The Exodus Sagas: Book IV - Of Moons and Myth (18 page)

All at once th
e orange mist vanished, even from
the hundreds of eye sockets that held
wicked
remnants inside
of
their skulls. The thousands continued to scramble for the top of the ravine they could not reach, the sloshing
of
water the only audible reminder. The hundred or more turned, all of t
hem, and glared with undead emptiness
in their gaze.
Only one still held the orange glow in its eyes, and now the voices seemed to emnate from it.

All that trespass must stay…

The dead walked slowly toward the elven woman and the dwarven man with t
he light glowing from his hammer. It spoke what the mist told it to as the
flesh began
harden, strengthen, and their former garb and armor began to take unearthly shape upon their bodies.

“I think it is time to leave.” Shinayne drew
Carice
and
Elicras
out of their sheaths, backing up slowly. The dead did not move toward her, just stared, only their heads turned to follow she and Zen.

“Aye, no further argument here.” Zen backed up with the elven swordswoman, pointing his warhammer and the light emitting from it toward the horde of ghostly dead soldiers
that were reforming somehow
.
They shielded their
eyes as he w
aved the light across their faces
from thirty feet away.

“Take them.”
The banshee
taking solid form with
orange
fire in his eyesockets drew a scimitar and pointed to the mortals before him.

“Run!” Shinayne grabbed Zen by the shield arm, turned him around and ran toward the hill with the
old
outpost. Only a few paces ahead, she saw that the dead had flanked them, quietly, and were moving to surround them and the hill they were heading for.
Desperately trying t
o make the next few hundred yards
, she could now hear the stomping of feet all around her.

As they ran, so did the ghosts of the dead, now looking much like the gray soldiers Zen had seen at the haunted pub in Estivar. He saw weapons now, shields of gray, and the orange glow
from their speaker
lit the darkness as much as his holy light from Vundren. The dead began to make noise as they chased, slowly taking some semblance of form
and mass
in their gray afterlife.

“How did they get there already, elf? Ye’ supposed to sense that stuff ye’ know!” Azenairk huffed as he pumped his stocky legs as fast as they would run. He looked left, maybe fifty ahead and closing. Right, same yet more and closer, they were already at the base of the hill. Shinayne was pulling and running so fast he nearly tripped over his own legs. He looked behind, they were not twenty feet away and gaining.

Up the hill she scrambled, half dragging Zen to make it up before the dead caught him. Past the pillars she ran, then she
stopped, she
saw them. Gray soldiers drawing steel blades
, all around the hill,
already in
every direction. Shinayne could not sense them, not here, not one of them. They were surrounded by hundreds
now
,
silent and not twenty feet down the hill, climbing fast.

“Time to stand and fight.
I told you this was a bad idea
.”

“How many ye’ think?” Zen was huffing for breath, but swung the warhammer twice in the air
,
readied himself and his shield, back to back with Shinayne.

“Two hundred perhaps, stay close
to me
.” She took a low stance inbetween the crumbled and worn pillars. Her right hand back and longblade crossing her chest, left hand out halfway with the shorblade on point.

“Feast upon them
!
” The dead warrior with the orange glow pointed his blade, and the hundreds of long dead gray soldiers swarmed the hilltop
at his command
.

“
Vund erstal var ith darmanvun
!” Zen twirled the glowing hammer and smashed it into the stone pillar in front of him. The rock shattered, then the base split, and lastly a golden glow erupted and split down the hill farth
er than he could see. The chasm
it caused
filled with rubble, making the south side a
n impossible
climb and claiming dozens of the dead as it happened.

The first wave of the reborn dead from ages past staggered to the top and felt the enchanted steel of Shinayne
’
s whitemoon blade
s plunge into
their cursed remains.
Carice
slashed through false steel shields and blades as
Elicras
followed with rapid stabs past ghostly flesh in the shadows. Her ancient weapons cut through the undead as if they were made of water. Four, then ten, then fifteen burst into dust and screams, all but the skulls disintegrating as she
sliced like a desperate whirlwind on top of the forgotten hill. Only a faint echo of steel sung in the night as the elven swordswoman stepped, attacked, ducked,
countered,
and held the northern edge of t
he ruined outpost. L
ifeless skulls and dust
were
piling at her feet
,
but there was no end to the horde in sight
.

Azenairk ducked a blade, returned with the hammer, and thudded another ghastly soldier to the ground. His light seemed to hurt them more than his blows were, yet he stomped the skull anyway and watched the body and visage of flesh and armor burst into dust and fade away. His shield was blocking and pushing back to his left, his divinely lit warhammer swinging wildly to his right, and his back was never more than a foot from Shinayne.
He thought of the others, realizing they were a mile or more away, and how foolish it had been to travel these lands at night.

“
Still alive back there
?” Shinayne feinted to back up, bumped her rear into Zens, then slashed in wid
e arcs into the much slower risen soldiers. Three fell on her left, five on her right, and she never slowed her parries nor lowered her guard.

“
Aye, not
…
for long. Tired…too
..
many…killed ten now…you
?” Zen was grunting, struggling against five of the horde pushing on his shield while he ducked and swung with his hammer to those shielding their undead eyes from his light.

“
Holding. Too many to
…
count at my
…
feet, maybe…sixty
.” She was calm on the outside, but all she could think of was survival, that Zen had not worn his armor, and that they would not last another thirty seconds
unless something happened. Shinayne kept up her inhuman flurry of attacks yet noticed the
one
orange glow of eyes getting closer as the horde of dead continued.
She pondered
,
inbetween
sure sword cuts and parries against
ghostly steel.

“
Wha…sixty? Baah…ye’ be
…
stretchin…”
The last Thalanaxe turned after shoving the mass of undead that pressed him. His jaw fell open and his eyes bulged with awe as he realized his partner was not exaggerating, there was a pile of uncountable skulls at her feet, some rolling back down the hill in a second death. “
How by Mount Maonell
?”

“
I need you to… handle them alone, for… just a moment
.” Shinayne, spun full circle, parrying and disarming seven ghost blades with her shortsword, then cutting through all seven undead wielders with her longblade. Seven skulls hit the ground as dust and ash erupted, yet nine more came to take their brethrens’ place.

“
Ye’ insane
?” Azenairk looked around quick. Twenty or more to his left, twice that to his right, both sides pushing past old pillars and stone to reach them. The southern chasm he had caused was impassable, yet behind him to the north there were a hundred massed to kill the elven woman.
They rushed, slipped on the wet grass, yet the mob of remnants was unstoppable

“
Ready
?” Shinayne backed up to a stump of pillar, leapt ontop of it, jumped to a higher part of the old outpost foundation. It cracked
a little
below her feet, the dead swarmed, and she leapt into the air again. This time, right into the middle of the horde.

“Shinayne! No!” Zen yelled as she leapt from sight into the night, lost in the middle of hundreds of reformed dead soldiers. Surrounded, the dwarven priest swung his warhammer and family shield like mad. “
Ahh! Hah! Die again ye’ devils!”

Two cuts caught her legs, another her elbow, then three more across her back as she landed from her airborn somersault into the unending mass of spectral blades. Slashing right, two fell, then left with her off hand, and two more went down as her ancient swords cut through weak dead flesh at the neck. She parried twice, then ducked another onslaught, and dove ahead into another roll.
Her elven speed and the obscuring dust of the fallen hid her movements well.
She rose with her blades cleaving wide, dropping five more into their sile
nt eternity. Shinayne stood
face to face with the orange glowing eyes
of the banshee
.

His back was against a pillar, Zen smashed another skull and raised his shield to block the ashen eruption. His light radiated across their expressionless faces which raised their small shields again, then his hammer took its toll in that moment. He had nowhere to go, surrounded on three sides, then his shoulder was pierced, then the other, cold steel that cut and froze the wound. Zens ear was nicked, then his cheek, there were too many.

“
Devour
her
!” The dead soldier with the orange glow of mist in his sockets shouted, the only one that seemed to be able to speak, and his sword thrust forward at the elven woman.

Just as the scimitar drove ahead, two elven blades crossed over it. The steel was stronger that the other weapons of the dead and it screeched upon contact with her mated blades. In one quick motion, too fast for human eyes, her shortblade struck down twice, then her longblade swung up and knocked the scimitar high. Just as Elicras struck the scimitar loose with a third cut, Shinayne stepped forward quick and Carice slashed clean through the neck.
Silence screamed as the lightning flashed. The skull hit the ground and Shinayne closed her eyes.

Twelve swords from dead hands cut, slashed, and lunged for her from every side. Just as she knew that she was dead, she was covered in ash and dust. Shinayne looked to the skull at her feet, the orange light flickered out, and the screaming mist shot back toward the ravine as hundreds of skulls hit the ground
that very second
.
All of them.

“
And that!, Ye’ demons! Ahh, hah! Oh aye!?, Ye’ too then, Aaarrrghhh!”
His eyes were closed, wounds stin
g
ing from nicks and cuts galore, swinging in rage and desperation. Zen was hitting nothing but falling dust, yet he dared not stop.

“Azenairk, it is over.” Shinayne sighed out loud, feeling the blood trickle through her chain links in many a place. She took a knee at the base of the hill, caught her breath, and looked to the cloud of dust and
spread of skulls in the silent night
.

“Ain’t never over! Keep fightin’ now! I’ll save ye’ Shinayne! Aaargghh!
I’m comin’!
” His warhammer and shield caught more air, more dust, and he fell forward onto a knee after tripping on a skull.

“They are gone, priest. I took the leaders head, they vanished. Stop swinging.” She waited for him to open his eyes. As she shook her head, the orange light flared in the ravine a mile south. The same screams, the same moans on the wind that was not there, and then she saw them, again. Ten sets of orange glowing eyes shone in the blanket of midnight, and thousands of skeletons crawled up the ravine with them.

How dare you…

Shinayne shuddered, the whispers were now the cacophony of thousands in dreadful hollow anger. She saw the glow from the ravine flare, casting the reforming skeletons in orange light, their shadows elongating across the broken field below the hill. The elf blinked, a tap on her shoulder from the very quiet dwarf at her side broke her awe.

“How did ye’ know that killin’ the one with the fiery eyes would stop the rest of em’?”

“I did not know.
”

“Are ye’ mad? We should be dead.”

“
I had a hunch, a feeling is all.” Shinayne still stared, the gray glow of flesh from the netherworlds taking form over innumerable skeletal remains far to the south.

“Ye’ are insane then.
Brave, deadly, but insane.
Ye’ dove into em’ on a hunch? We coulda
’
been killed, elf.” Zen gulped, now staring south at the thousands of forgotten corpses taking unearthly form atop the glowing ravine.