Page 19 of The Pastel Prince

“Easy now, it’s just the shells of those who have moved into their next lives,” I whispered to the nervous horse. Beirach arrived at my right, his sight darting about the deep woods as he searched for what had our steeds so stressed. His gelding’s muzzle was tight, the nostrils squared, the horse’s cheek muscles taut.

“What besets them?” Beirach asked.

“Our celestial grove lies to the west that way,” I explained, pointing into the thickets of dark trunks and heavy bush. “They must smell the ones who have joined Danubia.”

The rain eased as we took a respite to try to calm the horses. A beam of sun broke through the damp boughs, a gentle windmoved through the woods, and the horses reared in terror as a form shambled through the trees.

“Danubia bless us,” Beirach gasped as an undead man in the tattered and sun-bleached burial robes of my clan darted at us, skeletal hands in claws, rotted flesh picked from his face. He moved with far more speed than a decayed elf should, rushing at us to rake at the horse. Tezen took to the air, bellowing in a bloodlust, and flew into the undead one as I tried to lead my wild horse to the left, away from the ghoul’s reach.

Beirach hit the ground with a grunt, landing on his feet, his gelding dancing madly as another ghoul appeared. I leaped from my horse, letting her race away from the undead, now swarming out of the trees like locusts descending on a wheat field. Five, seven, ten, a dozen. All in various forms of rot and all in the familiar green and white dressings of passing of my people. The only blessing to be found was that most of them had been visited by the birds and so their faces were cleansed of flesh.

I refused to think that the ghoul now bearing down on me might be my grandsire.

“Flank me!” Beirach shouted, his staff bursting into light as he directed a bolt of pure light at one of the undead. It shattered into bits, a cloud of vile green smoke leaving its desiccated form before it fell to the forest floor. “Do not let them open your flesh with teeth or nails. They are imbued with necrotic magicks!”

I moved to the left, dropped to my knee, and slapped my hand to the thick coating of pine needles, dead leaves, and moss. Digging into the loam, I pushed my magicks into the soil. The tree roots responded, slowly but surely, breaking out of the ground to wrap around the legs of two ghouls. Tezen attacked the captured ones, war picks flashing in the bright rays of the sun, as she busted through brittle skulls. The undead flailed, legs tightly bound. They made no sounds other than the clattering of rotted teeth. Beirach swung his staff in a circle,summoning a pale blue spell that dispersed over the ground like a fog. I twisted my hand sharply. The tree roots snapped one of the ghouls they held in half. Tezen soared skyward, cheeks billowed to avoid breathing in the foul magical clouds as the undead began to fall.

“To your left!” Beirach shouted to the pixie. Tezen blew out a breath, inhaled, and then spun in the air, deftly avoiding a leaping ghoul’s outstretched hand. “Keep your distance!”

“That’s not my way of battle!” the pixie princess shouted back but did her best to use her picks as projectiles. Small as they were, they did amazing damage. Surely they were imbued with potent pixie sorcery. I would ask if I survived being attacked by my own kind.

A hand fell on my side, tearing at my shirt. I spun to the right. Its face was right in mine, the hollow eye sockets pulsing with dark magicks. Beirach swung out with his staff, shattering the ghoul’s skull into powder. It dropped. I fell to my ass, horrified yes and angry, so very angry. For this kind of horror could only be wrought by a dark mage. How dare someone sully those who rested in such a ghastly way?!

My ire surged into the ground, causing the grasses to shoot up to entangle the bony feet of the ghouls surging at us. Slowed, they still pressed on. Sweat poured out of me. I focused only on my magicks, putting all into the pulses of power moving through the dirt. Trees groaned, branches swept out, sundering two ghouls in half, vile green clouds floating skyward from the fallen.

“Ugh, my aim sucks a fuzzy troll’s balls!” Tezen bellowed as one of her picks landed in a tree. I felt the mighty elm’s pain in my mind.

“Do not strike the trees!” I shouted at the tiny ball of purple zipping to and fro above us.

“Sorry! Tell it I’m sorry,” she yelled down at me before flying off to wrench her pike from the tree. Sap poured from the hole left behind. I winced at the sight. Beirach directed a spell at a ghoul that was lumbering at us, its leg pulled free as it tried to break away from a thicket of wild rose that had sprung up. “Fucking fuck! This is the worst. Dead people should stay dead!”

I could not argue that at all. Raising the dead was against every druidic principle. Death was not to be feared, for it meant being touched by the goddess. Death was a natural part of life. The dead moved on. Danubia carried them to her garden, where she bathed them in the fountain of purification. Then the dead were transformed into another being that would walk the woods. The dead were not to walk those paths as well.

“We have the advantage now, push harder to drop these poor souls!” Beirach bellowed, his voice deep, ringing through the woodlands like a bugle might if he were in his elk form.

I stayed on my ass with my hands splayed on the ground. Magicks danced from my fingertips. The wild rose responded with vigor, spreading out a thicket of thorns the ghouls had to push through to reach us. Bits of skin and rotted robes clung to the thorns. Each undead that managed to wrest itself from the clump of rose was met with a blast of energy from Beirach’s staff. Bone fragments littered the ground around us. Nin cawed somewhere to the left. Tezen roared in frustration, then heaved her pike at a smaller ghoul. The child’s skull exploded. It collapsed at my feet, the tiny hand coming to rest on the tip of my boot. I jerked my foot away as silence fell over the glen.

No birds, no buzzing flies, no wind. Just the huffing breaths of three exhausted warriors.

“Was that the last one?” Tezen breathlessly asked. We waited, poised to strike, for several moments. My gaze came to rest on the child lying an arm’s length away from me.

“I believe so,” I heard Beirach reply. “Stay on guard though, for there could be stragglers.”

They moved off, slowly, while I sat on the soft ground, soil caked under my fingernails, my sight locked on a tiny skeletal hand. I could not look away. The bones were so thin, so frail…

“Kenton.” Beirach’s voice beside me pulled me from the little one. I looked up. He kneeled down beside me, his eyes dark with sadness, and used his thumb to gather up a tear I had not felt slipping free. “My heart weeps with yours. We shall return them to the boughs where they had been placed, fear not. You rest.”

I slashed at the wetness on my cheeks then rose, pushing what strength I had left in me into standing.

“I’ll do it. They’re my people. It is my task.”

Beirach nodded solemnly. One body at a time, I carried my kin back to the grove where the tallest white birches stood. I placed each person back into the trees. Some required a hand from Beirach to reach the tallest limbs. Tezen picked tiny purple snapdragons and placed them on the chest of those we returned, humming a song that I was unfamiliar with as she zipped from one tree to another. It was hard, hot work and lost us several hours, but once the dead were back in their final resting places, my heart felt less shredded. But only slightly less.

I went to my knees in the center of the clearing to pray. Beirach knelt beside me, his head bowed, his auburn hair loosened from the tidy knot he had tied it into this morn. Our prayers floated upward to the goddess.

Nin flew down as our prayers ended, his black eyes sharp as he hopped to me. I reached out to run my hand over his glossy feathers.

“Can you seek our horses, please, then lead us to them?” I asked, gently removing the small paper bound to his leg. The raven nipped at my fingers with its black beak. I could sensehow tired he was. “I know you’re weary. Please, just one more flight and then you can rest and eat.”

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