The Thousand Names (65 page)

“She’s—got information we might need,” Winter said. “I’ll explain things to the colonel.”

“But—”

“No more objections, Corporal.”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

The little town was much as Bobby had described it. The colonel had ordered it searched, but there wasn’t really much
to
search. She saw a few men examining the household items and furnishings that had been left behind, following the time-honored soldiers’ tradition that anything you could carry off from an enemy camp was fair game, but there wasn’t much to loot, either. At least there was water. They passed the cistern, which was at one end of a never-ending bucket chain of sweating men struggling to refill the casks of the regiment and water its thirsty animals.

Bobby had reluctantly pointed out where they were headed, a section of the cliff face at the back of the village that boasted a stretch of ancient carvings. A doorway gaped in the sand-colored wall like a missing tooth, flanked by small mounds of broken stone and smashed wood. A faint smell of gunsmoke hung in the still desert air.

Winter paused just outside, uncertain. The sun was well up by now, and the shadow of the cliff was starting to creep away from the face and down toward the town. After a dozen feet, the tunnel was completely black. Winter glanced at Feor, who had pushed back the hood on her robe and was looking at the carvings with interest.

“Do you know this place?” Winter said.

Feor shook her head. “It is a temple, a very old one. But Mother and the Desoltai have never been on good terms, and they did not share their secrets easily. It took the arrival of you Vordanai and the beginning of the Redemption to bring them together.”

“Do you think they’re inside?”

“Yes,” Feor said. “I can feel them.” Her expression turned uncertain. “Something else as well.”

“Sir,” Bobby said, “something’s wrong here.”

“How so?”

“The colonel warned everyone off from this place.”

“So you said.”

Bobby frowned. “Don’t you think he would have left a couple of guards outside?”

That made Winter pause. She chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Maybe they’re farther in?”

“Could be,” Bobby said.

“Come on,” Winter said. “Let’s find the others.”

•   •   •

Winter edged forward, one hand feeling ahead along the dry stone wall. The entrance was a square of brilliant daylight behind them, slipping slowly out of view as the tunnel curved into the cliff face. There was
some
kind of light ahead, something that flickered like an open flame. Just as they’d entered there had been a resounding
crack
, and a rumble like faraway thunder.

“Was that a shot?” Bobby said.

Winter pursed her lips. It was hard to say—the stone made everything echo oddly and changed the timbre of familiar sounds. She kept edging forward, step by careful step. Another
crack
, accompanied by a distant flash, brought her up short.

“That was definitely a shot,” Bobby said. “Who the hell are they shooting at?”

They started moving faster. Light gradually started to filter in, a weird, flickering brilliance. It was the red glow of a fire, Winter was sure, shot through now and again by the brighter yellow-white of a muzzle flash. It was enough to make out the bare outline of things, which narrowly prevented Winter from tripping over the first dead man.

She threw out an arm to bring Bobby to a halt. The tunnel ahead of them was strewn with corpses, a dozen or more, all lying flat or sitting against the walls in attitudes that suggested they’d been propped there like puppets. It was impossible to make out any detail in the firelight, and Winter dug hastily in her pocket for a box of matches.

“Are those—,” Bobby said.

Winter struck the match on the tunnel wall. The flickering firelight from up ahead made colors difficult to distinguish, but in the steadier light of the match she recognized the brown-and-tan uniform of the Khandarai Auxiliaries. Bobby let out a long breath of relief.

“What are they doing here?” Winter muttered, half to herself.

“Could Khtoba have followed us across the desert?” Bobby said.

“Or we followed him.” Winter looked back at Feor, who was looking down at the bodies with a puzzled expression. “Are you all right?”

“There’s no blood,” Feor said.

None of the corpses were visibly marked. Winter frowned.

Bobby was already pressing ahead. Feor threaded her way past the Auxiliaries to join her, and Winter followed slowly. Beside the last of the corpses, she paused.

“If they’re fighting . . . ,” Bobby said in low tones.

“Just a moment.”

Winter prodded the facedown man with her boot. He was an officer, judging by the braid on his shoulders and the scabbard at his belt. The corpse rocked slightly when she touched it, and after a moment of hesitation she got down, grabbed his shoulder, and rolled him onto his back. There was no wound on his front, either. The elaborately decorated Auxiliary uniform was unmarred.

Something
hissed
. She watched, fascinated, as a thin wisp of white smoke trickled from the body’s slightly parted lips and wafted toward the ceiling.

“Sifatz,”
Feor said, then repeated it in her half-learned Vordanai. “Run!”

“Wh—”

The corpse’s eyes snapped open. They were green from edge to edge and glowed with an inner light that threw Winter’s shadow wide across the tunnel ceiling. Its hands came up and locked around her wrist, dragging her off balance. She gave an undignified squeal as she fell across the corpse, her left side lighting up with pain. As she fell, the
thing
shifted its grip, wrapping its arms around her waist in a horrid parody of an embrace. Its mouth opened wide, releasing a gush of white smoke that played across her face and filled her nostrils with a scent like burning sugar.

With sudden horror she realized it was going to
bite
her, rip her throat out like some kind of beast. One of her arms was stuck by her side, but she just barely managed to bring the other up in time, slamming her forearm under its chin and forcing its jaw closed with a
clack
of teeth. She brought her knee up as hard as she could, almost automatically, but it didn’t even flinch at the blow to its groin. Its arms merely tightened their grip, holding her as close as a lover. Their faces were inches apart. Winter could see the faint stubble where the man hadn’t shaved properly, and the green of his eyes bored into her.

Her left hand groped for purchase and found the handle of the corpse’s sword. She didn’t have the leverage to draw it, though, and the strength of the creature’s arms seemed endless. Her breath came in tiny gasps, and her lungs were starting to burn. She arched her back desperately, trying to break free, but only managed to loosen her grip on the corpse’s throat. It bared its teeth again, bathed in white smoke, and tried to force them closer to her face.

Winter gaped, desperate to draw a breath, but the grip around her shoulders pressed her chest too tight. It felt as though her spine was about to snap. Her lungs were on fire. She felt her legs kicking it, distantly, but for all the good it did she might have been pounding on a wall.

Then, all at once, something gave way. One of the creature’s arms pulled free, giving Winter a moment to hurl herself away from it with all the strength she could muster. She felt its nails leave long scratches down her back, even through the fabric of her uniform, but it didn’t manage to get a grip before she was clear and rolling sideways. She cannoned almost immediately into Feor, who was holding on to one of the monster’s wrists with both hands. Winter and the Khandarai girl went down in a heap, accompanied by a metallic clatter.

Breath flooded back into Winter’s body, and sight and sound came with it. She heard Bobby’s frantic shouts, and saw the corporal struggling with another monster in a brown-and-tan uniform. Behind it, the other corpses were rising, herky-jerky, like puppets on invisible strings. A dozen pairs of eyes bathed the tunnel in their unearthly green glow.

The one that had grabbed her rolled onto its hands and knees and reached for her again. Winter scrambled backward, and felt Feor do likewise. One of her hands brushed something solid—the hilt of the Auxiliary officer’s sword, which she’d been holding on to when she’d pulled herself away. Her fingers curled around it, and the next time the corpse reached for her she brought it around in a wild sweep. It was a light, whippy little thing, a dress sword for showing off at parties rather than actual combat, but at least it was sharp. It caught the creature as it went for a grip on her ankle and sheared its hand in half. No blood issued from the wound, only a gout of white smoke. The remaining digits brushed uselessly at Winter’s boot as she pushed herself out of range.

Bobby had achieved a sort of stalemate, she saw, by snatching up a musket from beside one of the dead men and using it as a wedge to keep the thing away. More of the creatures were approaching, though. Winter finally managed to get her feet under her and shifted the sword to her good hand. When the thing on the ground reached for her ankle, she stomped down hard on its forearm and heard the bones snap.

“Bobby!” she shouted. “Back here!”

The corporal let go of the musket, jumping backward as her opponent let the weapon fall and stumbled forward. Winter caught the creature in the torso with a textbook thrust, slipping her sword neatly between its ribs, but the wound had no effect at all. She barely managed to yank the blade free in time to avoid its groping hands. Bobby fell in beside her, and she could hear Feor scrambling to her feet behind them.

Winter handed Bobby the Auxiliary’s sword and drew her own. It wasn’t much better, but at least she knew it was good steel. Three of the things blocked the corridor, with more of them crowding in behind. Now that they faced opponents with steel in their hands, the things seemed almost cautious, though Winter couldn’t think why. The one she’d stabbed hadn’t even flinched.

“Demons,” Winter breathed. “Brass Balls of the Beast, they’re fucking demons.”

Bobby gave a shaky nod. Winter spared a glance for the corporal. She looked very pale, but the point of her sword never wavered. “What now?”

“Now, I think, we run.” Winter slashed at one of the creatures that got too close, leaving another long, unbleeding wound on its arm. “On three. One, two,
three
.”

With a final slash, she backpedaled a few steps, then turned and ran for it. On the way, she caught Feor’s hand, dragging the Khandarai girl along until she got her feet under her. Soon all three of them were pounding down the tunnel, with the corpse-things shambling in pursuit.

The glowing green eyes had just vanished around the curve of the corridor when it abruptly ended, opening out into a much larger space. Winter had a vague sense of a high-ceilinged cavern, but her attention was absorbed by more immediate details. In the center of the cave, amidst rows of strange Khandarai statues, the Seventh Company had formed a steel-edged square. She could see the gleaming rows of bayonets, and every so often a shot rang out, shatteringly loud in the enclosed space. Surrounding them was a nearly solid ring of brown-and-tan uniforms two or three men deep. The white smoke they leaked mixed with the pink-gray of powder smoke to form a pervasive fog that made the whole cavern smell of saltpeter and burning sugar.

More of the walking corpses were scattered around the perimeter of the standoff, and at least a few of them looked in Winter’s direction as she skidded to a halt in the doorway. They started for her immediately, closing in like iron filings drawn to a magnet. The sound of shuffling feet from the corridor behind them grew louder by the second.

She caught Bobby’s eye. “Run for the square. I’ll go first; you take Feor.”

Bobby gave a jerky nod and made no objection. Winter could think of a whole host of objections herself, but there didn’t seem to be any other options. She took a deep breath, fighting down the spikes of pain in her side, and charged.

Strong as they were, the demons weren’t quick, or terribly bright. She went right at one, and it spread its arms wide like someone accepting a hug. At the last minute she ducked and veered right, slipping past it. From there she pivoted on one foot and brought the pommel of her sword around in a wide arc that ended in the back of its skull. Whether or not the impact pained it, it knocked the thing off balance, and it stumbled helplessly long enough for Bobby and Feor to dodge by.

Then they were in among the statues. Green eyes glowed from all directions, but Winter forced herself to focus on what was directly ahead of her. Another Auxiliary lurched out from behind a snake-headed statue, right into her path, and she barreled into it shoulder first, knocking the creature sprawling. It scrabbled at her as it went down, but Winter danced away, slashing at its hands with her sword. Glancing back, she found Feor right behind her, with Bobby holding off two more of the things with wild horizontal sweeps.

Ahead, the demons were packed tighter. Winter could see blue uniforms through the gaps, but she wasn’t certain they could make her out through the crowd. She hoped desperately no one took the opportunity to fire at the commotion. She laid into the first monster with a wide two-handed swing, aiming low, and it toppled with its legs chopped out from under it. Others turned, white smoke gouting all around her, as she pressed toward the line of blue. They shied away from her cuts, though the sword did them little actual damage, and for a moment Winter thought she was actually going to make it.