Book 2: Dirt Diver’s Dance

Cut To The Chase Ch: 44

Three frigates of the radiant temple of light dropped sail just off the mangrove swamps of a shitty, piddly island pest hole and prepared to lower the longboats.

Nine fully packed landing craft shuttled twice, in order to land their ground troops on the windward side of the rank and sweltering island.

Captain Dale watched as his subordinates vanished among the trees and overgrowth, as if swallowed by a vast and hungry beast.

He cast his misgivings aside and signaled the taskforce to get back under sail... He had an infidel to capture. Those misgivings and worries bubbled back up, stubbornly refusing to remain quiet. He hesitated to call the intrusive thoughts ‘doubts’, that would require a trip to the Confessors’ hall…

Instead he considered the rebellious feelings and worries to be a test of faith. That he could work through alone, without any lashes from one of the blinded, deafened, mute penitent slave monks.

He shuddered at the thought of visiting those awful chambers again and resolved to master his wayward emotions... In his quarters.

Below decks he paused, bowing and whispering a prayer to the divine light, as he always did when he passed the altar. He finished his prayer and clapped his hands firmly three times, under the lidless gaze of the half flayed teenage dogboy watching from the Soul Jar behind the altar.

The scent of blood and toxic preservative liquor still lingered in the ritual hold, despite how many times he’d had the undead crew scrub up over the last few days.

“We linger in shadow, that men may walk in the light…”

He whispered softly to the young slave he’d sacrificed the day before, to empower his vessel and its undead crew. At least it was a beast boy this time… they weren’t really people, after all.

The boy’s screams still rang in his ears anyway, as they all did still, each man, woman, child or beastkin that had landed on his altar still weighed on him, even after all these long years, serving the light faithfully, from the darkness.

Some of his brothers and sisters of the Necromancers hall seemed unmoved by their work… He envied those impassive and stoic mages with all his heart. And then there were the others, like captains Lomax and Fernando, who reveled in the bloody and necessary work and seemed to seek out opportunities to exercise their cruel pleasures.

Three days before, they had sailed out of the luminous city of Lighthold, bearing only their cargo of preserved corpses, the oar slaves and a skeleton crew of the faithful.

Passing through the void maw had only driven most of the oars slaves mad, that pleased him. Few captains kept their galley slaves in decent condition… he took a little pride in that. Not that it mattered, they had been sacrificed once they finished transiting the void, as planned.

His officers had been quick and efficient, working down the banks of chained wretches, preparing them for reanimation without too much unseemly noise or commotion. He would have to commend them, once the mission was done and they could sail for home.

‘Hopefully before the zombie oarsmen start to stink too badly.’ Dale reflected sleeplily. The sooner the moment came when they could jettison the undead and pass back into the blessed waters of the luminous city, the better.

He finished checking the occult ritual space in the hold, satisfied that everything was still within normal parameters he gave the order.

“Rig for action, launch a flare and then attack with our full forces when the enemy comes into view.” He instructed his second, Jermik; a dour and unwholesome young man, but faithful and reliable nonetheless.

“We must sweep them up quickly, our quarry is elusive and possesses unknown powers and abilities.” The old necromancer murmured tiredly to his officer.

“Our last reports indicate that the one called Ace is accompanied by two small humanoids and three canines. Kill or capture all of them without fail. Wake me if you have need.”

“Yes, my lord.” The somber man murmured, as he bowed and departed.

“Light, we need more men like Jermik…” The old mage whispered as he sagged into his bunk.

#

Addie found him in the forward hold, restocking his reagents and poisons from ship’s stores, that familiar homely task slowed by his obvious nerves and stress.

“Jermik, is the old man asleep?” She asked softly.

“Dead to the world.” He sighed, as her fingers slipped into the collar of his uniform, drawing the tension from him with her skillful hands and arts. “This is our chance… we might not get another.” He whispered, when he could speak again.

“The cult is falling apart, if we cut and run for the nearest void, they’ll never find us. I promise.”

“I’m scared, lover… just us, among the heathens?” She gasped in horror and pressed her body close to his in the crowded, stinking storeroom.

“The new Pontiff is mad… or possessed by some demon.” He whispered his blasphemy into her ear, making her gasp.

“I saw him once, a few weeks ago… just by chance. He was in the slave market, of all places, indulging himself in…” He slowly looked all around the tiny hold, filled with bales, kegs and crates, all neatly secured, seeking hidden listeners.

“He was torturing the beastkin slaves… for pleasure.”

Addie gasped in horror and sagged against him, shuddering. “Ok, we’ll run, lover. Just you and me… and a ship full of zombies.”

“Don’t worry, all the soldiers are ashore, only the galley zombies remain and I’ve kept them chained. I’ll start the spell when we engage the enemy.” He whispered. “Once I take command, there’s no turning back.”

#

“You guys should all run for the trail up the volcano and bail out.” The tall, lanky blue puppet said calmly, when the first mast bearing a light cult naval ensign appeared around the headland. “Abandon your stuff and just leg it, kids.”

“We can’t leave you here…” Gandree grumbled, as he ran his thumb over the edge of his musical shovel weapon, slash toilet tool. “And Daisybelle is out in the jungle, hunting. I’m damn well not leaving them!”

“Fair enough. Just remember; I’ll dip out of this delightful wooden toy and vanish into the sea, before I let them take me... They’ll never catch old Ace. You kids are the ones in real danger here.” He murmured. “Daisybelle can take care of herself, give her a week on this island alone and there won’t be anything left of these idiots.”

“No chance. We all get out or we fight.” Liam announced from behind his leonine armored mask. The ancient octopus wizard had to admit, he was intimidating, that kid.

With that decided, Ace watched with interest as the lazy, silly family of goofballs transformed; galvanized by the call to arms raised by the man in crimson booty shorts that left half his asscheeks in the wind.

The giant redhead seemed to be a big fan of his ass antics, so he guessed it was true; a lid for every pot, every lock has its key.

Scanty and questionable butt-huggers aside, the weirdos began arming and armoring themselves with impressive speed and efficiency.

Several of the kids seemed to have some kind of dimensional storage ability, which they used to quickly lay out an entire armory on the lawn. Tidy circles of weapons, points and edges facing in, appeared on the grass, followed by neatly laid out suits of armor, bundles of arrows, javelins and spears, along with canteens and rations.

“They dropped a bunch of armed men from small boats on the windward side of the island, before heading our way!” Gary called, as he buckled on a suit of bright yellow armor with assistance from his wife.

“Maybe two hundred; they’re gonna try and hit us from the jungle and the lagoon.” He shouted, as three long warships approached from around the breakwater, angling to cut off the lagoon from the sea.

#

As expected, the neat and orderly zombie formation fell apart, once they hit the jungle. Two hundred heavy armored, heavily preserved corpses bumbled and stumbled like newborn foals on ice, once the footing got tricky.

“So wasteful.” Zach grumbled angrily, when three of them slipped from sight in an instant, tumbling into a lava tube, with a rushing stream a dozen yards below. They made an awful clatter and bang as they tumbled toward the sea, caught in the surging water and jagged stones.

He and his five comrades focused their minds as best they could, while climbing, slipping and staggering through a trackless, steep jungle fastness.

By force of their combined Will, empowered through the rituals and Soul Jar on the flagship, the Necromages drove the idiot meatbags on, into the dark forest.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The Zeds were slow, prone to falling and difficult or impossible to get back up, once they fell any real distance. That made them a terrible choice for a jungle raid, but orders came down from on high. These were top quality zeds, too.

Salted and smoked, with heavy armor sewn and bolted right onto their vulnerable points, they’d all had their entails neatly removed and been packed with sawdust and Woolcrab fiber.

They would have been more useful in a proper land invasion, not this dismal swamp raid on an island in the back ass of a nowhere dimension.

“What wouldn't I give, for a nice, tidy pack of shades right now…?” He thought, as another six zombies vanished, sucked down into a bog without a sound.

They struggled along for an intolerable length of time, which was also hard to judge under the canopy and across such rough terrain.

“Heads up, Zach…” Taylor called out suddenly, from twenty yards away, which meant he was entirely invisible in the verdure and mist. “Somethings out here with us.”

“Monster?” Drew demanded from the rear… always the rear with that one. Zach reflected idly, as his eyes swept the jungle.

“Maybe… I just lost eight zeds, like they were each eaten in a single gulp.” Taylor reported, shaking his shaggy blonde head in confusion. That man hated wearing his hood and veil… but he loved the work. He could keep a sacrifice screaming longer than any blade man he’d ever worked with.

“Or maybe you just can’t manage your work properly?” Heidi asked sharply, somewhere to the left among the trees. “At least there aren’t too many mosquitos!” Her disdain for Taylor… and all of the men, dripped like sweet, poisonous nectar from a toxic flower, whenever she spoke to anyone but Ambrose… lucky bastard.

“That worries me too…” Ambrose grumbled, as two of his zeds slipped down a slick stone incline and landed in a pile of loose jungle vines and enormous snapdragon blooms.

“Aww, shit… Gimmie a minute, I hate trying to get these idiots to climb…”

When Ambrose looked back down to his fallen minions, they were gone. No sign remained beyond a few bruised and battered fragments of vine and a patch of scuffed moss and loam where they’d landed in a clattering heap.

“The fuck?” He asked rhetorically, peering down into the narrow chasm.

“Weren't there some weird, big-ass flowers down there?” Heidi asked a moment later, when she joined Ambrose on the narrow ledge.

“Keep moving, precious lord captain Dale will be unbearable, if his ass kissers wake his lord-shit from his light cursed beauty sleep.” Drew snapped, leaning heavily on the narrow sliver of seniority and political connections that kept his slacker ass from being sent to a frontline world to face the damn Facecards.

Zach scowled in his hood, idly wondering if he could arrange a few artful ‘accidents’, out here in the jungle… Drew was a long term liability with short term potential, very short term.

Though, with Ambrose out of the way, he could make a run at Heidi… without that giant bastard pulling his arms off.

He smiled, contemplating that highly illegal potion he’d been saving for a special occasion. A few drops and she’d probably just wake up sore, bruised and confused…

‘Hell, maybe Taylor would be down to take a turn.’ He thought eagerly, licking his lips with delight at the prospect.

Lost in his thoughts, Zach let out a yelp of surprise, followed by a long, warbling scream, when a mossy stone rolled under his foot, sending him cartwheeling into the trees below.

Boughs lashed his face and tore at his robes as he fell, hammering into one hard, unidentifiable object after another on his tumbling journey.

With a splat that shook his very soul, Zach belly flopped into a thick, mucky swamp, driving what little air remained from his lungs.

He groaned and rolled over, just in time for two of his armored minions to slam down with crushing force, right where he’d just been.

The mindless, undead goon landed head first, stabbing into the muck like a ridiculous arrow, his legs splaying wide apart, driven by the force of his landing, until his pelvis tore in half, spilling his stuffing all over the mire. His second minion nailed the first one, driving what was left deeper into the slop.

“Light blind me if this isn’t a fucking clown show…” He gasped and gagged around the swamp filth clogging his mouth.

“Yes yes, your clown-show is over, light-priest… Let’s see if you can dance to Daisybelle’s tune.” A tiny green monster in a snappy, sexy uniform giggled from the edge of the bog.

She hitched up her skin tight, immaculate, white leather pants, adjusted her scarlet silk sash and buffed a few shiny buttons on her coat, making her plump green breasts bounce delightfully.

“Get up, pig. Goblin knights don’t wallow in mud with your kind…” She sneered, beckoning him onward with a wave of her short obsidian knife.

“I might have had a roll in this mud pit with my Gandree… If you hadn’t polluted it with your filth.” She scowled at the staggering, stumbling man in his wet, stupid robes.

“Hurry up… I want to bring my Gandree your ballsack as a present… Boys like those, right?” She asked, as her wicked and hungry smile slowly turned the young necromancer’s bowels to water.

#

Low in the water and powered by two banks of twenty oars on each side, the ships cut the water in silence. A loud pop sounded, as a streak of bright light shot skyward from the rearmost ship, trailing red smoke.

Two of the bireames held station outside the breakwater, while the third barreled into the lagoon, sideswiping the vessels moored on the pier, entangling the boats in a mess of broken oars and rigging.

With the family ships disabled and entangled, a swarm of shambling forms poured over the side and onto shore, splashing and struggling through the wreckage and shallow water. Gaunt, nearly naked, save for rags and iron collars at their throats, eighty freshly reanimated zombie slaves staggered for shore, looking for flesh.

“Zombies!” Becky shouted from her team’s position at the waterside. The warbling, metallic song of her enchanted, double ended ringmace powering up nearly drowned out her call, as enchanted gears and circular blades began whirring and singing at either end of her weapon.

“Watch for more from the jungle!”

As if called by a signal flare… A horde of armed and armored zombie marines vomited from the jungle, driven on by four hooded figures in robes, well behind the reeking, ravenous front line of walking corpses.

The lumbering, bumbling armored dead slogged and thrashed through the jungle and onto the narrow cleared space before the outer garden hedges. Several dozen staggered forth, with more trickling out of the woods by the second.

Within a few moments, at least seventy mud spattered, soggy zombies had formed ranks and drawn their crude iron weapons. One of the hooded figures raised a hand high and shouted in a stentorian voice:

“Attack! Let none escape!”

The shamblers lurched forward at the shouted command, pushing through the sharp, hooked thorns and tough branches. Many fell, completely entangled and bound in the tough, barbed briars, then trampled into the soil by the stomping feet of the horde.

They staggered forward relentlessly, their dark brown, beef jerky flesh finally ripping through the hedge in a mass of iron, bone and nearly dried meat.

#

“Fall back in good order when they break through, maintain formation!” Liam barked, as the group began launching arrows, javelins and spears into the mass of shambling corpses. “Gary, what do you have?”

“Against corporeal undead, controlled by living mages? I have a sword, bro. I’m still unranked.” He called back from beside Shai, whose face had gone slightly pale at the sight of the slowly advancing horde.

A low, droning thrum sang from one of the ships laying off the breakwater, as a massive, leather fletched spear crashed through the wall of the inn.

“Shit, ballista!” Dannyl shouted unnecessarily.

“This is gonna be rough, Kree. Sting me, baby; then go see what you can do about that artillery.”

The little insect hidden inside his helmet didn’t answer, she just followed orders. He winced at her strike, then relaxed into her sweet, narcotic venom, just like they’d practiced.

#

The combined Clown-Shoes and Ragamuffin team took the flailing, stumbling charge of the zombie marines head on, once the zeds broke through the garden hedges. The boundary ward couldn’t stop the corporeal dead, animated and directed by a foreign Will, but they could interfere. Once they crossed the line, any semblance of order or control failed hard, the troops quickly devolving into a tangled, shabling mob. Their weapons fell forgotten to the lawn, as they lost direction and became even dumber.

The shield line of Wilf, Benny, Barry Perry and Larry absorbed the initial impact, while the back line harvested the foe.

Maya and Frankie’s bronze bound staves cracked skulls and stove in helmets with quick, relentless jabs, in counterpoint to Rio and Lindsey’s flashing, heavy bladed spears. The kids moved together, blocking the slow, clumsy attacks of the dead and falling back in close ranks.

Discipline and training paid off, leaving a trail of loose, twitching body parts and de-animated, re-animated corpses in their wake.

“Shiro, work with Daisybelle and the doggies, get those robed assholes.” Amy whispered to her snow leopard, as the family slowly lost ground. “Ok? Go!”

He mewed softly and vanished into the jungle, seeking the goblin and her mutts.

“Frankie, Maya, bring it in!” The girl in blue shouted, as her saber took the head of a fast moving corpse. “Stay tight, work together!”

#

Harry watched from his vantage point, high in a magnolia at the edge of the garden, waiting for his moment. The robed figures were canny and well disciplined, keeping a half dozen of their minions in a tight circle around each mage, protecting them from any sneaky stuff.

He had to wait for the right time and the right shot. The springy, tough remains of the hedges were just his opportunity.

The rearmost zombie staggered across the boundary hedge and started stumbling and shambling in mindless hunger. At that point the robes had to move, so that they could maintain control of their zombies inside the family wards. That might give him an opening…

With softly muttered curses, the robed mages started forward, to re-establish control over their throng. At the scrabbly, thorny remains of the hedge, their careful formation broke just enough.

With a soft, almost musical puff of air through the wrong end of his flute, a tiny green petaled flower bloomed on the neck of a handsome blonde man; the only one with his hood down, offering a clean shot.

“Next, please.” Harry whispered through his smile, as the man fell over, limp as a ragdoll, right in the middle of a handful of hungry and suddenly undirected zombies.

That ended slowly and messily.

#

First Zach had fallen off the cliff, now Taylor just vanished… shredded by his own zeds, in eerie silence. “Huh, for a guy who likes to hear screams, he died quiet.” Ambrose muttered sourly, as Hiedi gasped in shock a few feet away, safe behind her screening minions.

“They have some kind of disrupting ward, be careful!” Drew shouted, because he was stupid.

#

‘Calling out verbals like that is a huge death-flag…’ Harry thought to himself as he readied another dart. This one had bright blue feathers, an Amy special. He tapped his silver earcuff twice, switching to the Ragamuffin’s channel.

“I have one for you, Amy, you ready?” He asked, as he lined up on the leader.

“Tell me when…” She sang back, through a grunt of effort. A quick glance showed a huge, armored zombie slumping to the lawn in front of her half his head missing on the right side. “We have this!”

A scant two heartbeats later he had his chance. One of the bodyguard zeds, tipped over a flailing, trapped corpse, opening up the formation…

“Scratch that, Ames…” Harry sighed, as a silver and black spotted shadow leapt from a tree and snatched the robed man by the nape of his neck with a wet, nasty snap. Shiro bounded away an instant later, while the newly freed zombies finished off the dying necromage.

“Your murderkitty got him.”

“Comms discipline.” Liam’s voice cut through briskly, from the waterside, where things were still dynamic, thanks to the floating artillery piece in the lagoon. Another massive bolt crashed into the house, dislodging stones from the wall and bringing the roof down with an oddly quiet crash and rumble.

Shai paused for a split second, focusing her Will to dismiss the inn, so none of her real things would get broken. As the houses faded from reality, she resumed her work, shearing heads from the wasted bodies of these poor, freshly murdered wretches.

“I’m needin that balista silenced!” She called into her ear cuff. “Gary, kin ye hear me?”

She got no reply, nor could she find her husband in the battle line at first glance. Panicked just a little, she harvested both arms and one leg from the poor creature in front of her and moved on, since it was helpless meat now.

Her frantic search in those few seconds of respite revealed her man, fighting farther down the line, beside Tallum.

He wielded his heavy bronze falchion like a wood axe, hardly showing more skill than the naked, starved things they fought. There was no sign of the swordsman he had been slowly becoming, just brutal almost mechanical movements…

“Gary…!” She growled inside her light helm, where only she could hear.

#

Bosuns’ Padilla, Hengsmith and Greg were sweating, exhausted and miserable, but they were not covered in mud, blood, sand and zombie gore. All they had to do was keep firing the ballista at the little compound on the shore. They were still alive and un-sacrificed too, which was a surprise.

“Hey! We knocked the house down!” Padilla shouted excitedly, as the structure slumped down and vanished behind the hedges and garden walls.

“Let’s try and pick off the defenders, who cares if we splatter a few zeds!”

“No, no, you squishy skinbags!” Kree sang from the bow rail, where the tiny, black and gold wasp girl was just fluttering in for a landing. “You face me and my terrible shadow minions!” She cackled gleefully, as the bright, crisp daylight became muted and hazy.

From below decks, from the hatchways and even from the shadows of the oarsman’s benches, where the silent zombie slaves waited patiently, figures stirred and arose, cloaked in dim, hazy darkness.

While the three living men watched, the tiny insect joined the growing throng, disappearing into one of the shades.

“Captain! Captain Lomax! Help!” Greg shouted, as the dark figures began to close in swiftly. With dirks and shortswords, the junior officers of the fleet abandoned their artillery piece to face six swift and ever shifting, faceless shadows.

#