One of his hands latched on to her wrist.
Reason held beneath Magiere’s hunger. She tried to jerk the falchion up, and her prey wrapped his other hand over hers on the blade’s hilt. She caught only fleeting glimpses of what was happening all around her.
Chap rolled along the floor; the fur strapped around his body made him slide away as the one at whom he’d leaped slammed down on his back. A crack echoed off the walls as Chap’s head hit the floor, and he barely righted himself as his opponent flopped over and scrambled up. Chap rushed again, leaping to strike the creature’s chest and head with all of his snarling mass.
Leesil swung hard as he dropped low, barely clipping the thigh of the one who’d entered from the left. He had to roll and slide away as his opponent stumbled but quickly righted to come at him again.
The one to whom Magiere clung lurched forward. His bare feet didn’t slip like her boots. She heard a thump nearby, like bodies striking something hard, and then Leesil’s grunting exhale. Chap’s growl sharpened to a yelping bark, deafening in her ears, and Magiere felt her back hit a wall.
Her prey’s strength matched her own, and a flash of fear rose inside her.
Hunger and rage swallowed fear—and reason.
She shoved hard with her grip on her opponent’s neck and jerked back on his hold upon her sword hand. That twist of two forces turned him halfway, and she slammed his head into the icy tunnel wall. She didn’t wait for him to go down as she spun.
Leesil was on his back near the left passage’s mouth. The undead he fought was on all fours and trying to get a grip on one of his legs as he kicked the attacker repeatedly in the face. And then that undead got a hold on him.
Leesil arched up, slashing a winged blade at the undead’s face.
Chap yelped again, and Magiere had to choose.
She rushed the one clawing up Leesil’s body, and swung. Her falchion’s tip clipped the assailant’s collarbone. He shrieked as if burned and lurched back onto his knees. Leesil rolled away to his feet as the high-pitched noise pierced Magiere’s ears. Her fury broke for an instant.
The undead—another male like the one she’d faced—spun away with a spasm of pain. Somewhere within, she remembered that her sword caused the undead pain—left scars on them—like no other weapon could. A guttural mumble behind her made her turn.
Her first prey was up again and charging her.
Off to the intersection’s other side, Magiere glimpsed Chap’s attacker, a woman dressed like the other two. All looked like Wastelanders paled by death and unbearable cold, except their eyes weren’t black but crystalline and colorless.
Magiere drew her falchion back as the first one came at her again.
Leesil rushed into its path and shouted at her, “Chap—now!”
Magiere instantly turned away. Chap was bleeding from one shoulder. The female closed on him too quickly as Magiere went for her.
Chap wouldn’t retreat and, trying to leap at the woman, dashed straight into his prey.
Her hand slammed down on his head as he launched. Hardened nails raked him, and as he dropped hard, his right forepaw struck her thigh. His claws tore through her fur legging.
These were not normal undead—not even like the ferals that they’d faced in the six-towered castle. No matter how skilled Leesil and Chap might be, they were all in danger here.
Magiere let hunger flood her to the bones, and she roared as she lunged at the female.
The pallid woman’s head whipped, hair flying, as she looked straight at Magiere with colorless eyes.
“Näm’ajhuhk! Yihk!”
The woman halted and looked away at that deep shout ringing off the walls.
Magiere faltered as well, looking about for any new threat. She followed the sudden glance.
All three fur-clad undead had gone still. Even Chap backed away, still rumbling. Leesil retreated to the mouth of the tunnel they’d first followed and passed out of Magiere’s sight line, though she heard him panting.
All three small undead dropped onto their knees, leaned down, and pressed their foreheads to the frozen floor, as ...
A tall man strode toward Magiere from the tunnel that led straight ahead, deeper into the mountain.
At first she wasn’t certain whether he was like the other three, though he was too tall, apparent even in the darkness up that passage. As he neared, her eyes made him out before the light of Leesil’s amulet truly revealed him.
He was no Wastelander—never had been. His hair was dark brown, near-black, but wavy, almost tightly curling, and his features, longer and narrower, were different from those of the other three. His eyebrows were dark colored as well but thick and shiny like his locks. He was bare chested, and his shoulders were wide. He wore pants made of treated hide and a cloak sewn from dozens of strips of varied furs.
He ignored all the others and stared only at Magiere with an emotionless expression.
She had seen the like of his slender features, prominent cheekbones, and full lips before. Aside from his pallor, he was much like the few Sumans whom she’d spotted in the ports of her homeland. And he was so pallid as to be nearly white like the one Magiere had faced upon finding the first orb ... like Li’kän.
Magiere looked to his long neck, his throat, before realizing why. He wasn’t wearing a thôrhk, an orb handle, like Li’kän had. He slowed his approach and studied her face, maybe her eyes, perhaps her mouth in the slow drop of his gaze.
Magiere half raised the falchion, but her other hand came up toward her throat. She felt for where her coat had broken open at the neck, and then her fingertips touched one knobbed end of her thôrhk.
His eyes widened slightly.
He stepped into the intersection’s space, and Magiere tensed to rush him. Chap’s sharp snarl halted her. The dog looked between her and the pallid Suman in quick glances. Blood matted the fur of his right foreleg below the shredded part of his fur wrap.
“Don’t do anything ... yet!” Leesil whispered from behind.
As Magiere fought to remain still, an image—a memory—sharpened in her head.
She envisioned Li’kän at the time the ancient undead first appeared in the six-towered castle. That frail-looking undead’s eyes had been as crystalline as those of the man before her. Li’kän was utterly savage, tearing apart anything, even another undead, that got in her way or crossed her sight. She cast them aside, broken, without thought or notice. And she’d never said a word.
This one—this pale, tall Suman—had spoken.
Reason sharpened in Magiere as she realized what Chap was trying to tell her by that memory. They faced another who was like but unlike Li’kän. This one hadn’t gone mad after a thousand years alone in silence.
With his eyes still on Magiere, the man raised one hand. He barked a single unrecognizable word like a command, and the three undead, heads still bowed with eyes down, rose to their feet. They backed only a few steps into the shadows and went still.
“Magiere?” Leesil asked, his voice tense with warning.
She tried to force her mind to work harder, to gain back her wits. The orb had led her here for a reason, but had it been a deceit? Was it trying a different way to use her, as had that thing in her dreams that led her to the six-towered castle?
This man had made himself servants, and Li’kän had not.
Perhaps that was only because such might be found here, even in this vast barren region. Li’kän had been trapped in the highest peaks of Magiere’s continent where no one had any reason to go until Magiere herself had gone after the orb.
This undead did not stare at her in hatred, as if she were an invader to be dispatched. He appeared ... relieved ... even pleased by the sight of her.