The corpses overtook them in seconds. Spread out as they were, they’d made it only too easy for the corpses to fill in the gaps between them. The bodies’ torsos twisted at unnatural angles—spines bent and skin tinted gray bunched—so their limbs could lacerate everythingthey touched. Two corpses found her, the first’s jagged fingernails digging into her thigh while another at her back sank its teeth through her shirt and into the flesh at her shoulder. Nes exhaled through gritted teeth and slammed her dagger as hard as she could down through the skull of the corpse in front of her before reaching behind her, grabbing hold of the second corpse and tossing it over her shoulder. It collided with the first, both crumpling in a heap of rotting limbs at her feet. She retrieved her dagger before they could detangle themselves and start their attack anew.
Nes straightened. The dumpstreet was filled with the sounds of tearing and clawing and spitting and bleeding. All she could see was the furious attack of the corpses. There was no difference between the living and the dead. No difference in the ferocity with which they fought. The only difference Nes could make out was the smell. Magic wafted from the corpses like smoke from a fire.
In the cramped space, she couldn’t find Toran or Suri. The living were lost, and if she didn’t start pulling hearts, soon they’d all be among the dead.
She whirled and sliced at anything and everything that came near her. She tried to aim for the chest, to drag her dagger down far enough to open the chest cavity, but the corpses were fast. Too fast. It was all she could do to keep their filthy, decaying limbs off her.
There were too many of them. She knew this. Had known it the moment she’d barged into the dumpstreet and saw the dead rise like fish to a river’s surface. Six to one. And that wasn’t even counting Damari. They wouldn’t win this. Not unless…
Her magic practically purred at the thought. Rumbling low vibrations shook her every bone. She held her jaw tight to keep her teeth from chattering and kept slashing.
She couldn’t let go. Not here, not with her power broiling inside. The results would be disastrous. She’d take out the dead, but at the cost of all the living in her blast radius, and that included everyone inside the Siren’s Hair.
Something hard and slick sank into her injured shoulder, piercing skin anew. She cried out, turning on her attacker. Flesh tore, and she growled. Between a corpse’s teeth was a bloody chunk of her shoulder. Blood pooled briefly in the wound before muscle, sinew, and skin sprouted back, pushing the blood aside.
Her dagger found the corpse’s throat and her hand its chest, her fingers curling around its dead heart. She wrenched the thing out and squeezed it until it burst, congealed blood splattering her face. The corpse fell, only for three more to take its place.
They couldn’t win.
In the distance, something clanged, low and loud. The chaos faded, and she focused on the sound clawing toward her. The firm reverberations of its low pitch. She recognized it.
The clocktower chiming the hour. It rang out once. Then twice.
An idea pealed through her, as loud and insistent as the clocktower continuing to chime. Maybe they had a chance after all. Maybe they could win. If they moved fast enough.
“Back inside!” she yelled. She seized her dagger from the corpse’s throat. “Everyone, get back inside now!”
No one listened to her. No one turned from the fight.
Damn it. Did they want to die?
She shook herself. They didn’t know. None of the guards knew the Ditch as she did. And Suri, she’d been here only a few months. She wasn’t like Nes—Suri actually slept most nights. So none of them could know.
Like fall leaves in the wind, Nes caught a whip of red hair to her left. She grabbed Genna’s shoulder, ducking under the sword that swung her way. Genna’s eyes widened when she saw who it was, an apology tipping over the edge of her mouth. But Nes shoved Genna back toward the kitchen door. And then Suri was there, too, her breaths quick, her arm around Genna’s back.
“Get inside!” Nes shouted to them.
Quint was easiest to spot. Despite the plethora of bodies, he stooda good head taller than the rest. She dodged and ducked, elbowing corpses as she pushed her way to him.
She opened her mouth to tell him to go back inside, but what came out was “Where’s Toran?”
Because she hadn’t been able to find him. Not yet. And if she couldn’t…
Quint pointed off to his right, and she turned. There, in a sea of dead, was Toran.
He moved like nothing she’d ever seen. He was a tree, his branches cutting every which way, and the corpses attacking him were the wind. They blew hard, but they couldn’t touch him, every attack hitting nothing but empty space. She remembered watching him fight in the brawlhouse. That had been nothing compared to this. This was why he was the Crown. This was why everyone thought he’d win the duel. He didn’t just win a fight. He became the fight. And he could not be conquered.
Glancing back at Quint, she pointed to the building. “Inside!”
Then she was shoving her way through a maze of the dead to Toran.
He spotted her immediately, taking her hand and pulling her to him. Her cheek hit his chest, and she caught the rapidthump thump thumpof his heart before he severed a corpse in two. As the body fell, he looked down at her, a frown gathering on his brow.
“We have to get inside,” she yelled, answering his unspoken question. Time was running out. They’d been lucky so far, but that luck wouldn’t last.
Toran nodded. “Stay behind me.”
He cut a path through the corpses to the door, her hand at his back as they moved. Arms, sliced off at the shoulder, and legs, cut from torsos at the thigh, dropped into piles on either side of her. Still, the corpses pushed in on them. But Toran did not give them a speck of space from the front, and with one hand still at his back, she shoved the other through chest cavity after chest cavity that appeared behind them, leaving hearts to pile up with the limbs he severed.
