The Sentinel Mage (41 page)

Prince Tomas sat. His sergeant began to give orders, directing the sentries to their posts.

“Justen.”

Petrus looked across at Tomas. “Yes, sire?”

“If we’re attacked, stay back with Harkeld.”

Petrus nodded, relieved by the order. If whatever had attacked Ditmer attacked them, he didn’t want Innis anywhere near the fighting.

“You’re the last barrier between him and whatever is out there.”

Petrus nodded again.

“What about you?” Prince Harkeld asked. His tone was sour. “Where will you be? At the back, too?”

Tomas grinned. “Is that self-pity I hear?”

Prince Harkeld grunted.

The color drained from the sandstone cliffs as darkness gathered in the canyon. The wind fell and the wailing died away to a faint moan.

Petrus yawned, and listened idly to the princes talk. He glanced around, noting the sentries. Six men, facing out into the canyon.

He frowned. The curse shadows had darkened with the setting of the sun.

Something moved near his foot. He caught a glimpse of a small shape scuttling on the sand and jerked his boot aside.

“Scorpion.” Tomas shied a stone at the creature. “Time to put out the fire.” He stood and kicked sand into the fire pit, smothering the flames.

Petrus stood. “Won’t be a minute,” he said to Prince Harkeld.

He made his way away from the smoking fire pit. It was fully dark now. As he passed the mages, he nodded to Innis.
Time to swap.

In the deep shadow of the overhang Petrus removed the baldric. He felt naked without it, vulnerable. He shivered, and shrugged off Justen’s woolen cloak.

“You must be tired,” Innis said, kicking off her boots. “You’ve been shifted much of the day.”

He was, but he wasn’t going to admit it to her. He ignored the comment. “Tomas said that if we’re attacked, Justen is to stay with the prince.”

Innis stilled. He dimly saw her face, a pale blur in the darkness. “Do you think—”

“We’ll be fine,” Petrus said confidently. But privately, he wasn’t so sure. The heaviness of the curse shadows made him uneasy.

Across the canyon, the silence of night was broken by the clatter of falling stones. Petrus froze, listening. The sound was loud. It echoed for a long time, bouncing off the sandstone walls.

“Sentry,” he said, not believing it.

“That came from the other side of the river,” Innis said.

“Rockfall, then.” Another clattering cascade of sound swallowed his words. This time it was closer to them, on this side of the river. Petrus turned his head, trying to pinpoint the source.

Around the smothered fire came a stir of voices, of alarm.

Someone ran towards them with sharp, gritty footfalls. “Innis!” It was Dareus. “There’s something out there. See what it is. Owl.”

She obeyed instantly. Petrus heard the whisper of her clothes falling to the ground as she shifted, felt the rush of air as she took off.

“I’ll go too—”

“No.” Dareus’s fingers closed around his wrist, hard. “Be Justen. Stay with the prince.”

I
NNIS FLEW SWIFTLY.
The clatter of falling rock was loud. She swooped low, heading for the nearest source. Her owl’s eyes saw clearly: it was one of the tombs. The stone and mortar buckled, as if something inside tried to batter its way out. Rock showered down, bouncing and skittering across the canyon floor.

A cadaverous body hauled itself out of the tomb.

Innis shied in the air. Her eyes refused to believe what she saw.

The thing stood, lurching. It wasn’t a skeleton; the bones were clothed in leathery skin, the domed skull surmounted by a thatch of withered hair. It was cloaked in curse shadows, so darkly shrouded that she could scarcely make out the empty eye sockets. The blind head turned as if seeking something.

Shouts rose behind her. Innis wheeled and headed back to the campsite, flying as fast as she could. The canyon was alive with movement. Stones sprayed down as more tombs burst open, as dark figures stumbled free of their resting places.

A shrill neigh of panic captured her attention. She saw the horses rearing, kicking, tearing loose from their tethers. The thunder of their hooves echoed deafeningly as they galloped down the canyon, trampling everything in their path.

Fire flared in the firepit. She saw the soldiers in a ring facing outward, their bared swords glinting, saw Prince Harkeld and Justen behind them, swords raised, saw Ebril and Gerit pacing in front, snarling lions. Advancing on them were scores of warriors. They had arms and legs, heads, but those dark, lurching shapes had been dead for more than a thousand years.

Dareus cast a fire ball. Two of the corpses flared alight, but there was no faltering in the shuffling advance.
They have no fear.

She arrowed downward, changing to a lioness as her feet touched the ground. Smells invaded her nose: the scent of ancient decay, the sharp odor of fear coming from the soldiers behind her.

Gerit opened his mouth in a roar. He charged at the advancing figures, scattering them, bowling them over.

Innis echoed the roar. She launched herself at the nearest warrior. It collapsed beneath her weight. She swiped with a sharp-clawed paw, snapping its neck, fastened her gaze upon the next corpse and leapt at it, snarling. Bones broke beneath her weight as the corpse tumbled to the ground. The skull separated from the neck and rolled, bouncing, beneath the feet of its comrades.

Innis leapt at the next corpse, knocking it down. She sank her teeth into its neck and ripped the head off. Bone and leathery skin disintegrated in her mouth. She spat, gagging, and looked for her next prey, launching herself forward.

A corpse blazed alight to her right, burning like a torch.

Innis glanced back. The corpses she’d beheaded were on their feet, shuffling towards the fire.

More gouts of flame erupted; more ancient warriors flared alight. They burned silently, their mouths open in soundless screams, crackling fiercely as fire consumed them.

A lion roared. Ebril. She couldn’t see him. A jostling wall of corpses surrounded her.

Innis leapt at the nearest one, knocking it down. Dry, sinewy arms reached for her. Dozens of hands clawed at her. She roared and bit, struggling. The arms tightened around her neck, surprisingly strong, as if Ivek’s curse had regenerated ancient tendons and muscles. Panic surged inside her. She shifted—a mouse, tiny, running between bony feet, then an owl, flapping swiftly up into the sky.

The canyon floor seethed with movement. Hundreds of corpses were converging on the campsite. Those behind marched relentlessly over the bodies of the fallen. Armless, they came. Headless, they came. Those who’d lost their legs dragged themselves with their hands.

Panic swelled inside her.
Nothing will stop them.

The soldiers fought fiercely, swinging their blades, severing arms and legs, heads—but the creatures didn’t falter in their advance. As Innis watched, one soldier disappeared beneath a swarming tangle of corpses. His scream rose in the air.

Innis dove and launched herself into the battle again. A lion was no good. She needed to be
big.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

H
ARKELD GRIPPED HIS
sword and watched the soldiers struggle to hold back the tide of corpses. The creatures’ silent ferocity was as terrifying as their sightless faces. The lions roared and fought, the fire-witches cast balls of flame, but for every corpse that flared alight, every corpse the lions tore apart and the soldiers hacked to pieces, a dozen more stepped forward. The sheer number was overwhelming. They stretched as far into the darkness as his eyes could see, an endless, jostling mass of bodies.
We’re all going to die.

Movement on the ground caught his eye—a severed arm, fingers working like spider’s legs, scrabbled over the sand towards him. Harkeld raised his sword and slashed at it, cutting it at the elbow.

The fingers kept moving, surprisingly fast, scrambling towards him.

Harkeld swung again, slashed again, cutting the arm off at the wrist. The hand still scuttled forward, an immense, grotesque spider, the fingers finding purchase on his boot, scrambling up over the toe.

He kicked, trying to shake the thing off. The hand gripped his ankle with tight, bony fingers and hung on.

Harkeld threw down his sword. He tore the hand off, snapping the brittle fingers, throwing them away. The palm fell to the ground—gray bone, leathery skin—and lay twitching.

Harkeld snatched up his sword again. His heart was beating too fast.

“Sire?”

“I’m fine.” He jerked around as a panicked scream rose in the air. Another soldier was dragged off his feet. The man’s cry cut off as he vanished beneath a seething mass of corpses.

Harkeld gripped his sword more tightly and started forward. If he was going to die, he’d die fighting.

Dareus thrust him back. “No.”

Flames crackled from the witch’s outstretched hand. Two corpses flared alight. Fire seemed to lick across Harkeld’s skin, sizzling. He jerked away from Dareus’s grip, stumbling back, falling to one knee. It felt as if a bonfire had ignited in his chest.

Justen hauled him to his feet. “Behind me, sire!”

A brassy, trumpeting cry rang over the battle, echoing off the canyon walls. Justen’s head jerked around. He uttered a hoarse, disbelieving laugh. “An oliphant!”

Harkeld followed his armsman’s gaze. There was indeed an oliphant. The creature towered over the milling corpses. Each of its legs was the size of a tree trunk. As he watched, open-mouthed, it charged, cutting a wide swath in the horde of dead, crushing the desiccated husks underfoot, spearing them with its tusks. The oliphant tossed its head. Skewered bodies smashed to the ground.

“Who is it?” he asked, but the creature screamed its brassy battle cry again, swallowing the sound of his voice. It charged once more, impaling the dead on its tusks, trampling them beneath its great feet. The huge gray trunk unfurled. It plucked a corpse from those pressing the soldiers and tossed it aside, smashing it against the canyon wall, plucked again and tossed again.

Another trumpeting cry rang out. There were two oliphants now, charging among the corpses. No, three of the creatures.

We may actually survive this.

But even as Harkeld thought the words, one of the soldiers stumbled and fell. A severed hand gripped the man’s ankle, the leathery arm trailing in the sand. The corpses surged forward. The fallen soldier gave a shout and struck out with his sword, swinging upward, burying the blade deep in a bony ribcage. Gnarled hands grabbed the sword, yanking it from his grasp, grabbed at the soldier, fastening on his arms, on his legs. The man screamed and disappeared into the teeming corpses. They surged over him, like ants engulfing a piece of food. A high shriek of agony ended as abruptly as it started.

Flames roared up, consuming the corpses. They fell back from the fallen soldier, charred.

Harkeld clenched his jaw and looked away from what was left of the man.

T
HE NIGHT SEEMED
endless, as if the sun would never rise again. They fought grimly—soldiers, mages—the darkness punctuated by bursts of fire.

Petrus stayed where he’d been ordered, guarding Prince Harkeld. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed. He watched with gritted teeth, every muscle in his body tense with the need to join in, to fight.

He concentrated on what little he could do, watching the corpses’ amputated hands and arms, shouting warnings to the desperately fighting soldiers, hacking into pieces those crawling limbs that were within reach of his sword.

Sometime after midnight a subtle change occurred. The corpses still came relentlessly, but the sheer weight of their numbers was no longer overwhelming. They arrived in twos and threes, not in their dozens, marching over the trampled fragments and charred remains of their comrades. Petrus knew that if they could just keep on their feet, they’d make it to dawn.