End Times in Dragon City (6 page)

I checked the Great Circle for breaks in the city’s defenses and found none. In fact, as the day wore on and the sun rose higher in the sky, the undead retreated from the wall and sought the cover of the woods instead. I knew from experience that zombies could tolerate sunlight, but it always seemed to suck a lot of their energy straight out of them. When dark fell, they became far more active and outright vicious. If the Ruler of the Dead had drawn them back for the day, I could only suspect that it meant we were in for a horrible night to come. 

The guards atop the wall didn’t let the respite go to waste. They scrambled back and forth, putting into position pots of oil they could set ablaze, plus they set up enchanted ballistae and other weaponry meant to keep the Ruler’s army at bay. I spotted casks of dragonfire being rolled into position next to squads of wizards, giving them a way to replenish their mojo when it started to run dry. That was a dangerous game to play, one that could leave the wizards too drunk to cast spells if they pushed themselves too hard and fast. That was besides the fact the enchanted liquor was normally illegal, but they didn’t have many other choices at this point. 

The Dragon’s corpse still lay where it had fallen, looking just as fresh as it had at the moment of his death. I had no idea about the rate at which a dead dragon might decay, but he seemed as well preserved as a shiny suit of armor. 

A group of wizards stood gathered around the cadaver now, in addition to the crimson-suited guards. From their lack of uniforms, I could tell the wizards weren’t part of the Guard. With a closer look, I spotted Bill Whitman — the Academy’s headmaster — among them, as well as my old classmate Celia. 

The wizards poked at the gigantic corpse with their wands, casting all sorts of divination and forensic spells, a few of which I recognized, even if I probably couldn’t cast them myself anymore. I’d known them at one point, but I’d chosen to concentrate on different kinds of spells after I left the school. Those less useful spells had atrophied from my mind. 

I don’t know if they were trying to move the Dragon or cut him up into pieces to pass out to the rest of the city for a massive feast — which would have been appropriate — but either way, they didn’t seem to be having much success. The Dragon’s scales had made him immune to most magic, which was one of the reasons they were so prized. They seemed to be protecting him as well in death as they had in life. 

It struck me once again how damn lucky I’d been with that shot that had killed the great beast. Then I considered where it had brought me, and I wasn’t so sure. 

Maybe my father had been right to be so ashamed of me. I’d only been trying to save Belle and Spark and all the rest of my friends — and sure, even my own skin — but what did that matter against the lives of everyone in the city? As it was, it seemed now like we would all die anyhow. If we were lucky, we might each have a couple more days than we would have if I’d let the Dragon have his way with us, and every hour of those days would be filled with a mounting terror that would only end at the moment the walking dead finally overcame us and ushered us forcefully into their ranks. 

Death by dragon’s fire didn’t seem like such a bad alternative when compared to that. 

I’d made my choice then, though, and now I’d have to live with it the best I could for as along as I could manage. I only hoped my friends would be able to do the same.

I went looking for them, and I couldn’t find them anywhere. 

Well, that’s not entirely true. It would be better to say that they weren’t where I expected to find them — at the Quill — except for faithful Thumper, who was busy reinforcing the place’s defenses. If I ever made it back there, I was going to have to give the man a massive bonus. 

I found Kells and Cindra at their home, taking care of their children and boarding up their house’s windows and doors. They’d laid in a good stock of supplies, enough food and water to last them all for weeks, and Kells had mounted one of his machine-guns on the building’s flat roof, all the better to defend his home with. If anyone survived all this, it would be them. 

Or at least they’d be the last to go. 

I spotted Moira when I looked in on Nit at the Barrelrider. He’d given up fixing up my office over his restaurant for the moment and had barricaded the dining room’s front door instead. Despite that, he and his wife had the kitchens running full blast and were feeding a huge crowd of people packed in there with them. 

Most of the customers there were halflings, but I spotted a number of humans and gnomes mixed in there with them. The wine and beer and spirits flowed freely with the food, and everyone seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood. I didn’t know how long the party could hold out, but they’d have a wonderful time until then. 

Moira was helping her mother in the kitchen, something I don’t think she’d done much of for well over a decade. Ever since we’d started out as adventurers, she and her mother hadn’t had much to say to each other. Even after Moira had retired from the game, her mother’s continuing disapproval had stayed wedged between them. 

When Moira had gone missing, though, and then showed up without her left hand, her mother had welcomed her home and set to babying her like a sick toddler. And much to my surprise, Moira had not only tolerated it but embraced it. It warmed my heart so see them working together like that, a beacon of hope in all the horrors of the day. 

I couldn’t find Kai anywhere, but I knew that was how he liked it. He rarely stayed in any one place for long, moving from job to job and bed to bed like the mercenary he was. He’d made just as much money as any of us back in the day, but he’d pissed it all away. To him, money was meant to be used the same way that life was meant to be enjoyed: as fast and ferociously as possible. 

He’d turn up when I needed him. He always did. That helped make up for the times when I didn’t want him around at all. 

I didn’t see Danto anywhere either, but I’d expected that. He’d either be in his tower or at the Academy, and they were both shielded from magical scrying. 

So was the Sanguigno estate, I discovered, when I went poking around up there for Belle. I didn’t imagine that she’d go back there to enjoy a tearful reunion with her parents — who’d sold her out to the Dragon’s appetite in the first place — but I wondered if she might try to gather some of her things or even just sleep in her own bed. If so, I had no way of knowing. 

As the day wore on, I could feel the tension mounting throughout the city. The random zombie attacks came more often. Most times, people dispatched the shuffling bags of evil without too much trouble, but it wore on their nerves to do it. 

These minor clashes provided a preview of what would happen if the Ruler of the Dead’s army made it over the wall, only then it would be a hundred — no several thousand — times worse. I saw that realization dawning on the faces of the people who put these creatures down, and it set them on a razor’s edge. 

Fires erupted in a few different spots around town, especially as the sun fell behind the mountain’s western edge, plunging the city into shadow while the sky still shone blue. On a regular day, the Guard would have responded to these and put them out with their wands. Today, though, they ignored them, keeping their focus on the Great Circle. It fell to the people in those neighborhoods to take care of the blazes instead. 

As the shadows lengthened and swallowed Dragon City whole, the walking dead emerged from the forest. They massed outside the Great Circle and began to moan, then wail, then howl. They not only scratched against the wall, they beat on it with their hands, their arms, their legs, their heads. The awful noise rose to such a horrifying volume that I could hear it all the way up in my cell. 

This built to a thrumming crescendo that seemed like it might break over the wall like a tidal wave, bringing terror and death along with it. No longer was it a question of if the Great Circle would be broken but when. 

C
HAPTER
N
INE

I used the crystal ball Alcina had given me to reconnoiter the enemy forces, and what I saw out there on the other side of the Great Circle made me wish the Dragon was still alive. 

As they had yesterday, the zombies used each other to form fleshy ladders, each crawling over the ones below to reach higher and higher up the wall. Their wailing slowed them down a bit, but they had all night to get it right and were in no hurry. The wall would fall before them, just as surely as even mountains crumble with the passage of centuries. 

This time, though, the guards atop the wall were ready for them. As the creeping carpet of dead flesh reached about halfway up the wall, a captain of the Guard — a dark-haired elf I didn’t know — gave the signal. Dozens of guards took the cauldrons of oil they’d brought up there during the day, fitted them between the crenellations, and tipped them over the edge of the wall. 

The thick and brackish fluid oozed down the outside of the Great Circle, coating its surface as it went. When it reached the zombies, it flowed down onto them as well, and the ones near the top lost their already tenuous grips on the cut stone there and tumbled back down the swelling slope of the dead. 

A cheer went up from the Guard, but it didn’t take long for that sense of triumph to subside. The zombies learned fast enough that they could cling to each other far better than they could to the wall, and they soon showed that this would be enough. Only moments later, they were ascending again, and they reached the halfway mark of the wall once more.

The same captain of the Guard gave out a shout then, and the guards who had tipped the oil over the edge now appeared with torches. They pitched them over the edge, and their flames caught in the oil and spread fast, racing along the surface of the wall until they collided with the closest of the dead. 

The blaze engulfed the creatures, devouring them. For a moment, the front line of the zombies disappeared in the flames and black billows of smoke that rose from their baking bodies. The guards atop the wall cheered once more, although with a bit less triumph this time. They’d had their hopes raised and dashed too many times already, and they wanted to see how this latest gambit of theirs played out before they indulged in any honest exultation. 

The fire kept burning there, creeping down the towers of the dead. One by one, the creatures on the top succumbed to the lack of flesh still attached to their bones. Not having anything left to move their frames with, they toppled backward and fell into the ravenous horde below, starting new fires there where they landed. 

The guards cheered for real after that, but the captain in charge of the city’s defense didn’t waste any time with celebration. He ordered his snipers to open fire while support teams brought up new barrels of oil, taking care not to run afoul of their compatriots’ torches. The air filled with the staccato crackling of scores of rifles blasting down at the zombies at once, a rolling thunder so loud it drowned out the creatures’ howls — which had turned from hungry to horrified. 

The zombies fell back then, the fire chewing through their dried and ancient flesh as if they were made of paper. The bullets knocked more of the burning corpses back down into their lower kindred, spreading the fire even faster. The creatures retreated under this blistering onslaught, searching for some kind of protection but finding none at hand. 

I cheered along with the Guard now, pumping a fist into the air, not caring if I attracted my jailers. So what if they took the crystal ball from me? I’d seen everything I wanted to. From here, it would only be a matter of time before the Guard routed the Ruler of the Dead’s army in full. I didn’t need to watch them mop up the stragglers. 

Or so I’d thought. 

A great cry went up from the wall, one not of triumph but dismay. I stared down the mountain through the window in my cell, but all I could see was a long wall of smoke roiling up from the Great Circle’s blazing facade. I turned back to the crystal ball to see what was happening, and the sight robbed me of my breath. 

The smoke was so thick that it was hard to penetrate now, but I nosed my viewpoint around until it pierced the smoke and could see the Great Circle from high above the other side of it. The guards in the Day Tower had been able to spot what I could now see, and they must have relayed the terrible truth to their fellows atop the wall. 

The zombies had abandoned the wall, but they hadn’t gone far. To extinguish the flames, they’d moved as fast as they could shamble toward the cataract of the Crystal River as it forked and came cascading out through the massive grates that sat on the shoulders of the Great Gate. They soaked themselves in the waters rushing there and where the river took up its course again in the land below, snuffing out the fires and leaving them soaked through to their charred bones. 

Once the last of the blazes had been put out, the bloated corpses turned toward the wall once more. Before they had avoided the Great Gate because of the waterfall there, but this time they went straight for it. 

I’d never seen the Great Gate open. It stood at least forty feet tall and was made of solid stone. Although it was shaped like a pair of massive doors set into a pointed arch, it had been more of decoration than a functional way to get in and out of the city. At the Academy, they’d taught me that the doors had been enchanted in a joint effort between the Wizards Council and the Brichts who built the wall. The doors could be opened when necessary, but only by magic. Because of the walking dead that roamed the countryside, it had been hundreds of years since this had happened. 

The Great Gate held steady as the zombies hurled themselves against it and started climbing once again. The Guard moved to greet them, concentrating their positions atop the stretch of the wall’s walkway that served as a bridge over the waterfall and the gate. At the captain’s command, they poured the oil down from the crenellations again. 

The water washed away much of the oil this time, keeping it from adhering to the stone, much less the zombies. The guards tossed torches down on to it, but most of them went out before they even reached the oil that was there, doused by the waterfall’s spray.