Lusam: The Dragon Mage Wars Book Three (43 page)

‘I’m getting too old for this,’
Renn thought to himself, as he got back to his feet for the third time in less than a minute. As he scanned the sky for yet more missiles heading his way, he noticed a bright aura appear on board the Pelorus. He immediately knew it was Lusam’s, simply by its intensity. At first Renn feared that Lusam was trying to scare the enemy ship away again—by revealing his aura to them—but a moment later, he saw Lusam’s attack. The whole front of the enemy ship exploded, showering the surrounding water with debris and bodies, and Renn felt the distinct death-pulses of at least twenty magi. Renn was thankful for the sudden lack of fireballs heading his way, but soon realised why they had targeted him in the first place. They must have mistaken his aura, for that of a weaker mage’s. Even though Renn was not capable of performing any complex magic himself, his aura would have still appeared to be the brightest around, making him the natural target to everyone on board the enemy vessel.

Renn knew that Lusam had revealed his presence aboard the Pelorus intentionally, to draw the fire off of him. But he hoped he hadn’t tipped his hand too soon by doing so. The Pelorus was barely away from the dock yet, and still broadside to the enemy ship. Renn felt sure that Lusam had already used a lot of his magical reserves fighting the first Empire ship, and now that he had revealed his presence on board the Pelorus, he was about to take another pounding. He just hoped Lusam had enough reserves left to defeat the enemy ship quickly, and not let his conscience get in the way of what must be done this time. Renn said a silent prayer to Aysha, asking her to grant Lusam her infinite wisdom, and the strength to do what he must. A moment later, the attack resumed. Renn had fully expected the Empire agents to concentrate their fire-power exclusively on the Pelorus, since Lusam had revealed his presence there, but to Renn’s bewilderment, they split their attack between the Pelorus and him. Why any commanding officer would issue such an order, he had no idea, but he was more than happy to see the missiles heading his way, instead of pounding at Lusam’s shield. ‘
If it would buy Lusam some extra time to get into position for an attack, he was more than happy to remain a target for the Empire ship, albeit a quick moving one,
’ Renn thought to himself wryly.

***

Neala had already been forced to use a second pair of her knives. Her first pair had quickly become saturated from the magic absorbed by killing the undead minions. She hadn’t counted the exact number each knife had managed to kill before being rendered useless, but she guessed it was no more than six or seven each. At first, Neala and Alexia had fought side by side, both expecting a much tougher fight, given the number of them that emerged from within the buildings once the explosions started. But somehow these were different from the ones they had faced in the Elveen Mountains. Although she would never have described those as fleet-footed or agile, compared with these, they were positively graceful. Some of them here could barely walk, and many had limbs that hung uselessly by their sides, or were burned to such an extent they could barely move. ‘
Killing them is as much a mercy, as it is a necessity,
’ Neala thought to herself, ending another poor creature’s suffering.

Neala noticed that Alexia’s knives had also been rendered useless a few minutes earlier, and unfortunately, she only had two daggers. Now Neala watched as she resorted to killing the undead minions by casually poking them with one of her blessed arrows. Under different circumstances it might have been almost comical seeing her do little more than touch the creatures with the tip of her arrow, then watch as they collapsed in a heap on the floor in front of her. But Neala was under no illusions at all as to what these poor villagers must have suffered at the hands of the Empire agents who had passed through here. It was sickening to think that these—
things
—were once just ordinary people, with lives of their own. People with families and friends, dreams and aspirations. And now they were nothing more than undead puppets, created by the sick Empire agents for their own twisted amusement, and then abandoned here, to cause even more death and heartache for anyone who chose to return home to their village later.

Around the docks most of the buildings had either been completely, or partially burned to the ground, but the further away from the docks that Neala looked, the more buildings remained standing. Neala could see what looked like the rooftop of a large barn in the next street, and from what she could tell, it looked untouched by the fires. It was much taller than the buildings in front of it, and she guessed it would be their best chance of finding food, or if they were really lucky, even horses for their onward journey.

“Alexia, I’m going to take a look down that next street, and see if I can find any horses or supplies. It looks like there’s a big barn down there at the bottom,” Neala shouted across the street to Alexia.

“Okay, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to stay here and watch Renn’s back, at least until that ship out there stops playing target practice with him. Be careful though, I don’t want lover-boy blaming me if you get hurt,” Alexia shouted back, grinning at her friend. Neala nodded, but didn’t reply to her jibe. Neala knew she was only joking around, but the mere thought of Lusam and the danger he was currently in made her stomach clench wildly. She knew she couldn’t do anything about it, even if she had been with him on the ship, but that didn’t stop her feeling sick at the thought of him being injured, or even worse. She had never needed anyone in her whole life, for anything, but she had no idea what she would do now if she lost him. Shaking the dark thoughts from her head, she turned and headed for the junction of the next street.

Neala approached what looked like the main village well, complete with bucket and winch handle. ‘
At least we’ll have plenty of fresh water for our onward journey,
’ she thought to herself, glancing over the edge, and into the darkness of the deep well below. When she rounded the corner of the street where she’d seen the barn, she froze mid-stride. She had indeed found a large barn, seemingly untouched by the Empire agents, but opposite the barn, was a large group of undead minions, all clambering around something on the floor. It was then she heard the chilling screams of what sounded like a young girl.

“Oh, Gods!” Neala cursed, imagining the undead minions tearing the young girl apart in her mind. She expected the screams to abruptly end, but instead, they became more desperate. Neala rushed forward, keeping to the centre of the street, and well away from any doorways that might be harbouring any undead surprise for her. As she got closer, she began to understand what was happening. They didn’t actually have hold of the little girl—not yet, anyway. They were all trying to force their way into what looked like a sewer grate, where she was obviously taking refuge.

Neala burst into a sprint, removing two of her enchanted knives from her belt, and headed straight towards the mass of undead minions. There were at least twenty of the hideous creatures, all groping towards the sounds of the little girl’s screams, and trying to rip the sewer cover free, so they could get to her inside. Neala struck fast and without warning. Five undead minions collapsed on her first pass—like sacks of coal being dropped off the back of a cart. The rest of them seemed to sense her presence, and as one, turned in her direction. The first two to come within range of Neala’s knives, quickly joined their friends on the floor, dead—but the next, didn’t.

Neala struck it cleanly in the chest, but nothing happened: another set of her knives were saturated with magic, and therefore useless against the undead. Removing her final two knives, she set about killing the remaining undead minions. One after another they slumped to the ground, until only four remained. That was when her final set of knives reached saturation point, and also became useless. The four that remained seemed to work as one, spreading out to corner her. Forcing her to back up towards the building behind her. She tried to run around them, but they expertly cut off her escape route, and forced her to retreat once more. She was running out of space fast, and knew if she didn’t try and make a break for it soon, she would be done for. She briefly thought about shouting for help, but doubted Alexia or Renn would hear her from so far away, and the last thing she needed right now, was to attract the attention of any more undead minions that might be lurking around the area.

When her back finally made contact with the barn wall, she knew she had run out of options. Either she tried to run through them, or die here. She noticed the one on the right had a damaged arm. It seemed to hang uselessly by its side, and figured that was her best chance of escape. Trying to unbalance the creature, she threw one of her knives at its head, and ran. The knife thudded into its forehead, but had absolutely no effect whatsoever on it. Neala tried to slip past, between it and the wall she was trapped against, but as she tried to dodge the grasp of the creature, it somehow managed to catch hold of her tunic.

It was a strange sensation feeling her torso suddenly stop moving forward, and her legs carry on running under her. She found herself face to face, dangling from the grip of the one-armed creature, as the others slowly closed in around her. Frantically, she kicked at its stomach, and plunged her knife repeatedly into its good arm, but it had no effect on its grip. Changing tactics, she began to kick viciously at its knees, and was quickly rewarded with a loud snapping noise as its joint shattered under her assault, sending both of them crashing to the floor, and knocking the wind out of Neala as the undead minion landed heavily on top of her. She tried in vain to push herself out from underneath it using her feet, but she couldn’t gain enough grip on the dusty street with the heels of her boots.

The other three were almost on top of her now, and would soon tear her limb-from-limb if she didn’t break free from the grip of the one pinning her down. Taking her knife, she cut away the part of her tunic that the undead creature had hold of, intending to scuttle backwards a few feet out of its reach. But once again it grabbed hold of her, only this time, it managed to grab her by the wrist. She screamed in pain, as it shattered her wrist bone with its inhuman strength. She knew her life was about to end, but all she could think about, was how she had let Lusam down. And what would
he
do without her? Would he end up with her best friend Alexia? She laughed out loud at the craziness of her final thoughts, realising that even now she was suspicious of her best friend’s motives, even though she had never done anything to deserve such treatment.

“Sorry,” she said out loud, thinking of both Lusam and Alexia as she said it. Then she closed her eyes as the hand of the first undead minion reached out for her.

Thud!… Thud!… Thud!

Neala opened her eyes to see three undead minions collapsing by the sides of her, each one with an arrow protruding from its back.

“Alexia!” Neala whispered, hope rekindling within her that she might still survive the day. The one on top of her tightened its grip on her wrist, causing her to gasp in pain. It was using its one good arm to lever itself further up her body, causing her tremendous pain as it did so. She knew it intended to kill her. Once it was high enough, it would let go of her wrist and snap her neck. Desperately, she looked past the creature, hoping to see Alexia or Renn close by, but they were still at the far end of the street, too far away to help her in time. Then she saw it; the arrow sticking out of the dead minion’s back next to her. She stretched out her good arm to get the arrow, but it was just out of reach. Her fingertips brushed the arrow shaft, but she couldn’t close her hand around it. Sucking in three or four rapid breaths to prepare herself for the pain, she bucked her body under the creature, and slowly moved a little closer to the arrow. Her vision darkened at the edges with the pain, but she managed to stay conscious long enough to grab the arrow and tear it free from the dead minion’s body. She plunged it into the side of the creature on top of her, but nothing happened. Despair threatened to to take her under as she realised, the blessed arrow would only work for a paladin of Aysha. All she could do was grip the arrow and use it to push against, to try and slow the advance of the creature.

Neala had never been a particularly religious person, but she found herself at that moment thanking Aysha for her life, and asking her to watch over Lusam and the others after she was gone. A calm sense or serenity flowed through her as she finally accepted her own fate. She let go of the arrow, unable to hold back the creature any longer, but not before it emitted a delicate flash of blue light, and the creature slumped forward. Dead.

Neala had no idea why the blessed arrow had finally killed the creature, but she knew deep down that it had to have been the work of Aysha herself, and for that, she was incredibly grateful. She closed her eyes, and thanked Aysha for sparing her life once more, then shed a small tear of relief when she heard Lusam’s voice in the distance desperately calling out her name. She tried to call back to him, but the dead weight of the body on top of her stopped her from taking a full breath. She tried to move, but pain erupted from her wrist once more. The creature’s hand was still clamped tightly around it; even in death it didn’t want to release her.

Renn was the first to reach her, sword drawn, and ready to run the undead minion through, but he noticed the lack of blue glow on his blade, indicating the creature was already dead.

“Are you alright, lass?” he asked, between panting breaths.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she replied weakly. “No wait—AARGH!” she cried out, as Renn tried to roll the body off the top of her, twisting her broken wrist in the process. Panting through the pain, she managed to say, “My wrist is broken… and it still has tight hold of it.”

“Oh, sorry, lass,” Renn apologised, cringing when he saw the awkward angle of her wrist, still in the grip of the dead minion’s hand.

“Oh, Gods!” Alexia cursed, coming to a halt and also seeing her twisted wrist. “That looks painful.”