And then the first of the ghouls arrived, clawing its way up the exterior of the castle and hauling itself into the crenel between two merlons and leaping toward me. It had transformed fully, muzzle extended, lips peeled back from rotten-looking fangs, yellow eyes glaring, its skin grey and covered in spiky hairs. The clothing the thing had worn over its upper body hung around its torso in tatters. Its forearms were unnaturally long, its back hunched and powerful, and gangrenous claws extended from its fingertips.
A shotgun boomed, pellets smacking into the low center of the ghoul’s chest, staggering it, and buying me a critical second or two.
I don’t know if I’ve made mention of how much I dislike ghouls.
I dropped the wind spell, drew my blasting rod, pointed it at the thing, sent a fraction of my anger coursing down my right arm, and snarled,“Fuego!”
The blasting rod flooded with golden light, and a blue-white bolt of something a couple of steps beyond fire slammed into its gaping mouth. The ghoul didn’t catch fire so much as its head instantly superheated and exploded like a kernel of gory popcorn. The ghoul crashed to the floor amid glowing runes and sigils, spewing dark, watery blood like the juice from a crushed cockroach, arms and legs still thrashing wildly and randomly, its body having been relieved of its brain so that it couldn’t know it was already dead.
More ghouls began to clamber up through the battlements.
Bear’s guns clicked empty behind me.
“Fiero!”came Fitz’s voice, gasping, sending another, redder bolt of fire at a Malvora, who fell back over the edge of the rooftop to avoid it. Then he gasped,“Fiero!”again and nothing much happened.
The kid had talent, but it would take him time to get the kind of sand in his craw that a seasoned battle wizard had earned.
“Stairs!” I said. “Now!”
Bear groaned and staggered to her feet, almost falling. Blood was coming from her mouth, though she was grinning a wide scarlet grin. “One of them had armor-piercing rounds,” she gasped. “Had to take them.”
“Cheating vampires,” I muttered. I got a shoulder under one of herarms and half dragged her with me to the stairway. Matias emerged from the stairs, pumping the shotgun, and fired three times at the nearest ghouls to cover us, his expression focused, impassive, and grim.
“Help Bear down!” I shouted to him and Fitz. The kid was gasping with the efforts of his evocations, but he rose to try to support Bear. The two of them nearly fell down the stairs. Matias, sturdier by several degrees than the kid, less exhausted, and with a lifetime of work behind him, nudged Fitz aside and got into a more leveraged position.
“¡Uno, dos, tres!”he shouted, and on three, he grunted as they went down a stair.“¡Uno, dos, tres!”he called again, and they went down another stair.
I whirled at the top of the staircase.
I found myself facing a dozen ghouls, with more on the way.
And Lara Raith, in close-fit white clothing, came arcing up through the air at the far end of the rooftop, behind the ghouls, bearing a slim, wavy-bladed short sword in either hand. She landed on a merlon in utter silence, a wide, predatory smile curling her lips.
And as she did, the sweet, ringing notes of a shofar soared through the night from somewhere down at street level.
Ghouls screamed, loud and high-pitched like panicked pigs, and clutched at their ears, and I saw two still climbing up who simply fell from the walls, half paralyzed. Others on the way up must have been falling, too.
And two inhumanly loud, bestial voices rose in shrieks of fear and fury and agony down on the street.
Lara’s face twisted into a snarl as the sound of the horn washed over her, but it didn’t slow her down. She blurred into motion and hit the stunned ghouls from behind, blades flashing. She went for spines and necks, single, supernaturally powerful slashes, and the wavy blades carved their way through bone and flesh like cutting through so much Jell-O. Green-brown-black ghoul gore swept out in smooth arcs.
I brought my blasting rod up, sent a pair of ghouls to the stones, burning and yowling, and by the time I got to the third one, I had to snap the blasting rod up because Lara had gone through the rest and was close enough to catch some of the thermal bloom.
Lara’s pale blue eyes were bright as she flashed me a sharp, hard smile. “Fiancé mine,” she said. “I hope I’m not late.”
“Right on time,” I said. I looked at the luckier ghouls, the ones who still had heads. They didn’t have the use of their legs and were dragging themselves toward the battlements, ready to face a thirty-foot fall onto concrete rather than remain on the roof with Lara and me.
I saw no reason to allow them to continue drawing breath.
I raised my blasting rod.
Lara’s cool hand touched mine, pressing very gently down. “No, wizard. As a favor to me.”
I looked sharply at her.
Lara watched the ghouls with cool, calculating eyes. Stray lightning in the storm I’d summoned flickered in the clouds overhead, vague light and rumbling sound, sending shadows dancing oddly across her face. “The fight is out of them. Let them spread word of how they were received here. And of how the Malvora abandoned them to their fate. It will give my cousins in Malvora fewer potential allies and cat’s-paws in the future and make my life somewhat easier.”
I stared hard at her and then drew in a breath and nodded. “Fine,” I said. Then, after a moment: “Thank you.”
