by Nazri Noor
Raw magic bounded across the graveyard, spells flung from every direction striking the massive Old One’s claws – but all of them glanced off harmlessly. One of Romira’s signature beach ball-sized fireballs hit home, burst in a roar of flame, and did absolutely no damage. Not even a scorch mark.
“We’re fucked,” I said.
“Probably,” Herald said. “But we can’t just let this abomination come in without a fight.”
“The Heart,” I said, eyes wide. “Can’t someone get in touch with them, call down a strike?”
Herald shook his head. “I don’t think you realize how delicate the beam’s crystal mechanism is, Dust. If the Heart was fully operational, they would want to wait for the opportune moment. They can’t do that just now, knowing so many of their people are here fighting. If it all comes down to it, they’ll call for a mass evacuation, then strike. But with this many of the Lorica around – not happening. Not yet, at least.” He cleared his throat, glancing at me briefly. “Because someone messed with the technology.”
I grimaced. Awesome. So the Scions were trigger-happy enough to attempt to blast my ass whenever they felt like it, but now that a monstrosity the size of a warehouse – it lumbered forward – no, three warehouses was here, they were taking their sweet damn time. And yes, I knew perfectly well that I was responsible for breaking their beam’s crystal focus. That much wasn’t lost on me. Anger was becoming more and more of a problem, I realized, to the point that I could even deny I was partially responsible.
I stared at the portal, frozen from even attempting to fathom just how gigantic the Overthroat was supposed to be. Latham’s Cross flared in a crossfire of brilliant light, so many streaks of magical energy coming from all corners that together they wove a huge matrix of color from across the entire arcane spectrum – but nothing. The enormous shape of the thing called Shtuttasht just lumbered on through.
Then I saw its head.
The thrum of battle was too loud to make anything out, but I was positive that I couldn’t have been the only one to gasp at the sight of the Old One. Strips of white flesh hung from its skull, which wavered from the end of a neck the length of a telephone pole. Its skull was topped with a crown of those same strange, horny formations characteristic of the Eldest, its eyes burning a horrible, unearthly white.
The shape of it was what got to me. Human. This thing had the body of some massive, shambling dog, or a dragon with its hide scissored and ribboned to pieces, dangling off its alabaster skeleton and ribcage. But its head was undoubtedly human, a blatant mockery of the very race the Eldest had choses to destroy and dominate.
Shtuttasht proudly cast its rictus grin across the cemetery as it turned its head this way and that, scanning the field for some unknowable purpose. All along the length of its neck were holes that opened and closed, dilating as they piped out the horrible, discordant song of the Eldest. Ah. The Overthroat.
“Call in the Heart,” I said, my voice trembling.
“If it was fully functional, they would have evacuated us to try by now,” Herald hissed. “And even then, do you really think it’d stand a chance against this thing? The beam hardly tickled the White Mother’s rift, much less her corporeal form. This Overthroat bastard is the size of a fucking house.” He threw another salvo of icicles, shredding the last of the lingering shrikes, then nudged his glasses up his nose. “No. Three houses. Maybe four.”
“Then what about the Scions?” I flicked my wrist, disengaging the sword that the Dark Room had given me, watching as it dissipated into motes of shadow. “Why don’t they show up and do some of the dirty work for once?”
Herald’s forehead crinkled, his lips pressed tightly together, and he frowned, hardly looking at me. The anger swirled in my chest. We both knew why the Scions weren’t coming.
“Then we fight, I guess,” I said, speaking with steel in my voice despite the fact that my hands were still shaking. “We do our best to fuck this beast up and send it back to the hell it came from.”
I sent Vanitas hurtling towards the portal, directing his scabbard at the Overthroat’s head, then his blade at the Old One’s neck. It was thinner than the rest of the abomination’s body, surely its weak spot. I grumbled to myself. Like the Eldest would ever make it that easy.
The clang of metal on bone rang through the night as Vanitas made impact, then rebounded violently away from the Overthroat. Nothing. He hadn’t even dinged the monster.
“A worthy opponent,” Vanitas bellowed in my head.
“Be careful,” I thought to him. “This isn’t like the shrikes. Remember the White Mother? It’s one of them.”
“A name is a name,” Vanitas said, whirling through the night sky, retreating just far enough to give himself a running start. I watched as his sword pointed directly towards the Overthroat’s head, then looked on as Vanitas sped unerringly, like a bullet, like a screaming missile.
“Vanitas.” This time the word came out of my mouth. “No.”
His laughter filled my head, his blood-thirst completely taking over. And as it sometimes, so very rarely happened, Vanitas ignored me, even when I phrased his retreat as a command, an order.
A flash of bright red light emanated from Vanitas’s jewels. The sound of snapping bone whipped across the graveyard. Then, for a moment, stillness.
He’d done it. That arrogant bastard had done it. He’d skewered the Overthroat’s skull, piercing through its bony forehead. From around Latham’s Cross, I thought I heard cheering. But Shtuttasht’s eyes swiveled upward, focusing ever so briefly on the thing lodged in its skull. Then from every hole in its throat issued a rattling, creaking noise that sounded like laughter. It made my skin crawl.
“Vanitas?”
He didn’t answer. A glimmer in the corner of my eye showed me where his scabbard was: falling useless and limp to the ground.
“V?” I shouted, running for the scabbard. “Vanitas?”
“Dustin,” Herald called after me. “Don’t do it, the Overthroat is – ”
I leapt across graves and skidded across wet grass, my mind an endless tattoo of “Tabi-tabi po, tabi-tabi po,” like the phrase was the absolute maximum of what my mind could process. I didn’t want to lose him again. But there was Vanitas’s scabbard, away from the battle, laying in the grass motionless. His garnets were dim. I fell to my knees, clutching him in one hand, his star-metal scabbard cold against my skin.
“Dustin,” someone shouted. “Look out!”
Shtuttasht’s glowing eyes, each a swirling facsimile of an Eldest portal, focused on me as it swiveled its rotting neck. The holes in its throat whistled with its horrible laughter.
The Overthroat opened its mouth.
Chapter 29
My body was not ready. Fuck, but none of me was ready to see the glowing white orb between the Overthroat’s teeth, suspended in that strange, fleshless space that was its mouth. A high-pitched keening sounded from its jaws, and the orb grew larger and larger.
Fuck.
I ran for it, away from the gathered mages, away from the portal itself, scabbard still in hand. If the Overthroat was charging up to blast me, then the best I could do was avoid collateral damage. Nobody else needed to be hurt that night.
“Dustin.” The word came from inside my head. It was Royce’s voice. “Behind you. Look out.”
Like a fool I looked over my shoulder as I ran. A massive white beam of corrupt arcane energy was lancing straight out of the Overthroat’s mouth – exactly like those lasers the Eldest had used to destroy the carnival grounds, the stretch of road outside Valero. Shtuttasht had been responsible for every one. Those blasts were powerful enough to smash concrete, to pummel the earth. And all I had was a flimsy human body.
I dashed harder, the cold night air scarring my lungs as I zipped towards a thicket of trees, at the very least positive that I wasn’t directing the Overthroat’s ire at a mausoleum, some poor guy’s remains. The night was so much brighter with the brilliance of the Overthroat’s
beam speeding towards my back. Soon I felt its heat tickling at my nape.
“Graves! Get the fuck out of there!”
I wasn’t going to argue with Royce. Not on that point. On the very next step, I released my body’s hold on our reality, letting myself fall into my own shadow. I fell quickly into the Dark Room, allowing myself to sprawl across its horrible, leathery ground. I could’ve kissed it. Somewhere, back in the real world, the Overthroat’s laser had probably just annihilated an entire section of forest.
My chest heaved as I panted, gasping for air in the already stifling environment of the Dark Room. Wait. That meant that the Overthroat was probably getting ready to fire another one of its fucking beams.
I groaned, pushing myself off the floor, carefully depositing Vanitas’s scabbard in my backpack. Idiot, I thought. He was too gung-ho. I tried my best not to let the actual distressing thought of him possibly dying linger, but there it was, clouding the back of my mind with its miasma.
No, I thought, heading towards the closest exit, a pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel. Vanitas was fine. He was just – asleep. Something about the Overthroat’s alien physiology had numbed him, put him dormant. Maybe a nullification field that dulled out Vanitas’s enchantment. All we had to do was kill the fucker, and V would come back again.
I stuck my chest out, clenching my jaw as I strode out of the Dark Room and reentered reality. Easy. No problem.
“Dust,” Herald shouted, his eyes huge, his fingers digging into my shoulders. “I told you to be careful, what the fuck were you – ”
“I’m okay,” I said. I’d chosen to return to Valero on a patch of earth right beside him, because I’m all about flourishes and big entrances, you know? Even in the face of death. I smiled at him. “I’m totally fine. You didn’t have to worry so much.”
“I wasn’t worried,” he said, flustering, retrieving his hands. “It’s not like I – ”
“Listen,” I said. “We’re going to have to do better with this communication thing. I know you care, and you know I care enough that I came back right here, right next to you. So you wouldn’t be afraid.” I gestured at myself. “See? All in one piece. Every perfect, pretty little part of me.”
“I swear, Dust, it can be charming, but right about now – ”
“Right about now, we need to put that piece of garbage to sleep.” I flung one finger out at the Overthroat, half its body still embedded in the portal, its mouth open as it gathered force for another shot. “We need to get Vanitas back.” I clapped Herald on the shoulder. “Save the world. Am I right?”
“Right.” Herald nodded. “Agreed. Let’s finish this.”
I called the fire, building a clump of it in my hand, because what else could I do? Herald was at my side, his own hands clutching around floating particles of ice, and together we sent flame and frost raining down on the Overthroat, aiming at its head. But each time, nothing. The Lorica and the Boneyard were doing well enough to distract it, giving it too many targets to effectively use its beam, but any moment now, it was going to fire, and fully a quarter of Latham’s Cross would be cratered.
Shrieking came from behind us, inhuman noises mingled with the screams of the Lorica’s mages. I spun, horrified to find more shrikes frothing in a fresh assault, tearing at the Hands and Wings. No. The forest. I’d forgotten. The Overthroat had augmented its awful magics, planting seeds for the shrikes’ forbidden fruit everywhere its beam struck.
That was it. If the amulet wasn’t enough to close the portal, and if those worthless Scions weren’t going to come in to help, then I had to turn to our one last resort. I rummaged through my backpack, feeling for the crystal that Nyx had given me. It was time to summon the Midnight Convocation.
Or so I thought. The ground was suddenly awash in a pale green mist, shrouding my feet in a cool, wet cloud. It smelled of incense, a kind of distant fragrance I thought I remembered from church, or the phantom scent of an ancient, forgotten rite.
Something sharp and white burst from the earth, slipping between blades of grass like a bony spike. Then more of them came, raking at the dirt and furrowing. Not a spike, I realized. It was a skeletal hand. And as it pushed, pressing at the ground, digging for traction, it pulled the rest of its dead, ivory body from out of the earth.
I screamed.
Chapter 30
Around us, all over Latham’s Cross, from graves and crypts and mausoleums, more and more of the dead burst into unlife, returned from the darkness.
I scrambled away, summoning more fire in my hands, when my back bumped up against Herald. He was more composed than me, but maybe that was because he actually had some idea of what was happening. He shook his head, then pointed towards the center of the graveyard.
Asher had his hands lifted to the sky, pale green light pouring from his eyes, his mouth, his fingers. This was his doing. He had mastered his necromancy enough to summon the very dead themselves from out of their graves.
His chest was heaving, his forehead glazed, his shirt stuck to his body with sweat – but he was smiling. I couldn’t imagine the amount of power surging through him just then, but I did know that it made him an extremely visible beacon of light – and an ideal target for the Overthroat.
“We need to protect Asher,” I said to Herald. But we couldn’t attract so much attention that the Overthroat would so easily discern where to strike next. I did the best thing I could think of.
Pressing my hand into the ground just at Asher’s feet, I called for the Dark to send a drift of shadow to billow up from the earth. It worked: a curtain of solid night draped over Asher, a thin and truthfully immaterial wall between him and Shtuttasht, but it served its purpose: to camouflage our friend from the Old One’s baleful eyes.
“Nicely done,” Herald said, helping me up off the ground.
I nodded at him, panting as I rose to my feet. I was already on my last dregs of power from earlier in the night, and all these fireballs and summonings of shadow were skimming off the rest of what was left. Not even blood could save me in that state.
“This has to end,” I breathed. “Sooner rather than later.”
Herald nodded at Asher’s skeletal army. “They sure as hell are helping. A lot.”
They were tearing at the shrikes – hundreds of skeletons, most of them human, and a small number of strange skeletal creatures built from the bones of various fallen wild animals. Asher’s minions – no, his friends, I suppose – fought soundlessly, apart from the creak and scrape of bones made sturdy and sharp through his power. Each of them glowed faintly with a jade pallor, animated by his necromantic might.
Herald aimed his hand at the ground, grimacing as he erected a wall of ice just behind the curtain of shadow I’d called out of the Dark. A flimsy defense against what the Overthroat could muster, but better than nothing.
“You’re doing a good job, Asher,” Herald said, clutching his chest.
“You’re doing a great job,” I said. I placed a hand against Herald’s back, this time whispering. “Take it easy.” He nodded.
“Hnnngh,” Asher grunted, his forehead slick and gleaming. “It’s – it’s all about – respect.” More – impossibly more skeletons erupted from the earth, answering Asher’s call. “I respect them so much,” he grunted, his face wrenched and twisted from the effort.
With the support of the undead, it at least looked like we had a fighting chance. Royce and Romira dashed past us, along with a squad of Hands, all of them wielding orange globes between their fingers. Good. They were going to incinerate the shrike pods, to stem the tide and allow the rest of us to return our attention to the Overthroat.
And the skeletons were helping there, too. By the rickety dozens they threw themselves at Shtuttasht, gangly, spiked limbs clambering over the Old One’s body, dangling and reaching at its neck, thrusting sharp, wickedly taloned hands into the flute-like openings at its throat. The Overthroat shook and shuddered, bucking as it attempted to throw off the swarm of the living d
ead, but somehow it was working. The Old One was being overwhelmed.
So the only thing left was to deal the final blow. But how, and where? I sprinted up to Carver, finding him arguing with Bastion at top speed.
“Snap its neck, or sever it,” Bastion was saying. “If I get close enough, and get support, I can cleave that thing’s head right off its body. Decapitate it and it’s dead.”
“It’s never that simple with the Eldest,” Carver hissed. “You saw what happened with Dustin’s sword. It glanced off the Overthroat’s neck, and now it’s stuck in that abomination’s forehead like a – Dustin.” Carver’s eyes widened as he caught sight of me, and he clutched my arm. “Your amulet. You must try again. If you can seal the portal from this end while the Overthroat is still attempting its incursion – ”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Then it’s like a guillotine. Seal the gateway, and I cut off half its body. Kill it.”
“I can do that myself,” Bastion said. “That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time.”
“You are more than welcome to try,” Carver growled. “But only the gargantuan pressure of a portal snapping shut would be enough to kill the Overthroat.”
“Right,” I said, reaching for my amulet. “Let’s give it another shot.”
But before I could coax out its energies, I noticed the change going over the battlefield. The undead were falling off of the Overthroat’s body, their skeletons growing still, inert. I looked over at Asher, only to see that the light of his necromantic power was flickering. Fading. He looked down at his hands, at his dissipating aura, his mouth open in disbelief.
“Carver,” I said. “This isn’t good. What’s happening?”
Thin ropes of black substance, like slime, were rising from the earth, replacing the pale green mist that manifested from Asher’s power. They threaded around the bones of the fallen, snaking between ribs and crevices, into skulls and eye sockets. After the briefest pause, the skeletons shuddered back into unlife, rising once more from the earth. But this time, they weren’t facing the Overthroat.
