Trial by Combat
The block between Chestnut Street and Market Street in that part of Philly used to be called Independence Mall. Back in my day, it had been a public park, where people ate lunch and you could hire a horse and carriage to give you a ride around Old City, with the driver pointing out the sites and telling you history, some of which he even got right. It was also where, in a modern pavilion of glass and brick, tourists lined up to see the Liberty Bell.
But now, in this ruined shadow of a once amazing town, this park was nothing but scorched earth, and the pavilion had long since been destroyed, leaving little more than a jagged foundation.
As the Corpses marched us past it, Emily and Steve in the front—with Steve still being carried, fireman-style, across a deader’s back—and me and Maxi Me behind, I wondered vaguely what had become of the big old bell that used to be housed in that place.
So much lost …
Corpse Helene’s “bavarak” invitation had evidently gotten around quick. Market Street was filled with the dead. Hundreds of them. They’d set themselves up in a loose circle, maybe eighty or ninety feet across, a makeshift arena with lifeless, leering faces for walls.
As we neared, this wall parted to make a path for us, and we were led to the very center of the clearing. There, our escorts signaled for us to stop.
We waited.
Emily glanced back at me, the first time she’d done so since we’d left Independence Hall. She looked terrified, very much like the little girl I’d left behind in my Haven—two days and thirty years ago.
“It’s okay,” I said, mustering what I hoped was a brave smile.
At the same, exact instant, the man standing beside me said, “It’s okay,” and mustered what I’m sure he hoped was a brave smile.
Um … let’s not do that a lot.
“I think Steve’s passed out,” she said, wringing her hands.
Maxi Me nodded grimly.
The rain suddenly worsened, becoming a cold, steady downpour that draped a gray curtain over the already dark city night. The only illumination came from flashlights, all held by Corpses occupying the front line of the surrounding horde. It didn’t do much to chase back the shadows.
Around us, the deaders went suddenly still. A moment later, our guards made watchful bows as the wall of the dead parted again, this time to admit Corpse Helene and her entourage, which included Dead Toady Guy.
The new Queen of the Dead had evidently taken the time to change her clothes, having traded the sundress for jeans and a sweater. Her host body, however, was the same late Type Two as before, bloating and purple. I didn’t look at her Mask; I knew what I’d see.
Why bother changing, when whatever you wear’s just gonna get soaked in this rain?
But Corpses, especially Royals, were weird like that.
“Malum!” Corpse Helene declared the moment she’d stepped into the center of the arena. “Today we witness the first ever bavarak conducted on this world that has been the cause of such misery and dishonor for our people. Today, a man and boy will face their death at the hands of six of your brethren, which I have personally chosen.”
She made a sweeping backward gesture and, from the direction she’d just come, six Corpses marched into view, three males and three females.
All were big, muscular, and surprisingly fresh. A couple of the cadavers I even recognized. Their bodies had been hanging from meat hooks in the cellar of Independence Hall.
Maxi Me and I were going to be facing six deaders in “shinny” new hosts.
Not good.
The six of them spread out, moving stiffly on legs that had to still be a little tight from their deep freeze. There might be an advantage there.
They took up positions in a half circle, facing William and me. There they stood, some grinning, some somber, but all of them expectant and tense with barely contained violence. Like Dobermans on short leashes.
Corpse Helene declared, “But before we begin, so that the contest can be as captivating as possible, I will now offer aid to our prisoners!” She approached William, who tried to back away, only to bump into our unmoving guards. Grinning at his reaction, the new Queen took the Anchor Shard from around her neck.
“You’re injured,” she told him. “And you’re weary. This will help with both. Hold him still.”
Two guards locked their dead fists around William’s upper arms, keeping him in place.
Then Corpse Helene touched the Anchor Shard to his forehead.
And healed him.
The chief’s bruises melted away. His cuts closed and disappeared. Even the slump to his shoulders seemed to ease. “There,” she said, sounding satisfied. “Now perhaps your life will last thirty whole seconds once fighting begins, instead of ten or fifteen.”
William didn’t thank her.
Corpse Helene came to me next and, while I wasn’t as hurt as my future self, she touched the shard to my forehead anyway. Almost instantly, I felt strange yet familiar energy flood my body. The bite I’d received back in CHOP disappeared, and the cut I’d gotten from Amy’s blade healed instantly. At the same time, my exhaustion receded, replaced by new strength.
When she pulled the Anchor Shard back, I said to her bitterly, “That was a mistake.”
“We shall see,” she replied.
“Do Steve now,” I said. “Heal him. He needs it way more than either of us.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. It’s strange when they shrug. “Why would I? Professor Moscova isn’t fighting in this bavarak.”
I knew better than to beg. “If he dies, we won’t give you as good a show.”
“Really? Even with your sister’s life still in the balance?”
When I didn’t have a reply to that, the Queen laughed and stepped away.
“Release them,” she told the guards. “And join the multitude. Take the woman and the injured professor with you, but keep them at the front. I want them to see what happens.”
As our Corpse escorts hurried to obey, Emily surged suddenly forward, reaching for both William and me. “Don’t do this!” she begged us. “You can’t win!”
Honestly, it was a pretty pointless thing to say. I mean, it’s not like we could have just backed out even if we’d wanted to.
“Don’t count us out, yet, Em,” Maxi Me told her.
The deaders dragged her back.
And the chief and I turned to face the six Corpse champions.
“His sword,” I said to the new Queen. “And my pocketknife.”
“Of course,” she replied, gesturing to Dead Toady Guy, who came immediately forward. In his hands were Vader and my golden pocketknife. These he passed out to William and me, his expression a horror mask of hungry anticipation. William took the wakizashi from its sheath and held it in a firm, two-handed grip. His form looked solid.
I wasn’t very good with a sword.
But apparently someday, I’d get better.
Meanwhile, I hit the 2 and 3 buttons on my knife, popping the Taser and five-inch blade. It wasn’t as good as a sword, but it was all I had.
Unless—
Corpse Helene retreated to the edge of the arena, with her guards and her toady surrounding her.
“Now!” she shouted.
And, just like that, the bavarak began.
As the six Corpses advanced on us, Maxi Me and I immediately closed ranks, putting our backs against one another and pointing our weapons outwards. We did it without thinking, the synchronized tactic so automatic that I didn’t even really notice it until after it happened. Then, in a voice tight with tension, I heard the chief whisper, more to himself than to me, “Same brain …”
The first of the Corpses attacked, shying away from the sword and coming at me instead. He was one of the males, and he swung his arm with the speed and force of a Major League Baseball bat. I saw it coming and ducked, feeling his fist tousle my hair. Then I jammed my Taser into his armpit.
As he stiffened, I whirled to my right. At the same instant, Maxi Me whirled to his left, which turned us—still back to back—in a tight circle. Once our tiny circle fully rotated, William raised his sword and smoothly removed the deader’s head.
One down.
The surrounding horde, which had been cheering in that grunt-like way of theirs, suddenly went silent.
Chew on that awhile, wormbags!
The other five closed in around us. One of them, a particularly big male, seemed to take charge, motioning for the others to wait for an opportunity. As the seconds ticked by, the chief and I kept rotating, often changing direction on a dime. It was like I knew what he was going to do before he did it, maybe because, if I’d been him, it’s what I would have done.
I’m watching my own back.
Somehow, I had become a single warrior with two heads, two pairs of eyes, and four arms.
And, despite everything that was happening and was going to happen before this long, terrible night was over—it was cool!
With a gesture from their leader, two of the females came at us, picking their moment. One of them grabbed my wrist, rendering my Taser useless. She squeezed viciously, her ragged black nails digging into my skin, the touch of her flesh almost painfully cold. Crying out, I tilted my head to the right, trusting William to help me. Sure enough, a split second later, Maxi Me thrust Vader back over his shoulder, past my ear, and right through the Corpse’s temple.
The creature let out a sound almost like a sigh.
Then she released me and dropped.
But the distraction had worked. With his sword up over his shoulder that way, William had exposed his flank, and the other female lunged at once, driving a dead fist into his midsection and doubling him over. A second later, two more of them dashed forward, both of them reaching for me.
I managed to stab one in the eye and give the other just the right kind of kick to the knee. The first one staggered back, half-blinded but not stopped. The other tripped and fell sideways, not from pain, but from a broken kneecap that could no longer hold his weight.
Then the female who had hit William clutched me from behind, wrapping icy hands around my head, squeezing brutally. My skull fairly exploded with pain, almost making me drop the pocketknife.
Almost.
I threw back an elbow, putting all of my weight behind it, striking her in the face and managing to loosen the grip of one of her hands. By then, William had recovered enough to come up behind her, wrap an arm around her thin blue neck and twist.
The deader’s neck snapped with a loud crack.
Three down.
“You okay?” I asked him, a little breathlessly. Half my face felt numb.
“Duck,” he said.
I ducked.
Vader flashed past me a second time and caught the remaining female in her remaining eye, blinding her completely. With a frustrated moan, the monster reached for him, but he pulled back the sword, pivoted, and neatly decapitated her.
That left just two—both males. One of them was the leader, who looked a lot less confident than he had thirty seconds ago. I risked a glance toward the sidelines, where Emily had her hands over her mouth and Steve sat in a semi-conscious lump on the rain-soaked tarmac.
With a cry of rage, the last two deaders abandoned all strategy and came at us from opposite directions, probably intending to crush us between them, even if it cost them their hosts. After all, they could always get other hosts. But the price of losing this bavarak was likely to be their very lives.
I didn’t have to tell William to go left and he didn’t have to tell me to go right. We just did it. I went low, rolled under the Corpse leader’s reaching arms, and zapped him in the back of the leg.
He convulsed and dropped face first onto the street, breaking his nose with a sickening wet crunch. Getting my feet under me, I jumped on his back and jammed the blade of my pocketknife deep into the base of his skull.
Five down.
The last of the Corpses, however, had tackled Maxi Me, pinning his sword arm under one heavy boot, while his hand found William’s throat. I sprinted toward them, unable to use my Taser without zapping the chief along with the deader. But Number Six saw me coming and I ended up running straight into a well-timed sucker punch that put me on my back and sent my head spinning.
Somewhere nearby, Emily cried out a warning.
I turned my head and spotted a seventh Corpse, sent in by the furious Queen. He was another male, even bigger than the guy I’d just put down, and he clearly meant to trample me flat.
That’s cheating, my stunned mind thought bitterly.
Why am I surprised?
Frantically, I looked back at Maxi Me, who raised his left hand, the empty one that his attacker wasn’t pinning. The chief’s face had gone deep purple, his eyes bulging out of their sockets from the pressure on this neck. But the hand he held up remained rock steady.
Without a moment’s thought, I threw him my pocketknife.
He caught it, flipped it over expertly in his hand, and jammed the blade into the Corpse’s temple. Then, as the dead guy’s grip loosened, his center of gravity shifted, and William’s arm got free. Taking instant advantage, my older self tossed Vader to me.
I snatched the sword out of the air, spun on my heel, and lopped the seventh deader’s head right off his shoulders.
Both of the remaining attackers fell in heaps onto the wet tarmac.
Done.
Slowly, William climbed to his feet and came to stand beside me. He was coughing dryly, but the normal color had thankfully returned to his face.
“We win,” he told Corpse Helene.
For several mile-long seconds, she stared at him—at us. All around, the deaders were silent statues. And around them, the city itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then the new Queen began to applaud, slapping the palms of her stolen hands together in a steady rhythm. One second. Clap. Another second. Clap.
She’s slow-clapping us.
That can’t be good.
Trust a Corpse to make applause sound that sarcastic.
“You promised to let us go!” I exclaimed.
Corpse Helene smiled, still clapping.
“I lied,” she said.