“Ah… damn the man,” muttered Saint. “I thought I had him.”
“You hurt him, though,” said Grey, pointing.
It was true. Although the frigate still floated above the army, the airship had clearly failed to escape the little disaster Saint had sent into the clouds. It had a visible list to port, and all along the starboard side the rail and decking had been blasted away. The gaping damage exposed the gears of complex machinery inside. Oily black smoke drifted from the ports and mingled with the dark clouds, and there were long streaks of red running down the sides of the shattered wood. Even though Deray had escaped destruction, he had paid with the blood of his men.
He wondered if the necromancer even counted that cost or if the lives of his own people meant as little to him as the lives of the people here in Paradise Falls.
Probably.
He wished he could get up close to the man and look him in the eye. He had met killers, criminals, and bad men before, but he had never looked into the eyes of someone who was willing to spill an ocean of blood to achieve his own goals. He had never faced down a would-be conqueror. And he dearly wanted to have that confrontation with Deray. He wanted to ask him by what right he made war on his fellow men. By what right did he cultivate war on a global scale. By what right did he set himself above all laws and all codes of ethics and morality.
He wanted those answers and then he wanted to put a hot bullet into that cold heart.
Chapter Eighty-Three
“They’re coming!”
The cry went up from the barrier and blazed like wildfire through the town.
Grey and Saint ran to the sandbag wall and stared at the line of undead troops that had begun to pass between the gates of the Icarus Bridge. The first undead soldier to step onto the bridge did so tentatively. He tugged on the ropes, jerking hard to see if they’d part before he put his weight on the boards.
The ropes held.
“Come on you bastard,” murmured Grey. “Come on.”
The corpse turned and waved to his companions and Grey saw him give a thumbs up. Then the soldier turned back and put a foot on the first of the boards. It was too far away for Grey to hear the wood creak, but he remembered the sound and could imagine it now. Old wood that complained under any burden. The undead held onto the ropes as he eased his weight onto one foot and then both. Above him, Aleksander Deray leaned over the damaged rail of his ship and growled at the dead men. Grey couldn’t hear the words but it did not appear as if the necromancer was offering compassion and support. His face seemed as filled with storms as the sky above him.
The dead man took another step. And another. The bridge swayed but the boards held. The ropes held. The bridge held. When he was halfway across the gorge, the undead stopped and actually jumped up and down on the bridge, testing its integrity and strength.
Can they feel fear, Grey wondered. If so, why? It couldn’t be anything to do with physical pain, their bodies were stolen. And it certainly couldn’t be concerns about their mortality because they were demons. If their bodies died they’d simply go back to hell.
Was it a fear of torment in the Pit? Grey doubted it. More likely, he mused, it was a red delight in all of the terrible things they could do with those stolen bodies. If they were as evil as Brother Joe said, then they would crave pain and slaughter the way an opium eater craved the pipe. An addiction of malice. His gut told him that he’d hit on it.
But that meant that he could not bargain with them. Could not really threaten them. It would be like trying to reason with a swarm of locusts or a raging forest fire.
The corpse turned and waved. First to Deray and then to the other undead. He yelled so loud that his words drifted all the way through the wind and rain to Grey.
“It’s safe! The fools have cut their own throats. Come, my brothers! Come!”
And they came.
With a howl like a pack of hellish jackals, the grinning horde drew their guns and raced forward onto the bridge. Hundreds of them. Staggering corpses whose gray and rotted flesh were a horror to behold, and they sent up a continuous moan of unbearable hunger as they stumbled forward, hands reaching toward the promise of warm human flesh. Behind the legions of the dead were the living soldiers in the employ of the mad conqueror. Deray’s men wore uniforms of gray and black and purple, and each carried a rifle made from copper and steel and set with burning jewels. Across the Icarus Bridge came the armies of the underworld. Across the chasm, far above the thrashing water, came the exterminators who would slaughter and consume.
Behind the sandbag barrier, the defenders of Paradise Falls crouched with wild eyes and sweating hands gripping their meager weapons.
“God,” cried one of the men at the barrier. “Look how many there are.”
Grey heard weeping among the gathered fighters behind the sandbags.
“They’re almost across!” shouted someone else. And it was true, the army of the damned were three quarters of the way across the creaking bridge. With every step they moved faster as their careful walk gave way to a fast walk and finally, with a howl that shook the skies, a full-out run.
The chasm was two hundred and seven feet wide. That’s what Jenny and Looks Away told Grey. The bridge was made of wooden slats and miles of rope. It swayed under the weight of hundreds of running feet.
“Guess it’s time,” said Grey. “Be ready.”
He placed two hands on the sandbag wall and swung his body over, landed with a thump on the hard-packed dirt, and then jogged down the slope to the mouth of the ridge, reaching it while the undead were still a dozen yards away. He stood between the bridge posts and raised both his hands. The racing dead suddenly slowed, and as the leading edge of the charge stopped, the others collided with them. In the air the sky frigate turned hard aport to give Deray a better look as Grey stood in a posture of obvious surrender.
The oncoming tide of killers stopped, but three hundred gun barrels swung toward him, and then — as Grey had hoped — a tall figure pushed through the crowd, shoving the other walking dead aside as he moved to the front of the army. Grey felt his heart sink. He knew the clothes, that hat, the guns, that face. Lucky Bob Pearl came smiling to within twenty feet of where Grey waited.
“You are one persistent fellow,” said the Harrowed.
“Been called that,” admitted Grey.
“And you’re a right pain in my ass.”
“Been called that, too. And worse.”
“I have no doubt.”
“You’re a bit persistent your ownself,” said Grey. “Every time people think you’re dead you pop right back up like a prairie dog.”
“More like a bad penny, wouldn’t you say?” suggested Lucky Bob.
“Fair enough.”
“What’s your name, son?”
“Grey Torrance, and I’m the sheriff ’round these parts.”
“Really? Since when?”
Grey laughed. “I’m lying. I read that line in so many dime novels I just had to say it. Sounds just as stupid out loud, doesn’t it?”
A smile flickered on the Harrowed’s face. Behind him some of the others were smiling, too. Grey doubted they appreciated the little joke. No, their grins were in anticipation of slaughter and feasting.
“Kill ’im, brother,” said one of them, but Lucky Bob shook his head.
“No,” he said loud enough for them all to hear, “let’s have the niceties. After all, these people used to be my friends. It’s only neighborly to have a chat before we commence with the butchery.”