Wrath Of The Medusa (Book 2) (3 page)

Thom slipped down with his back to a tree and shrouded himself in a spell of concealment.  A horse looked momentarily in his direction, its dull mind less susceptible to the simple illusion than the higher order wills of the elves and humans in the company.  Ever since he had first pursued his illegal past-time, Thom had been amazed at how easily his mother could be fooled while the family cat could not.  But then, the cat saw what was there, while his mother saw what she thought was there, and in that crevice of interpretation, the illusionist’s art had always found its leverage.  But it mattered not that the horse could see him plain as day.  The horse wasn’t telling anyone.  An outcast seeking solitude was of no concern to equine thinking. 

A few dozen yards
from the tethered horses, the rest of the company were gathered around Tordil’s lilac flamed fire.   One of the elves was keeping lookout aloft in the trees, while a half dozen lancers stood watch at the edges of the copse. Within their guarded camp, the mood of the remainder was more relaxed than it had been in days.  They ate their meagre repast and talked in low voices.  There was even an occasional laugh as Jolander told some barrack room joke and no-one seemed to notice that Thom was not there.  Or maybe they had noticed and were just too glad of the circumstance to risk drawing attention to it.

Thom
wrapped himself more tightly in his magical shroud.  She had promised he would be safe and he did not doubt the Lady Niarmit’s word.  But Tordil had been unconscious when Thom had made his instrumental contribution to their escape.  The elf Captain was always ready to set the illusionist’s great crimes of collaboration as being a far from discharged counterbalance to any succour he had given their mission.  Jolander, Quintala and the lancers knew nothing of him save that he was a slow riding burden to their escape with a criminal magic using past. 

So
Thom sat and watched, feeling scarcely less an outsider than when he had been the dogsbody to Marwella and her regiment of necromancers all bending dead sinews to the service of the Dark Lord.

Niarmit sat close by the fire, its rainbow fla
mes playing across her face suffusing her red hair with a dozen extra colours.  She watched the scintillating blades of light in silent contemplation, impervious to the merriment around her.

On her left sat Hepdida, the servant girl with the scarred face.  Never far from Niarmit’s side she glanced constantly across at the priestess and then occasionally let her mouth bend in a half smile at a joke she could not have understood.

Beyond the two women was the ragged figure of Kaylan.  Just an ill-matched supernumerary to the troop of lancers, yet one who had some long history with Niarmit.  Thom could not fathom what their relationship was or had been, save that the footpad was never either too close or too far from the red headed leader.  As now he sat just beyond the light of the fire, so his face was in shadow, and only his hands expertly whittling a stick into the shape of dog, were visible.

On Niarmit’
s right sat Jolander and Tordil, human sergeant and elf Captain making an unlikely alliance.  The common ground of soldiery over-rode the prejudices of race as they traded stories of their own martial prowess and their enemies’ ineptitude.

The S
eneschal, Quintala, sat opposite Niarmit.  Her sliver hair refracted the multi-coloured light of the flames but, with her back to Thom, the illusionist could not see her expression save that she sat very still her attention directed on the priestess opposite.

Hepdida stood up abruptly, her forehead creased in a frown as a fresh burst of laughter echoed around the fire.  She touched Niarmit on the shoulder and the priestess looked up at her, distracted for a moment from the fire’s hypnotic dance.  The girl said something and the priestess nodded. 
Thom shrivelled behind his magical veil as the servant girl left the company by the fire and approached the horses. 

Hepdida stroked the bay mare’s muzzle and offered it a handful of fresh grass, murmuring some half-heard apology for obliging it to carry herself as well as Niarmit on the long day’s ride.

Thom was uncomfortable, watching her while knowing she could not see him.  He felt he was intruding on a private moment of happiness, as the girl smiled broadly and wrapped her arms around the patient horse’s neck.  The illusionist found his lips bending in a smile of empathy, appreciating too the plain honesty of the simple beast when set against the posturing, dissembling and deception of humans, elves and orcs.

There was a movement to his right, but
Thom’s moment of alarm quickly faded.  It was only the lancer on guard duty stepping in to mind the horses.  He recognised him as the fellow with the orc obsession. Hepdida had not seen him approach for the man moved softly through the undergrowth.   She gave a stifled yelp when at last she perceived him a distance of a bare two yards from her.

He calmed her with some pleasantry which failed to restore her smile.
  Thom, who had seen that moment of uninhibited happiness, could tell her guard was up against the lancer’s murmured conversation.  She stroked the grey mare’s neck, more absently than before, her gaze darting ever towards the lancer whose intrusion was clearly less welcome than he supposed.

Thom
considered throwing off his illusion and coming to her rescue.   But then he thought, if the lancer was unwelcome, how much less appreciated would be the revelation that she had been spied upon however unintentionally.

While he wrestled with this dilemma, there was a sudden move, a scuffle.  The lancer had seized Hepdida’s face in his two hands and was pressing his mouth against hers.  She struggled unheard as the soldier’s lips sealed hers closed
.  Thom stood up sharply, shaking of his illusory cloak. “Hey!” he called out.  The lancer half turned at the distraction and in that moment Hepdida brought her knee up sharply between his legs. 

The soldier crumpled to all fours with an airless gasp.  Hepdida and
Thom exchanged a glance over her assailant’s crippled form.  The servant girl wide eyed, still shocked as Thom took a reassuring step towards her, stretching out a hand of support.  She took a step away.

“It’s all right,” he said.  “Don’t be afraid.”

She turned and ran, away from him, away from the horses, away from the copse.

“Oh crap!”
Thom exclaimed and ran after her.

The thick clouds obscured the M
oon and stars and the light of Tordil’s conjured fire was limited by intent to the illumination of their small camp.  Beyond the tree line all was black and Thom could see nothing and hear little of Hepdida.  He swept his hands in a swift spell flicking his index fingers across each eye.  Now as he stared out into the gloom he could make a blob dull red in colour, still moving in haste across the dark plain, brighter red sticks of legs pumped beneath a body made visible by its own warmth.  He glanced around, no other sources of heat.  The area was devoid of the night time prowlers, scavenging wolves or hunting orcs which might have posed some threat to the fleeing servant girl.

Re-assured he set off in pursuit, hoping to catch
Hepdida before some mischance, an ankle twisting rabbit hole, or a stumble over a rock, should cause her an injury.

Behind him all was calm.  N
o alarm was raised in camp.  Thom in his haste to pursue had expected the elven lookout at least to mark their flight and marshal some assistance.  But the keen eyed tree-top sentry must be asleep or looking elsewhere. Tordil would have words to say at such a failure.  In the meantime, it was Thom alone who ran after the startled fugitive, intent on keeping her safe from harm.

He saw that she had stopped, crouched down looking back towards him.
He slowed to a walk as he approached her. “Hepdida,” he called gently.  “It’s me Thom.”

She didn’t move, didn’t reply.  She wouldn’t have realised
he could see her glowing with her own body’s heat, her face towards him as bright a torch.  Her hand clenched something. It glinted softly, in reflecting the glow of her body. A long thin reflecting edge.  Crap it was a knife.

“Hepdida,” his voice cracked with a little alarm.  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She shifted position.  Squatting on her haunches, poised to pounce, oblivious to how clearly he could see her. 

“Hepdida, why did you run?”

“Why did you chase me?” the question was fired back at him with venom.  “What did you and that soldier plan for me?”

“Nothing – nothing, not us… me, I wasn’t part of it.  I was just there.”

“Spying on me? Hidden by magic, just waiting for your chance?”

“No, please, I just wanted to
make sure you were all right. I saw what he did what he tried to do.  It’s not safe out here.  Come back to camp.  Please put the knife away.”

From fifteen yards away he saw her tense at his words.  She was silent, motionless for a few seconds before asking
, “can you see me?” She stood up slowly still wary, the knife held in front of her. He saw her head turn slightly side to side as she began to discern his outline from the darker background of the night

He hesitated
for a moment before plunging into honest disclosure.  “Yes, I can see you. I cast a spell to help me see things by their body heat.  I needed to follow you, to make sure you didn’t get hurt or attacked by animals out here.”

She looked around, quickly before turning her attention back to him. “And are there? Are there any animals out here?”

“No,” Thom assured her.  “None at all.”

After another quick scan of the impenetrable blackness her bright face turned once more on him.  “Why not?”

“What?” he was puzzled both by her question and also the indistinct doubt that had formed in his own mind as he reassured her of the absence of any creatures.

“Why not? Why aren’t there any animals?  Where are they?”

“er… I don’t know.”

“Can you cast a light spell,
a spell so anyone can see?”  She was moving forwards, turning as she went so that for the last few yards she was backing towards him.  “A light spell, now!”

”Of course.”  The simplest of spells, a dextrous flick of his fingers and a pool of light spread out from his hands illuminating a c
ircle full thirty feet across. There was a moment of blurry blindness as his eyes switched back from sensing heat to seeing light.  Then all became as clear as daylight.

“Oh crap!” he said.

There were five of them, shuffling into the circle of light. By their clothing simple folk, simple and dead.  The homespun tunics were stained with blood which had streamed from torn throats and through multiple rents.  Lacerated skin hung loosely from their faces. White molars glinted through a gaping second mouth bitten out of one creature’s cheek. An eyeball, hanging loose from its socket, bounced against a half-eaten nose with each jolting step.  Arms reached out towards the wizard and the girl.  Some lacked the full complement of fingers, or even had entire hands missing, but this did not diminish the dread they inspired clawing coldly at Thom’s throat. 

“We need to run!”  He grabbed Hepdida’s hand and pulled her after him as he spun away from the stumbling zombies.  “Oh crap!”  Another half dozen were staggering into the circle of light from the other side.

The servant girl drew in a sharp breath and then waved her little knife at the approaching undead.  There was a fierce intensity to her gaze, but it could not hide the tremor in her hand.  “Can’t you cast a spell, an illusion. Make it so they can’t see us.”

“They don’t see us,” he gasped fumbling in his robes for a weapon he knew would not be there.  “They smell us, and they have no minds to deceive with a spell.”  Instinctively they had stood back to back, watching in dismay as more walking corpses emerged from the night.

“But you used to shepherd these things didn’t you.  Can’t you do it again, make them go away.”

Thom
shook his head with a sob.  “I was never any good at it and it takes time to reach into them, to make a link. I can’t do it, not this quickly with this many.”

They spun around, surveying the ring of encirclement searching for a gap and finding none.  “So how do I kill them then?” Hepdida demanded grimly.

“You can’t, they’re already dead.  You have to destroy them, obliterate them.  Even if you hack them to pieces the bits can still move and claw and bite.”

The nearest hands were mere feet away as Hepdida asserted, “I’ll just have to dice the lot of them then.”

Thom, concentrating hard, made no response to her cracked bravado. The zombie facing him, hesitated in its halting stride sniffing at the air, before lurching to its right into the path of one of its fellows.  A glimmer of an opening appeared and Thom grabbed Hepdida’s hand.  “This way, run.” 

The uneven ground hindered their flight, but
the zombies were slow to gather their instincts and refocus their hunger.  The girl and the wizard gained a few precious yards, dodging the ponderous lunges of the undead.  But then one rotting arm thundered into Thom’s shoulder, spinning him around and sending him crashing to one knee.  Hepdida dragged him upwards as she darted past, but there were other hands upon him now. She turned to grab his arm two handed but he pushed her away as an accumulation of zombies weighed upon his shoulders.  “Run,” he said. “Keep running.”  Toppling forward under the pressure of undead, he used the momentum to push her away.  She stumbled backwards, falling out of sight as Thom kicked and scrabbled onto his back.  He flailed frantically with every limb to bat the voracious undead away.   Every swinging foot and fist was met by a plethora of hands grasping for what was little more than a restless meal to the unthinking zombies.