Five paces from the front rank of the villagers, Ilkar cut the ForceCone, leaving them a gap through which to run. Hirad pulled his sword in front of his face and increased his pace to a sprint, hearing Denser right on his heels. The cat streaked through his legs, on past the skeletons and into the village. For a moment, the dead continued as they had with the Cone in place, but as Hirad moved through the first of them, the line started to close. He shuddered as he ran, crying out as bone hands snagged his leather and slashing in front of his face as a skull appeared right in front of him. His strike swept it from its neck and the body collapsed.
It was tight. Denser’s breathing was loud in his ears, and he cursed under his breath. Hirad swung his sword through double-handed again and again at chest height, feeling it shatter bone and crunch into wing membrane, head and shoulder. And never once did a villager lift a hand to strike them.
They broke through the line, stumbling to a stop after a dozen or so paces and turning to see what they’d left behind. The gap was closed. The villagers walked on towards the rip, not looking back, advancing on The Raven trio who stood with their backs to the moving darkness that was the dimension gate, swords at the ready. Ilkar managed a wave and Hirad responded before turning a face running with sweat to Denser.
‘We’d better be quick,’ said the Dark Mage. ‘Once those three are forced through the rip, the villagers will be coming back, only we don’t have anywhere to fall except down or through the other rip.’ Hirad raised his eyebrows, nodding nervously.
The two men trotted into the village, where they stopped again, staring at the derelict settlement. All around, they could see the crumbling remnants of a civilisation. Buildings, blasted and blackened, scorched and falling to rubble; large pots, jugs, and cauldrons lying over the ground. What was once furniture, tables, chairs and pedestals, could be seen in the ruins of the houses. Cloth had rotted to dust, pottery was cracked and chipped, wood was splintered and burned, and all that was left was chaos.
‘How did they live up here?’ asked Hirad, picking up the handle piece of a broken jug. ‘I mean, it’s so small.’ He stared back the way they had come, looking afresh at the empty earth. From the settlement, he could see squares of darker ground meshed in a grid of lighter areas. Plots and paths. Gods, they had been farmers. Farmers who could fly. ‘And what’s down there?’ He threw the jug towards the edge of the plateau. It shattered on the ground a long way from its intended destination.
‘Nothing, at a guess,’ said Denser. ‘I expect that’s why they came up here to live.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Hirad. ‘Why would there be nothing down there?’
‘You can’t use Balaia as a reference to explain this. Hell, I’m just stabbing in the dark. All we know is, this is how they ended up. Draw your own conclusions.’
‘But why did they die?’
Denser shrugged and turned away, scanning the village. ‘I have no idea and we haven’t the time to think it out just now. Start looking.’
Hirad peered inside one of the buildings, seeing a microcosm of the village itself reflected in its age-ridden remains. Bones littered the floor and a skull hung from the great oval hole in the roof. Black soot covered every surface.
‘What are we looking for?’
‘How many more times?’ said Denser, moving away in a random direction. ‘I don’t know. Look, let’s split up and see if anything is obvious. I don’t know. I’m expecting it to be different from the rest of this bloody mess: something brought here, not made here.’
Hirad glanced behind him before setting off away from Denser. The villagers were still walking and The Raven were still standing. Still waiting. At that moment, he felt a wash of pride. Those men, his friends and companions, would never turn their backs.
He picked his way at a run past ruin after ruin and everywhere he looked it was the same. Broken buildings, rotten furnishings, smashed pottery. And scorched, as if some monstrous fire had swept the village aside like dust in the wind. He moved through the village, taking in what had been the far side of the platform and the other rip hanging in the sky. Even as he wondered what lay beyond it and considered that he wasn’t in a hurry to find out, he heard Denser shout. Glancing to his left, he could see the Dark Mage running towards a building at the edge of the village on the way to the rip.
The barbarian scampered through the rubble and raced in through the opening of yet another half-fallen dwelling just a few paces behind the Xeteskian. And there, being circled slowly by the cat, sat a small child. A splash of light and colour and very much alive.
She wore a blue dress, and a matching scarf was tied around her long blonde hair. Her eyes were large and blue, and below her tiny nose was a mouth which displayed no humour. She was staring at the cat, following its slow movements around her, clutching a small chest in her bare arms.
‘Kill it, Hirad,’ hissed Denser. ‘Do it now and do it quickly.’
‘What?’ said Hirad. ‘No! Just take the chest and let’s get out of here.’ He made a move towards the girl but was stopped by Denser’s hand on his arm.
‘It’s not what it might seem,’ said the Dark Mage. ‘Open your eyes, Hirad. Do you really think she could live here as she is?’
The girl turned her gaze from the cat and to the two men at the doorway, noticing them for the first time.
‘Keep your sword ready,’ said Denser, drawing his own blade and taking a half-step to the side.
Hirad glanced at the mage’s face. It was set, his eyes were on the girl and they were scared. The barbarian hefted his blade.
‘Can’t you cast a spell or something?’
A shake of the head. ‘It won’t wait that long.’
‘Who is she?’ asked Hirad.
‘I’m not sure. Nothing ordinary. Septern must have created her. Just keep your eye on that chest. We mustn’t lose it or damage it.’
‘Whatever you say.’
The girl smiled. It was a gesture quite without feeling and it left her eyes cold. Hirad shivered. And when she spoke, though the sound of her voice was that of a nine-year-old, its weight and power set the back of his scalp crawling.
‘You are the first,’ she said. ‘And you shall be the last and only.’
‘And what are you?’ asked Denser.
‘I am your nightmare. I am your death.’ She moved. Lunged forward at blurring speed. And as she moved, she transformed. Hirad screamed.
The villagers closed. Ilkar, Talan and Richmond had backed to within half a dozen paces of the rip. The flanks moved inwards, forcing a still greater pressure on the press of skeletons scant feet from them.
Behind the lines lay the sheared bones of perhaps forty of the walking dead, victims of the hacking and slashing swords of the Raven trio. And now, with sweat-slick faces and lungs heaving, they were staring at imminent defeat.
‘We haven’t slowed them at all,’ rasped Talan, kicking the legs from under a skeleton and dashing its skull with the butt of his sword.
‘No impression,’ Ilkar agreed, and indeed there didn’t seem to be. Their immediate vision was still crowded with jostling arms, legs and the remains of wings. And all they could hear was the hollow sound of fleshless feet on the hard-packed earth and the click of bone on bone, over and over.
‘How many of them are there?’ said Richmond, straightening from a strike which had shattered three spines.
‘Hundreds.’ Talan shrugged. ‘Where the bastards come from, though, is another matter.’
They stepped back once more, feeling the edge of the rip at the backs of their thighs. They struck out again, sending slivers of bone flying and villagers crashing into one another. Still on came the dead. Never once raising their arms to attack, but then, it wasn’t necessary. They pressed in from the sides and the front and the sheer weight of their numbers made the end inevitable.