'At least we know there's one of them in here, sir,' said Sergeant Hef. 'Maybe more.'
'One's enough for me,' said Toadface.
'Think you can track him?' Sardec asked Weasel. The sharpshooter scratched his beak of a nose then sucked his teeth.
'It's misty, sir, and the light's not so good.' Like the rest of them, Weasel wanted to go home. Sardec could tell.
'There's a bounty for each ghoul head,' he reminded the Foragers. 'Can buy a lot of vodka for a silver piece.'
Weasel grinned. 'A drink for each man in the company, sir. Maybe.' There were a lot of soldiers here and one head would not do much for their thirst. Plus the soldiers still had their plunder stashes. They were not short of money. Sardec could not blame them for their lack of enthusiasm under the circumstances. He was really no keener than they about remaining in the graveyard.
A scream rang out. Followed by another. Then silence.
'It came from the direction of the mausoleums,' said Weasel. 'Somebody did fancy a snack.'
'Ready weapons, lads,' said Sardec. 'Looks like we're going to kill some ghouls after all.'
'Are you sure what you are planning is wise?' Rik asked Asea as they entered her chambers in the Palace. She smiled and spoke the words of the warding spells. The street noise from outside fell away.
'I do believe you are frightened, Rik,' she said with a mocking smile.
'My last experience with flying engines was not the sort that makes me keen to get into the air again.'
'Master Benjario's machine will work Rik. I have checked his calculations myself.'
'That reassures me somewhat, Milady, but still I fear for your safety. Accidents happen. And sometimes they happen deliberately.'
'I don't think Master Benjario is going to kill himself just to rid the world of me, Rik. I have known people who would but he is not one of them.'
'His wife might,' said Rik, only half-joking. 'But I was thinking more of sabotage.'
'Our preparations will be most thorough. Everything will be checked before we take off.'
'You really are determined to do this, aren't you, Milady?'
'I am.'
'Why?'
'For the thrill of it, Rik.' He studied her, trying to work out whether she was being flippant. He could not tell. He wondered if he had a life as long as hers whether he would risk it.
'Is your life really so dull?'
'This will be a new experience,' she said. 'There are not many of those in my life.'
'It might be the last new experience you will ever have.'
'There are risks attached to everything, Rik. Even walking across the street.'
Ahead of Sardec a pack of ghouls swarmed over one of the torchbearers, tearing at his throat, ripping at his flesh with bloody fangs. Horribly the man still moved, but his tongue had been bitten out, and only soft gobbling sounds emerged from his blood-streaming mouth. More ghouls scampered about the mausoleum. They moved with a hideous loping motion, sometimes upright, sometimes on all fours, sometimes hunched in a position in between. Their movements had a reeling, uncoordinated quality as if something was wrong with their nervous system. Doubtless the degeneration induced by their disease had something to do with it.
The ghouls' flesh was grey and blotched. In some places it appeared covered in weeping sores, in others, sodden mould. Some of the things looked scaly. Many of them had lost fingers and noses and eyes. A few of them had wisps of hair, but most were bald. Their eyeballs were yellow and filled with madness. They were mostly silent, but occasionally an odd meep or glibber would emerge from their fanged mouths.
Shots rang out. One of the ghouls toppled and then began to rise again despite the hole punched in his chest. 'Aim for the heads!' Sardec shouted. 'That will stop them.'
He wished he felt as sure as he sounded. He had no idea whether his plan would work, and in the bad light and mist it was easier to order than to achieve. The ghoul’s disease seemed to make them immune to pain though, and perhaps to most forms of injury. Hopefully destroying the brain would stop them.
Sardec raised his pistol and squeezed the trigger. The ghoul lurched to one side and the shot took it in the shoulder. The force of impact sent it reeling backwards, but it righted itself and came on at Sardec. He tossed the pistol into the air and caught it by the barrel, preparing to use the weighted grip as a club. As the ghoul came closer he caught its smell, like damp mouldy clothing mixed with rotten meat, of acrid long unwashed bodies. Meeting its gaze was horrible. Malevolence and mad sentience burned in those yellowish, bloodshot eyes. It smiled, revealing greyish gums, and sharpened, blood-covered teeth.
Sardec did not wait for it to come to him. He sprang forward bringing the pistol butt down on the side of its head. There was a sharp crack. As the ghoul slumped, Sardec got his hook into its throat, and tugged, turning it around to face away from him. He did not want to take any chances of being bitten. The hook cut into the windpipe and with a twist of his wrist Sardec tore the ghoul's throat open. Air wheezed from the gap. He kicked the creature so that it fell forward, sprawling onto its face, then leapt into the air, bringing both booted feet down on the back of the thing's neck with the full force of his body weight. Vertebrae cracked. Sardec staggered to one side and kicked the thing again and again, until its head was a bruised pulp, dry skin peeling away to reveal white bone beneath. An eye rolled free on the end of an optic nerve, and squelched like a burst tomato when he stamped on it.
Eerie mocking laughter rang out from above. Sardec looked up and saw through the swirling mist that a strange and horrifying figure had appeared on the mausoleum roof. He froze momentarily, his mouth dry, his heart hammering against his ribs when he realised what it was.
“You won’t take any more of my people,” shrieked a voice. “Not one. Not one. Not one.”
A female figure wrapped in tattered grave clothes leant against the ornamental carving on the roof. The gown was open and revealed two flopping breasts. The skin was albino pale. The hair was long and wild, leaves and twigs were caught in it. The woman's nails were long as claws. Her eyes were staring and mad. What was worst, at least for Sardec, was that she was not a human. She was a Terrarch, and judging from her clothing she had been an aristocratic one.
It made the whole thing personal and terrifying for him. Up till now he had managed to put aside his fear. Ghouls were just another sub-species, far below him in the natural order, just like he had considered humans to be. Now it came to him that his own people were not above the ravages of this disease. It was possible that if he were bitten, that one day soon he could be like the thing on the roof. The thought almost paralyzed him. Almost.
He turned and saw that Weasel had almost finished reloading his long rifle. 'Kill that obscenity,' Sardec bellowed, pointing up at her with his hooked arm.
Weasel nodded. 'Sir!' He rose to his feet and raised his rifle for the shot. At that moment, something emerged from the mist behind him and leapt for his throat. Keen instinct warned the sharpshooter and he twisted to face his attacker. With the speed of his namesake, Weasel smacked the thing on the head with the butt of his rifle and then struck it again, smashing its skull. Sardec turned to look up at the ghoul chieftainess on the roof. She had vanished but from somewhere in the midst emerged a mad piercing shriek.
'Away my children. Away!' Sardec knew with utter certainty that the voice belonged to her. It seemed that even in her new state she ruled the humans as she had done in life. At once they began to glibber obscenely among themselves, breaking off from their struggles and retreating into the mist. “Do not let the outsiders take you!”
A gap appeared in the mist. The female ghoul was briefly visible. Almost casually Weasel raised his riddle to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. Smoke and sparks billowed forth. The former Terrarch lady’s head exploded. “Got her,” muttered Weasel.
From within the mausoleum, came more gobbling calls, and ghouls swarmed out of the place, some of them clutching severed limbs and heads. A few were mown down by the Foragers, but the rest of them vanished into the darkness and the fog, leaving the soldiers to check their dead and wounded.
'Sergeant Hef,' said Sardec. 'Take two sections and check out the mausoleum for survivors.'
