He left the High Street and walked down quieter lanes. His path took him closer to the cemetery, but not actually onto the grounds. At the bottom of the hill a circle of houses ringed the wooded land. There were a few tinkering shops here, all dark and quiet. Most of the houses were small and tired-looking. They were the homes of laborers: bricklayers, carpenters, seamstresses and the like. They were not so poor as the people who lived on stilted shacks along the docks, but neither were they rich enough to live on the good side of town.

  Trev moved like a shadow among a thousand other shadows. He felt at home in the dark, but he soon realized he was not alone here in this neighborhood. Something was moving in the alleyway nearby. He heard a trash-barrel creak and rattle. Probably a stray cat looking for a meal, he thought. Just to be sure, he hunkered down in a deep pool of shadow beside a smith’s anvil and watched the alleyway. The sounds continued. If it was a cat, the animal was having a hard time of it. Had it somehow fallen inside a barrel and gotten trapped in there?

  He became aware of another, softer sound nearby. After a moment, frowning and listening, he became certain of it: someone was coming down the street behind him. This someone was trying to be quiet, but wasn’t quite managing it. Their shoes slapped the cobbles now and then. Trev shook his head. He never wore shoes when he wanted to be quiet. His bare feet were much softer and almost never made a sound when he walked.

  Hunkering down even lower behind the anvil, Trev watched with growing excitement. There was something inexplicably fun about hiding and watching others when they didn’t know they were being observed. He did not even consider the possibility he was being stalked by someone dangerous.

  The person coming down the street paused, then moved toward the alley, where the steady sounds were coming from. Those sounds had escalated to a rhythmic banging by now.

  Trev frowned. What kind of cat would make such a ruckus for so long? Unable to contain his curiosity, he slid around the anvil and looked to see what was what.

  His surprise was complete when he saw the person stalking toward the alleyway was a woman, and one that he recognized.

  “Mother?” he said aloud.

  The woman whirled, and it was indeed his mother Mari, her wide eyes sought him in the darkness. Sighing, he rose from his hiding spot and walked forward.

  “What are you doing out here?” he whispered.

  “Keeping an eye on you, boy,” she said.

  “It is tomorrow now, you know. I didn’t break my promise.”

  “I know.”

  The banging in the alleyway stopped with a crash. Mari and Trev both looked toward it. They heard shuffling footsteps.

  “Who’s in my yard making a fuss?” another voice called.

  A man had come out of his door. He was from the house with the anvil, so Trev figured he must be a smith.

  “I’m Trev,” said Trev. “My mother and I heard something strange in the alley.”

  Mari nodded. “It’s true,” she said.

  The blacksmith fumbled with a small oil lamp and finally got it lit. “Someone needs a thumping, that’s for certain,” he muttered. He walked toward the alleyway.

  “You there,” he called out. “People are trying to sleep, do you mind? Go down to the docks if you want to dig—”

  The blacksmith made a funny noise then. Trev wasn’t sure why, but it seemed that someone else had grabbed hold of his face. Trev trotted closer to see what was happening.

  “Trev!” shouted Mari, “Let’s get out of here.”

  She took him by the hand and dragged him away. Trev kept looking back all the while. The fight was interesting. The blacksmith was strong, and he took out a long knife. He stabbed at the man who held him—but that had no effect. Then he slashed away the hands that held onto his face and throat. His attacker staggered away, wrist stumps flailing. The blacksmith fell onto his back in the street. There were still a hand on the smith’s throat, and it was still squeezing.

  Mari dragged Trev another block, but after that she let him go and knelt to have a whispered talk with him.

  “That was a dead-thing, Mother!” he said. “Back there in the alley.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “It was probably some drunk or a burglar trying to sneak into a house.”

  “If you would just let me show you,” he said.

  “Show me what?” she hissed.

  “Up there, on the hill,” he said, pointing.

  Mari followed his pointing finger and she shuddered. “We are not going up there at night. No sir!”

  “Can we go up in the morning?” Trev asked.

  Mari sighed. “All right, if you’ll come back to the Spotted Hog with me.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  Mari nodded. “Okay then, we have a deal.”

  No sooner had she said these words than Trev bolted. He ran for the wooded area at the bottom of the cemetery hill.

  “Where are you going?” cried Mari.

  “It’s morning now, remember? It’s after midnight!”

  “But you said you would come back to our room!”

  “I will, mother! After I show you. Come on!”

  Mari ran after the boy. She loudly cursed the day she’d become pregnant, and cursed every elf in the wood. She cursed Puck in particular for providing her with his tricky seed.

  Trev knew she could never catch him. He led her on a merry chase, but didn’t run so fast as to make her lose her way. He really did want her to see what was up there. The grown-ups ought to know about it.

  He led her the long way around, so they would come up behind the caretaker’s shack instead of into the open where the graveyard was. When they were at the rear of the shack, he waited, panting with his back against the rough plank walls.

  Mari came trotting and puffing up, holding her skirts up by plucking at them. She crouched by Trev. He could barely see her in the moonlight that filtered down through the trees.

  “You’ll not get away from me again, boy,” she puffed when she was able. “Now I’ve come up here and I’m ready to leave again. Honor your bargain and come back to bed.”

  Trev cocked his head. “Do you hear something?” he whispered.

  She listened for a moment. They both heard it then. It sounded like a sob coming from inside the shack.

  “The Dead don’t cry,” he said.

  “We have to get out of here,” Mari whispered.

  “Don’t you want to know who is crying?”

  “I want to get you out of here safely. I don’t know why I bother sometimes, Trev, honestly.”

  “Neither do I,” he said.

  His mother made a sound of quiet frustration in the darkness. She stood up and took his hand. “We’ll look inside. If we find anything awful, we’re going to run for it.”

  “All right,” he said.

  Together, they entered the shack. It took them a minute or so to open the cellar door on its creaking hinges. Inside, a group of children huddled in the dark, too scared to speak.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” Mari said, reaching to take the nearest little girl by the hand.

  The child snatched her hand away and pointed past Mari and Trev. They turned to see Morcant’s huge form standing in the doorway. He had a shovel in his hand that dripped with fresh earth.

  * * *

  The first wave of the Dead that swept into Riverton found people asleep in their beds. The pickings were easy. River Folk were dragged out into the dark streets and set upon by their own aunts, uncles and grandparents. Tattered flesh and brittle bones grasped and tore. Teeth snapped and chewed. Screams were heard from the side of town nearest the wooded hill. Men rushed out of their homes, shrugging on their tunics and holding bared blades and lanterns. They expected to meet goblin raiders or perhaps a creature of the Deepwood let loose. They faced instead the horrors of the shambling Dead.

  The Dead, as individuals, were simple of mind and weak of body. They did not regret their losses however, and never fell reeling from pain. They were beaten down after they’d slain a dozen families, but then the second wave came. These did not shuffle down from the cemetery woods, but instead were made up of those the Dead had freshly killed. Only minutes after their eyes glazed over in death, their faces left frozen in expressions of horror and their throats ripped out, the Dead rose to assail the living.

  This second wave was worse than the first, as they were stronger and the flesh upon their bodies still operated as it should. Horrified to be facing a gargling throng of their Dead neighbors, the people fell back toward the High Street. There, they met the Riverton Militia, which had been called out and had formed barricades in the streets.

  The fighting went on for nearly two hours before the Dead were defeated. Much of the northern end of the town was burnt or ruined. Corpses, hewn and smoldering, lay everywhere. The first wave and its follow-up had been taken down, but at a tremendous cost among the Living. A ragged cheer went up from the survivors when the fighting stopped and no more whole Dead could be found.

  One question was on everyone’s lips, however: What was coming next?

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Storm of the Dead

  “It wasn’t your fault, Brand,” said Telyn.

  “You are too kind, my good wife,” Brand said. “But your words do not change the grim facts. I was sought out as the worst fool in Cymru. Worse, I proved myself to be just as great a fool as the Dead expected.”

  “They tricked us, that’s all.”

  “Yes, they did. Such circumstances are always the lot of the River Folk. Our short lives provide us innocence and ignorance both—mixed blessings indeed.”

  Telyn stopped asking about it, seeing he was in a foul mood. Brand was glad for her silence. He didn’t want to dwell upon how the Shining Lady had gotten the better of him. By promising to try to take the Black Jewel from her King, he had laid down a challenge and played directly into her hands. Now, if he won the contest he would have to control the Jewel or fall prey to it, most likely becoming her new consort. If he failed…things would be worse yet. The River Folk would be overwhelmed by the Dead.

  Puck helped them find the Faerie mound at the bottom of the abyss. It was a strange affair, having no earth or grass growing upon it. The mound was a cairn with grave-moss creeping over the tumbled black stones.

  They began circling the mound, and as they did so Puck walked with Brand and talked to him. “As I listened to your meeting with the Shining Lady,” Puck said. “I felt I had stepped into the middle of a conversation that was ongoing.”

  “Yes. In a way, you did just that. I’d dreamt of her, moments before. We’d fought in the dream. I wished to finish the conflict, to bring it to a conclusion.”

  Puck nodded. “The axe drove you to rashness.”

  “It did not!” shouted Brand, turning on the elf.

  The other raised one eyebrow at him. A tiny smirk played over the elf’s mouth. Brand struggled to ignore the other’s haughty air. Right then, he hated all elves, and would have been glad to sever all their necks with one mighty….

  Brand shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “When I wield it often, it grips my mind as firmly as I grip its handle.”

  “What information was revealed to you in this dream you shared with the Dead?”

  “Any student of history knows the Dead rise across the world at random times. Now I believe the root cause to be the random whims of that witch.”

  “Interesting,” said Puck. “As another immortal I can vaguely understand her plight. You see, over time we all have a tendency to grow bored with our existences.”

  “But she tempts new males often enough and takes many lovers into her deathly embrace.”

  “Yes, but even that can grow repetitive…and I speak from experience.”

  Brand cast him a dark look, thinking again of what Telyn had said of once being stalked by this soft-spoken scoundrel.

  “Occasionally, however,” Puck went on, “as the centuries pass, she must yearn for more than a chance meeting. She seeks to take a new mate.”

  “Rather like you with that girl Mari, right?” Brand asked.

  Puck appeared annoyed. “I do not take my vows to my wife so lightly.”

  “Good,” Brand said, deciding to drop the topic. “In the case of the Shining Lady, she sought the greatest fool in the land. She found me, and tempted me into challenging the old King.”

  “Lucky you,” Puck said, chuckling.

  “Not so lucky for the rest of the world, if I should fail.”

  Puck pointed then, and Brand followed his direction. Together, they walked out upon a large mound. Brand knew it well. He recognized the freshly stacked brick walls that stood nearby. They were back at Castle Rabing.

  The sun had set and the skies were purple. Brand found to his surprise the mound was covered in fresh-dug holes and crawled with dead-things. More thronged the swamp nearby. More still scrabbled at his walls, seeking a way past them.

  “They walk already,” Brand said, drawing the axe from his back. The evening air hummed with the power of it. “There must be hundreds of them.”

  Puck drew his weapon as well, and as Telyn and Kaavi came into this world a pace or two after them they startled and pulled out their knives.

  “We must win through, but to where?” asked Puck.

  Brand looked toward Castle Rabing. Years of work and most of his fortune was tied up in that place of cold stone. “Follow me,” he said, and he set off toward the small gatehouse he’d come to call the Fae Gate.

  The Dead fell before him as wheat falls before the reaper. He cut a broad swath through them, but did not take the time to stop and chop them to bits nor to light them on fire.

  The job was only half-done, and the next wave of shambling dead picked up the squirming chunks of their comrades and carried them. Brand saw severed limbs with fingers that still grasped and skulls with champing teeth. If they caught up with them all at once, they could bear him down to the ground by sheer weight.

  “Even the strongest man can’t stand in the midst of the River’s flood undaunted,” Brand said. “We must run for the walls!”

  The party followed him closely, working their blades with efficiency. Every lip was curled save for Brand’s. He was delighted to reave through a massed enemy with his axe. It had been a long time since he’d faced so many. His voice soon rent the air with a fine, booming battle song. It was so loud it was as if a giant sang, and he himself recognized few of the foreign words that tumbled from his grinning mouth.

  The Dead came, and they fell. He advanced and the others, increasingly fearful as they came to understand the sheer numbers that sought to bring them down, hugged as close behind him as they dared. They feared to come too close. As it was, upon his backswing they were often forced to duck or dodge the flashing blades of the axe. Heedless of them, himself or the hungers of the Dead, Brand waded through the enemy at a steady pace. Within minutes, they’d reached the gatehouse.

  Unsurprisingly, the grate was done and the oaken double doors were spiked shut. His men had wisely sealed this entrance. It would be a pity to destroy their efforts, but he had no choice.

  He struck with the axe and it bit through iron braces, wood and nails. The doors shivered, and took two more blows before they burst apart to show the white wood inside. Brand kicked the rest of the doors down—but found a portcullis behind the doors.

  He gave an inarticulate cry of rage. “Raise this grate before I have to tear it down!” he roared.

  There was no response. No one manned the top of his wall. Brand turned toward the following horde. They gathered numbers now, those he had chopped down having communicated like a swarm of ants somehow with the others. They all came at once, sensing fresh Life.

  “Cover your eyes!” he shouted, and after a momentary pause he beamed into the mass of enemy with his axe. A bright ray of sunlight shone, burning away flesh and bone. The enemy hissed and writhed. The mass of them, like a cresting wave, fell over the reeling front ranks. For a few seconds, they were slowed and staggered.

  Brand turned to the portcullis. It was not bolted down, but merely dropped there. Perhaps it had been beyond the simple minds of the Dead to grab it in unison and lift it up. Brand did so now, with a single arm. He roared and heaved. Puck came forward to help, but thought the better of it. Brand’s face rippled with red rage. His jowls ran with strings of saliva and blood. His arm strained and his back was bent unnaturally.

  The portcullis rolled upward. The others rushed past him, flinching from the axe which lusted for their flesh and blood. When the last of them had slipped under the iron grate, Brand propped it up with the axe, then slipped through and yanked it free again. The heavy weight crushed down, snapping spines and pinning skeletal limbs.

  Brand watched the Dead writhe and hiss with idiot malice. He laughed at them. It was a full sound, a belly-laugh of disdain.

  They had won through to the castle.

  * * *

  Morcant was not surprised when his King came to speak with him. The event was almost unprecedented, but he was not capable of an emotion such as surprise. Whatever happened to him simply was.

  King Arawn of the Dead cursed and mumbled as he pressed his way through a throng of the rambling Dead. These were the lowest form of his subjects, and he detested them for their witless behavior. He finally found Morcant, working his spade on his hands and knees. The shovel had broken at the handle, and the sharp hardwood shaft tore at the meat of his dead hands. His hands had worn down to bone now, with only scraps of flesh clinging to the palms and fingers. Morcant kept working to dig the next grave, but his efforts had been slowed by the broken shovel.

  “Here, oaf!” the Dead King said, thrusting a fresh shovel into the remains of Morcant’s hands. “Find a fresh tool when your old one breaks!”

  Morcant took the shovel without comment. He stood up on creaking knees and went back to digging.