She seemed to fly into his arms, and the two of them stumbled backward and into the temple. Tira was so close behind them that she tripped on Tam's feet, and a pair of villagers slammed the temple doors shut behind her.
Tira picked herself up off of the floor and took a moment to catch her breath. The retreat had been ugly. Not much more than half of the village remained alive. A couple of big men held the door. They had their work cut out for them. The temple doors opened outward, and they didn't lock. As Tira watched, the doors shook as someone banged on them from outside. Then the undead started yanking on the door handles, and the villagers braced themselves, pulling back.
The temple was roughly circular, with a balcony at the front where a priest would stand to lead prayers. There were four sets of windows evenly spaced around the walls, and Tam was already assigning people to watch them. There was one old woman and five small children in the center of the temple. Two men held the doors, and three more men and five women guarded the windows, two at each. Mikail and a girl the same age held knives and joined the defenders at a couple of windows. Shadows appeared outside the glass at two different windows. The undead were spreading, surrounding the temple.
Tira joined the old woman in the middle of the temple. "Take the children up to the balcony," she said. "It's the next place we'll retreat to."
The woman nodded, picked up the smallest child, and headed for the staircase. The stairs were fairly narrow. A couple of people with swords would be able to put up a good defense.
Not that it would matter. The undead were going to get in, and they were going to overwhelm the defenders. If they couldn't reach the balcony, they would fire the building. It was hopeless.
Fire.
Tira toyed with the beginning of an idea. It was a mad idea, but every sane idea led to certain death. This plan might lead to her being burned alive, but at least that would be the end of it. Her body would never be a necromancer's puppet.
A window broke and hands reached in. Knives flashed, and fingers littered the floor. These villagers might not be bright, but they didn't lack for courage and determination, and Tira made her decision. If there was a ghost of a chance of saving a few of them, she had to take it.
A pair of cabinets stood at the back of the temple, and she threw them open. The cabinets held a variety of supplies, like candles and strikers, wine and cups, and robes of bright green. There was also a lamp, and a jar of lamp oil. Tira walked around the perimeter of the room, splashing oil on the walls. Then she poured a trail of oil across the floor, stopping just below the edge of the balcony. She cut a chunk of cloth from a curtain and used it to mop up the last of the oil. Then she took a striker and headed up the stairs.
The children were huddled in the back corner of the balcony, the old woman singing to them in a soft, low voice. Tira ignored them. There was a small window at the back of the balcony. Tira pushed it open and looked out. The grass was ten feet below. It would be rough on the old woman, but survivable.
"Tam," she called, "I need you up here." As he started toward her she added, "Oh, and bring one of those curtains with you."
She outlined her plan quickly. He looked horrified, but he didn't argue, just nodded. He ran back downstairs as she climbed through the window, hung for a moment from the sill by her fingertips, and dropped to the grass. For a moment there was no one in sight. She headed around the building at a run, hearing the urgent thump of feet as the survivors inside fled up the stairs. She saw the undead clambering in through the windows. They didn't notice her as she raced past.
She reached the stairs in time to see the last of the undead push inside. The steps were littered with fallen weapons, and she chose a sword. She pushed the doors shut and slid the blade of the sword through the handles, blocking it. It seemed inadequate, so she ran to a body on the grass. It was a village man, and she stripped off his suspenders and ran back to the temple.
She could hear swords clashing inside. They would be holding the undead at bay on the stairs. She could hear people shouting, and children crying. Beneath it all was a softer sound.
The crackling of flames.
She looped the first suspender through the door handles and pulled it tight, a moment before something crashed against the doors from the inside, jarring them open a couple of inches. Fervently hoping it was one of the undead and not a villager who hadn't made it up the stairs, she threw her shoulder against the doors, slammed them shut, pulled the suspender tight, and tied a quick knot. There was another crash, but the doors stayed shut while she tied another knot, then pushed the other suspender through the handles and repeated the process.
It wouldn't take long for the corpses to try the windows. She looked around for a weapon and found the axe that she had thrown, what seemed like a very long time ago. She snatched up the axe and ran along the side of the building.
An undead woman was climbing through the first window. She had her head and shoulders out, her hands on the windowsill, looking downward. The back of her neck was exposed, and Tira swung hard, hearing the axe head crunch through bone and flesh. The body fell back inside, and a man threw his leg over the windowsill. He grabbed the side of the window frame, and Tira chopped at his hand.
A village man with blood all over his face came running from the back of the temple. Tira thought he was undead, and was bringing the axe back to swing at him when he grabbed the undead man by the foot and heaved him back inside the temple.
At the next window over, a man and a woman stood shoulder to shoulder, holding the handle of a pitchfork. One of the undead was impaled on the tines, hands stretched out trying to reach them, and they used the body to block the window.
They didn't have to hold the windows for long. The fire spread quickly, and waves of heat came rolling out. The little hairs on the backs of Tira's hands singed and crumbled away, and the undead stopped trying to climb out.
She ran to the back of the building, wondering how many people had paid the price for her clever idea. To her intense relief she found the children gathered around the old woman, who was lying flat on her back, white-faced but seemingly unharmed.
Tira looked up at the window in time to see Tam clamber out, clutching the curtain, using it for a rope. The curtain gave way and he fell, landing hard on his back. The curtain landed on top of him, the top end in flames, and he flung it aside, slapping at his chest. His eyebrows and eyelashes were gone, and his hair was badly singed, but he grinned when he saw Tira. "Everyone made it out," he said.
Something moved in the window above him, and Tira ran to him, grabbed his arm, and yanked him out of the way. A man dropped out of the window and landed on the grass. He had a sword in his hand, and he was on fire. The children screamed, and the old woman covered one little girl's eyes.
The man lurched to his feet and flailed at the air blindly with his sword. He dropped to his knees, made one more wild cut at the air, and toppled onto his face. The smell of roasting flesh filled the air, turning Tira's stomach. She hefted her axe and moved past the burning man, completing her circuit of the building.
There was a soldier beside the temple, his hair on fire, facing a pair of village women with knives. He had lost his sword, and they harried him like wolves after a stag. When he faced one woman, the other would dart in and deliver a small cut to an arm or leg. Tira left them to it.
She walked across the village square, looking for movement. If she met an undead stranger, she decided, she would call for help. If it was a villager, she would deal with it on her own. If she could spare these people the experience of cutting apart a friend or a loved one, she would.
The movement when it came was so small that she almost missed it. A little form came running across the grass toward her. For a time, Tira just watched her come, her mind refusing to accept the evidence of her eyes. It was Sari, her face blank, a triangular piece of glass clenched in her fist. The glass had cut her fingers, but she didn't bleed. She ran straight at Tira, bringing her arm up to strike.
/>
Tira did her best to keep herself between Sari and the temple while she did what she had to do. She didn't want anyone to see it. When she was finished, she dropped to her knees in the grass and vomited until her stomach was empty.
Chapter 7
The embers of the temple were still glowing when Tira finished going over her gear. Her bow had survived, but four arrows had broken. She snapped the shafts off close to the head, put the arrowheads in her saddle bags, and climbed into the saddle.
Tam approached. He had tied a bandanna around his head to keep sweat out of his eyes. His face was haggard and streaked with soot, but he gave her a grim smile. "Going somewhere?"
She nodded. "Remember that cart full of bodies? I think I'll go see where it was headed."
"You'll get yourself killed," he said.
Tira shrugged. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Sari projected on the inside of her eyelids. She owed a debt to a little girl who had trusted her. Someone was going to pay that debt, and pay in blood.
"I have to stay," Tam said.
She nodded.
"They need me here," he said. There was a note of pleading in his voice, as if he thought she didn't understand. "Half the town is gone."
"Don't be an idiot, Tam. Of course you have to stay." They looked at each other for a long moment. "Thank you," she said. "You can ride with me any time." Then she booted the horse and headed out of the village on the east road.
She camped that night by a small stream in the grasslands. She wanted to keep going, goaded by rage and afraid of the nightmares that awaited her if she slept. But the horse needed rest, and riding a bad road in the dark was a good way to break a horse's leg.
For dinner she had nothing but some leftover jerky some trooper had left in the bottom of one saddle bag. That gave her no reason for a fire, so she gnawed on the strip of meat and swatted mosquitoes while the sky grew dark and the first few stars appeared.
Hoofbeats drummed on the road. She strung her bow, took up her quiver, and crouched behind some low shrubs on a rise that gave her a good view of the road. It was a lone rider coming from the west, and she nocked an arrow just in case. Then she put the arrow away, stood, and waved.
Tam reined in his horse and waved back. He rode over to her and dismounted.
"I thought they needed you at the village."
"It's a town," he said, and shrugged. "They know what they're doing there." His teeth were a pale flash in the darkness as he smiled. "You, on the other hand... I bet you rode away without packing any food." He reached over to pat his bulging saddlebags. "Hungry?"
Her stomach growled in reply, and she chuckled. "I'll make a fire."
"Did you raid your mother's larder again?" she asked as he fried cubes of pork some time later.
His face was bleak as he answered. "This belonged to the Carpenters." The grim note to his voice told her all she needed to know about what had happened to them. "I brought everything that was going to spoil. There aren't enough people in the village to eat everything."
It was midday before they reached the palisade where Carmody and his men had died. Tira murmured a prayer to Neris for their souls, along with an apology for burning her temple to the ground. She supposed Neris would understand.
"We're, what? Three days behind the cart now?" Tira scratched her fingers through her hair. It was greasy to the touch. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a proper bath. "We're moving a lot faster than the cart is. If we're going twice as fast, we'll catch up in, let me see... Three days? That's if the cart keeps going straight."
"Maybe it won't be that hard," Tam said, his voice grim. "Maybe we'll catch up sooner than that."
He was staring down the road, and Tira followed his gaze. Several black specks moved against the sky in the distance ahead of them. Birds, big ones, and she only knew of one thing that would attract them in large numbers.
Carrion.
It took most of an hour to reach the remains of the cart. Someone had cut the bodies of Carmody and his men into pieces, then piled firewood under the cart and burned everything. It wasn't nearly enough wood to reduce that many men to ash. There was more than enough left to attract the vultures and ravens.
"Hey, look at this," Tam called. He was kneeling beside a blackened skull a few feet from the rest of the fire. "I think this is an arrow wound."
Tira frowned. No one had used a bow in the battle at the palisade.
"Look at this," Tam repeated. When Tira didn't move, he made an impatient gesture. "Yes, I know it's disgusting, but come here and look."
She walked over and squatted beside him, ready to give him the sharp edge of her tongue for his insistence. Then she peered at the skull, and her anger evaporated.
There was a hole in the right temple, just beside the eye socket. A matching hole decorated the left temple. Someone had put an arrow through the side of this person's head.
"He blinded him," Tam said. "I think this was the cart driver. Someone took out both his eyes with one arrow."
Tira shook her head. That was preposterous. No one was that good with a bow. It had to be chance. A lucky shot.
"Remember the arrow that landed in the fire?" Tam asked. That had been an awfully good shot, as well. She nodded.
"I would really like to know who's out there helping us," he said. He put the skull down. "Well, what now?"
Tira had a sneaking suspicion about the identity of their mysterious ally. She was opening her mouth to tell Tam her idea when she saw movement in the corner of her eye. She whirled, sliding the bow from her back, then relaxed. It was Daisy, with the other mule trailing behind her, ambling across the grass toward them.
"Well, old girl, have you enjoyed your vacation? I'm going to put you back to work, you know."
Daisy nuzzled her, and she scratched the mule behind the ears. Tam dug an apple out of his saddlebags and gave half to each mule, then set about transferring their saddlebags to the mules. The horses had been working hard, and every bit of weight removed would help.
"So, what happened here, old girl? I suppose you saw everything?"
Daisy ignored her, of course, laying her ears back to show her displeasure as Tam tied the saddle bags in place.
"It looks like we're ready to go," Tam said. "Do we know where we're going?"
Tira shrugged. "Let's keep following the road. We know the bodies were headed east."
"Yes, but where were they going?"
"How should I know?" she snapped.
"Well," said Tam, "I've been thinking about that. I think the necromancer is wherever the children were being taken. That means somewhere on the other side of the river."
Tira thought about it. "Maybe," she said. She gestured at the burned remains of the cart. "Bodies are best when they're fresh, though." She thought of the town on the edge of the forest, with smoke rising above the walls. "And they seem to be generating a lot of dead bodies all of a sudden. I wonder if the necromancer has come to this side of the river to start the second phase of his plan."
Tam scratched his head. "If you're right, then we have the same problem as before. We have no idea where we're going."
"Sure we do," said Tira. She gestured down the road. "We're going east."
"Yes, but then what?"
She shrugged. "Maybe we'll find some more bodies we can follow."
They rode east. In late afternoon the grasslands gave way to forest. Soon after, they saw a column of smoke rising to the south. When a broad path appeared leading south through the trees, they followed it. They came to a valley with a small lake and a collection of dilapidated stone buildings. Someone had built a bonfire on open ground in the middle of the little settlement, and smoke still rose from the embers.
"What is this place?" said Tam.
Tira peered around. There was no sign of life, or of recent occupation. Trees as tall as a man sprouted close against the walls of the buildings, and doors hung open or were missing completely. The place was long abandoned. Some of
the buildings might have been cottages or small storehouses. One building, though, dominated the rest. Built of dark red stone, it stood a story and a half tall and could have held a hundred or more people with ease. On either side of the main entrance was a stylized carving of a man's face, one face laughing, the other face frowning. It was the symbol of the god Zef.
"I think this was some sort of monastery," she said. "A place for the monks to get away from worldly distractions."
Tam swung down from the saddle and approached the remains of the fire. "I see bones," he said. "They look human."
Tira thought of the trail they had taken from the road, which had been well-traveled and free of obstruction. The monastery looked abandoned, but someone had been coming here pretty regularly. "Is this our necromancer's secret lair?" she wondered aloud.
Tam put a hand to the hilt of his sword, looking around nervously. Tira wasn't too concerned, though. Judging by the size of the fire, the blaze would have been visible for miles, hardly the action of a secretive sorcerer. She was pretty sure the necromancer was no longer in residence. Still, she kept a hand on the hilt of her sword as she walked up the steps and into the main building with Tam on her heels.
One door was jammed shut. The other swung open with a squeal of rusty hinges. Inside, everything at first glance seemed undisturbed and long abandoned. There was a dais close to the door, festooned with cobwebs, and rows of benches facing it. The benches were covered with dust, but there was no dust on a path between the rows of benches. The building was not quite as abandoned as it seemed.
Pale light filtered in through eight window set high on the walls. Half of them were almost opaque with dirt. The other half were broken. Tira paused, waiting for her eyes to adjust. She could smell dust and mouse droppings, and behind her, Tam sneezed.
Most of the interior space was taken up by the one big, high-ceilinged room. As her eyes became used to the gloom, though, Tira was able to make out a door at the back. She headed that way, stepping softly, fighting the urge to draw her sword.
Bone Magic Page 8
