CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
My footsteps rang through the eerily halls of Hack Plain High. I passed a dozen closed doors, more lockers, and a trophy case that had been smashed open and pilfered of its many golden cups. There was a smear of blood on the jagged glass of the broken display. A trail of blood drops led down the hall. I followed them at a slow trot, sword and shield in hand, fully aware of how ridiculous I must look. Hopefully, I wouldn’t run into a security guard, or Cerberus, or anything in between.
The trail led through a science classroom and then directly through the windows that overlooked the athletic fields below. There was a Viking-shaped hole in the glass. Outside, night had fallen, but an array of metal-halide lights turned the field into day. There was a soccer game going on, and bracketing bleachers filled with students and parents cheered the participants forward in their endeavours. There was no sign of Aelwulf or the Viking dead.
“Cool,” I mumbled. “Just a bunch of normal people who aren’t going to be freaked out by a couple guys with swords wandering the field.” I started clearing the broken glass from the window frame with my sword, then stepped gingerly through, hopping into the low shrubs that surrounded the school. “Let’s try to not get shot, shall we, Rast?”
Sheathing my sword and slinging my shield over my shoulder as I approached the crowds, I looked around for any sign of Aelwulf. The trail of blood was gone, but there was also a distinct lack of tall, fully armed and armored warriors. Other than me, of course. I tried to look natural as I made my way across the asphalt track that ringed the field. Hopefully the mundane world would work its magic and make me look normal. Or as normal as I could be, given the circumstances.
As I walked, I peeled off my helm and tossed it to the side. I had a good-sized cut where Aelwulf had dinged me across my forehead, but the blood seemed to have dried, and other than a dull ache behind my eyes, there seemed to be no harm. Hopefully I’d look a little less alarming without the helm.
I still got a lot of curious looks from the attendees. Most of them were wearing some kind of school spirit gear, in the same crimson and gold I had seen inside, often with the cartoonish Viking emblazoned on their shirts. Apparently his name was Oofsen, and he spent his entire life punching things in the belly, or being punched in the same way.
“Hey, it’s their mascot!” some kid yelled at me as I walked past his little clique of friends. The rest of the crowd turned and looked at me. “Boo! Boo the Knights! Boo!”
“What are you . . . ?” I looked around, then saw a giant white school bus parked nearby. It was painted yellow, and had a giant blue helmet on the front. The side read Noughton Knights, written in an appropriately scrolly font. I sighed. “Oh, you have to be kidding me.”
“I heard there was a knight over here, marauding our villages!” A life-sized Oofsen pushed his way through the crowd, plush hands and oversized head in full effect. “Well, you’ve come to the wrong village, buddy!”
“Look, I don’t want anything to do with—OOF!” I said, as Oofsen laid a solid right into my temple. I felt the scab break, and a fresh gout of blood poured down the side of my face. Oofsen cackled and rather cartoonishly wound up to hit me again.
“Aelwulf, is that you?” I asked. The mascot swung again, padded fists banging off my armor to little effect. The crowd cheered him on. It wouldn’t surprise me if reality had somehow bent the bearer of the Totenschreck into this ridiculous caricature, but I didn’t want to hit him back until I was sure. This guy didn’t have a sword, but he sure was enthusiastic with those punches. “Listen, Aelwulf, if that’s you, we need to—”
“Oofsen goes OOF!” the mascot shouted, then kicked me in the (well-armored) groin. The crowd went wild.
I decked him with the steel knuckles of my gauntlet, going through six inches of collapsible fleece headpiece before connecting with a human skull. The mascot reeled, arms cartwheeling as he fell back into the supporting arms of the crowd. They pushed him up onto his feet, but the guy inside the suit wasn’t interested in fighting any longer. Instead, he was pushing his cartoon hands through the Viking’s mouth, trying to get at his real human face.
“Hey, I think he actually punched Oofsen!” someone in the crowd shouted. “Not cool, man! What’s wrong with you?”
“So many things,” Chesa said, appearing from the crowd. She seemed to have ditched her bow and blades, and didn’t look terribly out of place in her comic book T-shirt. She clapped her hands on my shoulders and dragged me back. “Come on, John. Time to stop beating up the high school kids.”
“I thought it was our guy. You know the weird things that the mundane world does to protect itself.” They had gotten the kid’s head off. I’d given him a bloody nose, and maybe broken some small cartilage bits. Hopefully he still had all his teeth. But the crowd was looking pretty angry. I looked back at Chesa. “How’d you get here?”
“Fell out of the sky, like any other normal person,” she said quietly. “Fortunately, no one saw me. Matt’s over by the concession stands, watching our stuff. Can’t go around armed. People notice.”
“Aelwulf’s here, somewhere. He was the edgelord. We both came through the school,” I said. “I think he’s carrying some trophies.”
“One thing at a time. Need to get you out of that armor before someone calls the police,” she said. We reached the concession stands and went around back. Matthew sat on a small pile of items that had been covered by a tarp. He was wearing his shades. I was going to point out that that was at least as weird as me going around in armor, but then he stood and pulled back the tarp.
“Your elven armor! And bow! And Matthew’s vestments!” I said.
“And all of Bee’s stuff, and Gregory’s as well,” Chesa pointed out. “When we fell out of the sky, it came with us. So hopefully Greg and Bee aren’t naked and tied together up there somewhere.”
“Hopefully they are! I don’t know which of them would be more pissed about that.”
“Point is, we’ve got our stuff. But can we walk around dressed like Ren faire rejects?”
“Why not?” I asked. “Aelwulf’s certainly not going to hide his sword in the woods.”
“We’re fully in the mundane now, man,” Matthew said. “No magic powers. Someone calls the cops and we’re done for.”
“Have you tried to reach Mundane Actual?” I asked. “They usually run interference on this kind of thing.”
“Put a call into Rodriguez twenty minutes ago. But it’s going to be a while before she and the rest of the team are here. In the meantime, we’re on our own.” Chesa motioned to the pile of armor. “Get to it, John. Strip.”
“You seriously want me to take off my armor?”
“Until you look a little normal. Then we spread out and find this Viking guy.”
“No chance. You guys might look out of place in your silver leaves and vestments, but I fit right in. Some idiot has already mistaken me for the other team’s mascot,” I said. “There’s no way I’m going out there unarmed.”
“Not completely unarmed. You can probably keep your dagger.”
“Aelwulf tossed it away.”
“Well, then you’ll have your charm, wit, and personality,” Matthew said.
“Meaning he’d be completely unarmed,” Chesa answered with a sigh. “Fine. Keep your armor. Just tell us what you know.”
So I did, talking about the false domain, and how I tricked Aelwulf into expending his magic to the point that the whole domain collapsed.
“So if Aelwulf doesn’t have any more magic than us, it’s just a matter of cornering him and holding him in place until Mundane Actual shows up,” I said. “Shouldn’t be that difficult. Have you seen any sign of him?”
“Nope, but things have been strange. Ten minutes ago this was a game between the Vikings and the Cougars,” Matthew said. “All of a sudden it’s the Knights, and all the banners changed, and we knew something weird was going on.”
“Really? That seems like a pretty big change for reality to make,” I said.
“Not so much. It takes a lot more mojo to make a dragon look like a tax attorney, or a storm harpy to pass for an isolated tornado.” Both of these things had happened to me. Violently. Matthew continued. “The newspapers will write all this off as a typo, or a prank, or something equally mundane.”
“Unless we go around pushing credibility,” Chesa said. “We don’t want a full-blown anomaly on our hands, especially with half the team MIA and our magic reserves tapped. So try to keep a low profile.”
“Low profile is my middle name. Right up there with stealthy,” I said. Armor notwithstanding.
“So do we stick together, or do we split up to find Aelwulf?” Matthew asked. “I don’t like the idea of coming across him alone, but we can’t let him get away, either.”
“We stay together. If he’s not taking precautions, a guy named Aelwulf from the 1400s should be easy enough to find in this crowd,” I said. “By body odor alone.”
The others took what weapons we could easily conceal, Chesa hoisting a pair of cheer batons, Matthew rummaging a shovel from a shed. I draped some yellow-and-gold crepe paper around my shield. Then we said a prayer that no one would find the rest of our stash, and came out from behind the concession stand. We made our way through the crowd to the bleachers, then started down the length of the field. We were on the Vikings sidelines, still getting odd looks and the occasional nudge, but most folks seemed focused on the game.
“So what do you think happens if he gets away? He’s just as mundane as us, right?” Chesa asked.
“I guess? Except he’s an undead Viking who’s spent the last six centuries partying in Valhalla and generally preparing for the apocalypse. Fits the description of half the guys on my high school football team,” I said. “Well, except the undead part. Isn’t he supposed to drop dead at nightfall?”
“Killing Runa ended that, just like it cut us off from our domains,” Matthew answered. “He’s running on his own power now.”
“And that power has run out,” I said. “I figure if he gets away he’ll just try to blend in long enough to find a way back into the Unreal. We’ll have to monitor Ren faires, CrossFit competitions, cosplay conventions . . .”
“Or we could just run over there and knock him out,” Chesa said, pointing across the field.
Out of the milling mass of opposing fans flew a cardboard-clad knight in dull pewter armor. He landed in the midst of a knot of players, sending them and the ball flying. The crowd peeled back, and Aelwulf strode onto the pitch.
He was naked. Like, absolutely naked, and long cuts across his chest and shoulders leaked bloody over his massive chest and abs. He carried Totenschreck over one shoulder, and held a burlap sack in his other hand, a bottle tucked under his elbow. He threw the sack onto the ground. Out tumbled dozens of cheap trophies, their paint chipped and tin cups dented. Then he raised the bottle and took a long swig from it. From here, it looked like a plastic two liter of something bright and orange.
“I am Aelwulf, Terror of the Dead, and slayer of gods!” he shouted. “Bring me your champions, that I might tear them limb from limb, and claim their glory for my own!”
The crowds screamed. The people fled. Numbly, I unlimbered my sword and shield and started running in Aelwulf’s direction. Chesa and Matthew flanked me.
“They’re going to chalk this one up to a junkie,” I said. “Until I kill him with this sword. That’s going to take some explaining.”
“Not as much as that, I think,” Matthew said. He pointed at the sky.
The moon was full. It disappeared in a series of bites, each one accompanied by a loud, thundering chomp. The shadow of a giant wolf passed over the stars, and Fenrir’s cruel howl echoed across the field.
The absent moon left a hole in the sky. Black as pitch, the hole yawned wider, until I thought I could see flames in the darkness. And then the armies of the dead spilled out, tumbling out of the sky like a hard sleet. Pale white bodies clad in tattered uniforms hurled through the air, shattering when they hit the ground. To the horror of the onlookers, the zombies slowly stood, bodies reforming around broken bones and smashed faces. The crowds, moments ago watching a simple soccer game, suddenly found themselves on a nightmarish field of living death. Madness reigned.
“Okay, yeah. That’s going to take some pretty clever copyediting,” I said.
“John! I’m so glad to see you!” Aelwulf bellowed, then he ran to meet me in the center of the field.