End Times in Dragon City (20 page)

“What about the rest of them?” I didn’t shout up at Spark, as I didn’t want to reveal my position and draw the zombies toward Kai and me. The dragonet still seemed to hear me just fine. 

Most are moving deeper into the city. They are not after you.

“Good to know.” 

Kai gave me a curious nudge. I waved him off for the moment. 

“Where’s the ruler?” 

Standing near the edge of the pit.

I pointed in that direction. “We need to find her,” I said to Kai. “Now. She’s the lynchpin here, the master puppeteer. We kill her, this is all over.” 

“Easier to make a plan than carry it out.” 

I started legging it faster. “It’s less of a plan and more of an objective.” 

I looked up at the dragonet. “Spark, can you get to Belle?” 

Yes. The Dragon is chasing them out over the wall. 

“Tell her to get back here and attack the Ruler of the Dead. We need her. Yabair too.” 

I will. 

Kai had lagged behind me. I waved for him to keep up. “You can rest when this is over.” 

“I used to say I could sleep when I’m dead.” He glanced back at the zombies still spilling over the wall. Some of them were walking away from the impact now, and it would be only a matter of time before they caught up with us. “Looks like that was wrong too.” 

I slowed down until Kai caught up, then slung his good arm across my shoulders. He grunted at me. “You’re a better friend than I ever was,” he said. 

“You set a low bar.” 

The land rose as we neared the pit, the rubble the Dragon had dug out of the ground protecting it. We climbed up the last bit of it and peered across the open gash to see the Ruler of the Dead standing on the far lip, the highest bit of ground around. Unfortunately, she was looking in the direction of the Dragon, who was chasing down Yabair and Belle, which meant she spotted us right away. 

I cursed as I hauled Kai down behind the edge of the pit. 

“You think she saw us?” he said. 

“How could she have missed us?” 

She saw you
. 

“You’re sure?” 

I can see into the pit. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I put my wand in my left hand and my pistol in my right, and I crept up to the lip of the pit to see for myself. 

Kai came right behind me, cradling the barrel of his shotgun in the crook of his injured arm. We reached the top of the pit and then popped our heads over at the same time, hoping that presenting multiple targets might confuse anyone inclined to shoot back at us. 

The Ruler of the Dead had disappeared. 

“Where’d she go?” 

She’s circling around to your right, but don’t worry about her. 

“She’s the Ruler of the Dead, and she’s hunting for us. What’s more pressing than that?” 

Kai nudged me with his shoulder and pointed into the pit. The insides of it swarmed with zombies clawing their way toward the surface. There had to be scores of them, maybe hundreds, and they all looked hungry and mad. The closest ones were only an arm’s length away. 

“Hello, son of Gib,” the nearest one said in the Ruler of the Dead’s voice. “How kind of you to join us.” 

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I stood up and fired a bullet into the closest zombie’s face as he reached for us. The creature’s head kicked back as its brains rocketed out of the back of its skull, and it tumbled backward, knocking the next few zombies behind it down the pit’s inside wall. 

Next to me, Kai let loose with both barrels of his shotgun, and the head of the zombie nearest him disappeared in a black mist. The remainder of its corpse toppled over, taking its neighbors with it. 

The rest of the zombies — every one of them in the pit — turned their heads toward us at once. They began to chant in low, guttural tones forced up through their rotted throats. At first I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then it became all too clear. 

“Join us,” they said. “Join us. Join us.” 

“When Goblintown went down, it didn’t get all the zombies,” Kai said as he reloaded his shotgun. “Some of the dead were hiding in the tunnels below us!” 

I shot the next three closest creatures. I didn’t bother to watch them fall back into the pit. “Or they were killed in the blasts, and the Ruler animated them back to life straight after that.” 

“Does it damn well matter?” Kai blasted into the pit again, catching two zombies at once this time. 

“Not a bit!” I emptied my pistol into three more creatures and then smacked it against a rock to reload it as we retreated from the lip of the pit. 

More zombies came curling up the other sides of the pit. If we didn’t move fast, they’d have us surrounded in moments. I glanced over at Kai, who had just finished reloading his shotgun again. “I got this,” he said. “I’ll keep them off you. Go!” 

He didn’t have anything but his shotgun, really, but I didn’t have any choice. If I could get to the Ruler fast, I might be able to save us all, even him, but if I tried to haul him along with me, we’d all die. 

I nodded my thanks at him, then sprinted off to my right. 

The pit seemed bigger than I remembered it. Maybe the Guard’s blasts had widened it. Maybe the zombies just made every step around it seem longer. Either way, it seemed like forever until I came around the edge of it and spotted once again the Ruler of the Dead. 

I had a spell on my lips already, but it died there when I saw her turn to greet me. I’d spied on her before through the crystal ball, sure, and I’d spoken with her through bodies she controlled. I’d never stood in her presence before, though, and it chilled me through. 

“Surrender to me, son of Gib, and I will make your transition painless.” Her voice was clear, her diction precise, but it sounded dry as a desert tomb. 

Every nerve in my body told me to turn and flee. I could outrun Kai. He’d slow them down for sure. Maybe I could get out of Goblintown, maybe even to the Dragon’s Spire. 

And then what? Maybe I could fly away? But where? The entire city would soon be hers. All the land around it already was. 

“Forget it.” I pointed my gun at her and fired. 

She raised her hand, and the bullet stopped in the air before her and fell to the earth. I emptied the rest of the revolver’s cylinder at her, and every one of my slugs met the same fate. 

She bared her teeth at me. “Painful it shall be.” 

I brought up my wand to give that a try instead. I summoned up my mojo and put everything I had into a vicious blast I hoped would tear her apart. As I was about to cast it, she brought her hands together and then up. 

An undead hand stabbed through the rubble below me and grabbed my ankle. I kicked at it hard with my free foot, but it held on like a vise. Another bony hand reached up and snagged my other foot. I smacked my pistol against it, but it refused to come loose. 

That did reload my pistol for me, though, and I fired at the wrist attached to that hand. The hand snapped free from its arm, although it continued to hang on. I did the same with the other hand, pumping two shots into it before I broke loose. 

I brought my gun back up, thinking the Ruler would be right there in front of me, ready to suck the life out of me with her sunken eyes. Instead, I saw her gazing up toward the moon, and I head Spark’s voice echoing inside my head. 

Incoming!

“What?” I scanned the sky, thinking I’d spot Spark barreling down at me, but it turned out to be the Dragon instead, diving in low, his sword-long talons reaching for me. 

I dove to the side and made myself as flat as I could. The Dragon’s claws raked across my back, tearing through my jacket and laying open my skin. Only the jagged rubble I’d fallen into kept the creature from snatching me up and carrying me into the sky. 

As the Dragon skittered past me and rose into the sky once more, Schaef’s carpet came swinging in low toward me too, chasing the beast now instead of playing its prey. I wondered if I could jump up and grab onto it as it passed, but before I could finish the thought, another bony set of hands reached up from the ground and grabbed my shoulders good. 

I tried to shove myself away from the rubble, but the arms held me tight, and a face attached to them emerged from the ground. It belonged to Wint, the orc I’d been playing cards with down here in Goblintown not so long ago, right up until the Guard slit his throat for trying to kill me. Now it looked like he might get his chance to finish the job. 

Wint opened his mouth and spoke with the Ruler’s raspy voice. “You cannot escape me. No one in Dragon City can. I rule your Dragon Emperor, and soon I will rule you all.” 

Then Wint hauled me down toward him, his hungry teeth snapping at me, ready to devour me alive, one vicious bite at a time. 

I jabbed my wand into Wint’s ear and let loose with the spell I’d prepared for the Ruler of the Dead. It was too much, and I was too close to it, but I didn’t have a choice. It was cast it or die. 

Wint’s body exploded. The only thing that saved me was that most of him still lay buried beneath the rubble of Goblintown. Still, the force of the blast was enough to punch me free from his grip and knock me flying backward, tumbling about like a leaf in a storm. 

I came to a rest at the feet of the Ruler of the Dead. I actually landed on the toes of one of her shoes and crushed it flat. It gave way beneath me like ash. 

She screamed and staggered backward, favoring her damaged foot. I rolled over onto my stomach and pushed myself up on wobbly legs. I’d just let loose every bit of mojo I had to save my life, and it had left me feeling as hollow as a shotgun’s barrel. 

“Surrender to me,” the Ruler of the Dead said. “You must be so tired. Just think how easy it would be.” 

I glanced around. Zombies now surrounded me on all sides and were closing ranks around us, between us. In the distance, I could still hear Kai firing his shotgun over and over again. “Come and get it, you bastards!” he said. “Buckshot is served!” 

“They will take him down,” the Ruler said. “It is inevitable. Death comes to everyone. And then they come to me.” 

“Not to you,” I said, “and not today.” 

I stood there all alone against her, beaten and bleeding and drained. I wanted nothing more than a belt of dragonfire to knock some life into me, but I knew the time for that had run out. Anyhow, if this was the end, I didn’t want any hint of the damn Dragon in me. 

I whacked my pistol against a collapsed wall nearby to reload it. Not that I thought it would do me much good, but if I was going to die here, I was going down shooting, right till the very end. I steeled myself for one final charge. 

Heads up!

I glanced toward the sky behind me and saw Spark coming in fast, aiming for the zombies right beyond me. I tried to wave him off, but he had too much momentum behind him. He let loose with a gout of flame as he roared over my head, and it scorched through everything in its path. 

The zombies between the Ruler of the Dead and me turned to ash as the flames enveloped them, and the blaze continued on to engulf her too. I raised my arm to shield my face from the blinding heat. It felt like I’d flown too close to the sun. 

When the air cooled enough I could open my eyes again, I saw the Ruler of the Dead standing there at the end of a column of ash. The flames had destroyed everything between us, but she remained unscathed. She opened her papery mouth and laughed. 

“If the Dragon couldn’t destroy me, what makes you think his hatchling can?” 

The ground between us still burned. I knew what I had to do. I just wondered if I could survive it. 

You have company. The good kind.

I felt Belle’s hand on my shoulder. She’d dived off Schaef’s carpet and come to my side. 

I wanted nothing more than to collapse into her arms right then and let her take over for me, but I couldn’t risk that yet. I still had a job to do. 

“My magic is holding the zombies at bay,” Belle said in a tender voice. “But there are too many of them. It won’t last long.” 

While she might have come down here to try to save me, I could see in her eyes she was also prepared to die with me. I kissed her hard, knowing it might be the last time. 

Then I turned to the Ruler of the Dead and spoke to her. 

“There’s only one thing that can harm you,” I said. “Not bullets. Not magic. Not fire. It’s life, isn’t it? Life.” 

Her triumphant grin became a grim frown. 

“That’s why you want to kill everything. Once we’re all dead, we can’t hurt you. You’ll be safe forever.” 

“I am death,” she said, glaring at me. “I am patient. Struggle all you wish. You cannot escape. No one can.” 

“I’m not trying to escape you,” I said. “Not anymore.” 

I put down my head and charged straight at her then, right down the path that Spark had blazed for me. I shouldered aside the ashen columns of zombies, and I dove straight at her backpedaling frame. 

I could feel the heat from the near-molten ground burning through my shoes. It felt like I had leaped from an oven straight into a fire. My skin started to blister, but I couldn’t stop. Not now. 

I reached the Ruler of the Dead, and she screeched at me in protest, raising her arms to protect herself. I swung my fist straight at her, my jacket sleeve bursting into flames, and I connected with her jaw, hard. 

My knuckles went right through her as if she was nothing more than dust held together with agonizing memories. She collapsed backward, her face already gone, and I reached out to gather her in my arms and clutch her to me. 

Everywhere I touched her, she disintegrated, crumbling to a fine powder that swirled around me in the roasting updraft and then blew away, disappearing on the midnight breeze. I stumbled forward, falling on top of her, crushing her into nothingness, and she was gone. 

The last thing I heard was the beating of leathery wings, and as everything went black, I shivered in the chill.

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