Forest Kingdom Trilogy 3 - Down Among the Dead Men

and decapitated it. The head rolled away across the floor, its mouth working silently. The headless body staggered back and forth, groping blindly about it for its enemy, until the other liches jostled it out of the way. Hammer seized the few moments the confusion gave him, and sheathed his sword. He breathed deeply once, and then reached up and grasped the long sword hilt behind his left shoulder. His mouth twisted, as though tasting something infinitely bitter. The sword hilt seemed to fit itself into his hand as though it belonged there. He drew the longsword from its silver scabbard with one supple movement, and held the six feet of gleaming steel out before him as though it was weightless. The long blade glowed brightly with a sick yellow light.
    “Wolfsbane,” said Hammer softly. “Wolfsbane is loose in the world again.”
    The liches stopped their advance. Their empty eyes fastened on the glowing longsword in silent fascination, as something else studied the Infernal Device through their dead eyes, and knew it for what it was. The hellsword had been brought down into the depths of the earth, and now they would take it and bury it so that the Beast need never fear it again. The liches surged forward, hands outstretched, and Hammer met them with Wolfsbane. The glowing blade swept back and forth with inhuman speed, cutting through the liches as though they were nothing more than wisps of smoke. They fell helplessly before Hammer’s attack, screaming silently as the sword cut through flesh and bone alike. Their dead flesh decayed and fell away into corruption at Wolfsbane’s touch, and soon the cave floor was littered with fragments of rotting flesh and discolored bone. But still the liches came swarming out of the narrow tunnel, their numbers growing faster than Hammer could destroy them. Hammer and MacNeil and Scarecrow Jack continued to back away, fighting desperately all the while, knowing that if they gave the dead an opening, even for a moment, the liches would tear them apart. Hammer lunged back and forth like a man possessed, Wolfsbane glowing more and more brightly as the dead fell before it and did not rise again. Jack and MacNeil defended his blind sides as best they could, for Hammer seemed to have no thought for anything but attack.
    And still the dead came on, driven by the Beast’s dark dreams. Hundreds of men and women and children had died in the border fort, and Hammer and MacNeil and Jack couldn’t destroy them fast enough to stem the tide. Step by step they were forced back out of the cave and down the tunnel, and finally out onto the narrow ledge itself, looking out over the long drop to the cavern floor. Jack went first along the ledge, carrying the torch, then MacNeil with his lantern, and finally Hammer, blocking the liches’ way with Wolfsbane. The Infernal Device glowed blindingly against the darkness, its bitter yellow light reflecting from the thousands of crystals embedded in the cavern walls. The three men backed slowly away along the narrow ledge, and the dead came after them.
    Down below, deep in the earth, something stirred in its sleep.
    Flint and Wilde and the Dancer swung their swords with aching arms, fighting on long after most would have collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Their swords grew heavier every time they raised them, but they wouldn’t give up. The trolls came swarming through the doorway in a never ending stream, their blood red eyes glowing hungrily. Tall, bony cadavers lay scattered across the bloody floor, but as yet none of the creatures had got past the defenders to reach the trapdoor. Only a few trolls could get through the door at a time, and so far Flint and Wilde and the Dancer had managed to keep the trolls bottled up by the doorway. But they all knew it was only a matter of time before one of them fell, and then they would be unable to hold the trolls back.
    The Dancer was having the time of his life. His sword was everywhere, a bright, shining blur that mowed through the crowding trolls like a newly sharpened scythe through wheat. He was grinning broadly, and his eyes blazed with a dark and deadly joy. He was doing what he was best at, doing what he was born to do, and loving every minute of it. The overwhelming odds just gave a spice to the occasion. He was the Dancer, and he was content.
    Flint fought at his side, substituting strength and stubbornness to match his skill and speed. She kept turning the situation over and over in her mind as she