The Dragons Revenge (Tales from the New Earth #2) (16 page)

The gates finally opened
with a painful squeal of frozen hinges and the guard pushed the large
doors aside until they were wide enough for Chief to slide through.

She signaled them urgently
to enter and, once they had, quickly slammed the gates closed behind
them.

Simon slowly and rather
stiffly dismounted. He stood holding on to the saddle for a moment
until his legs felt steady. Then he slapped Chief several times on
the neck to show his appreciation and the big horse whickered and
brushed his huge head across Simon's chest.

The wizard turned and
waited for the guard to lock the gates. He took off his gloves and
stuffed them into his pockets. When the guard walked over, he nodded
at the gates and looked at her curiously.

“
Is it normal these
days to keep the place locked down?”

She shook her head, the
spear across her back catching the sunlight.

“
No sir. It's only
since the attacks began a few days ago that we've been keeping the
gates locked.” She made a sound of derision. “I know he's
my superior, but Richard should know better. They only come after
dark, so why lock the place down during the day? You know what I
mean?”

Simon stared at her and
then looked at Aeris, who shrugged.

“
Um, not really.
What are you talking about? What attack?”

Now it was the guard's
turn to look confused.

“
You mean, you
aren't here because of the assault?” Simon shook his head. “Oh,
I'm so sorry. I assumed that Clara had gotten in touch with you and
that you'd traveled here to help.”

“
Well, I'll
certainly help in any way I can, but actually I just decided that the
weather was finally decent enough to pay you folks a visit.”

He held out his hand and
smiled at the guard.

“
I don't actually
know your name, so let me introduce myself. My name is Simon.”

Aeris snorted softly from
behind him but Simon ignored him. The guard's face reddened and she
hurriedly took off her furred glove and shook his hand.

“
Oh, sorry. I'm
Lynn. It's, ah, it's a pleasure to meet you.”

Simon's smile widened and
he shook her hand twice.

“
Same here. Now
then, is Clara up at the hall or..?”

“
She should be,”
Lynn told him. “Richard and a few others are meeting with her
to discuss tactics, or something. Go ahead up. And again, I apologize
for not recognizing you when you arrived.”

Simon laughed and waved
off the apology.

“
Don't worry about
it.” He became serious again. “If you've been attacked, I
totally understand your caution.”

He gave her a wave and
turned away, leading Chief up the narrow street toward the center of
town.

“
An attack?”
Aeris said as he floated beside Simon. “By whom?”

“
No idea, but Lynn
said they only attack at night. I don't like that.”

“
Neither do I,”
the elemental agreed, his voice thick with concern.

They met no one on their
walk to the main hall and that made Simon even more uneasy. The
weather wasn't that bad, except for the biting wind. If people were
staying indoors, there really was a problem.

At the hall, the wizard
tied Chief's reins to a post next to the main door then removed his
saddlebags and slung them over his shoulder. With a glance at Aeris,
he opened the door and slipped into the warmth beyond.

The large hall was lit by
torches hanging in sconces around the walls. There were many benches
facing toward the center of the room, where a roaring fire shed
welcome warmth. Smoke rose from the fire and found its way out
through a hole in the ceiling.

Simon saw several figures
standing or seated around the fire and he walked toward them slowly,
waiting for someone to notice him.

As he neared the group, a
woman looked up and made a sound of surprise. Her eyebrows rose and
she smiled brightly.

“
Simon! Well, what
do you know? Who says that prayers are never answered?”

It was Clara.

Simon grinned at the warm
greeting and looked at her companions.

Richard was standing next
to the fire, gleaming in his armor, a sword on his hip. Near him
stood another guardsman, a youngster still in his teens that the
wizard didn't know.

On a bench facing the
fire-pit sat Virginia and her three friends, with whom she shared her
magical powers; Eric, Anna and Gerard.

Everyone greeted Simon
with apparent relief. Richard strode forward and shook his hand
firmly.

“
Sir wizard!
Welcome. We are very pleased to see you.” He turned and
indicated the young armored man with him. “May I introduce my
squire, Edmund. Ed, this is Simon, the wizard I've told you about.”

With wide eyes, the
teenager awkwardly extended his hand and Simon shook it twice.

“
Nice to meet you,”
he said politely. He looked at Richard. “Squire?”

With a chuckle, the large
man shrugged, his bald head glowing in the firelight.

“
Old fashioned, I
know. But on the New Earth, I suppose we'll have to fall back on
ancient traditions. The fact is, an armored fighter needs help with
his tools, weapons and armor. And he or she should try to train
others who want to learn.”

He clapped Edmund on the
shoulder with a clang of metal on metal. The young man smiled shyly.

“
He's a good lad,
even if he
was
older
than I was before the Change.”

Simon knew exactly how
that felt. He turned away at a touch on his arm and was enfolded in a
huge hug from Virginia.

“
It's great to see
you,” she exclaimed after she'd let him loose. “The four
of us were just trying to convince Clara that we should either go to
see you or at least send someone.”

The wizard staggered a bit
as she let him go and then looked from the four Changlings to the
cleric.

“
Why? What's going
on? Clara, if you needed my help, all you had to do was use the
lodestone to get my attention.”

Clara waved him to a bench
and Simon sat down, after he slipped his staff off of his back and
laid it down beside him. Aeris hovered next to him at shoulder
height, watching silently.

She sat down near the
wizard and smiled ruefully.

“
I lost the bloody
thing,” she said simply.

“
What?”

She blushed and looked
away. One of the young women, Anna probably, giggled at her
embarrassment.

“
I lost it, I said.
I don't know where. I've torn apart my quarters looking for it, but
it's gone. Since I usually carry it everywhere I go, it probably fell
out into the snow sometime since we spoke last. I hope it turns up
eventually but for now, it's just gone.”

For one moment, Simon was
tempted to tease her a bit, but Clara looked genuinely distressed at
the loss, so he just patted her hand reassuringly.

“
Don't worry about
it. I'll have Kronk make us a new pair when I get home.”

“
Oh, that would be
such a relief, Simon. Thank you so much.”

“
Not a problem. Now
the question is, why did you want to speak to me. The guard on duty,
Lynn, mentioned an attack?”

“
Not just one
attack, sir wizard,” Richard rumbled. He gripped the hilt of
his sword tightly. “Several. We've been assaulted three times
in as many nights.”

“
Three times!”
Simon stared from face to face. “Who's attacking you? And why?”

Clara stood up and walked
to the fire. She stared at it a moment and then turned to look at the
wizard.

“
Not who, my friend.
What.” She tilted her head a bit as she watched him. “Do
you remember me telling you about that town about ten miles away?
Where I got my books on magic and lore from the library?”

“
Yes, of course.
Why? Does that have something to do with these attacks?”

“
Not directly, no.
But it's an old town. And it has a cemetery filled with graves, some
over a century old.”

Simon watched her in
confusion.

“
And?”

“
And we believe that
the attackers are coming from there.”

“
Undead, Simon,”
Eric spoke for the first time. His skin seemed paler than usual and
his black eyes were enormous in the flickering firelight. “We're
being attacked by corpses. Dozens of them.”

Simon put his elbows on
his knees and leaned forward. He looked at Clara, who nodded in
confirmation of Eric's incredible assertion and then at Richard, who
did the same.

“
Corpses,”
Simon said flatly. “You mean like in the movies in the old
days? Shambling zombies lurching along and moaning about brains?”

There were a few strained
laughs at his question, but Clara and Richard maintained their
serious expressions.

“
I wish they were
like that, Simon,” the cleric told him. “But they aren't.
Not even close. These...things move with speed. They climb like
monkeys. Fortunately, your Kronk and his fellow elementals built the
wall well. It is too smooth for them to climb, and your wards seem to
be painful to them, so they have to come over the front or rear
gates. It allows us to focus on only two points along the wall
instead of the whole length of it. Thank the gods for that small
mercy.”

“
They shy away from
light, Simon,” Virginia said. “So we keep a bunch of
torches burning in front of both gates each night. We learned about
that after their first attack.”

She swallowed hard and
looked away, rubbing her eyes.

“
What happened
during that first attack?” Simon asked gently. It was obviously
an emotional subject for the young woman.

“
The first night,”
Richard said, answering the question, “we were caught
completely off-guard. How could we not be? Who in the hell thought
we'd be attacked by the undead, of all things?”

He sounded both furious
and defensive and Clara looked at him compassionately.

“
Richard, you're
being too hard on yourself. It's not your fault that they died.”

“
Isn't it?” he
asked bitterly. “I am the captain of the guard, Clara. I am
responsible for the security of this town and I failed in that duty.
Kind words won't bring back our people.”

“
What happened?”
Simon asked again, feeling a sense of horror rising within himself.

Richard turned away and
Clara gave Simon a sad look.

“
They came over the
front and back gates simultaneously. We, at the time, only maintained
a guard at the front gate. There are always torches lit there and
when the monsters dropped inside, they seemed stunned and shrank away
from the light. That gave the guard there a chance to raise the
alarm.”

She walked back to the
bench and sat down next to Simon again.

“
You may not have
noticed, my friend, but we installed a bell in a housing next to the
front gate. Just as a precaution, you understand. Well, thank the
gods we did.” She looked at Richard who had turned back to
listen. “My big friend's idea, by the way.”

The armored man just
shrugged and Clara shook her head at him sadly.

“
The guard rang the
bell and roused the town. We rushed to the gate and Richard and his
people fought the undead. I learned that night that the few spells
that I've been gifted with by the gods are useful for something after
all.”

“
Spells?”
Simon sat up attentively. “What spells?”

“
Holy Light, for
one. The clean white light of Goodness burns these creatures like
fire. And fire is the only way to stop them. Even hacking them to
pieces doesn't work. The pieces keep moving and crawling like so many
insects. Ugh, disgusting.”

She shuddered and took a
deep breath before she continued.

“
And a spell that,
according to what I've read in fantasy books, could be called Turn
Undead. It caused these walking corpses to flee mindlessly, making
them easy targets for anyone armed with a torch.”

“
Fortunately,”
Virginia spoke up, “they burn like the dessicated corpses that
they are. One thrust of a torch or a fire arrow and they burst into
flames.”

Simon was having a hard
time accepting this entire thing but his friends were too obviously
upset by the events for it to be some sort of joke.

“
Well, it sounds
like you've acquitted yourselves admirably.” He paused and
thought for a moment. “Wait a second. You've only mentioned the
attack on the front gate. What happened when they came over the
back?”

There was a long silence.
Simon watched everyone avoiding each other's eyes and he felt a sick
feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Finally, Richard cleared
his throat loudly and everyone jumped.