The living corpse growls and then he speaks in a guttural voice: “I’ll pulverise you, bony bitch!”
“Don’t talk to me like that fleshy – hey, cut it out!”
The corpse is gnawing on my bony arms and making nom nom noming sounds.
“Are you alright?” calls Jaime.
“Keep your distance, my love!” I call to Jaime. “This bad corpse bites. I really don’t want him getting his teeth into you. I already died to stop Mortis doing that.”
There are little people coming out of the small houses. Some of them are only as tall as my hip. Cute. I think they must be gnomes.
I shake my arms, but the corpse doesn’t let go with his teeth.
“I know for a fact that you are bad to the bone!” I tell the living corpse. “I know that there isn’t a nice skeleton inside you trying to get out.”
The corpse has not been able to make any impressions on my bones with his teeth, so he releases my arm and then punches me with impossible strength… I burst apart.
Great. It’s happened again. I’ve broken into six pieces. My head, arms, legs and torso are all separated. My skull goes flying over to Jaime who catches me in his arms.
“Gotcha.”
He’s cradling my head like I’m a baby. I gaze up at him, staring into his brown eyes, gazing at his freckled nose and cheeks, his strong jawline with designer stibble…
“I feel so safe,” I murmur. “In your arms. It’s where I belong.”
“Look at that, your other body parts are beating the corpse up,” says Jaime.
“Oh? Please hold me up so I can see?”
Jaime holds me facing the battle in the streets. My limbs and torso are battering the corpse from all directions. They can be quite rough when separated from me.
The corpse is swiping hard at them and he starts yelling a really morbid battle chant:
“What is fear? I know it not!
What is death? The mortals’ lot!
Zarath! Zarath! Zarath!
Blood is what my maw drinks,
Slaughter what my mind thinks!
Kill! Kill! Kill!
Lead us on, oh mighty one,
Over bodies of the slain.
Blood will swell into a lake,
Scorching fires blaze in my wake!
Kill! Kill! Kill!
Eat the flesh of those who fall,
Let them tremble when we call!
Zarath! Zarath! Zarath!”
I groan. “Oh ye gods. He’s so foul! Please everyone, do not judge all the undead by the standards of that evil wretch.”
“That’s right,” says Jaime, holding me up for everyone to see. “This skeleton is good and I love her. She has come to save you.”
“The corpse has been terrorising and eating us,” says one of the gnomes in a tremulous little voice. “He serves an undead warlord named Zarath.”
The corpse yells at us as he swipes at my limbs and torso: “I will break all these bones and then I will eat every one of you fleshy morsels.”
I have an idea. “Limbs! Torso!” I call. “Batter the corpse’s chest as hard as you can.”
My body parts all rise and strike the corpse’s chest with such force that he breaks apart. Now his limbs head and torso are all flailing around. There’s a whole swarm of body parts, of both rotting flesh and bare bone, battering at each other.
I call to my bony bits again. “Now his head!”
My bones all rise and come down hard on the corpse’s head. It cracks open and lies quite still.
I call out a series of commands and my bones break each and every part of the corpse in turn until every bit of the evil living corpse lies quite still.
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We all cheer.
Then my bones rise and knit themselves together. My body stands before us, and it beckons to me with a bony finger and then points at its headless neck.
“No, you come over here, body,” I tell it. It scuttles over.
“You did so well, Bright Eyes!” says Jaime, and he presses his lips against my teeth. I feel his tender kiss, even though I have no lips of my own. I want the kiss to go on forever.
Jaime puts me back on my body and I click into place, feeling a bit dizzy.
“T-Thank you for what you’ve done for us, Miss,” says the leader gnome, nervously fidgeting with his beard. “Um, have a reward. It’s not much, but it’s from all of us.”
He hands me a little bag of copper pieces.
“Oh, thank you!” I wish I could smile, but I’ve got no lips… you can always see my teeth, so maybe you could say I’m always smiling. “This is my second great victory since I died. I was always an adventurer who did good missions, but when I was a mortal girl, I could only do missions like finding healing berries and such.”
Jaime links arms with me. “You were always a heroine. It’s in your bones. You always do good.”
“Yeah, I only do good missions. The small ones never paid too well, but it was a way to make people happy.”
“So, a human and a heroic skeleton girl are good friends?” says the gnome. “There must be quite a story behind it.”
“There is,” I say with a little sigh.
“We’ve eloped,” says Jaime. “I would like to say we’re considering a honeymoon here, but I don’t know… We’ve had our fair share of problems since arriving.”
A little gnome points at me. “You’re tough. You’re the hero we need to kill Zarath the warlord. What’s your super-hero title?”
“Super-hero title?” I ask, a bit bewildered.
“You could be Skull-Girl,” says the gnome. “You can defeat Zarath.
“Skull-Girl?” says Jaime.
“If I have the power, I do have the responsibility,” I reply. “It’s something we’re going to have to ask Oleus. If he is wise, he can point me in the right direction.”
Jaime and I walk away holding hands.
“I like the super-hero idea,” says Jaime. “You are Skull-Girl, righter of wrongs and protector of the innocent.”
“Skull-Girl? Hmm…” If Jaime likes it, then I should consider it.
We arrive at the market square. All around the edge arestalls with vendors, hawkers, musicians and entertainers carrying on their business.
I see stalls selling fruit, vegetables, meat and hot soup, corn and chestnuts for hungry shoppers. “Let me buy you some hot food!” I tell Jaime.
I spend a few copper pieces and buy a plate of eel pie, beans and mash potatoes for him.
I can’t eat any myself, so I watch Jaime as he sits at the table and eats.
He looks up as I gaze at him. “A shame you can’t have some.”
“I’m just glad you’re enjoying it.”
Then I notice a small circle of people standing around a bare chested man. He is enormous and his muscles look hard as iron. He is a hunk, although he certainly doesn’t have a gorgeous face like Jaime’s.
He is asking the crowd for a volunteer to play catch with a cannon ball. The loser must pay the winner fiver copper pieces.
“Oh wow, that sounds like quite a challenge!” I scuttle over to him. “I accept the challenge!”
He raises an eyebrow. “And who are you?”
“Call me Skull-Girl!”
“Very well, Skull-Girl. Take this!”
He throws the ball with such force that I burst apart. My skull goes flying into the air.
“Great! Third time this has happened today!” I land on the ground and roll towards Jaime, who scoops me up in his arms.
“He wasn’t playing fair,” says Jaime, annoyed.
“No, he won fair and square.” I call out to the muscular guy: “Good shot! Um… my money is with my torso… Hey, hey, torso, limbs, come to me.”
My bones tumble over the ground towards me and put themselves back together. Jaime’s still holding my skull.
A short, older guy comes over to Jaime. “Boy, what are you doing with those old bones?”
“This is my girlfriend!” says Jaime.
“Huh. Bury that carcass and find yourself a new one. You can do a lot better.”
“Hey! Why are you being so rude?” I shout at the little old guy.
The rude guy jumps and them runs off. Has he never seen a talking skull before? We live in a strange world…
“Body, pay that gentleman the bet,” I command my body.
My body counts out five copper pieces and holds them out to the muscular guy.
“My money’s going fast,” I say wryly.
“I wish you better luck in the future, Skull-Girl,” says the muscled guy. “You look like you’ve been through more hardship than anyone living.”
“Eh? Thanks, I think.”
Jaime sticks me back on my body.
“Are they selling practical stuff here?” says Jaime. “Stuff we can use?”
He spots a stall with weapons and items of equipment and strides over to it. There’s a girl at the stall with an adorable little green baby. She flutters her eyelashes at Jaime.
“Why hello there!” she grins. She’s really pretty, with blond hair, green eyes and freckles. She holds the baby out to Jaime. “This is my little Ajax. Want to hold him?”
Jaime takes the little baby in his arms.
I clasp my bony hands together. “Aww!” The sight of gorgeous Jaime cradling the little baby in his arms is so cute it warms my bones. I feel all happy and fuzzy inside and my skull starts spinning round and round.
The young, freckle-faced mother points at me. “Um… there’s a skeleton hanging around over there. Creepy thing. I hope it’s not going to bite.”
“Hey!” That stung.
“That’s the girl I’m going to marry!” says Jaime. “Please apologise to her.”
“Really… oh, sorry,” the mum shakes her head.
I scuttle up to them and look the girl in the eyes. “My friends call me Seren, but you can call me Skull-Girl. May I please ask your name?”
“Lacey. I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t think skeletons could hear.”
“Oh, we hear.” I fold my bony arms.
There is an awkward pause.
“You have a very cute little son,” I say after a while. “I see you’re working and looking after him at the same time. Is it alright to ask where his daddy is?”
“Huh. The father is the troll at the Blue Lobster. Trolls make useless, deadbeat dads.”
“Ah…” I feel awkward, because the Innkeeper at the Blue Lobster forced the troll to attack me and I had to rough the poor thing up a bit to make him stop.
Jaime rocks baby Ajax and the little green boy coos. I feel my mood improving. Jaime was clearly meant to be a dad. If only that were our baby. With a cold, sinking feeling I realise that I can never actually give birth to a baby.
“You would be a perfect dad,” Lacey tells Jaime with a sigh. “Not like the troll. He just got a lot of girls pregnant. Some are having to give their little green troll-babies up for adoption.”
“Adoption?” I feel a prickle of hope. “Jaime, we can adopt. Maybe one of those girls has a kid she doesn’t want and we can be the mum and dad? I’m gonna ask Oleus about that too.”
“I’d like that,” says Jaime.
Eventually, Jaime buys a lantern from the stall and we take our leave of Lacey. “Please try and be politer to skeletons in future,” I call back to her.
At the end of the market, a street named Bridge Street runs north out of the square. We walk down it, like the Innkeeper had directed us to. The houses are all empty and in ruins with boarded up windows, although the door to one is wide open and flaps noisily in the wind.
It starts raining. The rain doesn’t bother me anymore, but it’s a nuisance for Jaime.
“Oh great. I’m going to be soaked,” says Jaime.
I point at the ruined house with the open door. “No… let’s shelter in here.”
We go into the derelict house. It’s gloomy, but we can make out the shapes of abandoned furniture. Litter and rubble is strewn everywhere. Suddenly I can see things slither across the floor. They are six huge and colourful snakes, each about a yard long! They’re surrounding us!