Song of the Dead

by Sarah Glenn Marsh

  “Any sign of him?” Simeon asks me once in a while, in the same would-be-casual tone he used back at the temple.

  Each time, I shake my head. I’ve been searching for Danial and the volunteers in every alleyway we pass, no easy task in the deep darkness. But the only bodies I’ve glimpsed among the rubbish have been unrecognizable.

  As Simeon shivers and squeezes my hand, I resolve not to dwell on the possibilities. I have to hope Danial is still out there somewhere, still fighting. Just like Meredy.

  Somewhere along our flight through the city, we lose the Sisters of Cloud. I stop noting which twists and turns we take, mindlessly following Kasmira. As we splash through a dark substance that stains the pale tiles of Merchant Square, Azelie coughs and gags. Moments later, the smell of carnage overwhelms me, and I swallow hard to keep from retching.

  “Almost there!” Kasmira whispers over her shoulder, careful not to attract the attention of the few metal soldiers nearby.

  Lucky for us, they don’t seem to take notice of our little group, too busy storming into buildings and throwing bodies out of windows.

  We quicken our pace. Nipper bounds along at Azelie’s heels, for once not straying off on a whim. As the clouds roll back, I get my first glimpse of the harbor, moonlight glinting off ripples in the water.

  There are a few other ships hastily drawing up their anchors and setting sail, ships full of panicked people who most definitely aren’t the captains and crew of the vessels they’ve commandeered.

  But the Paradise stays anchored, what remains of her crew standing proudly on the deck, their blades drawn. No one goes aboard without Kasmira’s permission, like always.

  I never really understood how she could love that patched, scarred, hopelessly waterlogged ship more than any living creature—until now. The Paradise, whispering of escape every time she creaks in the wind, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  We’re almost to the ship when someone behind me cries out.

  It takes me a moment to realize who’s made the sound, because it comes from a voice I’ve rarely, if ever, heard raised in pain.

  Jax.

  I was so focused on reaching the ship, I didn’t see the three metal soldiers breaking away from their companions. One leaps in front of Valoria, blocking our path to the ship’s gangway. Another positions itself at our backs, spear raised, hindering any hope of retreat toward the city. The third soldier pins Jax to the ground with a spear shoved into his chest.

  I draw my blade. Just as I told him the day I followed him into the Deadlands, I’m prepared to die for him. Valoria pushes her way through her guards toward the back of our group, trying to reach us.

  My heart drowns out every other sound as the metal soldier pulls its spear unceremoniously from Jax’s chest, leaving him for dead.

  Valoria beats on the metal soldier’s chest with her fists, but it remains unmoved. “Why are you doing this?” she screams. The crew on the ship are shouting something to us, but I can’t make out the words over Valoria’s continued screams. “You don’t belong in this world! I won’t let you have it! If you want to kill someone, take—”

  Her words are replaced by a choking sound as the soldier wraps its free hand around her throat and squeezes.

  I lunge at the soldier throttling Valoria. I may not be able to wound the blasted thing, but I can at least distract it by jabbing my sword into its eye holes while both its hands are occupied, and hopefully allow Valoria to break free.

  As the tip of my blade nears the soldier’s face, strong hands pull my arms back so hard and so quickly that I think they might have dislocated my shoulders. Another soldier has me in its grasp, making me drop my blade and pinning me against its chest. It holds me like shackles, impassive as I kick its iron shins and scream every curse I can think of.

  I don’t know why it’s not just snapping my neck. The other metal soldiers seem to be trying to kill everyone else while I’m forced to watch.

  As Valoria’s guards attack the soldier who has her by the throat, its companion picks the human soldiers off one by one, knocking them unconscious and throwing them into the harbor. There’s a flurry of movement and more shouting as the Paradise crew tries to assist, saving whomever they can.

  Of course, I realize with a blinding burst of rage, bruising myself as I continue to thrash in my captor’s hold. These must be Hadrien’s orders to the spirit soldiers: To leave me alive long enough to watch my friends die. To bring me to him, so he can kill me himself.

  After helping Azelie escape a soldier, Kasmira manages to reach Jax and drops to her knees beside him, trying to stanch his bleeding by putting a hand over his wound and pressing down. As I watch, furious at my own helplessness, I try to remember if there’s a healer among the Paradise’s crew. Since Dvora died, there may not be, and Kasmira’s efforts won’t be enough to keep Jax alive for long.

  The whole world seems to narrow in the space of a few heartbeats, shrinking to nothing but a burst of violent sound: Valoria’s choking, Ruthie’s cries as she bangs on the shins of her older sister’s attacker, people screaming as they’re thrown into the water, soldiers’ creaking limbs, Jax’s delirious groans, and Kasmira’s cursing.

  Above it all, an eerie, wordless melody begins to echo in my ears.

  The song Meredy and I have been hearing at night.

  I look everywhere for the source of the sound. It seems to be coming from somewhere to my right, where Nipper stands gazing up at something on the Paradise, mesmerized. Is someone on board our mystery singer?

  Suddenly, the soldiers freeze—just like the spirits in the Deadlands, the three figures seem unable to move. Simeon frees himself from a soldier’s grasp and hurries to my side, though I manage to break free of my captor on my own. Together, we drop down beside Jax as everyone else relieves the metal soldiers of their weapons by tossing the spears into the water.

  “Who was singing just now?” I demand. But no one is listening.

  Freeing her neck from the grip of iron fingers, Valoria staggers over to embrace Ruthie, looking dazed from lack of air.

  The remaining guards kneel at the water’s edge, searching for survivors, while Azelie examines the precious glass vials in her hands, checking them for cracks before another cloud obscures the moon. Shards of glass glitter near her feet like fallen stars, the result of her struggle against one of the soldiers.

  Gazing down at Jax, I take over for Kasmira, holding the life inside him for who knows how much longer. I can barely feel him breathing.

  I’m not aware of how much time passes before Simeon gives a startled shout and runs toward something behind me. I tense at his cry, reaching for my fallen blade with my free hand, wondering if more metal soldiers are headed our way. But it’s Danial who appears and swoops down beside me without a word, his white healer’s robes stained black and crimson.

  The Paradise isn’t the most beautiful thing I’ve seen, after all. Danial is, even when he’s covered in other people’s blood, looking like the face of Death.

  After a few hurried minutes of Danial’s careful ministrations, Jax gasps and sits up, clutching the spot where the spear pierced his chest. Valoria trips over the dock’s uneven boards in her haste to embrace him, and as Kasmira helps our queen up, she says firmly, “There will be time for reunions on the ship, Majesty.” Glancing back toward the city, where the ruddy glow of a fire is beginning to spread, and then to the soldiers as still and civilized as statues, she adds, “We need to hurry.”

  Already, Azelie is running up the gangway with her remaining vials of potion, giving a wide berth to the three unarmed metal soldiers who are still frozen in place. Of course, even without their spears, they can be deadly, and I don’t know how long this mysterious reprieve will last.

  I grab Valoria’s arm and start to follow Azelie, but turn back at the sound of a huge splash. Jax has thrown one of the heav
y iron figures into the water.

  Letting the others run ahead of me, I hurry back to help him.

  He leans on me for support—just a little, not enough that he’d ever admit he accepted help from someone—as we watch Noranna’s creations sink. Water bubbles out of their empty eye holes as they go down.

  “Come on, you two!” Kasmira calls tersely.

  We dash aboard, and as the crew prepares to depart, most everyone else heads belowdecks to give the sailors room to work.

  I can’t bring myself to leave the railing, though. My skin prickles with heat as I watch the city burn, hoping to hear a grizzly’s roar amidst the human screams. Hoping for Meredy and Elibeth to emerge from the blaze and run toward the ship.

  Several times, I think of leaping over the rail to go find Meredy. After all, Valoria is safe now, and so is the black fever cure. I’ve done what I promised Meredy I would: I’ve gotten our queen to safety. Still, Meredy would want me to stay by Valoria’s side and help her come up with a plan to stop Hadrien’s army. I’m as sure of that as I am of my own name.

  As we begin moving slowly seaward, my knees grow weak, and I lean harder against the rail. Meredy and I had barely gotten back together, and now we might never see each other again. I just want to hold her one more time.

  “Hey, Sparrow.” Someone wraps their arms around me from behind. “Just because she’s not here doesn’t mean . . .” Valoria whispers in my ear, but she can’t even finish the sentence. “I’m here,” she says instead, holding me tighter. “I’m here, and so are you, and we’re going to figure out how to fight this together.”

  I shake my head. “Things just keep getting worse. Every time I think we’ve solved one problem, there’s a bigger one right behind it. It’s never going to stop.”

  “That’s life,” Valoria says softly. “But there are good parts, too. Like this.” She leans against me. “This is why we keep fighting.”

  Trying not to think about the girl who stood beside me the last time I watched Karthia’s shore grow smaller, I will myself into numbness and let Valoria lead me belowdecks. We step into a crowded cabin where Nipper greets me with an enthusiastic bark, and Simeon makes space for me on the cot I once shared with Meredy.

  As I sit between Simeon and Valoria, I somehow manage to keep my grief buried down deep. Hopefully, it won’t resurface until something reminds me of her too strongly to be ignored.

  “To business, then,” Simeon says, casting a look around at the handful of mage students, the few surviving volunteer soldiers, his husband, and his friends. “We need to get the spirits out of those metal bodies. Without a physical home to anchor them here, they should be sucked right back to the Deadlands through the nearest gate. We already know we can’t burn them, beat them, or stab them. So . . . who has another idea?”

  “The singing,” I say at once. “You all heard that wailing sound right before the soldiers froze, didn’t you?”

  Most of the students nod. Even Valoria, who was being choked at the time, says she heard it.

  “Well, when it was happening, Nipper here”—I pause, giving my little dragon an appreciative smile—“was looking up at the Paradise. I think someone on board knows a song that stuns the soldiers. We just have to find out who.”

  A wiry young man with eyes of deep sea blue, one of the mage students, turns toward the door. “I heard the wailing, too. I’ll go ask around.”

  “You’ll need help!” a green-eyed little girl declares, hurrying after him.

  But as she reaches the door, she pauses, coughing so hard that her whole body rattles with the force of it. Something dark spatters her hands as she lowers them from her mouth.

  It’s only then that I notice the droplets of sweat clinging to her forehead.

  “It’s all right. No one panic,” Azelie says from the back of the narrow cabin where she’s tearing strips off her colorful skirt, carefully wrapping her potion vials in cloth. “I’ve still got these, no thanks to those brutes that made me drop some outside.”

  Her hair has come partially loose from its two knots on either side of her head, and I spot the beginnings of a large bruise on her cheek from our fight with the metal soldiers, giving her a wild—and fierce—look. I wonder if she’s realized yet how many lives she’s going to save. She did us all a huge favor in coming to Karthia.

  Some of the students head up the stairs to help search for the mystery singer, while others watch Azelie give a few drops of her antidote to the little girl with the bad cough. Danial falls asleep with his head in Simeon’s lap, his body rebelling against him for saving Jax’s life. Jax leans back against the wall, holding Valoria in his arms. He holds her like she’s all that’s anchoring him to this world, like there’s no tomorrow. And for all we know, there may not be.

  I try to keep my mind on the trouble at hand, worried about what thoughts will creep in the moment I’m not focused. This is a problem with spirits, a problem for a necromancer—me—yet I don’t have any idea how to stop the soldiers if I can’t sink my blade into their flesh. That’s how we’ve always sent spirits back to their world. That’s all I was taught, all I know.

  My eyes begin to drift closed of their own accord, lulled into drowsiness by the steady breath of the sea. But when I’m almost at the point of slipping under, images of Meredy flash across my darkened eyelids—visions of her lying in an alleyway somewhere, of her broken body cradled in the embrace of a metal soldier. Somehow, even though she appears to be dead, she’s screaming for me. Screaming my name.

  I sit upright on the cot, soaked in sweat, breathing hard. At first, I think it’s the pain in my shoulders that woke me—I couldn’t bring myself to make Danial do any more healing—but then I hear Meredy’s voice still echoing in my ears, calling for me.

  Someone is calling me, I realize as the haze of sleep rolls back.

  Only it’s not Meredy.

  I rush up the cabin stairs, Nipper at my heels, apparently excited that someone is awake for her to play with. Valoria untangles herself from a slumbering Jax and hurries after us.

  Kasmira stands at the top of the steps, silhouetted by a glorious golden dawn, her expression grim. “There are ships,” she pants. She must have run to us from the helm. “Strange ships on the horizon.”

  XXXII

  Within minutes of Kasmira’s sighting, everyone gathers on deck to watch the ships draw nearer. The Ezorans have found us.

  This is it, then. Valoria would have died if she’d stayed in Karthia, but now it seems she’s going to die in the one place we thought she’d be safe. Along with the rest of us.

  Heat surges through me, rising with my temper. I don’t want to die like this. If this is really the end, I want Meredy beside me. But she’s not here, which means that somehow, I’m going to have to fight the Ezorans.

  “I could conjure up the worst storm they’ve ever been through,” Kasmira offers, glancing at Valoria, but the queen shakes her head. She knows about the tremors in Kasmira’s hands, having seen it firsthand while sparring with her during one of our early training sessions.

  Not one to admit defeat so easily, Kasmira says, “I could turn the ship around. Try to lose them somewhere.”

  Again, Valoria shakes her head and frowns. “Given how quickly they’re moving, they’ll catch up to us no matter which direction we choose. And I doubt they’ll just let us sail away, now they’ve spotted us.”

  Indeed, the ships have altered their course since Kasmira first saw them, now heading directly into our path.

  “I know,” Kasmira agrees softly. “But if we don’t try running, we’ll really be—”

  “Out of options,” I finish for her, gooseflesh spreading across my arms and neck. I count the enemy ships as they get close enough to be distinguished from one another, surprised to find there are only ten. Even more surprising is that, while their ships’ cannons could easily reach us from
here, they’ve yet to open fire on our lone vessel.

  “That hardly looks like an army,” Danial says, sharing my thoughts.

  Simeon glances sideways at him. “Ten to one? I like their odds better than ours. Maybe not against Karthia, but out here . . .”

  “You’re right,” Danial muses. “They could finish us off here and now if they wanted. Wonder why they haven’t fired yet.”

  As I watch the Ezorans’ tattered flags billow in the wind, I remember the raven Valoria received from Baron Stryker in Lullin, where the warriors first landed. They didn’t kill anyone there, according to the baron’s message. They just stole things. And while I can only guess at their reasons, having witnessed the devastation they caused in Sarral, an idea is beginning to take shape in my mind.

  “We could try talking to them,” I blurt, raising several eyebrows among the group as I explain my thinking. “Valoria, you could send a coalition aboard to find out what they want with us. Or at least one person. I’ll go.”

  Valoria is quiet, looking across the water at the ships as she considers my idea. “It seems rather risky, even given their behavior in Lullin . . .” she says at last.

  “It’s not a risk,” I say at once. That raises even more eyebrows. “We don’t have any risks left to take. The ships will be on top of us before we know it, and we don’t have enough people or weapons to challenge them in a fight. There’s no running, and there’s no winning.” I glance toward the horizon, where the ships loom larger with each passing moment. “Trying to reason with them is our only move.”

  “All right,” Valoria agrees, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “We’ll try it. But I’m coming with—”

  “No!” several people say in unison, shouting her down.

  “Fine,” she bristles, her eyes bright.

  “I’m going with you, sweet sister,” Simeon says firmly, glancing between me and Danial. “But our general should stay here, to protect the queen.”