The Cemetery Job: Tales of the Living Dead by Kelly Hudson

Author:Kelly Hudson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, zombie, dead, gore and zombies, dead civil war soldiers, viking zombies, horror action zombie, gore and violence

The Day of the Draugr

(Originally Published in Dead Worlds: Undead Stories Volume 4, 2009)

The first of the dead warriors rose from the battlefield at Lindisfarne, its stomach ripped open, its breath fetid, and its drooping skin a pale blue, with a gurgle in its throat and a lust for human flesh in its eyes.

The small band of warriors from the Sweyne Forkbeard Clan were unaware that one of their own, sent days before to settle a trade dispute with the Hehil Clan, had come back to life and was walking towards them. All too soon, however, they would be intimately familiar with this reality, and of the eighty undead warriors that rose up after him.

Earlier that day:

The voyage had been a good one, and Sweyne Forkbeard thanked the gods for it. The sky had been clear and the winds kind, so the men had not suffered much. He stroked his beard, forked like all his clan styled their facial hair, and thought of the days previous. He had sent a contingent of his finest warriors to Lindisfarne, the Holy Island, where his past kin had once triumphed in glorious battle, to meet with a delegation of the Hehil clan, the primary trading partners of the Forkbeards. Lately the grain that they had acquired from the Hehil for the pelts they provided in return was lacking in quality. Forkbeard heard the cries of his people and acted quickly. Without grain, it would be a long winter, and the frigid cold of the Frost Giants was coming fast down upon them.

Sweyne, chief of the Forkbeard clan, had sent his eldest son, Gunnar the Strong, to lead the delegation. Gunnar was a gifted leader in the affairs of intellect and war. He was much like his father, who had sent many a man to Valhalla, strong and brave. So Gunnar was a good choice in the Chief’s stead, since Sweyne was getting up in his years, and his sword arm wasn’t as strong as it used to be. He was better suited to stay at their settlement and govern there, while the strongest of his sons dealt with their problems abroad. It was the natural way. If the son was to succeed the father, then he must learn, and experience was the finest of all teachers. Besides, how could Sweyne send his youngest, Canute the Weak? He was a good lad, strong and tall, but his interests lent themselves to farming and intellectual pursuits. Canute was more a maid than a man, and he would have been an abject failure if sent to deal with the Hehil.

So Gunnar had taken a company of their bravest and strongest men, forty in all, and boarded their great long ships to sail to Lindisfarne and destiny. Sweyne waited three days for the length of the journey and the time for the negotiations before he became worried. They had not returned. Not only that, but there had been no word sent as to the success of the confrontation.

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