Instantly, he was a blur. Not bothering to evade the thickening hoard of the undead, his blade sliced through the ancient flesh like dry reeds, clearing a path that quickly closed behind him.
"Ivy, stay close," Myranda said, looking back to make certain she was not in danger. She was gone.
Myranda turned back to see Ivy bounding after Lain. Was she afraid? She was terrified.
Fear coursed through her mind until it seemed to flow through her very veins. It burned at every part of her. The aura that accompanied it was blinding. She'd never been so aware of the change, so deep into it without losing herself, but she couldn't let it happen. Her friends needed her. Not some mindless monster. Not some shivering little girl. They needed her. As she came to the first of the monsters that had once been men, she swung the weapon she held. Distant memories--her own, yet not her own--barked orders to her body. Hold the weapon this way. Place your feet that way. It was training, some residue of what the teachers had forced into her mind. Her muscles moved of their own accord. The blade cut deep and true. The head of one of the corpses rolled from its shoulders.
Deep in her mind, there was a surge of encouragement. Something urged her on. She swung again. Again. More of the creatures fell. She felt something grow stronger, the desire to strike at these foes growing like a mad hunger that needed to be sated. More of the lumbering bodies closed in around her, but she hacked and sliced on. The fear was slipping away. Everything was. With each swing, she felt the desire to grow stronger. It was growing into a need.
The leading edge of the horde of living dead was reaching Myranda now. The fire Ether had sparked among them was spreading, resulting in the far greater threat of mindless monsters swinging and clawing indiscriminately while consumed in flame. Ivy was now deep among them, some manner of frenzy they'd never seen before blinding her to the fact that there was no end to the foes she faced. All the while the flames leapt from corpse to corpse, drawing nearer to her. That sword would do her no good if she was surrounded by fire.
There was a rush of flame and a radiant form burst out from the crypt once more. Ether hung for a moment, high over the valley. For the first time, she could see that she'd done no good. Lain had destroyed a few. Even Ivy had. But the creatures she'd attacked still stood. A look of focus came to Ether's eyes. These creatures would fall. She tightened her fiery fists and gathered her mind. The flames began to rise. The light from them grew to an almost blinding level. She shook with exertion, but still the forms below stood.
Great torrents of energy flowed out of her, fueling flames that burst high into the sky in great spires. The scorched stone of the crypt she'd set alight now began to glow around the edges. She cried out and funneled even more into the inferno. Fine cracks climbed like vines up the walls, crumbling the mortar and letting the white-hot glow of the flames within through. Finally, the crypt collapsed, and so did Ether. The flames died down with no supernatural will to fuel them.
A great swath of the valley was blackened, the bodies that had been crawling along it were little more than jagged broken bones and ash. The shapeshifter crashed down in the center of the patch of scorched earth and, with great effort, managed to shift to her stone form.
Lain reached the top of the nearest crypt. The doors of this one had not yet opened, but the fiery rage of Ether had melted much of the snow that blocked them. It would not be long before the creatures within were loose. He slashed at the large central gem. There was a flash of light and a crackle of energy and his sword leapt back, the gem untouched. A second and third strike were similarly repelled. He sheathed his sword and thrust his heel at the stone stalk the crystal was mounted on. It chipped. Another cracked the icy stone, and finally a third blow broke the short spire free. It plummeted to the hard earth. He ventured to the edge and peered over. The gem had fractured and gone dim, and a handful of the undead that were clawing their way up the walls to reach him grew still and dropped to the ground, but there were more to replace them. Quickly, he rushed to a corner of the roof, ready to bash another free.
The constant wail of the resurrected soldiers was growing to deafening levels as door after door was bashed to pieces by the relentless foes. Myranda waded into the mob, pulsing out waves of magic to scatter the legion enough to manage a few more steps. She had to reach Ivy. Deacon rushed in behind her. When he reached her side, he pulled the twin-bladed weapon from his bag. Though he'd brandished it when Ivy was last rescued, he'd not yet made use of it. At first glance, it was not clear how he intended to do so now. The blades were barely a hand-length each, curving slightly in opposite directions off of the ends of the weapon.
"What good is that going to do?" Myranda asked, managing to hoist one of the undead into the air with a spell and launch it forward, clearing a few more steps toward Ivy.
"A little trick Gilliam taught me," Deacon explained.
He released the blade. It hung in midair, now revealing a network of arcane designs on its grip. Suddenly, it began to spin, in moments accelerating until the air hummed with its speed. He swept his hand forward and the whirling blade launched itself in a similar arc. The rotten flesh of the risen dead offered little resistance. By the time the blade finished its swing, every creature it made contact with was reduced to a writhing pile of limbs.
"You will have to teach me that," Myranda said, thrusting another corpse backward to clear the path behind them.
"Surely," he replied, casting the weapon out for a second sweep.
As the pair made their way forward in that manner, Ether trudged toward the next crypt. Her stone form, for the moment, was weathering the constant attacks of the swarm of undead that shambled in to replace those she'd incinerated. A heavy swing of her stone arm bashed apart the creatures, but their numbers were wearing on her. She'd seen Lain on the rooftop, dislodging another of the crystals, and similarly noticed the effect it had had on their foes. When she reached the crypt, she thrust her claw-like stone fingers into the wall and began to scale it, her ponderous gait only slightly faster than that of the horde that followed her.
Lain finally broke free the last of the crystals, returning a few scattered clusters of the undead to lifelessness. The doors of a handful more crypts had failed, leaving the valley more flooded with the walking dead than before. They were rapidly losing ground. Worse, the writhing mob of living dead below had made it to the roof, climbing over one another to reach him. He hacked and sliced at the creatures, but as quickly as they were struck down, more replaced them. There was no safe way down the wall.
His gaze shifted to the roof of the next crypt, then down to the crowded alley below. There was no other choice. He sheathed his sword, kicked a revenant out of his way, and launched himself off of the roof. He collided with the wall of his next target about halfway down, managing to just barely find a grip. He scrambled up to the top, the tide of living dead already shifting toward him.
Below, the cost of Ivy's frenzy was beginning to show. The jagged, bony fingers and broken teeth of the wretches she hacked at had found their way to her flesh more than once, and she was taking less and less notice of it. Her own safety was being washed away by this strengthening compulsion to strike down these undead soldiers. As the whirring blade of Deacon swept around her, eliminating the threats nearest to her, she turned instead to hacking the still-twitching remains below her to pieces. Anything to sink the weapon into her enemy.
Myranda and Deacon called for her to stop, but their voices were distant. As they drew closer, she turned to them. Her mind saw them as friends, but this madness saw them as something else. She didn't know it, but what she felt now was the same programming that drove the nearmen, forced upon her while she was still in the clutches of the D'karon. And now it demanded that these wizards taste the blade. The malthrope lunged at them. Midway through the attack, the dim realization that she was attacking her friends finally broke through to the surface. She managed to halt the weapon a hairsbreadth away from Myranda and recoiled, dropping the weapon. De
acon took the task of keeping back the constant push of undead entirely upon himself as Myranda looked after Ivy.
"What was that? Are you all right?" Myranda asked, looking her over for injuries and quickly healing those she found.
"I . . . I couldn't control it. Those blasted teachers . . . I think that is how they trained me to fight," Ivy said. "I don't like it."
"Are you in control now?" Myranda asked.
Ivy nodded vigorously.
"Good. I want you to follow me. There must be someplace in this valley that the undead can't reach. Once you are there, I want you to stay there while we take care of--" Myranda explained.
"No! I am one of you. I am part of this team. I am going to help," Ivy demanded.
One of the walking corpses lashed at Deacon, its attack grazing his arm. There was no time to argue.
"Fine. Take the sword, we've got to--" Myranda relented.
"No! I don't like myself with a sword in my hand. Just tell me what we need to do, I'll manage," Ivy said.
"Fine. Do you see those crystals? We need to break every last one of them," Myranda said.
Ivy looked to the roofs, then to the field of lumbering undead between them. A dozen fears tugged for her mind's attention, but she shook them away and heaved herself forward. Instantly, instincts took over, but these were more familiar, more welcome. Her steps took on a certain fluidity and rhythm. She twisted and turned, slipping through the slightest gap in the line of foes. The density of the creatures became greater, and her maneuvers became increasingly acrobatic. Tumbles, handsprings, and rolls finally took her to the base of a crypt.
With a speed and deft precision that more than rivaled Lain's, she made her way to the roof. Once there, alas, her grace vanished, as she began to pound and bash at the stone spires that bore the crystals with her bare hands. Though lacking the finesse of her ascent, it was nonetheless effective, as her deceptively strong blows steadily weakened the supports of the spires.
A few buildings away, Ether finally finished her laborious climb. Approaching the crystal, she heaved a heavy backhand at it, shattering it in one blow, but staggering backward. A sharp pain ran up her arm. It was the crystal. The spell protecting it was no concern, but the accursed crystal itself pulled hungrily at her own strength when she touched it. She turned angrily to the next spire and stalked toward it. One of the undead pulled itself onto the roof ahead of her. Ether grasped the rotting creature by the throat and hurled it at the spire, ruining the creature and dislodging the crystal in one blow. She dispatched the next three foes and the next three crystals in the same manner. When her work on this roof was done, she stepped to the edge and dove off, bringing those corpses below her to a rather messy end as well.
Meanwhile, Deacon's blade was taking longer and longer to clear a swath through the ever-thickening throng of creatures, and they had yet to reach a crypt.
"This isn't working. We need to keep these things from escaping. You do something to brace the doors that haven't broken free. I'll try to stop the ghouls that have already escaped," Myranda said.
Deacon nodded and recalled his blade. He raised his crystal and focused on the nearest door that had not yet given way. The gap between the doors began to glow. As the glow faded away, so did the gap, leaving a solid stone wall where there had once been a door. Myranda swept together as much of the melted slush and snow that had resulted from Ether's earlier onslaught as she could, and cast it over as many of the undead as she could manage. When she could not drench any more of them, she set her mind to summoning an intense wind and bone-chilling cold and directed it at the mob. Gradually, their plodding movements slowed, until the creatures she had managed to douse were frozen solid. Now safe from the attackers, Myranda wove between them as quickly as she could to help Deacon.
Deeper in the valley, far from the patch of living dead immobilized by the wizards, Ether had yet to make it to the next crypt. The undead had formed a solid wall in front of her, and no amount of hacking, shoving, and bashing afforded her a single additional step. Worse, the shambling mass began to crawl upon one another like insects, mounding up on her and attacking from all sides. Finally, she gave up on her stone form. Gathering what little strength she hadn't already squandered, Ether turned her mind to the long list of creatures that she'd sampled from the case Deacon had pilfered. Selecting one, she set about taking on the form. The undulating pile of undead that had crept over her began to heave and bulge upward, and then she finally burst from the pile, soaring skyward. Now in the form of a griffin, she swept quickly back and plucked up a pair of the undead and spiraled high into the air, dropping them with deadly accuracy, shattering two of the crystals before diving to fetch two more.
Ivy finished shattering the crystals in the roof and rushed to the edge to climb down, only to be suddenly and intensely reminded of her fear of heights. Try as she might, she could not push this fear aside as she had the others. She retreated to the peak of the roof, the undead swarm beginning to creep over the edge and close in on her. She backed to the shattered remains of the topmost spire as the creeping terror drew nearer.
"H-help," she whimpered meekly, reluctant to turn to the others.
The spire she leaned on gave way, nearly taking her with it as it plummeted to the ground below.
"HELP!" she cried, her hesitation gone.
A moment later, she felt a sharp tug and was yanked into the air by her waist. She released an earsplitting scream as she watched the rooftop drop away beneath her.
"Cease that screaming, beast!" Ether warned.
"I DON'T CARE! PUT ME DOWN! I'LL TAKE MY CHANCES WITH THE DEAD PEOPLE!" she shrieked, her eyes clamped shut.
Ether dipped and deposited Ivy on a roof on the far side of the valley.
Ivy, opening her eyes reluctantly, suddenly cried out. "No, no! On the ground! ON THE GROUND!"
Ether ignored the pleas. Ivy kicked the nearest spire, dislodging it with a single blow, the dash of anger giving her a surge of strength. She stomped over to the next spire and tugged at it, snapping its base and dragging it with her as she continued her tantrum. She grumbled loudly, punctuating her complaints by smashing additional spires with the makeshift club.
"What sort of a stupid idiot takes someone who is afraid of heights and drops them on a roof!" she cried, destroying the other spires.
Now once again trapped on the roof with nothing more to do, she swung the crumbling remains of the makeshift club in a few circles and hurled it. It soared in a high arc, smashing into the stone platform in the center of the valley.
Deacon rushed through the narrow walkways between the structures, finding it harder and harder to find one that did not already have the undead pouring from it. Myranda followed just behind, conjuring up freezing winds, tangling vines, and anything else she could think of to slow the flood of creatures. Finally, Deacon came to a stop, trying desperately to catch his breath.
"It is no good . . . There are too many loose already," he panted. "I need to get to a roof. I might be able to figure something out about these crystals."
After an abortive attempt to levitate himself to the roof, he willed a portion of a shattered door into a makeshift ladder. With his crystal floating faithfully beside him as he ascended, he made his way to the roof, destroying the ladder when Myranda was safely beside him.
"If those things start to climb, do what you can to keep them off of me, if you would," Deacon requested.
Myranda nodded. The wail of ruined voices and the shuffle of withered feet was constant. Picking out which was closest or what might be a threat was nearly impossible. Deacon, on the other hand, filtered it all out, committing the whole of his considerable attention to the largest of the radiant crystals. He held his own crystal up to the larger one and furrowed his brow, eyes darting occasionally, almost as though he were reading. Without the pair of them below actively slowing the progress of the undead swarm, it was not long before they began to work their way up the sides of the crypt.
&nb
sp; On a distant roof of his own, Lain was just finishing the final spire. Most of the crypts were near enough to one another for him to leap directly from roof to roof. The undead were too slow to reach him before he moved onto the next roof, and too mindless to climb onto adjacent roofs, rendering them a non-issue for him. As he chose his next target, he saw Ivy, far in the distance, hesitantly approaching the edge of a roof before retreating amid a splash of blue. His eyes swept across the roofs. Most around him were littered with the sinewy remains of those unlucky enough to be chosen by Ether as projectiles, not a spire remaining. Breaking into a sprint, he bounded from roof to roof when they were near enough, and down to the ground when he needed to. His blade made a path through the legion of undead who, despite the considerable efforts of he and his allies, only seemed to be growing thicker.
In moments, Lain had carved a path to Ivy, bursting up to the roof where she stood. She was first startled, then relieved by his appearance. He took her by the hand and led her to the edge of the roof. She reluctantly allowed herself to be pulled along, but as the ground came into view, she pulled back again, drawing in a sharp breath and trying hard to push down the rising fear.
"You can do this," he insisted.
"No. No, I can't, Lain," Ivy stammered, crouching and covering her eyes.
"Ivy. Listen to me. Listen!" he ordered, jerking her hands away from her face.
She locked her tear-moistened eyes on his gaze.
"Stand up. Do you see that roof there?" he said, pointing to the next crypt.
"I don't want to--" she began.
"Look! Do you see it?" he repeated forcefully.
She nodded.
"I want you to jump to that roof. Don't look down. Just look to the roof. You can make it," he instructed.
She took a shaky breath as he led her back for the running start. Her eyes were on the far roof. Lain held her hand and took his first steps forward. She forced herself forward, charging down the slope of the roof a half-step behind him. When she reached the edge, she shut her eyes tight and jumped. A moment later, she crashed down, sliding first up, then down an icy surface. She splayed out, digging her claws into the ice and clenching her teeth against the fear. When she slid to a stop, she felt a sharp nudge at her shoulder. Cautiously opening her eyes, she found that she was clutching the shingles on the opposite side of the peak of the roof she'd been aiming for. She'd cleared nearly the entire crypt.
The Book of Deacon Anthology Page 97
