by Brandon Mull
“Someone has unleashed the entities from the Blackwell,” Marat said. “The attack is from within.”
“Is Agad trying to put them back?” Tanu asked, already gathering items.
“He did not seem hopeful,” Marat said. “It’s either the road or the refuge.”
Kendra could hardly believe what she was hearing. She had long known that if the undead emerged from the Blackwell, the whole sanctuary could be destroyed. Was that the threat they were suddenly facing?
She knew there was a fortified room at the heart of the keep called the refuge. Though the room was secure, there was no way out. But if they fled to the road, a lot would depend on whether the Fair Folk of Terrabelle would grant them sanctuary. If the Fair Folk strictly maintained their neutrality, the road would lead to a dead end. “Can’t we fight?” Kendra asked.
“Not the denizens of the Blackwell,” Marat said. “We have to leave now or all avenues may be cut off.”
“One moment,” Tanu said as he raced to the courage potions, adding ingredients. “These were tuned to dragons. We need them to protect against the undead as well. The dose might feel uncomfortable, but it beats getting petrified.”
“How long?” Marat asked.
“Quick and dirty, I can make them functional in less than a minute,” Tanu said, shaking a potion with his thumb over the top, then adding a small spoonful of beige powder. He shook the bottle again and handed it to Kendra. “Drink.”
She took it from him, and he immediately began working on another. “The undead will take over the castle, and the dragons are outside,” she said.
“Road or refuge,” Marat said simply.
Kendra had dealt with emergencies before. Seth had usually been with her, and little seemed to daunt him. When there was a battle to be fought, though scary, the prospect could be energizing. This was different. She felt so doomed that she was strangely calm. The only option was to go forward and try to weather what came.
She raised the bottle to her lips and took a sip. The fluid burned her tongue, but she swallowed anyhow.
“All of it,” Tanu said, shaking up another bottle.
Kendra guzzled the rest in a few painful swallows. The searing liquid felt like it was stripping away the soft tissue in her mouth and throat. Tears streamed from her eyes, and she coughed after choking down the last mouthful.
“Sorry,” Tanu said. “No time to adjust for taste.” He upended a bottle of his own and swallowed the contents.
Warmth spread through Kendra’s body, starting at her center and radiating out to her limbs. The doomed feeling melted away like a dispelled illusion. They still had a chance. This wasn’t just up to fate. There was plenty to be done. “We need to get moving,” she said.
Tanu grimaced and exhaled noisily. “That was fierce.” He started shoving flasks and containers into his pack. “I’ll catch up. These potions could prove important before the night is through.”
“I’ll come with you, Kendra,” Calvin called from the countertop.
Kendra picked him up and put him in her pocket. “I’ll keep you safe,” she promised. She also collected her magical bow and her sack of gales.
“You must survive, Kendra,” Marat said. “You are the sole remaining caretaker of Wyrmroost. Road or refuge?”
“What do you think?” Kendra asked.
“The refuge is more accessible,” Marat said. “It also has stores of food and stronger defenses than the road. It is the fort within the fort.”
“Let’s go,” Kendra said.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Tanu promised, still gathering ingredients and bottles.
Marat ran from the room, and Kendra sprinted to follow. They raced down a corridor, turned a corner, then dashed down another hall.
“We have to cross this courtyard,” Marat said.
“Okay,” Kendra said.
“Brace yourself,” Marat advised, opening a door.
They stepped out onto a walkway that overlooked the courtyard. A bright moon shed silver light onto the scene. The stone steps leading down to the courtyard were empty, but the courtyard was not.
Kendra had been feeling bold and hopeful in the corridor. Suddenly it was hard to breathe. Her throat was constricting, and her heart felt cold.
Shadowy figures prowled the courtyard below, shrouded in pockets of darkness. Indecipherable whispers burbled in her mind. The two slowest figures drew her gaze. One limped, somewhat dragging the weaker leg. The other moved more fluidly, but so slowly that Kendra could count to five between each footfall.
Marat gave her a light slap on the cheek. “Revenants,” he said. “Accompanied by a few wraiths. We move now or never. Others are spreading through the keep.”
The fear Kendra felt was different from the paralysis inflicted by the dragons. This fear made her insides feel like they were turning to ice. “Yes,” she said with effort. Even with the help of the courage potion, movement required heavy concentration.
Marat led the way down the stairs. As Kendra’s eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she saw that the limping revenant was approaching a dwarf. The little fellow looked up at the oncoming threat, arms slack at his sides, his short sword loosely gripped in one hand. The dwarf was clearly immobilized. As the revenant reached toward him, Kendra held out her bow and pulled the string to her cheek.
“One,” she murmured, and an arrow appeared.
She released, and the arrow streaked across the courtyard to lodge in the forehead of the revenant. The creature did not act bothered, and the revenant’s skeletal hand covered the face of the dwarf. After violent convulsions, the small victim fell to the ground, hair, beard, and skin as white as snow.
“No conventional weapons,” Marat scolded. “You’re trying to kill what is not alive. Hurry.”
Kendra followed Marat to the bottom of the stairs, and they started across the courtyard. The viscosity of the air seemed to increase, as if she were pushing through water. And the temperature was plunging. Gritting her teeth, Kendra pressed forward.
“Do not stop,” Marat advised. “Stay with me.”
“You can do it,” Calvin said.
“It’s cold,” Kendra said.
“Those revenants are pointing at you,” Calvin warned. “Wraiths are coming.”
Kendra didn’t want to look. Marat was nearing a door. She kept her legs churning forward. Glancing back, she found the ominous forms of three wraiths closing on her, moving much faster than the revenants. And faster than her.
Kendra tried to speed up. Her muscles and joints refused to respond as desired. At least she was grinding forward. But the wraiths were gaining. Would it be like her dreams, where she couldn’t outrun the monsters no matter how hard she tried?
With a snarl, the long body of a serpentine dragon coiled around her. The leonine head of the dragon roared at the wraiths, and they stopped advancing. Marat had reverted to his dragon shape—Camarat.
“Go,” Camarat said, lifting a segment of his long body so she could duck underneath. “I can hold off the wraiths but not the revenants.”
“You come too,” Kendra said as she stumbled to the door.
“I will,” Camarat said. “You first.”
Kendra pushed through the door into a corridor, and most of the iciness left her body. Marat joined her, with no sign he had just been a dragon.
“Thanks,” Kendra said.
“Hurry to the refuge,” Marat replied. “Those were not the only undead on the prowl. Not nearly.”
The hallways seemed foreign. Was it the darkness? She had not roamed much of the keep at night. Urgent whispers intruded on her thoughts, heard more with her mind than her ears. After passing through a gloomy room into another hall, Kendra saw Knox, Tess, and the satyrs up ahead. They were standing still, facing away from her. The cloak of innocence glowed with a silvery sheen.
<
br /> “Trouble,” Marat said, breaking into a full sprint.
Kendra was able to stay with him at first. But as she reached her cousins, she started to slow. The air grew chilly again.
Beyond her cousins and the satyrs, coming toward them, was a gaunt woman dressed in the tattered remnants of what must once have been a beautiful gown. Her eyes were dark gray, without irises or pupils, and irregular open sores marred her skin. Her head tilted at an unnatural angle, and she was slowly jumping forward, feet bound together.
“Revenant,” Marat said. “A strong one.”
The revenant was not coming quickly but scooting a bit closer with each jump. Kendra focused on her cousins. “Knox, Tess, can you hear me?” Neither looked her way or blinked. They seemed insensible. Kendra turned to Marat. “Can I stop the revenant?”
“Revenants are under enchantments,” Marat said. “I don’t know how to break this one.”
“Here,” Tanu said, approaching from behind. He held up a bottle to Knox’s lips and poured fluid into his mouth. “Drink.”
“You found us,” Kendra said.
“Barely,” Tanu said. “It’s like a festival night out there.”
Knox was drinking the potion, then spat some up.
“Swallow it all,” Tanu demanded.
“It’s like lava,” Knox said.
“You can move now,” Tanu said. “And speak. So drink.”
Marat ran forward, dodging around the revenant, and soon passed out of view. With his eyes squeezed shut, Knox finished the little bottle. Tanu brought a potion to Tess’s lips. The revenant drew nearer, her expression bland, her tongue shriveled and dry behind her remaining teeth.
Kendra wrenched her gaze from the revenant. “We have to move,” she said. “What about the satyrs?”
“These potions are for humans,” Tanu said.
“Gross!” Tess exclaimed, potion leaking down her chin. “What is that?”
“It’ll let you run from the monsters,” Tanu said.
“You can do it!” Calvin cheered.
Coughing and sputtering, Tess finished the potion.
Marat returned, knifing past the revenant. “The refuge has been sealed,” Marat reported. “Some of our people must have made it inside. The antechamber is swarming with the undead. We have no chance of getting in.”
“The road?” Kendra asked.
Marat gave a nod.
Tanu hoisted Newel over one broad shoulder and Doren over the other. “Show us the way.”
“That lady looks like a corpse,” Knox said, staring at the revenant.
“Welcome to our night,” Kendra said, taking Tess by the hand. “Stay together.”
Marat led them back toward the courtyard. “Hopefully we’ll find fewer undead upstairs.” He opened the door to a stairway and led them up.
As they climbed, the satyrs began to squirm on Tanu’s shoulders.
“Was it just me,” Doren asked, “or was she jumping?”
“I was holding still on purpose,” Newel said. “Weighing my options.”
Kendra rolled her eyes.
Tanu set the satyrs down.
Kendra could not help noticing the narrowness of the stairway, and she immediately imagined their peril if revenants pinned them in from above and below. She was relieved when they found no undead in the hall at the top of the stairs.
“What about Grandma and Grandpa?” Kendra asked.
“I sent them and some others to the refuge before I went to fetch you and Tanu,” Marat said. “I didn’t see them when I checked outside the refuge, so I assume they’re inside.”
“Then they’re trapped,” Kendra said.
“Cornered, for now,” Marat said. “But much safer than we are.”
“What about the griffins?” Kendra asked. “And the horses?”
“Patton went to free the mounts,” Marat said.
“Could we fly away?” Kendra asked.
“I expect many dragons would greet us in the sky,” Marat said. “The road is a better option if we can make it.”
“Is there a chance your courage potion could work on us?” Doren asked as they ran. “I don’t like becoming paralyzed.”
“Give it a try,” Tanu said, handing over a bottle.
Doren took a sip and immediately began to cough wildly. With tears in his eyes, he passed the bottle back to Tanu. “Pretty sure it’s deadly to satyrs,” he said.
“It felt gross and hot to me too,” Tess said.
Marat led them out onto a walkway atop one of the walls. Kendra felt her muscles seizing up again, and she saw dark entities patrolling the nearest courtyard. Marat stopped, one hand going to his temple.
“My brother Agad is reaching out to my mind,” Marat said. “The road is already taken by wraiths and revenants. We will not find safety there.”
“What options do we have left?” Tanu asked.
“We can try a little-used side door,” Marat said. “I’d rather not go over the wall in dragon form and attract attention. There will be no protection besides the cloak of innocence once we pass outside.”
“Can it hold off Celebrant?” Kendra asked.
“Possibly,” Marat said. “All items have limits. But we lack other options. The inhabitants of the Blackwell are claiming the keep and the road. At least dragons would provide a clean death.”
“Are we going to die?” Tess asked.
“Not if we hide behind your cloak,” Doren said. “Are you clear about who is under your protection?”
“Kendra, Knox, the potion guy, you goat-men, the dragon person, and the little guy in Kendra’s pocket,” Tess said.
“There are wraiths ahead on the wall,” Tanu warned.
“Then we must abandon subtlety,” Marat said, his body elongating into a serpentine dragon. “Take hold of me.”
Kendra leaped onto the back of the dragon, straddling him and gripping as best she could. Tanu, Knox, and Tess climbed on as well. The satyrs stood petrified.
Camarat shot into the air, body fluttering like a ribbon. Kendra hung on tightly. The dragon used several sets of his many legs to grab Newel and Doren and then flew low and quick, soaring over a building, his tale dislodging shingles, then down into a courtyard, where he skidded to a stop near a door in the wall. Kendra noticed half a dozen undead in the courtyard. A pair of emaciated men, one with a scraggly beard, the other wearing a helmet and dented breastplate, stood in front of the door.
“Revenants are barring the way out,” Marat said after reverting to human shape.
“And wraiths are coming our way,” Tanu said.
Fighting against the frozen feeling slowing her muscles, Kendra raised her bow. “Maybe lots of arrows are better than one,” Kendra said, hauling the bowstring to her cheek and aiming at the revenants blocking the door. “Ninety.”
She released the string, and ninety arrows sprang from her bow and turned the two revenants into pincushions, piercing flesh and armor. Many near misses thunked into the door as well. Neither revenant looked particularly bothered by the dozens of protruding arrows.
“No!” Marat cried.
“What?” Kendra asked.
“The cloak,” Marat said, pointing.
Kendra saw that the cloak of innocence had lost its silvery glow. Her stomach dropped.
“None in the group can attack anything while under the protection of the cloak,” Marat said, “or the protection is lost to all.”
As several wraiths, dark and almost translucent in the moonlight, drew nearer from across the courtyard, Kendra stared at Marat, her understanding catching up to his words.
They needed to leave the keep.
She had shot arrows at the revenants.
Arrows that had done no good.
Their only hope of survival when they left the keep w
as the cloak of innocence.
By shooting the revenants, she had negated that protection.
Without accomplishing anything, she had just ensured that she and all of those with her would die.
“I didn’t understand,” Kendra said numbly. “Couldn’t you have stopped me?”
“I didn’t make the connection until too late,” Marat said. “My first reaction was regret that the arrows would be futile. Only once you let them fly did I realize that, futile or not, it was an attack. None under the protection of the cloak can try to harm another without breaking the spell.”
“We can all go gaseous and try to escape that way,” Tanu said. “At least the mortals.”
After glancing at Newel and Doren, who stood petrified, transfixed by the revenants, Kendra turned to Marat. “Maybe you can fly the satyrs away to safety.”
“If Celebrant is as ready as I expect, he will track and destroy you, gaseous or not,” Marat said. “And I cannot evade a host of dragons.”
A flaming figure burst from a door on the far side of the courtyard. Sheathed from head to foot in white fire, the burning humanoid raced toward a wraith and cut him in half at the waist with a fiery blade. The flaming newcomer continued toward Kendra and her allies.
“My brother,” Marat said, directing the others to step aside.
The blazing wizard rushed the revenants blocking the door through the wall. They offered little resistance as he struck down one and then the other with consecutive swipes. After the revenants collapsed, Kendra felt the icy chill inside of her thaw, and the satyrs could move again.
The white flames fluttered out and Agad turned to face Kendra and the others, dropping to one knee. His hair and beard were singed and his robe was charred in places. One arm looked withered down to almost nothing, and part of his nose was missing.
Marat ran to his brother and helped him up. The others gathered around them.
“I got there too late,” Agad panted, his bloodshot eyes weary. “There were too many of them, and Belrab was too powerful to challenge with so much support behind him. I tried to force them back down the well, and it nearly destroyed me.” His eyes went to Kendra. “It was Seth, assisted by the Sphinx.”