Andrew Offutt - The Undying Wizard

Nine of the Un-dead remained.

A flying chunk of wood struck one and rebounded to thud into the leg of a second. Brian of Killevy cried out in high glee at the double result of his throw.

Seven Un-dead stalked Cormac mac Art.

He fell before the simultaneous crash of two axes on his shield, which divided in twain nearly to the boss. Yet a moment later there were six of the enemy remaining, and then five, for Ros and the druid each hurled an oaken missile true. Brian’s second throw missed his target.

Slammed into a knee with a jolting force and then struck with a rushing sword, the splinter-tipped stave in Cormac’s hand bit his wrist… and went clattering and rolling noisily across the floor.

Without smiles of triumph on their mask-like faces, four grim, silent spectres from the other side of the grave closed on him. Blades rushed down-

And Cormac hurled himself, not between, but through the legs of one Un-dead enemy!

The cold of death stabbed through mail and tunic like an icy knife, and then he was landing on his hands without so much as a grunt. He skidded, rolled, came up running. The Gael sprinted for the throne and the three allies there. Ere he joined them, Bas had stepped away. His eyes blazed with an unearthly fire and his gesturing hands were like the claws of a rearing bear. Strange words issued from his lips, guttural words from the dim past of the race of man.

Three horrors that had been men-and more lately corpses-stalked toward him with uplifted weapons. From the throne-chair oaken chunks whizzed. Two of the Un-dead became first putrefying corpses once again, then bones-and as they dropped, so fell the last of their number-with his flesh still sheathing his skeleton.

“HOLD!” Cormac called, and his hand leapt out to stay Brian’s arm. “That be the last-and he remains flesh, if not blood! The druid has wrought a spell upon him… upon it .”

The eyes of three weapon-men of Eirrin turned their gazes upon Bas. Still gesturing and still gutturally murmuring, he advanced upon the fallen Viking. The man, if such he could be called, lay still in his horn-sprouting helm and fine scalemail corselet and steel-bossed seagreen belt.

“…hear me?” the druid said aloud. “By all those names and conjuries and by the eternal golden sun and silv’ry moon, lord of day and lord of night, I conjure you… I command you. Answer! Your name, your name!”

The dead man’s chest did not move. The dead man’s voice rasped up from his throat like wood dragged over whetstone, and words emerged as though he had to think hard to form each one, and three men shivered who had never quaked in combat.

“Thor Bast… Shield – hewer-r-r-”

“Ah!” The druid stood now over the living dead man he had bound by ancient words to the floor. Now he forced him to speak on, by dint of powers greater even than the speechlessness of death. “And are ye dead, Thorgast Shield-hewer?”

Rasping and dry: “Ay-ye…”

“Gods,” Brian whispered, and beside him Ros gasped out, “Crom Cruach stead me!”

“Why came ye back, ye who were dead, to war thus on the living?”

“…sent-called, forced-I wa-as… had to-commme ba-a-ack… co-ol-l-ld…”

“Aye, colder than your northern home it is, for ye were not meant to be here thus. Release is at hand, Thorgast Shield-hewer, but first- answer! Why came ye back? What was your mission?”

“Kill-all who ca-ame… herre-kill-Ku-K… Cor-r-mac-mac-Aar-r-r-tt…”

Brian of Killevy saw it, as the dead spoke, but never did flaxen-haired Brian tell what he saw: Cormac mac Art shuddered and paled.

“Why him?” the druid demanded. “Speak, Thorgast Shield-hewer!”

“Let-me-e-ee-go-oh…”

“SPEAK, damned spirit that was a man, answer! Why must ye seek to slay Cormac mac Art?”

“…ha-ad to-ooo-ven-geann-ccce-”

“Vengeance? Ye knew him before?”

N-O-oh-passst-pa-a-ast-li-i-ife…”

“Ah.” The druid crouched close to the dead man, motionless but for the tortured moving of his lips. “And, Thorgast Shield-hewer, dead and not dead, poor cold shade dragged back from the Otherwhere… who called you here?”

“C-C-uth-no-o-ohh,” the corpse moaned, as though confused. “L-et me-go-oh…”

“Speak the name, Thorgast Shield-hewer that was. Who? Speak-and these will be your last words; speak, and return where you belong… dead man! ”

Staring, his face pale, Cormac strained to hear.

Thorgast Shield-hewer spoke two words, a strange name if it was a name, and then he was still, and the flesh faded from his white face to leave behind only the eternally grinning death’s head on the skeleton he had been before he was called back by him whose name he pronounced: “Thulsa Doom!”

Chapter Seven:

Pacts

Brian and Ros were heroes. Both slim, and neither ill-favoured, the excited young men reminded Cormac of tail-wagging dogs after their first hunt. The hounds of Cormac , he thought, and wondered if he were not crediting himself with overmuch. His head had been swelled a bit by that name the crew had begun applying to themselves after the successful fighting off of the Pictish attack asea: the Cormacanachta ; descendants or followers of Cormac.

So Ros and Brian-I-love-to-fight were heroes, and the two youthful weapon-men strutted and figuratively wagged their tails before the others, while responding to questions with answers longer than necessary. If those who had abided outside did not quite fawn on the two who with Cormac and Bas had “slain” no less than two-and-twenty ghastly un-men, they did certainly show their envy and adulation.

Most of the others, just as naturally, expressed the wish that they’d been allowed to go within, rather than remaining without; but… captain’s orders.

During that great deal of chatter, Cormac caught the eye of a rather sombre Lugh, and he winked. Lugh’s looks improved; Ros and Brian were the heroes of the hour-or moment-but that wink advised the archer that Cormac mac Art still remembered how initial entry had been gained to the Castle of Kull of Atlantis.

Bas ruminated apart, while Cormac, the dead man’s words having discovered to him his extraordinary danger from whom or whatever Thulsa Doom was, brooded on his future. How, he wondered, as Ros na Dun Dalgan and Brian na Killevy received the adulation and envy of their comrades, did a mere weapon-man protect himself, much less do combat against a sorcerer so powerful as to raise the dead and turn them into fighting men?

Wulfhere meanwhile was grim. The Dane was essaying not to show his unhappiness at being left out of the steel-wielding action-and probably suspecting Cormac of having cheated him of his beloved sport: the splitting of shields and helms and skulls. Cormac said nothing to the giant from Dane-mark. He had no doubt that impatient and impetuous Wulfhere would have been slain within. The Dane’s pride and concept of manhood would have prevented his employing the dodging, fleeing, circling, snapping-wolf tactics that Cormac had used-to the saving of his own life.

And Samaire sulked.

Wulfhere had held her fast, nor had she ceased struggling and railing at him until Cormac reappeared; four ashy-faced men emerging from the reeking charnel-house of the thrice-ancient castle. Released then, Samaire had not run to Cormac as all would have thought natural, but had turned from him. Nor would she say aught to the Dane or accept his bumbling friendly overtures.

Now, either forgetting their leader with two younger heroes to raise on high or perhaps respecting Cormac’s withdrawal into himself, all trooped inside to see what little there was to be viewed: corpse-slain corpses and oak-made skeletons. Eighteen of the former there were, mingled among a score and two of the latter. Blood and cruor, weapons and rattly bones, dismembered and beheaded corpses and a chopped-up throne; these were what remained to be seen.