by Cora Buhlert
in Issue 138, July 2023
It seems I’ve barely rested at all when the call comes… again.
Rise and shine, sunshine. Time for battle, time for war, time to smite the enemy and hear the lamentations of their women… if I could still hear properly, that is. ‘Cause hearing doesn’t work very well, when you’re essentially a skeleton.
For that’s exactly what I am these days: A skeleton.
I wasn’t always a skeleton, of course. Like you, I was a man once, a warrior named Grimwald the Mighty. Okay, so I added “the Mighty” bit myself, but I was still a respected mercenary, adept with sword and mace, bow and spear. I fought in all the big campaigns, the Siege of the Burning Lands, the War of Impending Doom, the Battle of Eternal Regrets, the Campaign of the False King. You name it, I was there.
Until my luck ran out during the assault on the Fortress of Clahud. Arrow through the eye, that was the end. A priest gave me the last rites, then they buried me as I’d lived, on the battlefield and in full armour with all my weapons.
That should have been it. My earthly life had come to an end, while my spirit enjoyed its eternal reward in the form of an endless supply of wine, women, singing and feasting in the Great Beyond. At least, that was the theory.
For in practice, I suddenly found myself wrenched from my resting place, literally torn from the soil by some unholy spell cast by Unvaldor the necromancer. Resistance was futile, all I could do was go forth and fight, fight on behalf of Unvaldor, compelled onwards by his will.
And so I fought the forces of King Bodobert alongside an army of undead warriors like myself. Not that Unvaldor felt any need to tell us that we were fighting the forces of King Bodobert – no, I recognised them by their banners and coats of arms.
The first time, I didn’t even mind. Wine, women, singing and feasting are all nice and fun, but sometimes a man just wants some action, wants to hear the clashing of swords and smell the scent of blood-drenched soil, even if he’s dead. And as one of Unvaldor’s army of the dead, I certainly got more than my share of action, clashing swords and blood-drenched soil. Besides, King Bodobert had always been an arrogant jerk and a miser who didn’t pay his mercenaries, so I was only too happy to help smite his forces.
But then it happened again and again. For Unvaldor kept raising me and my undead brethren to fight his battles, an endless chain of battles, all part of his quest to become supreme ruler of all creation.
What had once been a welcome respite from the boredom of the Great Beyond quickly became tedious. Just fight, smite, kill, rinse and repeat, without even the little joys – a good jug of ale or a cup of wine, a big chunk of meat and the attentions of a willing woman – that make the life of a warrior bearable.
Worse, my body kept rotting and deteriorating. The first time, Unvaldor raised me I still had flesh and skin and hair. Now they’ve all rotted away, leaving me nothing but a skeleton. My armour – made for a powerful body of flesh and muscles – no longer fits. If a sword strike breaks a bone, it stays broken. If someone’s hand or arm or leg is chopped off, it stays that way.
And while I had no issues fighting that arrogant miser King Bodobert and his forces, Unvaldor has since sent us against other noblemen and their armies. I’ve been forced to fight people I knew in life, people I liked, people I fought alongside, people who were like brothers to me.
I can’t even refuse, because my body is no longer my own. It belongs to Unvaldor now, animated by his spell and obeying only his will. I don’t get a say in anything anymore.
I’m just so sick of it all. Always battling, always fighting, barely a moment of rest. And unlike when I was still alive, I don’t even get paid for this crap.
All I want is to rest and enjoy the eternal reward I was promised. All I want is to drink and feast and sing with the others who died a warrior’s death and enjoy the attention of the maidens of the Great Beyond. Or failing that, just lie in my grave and rot away in peace. Is that really too much to ask?
It seems so, for once again I claw my way out of my grave, long worn shallow by rising from it so often. I take up my sword, long gone rusty, my shield and my mace to fight yet another battle on behalf of Unvaldor.
Through the chaos of the battle I spot him in his midnight black robes, eyes glowing like twin coals straight from the underworld. If only I could put my bony hands around his neck and squeeze the life out of him. Alas, the same spell that raised me and compels me to fight forbids me from turning against my tormentor.
But though there is nothing I can do to stop Unvaldor, that doesn’t mean that no one else can’t do anything either. For the knight I am currently fighting is still alive and not under Unvaldor’s spell. A well-aimed arrow or spear and Unvaldor is history and I and my undead brethren are finally free.
I gesticulate and point at the necromancer in his robes, mimicking what I want the knight to do, but my opponent does not understand. He just keeps attacking me, until I am forced to bash out his brains with my mace. See how you like joining our ranks, idiot. Maybe now you’ll get it. Only that it will be too late for you, just as it is too late for me.
I battle and dispatch two more opponents who just wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t understand. And here comes the next one, a knight in splendid gilded armour. I sigh – or at least I would, if I still could – and raise my rusty blade.
The knight advances, his armour dazzling bright in the rays of the sinking sun. His surcoat flutters in the wind, a golden starburst embroidered on red silk.
I freeze in mid movement. For I know this knight. His name is Glorindel the Glorious and we were friends, once upon a long time ago. We shared many a cup of wine, sang many a song and wooed many a maiden, back I was still a living man.
I lower my sword. I don’t want to fight Glorindel, don’t want to slay him, don’t want to condemn him to the endless nightmare of death without rest and battles without end. Let him split my skull, chop off my arms and legs. Maybe then I will no longer be of any use to Unvaldor and this horror will end at last.
Glorindel moves towards me, sword raised high above his head. If only I could make him see, could make him understand. If only he would recognise me, then he would listen. But he won’t recognise me, not as the rotting pile of cursed bones that I am now.
Nonetheless, I have to try. So I extend my sword and my shield towards him – not as a threat, but in a gesture of surrender – hoping that he will recognise the sign of the bear on my battered shield and the soaring eagle etched into the blade of my rusty sword.
Glorindel still has his own sword raised, but he hesitates to deal the blow that would split my rotting skull. He frowns, clearly puzzled, and then recognition lights up the eyes behind his visor.
“That shield, that sword… Grimwald, is that truly you, old friend?”
I nod, relieved, and feel a vertebra creaking in response.
“What happened to you? I though you were enjoying your eternal reward in the Great Beyond, frolicking with the maidens and drinking wine by the pitcher.”
“Unvaldor happened,” I try to say, but all that comes out of my mouth is “Ug-ug”.
So I gesticulate, pointing my bony finger at the necromancer in his midnight black robe, and mimic chopping off his head.
Glorindel understands, praised be the gods.
“You mean him? Take out the sorcerer and this nightmare will be over?”
I nod and try to smile, but only manage a toothy grimace.
“All right then.”
Glorindel draws a dagger, aims and hurls it straight at Unvaldor, piercing his eye just as an arrow once pierced mine all those battles ago.
The last thing I see is Unvaldor going down. All around me, undead warriors fall, just piles of inanimate bones again, while living knights stand blinking and confused.
Somewhere in the distance, Glorindel’s voice says, “Good bye, old friend. Leave some of the wine and the maidens for me.”
Then my spirit soars off into the Great Beyond for its eternal reward, while my weary bones collapse and sink back into the earth.
At last, I can rest.
© July 2023, Cora Buhlert
Cora Buhlert is a writer, teacher, and translator from Germany. She is the winner of the 2022 Hugo for Best Fan Writer. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Whetstone, Simultaneous Times, newleaf magazine, Wyngraf, previously in Swords & Sorcery, and in several anthologies.