'Maze, hold me up,' Jaeriko demanded.
'What?'
'Just do it.' What felt like a band of iron wrapped around her waist, and Jaeriko felt Maze's breath against the shell of her ear.
'Hurry—I can't hold you for long.'
Furrowing her brow, Jaeriko clasped one hand to her locket. She brought it to her lips. She didn't dare open it over the water—she hoped she didn't need that strength. Fear ran through her mind scattering her thoughts. The cold was ruining her concentration. With her free hand, she massaged their prisons stone circumference.
Just as she thought the stone would never answer, just as she felt Maze's arms weaken around her waist and saw the assassin's head begin to loll, she felt the fire of the stone's answer tear through her. Her fingers pushed through the stone and pulled a dollop of it away to rub between her fingers like clay. She shuddered with relief, and hit Maze's shoulders with her palms. 'Let me down! All we have to do is push the grate up—it should move easily, at least for now.'
Maze fixed her with an appraising glance. 'You're more useful than you let on.'
Jaeriko was unable to fully appreciate Maze's comment as her body quavered and shook. It was as though all of her heat had been consumed in that one spell.
'Just get us out of here,' Jaeriko managed, her teeth chattering and clashing on every syllable. Maze nodded and let the water close over her head as she sank to the bottom of the cistern. Then, with a powerful push of her legs, Maze slammed out of the water and into the grate. It resisted initially but then pulled free of the softened stone with a wet pop. Hand-over-hand, Maze pushed the grate to one side of the cistern.
Pumping her legs, Jaeriko pushed herself up to the opening of the cistern and dug her fingers into the clay. She felt the water rush by her legs as Maze did the same. With agonizing slowness, she pulled herself up just enough to see where they had landed themselves.
A single light smoldered like a fallen star stuck in a white fang of a tower. It struck her as strange—how were the general's soldiers to stand guard with so little illumination? Then her eyes adjusted, and she saw the broken and malformed shapes that hunched like gargoyles along the walls. The undead required no light—nor sustenance other than that which can be garnered from a battlefield. They were the perfect soldiers.
A hiss of breath stirred the hair on the back of Jaeriko's neck; then a hand pushed her under the icy water. She heard the clang of metal on stone as the grate was shoved back in place—or almost back in place. Kicking and pulling at the hand tangled in her hair, Jaeriko struggled to catch sight of her attacker. Dark eyes met hers with a warning, and she stopped fighting. The hand let go of her hair and together, Maze and Jaeriko looked up through the distortion of the water.
A pale shape skittered forward, its limbs moving with unnatural speed and a total absence of grace. When it came to the grate it jerked to a halt and stood as still as stone. Lungs burning, Jaeriko began to panic. If she couldn't get to the surface soon, she would not live long enough to be killed. Just as it seemed the creature would never move again, it shuddered, and its head snapped in their direction.
Jaeriko bit back a gasp. The flesh had rotted on the left side of its face, baring white jaws and missing teeth. A rip in the skin under its eye socket shone like a red tear over which stared dispassionate eyes the color of old milk. It stood stiller than life above the grate, its old armor hanging off it like fat off a bone, looking— expressionless—at them. If it had been alive, Jaeriko would have sworn it had seen them and that their death would shortly follow, but after another lung-searing moment it took off in the same swift, broken gait as before.
Surfacing again with a pain-racked breath, Jaeriko allowed herself to shudder. She turned to thank Maze but Maze's attention was elsewhere. In her element at last, Maze shrugged the grate aside as though she were shedding a cloak, then surged out of the water and over the edge of the cistern with a speed and silence that spoke of exceptional strength and control. All was still for a moment, and Jaeriko tried to determine if she were to follow, then Maze's hand appeared out of the darkness, and the deft woman helped pull her out of the water.
The stench hit her first, coursing over her in waves—the sweet bite of rot, the bitter tang of blood, and the animal musk of feathers and crow's leavings. Then she noticed the glint of copper on the ground. Her fingers closed around the flickering metallic light. A copper coin. Looking for the round shapes now, she saw the floor was littered with them and what appeared to be sheets of paper. Armor, weapons, and bodies were oddly absent. She could smell them, but she couldn't make any out in the darkness.
Maze tapped her on the shoulder and pointed. Following the line of her finger, Jaeriko saw the same pale figure that had stood over them moments before scrambling past the tower without pause.
'It's running a circuit—bound undead are as predictable as the stars. We probably have another thirty heartbeats before it starts heading back this way.' Maze pulled at Jaeriko's arm. 'Follow me.'
The assassin uncoiled like a cat and stalked forward, her body held low and her eyes focused on the white tower. Jaeriko followed as best she could, but found her eyes drawn again and again to the carpet of coins, papers, buttons, and refuse. There was something eerie about what was left behind—what the dead and their general had decided they didn't need. She passed a dark ribbon tied around a lock of muddy hair, a half-eaten trail ration crawling with moon-white maggots, a silver heart-shaped locket with broken hinges and shattered glass, a much-folded sketch of a woman looking back over her shoulder....
She forced her eyes up and almost ran into Maze, pressed against the outside of the white tower like a shadow. Maze scowled back at her, then motioned for Jaeriko to move up next to her. The tower wall was cut from a stone that left a sandpaper finish, and her clothes and hair caught and tugged at her as she sidled up next to Maze.
'Why didn't that thing try to kill us back there?' Jaeriko whispered. Maze snuck a furtive glance through the finger-wide crack between the door and the wall near where it locked, then stared out in the direction of the cistern as she answered.
'It's probably operating under strict rules,' Maze whispered back. 'If we don't technically violate the conditions of its binding, it doesn't have to do anything. I was betting that it hadn't been given instructions as to what to do to people found underneath the citadel—as we were when we were submerged in the cistern.'
'How do you know it wasn't given instructions to just tell the general?' asked Jaeriko.
'I don't,' Maze said. Jaeriko's mouth formed an O. 'That's why we have to move fast.' Tension was visible in every line of Maze's body—from the tendons standing out on her neck to the stiff arch in her back. Tilting her head skyward, Maze closed her eyes and pulled what looked like a prayer necklace from her pocket. Fingering the long strand set with a bead in the center, she whispered something Jaeriko couldn't catch. Just then, the door to the tower swung wide, and another pale figure emerged, this one hung with brass metal plates with a soot-blackened blade slung through its belt. The metal of the blade made a quiet hiss as it rasped along the stone.
The moment it strode past them, Maze leaped at its back, knee first, and whipped the cord around its neck, the bead centered beautifully on the center of its throat. Her knee planted itself mid-spine. Jaeriko watched in horror as Maze yanked back on the cord and shoved down with her knee, riding the flailing creature to the ground.
'Destroy it!' Maze said, and Jaeriko stared at her.
The flesh on the creature Maze had mounted sagged as though it wanted to flee the bone, but the lack of living muscle seemed to have no effect on its strength as it set a yellow-clawed hand down on each side of it.
'Now!' Maze said, a note of panic entering her voice.
But Jaeriko stood, frozen, as the rotting creature pushed up and spun under Maze's hold till it faced her and the bridle she'd improvised proved useless.
Maze cursed and dropped the strand, the bead forgotten. Her arms crossed and she withdrew a knife like a thorn from a sheath on her upper arm—then she fell backward as yellow claws filthy with decay snapped up at her, rolling out of harm's way. The pale monstrosity, liberated from its rider, climbed to its feet seemingly uninjured, but in the light from the tower above, Jaeriko could see the shadow where its windpipe used to be.
The creature opened its mouth as though to shriek, but a wet gurgle was all that found its way out. Then its dead eyes found hers. In two quick jerks it turned to face her, like a badly strung marionette. Jaeriko knew she should run, duck, strike, something, but in terror's grip she stood transfixed by its impassive gaze. Gathering its
