Among the Dead and Dying

Among the Dead and Dying

  Book one of the Among the Masses series

  A.R. Wise

  Copyright 2014 – A.R. Wise

  Cover Art by A.R. Wise with photo sourced from istockphoto.com

  Prelude

  “I don’t want to eat people,” said the terrified half-dead as her wrists were tied behind her back, around the pole in the city square where she would die. “I’m not one of them. It’s a sore. It’ll heal.”

  The executioner had no sympathy for the lithe girl, and he bound her tight enough to cause pain. She whimpered, and he replied with a harsh curse, commanding her to be silent before he pushed her head back with his thick, gloved hand.

  “Please don’t.” She stared at him through a blur of tears, and he paused to return the gaze. “Darreth, you know me. I studied with your daughter. I went to…”

  “The Dead have no words,” said Parrin Third-Court, a tall wraith of a man standing aside the pyre, adorned with the raiment of The Order, holding a length of beads that draped from his hand and wrapped around his neck. He held two of his crooked fingers up before him, tracing symbols in the air. His delicate frame belied the strength of his booming voice, and the gathered crowd hushed when he spoke. “Today, we mourn the death of Rayna Second-Bard. She has passed on from this cruel land…”

  “I’ve not passed on anywhere,” said Rayna as she tried to shake loose her binds. Darreth Fourth-Sword gripped her neck, choking her into silence so the Court could proceed. The executioner’s thumb touched the severe wound on Rayna’s neck that should’ve killed her if she hadn’t been a half-dead. She’d been hiding the gash to avoid detection, hoping it would heal completely the way it was rumored half-deads could, but she was revealed to everyone at a tavern the night before. Her lover had been the one to expose her wound, ripping away her scarf and declaring her a ‘halfie’. Only the day before, he’d convinced her that she could live a happy life as a half-dead, and said he planned to take her to the Steel Plains to live with him. Then, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, he betrayed and doomed her. When the crowd saw the purple lesion, they knew she was one of the cursed. There was no mercy for the half-dead, because they were carriers of a disease that could decimate entire settlements in a matter of weeks.

  Parrin Third-Court continued as Rayna suffered within the executioner’s grip. “The girl we knew as Rayna Second-Bard was taken by the Blood Curse, and left this world to seek the comforts of the Promised Rest. What’s left behind is a cruel hoax, an imitation of our sister.”

  Darreth was suffocating Rayna, and she felt her eyes bulge as she struggled to breathe. Tears fell down across her cheeks, and her mouth opened and closed uselessly as she looked out among the crowd, wishing that she could plead for mercy but afforded no voice to try. There were familiar faces among the gathered, old friends and enemies alike, here to watch the half-dead tortured. She would suffer their stones and taunts, and then the executioner would stick a ceremonial blade through her. Rayna had watched the Court judge other half-deads long ago, when she was just a child, and had joined in with the crowd as they jeered and threw stones at the cursed, never guessing that one day she’d suffer the same.

  “Today she’ll be tested,” said Parrin Third-Court, “and she will fail, like all those who came before her. We’ll prove what she is by the way of The Order.” He motioned to another soldier near the edge of the pyre. He nodded and drew the ceremonial, wooden blade, whittled to a vicious point from a hickory branch, and then painted with symbols of the Order. The weapon would be forced inside of her midsection and then left there for an hour to prove that she was indeed one of the half-dead. If she’d been mistakenly labeled half-dead, then the wound would certainly kill her, and the Order would make restitution to her family. If she survived, then the crowd would gather again to watch her burn.

  The wood beneath her feet, a mass of dry branches, had already been oiled in preparation for the ceremony. Her naked toes slipped in the mess of oil and twigs as she struggled in her bindings. Her ankles were tied to the post as tightly as her wrists, and she could feel the twine digging into her flesh.

  Darreth finally released her throat, and she gasped in relief, taking in the pungent odor of the oil on the pyre. She coughed and strands of spittle hung from her bloody lips. She tried to speak, but couldn’t manage anything but a weak and frightened cry as the man approached with the sword beside him. He stepped carefully up onto the mound of loose branches, his armor clattering as he did. Rayna tried to shake again in a desperate attempt to be free of this terror, but the twine was too tight, and her fate assured. She closed her eyes and waited for Parrin Third-Court to issue the command that would send the guard’s wooden sword plunging into her stomach.

  “It’s the will of the The Order of the Nine that we end this…”

  A new voice shouted out louder than even the Court’s. “Halt,” he said, and the word echoed through the town of Everglen.

  Rayna opened her eyes and looked for the source of the interruption. The crowd searched as well, and she saw that they’d turned to face the tavern, not far from the center of town where the pyre had been built. There was a man standing atop the balcony, his arms crossed leisurely atop the railing, dressed in a traveler’s garments, a thick leather cloak with its hood raised to hide his features. His shirt was a type of leather armor that Rayna had not seen before, wrapped around him as if made of one long, thin strip, with a slew of crossbow bolts tucked within loops. A glint of glass shined down from within his hood, revealing the shape of goggles or a mask there.

  “There are consequences to interrupting a Court,” said Parrin. “Swords, arrest that man.”

  “Don’t you want to know who I am first?” asked the stranger as if the ordeal was merely an amusement to him. Rayna listened curiously, convinced she recognized the man’s voice even though his mask added a tinny sound to it.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Parrin as two of his guards began to walk towards the tavern, drawing their swords, prepared to cut the man down if needed.

  The crowd murmured, and Rayna heard one woman say, “It’s The Scholar.” Some of the people scurried for their homes with their children, terrified that this stranger might be the rumored harbinger of the dead who wandered the plains.

  The man above shouted down, “Of course it matters, Parrin Third-Court! What are we if not the promise of our name?” He held his arms out, revealing the entirety of his armor, every inch built for war. He was in leather that was designed for mobility, the straps affording him grace while leaving little space for a blade to pierce. He had swords in scabbards on either hip, and a crossbow on his back. His leather leggings were fitted with thick padding wherever they could be without hampering movement, and his boots had thick soles to give him greater height.

  Parrin’s soldiers reached the door and found it locked. They immediately set about breaking it down, slamming their shoulders into the wood and causing the wall to shudder.

  “I want you to know my name,” said the man above. “I don’t want it whispered. I want it shouted out by every mouth across this land, between sunrise and sunset, past the oceans and to all the isles of man.”

  The soldiers pounded on the door below.

  “Everyone will learn what it means when The Scholar comes calling.”

  Parrin turned to his soldier on the pyre and said, “Run her through.”

  Rayna had temporarily forgotten her fate, enamored by The Scholar, and she looked fretfully back at the hewn sword before it was plunged into her. She again tried to scream, but her voice was lost among the cries of the terrified crowd as they fled the wrath of The Scholar.

  Pain surged through Rayna and she stared down at the wooden blade as Parrin�
��s soldier stepped away, leaving the weapon lodged in its victim. Her dark blood trickled down the length of the blade, stopping at the edge of the rounded hilt and then dripping down to the oiled branches beneath her. The wound was grievous enough to kill her, although she was meant to suffer here for an hour before the end.

  The Scholar continued to scream out from the balcony. “Let’s not waste their time, brothers. Don’t you hear them knocking? Go ahead and open the doors for them.”

  A crack of wood was followed by the squeak of unoiled hinges, and Rayna looked up to see the doors of the tavern open as the soldiers who’d previously been pounding on them stood back, confused and wary. It was chaos in the town square as the crowd screamed out in terror, and then came the distinct twang of crossbow strings before the thud of bolts hitting their targets. People in the crowd began to drop, the nock end of bolts sticking out from their skulls. There were men positioned on the tops of buildings, having hid until now, and they spared no one in their assault. Women and children alike were felled, but soon Rayna would realize that they’d been the lucky ones.

  The tavern hid The Scholar’s best weapon. The zombies came rushing out, grasping at any warm body in their reach. Parrin’s soldiers fell fast, encumbered by their armor and pinned to the ground by the dead men that swarmed over them. The monsters feasted on the flesh revealed between the folds of the soldier’s armor, tearing at them with nails and teeth, ripping and shredding the quivering, screeching Swords.

  The Scholar stood above, leisurely aiming a crossbow down at the fleeing townsfolk, firing and then retrieving another bolt from the loops of his armor, cranking back the string of his weapon, and firing again. The dead seemed to emerge from everywhere, released to devour the masses. The creatures were silent, unlike the zombies that occasionally made their way to the town’s walls, moaning and screaming as they searched for food. These monsters made no sound, making them even more terrifying than Rayna thought possible.

  Would she become one of them now?

  She watched as the crowd that had gathered to watch her die were now slaughtered, and it was impossible for her to pity them as she stood tied to a pole, fuel at her feet and a sword in her stomach. Then she heard Parrin crying out for help as he tried to flee. He tripped on his long, decorative robe, his beads clacking together as they hit the ground before him. The quiet dead surged over him, hiding him from Rayna’s view. They ripped away his clothes, throwing them aside before the monsters dug into his flesh. Their grey, wrinkled skin was soon the color of fresh blood as they ripped at the new corpse. She saw the zombies greedily tearing at the body until they earned a sizeable chunk or limb, whereupon they would rush away to gnaw at the morsel. Other zombies would try to steal the food away, and then the creatures would fight over it, driven mad by the taste.

  A zombie stumbled up onto the mound of oiled branches, slipping and falling before getting back up to investigate Rayna. The living corpse was freshly dead, unlike the wrinkled, grey faces of many others. She looked familiar to Rayna, although the pale of death had stolen her features. The woman’s eyes had been blue, although they were now mostly grey, with streaks of bloodshot veins. Her blonde hair was matted with blood, and there was a gash on her cheek that revealed molars beneath.

  Rayna braced herself, ready for the zombie to tear into her, but the woman merely sniffed, and then turned her attention elsewhere. The dead had no interest in the half-dead, and this zombie moved on in search of another meal.

  The wooden sword in her gut was slowly bleeding her, and she looked forward to the release of death. She wondered if she would turn into one of the flesh-eating monsters after she passed, and with that thought she closed her eyes.

  Rayna gasped and opened her eyes as the sword was pulled from her belly. The pain was intense and she felt her guts spilling from the gap the weapon left behind. She opened her eyes, but the world had lost its color.

  The Scholar stood before her, his left hand coursing through her matted hair, whispering through his mask, “Wake up, Rayna. You’re not dead yet.”

  He spoke through a mask made of leather, buttons keeping the straps in place. There was a wide, round canister over his mouth, and his dark eyes peered through goggles at her. She finally recognized him. This was her lover; the man who’d promised she could lead a good life as a half-dead, but had then revealed her affliction to a crowd.

  Rayna tried to speak, but only a weak groan came forth. Behind The Scholar there were men and women dragging bodies out and lining them up in a row. She saw children as well, dutifully helping line up the dead for reasons Rayna couldn’t fathom.

  “I’m afraid I can’t take you with me to the plains,” said The Scholar as he placed his hands on either cheek, as if about to kiss her if not for his mask. “But you can still fight for me here.” He moved his hands down over her throat and began to squeeze. He was choking her, and she stared into the suggestion of dark eyes behind the glass orbs of his mask.

  Rayna awoke starving, although it was an unfamiliar hunger. She struggled to break free of her bindings, and then felt someone else’s hands on hers. She twisted to look behind her, and could see that there was another man, dressed similarly to The Scholar, ready to cut the cords that kept Rayna tied to the pole. She leaned forward and moaned, then snapped her teeth at The Scholar. He wasn’t afraid, and she sniffed at him. Her hunger subsided. She knew his flesh wouldn’t sate her.

  The Scholar took out a blade and said, “One quick bit of business.” He used one hand to force Rayna’s head up and then cut into her neck. She squirmed, but was still bound too tightly to fight back. She felt The Scholar’s fingers sliding into the cavity he’d cut in her, and then her tongue slipped down into her throat. He pulled it through the wound and then cut it off, throwing it off to the oiled branches below. She felt him reach inside of her throat again, and he pinched at some other bit of flesh that he tore out and threw away.

  “That should do it,” he said as he stepped down from the pyre.

  Rayna tried to growl, but her voice was lost. Only a wet gasp came from the wound in her throat as she gnashed her teeth and tried to scream. The Scholar knelt and cleaned his blade on the tunic of a dead man.

  “Go ahead and cut her free,” said The Scholar, and his man obeyed. Rayna’s hands were free, and she looked down at the wounds on her wrists that the twine had carved. Next, The Scholar’s man cut the bindings from her ankles and she was free to step away from the pyre. She fell forward, collapsing onto the branches and sliding down to the earth below, free at last.

  The Scholar helped her up, and she looked out at the other zombies that now populated the square, each of them happily feasting upon their victims. She lusted for the flesh, desiring nothing more than to taste the fresh blood and tear at the meat.

  “Go, eat,” said The Scholar.

  Rayna ran to the nearest heap of flesh, eager to bite into the body before it got cold.