by Sam Cheever
Taking deep, gulping breaths, I shook my head. “We need to get off of this mountain.”
“Working on it.”
He swung his arm in an arc toward the sky above us and I looked up frowning. “What are you do...?” The question died on my lips as I realized danger stalked us from above too. The deadly miasma that clouded the sky above our heads was sinking downward. Slayer’s energy sizzled orange and black through the roiling haze, eliciting a terrifying cacophony of screams. The screams vibrated beneath my ribs and my magic sparked again, flaring outward as the lethal mist became more agitated.
Unfortunately, rather than slow the monsters down, his attack just seemed to piss them off. Angry faces appeared in the midst of the haze, with dead black eyes and gaping mouths filled with long, serrated teeth.
Darma!
The rock rumbled beneath us. I sent my energy into it and found the aura of a massive creature heading our way. If it managed to find its way to the surface, Slayer and I would be dead. “Another one’s coming!” I shouted.
He sprayed the twisting fog above us with another burst of magic. In response, two shrieking entities shot downward, teeth bared.
Instinctively I blasted them with power and they shattered into tiny pieces as they reached us. But not before one of them tore a chunk out of my hand.
Darma!
The ground rumbled again and all around us small chunks of icy rock tore loose and sifted downward. I’m kind of busy here, Astra.
There isn’t much time. Use your necromancer energy.
The crevice Slayer had made for our feet crumbled away and I slid downward several feet with a yelp. What the hell are you talking about, Astra? I don’t have necromancer energy.
You do. I’ve felt it in you. Trust me on this. Your magic is responding to the lethal mist hanging above us. Those are the dead, Darma. Let the energy go and harness them to kill this thing attacking us. I’ll join my magic to yours.
The rock beneath Slayer and me burst outward and a thick, meaty appendage slammed into us. I flew off the rock with Slayer at my back, still wrapped around me.
Do it, Darma!
With nothing to lose, I opened myself up to the energy that kept sparking in my chest. It swelled to the boundary of my skin and hesitated, throbbing there as if looking for a spark to ignite it. Frosty air splashed against my face, buffeted us with numbing cold as we plunged downward. Slayer’s body stiffened and I felt the atmosphere start to change as he tried to pull us out of the air and into a shift. We were falling too fast. There wouldn’t be enough time.
I threw back my head and screamed, sending the energy I was binding beneath my skin out into the frigid air. The magic pulsed from me in an energy-drenched cloud that created a sonic boom as it hit the dense, cold environs. Its effect on the dead hovering over us was immediate. The cloud condensed, tightened into a vibrating coil of agitation, and then burst outward in thick ribbons of energy. The atmosphere beneath us turned heavy, like thick layers of cotton, and Slayer and I slammed to a stop in midair.
It was as if Slayer and I were encapsulated in a thick, gooey bubble of cold. I turned my head to look at him and found him frowning. “What the hell just happened?”
“I don’t know, I...” Our bubble shifted and we dropped several feet before it tightened around us again. As it usually did for me, fear transformed directly into rage. “Frunk me!” I fueled my energy with a shot of anger and felt the bubble quiver with agitation. That was when I realized how fragile my control was. “We need to shift...NOW!”
With a squeal, the bubble burst and Slayer and I fell the rest of the way to the ground. I hit hard enough to knock the wind out of me but not enough to be seriously hurt. However, if the thick cloud of angry dead arrowing toward us had their way, we were just seconds from dying ourselves.
I grabbed his hand. “Shift to the top. We’ll just have to risk where we end up.”
He grinned. “Be ready to shift-hop.”
The air around us shimmered in the beginnings of a shift and the dead shrieked again, enraged that they weren’t going to reach us in time. Then the energy swelled and everything went still and quiet.
We landed on the razor edge of a narrow ledge just below the mountaintop. As we started to fall, I yanked my magic forward and sent us into another shift, placing us safely in the center of the wide, flat patch of grass I’d spotted as we left our first shift.
Sound and movement returned with a rush as our feet slammed into the surprisingly unfrozen ground. I pinged off the grassy surface and flew forward, landing sprawled on my belly with a soft grunt. Slayer landed beside me, his big body kicking up dirt and grass in a long slide, before stopping. He turned his head to glare at me. “You really need to work on your shift-hops.”
I tried not to groan as I pushed painfully to my feet. “Give me a frunkin’ break. It’s not like I’ve had a chance to practice them.”
“You’re beginning to sound a lot like your sister, Princess,” said an amused sounding male voice behind us. “She seems to be rubbing off on you.”
I turned to glower at Gerch, whose broad red face was creased in a wide smile. “Yeah, like an oily stain.” I brushed dirt off the knees of my leather pants, grimacing as pain lanced my palms. Turning them over I noted that several small rocks were embedded there. “I was such a nice girl before I started hanging out with you guys.”
A suspicious silence followed my statement and then somebody guffawed in a most unladylike way, setting off the others standing around us.
Astra clapped me on the shoulder. “Nice landing.”
“Shut up.”
Her grin widened. “You shut up.”
“Bitch...”
“Street corner dweller from the ghettos of Pluto.”
I blinked. How in Hades was I supposed to beat that one? Then it came to me. “Two-headed, fuzzy bottomed sludge worm from the underside of Mars.”
The roar of male laughter behind us made me grin. Astra shook her head. “You have been hanging around me too long.”
That wiped the smile right off my face.
Dialle came striding up, a worried expression darkening his handsome face. “We need to keep moving. Morta isn’t done with us yet. There will be more nasty surprises ahead.” I glanced past him and spotted Torre, his wrist encircled with an angel chain connected to his brother. He wasn’t looking at me. His dark gaze was locked onto Slayer, his expression fierce. I knew that, however the next couple of days played out, I was going to have to deal with the building competition between the two men in my life. But I couldn’t think about that at the moment. I had too much else on my plate.
Like trying not to die. “How much farther?”
Slayer pointed toward the very top of the mountain, which was partially obscured by the same roiling haze that had haunted us down in the valley. “Morta’s castle forms the peak of this mountain. It’s about another four hours of climbing time.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. My energy reserves had just about deserted me. “Can’t we just shift up there?”
He shook his head. “Nightwhiffs patrol the air above and ghouls have the ground. They’d kill us as soon as we climbed out of our shift.”
I frowned. “Nightwhiffs?”
He jerked his head skyward. “That haze. It’s filled with the things. They can consume a man in seconds and, even if they only manage to bite you, the wound will kill you in time.”
My hand throbbed as I remembered being chomped on by the nightmare in the sky and panic swirled in my gut. I slid my hand to my waist, underneath my jacket. “Can a bite be healed?”
Slayer’s gaze grew speculative. “Why do you ask?”
Shaking my head, I turned away, addressing my sister. “Let’s get moving. I feel like a squatting duck demon here.”
Astra slid her gaze over me, stopping at the place where my hand was hidden beneath my jacket. Her green gaze widened slightly but I gave my head a tiny shake. We’d deal with the bite later. Af
ter we sorted out the mess Torre’s mark had created for me.
Two lines of worry briefly showed between her brows but she turned away, grasping Dialle’s hand. The two of them disappeared in a spaceshift, popping back up again at the head of the column.
“Shall we go?” Slayer asked on a frown.
I started walking again and the column of guards in front and in back of us, shorter than before by about twenty lost souls, slid into place.
I had an uneasy feeling as we started up the last bit of mountain before Morta’s castle. My hand ached more with each step closer to the blackened, ice coated structure high above us. The cold of our surroundings seeped into me, driving deep within my bones and making every step I took feel as if I walked with a lead weight attached to my boot.
Something had changed. Something within me or something in the air...I wasn’t sure which. But whatever it was, it certainly didn’t prepare me for what was coming next.
Nothing could have ever prepared me for that.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A Cost too High
I thought I was seeking a path to life,
But instead found death on every route.
Despite Dialle’s dire warning, we made it to the edge of the castle grounds without further mishap. But trouble waited between us and Morta’s fortress. When we first climbed onto flat, solid terrain, I thought we’d gotten lucky. The ice-covered grounds between us and the spiny black form of Morta’s castle appeared empty. But Slayer grabbed my arm when I started forward.
“Wait.”
Our party spread out along the edge of the cliff, all eyes on the base of the strange, summit-shaped building that hugged the mountain. What I’d thought was just a castle Morta had built into the actual rock of the crest, was instead a building shaped like a mountain peak, complete with arched black holes in the sides that no doubt represented windows and turrets shaped like smaller peaks. The broad base of the fortress sat on a series of wide rock steps, glossy with ice. High above our heads, nearly obscuring the very top of the castle, the Nightwhiffs swayed and danced in agitation.
Clearly they knew we were there.
“How do we get past those?” I pointed toward the iron-gray sky. At some point, as we climbed the face of Morta’s mountain, the meager light of day had given way to near dark. I shivered as I realized how hard it was going to be to see her forces coming at us in the dark.
“They’re the least of our worries.” Slayer jerked his chin toward the fortress. I squinted in that direction and finally saw what the others must have seen right away. The darker patches along the base of the stronghold weren’t rock as I’d assumed. They were advancing slowly toward us, their movement smooth and ethereal.
One by one the tall, stooped creatures whose forms were mostly covered by hooded robes the color of night, moved clear of the shadows. Each of them carried a long weapon with a hooked tip as long as my arm on the end. The harsh white of bony fingers wrapped around the scythes just beneath the deadly blades.
I sucked back with a gasp. “Ghouls.”
Slayer nodded grimly. “Don’t let the scythes touch you. They’ll suck your soul faster than you can blink.”
“Avoid the blades. Got it.”
“And if the ghoul gets its teeth into you you’ll wish you’d met the blade first. They crave the darkness inside you and will discard anything good they encounter.”
“Frunkin’ awesome. This just gets better and better.”
A harsh, discordant cry sounded high overhead and Slayer’s head jerked up. “Yeah, well It’s about to get worse.” He turned to the spot where Dialle and Astra stood, energy sizzling in their hands, and opened a line of internal communication between the four of us. I’m going to get Darma inside. Can you handle this?
I shook my head. No way. I’m not leaving them with this mess while I duck safely inside.
There’s no safe here, Darma, Slayer told me. Only differently dangerous.
He’s right, Astra told me. Your battle is in the castle, with Morta. We can handle this.
I didn’t believe her. The sky above us boiled with huge, skeletal creatures that were shaped like dragons and had dragon-like wings. As I watched, the one closest to us opened its massive jaws and screamed again, the sound making gooseflesh rise along my arms. There’s no way you can handle an army of ghouls and...whatever those are all alone, I told her.
“They won’t be dealing with those,” Slayer told me aloud, pointing to the sky. “You and I will.” He lifted his hand and Dialle lifted his in response. “Come on,” he told me, grabbing my hand and pulling me off to the side as, with a thunderous roar, Astra’s army leapt into the fray with the oncoming ghouls.
With a final backward glance, I allowed Slayer to pull me toward a crooked copse of gray-bodied trees. The air grew slightly warmer as we moved away from the line of ghouls and the knot of dread sitting on my lungs loosened just a little.
That didn’t last long.
Another strident cry sounded above us and it appeared to be much closer. Slayer lifted his fist and flung energy into the sky in a thin stream that illuminated the terrifying creature plunging down at us from above.
It was bigger than my air booger and covered in half rotted flesh. Flaps of dark gray hide peeled off it in chunks as big as my hand. Beneath the flesh was bone, coated in something that shone in the silver light of Slayer’s magic. The creature appeared to be rotting away before our very eyes. I grimaced. “What is that?”
“Death dragon.” Slayer’s power arrow pierced the monster’s wing and it screamed, drawing a cacophony of baying from the sky around it.
Without warning, the flying dragon-corpse dropped down on us, thick, yellow claws outstretched. The monster’s eye sockets appeared empty except for the shimmering of oily magic.
Slayer threw himself at me, flinging us both to the ground beneath a bony looking tree with ice dripping from its branches like clawed fingers.
The death dragon hit the tree hard enough to sheer off several large branches and sent deadly looking ice spears raining down on us. I threw up a protective bubble as a spear as big around as my arm plunged toward Slayer’s back. The bubble exploded the spear, sending it flying around us in a wash of black ice.
The putrid scent of dead flesh washed over us and I gagged. “What is that smell?”
Slayer grabbed my hand. “Let’s keep moving.”
I glanced up and saw movement just behind him. “Slayer!” Without thinking, I threw us into a shift-hop just as the point of a scythe hit the ground where we’d been. Unfortunately, I didn’t send us far enough away and the ghoul spun around, seemingly without touching the ground, and swung the scythe horizontally across our mid-sections.
Slayer arched away from it, narrowly missing being dissected and stepped quickly back as the ghoul slashed past with another impossibly fast strike.
I reached back and pulled Seraphim. “Out of the way,” I screamed.
Slayer dived to the side, flinging energy toward the ghoul as I slammed Seraphim against the handle of the scythe, trying to slice it in half.
The tip of my blade skimmed across the hard, wooden handle as the ghoul danced easily away from my attack. He spun and parried with the scythe’s long blade, catching Seraphim just above the handle and ripping her out of my hands.
I heard my beloved weapon clang against a tree but didn’t have time to retrieve it. The ghoul was on me again.
I jumped into another shift, intending to put myself far enough behind the ghoul to be able to fling some energy toward the thing. I didn’t know if ghouls could be killed with a power arrow, but it was all I had left to try.
As I slipped into my shift just ahead of another swipe of the scythe, I had a moment to wonder where Slayer had gone. But when my feet returned to the hard surface of the ground I heard the screams of more of the death dragons and realized he was fighting them alone. I needed to dispatch the ghoul and go help him.
Lifting my hands, I threw everythin
g I had at the bony monster as he turned to meet me again. He took the brunt of my energy in the center of his form and flew into the air, his scythe flying from his bony grip as he slammed backward into the trunk of a tree and slid slowly down, into a motionless puddle at its base.
I watched for a moment to make sure the thing wasn’t moving and then hurried over, kicking the deadly scythe away before crouching down to make sure the ghoul was dead.
It wasn’t moving. The eyes in the skeletal gray face were black pools of death staring right at me as I touched its chest and released explorative energy to check for life. Nothing beat in its chest. No life force throbbed. Short of being reduced to a pile of ash, I figured the thing was as dead as it was going to get.
I really hate when I’m wrong about important stuff like that.
As I started to rise, the shiny black eyes blinked once and, before I could react, the ghoul reached over and clamped fingers that were nothing but bone around my throat.
My scream was cut brutally short as the world disappeared into silence.
~SC~
Sight and sound crashed into me in a terrifying wash of movement as soon as I emerged from the shift. The creature holding onto me tightened its grip on my throat, cutting off my air as it lifted me off the ground. I kicked out, trying ineffectually to connect with its bony limbs, but caught the toe of my boot on the rough, heavy cloth of its robes.
“Put her down.”
The voice, soft but powerful, surprised me into stillness. The ghoul didn’t hesitate. It released me, dropping me unceremoniously to the ground.
I coughed, rubbing my dented throat as I shoved to my feet. Reaching for my energy, I was dismayed to discover that it had somehow been walled off. I couldn’t get to it.
“You’ll not be able to use your magics within these walls, Darma, Sister of the Queen.” The elegant apparition that stood just out of arm’s reach tilted its head, considering me as if I were a creature from another solar system in a space zoo. “You are lovely. A silver light to your sister’s alluring dark.”
