Bone Magic (16 page)

She knelt,
scooping bolts onto the fire. The smoke was getting bad, but the
air was fairly clear lower down. She watched the undead man as she
worked, trying to understand his behavior. He was listless, almost
sleepy. He certainly didn't behave like any animated corpse she'd
ever seen. She had a nagging sense that there was something
important about him, but she had enough to deal with. If he wasn't
going to attack her, she was going to leave him be.

The last of the
bolts from the second barrel dropped on the fire. She stood,
stooping to keep her head below the worst of the smoke, and started
counting the remaining barrels.

And the undead
man coughed.

Tira reacted
without thought, bringing the bowstring back to her ear and sending
an arrow at his heart. The arrow struck, and the man disappeared.
One instant he was there, the next he was gone. It took Tira a
moment to see the woman standing where the man had been. She was
short and thin, her skin quite pale, with black hair drawn up in a
bun and a long black dress. Tira's arrow jutted from the triangle
of muscle where her shoulder met her neck.

She glared at
Tira, a look of utter hate with her bloodless lips pulled back from
her teeth. Then she spun and fled for the door.

Tira shook off
her astonishment and grabbed for another arrow, stepping sideways
to see past a pillar. The woman dodged as Tira fired. The arrow
buried itself in the woman's shoulder, and she staggered against
the doorway, then darted out.

And the ground
shook with the impact of large, running feet. The monster was
free.

The red aura
was gone now. The impact of the arrow seemed to have disrupted
several spells at once, the spells that were holding the creature
and transforming it. It lumbered straight at Tira, snarling with
that enormous, toothy mouth.

She sprang to
the nearest pillar. The creature came around the pillar, and she
raced in a tight circle, keeping the pillar between herself and the
beast. Terror made her light on her feet, and for the moment she
was able to hold her own.

Then the
creature changed directions. Tira fled the pillar, running toward
the center of the room, managing several steps before it rounded
the pillar and took off after her. It was faster on a straightaway,
and by the time she rounded the opposite pillar it was right behind
her.

She looped
around the pillar, regaining her lead. She was able to make sharper
turns. She fled for the next pillar, darting behind the column of
bricks, and the creature gave a bellow of rage. It was still at the
previous pillar. She had evaded it for the moment.

Her hands
trembled as she took one of her two remaining arrows from the
quiver on her back. There was no room for error. She had no idea if
she could kill the thing even if she did everything exactly right.
She took a deep breath, then another, and when her hands were as
steady as they seemed likely to get, stepped around the pillar.

The creature
was in the center of the room, head swinging from side to side as
it searched, and it let out a bellow as it spotted her. Its arms
came up, and she fired at the center of its chest. The arrow flew
true, burying itself deep in the creature's fur several inches
below the shining band of metal on its throat.

A scream split
the air, making Tira's bones vibrate, and it came at her. She had
to stand frozen, waiting for it to come close before she could dart
around the column. The thing was learning, though, and it switched
direction even as she started to move. She nearly ran into its
waiting claws, and a slash knocked the bow from her hands and tore
her sleeve from shoulder to wrist.

She darted back
around the pillar. This time the creature had its back to her as
she raced past. The doorway was on her left, but the next pillar
was closer, so she ran for the pillar. Her left arm stung from
shoulder to elbow, the skin wet with blood. From elbow to
fingertips the arm was completely numb. She ignored the pain, drew
her sword with her right hand, and peeked around the pillar.

The creature
dragged a paw across its eyes, peered around, then spotted her and
let out a roar. It coughed, then roared again. Tira was
instinctively slouching, keeping her head below the worst of the
smoke, but the beast was taller and getting the worst of it.

It came at her
now, and she stepped behind the pillar, listening for its
footsteps, waiting for it to commit itself. For a moment the two of
them danced back and forth. Then the creature came around from the
right. Tira darted left and fled to the next pillar.

In a moment it
was there on the other side of the pillar. She crouched, leaned to
the right, and saw a vast foot at the pillar's far corner. With a
quick step and a lunge she drove the point of her sword into the
side of the big, hairy foot.

The beast
bellowed, and she took advantage of the distraction to run to the
next pillar. She dropped into a squat, scanning the floor,
searching frantically for her bow. It was at the next pillar over,
hopelessly out of reach, and she felt the thump of the floor
beneath her as the creature ran toward her.

Constant
surprise seemed like the best strategy, so she sprang out from
behind the pillar and ran to meet it. It pivoted to meet her
charge, and she saw with a sick certainty that she had made a fatal
miscalculation. The thing, despite its bulk, was
fast
. It
stepped toward her, one terrible paw slashing through the air – and
it stepped down on its injured foot. It stumbled, and the paw that
had been scything toward her head instead swatted the sword from
her grasp. Steel rattled on cobblestones, and she lunged forward,
scooping up the sword as she went past the creature at a dead
run.

A moment later
she was back behind the pillar closest to the fire, the pillar
farthest from her bow. The flames were nearly out. The layer of
smoke near the ceiling would take time to disperse, but when it
did, she would lose her only advantage.

There was
nothing to be done about it. The creature was coming toward her,
and she stepped out to meet it as every nerve in her body screamed
at her to retreat. Her sword came up to strike, and she felt the
shock of impact as the blade hit the timbers of the ceiling. The
beast brought an arm up, and as it began to swing, she halted her
charge and twisted back. The paw sliced through the air, missing
her by scant inches, and she darted forward, jabbing it just behind
the elbow.

A backhand blow
slammed into her shoulder, knocking her back half stunned. Her
shoulders collided with the pillar behind her, and she rotated her
shoulder, trying to shake off the pain. She kept underestimating
the creature's speed!

It peered at
the wound she'd put in its elbow, then snarled and charged her. She
twisted aside, darting around the pillar, then changed directions
and darted back. She made a lucky guess and came up behind the
beast. It turned as she lunged, and the blow she aimed for the
middle of its spine hit ribs instead. A moment later the big arm
knocked her blade back and she retreated, barely keeping her grip
on the hilt.

For ten or
fifteen nightmare seconds she hopped back and forth, barely keeping
the pillar between her and the creature. She didn't try any more
counter-attacks. Survival for another moment required all of her
attention.

Then the
creature over-committed, charging around the pillar, and she broke
and ran. She was running full-tilt when she reached the next
pillar, and she stretched her left hand out, catching the corner of
the pillar to stop her momentum. She had forgotten the scratches
down her arm, and pain exploded from her neck to her fingers. She
told herself that agony had to be a better sign than the earlier
numbness and darted around the pillar.

Instead of
snarls or footfalls, she heard coughing. A quick peek around the
pillar showed the beast in the middle of the room, doubled over,
shaking with the force of one cough after another. Tira briefly
thought of charging it with her sword, and ran for her bow
instead.

Wrapping her
left hand around the bow was painful. Lifting the bow brought tears
spilling down her cheek. She jammed her sword into her sheath and
took her last arrow from the quiver on her back.

The creature
fastened its eyes on her. It was no longer coughing, but it was
bent over, keeping its head out of the smoke. Blood made a dark
triangle in the fur beneath the feathers of her arrow. The other
cuts she'd made had bled as well, but the scarlet hand wrapped
around the bow told her she was losing the war of blood loss.

There was blood
on the creature's muzzle and chin, which gave her hope. Maybe her
arrow had punctured a lung, and the smoke wasn't the only thing
making it cough. It wasn't indestructible, after all.

Not quite.

It took a step
toward her, and she drew the bowstring tight. Another step, and she
stood paralyzed, unable to choose a target. A chest shot might kill
it, but the last one hadn't done much. A leg shot might slow it
down. She could run, and leave it here to bleed to death. A head
shot was too much risk. She would most likely bounce the arrow off
of its thick skull.

The creature
took another step, and another, and it threw its mouth open and
roared. Tira let fly, hitting the creature in the chest, then threw
her bow aside and drew her sword.

A bellow of
agony blasted her eardrums, and she cringed involuntarily. The
beast brought its front paws up to its head and bellowed again,
thrashing its head back and forth. Her arrow was lodged in the roof
of its mouth, not the fatal blow she'd hoped for, but enough of a
distraction to give her a chance.

She ran
straight at the creature. It felt like suicide, but the agonized
beast didn't even see her coming. She put both hands on the hilt of
the sword and rammed the blade forward at the height of her stomach
for no other reason than because it was where she could strike the
hardest. The blade slammed into the creature's thigh, going deep,
and she stepped to the side, ducked a blind swipe from one paw, and
pulled sideways on the hilt. Flesh cut and tore as the blade pulled
free, and she circled wide, staying out of reach of those paws.

Blood poured
from the thigh wound. The beast tried to turn and face her as she
circled, but it couldn't lift the wounded leg. Each clumsy step
brought a fresh gush of blood, and she kept circling, forcing it to
keep moving. Finally it stopped, and she circled behind it, then
darted in and stabbed for the spine.

The creature
twisted as she hit, and her blow slid sideways, cutting a gash in
the broad, furry back. The beast turned, moaning as it moved the
wounded leg, and gave a weak swing with one paw. Tira dodged easily
and circled until she was behind it again.

It made one
last attempt to circle and face her. Then, before she could even
strike, the creature sagged forward onto its knees. She could hear
the ragged rasp of its breath. It coughed once, then again. The
sound of breathing stopped a moment before it toppled forward onto
its face.

Tira very
nearly collapsed as well. She wobbled on her feet, then
straightened and made herself walk over to the nearest barrel of
cursed bolts. She put her sword away, then tipped the barrel over
and rolled it to the glowing remains of the fire. A bit of coaxing
got the new bolts burning as well. She rolled the remaining buckets
over one at a time and dumped the bolts on the flames, then sank to
her knees and watched until she was sure every cursed bolt was on
fire.

When she tried
to stand up, she found she couldn't do it. She decided she'd crawl
to the stairs instead, but putting her hands on the floor sent
agony through her left arm and her right shoulder. Finally she
shuffled on her knees until she reached the nearest pillar, and
clung to it as she worked her way to her feet. She might have
stayed there, leaning against the pillar, but the smoke was too
bad, and coughing hurt her arm. So she stumbled toward the door,
following the trail of the necromancer's blood up the stairs and
into the kitchen.

She stopped in
the kitchen, using a pump to fill a basin, then discarded her cloak
and used her dagger to cut away what remained of her left sleeve.
Her left arm was a mess, still bleeding, the flesh torn quite badly
from shoulder to elbow along the back of her arm. There were
shallow cuts below her elbow, but they were much less serious.

She made a
half-hearted attempt to wash the wounds, then rummaged through
cupboards until she found a pile of cloth napkins. She bandaged
herself awkwardly, using her right hand and her teeth to pull the
knots tight.

When she tried
to draw her sword she found that her bruised right shoulder had
stiffened until she could barely lift her arm. She spent a couple
of minutes working her shoulder, her teeth gritted against the
pain. Then she pulled the sword from the sheath and turned her
attention to the necromancer's blood trail on the floor.

The other woman
had lost at least as much blood as Tira. The trail was easy to
follow, fat red drops in a steady line from the staircase, through
the kitchen, across the entry hall, and to the front steps of the
keep.

Then, the blood
trail disappeared. One of Tira's arrows lay on the steps, neatly
broken in two. The other arrow, the woman, and the blood trail were
all gone.

"Well, crap."
She wanted to sit and rest, but the sky was lightening outside.
Soon the streets would fill with goblins, and she would be trapped.
She took a deep breath of the morning air and considered her
options.

The keep stood
on a low hill, the highest point in the city, and from the top of
the steps she could see across a sea of rooftops, over the top of
the town wall, and across the plains beyond. She was facing north,
and she could see a yellow point of light moving on the
horizon.