That night Dor and Jumper departed the castle on the spider’s line. It would have been possible to convey Millie out in the same manner, but they cared neither to subject her to the risk nor to desert the Zombie Master, even had circumstances been otherwise. There were Mundane sentries posted; Millie would have screamed, and that would have been disastrous. As it was, Dor trusted Jumper’s night vision to thread them through the dark foliage, and they managed to pass without being detected. Soon they were deep in the jungle, beyond the Mundane ring of troops.
“We’d better start with the lord of the jungle,” Dor said. “If he goes along with it, most of the rest will. That is the nature of jungles.”
“And if the lord does not cooperate?”
“Then you will use your safety line to yank me out of his reach, in a hurry.”
Jumper affixed a dragline to him, then carried the other end. In an emergency, the spider would be able to act quickly. Dor found himself wishing he had a silk-making gland; those lines were extremely handy.
The spider found him a rock in the dark. “Where is the local dragon king?” Dor demanded of it.
The stone directed him to a narrow hole in a rocky hillside. “This is it?” Dor inquired dubiously.
“You’d better believe it,” the cave replied.
“Oh, I believe it!” Dor said, not wishing to antagonize the residence of the monster he hoped to bargain with.
“And if you care to depart uncooked, you’d better not wake the monarch,” the cave said.
Jumper chittered. “That small cave has a large mouth.”
“What?” the cave demanded.
Dor gulped. “I have to wake him.” Then he put his hands to his mouth and called. “Dragon! I must parlay. I have news of interest to you.”
There was a snort from deep within the cave. Then a plume of smoke wafted out, white in the blackness, followed by a rolling growl. The scent of scorch suffused the air.
“What does he say?” Dor asked the cave. “He says that if you have news of interest, come into his parlor. Your life depends on the accuracy of your advance promotion.”
“His parlor?” Jumper chittered. “That is an ominous phrasing. When a spider invites—“
Dor had not bargained on this. “In there? In the dragon’s cave?”
“See any other caves, man-roast?” the cave demanded.
Jumper made another soft chitter. “Huge mouth!”
“I guess I’d better go down,” Dor said.
“I have better night vision; let me go,” Jumper chittered.
“No. You can’t use objects to translate the dragon’s speech, and I can’t jump into trees and string a line to the castle wall. I must talk with the dragon. You must be ready to bear the news.” He swallowed again. “In case my mission fails. You can communicate with Millie, now, by signals.”
Jumper touched him with a foreleg, the pressure expressive. “Your logic prevails, friend Dor-man. I shall listen by this entrance, and return alone if necessary. I will draw you up by the dragline if you call, rapidly. Have courage, friend.”
“I’m scared as hell.” But Dor remembered what the gorgon had said about courage: that it was a matter of doing what needed to be done despite fear. He was bleakly reassured. Maybe technically he would be a dead hero, instead of a dead coward. “If—if something happens, try to salvage some piece of me, and keep it with you. I think the return spell will orient on it, and carry you home when the time is up. I wouldn’t want you to be trapped in this world.”
“It would not be doom,” Jumper replied. “This world is a novel experience.”
More of an experience than Dor had bargained for! He took a breath, then slid into the cave’s big mouth. The interior was not large enough to permit him to stand, as the throat constricted, but that did not mean the dragon was small. Dragons tended to be long and sinuous.
The passage curved down and around, so black it was impossible to see. “Warn me of any drops, spikes, or other geographic hazards,” Dor said.
“There are none, other than the dragon,” the wall replied. “That’s more than enough.”
“I wish there were a little light,” Dor muttered. “Too bad I gave away my wishing ring.”
The dragon growled from below. “You want light?” the wall translated. “I’ll give you light!” And tongues of bright flame snaked up the passage.
“Not that much!” Dor cried, cringing from the heat.
The flames subsided. It was evident that the dragon understood human speech, and was not blasting him indiscriminately. That was both reassuring and alarming. If there was anything more dangerous than a dragon, it was an intelligent dragon. Yet of course the smartest dragon would be most likely to rise to leadership in the complex hierarchy of the wilderness. Provided it also possessed sufficient ferocity.
Dor emerged at last in the stomach of the cave. This was the dragon’s lair. The light waxed and waned, here, as the monster breathed and the flames washed out of his mouth. In the waxing the whole cave glittered, for of course the nest was made of diamonds. Not paltry ones like those of the small flying dragon Crunch the ogre had cowed; huge ones, befitting the status of the lord of the jungle. They refracted the light, reflected it, focused it, and broke it up into rainbow splays. Colors cascaded across the walls and ceiling, and bathed the dragon itself in re-reflected hues. Crunch the ogre would never beard this monster in his den!
And the dragon himself: his scales were mirror-polished, iridescent, and as supple and overlapping as the best warrior’s mail. The great front claws were burnished brass tapering to needlepoints, and its snout was gold-plated. The eyes were like fall moons, their veins reminiscent of the contours of the green cheese there, and as the light changed the cheese changed flavor.
“You’re beautiful!” Dor exclaimed. “I’ve never seen such splendor!”
“You damn me with faint praise,” the dragon grumped.
“Uh, yes, sir, I come to—”
“What?” the dragon demanded through a blaze of fire.
“Sir?”
“That was the word.”
Dor had suspected it was. “Uh, sir, I—“
“All right already. Now what does a Man-Magician want with the likes of me, a mere monster monarch?”
“I come to, uh, make a deal. You know how it is not safe, uh, I mean expedient, for you to, uh, eat men, and—”
The dragon snorted a snort of flame uncomfortably close to Dor’s boots. “I eat what I eat! I am lord of the jungle.”
“Yes, sir, of course. But men are not of the jungle. When you eat too many of them, they start making, er, difficulties. They use special magic to—“
“I don’t care to talk about it!” This time the snort was pungent smoke.
“Uh, yes. Sir. What I’m trying to say is that there are some men who need, er, eating. Mundane men from outside Xanth, who don’t have magic. If you and your cohorts cared to, uh—“
“I begin to absorb your drift,” the dragon said. “If we were to indulge in some, shall we say, sport, your Magicians would not object? Your King Whatshis-name—?”
“King Roogna. No, I don’t believe he would object. This time. Provided you ate only Mundanes.”
“It is not always easy to tell at a glance whether a given man is native or Mundane. You all taste alike to us.”
Good point. “Well—we’ll wear green sashes,” Dor said, thinking of some bedspreads he had seen in the Zombie Master’s castle. They could be torn into sashes. “It would be only in this region; don’t go near Castle Roogna.”
“Castle Roogna is in the territory of my cousin, who can be touchy about infringements,” the dragon said. “There is plenty to eat in this area. Those Mundanes are especially big and juicy. I understand. Is there a time limit?”
“Uh, would two days be enough?”
“More than enough. Shall we say it commences at dawn tomorrow?”
“That’s fine.”
“How can I be sure you speak for your King?”
“Well, I—“ Dor paused, uncertain. “I suppose it would be best to verify it. Do you have a swift messenger?”
The dragon snapped his tail. It was out of sight, far down the bowels of the cave, but the report was authoritative. It was answered by a squawk, and in a moment a chickenlike bird fluttered into the main chamber. It was a woolly hen, with curly fleece instead of feathers. Dor knew little about this breed, except that it was shy, and could move quite rapidly.
“Uh, yes,” he said. “Uh, have you anything to write with?” He had certainly come unprepared.
The dragon jetted smoke toward a wall. Dor looked. There was a niche. In the niche were several paper-shell pecans and an inkwood branch. “I have a secretary-bird,” the dragon growled in explanation. “She likes to write to her cousin across the Gap. Then she carries the letter herself, because she trusts no one else to do it. Why she doesn’t simply chatter out her gossip directly I don’t know. But she’s good at keeping track of things around here such as which monster needs a chomping and which a scorching, and when the next rainstorm is due, so I keep her on. She’s across the Gap now; she’ll set up an unholy squawk when she finds her stuff’s been used, but go ahead and use it.”
Dor unfolded a length of paper from a shell, took a splinter of inkwood, and somewhat laboriously wrote:
KING ROOGNA: PLEASE AUTHENTICATE PERMISSION FOR MONSTERS TO SLAY MUNDANES FOR TWO DAYS WITHOUT PENALTY. NECESSARY TO LIFT MUNDANE SIEGE OF CASTLE OF ZOMBIE MASTER, WHO WILL COME TO YOU THEREAFTER. ALL XANTH CITIZENS IN VICINITY TO WEAR GREEN SASHES TO DISTINGUISH THEM FROM MUNDANES. SIGNED, MAGICIAN DOR.
He folded the note and gave it to the woolly hen. “Take this to the King, and return immediately with his answer.”
The bird took the note in her beak and took off. She was gone in a puff of wool dust, so quickly that he never saw her move.
“I must admit this prospect pleases me,” the dragon king remarked, idly stirring up a mound of diamonds with one glistening claw. “If it should fall through, I might recall how you disturbed my sleep. Don’t count on your spider friend to draw you out; my flame would burn up his line instantly.”
The nature of the threat was absolutely clear to Dor. He felt like screaming and kicking his feet, certain that would relieve some tension; it always seemed to work for Millie. But he wore the guise of a man; he had to act like a man. “I was aware of the hazard when I committed myself to your lair.”
“You do not attempt to beg, or to threaten me with vague retribution,” the dragon said. “I like that. The fact is, it is impolitic to toast Magicians, and I especially do not want to aggravate the Zombie Master. That roc of his has been scouring the area for bodies. I would not care to tangle with that big bird for esthetic reasons. So I do not intend to toast you—unless you attempt to do me mischief.”
“I thought that might be your attitude. Sir.”
The woolly hen returned in another cloud of dust, bearing another note. Dor took it and read it aloud:
PERMISSION AUTHENTICATED. GO TO IT. SIGNED, THE KING.
He showed it to the dragon.
“That would seem to be it,” the dragon said, puffing out a satisfied torus of smoke. “Hen, go out to my subjects and summon them for a rampage. Tell them to get their tails swinging or I’ll burn them off. I will instruct them in one hour.” He angled his snout toward Dor. “It has been a pleasure doing business with you, sir.”
But Dor was wary. He remembered Magician Murphy’s curse on Castle Roogna: anything that could go wrong, would. This message had related to that project. Why hadn’t the curse operated? This had been too easy.
“You had better depart before my cohorts arrive,” the dragon said. “Until I instruct them, they will consider you and the spider fair game.”
“Uh, I—“ Then Dor had an idea. “Let me just check something, sir. A mere formality, but . . .” He addressed the paper he held. “Did you come from the King?”
“I did,” the paper replied.
“And the message you bear really is his message?”
“It is.”
“Your magic seems to endorse the message,” the dragon said. “I am satisfied. Why question it?”
“I’m just. . . cautious. I fear something could have gone wrong.”
The dragon considered. “Obviously you are not experienced with conspiracies and bureaucratic entanglements of the sort we encounter in the wilderness. Ask it which King.”
“Which King?” Dor repeated blankly.
“The Goblin King,” the paper answered.
Dor exchanged a dismayed glance with the dragon. “The Goblin King! Not King Roogna?”
“Not,” the paper agreed.
“That idiotic bird!” the dragon exploded, almost singeing Dor with his fiery breath. “You sent it to the King, without specifying which King, and the Goblin King must have been closer. I should have realized the response came too fast!”
“And naturally the Goblin King sought to mess us up,” Dor concluded. “Murphy’s curse did operate. A misunderstanding was possible, so—”
“Does this mean we have no deal?” the dragon inquired ominously through a ring of smoke.
“It means our deal has not been authenticated by King Roogna,” Dor said. “I’m sure the King would agree to it, but if we can’t get a message through—”
“Why would the Goblin King authenticate it? I have had some experience with goblins, and they are not nice creatures. They don’t even taste good. Surely the goblins should be more pleased to foul up our deal than to facilitate it. The goblins have no love for men, and not much for dragons.”
“That is strange,” Dor agreed. “He should have sent a note saying ‘deal denied’, so we couldn’t cooperate. Or else just held it without answering, so we would be stuck wailing.”
“Instead he gave exactly the response we wanted from the Human King, so we would not delay,” the dragon said. He puffed some more smoke, thoughtfully. “What mischief would occur if beasts started slaying men in great numbers, without approval?”
Dor considered that. “A great deal of mischief,” he decided. “It would become a matter of principle. The King can’t allow unauthorized slaying; he is opposed to anarchy. Such an act could possibly lead to war between the monsters and all the King’s men.”
“Which could result in internecine slaughter, leaving the goblins dominant on land,” the dragon concluded. “They already have considerable force. Those netherworld goblins are tough little brutes! I think your kind would have real trouble, were it not for the distraction the harpies pose to the goblins. The one thing those creatures do well is breed. There are now a great many of them.”
“Well, one man can slay five goblins,” Dor said. “And one dragon can slay fifty. But there are more than that number per man or dragon.”
“Um,” Dor agreed pensively.
“Do you know, I would have been fooled by that note, if you had not questioned the paper,” the dragon remarked. “I do not like being fooled.” This time it was not smoke but a ring of tire that he puffed. The thing wafted up the tunnel entrance, rotating, glimmering like a malignant eye.
“Neither do I,” Dor agreed, wishing he could puff fire.
“Would your King have any objection if a few goblins got incidentally chomped during the rampage?”
“I think not. But we’d better get another message to King Roogna.”
“While we allow the goblins to think they have fooled us into an act of interspecies war.”
Dor smiled grimly. “Have you another messenger —a more reliable one?”
“I have other messengers—but let us use your talent this time. We shall send a diamond from my nest to your King, along with the paper; he must return the diamond with his spoken reply. No lesser man would give up such a jewel, and no other but you could make it speak.”
“Terrific!” Dor exclaimed. “It is hard to imagine any goblin faking that message! You are a genius!”
“You praise me with faint damns,” the dragon growled.
It was almost dawn by the time Dor rejoined Jumper. Quickly they returned to the castle with their news.
Millie and the Zombie Master greeted them with joyed relief. “You must be the first to have our news,” the Magician said. “Millie the maid has done me the honor of agreeing to become my wife.”
“So the commitment has been made,” Jumper chittered.
“Congratulations,” Dor said, with highly mixed emotions. He was glad for the Zombie Master, who was a worthy Magician and a decent man. But what of himself?
Millie made green sashes for them all, including the spider, who settled for an envelope covering his abdomen. Then she fed them a breakfast of hominy from another plant she had discovered in the courtyard. The Zombie Master had worked all night making new zombies from the corpses the roc had found, so that the castle defenses were back to full strength.
The Zombie Master radiated a mood of restrained joy. He knew Millie would not live long, but at least he had snatched his meager share of paradise from what was available.
Millie seemed less elated, yet hardly upset. It was evident that she liked the Magician, and liked the life he offered her, and was being practical—yet there was the restraint born of Dor’s presence, and of his rejection of her. They all understood the situation, except for a couple of elements. Millie did not know how soon she would perish; neither Dor nor the Zombie Master knew how she would die, for she had never spoken of that to Dor in his own world. Also, none of them were certain how the coming campaign would turn out; maybe the aid of the zombies would not be enough to bring victory to King Roogna. Yet overall, Dor felt this was the best contentment they could achieve with what they had. He tried not to look at Millie’s delightful figure, because his body was too apt to respond.
I wish 1I were a man, he thought fiercely. As it was, how much difference was there between him and a zombie? His mind animated an otherwise largely defunct body. The Magician’s magic animated the zombies. But of course zombies did not notice the figures of women. They had no interest in sex.
Then what about Jonathan Zombie, in his own time? Why did he cleave to Millie, instead of resting quietly in some nice grave? If Millie’s sex appeal did not turn him on, what else motivated him? Did some zombies, after all, get lonely?
Well, if Dor got back to that world, and managed to restore Jonathan, he would inquire. There had to be something different about Jonathan, or Millie would have fled him centuries before, while she remained a ghost.
So many little mysteries, once he got on that tack! Maybe what Dor needed was not more answers, but fewer questions.
The Mundanes attacked again at dawn, this time rolling a huge wagon up to the moat. It had a projecting boom, tall enough to match the height of the outer wall and long enough to reach right across the moat. They could march their soldiers right across this to the castle! They must have worked all night, building it, and it was quite a threat.
Then the monsters struck. The lord of the jungle had really produced! He led the charge, galumphing from the deepest forest with a horrendous roar and a belch of flame that enveloped the wooden tower. Behind him came a griffin, a wyvera, a four-footed whale, several carnivorous rabbits, a pair of trolls, a thunderbird, a sliver cat, a hippogriff, a satyr, a winged horse, three hoopsnakes, a pantheon, a fire-drake, a monoceros, a double-headed eagle, a cyclops, a flight of barnacle geese, a chimera, and a number of creatures of less ordinary aspect that Dor could not identify in the rush. This seemed to be the age of monsters; in Dor’s own day, the dragons were more common and the others less so. Probably the fittest had survived the centuries better, and the dragons were the fittest of monsters, just as men were the fittest of humanoids and the tanglers were the fittest of predatory plants. Right now the Land of Xanth was still experimenting, producing many bizarre forms.
The Mundanes were no cowards, however, and they outnumbered the assorted monsters. They formed a new battle array to meet this onslaught, swordsmen to the fore, archers behind. Dor, Millie, Jumper, and the Zombie Master watched from the ramparts with gratified amazement as the battle swirled around the castle, leaving them out of it. Now and then a flying monster buzzed them, but sheered off when it spied their green sashes. The Dragon King seemed to have excellent discipline in his army! Dor was glad once more that he had been brought up to understand the importance of cooperation; the monsters were an invaluable asset
Yet was this not the result of his own action, rather than Millie’s? Would it turn out to be invalid in the end? Millie had persuaded the Zombie Master to help King Roogna, so that was valid—but if this help could only arrive in time through Dor’s agency, did it become invalid? It was so hard to know!
Right now, however, all he could do was hope Murphy was mistaken, meanwhile enjoying the battle. The Dragon King completed his charge to the burning wooden wagon tower, and chomped the boom in half with a single rearing bite. There was nothing quite like a dragon in combat! The Mundane archers rained arrows upon the polished scales, but the missiles bounced away without visible effect. The swordsmen slashed at the armored hide, but only blunted their blades. The dragon swept his great glittering tail about, knocking men off their feet and piling them in a brutal tangle of arms and legs. He swung his snout around the other way, burning another swath. Dor was glad he was not out there himself, trying to fight that dragon. There were wild stories about single men slaying large dragons in fair combat, but that was folklore. The fact was no single man was a match for even a small dragon, and no twenty men could match a large one. Anyone who doubted this had just to watch an engagement like this one, where fifty armed men in battle formation could not even wound the King of Dragons.
Meanwhile the other monsters were busy. The winged horse was rearing and stomping; the rabbits were gnawing into legs; the double-headed eagle was plucking eyeballs neatly from their sockets and swallowing them whole, the satyr was— Dor stared for a moment in amazement, then forced his gaze away. He had never imagined killing men that way. The more formidable monsters were laying about them with similar glee, reveling in an orgy of slaughter. For centuries they had restrained themselves from attacking men too freely, for men could be extremely ornery about vengeance. Now the monsters had license. Now, and perhaps never again.
The Mundanes, however, were tough. They had no magic of their own, but compensated by being extremely disciplined in combat and skilled with their weapons. Quickly realizing that they could neither prevail nor escape on the open battlefield, they fell back to natural and artificial defenses. The burning wagon made a good barricade, and next to it the moat made another. Mounds of dirt and debris had been formed by the dragon’s thrashing tail, and these made excellent cover. The archers, nestled behind such shelter, were scoring on the lesser monsters, bringing down the barnacle geese and rabbits and hurting the thunderbird and sliver cat. The swordsmen were mastering the trick of sliding their blades up under the scales of the armored creatures, penetrating to their vital organs. Perhaps a quarter of the Mundanes had perished in the initial clash, but now half the monsters were dead or injured, and the tide of battle was turning. Dor had never anticipated this. What phenomenal brutes men were! “Now we must assist our allies,” the Zombie Master said.
“Oh no you don’t!” Millie protested protectively. “You’ll get killed, and I haven’t even married you yet.”
“My life is complete, receiving such a caution from such as you,” the Magician murmured.
“Don’t make fun of me! I’m worried!”
“There was no fun intended,” he said seriously. “All my life I have longed for attention like this. Nevertheless, there is an obligation to acquit.”
“No!”
“Peace, my dear. Zombies cannot die.”
“Oh.” Her innocence became her yet.
Dor, hearing this brief dialogue, suffered again his bit of jealousy. Yet he recognized that Millie had found in the Magician as good a man as was available. The Zombie Master loved her, but loved honor too. He knew she was to die, yet was going to marry her. He had the kind of discipline Dor was striving to master. For the Zombie Master, there was no special conflict between love and honor; they merged.
The Magician sent out a zombie contingent, wearing green sashes. Both monsters and Mundanes were startled. But the monsters let the zombies pass without hindrance. The undead charged into the Mundane positions, picking up fallen weapons along the way and hacking with unsteady but gruesome conviction.
The Mundanes had come to fight zombies. Yet they were taken aback by this sally, and repulsed by the repulsiveness of the half-dead things. The living men overreacted, hacking violently at the things in their midst—and scoring on each other.
Then the monsters rallied and bore in again. The zombies had made the difference; the defensive positions of the Mundanes were overrun, and the carnage resumed.
But the monsters were tired now, and some were pausing to glut themselves on the bodies of slain Mundanes. The monsters had been great in ferocity, not number, and some were dead. The Mundanes still outnumbered them, and after their lapse with the zombies, their excellent fighting discipline reasserted itself. The tide of battle was turning again, despite the zombies’ efforts. There were too few of them to last long.
Then some wickedly smart Mundane caught on to the significance of the green sashes. He ripped one from a dismembered zombie and put it around himself. And of course the monsters did not attack him.
“Disaster!” Dor exclaimed, remembering Murphy. “In a moment they’ll all be wearing green!” He started for the front gate.”
“I will swing us down,” Jumper chittered. “It is faster.”
“But—“ Millie started, appalled. Dor experienced a flush of gratitude: she was solicitous of his welfare, too.
Juniper fastened a dragline to Dor’s waist. Dor jumped over the parapet. Jumper played out the line, letting him drop swiftly but carefully into the moat
Millie made a stifled scream, but Dor was all right. The water softened the impact, and the commotion outside was such that not even the moat-monster noticed him. He sloshed to land. Jumper bounded to ground, then skated on the surface of the water to make sure Dor was all right.
No one paid attention to them. They passed the griffin, who was busy disemboweling a Mundane; the creature glanced up, saw the sashes, and returned to its business. Dor and Jumper proceeded unmolested to the nearest green-sashed Mundane. The man was laying about him with vigor, slashing at the chimera, who was backing off uncertainly. The monster didn’t know whether it was legitimate to crunch this green-clad foe, however obnoxious the man became.
Dor had no scruples. He charged up, sword bared.
The Mundane saw him. “Come, friend—let’s get this dumb monster!” And Dor’s blade ran him through. The Mundane’s only reaction as he died was surprise.
“Okay, chimera—go to it!” Dor urged the monster. The chimera, its doubt resolved, returned to the attack against unsashed Mundanes.
Dor proceeded to the next green-sashed Mundane. Now a scruple caught up to him. He felt a twinge of guilt for what he was doing, until he reminded himself that it was the same thing the Mundanes were doing: masquerading as a friend. If they hadn’t started impersonating monster-exempt humans, they would not have been fooled by the real green-sashes. Dor was merely restoring the validity of the designations. So the scruple paused, then reluctantly retreated. A battlefield was not a fit home for scruples.
Jumper was an anomaly: he resembled a monster, yet wore the sash. A wyvern glanced at him, startled, then returned to the fray. Jumper looped silk around a sashed Mundane, chomped him neatly on the head with his chelicerae nippers, and went on. The spider was enjoying this; after all, these Mundanes had tortured him by pulling out four of his legs.
Thanks to Dor and Jumper’s activity, the monsters swung into a slow ascendancy again. The Mundanes did not stem the tide this time; they fell back toward their base camp, taking losses, pressed by monsters, zombies, and Dor and Jumper. The battle was almost over.
Then another smart Mundane popped up. Smart Mundanes were a nuisance! He ducked under Dor’s swing, came in close, and ripped Dor’s sash from his body. “Now fight!” he screamed.
Dor’s return thrust skewered him. But the damage was done. The sash was buried under the body, and the hippogriff was bearing down on him. There was now no way Dor could distinguish himself from the Mundanes.
The hippogriff had the forepart of a griffin and the hind part of a horse. That gave it excellent fighting ability, coupled with superior running ability. The eagle’s beak and claws stabbed viciously forward. Dor danced aside, then cut at a wing with his sword. He didn’t strike too hard, because he did not want to hurt or kill a creature on his own side, but he had to defend himself. It was the hippogriff’s turn to take evasive action. But then it closed its wings and bore in again, and Dor knew he could not survive the onslaught long. The monster was too big, too fast, too strong; it was wary of Dor’s sword, but able to dodge it. The hippogriff was tired, but so was Dor.
“Jumper!” Dor cried. But then he saw that Jumper was engaged with three unsashed Mundanes, and could not extricate himself, let alone come to Dor’s rescue. The four-footed whale rose up between them, opening its huge cetacean maw to engulf-gulp a Mundane; it incidentally blocked off Dor’s approach to Jumper. Now he had nowhere at all to go. Oh, this was terrible!
But the Zombie Master, high in the castle, was watching out for him. Millie’s fault scream came, and there was a spark of sunlight from her swirl of hair; then the Magician’s faint command: “Egor!” And the zombie ogre charged out of the castle, bearing a gargantuan club. He swept aside Mundanes and monsters alike, bearing down on Dor.
Until he encountered the land whale. This monster was simply too big to move, and it was not about to give way to an ogre, even a green-sashed zombie ogre, The whale did not attack; it just hulked. It had the head and tusks of a boar, and rows of spikes on its body, with powerful lion’s legs: a slow but formidable creature. The ogre had to make a detour around it— and in that critical period of delay, the hippogriff spread its wings, fanned a cloud of battle dust into Dor’s face so that he was momentarily blinded, and clawed swiftly at his sword, disarming him. Dor threw up his arms in a futile defensive gesture—
And found himself lifted high, unharmed. Startled, he blinked vision back into his watering eyes, getting the dust out, and discovered himself hooked on the long tip of the Dragon King’s tail. Fifty feet away, the dragon’s snout growled, emitting puffs of smoke.
“What’s he saying?” Dor demanded of a stone as he was being carried past.
“Better be more careful of your sash, Magician!” the stone translated.
The Dragon King had recognized Dor, and saved him. In a moment Dor was dumped beside the moat, out of the fray. The tail snaked back, to emerge with Jumper. “With your concurrence,” the Dragon roared, “I will personally slay a few sashed men. There are none here on your side, apart from the zombies, correct?”
“Correct!” Dor cried, thankful for the dragon’s perspicacity. The regular monsters might not know the difference, but the Dragon King obviously did.
“No wonder he is King,” Jumper chittered. The spider had lost a foot, but was otherwise intact, “We must get back inside the castle; the monsters will prevail.”
“Right. Should we call back Egor?”
“He is having such a good time; let him rampage.”
They re-entered the castle, where Millie was waiting with healing elixir. In a moment the spider’s foot was whole, and Dor’s many abrasions were gone.
Millie hugged Jumper briefly, turned to Dor, and refrained from making a similar gesture. After all, she was now betrothed to another man. They returned to the upper ledge to watch the conclusion of the battle.
In this installment, the monsters were mopping things up. The tough Mundanes became less tough as they perceived defeat looming, and finally they broke and fled. The monsters pursued, cutting them down without mercy. The vicinity of the castle was deserted, the ground strewn with the bodies of men and monsters, and with struggling pieces of zombies.
“Now I must work,” the Zombie Master said. “Dor, if you will supervise the carrying of bodies to my laboratory, I will render them into loyal zombies. It will require a few minutes and some effort for each, so you need not hurry—but the faster we perform, the stronger the zombies will be. Also, we shall need to march within a day, to reach King Roogna’s castle in time to be of service.”
Dor nodded agreement. He saw how tired the Magician looked, and remembered that he had spent all the prior night making new zombies. The man needed a rest! But that would have to wait. After all, Dor himself had had no more rest.
They organized it and got to work. Millie spotted the best corpses of man and animal, now so accustomed to the gore that she worked without even token screams. Dor carried the bodies to a staging area. Jumper attached lines and hauled the objects across the moat to the castle. They concentrated first on Mundanes. When a number of these had been animated, the new zombies took over the labor of transporting corpses, and the pace accelerated. Soon there was a backlog of bodies awaiting the Magician’s attention.
The Dragon King returned. He was spattered with blood, and several of his mirror-scales had been hacked off, but he was in fairly good condition. “That was some fun!” he growled. “There is not a man alive, here.” There was no flame when he spoke; he had used it all up for the nonce.
“Oh, let me give you some elixir!” Millie exclaimed. She sprinkled some on him, and the dragon was instantly restored to full health. Then she went to the other monsters straggling back, and restored them similarly.
“One could almost get to like a creature like that, human though she be,” the dragon said reflectively. “There is something about her—“
“The dead we shall reanimate as zombies, as promised,” Dor said quickly.
“No need. The survivors will consume the dead, as is our custom. We do not care to become zombies.”
“We have been taking the intact corpses. If you are satisfied to eat the dismembered ones—“
“They will do nicely.” And the monsters fell to their repast, crunching up bodies. It was a strange and grisly scene: dragon and griffin and serpent, ripping into corpses, while zombies carried other corpses around them in sepulchral silence, and the pretty maid Millie wandered amid it all sprinkling healing elixir.
“Where is Egor?” Jumper chittered.
Good question! There was no sight of the zombie ogre who had fought so valiantly to rescue them. They spread out, searching.
“You mean the ogre?” the Dragon King inquired, ripping the delicious guts out of a Mundane and smacking his long lips. “He got in a bit of trouble down by the Mundane camp, last I noted.”
They ran down to the deserted camp. There, in pieces, was Egor Ogre. The last surviving Mundanes had hacked him to quivering pieces.
“Maybe we can still help,” Dor said, his stomach roiling. He had become acclimatized to gore, but this was a friend! “Let’s collect all we can find of him, put it together, and sprinkle some elixir.”
They did this—and the ogre was restored, except for part of one hand and foot and some of his face they had not been able to locate. The zombie could no longer speak, and walked with a limp. But in his condition that was not too noticeable. They trekked back to the castle.
“Would you monsters care to join us at Castle Roogna?” Dor inquired. “I’m sure the King—the Man King—would welcome your help.”
“Fighting whom?” the Dragon King inquired, slurping a tasty intestine.
“Goblins and harpies, mostly.”
The dragon snorted a smoke helix. “Now I do have a gripe against the Goblin King, but let’s not lose our perspective. Killing men is fun; killing other monsters is treason. We cannot join you there.”
“Oh. Well, sir, we certainly thank you for—“
“Our pleasure, sir.” The dragon dipped a tooth into the body and brought out a splendid liver. “I haven’t eaten this well in fifty years. I’ll catch my death of a stomachache.” He slurped the liver down.
“Uh, yes,” Dor agreed. Liver had never been his favorite food, and after this he doubted that taste would change.
“Since we monsters will not be participating, but do have a grievance against the goblins and no liking for harpies, I feel free to make a comment,” the dragon said, fixing a bright eye on Dor. “This battle for the zombie castle has only been your rehearsal for the siege to come. The goblins are tougher than men. Prepare well—better than you did this time, or you are doomed.”
“Tougher than Mundanes? But goblins are so small—“
“Heed my warning. ‘Bye.” The Dragon King moved off in quest of another succulent corpse.
Dor shook his head, ill at ease. If the dragon thought the upcoming battle would be worse ...
They returned to the castle, where the Zombie Master was still hard at work. A new zombie army was shaping. The others helped all they could, but this was the Zombie Master’s labor, and his magic alone sufficed. He worked through the day and into the night, growing even more gaunt than usual—but the zombies continued to shuffle out of the laboratory and form ranks in the courtyard. There had been a great number of Mundanes!
They ate a restive supper of poached jumping beans and bubblejuice, with the beans jumping into the juice at odd moments. Millie forced some on the Magician, who continued working. Most of the bodies were gone from the surrounding landscape now; the monsters had gorged themselves and staggered off to their lairs with toothy smiles and a final fusillade of belches. A zombie detail was burying the uneaten, unusable fragments. The night settled into morbid silence.
Finally the last corpse was done. The Zombie Master sank into a sleep like a coma, and Millie hovered near him worriedly. Dor and Jumper slept too.