Bones of the Empire (58 page)

Whether their ruse was working or not, the front line of the undead army did not budge. They kept their eyes forward, their faces lit by the nearly full moon. Raeln thought maybe they were somehow little more than propped up bodies when the nearest zombies’ heads turned slightly to follow him.

“Calm yourself,” Ceran warned, smacking Raeln’s tail. He had not even realized he had tensed up, which often showed itself by the stiffness of his tail. “Their orders are absolute. If they were told to stand here, they will stand here forever and not make a move on us. No one tells an undead to attack anything that moves, lest their army run off after rabbits and birds.”

Raeln nodded slightly, forcing his tail to hang limply again. He was not so much worried about the undead having been ordered to stand around. He was worried they had been told to kill the living. All it would take is one mistake, and even a zombie would know they were different. If one knew, the whole army would attack with wild abandon.

They made their way slowly to the first row of zombies, until Raeln found he was trapped. The undead made no effort to move or attack, leaving him no path toward the camp that was their target. He peeked both directions up and down the line, finding the first row was far tighter than the successive ones. There was nowhere he could squeeze through without touching a corpse. Judging by how packed together the undead were, it had been by design. They were both an army and a wall.

Pushing down the desire to flee and the jitteriness in his hands, Raeln walked straight into the nearest zombie, shoving past it. The creature groaned and watched him, but held its position. One by one, the rest of his group followed him, running into the corpses when they could not avoid them. Still, there was no sign that the undead could tell they were not part of the army.

A shrill cry of a raven overhead nearly made Raeln jump. He struggled to maintain his concentration and keep going.

Dalania whispered softly from nearby, “Slightly left and another fifty feet. They are talking among themselves.”

Silently offering a prayer to Kerrelin, Raeln went around the next zombie and angled off to his left, continuing through the next few lines of undead. When he was about ready to ask Dalania for more directions, he realized he could see a thinning of the forces ahead of him. Heading toward that area, he found himself at the edge of a clearing within the army, where a large tent had been erected. Seated outside it at a small unlit campfire were two Turessian men and one woman, positioned so they faced at least partially away from him. The soft murmurs of conversation drifted over the occasional groans of the undead that filled the region.

Raeln started to advance, but Ceran grabbed his arm and made a faint click with her tongue as she lowered the cloth covering her face. He looked over at her, and she pointed at the female Turessian and mouthed, “Liris.”

Resisting the urge to growl, Raeln sniffed and found she was not wrong. While the dead Turessians had no appreciable scent of their own, their clothing bore a few distinctive odors. Raeln associated Liris with the scent of dead wildlings. The other two Turessians were new to him, but Liris was all too familiar. Rushing in would be suicide. Oddly, he could pick up body scents from the other two Turessians in the camp, though he decided he would worry about that at a later time.

Raising his hand to signal the spellcasters among his group, Raeln tried not to let the cold stares of the zombies worry him. In the deep darkness of the plains—even with the moonlight—his plan would work. The Turessians would never see it coming. With that advantage, he could finally attack Liris when she was on the defensive. It might be enough to give him the upper-hand, at least for a few minutes. By then he had to hope the army had reached them.

Raeln gave the camp one last look over, hoping his people were ready. As an afterthought, his attention went to a war spear lying near one of the Turessians. On’esquin had once taught Raeln how to use one, and he would rather have it in his hands than an enemy’s. He would take that during the charge, if only to deny it to the Turessians.

Dropping his hand, Raeln saw Liris turn partway just as his own Turessian allies began their spells. Raeln closed his eyes, knowing what was coming. Even with his eyes clamped shut, the abrupt flash of magical light was nearly enough to wash out his vision. Thankfully, when he opened them again, the lights had already gone out and all three Turessians were clutching at their eyes.

“Go!” Raeln called and dove into the open space of the camp. He hopped over the reaching hand of one of the men before tumbling forward over the second to grab the spear midroll. When he came up, Liris was watching him, standing calmly with her back to the other two Turessians and the rest of Raeln’s group.

“They never were prepared for ambushes,” she said.

Ceran and Yoska tore into the blinded Turessian men and the bear wildling knocked away the nearest undead.

Liris raised a hand as gouts of flame scattered around her, parting as though she had somehow deflected them. “Me…I’m always prepared. I’ve been waiting for you to come back, dog.”

Raeln spun the spear in his off hand, forcing himself to smile. She had killed so many of his people. Estin’s parents, possibly Estin and Feanne, and very nearly Raeln himself. He had no intention of seeing her escape again. He owed her a lost ear.

“You keep bragging how much Dorralt has shown you,” Raeln said, looking past her as one of the Turessians she had been with fell, choking on his own blood. These were not undead as he had expected—they were actual living Turessians. Dorralt had scattered living among his troops to hide their real numbers. “Let’s see if your master can show you enough to be better than someone who’s trained his whole life.”

“Excellent,” she hissed back. A shimmering, magical blade appeared in her hand. “I’d actually hoped for this fight with On’esquin, but given the circumstances, this will have to do. I keep forgetting to ask…did you like the gift that I left outside Jnodin for you? I left a few of those here than there, but I’m afraid you never found the others. An awful shame for all those slaves…”

Raeln attacked without thinking, twirling the spear as he lunged, using it both to parry her attack and to strike at her.

She danced nimbly out of his reach, narrowly avoiding his spear as she moved to a safe distance. Grinning, she blew him a kiss with her free hand as she backed into the undead. Keeping away from him as she slowly backed through the snow, Liris asked, “How do you get up each day, knowing how much blood is on your hands? It’s practically as much as I’ve got on mine. Poor Greth…”

Raeln tensed to strike again, but before he could, the white bear wildling burst through the unmoving undead. He tackled Liris from behind, driving his claws into her side and his fangs into her shoulder, forcing her to the ground.

In the second it took for Raeln to get to them, Liris rolled the bear off herself and waved a hand across him. Immediately, the bear began coughing up blood, convulsing violently while Liris backed away again, allowing Raeln to get to the man’s side.

Bending down, Raeln found the white-furred man was already dead, though his limbs still trembled. Raeln could barely control his anger. He rose to his feet and stepped past the fallen wildling to continue after Liris.

“Yet another body on your fragile conscience,” she mused, hurrying away from Raeln through the crowded undead. “Do you really want to keep this fight up, Raeln? Every time you try to touch me, others die.”

Raeln charged in again, striking faster than Liris could counter. He caught her across the jaw with the tip of his spear before kicking her left knee, shattering bone under his paw. He came around quickly, backhanding her hard enough to snap her head sideways as she fell.

From her place in the snow, with blood sprayed across her face and the ground, Liris laughed as she raised a hand toward Raeln. A chill washed over him, and he realized there was nothing he could do. She was going to kill him, and he would never reach her in time. His heart skipped a beat as magic took hold of his muscles.

The spell Liris was casting suddenly flared into visible light before fading away. Judging by her face, that was not even remotely what it should have done. They both looked around. Raeln found Ceran and Dalania standing together, both women hurriedly bringing their hands through complex motions indicative of magic.

“Enough!” Liris screamed, pointing at Dalania. “Die, child!”

Dark magic flickered and struck Dalania in the middle of her chest. For the briefest moment, Raeln thought he saw her eyes glaze over, but then she blinked and straightened her back, giving him a confused glance.

“No more spells, no more tricks,” Raeln growled, advancing on Liris as she scrambled to her feet. “Fight me!”

They circled slowly, with Liris occasionally flicking her free hand to one side to disrupt Ceran’s attempts to cast some spell. When Yoska appeared from the group of zombies, trying to be subtle, Liris motioned at him and he fell prone, struggling to stand.

Smirking, she let her hood fall back to allow her long hair to move freely. Backing away again, Liris said, “Did you think Dorralt would leave the east open to you? The ruse with that group circling around from the west was clever, I will grant you that.”

Raeln stepped in fast, bringing the spear around in an arc that deflected Liris’s weapon before coming around to graze her neck as he spun away from her, regaining his distance. “We were never in the west. Dorralt is an idiot. You might want to rethink your choice of masters.”

Liris flashed Raeln a bright grin right before she raced in on him, her sword hooking past his defenses. Raeln tried to counter with the spear but was a little too slow and felt the heat of the magical sword brush across his shirt. He managed to bring the butt of the spear up, cracking Liris’s elbow, forcing her back a step and driving away her weapon in the process. She stumbled away from him, slowly settling into a ready stance.

“Is that your army I hear in the distance?” Liris asked as explosions and shouts echoed across the plains. “It will take them some time to reach us. By then Dorralt will have seen that I have you here, and he will pour his might into me. Your army will find your remains staining half of Turessi, and your friends’ bodies will be used as a tombstone.”

Twisting around, Liris parried a strike from Ceran, who had summoned a magical sword like Liris’s. Before Raeln could close on them, Liris ducked Ceran’s follow-up swing and punched her in the stomach, sending her sprawling on the snow.

Yoska shouted angrily, still unable to rise.

Raeln’s spear narrowly missed Liris’s side. She was in no position to strike back, so she danced out of his reach, shoving a blank-eyed zombie between them as a shield. Almost as an afterthought, she brushed away a bolt of brilliantly white lightning from one of Raeln’s Turessians, who had been maneuvering to get a clear shot at her.

“I can feel my master’s eyes on us.” Liris laughed, moving through the undead to keep Raeln from catching up with her. “Already I grow stronger and faster. Soon, I will be able to cut down your entire army without a single spell. Keep it up, wildling. This is getting interesting now.”

A gentle hand came down on Raeln’s back, and he sniffed to find Dalania had snuck up on him. Strength flooded his body and all of his weariness faded instantly. It was a fair fight again. He had Dalania’s magic strengthening him the same way Liris had Dorralt’s.

Driving his shoulder into one of the zombies to push it away quickly, Raeln moved among the uncaring undead, his spear darting and flashing in the moonlight, nearly fast enough to get past Liris’s quick attempts to parry. She clenched her jaw as she shifted her grip to have both hands on the weapon. With a cry of frustration, she ducked behind another group of undead as Raeln’s spear nicked her upper arm, sending blood spraying. That, unlike all of the other movement, caught the attention of the undead. They began groaning as a group, wandering around aimlessly, trying to find their target.

Backing away through the undead, Liris abruptly shouted, “Undead! Kill anything with fur!”

All around Raeln, thousands of zombies turned slowly to follow him as he went after Liris. Rough fingers tried to grab at him, but he kept moving, trying to keep ahead of them. He soon had to resort to kicking them out of his way and fighting to keep his clothes out of their reaching fingers. Liris continued to avoid him, getting putting more and more distance between them. He struggled each step, casting aside his furs and cloak, giving the undead something to grab onto other than his flesh and his own fur. It bought him seconds, but more were on him before he could reach Liris.