Eventide (Meratis Trilogy Book 2)

by Krista Walsh

  Cassie jerked to a halt, letting out a gasp.

  Jeff approached last. Four aides crowded together near the wall, murmuring to each other and pointing at the table in the middle of the room.

  Where Brady had just sat up.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jeff couldn’t help but jump and yell a loud series of curses at the sight of his friend rising from the dead. Through the lens of terror he could only see the walking corpses in the woods: the greying skin, the second black mouth across the neck, the milky eyes.

  It took a moment for his vision to clear, and his brain to process the truth. Brady didn’t look like he’d been dead for two days. His skin was pale, but a faint flush of life still ran beneath the surface. His eyes were white, but not rotting, just rolled back in his head like he was about to have another seizure. His chapped lips moved with soundless words; not in any shapes Jeff recognised, but in a language all his own. Dressed in white, the scholar looked like a ghost.

  A solid ghost, and one that apparently had somewhere to be.

  Within seconds of raising himself out of the death shroud, he swung his legs over the side of the table and hopped down.

  “Brady?” Jeff called.

  He got no reaction. The scholar didn’t seem to have heard him, striding towards the door, his lips still moving.

  “I don’t get it. Is he dead?” Jeff asked, unsure if he should be thrilled or terrified.

  Maggie shook her head, her curls bobbing around her face. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. He’s so limber. I think—” she hesitated, watched Brady strode past them. “The ritual. It must have worked!”

  “What do we do?” Cassie asked, her face as white as Brady’s, her eyes large and scared.

  “Go back to our rooms and get some sleep?” Jeff suggested, too awestruck to bother keeping the sarcasm out of his voice. “Follow him!”

  They did, growing more curious and amazed as Brady hurried through the Keep, never missing a step in spite of his bare feet on ragged stones. They kept their distance, but soon it was difficult to keep up, his pace was so quick.

  “He was dead, right?” Jeff asked Maggie.

  “Definitely. I had the physician confirm it.”

  “So this isn’t Brady?” Cassie asked.

  They reached the front door and hurried after him down the stairs.

  “It’s him,” said Maggie, her breath short with the exertion. “In order for the ritual to work, the one who performs it has to clear their mind of everything they are. Talfyr’s mind would take up too much space. When Brady died, the connection was made. It probably just took a few days for his body to catch up.”

  “So is there anything of Brady left?” asked Jeff, still not sure how to feel about this development.

  They crossed the bridge and continued to follow as Brady went into the stables.

  Inside, the horses spooked. They reared up and screamed with terror at this half-ghost half-man in their midst.

  The other four remained in the doorway, afraid of being trampled if any of the horses got loose. From his vantage point, Jeff could see the only animal to stay calm was Corsa, Corey’s white stallion.

  Was it because he’d already been exposed to the walking dead, and recognised Brady as something different? Did it have something to do with the words Brady kept mumbling? Curiosity tore at Jeff’s patience, making him want to march up and give the scholar’s shoulders a sharp shake until he woke up and could tell them what the hell was going on.

  “I don’t know,” Maggie said.

  Jeff had to pull his attention away from Brady to remember he had asked her a question.

  She sighed. “Maybe there is and they’ll find a way to share the space. If not…”

  Jeff heard the unspoken words. It was possible his friend’s revival was only temporary. Once again Talfyr waking up in response to Raul’s magic.

  Brady had led Corsa out of his stall and pulled himself up, bareback. They had to jump out of the way to keep from being run down as the stallion flew out, racing out of the courtyard towards the gate.

  Cassie and Venn ran into the stable while Jeff and Maggie stayed at the doorway, watching Brady leave.

  “You have to go after him,” said Maggie.

  “I know,” Jeff replied, not relishing the necessity, but feeling a certain excitement creep up at the same time.

  Maggie untied a leather pouch from her belt and placed it in Jeff’s hand. Jeff recognized it from six months ago when she’d unleashed the contents to bind the bear that had almost killed Jayden. The same binding spell that had almost smothered him on her front porch. He still remembered the way the blue smoke had clung to him, climbed up his body to restrain and choke him.

  “Just in case,” she said. “Aim well.”

  Cassie and Venn emerged from the stables, Venn riding Brady’s piebald and Cassie on the same mount she’d ridden from the palace. Between them, she lead Swish forward by his tether.

  “Jeff, come on!”

  “What are you doing?” Jeff demanded, growing flustered. “We can’t ride them like that. I’ll fall off!”

  “If we saddle them, we’ll lose him,” Venn urged. She started to ride ahead and, after handing Swish off to Jeff, Cassie followed.

  He tossed his head towards Swish, not sure which part of him was screaming louder—to pursue Brady, or to keep both feet on the ground.

  “I’ll give you a boost,” said Maggie.

  As much as he hated to accept her help, the other women were soon out of sight, leaving him little choice. He jumped, and between Maggie shoving and him heaving, he succeeded in finding his seat in very little time. Giving credit to Swish, the gelding remained still as Jeff floundered, pawing at the ground in his eagerness to leave. As soon as Jeff’s butt hit his back, the bay set off, catching up with Cassie and Venn at the gate.

  Brady was already a dot in the distance, but in the moonlight, the white horse shone like a beacon, and the horses followed without trouble.

  With the fast pace and the rough road, without any padding between his behind and Swish’s back, conversation was out of the question. Jeff could only concentrate on hanging on.

  He couldn’t tell southwest from northeast to save his life, but Jeff had no doubts about where they were headed. What he couldn’t piece together was how the fuck Brady could come back from two days without a pulse and stay mounted as Corsa galloped at a pace he wouldn’t have believed possible in a beast not owned by one of the apocalyptic horsemen.

  They rode without stopping until Swish was a sweating wreck between Jeff’s legs. Eventually even Corsa, who until that point had acted possessed by the same spirit wearing Brady’s body, waned, and the gallop eased to a canter and then to a trot, and finally they walked.

  “How long is the ride from here into the mountains?” he asked Venn.

  The three of them rode abreast in the wide lane, Brady a few metres ahead.

  Venn considered, swivelling in her seat to take in the sights around them—the few unburnt homesteads that appeared, the barns, the country chapel—and said, “Two days. At a slow pace. But I’m pretty sure we’re already halfway there.”

  “He’s in quite the rush,” Cassie said, watching Brady.

  Jeff grimaced. “I don’t know if I want to find out the reason.”

  Once Corsa had cooled and rested, horse and undead rider took off again. It took a bit more urging to get Swish and the others to follow the second time, but eventually they all flew down the road.

  As the road curved to the east, the mountains appeared in the distance: grey, ominous, and snow-capped. Yet from down below they looked peaceful and not the site of any great war over the world’s future. The few villagers they passed greeted them with unease, no doubt wary of strangers after the carnage that had happened so close to their own strip of the country. Especially so soon after the army must have passed through.

  Jeff longed for a meat pie. His stomach gurgled and grumbled, cramped and twisted,
and as they headed for a full day without eating, he wondered what sort of shape they’d all be in when they arrived at their destination. But as neither Venn nor Cassie complained, he pressed his lips together and bore it with an attempt at the same stoicism.

  By the time the sun dropped behind the mountains, they had reached the base of a path. Brady drew to a stop, and the others followed suit behind him.

  “We’re not riding up that,” Jeff pleaded. He looked at the ragged rocky trail that cut through the side of the mountain, lining the edge of the drop down the side and sometimes appearing vertical.

  As if in answer to his question, Brady dismounted and started up on foot.

  “Nope,” said Venn, in actual answer to his question. “We’re walking it.”

  She and Cassie dismounted, tethering the horses to an apple tree.

  At least the horses will be fed. And happy. And safe. Jeff wondered where the Feldallian army had left their mounts, and guessed they were all stabled in the nearby village. Where he was beginning to wish he had stayed. He gulped and slid off Swish, legs wobbling and thighs screaming with stiffness. His tailbone felt bruised, and he walked with a bowlegged gait until the muscles worked themselves out.

  They tied the horses with the rest, and then started up the road.

  ***

  As the sky darkened, the path became more treacherous. Jeff focused on his breathing as stones, loosened by their steps, clattered over the side of the mountain.

  Brady had long outdistanced them, but they could see his white figure ahead, moving forward with little hesitation. Venn kept a good pace behind him, harder to see.

  The tops of the Kinneath Mountains were in sight, and from their position about three quarters of the way up, Jeff started to hear the telltale clangs and clashes of battle. Shouts and screams, whiffs of blood on the air. It was all too familiar from six months ago, and Jeff wanted to wait at a safe distance.

  But Venn kept going, and Cassie followed her, so Jeff put one foot in front of the other, doing his best to ignore the black chasm next to his left foot that would swallow him whole with one misstep.

  Brady came to a sudden stop on the path, and the other three stopped with him, waiting to see what he would do. Curiosity had carried them this far, and it seemed they were getting close to having that patience rewarded. But instead of continuing into the battle, he shifted to face the flat rock face to his right and tilted his head, as if considering. He’d fallen silent, his lips still for the first time since he opened his eyes in the death hall. Reaching out, he ran his fingers along the rock, stretched up and appeared to hug it.

  Then he started to climb.

  Jeff’s jaw dropped, and he moved to grab his friend’s shoulder, but Cassie grabbed him first.

  “He hasn’t made a false move since he started,” she whispered. “Trust that he knows what he’s doing.”

  “But we’re not doing that, right?” he asked.

  Cassie’s eyed widened, and she shook her head. “Not in a million years.”

  “No way I’m risking my life climbing rocks when the fight’s so close.” Venn drew one of her hidden daggers, a smile creeping across her face.

  In that moment, with the shadows at just the right angles, it might as well have been Siobhan standing with them. The whole experience felt surreal, life and death crossing paths. Jeff crossed his fingers and hoped the lines wouldn’t be blurred any further during what came next.

  Venn led the way, and they soon reached the top of the path, on the edge of large plateau.

  From his place on the outskirts, Jeff’s senses were pummelled with a slew of impressions, the smell first of all.

  If the blood had been noticeable fifty metres below, it took on a personality of its own here. Blood, sweat, shit, death, the odorous nuances turned his stomach and had him reaching for the rock face to steady his legs. Bile crept up his throat as he saw the severed arm by his foot, the muscle and veins dangling from the shoulder as if it had been ripped from the body.

  Venn picked it up, hardly disturbed, and tossed it away from him. “We’ll celebrate with a pint if we survive,” she said, and then she was gone, lost in the chaos of the battle.

  Cassie started to call after her, but clamped her mouth shut, staying silent next to Jeff in the shadows.

  The sight equalled the stench. The blood soaked battlefield glistened black in the moonlight. Corpses littered the field in various stages of disembowelment and destruction, discarded weapons strewn between them.

  Jeff tried to close his eyes to the gore and scan the scene for some sign of Jasmine or Jayden, but there were too many people, too much going on to make sense of anything.

  “There she is!” Cassie said, as quietly as she could while still being heard over the din.

  Jeff followed the aim of her finger with his heart in this throat, and his gaze fell on Jasmine. Her helmet was off and blood streamed from a gash on her forehead. Her face and armour were covered in blood spatter. As she drove back one of Raul’s guard, swinging the sword with such ferocity that the man hardly had time to flinch before she cleaved his head from his body, Jeff could see how she’d come by her war decor.

  Another guard came up behind her, and Jeff almost screamed out in warning, but she twisted her sword behind her, the blade passing through the man’s guts. She grabbed her dagger from her hip and wheeled around, driving the knife into his neck as he gurgled, blood bubbling between his lips, and fell to his knees. She braced her foot against his chest to pull out the blade and sought out her next target.

  So caught up in Jasmine’s fights, he didn’t notice Cassie disappear from his side until he heard her shriek behind him. Turning, he froze, brain shutting down and limbs shaking as adrenaline shot through him, sharpening his vision to make out every small detail on Darcy’s face, the twitch in his cheek as he grinned, the slight tremor in the hand that held the blade against Cassie’s throat.

  “So nice that you finally decided to join us,” Darcy yelled, straining to be heard over the battle. “Father and I worried you would miss it.”

  Jeff heard his words, but they were dulled by a hum in his ears. He marked it as fury and tried to ignore it, knowing that emotion wouldn’t help Cassie. His hands clenched at his sides, and he dropped his gaze to the ground, searching quickly for a stone to throw. But he knew that even if he found one, he was more likely to hit Cassie than Darcy, more likely to make the man’s hand slip and cut her. His own healing wound hounding him with the memory of how close he’d come to ending the same way.

  “I did enjoy your company, love,” Darcy said to Cassie, still loudly enough for Jeff to hear, goading him. “It’s a shame it has to end with your blood on my hands.”

  Just as Jeff was about to jump at the man, Cassie’s eyes narrowed. He saw that she looked a lot calmer than he felt.

  “Unfortunately for you,” she said. “It’ll be the other way around.”

  Without giving him a chance to question her, she grabbed the wrist with the blade, stepping one foot back to brace herself. In a move so graceful it looked like dancing, she used the weight of her body to throw him off balance, gripping the back of his neck with her other hand and twisting his arm until he flipped over her shoulder.

  Shaking with fear and adrenaline, she ran out of his reach and into Jeff’s arms as Darcy landed on the edge of the overhang. His hands scrambled for purchase on the rocky terrain.

  “Help me!” he cried, rage and terror equally strong in his voice and eyes.

  Neither Jeff nor Cassie moved as the stones shifted under his fingers. He lost his grip, and slid with a scream over the edge, disappearing over the side of the cliff.

  Cassie buried her head in Jeff’s chest. Her body trembled and Jeff held her tightly as they turned towards the fighting. So far it seemed everyone else was distracted with their own battles, and their own had gone unnoticed. Jeff breathed a sigh of calm his shaking nerves.

  Even as his rage settled, the hum in Jeff’s ears persis
ted, like the vibrations of a thousand bees buzzing in his brain. He shook his head, trying to clear what he assumed was the echo of blades clashing against blades. As his gaze scanned the crowd, it became apparent that their skirmish hadn’t gone as unnoticed as he first though.

  Jasmine, in a moment of reprieve, stood gaping at them, with enough anger on her face that Jeff wondered if he wouldn’t prefer Darcy to climb back up and have another go.

  She swung her sword to catch another of Raul’s soldiers in the gut, and then escaped the fray, keeping close to the rocky ledge. Jeff released Cassie, crept halfway to meet Jasmine. She shoved his shoulder and Jeff pressed against the stone to keep his balance.

  “Hey, sharp drop!” he hissed.

  “What are you doing here?” Jasmine demanded.

  She stank of sweat and blood, her dark hair coated more with gore than her own natural colour.

  Annoyed that she would think he came all this way for a lark, Jeff answered by thrusting his arm into the air, finger pointed at the rocky peak to their right. Jasmine glowered and followed his aim, her mouth falling open at what she saw. Brady had climbed to the very top, balancing somehow on the uneven crags, his arms outstretched. Too far to see clearly, and impossible to hear him over the noise, but Jeff knew he had started mumbling again.

  The warrior-maiden blanched, the blood on her skin appearing darker against her paleness.

  “What—” she managed, unable to get anything else out.

  “Maggie thinks the ritual finally kicked in,” Jeff replied, watching the scholar, entranced. “It’s like he’s possessed. We tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t be stopped. Where’s Raul?” He tore his eyes away from Brady to scan the battle once again. “Where’s Jayden?”

  “My brother is somewhere in there,” she replied, projecting her voice. Jeff heard her attempt at nonchalance, but her eyes were hard with worry. “And we can’t get to Raul. He only had a hundred men waiting with him, but they’re good. And the weapons.”