At last, this was it.

Normally, being bossed by that little snot-nosed prince put Prier in a mood blacker than the toast she made; being disciplined by him could have burst her into flames. Instead, she bounced along the narrow path snaking up the sharp rocks as though it were a spring day in the flower fields outside Pot Au Feu, spinning her baton to a bright tune. She'd started humming it soon as they trooped from Laharl's Castle; whistling at the foothills; now, the seranade began.

Dame desirée,

Richement aournée

De colour,

Bien endoctrinée

De tous à droit loée,

Is this part of the punishment? Culotte vaguely wondered, but he decided against looking the gift horse in the mouth by jibing. His sister's misplaced melody was angelic compared to the ranting demon fury she could be giving voice to instead.

The baton soared suddenly high in the air with her voice.

Par savour,

Juenette, sans folour,

Simplette, sans badour,

De bonne heure née,

Parfaite en toute honnour,

Nulle n'est à vous comparée.

If she started dancing next, then he'd ask, he decided.

Palmer trudged along just behind them, wondering if the elder hadn't hit her head when she knocked Prince Laharl to the ground. The Skull shifted and gripped his staff closer, straining to hear if the deathless moans of the escaped zombies were masked by the singing. These zombies were not the typical wretched souls who crawled from the Underworld, with no mind save for violence to anything living; these were the "pets" of young Master Aramis, rent and remade with his terrible genius. They retained their brutality, but Aramis's touch added a cleverness that made them infinitely more deadly.

De bonté, de valour,

De biauté, de douçour

Ma dame est parée;

De maniere, d'atour,

De scens, de grace est couronée.

He heard nothing else except Katie's agitated hiss behind him. The Elbacky's ears were slicked flat into her pale mane, but her thick-furred tail was bristled and slanted high.

"Won't that scare them away?" she snarled.

Where Palmer had willingly sought employ with the young lords, some time before that Katie had been drafted after a battle with Culotte; in other words, her original master had her fired on the spot for losing to such a young demon, and Culotte felt horrible about it. Job security meant little to her in any case; in fact, the Skull was fairly certain she was hoping her continued wildness would earn her a rematch. Not for freedom, which the demon youth had gladly offered her before, but for the pride wounded from the loss. Master Culotte had been lucky in that fight, and he knew it well enough to deflect any challenge. Safely concealed beneath the rough heaviness of the hood, Palmer rolled his eyes. So much pride in their pride. If the catgirl and Overlord Prier ever started on one another, they would never stop.

He couldn't resist a slight smile then. He'd throw Laharl into that mix, if it weren't the poor, proud prince would be dead from just the sight in moments.

Culotte relaxed slightly, relieved Katie demanded to know the same thing he'd been wondering himself.

"Ha! So? Let it! We aren't going to collect anything." Prier replied, a smile of smug satisfaction replacing the song as she enjoyed the shocked expressions that froze the others to the path. The baton continued its merry spirals.

"Prier?" Culotte managed at last.

Demons have their own code of honor, which boils down to the gaining of power and the submitting to power. The beaten serve the victors until they become the victorious, and the cycle start over again.

There have been a lot of slippery ways of doing this, but anyone who would just run away is shunned as a coward.

He knew whatever Prier was searching for down here, it wasn't a brand like that.

"I beat him, there in the kitchen. Nothing's holding us here, least of all that little jerk." She stilled the baton's capering at last, pressing it to her hip with her fist.

"You landed on him and he screamed and passed out, Prier." But, she was right; it couldn't have been a more decisive win if she had delivered her notorious Coup De Grace. A lot less painful, too, the youth winced, if it weren't Laharl's shriek made it seem a thousand times more agonizing instead.

I can't believe I'm arguing with her about it.

"Close enough!" she replied with a wink. "He didn't want us coming back, anyway!"

Her brother chuckled. "Yeah...I guess you're right!" A lot more humiliating, in fact. Etna would have to do some work herself again, and find another target. "But...what about the rest of our vassals...?"

"Myah, I wanted to eat the little bastard." Katie muttered.

"And what about the Prince's Prinny Squad...?" Palmer ventured uncertainly. "They couldn't face the zombies alone."

"We're good with you, d00d." came the ready reply.

"Nothing wrong with leaving one Master for a stronger one, d00d!" added another.

"Pay's the same, d00d."

In reality, the pay wasn't; Prier worked her Prinnies ten times harder than Etna ever could. But it was for their own good, not hers, and she treated them with respect, if not with a little pity. That was worth more than meager wages to the Prince's Prinnies; their words just placed an acceptable face on desertion, and the silence of the others was assent.

"You mean the other vassals that helped Laharl soon as they saw he was winning?" Prier frowned to Culotte then.

"But..."

"A fresh start." she continued. "We did it once, we'll do it again! Then we'll come back here and take back our Netherworld...and maybe his too!" the thought of Laharl squirming as her vassal sent the baton back to twirling. And Etna...Prier would order Etna to eat all the meals that supposedly rode on her hips...not that she didn't need it, the evil little stick...

Culotte shivered with the chill of the thoughts he knew his sister had to be thinking with such a feral smile. Sometimes, Prier seemed like she never was human.

"Not until you catch my zombies." interrupted a throaty whisper.

The entire party jumped in unison, turned to find Aramis standing further up the trail, watching them with his unnerving, expressionless owl eyes.

Aramis looks like a kid, but he's actually a lot older than Prier and me. He's not a fighter, and not really a sorceror, but he scares me more than either of those ever could. He even makes Prier nervous.

"Uh, we're not the Prince's vassals anymore, sorry." Prier averted her eyes with a dissmissive wave of her hand. Laharl and Etna were just brats; to her, Aramis was a butcher, like a cruel child who delights in pulling insects apart, only magnified to repulsive extreme.

"Oh. Okay. I'll tell him that when I go ask for more warriors."

Going to ask for more warriors would take the zombie master not much more time than casting a spell; and those warriors would likely include her mercenary former vassals, the brat prince, and Etna, with more on demand as needed. Prier looked to her companions. Barely a dozen, and the Prince didn't send his Prinny Squad with them because they were the best; just the opposite.

Culotte mirrored his sister's hopeless look. Subduing him? Nothing touches Aramis unless the demon youth would allow it. Trying would bring the unholy wrath of countless zombies on them.

"Ugh. You shouldn't make things you can't control, you know." Prier said sourly at last.

"Neither should Laharl." came the toneless reply.

--+--

For once, Prier scowled, the creepy little monster's obsession came in handy. Aramis didn't give a damn about the Prince; if anything, Aramis seemed to have a deeper coldness toward him. The only thing he seemed to care about was getting his poor patchwork horrors back, as soon as possible. Was it any wonder they ran away?

When she'd asked that the first time Laharl sent them out, he'd answered with the same maddening monotone.

"I'm not finished with them yet."

They could smell the zombies before they saw them, approaching the summit; a poisonous, moist miasma that seemed to thicken the air to choke in their throats.

Palmer tightened his whitened fists over his staff until the wood cried out in protest. They could hear them now, too...sometimes sloughing sighs, sometimes broken moans...but all with the agony of an endless death.

As they rounded the peak at last, the droning dirge of the monsters was shattered with a howl that nearly sent them quailing back down the cliffside.

"Myuh, what the hells is that?" Katie yowled, crouching back with tail lashing, claws furrowing into the rock to the quick.

It was a zombie, yes...but it towered over its companions, rampant to their swaying slouch, its trunklike arms spead in revelry of their power and the living creatures that just arrived to test them.

"Amateur. That is my masterpiece." Aramis murmured, and for once his voice stirred with morbid passion. "The fists of a Dark Karate master. The legs of the fastest demon in the Netherworld. The brain of Mahogany, a famous sorceror. The iron body of Hercules...and a horse wiener, all combined into one! The Netherworld's ultimate zombie!"

Time seemed to stop for a heartbeat, as the words pushed into the listeners' ears like a rusty nail.

"You're SICK!" Prier cried.

"You're dead, if he's finished." Aramis once again withdrew behind his remote mask, stepping back a pace. "Then I'll make the others stronger with your parts."

"You...you let them go yourself?" she bellowed in disbelief, advancing with fists ready to bobble the little demon's head by his neck.

One of the zombie's massive clawed hands smashed down between Prier and the demon youth.

"Of course. They would never leave willingly."

-----------------------

Song credit:

De bonté, de valour
("With goodness, worth")


Guillaume de Machaut

(1300-1377)


Language: French
Dialect: Champagnois