by James Somers
Felonius took a moment to decide, pecking his stubbly chin with his finger, as if the matter required great thought. In fact, he had determined his asking price well before they had even been seated in this room together. “One hundred thousand gold flags,” he said finally.
There was a brief pause as a lone gasp died away.
“Each,” Felonius finished with a grin.
There was no time for a gasp. Stanchion erupted from his seat. “You outrageous fool! I won’t pay!”
“Then you won’t go,” Felonius said calmly before sipping from his golden goblet. “Is your life worth so little, Stanchion?”
“I’ll pay it,” Zela said. “I want out of Tarris tonight, Felonius.”
“A wise choice,” Felonius said happily.
“Are you out of your mind, Zela,” Stanchion pleaded.
“You’ve got the money,” Zela said. “How will you spend it when you’ve got a horde of death walkers feasting upon your innards?”
Stanchion paused, considering the elderly matron’s words more carefully. Felonius waited for the inevitable. Stanchion finally seated himself again. “I will pay it,” he finally grumbled.
“Very good,” Felonius said.
“One hundred thousand gold flags?” Corpus said from the far end of the table. “I don’t have that kind of wealth!”
“Neither do we,” said the other minor family heads, of which there were six.
“Then I’m afraid you have little recourse but to take your chances with the death walkers,” Felonius said.
Andrea waited. Surely, her master’s hard-hearted words would not go unchallenged. As usual, she had anticipated correctly. Corpus’s men made their move, pulling handguns from beneath their cloaks. Corpus joined them with one of his own. He pointed the old world weapon at Felonius.
“My life is worth a great deal to me, fat man,” Corpus said. “So, you’re going to escort all of us through your tunnels to the outside. Then, maybe, I’ll consider letting you live.”
Felonius never even blinked.
Andrea no longer stood in the shadows. As soon as the weapons had been revealed, she had called upon the gifts. By the time Corpus had unveiled his threat, she was already almost across the room. None of Corpus’s men ever saw her coming. One moment she existed. The next she had vanished using the Shadow Walk.
Corpus was of average size. His two bodyguards were a little bigger. Clearly they were counting on their weapons to do the talking for them. Andrea wasn’t impressed. She had dealt with far worse threats in her day. Still, Felonius had been quite specific. The first one to make a move against him would be made an example. After that, no one else would be willing to take the risk.
The first guard managed to look her way as she became visible near him. She broke his gun arm with ease then snapped his neck sideways as she moved on. She passed behind Corpus for the moment, intending to deal with him next. She whipped her blade from the sheath at her side and drove it down behind the second guard’s collarbone, piercing his heart from above.
Corpus had by now realized a disturbance taking place behind him. He turned to find Andrea there. She waited for his look of shocked surprise. She waited for him to level his weapon on her. His wrist met her own before the gun could be properly aimed at her face. He fired instinctively, but the shot passed over her shoulder harmlessly.
Andrea coiled her wrist around Corpus’s then jerked upward, breaking his arm. The Weapon fell away. A knee to the ribs broke three and pierced his lung. As he fell forward, she drove the bridge of his nose upward into his brain with the palm of her hand.
Corpus fell backward onto the table, his eyes wide open but lifeless. No one else in the room moved except for Felonius. He stood and clapped slowly, deliberately. “Well done, Andrea. She’s really quite amazing. Now, since I’m sure you all didn’t come without bringing your valuables, I will receive payment immediately in my warehouse where all of your people are being watched by my guards. From there we can proceed to the tunnels and your salvation.”
The downcast expressions from the remaining family heads reinforced what Felonius already knew. He had won.
Gunther watched through the metal slide in the door he was responsible for guarding. Despite his great size and cruel disposition, he trembled at the scene unfolding in the alley beyond. Those who didn’t follow the faith of the dragons, despite living within their city, had gone unaffected by the changes taking place in the rest of the population. However, this left them as prey for the newly made death walkers taking over the city.
Within the Black Market districts lived the criminal elements of the city along with the poor. Death walkers were now combing through the streets and alleys, ravenously looking for human flesh. Two of Felonius’s men had been posted outside along with six others from the other four family heads. Presently, all eight men were being torn to pieces before Gunther’s eyes.
Normally, he would have been quick to go out in order to stop what was happening. But these were death walkers. They were not natural men. They did not acknowledge intimidation, fear, or pain. A severed limb wouldn’t even stop them. Gunther couldn’t make his hand pull the bolt open on the door. Rather, he found himself backing away as quietly as he could with the hope that they would do their business and keep going.
Gunther stumbled in the dark vestibule, knocking into his metal stool. It scraped the concrete wall then fell to the cold floor. Gunther nearly bit his tongue trying not to curse his stupidity. He had left the slide open as well, which could only add to the noise reaching the death walkers out in the alley beyond the door.
He waited, listening. The screams had stopped outside. Gunther looked at the moonlight filtering in through the slide. He listened for the sound of their feasting but heard nothing presently. His curiosity got the better of him. He crept lightly, as lightly as a three hundred pound man can, toward the iron door that kept Felonius’s lair protected against unwanted intrusions.
Gunther’s eyes remained fastened to the slim bar of moonlight coming through the metal slide he regularly used to screen visitors. Not even a shadow passed. His ears sought the slightest hint of danger beyond, but found nothing. He began to feel better, telling himself that they had moved on. Still, his limbs trembled, unconvinced by logic.
He paused just before setting his eyes to the slim port. Nothing but distant wailing as had been the case all night long in Tarris; death walkers attacking those who had been spared the transformation, one another, or the wraith dancers who kept the city for the dragons. That was a curious thing. Why had they been left unaffected when they also worshipped the dragons?
When no danger presented itself, Gunther leaned forward to see what was happening in the alley beyond. A body slammed furiously into the door. The impact came with growls and a slathering of bloody saliva that shot through the rectangular slot to smack Gunther across the face. He stumbled back as many bodies hurled themselves at the iron door.
The door itself held firm, but he noticed slivers of light forming around the hinges. Mortar cracked and crumbled, falling to the floor in chunks. Gunther realized they were going to get through. He recovered his ponderous balance, turning toward the stair that he rarely bothered to descend.
Holding to the wall, he lumbered down the first two steps in the dark. The door gave way behind him. Moonlight spilled into the vestibule as death walkers tumbled clumsily into the room. Gunther screamed; perhaps the first time he had ever done so. Normally, he was the provocation for such reactions.
The death walkers scrambled on all fours, leaping after him as Gunther stumbled and fell the rest of the way down the stair. He slammed into the wooden door at the bottom, splintering the wood down the middle. His great bulk had not quite managed to carry him all the way through into the room beyond. Instead, he found himself somewhat stuck; piled upon himself in a heap at the bottom.
The death walkers cared nothing for this, except that their prey was now quite incapacitated. Truth be told, they en
joyed a fight more. Several of them leaped down the stairs, landing on top of Gunther. He wailed and flopped about trying to get them off, but was in no position to fight back. His screams filled the stairwell as blood poured from his wounds and more death walkers joined the feast.
SHADOW WALK
Felonius screamed when his mountain-of-a-man door guard crashed through the door where he and his friends had been meeting. Gunther’s skin had been torn away in long strips that dragged the ground around his feet as he stumbled through. He didn’t even look human anymore. His arms were wrapped around his bloated middle. Everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing, watching the man, horrified.
Andrea already had a sword in her hand which lowered slightly as she called to Gunther. She was one of the few who had actually taken the time to try and talk to the big man. He had the cognitive maturity of a small child and the temperament of one as well. Still, his simplicity made him more likeable than most of Felonius’s associates.
“Gunther?” she asked.
The bloodied door guard paused his shuffling, turning at the sound of his name. He managed a weak smile. “Drea?” His eyes rolled up into his head as his arms fell away from his torso. Gunther’s intestines spilled onto the floor before him then his great bulk followed.
Behind the body, in the doorway, a group of death walkers gathered. They stopped for a moment when they saw the group assembled within. But only for a moment. Then they screeched and ran inside.
“Get to the tunnels!” Andrea cried as she leaped toward the death walkers, her sword flying into action as soon as a target came within reach. She took its head from its shoulders in one move; her sword no more than a whisper through mutated flesh. The rest came at her without hesitation.
Felonius and the others poured out of his conference room into the brothel beyond, fleeing for their lives. None of the bodyguards remained to help the wraith dancer. The brothel itself had not been in business all day, considering the trouble brewing in Tarris since the night before and Felonius’s conference with his rivals and their associates.
For a man of some girth, Felonius moved quickly when his life depended upon it. “This way to the warehouse,” he said, taking a particular stair that was hidden within what appeared to be a closet. “Don’t think this negates your debts for taking you with me!” The others ran through, following him. The last shut the closet door and bolted it fast. Felonius never looked back to see if Andrea had survived to come with them.
Indeed, Andrea was still fighting for her life. Behind her stood the door leading to Felonius’s brothel where the others had taken their escape. Andrea had spent many sad days and nights of toil there, earning her daily rations from the fat man just like many other young women. Thankfully that had all ended for her the day that she saved Felonius’s life from a minor rival looking to advance his standing in Tarris.
Andrea had foiled the assassination attempt, killing the men sent to end Felonius’s life. He had been duly grateful and had granted her freedom. However, he had offered her more than that: a place as his chief of security if she turned the attempt on his life back on his rival. Andrea, having no other options for life in Tarris, had eagerly taken Felonius up on his offer.
The rival leader had been killed publicly at a meeting he had scheduled with the leaders of the other four families, supposing that Felonius had met his demise. Everyone got the message that day when the fat man entered the meeting uninvited then seated himself at his customary place at the head of the table. Andrea had been with him. Only this time she had not been dressed in the silken robes of a harlot, but the dress of a lady of quality.
Felonius had been the first to speak among his stunned peers, who had only moments ago been informed of his sudden passing. He had leveled his charge upon his rival in front of them all. No one had said a word in rebuttal. When the man tried to pull a pistol to shoot Felonius, Andrea had acted.
Her motion had appeared to the others as nothing more than a blur. As suddenly as the man had pulled his pistol from its holster, he was lying dead across the table with his throat cut from ear to ear. He never even fired a shot. The body had been removed by some of Zela’s bodyguards without ceremony. They had all concluded the evening with tea and cakes; small talk of the common troubles they all faced within their respective districts.
A death walker lunged at her and Andrea cleaved its skull in half. Two more came at her. Their attacks were erratic, unconventional; not at all the way a normal person fights.
A normal person tried, in various ways, to preserve their own bodies. Death walkers cared nothing for the damage they received. Even with all four limbs amputated, a death walker would wriggle and squirm, like a slug trying to get at its intended victim.
Andrea slammed a foot into the femur of one, sending it crashing to the floor past her while she decapitated another. The brain was the key. Sever the head, or destroy the mind controlling the body and they died. It was said that the evil spirits which inhabited death walkers took over the mind and through it affected the rest of the body.
Still, it was unknown to her why the creatures existed at all, beyond some sort of punishment developed by the dragons. But how could they punish an entire city? And why the faithful instead of criminals like Felonius and his comrades?
She had no time to sort it all out, or even to care. More of the creatures were coming through the door, surging over Gunther’s corpse into the room. Felonius and the others had gone. She knew the route they would take to get to the warehouse and on to safety beyond the defensive wall.
They had left her here, abandoned to die alone, but Andrea wasn’t angry over it. She had known what was required of her as Felonius’s bodyguard. If need be, she would give her life in order to protect his. Still, Andrea had no intention of giving her life so easily.
She couldn’t follow the others. That would lead the death walkers to her master. So, she would have to escape the lair another way. If she was lucky, the death walkers would abandon any search for Felonius and the others in favor of chasing her. One piece of meat was just the same as any other to a death walker. Besides, the more she eluded them the angrier they became.
Four more had come into the room by now, replacing those that had killed Gunther and had themselves fallen. The death walker with the shattered femur crawled on three limbs, dragging the leg, in an attempt to get to her. The point of her sword thrust between the creature’s eyes stopped its lumbering progress cold.
The stair beckoned to her from the far side of the room. That was her best bet for leading them away from Felonius and the other family heads. Andrea dodged sideways, allowing one of the four to leap past her. Another was already coming at her with arms opened wide. There was no time to fight what had recently been quite a large man. She had to move, or risk allowing more of the creatures to concentrate in the room with her, diminishing her chances of success with every new body in the small space.
Andrea called upon the gifts, using Shadow Walk. The death walker lunged at her baring bloodstains over its pale face and hands. Coal-black eyes burned into her soul. Her form disappeared as the feral beast closed its arms hopefully.
To Andrea, she had not disappeared at all. Rather, time slowed around her. In fact, she had merely sped up to a pace faster than everything around her, but her perception was of death walkers barely moving; nearly statues around her. She whipped her blade across their throats as she passed, weaving her way between the four.
Just before she reached the stair, her burst of speed ended. As time came back to a full assault around her, the four death walkers stumbled headless to the floor. Andrea took in a deep breath, finding her reserve of strength.
It was a fact that the Gifts of Transcendence exacted a heavy price upon the user; some more than others. This particular gift was rarely known among wraith dancers. Its power happened to also be quite draining on the user. It took strength that not many possessed.
Andrea still remembered the day that her Eld
er Mother had showed her the use of the gift. They had been sparring within one of the gardens surrounding Moloch’s palace in Tarris. Helda had been driven back uncharacteristically by one of Andrea’s strong advances. Then, with a grin, her small Elder Mother had simply disappeared.
Taken by surprise she had panicked briefly until, seconds later, she reappeared nearly fifty yards away. From that day forward, Andrea had coveted the Shadow Walk. Nearly twenty years later, well beyond her appointment as Captain of the High Guard in Tarris, she had attained to learning it.
Helda had arrived mysteriously at her post, requesting that she take leave for one month in order to complete her training. The supreme matron, as well as Andrea, had been mystified by the oddly timed request. She had assumed years before that her training had concluded with her emancipation; her hope of Helda ever teaching her the rare gift nothing more than a bitter dream unrealized.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Matron had granted Helda’s request. Andrea had always known that her Elder Mother held a great deal of sway in the kingdom. The fact that the woman only ever took one apprentice at a time had not been lost on her either.
Helda had kept her away in the mountains for nearly thirty days, building her strength and stamina. By the time she was finished with her training, she was physically and mentally stronger than she had ever been in her life. Still, when she accessed the Shadow Walk for the first time, she fainted trying to cover a distance of no more than twenty feet.
Time and practice increased her ability gradually after that. But still the gift drained her quickly. Andrea’s ears were still buzzing from this brief walk, but she feared she would need to use it much more before the night was finished.
Two more death walkers appeared at the demolished iron door as Andrea reached the top of the stair. She hurled a dagger into the forehead of the leading walker then charged at the second. The creature, predictably, came straight at her.