Dragright emerged from the hole, dirty enough for him to have lain there since the Cataclysm. He coughed, pounding on his chest with a fist while hoisting a prize into the air with his left hand. Bits of flesh fell from the skull he lifted, but much of the shrunken scalp remained in place. Ciras even saw a white ribbon woven into one brittle lock.
Dragright hurled it to the ground. It shattered on impact. He stomped on it, reducing the skull to dust. He laughed, the others joined him, then he squatted and sifted the dust with dirty fingers.
He took a pinch of the dust and brought it toward a nostril.
Tightboots tossed a pebble at him. “Don’t. Save it. It’s worth more than you are.”
Dragright shrugged. “Just seeing how good it is. We’ve enough. There’s a dozen more in there. Swords, too, maybe even a bow for you.”
He snorted the corpse dust.
His head snapped back and his eyes widened. His body shook violently and he should have toppled onto his back, but somehow he came upright, as if being lifted by his throat. Dragright sneezed once, hard, and thick green ropes of mucus dripped from his nostrils like wax. He coughed again, then shook his head spasmodically, four times.
He smiled, all gap-toothed and happy. “This is the best we’ve found.”
Tightboots lofted another stone at him. “You say that with every tomb.”
The man’s hand swept up fluidly and snatched the pebble from the air. “And this time I’m right.”
Ciras rose and began a casual stroll down into their camp. He angled to keep Slopeheel on his right and the fire between him and the other three. He forced himself to walk loosely, never betraying the revulsion he felt at finding breathers of the dead.
Nor did he let his fear show. If thaumston could animate machines, so corpse dust could power others. A Mystic weaver’s dust could impart her skill to someone who breathed it. Likewise the dust of a warrior. Just how much skill no one knew. The practice was proscribed and the only source of knowledge about it came from stories whispered around campfires.
Slopeheel turned to look at Ciras. “Who in the Nine Hells are you?”
Ciras’ blade cleared its scabbard in a draw-cut that caressed the man’s throat front to back. It parted his spine and only left a small flap of skin and muscle beneath the man’s right ear intact. Slopeheel’s head flopped onto his shoulder as blood geysered from his neck, then he collapsed thrashing.
Tightboots cursed as he dove for his bow. “Damn the xidantzu!” He rolled and came up with the bow, but by the time he nocked an arrow and started to draw it, Ciras had reached him. The archer began to turn toward him, but the swordsman’s blade descended. It swept through his right elbow. The forearm whipped away, propelled by the bow. The archer stared at the stump in horror, then a second slash blinded him.
As Ciras turned to the right, the giant ran into the darkness and Dragright kicked the antique sword into the air. He caught it deftly. He dropped into a fighting stance, with his left hand wide, his right jabbing with the sword, and his body open. He stood the way an unskilled brawler might, a casual cut away from death. In fact, tired, dirty, and snot-stained, he looked more dead than alive anyway.
Ciras did not attack. He took a step away from the dying archer, then bowed toward his opponent. He held it for a respectful time, then straightened up again.
Dragright frowned. “You’re a strange xidantzu. You slaughter two, then do me honor?”
“Not you. The warrior whose skull you crushed, whose sword you bear.”
“Heh.” The man half smiled, then convulsed again. He spun the sword up and around, easily, as if he had been trained to it all his life. “He was one of the best, you know. Out here. Better than you could have ever hoped.”
“Of this, I have no doubt.” Ciras waved him forward with his left hand. “But you are not he.”
The bandit attacked and the twin effects of the corpse dust and the sword made themselves readily apparent. Ciras had tracked the man and named him because he dragged his right foot a bit. In his attack, he moved more fluidly and with more precision. He flowed down into Dragon, whipping the sword down and around, then up in a cut meant to slash Ciras’ right flank.
Ciras slipped to the left, then pivoted back on his right foot and backhanded a slash aimed at the bandit’s spine. Steel rang on steel as Dragright spun back faster than possible and parried the slash high. Snapping his wrist around, he attacked back.
Pain scored a fiery line through Ciras’ armpit. He leaped away, feeling blood already dripping. He’d never seen an attack like that, and he knew the Dragon form well. Moreover, he felt a tingle in the air, much akin to what he’d felt when the magic storms played in Ixyll.
Magic! It wasn’t possible, but the bandit had accessed magic.
Ciras’ realization prompted him to take another step back. His right foot landed on the archer’s severed forearm. His ankle twisted and he went down. He landed on his right elbow, striking it against a stone. His sword twisted from numbed fingers and clanged against the ground.
Dragright strode boldly to him, kicked the archer’s arm away, then raised the sword in both hands, as if it were a dagger. Firelight played over the expression of glee on his face and, for the barest of moments, Ciras could see hints of softness there, as if the ghostly likeness of the dead warrior overlaid his features.
The man laughed. “It feels so good to fight again.”
He raised the sword higher, his back arched, his mouth open in a fearsome snarl. Then his body shook and a crossbow bolt burst out through his breastbone. The force of the shot sent him flying toward the tomb. He bounced once, hard, and rolled, coming to rest on his chest near the hole.
With delicate little arms setting another bolt in place, Nesrearck skittered forward and crouched.
Ciras smiled and scooped up his sword. He stood, gingerly testing his ankle, then bowed to the gyanrigot. Beyond it Borosan entered the firelit basin, skirting Slopeheel’s body. “Where’s the fourth one?”
“He ran.”
“How badly are you hurt?”
The swordsman shrugged his right arm out of his robe and checked. “He got flesh, nothing else. If he’d cut the artery, I’d have been dead inside a minute. As it is, I’ll live.”
“So will I, serrdin.”
Ciras spun as the corpse flopped itself onto its back. It grabbed a handful of corpse dust and stuffed it into the gaping hole in its chest. The body jerked and the spine bowed violently enough that the bandit bounced upright. It set itself, then waved him forward with its left hand.
This is impossible! Fear coursed through Ciras. Dragright had been faster and more skilled than he. He had used magic and cut him. He couldn’t stand against such a creature, especially when it clearly couldn’t be killed. To remain and battle against the unbeatable foe was suicide.
Panic seized him, and he almost turned to run. He knew what would happen if he did. The thing would catch him like a hawk stooping on a rabbit. It would cut him down. He’d die with his face in the dirt, his spine slashed open to prove that he’d died a coward.
Though he might not be a master or Mystic, Ciras was no coward. Shifting his sword to his right hand, he wrapped the sleeve of his robe through his sash so it would not flop around. He wiped blood from his hand, then took up the sword again.
He waited. It had used the Dragon form, and the best forms to counter it were Tiger and Wolf. But it will expect that. That meant it might shift to Eagle or Mantis, perhaps even Dog. The various permutations of the battle ran through his mind. As fast as Ciras could adapt his tactics, the creature would be faster, and the outcome as dire as if Ciras had run.