Hodren, for example. She looked at the group of Healers again, easily finding the newest one - he was as tall if not taller than Jovan, and as broad. The blue of his magic shimmered with green, as did all the Healers’ power. Yet she also knew that his heart was heavy, he’d lost someone close to him recently. A lover, she believed, the magic wrapped around his heart was palest pink. He’d been whipped when he was younger, she saw, probably as an apprentice blacksmith who had more interest in herbs than hammers or anvils. She could see the scars on his back as clearly as if he were naked, they were outlined in magic that spoke of shame, covered over with layers of grim determination. He would do what needed to be done, Melody knew, whatever the cost. His magic told his story, as did everyone else’s.
That layer, that resolution and commitment to this war they were rushing to meet, it was present in every magic user she could see - because she had put it there. Her song made each of them aware of their power and filled every thought with the desire to use it against Semaj - to the exclusion of everything and anyone else. Their homes, their families, their jobs … nothing mattered but keeping the Lich King from returning to full power.
Melody wanted nothing more than to surrender to the horror of it all, curl into herself and weep. She held herself together only with the knowledge that Jovan would feel the despair. Their shared connection would betray her and he would drop everything, come to her full of worry and claustrophobic concern. He would tell her it was necessary, that it was the only way to defeat Semaj, that the Lich King was a monster. Was she any less of one? The only difference between their magical armies, she thought, was that hers were alive.
She closed her eyes, willing herself to set the guilt aside, and focus on what lay ahead. If she didn’t survive, she thought, none of it would matter. Hodren’s healing magic was strong. He would be a valuable ally tonight as the change came over her son, but Melody was still uncertain that even with his help, the Healers would be able to counteract the damage inside her.
The baby was still too young to be born, Melody knew. She spent half her resting hours connecting with him, sharing his vague non-thoughts. Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t been able to heal him - his affliction was a curse, not an injury. Unthinkable power lay within her, she could break the very ground under their feet or heal a man who was cradled in death’s arms, but she was helpless to save her son.
“Melody? Are you all right?”
She opened her eyes to see Sophie and Senna. It was the younger girl who had spoken, the green of her magic was vibrant with youth and pride - she was thrilled to have awakened as a Healer, like her mother.
“I’m fine,” Melody lied with a smile for the eager girl.
“They’ve asked us to cross,” Senna said, offering her hand. “The tent is already set up. We should get you settled in before …” She let her words trail off, but Melody understood. She accepted the help in standing, and rubbed the numbness from her hip.
“How many Healers will be there?” she asked, wincing as her eager son delivered a sharp kick to her rib.
“Most of us.” Senna paused. “Duke Korith insists that Lady Bethcelamin is indisposed, according to the messenger.” Her tone clearly indicated her disbelief. “He wouldn’t even let her speak.”
Melody walked alongside them towards the narrow bridge. “I imagine it’s hard for her. She has listened almost every time I sing, her gifts must be begging to be used.”
“Korith would never allow it.” Senna snorted indelicately. “With his policies? Admitting his wife is a Healer would undo everything he’s said about magic being evil. He’d look like a fool.”
“My mother says that it’s people who are evil, not magic.”
“Lady Marina is a smart woman,” Melody said, taking Sophie’s hand as the girl hesitated to step onto the wooden bridge. The noise of the river, swollen to just inches below their feet, almost drowned out her words. The planks of the walkway were loosely spaced, and spray from the icy water splashed up between the gaps. Sophie paled.
“Quick, too. She’s already across.” Senna took Sophie’s other hand, and the girl looked from her mother to the women on either side of her.
“Just don’t look down,” Melody advised, taking the first step. Sophie squeezed their hands, took a deep breath, and bravely followed suit.
“It’s going to be a long night,” Senna observed, looking back over the river when they’d made it over the bridge. “There are a lot of people still left to cross.”
“Horses, too,” Sophie added.
“The warmer weather should make it easier.” Melody followed Lady Marina to the tent being prepared for them, trying to not worry about how low the sun was in the sky. The rest of the Healers were already there, Hodren and the two women from Estfall, Prudence and Rose, were seated beside a makeshift bed of cushions. For her, she realized, to keep her comfortable as she endured the pain while they tried to repair the damage inside her. She swallowed, nervous.
“Don’t worry,” Prudence said, standing. “It’s going to be just fine. Are you feeling any pains?”
Melody’s heart was beating faster. She could feel the baby’s restlessness mixed with her own as the time drew near. She shook her head. “There’s a few minutes, yet. Thank you for being here,” she said, addressing all of them.
Hodren stood as well, greeting her with a polite bow. “It’s good to see you again, I hope—”
Before he could finish, the sharp call of a horn rang through the air - a warning of danger, a call to action. Sophie grabbed for her mother’s hand, her eyes wide. Twice more the horn blew, and they all moved to the entrance to see what was happening.
The smell that came to them on the breeze was nauseating and familiar, and they watched in horror as countless dead men attacked the group still on the other side of the bridge. Sounds of steel and screams drifted to them alongside the stench.
“It can’t be,” Melody breathed, starting towards the action at a run.
“Melody, no!” Hodren grabbed for her arm, but missed. He bolted after her.
She ignored him, pulling in magic as she ran. “No, no, no, not now—” Her words cut off with a cry as a sharp pain in her abdomen sent her skidding to her knees. “Please no,” she begged as Hodren reached her, gently pulling her upright. “Not now!”
“We don’t have a choice,” Hodren said. “Moon’s up.”
“They’ll have to handle it,” Senna said, catching up. She took Melody’s other arm and helped Hodren guide her back into the tent. “Sophie,” she called, “get inside!”
“Arik!” Sophie cried, pointing. Her face was ashen. “He’s with Rhodoban, over there!”
“Where’s Nan? Elee! My boys!” Marina scanned the field - Elee and the twins were on this side of the river with their nurse, but where? “Christoph? Belor? Elee!”
“Here!” Nan was heading for them at a run, carrying the Duchess’ youngest daughter while Christoph and Belor ran ahead of her.
“In the tent,” Marina gasped, following them inside.
Hodren was still bracing Melody, who was white-faced and clutching her belly. Senna’s hands were on hers, already trying to help slow the obvious injury. Sophie sobbed in her mother’s arms beside Elee. “Will they get us?” she asked. “Will they come here?”
Melody took a deep, shuddering breath. “Christoph, Belor,” she began, forcing herself to speak calmly. “Do you think you can make your shield now? Over all of us?”
Pale and wordless, they nodded and stepped to either side of the tent, eyes on each other.
Another pain ripped through Melody, and she doubled over with a strangled cry as the twins’ barrier shimmered up around them. Please Goddess let them stay focused, she prayed.
“Melody, lie down,” Senna urged.
Ignoring her friend, Melody forced herself upright and pulled on Hodren’s tunic. “Hit me,” she breathed when he met her eyes. “Knock me out. Please.”
Hodren shook his head. “Melody,
no, I can’t. You’ll be all right, we can heal you.”
“You have to,” she groaned. “Jovan—”
“Jovan would kill me if I laid a hand on you,” Hodren said.
“Jovan will die if you don’t!” Her voice was too loud, but the fear was enormous. She could already sense Jovan feeling her pain, and there was no way he’d be able to ignore it much longer. They needed him to fight the undead—
Desperate, she sent what she was feeling to Senna. Please, she begged.
Senna gasped, realizing what Melody feared. “Lich be damned,” she cursed. “She’s right, Hodren. Please, you have to. Trust me. Prudence, help me brace her.”
The former blacksmith released Melody’s arm to Prudence and stepped in front of her, frowning. “I don’t want to hurt—”
“Please!” The word turned into a scream - Hodren watched as the dress over Melody’s abdomen pushed outward with the force coming from inside her, and the unguarded magic in her voice sent the pain of it through each of them.
He struck her jaw with force and precision, feeling the bone break under his knuckles. Her cry cut off immediately and she collapsed, unconscious. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, watching Senna and Prudence guide Melody’s fall onto the cushions.
“Apologize later,” Senna snapped. “Heal. All of you!”
27
The wind shifted as it picked up, and a thick, sickening odor washed over Jovan moments before the horn blew. The bottom dropped out of his stomach with dread. He was already halfway across the bridge to Melody. The moon was about to rise, and he had no intention of letting her endure their son’s transformation alone, but this— He drew his sword in unison with the other soldiers on the bridge, turning back towards the threat.
The undead blackened the expanse of bare ground between them and the treeline, following the river’s edge and emerging from the woods in droves. The horn’s call pierced the air twice more, the noise clear and loud over the screams of the dying, those surprised by the silent attack disguised by the treacherous wind. Despite the fading daylight, Jovan could see the outlines of giant spiders - five of them at least, though it was hard to tell where one set of legs stopped and another began. He took off at a run.
An echo of pain ripped through his abdomen, stealing his breath and sending him stumbling into a pair of soldiers. The two weren’t moving, they were just staring, wide-eyed, at the force bearing down on them.
“You,” Jovan snapped, finding his feet. “You’re new?”
“From Strom,” one said.
“Friends of Tyren,” the other added.
Melody’s twisting agony wrenched through Jovan again, and he forced his words through gritted teeth. “Do you know the Healer’s tent?”
The two men nodded, their faces pale and shocked. “Over the bridge,” the first one said.
“Get more men and go.” Jovan pointed. “Defend it, do you hear me? That’s the only important thing. Protect them. Don’t leave, not for anything.”
“Aye,” the second man agreed, not looking towards the tent.
Jovan followed his gaze to see two of the enormous centipedes he and his men had faced before they’d found Melody, reared up over the unprepared army. “Get to the Healers!” he shouted, grimacing as his gut clenched and protested. “Now!”
The soldiers went, and Jovan steeled himself, heading towards the main fight. Mages were already at work, he could see flames rising amidst the group of spiders. A wave of echoed pain swept through him, drawing an involuntary groan from his throat, then disappeared in an instant. He paused, reaching out, but he couldn’t sense Melody any more. His chest tightened in fear - there was nothing from her, no pain, no peace …
A panicked scream drew his attention, and Jovan sprang forward, cutting down the three dead men heading for the bridge behind him. They were wearing uniforms, he noticed - Porthold. “Hold the bridge,” he called to the others, reaching down and pulling up the young man whose scream had spurred him into action. “Arik?”
“I couldn’t stop them,” the boy gasped. “There are so many!”
Jovan swallowed his cold dread at Melody’s absence. “Burn what you see, kid. I’ll cover you.”
“But … my father - my family—”
“We’ll head that way,” Jovan promised, meeting another small group of dead men head on. “Start burning!”
Every step was chaos, but Arik stayed at Jovan’s side, summoning and throwing the fire as Rhodoban had taught him. More mages and soldiers joined them as they fought towards the worst of the battle, forming an instinctive double line to keep muscle and steel between the not-men and the magic users. But no matter how many bodies fell, it seemed like there were always more.
The magic that was supposed to turn the tide of the upcoming battle was proving disastrous in this one— in their panic, mages were lashing out in every direction, hitting friend as well as foe. Jovan’s group had to skirt an area of thick mud where some of the magic users had trapped the undead - and the soldiers fighting them - in magically softened earth. Rocks and tree branches flew through the air, hurled by nothing more than the thoughts of the terrified mages who didn’t want to die.
They finally came upon Duke Thordike, fighting side by side with Derek, Elias, and some more of his men in much the same formation as those with Jovan and Arik - soldiers protecting mages. They were focusing their attack on one of the impossible centipedes.
“Father!” Arik, alarmed, threw himself into the Duke, knocking him out of the path of one of the thing’s sharp, glistening legs. Jovan was right behind him, slicing through the leg before the creature could draw it back for another blow.
“Arik!” There was deep relief in Duke Thordike’s voice as he quickly embraced his son with one arm and climbed to his feet again. “Where are the others?”
“With Nan,” the boy said, accepting Jovan’s hand and finding his own feet. “Across the river.” He sent fire towards the giant insect, which joined with another burst of flame from a different group of men and engulfed the thing’s eyes. It screamed, high-pitched and piercing. The centipede refused to die easily, and handfuls of men were broken, impaled, or devoured before it finally fell.
“Jovan.” His chest heaving, Derek pointed back the way they had come, across the river. Countless spiders and still more of the walking dead men swarmed across the landscape, far outnumbering the soldiers that had crossed the bridge to fight them.
“What of Melody …?” Duke Thordike started towards the bridge, the others right beside him.
“Full moon,” Jovan said, cutting down several more of the dead men. Far too many of them had weapons and knew how to use them, making it difficult to tell friend from enemy, especially in the dark. It had become clear early on that they were up against everyone who had gone missing from Porthold, and probably Basinmere - dead, but recently enough to pass as still human. “She was with the Healers.”
“Over the river.” Arik sent fire into the midst of a group of ragged looking women who were clawing at the body of one of Thordike’s soldiers, but instead of blowing them back, it only ignited their clothes and hair. “With mother.”
“We’ll get to her,” Duke Thordike promised, dodging a blow and returning a swing of his sword that separated the corpse’s head from its neck. “Come on.”
Crossing the bridge had been a slow process in the daylight, but it had become exponentially more treacherous as the fight wore on. The river had flooded - most likely with a magic user’s best intentions - turning the ground at either side into a nearly impassible quagmire, and the bridge itself was soaked, slippery, and littered with bodies.
“How did they get across?” Arik asked, stumbling over a soldier whose neck still clung to the knife that killed him. It was an obvious struggle for the exhausted boy to keep going.
Jovan pulled the knife free, handing it to Arik and kicking a second body to the side. “More like where,” he said. “Must have been in Basinmere.”
The
fight to the Healer’s tent was the stuff of nightmares - an uphill battle in the most literal sense, with spiders of every size covering every surface they could see. The full moon gave them some light, aided by the burning bodies of the dead, but the smell and the smoke burned their eyes, choked in their throats. Thordike and the others could barely lift their swords by the time they made it to the tent, but still more dead men came, unwavering — somehow drawn to Melody.
The soldiers Jovan had sent at the beginning of the endless fight had done as they were told, but too few of the men they’d gathered to keep Semaj’s forces at bay were still standing. Dismembered spider bodies and more than a few decapitated not-men littered the ground beside the fallen.
“Are they safe?” Jovan blocked one of the dead men from attacking the soldier nearest the entrance to the tent. “Is the shield holding?”
The soldier turned and removed the dead thing’s head with a single swing. He was pale and covered in gore. “I don’t know about a shield,” he said. “But nothing’s gotten past us yet.”
“Yet.” The second soldier cut down another corpse, kicking it clear. “We’ve lost too many, we can’t last much longer.”
“We’re here, we’ll help.” Duke Thordike set his back to the tent and surveyed the rest of the fighting beneath him. The massive assault had now divided into pockets, groups of soldiers and mages defending against spiders or centipedes or the remaining undead citizens of the empty towns they had left behind. “We might just make it through the night,” he said, swinging his sword into a lunging spider.
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