Reawakening (7 page)

A
WEEK
after his meeting with Sethan and the others, they spotted what looked like a stopped caravan on the road ahead. The wind had been steadily rising all morning, lifting the sand into a brown haze, and it was impossible to see if anything was moving.

Sethan signaled a stop and waved Tarn forward. “Spellsword, how do you fancy wandering over there with a few friends and seeing what’s wrong?”

“Not much,” Tarn said, “but go I will.”

He drew his sword as they rode and laid it across his saddle in readiness. Something felt wrong here, as if someone had taken the way the world should be and twisted it out of shape.

The others had picked up on it too, he saw. Jancis had an arrow strung, and Ellia had one chakra already spinning around her finger and the rest ready on her wrist. Dit had his swords out, and Eryl was raising power in blatant disregard of both guild rules and his contract, which claimed he was a spearman.

The caravan seemed deserted. The wagons were broken, some overturned and others with their sides shattered. Their canvas hung in tattered shreds. Crates and barrels were strewn over the ground, many ripped open to spill their contents across sand darkened with thick stains. It stank of sour milk, shit, and rotten meat.

Something moved under one of the wagons. Tarn focused on it, his snarl alerting the rest.

A woman crawled out. Her hair hung in rough hanks, and her movements were jerky and awkward, her hands groping convulsively as she scuttled forward. She was moving fast, though, straight toward them, staggering to her feet as she reached out.

It was then they saw her face, and Jancis screamed, letting her arrow fly.

There was only a moment before the arrow hit her, destroying that ruined face, but Tarn saw it clearly—the eye hanging from its socket, the bare skull showing where half her face had been torn away, the rotting skin that dripped from her jaw, the jiggling of the flesh tearing away from her neck and shoulders.

Dit yelled, his sword flashing out, and Tarn realized there were more, the dead rising up from where they had fallen to grab at the riders, trying to pull them down. Dit’s stroke had made no difference, only adding another cut to the already torn body, and it was clawing at him, lunging to bite at his horse.

Tarn had seen this before, a favorite trick of the Shadow, and he shook off his shock to yell, “Strike their heads! They can’t move without their brains!”

Dit’s next slash beheaded the corpse, and it fell to twitch by his feet. Tarn switched his attention back to his own side and chopped down hard to fell another one.

The horses were starting to panic, so he roared, “Ride for the dune top! Now!”

He obviously still sounded like a general, because everyone moved. The horses leapt into a run in screaming relief, though Ellia’s was trailing a dead woman who clung and bit even as it kicked and reared.

He saw the moment when Ellia finally lost her seat as she was thrown out when her horse went mad, its sides streaming blood.

She hit the ground hard and lay unmoving with the sand pluming around her.

The dead woman released the horse and began to crawl toward her, dragging itself across the sand with torn hands.

Jancis’s scream could have cut glass, but her arrow flew true, pinning the dead woman to the ground.

The rest of the dead were still coming, though, charging up the hill with unnatural speed, already running in from the sides as well as behind. They needed to reach the crest, where they couldn’t be overwhelmed from above. Despairing, Tarn raised fire before them, but he couldn’t build a ring that would include Ellia without trapping many of the dead in with them.

“Ride!” Dit yelled at him and threw him the reins of his own horse. Then he was on the ground and running toward Ellia as fast as the dead.

Tarn went for the crest of the dune, herding Jancis and Eryl before him. The moment he was there, he called fire again and raised an almost complete circle around them, wide enough that he hoped the already terrified horses wouldn’t panic more. He left a gap in it, and turned back to the approaching dead, hurling flames into their midst, hoping to slow them.

Dit was running ahead of them, Ellia’s slight form slung over his shoulder as his long legs stretched out.

“Get a signal up!” Tarn snarled at Eryl, and moments later a green flare was arching into the air. Tarn hoped the rest of the caravan would be able to see it through the flying sand.

The dead were reaching for Dit now, but he was still running, and Tarn thought he’d never seen a human move so fast in his life.

As he reached the circle, the leading corpse closed its hands in Ellia’s long hair, jerking her back. Dit locked his arms around her, but he was slowed, and the dead were on them.

“One stride!” Tarn bellowed.

Dit threw himself forward, dragging the dead with him, and Tarn raised the fire behind him, fast and hard and hot, searing the dead’s hands from their rotting bodies.

Jancis ran forward to help Dit, but Tarn was watching the fire and the crowd of stumbling shapes he could see through it.

When the first one ran into the flames, he braced himself for the noise.

It burned with a hiss and crackle but kept moving long enough to pass through the fire. It was alight by then, though, and fell as its last flesh melted and smeared away from its bones.

Tarn ignored the reactions of the others and wove the fire tighter and wider as more and more of the dead threw themselves into it.

“What are they doing?” Eryl gasped. He was calling fire too, impressing Tarn, but his hands were shaking.

“They’re dead,” Tarn said flatly. This never got easier. “They can’t reason or weigh up dangers. All they are now is a desire to live again, and so they are drawn by our life force. They hunger for us.”

The dead continued to hurl themselves into the fire, and Tarn kept his sword out in case any of them broke through. The sword alone reassured him; it had been forged to fight this battle, and the sigils etched into the blade were glowing brightly, ready to strike down the work of the Shadow.

He couldn’t see what was happening beyond his ring of flame, but when one fell through the flames with a burning arrow in its back, he sighed in relief and brought his blade down to slice off its head. He hurled the rotting head back out, hoping the reinforcements would understand the message.

The next one came through with an arrow through its brainpan.

It was over quickly then, and when the dead stopped coming, he drew the flames back into himself wearily. His human body was not made to channel such powers, not in the midst of battle.

The dead lay smoldering in a ring around them, piled high. Some were still jerking, though their heads were crushed.

Ia was on the other side of the pile, her face grim. When she saw him, her shoulders sagged in relief, but she only said, “You’re lucky I know my history.”

“Very lucky,” Tarn agreed. “Is there a chirurgeon with you?”

“Tal. Who’s down?”

“Ellia. Landed hard. The rest of us are standing.” He didn’t tell her that was a miracle with inexperienced fighters. Even he’d fumbled, taken by surprise by a horror he had thought long vanquished.

One bellow brought Tal, their apothecary, at a run, and then Ia turned back to Tarn and admitted, “I thought we’d already lost her. I saw what they did to her horse.”

Tarn nodded shortly. He could well imagine. “She loved that beast.”

“Silly, spirited thing,” Ia said, but her tone was regretful. “Is there anything more we need to do here to give these folks peace?”

“A pyre. Give me two or three people with strong stomachs, and we’ll do it quick. Send someone with an ax to check under the rest of the wagons, in case there were any already missing limbs.”

Ia shuddered but rode away to round up a couple of the older guards. She sent them to help Tarn, and they set to the grim search in silence, piling up the cold but still shuddering bodies beside the road. By the time they lit the pyre, it was shoulder-high.

When Tarn got back to the main caravan, smeared in soot, he was furious. Everything he had been able to discern about the dead traders told him that they had been experienced desert travelers. They would have been part of his new hoard, but they had died before he could ever spread his wings over them in protection. He had once roused up the whole of humankind, and every sympathetic spirit, to fight against this very horror. Had it all been for nothing?

He went straight to the chirurgeon’s wagon, but Ellia was still unconscious. Jancis was kneeling beside her, and she looked up as he leaned in, her dark eyes wide and wet.

“How bad?” Tarn asked, his heart growing cold. He would never grow used to losing his friends, no matter how many millennia he lived.

“Broken ribs and a concussion,” Jancis said and rubbed at her eyes. “Tal s-says we won’t know until she w-wakes….”

He could do nothing but put his arms around her and pat her back when she cried. He had never known anything of medicine. He could be a friend, though, so he kissed the top of her head and murmured, “Be brave for her, my treasure. Be brave.”

They drew the wagons into a tight circle before evening, setting torches in an outer ring to guard their backs. It was a flimsy hope, Tarn could have told them, but he remembered the importance of morale and stayed his tongue.

“What were those things?” was the first question thrown at Sethan. “Were they human?”

Sethan looked across the circle, his usually controlled face showing signs of exhaustion. “Tarn, my lovely barbarian, you’re our expert.”

Suddenly feeling a lot less sorry for him, Tarn gathered his thoughts. Regretfully, he decided to make an effort tonight. He had been hiding behind his slow accent too long, enjoying the privacy he won through being a man of little words. He had the language in his grasp now, though, and there were too many frightened people in this circle who could barely understand his mountain accent.

“They are called revenants,” he said, standing forward. He saw the ripple of surprise run through his audience at the sudden crispness of his voice and looked down, not wanting to meet their reproachful gaze. “Once they lived, but no more. They remember nothing of their former lives. They are shells full of rage and hunger, ripped out of death by foul spells.”

“How do you know that?” This voice was frightened and belligerent.

“The same way I know that only beheading or crushing their skulls will stop them. The same way I know that they do not fear fire, but will be crippled by it.”

Everyone was quiet now, leaning forward toward him. He remembered suddenly that they were not supposed to know his true nature, and dissembled. “In the war against the Shadow, the hoard of the King of Tarn Amel fought against them. You would call those same men Drake Clan, in this age.”

“That’s a legend,” Jirell cried. She was curled up beside one of the twins, their hands entwined. “There are no such things as dragons!”

“I have seen dragons,” Tarn said. “Many of them. They sleep.”

“But…,” Jirell started. “But if this is some horror from their war, why are they still sleeping? If they do exist.” She shook her head. “Why is this happening here? The desert has always been a good place.”

“Jiri, my sweet,” Sethan said. “Many ancient spirits have been waking. There was never any guarantee they were all going to be benign.”

“But Alagard has always been good to human traders. Even those he tricks away get returned unharmed.” Jirell’s chin was up, ready to argue.

“Alagard no longer rules the desert,” Tarn said flatly. “It is empty and ripe for conquest.”

“Is that what this is?” Barrett asked. “A war between spirits? How can we survive that?”

“We have a choice,” Sethan said. “We’re two days out of Istel, but that means pushing deeper into the desert. Or we turn back for the north and hope our supplies last.”

“There’s a storm building,” Cayl said quietly. “A full sandstorm will slow us, whichever choice we make.”

He was right. The wind was rushing past their little circle now. Tarn could hear the patter of sand against canvas as it smacked into the wagons, and sudden gusts of it crept through and over, smattering everyone with dust.

Later that night, when the vote had narrowly gone for riding on, he stood his watch between two torches, his sword bare in his hand, its sigils shimmering. Dit stood to one side, between the next pair of torches, and Eryl to the other. They did not speak to each other.

But as the wind rose, it began to moan and howl around the dunes. At first, it was just the wuthering of the wind, but it took on a steadily more human note, a low sobbing that grew into wails and then screams before it sank to sobs again.

“Is it them?” Dit breathed, hands tight on his swords. He still bore scratches and bruises from earlier, but his jaw was set and his shoulders steady.

“No,” Tarn told him. He recognized that voice. “It’s the desert. Alagard is screaming.”

And they said nothing more until morning, although the cries of the desert throbbed around them through the sand-darkened night.

Chapter 8: Sheltering

T
HE
SCREAMING
continued as they set out the next morning through the haze of sand, only the pitch and volume varying. The sand grew thicker, and Tarn, Eryl and one of the other mages rode along the line to set colored witch lights at the front and back of each wagon.

Midway through the afternoon, Sethan called a halt. By then, everyone who could get into a wagon was inside and lashing the doors closed as tightly as possible to keep the sand out. The guards riding watch were so wrapped against the wind that they would barely be able to lift their swords against an attack, and their faces were covered with layers of brown dust.

“We need to get the storm covers out,” Sethan yelled into the wind. “Bring the wagons into the tightest circle possible—at least two rings, three if possible.”

It took a while, as the horses struggled against the sand whipping around their feet, but as soon as the first ring of wagons was in place, the more experienced traders started hauling out extra canvas. Within an hour, they were locked into a dim, canvas-roofed world, with the gaps between the outermost wagons sealed too, and the sand already filling up the spaces underneath.