Dead Man's Chest -- Spooky Pirate Fun -- COMPLETE! Nov 3/06
- Thread starter barsoomcore
- Start date
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Yes, you can have more. But wait your turn. "Barsoom Tales" gets the next cookie.
trilobite -- Hey, there! No worries -- MVC utterly failed to break out into song. This campaign has ended, actually. It ran for eight games and was an absolute hoot. Thanks for the inspiration.
For those who don't know, the whole thing was trilobite's idea in the first place. I'd gotten a copy of Skull & Bones and didn't really know what to do when he posted a campaign idea so cool I immediately stole it. So thanks for that.
led: Show tunes are always a killer for me. What can I say? I long ago embraced my inner drag queen.
trilobite -- Hey, there! No worries -- MVC utterly failed to break out into song. This campaign has ended, actually. It ran for eight games and was an absolute hoot. Thanks for the inspiration.
For those who don't know, the whole thing was trilobite's idea in the first place. I'd gotten a copy of Skull & Bones and didn't really know what to do when he posted a campaign idea so cool I immediately stole it. So thanks for that.
led: Show tunes are always a killer for me. What can I say? I long ago embraced my inner drag queen.
BSF
Explorer
barsoomcore said:
But I haven't started the Barsoom Tales Story Hour yet. (Yeah, I know, the response will be "go read it." I just need to set aside good chunks of time to read your stuff. Some stuff I don't mind being interrupted while reading. Other stuff, I do mind.) If I promised to put in a good word with Mary Poppins about you, would you update this one sooner?
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Wait.
You have pull with the Nanny? Hm. She IS practically perfect in every way.
Throw in a golden retriever puppy and a couple of show tunes and we might have ourselves a deal...
You have pull with the Nanny? Hm. She IS practically perfect in every way.
Throw in a golden retriever puppy and a couple of show tunes and we might have ourselves a deal...
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Black nodded in agreement with Ana's comment.
"Quite right, miss. Time to go."
He gestured to a door and Dras, without sparing a second glance downstairs, yanked it open and charged through, followed by Ana and Quinn. Black stayed for just a second longer, watching the foul creatures begin tearing apart the balcony, and leapt through the doorway just as the planks beneath him gave way.
Behind him, wretched creatures dripping seawater moaned and struggled up the pile of collapsed lumber.
Black shut the door, which now stood above eight feet of blank wall. He turned to find his terrified friends in a narrow hall that ran along the back of the house, with narrow windows overlooking the rear garden. More shapes shambled up from the surf as they watched. Quinn pointed to a rowboat moored to a decrepit pier.
"We could row to Barbuda. We'd be sheltered by this island the whole way, those bastards on the the Ascot Marine would never see us."
Dras considered.
"Well, maybe on a day when the island isn't crawling with monsters."
Black opened the next door down the hallway, Ana following him closely. They found a study or an office, nicely furnished with a wide desk and comfortable chairs. And three dead bodies. A letter lay unopened on the table, next to a notebook. Black grabbed both and continued down the hallway. He turned back to see Dras and Quinn still standing by the door they'd entered the hallway by, discussing how to get the rowboat over to the island of Barbuda.
"Gentlemen? I believe those things out there are capable of climbing walls."
Processing the information took a second. Dras was first to speed down the hall to where Black and Ana stood waiting. Around the corner they could see a heavy oaken door, set in a curved stone wall.
Black nodded.
"This must be the entrance to the bell tower. Good, solid construction."
The door they'd come through began to shudder behind them under heavy impacts. Dras pushed open the oak door to the tower.
"I hope it's solid enough."
Inside they found a storeroom with racks of elderly muskets but sadly, no gunpowder. Rustling behind some barrels Quinn came up with a rusty cutlass, then helped Dras and Black drag some of the heavier stores in front of the door. Dras gestured to the staircase that led up out of the storeroom.
"Ana, can you see if there's any of those things upstairs? Just scream, we'll know what it means."
The island girl nodded and made her cautious way up the stairs.
There was no scream. Dras frowned.
"Did you hear a thump?"
Quinn and Black shook their heads.
"Didn't hear a thing."
"Quiet. Those things are looking for us."
"I think I heard a thump."
"Quiet."
The three looked at each other, looked at the stairs where Ana had disappeared, looked at the door braced with several hundred pounds of dry goods, and looked at each other again.
And all jumped at a sudden pounding on the door.
They sprinted for the stairs. Dras had to leap aside at the top of the steps, however, to avoid stepping on Ana's limp body. She'd fallen to the floor, but showed no signs of injury. Dras looked up at the others, to see them staring across the room and looking ill. The youth started to turn to see what they were looking at, but stopped.
Standing up slowly, turned away from the far wall, Dras asked carefully, "What is it?"
Looking past his shoulder, Black could only grunt. The big Englishman started to sink to his knees. Dras felt a very real chill. Quinn wasn't faring much better but managed to hiss, "The skull... on the shelf... skull... cover it..."
Dras grabbed Back's hankerchief and backed up until finding the far wall. Covering one hand with the hankerchief, the mulatto reached up and found a shelf, and sitting on that, something large, heavy, and very smooth. The contact through the hankerchief made the youth's skin crawl and with a quick motion, the cloth was wrapped around the thing and it was lowered to the floor.
The chill in the room immediately subsided. A sack of apples lay next to Dras and the cloth-wrapped object slipped into it easily, and everyone stood up.
"That was odd."
Black was about to say more, but the sudden pounding and crashing from below galvanized everyone into action, and they leapt for the next staircase, scrambling upwards even as they heard the door below begin breaking open.
"What are we going to do? Those things aren't stopping!"
Dras tried not to scream, lugging the apple sack as they all sprinted up and emerged onto the top floor of the belltower, an open space topped with a conical roof, where a massive brass bell hung. On all sides they could see the dark ocean, breakers ghosting faintly off the distant shore of Barbuda. The moon, nearly full, hung blindingly white and huge in the night sky, the shimmering trail of its reflection leading southeast towards the dark mass of the larger island. Black looked around in all directions. There was no sign of help.
And below, they could hear the door giving way. Horrible, moaning voices cried up from the darkness.
Black started reloading his pistol. Quinn and Dras immediately followed suit. Ana looked down.
Nearly forty feet below, the peaked roof of the house lay against the wall of the tower. The roof looked unstable and tiles were missing all over. She immediately began knotting a rope around one of the pillars supporting both the roof and the great bell. Down in the garden she could see slouched figures shuffling unsteadily, their misshapen forms sending a shudder of revulsion up her back. She recalled the terrible images she'd seen as that crystal skull had bored into her mind.
Feathers shook, rattling with dry menace. The obsidian blade glinted with black radiance. Breath hissed out.
"Lel... Za... Bol..."
"They're coming."
Unsteady footsteps sounded on the stairs below. Dras and Quinn peered down, waiting with tense faces, then both pointed their guns and fired almost simultaneously. Something tumbled and crashed, but more footsteps came rumbling upwards. The two sailors backed away from the stairs, stuffing their pistols into their belts and transferring their swords to their right hands. Black held his first pistol steady and fired, then switched guns in his hands and fired the second.
The reports were echoing back from the rocky peaks of the island as undead creatures swarmed up the stairs. Ana drew her knife, standing with her back to the tower edge as the other three struggled to drive the rotting, brine-soaked horrors back down. She could hear Quinn swearing steadily, directing heavy chops with his cutlass. Bony feet clattered on the wooden floor of the bell tower as the monsters pressed forward, driving Quinn around one side of the bell and Dras and Black the other.
For each corpse they managed to cut down, another two seemed to clamber up to join the struggle. From all across the island the small band could hear moaning cries as more and more of the foul creatures began heading to the tower.
"There's too many of them!" shouted Dras, trying to use Father's fine rapier as a chopping weapon and having very little success. Claws grabbed at the youth's shirt, tore fabric and cut flesh. Dras screamed, high-pitched and terrified.
Black grunted and pushed the slender mulatto behind him, facing the oncoming creatures alone. He took a dirk in his left hand and charged into the press, using his fists and knees as much as his blades, knocking the things down and breaking them apart any way he could.
Quinn drove his opponents back for a second and whirled, panting wildly, to find Ana just behind him. He looked up and noticed the beam and heavy ropes supporting the massive brass bell. Inspiration struck.
"Get up on the wall! On the window ledge, get up on the ledge!"
Yelling, he scrambled up the pillar and balanced out along the beam to where the ropes wound around the thick wood. He raised his cutlass and began chopping the cable.
Dras realised what he was doing and leapt up onto the low ledge that formed the wall of this topmost tower floor. The wall was perhaps eight inches thick, dropping off to the ground far below.
Cable parted beneath Quinn's frantic cuts. Black, still fighting madly, looked up as the bell began to tilt. He looked down at the flimsy wooden planks that formed the floor of this room, and struggled to free himself from the battle, backing towards where Dras stood balancing on the edge.
Ana had clambered up onto the edge and stood clutching a pillar for support. She saw the undead creatures, unaware of Quinn's efforts, turn to her and start forward. She had to let go of the pillar, back away, but it was so far down on the other side. Ana sank to her hands and knees, crawling backwards along the curve of the tower wall, her eyes locked on the pillar she was slowly moving away from.
Not as slowly as those horrible creatures were approaching her. She couldn't bring herself to look at them any more than she could bring herself to look down to her right where the weathered roof tiles of the house waited for her to lose her grip.
Dras frantically reloaded and fired right past Black's head, blowing a kelp-festooned skull to pieces. Black backed into the ledge and hopped up next to Dras. They both looked back and forth between the mass of creatures pressing forward and Quinn's grunting efforts atop the beam.
Rope snapped and the bell clanged once, tearing at the remaining wraps. One last powerful chop and the cables parted and with a terrific clang, the bell plunged downwards.
Straight through the floor.
And the next floor.
And the next floor.
And the next floor.
Taking nearly all the horrible creatures with it into darkness.
Quinn stared straight down what had suddenly become a very large, very tall chimney, filled with dust and debris that rose toward him in a lazy cloud. He yelled in triumph.
"Ha! Let's see them come after us now!"
Dras and Black, perched on a narrow ledge that now had a terrifying drop on either side, looked at each other and tried not to sigh in relief.
Ana, struggling to escape the one zombi that had avoided plunging after the falling bell, screamed once as she fell off the outside of the tower.
"Quite right, miss. Time to go."
He gestured to a door and Dras, without sparing a second glance downstairs, yanked it open and charged through, followed by Ana and Quinn. Black stayed for just a second longer, watching the foul creatures begin tearing apart the balcony, and leapt through the doorway just as the planks beneath him gave way.
Behind him, wretched creatures dripping seawater moaned and struggled up the pile of collapsed lumber.
Black shut the door, which now stood above eight feet of blank wall. He turned to find his terrified friends in a narrow hall that ran along the back of the house, with narrow windows overlooking the rear garden. More shapes shambled up from the surf as they watched. Quinn pointed to a rowboat moored to a decrepit pier.
"We could row to Barbuda. We'd be sheltered by this island the whole way, those bastards on the the Ascot Marine would never see us."
Dras considered.
"Well, maybe on a day when the island isn't crawling with monsters."
Black opened the next door down the hallway, Ana following him closely. They found a study or an office, nicely furnished with a wide desk and comfortable chairs. And three dead bodies. A letter lay unopened on the table, next to a notebook. Black grabbed both and continued down the hallway. He turned back to see Dras and Quinn still standing by the door they'd entered the hallway by, discussing how to get the rowboat over to the island of Barbuda.
"Gentlemen? I believe those things out there are capable of climbing walls."
Processing the information took a second. Dras was first to speed down the hall to where Black and Ana stood waiting. Around the corner they could see a heavy oaken door, set in a curved stone wall.
Black nodded.
"This must be the entrance to the bell tower. Good, solid construction."
The door they'd come through began to shudder behind them under heavy impacts. Dras pushed open the oak door to the tower.
"I hope it's solid enough."
Inside they found a storeroom with racks of elderly muskets but sadly, no gunpowder. Rustling behind some barrels Quinn came up with a rusty cutlass, then helped Dras and Black drag some of the heavier stores in front of the door. Dras gestured to the staircase that led up out of the storeroom.
"Ana, can you see if there's any of those things upstairs? Just scream, we'll know what it means."
The island girl nodded and made her cautious way up the stairs.
There was no scream. Dras frowned.
"Did you hear a thump?"
Quinn and Black shook their heads.
"Didn't hear a thing."
"Quiet. Those things are looking for us."
"I think I heard a thump."
"Quiet."
The three looked at each other, looked at the stairs where Ana had disappeared, looked at the door braced with several hundred pounds of dry goods, and looked at each other again.
And all jumped at a sudden pounding on the door.
They sprinted for the stairs. Dras had to leap aside at the top of the steps, however, to avoid stepping on Ana's limp body. She'd fallen to the floor, but showed no signs of injury. Dras looked up at the others, to see them staring across the room and looking ill. The youth started to turn to see what they were looking at, but stopped.
Standing up slowly, turned away from the far wall, Dras asked carefully, "What is it?"
Looking past his shoulder, Black could only grunt. The big Englishman started to sink to his knees. Dras felt a very real chill. Quinn wasn't faring much better but managed to hiss, "The skull... on the shelf... skull... cover it..."
Dras grabbed Back's hankerchief and backed up until finding the far wall. Covering one hand with the hankerchief, the mulatto reached up and found a shelf, and sitting on that, something large, heavy, and very smooth. The contact through the hankerchief made the youth's skin crawl and with a quick motion, the cloth was wrapped around the thing and it was lowered to the floor.
The chill in the room immediately subsided. A sack of apples lay next to Dras and the cloth-wrapped object slipped into it easily, and everyone stood up.
"That was odd."
Black was about to say more, but the sudden pounding and crashing from below galvanized everyone into action, and they leapt for the next staircase, scrambling upwards even as they heard the door below begin breaking open.
"What are we going to do? Those things aren't stopping!"
Dras tried not to scream, lugging the apple sack as they all sprinted up and emerged onto the top floor of the belltower, an open space topped with a conical roof, where a massive brass bell hung. On all sides they could see the dark ocean, breakers ghosting faintly off the distant shore of Barbuda. The moon, nearly full, hung blindingly white and huge in the night sky, the shimmering trail of its reflection leading southeast towards the dark mass of the larger island. Black looked around in all directions. There was no sign of help.
And below, they could hear the door giving way. Horrible, moaning voices cried up from the darkness.
Black started reloading his pistol. Quinn and Dras immediately followed suit. Ana looked down.
Nearly forty feet below, the peaked roof of the house lay against the wall of the tower. The roof looked unstable and tiles were missing all over. She immediately began knotting a rope around one of the pillars supporting both the roof and the great bell. Down in the garden she could see slouched figures shuffling unsteadily, their misshapen forms sending a shudder of revulsion up her back. She recalled the terrible images she'd seen as that crystal skull had bored into her mind.
Feathers shook, rattling with dry menace. The obsidian blade glinted with black radiance. Breath hissed out.
"Lel... Za... Bol..."
"They're coming."
Unsteady footsteps sounded on the stairs below. Dras and Quinn peered down, waiting with tense faces, then both pointed their guns and fired almost simultaneously. Something tumbled and crashed, but more footsteps came rumbling upwards. The two sailors backed away from the stairs, stuffing their pistols into their belts and transferring their swords to their right hands. Black held his first pistol steady and fired, then switched guns in his hands and fired the second.
The reports were echoing back from the rocky peaks of the island as undead creatures swarmed up the stairs. Ana drew her knife, standing with her back to the tower edge as the other three struggled to drive the rotting, brine-soaked horrors back down. She could hear Quinn swearing steadily, directing heavy chops with his cutlass. Bony feet clattered on the wooden floor of the bell tower as the monsters pressed forward, driving Quinn around one side of the bell and Dras and Black the other.
For each corpse they managed to cut down, another two seemed to clamber up to join the struggle. From all across the island the small band could hear moaning cries as more and more of the foul creatures began heading to the tower.
"There's too many of them!" shouted Dras, trying to use Father's fine rapier as a chopping weapon and having very little success. Claws grabbed at the youth's shirt, tore fabric and cut flesh. Dras screamed, high-pitched and terrified.
Black grunted and pushed the slender mulatto behind him, facing the oncoming creatures alone. He took a dirk in his left hand and charged into the press, using his fists and knees as much as his blades, knocking the things down and breaking them apart any way he could.
Quinn drove his opponents back for a second and whirled, panting wildly, to find Ana just behind him. He looked up and noticed the beam and heavy ropes supporting the massive brass bell. Inspiration struck.
"Get up on the wall! On the window ledge, get up on the ledge!"
Yelling, he scrambled up the pillar and balanced out along the beam to where the ropes wound around the thick wood. He raised his cutlass and began chopping the cable.
Dras realised what he was doing and leapt up onto the low ledge that formed the wall of this topmost tower floor. The wall was perhaps eight inches thick, dropping off to the ground far below.
Cable parted beneath Quinn's frantic cuts. Black, still fighting madly, looked up as the bell began to tilt. He looked down at the flimsy wooden planks that formed the floor of this room, and struggled to free himself from the battle, backing towards where Dras stood balancing on the edge.
Ana had clambered up onto the edge and stood clutching a pillar for support. She saw the undead creatures, unaware of Quinn's efforts, turn to her and start forward. She had to let go of the pillar, back away, but it was so far down on the other side. Ana sank to her hands and knees, crawling backwards along the curve of the tower wall, her eyes locked on the pillar she was slowly moving away from.
Not as slowly as those horrible creatures were approaching her. She couldn't bring herself to look at them any more than she could bring herself to look down to her right where the weathered roof tiles of the house waited for her to lose her grip.
Dras frantically reloaded and fired right past Black's head, blowing a kelp-festooned skull to pieces. Black backed into the ledge and hopped up next to Dras. They both looked back and forth between the mass of creatures pressing forward and Quinn's grunting efforts atop the beam.
Rope snapped and the bell clanged once, tearing at the remaining wraps. One last powerful chop and the cables parted and with a terrific clang, the bell plunged downwards.
Straight through the floor.
And the next floor.
And the next floor.
And the next floor.
Taking nearly all the horrible creatures with it into darkness.
Quinn stared straight down what had suddenly become a very large, very tall chimney, filled with dust and debris that rose toward him in a lazy cloud. He yelled in triumph.
"Ha! Let's see them come after us now!"
Dras and Black, perched on a narrow ledge that now had a terrifying drop on either side, looked at each other and tried not to sigh in relief.
Ana, struggling to escape the one zombi that had avoided plunging after the falling bell, screamed once as she fell off the outside of the tower.
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
I'm desperately trying to get some more updates in before the Stewardesses take to their brand of "Wild Action" once again -- that game runs tomorrow night, so look for Wild Stewardess updates next week! Yee haw!
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Breath exploded out of Ana as she crashed down, flat on her back, onto the tiles of the roof.
And bounced.
Fragments of tile flew around her, dusty and choking and smacking against her, and she tumbled down the slope of the roof, plunging over the eaves to crash headfirst into a gorse-bush. Trying to disentangle herself only made things worse, and sharp thorns dug into her bare skin, clutched at her rather disarrayed clothing and held her firm.
She could hear dark moaning, not far off. And getting closer.
*****
Quinn stared, horrified, at where Ana had been perched. The sound of her impact with the roof below made he and Balck and Dras wince, but they could hear her yelling and so knew that at least she wasn't dead.
All three of them turned to stare at the dripping undead monster that had just chased their friend off the roof. It followed her, plunging off the side of the tower.
"No, you don't."
Quinn leapt after it.
Dras and Black looked at each other.
"This mortar seems poorly made, lad. Let's see about levering out a heavy stone or two, what? Could be we'll need the ammunition before this night is through."
*****
Quinn, launching himself downwards, landed on the roof at the same time as the zombi, only closer to the edge where Ana had fallen from. He let himself slide off and landed on his feet next to the bush where Ana struggled. He drew a knife and slashed away at the vines, only to look up at a shuffling above.
The stinking, foul creature stood directly above him, a little battered from its fall, but still intent on ghastly destruction. It leapt from the roof, plunging straight down at Quinn.
Who stepped sharply to the left, and watched the thing slam face-first into the packed earth next to him. It shuddered and then fell apart into stinky sludge, giving a slight sigh and realising a foul stench. Quinn returned to slashing up the gorse-bush, and soon Ana stumbled free.
More shambling things came towards them through the garden. Quinn lifted Ana by the hips and gave her a mighty shove on the backside, propelling her up onto the roof, then leapt up and clambered onto the tiles himself. They scrambled across the loose roofing, avoiding holes and making their way to where the rope Ana had earlier tied up still hung.
"Go, go!"
Ana started up the rope as Quinn knelt to reload his pistol. He heard a couple of gunshots from above and knew Dras and Black where standing guard.
"Come on, lad, they're coming from all sides! Ana's up, climb, lad, climb!"
Quinn did not wait. He leapt for the rope and pulled himself hand-over-hand upwards, his feet kicking against the rough stone of the tower. At the top, he slung himself onto the top of the tower wall, finding himself perched on a narrow circular ridge of stone.
That Black and Dras seemed to be determinedly tearing to pieces. Quinn watched for a second in puzzlement as the burly Englishman and the slender mulatto tore up the mortar with their knives, setting aside the heavy stones of the tower. He risked a quick look down. The tower was surrounded by shambling creatures, some of whom had reached the roof of the house and all of whom were clawing at the stones, dragging themselves upwards.
Dras leaned out, sighted carefully, and dropped a head-sized stone. It plunged downward and punched straight through the water-logged skull of one of their beseigers, who fell back from the wall in a lovely spread-eagle, crashing into the ground and disintegrating.
Quinn started digging away at the nearest vein of mortar.
*****
The problem with using the wall you were sitting on as ammunition, Black quickly realised, was that the more volleys you fired, the less of a position you found yourself defending. The height of the tower had decreased by several feet as he and the others dug out stones to drop on the army of undead monsters clambering towards them. But no matter how many they knocked off the sheer sides of the tower, more kept surging upwards, hissing and spitting bile and seawater.
And meanwhile every stone they dug up and threw down lowered the height of their position.
Dras was exhausted. It seemed like hours they'd perched up here, flinging down rocks into the snarling faces of their inhuman enemies. The foul creatures were reaching higher and higher, even as the moon passed overhead and sank towards the west. And now a couple scrambled upwards, as if aware that the night was slowly coming to an end. Dras hurled a rock and a curse at one, sending it flying off into darkness, but the other reached up with its clawlike hands and grabbed hold of the top of the tower wall, right between where Quinn and Black were sitting.
Quinn slashed with his knife, but the creature saw the blow coming and let go with its right hand.
Just as Black cut off its left hand.
The Englishman's bark of triumph was shortlived, however, as all eyes and eyesockets turned to the manor house roof where one zombi stood with its hands outstretched.
It cried out in a voice that rolled like deep breakers, churning with silt and the dark mud that lies at the bottom of the sea.
"Dagon! Deep-Father! Ruler of the Abyss! We cry to thee for vengeance!"
All movement ceased on the island. Even the waves seemed to pause in their relentless pounding. The thing pointed up at where Dras, Ana, Quinn and Black perched so precariously.
"The skull! Our mistress sends us for the skull of Lel-Za-Bol! We come to claim the rightfu--"
His voice cut off with a wet smack as a chunk of basalt struck him square in the forehead and blew his skull into fragments.
Four voices cheered.
Dras jumped up to balance on the top of the tower wall and bowed.
"Papa Agwe rules the Abyss, you degenerate walking corpses!"
At those words, the waves all around the island suddenly reared up and crashed against the rocks as one.
And again.
And with each thunderous boom, the water seemed to surge higher. It rolled across the thin grasses, crashing against the half-ruined walls of the compound in a sudden, violent spray, rolling around tree trunks and up against the house itself, sweeping aside loose branches, chunks of shattered boards and, with terrible finality, dragging writhing, struggling undead corpses from the stones of the tower.
As Dras and the others watched, stupefied with amazement, great waves like liquid claws reared up out of the roiling mass to suck the clinging, shrieking zombis down into the maelstrom that now roared across the island.
The waves retreated as quickly as they had arisen, leaving the island cleaner, wetter, and considerably quieter than it had been only moments earlier.
The four survivors clung to their insecure perch, staring without comprehension at the suddenly empty scene below them.
The moon sank below the horizon and the sun was beginning to cast its glow opposite before Black managed to speak.
"Well. I was hoping to get more sleep tonight."
Dras kissed the nearest stone.
"Just be glad I'm as good a cook as I am. Whoever this Dagon fellow is, he's clearly not someone to stand up to old Papa Agwe."
And bounced.
Fragments of tile flew around her, dusty and choking and smacking against her, and she tumbled down the slope of the roof, plunging over the eaves to crash headfirst into a gorse-bush. Trying to disentangle herself only made things worse, and sharp thorns dug into her bare skin, clutched at her rather disarrayed clothing and held her firm.
She could hear dark moaning, not far off. And getting closer.
*****
Quinn stared, horrified, at where Ana had been perched. The sound of her impact with the roof below made he and Balck and Dras wince, but they could hear her yelling and so knew that at least she wasn't dead.
All three of them turned to stare at the dripping undead monster that had just chased their friend off the roof. It followed her, plunging off the side of the tower.
"No, you don't."
Quinn leapt after it.
Dras and Black looked at each other.
"This mortar seems poorly made, lad. Let's see about levering out a heavy stone or two, what? Could be we'll need the ammunition before this night is through."
*****
Quinn, launching himself downwards, landed on the roof at the same time as the zombi, only closer to the edge where Ana had fallen from. He let himself slide off and landed on his feet next to the bush where Ana struggled. He drew a knife and slashed away at the vines, only to look up at a shuffling above.
The stinking, foul creature stood directly above him, a little battered from its fall, but still intent on ghastly destruction. It leapt from the roof, plunging straight down at Quinn.
Who stepped sharply to the left, and watched the thing slam face-first into the packed earth next to him. It shuddered and then fell apart into stinky sludge, giving a slight sigh and realising a foul stench. Quinn returned to slashing up the gorse-bush, and soon Ana stumbled free.
More shambling things came towards them through the garden. Quinn lifted Ana by the hips and gave her a mighty shove on the backside, propelling her up onto the roof, then leapt up and clambered onto the tiles himself. They scrambled across the loose roofing, avoiding holes and making their way to where the rope Ana had earlier tied up still hung.
"Go, go!"
Ana started up the rope as Quinn knelt to reload his pistol. He heard a couple of gunshots from above and knew Dras and Black where standing guard.
"Come on, lad, they're coming from all sides! Ana's up, climb, lad, climb!"
Quinn did not wait. He leapt for the rope and pulled himself hand-over-hand upwards, his feet kicking against the rough stone of the tower. At the top, he slung himself onto the top of the tower wall, finding himself perched on a narrow circular ridge of stone.
That Black and Dras seemed to be determinedly tearing to pieces. Quinn watched for a second in puzzlement as the burly Englishman and the slender mulatto tore up the mortar with their knives, setting aside the heavy stones of the tower. He risked a quick look down. The tower was surrounded by shambling creatures, some of whom had reached the roof of the house and all of whom were clawing at the stones, dragging themselves upwards.
Dras leaned out, sighted carefully, and dropped a head-sized stone. It plunged downward and punched straight through the water-logged skull of one of their beseigers, who fell back from the wall in a lovely spread-eagle, crashing into the ground and disintegrating.
Quinn started digging away at the nearest vein of mortar.
*****
The problem with using the wall you were sitting on as ammunition, Black quickly realised, was that the more volleys you fired, the less of a position you found yourself defending. The height of the tower had decreased by several feet as he and the others dug out stones to drop on the army of undead monsters clambering towards them. But no matter how many they knocked off the sheer sides of the tower, more kept surging upwards, hissing and spitting bile and seawater.
And meanwhile every stone they dug up and threw down lowered the height of their position.
Dras was exhausted. It seemed like hours they'd perched up here, flinging down rocks into the snarling faces of their inhuman enemies. The foul creatures were reaching higher and higher, even as the moon passed overhead and sank towards the west. And now a couple scrambled upwards, as if aware that the night was slowly coming to an end. Dras hurled a rock and a curse at one, sending it flying off into darkness, but the other reached up with its clawlike hands and grabbed hold of the top of the tower wall, right between where Quinn and Black were sitting.
Quinn slashed with his knife, but the creature saw the blow coming and let go with its right hand.
Just as Black cut off its left hand.
The Englishman's bark of triumph was shortlived, however, as all eyes and eyesockets turned to the manor house roof where one zombi stood with its hands outstretched.
It cried out in a voice that rolled like deep breakers, churning with silt and the dark mud that lies at the bottom of the sea.
"Dagon! Deep-Father! Ruler of the Abyss! We cry to thee for vengeance!"
All movement ceased on the island. Even the waves seemed to pause in their relentless pounding. The thing pointed up at where Dras, Ana, Quinn and Black perched so precariously.
"The skull! Our mistress sends us for the skull of Lel-Za-Bol! We come to claim the rightfu--"
His voice cut off with a wet smack as a chunk of basalt struck him square in the forehead and blew his skull into fragments.
Four voices cheered.
Dras jumped up to balance on the top of the tower wall and bowed.
"Papa Agwe rules the Abyss, you degenerate walking corpses!"
At those words, the waves all around the island suddenly reared up and crashed against the rocks as one.
And again.
And with each thunderous boom, the water seemed to surge higher. It rolled across the thin grasses, crashing against the half-ruined walls of the compound in a sudden, violent spray, rolling around tree trunks and up against the house itself, sweeping aside loose branches, chunks of shattered boards and, with terrible finality, dragging writhing, struggling undead corpses from the stones of the tower.
As Dras and the others watched, stupefied with amazement, great waves like liquid claws reared up out of the roiling mass to suck the clinging, shrieking zombis down into the maelstrom that now roared across the island.
The waves retreated as quickly as they had arisen, leaving the island cleaner, wetter, and considerably quieter than it had been only moments earlier.
The four survivors clung to their insecure perch, staring without comprehension at the suddenly empty scene below them.
The moon sank below the horizon and the sun was beginning to cast its glow opposite before Black managed to speak.
"Well. I was hoping to get more sleep tonight."
Dras kissed the nearest stone.
"Just be glad I'm as good a cook as I am. Whoever this Dagon fellow is, he's clearly not someone to stand up to old Papa Agwe."
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
Short update, but better little than none, right? Right?
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