"Smells like a carcass," said the other. "Could be a great cat coming back from a hunt. Get on yer guard now!"
And they both did, setting arrows to their bowstrings and peering into the gray, misty moonlight.
The stench got worse, filling their nostrils, making their eyes run; and then they saw a shape, not of a great cat, but of a humanoid-a man, it seemed-walking stiff-legged through the mist and the sparse underbrush.
"Hold where ye are!" the first sentry commanded. "Ye got two bows aiming at ye!"
Now they did recognize the approaching form-he was barely a dozen strides away-as a man, skinny and grizzled, with long hair and a huge beard. He had to have heard the command, they knew, but he kept on coming in that stiff-legged gait, his arms straight out before him. And he was filthy! Covered in dirt, or peat, and smelling like a rotting and dirty carcass.
"Hold now! I'm warning ye!" the sentry commanded.
He kept on coming; and the sentry, a trained and seasoned soldier, followed his orders to the word and let fly his arrow. It hit the approaching man's chest with a dull splat, and burrowed in deep, but the man kept coming, didn't even flinch!
"I hit him! I hit him!" the confused sentry protested; and now his companion let fly, a shot that took the intruder in the side, just below the rib cage, a shot from a bow so strong of pull that the arrow disappeared completely into the body, its tip breaking through the other side.
The approaching man flinched, the sheer force of the blow knocking him a step sideways. But he kept on coming, coming, his arms outstretched, his expression blank.
"Awake! Awake!" the second sentry yelled, falling back through the wall of pines toward the camp. His companion, though, didn't retreat, but drew out his heavy sword and leaped ahead.
The approaching intruder didn't change his speed or his route, coming straight in; and the soldier exploded into motion, bringing his sword up and over, cleaving one of those reaching arms above the elbow, severing it easily.
A bit of blood rolled out, but more than that came a sickly greenish white pus.
The soldier knew then the horrible truth, understood the stench to be a mixture of peat and rot, the sickly smell of death, but tainted even more with earthen richness. He knew then that he was fighting not a man but a corpse! Gagging, horrified, he fell back; but the zombie caught his sword in its bare hand as he turned, in a grip tremendously strong.
He screamed out-somehow he found his voice enough to make noiseand tugged and tugged at the sword, then gave it up altogether and tried to scramble away. But as he turned, he saw them, dozens and dozens of walking dead, coming through the mist. Overwhelmed, he stumbled and went down.
He cried out again as the one-armed zombie fell over him, grabbing him by the elbow, crushing his joint in its iron grip. He shouted and flailed, beating the thing about the head and shoulders, to no avail.
But then his companion was beside him again, and with one mighty swing, he decapitated the zombie.
Still it held on stubbornly. The other soldier, seeing the monsters approaching from everywhere, it seemed, hacked wildly at that clasping hand, severing it, too. He pulled his friend to his feet and dragged him to the pines, but the man was still screaming, for that severed hand was still clutching him! Duke Tetrafel rubbed his bleary eyes and peeked out from his bedroll. The sight of the encampment, of the panic, brought him wide awake, and he scrambled to his feet.
"Attack! Attack, my Duke!" one nearby soldier cried to him, running forward, bearing Tetrafel's sword belt.
Tetrafel struggled to clasp it on, turning, trying to keep up with the dizzying scene.
"The dead, they are!" screamed a sentry crashing through the pine wall. " The dead've risen against us!"
"From the forest, from the forest!" another yelled. The pines all about the small clearing began to shake, and the monsters strode through, in that stiff-legged gait, their peat-covered arms out straight before them. From the back of the camp came a horrified cry that turned Duke Tetrafel about. A pair of sentries scrambled through the pine wall, but got yanked right back in, grabbed and tugged so hard that one of them left one of his shoes behind.
The screams that followed were, perhaps, the most awful sound Duke Tetrafel had ever heard.
"Form a defense!" the captain of Tetrafel's contingent cried, and his men moved back near the fire, forming a ring about it, with the servants and their Duke behind them.
The zombie ring closed slowly, ominously.
"Go for their heads," cried one of the sentries who had first encountered them.
But then, above the tumult, they heard a melodic song, a gentle, sweet harmony of beautiful, delicate voices, drifting on the evening breeze, singing in a language that they did not know, something preternatural, a sylvan song of an ancient forest. As if on cue, the zombies stopped and lowered their arms.
The wind blew a bit stronger, as if flowing with the song.
"What is it? " more than one man asked anxiously.
"Be still," Duke Tetrafel told them all. "Allies, perhaps."
Between the men and the zombies, the ground began to tremble and then to break apart, and then…
Flowers sprouted. Huge flowers, with great petals shining silver in the moonlight, the likes of which the men of Honce-the-Bear had never seen.
And the smell of them! Overwhelming, overpowering, burying even the stench of the zombies.
An inviting smell, Duke Tetrafel thought, compelling him to lie down and rest, to close his eyes and sleep. Yes, Tetrafel realized, he wanted nothing more at that moment than to sleep. He saw several of his companions go down beside him, nestling comfortably on the ground, and without even registering the movement, he found himself on his hands and knees, having trouble, so much trouble, even keeping his head up.
"Get up!" He heard the captain's voice from far, far away. "All of ye! They're coming on again! Oh, get up, ye fools!"
And then he heard the cries and the shouts, the swoosh of cutting blades, the hum of bowstrings.
And then he heard… nothing at all, just felt the warmth of a deep, deep sleep.
Duke Tetrafel woke up as if in a dark nightmare. The fog clung to the ground all about him-not a watery mist like the one from the falls, but an opaque, soupy blanket. He was sitting now, tightly bound with his hands behind him around a small stake. He was in a forest, still, but not the same one, as far as he could discern; for instead of the thick rows of pines, the trees about him now were mere skeletons, black and twisted and leafless.
Groans to either side of him made him glance about, to see many of his party, similarly seated and bound, in a neat line, which told him that these stakes had been purposely placed, that their captors, whoever they might be, were skilled at this.
"Where are the others?" he asked one soldier near him.
"They took them!" came the nervous, completely unsettled reply. Duke Tetrafel followed the sweating man's gaze to a pair of smallish, very slender creatures walking toward them. Flanking the duo came several of the walking dead.
Trying hard to ignore their horrid escorts, Tetrafel studied the pair carefully, their creamy white skin and penetrating blue eyes that seemed to glow with an inner sparkle. They wore dark-colored robes, the cowls back, and at times seemed to simply disappear into the landscape, except for their exposed heads. Tetrafel tried to sort things out. These weren't merely small humans, he knew, and that was confirmed as they neared and he noted their pointy ears and angular features.
"Touel'alfar? " he asked, for he had heard some tales of the elves, mosdy children's fireside stories.
The two robed figures froze at the word, glancing at each other with obvious rage.
"Doc'alfar!" one of them said sharply. He strode over and hit Duke Tetrafel with a backhanded slap across the face that nearly left the mar unconscious. He could hardly believe that a creature so lithe and small hac hit him so damned hard!