Chapter Ten

Over a hundred rioters had been ridden down and killed, a hundred more wounded. Only five troopers and one sergeant had been wounded in return, and the worst of those had been the man who had taken the thrown rock to the head. Some horses had gone lame in the charge and subsequent killing. This was common in any battle, and why they kept so many horses. Dryden’s horse Elizabeth had walked with a limp afterwards. Nothing that would not heal with time. The crowd had been packed in and mostly unarmed. There had been nowhere for them to go. Many had been killed not by the cavalry or horse charge, but by the crush of the crowd trying to escape the confines of the marketplace. Once it was done, Dryden took the 13th back to the fort. Havor informed Dryden that he was to receive a medal, the king’s merit, and he was to pick four men to receive similar medals for bravery. He picked Pugh, Flint, and two wounded troopers. But there was no time to deal with any fallout from the massacre at the bazaar. One night later the dead came again.

After the first incidents with the rising dead, sepoys had been sent around the city to guard graveyards. Sepoys were the soldiers that had been drafted from amongst Vastrum’s many colonies. These came from colonies such as the vassal kingdoms of Gulud, Kathalamanyr, and Dravan. Lands that had been taken over the last two hundred years. There existed Vuruni sepoys as well, but Vastrum never employed a group of sepoys in the land from which they hailed. The Vuruni conscripts were deployed far away. Vastrum had learned long ago in their conquests that to deploy a conscript in his own land bred mutiny and desertion at best, and outright rebellion at worse. It is hard to desert the army or fight your conquerors when you’re thousands of miles from your homeland. Most of the sepoys were levies from Gulud, a hot and humid landlocked kingdom far to the southeast of Vurun. Havor did not care for these sepoys, he found them ill-trained, poorly equipped, and unreliable. He preferred sepoys from Dravan, just as he had employed Rathma, his manservant from that country. Dryden had always found the sepoys from Gulud to be excellent. Dryden had found also that prejudices are rarely reasonable.

At first, those sepoys from Gulud had done their job. They had killed most of the skeletons that had risen. As rumours of an enemy army, and of riots, and as the number of dead rising increased, many of the sepoys fled their posts, regardless of having nowhere to flee. It was too much for them. The regular Vastrum infantry managed to catch a few deserters, whom they hung as an example. It didn’t matter. Morale was gone among the conscripts. A quarter of the sepoys that had been guarding graveyards simply ran. The rest of the sepoys were pulled back to their barracks to prevent them from running too. With the graveyards unguarded, the tide of undead rose across the city.

The cantonments were not particularly defensible positions. They had been built to house soldiers who had brought their families and to give their men a sense of being back at home. They were familiar. There were walls of course, but they were low and made of wood and wire. It was no fortress. There were also several gates into and out of the cantonment. These could be barricaded, but usually, they were left open for people to come and go. They were protected only by a few guards.

It was around midnight when Dryden first heard a cry for help, “We’re under attack!”

He roused himself quickly, shaking off the cobwebs of sleep. He threw his jacket on, put on boots, then grabbed his sword and pistol, and hurried from his residence. Bells were now ringing through the fort. He could hear more bells and commotion out in the cantonment below. Men were mustering. He saw Havor ahead of him, having been woken too. They met Mar on the stairs. Wolcott and Pugh had been on duty and were in the process of organizing the men.

General Blackwater shambled out of the main keep where he was housed, “What’s all this?” He demanded sleepily.

“Sir, an attack in the cantonment.”

“What manner of attack, man, what manner of attack?” He asked.

“Undead. They’re in the cantonment.” Was the answer from a soldier.

“Poppycock! I’ve no time for fairy tales. Leave me to my sleep.” The old general doddered off.

The officers and men assembled looked in shock as the old man tottered off back to bed.

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“Sir?” Pugh asked of Havor.

“Blood and thunder.” The colonel cursed under his breath, “Let’s move. No horses.” Then he turned and shouted, “Bring weapons and ammunition only. We’re doing this on foot. Skeletons have been sighted inside the cantonment walls. Stick with your sergeants. These are your families in danger. Let’s get in there and burn these dead bastards out!” There was a cheer from the soldiers who were assembled, not only the cavalry troopers but the infantry as well. The infantry commander, Colonel Gorst, was watching, letting Havor take the lead. “Stay close to me, Mar, Dryden.” Rathma was there too, Dryden noted. The small dark man was hefting a large khukuri that bordered on being a sword rather than a knife. Mar had already rolled up one of his aethium cigarettes, now he lit it and took a long satisfied drag from it. Together they moved towards the gate and out into the cantonment around the fort.

At first, they moved at a brisk walk. As they passed the main stables the road widened and became a broad boulevard and they broke into a jog. Large leafed trees that had been planted for shade lined the road, blocking the moonlight, casting deep shadows, and making it hard to see.

“Split up and search the area. Report back when your avenue has been secured or if contact is made!” Havor shouted out.

The cantonments were not vast, but they weren’t small either. It was a small neighbourhood of homes with white siding, black slate roofs, picket fences out front, and shaded by tropical trees. The soldiers moved off in groups down streets, many of them carrying torches or lanterns to light the way. Bells continued to toll as Havor, Dryden, and Mar walked down the main street towards the front gate. Somewhere a woman screamed and a child cried.

“There,” Havor said, pointing to a shambling figure.

“Who goes there?” Dryden demanded.

The dark figure groaned in reply. The thing came out of the shadows and into the moonlight for a moment. Havor took his pistol, aimed, and fired. A flash of light and a crack of gunpowder split the night. The bullet exploded through the head of the skeleton. In the moment of brightness, Dryden could see that it was a simple skeleton. Had it been lying inert upon the ground, it would not have bothered him. He had never seen one up close. Even on that first patrol where they had done battle with them, he had only ever seen them from afar. Seeing it now, half alive and animated by dark sorcery, he felt terrified by it. It was both mundane and yet its movements held a kind of otherworldly horror for him. He shuddered at it involuntarily. Then they moved away and down the road, looking for more.

It didn’t take them long to find them. A group of undead had broken through one of the side gates and were slowly moving through the cantonment. Screams echoed from a small section of the neighbourhood. Dryden saw more shambling towards them. Most of the soldiers had moved away from the officers, going into the neighbourhood to root these monsters out. The lieutenant colonel and his small party were alone here.

Havor shot another, but too low, and the bullet went right through it, only clipping one of the rib bones. Dryden drew his sabre, walked up to it, and cleaved into its head. The sword didn’t cut the bone but it still did the job as the skull crunched under his sword and the skeletal monster collapsed in a heap of bones. Havor drew his sword and did the same. Together they hacked through the rest of the monsters. There was a sound from behind and a shout. A skeleton had snuck up on them and grabbed Havor from behind. Dryden was too late to help. Rathma was there suddenly, out of the darkness, the colonel’s shadow, and he smashed the thing with his brutal recurved knife.

They moved more cautiously after that. The group ran across and gathered up several other small groups of soldiers. Parts of the cantonment had been cleared, but none had heard from the southwestern quarter. They moved in that direction past dark and silent homes, some of which had smashed windows and doors ajar. They heard a cry from a house. Several soldiers kicked down the door to enter. Shots rang out. They came back out escorting a woman and her toddler. She said nothing, only clutched her child in abject terror.

At last, they came upon a massed group of the undead. The undead did not move quickly, but now they turned their attention upon the approaching soldiers led by Havor. “Fire by rank.” He ordered. The soldiers that were with them were few but went to obey.

“No, let me,” Mar interjected. Before their commander could answer, Mar waved a hand and began to cast a spell. His aethium cigarette glowed blue as he inhaled.

Dryden could only make out some details, it was hard to see in the moonlight. First, Mar waved his hands in strange stuttering motions, and his fingers seemed to grow long shadows. Next, a faint glow seemed to emanate from all around the wizard. The night air seemed to shimmer iridescent. Something in the air buzzed, almost like cicadas, and the air took on the scent of cut grass. Finally, a wave of force emanated from the wizard’s hands that moved Dryden’s vision in a way which made him feel ill to his stomach. It was as if all reality had shifted in the wake of the wave. As it moved through the skeletons, each of them fell apart in turn, toppled like a stack of blocks that had been knocked over by an angry toddler. There was surprisingly little sound from the wave of force. Only a faint whisper of wind and the sound of clattering bones as they fell to the ground. Then it was silent on the boulevard. Off in the distance, the crack of gunfire and the shouting of soldiers continued long into the night.