”Concisely put, thank you. I think we can manage to protect you adequately with the six man team Maksohm has assembled.”
Six? There were five of us including Maksohm, who I knew was part of the team. “Yez, you coming too?”
“Of course, why do you think I’m debriefing you? Maksohm and I are the only ones that know the full situation inside.”
That did make sense.
“Yez, you said you did reconnaissance with Maksohm? How far is the shard?”
“We weren’t able to penetrate all that deeply before being completely overwhelmed,” Yez said apologetically. “We have an estimate of where it is but no clear sighting.”
That was a little disheartening. I was hoping that for once we could enter a barrier and actually know where the shard was.
“If it’s just us,” Rena asked thoughtfully, her face eyeing the morning sun, “do we go in today?”
“We can,” Yez confirmed. “I wasn’t certain if you needed a day of preparations first before going in, so we were playing things by ear. But if you don’t need any prep, we can just go in. We have a full day ahead, might as well put this thing to bed before things get any uglier.”
Amen to that. “There’s nothing else to stop us?”
“Only the growing crowd outside of the barrier. Maksohm went to check if there’s a barricade up to keep the crowd back. We need to confer with him to make sure that’s the case before we go anywhere near the shard barrier. Rena, we know you have cat eyes, so I’m not concerned about losing the light a little. As long as we can get you there, you can handle the shard?”
“Absolutely,” she assured him. “Although for your sakes, I don’t want to be fighting in failing light. Being surrounded in the dark by zombies sounds like a nightmare.”
“That will give me nightmares,” Chi said with a shudder that didn’t look as exaggerated this time. “You’re giving me the shivers, quit it, both of you. Our goal is to fight in the strongest daylight possible and get this over with well before sunset.”
I could not agree more. “Then after breakfast, let’s grab Maksohm.”
Maksohm regarded us with puzzlement, as if he couldn’t imagine why we would ask such an obvious question. “Of course the area is barricaded so that we can enter. Is that the only thing in question?”
“That was it,” Yez answered, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Maksohm, if you’re willing, we’re all ready to go now.”
Maksohm hesitated a moment and in that moment I could see a hint of pain and resignation as if he knew what the answer would be before he even opened his mouth. “The people—the people inside, what will happen when the shard is destroyed?”
“They become dust,” Rena answered simply, softly, a finality that rang with the echo of a grave closing.
His eyes shuttered closed and he took a deep breath before exhaling it in a single, “Oh.” After a moment he rallied and become brisk and professional once again. “No, there’s nothing else I need to know. We need to deal with this situation swiftly. Even with the agents we have working on keeping this situation contained, the barrier is becoming harder to hold. We need to do this now, if we can, before it swallows up more of the city.”
That sounded good to me. And maybe he didn’t have questions but I certainly did. Raising a hand a little in the air, I asked, “Usually in a group like this, someone takes lead. Who will be calling the play?”
“I will,” Maksohm informed me. It occurred to me then that while I had fought multiple shards with this group, Yez didn’t know all of our quirks, and he needed a little more warning than anyone had likely given him. Whatever report they had on me had not proven to be useful so far. It didn’t seem to have much in the way of details about my past before Rena. I took a breath and said as non-aggressively as I knew how: “Yez, understand that Rena is my first and foremost priority. If she’s in danger, I will countermand whatever order Maksohm gives me to see to her first.”
Yez didn’t even blink at this. “Of course you will, Bannen, and I expect no other behavior from her familiar. Don’t worry, I won’t ask it of you.”
Phew. “Glad to hear it,” I said with a grin. “You won’t believe how many arguments I’ve had because of that.”
“Seriously?” Vee asked me, jaw dropping wide. “You’re her familiar, why would they expect you to do anything but guard her?”
“I’m not sure I have a good answer for that. Because they’re self-serving idiots? Because no one really believes that I’m her familiar unless they’re a mage and can see the bond for themselves? I dunno, I honestly have no clue, as people are never upfront with me about it, they just give me some sort of lame reason and then expect me to obey them.” Which was as frustrating as it was hilarious because some people weren’t the type to give up easily and would literally argue until they were nearly blue in the face. “One man actually got into a physical fight with me about it.”
“Which you won,” Chi stated knowingly.
“Of course I did, he was an idiot, I don’t lose to idiots. How did we get on this topic anyway? Maksohm, we’re burning daylight.”
“We are indeed,” he agreed immediately. “If we’re all ready, then let’s go.”
Following Maksohm didn’t take any real effort until we got on the main street leading toward the shard. From a block out, it became dense with people, so much so that I often had to slip sideways, weaving in and out of groups to make any headway. Rena and I didn’t attract much attention, but people took note of the MISD uniforms of the others, and a murmur went up as we passed by. Something about their tone didn’t sound pleased. Because the MISD should have already resolved the problem, to their minds? Because their approach now meant that something would happen soon and, not knowing what that something might be, people felt uneasy?
I couldn’t guess, not with what little I overheard. I stuck close to Rena, just in case, but I didn’t like the atmosphere of this street. Its businesses were all closed, not from abandonment, but with doors shut and closed signs hanging in the windows. People of all genders, occupations and ages stayed packed in close to each other, and aside from the whispering as we passed, were deathly silent. If this was a protest, it was the quietest version of it I had ever seen.
But it felt like a mob that hadn’t decided to move yet.
Because of the dense wall of bodies blocking our view, I didn’t see anything of the shard barrier except the shining dome top of it, not until we were practically on top of the barricade keeping people back. A half dozen agents stood guard, making sure people respected that barricade, and one of them drew back the wooden sawhorse so that we could slip through with a nod of acknowledgement and respect to his fellow agents as they passed through.
Only then did the crowd really start to speak, as they realized that two people not part of the MISD had been allowed through, and I could hear them wondering who we are. A few of course guessed mages, and it amused me they thought I was a mage too. Do I look magey?
The amusement didn’t last long as I detected an angry rumble through the crowd. It would only get worse when Rena did her initial break so that we could enter the barrier.
This was not going to be good.
Bannen either sensed my distress, or my expression gave it away, as he abruptly folded me up in his arms and hugged me tightly from behind.
The situation was worse than I’d feared and that was saying something. I stared in horror, taking in the grotesque forms of something that used to be human. Brothers, wives, friends, lovers, all of them twisted past any kind of recognition, becoming inhuman monsters. We’d called them zombies over breakfast, but I hadn’t realized how accurate the term was in describing them until this moment. Their bodies still had a basic bipedal form but no real other similarity existed. Their backs and shoulders were humongously enlarged, causing their necks to hunch, sometimes resting at an angle. Arms had been distorted to nearly impossible lengths—like they were monkeys—or sometimes legs. The
re didn’t seem to be any real uniformity to it, each one distorted in a unique way. I felt my heart breaking, tears burning at the back of my eyes as I looked at them. I couldn’t save them. No matter what I did, I would not be able to save a single soul.
The thought felt like agony choking my throat.
Bannen turned me in his arms with a gentle hand on the back of my head, tucking me under his chin to block the view. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. I felt his unwavering love and support for me and after a moment that was enough to pull myself back together. “I’m okay.”
He pulled back, gave me another look and then nodded.
I took a breath and looked around again. The one silver lining to this was that the buildings didn’t seem to be affected. I had seen rocks used to create minions with, so technically the brick buildings had the same sort of potential, but the shard here hadn’t attempted that, for whatever reason. Perhaps because it didn’t have enough energy to? Because it hadn’t felt the need? Either way, I felt grateful, as fighting zombies and buildings would have been ridiculously challenging and not something our little group of six could manage.
Some sort of word had gotten out that we were the team to dismantle the shard as we had quite a gallery of onlookers nearby. Several agents had cordoned off the area, preventing anyone from getting too close. The braver ones called out questions, asking what we intended to do, how many people we could save. The others just watched in silence, anxious and pleading with their eyes.
Unable to look at any of them, I faced forward, looking directly into the barrier. Zombies lined the inside at least three feet deep, forming clusters that would pounce on us the moment we were through. While that behavior was normal for Toh’sellor’s minions, it did cause complications in this case. I sidled closer to Maksohm and tugged on a sleeve to get his attention. “Maksohm?”
“What is it, Rena?” he asked me quietly.
I cleared my throat, not sure how to say this. “Normally when I get ready to breach a barrier, I’ll take a moment and clear a path so we’re not attacked the moment we step through.”
He heard the question in my statement and glanced between the zombies and our watchers with a grimace. “That will not go over well.”
“I know.” I didn’t know what else to say.
Running a hand roughshod over his face, he glanced between the two again, clearly thinking hard. “On the other hand, I don’t want to be overwhelmed the very moment we try to go in. Yez and I had that problem earlier when we did a quick reconnaissance and we barely got back out again. We did that the first week the barrier was up; I hate to think how much worse the situation will be now.”
Two weeks for Toh’sellor to create more minions with. I winced. It would be so much worse. “Your call, Maksohm. I frankly don’t know which is the better option right now.”
He didn’t answer me immediately, instead studying the barrier for a silent moment. “I give it two, three days max before this barrier starts crumbling.”
His tone invited a response so I studied the barrier as well. “That sounds about right.”
Vee, standing behind us, cleared her throat. “Maksohm, I know the political backlash of people watching us eliminate the zombies is going to be…messy…but we really don’t have time to do this any other way. If this barrier fails, we don’t have the manpower to build another one from scratch, and we’ll lose most of the city when it goes. We can’t afford to try this once and then assume we can try it again.”
All very true and everyone knew it.
Maksohm gave us both a slight nod. “Then, Rena, I’ll ask that you clear a path for us, as much as you can. Just let me give the other agents on guard here a head’s up so they can brace themselves.”
“Of course,” I assured him. I felt a little torn about his decision, as on one hand, it really was the safer option. On the other, it meant that I would have to kill something that used to be human. I wasn’t sure how that thought set with me.
Bannen took my head in both hands and looked me dead in the eye. “They’re targets.”
I blinked. What?
“They’re targets,” he repeated firmly, with an intensity that I rarely saw. “They’re not human, don’t think of what they used to be. They’re targets, they need to be eliminated, and that’s all they are.”
My human familiar had killed people before, in the defense of himself or others, so he knew exactly how emotionally hard this would be on me, someone that had never been forced into this position before. I could feel his concern and I wanted to hug him for it. A part of me felt squeamish, low in the pit of my stomach, but my rational mind couldn’t be more clear. “They’re not human anymore, Bannen,” I assured him. “I know that. I won’t hesitate.”
“Good. Just…good.” He huffed out a breath, searching for words but not finding them. Finally he let go and took a half step back, jaw tense.
I knew he hated this situation but I felt a strange sort of calm steal over me. I knew what I had to do. I knew we didn’t have any other options and strangely, that made all of this bearable, even though it was such a nightmarish situation. My dreams would be haunted by today’s events, but I couldn’t turn away from this. I couldn’t ignore it.
Maksohm came back to us with Yez at his side and neither man looked at all happy. Their expressions could have been carved from stone, but Maksohm spared me a nod as he stopped next to me. “We’re ready when you are, Rena.”
I blew out a steady breath. “Then here we go. You can raise your shield around us whenever you wish.” I took in another breath, let it out, my eyes focusing on the zombies literally pounding against the barrier in front of me. The minions of Toh’sellor were always different, a mishmash of whatever elements were at hand for the chaotic thing to work with, but they always had one similarity as well: each minion carried the little knotted stone that anchored it to Toh’sellor. Without that stone, it wouldn’t have the energy it needed to survive. It was there that I focused, taking in every stone from every minion, as far as my eyes could see. I’d done this enough times that I knew at least some of the elements, but I had to adjust my incantation on the fly because of course not every stone was exactly alike. There were enough differences to throw me for a momentary loop.
Not enough to stop me.
I took out twenty in one go, giving us enough room to shoulder through the shield without any chance of zombies escaping out. I heard people screaming and crying behind me and sympathy flooded my system, but no guilt, as I knew I hadn’t killed anyone. They might have still been mobile but in every other sense they were already dead.
Maksohm dropped a barrier around us instantly, as soon as the path was clear—I had to wonder at his timing, did he still not believe that I could work through his barriers?—and we were off in a steady lope. Of course the zombies I hadn’t erased were on top of us as soon as we were more than a dozen feet inside, but we’d all expected that. Our pace slowed to more of a walk, out of necessity, as my team fought. I focused a little ahead of their reach, taking out zombies as I moved, trying to help them clear a path.
Maksohm held the shield steady, always in a fixed circle as we pressed forward, and that took a considerable amount of skill considering how many disruptions the others caused. After all, they couldn’t stay properly inside the shield, not and be able to attack the enemy. They actively tried to keep their heads and most of their bodies inside, to fend off the effects of the shard’s malevolent energy, but their arms and shoulders often dipped in and out of the shield as they fought. To have four people dart in and out of the shield like that had to be jarring, even if Maksohm’s shield was designed to allow such movements.
They killed everything around us, for they had to; we would be hemmed in on all sides if they didn’t. Especially in these narrow confines of the paved street, they could quickly overwhelm us. Maksohm could hardly use the shield as a battering ram to force our way through. He’d have to be as strong as a giant, maybe three, to muscle
his way forward. Even a shield had its limits.
The bodies of the fallen didn’t automatically disappear under their attacks, not unless they somehow managed to hit the core with a well-aimed blow. It meant we sometimes had to watch our step, hopping over the fallen, so that the smooth pavement became more like an obstacle course.
I’d grown accustomed to the sounds of battle, the thunks of weapons striking home, the screams of the wounded and dying, the last gasps of the dead. After so many fights, I had learned how to tune all of that out. But my nose hadn’t been toughened up in a similar way. The smell in here was atrocious, a volatile cocktail mix of rot, gases, and decay that threatened to strip the hairs out of my nose. I breathed through my mouth as much as possible, fighting the urge to gag. If I didn’t focus I would be heaving my breakfast on someone’s shoes, so I concentrated all of my attention on either taking down zombies or locating the shard. It had to be in here somewhere.
Every other time that I’d done this, the shard had appeared either in an open field or in some other isolated patch of real estate. This was the first time to my knowledge it had cropped up in a cityscape and that made things harder in several senses. In the most immediate sense, I had very limited sight lines and lighting, because of course the incoming storm clouds blocked the sun, and no lights came from the abandoned buildings. It made for an eerie sort of twilight even though we technically still had a half day left. Perhaps because this was an older section of town, the streets felt narrow and cramped, without a lot of elbow room. It worked in our favor a little, as the zombies couldn’t approach us freely from all sides, but I heard Chi bemoan, “Nooo, I hate fatal funnels!” more than once, so maybe not completely in our favor.
With all of these houses and abandoned businesses in the way, I couldn’t tell where the shard rested. Yez had said earlier that he and Maksohm hadn’t been able to find the shard either before being forced into a retreat. Would we be able to search this place quickly enough before we lost all light? I absolutely did not want to be here after dark. Even in broad daylight, being surrounded by zombies felt more than creepy.
The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2) Page 12