AQREEN FELT THE IMPACT of the strike shiver through the pole, all the way up her arms to her shoulders, neck, and back. Her legs were braced, stance wide and angled, torso bent low. She held the pole in both hands, careful to let the end hang free of her body. Had she been facing a cavalry charge, as they had been trained during the two drills, she would have pushed the end of the pole as deep into the sand as possible, bracing it with her foot. But for targets of mortal height, she had to angle it lower, to strike the softer stomach area.
The impact jerked her entire body sideways and backward, almost spinning her around. The side of the pole struck the corner of a wagon, and she used the wagon’s weight to brace herself.
At the other end of the pole, a deadwalker had run headlong into the wooden shaft, impaling himself then pushing all the way to the middle of the smooth, well-weathered ash. His ripe belly burst, spilling gore and entrails as he screeched indignantly, limbs thrashing, lipless mouth frothing obscenely, like a bug on a dagger.
To her surprise, a second impact followed almost immediately. It was followed by a third, fourth and even a fifth impact.
The pole suddenly grew far too heavy for her to lift, but the impaled deadwalkers—five of them, Stone Father—couldn’t do much more than wriggle and thrash and shriek impotently. She continued to brace the pole against the corner of the wagon, leaning against it hard to compensate for the drifting motion caused by the deadwalkers’ thrashing.
All along the line, militia were impaling deadwalkers by fours and fives on their poles. She glanced at Bulan, only a half dozen wagons away, and saw them work those slablike arms, faces grimacing, as they shoved the poles forward again, and again, catching more and more of the charging deadwalkers.
She felt a shock of surprise pass through her.
Stone Mother. It worked.
As if reading her thoughts, the sergeant right behind her yelled at an earsplitting volume, “It’s working! Keep pushing those poles, you sand-diggers! Let’s keep as many of them at bay as we can!”
She did as he ordered, putting all her strength behind the pole, shoving it forward, then using the edge of the wagon as a lever to turn it around.
The pole shuddered as more charging deadwalkers struck it. It probably couldn’t skewer any more, but the bristling forest of poles with impaled bodies made for an effective barrier, preventing more from reaching the wagons. In a few moments, the perimeter of the circle was packed with tens of thousands of trapped deadwalkers, all howling and shrieking horribly.
“Deadwalker kebab!” said the militiaman to her left. He was a young Xorakiv named Kihrr, barely out of his teens, with a soft, downy mustache and barely discernible beard that matched his dark brown hair. He had the lean, muscled look of all travelers after five years on the trail. They had undergone basic training together, and he had been inducted into the reserve only a few days earlier.
He grinned at her as he said it, but there was a scared look in his eyes.
She grinned back, but knew she must look just as nervous as he did.
What now?she wondered.
There were a lot of deadwalkers still coming—Stone Mother only knew how many. She could hear them howling out there, and the dust cloud that had heralded their approach hung over the entire camp now, like a desert storm. They were barred from the wagons by the pikes and the crowds of their own, but they would get through somehow, and when they did—
Bulan bellowed orders.
The officers picked them up and passed them on at once. She heard the shouted commands ripple through the camp.
Pull. Release. Repeat.
The sergeant took up the task of implementing the order, bellowing into her ear at deafening volume.
She obeyed, but it was easier said than done.
Using both her hands and every ounce of her strength, she yanked hard on the end of the pole, pulling it into the circle. The deadwalkers impaled on it shrieked and foamed as they were brought closer to living flesh. The one closest to her flailed his scrawny arms, bony fingers clawing the air. His jaws opened and snapped shut as he sought to bite off a chunk of that meat he craved so desperately. He was still a good few yards away, but she had to force herself not to flinch.
Then, using the interlocked tongues of the wagons as the sergeant instructed, she used the far end to push the deadwalkers off her pole. The pole yanked free with surprising ease, the skewered bodies falling off and tumbling into a boneless heap on the sand. She let the end of the pole fall downward, hitting the sand. Its length was slick with sticky gore, and pieces of innards dropped with sickening, wet plops to the ground. The stench, already unbearable, worsened. She gagged at the sight, sound, and smell, turned away, and vomited. Hot bile and fluid fell out in a rush, lost instantly in the sand.
Other militia were retching or gagging as well. The captain upended the contents of his stomach. He had had a very hearty dinner or breakfast, apparently. He leaned against the side of a wagon, dark face wan. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his kaftan when his body jerked suddenly.
Aqreen and the captain both stared at each other. She saw a look of puzzlement on his face. Then, seemingly very slowly, he started to look down at his left foot.
Before his chin could drop all the way, the foot was yanked suddenly by an unseen force. Aqreen watched as his face changed with surprise and shock. Then crumpled as he felt what looked like excruciating pain.
“I—” he began.
He could not finish the sentence.
Once again, his foot was yanked hard. His whole body disappeared, falling with a bone-cracking thump, and was pulled under the interlocked tongues and out of the circle.
Aqreen and the young soldier beside her exchanged shocked glances, then bent together to look.
They saw the captain’s body being pulled by reaching skeletal hands, then watched with horror as two deadwalkers fell on him. Those snapping jaws clamped down on his shoulder and belly, and tore pieces of kaftan and flesh free. The captain screamed and tried to drag himself back into the circle. A dozen other flailing arms grabbed him, and deadwalkers pounced from all sides.
Aqreen could see the gaping holes in their middles and their chests where they had been skewered by the poles. They ought not to have been able to move at all, yet they were still very much mobile, very agile, and very, very hungry.
A crowd of deadwalkers covered the captain’s body, devouring him. His pitiful screams were drowned by the cacophony of deadwalkers shrieking, the sergeant shouting orders, and people shouting and yelling all around.
Only Aqreen and Kihrr had seen what had happened.
Aqreen turned to the sergeant, hitting him in the chest to attract his attention.
“The captain!” she shouted over the noise. “They took him!”
The sergeant stared at her, then looked where she was pointing. Only the mass of feeding deadwalkers were visible now, their mouths and hands red and dripping with fresh blood. He looked back at Aqreen with a frown, and for a second she thought he was going to reprimand her.
Then he slapped both her and Kihrr on their sides and yelled, “Poles! Use your poles, you sand rats!”
Aqreen picked up the end she had let fall into the sand and took a firm grip on it. The smeared gore was only a foot or two beyond her hands. She tried to ignore it, and lifted the ashwood. Aiming it into the middle of the feeding group, she jabbed it as hard as she could, once, then again and again.
The far end of the pole struck the head of a deadwalker stuffing a piece of wet meat into his gaping maw. His skull crunched, and he keeled over. The second and third jabs struck two other deadwalkers in the back and neck, knocking both off their prey. Beside her, Kihrr was working his pole as well, smashing skulls and crunching spines.
The sergeant was shouting furiously now, the turmoil so deafening that even his bellow was lost in the mass of sound.
Aqreen pulled and jabbed, pulled and jabbed, pulled and jabbed.
Over. And over. And over again.
Her arms, neck, and back ached, then went numb. Her legs felt like they’d turned to stone, then jelly. Her fingers and wrists cried out with pain.
Deadwalkers were coming through the gaps now, some crawling under the wagons and tongues. Others were clawing at the wagons, trying to climb sides, the ones behind them leaping onto their backs and reaching the top. Pyramids formed without forethought or planning. Apparently, they needed no master or officers to order and instruct them. They gained the tops of the wagons and scrambled over, leaping down heedlessly. Deadwalkers fell onto militia and travelers, burying teeth into their flesh instantly. Some fell on poles, or swords, or axes, and were impaled.
Aqreen saw one deadwalker falling onto a militia reserve who had the presence of mind to raise his pole end just in time. The deadwalker’s teeth shattered as he bit with full strength at the ashwood. Two of his teeth snapped off, embedded in the wood. He tumbled to the sand, and the militia fighter stamped down hard on his face. The deadwalker’s jaw—what was left of it—crunched and broke, but he still moved his mouth, trying to bite at the boot and getting only a mouthful of sand. The militia’s foot stamped down again and broke the deadwalker’s skull. He sprawled and lay still, face and head caved in, one eye staring up at the sky. He had a tattoo on his cheek that looked like a half moon.
All around her, deadwalkers were coming into the circle and militia were fighting them. She saw a deadwalker start to climb over the tongue, coming straight at her. She yanked her pole sideways, striking him in the ribs. They splintered, and the force drove him off the tongue. He fell back onto more deadwalkers who were following, and they roared with fury and tore at him before casting him aside. They weren’t big on camaraderie either, it seemed.
Things were growing chaotic inside the circle. More and more deadwalkers were climbing and crawling in. Militia were fighting back, but for every deadwalker they felled, three more seemed to appear.
Aqreen’s shoulders couldn’t take the punishment anymore. Another deadwalker had impaled himself on the outer end, and there were others writhing under the tongue and scrambling over it to get at her. She dropped her end of the pole. It didn’t fall far, impeded by the grisly kebab still skewered on the other end, and clanged down onto the metal tongue.
She unsheathed the two shortswords from the harness strapped to her back. The cloth-wrapped hilts felt like old friends. She had owned this pair since she was a young girl, training under Weapons Guru Shon’ayl, a withered old veteran whose face was so leathered with age it was difficult to tell her scars from the wrinkles. She had driven Aqreen brutally hard, bringing home the point that training wasn’t merely a hobby to be indulged but a survival skill.
Aqreen kissed the flats of the blades, sending up a silent word of prayer to old Shon’ayl, gone to her grave some years ago.
Then she got to work.
Using the diagonal slashing technique she had mastered under Shon’ayl, she hacked into the skulls of two deadwalkers at once. The deadly sharp blades sliced into the bone with only the slightest resistance, and both creatures collapsed, spilling viscous brain matter that was nearly liquefied and stank to high heaven.
Kihrr saw them fall and dropped his pole too, drawing his sword. He wielded it two-handed, cutting the ankles of a deadwalker who had climbed onto the tongue and was about to launch himself at the rookie. The deadwalker fell face forward at Kihrr’s feet, his head hitting the sand. But his arms and body still flailed, reaching sightlessly for the meat he knew was within reach.
“The skulls!” Aqreen shouted. “You have to smash their skulls!”
Kihrr hacked down at the deadwalker, who was rising, sand pouring out of his snarling jaws. The sword cleaved through the skull, splitting it open and spilling more of the same liquefied brain matter, releasing more of the noxious odor.
Aqreen was already fending off several more feeders coming at her. Her shortswords blurred through the air as she hacked through skulls. A deadwalker raised his hand, the ragged remains of his kaftan dangling from the still surprisingly fleshy arm, and one shortsword sliced through the forearm, severing bone and flesh as easily as cutting bread. It met the side of his head, cutting off the top of his skull at an angle. The severed top and the contents slid out, racing the rest of the corpse to the sand.
Blood and brains flew everywhere as she cut, hacked, jabbed, stabbed, and defended herself.
The circle had descended into a melee of madness. Deadwalkers were everywhere, leaping over the wagons and swarming through the gaps. The militia were fighting fiercely, each taking down dozens of the monstrous things, yet more kept coming. Was there no end to them? Where in the stone gods’ green heaven were they coming from? How many were there in all?
Screams rang out all around her as militia were bitten by deadwalkers. Their bites were infectious, poisoning the blood with whatever disease had caused their state, and the bitten turned feverish and died quickly, rising again as deadwalkers themselves. Everyone knew the myths. They were battling them now.
Through the storm of gore and horror that had descended over the camp, Aqreen’s beleaguered senses found an instant to think of Krushita. Was she safe? She could see nothing in the boiling mass of bodies and sand dust and flailing limbs and weapons. The battle was raging thick and wild, and it could only end one way.
Tears spilled hotly from her eyes even as she whirled like a dervish, cutting down deadwalkers on all sides.
Stone Mother, keep my baby safe. I beg of you!
A shocked exclamation distracted her.
She glanced sideways and saw Kihrr hacking at a deadwalker who had latched onto his cheek. The new recruit reversed his sword and punched the point down into the deadwalker’s skull. The creature fell, but he took a chunk of Kihrr’s face with him. The young man’s handsome features were destroyed, and the shocked disbelief on his face told Aqreen that he had realized that his time was ended now. The disease was already in his bloodstream and would turn him into one of them shortly. How long? Minutes? Hours? Aqreen didn’t recall the myths and stories providing such helpful details. Myths never did.
Kihrr fought even more fiercely, and Aqreen turned away, too busy with her own defense. She didn’t care to think about what would happen when Kihrr turned deadwalker. Or when the other living bodies around her also turned. The train was already on the verge of being lost. As if that wasn’t enough, were they to also be punished with eternal damnation? The myths claimed that deadwalkers could never ascend to the Gardens of the Stone Gods. They were branded urrkh, the worst appellation possible. Urrkh could find a home only in hell.
Aqreen’s arms worked, cutting skulls and spilling brains until she herself was covered with so much wetness, she no longer could tell if it was blood or gore or brain matter—or even her own blood. Had she been bitten? Could she already have been infected somehow and not know it? What if she turned too? What would happen to Krushita? Where was Krush now?
Stone Mother, she thought, barely able to complete the thought.
She punched the point of a shortsword through the eye of a deadwalker.
Stone Mother.
She hacked off the ear and side of the skull of a deadwalker.
Stone Mother, keep her.
She stabbed, sliced, chopped, swung, and cut down deadwalker after deadwalker. A nightmarish task that had no end.
Safe.
The din, the filth, the stench, the dust, the screams, the raw, searing desert heat, all enveloped her, wrapping her in a thick blanket of chaos and madness.
She fought on, barely more than a killing machine now, feeling her strength flagging, her arms losing their accuracy, her eyes dropping shut with exhaustion. Even the swords had lost their sharp edges, requiring more effort to cut through bone and flesh. Despite the muck-coated blades, she could see chips in the edges where they had caught on bone spurs or something harder.
She didn’t know how much longer she could go on like this. Other militia were falling around her. The circle seemed to contain more deadwalkers than mortals. Stone Father alone knew what the state of the rest of the camp was right now. If militia were on the verge of utter defeat, what of the travelers? The old, the sick, the young, the infirm? It was a slaughter. A complete massacre.
The only thought that kept her alive was the question.
What about Krushita?
It was obvious Jarsun was responsible for this. Even if he’d chosen not to show himself thus far. He had somehow summoned up all these dead hordes from stone god knew where.
But if Krushita was infected too, if she was killed, then it would put paid to his plans to take the Burning Throne.
Urrkh could not be accepted in mortal society. Urrkh were unacceptable to every culture, including the morally questionable tyrants of the Krushan dynasty. Deadwalkers were urrkh. And if Krushita turned urrkh, she would have no claim to the Burning Throne, Hastinaga, the Burnt Empire. To anything, for that matter. She would become a monster, a creature of hell like all these filth.
Surely that wasn’t what Jarsun wanted?
But imagining the destruction all around, the sheer scale of the slaughter, she couldn’t see how it could end otherwise.
They were all going to die here, on the Red Trail, two years and two thousand miles short of Reygistan.
She cried out with frustration and rage, her emotion driving a last jolt of strength into her waning limbs, and swirled, hacking limbs, heads, bodies.