Too many wonders have I seen! the man wrote, the edges of many parchments hanging raggedly about his open pack. Oh, for the eyes of one man to so engulf the splendor of the untainted world! What a true blessing God has bestowed upon me, humble Tetrafel, to grant me these visions. And the world will long remember me, I am sure, for when the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear engulfs these western Wilderlands, the wonders they will see-the gigantic waterfalls, the majestic mountain peaks, the forests so thick that beneath their canopy dwells eternal twilight-will be made all the more wondrous by their recollections of these, my words.
The Duke of the Wilderlands glanced up from his parchment to scan the workings of his encampment, the many servants and soldiers going about their typical late-afternoon routines, preparing the tents and the meals, setting up the perimeter guard-and that line of sentries had proven most necessary in the three years Tetrafel and his fellow explorers had been out far to the west of Ursal, in untamed, unmapped lands, seeking a direct pass through the towering Belt-and-Buckle Mountains into the To-gai steppes of western Behren. King Danube desired a direct trading route with the To-gai clansmen, without the costly interference of the Behrenese merchants.
The initial reluctance of Tetrafel, a man of nearly fifty years, who spent more time on a large pillow than on a horse, to accept the offered mission had been washed away by a grander vision that had come to him. He would be the explorer who opened up the vast western Wilderlands, a region known to be rich in natural resources, towering trees, and coveted peat. Once Danube had agreed to send along a large contingent of soldiersnearly a score now traveled with the Duke-and a similar group of servants-several men and a few young women who would also see to other needs-Tetrafel had recognized the opportunity to bring himself a bit of immortality.
Now, after three years, the man did not regret his decision, not on this particular day, at least, when he and his companions had easily traveled nearly twenty miles along a huge river-a river the Duke planned to name the Tetrafel-to find, at its end, the most tremendous, stupendous waterfall they had ever heard tell of; Tetrafel Falls, of course.
There had been troubles in the three years, mostly in the form of huge bears, great cats, and other beasts. They had found one tribe of goblins, but their superior training and weaponry enabled them to summarily destroy the ugly creatures; and a fairly indelicate disease had caught up with them several times. But after three years, they had lost less than a handful of their band, including just two soldiers.
All that they had to do now, Tetrafel realized, was find a pass through the mountains when spring opened the trails, and then return to Ursal, heralded as the greatest explorers of the modern age, their names, Duke Timian Tetrafel's at least, etched in tomes and stamped indelibly upon natural and majestic wonders. And finding that pass did not seem like such an impossibility, now that they had gone even farther west, to a point, Tetrafel believed, where crossing the mountains would put them in western To-gai. The peaks were not nearly as towering here, and were wider spaced. The higher elevations still showed snowcaps, though down in the foothills, the winter here was no worse than in Ursal, with the occasional inch or two of snow, but inevitably followed by milder weather that soon cleared the ground.
They were not in sight of the great River Tetrafel now, but they could hear the thunder of the distant falls. For their campsite, they had chosen a small clearing within a ring of towering pines, high natural walls so thick that they blocked out the light of Sheila completely as the moon rose in the east; and they knew that they would see only the slightest hints of the glowing orb until she climbed high in the sky, nearly directly overhead.
The camp was quiet and organized, with the occasional bursts of laughter from one quarter or another, or more embarrassing sounds from under the boughs of a nearby pine, where a soldier and a servant had stolen off to pass the hours. Dinner was not an organized and set event in Tetrafel's camp, but rather a personal option of wandering over to the large cook pots and scooping a bit of broth, or walking by one of the many spits and tearing a limb from whatever creatures the huntsmen had managed to bag that particular day.
Secure in his sentries and satisfied that he had entered enough in his allimportant diary that day, Duke Tetrafel headed for the cook fires. He started for one of the pots, but changed his mind and went to the roasting deer instead, tearing off a huge hunk of meat, dropping as much to the ground as found its way to his mouth.
His actions were not unnoticed.
In a tree not so far away, and well within the set perimeter of the encampment, a pair of slender, white-skinned, blue-eyed humanoids with hair the color of ravens' wings, sat quietly-perfectly quietly-upon a pine branch, studying the scene before them.
They care nothing/or the creatures they slay, one of them motioned to the other in an intricate combination of hand gestures, eye movements, and facial and body expressions.
V or for the spirituality of the mating dance, the other, equally disgusted, returned, a point made even more acute by the grunting sounds from a copulating couple on the ground beneath them. They are killer animals and nothing more.
The other nodded his agreement. "Twick'a pwess fin," he whispered in the tongue of the Doc'alfar, a language not unlike that of the Touel'alfar, distant, unknown cousins of the wingless, white-skinned elves.
"Twick'a pwess fin," the other echoed in agreement, which translated into "a fitting end."
Then they were gone, as silently as they had arrived, slipping past the lumbering sentries with no more noise than a shadow.
"Curse the rotten luck," one sentry muttered, for the wind shifted later that night, bringing the fine spray thrown high into the air by the distant falls over the field and the encampment.
"Not so bad," his companion replied from a short distance away. "Stay close to the pines; they'll keep ye dry."
"A warm bed in Ursai'd keep me drier," the first returned. "Are we ever to get back there? "
"The Duke's seeing a chance to put his name on mountains," the second replied. "But we're all to gain, and if we find the pass, Tetrafel's promised us enough gol'bears to each buy a grand house."
The other nodded, and that promise did seem to warm his weathered bones. But the spray continued, filtering through the trees as a fine, cold mist. And then a foul, rotting odor accompanied it.
"Now what's bringing the stink? " the first sentry asked, crinkling his nose.
"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!
By the time Tetrafel had recovered his senses, the two robed Doc'alfa) had selected their next victim, a woman seated several places to the Duke'i right. They motioned to her and turned away; and their unthinking, unques tioning servants moved to her, pulling her free of her bindings and hoisting her up. She cried pitifully, and her legs would not support her, but thai Hardly mattered to the zombies. They kept moving, holding her fast; and if she did not work her legs to keep up, they dragged her along.
"What are you doing with her? " Duke Tetrafel demanded, and when the two robed Doc'alfar didn't even glance back, he turned to the soldier next to him. "What are they to do with her? "
"To the bog with her," the man replied grimly, "Watch yer own fate, me Duke."
Duke Tetrafel stared back into the fog, to the receding figures, seeming like ghosts now.
He saw the Doc'alfar pause and pour various liquids over the squirming woman, and then watched the zombies drag the woman to the side, and then up a small platform that he had not noticed before, for in the fog it had seemed like just another of the many twisted trees.
The zombies took her, screaming and sobbing, out to the end of the platform and held her there; and all of her wriggling and screaming and kicking did her no good at all.
The two Doc'alfar began chanting, one after another, their melodic voices filling the wind with sound, complementing each other perfectly. Gradually, their song blended together, until they were chanting in one voice. Others, unseen among the trees and in the fog, joined in, Tetrafel realized after a while; and the whole forest seemed to be singing.
What garish ritual is this? the Duke wondered. Was it religious?
And then, abruptly, all sound, even the woman's sobs, stopped, as if compelled by one of the Doc'alfar, the lithe creature thrusting his arms up into the night air, his voluminous sleeves falling back to show his white, slender arms. All the world seemed to pause, as if the creature had stopped time itself.
And then the zombies pushed the woman forward, and she screamed as she fell, breaking the spell.
Tetrafel could barely make her out through the shifting fog, buried to her waist in the bog, scrambling and crying; her movements only made her sink down even farther.
"Oh, help me!" she cried, sinking slowly, slowly. "Help me. I don't want to die! I don't want to be one o' them zombies!"
It went on and on, for several agonizing minutes, the woman unable to get out and being dragged down, slowly, slowly. The Doc'alfar began their song again, a prayer of sacrifice, apparently, drowning the woman's shrill, horrified cries. Soon that song was the only noise carried on the wind.
When it was over, the Doc'alfar methodically headed back again, their zombies in tow, and despite the shouting protests, they selected another, a soldier this time; and all the man's vicious fighting proved to be of no avail as the zombies dragged him away.
Duke Tetrafel could hardly breathe! What horror had he stumbled upon, out here beyond civilization? He knew then, as they all did, that the woman's assessment of her fate was correct, that through some magical ceremony, he and all his party would be given to the bog, then returned to the Doc'alfar as unthinking, undead servants!
He thought of all his work, of all the glory, of his aspirations for immortality. Now he would find that immortality, but in no way he had ever wanted!
"They'll go off for a bit after the second," the soldier next to him whispered harshly. "Two at a time, they do, and then they're away for a bit."
Tetrafel instinctively struggled with his bindings. "Too tight," he replied to the man, trying hard to keep his voice steady, to not cry out in fear.
"But I've got me post loose," the man replied.
The chosen soldier went into the bog then. At first they heard nothing, the man apparently facing his death bravely, but then, as the thick, wet bog rose to his neck, he began to scream out in protest, and then to cry. And then . . . silence.
As the soldier beside the Duke had predicted, the Doc'alfar and their zombies disappeared soon after, melting into the fog.
The man gave a grunt and a great tug, and he fell over onto his side, his head right behind the seated Duke. Tetrafel strained his neck to glance back, wondering what good that movement might have done.
The soldier opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue-a tongue pierced by a stud set with a small gray stone.
"Magical," the man explained, "a gift from a friend, put in to put a spark in the ladies, if ye get me meaning."
"What are you babbling about?" Duke Tetrafel replied rather loudly, and he glanced back as if he expected a host of zombies to rise up and throttle him.
"Ye might feel a bit of a charge, a spark," the soldier explained. Before the Duke could even ask what the soldier was talking about, he did indeed feel a sharp sting on his wrist. He didn't protest, though, for he felt, too, that the rope holding him had loosened, the binding burned by the electric charge.
Tetrafel pulled his hands free and fell over the soldier, working furiously at the man's bindings. Then he was free, too, and the Duke moved to the next in line, a servant woman, who was crying wildly. He had just finished with her bindings and moved to the woman beside her when he realized that the song had begun again, and he turned back to see ghostly forms appearing in the fog.
With a cry of terror, Duke Tetrafel abandoned the woman and ran off into the night.
He heard the screams of those still tied, or of those who had just begun to flee and were not quick enough, as they got hauled down and dragged back.
A part of Tetrafel demanded that he go back, that he die with these men And women who had served so well beside him for these three years. A noble part of him screamed at him to face his fate bravely.
But he pictured the zombies, the horrid peat-covered undead, and he ran on. He wanted to go back, but he could not. His legs kept moving. He fell hard and scraped his face, but he scrambled right back up and ran on, into the fog.
Others were running in the fog-enshrouded forest, he knew; and pursuit was all about-the heavy dragging steps of the zombies and, even more dangerous, the nimble Doc'alfar, some running in the boughs above.
Duke Tetrafel ran until his legs ached and his breath would not come, and then, driven by the sheerest horror, he ran on and on and on. For all of his life, he ran. For his eternal soul, he ran.
The sun rose before his eyes, and still he ran, and he thought for a moment that it had all been only a terrible dream.
But he knew better, knew the truth. And Duke Timian Tetrafel of the Wilderlands, a nobleman of the court of King Danube Brock Ursal, a man who had planned to engrave his name in the histories of his people and upon some of the greatest natural monuments in all the world, crumpled into the grass and wept.
Tetrafel met two other soldiers of his band that day, men as frightened as he. There was no talk of returning to try to save any of the others; there was little talk at all.
They just ran on and on, to the east, to lands where the dead did not rise out of peat bogs.
More than three weeks later, the three came back into the somewhat civilized lands of Wester-Honce, and a week after that, riding in the back of a farmer's sleigh, Duke Tetrafel arrived home in Ursal. The very next day, Duke Kalas returned to the city, vowing never to go back to wretched Palmaris.
A week later, King Danube's son was born to Constance Pemblebury.