The Road to Death: The Lost Mark, Book 2

by Forbeck, Matt

  “Less talk, more speed,” Burch said.

  The shifter had naturally taken up the rearguard as the line of three horses trotted through the vacant city. As if to punctuate his words, a wail like the sound of a bear in mourning ripped through the night behind them. It was so loud it seemed like it echoed off the clouds, which now seemed so low that someone might be able to reach up and touch them from the top of Metrol’s highest towers.

  These stone structures were nothing like the network of spires that covered Kandler’s hometown of Sharn, the legendary City of Towers, but their proximity to the blanket of mists made them seem as if they held up the sky.

  The tallest of the towers—the Prime Pillar, as Kandler remembered—stabbed out of the cityscape before the riders as they cantered down from higher ground toward the docks on the Cyre River, the wide track of water that separated what had once been Cyre from the lands beyond. When Kandler had lived here, he had used the Pillar as a navigational point any time he’d gone wandering throughout the city. As long as he could see the Pillar, he always knew roughly where he was.

  Another howl—more of a wail than a growl—erupted from just ahead and to the right. Kandler scanned the rooftops for any sign of whatever had made the noise.

  There, silhouetted against the dark, blotted sky, something raced along the rooftops, trying to match the riders’ speed but failing. Kandler struggled to get a good look at it, but it was impossible. It was only outlines of strange shapes flickering in and out of view.

  When the riders reached an intersection, Kandler plunged straight through it. As he did, he looked back to see the creature leap across the gap in the rooftops, and he finally saw it whole.

  The thing’s arms and legs—two of each—splayed out as it crossed the space, framed for a moment between the two rooftops. It was shaped like a human, with a head, limbs, and torso all in the right places, but no person Kandler had ever seen looked so strange. He could see its grayish bones and muscles right through its skin, as if it were some strange golem made of random bits of flesh wrapped together in liquid glass. Strangest of all, the thing’s entire body—perhaps its translucent skin, maybe its spoiled-meat interior—glowed with an unearthly light.

  The creature’s gray-green eyes, something akin to the color of the Mournland’s grass, fixed on Kandler with an unholy rage. As the thing landed on the next rooftop, continuing its relentless pursuit, it unleashed another wailing growl. The horse beneath Kandler’s legs bolted at the sound, bursting into a full-out gallop in a desperate effort to leave the horrible thing far behind.

  Another howl pierced the Mournland night, closer this time, but this one came from ahead, not behind. Kandler bent low over the neck of his mount and spurred it on harder. Now that he knew what to look for, he spotted a glow limning the edge of a rooftop ahead on the left. Peering into the darkness below, he saw other glowing shapes moving across the roofs of the city.

  Some sprinted like men. Others ran on all fours, more like wolves. One thing was clear, though. They were working together, speaking to each other somehow through their horrendous wails. Like a pack of hunting dogs, they quickly converged on their prey: the five riders on three horses, stampeding toward the shore of the Cyre River below.

  “Can’t make it!” Burch shouted as he bounced along atop his horse. “River’s too far!”

  As the only mount with a single rider, his beast champed at its bit, ready to charge into the lead. The shifter kept a tight hold on its reins with one hand, hauling the horse in behind the others. With his free hand, he reached for the crossbow strapped across his back.

  Kandler knew the shifter was right. The ghostbeasts would catch them long before they reached safety. A roar right behind him told him that.

  The justicar slung his blade from its scabbard. It was notched in three spots from his battle with Bastard, but he knew its edge could still bite. He’d had to pull it from where it was wedged into the floor of the arena in Construct, stabbed through one of the warforged leader’s arms.

  He’d been the lucky one. Sallah’s sacred blade, a sword that burned with the power of the Silver Flame on command, had been destroyed in that same battle. She still carried a short knife with her, but it was a poor substitute.

  Brendis had offered his sword to Sallah as a replacement, but she’d declined. “It was my blade,” she said. “I used it well, and I cannot take yours in its stead.”

  “You used it to save my life,” Brendis pointed out.

  Sallah had been unmoved.

  Now, though, as Kandler glanced back at the woman urging her steed forward with all her might, he saw that she felt the lack of the blade. Brendis, thankfully, already had drawn his own sword. Silver flames crawled along the length of the blade like a living thing, hungry for righteous battle.

  Kandler looked up past the young knight and saw that his sword was about to have its chance. Before he could shout a warning, the nearest ghostbeast leaped from the rooftop straight at Brendis’s back.

  The young knight slashed out at the creature, his sword cutting a blinding arc through the dusk and slicing across the predator’s chest. Glowing blood splattered in a trail after the tip of the blade, and the ghostbeast unleashed a sound that made Kandler want to plug his ears.

  The creature lashed out with its glowing claws, seeking a way to get past not only Brendis’s flashing blade but his gleaming armor too. Kandler knew that it was only a matter of time before it succeeded. Perched atop the back of the terrified horse, it was too close for the knight to strike at it again.

  A wire twanged from behind the ghostbeast, and the creature tumbled off Brendis’s back. Burch’s mount trampled the monster beneath its hooves as the shifter slammed another bolt home into his crossbow. His wide, toothy smile stood out starkly in the dimness.

  “I’m all right!” Brendis announced as he turned to face forward, glowing fluid splashed across his face and arm.

  Kandler wanted to be relieved, but he knew that this was just the first attack of many to come if they didn’t get to safety soon. He scanned the road ahead, looking for some sort of shelter, someplace they could hide both themselves and preferably their mounts.

  Dozens of open doors and windows gaped at him like welcoming mouths, beckoning him to dare their dark embraces. Any of them might have been the right place to go, to hole up until the ghostbeasts lost interest or the sun lightened the overcast sky again. They might just be openings into dead ends, indefensible spaces that could only serve as open graves.

  Then Kandler spotted something off in the distance. At first he thought it might be another of the ghostbeasts glowing in the darkness, but the hue of the faint light spilling from the top of the Prime Pillar burned with a warmth he suspected the ghostbeasts would never know.

  “There!” he shouted to the others, stabbing a finger at the rapidly approaching Pillar. “There’s someone there!”

  “It could be a trap!” Burch said, his eyes searching the rooftops for another attacker, another target.

  “If it gets us away from these things,” Brendis said, “that’s one trap I’ll leap right into.”

  As the riders galloped closer and closer to the Pillar, Kandler realized that the light he’d seen must have been a signal of some sort, but to whom and from whom he could not tell. He just hoped they could reach the Great Circle, the open plaza that surrounded the Pillar, before the ghostbeasts could catch them.

  A pair of the glowing creatures emerged from across the street ahead of the riders. They crouched low, ready to spring at the riders. A pair of wails that set up a disturbing harmony echoed in Kandler’s ears, and he felt Xalt cling to his waist tighter.

  A bolt from behind Kandler sailed wide over the head of the creature on the right, and he heard Burch curse. The shifter wasn’t used to loosing his crossbow from horseback, and the constant jolting had spoiled his aim. Still, Kandler thought he might be able to take advantage of the effort, missed or not.

  The errant bolt caused t
he ghostbeast on the right to dodge closer to the other, just where Kandler wanted them. He drove his horse straight at the creature on the left and swung his sword down at the other as it steeled itself for an attack at him as he passed.

  Kandler felt one monster go down beneath his mount’s hooves as he drove the point of his sword forward like a lance, using the horse’s momentum to impale the ghostbeast on its tip. The dying creature slid forward along the length of the blade that ran it through until it smashed into the sword’s hilt, nearly tearing it from Kandler’s grasp. The thing was close enough that the justicar could smell its breath, like steel hot from the forge.

  The ghostbeast hung there for a moment, clutching at its wound before trying to claw Kandler’s eyes out. The justicar let the tip of his blade fall toward the ground, and the monster slid off the sword with a gut-wrenching wail that lasted until Sallah’s steed trampled it into the pavement.

  More howls reverberated throughout the city. Kandler felt like the sound alone might cause him to fall to his knees were he not clinging to the top of a horse spooked even worse by the songs of that unholy chorus. Instead, he just held on to the horse with one hand and to his sword with the other as they careened toward the Great Circle.

  Kandler started to breathe easier as they raced closer to their goal. The legendary plaza opened slowly before them as they sprinted recklessly toward it. The light in the top of the tower grew brighter, and Kandler imagined that he heard the shouts of men over the thunder of the riders’ hooves. He didn’t know to whom they belonged, but they had to be better to deal with than the howling ghostbeasts.

  Just before the riders reached the Great Circle, the road opened up into a small square that let out into the main plaza. As Kandler’s steed crossed into that space, something slammed into him and his mount, knocking him and Xalt from their saddle.

  Kandler tucked himself into a ball around his sword as he hit the ground and rolled to a painful stop against an abandoned shop. As he scrambled to his feet, his sword out in front of him, ready to taste whatever the ghostbeasts used for blood, he saw that Sallah and Burch had reined their horses in and turned around to come back for Xalt and him.

  “Keep moving!” he roared at them.

  As he spoke, he turned to see the ghostbeast that attacked him tear open his horse’s throat, the hapless beast’s blood fountaining everywhere, blotting out the monster’s glowing form with blackness where it splashed against it.

  “I think we’re in trouble,” Xalt said from behind the justicar.

  Move!” Kandler yelled, pushing Xalt after the others. As the warforged scrambled away, Kandler shuffled backward after him, keeping the tip of his sword pointed at the glowing creature goring his mount.

  The dying horse tried to kick its assailant away, but the beast was already in too close, tearing away at the steed’s soft belly with its claws. As the horse collapsed, dead already, the glowing, blood-drenched creature rose from behind the still-hot corpse and unleashed a horrific noise from deep within its throat, something that seemed like it could only have been trapped in the belly of a demon, festering for centuries untold.

  Kandler’s eyes locked with the creature, which was strangely human for all its unearthly ways. Madness danced in those pale glowing eyes, madness and a driving hunger to quench the fires of life in all it faced.

  The justicar turned and sprinted away.

  Kandler knew that the ghostbeast could outrun him. It and its ilk had kept pace with a galloping horse, and he wasn’t nearly so fast. All he wanted, though, was to put some distance between himself and the creature, just enough for Burch to get a clear angle.

  As Kandler sprinted for the Great Circle, memories of the square he ran through came flooding into his mind. Over there, under a black awning, sat a Brelish pub—Ginty’s—at which he and Burch had shared many a drink. Esprina had come to find him there the evening after their first meeting, a happy surprise in many ways, as he’d supposed she’d be after his head.

  “Duck!” Burch shouted.

  Kandler dove forward, just ahead of the sound of the blood-gorged ghostbeast slavering on his heels. The shifter’s crossbow twanged, and a bolt hissed overhead. The creature tumbled to the ground, the claws on its dead hands feebly scraping the back of Kandler’s boots.

  The justicar raced up to the others. “I thought I told you to keep moving,” he said, feeling angrier about it than he should.

  “You’re welcome.” Burch smirked down at his old friend as he offered him a hand up onto his mount. “Don’t waste time.”

  Kandler shook his head. “Two horses for five riders won’t do it,” he said.

  “I can follow on foot,” Xalt volunteered.

  Kandler clapped the warforged on the back. “No one gets left behind.”

  Xalt shot a wary glance at the dead ghostbeast bleeding into a glowing, pale pool. “Perhaps they don’t eat warforged,” he said hopefully.

  Kandler wasn’t having any of it. “We need to make a stand here.”

  A series of howls, none too far away, punctuated the statement.

  “Ginty’s it is,” Burch said as he pushed his steed across the square. Sallah’s horse followed close behind, with Kandler and Xalt hard on their heels.

  The pub had no name on it, no sign flapping from a chain, only the red boar’s head of the Brelish coat of arms emblazoned across the center of the black awning that hung over the high, tight windows and the brightly painted red door. The boar’s head was enough to identify it as a Brelish establishment to anyone who’d ever been near Breland, and that had been enough for the founder—Old Ginty himself—and the dozen generations of descendants who’d had the place handed down to them.

  In the lead, Burch leaped from the back of his horse and landed in front of the door, then wrenched it open. It was dark inside, just as it was in every part of the town.

  Kandler wondered about that, why the everburning lights used throughout the city had all burnt out. He guessed it had something to do with how the Mourning had altered the land, making magic work strangely here if at all. Perhaps the lights had blazed for months after the disaster, or maybe scavengers had made off with them all. He was sure he’d never know.

  Burch threw the door wide and stepped into the darkness beyond. Sallah and Brendis followed right behind, the flames on the young knight’s sword bringing some much-needed light into the place. Kandler pushed Xalt on ahead of him, doing his best to watch their back, his blade at the ready.

  Just as Kandler reached for the door, another excruciating wail sounded out, this one far too close for comfort. Then the awning next to the justicar was torn to pieces as a glowing figure fell through it, shredding the fabric with its long, sharp claws as it went.

  Kandler turned to face the creature, even as Burch called for him.

  “Get your ass in here!” the shifter shouted.

  Kandler brandished his blade at the beast. If he went for the door, the monster was close enough that it might be able to tear into him or wedge a part of itself across the threshold, keeping it open long enough for its friends to work their way in. He wasn’t prepared to let that happen.

  The creature stared at Kandler for a moment before screeching at him. Close enough that the thing’s spittle landed on his arm, Kandler could see that the thing had once been human. Its glowing skin was so thin now, though, that he could see through it to the muscles and bones beneath. Where it had once had fingernails, it now had six-inch claws made of the same translucent material as its flesh. Its teeth were longer and sharper than he could have thought possible in a living creature, but perhaps it wasn’t living.

  Before Kandler could react to the ghostbeast’s challenge, Sallah stepped in front of him, holding up a small silver charm fashioned in the form of a blazing flame, the icon of her religion’s mysterious, burning god.

  “Get back, you unholy beast!” the lady knight said, holding the holy symbol before her as if it were a shield.

  The creature star
ed at the wrought silver flame for a moment, then threw back its glowing head and laughed, exposing all of its terrifying teeth. It hauled back into a crouch so that it could leap at Sallah and rip her flame-haired head from her shoulders.

  As the thing made its move, Kandler shifted to a two-handed grip on his blade and brought it slicing down at the creature. The edge cleaved through the creature’s shoulder and chest, knocking it wide of Sallah. It landed next to Ginty’s façade instead, its glowing blood pumping from it as it expired.

  Two more screams sounded from the far side of the square as a pair of the dying thing’s kin leaped down from the rooftops, ready for mayhem. Kandler swung around his sword, dripping with luminescent fluids, ready to take them on too. Other wails sounded nearby, far too many.

  “Get in here!” Sallah said. She grabbed Kandler by the arm and hauled him into the pub after her.

  Burch slammed the door shut as Kandler tumbled into the place, then threw fast a thick, oaken bar behind it.

  Ginty’s was just as Kandler had remembered it, although he’d rarely seen it as empty as this. The dark polished paneling and tables reminded him of some of his favorite haunts back home, places he’d practically grown up in. Ginty’s had always been authentic, importing Brelish ales, stouts, and whiskies by the keg and cask, brought in weekly by lightning rail, and serving lousy Brelish meals to go with them.

  One thing that struck Kandler was the lack of bodies. He’d seen them throughout the Mournland and even throughout Metrol. When the Mourning happened, hundreds of thousands of people died right where they stood. With the thick mists surrounding the place, keeping most people out, there had been precious few people to deal with the corpses littering the landscape. Even fewer of those had bothered to try. The task was just too monumental. In a sense, the Mournland’s mists formed the grave in which all of those people were buried.

  Kandler had seen fewer bodies in Metrol than he’d expected. He suspected that scavengers and creatures like the ghostbeasts had moved many of them out of the way or even eaten them. Here in Ginty’s, though, he didn’t see a trace of a single body, nor even the patina of dust that should have been there.