The Power and the Glory

Book 4 Chapter XI: The Monsters at the Gates

Author's Note: I just remembered that Arafaren already found out about Abi's necromancy back in book three. Oops?

Warning: contains zombie-related gore.

Yet the whispers of a reckoning
Have kept the spirits beckoning
To look upon my crime
-- Aviators, Godhunter

The terrain on the other side of the river was mostly flat. On the one hand this meant Kitri could see a lot of the surrounding area. On the other this meant she could be seen from a distance. Her legs were sore and stiff after spending the night on the boat. She couldn't run as fast as she wanted to.

In an effort to keep her mind off the situation Kitri went over facts she'd learnt long ago in history class. All of the towns in this part of the planet were what was known in the Gradonian dialect[1] as marekansijanil -- towns surrounded by high and thick walls that could withstand direct blows from everything but the most powerful missile. They had been built millennia ago during the war with the Osnečip Empire, when each town had been more like a large fortress than a place where civilians lived. To protect the food and arms stored in them, a long-ago general had ordered all of the towns to be surrounded by walls stronger than anything that had ever been built before.

It worked in the most literal sense. No town in this area had ever been captured by the enemy. Unfortunately the enemy generals were smart enough to simply camp outside the gates and wait for the food to run out, and many towns had surrendered after long sieges. The Osnečip army moved into the captured towns, and were promptly put on the receiving end of their own tactics by the Saoridhin army. Because of the amount of people who died of starvation in the many sieges, Muirus 9436 had been rumoured to be inhabited by shaberos for centuries afterwards.

She thought of the monsters. Could they be shaberos? Judging by the bite-marks they were certainly cannibals. But shaberos were said to be intelligent and able to mimic voices to lure their victims into a trap. She couldn't remember any myth that said they hunted in packs.

Leave it to Abi to create a whole new type of monster, she thought bitterly.

About a mile from the river Kitri had to stop for a rest. She sat down on the grass so she would be less conspicuous if someone happened to be looking in her direction.

The town gates aren't opened until nine o'clock, she reminded herself. I still have at least two hours.

She got up and resumed walking towards the town. She was too tired to run, so instead she walked as quickly as she could. The pain in her feet, although still present, had mostly faded as she refused to pay attention to it.

A sign placed by the roadside informed passers-by that this was the site of the Battle of Jeod during the same Saoridhlém-Osnečip War that had prompted the building of the walls. In spite of herself Kitri couldn't help remembering her grandmother's stories about how battlefields were haunted, and every night the long-dead soldiers came back to re-enact their deaths. She couldn't suppress a shudder as she hurried past the sign. In light of everything that had happened, she wouldn't have been at all surprised to see the ghosts still fighting even though it was morning.

Everywhere the countryside was silent. The flat land gradually turned into gentle hills. Kitri followed the road but walked beside it, where the grass was softer on her sore feet. In the distance she spotted the first farmhouse on this side of the river. When she reached the lane leading up to it she paused, debating whether to waste time checking it or whether to continue to the town.

In the end she decided to check it. She didn't have to go far. As soon as its front door came into view she knew. The door was wrenched off its hinges and a long streak of red covered the ground.