Kreya slowed to catch Stran as he stumbled, his hand over his chest. Red spread across the front of his shirt. Suddenly, the others were there too, supporting Stran.
The construct lunged with its sword a second time, and Stran lurched forward, out of their arms, swatting at the enemy with his own sword. The skull flew off the monstrosity’s neck, as Stran landed hard on one knee.
“Where did it hit?” Zera asked, her voice shrill.
“Pressure on the wound,” Kreya said. “Stop the bleeding.”
It had sliced through his shoulder. She couldn’t tell how close it had come to anything vital, but if they didn’t get him out of here now, it wouldn’t matter. They’d all be cut apart before he even had the chance to bleed out.
He’s not going to make it,she thought.None of us are going to make it.
She twisted to spy Eklor—far enough away that she couldn’t see his features but only his silhouette, standing atop the rubblethat was his ruined tower, looking the same as he did in her memories: tall, with the arrogant posture of a wealthy man and the thinness of a starving one, his coat with its bone pockets billowing in the wind around him. And that snapped her out of her despair.
I’m not losing anyone,she thought.
“Zera, what happens if you use a flight talisman on the ground, combined with speed?”
“I... haven’t tested for that.” But she was digging talismans out of her pockets. “Flight word is ‘renari,’” she told Jentt as she dropped them in his hand.
“You’ll know when to use it,” Kreya said to him. “Zera, you and I will clear a path as far as we can. Jentt, come back for Marso when Stran is clear.” As the team runner, Jentt was the fastest with the speed talismans. He knew how to eke out every bit of advantage from the boost of power, honing his body into an arrow through the air. His feet barely touched the ground. It was, he’d told Kreya many times before, akin to flying. Felt like it to him. Combined with the flight talisman... he should know exactly what to do.
“How can I help?” Marso asked.
“Scream,” Kreya told him. “As loud as you can. Distract Eklor. Keep him from issuing new orders.” Left to their own devices, the soldiers were stupid. Eklor, though, with his bird’s-eye view... “But don’t die.No one die.”
They sprang into action.
With the nimbleness of a goat, fueled by a steadiness talisman, Marso skipped over the top of a metal construct. He sang at the top of his voice, “Death to you, death to me, death above, death behind, death below!” He pointed at Eklor. “I see you!”
Kreya didn’t wait to hear Eklor’s response.
She strapped knives to her wrists and squeezed a talisman in each hand. Flanking Jentt, she and Zera ran, matching his pace. They both struck out with their knives, using strength talismans to power each blow, speed talismans to boost the strike speeds. They whirled through the enemy, slicing a path through the army.
Her muscles trembled as she felt the talismans give out. Short bursts, Zera had promised. She hadn’t expectedthatshort. She hoped it was enough. “Now!” she told Jentt.
Jentt, with the half-conscious Stran, shouted, “Renari!”
Carrying Stran, he propelled himself forward, leaping as he ran, and the flight talisman kicked into action. He flew between each footfall.
Knives ready and already blackened with filth from the undead soldiers’ bodies, Kreya and Zera faced the army as it closed in on them.
“What now?” Zera asked.
Evading the soldiers’ swords, Marso was still shouting, spinning out a prediction: “I have seen you, against the bloody sky! Your hand upraised! Severed! Until the white sun gleams and all is sand, sand, sand in your throat, as you swallow but do not drink. Your thirst unslaked. Your hunger unending, until the bones cast you down, down, down. Until death is not a door but a path you walk. Sunset after sunset, sweet but never tasted until your last day, unceremonious and unspoken.”
Glancing toward the tower, Kreya saw that Eklor was focused on Marso, drinking in his words, trying to glean meaning from them. Kreya wasn’t sure there was any. She was also sure that Eklor was exposed, secure in his belief that his army could defeat them. If she timed it right, she could attack, strike before he even noticed her—but then she’d be leaving Zera. Again.
She couldn’t do that.
“What kind of talismans do you have left?”
“You want me to take inventory? Now?”
They had to do something the army wouldn’t expect—the soldiers were prepared for them to run and prepared for them to fight. “Any steadiness?” Kreya asked.
“It’s a flat plain—”
“All of them are wearing helmets. Think of them as stepping stones. Like Marso did. Flight plus steadiness—push off for lift. They won’t see it coming.”
