The Mercenaries - Ed Greenwood [19]
"No," Belmer said. He looked almost dejected as he added, "This was called to us by what I unleashed. There's no way to…"
He paused. As the faceless zombies shuffled forward, the Sharkers moved reluctantly to form a line to face them. The fat little man suddenly whirled around and snapped, "Fight and hold them-111 be as swift as I can!"
And with that he was gone again, his rotund body fairly flying across the damp decks. Sharessa felt somehow more hopeful as she stared after him.
A shout brought her attention back to the battle at hand. Kurthe had snatched up a sailpole and was battering the faceless things as they climbed awkwardly along the bowsprit of their vessel. One of them was smashed free, to claw at the air vainly for a moment before vanishing from view into the sea. Another crawled on, its arms broken to shapeless, dangling ropes of flesh by the Konigheimer's fear-frenzied blows.
The other Sharkers watched in horrified fascination until Anvil swallowed and started to trudge forward across the decks, his sword held out before him as if it was a shield to ward away the oncoming horrors. Rings followed, and after a slow moment Brindra trailed along in his wake.
Sharessa and Belgin traded looks, shrugged, and advanced in their turn, leaving only Ingrar, shivering and pale with fear.
Trembling and retching, the lad brought up the rear, more to stay with his comrades than because he'd found any scraps of bravery. When the first of the faceless things found its footing on the decks of the Morning Bird and hacked at Kurthe with dogged, dreamlike slowness, Ingrar moaned aloud.
The Konigheimer laid about himself with almost frenzied strength, roaring his defiance, goaded by fear and-even more-by the chance to finally lash out and hit something.
The end of the stout sailpole splintered under the force of his blows, but the half-pulped zombies staggered on, passing him in a slow, tireless flood.
Anvil muttered a prayer to Tempus and another to Tymora as the first faceless one reached him. Then he swung his sword with all his strength, in a blow that half separated that featureless head from its shoulders.
The undead thing staggered, slid free of his blade, and without pause or any evidence of pain swung around to drive the crumbling fragments of its blade into his ribs. Anvil twisted away to make the blade slice away from bis body-and it did not even manage that, falling away in flakes where a real blade would have sheared into the leather covering Anvil's flank.
The pirate did not wait to give it another chance. He grabbed his foe's sword arm behind the elbow and shoved, turning the thing completely away from him, into the path of the next zombie. The two dripping things bumped and struggled, and then crashed to the deck together as Kurthe smashed them both at neck level, and Anvil ducked in to hamstring them at knee level.
Even as the zombies fell and rolled, still dangerous, others shuffled forward to take their places. Sharessa and Brindra, white to the lips, were hacking and tumbling like women possessed; their usual tactics of fencing or causing pain were useless against these smothering, unfeeling foes. In a moment or two more they'd be overwhelmed and clubbed down.
Rings spat a curse as he ducked away from a vicious hacking blow, slipped, and had to leap for his life. The sight of his closest friend in danger seemed to goad Ingrar out of his fear-daze. With a scream of defiance the pale, sweating youth charged forward, hacking and slashing like a man trying to hew down a tree, driving the zombies back into a huddled mass.
With a wolfish grin, Kurthe swung his sailpole, and battered almost half of the undead into the sea. Packed together, they could do little more than squirm as the Sharkers rose against them in unison, cutting and disabling them, and trying to keep clear of the grabbing, thrusting faceless creatures who'd already been cut down