«Have fun, my darlings,» Rivi said with a cheery wave. «I don't think we'll see each other again.»
Then she was gone, Kiripao covering her withdrawal as more and more wights filled the street. I could see lamplight glint off their pointed teeth. Then, in a rush, they struck the front of the house like a tsunami.
17. THREE MILES THROUGH THE OUTLANDS
When there had only been a dozen wights clawing at the wall, the house stood up well against the destruction. With the demolition team multiplied threefold however, the building quaked at the very impact of so many talons smashing into the wood. Yasmin and I leapt forward, eliminating two attackers each; but the remaining undead heaved with such force, the entire wall ripped away in a solid flat. It wobbled in the wights' grip, two storeys high and shaken by the brisk wind that blew through the streets of the town. The wights tried to keep it upright, but they had no leverage. Slowly, the top of the facade tipped back, farther and farther, until a sudden breezy gust blew it against the house on the opposite side of the street.
The collision was the last straw for the poor battered wall. The lower storey, torn to tatters by previous wight attacks, broke apart completely, a wagon-load of lumber thunking down around the wights' ears. Then the upper story dropped in a single piece, like a great fly-swatter slapping down in a cloud of shattering plaster. Every wight was knocked to the ground, buried under the mass of wood.
Silence descended, broken only by soft, ominous creaks from the ceiling sagging over our heads. Yasmin stepped forward, staring out the open hole where a wall had once separated the house from the street. She peered at the tangle of timber heaped over the wights and whispered, «Do you think that crushed them?»
In answer, the mound of boards exploded upward, wood flying in all directions as undead muscles threw off the clutter. Planks whizzed in our direction, forcing us to duck; other boards smashed through windows of neighboring houses, or thunked heavily along the pavement. In a moment, an army of wights stood intact on the cobblestones, teeth gleaming, eyes filled with blazing hate.
The wall was gone. There was nothing separating them from us.
«Fight or flee?» Yasmin asked, lifting her sword.
«If we flee, they'll just catch us in the back garden,» I told her. «We can't all get over the fence in time.»
«But if we fight,» Yasmin said, «the others have a chance to get away.»
«Let's make it a last stand in the kitchen,» I suggested. «The Tooth Guild here can only come through the door one by one.»
«Until they rip out that wall too.»
«Don't give them ideas,» I growled. «Now we'll just back away.»
For our first two steps backward, the wights did nothing – just fixed their burning gaze on us with a palpable intensity. At our third step, one wight hissed; immediately, all the others took up the sound, a harsh rush of breath cutting across the midnight wind.
«Time for a strategic withdrawal?» Yasmin suggested.
«I'd prefer to run like a son-of-an-orc.»
So we ran, an army of undead at our heels.
* * *
«Out the back!» I shouted to the others as Yasmin and I hurtled into the kitchen.
«What's the problem?» Hezekiah asked, his voice thick with sleep.
A wight stuck its head through the door. Yasmin cut it off.
«Oh, them again,» Hezekiah said. He heaved Wheezle into his arms, and nudged a yawning Zeerith with his foot. «Time for us to go.»
«Perhaps,» said the naga, «I should stay and fight. If I have magic…»
I looked down at her sleek body, now coated in a flouring of the white dust that layered the whole kitchen. «The magic's gone,» I told her. «Wheezle will explain on your way out.»
Two more wights charged at the door. I took left, Yasmin took right, all the while yelling to our companions, «Run!»
Then there was no time to think about anything but the undead surging toward us like a hissing ocean.
* * *
Within seconds, we had six wight carcasses piled in front of the door – enough to form a rampart that kept the other monsters at a disadvantage. They still shuffled forward, trying to push down the wall of bodies and shove their way inside; but with a flurry of jabbing and stabbing, Yasmin and I held the line against them.
Minutes passed: long, tiring minutes of constant fighting. I didn't know if wights felt fatigue, but I was on the verge of exhaustion. My swordplay had turned sloppy… and my mind was clear enough to recognize the degradation in technique, without being able to sharpen up. Claws whisked by my face, coming close enough to tear at my jacket; and the smell of rotting flesh filled the kitchen, biling my stomach with nausea.
«Maybe…» Yasmin panted, «we should try… to escape after all.»
«You think… you can move enough… to run?»
«No.»
Her reply was almost drowned out by the hissing of wights. They could smell victory.
«Yasmin…» I began. «If we're going to die… let me just say —»
«Don't!» she cried. «You'll break my heart.»
I closed my mouth and found enough strength to lop off the arm of a wight reaching for me. The amputated stump spurted red dust; the arm, dropping like a dead-weight, continued to clench its fingers, futilely trying to grab at something. «I know how you feel,» I told the fallen hand.
Yasmin's mouth turned up in a small grin. «Sentimental berk,» she said, trying to hide the smile. Then she tucked a toe under the cut-off arm and kicked it back into the scrum of undead…
…which for some reason had eased off their mob action at the kitchen door. Indeed, they were snarling up a storm of hisses, but not aimed at us – every wight had turned to face the street, and some were already shuffling in that direction, brandishing their claws in a ready-for-business way.
«What now?» Yasmin whispered.
«Now the wights try to kill whoever's coming down the street, while we sneak out the back.»
«But if it's Miriam and her friend out there —»
«They have a fair chance of outrunning the wights,» I interrupted, «while we have no hope of fighting through thirty undead to help them. Let us hie ourselves hence, good woman, before the monsters remember we're here.»
Yasmin didn't look happy about leaving the fight before all the enemy was dead – typical Doomguard – but I nudged her gently toward the door and eventually she started moving. Part of her resistance may have been simple fatigue; she could barely keep her swordpoint off the floor.
We both held our weapons at weary ready as we backed into the garden and the chill Plague-Mort night. Frost was beginning to whiten on the grass, making it easy to see the slithering trail from Zeerith crossing the yard. I wondered how she would react to the cool weather… if she hibernated like other cold-blooded animals. For the time being, however, she was clearly moving fast and strong; I couldn't guess how she climbed over the garden wall, but the marks in the frost showed she had succeeded without fuss.
Yasmin and I weren't fresh enough to scale the wall so easily – it was six feet of solid brick, topped by a row of spikes – but we found enough footholds to clamber over awkwardly and lower ourselves down the other side. Hezekiah was waiting for us, a beaming smile on his homely face. «You made it!» he cried. «Did you kill all the wights?»
Yasmin gave a snort of a laugh. «They let us go,» she told him. «Something else grabbed their atten —»
The wall stood between us and the house, but we could still see a sudden flare of crimson light dazzle the sky. A moment later came the muffled of an explosion. After our experiences of the past week, I had no trouble recognizing a fireball blast… landing, I would guess, in the midst of the wights who filled the house's living room.
«What was that?» Hezekiah gulped, eyes wide.
«Someone must be fighting the wights,» Yasmin replied. «Maybe the Hounds have finally shown up.»
«Can the Hounds shoot fireballs?» Hezekiah asked
.
«They can now,» a new voice said.
Miriam stepped from the shadows, accompanied by a gray-skinned woman in her mid-twenties: a striking beauty with high cheek bones and glossy red hair, the kind a man would be happy to bed if he could figure out how to work around the scaly wings that sprouted from her back. The wings were tiny in comparison to the rest of the woman, less than two feet high, with an equally short span; but I had no doubt they could carry her far and fast if the need arose. The Planes are like that – out here, even the most vestigial wings can fly.
«This is the guide I told you about,» Miriam said, gesturing toward the winged woman. «Her name's November.»
«And what race are you?» Hezekiah piped up cheerfully.
His question was greeted with frosty silence from November, and embarrassed shuffling of feet from the rest of us. Finally, November said in a chilly voice, «There are some things you don't ask strangers, unless you like floating face down in the nearest sewage pond.»
«I was just trying to learn,» he protested. «How will I learn if I don't ask?»
November's eyes narrowed. «The multiverse does not care whether or not you learn. The multiverse does not care whether or not you live. Only people care, and precious few of them. Do you hear me?»
Hezekiah gulped. «Okay. Sorry.»
«Apology accepted,» November answered evenly. «And because I know you will make a nuisance of yourself, constantly staring and wondering what I am, I shall tell you I was born the child of a human man and a hell-spawned succubus. Some like to call my kind alu-fiends, but I do not want to hear that word cross your lips. You will call me an alu; my father raised me to suppress the fiendish aspects of my soul, and his spirit would grieve if I were forced to kill you over mere terminology.»
«Alu,» Hezekiah nodded. «A good old alu. Got it.»
He continued bobbing his head like a berk until a scowl from November stopped him.
* * *
On the other side of the wall, another explosion raked the sky, followed by a cracking of timbers. Any second, I thought I'd hear the entire house collapse; but the carpenters of Plague-Mort had clearly surpassed themselves in building the place. After two fireballs, an army of wights, and the earlier invasion by Hounds, the house remained standing – on fire now, but still mostly upright.
«What is happening?» Zeerith asked, an edge of panic in her voice.
«Hounds versus wights,» Miriam replied. «Pity we can't go out front and watch.»
«I've seen fireballs before,» I said. «Unless, of course, the Hounds have some new, more interesting kind…»
«Standard stuff,» Miriam answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. «I happened to know where the Fox stashed a few firewands, right here in town. They came in handy for bribes.»
«Not bribes,» November bristled, holding up two wands of her own. «Payment for services to be rendered.»
Miriam shrugged. «You got payment, the Hounds got bribes.» She turned back to me. «I gave the Arch-Lector's doggies some fire-toys in exchange for fighting your wights.»
«You knew we had wights?» Yasmin asked.
«November and I came by a while ago when that sod albino was just setting up her attack. Rivi had stationed a few wights out front, and a lot more around the corner, so I knew you were going to need help. I bribed the closest detachment of Hounds to come and give you a hand. It took all the wands I had left, but they did come through.»
November gave a small snort. «They just wanted a chance to shoot fire at moving targets.»
«Probably,» Miriam admitted, «but they did what they were paid to and mounted a frontal assault. I knew you'd be smart enough to run out the back. That's why we're here.»
«And now we should go,» November said. She gestured at the red flicker of flames on the other side of the wall. «We only have minutes before that fire engulfs the whole quarter. Besides, I'm sure you want to see that gate to Sigil as soon as possible.»
Despite her exhaustion, Yasmin insisted on carrying Wheezle; and so we hurried away, following November's lead. Miriam fell in beside Hezekiah and the two of them began whispering to each other, heads close and the ghost of giggles in their voices. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I didn't need to: they weren't saying anything, they were merely talking… pleased to have the worst behind them, pleased that each step took us closer the portal home.
Zeerith slid along beside me, a stricken expression on her young face. She was leaving the only world she could remember, her adoptive family butchered by Hounds. Some cynical part of me didn't believe the family had been quite so kindly as Zeerith maintained; but they were all she knew, the center of her life. Now she was fleeing in the company of strangers, abandoning everything familiar.
For a time, I tried to reassure her – Sigil had a small community of nagas, a few of them Sensates whom I knew personally. We'd find someone to care for her until she was ready to fend for herself. Zeerith nodded politely and said she was sure Sigil was a fine city… but then she lapsed into silence again, her face wracked with grief.
* * *
Plague-Mort had no city wall, no definite edge at all. The raggedy shacks housing citizens outside of Rich Man's Row simply grew farther and farther apart, and their yards increased to the size of small fields. Perhaps they were fields, and I was just too much the city-dweller to tell. It was, after all, late autumn in Plague-Mort, with the chill of winter in the air. Whatever crops might have filled these fields in summer were harvested now, leaving nothing but stubble.
We kept walking, down a dark dirt road with ankle-deep ruts. The fields came right up to the road, with only a thin strip of weeds separating the two. On a larger scale, the fields were just a thin strip themselves: a few hundred feet of cleared land on either side of the road, and beyond that, the Bush… virgin forest, walled with shadows. No doubt, local hunters ventured into the woods often enough, following the game trails and daring the underbrush; but hunters tended to camp where their ancestors had camped, to stake out the same watering holes, to lurk outside the same lairs. I was sure the trees concealed wilder places, a deep heartland where humans had not penetrated in all the lifetime of the multiverse.
And then the fields ended.
I could see the end coming: the point where the forest closed in around the road. The trees were tall and rustling in the wind, mostly elms and oaks and maples; in daylight, their leaves might be the vibrant reds and oranges of fall, but in the darkness they looked jet black. Branches reached across the road, choking off the slight glow of the overcast sky. As we approached, the way ahead looked like the mouth of a cave.
«Honored alu,» Wheezle said in a low voice, «is this truly wise? The trees provide perfect cover for bandits… or perhaps more fearsome threats.»
«I'm hard to surprise,» November answered. «Besides, this road runs spikeward and very little traffic comes this way. You may find the occasional barmy out here, living on nuts and berries, but the caravan routes run east-west around the rim. That's where you get bandits.»
She said nothing about other lurking things; and the Outlands were surely filled with dangerous beasts, especially near a cursed town like Plague-Mort. I looked at the blackness of the woods, drawing nearer with each step we took, and asked, «Where is this portal anyway?»
«Not far,» November said. «The gate is just a short way into the forest, inside a small chapel… built long ago by a group that worshipped the snake people.» She nodded toward Zeerith. «The nagas claim a huge tract of land spikeward from here, but they seldom come this close to town. According to legend, the nagas were embarrassed by the snake cult's form of worship, so they left the area in distaste. The cult faded away soon after; some say they all committed suicide in the hope of winning back the nagas' attention. All I know is, the chapel has been abandoned for as long as I've lived in Plague-Mort, and probably centuries before that.»
Hezekiah cleared his throat. «Have you, uhhh, ever been to this chapel at nig
ht?»
I could guess what was on the boy's mind. Abandoned chapels do not qualify as safe places for nocturnal visits, especially if all the former devotees killed themselves. But November said, «It's not haunted, if that's what you mean. Do you know how many do-gooders come through Plague-Mort every year? And can you imagine how they drool when they hear of a deserted chapel not far from town? If there were ever ghosts in the place, the poor shades got cleaned out generations ago. And don't worry about other kinds of trouble either: a party of adventurers toured the place just last week, and the worst they found was a squirrel who bobbed a crust of their bread.»
The others smiled at that, but not me. My father once listed for me a dozen lethal creatures who could magically disguise themselves as squirrels.
* * *
The road through the forest was dark enough; but soon November led us off on a side-path that was positively Stygian. Only a hint of light could struggle through the dense cover of autumn leaves, making our trail as dark as a mineshaft. Occasionally something would dart across the ground, stirring up a racket through the crisp fallen leaves; then November would call out «Rabbit» or «Badger» to calm our startled nerves.
I had thought rabbits and badgers were field animals, not the sort to prowl through thick woods.
We made an unconscionable amount of noise – I defy the stealthiest of forest rangers to walk quietly along a path covered with crinkly dry leaves – but no monsters attacked us in the ten minutes it took to reach the chapel. Tree roots tripped us, nettles pricked us, and a pair of crows cawed indignantly at having their sleep disturbed; still nothing happened. In time, we walked into a clearing wide enough that the trees could not block a large patch of sky… and there in front of us was a square stone building perhaps ten paces on each side.
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