by Jon Sprunk
Rain rattled against their helmets and armor, and created deep puddles underfoot as they marched west along the main boulevard that bisected Thuum. The royal palace was behind them, its tall tiers lost in the darkness of the storm, save for when an emerald-green flash from the heavens illuminated everything in stark, eerie colors. The resulting thunder was instantaneous.
Jirom kept a gap of a couple of yards between his men and the Akeshians. Everyone was antsy, as testified by the hard glances exchanged between the two groups, but so far the alliance had held up under the strain of three skirmishes with the undead. There seemed to be no end to them. However, his people had limits. Some of them just trudged along, their weapons hanging loosely from their hands, not even able to summon the energy to fight when the undead came calling.
They had already found the first target of Emanon’s unit—the western armory—smoldering steadily despite the heavy rain. So Jirom had led his fighters toward the secondary target, the slave pens near the city gate. With luck, they would reunite with Emanon’s force there, and together they could gather the last of the civilians—the children and those too old to fight—and leave Thuum. That was the plan, at least.
Urlik ran up to Jirom. “We’ve got trouble, sir.”
“The dead?”
“Yes, sir. A whole mess of them.”
Jirom glanced down the nearest side street. It was too dark to make out anything. “Tell Sergeant Seng to stay put. I’m coming up.”
After a sharp salute, the young scout hustled back to the point.
Jirom called over the rest of his squad leaders and handed out quick assignments. “We’re going to push through, so move with a purpose,” he told them. “No one falls behind. And if the man or woman beside you falls, by all the gods, do them a favor and make sure they stay dead.”
His words were met with tired nods. They had already shared with the Akeshians how to kill the undead for good. Decapitation was the best method, although wounds that damaged the brain also tended to do the job. The worst part was putting down their own fallen, especially for Jirom. Years of military experience had instilled in him a reverence for his slain brothers and sisters. Cutting off their heads felt like desecration. Yet, allowing them to rise again was far worse.
Swallowing his fears, Jirom pushed to the front of the pack. The point squad was split up and positioned on either side of the street for cover. As he crept up to join them, Jirom saw why. A block away rose the circular walls of a grand stadium. A mob of undead seethed around the structure. Hundreds of them, all crawling over each other to get inside. Jirom looked up, and the curse strangled in his throat. Men stood on the stadium’s tall ramparts, hurling objects down at the horde. He couldn’t make them all out from this distance, but he recognized the man directing the defense. There you are, you beautiful bastard. Right in the thick of a dilemma, like usual.
Jirom waved for his fighters to advance. To his surprise, the Akeshians moved to the front line. Shields locked together in a wall of bronze that stretched across the street, they marched forward. Jirom joined them and took a place at the center. Their lieutenant gave him a grim nod as he raised his sword. “Double time!”
A few of the undead at the rear of the horde turned, snarling as they caught sight of the advancing soldiers, but most remained obsessed with Emanon’s group up until the moment the Akeshian line crashed into them. Blades rose and fell, hacking into leathery tissue and bone. Sorcery tore through the air, flinging dark blood to tinge the falling rain.
Jirom kept his shield high as he cut his way through the crowd. He hacked through necks and tramped on skulls when they fell. He got so lost in the rhythm of the melee he almost didn’t see the granite statue before it smashed on the pavement in front of him, crushing two undead beneath it. He looked up.
Emanon waved back.
Fighting the urge to flip off his love, Jirom gestured for him to come down. The undead were divided into small knots and cut down by the combined force. Jirom breathed easier. The losses to his people had been slight, mainly due to the Akeshians and to the undead not knowing they were under attack until it was too late. A living foe would have pivoted and met their assault before it ground them down. Finally, something breaks in our favor. Now, Lords of the heavens, let us leave in one piece.
A couple of minutes later, Emanon emerged from the stadium’s arched gateway with his fighters. They were a ragged lot, and far fewer than the number that had started off this night. Jirom gave his lover a rueful glance. “Tough night?”
Emanon threw an arm around his shoulders. “I’m damned glad to see you.” He pulled Jirom closer and said into his ear, “Found some new friends, eh?”
Jirom found Lieutenant Lesanep and made quick introductions. “We need to get out of the city,” Jirom told them. “We can swing by the houses on the west end first and pick up the people we left there.”
He didn’t like the prospect of leading an army of civilians back out into the wilderness, but it would be far crueler to leave them behind.
Emanon kicked an undead corpse on the ground. “I never reached the slave pens. And there are more of these fuckers between us and the gates. We’ll never make it unless you’ve got a lot more fighters waiting around the corner.”
Jirom shook his head as he surveyed the mixed company. If they couldn’t reach the gates, then they were well and truly fucked. He turned toward the center of the city. Its rooftops and towers were hidden in the storm’s gloom, but the way was clear for as far as he could see. “We march for the palace. It’s the most defensible position inside the city.”
Emanon nodded wearily. Lesanep said nothing, though he glanced westward toward the gates. An Akeshian soldier ran up and spoke in the lieutenant’s ear. They both left in a rush. With a look to Emanon, Jirom followed them. The soldier led them across the street from the stadium where one of the Crimson brothers knelt on the wet pavement, cradling the head of the other. The dead one had his throat torn out.
While Lesanep talked with the surviving sorcerer, Emanon pulled Jirom aside. “So what’s going on? You’ve got the militia and a couple Order boys under your wing now?”
As Jirom explained how the temporary alliance had happened, Emanon listened with a doubtful expression.
“You think I made the wrong call?” Jirom asked.
“No. Everything changed when those dead things popped up. This entire plan has gone to shit.”
“Regretting your decision to leave me in charge?”
Emanon gave a little laugh. “Not for a second. I haven’t had this much fun since we were back in the training camp.”
Jirom sighed. Those days seemed like forever ago. “I thought you were some kind of double agent at first. You looked too damned good to be a filthy rebel slave.”
“Silver-tongued charmer.” His smile dropped away. “Have you heard from Silfar?”
Jirom shook his head, his mood turning grim again.
“If they met the same resistance as us, they’re probably holed up somewhere, trying to wait it out.”
When Lieutenant Lesanep came over, Jirom asked, “Are you coming with us?”
“Yes. Brother Janzu agrees. We make for the palace. But we go to save His Majesty and the royal family. No harm can come to them.”
Jirom held out his hand. “Agreed. We fight a common enemy. No need to spill the blood of the living this night.”
The lieutenant clasped his hand, and then each of them saw to organizing their forces into a cohesive whole. After a few minutes, they were ready to march.
Jirom felt much better with Emanon by his side again. His fears had melted away, leaving only a burning desire to survive this night. He didn’t know what the morning would bring, but he would worry about that later. “Ready?” he asked his lover.
Emanon wiped the rain from his face. “I was just thinking it would be damned nice to have Horace with us right about now.”
Jirom agreed without saying anything. Lifting his sword and shield in
to place, he gave the order, and they marched.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Horace coughed and instantly regretted it as sharp pains stabbed into his sides. He rolled over, clutching his ribs, and hacked to clear the thick paste that coated his mouth and throat. When he opened his eyes, there was only darkness.
He was buried up to his waist in a powder that felt like sand. There was no sound around him. Taking a risk, he summoned a small ball of light. The zoana burned in his veins as he completed the sorcery.
The illumination revealed he had landed in a chamber with stone walls. The roof overhead was gone. Under him was a vast mound of something he took for brown dirt at first, but then he lifted a handful and saw the individual kernels. It was grain. He’d landed in an ancient granary.
Moving slowly, he extricated himself and slid down the mound to the tiled floor below. The air was thick with grain dust, presumably kicked up when he landed. Holding his sleeve over his mouth, Horace directed the glow-orb around the room until he found a stone door in one of the unadorned walls. He pushed the door to see if it would open. Of course not. Why would anything be easy?
Centering himself, he called for his power again. Pain shot through his system, but a trickle of Kishargal allowed him to see how the door had become settled into its frame. Horace lifted the heavy slab and slid it open with hardly a sound. Wiping the sweat from his face, he went through, into another room that was bisected by a long stone countertop at waist height. The wall to his right was coffered with a honeycomb of small cubbies. This room, too, had no roof, and its front door was gone, leaving only a frame leading out into more darkness.
Leaving the granary, Horace found himself on a wide street paved in stone. An eerie silence covered everything as his light played across the façades of homes, shops, and other buildings. Many of them were broken with missing walls and roofs, but a few appeared intact. Walking past them, he imagined the people who had once lived here, treading upon the same stones he now walked, trapped beneath the ground like a fairy realm out of a children’s tale. He was passing between two tall buildings that leaned out over the street when her voice came to him.
“If you could only see the things I’ve seen, Horace. I have been reborn in the flames of pure chaos. And I’ve come to share that gift with you.”
“You killed Alyra to serve your new master.” He tried to pierce the shadows at the edge of his light, but there was no sign of her. “I know who he is. I defeated him before, and I can do it again.”
Her laughter echoed all around him. “You know nothing, my dear. I never understood how narrow my perception was when I was mortal. But now I know what lies in store for the human race, and there is no stopping it, Horace. No one—not you, not I, not the entire empire—can stop it. The Manalish shall rule over all, forever and ever until the end of time.”
Horace sensed something to his left in the space between two broken shop fronts. He pulled as much of the zoana as he could hold and released it in a wave of pure Shinar. The presence vanished.
“What’s wrong, Your Excellence?” he called out. “Not willing to face me?”
This time her answer was silence. Horace gritted his teeth. He had been hoping that a little taunting would bring her out into the open. He turned down the alley between those shop fronts, keeping his zoana ready.
The alley led into a tunnel of sorts, formed by the walls of neighboring buildings and a low ceiling of rough stone. As the ceiling gradually declined, Horace started to feel trapped. After fifty or sixty paces, he was glad to see the tunnel opened into a small square fronted by more tall buildings, all of them missing their upper floors. A well was situated in the center of the square. Empty windows gaped all around him.
Horace turned in a slow circle. Byleth’s presence lingered here, so strong he should have been able to see her. A brief itching down the back of his neck was the only warning he got before a sheet of black flame descended over him from the darkness above. He surrounded himself in a spray of cool mist as he tried to run. Pain engulfed his lower legs despite the mist, as the fire met his flesh and clung to him. Horace found the thread of void energy feeding the flames. Falling to the ground, he snipped the tether, and the fire vanished. The damage wasn’t as bad as he had first thought, though his legs were weeping with open blisters.
Horace banished his glow-orb, plunging the undercity into absolute gloom. With slow movements, he crawled until he felt the short wall surrounding the well at the center of the square. He leaned back against the coarse bricks and held his breath, listening.
With his other Sight, he located the lines of power that ran all around him. Through the street, through the air, even inside him. He followed them outward, searching for a clue where his enemy hid. He frowned as the lines extended through the area, even out as far as the dense layers of bedrock surrounding the undercity, without finding anything. Had she left? Then her presence returned an instant before a wave of utter cold washed over him.
Horace wrapped himself in a cocoon of warmth as he traced the spell’s energy back to its origin. Yet there was nothing there. Not even an echo of the power that had generated it. He was about to expand his search when a flicker of movement caught his Sight. A shadow slid between the lines of power, so subtle he hadn’t noticed it before. There you are.
He grabbed hold of the buildings on either side of the lurking shadow with his power and brought them down. The ground shook as they fell in mountains of ancient masonry. A great cloud of dust filled the square. Stone creaked as the surrounding buildings swayed, some of them collapsing as well. After several minutes, the tremors ceased.
Horace breathed through his sleeve to filter out the particles hanging in the air. He’d lost track of the shadow in the tumult. He didn’t see any movement under or around the great mound of debris he had created, but Byleth’s presence still lingered like the echo of a nightmare. He was about to start sifting through the rubble when the attack came. A wave of pure Shinar hit him from the side. It ripped the zoana from his grasp and left him gasping. As he turned, a second blast grazed his head. Stunned, he fell to his knees and only barely managed to hold onto consciousness. Through a rush of pain-filled tears, he Saw her approach, hips moving in a jerky mockery of a saunter. He clawed at his qa but couldn’t summon the power to erect a shield.
“Don’t be afraid, Horace,” she said. “You are going to know power like you’ve never felt. Death is only a transition between this pathetic existence and something much greater. Look what the Manalish has done with me. My power has never been greater, and I shall live forever. So, too, shall you relish the master’s gifts.” She stopped before him, a ghastly smile on her ruined lips. “It only hurts for a moment.”
A black nimbus surrounded her hands. As she reached for him, Horace thought of Alyra, hanging in those chains. A lifeless shell of the woman he had loved. Every moment since he had seen her body, his heart had been crying out for vengeance, but now he understood. The only thing that mattered was that Byleth and her master be stopped, so their evil would not spread across the world like that dark ocean he had seen in the vision.
Fighting through the pain, he threw open his qa. Molten agony seared his insides as the zoana rushed into him. As Byleth’s hands came down toward him, he caught her wrists. A vortex of coruscating energies surged at the juncture where the twin sides of the Shinar came into contact. In that instant, he unleashed everything he had. Not at her but above their heads. He penetrated the roof of the undercity with a spear of combined Kishargal and Shinar, drilling deep into the stone and bringing it all down. Byleth looked up, her ravaged features twisting in surprise as she strained in vain to break his grip. If he couldn’t defeat her, then he would make damned sure she never hurt anyone else ever again. For you, my love.
A last-moment flicker of self-preservation made him conjure a quick shield of solid air around himself as the avalanche fell upon them. Byleth’s hands were ripped from his grasp, and Horace lost sight of her. Then a mas
sive weight drove him to the ground. His shield buckled and nearly failed even as he poured all his strength into maintaining its integrity. Then another, heavier weight smashed down. It felt as if a house had fallen on him. Suddenly, the street gave way. He scrambled for purchase, but there was nothing to hold onto as he fell through the pavement.
He dropped through an empty abyss for what felt like minutes, down into the dark. The jagged walls of a deep shaft rushed past him. Then the bottom appeared and leapt up to catch him. Clinging to consciousness, Horace reached out with the zoana to cushion his landing. Raw and painful, his qa was slow to obey. Pain spiked through his legs as he hit the ground, but he was alive. He took a deep breath. Then he looked up.
Fear left him as the mountain of falling stone and earth hurtled down at him. There was time for only one last thought before conscious fled. I love you, Alyra. I hope I see you soon.
Then his shield failed, and Horace was crushed under tons of rubble.
The earth shook beneath Jirom’s sandaled feet as he led his men down the boulevard. His fighters stumbled and cursed as they fought to keep their balance for a brief moment before the tremor subsided.
What the fuck was that?
The storm still raged overhead, occasionally sending bolts of jagged green lightning down from the heavens. Through the driving rain, he could see the royal palace was only a couple of blocks ahead. After making sure his sergeants were okay, Jirom signaled the host forward. Lieutenant Lesanep’s soldiers marched at the front, with the rebels strung out behind them.
Emanon came up from an inspection of the rear. His hair was plastered to his head. “Nothing’s following us as far as I can tell. What the fuck was that jolt?”
