The sounds of metal tinkling against metal came from their chain-mail armor and the clashing of their curved, scabbarded swords.
Why the hell, Ray thought, did Bloat arm his guards with medieval shit? These men should have real weapons.
And then one of them stood and turned toward Ray and the ace saw their faces for the first time, and he realized that they weren’t men.
They were short, but also rather top-heavy through the chest and shoulders with a weird, stooped-over posture. Their limbs were muscular and gnarly and their faces all looked like they’d just come from an ugly convention. All had the same design worked into the front of their jerkins, a big, lidless, reddish eye.
One of them saw Ray and approached slowly with an awkward rolling gait that reminded Ray a little of Crypt Kicker. Ray watched, unconcernedly, as the thing got closer. After all, it only had a sword while he had a holstered Ingram. If he needed anything more than his hands.
The thing had no expression as it approached. It stopped half a dozen feet from Ray and asked in passably good English, “Do you have the medallion?”
“Medallion?”
“The keeper of the bridge,” the thing explained patiently. “Did he give to you the medallion of safe passage?”
Ray suddenly remembered the big golden thing the old guy at the bridge had worn over his T-shirt. The medallion of safe passage. Shit.
“No,” Ray said. “He had to take a little trip.”
“Then die,” the creature said without emotion, drawing his sword.
“Screw you,” Ray replied. There was no sense messing around with these assholes. He drew the Ingram before the poor fuck had a chance to take a step forward and unzipped him with a short burst that punched through the chain mail covering his chest like a can opener going through the lid of a beer can.
The thing was thrown backward by the impact of the slugs. For a moment he just lay there, and then he was gone. He rotted before Ray’s eyes, decades of decomposition passing in seconds. For a brief, mercifully short moment there was the unbearable odor of putrid flesh, then that was gone too, and there was just a skeleton in a shot-up suit of armor that promptly stood up on its bony feet and came clanking at Ray, sword raised high.
“Christ,” Ray said as the skeleton swung its sword.
Ray blocked the stroke and smashed the skeleton’s sword arm. Arm and sword both clattered to the ground. By then the other guards were all around Ray and he had no time to watch the arm flop around on the floor like a fish out of water, swinging the sword wildly and blindly as it tried to inch closer to Ray.
There were a few desperate seconds. Ray was outnumbered seventeen to one, but not all of the guards could get at him at once and he was a lot quicker and stronger than any of the medieval dicks trying to bash him.
He took a sword cut across the ribs, but by that time he’d put three of his attackers on the ground. Then came the welcoming sound of gunfire at his back and he knew that the rest of the team had joined the attack.
The pig-faced guards were blown apart by the explosive bursts of Danny’s automatic shotgun and the continuous stream of bullets from Battle’s assault rifle.
Crypt Kicker waded into the assault at Ray’s side and part of Ray watched and analyzed the dead ace’s style. There was no science or art to his attack. He just tore the guards apart with his bare hands, twisting off heads and limbs like a sadistic child let loose on a bunch of helpless Barbie dolls. These guards also rotted into animated skeletons moments after death, and the skeletons continued to attack.
A few of them had bows. From the corner of his eye Ray saw Nemo take an arrow in the shoulder. But the wound just seemed to piss him off. He roared wordlessly and marched stiff-legged into the guards, dismembering them with the same brute strength and lack of technique exhibited by Crypt Kicker.
It was over in moments. Nemo’s bruised shoulder and Ray’s sliced ribs were the team’s only real wounds. Crypt Kicker had been cut several times by the guard’s scimitars, but his wounds seemed to bother him even less than Ray’s did.
Another advantage, Ray thought, of being dead.
He heard Danny cry out behind him. When he turned, she had dropped to one knee. She was holding one shoulder, her face tight with pain.
Ray went to her. “What happened? They get you?”
“Not me,” she muttered. She took away her fingers. There was no blood. “One of my… sisters. Lanced by a fish.”
“How do —” Ray began, then asked, “Is she all right?”
“Just a flesh wound.” She moved a shoulder hesitantly, then got back to her feet. “I’ll be fine.”
Clutching skeletal fingers were still clawing at his ankle. Ray brought his heel down hard, heard the bones crunch and snap as he ground them underfoot. “What the hell were these things?”
“Don’t you know?” Danny asked. Everyone looked at her.
“No,” Ray said.
“Don’t you guys ever read?” Ray looked at her bewilderedly. Truth was, he didn’t. But he couldn’t see what that had to do with anything. “They’re orcs. You know, from Tolkien.”
“Tolkien?” Ray asked.
Danny gave an exasperated sigh. “J.R.R. Tolkien. Lord of the Rings. They’re even wearing the insignia of Sauron’s Eye.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ray said. He suddenly remembered a coed he’d dated back when he was in college. He hadn’t done much for those four years besides drink beer, play football, and screw cheerleaders, but there was this particular girl who was always trying to get him to read some silly-ass shit about rabbits or habits or something. Maybe he should have read the damn books. She was great in bed but she’d left him for some pussy English Lit major who, she said, was more romantic and cared for her as a person and really, really loved Tolkien, especially the habits, or whatever the hell they were.
Battle brushed annoyedly at some phalanges that were trying to slither up his pants leg. “Whatever they were,” he said, “they’re dead now.”
“Look, we gotta get him up.” The Outcast shook Croyd’s body once again. Nothing happened. Croyd — looking like Andre the Giant in blue spiked armor — slumbered on. His feet were sticking several inches out from the bed; the spikes had torn holes in the sheet covering him. Several of the spikes terminated in puckered, fleshy mouths — perfect, the Outcast thought — for spitting poison or searing acid or something. This body was a war machine, he was certain of it. Unfortunately at the moment it was a sleeping war machine.
The penguin was skating around the Sleeper’s bed. “We could always just throw him at them,” it said.
Kafka stepped forward with a glistening hypodermic. “Epinephrine,” he said. “Adrenaline. And other stuff. It’s an upper cocktail.” He jabbed the needle at Croyd’s bicep; the needle broke off with a metallic ting and went spinning away. Kafka rummaged through the medical kit, muttering, and pulled out a much larger and thicker syringe.
Outside, through the fog, they could hear the continuing assault. The voices of the Rox hammered at the Outcast. The Outcast sent another wave of demons at the Jersey Gate troops; he rebuilt a fallen wall; he sent a messenger knight to Shroud telling him to send reinforcements to the north. He tried to pay attention to a dozen different sites at once. The effort was draining. He could barely see what was happening here in front of him.
Kafka managed to wedge the needle between two scales of Croyd’s new skin and sunk the plunger home. They waited.
Croyd began to snore. The penguin giggled.
“Hey, Mr. Wizard! If you’re through playing doctor, we could really use some help out here.”
Modular Man sailed through the open window. He looked like he’d dodged a close hit — a long black scorch mark ran down one leg. “Where’s Pulse?” he asked.