Tam shot a quick glance at Tira, then wiped his palms on his thighs. "Ah, Raven Crossing. It's a town south-west of here."
"Who are you?"
Tam's eyes narrowed a bit at the peremptory tone. It looked as if his awe of the shining breastplates was fading. "Tam," he said, and broke eye contact, gazing off at the horizon as if bored.
Tira smothered a grin. She knew by now that Tam had good judgement. He wouldn't go too far in provoking the officer, but the man needed a good tweaking.
"We were kidnapped!" Lina blurted, and immediately her sister chimed in.
"Tam and Tira saved us, and now they're taking us home!"
"We saw dwarves," Lina said, and the two girls were immediately in competition, talking over top of each other, telling the story of their adventure in a disjointed rush.
The officer listened for a while, then raised a gauntleted hand. He seemed startled when the girls kept right on talking. He frowned and barked, "Enough!"
The girls fell silent, and he lowered his hand. His eyes went from Tira's bow and sword to the sword on the roof of the cart, in easy reach of Tam's right hand. "By what right do you bear arms on the king's highway?"
Tira laughed out loud, and he turned in his saddle, anger on his face. She smirked at him. "You want us to ride unarmed through goblin country? Will you be escorting us back to the village, then?"
The officer reddened. "You can keep your weapons," he said at last. He glared at each of them in turn, then said reluctantly, "You'd better ride with us, at least for this evening. There are dark forces afoot in the kingdom. We can keep you safe tonight, at least."
He didn't ask if they wanted an escort. He just told half of his men to ride behind the cart, and led the other half ahead of the cart. They moved out, Tira catching Tam's eyes and shrugging.
The girls seemed dazzled by the cavalrymen, gazing wide-eyed at men and horses. Mikail sat straighter on his pony, emulating the riders, flushing when he saw Tira watching him.
They rode for an hour before a low structure appeared on the side of the road. There was a tiny stream meandering across a meadow, and a crude wooden fortress stood beside the water. It was a palisade of logs, the tops sharpened, forming a circular wall ten or so feet high. The riders led them inside, where they found a compound about fifty feet wide. There were no buildings, just hitching rails for horses and a roof mounted on posts covering a rectangle of ground fifteen feet on a side. There was straw under the roof, and Tira recognized it as a shelter for sleeping, to keep the men out of the rain.
Low platforms stood at four points around the palisade, just big enough for one or two men to stand on and see over the top of the palisade. The officer put a man on each platform, then sent a couple of men to gather firewood. Another man built a fire while the rest unsaddled and brushed the horses.
The officer himself came over to where the five of them were gathered by the cart. He tugged off his gauntlets, tucked them under his arm, and gave them a thin smile. "My name is Carmody," he said. "If I was... brusque... before, I apologize." He closed his eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose, looking suddenly tired. "We lost a couple of men a few days ago. Things have been tense."
"We appreciate the escort," Tira said. She didn't like Carmody, but she felt a lot safer in the compound with his men all around.
"You'll be on your own starting tomorrow," he said. "I hope you make it home safe."
Tira went out at dusk with her bow and bagged a partridge and a skinny rabbit. She contributed those, plus some carrots they'd gotten from the dwarves, to the communal stew pot. As the sky went dark and the stars came out, the firelight flickered on the palisade and the compound became almost cheery. Except for a pair of soldiers on guard duty, everyone sat in a circle around the fire, eating and chatting. The men took off their breastplates and helmets, and instead of menacing, anonymous soldiers, they became a bunch of young men, some as young as Tam, with easy grins and hair standing up in tufts.
A couple of soldiers set out to amuse Lina and Sari, telling stories and silly jokes. On the far side of the fire, a man let Mikail try out his sword, and told stories of battles while the boy listened, eyes shining.
Carmody assigned men to sentry duty, two men at a time in rotating watches, then stood. "Dawn comes early," he said. "Let's-"
There was a flicker of motion in the darkness, and a sudden spray of sparks from the fire. Carmody sprang back, his hand going to the hilt of his sword, and several of his men got to their feet.
"Is that an arrow?" Tam said.
A long shaft of pale wood jutted from a log in the fire, the feathers curling and blackening in the flames. Carmody stared, then kicked the log, scattering the fire and half extinguishing it. The palisade became much darker.
"First squad, to the walls," Carmody snapped. "Second squad, into your armor. Fletcher, Quince, what do you see?"
"I didn't see a thing, Captain," one sentry called.
"Me either. Nothing out there but darkness."
"Well, keep your eyes open," Carmody said, scooping up his helmet and putting it on.
Tam and Tira led the children to the cart. "What's going on?" Mikail asked.
Tira thought about it. "I'm not sure."
"Are we being attacked?" He sounded scared, but also eager. Well, he would learn soon enough that excitement came at a price.
"I don't think so," she told him. "Not yet, anyway. I think the arrow was a warning."
"A warning about what?"
"I don't know, but I want us to be ready. Saddle the pony."
She strung her bow first, put the quiver across her back, and then saddled her horse. Then she looked at the two mules. Daisy was better rested and probably stronger than the other mule. She and Tam hitched Daisy to the cart. Then Tira planted her hands on her hips, frowned at the girls, and said, "I want you two in the cart."
To her surprise they didn't argue, just nodded and climbed inside.
She turned to Mikail. "I have a job for you, and it's important. Can I depend on you?"
His shoulders lifted. "Yes, absolutely."
Tira handed him the horse's reins. "You're in charge of the animals. If we are attacked, we're going to need them. It won't be easy keeping all of them under control if something comes over the walls, but you have to do it. Understand?"
There was a glimmer of suspicion in his eyes. He had to be wondering if it was a trick to keep him out of the way while she did something more interesting, but he nodded, his expression serious. "You can count on me."
"Good." She looked at Tam. He had his captured sword belted on, and he put the axe on the roof of the cart where he or Mikail could reach it easily.
"What now?" he said.
"Now we wait. And we hope that all this preparation was for nothing."
It didn't take long. An urgent flap of wings in the darkness outside told of birds disturbed by something. A sentry called out in a low voice, "I see movement."
"If it's the undead," said a soldier on the wall behind Tira, "save your arrows. It's axes and swords for them. You don't have to cut the arms and legs right off, just break the bones and it slows them right down."
She remembered him from dinner. He'd had Lina giggling helplessly with a ridiculous story about a magpie that wanted to steal his helmet. Murf, she thought his name was. There was a dusting of freckles across his nose that made him seem boyish, but he was old enough to have children Lina's age. Maybe he did.
Mikail was breathing in short, sharp pants, and Tira reached out a hand, resting it on his shoulder. "I'm all right," he said. His voice was tight with strain, but he no longer sounded as if he were on the verge of panic.
The fire was just coals now. Tira's eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Everything was lit with a soft red glow from the embers, and the smell of wood smoke hung over the compound, along with the pungent smell of the horses. Then she caught a whiff of something darker.
Rotting flesh.
"Here they come!"<
br />
"Hold your positions," Carmody snapped. "Reserve squad, to me."
Four of his men had been working their way along the line of horses, putting on saddles and bridles. They dropped the saddles they were carrying and drew their swords, gathering behind Carmody by the west side of the palisade.
Tira heard the rustle of footsteps through tall grass. She could sense the faintest tremble in the ground under her feet. Then something thudded against the palisade. There was a slippery rasping sound, and a pale gleam as two hands wrapped around the sharpened top of a log. A face appeared between the points, and a soldier moved, slashing his sword across those white fingers.
The attacker fell, but half a dozen more appeared along the top of the wall. Then Tira heard the scrape of flesh on wood right behind her. The undead were attacking from two directions.
"Steady, boys," Murf murmured to the men around him. There was nothing they could do for the moment. The palisade was too high to defend unless the attackers came over at a spot above one of the sentry platforms.
Men dropped over the wall on the far side, and soldiers rushed in, hacking at them as they landed. Then a pair of pale shapes dragged themselves over the wall ten feet from the cart. It was supposed to be a sneak attack, she supposed, with everyone's attention on the far side of the compound. But Carmody's men were too disciplined for that. Murf and another soldier closed on the first attacker, and another man rushed over to deal with the second.
The invaders were a man and a woman. The woman faced Murf and another soldier. She was heavyset, with a dress that had been torn off above her knees. Her legs were white, streaked with scratches and scrapes that didn't bleed. Her face was almost obscured by the greasy tangle of her hair, but what Tira could see made her stomach tighten. This was deadly combat, but the woman's face was blank and expressionless. She looked like a human being, moved like one, but there was no life behind that slack, mask-like face.
The woman held a long knife low in her right hand. As the soldiers lunged at her she twisted to the side, then slashed upward with the knife. Murf plunged his sword into her chest, and she ignored it, grabbing Murf's sword arm with her free hand. As the other soldier hacked at her legs, she pulled on Murf's wrist, tugging him forward off-balance. Her knife scraped against the side of his breastplate and slid upward.
And sank hilt-deep into his armpit.
He fell, and the second soldier brought his sword slashing across, mostly severing her neck. Her head flopped sideways, hanging by a strip of flesh, and she stood frozen long enough for him to take her knife hand off at the wrist.
The soldier lowered his sword, looking around for the nearest threat. And Murf rose behind him. Tira felt a brief surge of joy, thinking he had survived. But Murf's face was slack and dead. As Tira opened her mouth to scream a warning, Murf stepped forward and plunged the tip of his sword into the other soldier's neck.
Murf's head turned, and Tira shrank back, putting the cart between them. He broke into a run, ignoring her and Tam and Mikail, heading for the main battle. Only six of the undead had come over the wall in the main attack, but they had been joined by three of Carmody's men.
Tira turned back to the soldier Murf had killed, but he lay unmoving on the grass. The undead man who had come over the wall was flopping on the ground, his legs broken, slashing with a knife at a soldier who danced back out of reach.
"Neris preserve us," Tam squeaked. "What do we do, Tira?"
She watched as Murf flung himself into the fray, striking down a soldier and hacking at another, distracting him enough that an undead man was able to dart in close and stab the soldier in the leg. The battle was turning against them, and quickly. She thought about joining the battle and rejected the idea immediately. Her duty was to get the children out.
"Forget the cart," she said. "We're taking horses. Mikail, I need you to open the gate."
The boy gaped at her, then dropped the reins he was holding and took off at a run.
She turned to Tam. "We'll take one girl each." They ran to the back of the cart, swung the back panel down, and lifted out the wide-eyed girls. Tira climbed onto her horse, then pulled Sari up behind her. Tam carried Lina, and they headed for the horselines.
The cavalry mounts were frightened, milling and tossing their heads, but they were well-trained and didn't panic. Tam set Lina on the haunches of a roan gelding and swung up into the saddle while Tira chose a bay mare for Mikail and leaned down in the saddle to untie the reins.
Mikail, heaving with all his might, dragged the palisade's heavy gate open. Tam raced out, Lina clinging to him from behind. Tira paused long enough for Mikail to clamber into the mare's saddle, then handed him the reins. He dug in his heels and the mare raced out through the open gate, Tira and Sari right behind.
She paused just outside the gate and looked back. She could see Carmody, flanked on either side by another soldier, sword in hand, hacking desperately at a circle of his own men now trying to cut him down. He drove his sword into the side of a man's neck, and in the moment of respite before another attacker stepped in, he looked up and saw Tira. He gave her a nod, then turned his attention back to the battle.
Tira wheeled her horse, dug in her heels, and followed the others away from the palisade and into the night.
Chapter 7
It was not a restful night. They galloped madly down the road for a mile or two, then turned off the road and walked their horses across the open grasslands. A dip in the ground revealed a small stream, either the same one that passed the palisaded fortification or one just like it. They picketed the horses by the water's edge where the ground was low enough to keep them out of sight, and unrolled their bedrolls.
The girls hadn't seen the worst of the horror, and they eventually went to sleep. Mikail paced back and forth, muttering about the battle and the undead and the escape. It took him an hour or more to walk off the worst of his nervous energy, at which point he collapsed on his blankets and fell almost immediately to sleep.
Tira had no desire to sleep, and Tam seemed to feel the same way, so they wrapped themselves in blankets and sat side by side, looking up at the stars and talking quietly.
"This necromancer, whoever he is, seems to be able to animate a corpse really quickly," Tam said. "It didn't take as long as you said it would."
"He shouldn't be able to do it from a distance, either," Tira said. "All we saw were dead people and Carmody's soldiers. The wizard wasn't even there." She drew the blanket tighter around her. "I wonder what it means."
"But they didn't all come back to life," Tam said thoughtfully. "Murf did, but the man beside him didn't. Maybe the wizard could only turn a certain number?"
"That could be it," Tira agreed. "He only had enough magic for the first five or six bodies."
They sat in silence, lost in their dark thoughts. Then Tam shook his head. "I saw Miller turn. That was right before we rode out. He got stabbed in the leg with a sword, and he fell down. Then the man picked up a knife off the ground and stabbed him right here." He indicated the back of his neck, his fingers pointing downward to show the direction of the blow. "He got up right after that, with the knife still sticking out of him, and went after Captain Carmody."
Tira dragged her fingers through her hair. She felt like she had the pieces of the puzzle in front of her, if she could only figure it out.
"It was the knives," Tam said, snapping his fingers. "The wizard, whoever it is. He put his magic into the knives. Get killed by a magic knife, you turn into one of his undead. Get killed by a sword, and you're just dead."
"I've never heard of…" Tira let her voice trail off. She had seen something, barely registered it in the heat of the battle. A glow, so faint it might have been her imagination, clinging to the blade of that first woman's knife. Tam hadn't mentioned it, and that disturbed her. The last thing she wanted was to learn she had some sort of affinity for magic.
"I liked Miller," Tam said. "He talked to Mikail about being a soldier, and he didn't
treat him like a little boy." He lapsed into silence for a moment, then said, "And he didn't laugh at me when he saw I was listening too."
Tira nodded. A lot of good men had died, or worse, this night. And there was nothing she could do about it.
Eventually she lay down, staring up at the stars, unsure if she wanted to give in to sleep and the nightmares it was sure to bring. She must have dozed off, because she woke to early-morning sunlight and the smell of woodsmoke.
Tam made an oatmeal mush for breakfast while Tira stretched, stood, and walked up to the high ground above their camp. Then she dropped to her knees, hissing at the others to be quiet. They immediately went silent, and Tam crept up to join her.
Half a mile away, the road made a dark slash through the grassland on either side. A familiar cart was rolling down the road. Daisy and the other mule were hitched to the front of the cart. The top of the cart was gone, and the back was filled with corpses. It looked as if every one of the soldiers who hadn't turned was there, piled in a grisly mound. An undead man, one arm missing, walked beside the mules, guiding the cart.
Tira didn't move until the cart was gone from sight. It was rolling east. Raven Crossing was to the west, so they would be moving away from the necromancer. But she wondered just how long the village would remain safe.
They rode cross-country, parallel to the road but well back from it, avoiding buildings. Tira saw the palisade in the distance, carrion birds in the sky above it, and whispered a prayer for the soldiers who had died inside.
Nothing moved on the road.
In the afternoon the grasslands ended and forest began. There was a town at the edge of the forest, and they rode toward it, but they pulled up their horses several hundred yards from the town walls.
Smoke rose from inside the town. Not the smoke of a cooking fire or a forge, but a thick, greasy pall of smoke, as if the whole town was ablaze. A pair of stout wooden doors marked the entrance to the town. One door was shut. The other hung crooked from one hinge, half open.
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