The Rising King (6 page)

Nightmare Men

All I see are droves of Rodarians pouring from the forests and no sign of Kera. Figures she’d disappear on me. Being so closely connected to her gives me the ability to know when she’s stressed or hurt or even dying, but I feel nothing, as though she’s stepped into a vacuum. She’s blocking her feelings on purpose. That scares me even more. I have to find her.

I need to thin out my area of Rodarians. They’re like red-eyed fire ants, a never-ending colony with one goal. Attack. I dart to the right and slide, clipping the leg of the man who wears the face of Wyatt, but the red eyes of a Rodarian. I pop to my feet and end his life and end up standing in a choking cloud of his remains. The whirl of an arrow sounds. I turn and grab it just before it hits me. Flipping it over, I search for the shooter and see a Nightmare Man staring at me past his bow. He doesn’t look pleased as he grabs another arrow from the quiver on his back. I sheath my sword, take aim, and throw the arrow. It spins like a well-thrown football and strikes the Nightmare Man square in the middle of his forehead. He digs it out, looks at it, and then at me.

Shit.

I start running toward him. He notches it along with the one he’s holding. Both arrows fly. I meet them halfway across the distance, catch them, spin them in my fingers, and jump toward him. When I’m almost on top of him, I plunge both arrows into either side of his neck. He drops to the ground, and I land beside him, panting from the effort.

I straighten and find myself at the edge of the fight. Rodarians are morphing into us at breakneck speed, yet they’re getting cut down just as quickly. A few yards away an image of me appears where once there was a Rodarian. His attention lands on one of the sisters. Turning, she strikes him dead. When the dust clears, her gaze finds me and she nods before dashing away. I’m pretty sure she didn’t even look for the mark.

I go back to my search for Kera and see her backing away from a handful of Rodarians. There’s no way I can get there in time. I load up the slingshot and start spinning it. Before I let it go, one of the
firsts
slashes through the Rodarians and saves her. I feel a sense of relief when she smiles that gorgeous smile…and then stabs him.

I actually stop moving, not sure what I’m seeing. He crumples to the ground, and she finishes him off. Before I can move again, Neve whirls into view and kills the imposter.

I hate the cowardly Rodarians. How dare they come into our land and threaten us, kill us. A blind rage takes hold. I let the tiny ball within the slingshot fly. It attaches to a Rodarian and explodes, tearing a hole through him, and wounding several around him. I plow through the enemy, slashing and stabbing and when next I turn, my blade comes to a quick stop against Wyatt’s sword. We’re face to face. So far, every Rodarian I’ve met has had red eyes. The eyes I’m staring into aren’t red.

I want to believe, but my rage won’t allow it. I swivel to the left and lunge to the side, catching him off guard as I place the tip of my sword to his neck. “Show me!”

The look he gives me says he has no idea what I’m asking him to do. Did he hear me? Has the fight confused him? The muscles in my jaw flex. There’s a group of Rodarians coming our way. Time isn’t on my side. I have to make a decision. Now.

Lunging forward, I thrust my sword into his heart. For a split second I think I’ve made a terrible mistake, then he dissolves into a cloud of dust. I breathe again.

“That could’ve been me!” Wyatt yells.

I swivel around, ready to fight.

“Hold off.” He shows me his mark.

We face the oncoming pack of Rodarians. They aren’t exactly easy to kill, but it’s a lot easier when I have Wyatt by my side. One by one, they dissolve into ash. The last leaves a thick coating of his blood and dust on my sleeve, and I turn to Wyatt. “We have a problem. The one that looked like you didn’t have red eyes. How am I supposed to know who I’m killing?”

“They figured out their eyes were giving them away. But I found a better method. They can’t talk. Or they don’t, and if they don’t answer my question, then they’re dust.”

“Good to know.”

“The Rodarians don’t worry me. It’s the Nightmare Men. There aren’t many of them, but they’re hard to kill, which doesn’t make sense. They practically stood still for us before.”

He’s right. The ones we met in the city barely put up a fight.

Neve appears. She looks Wyatt over and touches his arm where his sleeve is torn and bloodied. He jerks away and faces me. “I’ve been watching their leader, and I don’t like what I see. We need to take him out. Once he’s gone, it’ll shake up the Rodarians.”

I agree, but I have my own problems right now. “I need to find Kera.”

“She went into the forest.” He twists away from Neve and snaps, “It hurts enough without you poking at it.”

His anger doesn’t bother her. She continues on, cutting away his sleeve and exposing his wound.

“Kera left the fight? When?” Why would she even do that?

Wyatt raises his hurt arm and glances at his empty wrist. “Oh, I don’t know, let me check my watch. Seriously?” Neve pulls his arm back and examines the long line that oozes bright-red blood from his armpit to his elbow. She touches it, slowly drawing her finger down the cut. He winces, but stands still for her.

I can’t stop looking toward the forest and the droves of Rodarians spilling out of it. “Kera’s a risk-taker. I promised I would be there for her. How am I supposed to do that if she keeps going off on her own?”

Wyatt looks where I’m looking, then back at me. “Are we talking about the same girl who killed those millispits and dragged your ass back here? You keep forgetting she can take care of herself. But hey, you’re the one in charge. If you tell me to go after her, I will, but honestly,” he nods toward Orntho, “if you want my professional opinion, defeating that guy is top priority. Are you with me on that?”

Kera is strong, and whatever she’s doing, I know it’s to protect her people. I have to trust her. It’s that simple. Though I want more than anything to find her, I stay put. “I’m with you.”

Neve steps back and Wyatt twists to look at his arm. There’s a long scar where an open wound used to be. “Nice, babe.” He pulls her close for a kiss. “Thanks.”

She lays fifty more kisses on his cheeks and lips before he pulls away and swats her butt as she moves off. He’s grinning like an idiot, and I’m actually happy for him. “Okay,” he says, readjusting his gear, “let’s do this.”

We make for the Ruined City glowing in the distance, skirting the bulk of the fighting as we labor to reach Orntho. That massive hulk of leathery skin and bones stands just outside the gates with a handful of his men. Waiting.

That irritates me. It speaks of their confidence that we’ll fail to protect the city.

Just when we get close enough to see him, the last of the sun’s light dips behind the horizon, plunging Teag into darkness. The Nightmare Men reach for their weapons. Orntho raises his hand to his mouth and breathes on a ring. The black stone turns pale and a thin white wisp rises, curls up toward the stars, and then surges toward the bones on the ground. Within seconds the bodies reconnect. In less than a minute, the crumbled Nightmare Men I’d thrown from the walls are moving, and in no time the whole group melds into the shadows and are gone.

“Now that’s a nightmare,” Wyatt breathes, just as in awe as I am.

I twist back and forth, looking for one of them to spring out at us, not for a minute believing they’ve gone for good. “How do we kill something that can’t die?”

I feel a wave of panic surge. He breathed on that ring, and they came back to life. It shouldn’t be possible, but this place doesn’t live by normal hey-let’s-make-sense-out-of-life rules. “How are we supposed to deal with guys like that?”

Wyatt grabs my shirt, pulls me close, and gives me a little shake. “Listen to me, Dylan.” His eyes glitter with confidence, and his voice demands I pull it together. “Everything dies. Everything.”

A shout sounds and we turn to see one of the Nightmare Men who didn’t go into the city appear out of the shadows and strike down one of the
firsts
. The dude didn’t even have time to react, but I do. I shoot a series of fireballs. They hit the slapped-together body and it bursts apart. I turn to Wyatt, feeling a huge sense of relief. “There’s not much fire can’t kill.”

“Lucky for us.” He stares at the smoldering piles of the Nightmare Man’s remains as if he doesn’t trust the obvious. I don’t blame him. Nothing is simple here. Nothing does what it’s supposed to do. My gaze stretches across the battlefield and I try to come up with a better plan. Something to shock the Rodarians into leaving, but I’m coming up blank.

Wyatt slaps his hand on my arm, grabbing my attention. The disgusted look on his face makes my stomach sink. The Nightmare Man is re-forming, piece by piece. Skin and bone slap together, climbing up the body to make a horrifying whole.

Wyatt lets go, and as he backs away, he says, “Find your dad and tell him. They need to know what they’re up against.” He then turns and runs toward the Nightmare Man, his sword raised for a fight.

Watching him dive into the fight motivates me to haul ass back to my dad. Running toward the group of Rodarians still hacking at the barrier, I drop to the ground and slide baseball style back behind the city walls. I pop back up and search the area. Chaos reigns as people are yanked into the shadows and killed by the Nightmare Men’s unseen hands. It had to be the Nightmare Men who, without a trace, devastated the town Wyatt mentioned earlier. But why?

A high whistle rips through the air, and I find Leo and Lucinda herding people out of the streets and indoors. Leo waves me over. “Something weird is going on.”

“Yeah, the Nightmare Men are alive.”

“What?” He looks at an empty cart where a pile of bodies once was.

He has no idea. I turn to Lucinda. “Did you know about them, about how they reanimate at night?”

“No.” She even looks alarmed, and I believe her.

“They reanimate? As in, we kill them and they don’t stay dead?” Leo asks, his naturally deep voice getting higher and higher.

No wonder they were so easy to kill. It was their plan all along to get killed behind the walls and then, once the sun set, rise from the dead and start killing.

“We’re not safe in the shadows.” I create a ball of bright energy, and holding it in my palm, I blow. They duplicate, rising off my palm like hot bubbles, one after another to create a string of bright lights.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Halim intercept a wisp of a form. An arm shoots out of the shadows as if the building has come to life. Halim dodges it once, then tries again, but the Nightmare Man grabs Halim by the shirt and steps into the light, taking on a solid form. I send a blast that knocks the man back into the shadows, though he still has a hold on Halim. The boy is slammed against the wall and falls to the ground. With his nose bleeding, he struggles to his feet and backs away as a body reemerges from the shadows, its sword raised over Halim’s head.

My stomach twists. I’m too far away to help. Just then, Reece jumps into view, his sword already dripping blood, and cuts the head from the Nightmare Man’s shoulders. Headless, it stumbles around, hacking in all directions.

“Stay close,” Reece yells at Halim, “or no ice cream when we get home.”

“But you promised,” the boy whines.

The two start arguing, completely ignoring the Nightmare Man who’s found its head and is reattaching it. I swoop in and hack its arm off. The head and arm fly in opposite directions, quickly ending their argument.

“They don’t die,” I yell at the pair.

“What?” they both cry.

Another Nightmare Man appears, and I slice him to the ground. Even as I do, parts are reconnecting. Reece kicks them apart and screams for me to do something.

“Like what? It doesn’t matter. If I burn one, it’ll re-form even quicker.”

Halim just stands there, whispering under his breath. He’s lost it, and I can’t blame him.

“Move!” I yell, trying to keep him from being hit.

“I’ve got it! It’s in a rhyme I learned when I was little!” Halim says, bouncing up and down around Reece like a kid on a trampoline.

“Another children’s rhyme?” I’m really beginning to hate rhymes. The last one Halim told us had everyone scratching their heads until it was almost too late to save Kera.

Halim squints his eyes shut really hard and says:

“‘Blood and bone and tendon speak,

the flesh of others they do seek.

Hearts of evil brought them here,

Where stalwart hearts will melt with fear.’

“Here’s the part that matters:

‘To end their deeds, you must be fast,

tear through the dark and end the past.

What once was dark now turned to light,

must cease to be to end their plight.’”

Halim looks between us with a face that could make a clown cry. “I don’t know what it means.”

Reece’s eyebrows knit tightly over his eyes. “And I thought the Brothers Grimm were warped. We need a serious discussion about these bedtime stories. Unlike the ones from my world, all yours seem to be based in fact. Which is kinda freakin’ me out.”

I repeat the last verse. “Maybe my dad knows what it means.” The only thing I do know is that it’s only a matter of time before the Nightmare Man hops back up and plays grim reaper again. I touch the ground and the soil turns soft. I call forth thick vines that drag his body parts under and then harden the soil once again.

“Where’s my dad?”

“Phoenix Hall.”

I light two pieces of wood and give one to each. “Don’t go near the shadows. Stay in the light.”

As I leave, I see the ground shift and the hand digging its way free. Reece stomps on the fingers, and Halim’s wide, horror-filled eyes follow my retreat. “Hurry up, will you?”

I find my dad sitting in the throne room, his face pale, his eyes red-rimmed. He’s a man they still treat like their king. He’s a figurehead, nothing more. I have more power than him, yet they don’t seem to understand that I’m the one in charge. The council fusses at my entrance, but I push through and stand before my dad. “What do you know about the Nightmare Men?”