Tales of the Old World by Marc Gascoigne, Christian Dunn (ed) - (ebook by Undead) Page B

but for some the horror of the living dead was
too much and they broke and ran from the battle. Havelock sent shaft after shaft
into the horde at the bottom of the wall as they chopped at the logs or
slithered over the bones of the fallen.
    Screams of fear and pain filled the air as ancient blades and clawed hands
tore at warm flesh and Leofric hacked his way through the dead to where the
fighting was thickest, bellowing cries to the Lady and the King as he smashed
the undead from the walls.
    Carlomax held a section of wall above the gate, his sword battering skeletons
from the walls with every stroke. Leofric could see that the man was reasonably
skilled with a sword, and what he lacked in elegance, he made up for in
ferocity.
    The night rang to the clash of iron on bronze, the battle fought in the
flickering glow of torches set on the wall. Leofric heard wailing screams and
turned to see the men on the wall to his right shrieking like banshees and
clawing at their flesh in agony. Age-withered flesh slid from their muscles and
wasted organs blistered as they ruptured and turned to dust.
    “No!” shouted Leofric, tasting the rank odour of dark magic on the air. He
risked a glance to the hillside where the undead champion and the necromancer
watched the battle below. Leaping scads of power swirled around the dread
sorcerer.
    Even as he returned his gaze to the battle, he saw it was hopeless. Skeletal
warriors had footholds along the wall and the men of Derrevin Libre who had
fallen were even now climbing to their feet to hurl themselves at their former
comrades with monstrous hunger.
    “Carlomax! Havelock!” shouted Leofric. “The sorcerer!”
    He had no way of knowing whether or not his words had been heard as he fought
his way along the wall, hacking a path through the living dead. He saw Havelock
pinned against the inner face of the wall by a skeleton attempting to throttle
the life from him, while Carlomax battled a trio of armoured skeletons. Leofric
killed the first and kicked the second over the wall as Carlomax despatched the
last.
    He hacked his sword through the spine of the skeleton attacking Havelock and,
together with Carlomax, the three of them formed a fighting wedge above the
gate.
    “My thanks,” breathed Carlomax. “I don’t think I could have taken them all.”
    Leofric nodded and said, “We can’t hold them like this.”
    “No,” agreed Carlomax. “What do you suggest?”
    “Something more direct,” said Leofric, pointing to the two dark figures that
observed the battle from their vantage point at the treeline. “I need to get
them down here!”
    “What?” said Carlomax. “Are you mad?”
    A thunderous crash and crack of shorn timbers sounded from below and Havelock
shouted, “The gate!” as a white blur galloped through the village towards the
wall.
    “Be ready for my shout!” yelled Leofric as he dropped from the parapet and
onto the back of Aeneor. Leofric yelled an oath to the Lady, and rode into the
gateway, where a dozen skeletons pushed through with spears lowered. He smashed
their blades aside and bludgeoned them to splinters with the weight of his
charge and the brutality of his sword blows.
    Aeneor reared in the gateway before the advancing horde of the dead,
Leofric’s Blade of Midnight throwing off loops of white fire that reflected from
the insides of the skulls of the warriors before him.
    “Come on then, you dead bastards!” he shouted. “I’ll kill you for good this
time!”
    A shadow loomed beyond the gateway and he urged Aeneor onwards, leaping the
splintered ruin of the gate and scattering the skeletal warriors before him. His
sword cut skulls from necks and arms from shoulders as he cut a deadly swathe
through the enemy, but beyond the press of bone and bronze at the gateway, he
saw what he had been hoping for.
    Mounted on his dark steed, the undead champion awaited him, the necromancer
hunched in his shadow and dark coils of