Forest Kingdom Trilogy 3 - Down Among the Dead Men

flexed jerkily. The hand rose slowly out of the mire, followed by a long, crooked arm and a bony head. Flint snapped out of her daze, and drawing flint and steel from her pocket, she lit the torch she’d brought with her. For a moment she thought it had got too damp to catch, but the oil-soaked head finally burst into flames, and she turned back to face the peat bog with the flaring torch in one hand and her sword in the other. The mire’s surface parted reluctantly with a long sucking sound, and the dead man pulled himself out into the night air. He stood wavering on the edge of the bog, and slowly turned his head to look at Flint. His skin was stained and shrunken, but had been mostly preserved by his time in the bog. The eyes were gone, eaten away by decay, but Flint somehow knew that he could still see her. The lich wore a series of filthy tatters that might once have been clothes, held together by muck and foulness. Mud dripped steadily from him as he started forward, heading for Flint.
    All right
, thought Flint.
This is where I earn my pay
.
    She stepped forward to meet the lich, holding the torch up high. Moonlight shimmered brightly on the curved blade of her scimitar as she held it out before her. The lich walked unsteadily toward her, his bony fingers clenching and unclenching spasmodically. Flint waited until the last possible moment, and then cut at the lich with her sword. The dead man swayed aside horribly quickly, and the blade whistled through empty air. Flint quickly recovered her balance and jumped backward, but the lich’s hand shot out and fastened onto her left wrist. The bony fingers sank deep into her flesh, and blood ran down her hand, but she wouldn’t drop the torch. Flint swung her sword down in a short, brutal arc and cut through the lich’s wrist. She fell backward, the dead hand still clutching her wrist, and landed awkwardly. Somehow she still managed to hang onto the torch and her sword.
    The lich stopped and looked at the stump of his wrist. No blood spurted from the severed arm, though bone fragments showed clearly in the moonlight. Flint stealthily drew her feet under her and shook the dead hand free from her wrist. Cut off the head and then the legs, and the thing would be helpless. Burn the remnants to ashes with the torch, and the lich would never trouble the villagers again. All it took was a steady nerve and a steady hand.
    She scrambled quickly to her feet, and then tripped on the uneven ground. She fell heavily, jarring the breath from her lungs, and dropped both her sword and the torch. The flame flickered and went out. Flint struggled to her knees, gasping for breath, and reached for her sword. The lich got there first.
No. That’s not right
.
    The lich picked up the sword with its remaining hand and hefted it thoughtfully. The eyeless face turned slowly to grin at Flint. She scrambled frantically backward.
    No! That isn’t the way it happened! I heat the lich!
    The walking dead man loomed over her, huge and dark and awful. Moonlight gleamed on the sword as he lifted it above his head, and then the blade came flashing down and blood ran darkly on the moonlit ground. The sword rose and fell, rose and fell… .
    Giles Dancer walked down a long stone passage that had no beginning and no end. Torches burned on the walls to either side of him, but made little impression on the darkness that filled the passage like a living thing. The Dancer walked through the corridors of Castle Lancing with his sword in his hand, searching for the werewolf.
    The shapeshifter was as cunning as it was deadly, and it had taken the Dancer some time to work out which of the baron’s guests was the werewolf, but now he knew. The creature couldn’t be far ahead of him. He padded softly down the narrow corridor, his calm, cold eyes searching the gloom for any trace of his prey. It seemed to him that he’d been searching for the werewolf for a long time, but the Dancer was patient. He knew he’d find it eventually, and then he would kill it.
    He walked on down the passage, and a slight frown creased his forehead. He hadn’t known Castle Lancing was this big. Surely he should have got somewhere by now. And there was something about this case he ought to remember; he was sure of it, but he couldn’t quite place what it was. A sudden sound caught his attention, and he stopped where he was and listened carefully. The sound came again: a low, coughing growl, not far away. The Dancer smiled.