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By Root 1431 0

crate-only to lose his balance and splash into the river. Ebenezer had never learned to swim, and now he knew why. Being in cold, moving water was damned unpleasant. He’d been tossed and buffeted about for what seemed like hours, going under more times than he could count. The only thing that had kept him from drowning was sheer cussedness- that, and the large rock that he’d slammed smack into. Fortunately, the rock was not the only one of its kind, and once his eyes had uncrossed he’d been able to make his way to shore. Problem was by then he was well past the warren of Stoneshaft tunnels and the only way back was up the river he came down on. Thank you, no. So he’d taken to the surface by the quickest tunnel and headed south along the sea’s shoreline-noisy, nasty thing, that sea-to a point where he could scale the nearly sheer cliff and get up to the Trade Way. Ebenezer’s thinking was that the road was the fastest way back to the tunnels’ entrance. Unfortunately, he had a long walk ahead-at least a half day, the way he figured it. He suspected that he would be too late.

That was what the “chopping board” looked like. The “stew pot” was no improvement. Ebenezer sighed and edged closer to the mouth of the tiny cave.

A skeletal hand lashed out toward him. The dwarf leaned back, and the grasping claw swiped past, so close that the smell of rotting flesh nearly knocked him on his backside.

“That was close,” Ebenezer admitted as he backed away. “Good thing I shaved off the mustache, or he might ‘a got a grip.”

The dwarf adjusted the boulder that blocked most of the cave’s mouth and settled down to think. Men, he could fight.

Orcs, goblins, even elves if it came to that. But he had no idea what the creatures outside his cave were-or, more accurately, had been. Wasn’t enough left of the things to tell. And even if he knew what style of fighting was called for, he had no weapons to fight with. Yep. This was a stew pot, all right.

Ebenezer ventured another peek over the rock. On the rocky shore beyond his hiding place, three misshapen creatures, their flesh so bloated and rotten as to render them unrecognizable, paced hungrily. The dwarf knew that undead creatures abounded in the Mere of Dead Men, but this was the farthest away from the swamp he’d heard of them coming.

“Lost, are you?” he bellowed out at them. “Head north, then. Follow the sea. When the going gets mushy underfoot, you’re almost home.”

There was more than bravado prompting his words. Ebenezer knew a zombie when he smelled one. Someone had raised up these poor creatures, turned dead men or whatever else they’d been into rotting, unthinking warriors. It was a long shot, but he figured the zombies might just listen to him, lacking another master to tell them what to do.

As it happened, his words had an effect-though not the one he’d anticipated.

“Hello the cave!” shouted a clear, young baritone voice. “Are you unhurt, friend?”

The shout came from the direction of the road. Ebenezer scrambled to his feet. “Got no complaints,” he hollered back, “other than being pinned down by three very dead people who forgot to lie down and quit.”

There was a pause, silence broken only by the sound of approaching hoofbeats. “I see them.”

The young man’s voice held repugnance, but no fear. That worried Ebenezer. “You got company, I hope?”

“I am alone,” the voice answered calmly, “but the grace of Tyr is with me.”

One man, confident in the favor of some human god. The dwarf groaned and slumped against the cave wall. He slid down and sat and tried his best not to listen to what was sure to come. Zombies were not tidy fighters and generally liked to tear their prey messily apart.

To his surprise, the young man’s voice lifted in a song, a hymn by the sounds of it. Wouldn’t be well received in a tavern, leastwise, being slow and solemn and not real catchy. But Ebenezer felt its power and was drawn by it. He scrambled to his feet and peered out over the boulder.

A young man, curly-headed as a lamb and nearly as fair, approached on a tall white horse. The three zombies staggered