Lee Battersby - The Corpse-Rat King

“Shit!”

He pushed himself away, swatting at the angry ants. Their greater numbers prevailed. Marius was forced into a shambling dance, pulling his shirt over his head and using the cloth to beat at torso and legs as he hopped and swung himself about. The ants fought back, moving across his chest and down onto his stomach, heading inexorably south.

“Oh no, no you don’t!” Marius fell to the ground and rolled, crushing untold assailants beneath his weight. He felt a tickle at his waistband.

“No, no, no!” A boot flew in one direction, its twin in the other. His trousers fluttered after them, then his underpants. Naked and angry, Marius rolled and swiped, jumped and danced, cursed and swore and threatened undying enmity, until at last he stood above the anthill, waving a fist at what lay below.

“Funny!” he yelled. “Very fucking funny!”

He may have heard a laugh, or it may have been his imagination. He kicked at the tiny hole in the grass, bending his toe back and uttering a yelp.

“I see you’re as in command as always,” a voice behind him said. Marius stiffened in shock, hands automatically cupping his groin. Slowly, eyes wide, he tilted his head to look back over his shoulder. He felt his rectum tighten, and winced.

“Gerd?”

Gerd stared at him in impassive silence, his big jug-face grey and still. Marius smiled uncertainly, and sidled over to his undergarments. Slowly, he bent at the knees until he could risk snaking a hand out to recapture them. He flicked his wrist, and slipped the underpants over his ankles in one swift movement, then shimmied into them, eyes fixed upon his former charge. Only once his most essential parts lay under cloth did he turn and face the younger man.

“How did you get here? You were–”

“Dead?”

“Well–”

“Being carried away to be posthumously tried for treason and sentenced to cremation and dumping in unhallowed ground?”

“Yes, well, that was what I–”

“Impaled on a sword because of the betrayal of my teacher and supposed friend?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call myself–”

Gerd stepped forward, quicker than he had ever managed in life, and had Marius’ genitals in his hand before the older man could so much as flinch.

“The dead called me, as I lay in the courtyard waiting to be viewed by Lord Bellux. Do you know how difficult it is for a dead man to sneak away undetected? Particularly when you have to come to terms with being dead in the first place?”

“No, I–” Gerd tightened his grip, just enough so that Marius’ breath stayed where it was rather then leave him.

“The only place to hide was in the stables.”

Marius managed a croak. His forehead knotted. Gerd’s fingers tightened again.

“Under the hay.”

“Uhhhh.”

“The horses shit in their hay.”

Marius’ eyes crossed.

“I lay there for two days.”

Marius’ hands made little flapping motions, quite independent of his desire to have them grasp Gerd’s hand and tear it away from the crushed remnants of his genitals. He tried to look down, to at least say goodbye to them, but Gerd squeezed again, and Marius’ legs deserted their post.

“That wasn’t even the worst part. Do you know what the worst part was?”

Marius must have made some sort of movement to indicate that no, he didn’t know what that was, because Gerd gave him one last agonising squeeze. Marius swore the dead man’s fingertips touched each other, before he let go and Marius slipped to the ground.

“Being fucking dead !’ Gerd shouted, and walked away. Marius decided to vomit, and what little bile remained in his body sprayed onto the grass around him. When he found the strength to raise his head, Gerd stood a foot away from him, watching him with arms crossed. Marius’ clothes lay in a neat pile in front of him, folded and waiting to be put on.

“I’m to assist you in your task,” Gerd said, his voice utterly joyless. “So get your arse up and dressed before I decide I’d rather be cremated and drag you back to the castle to join me.”

Marius dragged himself over to the clothes and reached for a boot. He croaked once, and Gerd cocked his head.

“What?”

Marius beckoned him closer. Gerd crouched so that his ear was a few inches from his former master’s trembling lips. When he could focus on his stupid yokel’s face without his eyes crossing, Marius swung the boot as hard as he could against the side of Gerd’s head. The young watchdog fell backwards, and Marius collapsed onto his pile of clothes.

“Get me,” he managed on his third attempt, “some fucking water.”

FIVE

According to some, the castle of the Scorban King was the largest building in the world. It sprawled across the range of hills that marked the highest point of Scorby City, the capital of the Scorban Empire, and therefore, according to those self-same people, the world itself. Scorbans called it the Radican, as if giving it a name might imbue it with its own culture, its own personality, its own existence separate to the whims of those who occupied its dwellings. In truth, it was more like a small, glorious and self-important village – a maze of buildings and compulsively-washed streets that glowed in the sun like a reflection of the King’s magnificence.

Of course, this was its owner’s intent. The light at the heart of the world, some called it, although those who called it that were as intent upon smarming their way into the King’s favour as they were of preventing anyone from measuring the dimensions of any other palace, just in case. It was the glory of glories, the most exalted set of buildings in the cutlery-bearing world, the point around which all activity, interest and gossip flowed. It was the alpha, the omega, and the north point of all compasses. It was in exactly the opposite direction to that which Marius was shuffling with determined steps. By the time they reached the hillock that marked the outer limit of the village of Terfin, Gerd had pointed out this anomaly on no less than a dozen occasions.

“May I remind you,” he said again as they crouched behind a hedge and gazed down at the ramshackle gathering of huts and ditches that some farmer in more prosperous times had dared to call a town, “that we have a mission to accomplish?”

Marius reached out without looking and clamped a hand over his companion’s mouth. His finger and thumb pinched Gerd’s nostrils shut. It would make no difference to the dead man, but it helped him feel better.

“ You have a mission, dead boy.” He waggled Gerd’s head from side to side. “I have a thirst, and a need to bathe.”

In truth, he wasn’t sure it was worth the effort to do either in this village. The ragged collection of wooden round houses looked as if a spray of water might cause them to crash onto each other like so many sticks. Marius had seen better constructions in a school for the blind. The only direction not represented in their construction was vertical. Every other point of the world was fair game, and, it seemed, the inability of the builders to collect or manufacture a single straight piece of wood had bordered on the perverse. It wasn’t that the village was badly constructed, Marius thought. He had seen badly constructed buildings before. It was just that, if he was feeling cruel, he could imagine the builders falling over whilst holding a bundle of sticks and being too knackered to do anything other than live in whatever arrangement the sticks fell in. Down on what could optimistically be dubbed the main street, a motley collection of farmers dragged themselves out of their front doors and towards the building farthest from Marius’ perch. Each time the door opened to admit another weary soul, an undertone of conversation leaked out. Marius waited, watching the trickle of men slow, and stop. When no more appeared on the street he let go his grip on Gerd and stood, brushing himself down and shrugging his shoulders in anticipation.