Chapter 63: Past the Shrine

Chapter 63: Past the Shrine

Shadows moved in the mist around the corner. A dark mass of swinging limbs and hunching shoulders, accompanied by the scuff of shoes against stone.

From a thinner patch of mist, a spark showed Eli the risens' white eyes and rictus smiles. Bonespurs burst from swollen cheekbones and around rotten tattered of skin. The risen had ropy hair and uneven gaits and wielded cudgels and swords. Yet, despite their twisted limbs, they loped forward as fast as living women and men, their strength giving them speed. Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience

"Get to the horses," Riadn said.

"Ten or eleven of them," Eli said, running alongside Lara.

From the rooftop, the man's fading voice called, "Temple District to ... east, only way ... inner wall ..."

"Meek in front," Riadn snapped.

Eli drew his falcona and sent one spark sweeping forward. He took longer strides, leaving Lara behind, watching in every direction at once.

Riadn sped up to follow, moving faster than he'd expected. She wasn't tall but she was all leg while Payde was all chest and shoulder. He ran like a blacksmith, but Eli suspected he wasn't trying to gain much distance; he preferred to remained in the rear in case they needed his shields.

Eli raced forward and--

A spike of power from the Reach made him gasp. He skidded around a corner on the damp-slick stone and there, a few yards away, three dark forms sifted from the mist.

Three risen, wearing the tattered, bloodied clothes of laborers or apprentices, with blind eyes watching Eli. Unarmed, with frozen smiles. No--four of them, but the fourth was low in the mist, running on his bare hands and feet like a mockery of an animal

Eli caught his balance with a spark and shouted a warning and the crouching risen leaped at him like a pouncing cat. He juked sideways and the dead man only struck him a glancing blow before the next one reached him with grasping arms.

A furious, frightened slice of falcona chopped off the dead woman's arm at the elbow. She didn't react except to grab with her other arm at Lara, who shrieked and slashed wildly with her short sword.

Eli spun to help and a spark showed him the fourth risen lunging for him from behind. Despite the warning, he wasn't fast enough to dodge. The risen's rotting arms clamped around his neck and its too-white teeth tore a mouthful of flesh from behind his ear.

He roared in pain and anger--then ignored that one. Instead, he chopped at the one attacking Lara and the risen took another bite out of him.

Riadn's blade caught it in the face and drove it off him and Payde lopped off the crouching risen's head in mid-leap. A single blow of his axe and the thing hit the ground and burst like an overripe fig.

"Happy news!" Payde boomed, while Riadn rolled low. "Take their heads!"

Riadn's quick blade sliced through a rotting calf, making the risen who'd grabbed Eli topple to its side. "Slow them--more coming--keep moving!"

Eli shoved his falcona into the second risen's chest and drove it backward while Lara hacked at the toppled risen's neck until it stilled.

With a backhanded slash Riadn chopped through a knee and shouted, "Retreat, retreat!"

The risen mob appeared through the mist, jerking and hobbling yet moving fast. The one without a calf grabbed Payde's boot and Eli stomped its wrist to break the hold while the first few risen slammed to a halt as if they'd struck an invisible wall.

Because they had.

Payde took a shaky breath. "Choir, that's hard with the Reach in my head."

"Run, Payde," Eli growled, and shoved the other man after Riadn and Lara.

Eli stayed in the rear, watching behind himself with a spark as the mob tore the mage shield apart.

Ahead, Riadn sprinted through the remains of a pillared hall. Heaps of stones--some with faces, some with wings--statues--flashed to either side as Eli followed. They hadn't come this way, but he didn't have to time to wonder if they were lost. The mob moved faster than they did--faster that Payde and Lara at least.

His spark showed the creatures closing in every time the swirls of mist momentarily lightened. Forty feet away, then thirty. And more of them kept joining the mob, jerking into place around half-melted staircases and pebbled walls.

And the constant hum of the Reach eased slightly.

"Hellbless," Payde panted, when Riadn slowed for him to catch up. "I can think again."

"Yeah, the Reach is softer here," Eli said.

"Dreamer shrine," Riadn said by way of explanation, pointing to a squat, domed building.

Looked like any other building in the Weep to Eli, like a pile of stone without any entrances or exists, without any safety or sanctuary.

"They weren't Dreamers when that was built," Payde reminded her.

"So it's an Eld shrine?" Lara asked.

"Dreamer shrines weaken Celestial magic," Eli told Payde. "And maybe Bloodwitch magic. Except that's not what we're feeling from the Reach."

"Expert on magic, are you?" Payde asked.

"I'm dryn," he said, to cover that fact that he was guessing. "But also, the risen following us? They're slowing a bit as they get closer. It's affecting them."

"Sound like they're still getting closer, though," Lara said.

"Come," Riadn said, and trotted past the shrine.

Six temples to the Old Gods lined a square beyond the Eld chapel. At the far end of the square, a slab of stone--a section of the inner wall--drooped halfway to the ground.

And dozens of risen shambled from between the buildings. Moving slower, but not by much. At first sight, they truly did look like the risen dead. Like walking corpses. Except they weren't even that human. Some crept forward on hands and knees. Some were eyeless, yet still clearly saw--or at least sensed. Most of them smiled rictus smiles that reminded Eli of Angelbood, but instead of humming those terrible Celestial hymns, they uttered no sound.

"Give us a ramp," Riadn said, trotting toward the stone slab.

"Festooned with roses and singing a song of praise," Payde said.

A shimmer appeared in the mist, near the lowest stretch of the sagging wall.

Riadn stepped into a chunk of half-dissolved gatehouse at the edge of the square then leaped onto the shield-ramp, as if walking on mist. The shield remained intact beneath her until she reached the top. Showing the way.

"Lara," she said, turning to reach for Lara as she walked up the ramp.

"You," Payde told Eli, in a tight voice.

Eli looked to Riadn. "I'm last."

"Payde," she said, "come."

Payde grunted acknowledgement. "Captain."

Beads of sweat gleamed on his forehead as he climbed onto the remains of the gatehouse. With the risen shambling closer, Payde basically fell onto his mage-shield. The shimmer flickered slightly, but stayed intact as Payde crawled to the top of the slab of wall.

With risen closing in around him, Eli climbed the gatehouse--and the shield flickered again. It wasn't going to last long enough. He knew that. No reason to pretend. The instant he set foot on it, it would disappear beneath him and he'd fall ass-backward into a murderous mob.

And however fast he healed, they'd tear him apart even faster.

"Now!" Riadn yelled.