"Get everybody inside," Sardec said. "See if you can find a way to barricade the doors!"
"Yes, sir," said Weasel. He stared down at the oncoming horde of dead men impassively and Sardec could tell that he had the same thoughts on his mind. He knew they were going to die here and quite possibly join the legions of dead men who were conquering the world.
Perhaps not though, perhaps it was infection with the plague that made the dead rise after they were killed and perhaps the fact that they had taken the cure would also prevent them from rising. Sardec hoped that was the case, for the sake of the men at least. He was pretty sure it would not happen to him. He had never seen a Terrarch among the walking dead.
One by one the small party passed into the farmhouse. Sardec remained outside keeping an eye on the advancing enemy. They shambled slowly up the slope. It would probably take them at least an hour to get here. At least there was a full moon tonight and there were not that many clouds in the sky. They would have some light to shoot by.
Who was he trying to fool? It did no matter how many shots they fired or how many of those shots hit, there was still no winning this battle. There were so many of the dead down there that they would be swamped by simple weight of numbers. He racked his mind to try and find a solution to the problem. There had to be some way of stopping the monsters. There had to be.
If he had naphtha or oil he might have burned the dead as they advanced. If there had been a sorcerer present, magic might be usefully deployed. But he did not have any of those things. He had a small group of armed men and some women and children, all of them tired, all of them hungry, all of them scared and none of them over-supplied with bullets.
Think. There had to be an answer. Reason told him that there was not. His grasp of tactics let him know that the situation was hopeless. All they could do was barricade themselves in the ruins and fight until they ran out of bullets and strength. He doubted that would take very long. In the end, he would achieve the same result by simply surrendering to the undead and letting his people be devoured. Whether they fought or not would not make much difference.
He told himself not to give in to despair, that there was always hope, that somehow they would make it through the night. He could not convince himself though and he knew he needed to if he was going to convince the others. Why? Why give them false hope when they were all going to die anyway?
From behind him came the sounds of the Foragers at work, as they manhandled old furniture into position to block the doors and threw open the shutters to give themselves clear shots. Sardec was amazed by their energy. They knew as well as he did what was going to happen but still they went on behaving as if there was a chance of survival. He could do no less.
"Better get inside, sir," shouted Weasel. "We're about to barricade the door."
Sardec hurried inside and swiftly the soldiers piled up old furniture behind him and then took up their positions with rifles ready, waiting for the armies of death to come.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Unconscious sentries lay at their feet. Tamara opened the postern gate. For a moment Rik feared that something had gone wrong, that Asea was not there but then she stepped into view, fully garbed in her war-gear, and said, “You have not been spotted?”
“Not as far as I can tell,” said Tamara.
“Where is Rik?” Asea asked. Rik was pleased. Even a master sorcerer could not spot him. His new talent might prove very useful if he survived. On the other hand he was starting to discover a downside. Maintaining this strange form of invisibility was draining his strength fast. He felt as if the life were slowly being leeched out of him.
“He is with us.”
“I am here,” Rik said. His voice emerged as a thin whisper, as if he were only partially in the same world, or it were echoing down a long corridor from very far away.
“I see you have been developing new talents,” she said. “Did Tamara teach you this?”
“He taught himself.”
“Impressive. You have become wraith-like. That might prove to be dangerous in the long run.”
Rik wanted to ask her what she meant, but this did not seem like the time or the place. They had too much to do, and too little time to do it in. “We had best move on,” said Rik. “If we’re going to do what we came for.”
Asea nodded. There was worry etched on the silver mask of her face and suddenly, and for the first time, it made her look old. Rik had a sudden fierce premonition that this was not going to end well for her, or any of them. He regretted coming to this vast ancient fortress, surrounded by its deadly spells, inhabited by servants of an ancient evil.
They headed along the benighted corridors, their way lit be sorcerous glowglobes, their path led by Tamara. Every now and again, Asea stopped and worked a simple-looking sorcery, as if she were trying to confirm something, perhaps the direction in which they intended to go.
All around them was silence, as if the Palace slept, though Rik was sure it was not so. When he looked through the shadows he sensed furious activity all around, and the flows of ancient energies.
Was this a trap or was it simply something else going on? What he felt made him uneasy, and he could understand why Asea seemed so nervous. Tamara pushed on, decisively, as if she were out for a stroll in the park. Now that she was committed, she was really committed. Rik admired her coolness and determination even though he knew she was just as on edge as he was.
They kept to the less intensely used parts of the Palace, heading always downwards, towards the heart of the darkness. He was reminded of the cellars of the Inquisition back in Halim although this was a thousand times worse.
The voices gibbered within his head, afraid and angry. They did not want him to be there, although there was nothing they could do about it save scream their panic. The Quan sensed something wrong with the ebb and flow of magical energies around them, and Rik was inclined to trust those alien instincts in matters like these.
There was power in this place, so great that he doubted even the most insensitive could fail to notice it, and so tainted that it made his stomach turn. He sensed flows of corrupt energy all around, a power related to that which fuelled the armies of the dead in their war of conquest.
“Now we’re approaching the heart of this,” said Asea. Tamara merely licked her lips and nodded.
“Do you want your pistols, Rik, or your blade?” Asea asked.
“No,” he whispered. “Leave the pack upon on your back though so I can get to them quickly.”
He had feared that she would object to his words as a high noble might object to taking a command from a peasant, but she merely nodded and obeyed his instructions.
“The blade on my belt is the truesilver one Azaar gave you,” she said to the nearest shadow, and he realised that she could not, for all her power, perceive him. At any other time he would have felt triumphant, now he only felt worried as he realised that her power had limits and he had passed beyond the edges of them. He made a note of where the blade was in case he had to reach for it quickly.
“Perhaps you should scout ahead, Rik,” said Tamara, “since you seem to have manifested a talent for this beyond mine.”
“I will do that,” he whispered as he passed her and moved silent as a shadow, and invisible as the wind, down the haunted corridors of the Palace.
He drifted ahead of them, moving up to junctions and checking for guards, then returning. He stood guard as Tamara opened locks that let them down into the deep dungeons. He walked in shadows beside them as they moved through endless cells and chambers towards the strange magical heart that pulsed in the core of the place, feeding on the sorcerous energies of uncountable deaths. There was some sort of feedback between the plague and the spell that bound the undead. He felt certain of it, even if he was not sure why.