Twenty-Nine

Most shocked of all was Fultard who was fighting for his life in one moment and watching the body of the dead man he was fighting slammed against the wall in the next.

Grethron gasped in shock and disbelief at the power of the weapon Dumar carried, not even sure it was a weapon until now.

Dumar kept the pistol trained on the corpse – although his mind told him this could not be a dead man moving – as he crossed the room on silent feet.

He noted Fultard, also still in readiness, was panting quite heavily.

The room stank of fresh blood, cordite, decay, sweat and fear. Dumar got to the downed corpse and surveyed the damage.

The bullet had punctured its sternum, punched through the chest cavity, splintering into pieces and ripping through muscle, tendon and rib bone.

Owing to the trajectory of the shot, it had smashed through the heart and one of the lungs, before tearing a ragged hole in the dead man's back. Sections of rib that had been snapped off by pieces of the fractured bullet had widened the hole further.

Pieces of muscle, bone, torn skin and large, jellied blood clots littered the area around the body and spattered up the wall.

The corpse itself had been thrown against the wall and lay there, not even twitching, almost in the recovery position.

Dumar nudged the body with his foot, the ringing in his ears from the gunshot just beginning to fade as he made the semi-automatic safe again and holstered the weapon. The big man sensed the approach of Fultard to his side.

"Is he going to stay down?" The Commander asked, still breathing heavily.

Two Royal Guards moved to flank their Commander.

"Fucking hope so!" Dumar replied as Grethron made his way over, one hand against his chest.

Fultard smiled weakly.

"I like you. What are you called?"

In the rushed exchange of information that had taken place in his office, Fultard had neglected any kind of introduction.

"Dumar," the big man replied offering his hand.

"Demanius Fultard, Commander of the Royal Guards. I like you," the other man repeated.

Dumar nodded.

"You mentioned that," the big man said with a smirk.

"What manner of weapon is that?" Fultard asked.

Dumar looked at the Commander before speaking.

"It's a .40 calibre semi and fully automatic machine pistol."

Fultard nodded.

"Silly question really," he said dryly.

Dumar grinned before turning to Grethron.

"You all right?"

The old Necromancer shrugged, wincing.

"I should heal," he grumbled, "He caught me right across the ribs with my own staff," he took a deep breath before adding. "That thing certainly makes a mess," Dumar nodded then reached for the body, turning it over.

The sweet smell of rotting meat, stench of decay and blood increased by a massive amount as the corpse rolled towards Dumar.

He turned to see one of the guards retching openly on the floor and the faces of all the others blanched white once more. Dumar turned to see the dead man's heart and one of his shredded lungs remained on the floor.

"Well," Grethron uttered in a chilled voice. "Apparently this is the end for this particular poor being."

He turned to Fultard who was looking down at the remains with a look of sickness on his face.

"It would be best if we resolved this situation soon, Commander."

Fultard nodded wordlessly.

Dumar had not been paying much attention to the exchange, his eyes scanning the grizzly remains in an attempt to make sense of what his senses were telling him.

Although the internal organs were in disarray due to the shot he had fired through the body, Dumar could tell this man had died at least a few days previously.

Even more puzzling was that some of the organs, the ones that had remained in place after Dumar had shot through the body, had been pushed aside to make room for another object. Leaning closer, Dumar studied the alien item.

Looking like a dull, green pipe about the thickness of his wrist, whatever it was had ropes of hair-thin fibres branching out of both ends, many of which had been torn free of whatever they had been attached to.

Dumar got down on hands and knees to see many of the fibres had invaded the spinal column of the dead man and maybe even speared into the spinal cord. If so, could this have been some kind of remote-control device for the corpse?

"What's this?" He asked the old men. "Is it something everyone here's got?"

Grethron and Fultard stepped closer. Taking a look, they exchanged a glance before Fultard answered.

"No idea what that might be, Dumar."

Grethron shook his head as well.

"I can only think this is what was making him move, yet it is nothing I have ever seen before," he said with a look of genuine puzzlement.

Dumar withdrew a seven inch knife from a holster in his left forearm and tapped the edge of the blade against the tube. A sound like tapping plastic came out and Dumar raised his eyes, looking at the two old men. Both returned blank looks of incomprehension.

Dumar crossed the room and slashed a square of material from one of the piled curtains, returning a few seconds later to lay the fabric over the object.

Gripping the alien thing with his left hand, he loosened it with the knife tip, struggling against whatever held it in place and prising the fibres loose.

After a few seconds they all heard a sucking squelch and the object came free. Dumar wiped his knife blade on the black silk rags that clung to the corpse and rose, re-sheathing the blade.

Three pairs of eyes studied the strange round object in Dumar's hand, noting the bundles of fibrous protrusions extending from both ends splitting and branching again and again until the result was a feather like gathering of fine hairs in differing lengths. It was when Dumar turned it over into his right hand that its eyes opened.

Filled with rage and hate, the small eyes glared straight into Dumar's own and the little creature's mouth stretched open in a high pitched scream.

All his years of training could never have prepared Dumar for this moment and he recoiled in shock and disgust. Flinging the creature away in a fit of uncontrollable horror – Dumar's very skin attempting to pull away in revulsion – with it still screaming the high pitched scream that pervaded everyone's hearing, the creature landed on the stone floor and rolled a couple of times before halting.

Fultard crossed quickly to the thing and slashed it in two with a swiftly drawn sword.

Dumar was compulsively scrubbing his right hand with the cleanest section of the curtain he could find. Horror, revulsion and disgust crept across his skin. Fighting the urge to vomit, Dumar growled.

"What the fuck is that!" Before anyone could answer a shout rose from outside.

"Commander, come quickly!"