The Witch and the Ostrich: A Fantasy Satire by Jordan A. Werner

Author:Jordan A. Werner [Werner, Jordan A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Space Wizard Science Fantasy
Published: 2024-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

Much Ado About Various Assorted Anatomies

Quin kept a decent jog for about twelve seconds before she devolved back into a wheezing, choking mess, so she wound up walking with Bess and Jenny into the oncoming field of zombies. Well, not really a field. More of a sparse, poorly tended grove, easy to maneuver their way through. That was the thing about zombies: So long as you kept out of arm’s reach, you were fine. They just flailed about, like barstool drunks failing to reach the tantalizing top shelf.

Or so she’d been told. A vice-like grip snatched the hem of Quin’s jacket and yanked her backward. She screamed as a young woman with purpling skin and varicose veins reached for her face with all the grace of an adolescent going in for her first kiss, mouth wide open. Quin slapped her.

Quin had a decent amount of first-hand experience with zombies, no thanks to Fergus, but his thralls had been, well, dead. Expressionless. Dull. This one went through several phases of emotion in quick sequence: annoyance, confusion, anger, hunger, hurt. It was queasily familiar, unnervingly alive.

Bess slammed the butt of her snapbow hard into the zombie’s head—who released its grip on Quin—unintentionally firing off the quarrel, which sailed out of sight. As the undead woman stumbled back, Bess leveled her bow to shoot, only to realize the quarrel’s absence. As the zombie pitched forward, a bolt buried itself in her right temple and she fell hard to the ground, motionless apart from a twitching ring finger. “Watch it,” Jenny grunted with creepy, wide-eyed stoicism as she lowered her bow to reload it. “Bess, sweetheart. Breathe. Breathe.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god,” Bess said, face sweaty with terror. She stared down at the zombie. “Anne, I’m so sorry, I’m…” She tore her bright eyes away to Quin. “You…you alright?”

“Fucking look all right?” Quin barked. Something dripped down her forehead. She wiped at it and her fingers came away with some kind of black ink on them. She nearly retched. Blood. Zombie blood.

Moving. She needed to keep moving. The zombie with the bolt in its head was already starting to stir. Quin broke back into a light jog, as jogs went, and the two watchwomen easily kept pace behind her. “Look. If you’re…if you’re a witch,” Bess said, voice warbling with fear, “can’t you just, I don’t know, do witchy things to them? Change them back? Please?”

Quin flushed. “Don’t be stupid.” But truth be told, nothing had ever stopped Quin from practicing necromancy or zoimancy. She’d just hadn’t gotten around to either of them yet. Or any of the other magical disciplines among the planet-spanning list of things she’d been blissfully procrastinating on.

As the Crescent loomed, the zombies’ behavior changed, slowly but noticeably. They went from lone wanderers to pack hunters, traveling in close-knit groups of five or more, banging their fists against wooden doors, battering them down and shambling into the homes of screaming prey. Some boosted one another through windows, onto balconies, onto the dilapidated overhead bridges crossing the streets.

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