Page 14 of City of Stone and Silence

“I got a little toasted,” I say. My voice is a rasp. “But I’ll live. If any of us do.”

“We have to get off the beach,” she says. “The crew can’t keep this up for long.”

“The buildings inland,” I say. “There might be something solid enough to defend.”

“Maybe.” She chews her lip. “If there’s not, though—or if more of these things are in there—”

“Where’s Veldi?”

The stranger, in his old-fashioned clothing, is quickly dragged to us. He looks as terrified as any of the children, fire reflected in his wide eyes, and his ridiculous braid-knot is badly singed. I have to ignite my blade under his nose to get his attention.

“How far to your lady? Where you wanted to take us?”

“A couple of hours’ walk,” he says. “But—”

“Too far.” I point at the jungle. “I saw a building close by. Who lives there?”

“No one,” he says, and then seems to understand. “It’s empty. Most of the city is abandoned.”

“But it’s still standing?”

He nods vigorously. I glance at Meroe.

“Better than staying here,” she says. “Give me a minute to get everyone moving.”

The tricky part is making sure the retreat doesn’t turn into a rout. If we split up and lose ourselves in the jungle, the corpses will pull us down one at a time.

Meroe gathers the strongest fighters—me, Zarun, Aifin, Thora, and Jack—and makes them the vanguard. The rest, especially the less powerful Myrkai and Tartak touched, form the perimeter that keep the corpses back. Everyone else just needs to run and keep together, which is going to be no small feat in the woods.

I shed my crab-shell plates and most of my clothes, keeping only a chest-wrap and trousers, trying to cool off. Angry red lines crisscross my skin already, running underneath the blue cross-hatching left over from the first time Meroe used her Ghul powers on me. Zarun spares a moment to raise an appreciative eyebrow, and I roll my eyes at him.

Meroe gives the signal, and the wall of fire parts. The dead surge forward, toppling the pile of burning bodies in their eagerness to get at us, and we charge to meet them. Aifin and I take the lead, me slashing the corpses apart with my blades, him working with a short sword in a blaze of golden Rhema speed. Beside us, Jack fights with a long spear and her Xenos Well, shadows boiling all around her, reaching out with webs of darkness to snare the monsters. Zarun and Thora, both Tartak adepts, concentrate on clearing the path, shoving corpses to either side.

Other crew move in behind us, widening the breach. Step by step, we pick up momentum, battering a small section of the horde aside. Meroe shouts herself hoarse, directing her packs to follow us, keeping the dead from re-forming their ring. Through the narrow gap, the mass of the crew floods, those in the lead carrying swords and spears to deal with any straggling monstrosities.

In less than a minute, we’re through. The dead are thinning out in front of us, not because we’ve cut their numbers, but because we’re leaving the great mass of them behind. I plunge into the forest, slashing underbrush out of my way, and jog forward by the light of my blades. Fortunately, beyond the verge, the vegetation thins at ground level, so we only need to weave between the canted trees and cut down any corpses that cross our path. Zarun runs on one side of me, slamming a dead woman out of the way with his shield and cutting her in half, while Thora and Jack take the other side, fighting together with practiced ease. Jack hoots in triumph as she slashes a creature apart, then dissolves into a swirl of shadow and re-forms nearby as three more try to dog-pile her. Aifin darts in, almost faster than my eye can follow, and cuts the trio to pieces.

Behind us, there are shouts, screams, and blasts of fire. I turn to look for Meroe, and spot her in the first rank, waving the others on. The fighters on the edges of the crowd try to keep everyone together, directing bolts of flame at the pursuing corpses. I see a girl stumble, sprawl, then lift into the air in a nimbus of blue as a Tartak user sets her back on her feet. Farther back, a young man runs the wrong way, heading to grab a screaming boy who’s fallen behind. He blasts one corpse with flames to reach the boy, but the great mass of dead swarms over them before he can get clear, and they both vanish under a tide of desiccated flesh.

“There!” Zarun shouts, gesturing with a glowing Melos blade. A hundred yards ahead, stone walls thickly carpeted with vines rise out of the jungle.

I gulp a breath. “Jack! Take Aifin and find us a way in!”

“Aye-aye, fearless leader!” she crows. “Clever Jack will break the path.” She taps Aifin and points—he can’t hear, but he gets the idea. He speeds up even further, blurring into a fading trail of golden light, and Jack follows in a shifting mass of shadow.

There are few corpses ahead of us now, and we spread out to either side, keeping them from working around the main body of the crew. I catch Meroe’s eye and point, hoping she understands. The wall of flame guarding our rear is ragged now, Myrkai users stumbling in exhaustion, and Zarun and I join them, slashing apart any creatures that get too close. We back up, step by step, half my attention on treacherous, root-strewn ground. Trip here, and the horde will drown you.

Time seems to blur. My skin is getting hot again; I drop my armor, letting the splintered nails of the corpses rake my skin, but even using my blades continuously for this long is draining. Zarun is breathing hard, exhaling a dragon’s plume of hot steam. Meroe’s voice cuts through the mêlée, cracked and ragged.

“Isoka! Fall back! We’re inside!”

Music to my rotting ears. I cut the head off a one-armed woman in the tattered remnants of a kizen and turn my back on the others, sprinting toward the dimly visible outline of the building. I catch sight of Thora, gesturing to us in between slapping corpses away with bolts of Tartak force, and head in her direction. An ancient stone staircase leads up a steep slope to an archway. I have a vague sense of a much larger structure stretching out around me, but my eyes are fixed on the arch, and I skid through it just ahead of Zarun and Thora.

We’re the last, except for the dead. They come boiling up the stairway behind us, climbing over one another in their eagerness to reach their prey. But Meroe has crew waiting, and the monsters have to press into a narrow space to try to crush into the doorway. Waves of fire slam out, turning dry, cracking flesh into boiling ash, incinerating dozens of the things at once. I laugh with giddy relief—fighting surrounded in the open is one thing, defending a narrow gap like this quite another. They can try all rotting day and they won’t make it through.

What’s more, they seem to know it. After that first rush, the dead pause. Then, as though they’ve suddenly lost interest, they turn away, stumbling back down the steps and into the forest. Within minutes, they’ve slipped into the shadows, and the only corpses in sight are those still burning.

We’d made it. But not all of us. Exhaustion and rage war in my chest. I push through the crowd of crew, looking for our hapless prisoner.