Soultaker

by Duperre, Robert J. ;

  Ducking low, he swung in short, compact arcs to sever tendons, shins, ankles. He nearly crawled through the mass, taking down one wobbly corpse after another. They piled up on either side of him, still reaching soundlessly with clawed hands. The air stank of burning flesh. His shirt and pants both joined his vest in the ruined department as fingers hooked the fabric. Nails scratched his back, his sides, his neck, but he barely felt them. There was the Rush, and that was all.

  Finally, a hand clamped around his ankle and pulled taut. Meesh spun onto his rump and drew back his Eldersword, but paused when Kamini’s lifeless eyes stared back at him. His hesitation lasted less than a moment; he jammed his blade into her forehead. Her face imploded when he ripped the sword free.

  “I’m … sorry,” he muttered, scrambling back to his feet. He pushed Kamini’s ruined visage from his mind as the undead collided with him from all sides; it was like slamming through a dense forest of spongy trees. Pus and blood leaked from their flesh and onto him.

  Near to the window was another cluster of stalking carcasses, blocking his path. Two by two, Meesh cut them down. When those in front fell, he climbed onto their backs to chop at those behind, creating a macabre stairway for himself. When he was two feet below the window frame, he leapt, the stacks of corpses toppling behind him. The base of the frame was wide, at least sixteen inches, and the glass had long since disintegrated, which gave him added space. He landed on the solid wood and had to wave his arms to keep from toppling over. Those undead tall enough to reach him grasped at his feet. Meesh inched forward, held onto the upper frame with his free hand, and gazed out at an undead world.

  It was absolute pandemonium, staggering corpses for as far as he could see. The window faced the entrance to the underground bunker, and he saw its door was open, the undead filing down into darkness.

  “Come on you guys!” he yelled over the swarming mass. “What’s the damn holdup?”

  The frame cracked as the undead gripped its edge, attempting to pull themselves up. It was moments from collapsing. Surrounded and with no way to scale the side of the building, Meesh had two choices, neither preferable—jump outside, or stay where he was until the window frame crumpled.

  He jumped.

  For a short time he soared over the sea of empty eyes and grasping hands. Meesh straightened his legs as he descended, feet colliding solidly with the head of a dead man wearing a red tabard. His weight carried the corpse to the ground; the head popped like a grapefruit underfoot. Meesh rolled forward, keeping his Eldersword out wide. There was death all around him and nowhere to go.

  “What now, moron?”

  In the end, he decided he was going to die anyway, so he should at least make the most of it. He cackled as he spun this way and that, mincing through the crowd, separating arms, legs, heads, whole torsos, always driving forward, twirling, slashing. He hummed a melody in the spirit of the brutal dance.

  His foot struck something hard and unforgiving when he was in the middle of slicing up an old dead woman in one of Breighton’s putrid yellow waistcoats. He careened forward, his head striking something hard with a hollow twang. The undead closed in around him, suffocating in their numbers, while birds chirped in his ears.

  Meesh shook his head and stared down at the ruined steel mask of one of the deposed silver knights. A glance to the left revealed the second one. The Outriders had laid out them side by side with a narrow gap between them. The mobile machines were large, even on their backs; their chests rose a good three feet off the ground.

  “Better than nothing,” Meesh said as hands clawed his back.

  He rolled into the space between the two massive, dead guardians. The undead clomped over their metal chests and reached for him. Meesh flailed away blindly with his Eldersword. Blood and entrails rained down on him. He laughed all the while.

  Shade was torn apart from the inside out. The world around him warbled. He battled Asaph in the Heartcube chamber; a dense jungle; a neighborhood filled with quaint homes; a vast, inky void surrounded by unreal monsters. The only thing that stayed consistent was himself, the bald bastard who’d killed his lover, and the Spear of God.

  The back of Asaph’s head crushed Shade’s nose with a crack. Blood spurted over his lips. Already past the point of collapse, Shade released him and slid down the side of the large steel column. When he struck solid ground, the pendant in his hand ruptured. His vision stopped spinning.

  Asaph stumbled away from him, clutching at his chest, searching for the pendant. Shade turned away from him, gazed through tired eyes at a brand new world.

  They were on a ridge overlooking a great city. Below, buildings whose spires disappeared into the clouds shone with blinding light. People small as ants churned in the streets, strange sleek machines zipped along beside them. Overhead, a great metal bird flew with a sound like rolling thunder. The sun that lit everything was small and yellow, much different from the red behemoth that burned in the Wasteland’s sky.

  It was both the most frightening and beautiful thing Shade had ever seen.

  “What have you done?” Asaph whispered.

  “I beat you,” Shade said.

  “How? How did you know?”

  Shade grinned. “She showed me,” he mumbled. “You don’t control her anymore. She… showed… me…”

  Asaph’s eyes widened in disbelief. “That’s not possible… she couldn’t…” The man sank to his knees in the dirt, his head dangled between his shoulders. “But at what cost. We’re all doomed.”

  Shade broke out in a fit of laughter despite his fatigue. He laughed and laughed, until the sullen bald man stood up and scowled. “You’re an idiot,” he said.

  “You lost, shithead.” Shade tossed the broken pendant toward Asaph, which landed in pieces at his feet. “As my brother would say, deal with it.”

  Asaph lifted the pendant, stared at it with narrowed eyes. “Do you even know what I was trying to accomplish?”

  “Nope. Don’t know, don’t care.”

  “Bah!” Asaph spit on the ground, stalked closer, his fingers balled into fists. He leaned down next to Shade, grabbed the access hatch on the bottom of the Spear of God, and tore it free with a single, mighty heave. He held the hatch before him, tested its sharp edge with his finger. “Enjoy your victory,” he mumbled. “I won’t stay trapped forever, but your journey ends now.”

  Shade grinned and leaned his head against cold steel. His breath came in ragged gasps, but his heart was calm. “Do your worst,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see her again…”

  “I doubt it.”

  Asaph wielded the hatch like an axe. He swung, the sharp edge arcing toward Shade’s neck. The bearded knight closed his eyes. A whirling sensation overtook him. He welcomed death.

  But death never came. Suddenly there was nothing behind him to hold him up, and he fell backward. His cranium struck the floor, jolting him to awareness. His pain returned—all of it. Shade rolled about and groaned.

  “Shadrach…”

  It was Vera’s voice, fainter than before. He forced his eyes open and found himself back in the Heartcube chamber. A pair of snaking cables attached to nothing sat sparking in the center of the room. Rosetta’s destroyed halves rested a few feet away. Erin’s walking corpse no longer moved, but lay sprawled out and broken. All around him were blinking lights and blaring alarms. It sounded like the end of the world.

  “My love, go to the keypad. The one below the mirror flashing pictures,” Vera said. Shade looked around for her, but couldn’t see her anywhere.

  He followed orders and struggled to his feet. The black mirror she spoke of was just ahead of him. He staggered toward it and collapsed against the protruding shelf. “Nine, seven, two, eight, send,” Vera told him. Shade awkwardly jabbed his fingers at the numbers on the keypad, then hit send. The pandemonium within the room gradually died away, and Shade sank down to his knees. He panted, and huffed, and gagged. His broken nose ached.

  “I love you,” said Vera’s disembo
died voice.

  “I love you, too,” he said with a hitch, but there was no answer. “Vera?” he called out meekly. “Vera, where are you?”

  Go to him.

  Shade heard a man struggling for breath and turned his head, which caused agony to drive a thorn into his brain. His gaze fell on Abe, still lying on the ground on the far side of the room, his chest shuddering as it rose and fell.

  “Oh no… Abe…”

  He dragged himself along the cold steel floor. The constant buzzing that had only faded when the undead arrived returned.

  It seemed to take forever until he reached his brother. Abe’s eyes were closed, blood seeped from his mouth. His shirt was scorched, the flesh beneath covered in blackened veins. Shade drew up beside him, gathered his head in his lap. Abe’s forehead was burning up. Tears dripped off Shade’s cheek.

  “Brother,” Abe murmured.

  Shade leaned in close. “I’m here, Abe. You’re safe.”

  “There is… no… safe…” Abe said, coughing up flecks of blood. “Not anymore.”

  “It’s over,” Shade said. “You’ll be… you’ll be fine.”

  “No.” Abe’s eyes opened, and Shade drew back in shock. There was such clarity in his dying brother’s deep brown eyes, such acceptance. Abe’s hands snaked up, grabbed Shade’s collar. The dying man pulled his brother close.

  “It’s all… a lie…” he said, his breath hissing in Shade’s ear. “Sal Yaddo… the Reverend… our lives… the Pentus… all of it.”

  “Abe, what’re you saying?”

  “Be… wary… my brother. Be the man… you were meant… to be. Do not… be… what they told you… to be.” He coughed again, so close that it hurt Shade’s ears. “There is… a dark cloud… coming. You must… find… answers.”

  Shade shook him. “You’re not making sense,” he pleaded. “Abe, please, just tell me what you mean!”

  “You need… to go…” Abe told him, his bloodstained lips creasing into a thin line. “Cross north… over the mountains… and find answers. Seek out… the only one… who can put you… back together. Find the… the Traveler… the Queen of Snakes. Seek out… a legend.”

  “I will,” Shade sniffled, though he didn’t understand. “I’ll do whatever you say. Meesh and I, we’ll—”

  “No, not Meesh.” Abe squeezed his shoulder, hard, and looked him dead in the eye. “Our brother… cannot be trusted. He’s not… not ready… he’ll… destroy you.”

  Abe let out a final moan, went limp, and stopped breathing.

  “Abe?” Shade whimpered. “Abe?”

  My love.

  A calming sensation came over him then, and he lifted his chin. You must decipher truth from lie, Vera’s voice spoke in his mind. Across the chamber, the black mirror on the wall lit up. Abe and Asaph came into focus on its surface. When the two men spoke, their voices shook the room.

  A gift from Vera, the last one she would ever give him.

  Shade sat back, stared up at the screen, and watched, and listened.

  21

  “MY CREATOR SWORE HE WAS MADE OF TRUTH, AND I DID BELIEVE HIM, THOUGH NOW I KNOW HE LIED.”

  —SHADRACH THE 1ST

  6 SECONDS BEFORE DEMISE

  The dead man’s face was close enough to kiss. Meesh held his breath and stared into the thing’s glassy, vacant eyes. The lips didn’t twitch, the neck didn’t extend down toward him. The only thing about the corpse that moved were the maggots wriggling in the wound on its forehead. Meesh pried his pinned arm up and jabbed its cheek with his finger. The flesh was pliable, moist.

  He turned his head to the side as a stinking wad of fluid leaked from pursed lips. It dripped on his cheek and stunk like shit, but Meesh didn’t care. The whole of him was a slippery mess of blood and stinking fluid anyway.

  “Alive,” he whispered. “Still alive.”

  Meesh willed his Eldersword to retract, took a deep breath, and shoved upward against the stilled corpse. Wet splats sounded as the mass of rotten flesh piled atop the dead thing rolled off and to the side. Eventually he managed to slide the gore-covered body over one of the steel guardians, and it fell with a splat beyond his vision. More tumbling and settling of bodies followed. The blackness of the night sky greeted his blurry vision.

  He struggled to rise, sore now that the Rush had left him. Twice he slipped and fell, the second time whacking his elbow against one of the guardian’s solid steel breastplates. He stabilized himself, stood in the gap between the two mechanical men, and gaped at the destruction.

  The ground was covered with bodies so entirely that no grass or dirt could be seen. They just lay there; no mouths were locked into screams, no clawed hands reached for the heavens, no backs arched in pain. They almost seemed… peaceful.

  Meesh groaned as he carefully maneuvered through the mess of corpses. With every step, his boot crunched or slipped on bone or sinew. Had he been a more sentimental man, he might’ve pondered the great waste of human life, but as it was, only a morsel of heartache broke through. He was more focused on the fact he was both still alive and still on the grounds of the Cooper reactor. The simple fact he wasn’t back in Sal Yaddo meant he wasn’t the only one alive. Relief warmed his extremities, even though he was exhausted and sore, even though death surrounded him.

  He clipped his retracted Eldersword back to his belt, shrugged off his ruined vest, and navigated the sea of dead. The bunker entrance was clearly visible, even in the darkness; the door hung open, itself swollen with decaying cadavers. Cobalt moonlight reflected off the towering gray edifice behind the bunker, and the gagging stench of rot saturated the air.

  He turned away from the bunker and instead trudged toward the warehouse where the Outriders had made their pitiful last stand. Every so often one of the bodies would shift and release noxious gasses, the sudden movement making his heart jump.

  The inside of the warehouse was gloomy, the stink nearly overwhelming. Meesh searched through the bodies until he found the one he was looking for—Kamini, face-down and half buried by her undead brethren, her red tabard darkened by blood and viscera. Meesh squatted down beside her, grabbed her curtly, lifted her head. The face was cavernous, imploded, scorched by his Eldersword’s powerful vibrations. He felt hollow at the sight, scooped out from the inside, and placed the head back down. He closed his eyes, unsure what to do. “I’m… sorry?” he said aloud. He’d enjoyed his time with Kamini, could even say he liked her more than a little. But now she was gone, and he was still here. A deep sadness began to creep in, further numbing him, and he shivered. She was already dead, he told himself. You didn’t kill her, you released her.

  That’s not the point, you ass.

  Meesh shoved the invasive inner voice to the back of his mind. He couldn’t drop that shield, not now, not ever. “I’ll miss ya, girl,” he said softly, then stood to leave.

  When he exited the warehouse, a low moaning, like the protests of a demon emerging from one of the Nine Hells, froze Meesh in his tracks. He stood still, half the distance to the bunker, and put his hand back on his blade, just in case. The moaning came again, and then a dark, slouching, malformed shape emerged from the concrete portal. The figure took a few lurching steps forward, top-heavy and having trouble keeping its balance while atop the cadaver-mounds. It collapsed.

  “Dammit,” groaned Shade’s weary voice.

  Meesh grinned, his fatigue and aches shoved to the background, and skipped through the sickening maze of dead. “Brah!” he exclaimed. “Hey, Shade, it’s me!”

  His brother glanced up, and Meesh froze. Shade’s face was swollen, his jaw clenched. His nose was bloodied, slightly flattened and bent to the side. His eyes glistened in the moonlight, wet with tears.

  “Where’s Cooper?” Shade asked.

  Meesh shrugged. “Dead.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Dead too. They got sick and fell down. Then stood back up and fell down again.”

  “Oh.”

  Meesh studied th
e lump Shade had carried from the bunker. “Hey, is that…” He didn’t need to finish the question, for he caught sight of a brief reflection of moonlight off a shaved scalp. “Abe,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  Shade nodded severely.

  “And he’s…?”

  Again, a nod.

  “Oh shit.”

  “Help me with him,” Shade said, his tone flat, defeated. “I can barely move.”

  Meesh grabbed the eldest knight’s stiff legs, and together he and Shade carried the body over the sea of corpses. Every so often they came across one bearing a red tabard, and Meesh gritted his teeth to fight back thoughts he didn’t want or need. He’d be happy if Kamini never entered his mind again.

  Finally, they circled around the fat round tower, the holy relic that had beckoned Cooper to this place. Fewer and fewer corpses were strewn about the farther they went, and soon their path was clear. After crossing by a few more brick buildings, the brothers reached a flattened patch of land that ended at a sheer cliff. Beyond that cliff was the Gulf of Torrin; its waters churned, the storms out at sea filled the distant sky with brief flashes of brilliant white. Faint rumbles of thunder came moments later.

  “The ocean doesn’t look like this in Sal Railen,” Meesh said.

  Shade didn’t immediately reply, and when he did, he simply inclined his head and closed his eyes.

  They laid the dead knight out on the ground. Shade paced to the edge of the cliff, and to Meesh it looked like he might jump, but he simply sat down and stared out at the stormy sea, legs dangling over the ridge.

  Meesh knelt beside Abe’s body. The moon was bright enough that he could clearly see the scorched black wound that stared out like a dark eye in the middle of his chest. Despite the severity of the mortal blow, the look frozen on his dead brother’s face was one of calmness, of serenity. It was almost as if he’d learned some great secret and was now completely at peace. Meesh touched his cold flesh. For the first time in a long, long while, he uttered a prayer to the Pentus. His brothers were all that mattered, and now he was short one.