by Dean Cadman
***
Neala had already been forced to use a second pair of her knives. Her first pair had quickly become saturated from the magic absorbed by killing the undead minions. She hadn’t counted the exact number each knife had managed to kill before being rendered useless, but she guessed it was no more than six or seven each. At first, Neala and Alexia had fought side by side, both expecting a much tougher fight, given the number of them that emerged from within the buildings once the explosions started. But somehow these were different from the ones they had faced in the Elveen Mountains. Although she would never have described those as fleet-footed or agile, compared with these, they were positively graceful. Some of them here could barely walk, and many had limbs that hung uselessly by their sides, or were burned to such an extent they could barely move. ‘Killing them is as much a mercy, as it is a necessity,’ Neala thought to herself, ending another poor creature’s suffering.
Neala noticed that Alexia’s knives had also been rendered useless a few minutes earlier, and unfortunately, she only had two daggers. Now Neala watched as she resorted to killing the undead minions by casually poking them with one of her blessed arrows. Under different circumstances it might have been almost comical seeing her do little more than touch the creatures with the tip of her arrow, then watch as they collapsed in a heap on the floor in front of her. But Neala was under no illusions at all as to what these poor villagers must have suffered at the hands of the Empire agents who had passed through here. It was sickening to think that these—things—were once just ordinary people, with lives of their own. People with families and friends, dreams and aspirations. And now they were nothing more than undead puppets, created by the sick Empire agents for their own twisted amusement, and then abandoned here, to cause even more death and heartache for anyone who chose to return home to their village later.
Around the docks most of the buildings had either been completely, or partially burned to the ground, but the further away from the docks that Neala looked, the more buildings remained standing. Neala could see what looked like the rooftop of a large barn in the next street, and from what she could tell, it looked untouched by the fires. It was much taller than the buildings in front of it, and she guessed it would be their best chance of finding food, or if they were really lucky, even horses for their onward journey.
“Alexia, I’m going to take a look down that next street, and see if I can find any horses or supplies. It looks like there’s a big barn down there at the bottom,” Neala shouted across the street to Alexia.
“Okay, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to stay here and watch Renn’s back, at least until that ship out there stops playing target practice with him. Be careful though, I don’t want lover-boy blaming me if you get hurt,” Alexia shouted back, grinning at her friend. Neala nodded, but didn’t reply to her jibe. Neala knew she was only joking around, but the mere thought of Lusam and the danger he was currently in made her stomach clench wildly. She knew she couldn’t do anything about it, even if she had been with him on the ship, but that didn’t stop her feeling sick at the thought of him being injured, or even worse. She had never needed anyone in her whole life, for anything, but she had no idea what she would do now if she lost him. Shaking the dark thoughts from her head, she turned and headed for the junction of the next street.
Neala approached what looked like the main village well, complete with bucket and winch handle. ‘At least we’ll have plenty of fresh water for our onward journey,’ she thought to herself, glancing over the edge, and into the darkness of the deep well below. When she rounded the corner of the street where she’d seen the barn, she froze mid-stride. She had indeed found a large barn, seemingly untouched by the Empire agents, but opposite the barn, was a large group of undead minions, all clambering around something on the floor. It was then she heard the chilling screams of what sounded like a young girl.
“Oh, Gods!” Neala cursed, imagining the undead minions tearing the young girl apart in her mind. She expected the screams to abruptly end, but instead, they became more desperate. Neala rushed forward, keeping to the centre of the street, and well away from any doorways that might be harbouring any undead surprise for her. As she got closer, she began to understand what was happening. They didn’t actually have hold of the little girl—not yet, anyway. They were all trying to force their way into what looked like a sewer grate, where she was obviously taking refuge.
Neala burst into a sprint, removing two of her enchanted knives from her belt, and headed straight towards the mass of undead minions. There were at least twenty of the hideous creatures, all groping towards the sounds of the little girl’s screams, and trying to rip the sewer cover free, so they could get to her inside. Neala struck fast and without warning. Five undead minions collapsed on her first pass—like sacks of coal being dropped off the back of a cart. The rest of them seemed to sense her presence, and as one, turned in her direction. The first two to come within range of Neala’s knives, quickly joined their friends on the floor, dead—but the next, didn’t.
Neala struck it cleanly in the chest, but nothing happened: another set of her knives were saturated with magic, and therefore useless against the undead. Removing her final two knives, she set about killing the remaining undead minions. One after another they slumped to the ground, until only four remained. That was when her final set of knives reached saturation point, and also became useless. The four that remained seemed to work as one, spreading out to corner her. Forcing her to back up towards the building behind her. She tried to run around them, but they expertly cut off her escape route, and forced her to retreat once more. She was running out of space fast, and knew if she didn’t try and make a break for it soon, she would be done for. She briefly thought about shouting for help, but doubted Alexia or Renn would hear her from so far away, and the last thing she needed right now, was to attract the attention of any more undead minions that might be lurking around the area.
When her back finally made contact with the barn wall, she knew she had run out of options. Either she tried to run through them, or die here. She noticed the one on the right had a damaged arm. It seemed to hang uselessly by its side, and figured that was her best chance of escape. Trying to unbalance the creature, she threw one of her knives at its head, and ran. The knife thudded into its forehead, but had absolutely no effect whatsoever on it. Neala tried to slip past, between it and the wall she was trapped against, but as she tried to dodge the grasp of the creature, it somehow managed to catch hold of her tunic.
It was a strange sensation feeling her torso suddenly stop moving forward, and her legs carry on running under her. She found herself face to face, dangling from the grip of the one-armed creature, as the others slowly closed in around her. Frantically, she kicked at its stomach, and plunged her knife repeatedly into its good arm, but it had no effect on its grip. Changing tactics, she began to kick viciously at its knees, and was quickly rewarded with a loud snapping noise as its joint shattered under her assault, sending both of them crashing to the floor, and knocking the wind out of Neala as the undead minion landed heavily on top of her. She tried in vain to push herself out from underneath it using her feet, but she couldn’t gain enough grip on the dusty street with the heels of her boots.
The other three were almost on top of her now, and would soon tear her limb-from-limb if she didn’t break free from the grip of the one pinning her down. Taking her knife, she cut away the part of her tunic that the undead creature had hold of, intending to scuttle backwards a few feet out of its reach. But once again it grabbed hold of her, only this time, it managed to grab her by the wrist. She screamed in pain, as it shattered her wrist bone with its inhuman strength. She knew her life was about to end, but all she could think about, was how she had let Lusam down. And what would he do without her? Would he end up with her best friend Alexia? She laughed out loud at the craziness of her final thoughts, realising that even now she was suspicious of her best friend’s motives, even though she ha
d never done anything to deserve such treatment.
“Sorry,” she said out loud, thinking of both Lusam and Alexia as she said it. Then she closed her eyes as the hand of the first undead minion reached out for her.
Thud!… Thud!… Thud!
Neala opened her eyes to see three undead minions collapsing by the sides of her, each one with an arrow protruding from its back.
“Alexia!” Neala whispered, hope rekindling within her that she might still survive the day. The one on top of her tightened its grip on her wrist, causing her to gasp in pain. It was using its one good arm to lever itself further up her body, causing her tremendous pain as it did so. She knew it intended to kill her. Once it was high enough, it would let go of her wrist and snap her neck. Desperately, she looked past the creature, hoping to see Alexia or Renn close by, but they were still at the far end of the street, too far away to help her in time. Then she saw it; the arrow sticking out of the dead minion’s back next to her. She stretched out her good arm to get the arrow, but it was just out of reach. Her fingertips brushed the arrow shaft, but she couldn’t close her hand around it. Sucking in three or four rapid breaths to prepare herself for the pain, she bucked her body under the creature, and slowly moved a little closer to the arrow. Her vision darkened at the edges with the pain, but she managed to stay conscious long enough to grab the arrow and tear it free from the dead minion’s body. She plunged it into the side of the creature on top of her, but nothing happened. Despair threatened to to take her under as she realised, the blessed arrow would only work for a paladin of Aysha. All she could do was grip the arrow and use it to push against, to try and slow the advance of the creature.
Neala had never been a particularly religious person, but she found herself at that moment thanking Aysha for her life, and asking her to watch over Lusam and the others after she was gone. A calm sense or serenity flowed through her as she finally accepted her own fate. She let go of the arrow, unable to hold back the creature any longer, but not before it emitted a delicate flash of blue light, and the creature slumped forward. Dead.
Neala had no idea why the blessed arrow had finally killed the creature, but she knew deep down that it had to have been the work of Aysha herself, and for that, she was incredibly grateful. She closed her eyes, and thanked Aysha for sparing her life once more, then shed a small tear of relief when she heard Lusam’s voice in the distance desperately calling out her name. She tried to call back to him, but the dead weight of the body on top of her stopped her from taking a full breath. She tried to move, but pain erupted from her wrist once more. The creature’s hand was still clamped tightly around it; even in death it didn’t want to release her.
Renn was the first to reach her, sword drawn, and ready to run the undead minion through, but he noticed the lack of blue glow on his blade, indicating the creature was already dead.
“Are you alright, lass?” he asked, between panting breaths.
“Yeah, I guess so,” she replied weakly. “No wait—AARGH!” she cried out, as Renn tried to roll the body off the top of her, twisting her broken wrist in the process. Panting through the pain, she managed to say, “My wrist is broken… and it still has tight hold of it.”
“Oh, sorry, lass,” Renn apologised, cringing when he saw the awkward angle of her wrist, still in the grip of the dead minion’s hand.
“Oh, Gods!” Alexia cursed, coming to a halt and also seeing her twisted wrist. “That looks painful.”
“No kidding,” Neala half-squealed, as Renn began to pry off the fingers clamping her wrist. Unbelievably, the pain actually increased after the creature’s hand was removed from her wrist. Her wrist throbbed violently with every beat of her heart, now that her circulation had been restored to the area.
“Neala!” Lusam called, as he skidded to a halt next to her, then fell to his knees beside her. “Are you hurt?” he asked frantically, noticing her pale complexion and sweaty face. She was so relieved to see him alive and unharmed that she grabbed his tunic and pulled him down on top of her, and into a tight one-armed embrace. Although her damaged wrist was well away from him, the jolt sent a fresh wave of pain through her. She gritted her teeth against it, and once it had settled back down again, she kissed Lusam so passionately that she forgot all about her pain, at least for a little while.
It was the quiet sobbing sounds that Neala barely heard emanating from the sewer grate which ended their joyous reunion, as Neala suddenly remembered the earlier screams of the little girl. Neala pushed Lusam away from her a little, so she could tell the others about the little girl, but as she did so, Lusam saw her wrist for the first time.
“Neala… your wrist!” he said, with a great deal of concern in his voice, and an equal amount of concern etched on his face. He didn’t even wait for a reply, he immediately placed his hand on hers and magically blocked her pain. Neala visibly relaxed as the pain suddenly ceased in her wrist, but felt a fresh wave of nausea, as she heard the bones snap back into place within her wrist. Less than a minute later, and Lusam had repaired her wrist completely, but not before his head had begun to throb again through his lack of magical power reserves.
“You know, I always suspected it, but now I know she will do anything to hold his hand,” Alexia said jokingly to Renn, whilst grinning at her friend still on the floor.
“Ha, ha, very funny,” Neala replied sarcastically, as she rotated her wrist, checking for any residual effects. “By the way, there’s a little girl hiding inside that grate over there,” Neala said, pointing at the grate cover halfway down the street. Two of the dead minions were slumped across the top of the grate, almost hiding its existence from the others, but Neala knew exactly where it was.
“How do you know?” Alexia asked, looking for a grate in the direction Neala was pointing.
“When I first entered the street, I heard her screams. At first, I thought they already had hold of her, but when I realised they didn’t, I rushed in to try and stop them. That’s why I took on so many of these things alone. They were all trying to get to her inside that grate. I was going to call you for some help, but I didn’t think you’d hear me from so far away, and I didn’t want to attract any more of these things,” Neala replied, nodding towards the numerous bodies scattered across the street.
“Well, I guess that explains why you were here, but what I don’t understand, is why you waited until that one was literally on top of you, before killing it with your knives,” Alexia asked a little confused, pointing to the body of the one that had broken her wrist.
“No, I couldn’t kill it with my knives. They had already stopped working, that’s why these four were able to corner me so easily. I don’t know how or why it worked, but I used one of your arrows to kill it. I pulled it from a corpse you’d shot, and stabbed it into its side. It didn’t do anything at first, and I thought I was going to die for sure, so I prayed to Aysha, and a moment later it glowed blue and the thing died,” Neala replied.
Renn chuckled. “Never underestimate the power of faith, Neala. It’s truly the mightiest ally we have in this life, and without faith, we are no more than grains of sand scattered to the four winds,” he said, smiling at her.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Neala replied.
“That’s the beauty of faith, lass—you don’t have to understand it, you just need to possess it. It seems likely to me that at the moment of your imminent demise, you fully opened your heart to Aysha and she rewarded you for it. More than that, I cannot explain why you were able to use her blessed weapon. I guess you’re just going to have to take it on faith,” Renn said, grinning at her confused expression. Neala nodded at Renn, unable to deny the logic of his explanation, but still not fully understanding it.
“Maybe we should go rescue that poor little girl, while these two stop slobbering over each other,” Alexia suggested jovially to Renn, as she watched Neala and Lusam resume their kissing and cuddling on the ground.
“Before you go, let me clean your knives of magic, ple
ase,” Lusam said, breaking off a particularly passionate kiss with Neala. “Yours too, Neala,” he added. ‘It wouldn’t be a lot of magic, but it might go some way to stopping this throbbing headache,’ he thought to himself. It only took a quick touch of each blade to drain it of its tiny amount of magical power, but it was such a small amount of magic, it did little to ease his head. ‘At least the weapons would be effective again,’ he consoled himself, then turned his attention back to his favourite activity—Neala.
Alexia rolled her eyes at them both, then nodded towards the grate where the little girl was supposed to be trapped. Renn chuckled quietly, and followed her lead, as the two lovebirds continued to kiss and cuddle where they had left them.
As they approached the grate, the sobbing grew louder and louder. ‘Whoever was inside the grate was extremely upset by the sounds of it,’ Alexia thought to herself. Renn quickly dragged the bodies off the top of the grate cover and was greeted by a fresh scream from inside the grate. The little girl had obviously mistaken the sudden movement of the corpses as them coming back to life again, and Alexia quickly tried to calm her down.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now. We’re here to help you,” Alexia said in a calming voice, trying to lift the grate cover off, but finding it was somehow locked into position. Guessing it must be locked from the inside, she gave up trying to remove it, and instead knelt down by the side of the grate. She noticed lots of small holes all the way around the lip of the grate, and tried to see if she could make out who was inside, but all she could see was the darkness beyond. She was certain that whoever was inside would be able to see her clearly, and so, she hoped by showing them her face, she could convince them that she was a friend.
