Sunset of Lantonne (89 page)

Raeln managed to weave through the growing mass of bodies, though the light armor he wore was snagged and clawed at from every direction. He felt boney fingers tear at his shoulders and legs in passing, thankfully not getting a firm grip on him before he could get away. He lost his sword before he got into the clear, which forced him to use fist and elbow to clear the creatures away, as he could not strike with his axe. All the while, arrows from Greth and the soldiers atop the wall pelted the undead around him.

Once Raeln had gotten back away from the majority of the zombies, he pulled another axe from where he had stashed it and turned in time to throw the weapon, cleaving the face of a wildling zombie that had nearly gotten to him. The zombie collapsed, others walking right over top of it to get at Raeln, most with arrows sticking out of them from the soldiers atop the wall.

From that point forward, the battle was on without a moment’s break. He continued using each weapon until he lost it or the blade broke, holding his ground as best he could as one blackened and rotted face after another came at him. Eventually, he reached for another sword and realized there were no more to be had, resorting instead to his hands and feet. The zombies did not even flinch at his punches, so Raeln had to time every attack to break bone or severely cripple joints to keep his foes from recovering too quickly. They always got back up, but he could keep them down long enough they were a barrier for the next zombie.

Raeln panted and felt his lungs rattling with the effort he required of them, but he could not stop. Any hesitation would allow a half-dozen creatures to drag him back into the main force. Even the trembling of his arms and legs had to be ignored. Turning slightly during the lull, he made sure the dwarven children were still doing well behind him.

“Raeln!” shouted Greth somewhere above him. “Move!”

Glancing up as briefly as he could, Raeln saw Greth toss aside his bow and snatch up the shield he had been wearing earlier. Leaping from the wagon as Raeln backed away from the gates, Raeln realized that three more undead had charged into the open gate area, running hard for him. Greth slammed into these undead, knocking one off its feet and throwing the others off-balance. Before Raeln could recover from surprise, Greth had bashed in the skull of one with his shield and was hacking a second apart with his sword.

“Thanks,” Raeln managed, as Greth finished dismembering the last of the zombies. “I didn’t hear them coming.”

“Them? They aren’t the problem…she is.”

Raeln looked past Greth and realized the undead had stopped advancing and were scrambling to either side in an attempt to clear the path through the gate for something else.

Walking up the center of the sea of corpses outside the partially open gate was a single person of slight build, though he or she was covered with a long dark blue cloak with a deep hood. As the figure approached, Raeln sniffed in an attempt to pick out what they were, but he could not smell anything past himself and Greth with so much death around him. That did nothing to reassure him.

The approaching individual gestured toward the upper wall and an explosion rocked the battlements, flinging soldiers off the back, screaming until they hit the ground. Another motion from the cloaked figure and lightning fell from the sky, arcing into another group of soldiers off to the right on the wall. As though the magic were hardly an effort at all, the small wizard strode toward Raeln without hesitation.

Raeln grabbed his bow from where it lay, notching an arrow as the cloaked person reached the gates. He released, then swore loudly as the arrow burst into flames inches from the figure’s hood. Firing again, a second arrow vanished in a puff of smoke.

Lowering into a defensive crouch behind his shield, Greth held his ground between Raeln and the person.

“Two wildlings against all of my children,” came a woman’s voice from the hood, thick with a foreign accent. A gypsy, he guessed, but from another region than the ones that used to visit Hyeth. “You do see how silly this is, no? Why do your people always pick a fight you cannot win? Is no good to always be required to kill the fuzzier folk, I think, but my brothers disagree. Run away, wolf, so I may kill the others first. Maybe you get lucky and escape or I forget to hunt you down, yes?”

Tossing aside the bow, Raeln advanced on the woman as fast as he could with Greth falling in at his side. Given the woman’s size, Raeln realized she might even be a child. He had to reach her before she could let loose another spell, or both he and Greth would be dead in an instant.

To Raeln’s dismay, the woman flicked her fingers in his direction and his fur stood on end as a bolt of lightning fell from the sky, striking and blackening the dirt no more than a foot away. He hesitated, looking over at that spot, and realized the woman had done the same, as though she were as surprised she had missed as close as he was. Breaking free of his shock, Raeln began running again, while Greth moved toward the woman’s side, attempting to flank her.

The woman slid back her cloak once Raeln was within about ten feet of her, revealing a human with dark skin and silken clothing in shades of blue and brown. Raeln would have guessed her to be no more than fifteen or sixteen, but a wide black stain of dried blood near her ribs told him age and appearance meant nothing. She was as dead as the zombies around her and might even be leading them. For whatever reason, she ignored Greth, watching Raeln exclusively.

Before Raeln could cover the last few feet, Greth leapt at the girl, slashing as hard as he could across at neck level. The girl deftly evaded the attack, weaving to avoid each of his swings, before gesturing vaguely at him. With a pained grunt, Greth flew past Raeln and slammed into one of the wagons, smashing through the dry wood.

Raeln had only few steps left and he would be able to touch the girl and hoped that he was fast enough to stay ahead of her. One spell and he was dead and the gleam in the girl’s eyes told him that she was well aware that his life could end at any moment. She raised her hand at him, her lips already moving as she began another spell.

At the last moment, he threw himself to his right, running up onto the wheel of the wagon to leap into the air above where the girl would expect him to be. His tactic worked flawlessly: a ball of blue fire erupted in the middle of the path where he had been a step before. He was faster than the girl and that was a reason for hope.

Coming down nearly atop the girl, Raeln slashed at her face with his claws, knocking her off her feet as he landed hard in a crouch. He came around as fast as he could, trying to strike at her again before she could recover, but as he turned, the girl caught his wrist with a strength that belied her thin frame and small fingers.

“Is your way to fight, this I know,” the girl practically purred at him, pushing Raeln back a step with the strength of a horse. “I gave you a chance to run, so I feel better. If you do not take the chance, is not my fault, yes?”

From somewhere off to Raeln’s left, Greth charged back in, growling like a wild animal. Swinging dangerously close to Raeln’s arm, Greth cleaved at the girl’s face with his sword, taking off a goodly portion of her head in a spray of blood and bone. The impact caused her to relax her hold on Raeln, though she did not fall. Instead, the girl stepped back from Raeln and put both of her hands on her face, as if gauging the damage done.

“Was good enough to kill someone else I think,” the girl said, taking her hands away from her face and revealing the massive gash had already closed, but her skin had taken on a sickly pallor. “Is way of teaching me to watch for more wildlings when I fight and not focus on just one.”

“Turessian?” Greth asked, backing away a step from the girl. “No tattoos.”

Raeln glanced down at his right wrist and found five bleeding puncture wounds from the girl’s grip. She had punched through his thick shirt, fur, and skin with her bare hands. The holes in his flesh bled badly, covering his hand with blood.

“Yeah, probably,” he answered, then kicked at the girl’s legs, knocking her off-balance, though she caught herself against the wagon before she hit the ground.

Greth followed Raeln’s lead and drove his sword through the girl’s chest into the thick wood of the wagon’s frame behind her.

“We are not here for you, wolves,” the girl told Greth, then frowned deeply when she could not stand back up. She tapped at the sword with her finger while Greth fumbled for a dagger at the back of his belt. “Run along and we will look for you another time. Is the people with their coffin-like homes I wish to kill today. My master will be most angry if I let you run, but this leaves more fun for another day, yes?”

Raeln looked around, trying to find something that might stop the girl, even for a minute or two. He then realized they stood directly under the city’s massive iron gate, built for holding back entire armies. Closing it would inevitably cause the undead to attack elsewhere or go over the walls, but if it could crush the Turessian, it would be worth it.

“Phillith!” Raeln screamed, hoping his mentor had not been killed by the girl’s earlier attacks. “Drop the gate!”

Both Greth and the Turessian girl tensed and looked up at the gate. The girl scrambled to pull at the sword in her chest, but fell back against the wagon when Greth punched her squarely in the jaw. She shook it off and tried to free herself again, but Greth snarled and bashed her across the face with his shield before throwing it aside and ripping at her face and neck with his claws, forcing her to cover herself rather than pull the sword out.

From atop the burned and broken wall, Phillith appeared, shouting down, “He’s in the way!”

“Drop it anyway!” Greth cried, driving his elbow into the Turessian’s face when his claws were not enough to stop her. “Hurry!”

A deep groan of metal beginning to move warned Raeln, and he stepped quickly to the inside of the gate, calling for Greth to do the same. The man did not react at all. Instead, he continued to strike at the Turessian, keeping her on the defensive even as her skin healed between each blow.

The gate came down suddenly as the winches were released, rattling loudly as it plummeted toward Greth and the Turessian girl. Raeln started to go back for Greth, but the other wildling tumbled past him at the last moment, narrowly avoiding the pointed bottom of the gate. It crashed into the ground and flattened the girl with its weight, sending up a cloud of dust.

“Please tell me that killed her,” Greth said a moment later, lying flat on his back only a foot from the gate. “I couldn’t do that again if I tried, and I really don’t want to try.”

Raeln steadied himself against the gate and maked his way back to where the girl had been. It took him a second to find her in the dense cloud of dust, but he soon found her facedown with three of the gate’s spikes driven through her shoulder and torso.

“Looks like…” Raeln began, but then groaned as the girl lifted her head and started squirming, trying to find a way to free herself. In her position, she seemed unable to budge the gate. “No, she’s alive, just stuck.”

Outside, the army of zombies began moving again, throwing themselves at the gate and the walls and clawing at both angrily. They crawled over top of one another, creating a pile that grew by the second, leaving no doubt in Raeln’s mind they would eventually overwhelm the wall.

“Get up to the wall,” said Greth a second later, rolling onto his knees. “We’re done down here. If we open the gate, I’m betting she’ll kill us both.”

Raeln tried to walk away from the gate, but he could not take his eyes off the small human girl. She still struggled with the metal beams of the portcullis, trying to lift it off of herself. He had been taught from childhood he was to protect life at any risk to his own, but everything about this creature defied that belief. A child—those Raeln had always thought beyond doubt to be the most important of those he protected—continued to claw at the gate despite impaling wounds that would have killed a beast twice Raeln’s size. Seeing the Turessians using children in their war made it hard for him to breathe, to accept what was happening around him.

“Raeln, snap out of it,” Greth insisted, grabbing Raeln’s arm and yanking him away from the Turessian girl. “We’re no use to Phillith down here.”

Nodding numbly, Raeln started to stagger away from the gate, his stomach in knots. As he did, he realized a huge crowd was running from farther in the city toward them, filling the street. They were mostly haggard-looking individuals, with only a few humans, elves, or dwarves among them. The majority were fae-kin, ogres, orcs, and a handful of wildlings. He even spotted a pair of dark elven men—a rare sight in Lantonne—walking near the front of the pack.