The Iron Ghost (65 page)

‘None whatsoever, but if there is anything waiting for us, it won’t be in the spirit of welcome.’

Sebastian raised his voice, addressing the men and women behind him.

‘Once we’re over the wall, head as best you can towards the Tower of Waking. There may be forces opposing you, but I know you can all handle a good fight.’

There were a few cheers at this from the Narhl contingent.

‘By then Lord Frith should have brought us some support, and we will know which way this day is heading.’ He took a deep breath, looking round at them all. Ephemeral stood at the front of the rows of the brood sisters, her face solemn, while King Aristees leaned on the staff of his axe, looking unconcerned. ‘There may yet be survivors in there. If you find some, try to direct them beyond the city walls and into the forest.’ Sebastian paused, thinking of how the last citizens of Skaldshollow might react when faced with a rampaging group of Narhl, or the brood sisters with their sharp teeth and snake’s eyes. ‘If we can save anyone, then we must at least try.’

King Aristees bellowed laughter at this. ‘I will direct the mewling Skalds to the blade of my axe,’ he shouted, lifting the weapon and brandishing it at his own soldiers, who roared their approval back. ‘This is the only mercy they need!’

‘King Aristees, we have an agreement.’ Sebastian’s voice cut across the merriment. ‘If you would like to break the terms of that, this morning’s battle can go a very different way indeed.’

Sebastian felt his own irritation reflected in the brood sisters, and enough of them turned to face the Narhl soldiers for King Aristees to put down his axe. Behind them, one of the wyverns opened its jaws and roared in the back of its throat.

‘Aye, there’s no need to get twitchy. We are here with you, aren’t we? My soldiers and yours shall fight side by side.’

Sebastian nodded, then glanced up at the sky. The sun was at its edge, pale and ghostlike.

‘Then it’s time. We go fast and we go quiet, at least at first. Follow me.’

Sebastian ran, keeping low, his sword held ready in both hands. Prince Dallen came next, his ice-spear held at one side. Behind them he heard the sound of a hundred boots running across the snow and rocky ground. Once they were at the broken wall, they began to climb – the Narhl were untroubled by the icy surfaces, while the brood sisters moved slightly slower. Sebastian pulled himself up rock after rock, watching Prince Dallen overtake him easily. When he reached the top of the broken wall, he stood warily, waiting for attack. The gatehouse was ruined, the roof pitched in with a giant boulder, and the street beyond was deserted. In the distance the Tower of Waking rose from the centre of the city like a twisted black stalagmite, and the Rivener was crouched next to it, a cancer on the rock. The shifting red caul of the sky was at its darkest there, as though that were the source of the infection.

‘Where is everyone?’ said Dallen, appearing at his elbow. His voice was low. Beyond him, Narhl and brood sister alike were climbing down the shattered wall into the city.

Sebastian shook his head. He couldn’t tell if it were simply an effect of the sour light, but he felt deeply uneasy now that they were within the walls.

‘I don’t know, but I doubt this is the whole story. Come on, let’s get down there. And remember what I said about survivors.’

‘How much further?’

Wydrin reached down and placed her boot in the face of one husk who had managed to climb further than the others. She kicked it off and turned back to Xinian.

‘You see the wall that rises above those buildings? That’s our way out.’

The werkens had eased their journey significantly, but it was still slow going. The Rivened crowded around them as they moved down the streets, and Wydrin and Xinian had the near constant job of repelling those who tried to climb up to them – one or two had even jumped from the roofs of nearby buildings in their desperation to reach the still-living. Bezcavar taunted them from below, speaking through the throats of the dead, but Wydrin thought its voice was growing weaker. Losing his grip on the Rivened, or perhaps it had simply spread himself too thin.

They reached the end of one street, the small convoy of werkens following on behind, and the vast northern gate was abruptly in sight. Wydrin nodded towards it.

‘It might take us some time to get through that, but I reckon we can do it. We’re nearly there.’

At that moment, the swarming crowds of demon-possessed husks all stopped moving. Instead of pressing themselves towards the werkens they simply stood still, ragged arms lying loose at their sides. And then as one they all turned and ran away, heading south. Wydrin watched with bemusement as the creatures that had harried them since she had woken in the shadowed city streamed past, not even looking up. In a few moments they were all gone, and they were left alone in a deserted street.

‘What do you suppose that was all about?’

Xinian shook her head. ‘Nothing in this place makes sense.’

‘At least we will be out of it soon.’ Wydrin gave Xinian a sideways look. She reached out to Mendrick and the werkens began lumbering forward again. ‘What will happen to you? When we pass out of the city?’

Xinian pursed her lips. ‘I do not know. Perhaps I will keep this solid form, but I doubt it. I am only here because Skaldshollow exists under the shadow of death. When I move beyond it, I may become a ghost again, a spirit in the winds. Or perhaps I shall vanish altogether, and have peace.’

‘Do you want to go?’

‘If I move on to the next life, there is a chance I will find Selsye again, in one form or another. I do not think she will have forgotten me. Not yet.’

Wydrin nodded. ‘Well, I would be sad to see you go, Xinian the Battleborn. I think I could learn a lot from you.’ She grinned at the other woman. ‘You are a terror with that blade.’

Xinian smiled. It lit up her entire face, and Wydrin thought that, once, she had probably smiled often, before she had lost her Selsye.

‘You could learn a lot from me, child, because you are a fool.’ She leaned in close. ‘You are willing to die for love, but not to live for it. What are you afraid of?’

Wydrin felt her cheeks grow warm, and hated herself for it. ‘Oh, you know. The usual. Love is complicated. Love cuts you open and leaves you exposed. Choosing to be vulnerable goes against my nature.’

‘So better to be reckless? Better to throw away the chance?’ Xinian reached over and squeezed her arm. ‘If you learn nothing else from this ancient ghost, learn that love makes you
strong
, not weak. It is your glory and your armour.’

‘If you’re going to get all sentimental on me, Xinian, I shall have to boot you into the next life myself.’

But she put her hand on top of Xinian’s and clasped it briefly. Above them the storm light raged on.

Sebastian walked slowly, his sword held at the ready. All around him their small force was spread out, moving quietly through the streets. So far they had found numerous bodies, most half hidden under snow, but no living people, and no obvious threat. He glanced behind him to see the wyverns coming along behind – the creatures were reluctant to fly up into that dark red sky, so they were keeping them on the ground as reinforcements. But reinforcements against what?

Ephemeral appeared at his elbow.

‘Report.’

‘Nothing so far, Father. There are lots of dead humans here, and a scent of something we do not know – a scent of something evil. We also found a place where the street appears to have been –’ she paused, searching for the right word – ‘gouged open. It has been done recently, and it stretches far across one street and then over several buildings into another.’

‘The Rivener?’

‘Undoubtedly. Nothing else could have done it. It is both arbitrary and precise, Father. Joah Demonsworn did not care that he destroyed buildings when he carved those lines, but he did care where the lines were.’

Sebastian frowned. Something about that tickled at the back of his mind, and his sense of unease increased, but he could not think what it could be.

‘Anything else?’

‘No, Father, although—’

There was a murmur from the troops ahead of them, and Sebastian raised his hand for quiet. After a moment, he could hear it too; the flat patter of many feet striking cobbles. He looked around, but could see nothing yet.

‘What is that?’ asked Dallen next to him. ‘Are those the Skald survivors?’

‘I really hope so,’ said Sebastian, but he lifted his new sword, borrowed from the brood sisters.

They came out of the side street just ahead of them; around a hundred stumbling, shambling men and women, their skins riddled with corruption and lined here and there with a strange, bluish light. When they turned their faces towards Sebastian and his soldiers, they all smiled an identical smile. Their eyes were filled with blood, and Sebastian felt his heart grow cold in his chest.

‘Oh there you are, Sir Sebastian. I thought I could feel you in this place, and I just had to come and see.’

The voice, that old, terrible voice, issued through a hundred different throats in an eerie, whispered shout. As Sebastian watched, more and more of the strange walking corpses poured into the street ahead of them.

‘Leave these people, Bezcavar,’ he said. His voice felt strangled by his own rage. ‘I will not have you defile them.’

‘But they are already dead, Sir Sebastian! Are you really so sentimental over a bunch of walking corpses?’ As one, the bodies at the front of the crowd grinned, revealing blackened gums. ‘But of course you are. You fretted over your ridiculous knights, after all, and they were nothing but walking corpses too.’

Sebastian hefted his sword. ‘You must be truly desperate, demon, to seek refuge inside that which is already decomposing.’ He nodded to Dallen and Ephemeral. ‘Be ready.’

‘Oh, but Sir Sebastian.’ There was glee in Bezcavar’s voice. ‘Don’t you want to know what it was like to be inside your friend’s body? The Copper Cat of Crosshaven, notorious sell-sword and spawn of pirates, was full of concern for you when she died. How does that make you feel?’

‘Your taunts mean nothing to me, demon.’

‘I left her body to rot on the streets somewhere here. Do you think you will find it, Sir Sebastian, amongst the rest of the dead?’

‘This is the end for you,’ said Sebastian. ‘And you are afraid. I know that much.’

‘I have a few tricks left up my sleeve just yet.’

A figure at the front of the crowd, a stout woman with greasy curly hair hanging in her face, lowered her head, body rigid with tension. Her blood-filled eyes creased at the edges and she began to weep bloody tears. When Bezcavar spoke again it came from her throat alone.

‘I am the Prince of Wounds, the master of suffering. I give these people my final gift. May they exalt in the twisting of their flesh!’

The men and women in the first row began to writhe and twitch, bodies twisting unnaturally as though they were dolls tormented by some invisible hand. Death-bruised flesh burst apart and long shards of bone pushed forth, from wrists, from elbows, from shoulders. One man staggered as the skin across the tops of his legs split open to reveal twin knives of yellowed bone. The woman next to him threw her head back as twisted bone horns erupted from the fleshless expanse of her chest.

‘I gift them with this pain, Sebastian,’ said Bezcavar, still speaking through the woman at the front. Behind her, the terrible transformation was sweeping back through the ranks of the dead like a fever. ‘A farewell present. And they are so hungry.’ She grinned, her face covered in blood, and the rest swept past her, screaming wordlessly.

Sebastian had time to fall back into a defensive stance and then they were on them. They had no swords, but the long bone shards protruding from their bodies were razor sharp, and they fell on the Narhl and the brood sisters with the mindless abandon of the starving. Sebastian chopped down several in front of him with his broadsword, moving in an awkward circle, but they were pressed in around him and his sword was too big for such close combat. A Narhl soldier next to him fell to the cobbles, dark blood bubbling at his throat. The husk that had killed him knelt over him, mouth hanging open. A brood sister – Umbellifer, he thought, as he struggled to reach her – stumbled past him, clinging to a decomposing woman who had sunk the bone shard protruding from her wrist deep into her stomach. Umbellifer’s teeth were bared, her yellow eyes furious, but she was lost in the press of bodies.

Sebastian threw a gauntleted fist at the nearest demon-possessed corpse, feeling grim satisfaction as it fell to the ground in a heap. All around him was chaos, and running underneath it like a silver thread, the joy of the fight. The brood sisters were a comforting presence, their swords, their fury, their deaths. They would not die alone. Sebastian gripped his broadsword in both hands, and grinned without humour.

This time, there was no enchanted armour; there was only him, and the roar of dragon blood in his veins.

Nuava leaned forward, testing the limits of the leather harness. Beneath them the forest canopy rustled swiftly past like a choppy sea, and here and there birds flew, startled at this sudden intruder. The Destroyer stomped through the trees, pausing here and there to tear one up by its roots to clear a path. Next to her, Tamlyn Nox was leaning heavily in her own harness, a sheen of sweat on her dirty forehead. She was breathing in ragged gasps, but her eyes were fever bright.

‘I can’t believe this actually works,’ said Nuava, more to herself than to her aunt. ‘That this thing can move at all.’

‘It is the Edeian,’ croaked Tamlyn. ‘The Edeian . . . so strong. It’s almost as though the mountain itself . . . is listening.’

Nuava looked at her aunt. The older woman was avoiding her gaze, keeping her eyes on the path ahead.

‘Do you mean—’

‘I need you to watch for obstacles, child. Shut up and make yourself useful.’

Nuava turned back, needing no excuse to do so. As terrified as she was, as exhausted as she was, this was exhilarating; to be this high above the forest, and to know that her own work had helped put them there.
I am a crafter
, she told herself fiercely.
If I die today, at least I will know that.