He had fallen, then, still striving to protect that which he was here to ward. Fallen and died there on the cobbles, while rough men laughed and jeered and mocked him in his dying.
That had been almost an hour ago.
But now … he lived.
Jerkily—slowly—awkwardly, like a jointed puppet— the dead man got to his feet. And stood, spread legged, turning his head stiffly from side to side. His face was pale and dirty, and blood was upon it. His eyes were dull and filmed and his mouth hung slackly open.
The raiders nearest to him were piling gorgeous furnishings into a tottery heap. Fussing about them was Houm, fat, greedy Houm, his greasy lips smiling, his quick, clever eyes counting the value of the silken tapestries, the hand-carved ivory furniture, the jewel-studded vases, the precious things of jade and cinnabar and lapis.
Suddenly the smile went crooked on Houm’s fat face.
For, stalking stiffly towards him, the dead man came.
He paled then, did Houm, and plucked at trembling lips with beringed fingers, babbling crazy things. For the walking corpse, with its belly slashed open and wet bowels dragging, went over to the first man and tore his throat out with cold, stiff hands.
The second man died just as quickly, for the corpse broke his neck. The third man backed off, swearing, cutlass-shaped sword out. Hoarsely, he commanded the slayer of his two comrades to halt, and when he would not halt the raider took a cut at him. The sword made red ruin of the dead man’s face, but did not even slow him.
He twisted the raider’s head off, and tossed it aside. The grisly thing rolled across the pavement to thump into the head of a plunderer.
Houm followed it with vacant eyes. He giggled.
But not for long.
The walking corpse, now faceless, was upon Houm then. He picked the fat man up as if he weighed no more than a doll, and broke his back across a bended knee, as a man might break a rotten stick.
So perished Houm, the merchant who had dreamt of the plunder of an entire world, and who now would inherit only six feet of it, or as much as makes a grave.
And the Glory—laughed!
Xinga was at the wall. He had been supervising the destruction of the Stone Giants, but now his work was done and the last of the enchanted colossi had been rendered helpless with nets or lassoes, and reduced to gravel under pounding war-hammers, mauls and axes.
Now, Xinga wanted some of the fun the other raiders had been enjoying.
He had found a girl and had taken her away from the warrior and was admiring his bit of plunder. She was a child of perhaps thirteen, slim and exquisite, with silken hair and faery eyes like wet jewels. A bit young for his tastes, to be sure, but hip and breast and thigh were firm and round with the promise of the woman she would one day become.
She begged him with pleading, eloquent eyes, for he had bound her lips with a gag; he laughed, telling her to relax and perhaps she would enjoy it, too. Then he stripped her rags from her and lay her on the trampled ground of her father’s garden.
Ignoring her weak struggling, and the moans and whimpers which escaped from her gagged mouth, he lay down upon her and played with her bare breasts for a time, prolonging the moment when he would take her, finding the delay teasingly delicious.
Tossed into a gory heap near a broken alabaster fountain, her father and her brothers lay, hacked to red ruin. Now, as Xinga played with the girl, fondled and smiled as she writhed under the touch of his dirty fingers, he was too preoccupied to notice when the pile of corpses came apart and the dead boys and their father came stiffly to their feet and stalked over to where he lay amusing himself.
One took him by the leg, another by the arm, and the third by the head. They tore him apart.
Dmu Dran had remained behind to oversee the desecration of the Inner Shrine of the Temple. The little gaunt fanatic knew that his master, Zarouk, and a party of warriors had descended into the depths beneath the building in pursuit of the so-called Prince who had seized power, but it mattered little to him.
He was a priest, and must be about his holy business.
He had built a bonfire of the Zhiamese scrolls and sacred scriptures—beautiful painted parchments, covered with writing unknown to him, which had preserved from the lapse of time the ancient wisdom and philosophy and speculations of the sages.
They burned beautifully, he thought.
He had dragged from the heap of bound captives, taken when the Temple was first broken into, a young priest or novice. He was a boy, sixteen or seventeen at the most, and his eyes were wide and frightened, and he was praying to his god in a half-heard whisper.
Dmu Dran had cut his robes away, so that he would watch that adolescent nakedness writhe and wriggle in the flames.
When he had stripped the boy stark naked, he dragged him by the feet across the floor, then rolled him over on his belly into the fire.
The boy had screamed. But now, blackened and shrivelled, he was beyond screaming.
Dmu Dran was bending over the heap of captives, picking another victim for his holy work, when something took place behind him that he did not notice until the sound of scraping feet made him turn and … freeze.
The burnt boy had gotten up from his bed of fire and was dragging himself on stiff, black, withered legs towards his tormentor.
His face had been seared away to the naked bone of his skull, which was brown and greasy and still smoking.
Dmu Dran stared and stared, and then his eyes rolled up into his head until only the whites showed.
The burnt boy-priest took him by the back of the neck in a grip as strong as stone, and dragged him over to the bonfire where the precious scriptures smoldered, and thrust him face down into the coals, and held him there until he died.
The coals were hot and red and glowing, but it took him all of twenty minutes to die.
One by one the fires went out, for the Glory called the clouds and commanded them to rain.
There was by that time an army of corpses, and they stalked stiffly about, clearing away the rubble. Most of the raiders were dead by this time, and, after a while, they too, had risen and walked, and now toiled beside their victims, clearing away the wreckage and smothering the last few stubborn fires, and removing the ruins from where the gates of the City had been.
Not everyone in the City had been slain, of course. Some of the men lived, and almost all of the women and children, save those who had been taken by many men and had died therefrom.
Nor had all the raiders perished. Some few, quicker of thought than their brethren, had thrown down their swords and surrendered. These now huddled together without speaking, guarded by animated horrors that had once been dead. Some of the captives wept, or cursed in ragged, breathless monotones. But most of them just sat there with dead faces and empty eyes, waiting for doom, and glancing up from time to time at the Glory which drifted here and there above the towers.
There were many of the men and boys of the City who had been injured or maimed but were not yet dead. These were brought before Kiki and he healed them, one by one, with a touch of his hands whereon the supernal light yet lingered.
There were old men and women who had looked on too much horror, and women and children who had endured too much. These, whose minds had broken under their torment, were healed by Kiki too. Serene, forgetting that which they had endured, they smiled now, seeking out their friends and families among the living.