Free ARC: The Corpse-Rat King by Lee Battersby

to the mule. They stared at each other. Marius’ gaze slipped down to the sand at his feet. No footprints spoiled the ground between the cart and the forest.
    “Well,” he said. “What do you make of that?”
    The mule snorted, although whether in agreement or disdain, Marius couldn’t tell. As there seemed no chance of consensus, he glanced back down the track, then down the path the old man had taken, then back at the mule.
    “Can’t leave you here, I guess,” he said. He climbed onto the cart and twitched the reins. “I doubt I need to rest my legs, either, but let’s not take the chance, hey?” He pulled on the reins, and slowly, with great reluctance, the mule wheeled about and began to pull the cart back down the track. Marius leaned back, and glanced at the seat beside him.
    “Hey, what do you know?” he said, “The old chap left his hat behind.” He placed it on his head, twitched the reins once more for emphasis, and let his new pet figure out the rest for itself.
    For the first time since his travails had begun, Marius relaxed. The mule plodded onwards like a surly automaton, one step after another without a single change of pace or demeanour, the rise and fall of its haunches hypnotic in the gently swaying light of the lantern. Marius quickly fell into the rhythm of the journey, letting his body swing along with the back-and-forth motion of the cart. Now he understood the old man’s posture – faced with the endless tiny adjustments necessary to maintain balance, his body quickly admitted defeat and slumped into the shape of least resistance. Without the presence of another person to remind him, Marius quickly forgot about the stickers poking into his face. It was only when he reached up to adjust his hat, to stop the incessant rain falling into his eyes, that he brushed against them and remembered to pull them out. He stared at the first of them, and frowned. He had felt nothing as he pulled it out, not even the slight tug as it loosed its hold upon his skin. Yet he remembered the pain of falling into the bush, and how much his head had rung in the moments after he struck the rock. Gerd had been adamant that the dead were beyond such mortal sensations, but Marius was not so removed from humanity that he could dismiss the things he had so recently felt. Something was not right. Some vital information was missing, some essential truth had been mislaid, or neglected. Marius had seen his reflection. It was not that of a living man. And yet he did not feel dead, which begged the question: was he alone in this, or was this deadening of skin and soul simply something that the dead were persuaded into believing, because nobody had the strength of purpose or character to deny the common belief? Or was it Gerd who did not feel things simply because he was Gerd? And if so… Marius stared at the prickle as if he might find the truth written upon it, like the foreign conjurers in the markets who claimed to write your name on a grain of rice. As if you’d even be able to read it if they did, Marius snorted, and flicked the prickle out of the cart. No, something was not right. Perhaps a few more hours of pondering while the mule strode gently onwards would reveal the missing link. What the heck, it was as good a plan as any.
    The mule, unaware of how good the plan was, chose that moment to stop. Marius blinked, then did so again when he saw the shaft of an arrow sticking out of the beast’s neck. He stared stupidly at it for a moment, long enough for something to whizz out of the nearby brushes and thud into his chest. Marius rocked back in his seat, staring down at a matching shaft that now protruded from his torso.
    “Oh, for Gods’ sakes,” He pulled the arrow out and flung it over the edge of the cart, jumped down and knelt by the mule, placing a hand on its neck to feel for a pulse. There was nothing. The animal was definitely dead. Another arrow sped out of the dark and slammed into his back, just