“What?”
“Jewels without wires, look!” He pointed at the one which had attacked him. Amid the rotten, worm-ridden gray matter lay a topaz, faceted with strange angles, cut in half. It smoked. She shuddered, seeing no wires wrapped around it.
“He is a sorcerer,” she whispered. “Jewels need wires shaped and bent about their cut faceted to channel their effect and harness their power. Dualayn showed me. He taught me. I’ve made my own jewel machines. He knows no method of using a gem without them.”
“Dje’awsa knows,” Ōbhin said. “We have to go. What if there are more of them?”
Claws scrambled in the night, moving around the public house.
She didn’t resist as he pulled her towards the light, her sweaty palm gripping her binder.
*
Ōbhin dragged Avena away from the two abominations. The scrabble of claws made his blood run cold. He drew his sword. He could kill them if he hit their gem, but their mere presence had almost unmanned him. His stomach begged to be emptied.
The harmony of the world was disrupted tonight. Monsters stalked it. Real ones, not legends of snowsnakes or shape changing grumliicho or avalanchirim. The forbidden use of obsidian was responsible. He had to get Avena to safety. She was lucky to be alive.
No, she bound the beast’s legs before it hit her. She threw it off just enough to escape.
He raced down the side of the Gray Pillar for the bright light of the diamond lamp. It lit up the fog and the street. He could hear the people moving around. It wasn’t long after sunset. The mist wouldn’t keep the locals from finding their favorite public houses.
His chainmail rattled as they pounded down the alley and burst out onto the street, the tavern’s obscene sign swinging to the right. A large, covered wagon was parked before the tavern, horses tethered. The foul scent of rot pervaded from it. The back was covered by dyed-black canvas stretched over a frame, the flaps pulled down to hide the contents.
He wanted to gag.
The public house’s door crashed open. Dje’awsa stepped out, a cruel smile on his face. He stood with confidence, his thumb caressing his obsidian wand like Ōbhin had once touched Foonauri. A look of almost erotic pleasure crossed the man’s lips.
Anger burst through Ōbhin. He almost pivoted. Five paces, a quick sprint, and he would have the man’s head off.
The canvas closing at the back of the wagon burst open. Rotting men poured out. Some had the bloated corpses of the recent dead, their bellies distended, their skin waxy and blubbery. They landed naked, a foul reek wafting from them. Others were skeletons covered in scraps of rotting flesh, amethysts visible in the backs of their skulls, peeking through gaps in bone. They had sharp finger bones that reached for him, their footsteps rattling across the ground, different from the meaty slap of dozens of fleshy corpses.
Ten disgorged. Twenty. Fifty. More.
“Run!” Ōbhin shouted, yanking on Avena to swing her before him and send her stumbling down the street away from the walking horrors. A primal revulsion at the abominations stumbling towards him struck Ōbhin.
This was a crime against the order of the world. The dead desecrated, animated, and bound into a mockery of slavery. They rushed at Ōbhin. The stench overwhelmed him. His stomach curdled. His sword flashed, cutting off the first reaching hand, the skin parting. It landed with a wet splat at his feet, the muscles liquefied from rot and oozing out of a waxy sheath of skin.
The corpse stumbled on, heedless of its lost limb.
Ōbhin turned and raced after Avena, one moment from utter panic. His legs stretched out, his humming sword gripped in his hand. The bony rattles and fleshy smacks chased after him along with sloshing gurgles from the bloated dead.
“Raleth, sing with pure, white brightness and drive away the dark,” he prayed in Qothian. “Vatsim, gird my legs with the strength to—”
Something heavy struck his back. The weight drove him face first to the street. He landed hard. His hand relaxed, his sword skittering free of his grip and sliding across the cobblestone. Teeth snapped at the back of his chainmail, four feet pressing down on him.
The third hound ripped at him as the walking dead surged forward.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Avena threw a look over her shoulder as she reached the intersection. “Ōbhin, this . . .”
Her words died as she saw him thrashing on his stomach, one of the foul hounds on his back. The horrors pouring out of the back of the wagon, spilling out like salted cod from a smashed barrel, rushed towards him. Fear lashed at her.
Run, you stupid girl.
Already, her legs were moving her in the wrong direction. Not towards safety, but towards danger. She would save Ōbhin from the darkness. Not let him be dragged into it. Her mind recoiled from her stubborn actions, fear flaying her soul.
You’re going to die! Don’t do this! Idiot! They’ll rip you apart! What can you do?
She snatched up his fallen sword as Ōbhin covered the back of his head against the beast’s savaging teeth. He bucked his back, trying to throw the hound off. The horde of corpses was closer. Five paces. She rushed at Ōbhin, gripping the humming tulwar, the hilt feeling strange in her right hand, her left clutching her binder.
Four paces.
She reached him and screamed.
Three paces.
She slashed the tulwar down at the beast’s back. She was prepared for resistance, to feel the blade bite into its flesh. Instead, it passed through its spine and torso like it didn’t even exist. She gasped and yanked up her stroke right before it buried into Ōbhin’s body.
Two paces.
The beast fell into two halves, the rear half lying limp. The
