Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men

by Derek Landy

  The wind up here was strong and cold, and it snatched Skulduggery’s hat from his head. Ravel raised his hand and the hat swung around and settled into his grip. He put it into Skulduggery’s shackled hands, but Skulduggery said nothing.

  General Mantis didn’t have to peer between the merlons to look out over the surrounding land. It just stood there, ridiculously tall, wrapped in that cellophane. Now that she was close enough, Stephanie could see its pale, hairless flesh beneath. It looked down at them as they approached, its face hidden behind that mask.

  “Grand Mage Ravel,” it said. “Congratulations on capturing your enemies. If you wish to fling them from the wall, I know the perfect spot.”

  Ravel frowned. “I’m not altogether sure you’re joking.”

  “The General is like that,” another man said as he walked up, a woman by his side. “Its sense of humour takes a little getting used to. Hey, Saracen.”

  “Regis,” Saracen said, nodding to him. “Hi, Ashione.”

  Ashione, the woman, made a point of ignoring him.

  “You’re probably wondering why I didn’t call,” Saracen said to her. “I was going to, I really was. But then I lost your number. And war broke out. And then my phone stopped working. I have to get a new one. Any recommendations? I was thinking about a—”

  Ashione glared at him and he shut up.

  “Grand Mage,” Regis said, “we’re setting up a vantage point for you. If you’ll follow me?”

  They left Mantis standing there and walked over to a young woman.

  “This is NJ,” Regis said. “She’s chosen the language of magic for her discipline, and we have her studying under China Sorrows.”

  “Miss Sorrows is a wonderful teacher,” NJ said, eyes wide. “She really is so good at this. I’ll never be half as good as she is. That’s what she keeps telling me. She’s magnificent.”

  Regis sighed. “NJ is a little enamoured of Miss Sorrows at the moment.”

  Ravel smiled as NJ blushed. “Hey, don’t worry about it. We’ve all been there, believe me. Most of us are still there, if we’re being honest. But how about you put all your doubts out of your head for the moment, and show us what you can do?”

  NJ nodded. “Yes. Yes, sir.”

  She took an ornate pen from a silver case, and pressed it to one of the merlons. The tip of the pen began to glow, and it carved through the stone like it was made of butter. NJ may have been nervous, but her hand was sure, and she completed the sigil without a single hesitation. Once it was finished, she repeated the process on the next merlon.

  She checked her work, blew on the pen then put it back in its silver case. She pressed the first sigil and it glowed, and when she took her finger away there was some kind of transparent film attached to it. She drew the film all the way across the crenel, and touched it against the second sigil, where it held. The film shimmered in the strong wind, but through it the surrounding countryside was magnified.

  In the distance, they saw people.

  “That’s them?” Ravel asked. “How many are there?”

  “Thirty, sir.”

  “That’s all? Where’s Charivari?”

  “We haven’t been able to see him.”

  Ravel shook his head. “So they’ve come to make war on us with thirty people?” He looked at Skulduggery. “Thoughts?”

  Skulduggery took his time before answering. “Right now I’m thinking, wouldn’t it be great if they all came in here and ripped you apart?”

  “Well,” Ravel said, “that’s helpful. Regis, ask the General what it thinks.”

  “Something’s happening,” Stephanie said.

  The Warlocks were clearing a space for an old man. He straightened both arms over his head and started making circular motions with his hands. White energy glittered around his fingertips.

  “Is that Charivari?” Gracious asked.

  “No,” said Vex. “Charivari’s younger. More physically impressive. What’s this guy doing?”

  “Ashione,” said Regis. “Stop him from doing what he’s doing.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Ashione, and took her rifle from its covering.

  “Some Warlocks can’t be killed by bullets,” Donegan said.

  “These bullets are special,” Ashione murmured, putting her eye to the scope. The man brought his hands apart slightly, teasing out a small circle of energy. Ashione pulled the trigger, and the man’s head snapped back in a mist of blood. The circle stayed where it was, though, hovering in the air.

  A woman came forward, held her hands to both sides of the circle, started stretching it. Ashione adjusted her aim, fired again. The woman’s body toppled over the man’s.

  Another man came forward, stretched the circle even further. You could ride a bike through it now. Before Ashione could fire, another man calmly stepped in front of him, blocking her shot. And another man stepped in front of him. And another.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said, picking up the rifle and jogging to another vantage point. She fired again, and again, but the others protected the man as he spread his arms wide and stepped back, and the circle pulsed with light and with every pulse it grew. You could drive a car through it now. A van. A truck. A bus. And still it pulsed, and still it grew, until it was wide enough to fit ten buses through.

  And then it stopped, and it hung there like a giant smoke ring.

  “I don’t get it,” said Saracen.

  It dipped a little, dipped more, dropping closer to the ground. Upon contact its curved edge started to flatten, until it looked less like a smoke ring and more like a punctured tyre. And then it settled, and stopped deflating.

  Ravel scowled. “Does anyone know what the hell that is?”

  “It’s a portal,” said Skulduggery.

  Figures emerged. Stephanie heard Regis mutter something under his breath, something that sounded like “Wretchlings”. She didn’t know what a Wretchlings was but she didn’t think she could count them as human. Some had hair. Most hadn’t. Some were big, some scrawny. All of them had boils or sores of some sort. They wore leather and fur, but their clothes were stitched into their rotting skin, and their rotting skin was stitched through their clothes. They bulged, like they’d been overstuffed, like their insides had yet to settle into place. Some of them, their faces twitched like every muscle was in spasm, while others had faces so slack it was like they had no muscles at all. One thing they all had in common though, was a weapon. They carried their swords or their axes or their war hammers in their meaty fists or their skeletal hands and they walked with a single, hostile purpose.

  And they kept coming.

  A hundred. Two hundred. Five. A thousand. Two thousand. They kept coming, spreading out across the fields. Three thousand. Five thousand.

  When they were all out, the portal closed behind them.

  “I make it around twelve thousand,” said Dexter.

  Ravel grabbed Regis’s arm. “Get Mantis over here. I need him to take control of the city’s defence.” When Regis hesitated, Ravel’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “We’ll fight,” Regis said, “but your people won’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Irish sorcerers,” said Regis. “I’ve spoken to them. They don’t trust you, not after what you did to Ghastly and Shudder, and they won’t fight for you.”

  “They won’t just stand by and let Roarhaven be destroyed.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

  “Well, what the hell do you expect me to do about that now? Explanations can wait. If I tell them to fight …” He faltered. “Damn it.” He turned to Skulduggery. “They’ll fight for you.”

  Saracen barked a laugh. “You have some nerve …”

  Ravel ignored him. “Take over, Skulduggery. Take command. Mantis’s people and ours will fight if you’re the one giving the orders. Forget about me, about what I’ve done. There is a city here, with sorcerers who aren’t fighters, thousands of them. Men, women and children
. The Warlocks will slaughter them, you know they will.”

  Skulduggery tilted his head. “And after?”

  “What happens, happens.”

  Skulduggery looked over at the twelve thousand Wretchlings, and held out his hands. “Then you’d better take these shackles off, hadn’t you?”

  he Roarhaven sorcerers didn’t bother with magic at that range. A long barrel and a bullet, that’s all they needed to slow the advance. From up high on the wall, Stephanie couldn’t see the blood. She just saw the Wretchlings jerk, topple and fall. One after another.

  There were others in among them, men and women whose hands were lighting up. Hot beams of energy burst forth, but while bullets passed through the shield without slowing, magic sizzled against the invisible barrier and went no further. A one-sided battle if ever Stephanie had seen one. Suddenly the Warlocks’ great numbers didn’t mean so much any more. If they couldn’t get through the shield, where was the threat?

  She watched a skinny man down below, shouting up at them. His words were lost long before they reached the top of the wall, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He screamed and shouted and shook his fists and stamped his feet. Skulduggery joined her looking down at him.

  “That’s a little odd,” he murmured.

  “Looks like he’s doing the haka,” Stephanie said.

  Skulduggery motioned to Regis. “Captain, if I could focus your attention on the gentleman having the tantrum.”

  Regis peered over the side. “What about him?”

  “The Warlocks aren’t known for being normal, but even so, this does strike me as unusual behaviour.”

  Regis grunted. “Ashione, see the guy kicking up a fuss? Take him out before he does something weirder.”

  “You got it, chief,” Ashione said, taking careful aim.

  A piece of wall exploded beside her and she jerked back. “What the hell …?”

  Energy beams hit the shield, sizzled, and broke through.

  “He’s taking down the shield,” Skulduggery said, snatching Ashione’s gun from her and lifting it to his shoulder.

  He fired, but a Wretchling jumped in front of the shouting man, caught the bullet in the neck. Skulduggery fired again, and again a Wretchling sacrificed himself. The shouting man spread his arms wide and stomped his feet and his words drifted above the gunfire. Stephanie heard a few garbled words of old magic and then someone on the wall was shouting, “It’s down! The shield is down!”

  The Warlocks’ energy beams carved great scars into the wall. Smaller darts of energy flew like angry insects, pocking against the battlements. A sniper who had leaned too far screamed, dropped his rifle and staggered back, clutching his face. He fell to one knee, then toppled on to his side, and went limp. When his hands fell, half of his melted face went with them.

  The sense of calm evaporated. They still had the high ground and they still had their defences, but soldiers were now ducking as they moved, scurrying from one vantage point to the next. Those beams of white energy tore chunks from solid stone.

  Ashione had her rifle back and she was popping up, taking a shot and then immediately ducking down again. Every time she popped up, it would be in a slightly different place. The Warlocks had already identified her as a major threat – her section of the wall was under constant bombardment.

  Stephanie glanced down in time to see the Wretchling clear a space around a big man, maybe seven feet tall. His torso was glowing like he was being lit from within. He suddenly threw his shoulders back and a whirling ball of white energy shot out of his chest. It rose quickly, growing as it came. A few snipers tried taking shots at it. Elementals sent waves of air to shoo it off course. Neither of these had any effect. Vex let loose an energy stream of his own, but it hit the ball and passed through. And still the whirling mass of white rose towards the top of the wall, and it slowed, and hung there.

  “Back!” Skulduggery roared. “Everyone back!”

  The ball exploded with a deafening crack. The blast lifted Stephanie off her feet and flung her over the railing. Screaming, she started to fall to the city streets far below, but a hand snagged her ankle and she swung to the wall and slammed into it. She hung there, upside down, unable to even blink. The grip on her ankle was tight. Blood rushed to her head.

  She was pulled up, and a hand clutched her leg and kept pulling, and now the hands were on her hips, and she was pulled under the railing and back on to the wall. She turned over, shaking, expecting Skulduggery or Dexter, instead finding a Cleaver, just another anonymous Cleaver.

  “Thank you,” she gasped.

  The Cleaver picked up his scythe and went to help an injured sorcerer, and within moments she couldn’t tell him apart from all the other Cleavers. Rubble littered the walkway. A clunk of the wall was missing, and great clouds of dust rose like smoke. She saw Skulduggery, looking for something. She waved to him, watched him visibly relax and then turn away, getting back to work.

  Stephanie got up, went back to the wall. Something hit the merlon beside her, spraying her with chips of rock. A metal dart, buried in the stone, trailing a rope of white energy.

  She peered over the edge. More of these darts shot into the wall, fired from the hands of Warlocks in a burst of white. Once attached, the Warlocks secured the other end to the ground, and the rope went taut. Stephanie ducked as a dart skimmed her cheek. She glanced again a moment later, saw dozens of these energy ropes in place. What were they hoping to do – pull the wall down?

  Instead, the Warlocks stepped away, and the Wretchlings ran forward. They jumped on to the ropes with their bare feet and they kept running, like overeager tightrope walkers, sprinting up the steep incline like this was a Sunday morning jog.

  The shout went out. Bursts of gunfire sent Wretchlings falling, but there seemed to be a limitless supply, and by now the Warlocks were keeping the snipers busy with their energy beams.

  Stephanie reached over her shoulder, took hold of the stick. It buzzed lightly in her hand. She took another look at the Wretchlings. They were getting close. A few sorcerers were trying to cut the energy ropes with no success. Others still hit the ropes with their swords, trying to dislodge the dozens of Wretchlings running up each of them. It was no use. And then the Wretchlings were upon them.

  One of them scrambled over the wall in front of Stephanie. The first thing to hit her was the stench – rotting meat and putrefaction. The second was his fist – a blistered thing of mismatched knuckles. She used the stick to hit him back in a burst of blue light, then turned to the battlement as another Wretchling crawled up. She jabbed him in the throat and then pushed, forcing him backwards. He screamed and vanished and she turned again, ducked a curved sword that whistled for her head. The Wretchling came forward, slashing wildly, his face contorted with hatred. She blocked clumsily, giving ground, then lunged. But he sidestepped, the hilt of the sword crunching against her head.

  She fell, biting her tongue, the world spinning around her, but her mind staying alert enough to curse herself. She rolled, the sword slicing across her side, but unable to get through her jacket. The Wretchling jabbed at her and stabbed at her and finally it occurred to him that maybe he should try going for the part of her that wasn’t swathed in black. Stephanie blocked a slash at her head and swung for his body, but the curved blade parried the stick and took it from her hand. She dived on him, fingers clawing at his face. His flesh was clammy and soft, like ripe fruit. They staggered against the railing and she bit his neck, gagged on the foulness, and jammed her thumb in his eye. He screeched and pulled away and she shoved at the same time and he flipped backwards over the railing, falling to the streets below.

  The Wretchlings were everywhere now, their swords clashing with the scythes of the Cleavers. Sorcerers took them on hand to hand when they had to, but ranged magic was preferred. Stephanie wiped her mouth and returned her stick to its place between her shoulder blades, then took the Sceptre from her bag. Black lightning flashed and a Wretchling who was just scrambling
over the wall turned to dust, and the wind snatched that dust away in a swirling mass. The Sceptre fired again and again, Wretchlings exploding like 2,000-year-old clay pots being dropped from a great height. Three more Wretchlings, bursting dryly apart, and then from the clouds of dust came a fourth, running straight at her.

  He took her off her feet and she lost the Sceptre before she even hit the ground. He kicked her and she rolled, then scrambled, grabbed him, got her legs under her even as he was trying to get free and she stood, heaving him on to her shoulders with a roar, and ran for the battlements. She hit them and he toppled off her and over the top, his scream quickly fading.

  Strong fingers grabbed her, turned her towards the hot breath of a Wretchling, who punched at her quickly but ineffectively. She looked down, realised he had a small triangular knife in his fist that was searching for weak points. She grabbed his wrist, held on, feeling the skin shift beneath her grip, but his other hand was on her face, fingers digging into her eyes. She turned away and the fingers came after her. One of them strayed too close to her mouth and she bit down, heard the crunch of bone and felt the spurt of hot blood, and then the Wretchling was wrenched away from her. A sorcerer had him round the throat, was hauling him to the railing. The Wretchling twisted into him, plunged the knife into his gut half a dozen times in less than a second, and the sorcerer stumbled back and the Wretchling pushed him, and he fell screaming to the city below.

  Stephanie grabbed her stick, ran at him. The Wretchling blocked her swing and snarled. She spat a mouthful of his own blood back into his face and kicked his knee, and then she slammed her stick into his head. The sigils weren’t glowing any more. It was out of charge. She hit him again and again, knocking him out the old-fashioned way. He collapsed and she fought the urge to throw up.