Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology Read Online Free PDF

man with the cart wherever he went.
    The cart itself appeared ordinary. It was made of wood, its close-fitted joints held together by pegs. Its two twelve-spoke wheels were five feet high and rimmed with iron. The load bed was made up of wide boards almost seven feet long, with the joints covered by battens. Its sides rose three feet above the bed, vertical posts with lath woven through them, giving it the appearance of a large wicker basket on wheels. There was a seat at the front, lower than normal, and perhaps because of this it was farther back than normal, intruding into the load bed. It carried whatever the lord abbot needed moved from time to time among the abbey and the village churches within the lord abbot’s wide holdings.
    The man who drove it, known as Old Jack, was not entirely commonplace. He looked like he might once have been a fighting man, but if so, those days were long behind him. He wore no armor and carried no weapon. The tunic he wore over his shirt was of brown homespun, as was his cowl: a hood with a short cape to protect his head and shoulders from the elements. From beneath the hood a lock of iron-gray hair occasionally escaped. Although he was tall he had a shrunken look to him, as if a once-powerful build had wasted away. When he walked, as he did when the cart was heavily laden, his stiff left leg gave him a rocking gait.
    The horse that drew the cart was most unusual indeed. The magnificent black stallion, said those who boasted a knowledge of horses, was a courser. Such an animal was worth but a fraction of the cost of a destrier , it was true, but even so a courser was a good war horse, suitable for tourney and battle both, and had no place between the poles of a humble cart.
    So for the first few months, wherever the cart went, villagers and the highborn alike whispered amongst themselves. Eventually, it was the village priests, whose churches were the waypoints and the destinations for the cart’s comings and goings, who finally provided the explanation so eagerly sought by all.
    Word soon spread the man had indeed been a man-at-arms long ago, the hero of some minor battle long forgotten. Crippled from wounds and no longer able to fight, he had wandered from village to village taking whatever work he could find. The lord abbot, seeing potential in the man, had taken him on. He had learned the smith’s trade and had worked at the abbey for many years, but as of late an illness had taken his strength. Forced again to abandon his trade, he now earned his keep driving the lord abbot’s cart.
    The horse was indeed a courser, the priests explained, but from the first he had shied from lance and sword, and went mad with fear from the smell of blood. The lord who had owned the animal could use it neither for battle nor for sport, and was unwilling to use it as breeding stock lest it pass on its unwarlike attributes to its offspring. Deciding that it was best to mitigate his losses, he had traded the horse to the abbey. The lord abbot had put the powerful horse between the poles of the cart, where it was equal to the heaviest load the cart itself could handle.
    Once all knew the story, Old Jack and his cart became an accepted part of daily life.
    Still, much to the story had yet to be told.

       

    The cart creaked along the forest road, empty but for a foot of straw in the back and a small but sturdy oaken chest, reinforced with iron, sitting beside Old Jack on the seat. It had been a lovely spring morning, sunny and warm, but now the sky was besieged with dark clouds that threatened rain. This, together with the shade from the newly-greened trees, gave mid-afternoon the appearance of twilight.
    Old Jack was little surprised when the men stepped onto the road in front of him. There were five of them, their garb an obvious attempt at uniform dress although no two of them were clothed identically. They were a tough and capable-looking lot, armed with an assortment of weapons — one with a bow,