His declaration left me and Lleu gaping up at him.
“What?” we asked in unison.
“Swear to me you will remain in your room until Hishima arrives, and I will take you where you want to go. Know this, if you give me your word and try to break it, I will restrain you in the grotto. You will meet your future husband in chains, and I will give him my sympathies before he leaves.” His threat made clear that his attraction to me was a done thing. “What do you choose?”
“I give you my word.” I wriggled from under Lleu. “Take me to the field.”
“Should I carry word to Vaughn?” Lleu stood and dusted himself clean.
“There’s no time.” I faced Murdoch. “We must leave now.”
“Stay with us, Lleu.” Murdoch sounded weary. “We’ll report to the paladin after.”
Clearly unhappy with the order, Lleu nodded. “All right.”
They flanked me as I urged them onward toward the field. By the time we arrived, the drone of an otherworldly chorus could be heard plainly by my ears. The song whispered on the breeze, a gentle beckoning, a calling of like to like that even I responded to, drawn as I was to its source.
“What’s that noise?” Lleu sucked on his teeth. “Makes my jaw hurt.”
Murdoch scanned the field with narrowed eyes. “I don’t see anything.”
“You won’t if they see us first.” I clutched his sleeve and led him behind a crumbling wall I assumed held livestock at one point. It was empty now and our best chance at remaining unseen.
“I don’t like this.” Murdoch drew closer. “Perhaps Lleu should bring word to the paladin.”
“It’s too late.” I strained my eyes. “How far are we from the bodies?”
I saw several lying in the grass, but all possessed their heads. Or they appeared to at least.
“Can’t you smell them?” Lleu fanned his face as if to clear the air.
“Not all of us have noses as sharp as yours,” I reminded him. But of course Murdoch did.
“The corpses you visited are there.” He pointed ahead of us. “The rest are farther down.”
“That’s where we must go.” I rose from my crouch. “Is there any cover to be had?”
“This area is all part of the Hamish farm. Follow the wall and we’ll meet up at the barn.”
Beside me Lleu shook his head. “Crawling in the grass and hiding in a barn, from what?”
“You’ll see,” I promised him, leaving the higher section of wall, and my protection, behind.
We crawled and scuttled, knelt and crept our way to the Hamish barn. Murdoch did as I did. We made silence envy our stealth. I had been right about him. His black hair and dark eyes made him part of the night. Lleu was less careful, humoring me and mocking Murdoch with each step.
When at last we slunk into the deepest shadows cast by the barn, I began to see the corpses. I inspected each one for signs of movement but saw none. Slumped against the stone wall, I knew if this outing failed that I had failed. Hishima would take me home, and all I knew would be lost. All I had done would be in vain. All the poor souls I had laid to rest would have been for naught.
“Still not seeing anything,” Lleu muttered.
Murdoch leaned forward. “Who is that humming?”
I pushed him back before he exposed himself to moonlight and made himself an easy target. I wondered then if the peculiar song called to him as it did to me. After all, it did raise the dead.
I had witnessed this event several times, but I had learned it was far easier to stop the plague victims from raising than battle them afterwards when their strength doubled and their purpose, whatever it was, guided them from the grave and initiated them to a life of…whatever they were.
“Is this going to take all night?” Lleu yawned. “The humming is annoying, but it’s hardly…” He sat bolt upright and rubbed his eyes. “Did that…? Did I just see what I…? No. No. It can’t be.”
The dead were rising.
Murdoch fisted Lleu’s shirt and yanked him back into shadow. “Get down.”
“That’s not right.” Lleu dragged a hand down his mouth. “They’re dead. I saw it myself.”
One by one the corpses rose with great care, as if waking stiff from a long sleep and shaking their limbs loose. Disregarding their kin, they stared skyward. A few clawed feebly at the moon.
“I don’t understand.” Murdoch braced his shoulder against mine.
“They’re rising.” I gave him time to absorb. “This is why you had to see it for yourself.”
“The plague does this?” Lleu leaned forward, horrified fascination taking over. “How?”
“I would rather explain the particulars of the infection as I know them only once. Wait until we return to Cathis, then I will tell you all I know.” I knew Murdoch, knew he would carry me into his paladin’s bedchamber if need be to report direct to him what we had witnessed.
“There’s nothing for it.” Lleu reached for his sword. “We have to bring one to Vaughn.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” We had no rope, no cage and no way to entice them.
“You’re right.” Murdoch palmed his blade. “He’ll want to see this.”
“You can’t just stroll out there and capture one.” I was awed by their rashness.
“What would you have us do, then?” Lleu scowled. “Walk up and introduce ourselves? Ask if they remember us? Ask if they know who they are—or were? What then? Ask if they’d mind flashing Vaughn their stinking arses?” His chest was pumping. “Give me good reason not to try.”
The tickle in my earlobe returned twofold. “Will this do?”
My head fell back on my shoulders. In my eyes, the vastness of the sky narrowed to a speck.
The harbinger had arrived.
Lleu followed my gaze. “That is a female,” he said succinctly, “and she has wings.”
“She appears not to have lost any,” Murdoch observed. “There must be more, then.”
“I would say so, though I can’t tell them apart. I haven’t seen many, perhaps three or four.”
“Three or four.” Conviction from him made the odds surmountable.
“Do we go after her or one of the others?” Lleu kept his sights set on the harbinger.
Murdoch craned his neck to better gauge her distance. “How good is your aim?”
“With the hawser?” Pride straightened his shoulders. “Excellent.”
“What do you say, Kaidi?” Murdoch rocked on the balls of his feet. “Can we take her?”
“No.” I snagged his belt. “You’d be a fool to try.”
“A fool is one who wastes a prime opportunity.” Lleu began stretching his arms.
“You’ll get yourselves killed.” Even I had better sense than to stroll onto a crowded field.
“Then arm us with knowledge.” Murdoch steadied himself. “What do we need to know?”
Tempted as I was to play the role of fool and waste their prime opportunity, I knew this must be done. Murdoch and Lleu were hardier than I was, and I had survived interludes with the risers.
There was nothing for it. I had to trust them to take care of themselves for the good of us all.
“What I told Isolde about the butcher is true. I did learn cleaner killing from watching him at work, but that was the easy part.” Both males stared at me. “The first time I saw the corpses rise, I thought—I hoped—they were alive. That somehow we had buried them by mistake.” I wiped a hand down my pant leg. “I tried to help them. They’re stronger, faster than normal Araneaeans.”
Murdoch paused to consider that. “Did they respond to you?”
I laughed. “That they did.”
Lleu watched us, confusion drawing his brow tight. “What’s funny about that?”
“They were my family.” The truth sobered me. “My own family and they tried to kill me.” Maier had almost succeeded.
“They had no memory of you at all?” Pity lent Murdoch’s voice a soft edge.
&
nbsp; “None.” No matter how many I had confronted, none had known me. “That’s how I learned to fight. I tried reasoning with them, I did. When that failed, we struggled.” Sad knowledge filled me. “They would have killed me had I not killed them, though a few did escape me at first.”
Murdoch stroked my hair. “That’s when you sought out the butcher, I take it?”
“It was.” How I had hated that taste of defeat. “I did so after I knew they were beyond help.”
“Did you never capture one?” All of a sudden I was of interest to Lleu.
“No.” I hated admitting, “I’m too weak to overpower one even if I could have caught it.”
“Hmm.” Lleu worked the hawser through his hands.
“What are you thinking?” Murdoch asked him.
“Forget the risers.” He pointed to the harbinger. “We should start at the top.”
For the first time since her arrival, I dared let my gaze lift to her. She seemed to drift upon a breeze unfelt by the rest of us. Her wings moved with such speed they were near invisible in the dark. From a distance, she was lovely. Moonlight kissed her pale skin, glistening on her fair hair. A sheer gown crisscrossed her back to avoid binding her wings and fluttered around her ankles.
Up close, I would find her far less pleasing. Bones would protrude beneath her skin. Yellow pumped in her veins, making the red blood in her coy smile all the more macabre. Caresses from her taloned fingertips cut to the bone. She must possess all her wings to glide with such elegance.
Two of her sisters were not so fortunate. I wondered what had become of them.
Lleu pointed a stern finger at me. “Wait here.”
“If we don’t return…” Murdoch ran a lock of my hair through his fingers, “…run.”
“I’ll bring word of this to your paladin.” We all would. I would not leave them behind.
“He won’t believe it.” He reasoned, “He’ll think you escaped the towers and we followed.”
When their bodies were found with their necks broken… “He’ll think I killed you.” All signs would point to that conclusion. I could not afford such doubt to be cast upon me.
“You did stab him,” Lleu reminded me.
“I apologized for that,” I snapped.
“Remember what I said.” Murdoch pressed my shoulder flat to the wall. “Run if you must.”
I nodded as the impact of his words rocked me.
Run, Murdoch said. From his paladin. From my clan’s only hope. Run. How I longed for the option. If I was to ensure the safety of the Segestriidae people, then I had no choice. I must greet Hishima and let him be persuaded by Vaughn to enlist the Mimetidae’s aid. Run? I wish I could.
Even if this night meant bringing Vaughn ill tidings, I had no choice but to bear the news.
“Be careful,” I begged them.
“Let’s go.” Murdoch waved Lleu forward, and together they crept onto the field.
Two males, two swords, and a hawser—their plan was obvious. For it to work, their execution must be flawless.
Eager for this to be done, I leaned forward, watching. The risers paid no attention to Lleu or Murdoch, if they saw them. I had tracked their forward progress, and even I had difficulty sorting them from shadow. The harbinger, though, she sensed something was amiss. Her flight became a series of darting inspections. The risers turned frantic at her nearness. The hum from her throat—or was it her wings?—agitated them. She landed once, twice, and the risers converged there with a gnashing of teeth and howling of rage. How the guards in Cathis failed to hear them amazed me. Though I had wondered as much before and decided the droning must repel those outside its influence while luring those within. Buried in the steady hum I believed there was a compulsion.
Keep away, it warned the living. Come to me, it seduced the dead.
How else did these nighttime harvests go unnoticed?
A shock of pain stung my ear, and I cupped it. The harbinger’s song turned deafening in her fury. The risers stumbled, shoving one another in pursuit of the female flitting in their midst. She had not spotted the males, but they could not evade her much longer if they hoped to capture her.
With a roar, she plunged to the ground, wings shimmering and red teeth bared.
All she did in her defense was point a finger.
The risers turned as one toward Murdoch and Lleu. My heart stopped up my throat, choking me on the warning I would have screamed. Realizing they were revealed, they came to their feet with their swords at the ready. Between the males and the harbinger stood a dozen or more risers.
They were all female, or had been. Skeletal. Ravaged by illness. Risen with a fierce hunger.
Palms so damp they slid over the stone wall I clutched, I pulled myself up and ducked inside the pitch-black barn. Fumbling in the dark, I patted my way along the walls. It smelled fresh in here. Not of livestock, but of people. I dared not call for help, and while I sensed the place had been used recently, its dust coated the back of my throat, hinting at a long vacancy.
Heedless of the scrapes and splinters my hands collected, I groped until locating what I sought in the farthest corner of the room I had entered. Thin sticks, roughly hewn and shoved into a dented metal container touched a slender box with a simple latch that gave way to my bumbling fingers.
By touch I located the flint shard and blessed the coarse cloth I found wadded at the bottom.
A fast downward strike made sparks leap onto the cloth. Once embers glowed, I nursed its hiss and crackle to a roar as I lit kindling and stoked a fire I set at my feet. With the light brought understanding. I stood in a small room with a cot in one corner and a table in another. Before me was the rustic hearth that was our salvation. Quick inspection of this room turned up a wall torch. The room beside it yielded two more. Soon as the fire caught on all three, I kicked dirt at a blaze I might not live to see overcome the barn, charged the door and clambered over the stone fence.
Metal sang and shrieks pierced the night. Above it all, the harbinger awaited her victory.
Lleu and Murdoch remained oblivious to my approach. Each was circled by risers, each absorbed in their own fight to keep the corpses at bay.
The harbinger, though, was captivated.
I had witnessed this reaction once before, and quite by accident. That this female reacted the same as the previous one had told me fire held some appeal to them. Lower and lower she drifted until a riser leapt up and caught her by the ankle. Hard as she kicked, the riser evidenced no pain.
“Now, Lleu,” Murdoch bellowed. “Take her now.”
“Give me room.” Lleu sheathed his sword and began to whirl the hawser over his head.
Still I ran, toward the males and the greatest concentration of risers.
Eyes wild, they recoiled at the sight of me running for them, torches waving. Torn between the desire to do as the harbinger bid them, and the primal fear of fire engrained into every living thing, they snarled and then fled.
“How did you know that would work?” Murdoch wiped yellow flecks from his eyes.
“I wasn’t sure it would.” The stitch in my side made conversation impossible.
“Give me one of those.” Torch in hand, Murdoch forged a path to Lleu.
Once I shifted a torch to each hand, I set off after him, waving the flames as I went.
“Steady there.” Lleu wrung the harbinger’s free ankle with his hawser. “Easy, girl.”
Despite our torches, the riser clinging to her ankle held tight. Her claws sliced open its face, a fact the riser dismissed. She might have been combing its hair for all the care it showed. When she used the foot Lleu controlled to kick the riser in the neck, it snared her ankle and brought her leg to its mouth. The sound of teeth tearing greedily into her calf is one I still hear in nightmares.
Strength sapped from my arms until they drooped. Torch smoke stung my eyes. Blinking did no good. What I saw remained unchanged. The riser was…eating…the harbinger. In great gulps.
“T
ake her out—the riser.” Lleu struggled to rein in the harbinger, who fought for her life.
Murdoch ran his sword through the riser’s chest. It growled, but it was an animal sound. One that called to mind an animal warning competition away from its hard-won meal. In a fluid arc, I watched Murdoch bring his torch down atop the riser’s head. It squealed, anger and fear melding.
For a second, its hold loosened on the harbinger. She kicked off the riser’s head and leapt for the sky. Lleu dug in his heels and held tight to his rope. Straining against it, she shouted in some language foreign to me. I wondered if she called for help as the risers so often did. Realizing that Lleu kept her grounded, the harbinger dove straight for him, using her speed to power a kick that snapped his head back with a grunt. The hawser slid through his hand, and she scratched her leg until it bled yellow to free herself. Rope in hand, she hooked the looped end around Lleu’s neck.
His eyes bulged. She leaned down into his face, watching his struggle with a smile.
I charged them, torches outreached. One caught the harbinger’s filmy dress afire. The other I dug in her side until the stink of burnt flesh made me retch. With an anguished wail, she whirled on me. My second torch caught her under her jaw and left her dazed. She slumped to the ground.
Murdoch spun aside in battle with the bloody-mouthed riser. His torch had replaced his sword as he landed blow after blow to the body and head of the riser. Careful to avoid their dance, I circled wide around them and the writhing harbinger. Lleu thrashed on the ground, his hands dug into his throat. I knelt at his head, cautious of my torches, and helped him free himself of the rope.
“Stop.” Lleu gasped.
“It’s all right.” I unwound the final coil. “Hold still and catch your breath.”
“No.” He propped himself up on his elbows. “Stop…her.”
I reclaimed a torch and spun to face the harbinger, but she was a pale star rising in the night sky.
“It’s too late.” I wasn’t sure now if I was glad of it or not. “No. Stop. Rest there a minute.”
Weak but steady, Lleu stood. Hawser in one hand, sword in the other, he studied Murdoch to better gauge where his help was needed. Sheathing his sword, he threw the hawser and rung the riser’s neck. A sharp tug brought it crashing to the ground. It collapsed in a heap of singed and smoking flesh. It didn’t move again. Murdoch toed it with his boot, then squatted to catch his breath. Lleu dropped to his knees and began rubbing his neck. For a time, no one spoke. I glanced back at the Hamish barn.
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