The Screaming Skull Read online

  Weaponless, dripping wet, I crouched in the middle of the brook. No need to wonder who had attacked us.

  “XINGO!” I bellowed. “Show yourself, you dickless worm!”

  Blowguns had an effective range of about twenty-five chains. The little bug-fucker had to be close. If I could reach our men about a hundred chains away on the road, I might have a shot. I’d need to smoke out the gnome first, though.

  “Suck my asshole, dickwad!” came the tinny reply.

  His voice came from a line of sycamore trees paralleling the brook at the crest of a low rise. Xingo’s curses had startled a pair of robins nesting in the upper branches; a quick trace of their flight path led me to him. He was holed up in the crook of one tree wearing a gillie suit decked out in branches and leaves. He must have been tracking us since we broke Amabored’s camp. Dirty gnome bastard.

  His location made him vulnerable. Although my horse had bolted, James’s horse stood placidly tethered to a fallen ash tree within arm’s reach. Xingo was reloading, which gave me a second—had to think like a young man if I wanted to live.

  Although I don’t take naturally to horses, I have learned a few tricks in my day, as horsemanship is prerequisite to Adventurers Guild mastery. Belly-crawling to James’s horse, I slid under its flank, flopped myself over, and hooked my boots in the stirrups. Then I reached for the reigns, untied them, flipped them over the horse’s left flank, and pulled them tight. I gave the horse a taste of my spurs.

  “Yeeahh!” I cried. The horse broke up the hill at a full gallop with me hanging from his belly. The Hi-Ho Blow Me move, we used to call it, because the position left you staring right at the horse’s johnson.

  The horse rocketed up the hill. When I reached the tree line, two of Xingo’s daggers hissed past my ear and thudded into the ground. With at best a half-second until he reloaded, I launched myself from the horse and slammed into the thin trunk of Xingo’s tree at about twelve knots. The force of the collision popped the gnome out of the branches. He landed hard on his head and then lay there groaning.

  As did I—my middle-aged body would soon make me pay dearly for this tomfoolery. For now, rage stood me well. Grabbing one of Xingo’s own daggers, I pounced on him and thrust the tip of the blade under his jaw.

  “One move, gnome, and I’ll ventilate you,” I hissed.

  While Xingo was still too groggy to resist, I hog-tied him with a belt and then raced back to James. The ranger had turned a distinct shade of blueberry and his breath was shallow, but the poison had yet to reach his heart. As an old campaigner, I still traveled with the essential adventurer’s travel pack, which included such necessities as tinder and flint, lantern oil, a six-pack of pitch-soaked torches, a coil of rope, a week’s supply of hardtack, and several handy potions stored in sealed clay jars: healing salves, invisibility ointments, magical Molotov cocktails, poison antidotes, and Sterno. You can buy the whole kit-and-caboodle at most Guild-approved merchants; don’t leave home without it.

  I forced two Antidote potions down James’s throat. He’d puke his guts out, but he’d live. Then I turned my attention back to the gillie-suited gnome, who had recovered enough to regard me with a mixture of bile and fear. I grabbed him by the scruff of his hair.

  “Who put you up to this?” I demanded.

  “Go fuck yourself!”

  “Spit it out, creep, or I’ll geld you.”

  “You can’t touch me!” the gnome squealed. “I’m under Amabored’s protection!”

  The gnome was right. Though I couldn’t fathom why Amabored wanted to protect the same oily runt who had tried to murder us a dozen times over, I knew the rules. As Lords, we were entitled to offer sanctuary under our banners. No Lord could harm a man protected by another Lord’s banner without risking war. To execute Xingo, I’d have to arrange a sit with Amabored, read a list of grievances, call witnesses… it was a hard slog through fetid bogs of red tape and paperwork before I’d have the pleasure of separating this louse’s head from his shoulders, and who had time for that? Besides, with Amabored convinced that Ragnarök was nigh, who knew how he’d react?

  There was nothing in the Code that prohibited me from neutralizing a threat, however. Offering Xingo a grim smile, I placed my boot on his throat.

  “That’s true,” I said. “But I’m not about to leave you to try your luck again. You’re coming with me. If Amabored wants you, he can come and get you.”

  I’d regale you with the stream of inventive profanity spewing from the gnome before I stuffed the gag in his mouth, but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. A few hours later, James was done puking, Xingo was safely trussed to the back of my horse, and we were finally able to say our proper goodbyes.

  “Thanks again,” James said, rubbing the horrid purple bruise on his throat. “The little turd got the drop on me.”

  “With the number of times you’ve saved my carcass over the years?” I asked. “Forget it. The question is, why is that little shit still trying to murder us? You have any enemies you’ve forgotten about?”

  “None that I’m aware of. You?”

  “Too many to count. You don’t think Amabored put him up to it, do you?”

  James considered this point. “I don’t dare believe it. He may be nuts, but he’s not crazy. Are you sure you don’t want to turn the gnome over to me? A few hours sitting on a short stake, and he’ll talk.”

  That one made me smile. Lawful Good or not, James had a mean streak. He could carry a grudge longer than any man I knew.

  “I don’t doubt it,” I said. “But we can’t touch him without Amabored’s leave. Let him cool his heels in my dungeons for a while. Something will break.”

  We stood up and stared past each other during a few moments of awkward silence. What the hell, I thought, and wrapped James in a bear hug. He gave me the bro-pat, and we pulled back.

  “Let me know if that throne of yours starts putting too many calluses on your ass,” I said. “I’ll start a war and call you for help. It’ll be like old times.”

  “Will do,” James said. “Keep your powder dry.”

  That was the last time I saw both James and Amabored. In one week, they’re both due to arrive here at the Lordship for my birthday celebration. It’s supposed to be a joyous reunion—the Musketeers together again. Xingo was still rotting in my dungeon until I let him out. I kept the little cockroach on ice for a year now. Has he spoken a word about who hired him to kill us? Maybe he has… maybe he hasn’t. I’ll tell you later.

  In any case, Amabored has certainly figured out what happened to the gnome—and you might imagine that he’s sore about it. Lithaine may be coming to kill me, but what about Amabored? Am I to face the bloody wrath of my two dearest friends? With the Millennium approaching? With the fate of both my life and the Woerth at large hanging in the balance?

  That’s the funny thing about life: It’s never so bad that it can’t get worse.

  21

  That lesson quickly dawned on me during my first few weeks outside of Redhauke, lo these forty-five years ago. After a month of cooling my heels with the rest of the proles, I had yet to so much as sniff the inside of the city. The stream of northern refugees had slowed to a trickle. For the denizens of Doomtown, that collection of filthy shantytowns sprawled alongside the Outer Walls, desperation was setting in. The wind shifted, and the air assumed the crisp clarity of approaching autumn. After the summer harvest, food had become scarce, and thoughts of winter began to caper in our minds. The refugees began to size each other up and to contemplate, in the dark recesses of their souls, the merits of cannibalism.

  It was tempting to blame the city elders for the pervasive misery, but what could they do? Open the gates to the mob and watch them storm the granaries and empty the larders? The city had to take care of its own. Guards tossed sacks of grain and potatoes over the wall whenever they could spare them, but the manna hadn’t fallen from heaven in weeks. Now, a hunk of bread and the occasional bowl of cabbage soup was the most a re
fugee could hope for to keep starvation at bay. Just to rub it in, once a fortnight the city gates swung open to admit the long cattle drives that came up from the Were Coast led by posses of lariat-twirling cowboys. The city had a ravenous appetite for beef, milk, cheese, and leather, and of the thousands of cattle that shuffled inside the walls of Redhauke, not a single heifer or bull made it out alive. We envied them.

  Meanwhile, rumors of child kidnapping continued apace, forcing groups of parents to band together to guard their grimy urchins while the men foraged for food. Further rumors that only children outside the walls were being snatched, while those within the city remained safe, made things worse. Traumatized parents flung themselves at the feet of the Guards, begging entrance to the city; some even attempted to smuggle their children inside. Anyone who looked even slightly suspicious was tagged as a potential child-snatcher and targeted for a beating or worse. Doomtown became as flammable as a pile of dry tinder, lacking only a spark to ignite the blaze.

  As for me, I had lost twenty pounds. When I happened upon a reflective surface, I saw in my eyes the same flinty, haunted, downtrodden stare that I saw in everyone else. It was time for the würm to turn. Either I got inside the city gates before winter, or I crawled on my belly back to Dad and presented my balls to him on a platter.

  Fortunately, bon chance was in the air. One late afternoon in mid-September, as I was cleaning and dressing a dog that had unwisely wandered onto the onion farm looking for food, Lithaine bounded over from his own campsite. The bloody elf never walked anywhere; he bounced and leaped about like some swashbuckling ballet dancer or a Broadway Tarzan, and I sometimes had to fight the urge to beat his head against a tree.

  “You’re just in time,” I said, stacking up a meager supply of dog steaks on the tree stump that served as my kitchen counter. “Get a fire going.”

  “Drop that mess and come with me,” said Lithaine. “There’s somebody you need to meet.”

  I packed the dog steaks in salt, grabbed my sword, and scurried after the elf. Trying to pry details from him along the way was like trying to pry a chicken leg from a dwarf’s hand. Winding our way through the shantytowns, we passed everywhere the hopeless, the terrified, the swell-bellied, the blind, the lame, and the old. Eventually, we came to a cluster of tents and shacks near the southwest shore of Lake Everdeep. This immense, freshwater inland sea spanning a hundred leagues long and fifty wide provided a livelihood for the scores of fishing villages squatting on its shores. Redhauke itself, nestled on the bay through which the lake flowed into the Whitehorse River, was home to the vast commercial shipping fleets that plied its waters. Legend tells of a sprawling merman city hidden miles beneath the surface. Can you imagine life as a merman? Fish swim in their own shit. Think of a merman city, and you might imagine a magical undersea paradise of coral and shell. It’s probably more like a rancid aquarium.

  Even the mermen themselves, I imagine, have no idea how deep the lake is or what manner of beasts dwell at the bottom. No one, not even Gygax the Great himself, has ever fully plumbed its depths. The lake intrigued the seaman in me, and I couldn’t help but stare at it in dumbstruck wonder as we entered the campsite.

  My attention was soon diverted, however, by sounds that I only half-understood.

  A man’s voice. “No, move it over here. Over here.”

  Then a woman. “Oh, god, don’t stop, oh god, oh, oh ooooohhhh….”

  And then an animal, braying. Or baah-ing. What the fuck was that? A sheep?

  These dulcet tones issued from a ramshackle cabin constructed out of several rough-hewn logs, driftwood, and the hull of a small fishing boat. A leather tarp nailed to the hull served as a front wall and door. A breeze caught the edge of the tarp, lifting it to reveal the ghostly apparition of a white male ass bobbing up and down between a pair of plump female legs splayed wide. Outside the cabin, three malnourished, toothless inbreeds had gathered to watch the show. Lithaine chased them off at the point of his sword.

  The elf pounded on the driftwood doorframe. “Amabored! Finish up! We have business!”

  The ass stopped bobbing. Whispered nothings commenced—whether to the woman or to the sheep, I couldn’t say. A few moments later, a fat, happy, and red-faced peasant woman scurried out of the cabin, pulling up her bloomers as she ran. Then out jumped the sheep, skittish but none the worse for wear. Behind the animal emerged a tall, bronzed, chiseled fighter wearing the loincloth, bandoleer, and breeches of a Northern barbarian. Though he appeared to be around twenty-five, his mullet and goatee were white. His gaze bore the easy regard of a young man certain of the world, and his place in it. He slapped the girl on the ass as she ran away.

  “Don’t forget, I’ll be here at eight. Eight!” the barbarian called after her. “And don’t forget the wine!”

  He turned to us, still grinning, and extended his hand to me. “Amabored of the Nomad Kingdoms. You must be Elberon of the Isles. The elf tells me you’re handy with a blade.”

  “I know a few steps,” I said. “The Nomad Kingdoms, you say? You’re a barbarian?”

  “Yes,” said Amabored, sizing me up. “But I wipe my ass with toilet paper.”

  “Fair enough. So, what’s up?” I asked, turning to Lithaine.

  Lithaine led us around to the back of the lean-to, where the three of us crouched together. The barbarian produced a wooden dugout pipe and a pouch stuffed with gnome pipeweed. He packed a bowl, fired up a hit, and then passed it to me. I sheepishly declined. Lithaine took a puff, and then passed his gaze over the two of us.

  “If either of you tells anybody what I’m going to tell you, then I’ll kill you both,” he said. “I don’t even care which one of you blabs, I’ll still kill both of you. Got me?”

  “Try it, donkey-puncher,” said Amabored, “and see where it gets you.”

  Taking this comment as acquiescence, Lithaine commenced his tale. I wouldn’t have believed it but for the deadly gleam in his eyes, which told us that any skepticism would be met with immediate disembowelment. The previous night, Lithaine had been awakened at his camp, which lay within a starlit clearing hidden behind a small copse of ash trees, by what sounded like distant chimes. The sound echoed along the chill autumn breeze ruffling the treetops. He sat up, seeking the music’s source—and found himself staring at the ghostly, glowing, neon-limned form of a child.

  She stood watching him at the edge of the clearing. She looked human, no more than eight years old, with shoulder-length raven hair, a white gown, and no shoes. Lithaine grabbed his quiver and bow, set shaft to string, and approached the child warily. As he closed with her, he found that he could see the tree trunks through her shimmering form.

  “I’m an elf, so I’m used to this shimmering-in-the-forest shit,” Lithaine told us, “but this was different. The music seemed to come from within her. And she seemed to know me.”

  “I told you to lay off the wild mushrooms,” said Amabored.

  Rather than run frightened from the armed elf, the child instead beckoned him closer. Lithaine approached to within arm’s length and stood staring down at her with his bow at rest.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  Like the chimes, the child’s voice seemed to reach Lithaine from the opposite end of a long tunnel. “We have yet to meet, my beloved,” said the child, “but in due course, we shall. Until that blessed day, I beg your aid in righting a great wrong.”

  “I don’t know you,” Lithaine said. “And I don’t care about your troubles.” He turned on his heels to walk away. He was immediately stopped short—for the girl now stood before him again.

  “It feeds on the children,” the child said. “I am not yet manifest fully in this universe, and so cannot stop it. But you can, your Majesty. You and your friends. First, you must get the children of this place inside the city walls, for out here, none are safe. In three days must you do this. Fail, and doom them you shall. Fail, and you may doom the Woerth.”

  With that, the apparition of the child faded a
way, borne on the night wind along with the keening of the chimes. The last Lithaine saw of her was her eyes. Her gaze was full of hope, and longing—and something akin to love.

  “‘Your Majesty’?” Amabored said. “What are you king of besides your dick and your right hand?”

  “Shut your hole or I’ll shut it for you, you goddamned savage. I’m not fucking around.”

  “Do you believe what this ghost was telling you?” I asked. “That something is ‘feeding on’ children? And that we can stop it by getting them inside the city in three days?”

  Lithaine paused to consider his answer, which we could already read in his eyes. “Yeah, I do. I don’t know why she picked me. But I believe her.”

  “If we play this right,” I said, “it could be our chance to become heroes.”

  “Who wants to be a hero?” asked Lithaine.

  “Not me,” Amabored said. “I want to get rich. And I can’t get rich until I get into that city. If helping these kids will get me there, then I say we try it.”

  “I’m in,” I said. “Say, do you think that ghost was revealing the future?” I asked Lithaine. “Maybe you’ll be a king someday.”

  “If I ever become a king, remind me to kill myself,” Lithaine said.

  “Nobody in his right mind wants to be a king,” said Amabored, clapping the elf on the shoulder. “That’s why the world is so fucked up.”

  22

  The next day, the three of us scattered, each looking for some hidden entrance, tunnel, or airborne drop that we might exploit to get into the city. For my part, I walked the length of the Outer Walls from stem to stern and back again, looking for a culvert, a cistern, a loose block, sleeping guards—anything that smelled like a hole in the city’s defenses. I even hiked down to the where the walls met the shore of Lake Everdeep, near the city’s massive harbor. I saw only an exposed cliff that led down to the depthless waters, and towers bristling with bowmen.