Page 13 of City of Stone and Silence

Up ahead, at the edge of the woods, I can see the flash and glow of magic. Myrkai fire spits into the trees, bolts blossoming into balls of flame on impact. The blue of Tartak force flickers through the underbrush, and then the brilliant green of Melos energy, with its characteristic hissing crackle. That has to be Zarun himself—there are precious few Melos users left among the crew.

I reach the scene to find a pack of a dozen crew retreating in the face of dozens of silent figures stumbling out of the woods. For a moment, I look at the newcomers with their shambling, drunken gait and wonder if they need help. That thought lasts until the closest of them grabs one of the crew, a young man, and bears him to the ground, twisting his arm the wrong way with an audible crack. He screams, and bolts of Tartak force batter his attacker, who hangs on to the shattered limb with grim determination.

Well. Score one for paranoia. I concentrate for a moment, letting energy from the Melos Well flow through me. Twin blades of brilliant green energy ignite at my wrists with a snap-hiss, sparks crawling over them and running up my arms. The air around my body hums, suffused by more Melos power, an intangible barrier ready to crackle to life. I charge, sprinting past the line of crew hurling bolts of fire. Heat from a stray blast washes over me, but I ignore it, trusting my armor. I reach the fallen crewman and bring a blade around in a horizontal sweep, slashing through his attacker’s neck. The head flies off into the trees, and I instinctively take a step back to avoid the gushing arterial spray.

Only it doesn’t come. There’s no blood at all, in fact. Nor does the attacker fall. By the light of my blades, I can see that it’s a desperately thin woman, her rib cage visible under dark, puckered skin, and—

Green light gleams on bones. Her ribs are visible, peeking through gaps in her flesh. And her body is still moving, dropping the poor boy’s arm to head in my direction.

This isn’t a woman at all. It’s a walking corpse, and the loss of its head doesn’t seem to slow it down. It lunges for me, long, splintery nails scraping against a flare of Melos armor. My body reacts automatically, spinning away and chopping the thing’s arm off at the elbow. I take off its other arm when it reaches for me again, and give it a kick that connects with a crunch of breaking bone. Even then, it writhes on the ground, the headless, armless body trying to regain its feet.

Oh, Blessed. Dead is dead. Dead is dead is dead, and there’s no such things as ghosts. So what in the Blessed’s rotten entrails is going on?

The sentiment seems to be shared by the crew fighting around me, who are giving ground rapidly as more and more of the things shuffle out of the woods. Several corpses are ablaze now, stumbling about wreathed in Myrkai fire, still trying to reach their prey even as they burn. I can hear the panic in the voices of the defenders as they call to each other.

“They’re just rotting puppets!” Zarun roars. He has a long Melos blade in one hand and a shield of green light in the other. One of the creatures lurches against him, a big man whose corpse shows signs of having been sewn back together. Zarun lets it throw itself against his shield, raising a shower of sparks, then cuts it in half at the waist with a single blow. “Tear them to bits if you have to!”

I force myself to focus and add my voice to his. “He’s right! Dead or not, they won’t hurt you with no arms or legs!”

When the next creature comes for me, a heavyset woman trailing long, tattered folds of skin, I’m ready. I sidestep its first rush, remove one arm, spin to cut off the other as it turns to face me, then cut off its head with a crossing slash of both blades. It’s a showy combination, but effective, and it puts some heart into the crew. Fire splashes out with renewed vigor, and blue Tartak bonds hold back the burning creatures until they collapse. Zarun and I take the lead, cutting apart the stumbling bodies one after another.

For a moment, I think we’re winning. But there are too many of them, the crowd emerging from the woods getting thicker. I can see the flare and crackle of fighting all along the perimeter now, but there’s no time to worry about the rest of the crew, no time to do anything but slash, sidestep, slash again, cutting apart the bloodless creatures like I’m chopping firewood. But it’s not going to work. They’re getting around me, hands grasping and scratching, and all I can do is keep moving. Beyond the oncoming horde, I see the boy with the broken arm take off running back toward the camp. A girl, spraying a torrent of fire from her cupped hands onto one creature, doesn’t see two more grabbing her from behind. She goes down, and her scream cuts off abruptly amid wet, gristly sounds.

Rotting scumsuckers. I spin away from the pack, bulling through the group that’s built up around me, blades slashing wildly. Cold, rotten flesh parts easily, but fingers continue to tear at me, sparks spitting and popping from my armor. I’m nearly clear when one of them gets a hold on my wrist, jerking me backward with inhuman strength. I can hear the creature’s flesh frying in the continuous discharge from my armor, a wild coruscation of green light and a vile stench, but it hangs on. Another of the things throws itself on my other arm, my blade punching through its chest even as it pulls me closer. Heat washes over me, building up under my armor, and I start to feel the first hints of panic. I stagger backward, brushing up against another straining corpse, and—

There you are.

The voice rings in my mind, carried on a wave of Eddica energy wafting out of the creatures that hold me. I can feel Eddica power everywhere, in fact, flowing out of Soliton, pulsing under the soil like blood through a vein, and curling up into these withered corpses. For a moment, a face hangs in the air, the same monstrosity I saw on the ship, with flyaway white hair and black holes for eyes. Skin cracks as its lips move, speaking to me.

You can hear me, can’t you? Yes, of course you can.

The world beyond the voice dims to vague shadows. I try to focus.

It has been a long time since one of us arrived, the voice says.

Who are you? I ask.

They call me Prime. There’s a note of humor in the voice, a barely suppressed chuckle. I wondered why so many survived the passage. No doubt you protected them.

Call off your monsters, I think at him, desperately. Tell me what you want.

Come to me, he counters. Leave the others. You don’t need them anymore. His withered face contorts into a smile. This is our place. I will teach you. You will never need anyone ever again.

Go rut one of your rotting corpses, I tell him.

Very poetic, he says. We’ll see if you still think—

The voice cuts off as a glowing green blade severs the arm of the creature holding me. I find myself on my knees, my armor flaring all over, so hot it feels like I’ve stepped into a bread oven. It’s all I can do to gasp for breath as Zarun cuts down another creature and kicks a third away from me. I drop my armor and let my blades fade, and he takes my arm and pulls me to my feet. I’m drenched in sweat, and I can already feel the hot pain of powerburn running across my skin.

“Isoka!” he says. “We have to get out of here!”

No rotting kidding. I raise my head, and catch sight of waves of flame rippling out. I point, and Zarun nods. We head that way, ducking and dodging through the ranks of the dead. After a few moments, I ignite my blades again and keep Zarun clear as he hacks a path.

The crew have pulled back into a tight circle, the children in the center, an outer perimeter of Myrkai users directing continuous streams of flame into the darkness. Behind them, crew with spears and Tartak force shove the corpses back, keeping a narrow area clear inside a growing pile of burning bodies. I don’t even have to wonder who got them into formation.

There’s no way to alert them to open the circle and let us in, so I take a deep breath and raise my armor, wincing at the pain in already-burned skin. Zarun and I kick through a waist-high heap of charred and burning bodies, then sprint forward, and I pray the brilliant green flaring from our armor will keep the Tartak users in the crew from flinging us away. It works, thank the Blessed, and we skid to a halt on the other side of the wall of flames. Zarun drops his armor, steam rising from his body, and absently slaps at his shirt where a corner of it has caught fire.

“Isoka!” Meroe fights through the press. “Oh, gods—I thought—”