by A. C. Cobble
She looked around and cried out. One hand gripping the brass bar atop the roof of the carriage, the other swinging a kris dagger, she took several fingers off of a reaver that was attempting to climb up.
With an outraged moan, the thing fell away, unable to maintain its hold without the fingers. It tumbled on the ground beside the carriage. Fifty yards behind them, she saw it rise again, struggling to its feet.
Over a dozen of the shroud-wrapped, walking corpses were in their wake now. She thought she could see the movement of others beneath the dark trees. Was it all of them? She didn’t think so, but there was no way to know.
“Slow down if you can,” she advised. “We don’t want to lose them.”
Duke said something rather impolite.
She turned to scold him but saw he was trying to manipulate the steering T with his hands and kicking at the face of a reaver with his boot.
“Duke,” she warned, crawling across the roof and reversing the grip on her dagger, “don’t put your leg near its mouth.”
She raised her arm up and brought the dagger down on top of the reaver’s skull, not killing it, because the things couldn’t be killed, but distracting it so a better aimed kick from Duke knocked it off of the carriage, her dagger sliding free of its brittle skull as the reaver fell away.
“Duck,” he called.
She threw herself flat on the carriage roof, the thick limb of an oak tree whipping a hand’s-space overhead. There was a satisfying crunch as a reaver climbing up the back of the carriage caught it full in the chest, and when Sam rose, she saw Duke was finally steering them back onto the recent road that had been cut through the forest. For the moment, they’d escaped the swarm of reavers.
Tracks, worn by the workman hired to clean out the fortress from William’s occupation, were burrowed through the thick-trunked trees of the small wilderness. Behind them, reavers poured out of the woods, running in their odd, disjointed gaits, following the carriage.
“They’re coming three hundred yards back,” she said.
They slowed a little as Duke adjusted the throttle.
“That’s good,” she advised. “Keep it right there. As long as this damned thing doesn’t break down, we should reach the fortress just a few hundred yards ahead of them.”
“I hope that’s enough,” he worried.
She shrugged. It would have to be. Too far ahead and they might lose some of the creatures. Too close and the awful things might catch them.
Fae swirled about, zipping behind them, illuminating the chasing reavers then whizzing around to shed light on the way ahead. The tiny life spirits should be dead. They couldn’t survive in Enhover’s air. Seeing the little creatures buzz about was the one thing that gave her hope Duke’s crazed plan might work. It was one reason she didn’t turn and ram her blade into his neck. If he could sustain the fae with whatever strange magic he possessed, then perhaps he could do the rest of it.
Hells. She hoped he knew what he was talking about.
The Cartographer XXII
The reavers were closing behind them. The carriage was jostling painfully as it bounced over roots, ruts, and bumps in the forest track. Moments before, there’d been a disconcerting crack somewhere beneath the carriage. He didn’t know enough about the vehicles to guess what had broken, but it kept running, and he kept pushing it. Sam, perched on the rooftop behind him, gave terse updates as they raced through the trees.
“One hundred and fifty yards,” she called. “If we have to go much farther, I recommend you put on a little more speed. Assuming you can, that is, without this thing breaking apart underneath us.”
He reached for the throttle, but it swung loosely in his hand, no longer connected beneath the floorboards.
“Spirits forsake it,” he cursed.
“What?” asked Sam, turning to look at him. “Are you going to… Oh.”
“There’s the keep ahead of us,” he said. “We just need a little more time to get there.”
“They’re closing on us,” warned Sam. “We might have time. We might not. When we get to the entrance, Duke, we’re going to have to move fast.”
“If we get there,” he grumbled under his breath, the carriage bouncing wildly as the iron-bound wheels thudded off a tree stump, sending them careening across the track. Louder, he said, “One more minute.”
Sam slid down onto the driver’s seat beside him. “Not much I can do back there if they catch us. The full two dozen of them are chasing us. We can’t fight that many.”
“Still thinking about stabbing me?” he asked.
“Do you think one minute is enough time for you to finish if we do it the other way?” she snapped. Shaking her head and standing up from the bench to glance behind them, she said, “We should have done it the other way.”
“Let’s just hope a minute is enough time to reach the keep,” he replied.
The carriage jerked again, and he heard the screech of twisting metal.
“Wheel binding fell off,” advised Sam, glancing over the edge of the carriage. “They’re fifty yards behind us, now.”
“Five hundred yards to the entrance to the keep,” he reported.
She nodded curtly, crouching on the driver bench, eyes fixed behind them. “Stop outside and we run?”
“I don’t think we have time for that,” he replied.
“What are you— You’re going right in?”
Grinning maniacally, fighting to hold the steering T steady as their carriage skipped and jostled, he aimed them directly at the wide, circular entrance to the ancient druid keep. Fae, scattering before them, lit the opening with a bright glow. He aimed for it like an arrow at a target.
Sam gripped his arm, her fingers digging painfully into his bicep, and then they hammered into the stone floor of the keep at full speed.
The carriage was knocked into the air and crashed down half-a-dozen paces farther, stabbing into the interior of the fortress and rolling up the smooth, stone tunnel.
Madly, Oliver clung to the steering T, wrestling it like it was an angry badger. He could feel it wobbling where one of the wheels must have been jarred out of alignment, but the mechanical carriage kept going, wheezing and groaning, until with a final shudder, its engine stopped.
The wheels kept rolling, heading up the incline, but Oliver knew they had little time left before the contraption slowed to a crawl and the reavers caught up from behind.
“I’m going to try to block the route,” he called. “Be ready to jump clear!”
“You’re what?” shrieked Sam.
He twisted the steering T hard, yanking it to the left, where the carriage promptly smashed into the side of the tunnel, the wheel running up the wall, the corner of the vehicle shattering in a cloud of splintered wood and twisted iron. Then, it tipped over.
Oliver flung himself from the seat, flying through the air with the momentum of the ride and the force of his jump. Behind him, the carriage wrecked, crashing to its side, skidding across the floor and wedging against the opposite wall in a screaming howl as metal dragged across the stone floor and wood snapped from the impact. Oliver slammed down against the stone, the breath blasting from his body, his vision momentarily flickering black. He groaned and felt Sam’s hands on his arms, dragging him up.
“No time for laying about,” she muttered. “Those things will be over the carriage in seconds.”
Letting her pull him up, he staggered to his feet and began a limping run up the tunnel. By his side, Sam ran as well, the twinkling lights of the fae swarming ahead of them in a cloud. Turn after turn, yard after yard, they ran up the gradual incline of the tunnel, the sounds of pounding feet and low moans echoing off the stone behind them.
Occasionally, Oliver would spare a glance over his shoulder and would wish he had not. The reavers, their dead mouths open in hunger, the purple glow filling their eye sockets, chased after them just thirty yards behind.
The reavers couldn’t run faster than he and Sam, but they were rele
ntless, untiring. Oliver had no doubt the creatures could keep running for hours, maybe days. They didn’t feel pain, weren’t affected by wounds that would kill a man, and didn’t need to breathe. They only hungered for flesh, but if his plan worked, they wouldn’t get his. Gasping great lungfuls of air, he offered a hope to the spirits that it would work.
“How much farther?” gasped Sam. “I don’t know how much longer we can keep ahead of them.”
“You’ve been getting lazy,” he chided, ignoring the burn in his legs, the desperate rise and fall of his chest.
Stumbling, struggling, they kept running, passing through rooms, and soon, they made it a third of the way up the keep. Behind them, the reavers were catching up, dashing across the open spaces, their awkward strides unimpeded.
“Those gates that we saw, think we can find and shut one?” wheezed Sam.
“The workmen took them out,” said Oliver. “Here.” He darted to the left into a narrow passage, pulling Sam behind him. “They can only come one or two abreast.”
“Are you sure this is the right way?” asked Sam, staggering against the wall, shoving off and pushing herself forward with her hands. “The plan was to take the main avenue.”
“I’m sure,” he said, and he was.
Whether through some knowledge dredged from his distant memory of mapping the keep or some recent connection to the spirit of the place, he knew it was the right way. Just as he knew when they reached the top, he could do what was necessary. He felt the spirit around them, felt its bubbling insistence, felt its desire to be free.
Next to him, Sam pulled one of her daggers.
He winced, hoping she didn’t mean it for him, but evidently, she just wanted to be prepared. Ten yards behind them, the first reaver came relentlessly closer.
Oliver thought to the fae that swirled around them, and half the tiny creatures flew back, pelting into the face of the reaver, clustering over its eyes, causing it to howl its grating, terrible cry. The monster beat at its face, slowing its jog, and Oliver and Sam put on speed, gaining a few extra steps.
“Nice trick,” rasped Sam.
“That’s the only time it’s going to work,” he admitted. They needed the remaining fae to light the way.
They fell quiet, only their ragged breaths and the dry shuffling behind them filling the echoing stone tunnel. A little bit more, a little bit more to the throne room.
“Hells,” muttered Oliver, glancing behind where one of the creatures had closed to within five yards of him.
Suddenly, they burst into an open room, and he took the opportunity to draw his broadsword on the run. He lost a step doing it, but he wanted the steel in his hand if that thing caught him.
“That won’t kill it!” warned Sam.
He knew, but he could slow it. At the other end of the room, right before they ran into the next tunnel opening, he spun, swinging his sword low, catching the reaver at the knees.
The creature, mindless in its pursuit, didn’t see the blow coming, and it pitched forward as he severed its left leg at the knee.
Hands grasping at him, its jaw snapping in frustration, the reaver tumbled to the floor beside him. Oliver felt its bony fingers close on his ankle.
Sam kicked the thing’s hand away and hauled him after her into the tunnel.
The other creatures coming behind veered off course, swerving around their fallen companion, and he and Sam gained a few more steps ahead of the monsters.
“They can’t jump,” observed Oliver.
“Does that help us?” gasped Sam. “Duke, I don’t know how much longer…”
“We’re almost there,” he assured.
One more turn, and they sprinted out of the narrow corridor into the wide-open throne room. The stone formed a tall dome far above their heads, and the gleaming rock of the floor spread out where it wasn’t covered with the carpets William had laid there. Sam’s blood still fouled a few of them.
In the center of the room was a huge construct. It’d been hanging in the rooms below, before Oliver had the workmen take it down and bring it into the throne room. There was space there for him to study it, and the wall was open to the air outside, in case the construct was designed for what he thought it was. He thanked the spirits, seeing the construct was still there where he’d been toying with it.
Behind them, the tortured moans of the reavers were right at their heels.
“Go!” cried Oliver unnecessarily.
Sam showed no hesitation. She raced alongside him, and when they reached the construct, they both slammed into it, pushing. It resisted until there was a sharp crack, and its ancient wheels began to turn.
Bony feet clattered across the stone floor as reavers poured into the room.
Oliver glanced back beneath his arm and shuddered. A dozen of them, purple eyes ablaze, with more coming.
He and Sam pushed the construct, its wooden wheels bouncing over the carpets, the frame seemingly less sturdy beneath his hands than when he’d last felt it. The hides stretched over it were stiff with age but not as brittle as he would have expected.
Something within the keep had sustained it, an endless fount of life welling up and around the stone and everything within. Toes digging against the floor, arms braced against the construct, Oliver felt for that fount, that bubble of life which had kept the construct from crumbling. It coursed through him, filling his veins and his lungs. It cascaded through Sam, through the stone around them, the very air, the fae swirling around them, but not the reavers. The current of life infused itself into all matter within its boundary except for them. They were no longer a part of this world or the other.
The spirit, the current he felt, was a permanent print of life upon the world, but it stayed within its boundary. It was anchored there, tied to the fortress by bindings druid magicians had set a thousand years before. It was ready to be released.
As the construct picked up speed, its wheels turning faster and faster, Oliver severed those spiritual bindings that were tied to the fortress. He released the anchor. He freed the bubbling energy from the place, encouraged it to fly out into the world, away from the stones it’d held onto for so long.
Then he and Sam reached the end of the room, and they both jumped into the rolling construct. He landed on a bed of soft, stripped bark, and she landed on top of him.
Behind, he could hear the wail of the undead creatures clamoring after them, but they had a few steps on the reavers. They had enough.
The construct rolled out of the open end of the room.
Sam gasped as it dropped, and Oliver scrambled to haul on the levers in the front of the cocoon where they lay. They plummeted into the air, falling from the side of the druid keep, and then the wind caught them, snapping the frames and the hides that were spread over them.
Swooping, the construct soared above the trees, gliding like a bird.
“Frozen hell, I can’t believe this is working!” cried Sam.
Oliver’s heart jumped when, to his right, he heard the ancient hide tear. He’d redirected the font of life away from the keep, and the construct was no longer maintained by the bubbling well of energy. The construct was reverting to what it should be — dust.
Oliver looked back at the keep behind them.
“Watch where you’re going!” screamed Sam.
She was stuffed beside him in the compartment of the contraption, wedged between him and the thin wall of the thing where he’d pushed past her reaching for the controls. What he hoped were controls, at least. She tried to sit up, but the construct leaned as she did, and they veered to the right, following her shift in weight.
“Get back down!” he growled, pulling again on the levers, not knowing what to do with them.
He didn’t have long to worry about it. The construct was sinking, the initial gust of air that supported them dying as they neared the river. Oliver was still wondering if he should try to reach the river, to land on it, when the first branch whipped against the bottom of their compart
ment, jolting them and causing a horrible scraping sound.
Without any options, Oliver yanked on one of the control levers, and the nose of the contraption dipped. Cursing, he braced himself as they impacted the top of another tree. The right wing of the construct was torn free, slowing their forward progress, increasing their downward momentum, and tilting them alarmingly.
“Hold on!” Oliver shouted as they fell into the trees, smashing into branches, splintering the wood around them, leaves rustling in his ears and thin sticks slapping his face.
The construct fell, bouncing off the thick canopy and descending through it in fits and jerky drops. Finally, fifteen yards above the forest floor, they cleared the last of the tree limbs and dropped straight down.
The construct shattered around them.
Oliver bounced off the bed of bark shavings and tufts of string that lined the compartment of the device. He rolled out the broken side and flopped onto the dirt of the forest floor. He lay there on his back, blinking at the ceiling of branches and leaves above him. Bits of hide and sticks of the frame were scattered through the tree limbs, torn away as they’d fallen through.
“I can’t believe that worked,” muttered Sam, shoving bits of wood and hide off of her.
“The escape worked,” he said, climbing to his feet and looking back toward the keep.
He didn’t see it. All he could see was a giant plume of rock dust.
“If a single one of the reavers escaped that place…” worried Sam.
“We’ll go look,” said Oliver. “I know we can’t kill the things, but maybe… I don’t know. We have to find out. We have to be sure each and every one of those reavers was buried under that mountain of rock. We have to be sure they’re still trapped there. Trapped there forever.” He patted himself, found his broadsword amongst the wreckage of their construct, and turned to Sam. “Are you all right?”
“Unbelievably, yes,” she admitted. “Duke, I didn’t think—”
“We’ll talk later,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have… I should have trusted you.”
