“Harquin, my friend how are you?” I asked with forced friendliness. The small undead creature didn’t turn away from his butchering of meat. I continued “I am hoping that isn’t human flesh, cause that would be something I would have to deal with.”
“Crypt Butchers can harvest what they like, it is what my kind does. And this meat has been dead for seven days. Not by my hand. It is fair game.” Harquin responded with an oddly sing song voice. He like the rest of his race was soft spoken. With voices that would be better fit to a soothsayer or singer. “Have you finally arrived to directly deal with my missing shipments that Warren’s been stealing?”
Ursula leaned against the butcher block casually unphased by the shards of bone and gore sticking to her white robes. “We don’t care about a shipment, we need to know who is sending academy recruits to their deaths in undead land.”
Bozo chimed in “My friends are dying.”
“Oh, that. Who cares. That’s the problem of the living.” The small thin creature grumbled. He lifted up his gigantic meat cleaver, twice as tall as him and with a great heave slammed it down, cutting bone in half. “You want me to say anything then make it so I’m not dependent on my supplies not being interrupted, I am running on table scraps here and the undead are starting to lick their lips towards the living. I don’t want to clean up a massacre. Takes too long.”
I rubbed my forehead “Okay, so we stop Warren and get your supply back up and running and you get us the info.”
“I said ‘make it so I am not dependent’.” The Crypt Butcher retorted. “I am tired of hoping meat arrives in time. I want this permanently fixed.”
I felt an unpleasant suspicion sneaking into my mind “And what would that be?”
“You’re the freaking Farmer. Grow me a farm.”
Ursula touched her hilt “You would dare barter with the Farmer.” Stars started to seep out of the scabbard. “Do you want to be exterminated?”
I held up a hand to stop the Plain One as I answered “Fine! You get a farm. But that means You find out who is sending the academy children to their death. I need to find them and stop them.”
He beamed at me “Sounds perfect. We just need to go to the Necropolis and you can get to planting some veggies.”
“Yay me.” I muttered as we followed the Crypt Butcher out of his butcher shop and towards the city of the dead.
-
We arrived at the Necropolis as the sun was setting, all of us wearing the normal human disguise allowing us to move among with living. The gates of the cemetery were wide open.
“This place gives me the creeps.” Bozo muttered. Rubbing his arms. “All these ghosts are waiting to lunge from their graves.”
“Not likely.” Ursula muttered. “Their spirits have long passed, but their bodies still are here.”
“Then I’m scared of their bodies!”
“Nothing to worry about.” Harquin countered. “Don’t pay much heed to the graves. I can hear the dead resting in their coffins. They will continue to sleep, the Farmer’s mere presence will cause them to fall deeper into their slumber.”
Bozo paused “You all keep saying farmer like it means something.”
“It does.” The Crypt Butcher answered “There is only one Farmer. He supplies the entire nation of the undead with food. From brains to limbs to eyeballs. All grown from the various necrotic plants. He is basically what keeps your little world of the living from being overrun by us eating you all for dessert.”
“Oh.” Bozo muttered.
“Technically he is the first Farmer.” Ursula noted. “Wights are the ones that create new races of undead. Sort of the mad scientists of the undead. Elric decided to make himself into a new race. Called a Farmer. A grave beast that makes consuming the living unnecessary.”
Harquin chimed in “He just plants some grave seeds, chants a few magic words and bob’s your uncle you got a garden!”
“Oh. Is that all I gotta do?” I asked sarcastically. I reached into the open cavity of my stomach and pulled out a pumpkin seed with dark green veins of necrotic power pulsing throughout it. I pushed the seed into a crack of a raised stone coffin. There was a moment of pregnant silence. Abruptly curling green vines erupted upwards, sending grey stone flying into the into the air. The rest of the group ducked for cover as the rocks rained from sky. I didn’t budge as the fragmented stones struck my straw hat. “Gosh, if I knew it was this simple, I’d have been planting seeds everywhere. “
A gigantic hunk of rock slammed into a nearby grave, smashing it to bits and sending the resident within sprawling into the grass.
“Are you nuts!?” The Crypt Butcher lay hidden beneath one of the stone benches as pulverized stone showered down around him “You’re going to kill us all! And if the rocks don’t do it then the Mad Slashers in this place will tear us to bits for intruding on their territory!”
“Mad Slashers?” I queried casually, turning my cerulean flame eyes on the diminutive undead. I extended my hand, the ground cracked, and a pitchfork made of bones formed in my hand. “You forgot to mention that tidbit.”
“Did I?” he innocently responded.
Ursula drew her broad sword, the crown of stars forming above her eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. “You brought us here to exterminate Mad Slashers!” her words were clipped as she watched for imminent danger. “You owe us more than just the name of the person luring cadets to their deaths, now you owe us a favor.”
Harquin started to protest but thought better of it when he saw her onyx eyes fixed on his throat.
Bozo drew his sword and raised his shield, a grim expression on his face. His blade reflected the green flame at the base of my pitchfork, he moved into a defensive stance, turning one foot sideways at an odd angle. I winced internally that they had created a form of martial arts that was not beneficial to ninety-nine percent of the world. I kept my thoughts to myself, however. I didn’t want to rattle this kid right before we fought the creatures that would make a Plain One pause. I moved into a stance much like him. Pointing the pitchfork outwards.
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Waiting.
The howl in the air was made the flames in my eye sockets flicker. The stars surrounding Ursula dimmed as well. The only one among us that was unaffected was Bozo. His shield with all it’s white metal and gilded filigree started to gleam. The golden woman on the front of the shield moved and started to sing. The fabric of her dress stirring as white flame danced along the surface. He was muttering something beneath his breath as the guard of his sword became as black as Ursula’s eyes.
“You’re a goldie.” I muttered. Several things clicking into place in my mind.
Bozo’s words didn’t change an iota as his magic grew to its full extent and pure white batwings formed around us all. This might mean he actually stood a chance. Though my new found confidence did falter as I saw there were six of the Mad Slashers. Not the normal three. They were red skinned, with white runes glowing slightly. Random bones had torn through their skin, and the foot long claws on their hands clacked together as they surveyed us.
“I’ll take the two on the left.” Ursula murmured, her words soft as she walked slowly towards her targeted enemy. The two grinned with flat teeth highlighted against their blood-colored skin.
I tapped my sketetal tines on the ground, little wisps of necrotic power rose from the cracks, creating a thin layer of mist. There was the creaking of bones and the ruffle of fabric as the necropolis started to stir in response to my call. “I have the three on the right. Can you handle the last on your own, Bozo?”
The lad nodded his head still muttering beneath his breath as he faced off against the final one.
The Mad Slashers vanished. And reappeared in a flash of white light around us. I shoved my pitchfork into the eyes of the closest one, and leveraged him into the other two. Forcing them to focus on me. Ursula’s stars scorched two and they turned towards her with smoldering hair. The last one took a wicked slash from Bozo’s sword and like that we were in the heat of battle. I moved backwards taunting my opponents away from my allies with jabs at their faces. They were not used to a pitchfork and were clumsy as they took strike after of strike, little rivulets of blood oozing from their faces. As their blood struck the ground it melted through stone, turned grass to fire and puddled on the dirt beneath. One vanished and reappeared behind me. I kept my gaze on my two opponents as the zombies in the graves around me grabbed the would-be sneak attacker me and started tearing at his flesh.
“I know what you are. You won’t be killing me off so easily.” I growled. Veins of pulsating cerulean light moved across my bones, the flames in my eyes increasing as I braced myself for their attack, resisting the instincts of my wight species. There was a slew of things a wight could do; turn into a ghost and walk through walls, call up behemoths of death from the earth, reach with spectral magic across a battlefield into the undead snuffing out the necrotic flame to gave them their unlife, and that was just the ones my body was attempting to do at this moment. Red Slashers were not something so easily destroyed. They had been made eons ago by a territorial wight at war with another wight. Red Slashers had been formed specifically to kill wights.
The blood colored killer on my left dashed at me in a blur, I ducked low, pivoted on my foot and used my pitchfork to redirect his momentum into the one behind me. More of the undead emerged from their places of rest, grabbing at the last free one as the other undead attempted to tear the trapped ones apart. The final Red Slasher watched me, uncertainty written in her pacing.
“You can’t use your big bad powers unless I use mine first.” I chuckled, pulled a loose piece of straw from my hat and started chewing it between my exposed teeth. “I studied you fellas the most. The lich tried throwing a few my way. Barely survived the first encounter.”
The clawed beast galloped towards me, changed direction at the last moment and rolled beneath my slashing pitchfork. I turned in time to see the Red Slasher furiously cutting through the horde of necrotic captors and freeing her companions. I drove my pitchfork into her spine with such speed and power that one of her discs was impaled on the end of tine that jutted from her chest. Her body jerked and froze. I grunted with exertion as I attempted to extricate my farmyard implement from her torso. The disc stopped my efforts dead.
I would not have been so anxious if the two Red Slashers were still pinned down. They were not.
I met their eyes as they rose up from the rotting remains of my ersatz army. They clicked their flat teeth as they pondered my predicament. They rushed me, I dodged back, interposing the shaft of my pitchfork between myself and a very nice and shiny set of claws that would have given me a new haircut at neck level. The other hellion used the distraction to slash at my chest. I dropped to the ground, the attack only taking a gigantic portion of my shoulder as an escape tax.
I caught his throat and squeezed, my supernatural strength could shatter rocks with ease, his neck did not snap. It did make him panic however. Wights were not supposed to be strangling their enemies. They were supposed to marshal their troops to attack. They were supposed twirl a finger and unmake their enemies. Wights were supposed to use magics that made the undead fear them. I grinned at his frantic scrabbling to escape my tightening grip. “I told you, I know what you are. And I know how to snuff you out!”
With my other hand I slammed my hand into the creature’s ribcage, shattering bone, sending shards ricocheting against gravestones. I found the veins of necrotic magic and the flame pulsing in his right shoulder. I pinched the wriggling heat between my fingers and snuffed him out. The Red Slasher turned to dust immediately. I turned towards my last opponent and pushed my hat back, my tone was friendly “You could run if you wanted. Since you are now all alone.”
The creature looked behind me, just as I felt my wight magic finish regrowing my shoulder and knitting the grey flesh together. I threw myself to the side as I cursed. The stupid Wight magic had restored me, which meant any stupid Red Slasher nearby also replicated the effect. I growled as I rolled over and kicked the female away from me. The male got a punch to his jaw, a nice shattering of teeth was my reward. I tore a gravestone up from the ground and summarily used it to beat the female to a pulp. Her muscles, bones and skin were regrowing around the stone until I stomped out her flame with my thick work boots.
The male stood atop a mausoleum, he clicked his teeth together as the Red Slasher dust swirled around him. I could feel him growing stronger, more bones tearing through his skin as he gained all the strength and magic of his fallen companions. He became leaner, muscles becoming more compact as his power grew. The air vibrated with his predatory power. He roared in triumph towards the sky as his power coalesced.
I casually picked up my pitchfork, took a quick hop up a few gravestones and drove my farm implement into his ribs. He took a stunned look down as he turned to dust. His flame dissipating around a tine of my pitchfork.
I let out a long-relieved sigh. That had been much closer that I had wanted. I had been fortunate that Bozo’s magic had limited some of their miasma magic. Not that I would ever tell him that. I wiped at my eye, sending an adventurous maggot flying from my eye socket. “I should probably see how he is doing.”
I found him sitting on a gravestone. Around him were pumpkins with mold growing over them in patches. There were plants that had long broad leaves with stems that rose up and instead of cauliflower there were pink fleshy brains. There was an outhouse behind him made of the purple wood of a Blood Creeper tree. He did not look happy. Which was understandable as he had three undead chickens clucking around him. A hen and two roosters. The hen was sitting within his helmet, she was fluffed up and had a drowsy look in her eye. One rooster was perched atop the young man’s head and was making a more aggressive clucking towards the rooster on his shoulder. Bozo shot me a pleading look “Help me.” He said in from the side of his mouth, attempting to not spook the undead chickens.
The roosters both stopped in their clucking to glare at their living roost and as one they both crowed with their ear piercing banshee shrieks right in his face.