“Well, I am,” I said. “So you can just deal.”
Nex widened his eyes at me. “Listen to you. Your tune has sure changed.” He looked over at Kel to add, “Damn, I didn't think you had it in you, Dhon.”
“Everyone underestimates me,” Kel said loftily.
“We had a good talk last night,” Rath said, ignoring Keltyr. “We're all going to try harder to make this work.”
Nex's expression went serious. “I'm glad. We can use the power boost.”
I instantly went on alert. “Why? What happened?”
“Nothing yet, but it's coming. I feel it.”
As if Nex's words were the catalyst, our Wraith Lord pendants started to glow and vibrate—all five of them. Around the room, a few other men stood up and faded away, doubtless to armor up.
“Shit,” Nex muttered. “Why'd I have to open my big mouth?”
“We don't know that this will be different from any other mission.” Xae got up and faded.
“Looks as if I'm part of the team again,” Kel said with a grin. “See you there.” He faded too.
As Rath and Nex faded upstairs, I climbed out from the bench and stood up. Across the room, Jath was getting up as well. My stare went from his stoic stare to the glowing pendant around his neck. I blinked. Fuck. All right, this was fine. It would be fine. I nodded at him and faded up to my suite. I was a Wraith Lord; I could be stoic too.
Pushing down the butterflies in my belly, I went to my armor stand and quickly got geared up. Rath and Xae were already strapping on their swords. It took me a few minutes, but they waited for me. We'd go together and fight together. We had to.
“Done,” I said as I finished buckling my belt. “Let's go.”
Without another word, we clasped our pendants and faded away, letting the Emperor's magic draw us to wherever we were needed.
We reformed on a street in the middle of a city. This one wasn't as shiny and the buildings didn't soar as high as they did in Ruva. But it was still impressive to a boy who had been raised in a small, human village where buildings were never taller than two stories. The problem was, in cities of this size, sometimes we had to run around a bit, looking for the Corrupted.
That wasn't the case this time.
“Holy fuck,” I whispered.
People of many races were running through the streets, screaming. It was chaos. The noise, the mindless movement, and the terrible smell. I knew as soon as that stench hit me that we were not dealing with normal corrupted humans. Nex was right. The Corrupter had sent the dead at last.
Rath, Xae, and I ran forward, in the opposite direction of the herd. It was hard to make any progress, so I rose above the crowd with Air Magic, taking Xae with me. Rath soon joined us. As a Varraen, he'd been born with every elemental magic except Spirit. This meant he knew how to handle the boost I'd given him, unlike Xae, who was still learning. To give him credit, Xae didn't panic when he suddenly floated off the ground. He just nodded at me and then searched the streets for a target.
We found them a block away. A shambling line of corpses made its way down the street and sidewalks, corralling the living as they attacked the stragglers. And their victims did not receive a clean death. I gaped as people were torn apart with hands and teeth, the dead seeming to have more strength than the Corrupted, needing no weapons to kill. How that could be, I couldn't understand. Their rotting muscles should have made them weaker, not stronger. But then nothing had to make sense when you were dealing with magic.
From our right, a winged form dove, light flashing off a sword held aloft.
Of course, it was Jath. He swooped down behind the line of dead, drawing his sword over their hamstrings and cutting them down like wheat in the field. Their victims, those still able to move, freed themselves and went running while the dead clawed forward, dragging their legs behind them.
“Tenacious,” I muttered as I summoned Earth Magic and opened the street below them.
The dead tumbled into a pit and writhed over each other, mindlessly trying to get out. They looked like a pile of worms. Unsettling, to say the least.
Black wings caught my eye, but it wasn't Jath. Jath had done his duty and moved on as soon as I took over. The man who settled into soaring beside us was Finn.
“There's more to the east,” Finn said, then angled in that direction.
We followed him across the city, to where another group of walking corpses were ravaging civilians. The four of us dove together, in formation, unsheathing our swords as we did. Following Jath's lead, we hamstringed the dead. All right, most of us did that. Xae, however, removed legs. Once they were down, I opened the street and left them to stew in that pit.
Continuing like that, we collected the dead, and then returned to the first pit to see what could be done. All of us sent our wraiths forth, the dark forms flying from our bodies and through the dead. With my men and I, our wraiths split to deal with several dead at once while Finn's only entered one corpse. Then our wraiths returned to us, leaving the dead unchanged.
“It's not working,” I said. “Fuck.”
