The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril (14 page)

“Then we have to destroy the gems,” Myranda
said.

That was all Lain needed to hear.

“Keep Ivy safe,” he ordered, sweeping into
action.

Instantly he was a blur. Not bothering to
evade the thickening hoard of the undead, his blade sliced through
the ancient flesh like dry reeds, clearing a path that quickly
closed behind him.

“Ivy, stay close,” Myranda said, looking back
to make certain she was not in danger. She was gone.

Myranda turned back to see Ivy bounding after
Lain. Was she afraid? She was terrified. Fear coursed through her
mind until it seemed to flow through her very veins. It burned at
every part of her. The aura that accompanied it was blinding. She'd
never been so aware of the change, so deep into it without losing
herself, but she couldn't let it happen. Her friends needed her.
Not some mindless monster. Not some shivering little girl. They
needed
her
. As she came to the first of the monsters that
had once been men, she swung the weapon she held. Distant memories,
her own yet not her own, barked orders to her body. Hold the weapon
this way. Place your feet that way. It was training, some residue
of what the teachers had forced into her mind. Her muscles moved of
their own accord. The blade cut deep and true. The head of one of
the corpses rolled from its shoulders.

Deep in her mind, there was a surge of
encouragement. Something urged her on. She swung again. Again. More
of the creatures fell. She felt something grow stronger, the desire
to strike at these foes growing like a mad hunger that needed to be
sated. More of the lumbering bodies closed in around her, but she
hacked and sliced on. The fear was slipping away. Everything was.
With each swing she felt the desire to grow stronger. It was
growing into a need.

The leading edge of the horde of living dead
was reaching Myranda now. The fire Ether had sparked among them was
spreading, resulting in the far greater threat of mindless monsters
swinging and clawing indiscriminately while consumed in flame. Ivy
was now deep among them, some manner of frenzy they'd never seen
before blinding her to the fact that there was no end to the foes
she faced. All the while the flames leapt from corpse to corpse,
drawing nearer to her. That sword would do her no good if she was
surrounded by fire.

There was a rush of flame and a radiant form
burst out from the crypt once more. Ether hung for a moment, high
over the valley. For the first time she could see that she'd done
no good. Lain had destroyed a few. Even Ivy had, but the creatures
she'd attacked still stood. A look of focus came to Ether's eyes.
These creatures would fall. She tightened her fiery fists and
gathered her mind. The flames began to rise. The light from them
grew to an almost blinding level. She shook with exertion, but
still the forms below stood. Great torrents of energy flowed out of
her, fueling flames that burst high into the sky in great spires.
The scorched stone of the crypt she'd set alight now began to glow
around the edges. She cried out and funneled even more into the
inferno. Fine cracks climbed like vines up the walls, crumbling the
mortar and letting the white hot glow of the flames within through.
Finally, the crypt collapsed, and so did Ether. The flames died
down, now with no supernatural will to fuel them so. A great swath
of the valley was blackened, the bodies that had been crawling
along it were little more than jagged broken bones and ash. The
shape shifter crashed down in the center of the patch of scorched
earth and, with great effort, managed to shift to her stone
form.

Lain reached the top of the nearest crypt.
The doors of this one had not yet opened, but the fiery rage of
Ether had melted much of the snow that blocked them. It would not
be long before the creatures within were loose. He slashed at the
large central gem. There was a flash of light and a crackle of
energy and his sword leapt back, the gem untouched. A second and
third strike were similarly repelled. He sheathed his sword and
thrust his heel at the stone stalk the crystal was mounted on. It
chipped. Another cracked the icy stone, and finally a third blow
broke the short spire free. It plummeted to the hard earth. He
ventured to the edge and peered over. The gem had fractured and
gone dim, and a handful of the undead that were clawing their way
up the walls to reach him grew still and dropped to the ground, but
there were more to replace them. Quickly he rushed to a corner of
the roof, ready to bash another free.

The constant wail of the resurrected soldiers
was growing to deafening levels as door after door was bashed to
pieces by the relentless foes. Myranda waded into the mob, pulsing
out waves of magic to scatter the legion enough to manage a few
more steps. She had to reach Ivy. Deacon rushed in behind her. When
he reached her side, he pulled the twin bladed weapon from his bag.
Though he'd brandished it when Ivy was last rescued, he'd not yet
made use of it. At first glance, it was not clear how he intended
to do so now. The blades were barely a hand length each, curving
slightly in opposite directions off of the ends of the weapon.

“What good is that going to do?” Myranda
asked, managing to hoist one of the undead into the air with a
spell and launch it forward, clearing a few more steps toward
Ivy.

“A little trick Gilliam taught me,” Deacon
explained.

He released the blade. It hung in midair, now
revealing a network of arcane designs on its grip. Suddenly it
began to spin, in moments accelerating until the air hummed with
its speed. He swept his hand forward and the whirling blade
launched itself in a similar arc. The rotten flesh of the risen
dead offered little resistance. By the time the blade finished its
swing, every creature it made contact with was reduced to a
writhing pile of limbs.

“You will have to teach me that,” Myranda
said, thrusting another corpse backward to clear the path behind
them.

“Surely,” he replied, casting the weapon out
for a second sweep.

As the pair made their way forward in that
manner, Ether trudged toward the next crypt. Her stone form, for
the moment, was weathering the constant attacks of the swarm of
undead that shambled in to replace those she'd incinerated. A heavy
swing of her stone arm bashed apart the creatures, but their
numbers were wearing on her. She'd seen Lain on the rooftop,
dislodging another of the crystals, and similarly noticed the
effect it had had on their foes. When she reached the crypt she
thrust her claw-like stone fingers into the wall and began to scale
it, her ponderous gait only slightly greater than that of the horde
that followed her.

Lain finally broke free the last of the
crystals, returning a few scattered clusters of the undead to
lifelessness. The doors of a handful more crypts had failed,
leaving the valley more flooded with the walking dead than before.
They were rapidly losing ground. Worse, the writhing mob of living
dead below had made it to the roof, climbing over one another to
reach him. He hacked and sliced at the creatures, but as quickly as
they were struck down, more replaced them. There was no safe way
down the wall. His gaze shifted to the roof of the next crypt, then
down to the crowded alley below. There was no other choice. He
sheathed his sword, kicked a revenant out of his way, and launched
himself off of the roof. He collided with the wall of his next
target about half way down, managing to just barely find a grip. He
scrambled up to the top, the tide of living dead already shifting
toward him.

Below, the cost of Ivy's frenzy was beginning
to show. The jagged, bony fingers and broken teeth of the wretches
she hacked at had found their way to her flesh more than once, and
she was taking less and less notice of it. Her own safety was being
washed away by this strengthening compulsion to strike down these
undead soldiers. As the whirring blade of Deacon swept around her,
eliminating the threats nearest to her, she turned instead to
hacking the still twitching remains below her to pieces. Anything
to sink the weapon into her enemy. Myranda and Deacon called for
her to stop, but their voices were distant. As they drew closer,
she turned to them. Her mind saw them as friends, but this madness
saw them as something else. She didn't know it, but what she felt
now was the same programming that drove the nearmen, forced upon
her while she was still in the clutches of the D'karon. And now it
demanded that these wizards taste the blade. The malthrope lunged
at them. Midway through the attack the dim realization that she was
attacking her friends finally broke through to the surface. She
managed to halt the weapon a hairsbreadth away from Myranda and
recoiled, dropping the weapon. Deacon took the task of keeping back
the constant push of undead entirely upon himself as Myranda looked
after Ivy.

“What was that? Are you alright?” Myranda
asked, looking her over for injuries and quickly healing those she
found.

“I . . . I couldn't control it. Those blasted
teachers . . . I think that is how they trained me to fight,” Ivy
said. “I don't like it.”

“Are you in control now?” Myranda asked.

Ivy nodded vigorously.

“Good. I want you to follow me. There must be
some place in this valley that the undead can't reach. Once you are
there, I want you to stay there while we take care of . . . “
Myranda explained.

“No! I am one of you. I am part of this team.
I am going to help,” Ivy demanded.

One of the walking corpses lashed at Deacon,
its attack grazing his arm. There was no time to argue.

“Fine. Take the sword, we've got to . . . “
Myranda relented.

“No! I don't like myself with a sword in my
hand. Just tell me what we need to do, I'll manage,” Ivy said.

“Fine. Do you see those crystals? We need to
break every last one of them,” Myranda said.

Ivy looked to the roofs, then to the field of
lumbering undead between them. A dozen fears tugged for her mind's
attention, but she shook them away and heaved herself forward.
Instantly, instincts took over, but these were more familiar, more
welcome. Her steps took on a certain fluidity and rhythm. She
twisted and turned, slipping through the slightest gap in the line
of foes. The density of the creatures became greater, her maneuvers
became increasingly acrobatic. Tumbles, handsprings, and rolls
finally took her to the base of a crypt. With a speed and deft
precision that more than rivaled Lain's, she made her way to the
roof. Once there, alas, her grace vanished, as she began to pound
and bash at the stone spires that bore the crystals with her bare
hands. Though lacking the finesse of her ascent, it was nonetheless
effective, as her deceptively strong blows steadily weakened the
supports of the spires.

A few buildings away, Ether finally finished
her laborious climb. Approaching the crystal, she heaved a heavy
backhand at it, shattering it in one blow, but staggering backward.
A sharp pain ran up her arm. It was the crystal. The spell
protecting it was no concern, but the accursed crystal itself
pulled hungrily at her own strength when she touched it. She turned
angrily to the next spire and stalked toward it. One of the undead
pulled itself onto the roof ahead of her. Ether grasped the rotting
creature by the throat and hurled it at the spire, ruining the
creature and dislodging the crystal in one blow. She dispatched the
next three foes and the next three crystals in the same manner.
When her work on this roof was done, she stepped to the edge and
dove off, bringing those corpses below her to a rather messy end as
well. Meanwhile, Deacon's blade was taking longer and longer to
clear a swath through the ever thickening throng of creatures, and
they had yet to reach a crypt.

“This isn't working. We need to keep these
things from escaping. You do something to brace the doors that
haven't broken free. I'll try to stop the ghouls that have already
escaped,” Myranda said.

Deacon nodded and recalled his blade. He
raised his crystal and focused on the nearest door that had not yet
given way. The gap between the doors began to glow. As the glow
faded away, so did the gap, leaving a solid stone wall where there
had once been a door. Myranda swept together as much of the melted
slush and snow that had resulted from Ether's earlier onslaught as
she could and cast it over as many of the undead as she could
manage. When she could not drench any more of them, she set her
mind to summoning an intense wind and bone chilling cold and
directed it at the mob. Gradually their plodding movements slowed,
until the creatures she had managed to douse were frozen solid. Now
safe from the attackers, Myranda wove between them as quickly as
she could to help Deacon.

Deeper in the valley, far from the patch of
living dead immobilized by the wizards, Ether had yet to make it to
the next crypt. The undead had formed a solid wall in front of her,
and no amount of hacking, shoving, and bashing afforded her a
single additional step. Worse, the shambling mass began to crawl
upon one another, like insects, mounding up on her and attacking
from all sides. Finally, she gave up on her stone form. Gathering
what little strength she hadn't already squandered, Ether turned
her mind to the long list of creatures that she'd sampled from the
case Deacon had pilfered. Selecting one, she set about taking on
the form. The undulating pile of undead that had crept over her
began to heave and bulge upward, before she finally burst from the
pile, soaring skyward. Now in the form of a griffin, she swept
quickly back and plucked up a pair of the undead and spiraled high
into the air, dropping them with deadly accuracy, shattering two of
the crystals before diving to fetch two more.

Ivy finished shattering the crystals in the
roof and rushed to the edge to climb down, only to be suddenly and
intensely reminded of her fear of heights. Try as she might, she
could not push this fear aside as she had the others. She retreated
to the peak of the roof, the undead swarm beginning to creep over
the edge and close in on her. She backed to the shattered remains
of the topmost spire as the creeping terror drew nearer.