Bone Magic (9 page)

The girls
hadn't seen the worst of the horror, and they eventually went to
sleep. Mikail paced back and forth, muttering about the battle and
the undead and the escape. It took him an hour or more to walk off
the worst of his nervous energy, at which point he collapsed on his
blankets and fell almost immediately to sleep.

Tira had no
desire to sleep, and Tam seemed to feel the same way, so they
wrapped themselves in blankets and sat side by side, looking up at
the stars and talking quietly.

"This
necromancer, whoever he is, seems to be able to animate a corpse
really quickly," Tam said. "It didn't take as long as you said it
would."

"He shouldn't
be able to do it from a distance, either," Tira said. "All we saw
were dead people and Carmody's soldiers. The wizard wasn't even
there." She drew the blanket tighter around her. "I wonder what it
means."

"But they
didn't all come back to life," Tam said thoughtfully. "Murf did,
but the man beside him didn't. Maybe the wizard could only turn a
certain number?"

"That could be
it," Tira agreed. "He only had enough magic for the first five or
six bodies."

They sat in
silence, lost in their dark thoughts. Then Tam shook his head. "I
saw Miller turn. That was right before we rode out. He got stabbed
in the leg with a sword, and he fell down. Then the man picked up a
knife off the ground and stabbed him right here." He indicated the
back of his neck, his fingers pointing downward to show the
direction of the blow. "He got up right after that, with the knife
still sticking out of him, and went after Captain Carmody."

Tira dragged
her fingers through her hair. She felt like she had the pieces of
the puzzle in front of her, if she could only figure it out.

"It was the
knives," Tam said, snapping his fingers. "The wizard, whoever it
is. He put his magic into the knives. Get killed by a magic knife,
you turn into one of his undead. Get killed by a sword, and you're
just dead."

"I've never
heard of…" Tira let her voice trail off. She had seen something,
barely registered it in the heat of the battle. A glow, so faint it
might have been her imagination, clinging to the blade of that
first woman's knife. Tam hadn't mentioned it, and that disturbed
her. The last thing she wanted was to learn she had some sort of
affinity for magic.

"I liked
Miller," Tam said. "He talked to Mikail about being a soldier, and
he didn't treat him like a little boy." He lapsed into silence for
a moment, then said, "And he didn't laugh at me when he saw I was
listening too."

Tira nodded. A
lot of good men had died, or worse, this night. And there was
nothing she could do about it.

Eventually she
lay down, staring up at the stars, unsure if she wanted to give in
to sleep and the nightmares it was sure to bring. She must have
dozed off, because she woke to early-morning sunlight and the smell
of woodsmoke.

Tam made an
oatmeal mush for breakfast while Tira stretched, stood, and walked
up to the high ground above their camp. Then she dropped to her
knees, hissing at the others to be quiet. They immediately went
silent, and Tam crept up to join her.

Half a mile
away, the road made a dark slash through the grassland on either
side. A familiar cart was rolling down the road. Daisy and the
other mule were hitched to the front of the cart. The top of the
cart was gone, and the back was filled with corpses. It looked as
if every one of the soldiers who hadn't turned was there, piled in
a grisly mound. An undead man, one arm missing, walked beside the
mules, guiding the cart.

Tira didn't
move until the cart was gone from sight. It was rolling east. Raven
Crossing was to the west, so they would be moving away from the
necromancer. But she wondered just how long the village would
remain safe.

They rode
cross-country, parallel to the road but well back from it, avoiding
buildings. Tira saw the palisade in the distance, carrion birds in
the sky above it, and whispered a prayer for the soldiers who had
died inside.

Nothing moved
on the road.

In the
afternoon the grasslands ended and forest began. There was a town
at the edge of the forest, and they rode toward it, but they pulled
up their horses several hundred yards from the town walls.

Smoke rose from
inside the town. Not the smoke of a cooking fire or a forge, but a
thick, greasy pall of smoke, as if the whole town was ablaze. A
pair of stout wooden doors marked the entrance to the town. One
door was shut. The other hung crooked from one hinge, half
open.

"I think we
should go around," said Mikail, and Tira nodded.

They circled
wide around the town and took the road leading into the forest. Tam
smiled as the trees closed in around him, and the children looked
more relaxed as well. This was the same forest that surrounded
Raven Crossing. It was comfortable and familiar.

That evening
they reached a familiar crossroad. Raven Crossing was no more than
half a day's travel away. The sky was filled with dark clouds, so
they took shelter in the ruins of a long-abandoned inn at the
crossroad. They split the watch three ways, starting with Mikail,
who promised solemnly that he wouldn't nod off.

Tam woke Tira a
couple of hours before dawn. "Everything's quiet," he whispered,
before crawling into his blankets.

Not much
remained of the inn's second floor. Tira crept up a staircase to a
landing. The walls had enough holes to let her see down three out
of four roads, not that she could see much in the darkness. She
leaned against a firm part of the wall and gazed outside, letting
her mind wander over the events of the past few days.

The sky was
bright with pre-dawn light when a distant metallic clank reached
her ears. She couldn't see a thing, so he hurried down the stairs
and prodded Tam with her foot. Then she headed outside.

It had rained
during the night, and the yard of the inn was full of puddles. The
overcast sky looked spectacular, streaked red and orange with the
first light of the morning sun. She ignored it, standing on the
porch, listening, and stiffened when she heard a distant, rhythmic
splashing.

Someone was
marching through puddles.

Tam stepped
onto the porch. He didn't speak, just raised his eyebrows, and she
whispered, "Get the children. I'll saddle the horses."

"Too late," he
whispered back, staring past her.

She turned her
head and froze. An army was coming up the road, a shambling,
disheveled army of the walking dead. They marched into view past
the nearest row of trees, one after another, and the cold knot of
dread in her stomach grew heavier with each walking corpse. There
were fifteen of them in total, including four soldiers in dirty
breastplates and helmets. She was glad of the helmets. She didn't
want to recognize a face she knew.

With every
lurching step she waited for them to turn toward the inn, to begin
the final nightmare. Tam was a statue beside her, barely breathing.
The grisly army reached the end of the weed-infested lane where it
met the road – and kept going.

Tira stared,
scared to blink. The porch was in shadow, but she was plainly
visible to any undead who really looked. She wanted to duck, but
any movement might draw attention, so she stood there, exposed,
watching death go shuffling past. All it would take would be one of
the children waking up, one horse deciding to give a good loud
whinny, and it would all be over.

After what felt
like a lifetime the last of the undead was past the end of the
lane. Another few steps would put them far enough along that the
inn would be out of their peripheral vision. Tira watched, counting
her own heartbeats, and when she was sure it was safe, she dropped
into a crouch. Only her eyes and the top of her head were above the
porch railing now. She stayed in that position until the last
corpse was out of sight.

"Are they
gone?"

Tira glanced
backward. Sari crouched in the doorway of the inn, her face pale in
the morning light. Tira released a breath she'd been holding for
far too long, and nodded. "Yes. They're gone."

"You have to
take the children," said Tam, his voice strangely calm. "I don't
know where you should take them. I don't know how far you'll have
to go to find somewhere safe."

She stared up
at him, then stood. "What are you talking about?"

"They're
heading straight for the village," he said. "I have to warn them. I
have to get home."

Tira opened her
mouth to argue, but no sound came out. The problem was, he was
right. Raven Crossing was doomed.

Unless somebody
went barreling past the undead on a horse, to carry a warning.

Mikail came
out, holding Lina's hand. Their wide, scared eyes told Tira that
they had seen the undead army, too.

"Lina, you'll
have to double up with Mikail," Tam said. "Be good and do whatever
Tira says, okay?"

"I should go,"
Mikail said. "I'm getting to be pretty good on a horse now."

"I want to go
home," said Lina.

"Tam, I don't
want you to go," Sari wailed.

Tira just
watched, her mouth still open, with no idea what to say. "What if
you don't get through?" she asked at last.

"I'll get
through."

"I think we
should stick together," Mikail announced. "Somebody has to get
through, or everybody at home will die. We can't risk just sending
Tam."

The four of
them argued in circles for several long minutes, the girls wanting
to go wherever Tam went, while Tam kept insisting that they flee
with Tira. Finally Tam turned to Tira and said, "Tell them, will
you?"

She surprised
herself by saying, "I think Mikail's right." Tam gaped at her,
flabbergasted, and she almost smiled. "There's no safe place to
take them, Tam. This is big, and it's getting bigger, and I can't
do anything about it if I'm taking care of children. We need to get
them back to their parents, and we need to get those people to
hide. I think we should all go."

For a long
moment they stared at one another. Then Tam said, "Well, if that's
what we're going to do, let's not dawdle."

They kept the
horses to a brisk walk, conserving their strength, and broke into a
gallop when the undead appeared on the road ahead. For a moment
there was milling confusion among the corpses. Then they started to
organize themselves, the men in breastplates forming a line across
the road, swords in hand, the rest clustered behind them.

Tira was in the
lead, the others in a line right behind her. She rode straight down
the middle of the road, leaning forward in the saddle, her nose an
inch from the horse's mane. She had her sword out, the point
extended, pointing toward the undead. She wanted them to believe
she was attacking. She wanted them holding their position until the
last possible moment.

Straight at
them she galloped, and they braced themselves, swords coming up.
When she was a dozen yards away she hauled on the reins, dragging
the horse's head to the left. Behind her, the others were breaking
right, in the hope that the undead would follow her.

She hit the
ditch at a gallop. A woman stretched out her hand, and Tira slashed
with her sword, feeling the shock of contact. She didn't see what
damage she'd done, didn't look back, just kept riding. In a moment
she was past the undead and angling her horse back onto the
road.

Then she slowed
the horse, watching with increasing relief as Tam and Lina passed
her, followed a moment later by Mikail and Sari on the bay. All
four of her companions were safe. The undead continued their
relentless march, not hurrying, not pausing. Tira turned her back
on them and followed the other horses.

Two hours of
hard riding brought them to Raven Crossing. A loud cry went up as
soon as someone recognized one of the children. Lina's mother
pulled her from the saddle, and Sari's father scooped her up and
whirled her around before setting her on the ground. Mikail
dismounted, trying to look dignified, but three or four village
women surrounded him, hugging him joyously. He turned bright red,
but he looked pleased.

The mayor
worked his way through the crowd and stopped beside Tira's horse.
He was beaming. "Well, young lady, you-"

"There's no
time for that," she snapped. "You have an army of undead marching
toward the village. They are going to kill every one of you if you
don't flee now."

That should
have been more than enough to clear the village. It wasn't, though.
At first no one believed her. Then they couldn't quite believe that
the undead would come
here
, not to quiet, peaceful Raven
Crossing. Surely they were headed somewhere else?

Flight was the
only sensible action, immediate flight, but no one seemed capable
of doing anything without a good long debate first. They couldn't
just leave, half the men were in the fields. And then there were
the outlying farms. Mikail's parents, for instance, lived a mile
and a half away. It wouldn't be right to run off without warning
everyone.

Around and
around it went, and Tira listened with growing impatience. A few
people ran to their houses, gathering whatever possessions they
considered essential, in some cases more than they could carry.
Then someone started gathering the elderly. The village held two
women in their eighties, a man in his nineties, and a wrinkled old
crone who claimed to be even older. None of them could walk as fast
as a baby could crawl, and they certainly couldn't ride. A woman
volunteered to run to the nearest farm and ask for a wagon.

"Never mind,"
said Tam, his voice cold and hollow. "It's too late." The others
followed his outstretched finger, staring down the road where a
ragged line of figures had almost reached the edge of the
village.