something in my tone must have told him all he needed to know, because he nodded and walked with me out of the room without pause.
The captain's yell from the room at the end of the hallway easily confirmed where he'd taken Tala. They would have a clear view over the courtyard, which meant that anyone trying to follow them into the room could get Tala killed simply by the captain opening the window and throwing her out to the waiting hoard of monsters.
My options weren't great. Take Wapi to safety and leave his sister to the captain's insanity, or keep him with me and risk the barren gaining entry to the house before we could escape.
I'd just decided to get Tala before leaving the house, when a single barren reached the top of the stairs at the end of the hallway, next to the room where the captain and Tala were.
The barren, its skin grey and oily, glanced up to where I stood, and made a noise more akin to an animal than a human. Wapi took a few steps back as the monster started slowly toward us. Within seconds it was moving at a full run, barrelling toward us at a speed that you'd never have thought possible for something dead.
I raised one hand and a thin jet of flame left my index finger, striking the husk in the forehead. The dead monster stopped moving almost immediately, a dark black, oil-like substance leaking from its head. It wobbled slightly and then fell to the floor. The fire had incinerated the brain of the barren. They might be dead, but no brain, no motor skills. 'It's dead,' I said to a still nervous Wapi. He didn't appear convinced. I kicked the barren as I went by, and when it didn't move, Wapi got the idea, but still hurried to join me.
We reached the end of the hallway without further incident, but two more barren were making their way up the stairs toward us, side by side. I readied a fireball, but they stopped moving and collapsed before they could take another step, revealing Sky in their place. A long dagger, with shimmering blue edges and a translucent centre, was in one of her hands, a tomahawk axe in the other. Sky's soul weapons.
'You took too long,' she said, stepping over the husks as the weapons dissipated.
I brought Sky up to speed quickly. 'We need to get the girl away from that maniac,' she said to me after she'd finished talking to Wapi.
'My plan exactly, but you need to keep an eye out for anything coming up those stairs.'
The long dagger reappeared in her hand, and, after Wapi pointed at it, she caught me staring. 'Haven't you ever seen a soul weapon before?'
'Not often,' I admitted. Soul weapons were a necromancer's abilities in weapon form. It didn't harm the physical body of whomever it hit, but it actually caused injury to their soul, killing them without ever leaving a mark.
'You ready?' I asked Sky, who moved Wapi so that he was stood behind her.
As much as turning the door to ash might have given me a sense of satisfaction, it would also get Tala killed.
But any plan I had was forgotten when the window inside the room smashed and someone screamed. I slammed a force of air into the door’s hinges, and kicked the door open. Inside the room, a ghoul sat on the windowsill, his long fingers around the throat of Captain Waltham, who was holding onto Tala's arm tightly as she struggled to escape his grasp.
The ghoul glanced over at me, smiled and jumped out of the window, dragging Waltham and Tala out into the cool night air.
I darted to the smashed window and watched in horror as the ghoul, now standing on the roof of the nearest building, threw his captives away with a casual move of his arm.
Captain Waltham crashed into the hard ground and was immediately surrounded by husks, eager to be fed once more. Tala landed awkwardly, rolling toward the centre of the courtyard. But at least she was free of Waltham's grip, as the barren began to tear into him. The sounds of torn flesh and crunching bone accompanied his screams as they filled the night.
'Two minutes,' I said to Sky, as I climbed onto the sill. 'You make sure that entrance to the underground room is open in two minutes.'
Sky glanced behind her, as glass smashed downstairs. 'Looks like I have a few barren of my own to deal with,' she said. 'You'd better make it ten.'
I dropped from the window to the ground outside, using air magic to knock a nearby barren from his feet. I sprinted toward Tala who was being surrounded by barren. She’d grabbed a cavalry sabre and was waving it toward her advancing attackers. Captain Waltham's screams had gone silent, but the barren around him were still deep in feeding. It hadn't been a good death, but I couldn't bring myself to feel sorrow for his fate. He'd brought it on himself.
Tala kicked out at a nearby barren, driving it back slightly, but they'd smelled a fresh meal and wouldn't be so easily dissuaded. A blast of air magic caused three barren to tumble away, arms and legs flailing; it would have been comical if they weren't covered in the blood of their previous victims.
I knelt beside Tala. 'Can you get to that door over there?' She followed my hand as I pointed toward the main entrance to the safe room, fifty yards away.
Tala shook her head. 'I hurt my foot.'
I didn't have time to examine her injuries and deal with the quickly encircling barren. 'Ten minutes might be a problem,' I said mostly to myself.
'I don't want to die here,' Tala said softly.
'Me neither,' I assured her. 'Tala I need you to crouch down and close your eyes until I tell you otherwise. Can you do that?'
Tala nodded and quickly assumed the position, her hands tightly over her eyes.
I drew a throwing knife from its home on my belt, and waited until one of the barren had gotten just close enough. I sliced through one of my palms, slapped my hands together and then slammed them into the dirty ground. The effect was immediate. The earth cracked open slightly and fire exploded upwards until it had made a complete circle all around Tala and me.
'You can open your eyes now,' I said, my hands pressed firmly into the ground. 'Try not to touch the fire.'
Tala opened her eyes wide, a mixture of wonder and fear flickering through them. 'How?' she whispered.
'Magic.' The orange fire glyphs and the black glyphs of blood magic swirled around one another. 'But it takes a lot to use this much.'
Dozens of barren waited just outside the fire's reach, but something inside them needed to get to us, and no danger was too great. They began walking into the fire one at a time, only to become completely incinerated before they'd taken more than a step. The circle of flame was a yard thick in places, ensuring that nothing could get through unscathed. But every time a barren died in the fire, it took more power from me to maintain the integrity of our only means of surviving until that door was opened.
'Are you okay?' Tala asked, after what felt like a lifetime of pouring a huge amount of magic out of me.
I nodded slowly, but daren't speak lest my concentration wavered for even a second. Which is all it would take for Tala and me to be overrun. I knew I couldn't keep it up; using such a strong magic for any longer than a few minutes, four or five at the most, took a tremendous toll on a sorcerer. I doubted more than three minutes had passed, and I was already forcing myself not to give up, despite how my body was aching for me to stop. A fifth and sixth barren hurled themselves at the fire, and I a felt a cold bead of sweat run down my neck.
'You need me,' a voice said from deep inside.
'No,' I whispered. 'I don't.'
'You need to let me free. You need to give yourself over to me. Otherwise you and the girl will die.'
I hated that it spoke the truth. 'I will not give myself over to you.'
The voice almost seemed to sigh. 'I wonder if all sorcerers are as stupid as you. I am the living embodiment of the magic inside you, and I need you to continue to exist. I wish you no harm. Do we really need to have this conversation again?'
It had a point. My whole life, I'd been told that giving into the magic would turn a sorcerer into a nightmare, a being of unparalleled power and evil, in equal measure. When I used too much magic for too long, the voice came to me, begging for me to embrace it, to allow us to become one.
'I know what you're thinking, but I can't merge fully with you. Those marks on your chest make it impossible.'
