Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men

by Derek Landy

  Valkyrie sat beside Skulduggery. “Devoted?”

  “Mortal men who toil in servitude,” Frightening told her. “Some call them willing slaves. They obey without question and without complaint – mostly because their tongues were cut out once puberty set in.”

  “They can’t talk? I honestly cannot think of anything more terrible.”

  “I could see some advantages,” Skulduggery murmured.

  Frightening laughed. “Good luck, my friends, and enjoy the ride. Apparently it’s just like a rollercoaster.”

  He slapped the back of the seat and the whole thing lifted into the air, high enough so that both Skulduggery’s and Valkyrie’s feet cleared the ground.

  “And you might want to hold on to something,” Frightening said as he walked away, and in that instant they sprang forward, accelerating so suddenly that Valkyrie was pressed back into the seat.

  They moved straight out, away from the village, soundlessly skimming over the sand, picking up even more speed. The air filled Valkyrie’s cheeks, ballooning them out while her hair went nuts. Giggling, she glanced at Skulduggery, who sat there with a hand held in front of him. Not even a breeze ruffled his shirt.

  “Don’t be boring!” she roared at him over the wind. He moved his head a fraction. “Come on! It’s fun!”

  His head moved in that way that was his equivalent of rolling his eyes, but he took off his hat and held it to his chest, and then he dropped his hand. Immediately the wind whipped his tie across his jaw.

  The seat skimmed over a high dune and plunged down the other side, and Valkyrie screamed and laughed and gripped Skulduggery’s arm. Tears streamed from her eyes, but she could barely lift a hand to wipe them away. Beside her, the wind was making a deep whooshing noise as it passed through Skulduggery’s eye sockets.

  “Façade!” she shouted. “Put your façade on!”

  He hesitated only a moment, then tapped his collarbones. The false face crept quickly across his head, but the features struggled to stay where they were supposed to. His cheeks were like Valkyrie’s, ballooning outwards, but even his eyes were being dragged round his head. The wind went up his nostrils and flipped his nose inside out and Valkyrie laughed until their speed made it hard to draw breath. For the first time she noticed how cold she was, and she tightened her grip on Skulduggery’s arm and he held up his hand, deflecting the air around them.

  Valkyrie gasped in the sudden quiet. Skulduggery’s face settled into position, and he looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

  “Enough fun for you?”

  “My skin stings,” she said.

  “You’ve just had sand blasted at you at two hundred kilometres per hour. I’m not surprised your skin stings. You should have worn your mask.”

  “You could have told me that at the start.”

  “Then how will you learn?”

  They hurtled down another dune. Below them, around them, the sand was dark. Above them, a vast sky with countless stars.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said softly.

  “It has its moments.”

  Valkyrie awoke with her head resting on Skulduggery’s shoulder and, even before she’d opened her eyes, the world was bright and hot and harsh.

  She sat up a little straighter, cracked her eyelids. The dark dunes beneath had become golden, and the countless stars were now hidden behind a sky of perfect blue. The seat slowed as it came to the top of a dune and the moment Skulduggery stopped deflecting the air the heat closed in on Valkyrie like a fist.

  “Woah,” she croaked.

  The seat stopped, and lowered to the sand. Skulduggery stood, put his hat back on. Valkyrie held out her hand and he pulled her to her feet. Her back was stiff, her legs were numb, and she was hot. She was so incredibly hot.

  She tied her hair back, then fumbled in her pocket for her sunglasses and put them on. She took a long swig of warm water, and wiped her mouth before speaking. “We have to walk for seven hours? In this heat? I can’t do it. I literally cannot do that.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Skulduggery said, nodding to their left. “We go that way.”

  He started walking. Valkyrie followed.

  “It’s too hot. I’m being serious. My clothes are meant to cool me down in hot weather, but they’re doing nothing.”

  “They’d cool you down on a hot summer’s day in Ireland,” Skulduggery said. “The Sahara is quite another matter, I’m afraid.”

  It was hard to walk in the sand. It sucked at her boots, her lovely boots, her lovely boots in which boiled her lovely feet. She was already sweating. She took off her jacket, tied the arms round her waist. The gauntlet made it awkward, but she managed.

  Skulduggery glanced back. “You can’t wear that,” he said.

  She looked down at herself. Her pink T-shirt, the one Stephanie had bought. She resisted the urge to rip it off and burn it. “Why not?”

  “It’s pink.”

  “So? We’re not in camouflage.”

  “I mean it’s pink and it’s not armoured. You should put your jacket back on. We’re going up against some very dangerous and unpredictable people.”

  “Who are seven hours away from our current position.”

  “You’re going to get sunburnt.”

  She took a tube of suncream from her pocket. “Extra strength,” she said.

  He shook his head and carried on. She followed, spreading the suncream over her arms and shoulders, her face and neck and chest. “Do my back,” she called.

  “Do your own back.”

  “I can’t. Please?”

  “Do you know how hard it is to get suncream off these gloves?”

  “No,” she admitted truthfully. “Do you?”

  He stopped and sagged. She passed him the cream and turned, and he spread it brusquely over the back of her neck and down to her shoulder blades.

  She grinned as he handed the tube back to her. “Thank you.”

  He grunted, then put his hat on Valkyrie’s head and moved off.

  “Want to sing songs while we walk?” she asked.

  “God, no,” he said.

  They’d been walking for hours and the canteen had long since been emptied. Valkyrie licked her dry lips. She’d come with sunglasses and suncream, but no water of her own.

  Pretty dumb for a smart girl.

  She applied more suncream to her sizzling skin, having gone through most of the tube already. The fedora was hot on her head, but it did its part to keep her face in the shade, and for that she was grateful. Anything she could do to cool down was welcome beyond measure. If Skulduggery hadn’t been here, she would have had no problem in abandoning her clothes altogether.

  What a sight that would make.

  She laughed.

  Skulduggery looked back. “Everything OK?”

  “Not really. I think I may be delirious.”

  He stopped, and watched her as she walked up to him. “You’re burnt.”

  She looked at her arms. “No I’m not.”

  “Take off the sunglasses.”

  She dipped them lower on her nose, and could suddenly see how red her skin was. “Oh, bloody hell! Look at me! I’m a lobster!”

  “I told you to leave your jacket on.”

  She glared. “You think that now is the time to say things like that? Really? There is no time to say things like that, but especially now. This is going to hurt so much tonight, and all I get from you is ‘I told you so’? Water. Give me water.”

  “I’ve taught you how to draw the moisture from the—”

  “I’m tired and I’m cross and I’m hot and I’m sunburnt and you have just committed an unforgivable sin so you’d better give me water right this second.”

  “Well,” he said, “since you put it like that …”

  He raised his hand and the air started to shimmer, and a small mist formed above her. She could feel the air currents against her skin, feel what he was doing, how he was manipulating the moisture around them. She tilted her head back an
d the mist became droplets of water that fell into her open mouth.

  “Oh, that’s good,” she said, her eyes closed. “More.”

  “You want any more,” he said, walking away, “you do it yourself.”

  She stared after him in dismay. “Oh, come on, just—”

  “You’re never going to learn if I always do these things for you. I’m not going to be around forever, you know.”

  “You planning on leaving me?”

  “Not if I can help it. But things happen.”

  Valkyrie sighed, and trudged after him.

  She did her best to draw water from the air, she really did. At best she could form a little pocket of drizzle, though, and the more she walked, the less she was able to concentrate. Finally, she couldn’t stand it any more.

  “Water,” she said. Her mouth was so dry it hurt to speak.

  Skulduggery didn’t look back. “You need to do these things—”

  “Water, or I’ll die. I will die. To spite you.”

  He stopped, turned to her, and sighed. “Fine.”

  “And more,” she said. “This time, more. Lots.”

  He plucked his hat from her head, and raised both hands. Valkyrie took off her sunglasses and once again she tilted her head back while a mist formed above her. It was a big mist this time. A serious mist. She felt the air currents twisting and turning with every gesture Skulduggery made, as he dragged the moisture into droplets of water. A lot of droplets. And not droplets any more. Drops now. Proper-sized drops, hanging there, bumping into each other forming bigger drops, forming a puddle that rippled in mid-air, a big puddle, a serious puddle, a—

  The puddle collapsed and drenched her and she squealed, she actually squealed, and jumped to one side way too late to avoid it. She swallowed whatever water had landed in her mouth, almost choked on it with the outraged laughter that bubbled up from somewhere within, and she stared at Skulduggery through strands of wet hair and he just stood there, and she discovered just how smug a skull could look.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” she said.

  “You wanted more.”

  “You are so immature.”

  “And you’re smiling for the first time in hours.”

  She laughed again, put a hand to her face and rubbed the water into her cheeks and forehead. It felt so good. Having wet hair felt so good. And yet even as she stood there she could feel herself starting to dry.

  “Could you do that again?” she asked.

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  Once she’d had her fill of water, and once she’d topped up her canteen, they started walking again. Another hour and her stomach started to rumble. An hour after that, her energy left her. Skulduggery picked her up and carried her, and she drifted off in his arms. She didn’t know how far he carried her, but she opened her eyes when that voice in her head said, Wakey-wakey.

  Before them, the desert shimmered in a heat haze like she had never seen. The shimmering air rose as tall as a skyscraper, but it was localised to the area directly in front of them. Skulduggery let her down, and Valkyrie stood on shaky legs. She untied the jacket from around her waist and put it on, hissing in pain as it slid over her skin.

  For her benefit, Skulduggery moved slowly down the dune, and she managed to follow without collapsing. They approached the heat haze, which didn’t retract before them. Instead, it stayed in place, like a wall. Skulduggery tilted his head and made an amused sound. Then he took Valkyrie’s hand, turned her slightly, and the heat haze parted, and behind it she saw the pyramid.

  t took close to half an hour to climb the smooth stone steps to the first opening. Valkyrie lasted less than two minutes before her legs cramped, and she happily settled into Skulduggery’s arms for the rest of the journey. When he finally set her down, she straightened, and it was like unspooling from a hot, humid swamp. Every part of her was sticky and covered in sweat.

  “I feel gross,” she said softly, holding her arms out from her sides. “Oh my God, I need a shower.”

  Skulduggery read the air. “First we rescue Fletcher, then you can have your shower. How are you feeling aside from hot and burnt?”

  She wanted to tell him she felt fine, that there was no need to worry about her. But lying about something like that would be dangerous to them both. “I feel a little weak,” she said.

  “Then you stay behind me. If I tell you to run or hide, you do what I say. Going up against a witch is not like going up against a sorcerer. These people are much more dangerous.”

  They moved in through the opening, and the sudden shade would have made Valkyrie smile were it not for the sunburn that kept her face as blank as possible. She pocketed her sunglasses. There were rooms to either side of them, no doors, containing shelves of clay pots of varying sizes.

  “If we get separated,” Skulduggery whispered, “we meet up back here.”

  She gave the slightest of murmurs, and followed him to the heavy curtains at the end of the corridor. He pulled the curtains back and a warm light chased the shade away.

  The centre of the pyramid was a vast, hollowed-out cavern in which numerous plateaus had sprung, stretching from one side to the other. These plateaus were connected by a spider’s web of rope bridges and ladders, stairs and slopes. Some plateaus were narrow, some were wide, some were solid and some looked flimsy as paper. There were buildings on some of them, solid buildings of stone, but mostly the dwellings seemed to be tents and marquees of varying sizes.

  Valkyrie hunkered down beside Skulduggery, neither one speaking for the moment, and they watched the Brides. Now she understood why Saracen had said there were worse people to be held captive by. Their hair was tied in a series of golden bands, and the lower half of their face was covered by a red veil. They wore skirts of silk, slit high to the waist, and a choli blouse, all in red, with their bellies exposed. The cape was red, too, although Valkyrie was pretty sure that it wouldn’t be called a cape. Whatever it was, it was some kind of mix between silk and chiffon, and it was attached to the shoulders by small golden rings and to each wrist by a golden bracelet. The cape rippled with every movement, no matter how slight. Another bracelet curled round the right upper arm, and their sandals had interlacing straps that looked way too complicated and annoying to be practical. Each Bride had a curved dagger in a jewelled sheath on her hip.

  Wherever each Bride went, a man followed. Wearing nothing but a plain white sarong around their waist, their heads were shaven and their bodies were muscled. The Devoted kept their eyes down as they walked, each one exactly six steps behind the Bride they followed. Not a bad system.

  “Do the Devoted have to do whatever the Brides tell them?” Valkyrie whispered.

  Skulduggery looked at her. “Stop drooling.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Stop it.”

  She sighed. “Fine. So where do you think they’re keeping Fletcher?”

  “I don’t know,” Skulduggery said. “From what I’ve read of the Brides, their evenings and nights are for themselves. Everything gets shut down. Doors are locked and off they go to do whatever it is they do in their spare time. That’s our best shot at moving around.”

  “How? I don’t have the cloaking sphere any more.”

  “We’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way,” Skulduggery said. “We’ll have to sneak.”

  “That sounds hard.”

  “Nonsense. Sneaking is easy. You just have to be careful about where you—”

  He stepped out from hiding and accidentally kicked a pebble that skittered along the ground and bounced off a pot with a nice loud ping.

  “Me and my big articulate mouth,” he muttered, as a Bride looked up and saw him.

  The alarm went out, the Brides shouting warnings to each other. Valkyrie started to stand.

  “Stay down,” he ordered.

  She stared at him. “What are you going to do?”

  “Something inadvisable,” he said, and ran forward.

  Valkyri
e stayed where she was, tucked behind cover, listening to the shouts and the sounds of crackling energy and exploding rock. He was leading them away from her.

  He’s leaving you alone.

  Keeping low, she moved back through the curtain, squinting at the rectangle of unforgiving light that would usher her outside. Where would she go? Where would she hide? She was weak, sunburnt, and probably had heatstroke or something. She wouldn’t get far out there. She wouldn’t get far in here, either. The thought of throwing a punch made her want to cry.

  Footsteps on the other side of the curtain made her dart into the room on her right. She pressed herself back against the wall, careful not to disturb the clay pots. Two voices – no, three – talking quickly. Only one of them spoke English. She didn’t recognise either of the other two languages.

  One of the Brides babbled urgently.

  “Let me,” said the Bride who spoke English.

  More babbling, then—

  “We will.”

  Valkyrie would have scowled if the pain hadn’t stopped her.

  Just our luck that the only one we can understand is a lackey and not a boss.

  She peeked out. Two Brides hurried into the sunshine and disappeared down the steps. Made sense. Their secret pyramid had been breached, after all – they needed to know if there was anyone else out there.

  The third Bride, the one Valkyrie couldn’t see, walked back towards the curtain, and Valkyrie coughed softly. The footsteps stopped. Valkyrie picked up one of the pots. She couldn’t hear anything now, but it was highly unlikely that the Bride was still standing in place. No, if the Bride was anything like Valkyrie, she would already be sneaking to the doorway, ready to lunge in and catch the intruder unawares—

  The Bride lunged into the room and Valkyrie smashed the pot over her head, giving a muffled scream as her sunburn sent claws of stinging pain ripping through her. The Bride stumbled to her knees and Valkyrie stepped back and kicked her in the head.