal muttered.

              Drawr growled in response, then winked happily with all its face.

              “Let’s get out of here.” Gal rushed away from the shore and into the marshland’s dense undergrowth, leaving the blaring sirens behind him.

              Grasslands surrounded him in short time and beyond them, the dirty “highway” that rose above the surrounding wetlands and carved a single, dangerous road through the marshlands. He found his way onto the road, ghouls and Drawr in tow, and sneaked his way to the old shack.

              The old woman met him, her pale eyes alert as they could be. Something shimmered in them momentarily – excitement?

              “What did you find?”

              “Nothing,” he responded. He wasn’t going to admit to anything until he had gotten a chance to investigate the strange box. “But I did notice that all the dock where my ship had been was destroyed and rebuilt. What happened, exactly?”

              “I told you, there was an explosion.”

              “Yes, but did it come from my ship?”

              “I believe so. Why, what do you expect?”

              He heard the breathy moan from in front of the shack, and the slick wet sound of a ghoul being struck down. Another went down with a blast of some sort of rifle, and another. He slipped into the corner and slid out of sight.

              “Widow…” came the voice at the door.

              The old woman stood and shuffled toward the entrance. “What is the meaning of this?”

              “We dispatched some of the ghouls gathering around your house. You should be thanking us.”

              “They don’t bother an old crone like me. They sort of act like watchdogs. What d’ya want?”

              “Have you seen any new activity in the undead lately?”

              She shook her head. “You come and start shooting your stupid weapons around my house and ask if the undead are acting strangely? You’ve got some nerve.”

              “Ma’am, please…”

              “Don’t ma’am me. You never have anything to do with me unless you want information on the swamp. Now, go away!”

              “We were just attacked by a group of ghouls under the direction of what we suspect was an intelligent draugr. We followed a path of prints to this area of the swamp. We just want answers about what’s happening.”

              “I’ve told you already, the undead aren’t mindless. They’re just functioning at a different level. If you weren’t idiots stuck on your own paths, you’d grasp that and find a way to live with them.”

              “Yes…” muttered the soldier. He stepped back, whispered something to his men, and they began to turn. “Let us know if you see anything strange.”

              “As always…” she muttered.

              Gal stood silently in the corner until they were both certain the guards had left.

              “For my whole life I’ve been telling them.”[3]

              “What?”

              “Since the outbreak… I’ve been telling them we’re not so different from the ghouls…”

              “How do you mean?”

              “I believe the ghouls were once human.”

              “Of course they were – they died when the Dead Isles fell.”

              “Then you were apparently infected too, then.”

              Gal held out a hand. It wasn’t quite the deathly pallor of the ghouls, but it certainly wasn’t alive.

              “You think yourself different from them?”

              He clenched a fist. “I have more control, for one thing. Those things shamble and moan.”

              “Perhaps… or perhaps they’ve had none to guide them.”

              “I’m not following.”

              “How do you know that you weren’t coached along out of your mindless state before coming to this current form? You’re certainly not dead as they are… but it would be a stretch to call you ‘alive,’ wouldn’t it?”

              Gal shrugged. “I can move and think and reason – seems to me that I’m ‘alive,’ even if my body doesn’t fully realize it.”

              “You have a fleck of skin hanging loose on the side of your chin. Does it hurt?”

              “No,” he responded, pushing the piece back into place.

              “You also have more strength than you ever did. How are your self-preservation instincts?”

              “Fine.”

              “Did you notice the torn muscle on your right arm?”

              He looked down. A small section of bicep had clearly ripped free and now sat under the skin in a little bulged heap. He hadn’t felt a thing.

              “There’s a part of your brain that keeps your body from overexerting itself… keeps it from ripping itself apart. Other parts let you know when you’re injured so you can stop doing whatever it was you were doing. That’s not present anymore – don’t you suppose?”

              Gal stared at the weird bulge in his arm, then scratched at a fleck of greying skin. It peeled back – too much!

              “You are unique… I’ll grant you that. But do you notice that parts of you are very much dead. I notice you breathe every now and then. Do you need to?”

              He paused and thought about it. His breathing stopped. But instead of feeling the familiar pain as unused breath built up in his lungs and forced him to continue breathing, he felt… fine. Perpetually fine.

              “So… functions are still there. Even higher brain functions. But the self-preservation aspects that are handled… automatically… are no longer around. I wonder if our friends in the woods there are simple passed having their control restored… and thus are wandering based solely on instinct?”

              “So I’ll degress into those things?”

              “I don’t think ‘degress’ is a word… but it’s fitting. Yes, you probably will. Or, you have been brought out of that state and have been ‘trained’ to be in possession of newly-restored faculties.”

              “You seem to know too much about all this…” he muttered.

              “I remember the day the Dead arrived from the remains of the Old Empire. They swarmed across the land and slaughtered everyone they saw, and at the head was a man in strange armor.[4] Everyone I knew died that day, so I determined to figure out what had happened – and I started to notice that not all the dead were… well, dead. Some of the living seemed to survive with some of their faculties intact – they were free of that… man’s control.”

              He murmured an apology. “That must have been hard.”

              She smiled. “You get used to it,” she muttered, leaning back in her chair. “I trust I will see my brother again, someday. He always brought me the best things from his adventures… until that one day he forgot about me and never returned.”

              “What happened to him?”

              She looked up at him, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I think the other dead took him – at least took what he had been. I think that was his armor I saw that day…” she fell silent, then shrugged. “Forgive the musings of an old woman,” she muttered.

              “What should I do now?”

              “Find out who wanted you dead so badly, I’d say. And rescue your people.”

              “My people?”

              She gave a weak gesture to the swamp. “Bring these dead ones back together – show them they can have a place, even in this plagued land we inhabit. And pray the Dead Isles never spew their charges again. None of us would survive that again.”

              Gal sighed, more of habit than of necessity. It provided no relief, but he did feel the strange, foreign sensation of air leaving lungs that didn’t need them. How long would it be before his lungs withered away, leaving him with no ability to speak, but rather the whispery, airy moans the ghouls made?

              Speaking of which… “the ghouls are quiet.”

              The old woman looked up, her pale eyes taking in… something. She muttered a curse under her breath as the front door turned to splinters and the house erupted in flames.

              “I am finished. Destroy the Delta.”

              Gal felt a wash of heat roar over him. Part of his beard ignited in flame. He saw the woman, her pale eyes transfixed on the door, vanish in a wiff of light and smoke and ash. Anger blazed to life inside him. He could almost see her spirit vanish upwards.

              Two soldiers entered first, armor closed down over their faces, rifles at the ready. One held another grenade.

              Gal clenched his fist into a tight ball and rushed the first one. His first blow struck hard and true, snapping something internally and sending the now-limp body flailing sideways into his comrade. The grenade rolled free and began to tick madly.

              Ignoring it, he rushed toward the second soldier, fist raining blows down on the armor as he went. Dent after dent soon marked the beaten body until it collapsed out the other wall and fell into the marsh with a wet slap.

              The cabin exploded.

              Gal rolled into the carnage as splinters scattered around him. Several soldiers rushed the flaming ruins. He pounced like a cat, hand drawn back like a claw, and punched easily through the neck of the first soldier, crushing his armor in a single blow and spinning the corpse off into the murk of the swamp with a crunch.

              He rounded on the next, ripped him off his feet by a single leg and sent him spinning into his companions.

              Then the ghouls attacked.

              With violent moans, they staggered with surprising speed into the oncoming soldiers. Pistols and other firearms erupted in the swamplands as Gal and his crew tore at the soldiers. In a moment, a dead soldier rose and with a groan joined the fight. This gave Gal pause. Then another, and another.

              Nearly a fourth of the dead soldiers rejoined the fight, on Gal’s side.

              “Fall back!” As Gal watched, the soldiers fell back across the swampland, but not before detonating several more charges. Ghouls fell to ichor-soaked chunks. But other soldiers slowly rose to their feet, eyes bloodied from the combat, limbs hanging broken or missing completely. The soldier he had punched through the neck stumbled upright, his head hanging awkwardly, before collapsing to the ground, dead.

              Another soldier, his chest collapsed, remained upright.

              Gal knelt by the dead soldier. His head had come loose completely.

              In the distance, he could hear the rev of engines. They were returning with their steambikes. He looked at the soldiers around him – the ghouls and the other shambling dead. He motioned to one he thought was Drawr. “Get them all out of here. Let’s move!”[5]

              He watched them shuffle off as the noises grew louder. He took a moment and peered into the cabin. The body of the old woman was nowhere to be found. He frowned – or half his face did, anyway.

              He ducked through the wreckage and pursued his newly-formed army off deeper into the swamp, now with more questions than answers.

              He could hear the moans of the dead as their useless lungs accidentally absorbed and expelled air – breathy, damaged sounds. Some made no sounds at all – they had been too long dead or too badly damaged in dying. But some seemed to still make audible vocalizations, as if trying to communicate without an understanding of the language.

              Gal felt his knee stiffen. He had damaged it in the last fight. It wouldn’t heal. He was almost completely dead, and he felt, rather than knew, that none of his bodies “healing abilities” persisted after his assassination – or half-assassination.

              So he’d have to live with the new injuries, hoping the nerves to that part of his leg would die soon so he didn’t half to feel the twinges of pain.

              He scowled off toward Docks. They wanted war… he’d give it to them. But his army would have to grow larger if he hoped to so much as make a dent in them. The “infected” roamed the marshes and forests in this area… but perhaps there were others he could recruit?

              He looked at Drawr, who looked none the worse for wear in spite of all the chaos.

              “North still the road to Covitch?”

              Wink.

              He managed a smile. “Then let’s see who hates these cities, shall we?”

              Full face wink.

              They headed off through the forest, keeping parallel to the road, until they finally reached a broad clearing. Gal paused.

              “Do you know this place?”

              Wink.

              Far off across the field, probably miles away, but barely visible, was what appeared to be a very small town – so small in fact, that it was probably just a single dwelling.

              “Out here… in the middle of the plains. Why?”

              Drawr growled a question.

              “Yes, I do think we should go over there.”

              They continued along the road, as it wound and weaved its way toward the little town. As they got closer, they noticed it appeared to split off toward the north – apparently toward Covitch – and toward the east.

              “And where does that road go?”

              He wracked his half-dead brain to think of what other cities or settlements lay in the shadow of the Falkhorne – the mountain far off to the west. The river that wound through these woods shared its name with that mountain, emptying out into the southern seas. Were there any surviving settlements that way? It appeared that if there ever had been, they’d long since been abandoned – the roads the probably crossed here years ago had long since grown over, leaving this sort of crossroads.

              In fact, as they neared the settlement, they saw the dilapidated little sign naming the “town” that of “x-roads,”

              “I’ll give them this…” he muttered, half to himself and half to Drawr. “this is a commanding view of all comers. Maybe that’s why this is here. There must be a few soldiers garrisoned here or something.”

              “What was that?” He turned. A small old woman came shuffling along. She pointed to the house. “Need a room? You and your friend look like you could use a bath and a place to rest.”

              He smiled at her. “You’re not bothered at all by our appearance?” he asked.

              “Why would I be? All of us get burned in the sun – though you look like you’ve been working in those mines. Have you been?”

              Gal shook his head, then looked up toward the distant mountains off to the east. They weren’t quite as large as he knew Falkhorne was, but the cliff face rose up from the distance, a small road weaving its way through the crags.

              “There are mines around here?”

              “The Quarry’s up that way, love.” Replied the elderly lady. She shuffled her way back to the house. “Come by anytime.”

              “Drawr, I want you to stay here an guard her. I’ll be back for you once I’ve scouted out those canyons. Maybe that’ll hold the allies we need.”

              A few days’ later, weaving through canyon after canyon, backtracking, and finally clambering up a steep cliff wall, Gal arrived at an overlook. The town of Quarry stretched out below him – hovel upon hovel carved from the very earth itself. A large rock statue stood in the middle of the town, an obvious object of worship, as shrouded beings would pause before it to bow or make strange motions over their faces and chests before continuing on.

              He slid his way down the rock face, found what had been a well-traveled road at one point in history, and made his way into town, keeping as much to the shadows as he could without drawing too much attention to himself.

              A short man stumbled up. “Oi, newcoma’, wha’ brings ye here?”

              “I’m sorry?”

              The man cleared his throat. “Let me try that again, bigjob. Wha’ bring you here, newcomer.” He stressed his “r,” as if someone who was used to ignoring them now had to make the awkward introduction again, and was struggling to bring himself to use the vestigial sound.

              “I’m… exploring.”

              “Explorin’, ah, tha’s rich! Oi, Connell, didja hear wha’ this bigjob says?”

              “Wha’s that, Donnell?”

              “These bigjob says he’s jus’ explorin’… like findin’ Quarrytoon is jus’ a jaunt o’er mum’s punkin patch!”

              “Oi think ‘e’s lyin’! Wha’ shall we’s do wid him?”

              “Stab ‘im in the face?”

              “Tha’s goin’ a bit far Donnell, we could sta’t by clippin’ ‘im in the ‘caps.”

              “Aye, Connell, jus’ fer ol’ time’s sake.”

              “Hold on, both of you,” Gal ordered, a bit of fear and confusion merging with a face confidence. “I’m just trying to find people who can help me.”

              “Oh, tha’s nice.”

              And with that, the two short men were gone. Gal watched them vanish around the edge of the building, confusion welling up inside. What had he just witnessed? He felt as if he’d just seen language itself getting murdered.

              A dwarf appeared from around the corner. “Ye came a long way, stranger.”

              Gal nodded, keeping his hood down over his face. “I have. I need help.”

              “Apparently, if ye came all the way through the canyon to find our little town. Come with me.”

              He followed the dwarf, a stocky fellow with flaming red hair covering most of his deeply tanned body – perhaps he was just naturally darker-skinned. He brow seemed a little more set and his gaze a little sharper than anyone else Gal had ever met. A palpable weight seemed to hang over the man’s bearing.

              “You seem troubled.”

              The dwarf gave a slight nod and plodded along. “Aye.”

              “What is it?”

              “We’re cut off. Ye’re the first visitor we’ve had in weeks.”

              “The canyon?”

              The dwarf’s mighty shoulders heaved upright in a shrug that seemed strong enough to lift the sky. “No idea. Road’s clear’s far’s I can tell. We don’ tend t’ leave the canyon too often – Crossroads’s all dried up, and most o’ the business we got from Dock’s gone’s well.”

              “When did all that happen?”

              “Not sure… been no visitors. And the one’t come are the ones from the way off places who hear we have unique goods. They ain’t form local towns.”

              “Dwarves like yourself?”

              “Dwarves, aye… but no’ like us.”

              “How do you mean?”

              “These wan’ something… they’re lookin’ for something. With so many dead, I can’ imagine their ranks are like they were.”

              Gal followed him around the corner and into an alleyway. The dwarf suddenly spun, grabbing him by the loose fabric of his shirt and wrenching him down. With a meaty, dark, hairy hand, he wrenched Gal’s hood back and glared into his face.

              “Ah, yer one of them dead ones… Ah wondered.”

              “I’m not dead.”

              “Half o’ ya is… tha’s good enough fer me.”

              “What is?”

              “What d’ya know of the Myok?”

              “The what?”

              “An’ that settles it. Come along.”

              The dwarf released him, and they slipped into a secretive doorway set in the side of a nearby building. It had been carved out of the very cliff face.

              “Name’s Certhuel.”

              “Gal’barre.”

              “Good t’ meet ya.”

              “Same to you. What’s going on?”

              “Straight t’ the point… I like it. Follow.”

              The dwarf led him through a back door. Where Gal was expecting to exit back out into the city, he exited into a staircase that rapidly descended down under the earth. There was more to the house – carved back into the cliffs and probably latticing out through the whole of the canyon.

              The dwarf used no lantern or candle – the lights built into the wall, glowing by either magic or some unknown dwarven technology, did more than enough to illuminate their steps.

              “My people live underground.”

              Gal nodded, more for himself than the dwarf, as the dwarf couldn’t see him.

              “We’ve always sought the Low Roads – deep tunnels that connect our cities wid each other. That was until recently, when mah people moved to the surface and the others sank deeper and deeper… they’ve become blinded bah the Rathfire.”

              “The Rathfire?”

              “Old legend.”

              Gal didn’t press it. It was apparently a dwarven expression he should have understood. He didn’t.

              “Have ye heard of the Pact?”

              Gal shook his head. “No.”

              “Those who have won’ tell the specifics… but there’s a growin’ number in our world who’ve made it. I’ve seen corpses bein’ burned on a dark night, bodies o’ fish bein’ used t’ chum the waters. Ah’ve seen all sorts’o things goin’ on deep under the Low Roads in caverns long abandoned.”

              “What is it?”

              “An agreement…”

              “With what?”

              “Somethin’ deep down, or maybe out t’ sea. Yer from Docks?”

              Gal’barre nodded again. “Yes… at least I was…”

              “… when ye was alive?”

              “Yah.”

              “And when did ye die?”

              “Almost twenty years ago, apparently.”

              “Then it was already buried.”

              “What was?”

              “The ol’ temple at the end o’ the Falkhorne.”

              “There’s a temple there?”

              “Not anymore. There was… but o’er the years, it’s sunk into the slime and mud and been buried by the sands o’ the delta.”

              “How do you know this?” Gal asked.

              “Ah saw it in my younger days. It scared me back then… it terrifies me now.”

              “Why?”

              “Dark things under the world should stay trapped. Those wiser than we put them there, and we’d be wise t’ trust their judgment.”

              Gal sighed. “I supposed they promised power?”

              “Ah’m no’ even sure they exist, at this point. Me men’ve been tryin’ t’ find ‘em. If they do, no idea what they promised.”

              “Why tell me this?”

              “Ah need’jer help.”

              “And you don’t think I’d work for them?”

              “If these things coulda taken your kind, then why would they go after me brotha’s?”

              “Could be proximity?”

              The dwarf nodded, “Aye, but ah think there’s somethin’ about ma’ people it found… attractive.”

              “Is that where all your people went?”

              “What ya mean?”

              “I never remember seeing dwarves when I was alive and living in Docks. I didn’t think you existed anymore.”

              The dwarf nodded. “Aye, we’re not as prevalent since the fall o’ the Empire. We were butchered durin’ that time, and it drove us deep.”

              “Is that when the Pact was made?”

              “Ah dunno.” He replied.

              They wandered down deeper into a network of tunnels. Certhuel pointed to a mural on the wall. Strange, fish-like creatures, macabre and like nothing Gal had ever seen – living or dead – they rose up the walls, shadowy cloaked figures, with long, slender fingers extending from drooping sleeves.

              Their lower bodies vanished into wisps – like low-lying fog.

              “So… specters of some sort?”

              The dwarf shrugged. “That, or it’s a representation o’ their otherness.”

              “Otherness?”

              “Aye, mebbe they’re no’ of this world.”

              “And yet they’ve been trapped under it for centuries?”

              “Have ye never heard where humans and dwarves came from? In fact, it might have been the elves, too… not sure.”

              “No. Apparently you haven’t either,” replied Gal with a smirk – a half-smirk.

              “Ah, who’s a lippy one for being a walking dead.”

              “Got to do something to keep my spirits up.”

              “Ah think that’s yer problem from the beginnin’, your spirit wasn’t high enough t’ get out o’ this world.”

              Gal chuckled dryly. “Wow, that was a really bad joke.”

              “And what the universe did t’ ye was a worse joke,” he retorted.

              “You’re not wrong.” Gal extended one of his hands – the living one, or at least partly-living one. “I’ve often wondered if I’m even human. This doesn’t make any sense.”

              “Ah, yes, back to that one… have ye heard where the humans came from?”

              “I haven’t.”

              “We and they came from somewhere across the sea.”

              “Okay…”

              “Well, what if,” the dwarf continued, pointing up at the mural, “what if they wasn’t exploring – what if they was fleein’?”

              “Fleeing these?”

              The dwarf shrugged. “Could be.”

              “Then that means they were followed and they imprisoned these things.”

              “Have ye ever heard the tale of Rath?”

              “Who?”

              “Rath? God of dwarvenkind.”

              “Can’t say I have.”

              The dwarf pointed off down the tunnel. It was larger that should have seemed possible for how deep they were, but Gal suspected an ever-so-unnoticeably decline heading off through the canyon. The cavern was well-lit, but a fog seemed to choke the visibility after only a short distance.

              “Far off in every dwarven legend there’s a figure we all just know as ‘Rath.’ He was, by some accounts, the first dwarf, or the first god t’ notice the dwarves, or maybe he was the god we fought an’ made a deal with.”

              “So you have no idea.”

              “I happen not t’ be a believer m’self… butcha watch what ye say aroun’ mah cousins. They’d splitcha in half if ya said that.”

              “My apologies. I just have a hard time believing in any god after… this…” he held out his dead hand. “This seems to be a fluke in heaven’s accounting system.”

              “Or hell’s.”

              “Heh,” replied the man, “not wrong about that one, either.”

              “Anyway, there be legends – an’ we know how legends have in them just a wee egg of truth – what if the god we all made the agreement with wasn’ Rath, but was whatever bound these things?”

              “Or perhaps the dwarves made a deal with the things that were bound? Feed a chained dog so it doesn’t try to shake off its chains.”

              Certhuel nodded. “Ah’ve feared that is the truth.”

              “What about technology?”

              “What about it?”

              “When I was in Docks, I saw technology there that was unthought-of twenty years ago – steam-powered motorbikes, everything’s concrete and steel, steam-powered devices everywhere. I suspect they’ve upgraded their weaponry a bit, too… I’m noticing far more belt-fed things and cable-driven things.”

              “Ah don’t know of any dwarves living there… maybe it’s just progress?”

              “Or the dwarves are there in secret? You said a bunch of your cousins went missing… and there’s an abandoned temple under that town somewhere.”

              Certhuel shook his head. “Ah never said it was abandoned.”

              Gal sighed, trying to ignore the fact that he, being mostly dead, didn’t really need to breathe. “So a bunch of cultists worshiping some unknown… thing… are meeting underneath my old town – the town that killed me and covered up my murder?”

              The dwarf shrugged. “Some o’ that’d be a ‘yes.’ Not so sure on the murder part.”

              “Someone blew up my ship and the entire dock around me for good measure.” He drew out a small box from his cloak. “I found this underneath a surviving portion of one of the docks.”

              The dwarf reached out for it and gingerly opened the box. “These’re similar t’ what we were usin’ back in that day.”

              “So I was killed by a dwarf?”

              “Or someone bought the supplies off of a dwarf. Extremely focused blast, little collateral damage. Yer lucky this one was a dud, or ya’d’ve been blown t’ bits.”

              “I’m beginning to think that would’ve been a better fate.”

              “Don’ be too hasty,” replied the dwarf. He replaced the lit of the box and turned it over. “Ye may jus’ prove yer mettle before this’s all out.”

              “Oh, I’ve sufficiently proven my mettle. I’d enjoy the peace of death.”

              “As would we all,” the dwarf responded. He placed the box down on a nearby counter and pulled out a small lamp and a pair of goggles. “Let’s see… where’d’ja come from?”

              “What are you looking for?”

              “Watermarks, manufacture stamps… dwarven make comes with some sort of ‘Ah made this’ stamp.” He perused the box for another few moments “and here we have it.”

              “Where’d it come from?”

              “Nothin’ for sure… but it appears it was ordered by the Council. Ya know who that is?”

              Gal nodded, “they rule to the town.”

              “Then ah guess ye have yer culprits.”

              “We have the who, yes… but why? What did they have to gain by killing me?”

              “Guess ye’ll have t’ go back an’ see. An’ if ye find anythin’ on that Pact, will ya bring it back t’ me? Ah’m tired a me cousin’s going missing.”

              Gal nodded. “I’ll do that. Will you help me infiltrate the city again?”

              The dwarf smiled. “Now ye’re speakin’ mah language. Follow me.”

              The two traversed a short distance until they came to a deep ravine that blocked the way forward. A massive series of cables ran along the ceiling, stretching off into the darkness.

              “Jus’ wait here for a few minutes an’ the tram will be back.”

              “The tram?”

              “Aye, ye’ll love it. Take it to the forty-fifth stop an’ exit to the southern side. You’ll understand when ye get there.”

              “I’ll return when I have news.”

              The dwarf chuckled. “If ye make it back, I’ll buy drinks. Ye do drink, don’t ya?”

              Gal shrugged, “don’t know, actually. Haven’t really had the need to.”

              “Well, we’ll give it a try when ye get back.”

              A few dwarves milled about now as Certhuel escorted him to the tram. “Ah hope ye find what yer questin’ for.”

              “As do I. Though I could do without finding whatever those things are deep under the earth.”

              The dwarf chuckled. “Heh, aye… same here.”

              The man stepped aboard the tram. It swayed slightly, creaking as it hung from the massive cable that stretched from here off into the darkness. Below him yawned a stygian chasm, punctuated by a few glow worms and, far, far below, the slightish glow of what appeared to be lava.

              “It must be flowing,” he muttered. It hadn’t grown a cooled layer over the top. Somewhere below him, if this cable snapped, he’d find himself bathing in a river of molten rock. And he knew enough to realize that he’d probably be crushed as the tram and lava met – anything that remained would just sit on the surface and roast.

              “Pleasant…”

              He rode along in silence, listening to the creaking and straining of the cable overhead as the tram swayed and jostled its way to the far end – wherever that would be.

              A sign showed a small arrow directing his attention to a nearby platform. It read “platform four.” Dwarves were entering and exiting from the other side. He continued “platform five, six, seven…”

              About the time he reached platform ten, things appeared… different. The dwarves appeared a little more harrowed, as if they were on guard for something, or had just come off a battlefield. One looked at him with slightly-veiled concern. He was going farther!

              He passed them and continued deeper and deeper – soon he had reached platform twenty. It was coated with a thick layer of grime and… soot? A few of the buildings were darker than normal – had they burned? Was this cloud in the air ash, or soot, or gases rising up from the lava far beneath? And where had the dwarves gone? As much as he looked, there were none.

              He rode onward, feeling a slight trepidation in his chest. He wasn’t aware he could feel emotions such as fear, being dead and all, but continued. As he passed two other stations, he noticed the buildings appeared to be collapsed from the outside, as if crushed by a massive hand. A thick layer of dust and ash coated everything, and a strange fog hung in the air. He instinctively held his breath before remembering that he didn’t need to breathe.

              He passed deeper into the fog, feeling the tendrils of smoke-like vapor swirl around him, filling the tramcar and blotting out his view. He didn’t see anything for quite some time, but given the frequency of the other stops, he imagined he’d have passed thirty stops by now.

              And then the thin lights that had illuminated the dark tram slowly faded out, leaving him in utter darkness. He stood there, watching the distance, feeling the fog lightly brush his face, and spotted a slight pin-prick of light. A new station. He didn’t know how far he had come.

              He passed it, and in the dim light and through the dense, stifling fog, he thought he saw a “4,” he was in the forties!

              He paused, considering what to do. If he overshot his exit, where did the tram go? How far did the tram go? If he jumped off too soon, would he be able to find his way? What about the destruction he’d seen all the way here – was he in danger if he stepped away from the car?

              He didn’t have time to think anymore. Another station vanished and he was left in the darkness. He had to get off this tram at the next exit, or risk traveling too far.

              There it was! A light materialized in the distance.

              He poised, ready to jump.

              The light came closer. He launched himself from the tram, landing heavily on a metallic surface that screamed in protest before collapsing into the darkness.

              Panicked, he scrambled up the collapsing platform and lunged into the darkness, hoping against hope he’d be able to grasp something, anything, that would stop his fall.

              And something did stop his fall. His fingers sank into something soft. The cliffside he had gripped was… oozing. He reached up, grasped another handful of the muck, and hauled himself hand-over-hand up to the ledge. Spars of metal aided his ascent, but otherwise, he simple clambered up the viscous, semi-solid mass. It gave way beneath his fingers, but didn’t break off.

              He scrabbled his way to the ledge and stood, wiping the sludge from his hands, only succeeding in smearing it around, since he was now covered head to toe in the amorphous goo. He slipped on the sludge and risked toppling back over the ledge, but managed to latch onto a spar of metal before he completely lost his footing. He used his accentuated strength to hoist the rod out of the ground, the steel grating loudly in protest as he did so.

              He felt a small bulbous pustule burst under his weight. Disgusted as he could be, lacking most of the senses, he pulled himself up and over the lip and down the metal grating, sliding in the strange, viscous sludge until he stood in the opening of a long, muscular tunnel.

              He stabbed the metal rod into the ground, drawing what looked like thick black blood, and, taking a few steps, stabbing it into the ground, taking a few more steps, and repeating the action until he was safely within one of the side tunnels.

              It pulsed like a living throat.

              As a wave of fear and disgust rolled over his dead form, he marveled at how the living must have felt, then he thought back to the haggard dwarves he had seen back in the tunnels. What had been closing on them? What was this?

              The sides of the wall pulsed rhythmically, fading back down the darkness like a muscular wave.

              His face no doubt a masque of disgust, Gal stumbled forward, using the sharp metal spar for support as he picked his way through the glandular masses and fleshy vein-like masses. Blood-like fluid pulsed freely with each stab.

              Then the thing arrived.

              Scuttling along on multiple legs, each spindly and tapered like a spiders, the creature skittered around the corner, walking half on the ceiling and half on the wall. It paused, small antennae-like appendages writhing in the air for a moment, then rushed at him.

              He recoiled, slipping on the sludge as the creature bore down on him.

              With reaction borne of instinct more than anything, he jabbed the metal spar back into the flesh and raised it like a pike. The creature, descending from above, all pincers and claws and spines, roared in fury and pain as the shaft neatly pierced through what appeared to be an elongated thorax.

              The force snapped the front half of the creature’s body free, its upper thorax scrabbling along the ground, snapping and frothing, using one surviving legs and its spindly mouthparts to attempt to maneuver it’s small, spine-covered head into a position where it could strike at Gal.

              Gal drew a pistol from his side and leveled it at the creature’s face, then fired.

              The shot broke through the carapace, splattering what little internal juices there were across the fleshy wall, imbedding shattered chitin like broken glass into the throbbing mass that was the tunnel wall.

              The lower body, separated from the head, writhed and scrambled, attempting to free itself from the metal pole.

              He wrenched the pole free and leveled his pistol again, firing into the softer flesh of the abdomen.

              The bullet wrenched free a coil of fleshy organs, which blasted out the other side, leaving a trail of gore. The body fell still.

              Gal wrenched the metal bar free, feeling the closest thing to excitement he had in a while.

              “Glands don’t work like they used to…” he muttered with a smile. He instinctively took a deep breath, even though he didn’t need to, and shoved the corpse over. It was shaped like a strange cross between a praying mantis and a spider – spindly legs, strange, fang-like mandibles, small, pointed spines, but with a thorax that stretched up to a beady head.

              It was a grotesque horror unlike anything else he had seen.

              He stumbled past the monster, its leg slowly constricting in on itself as its last vestiges of life slowly faded. He stabbed it again for good measure, then half-slid, half-ran down the tunnel.

              The walls turned, following what appeared to the be the original contours of the path. He could make out the slight impression that seemed to be the dwarven houses that lined these corridors – windows absolutely absorbed in flesh. He drew out a knife and slashed at the pulsing membranes, cutting open a window into a nearby room. The reddish-brown, pulsing mass had filled it, and it oozed a whitish substance, as if whatever was growing through these tunnels had begun to develop glands and other organs within the openings it found. How was that even possible? What was this things slowly consuming the underground?

              He continued on into the darkness of the tunnel. The dwarven lights attempted to glow through the fleshy walls, but cast so little light as to only be present – they appeared like a light shining behind the flesh of a hand.

              “Well, if that hand had no bones,” he muttered, watching the reddish-yellow glow attempt to pass through the thick meat of the wall.

              Something twitched in the corner.

              He crouched. It was shaped almost like a body, just shorter. Was it a dwarf?

              Carefully, he cut back the fleshy layer and peeled back the membrane.

              With a wet splort sound, the skin peeled back, bathing his hands in thick bloodlike goo. A being sat there, beard and hair bleached white. The skin had begun to harden.

              “What happened to you?”

              The exposed flesh of the face had begun to harden and discolor, as if the being had been carved from stone in the most intricate way possible.

              “Help… me…”

              He stepped back. The dwarf’s words came out like gravel cascading over a cliff. He was half-petrified, yet still alive!

              “How? How can I help?”

              “Free… me…”

              The bulb near where the dwarf’s hand would have been pulsed slightly, as if the dwarf was trying to lift it off of him.

              “Hold on.”

              Gal drew his dagger carefully down the sac, listening down the tunnel for any sign of those scuttling things. The membrane broke free, and the dwarf’s hand rose up out of the flesh, tearing more of the viscous skin from his body. He slowly rose, his joints creaking like stones sliding across one another, and took a tentative, baby-like step forward. He reached back into the sludge, grabbing a pustule-filled section of wall in a large stone hand and wrenching a chunk of bleeding flesh free, exposing his halberd.

              This he grabbed and tore from its place to a rush of new blood.

              “What happened to you?”

              The dwarf stared at his hands. “No idea,” he replied in a gravelly voice. “When we die, we turn to stone… but I’ve never heard of it happening while we were alive.”

              “How many of you are down here?”

              “It came up the tunnel… we weren’t ready,” the dwarf’s voice was deep, stoic, emotionless. His eyes were glazed over by stone, and his face barely moved as he spoke. Was he a walking dead like Gal? “dozens of us were dragged off before we could react. A few jumped on the tram back to Quarry to warn the rest.”

              “I don’t think they made it.”

              “What do you mean?”

              “Certhuel sent me here to get back to Docks. Only the outer platforms seem to know something’s wrong.”

              The dwarf nodded sadly. “I just hope they find a way to push this back or we may lose everything.”

              “They may have found a way.”

              “Really?”

              “The stations closer to this were burnt.”

              The dwarf nodded. “That would probably work. Drive it back, scorch the ground. It has nothing to feed on.”

              Something scuttled nearby.

              “Those things again…” the dwarf growled. “Let’s go.” He hefted his halberd and shambled off down the tunnel. Gal struggled to keep up with him, slipping and sliding down the fleshy tube as he tried to match the dwarf’s gait.

              “Where did it come from? How did it grow so fast?”

              “I’m not sure it grew fast,” the dwarf replied, his speech uninterrupted by any breaths or pauses. He no longer needed to breathe either. “I think it originated nearby.”

              “Nearby?”

              “The suddenness of it. Our outer defenses were overrun almost instantly. None of the stations down the way even relayed.”

              “Maybe they couldn’t?”

              “Possible, but we have emergency relays that almost any dwarf could have activated.” He continued thundering along, crushing mounds of flesh and organs under his thick stone boots. “I think that’s what you saw back there… the result of our forward defenses activating the Firebird Protocol.”

              “What’s that?”

              Gal slid in the sludge and toppled over. The dwarf paused and helped him to his feet. They were in a large tunnel that had once held a collection of buildings. They rose multiple stories on either side, with stone bridges spanning back and forth across the chasm. All of these had become completely consumed by the fleshy growths, and strange muscle-like structures had begun to span through the skin-like flesh. Tendon seemed to stretch out as well.

              “The Firebird Protocol…” the dwarf paused, noticing the vaulting columns of muscle and tendon, and the small glandular sacs that hung from high overhead, “was an emergency quarantine measure our people created after watching the effects of a plague. If the dead can come back to life – burn everything that dies, even the ground if you have to, to stop it.”

              “And you have that all over your cities?”

              The dwarf nodded, “At least at major checkpoints. They’re called firewalls. We have a collection of pipes drawing up from the lava below almost constantly.”

              The skittering sounded again.

              The dwarf readied his halberd. Gal drew his pistol in one hand, holding the spar of metal in his other.

              Fleshy walls rose up high above them, lost in the strange fog that seemed to settle when enough of this substance was present. At the moment, it seemed to be collecting high above them, but wisps of it were slowly creeping down the walls.

              And the skittering. That abhorrent skittering.

              One of the mantis-spider things skuttled its way around the edge of a building and shrieked at them. A halberd whizzed through the air, pinning it to the wall with a crunch. “Shut yer gab!” Cried the dwarf. He groaned and tore his way through the flesh into a nearby building. “Follow me.”

              Gal entered the structure. Liquid dripped down on them. It hissed and started to burn at his flesh.

              “Don’ let it touch you.”

              “Yah, I figured that out.” Gal shook the sludge off his arm. It had eaten away a section of skin. Thankfully, that part of his arm was already dead.  A bit dripped down the back of his shirt, and he could feel the cloth slowly melting away. “Digestive organs?”

              “Yah,” replied the dwarf. He crashed his way through a thin layer of meniscus covering the back wall and found a staircase to the upper leve. “C’mon, we won’t last long in here.”

              A body squirmed on the ground – it was a tentacle fused with what appeared to be a hand-like appendage. It grasped up at them and then slowly melted back into the floor.

              He slid his way around the corner and stumbled up the stairs. The dwarf had already ascended another flight. As soon as he arrived at the third floor, he saw throbbing opening, blood pooling from a new injury the dwarf had punched into the being.

              “Are we still in your city, or fighting through the bowels of some humongous beast?”

              “I think both,” replied the dwarf. He looked around. “There.”

              The creature was still pinned to the wall, which was slowly absorbing it back into its mass.

              “No, you don’t!” muttered the dwarf. He leapt up to the ledge and, using one powerful hand to grip the flesh of the wall, wrenched his halberd free with a spray of gore. The creature, half absorbed, fell free and toppled to the floor of the chasm with a sick splat.

              The dwarf lunged back to the meaty bridge, smashing a thick layer of newly-grown organs.

              “You enjoy that, don’t you?”

              “If you eat my friend and threaten my world, I’m going to torment you to the last moment.”

              “That’s fair,” replied Gal. He swatted the last of the sludge from his shoulder, noting the holes burned throughout his outfit. “What are we trying to do?”

              “I thought you wanted to get to Docks?”

              “I do, but what about you?”

              “I’m going to activate the Fire Bird Protocol and try to contain this thing to this city.”

              “How do we do that?”

              “It’s on the way.”

              They continued across the bridge.

              “What was this place?”

              “Houses, research labs, restaurants, barracks… pretty much everything you could imagine.”

              “And this thing consumed them all?”

              The dwarf nodded, “I assume so.”

              “But the dwarves… they vanished from the world.”

              “From the above ground, yes. We fell back to our mines and our tunnels and the canyons.”

              “But why?”

              They continued along a road that looped along the upper story of a building and then trailed off into the mountainside, higher than the road they had entered on. The fleshiness continued through here – even seemed thicker. Everything was growing darker as more and more of the glowing dwarven lights were absorbed.

              “I’ll give you a dwarven history lesson when we finish this,” the dwarf responded, trudging through the flesh. It rose nearly to his knees now. “Suffice it to be that we had… political issues with the other races… and saw fit to withdraw. Most of us, at least.”

              They trudged through the tunnel, weaving down this avenue and that, until finally they had to cut their way through a closed opening. Muscles and tendons had begun to run down the length of this branch.

              “What is this becoming?”

              “I don’t want to know,” replied the dwarf. He stabbed the halberd deep into the muscle of the tunnel’s sphincter. It recoiled and they squeezed into the next room. “And I don’t want to know what part of the body we’re in now.”

              “Look.”

              The dwarf pointed off through the darkness. A small panel pulsed under the mounds of flesh that had grown up over everything. Wading through the thick masses, the dwarf pried back the flesh.

              “You might want to get to some cover.”

              “And where would that be?”

              “There should be a compartment over there,” he pointed off to the corner.

              Gal stumbled over toward it. He slashed back at the flesh, revealing a thick stone door. “Here?”

              “Yes.” The dwarf activated a series of controls. “Get inside.”

              Gal wrenched the door open, the skin popping and snapping as it gave way. Then something lunged from within. It latched onto his face, tentacles and coils whipping and cracking as it came. Gal felt a beak-like mouth latch onto his cheek, wrenching free a chunk of flesh.

              He growled and tugged, snapping one of the tentacles from the creature’s body.

              “Human, get in that box! This is going to blow any moment!”

              He clenched his teeth against the pain – the creature had caught living flesh. “I’m trying!”

              The shrieks and cries of the tentacled thing filled the air.

              “Get… in… the… box!” The dwarf was holding the control panel open – or maybe he was keeping it sealed. Either way, he couldn’t help in this fight.

              Gal felt a chunk of flesh get ripped from his dead shoulder. He clenched his teeth in anger and bashed the creature against the wall. It splattered with a sickening crunch and slid to the floor. Gal wiped his hand.

              “Human! In the box! Now!”

              He dove into the box and pulled the lid closed as everything went a brilliant orange-red.

              The room rumbled and shook and somewhere, deep off through the dwarven underground, he heard a shrieking – a violent, hateful shriek that pierced his very mind. He flinched, recoiling from the psychic attack.

              Then everything went silent, save for the distant, reverberating, discordant shrieks.

              Something out there was angry… very angry. And it was, in all ways but with words, swearing its soon revenge.

              There was a moment longer of silence, then the door creaked open, and a soot-stained stone dwarf stood there, his eyes now glowing a dull, hot-coal-like red.

              “What happened?”

              “Rath has blessed me for my service, it would seem.”

              The dwarf extended a hand. His fingertips glowed slightly, as metal does when heated.

              “Did it work?”

              Blobs of dead, charred flesh dropped from the ceiling. Strange, worm-like beings squirmed momentarily on the floor as pustules burst open, the worm-like things slowly melting into pools of good on the floor. The sphincter muscle had torn back, blasted down the tunnel by the force of the Firebird Protocol.

              “It seems so. We’ve at least created a perimeter to isolate this thing… for now.”

              “And what do we do if it breaks free again?”

              The dwarf shrugged. “My people will begin to work on something. The protocols only work as long as we have enough stored up… it will take quite some time to refuel. I have some ideas.”

              “Best of luck to you, then.”

              The dwarf nodded. “Same to you.” He held out his hand. “Niron.”

              “Gal’barre.”

              Their hands met. The dwarf’s was surprisingly warm to the touch. “May we meet again under better circumstances.”

              “Same.”

              “Leave this room and take the tunnel you find until you see the lights of the outside world – you’ll be back in your region.”

              “Thank you for all your help.”

              “Thank you for helping me rescue my people. If you ever need us, call.”

              Gal nodded. “Thank you. I will.”

              With that, they parted, and after another days’ worth of trekking through the dwarven underground, passing the festering and sometimes still-living through trapped remains of whatever had tried to infest this world, Gal stepped into the abandoned antechamber of the Low Road. A small village carved from the living earth, long abandoned, bid him farewell, and he pushed open the large stone doors that led to the outside.

              …and found himself high on a cliff face, overlooking the ocean...

              “Guess this is a good security device. Good view, too,” he quipped. He looked around. The staircase leading up to this place had long since collapsed. Vines and trees had overgrown much of the surrounding region.

              “Well, let’s see how well I climb,” he muttered. He slowly lowered himself over the edge and scrambled, hand-over-hand, down onto the beach.

              Fresh air wafted in from the sea. Gal shed his old, festering clothes and scrambled into the ocean, using the salty water to scrub free the filth and detritus of the last few days. Sludge from his journey and whatever that festering monstrosity had been had long since coated him, hardening into a strange, mutant-looking shell[6]. These slowly broke free, taking a few dead bits of skin from his undead side as it did so. He’d have to watch that… his dead side didn’t heal like his living parts.

              He pulled himself out of the water, scrubbed his clothing as clean as possible, and pulled his trousers back on, leaving his shredded shirt to rot in the sand. He flexed his shoulder, made sure his knife and pistol were secure, plucked the broken spar of dwarven metal from where it had fallen, and began his trek across the beach toward the marshlands and forests surrounding Dock.

              The night had just fallen when he arrived at the outskirts of the forest.

              Something shuffled in the darkness.

              He readied the metal rod. “State your business.”

              “Perhaps you should do the same, intruder.”

              He saw a glint from something’s eyes about a foot above him. Two legs, long, powerful, and brown, tamped at the sod on the edge of the dark treeline. A glint of a spear, or some similar weapon, showed the intent of the entity.

              He gripped the metal rod tightly. “I mean you no harm, I’m just passing through.”

              Something snorted from the forest. “And that’s how you gained a foothold in our land.” Another snort.

              A thump of something heavy against the ground.

              Another glint of metal, this time off to the side.

              “State your business, human, or be struck down where you stand.”

              Gal lowered the beam of metal to the ground and raised his hands. “I mean no harm. I’m simply trying to make it back to Docks.”

              “Why?”

              Snort.

              “You won’t believe this, but someone there tried to kill me, and I want to know why.”

              There was a whinny-like laugh from the one closest to the edge of the forest. Shapes moved behind it – they were on horseback. They vanished off into the woods. The one on the edge remained.

              “And what will you do when you find your murderer?”

              Gal flexed a hand. “I’ll kill him.”

              “And if he’s already dead?”

              “I’ll eradicate any who defended him.”

              There was a smile in the voice of the being now. “I think we can help you with that. Come find us when the time is right.” With that, and the galloping of hooves, the being was gone.

              Gal stepped toward the beach a little farther, plucked his spar of metal from the ground, and continued, mulling over what all that meant.

              Was it safe to enter the forest now?

              Did he dare?

              He took a tentative step back toward the dark gloom of the forest. It was silent again. The beings were gone. They had horses for sure, though. Hoof-prints dotted the edge of the dark forest, leading back off into the thicker loam and vanishing amidst the fallen leaves and other debris.

              Gal worked his way through the forest, walking more by instinct than anything, until he came, after several days of searching, to the ruins of the abandoned shack. Several ghouls still roamed the area, and the small piles of ash showed that the men from Docks still roamed the area, killing and burning the ghouls as they passed through.

              He scowled.

              Something about the ghouls appealed to him, dead and shambling as they were. They were the remains of his people – his people in life and now just as much his people in death. Whatever had killed and reanimated them was at fault. The ghouls posed no threat.

              Not yet, at least.

              He suspected Drawr was still off at the Crossroads – hopefully not terrifying the old woman who lived there. If he could reconnect with his old friend, maybe he could see to organizing some of these ghouls into a proper fighting force.

              A shambling ghoul, muttering to itself, wandered over.

              Gal gasped.

              “You can speak?”

              “Yes…” it whispered. There was a glint of sentience in its eye. “Do you not remember those of us who rose again after the battle with the townspeople?”

              “I thought you all wandered off?”

              The man shook his head. “We followed you for a bit, but when you vanished into the canyon, we came back here. We thought you were dead – for good, dead.”

              “Almost a few times,” Gal answered, “but no, I’m very much alive – well, not dead-dead. Let me ask you… you know this forest, right?”

              The man answered. In the dim light, he appeared every bit healthy and human, but Gal knew he had died violently, and wondered just how much damage the man’s body had suffered in the battle.

              “I do,” replied the man.

              “Are there cavalry forces?”

              The man shook his head in confusion. “Cavalry? Like horses? We don’t tend to use horses here. Granted, I don’t know much from before I died, but I don’t remember seeing any since then. It’s only been what, a week or so?”

              Gal shrugged. “I guess. I saw a group of horsemen on the edge of the forest a few days ago. I’ve been wandering around so much since, I don’t think I could find it again.”

              “Centaurs, maybe?”

              “They’re still alive?”

              The man shrugged. “Don’t see why not. The forest is quite expansive.”

              “Did their range reach this far?”

              The man shrugged again. “I don’t see why not. I don’t really remember, to be honest.”

              Gal nodded. So those returning from the dead suffered from memory loss. He’d definitely need to help them now. Having a bunch of sentient, lost beings roaming through the forest wouldn’t be a good thing. They needed to organize if they were going to survive.

              “About how tall were they?”

              “No idea. If they’re part horse, I’d say think about the size of a man sitting on a horse.”

              Gal smiled. He’d met a group of centaurs – most likely, at least – and they’d offered him help wiping out Docks. But first, he needed evidence.

              And if he were to find evidence, it would be in the Council chambers.

              The next week passed with little progress. Gal and the surviving soldier stared out over the city. Concrete walls, decked with rotting wood, surrounded the dockside town. Just outside, they could see the eponymous docks stretching off into the sea, inviting all comers.

              How long had it been since he’d been here last? It had to be a few weeks, at least – almost a month. The cycle of the moon was invisible at the moment, blocked by the thick fog that nearly always blanketed the town. It was above it now, but he knew that it would slowly descend and soon cover everything.

              He could use that to his advantage.

              “You remember the plan?”

              “My memory’s destroyed, but I can remember anything that happened after I died.”

              Gal smiled. “True. Sorry. Tell the centaur, if you can find them, that the owner of this,” he handed him the dwarven metal rod, “wishes to meet with them in a week’s time in the field where the roads meet.”

              The man nodded.

              “And if you can find a large, skeletal being that answers to Drawr, bring him as well.”

              The man was off.

              Gal stared off toward the city. The ghouls had all fallen back away from the walls for now. He’d exerted that much control over them, at least. He rehearsed his plan. If the other Gal’barre’s body hadn’t been found, then maybe he’d be able to pretend to be… his own son. His son whom he had murdered by accident. If they’d discovered his son’s slain body, then all bets were off, and he’d have to abandon this plan altogether.

              He pulled his cloak up over his head, wrapped the bandage tightly around the dead side of his face, and flexed his hands. They were covered in bandages as well.

              He strode up to the gate of the city.

              “Who goes there?” asked one of the guards.

              Gal leaned on a stick, using it like a crutch. “Gal’barre the Younger, of the Dockkeepers,” he groaned.

              “Where’ve you been?”

              “I got ambushed in the roads while on patrol – I was just barely able to make it back.”

              “I didn’t know you was out of the wall.”

              “I got caught up in a raid while clearing the dead off the beaches. Got dragged off into the woods.”

              “Been happening too much lately,” muttered the guard. “We’ll have to talk to the Council about these things.”

              “They’re still around?”

              “Of course, why wouldn’t they be?”

              Gal shrugged. “Just don’t seem to do anything, thought they were gone.”

              The guard chuckled. “You’ve actually got a point. If anything, they do so much stopping of everything else…” then he paused. “Shouldn’ta said that.”

              There was an awkward pause.

              “So… may I enter?”

              “Oh, yes. Of course. Go on in.”

              He stepped through the concrete gateway. Long ago, it had been lined with wood and made to look presentable, but the years of exposure to the salty spray of the sea had rotted it away, causing the façade to sag and sink in response.

              “Apparently the Council doesn’t care to actually fix the city,” he muttered. All around him, the buildings were sagging and rotting – a core of concrete and steel that made them strong and resilient, but a wooden appearance that gave the whole place a depressing effect.

              The forest had long since crept up along the city walls, and a few larger branches had made it over.

              He noted this. “Maybe a way out if this all goes south,” he muttered. He passed a large man carrying several large knives – a fishmonger if he’d guess.

              He strode through the city streets, finally coming to what he’d assumed was the Council chambers – maybe even the mayor’s office, or governor – whatever they were calling him these days. An old tree had grown near the second story. Gal looked around, then scrambled the best he could up into the branches, leaping over and landing gingerly on the porch that ringed the second level.

              He pushed his way into the room through a window, dropping lightly to the concrete floor.

              A metal desk sat in the center of the far wall – there were other accoutrements that meant the Council met here, but if there were any place where he’d find what he needed, it was there.

              He pulled open the drawer. It stuck slightly, but slid free. Papers… so many papers.

              Years of documents were wedged into every crevice. Gal wrenched a few of them free, some of them tearing as they came. From what he could see, every bit of this desk was crammed with legal documents. Years of appeals to expand the borders, to trim trees, to expand the open spaces of the town, had been shut down. The Council had done everything in its power to keep construction and modernization to a minimum. For some reason, however, they’d insisted on paving over almost all of the town and reinforcing not only the walls and buildings, but also the docks.

              It seemed as if the newfangled technology of concrete – which had long been a staple elsewhere, apparently – had come at just the right time, and had been used liberally to shore up the town from almost every angle. On top of that, they’d seen fit to install vapor release valves along the seashore to increase the fog production, citing “environmental concerns.”

              He closed one drawer and found more of the same in the next few. He heard a few footsteps and paused, hand halfway drawn from the central drawer. Someone was downstairs.

              He pulled out a small folder and set it on the desk.

              He opened the pages and almost closed them when a scrap of paper caught his eye. There, amidst mindless jabber in legalese about environmental thoroughfares and cultural heritage was a single, handwritten scrap of paper that read “stop all digging at all costs. The lost temple has been located under the delta, and we must make sure nothing awakes. Stop every bit of expansion that could possibly draw attention to what’s down there.” There was more to the note, but it was clear that whoever had read it had attempted to rip off some bits, but had forgotten this part.

              Then he found it. Stashed away in the bottom of the drawer was a small collection of boxes – the same box he had seen attached to the underside of the dock. He held it aloft and examined it.

              “Oi, what are you doin’ here?” Gal stood, holding a small box in his hands that he’d found in the drawer.

              He spun. An unimposing man stood in the doorway. Behind him, a sharp-eyed man glowered at him. He didn’t recognize either of them.

              “Who’s in charge of the town?” he demanded.

              “I am,” replied the sharp-eyed man, “who’s asking?”

              Gal bristled and pulled the other explosive from inside his jacket, comparing the two of them and then holding them out for the two to see. “Same box…” he growled, rage bubbling to the surface. They’d tried to kill him – they’d succeeded! “… this one’s yours.”

              “Who are you?”

              “This one killed… my dad.” He caught himself. “And this one was sitting in your desk. Care to explain yourself?”

              The newcomer scoffed. “We don’t answer to intruders. Explain your business or get out.”

              “Someone in your precious Council oversaw my dad’s death by explosive,” he spat, “and I intend to find out why. You can save me a lot of trouble hunting you down later if you confess now.”

              The man laughed. “Like I’d explain myself to a common thief. Get out of here before I call the guards.”

              “Already took care of them.” He bluffed. He hoped they’d at least hesitate before raising an alarm.

              The apparent governor scowled. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

              “I’ve already explained, your grace,” he sneered, “I want justice for my family, and I want to know why you saw fit to kill him.”

              He suspected some sort of attack. The man’s eyes were too sharp to be apathetic. The dagger was swift, but expected. The man swept it from his waist and hurled with practiced ease. Gal blocked the blade with the bottom of the wooden box he carried, wrenched the dagger free, and tossed it aside with a confident smirk. But here was another! And it was spinning toward his face. He went with his gut reaction, covering his face with the side of his arm, barely feeling it as the blade sank deep into the muscle. He growled and tore it free, tossing it aside, sending it spinning away. He arm didn’t so much as bleed. Before the man could find another blade, Gal bounded backwards, dodging a third and fourth dagger, then vaulted his way out the window and onto the street below, vanishing into the fog.

              He heard a loud whistle from the second floor and the barking of a pack of dogs as the cry went up “Intruder escaping by Canal Road!”

              He rushed up the path, thanking the fog descending while he was occupied, and used an overhanging limb to vault up and over the wall, avoiding the guards in the fog. He leapt easily over the wall, hovered in the air for a split second, and dropped to the forest below. His hand managed to grasp the branch of a nearby tree to arrest his fall, nearly wrenching his shoulder out of socket in the process, but he landed with little damage.

              The dogs yipped and howled from the other side of the wall, chasing ghosts.

              He smirked, made sure both boxes and the few papers he had snatched on his way out were tucked away in his pockets, and sprinted off into the depths of the forest. The other man should have reached the centaur camp – or at least gotten closer. He could hopefully catch up, now that he wasn’t wandering aimlessly through the forest.

              He needed to fall back – the attacks would come swiftly, and if he stood any chance, he needed a base of operations – he needed to take the Crossroads. And to secure it, he’d need as much help as he could get.

              He continued his dead run through the forest, feeling the muscles tighten and pound as he covered more distance than humanly possible. He felt small tears forming – he’d pay the price later, but he needed to move quickly. It was a considerable march to the crossroads, and he needed to cut off supplies to Docks now, before they changed their minds and began to search for that temple.

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