Chapter 3: Moving forwards

James dug a hole in the dirt, got some brush and spread it in, next were some twigs on top. He got his chert and a knife and used friction to produce copious sparks that quickly became a fire. When the fire was lit, he blew into it to grow it and started adding more wood. Soon enough it was roaring away.

“I am man,” he shouted loudly, she paused and looked at him. “Look,” he pointed at the fire, “I have created fire!”

She snorted and shook her head in amusement.

She went out and snared a rabbit which she skinned, cleaned and stuck on a spit to start cooking.

The skin would be dried out and used for whatever it was she wanted. Maybe it would be sold, he mused. When the food was cooked she gave him his portion and they ate in silence. The next morning he rose with her. He was a morning person, which helped a lot because it meant being able to get up whenever she did.

The journey was about three days long. Each time they stopped in the evening, she had him make the fires to boost his training. She also had him performing some moves while they rested. When evening time became full darkness, the two slept and rose before the morning.

They reached the camp that was their destination.

It was maybe a dozen tents, all completely worn. It looked like a strong wind could take the whole thing apart, all weathered leathers and weak branches. Mud accumulated between the tents, and even the palisade was made poorly and quickly.

It was pretty shoddy by all standards. James frowned.

“Not entirely what I was expecting.”

Ella snorted, “Nothing usually is.”

“True,” he mused. “So how do you want to play this?”

“We need to take them out quickly.”

James nodded thoughtfully, “But how?”

“Are you able to scout out how many they’ve got?”

“Yeah,” James nodded and crept into the underbrush.

From a privileged, high position, he counted all of them, while gathering information on their weapons and armour. They were unusually badly equipped; they looked even worse than the encampment they were residing in. Something seemed off, as if they weren’t raiders at all. They were walking in circles and the cage was empty. He could tell that even from this distance. This was not where they held Lord Edelstein’s daughter. One of the men turned his head towards him. James felt something odd as he tried to focus on that man’s eyes, something ... unnatural about them.

More of them were coming from the tents, pouring out by the dozens ... and they all just looked at him with their blank stares.

“Down, you idiot!” Ella pushed him to the ground, to hide him in the bushes.

“Who are they?” he whispered, confused.

“Not they, those. They are ghouls. Corpses animated by curses.”

‘Dude!’ James thought ... Zombies!...”Of course there are curses in this world. Well, what now? The cage is empty.”

“We cannot go back to Aschenburg empty-handed.”

“But what else can we do?”

Ella stayed there, just ruminating, staring blankly at James’ eyes for a while. “Their hearts. Whoever cursed them, must have left his rune branded on their hearts to seal the spell in the dead bodies. We have a lead! But on the other side, we have to open one of them and take the heart.”

It was getting dark and, in whispers, they decided to deal with the undead in daylight. They would head away from the camp for the night and come at the ghouls in the morning.

They slept around the fire, cold winds from the north forcing them to keep the fire alive all the night. James could not help but note that even in the night Ella slept in a thick, always ready for immediate combat. Such a beastly woman, but yet, pretty.

Come the morning, they geared up to battle. James adjusted his leather vest on and then followed with a rather large aketon. Then donned his greaves, which fitted exactly. Finally, he grabbed his mail shirt and lifted it up to put it on. It was heavy, but nothing his arms couldn’t handle. He was adjusting his sword belt, when Ella interrupted:

“James,” She said with a tone he had never heard before. It confused him a bit. “Assist me, please.” He turned towards her and saw the mighty woman all dressed in mail, struggling with her breastplate. “Close the straps,” she ordered, while holding both superior and abdominal plates against her body.

James proceeded perfunctorily, unconsciously trying not to touch her oily, metallic shirt. He passed the leather straps through metal rings, locking them in place, and then pulled them to adjust the plates to Ella’s body.

Once they were ready, the Dame shared the battle plan. “You will stay on that hill in the high ground. That way you are out of danger and can put that bow to use. I will get close and cut them down.”

James walked to the nearby hill and put his carcaj on the floor. He remembered his hobby, back in his previous life, and began modulating his breath. He had to assure himself that he could shoot far and straight, even after years without training. James lifted his gaze and looked to the camp. Ella was approaching the entrance, so he had to be ready. He took out his bow and an arrow from the stolen carcaj and took aim with his strong arms.

The arrow was heavier than the carbon fiber ones he remembered from his adolescence, and the tension of the curved wood of the bow would soon start to wear down his muscles. Besides, he was running out of time to aim. He quickly decided on a target, a ghoul standing still, away from the palisade entrance, and loosed the arrow. It felt amazing to let go, to let the wooden stick of death fly, rushing towards a dead body to kill it again.

All of the reanimated corpses twitched, and the biggest of them roared and pointed towards the hill. They began running, striding towards the palisade gap. Then, James saw, the dame’s steel was put to work. Her heavy greatsword tore through rotting flesh and hardened, decaying bone and through flesh again. A clean hack cut two of them thoroughly in two. The next ones that came met her furious blade and their grim ends in a single moment; there was a flash of silver and heads rolled.

James reacted. He was mesmerised by her violence, but he had to get hold of himself. He took another arrow and flexed the longbow, aimed for a big undead and loosed with accuracy. A heartbeat later the twice-dead cadaver fell to the floor, completely lifeless. James realised that the arrows were very effective against them and tried to up his fire rate. He was now shooting two arrows each minute, with most of them meeting decayed flesh.

In the distance, he could see the iron-clad woman fighting an ever so brutal war, slashing and cutting and hacking them to pieces faster than they came out of the tents. They all seemed to surrender to the master smith’s enchanted steel. That stayed true until the biggest of them got close to her. James tried to hit him, but the palisade was blocking his line of sight, and the beast got close to Ella. Close enough to use its rusty, sodden longsword as if it was a whip, and attack the unaware dame.

“Watch out!” shouted James, but it was too late.

A loud bang was heard when the monster’s blade chinked with the warrior’s armour. The back plate was dented, and Ella fell to a knee. James could almost feel in his own back the impact. He realised he was running towards the ghoul. He unsheathed his broadsword and cut at it as hard as he could. But the beast had already seen him. Another swift strike with the rusty blade was executed, and this time James felt all the force of it on his chest. He couldn’t move. His vision was blurry, and his hearing impaired.

James had his sight upwards. He was unable to even move his eyeballs. Then both figures entered his vision field. Ella was pouring down strike after strike, cut after cut, towards the monster. She was fighting with a remarkable, almost inhuman, strength; James was sure even a strong man could not strike that hard and that fast. The beast was receiving every blow with his sword, parrying and riposting as every blow. A great swordsman he must have been in life.

Then it finally happened. The decaying steel was conquered by the gleaming, newly forged greatsword, and Ella took the opportunity to stand in an Ox pose and perform a Maisterschlacht. Half of the engraved, red-shiny blade came out from the ghoul, and it screamed during its second death. Thankfully, the rest of the ghouls died instantly and James found he was able to move again.

“Jesus.”

Ella looked up, sweating.

“What, who?” She breathed heavily.

“Never mind,” James said. “They’re all dead?”

“Kill the master ghoul and they all die.”

“Like a control centre?”

“What?”

“Of course,” he smiled.

She wouldn’t understand that terminology or what technology itself was. It was unimaginable in this backwards era, where medieval technology and thinking reigned supreme. Tangentially, he wondered if there were churches and whether or not they burned witches at the stake.

Dusk had fallen amidst all this butchery. It was not totally dark yet, but stars were beginning to appear. James realized that these were not the same stars he was used to. They were strange stars, forming strange constellations in a strange firmament. Suddenly his train of thought was derailed by a flash of light in the forest.

“Ella? What is that?”

“That ... is trouble” said the knight, and prepared her greatsword.

Both walked towards the forest, James a couple of steps behind her ... after all, she had the best armour money could buy. He had a mere mail shirt.

Light danced ahead of them each few seconds, and there were other lights that remained on. The other lights were clearly fire, but the bright one, the one that caught their attention, only shone for a second each time.

They strode always closer. Then he heard it. It was a mob. Suddenly pieces came together; angry people, the fires were torches. But what in hell was that white light?

The people were shouting curses and throwing stones at a small house in the middle of the forest. James’ imagination was imagining a thousand things, until he could hear clearly one of the words that the crowd was shouting. “Witch!”

He raised an eyebrow as they got closer to the commotion, at least that answered his question about burning witches at the stake.

They could discern a girl on the roof of the house. The mob had lit the wooden structure on fire, forcing her out. They were stoning her, and threatening her descent with forks and spears and axes and torches. There was nowhere to go, and she was begging to be left alone. She was in tears, her robes burnt in several places, and clinging to a book.

She opened the tome and said aloud words, and suddenly a thunder bolt rushed from her and into the people, without sound, only light. That was the light that they saw before; this witch casting spells. All was clear ... she was being lynched.

“What can we do?” asked James to Ella, quietly, to avoid being heard by the mob.

“We can try to scare the people away, but that’s it. You know that I’m a knight, I’m supposed to protect these people.” Replied Ella, with a sad tone.