Corpses shambled towards them, slower than the first, but not by much. And marching in their wake, skeletal forms, clad in rotting leather and tarnished armour.
Behind them, cries of alarm rose from the bonfire. Someone had finally noticed the dead. Something shrieked past, riding the night wind. Ayala looked up, as Uskya caught her uninjured arm. The old woman’s eyes widened as she saw ghostly shapes, swooping down through the black, skimming past the stumbling corpses. They seemed to fill the sky, from end to end, like carrion birds drawn to the feast.
Her folk had many names for them. So too did the Azyrites. She shoved Uskya towards the wagons. ‘The light, we must get into the light.’ Uskya didn’t argue. She had known what those shrieks heralded since childhood. All Zirc did.
The sands boiled behind them as they ran for the gap between wagon-fortresses, and the firelight beyond. Things cackled, just out of sight. Unseen hands tore at Uskya’s robes, and Ayala turned, slashing the silver blade out. The cackling things retreated, but only for a moment. And the walking dead drew ever closer.
‘Cold… so cold…’ Uskya said, clutching at herself where the dead had gripped her. Ayala nodded.
‘So are they,’ she said. ‘Hurry.’ The glow of the bonfire washed over them. The camp was in an uproar. Men and woman huddled together, fearful of the things that spun like great moths or bats, just out of the glare of the light, while others ran for the wagons or slashed uselessly at the spirits. Shadow-shapes stretched across the sands, clutching at the inattentive. Nomads shouted and thrust spears or blades into the gauzy things, trying to pin them to the ground. The dead slipped away, only to return like nightmares.
‘What is this, grandmother?’ Uskya asked. ‘Why is this happening?’
Ayala said nothing. Her kin raced about, gathering up what belongings they could, before hurrying to reach the safety of the wagon-fortresses. Steam belched from the copper pipes, as desperate crews stoked the boilers. Horns blew, and lanterns were lit, washing the sands with light. She saw her grandson, Feytos, bellowing orders to his kinsmen.
He wore his armour beneath his robes, as was habit with most of the men. He gestured with a silver sword, bought at great expense from some Azyrite merchant. ‘Get to the wagons,’ he roared. ‘Full steam west. Make for Fort Alenstahdt!’ He caught sight of them. ‘There you are – quickly, get aboard.’
His eyes widened slightly as he noticed Ayala’s wound, but before he could speak, something crashed down on him from above. It screamed like a water-panther as it landed, and Feytos died with its blade in his back.
The thing rose, jerking the blade free. It was like no dead man Ayala had ever seen: a thin, stretched shape, wrapped in black iron and grave shroud. Eyes like amethyst light blazed from within a shadowed helm, and the face that held them twisted and changed from that of a man to a fleshless rictus as she watched.
It took a step towards them, moving with an awkward, stuttering gait. It twitched and was suddenly closer. Every spasm brought it nearer. The world around her seemed to slow, and the night became as tar. She heard Uskya shouting, as if from a vast distance. But she could not look away. His eyes blazed brighter and brighter, drawing her in. The world closed about her and fell away.
And then the dead man was staring down at her.
Pharus stared down at the old woman, studying her. She gazed up at him, as if frozen. Everything seemed frozen, as around them, the dead went about their bloody work. The air was filled with screaming. Of the spirits that surrounded him, the chainrasps were the most numerous. Spiteful things, broken by Nagash’s will, their forms dictated by the circumstances of their death, they filled the clearing amid the wagons in a dolorous tempest, whispering and wailing.
But there were others as well. Black-eyed dreadwardens, scythe-wielding reapers and glaive-bearing stalkers swooped and drifted among the panicking nomads, killing any who tried to resist or were too slow to reach the dubious safety of the wagons. Some of the nighthaunts served him, while others were bound to Malendrek.
The Knight of Shrouds was howling out his contempt nearby. Malendrek had ridden his skeletal steed into the heart of one of the wagons, leading his ghostly horsemen in an orgy of bloodshed. Somewhere out in the desert, Grand Prince Yaros and Crelis Arul would be making their own way towards the slaughter, leading their forces.
A mass sigh ran through a knot of nearby chainrasps, and they scattered, revealing a hunched, broken shape, wrapped in a rusty shroud of keys and locks. The spirit’s face was hidden beneath a helmet that might once have been in the shape of a dog’s muzzle, or a bird’s beak, and it wore a crude, rusting hauberk of scalloped plates. In its colourless hands, it gripped handfuls of chain, which flickered with nauseating energies.
Those chains, Pharus knew, could draw in a soul, and trap it. Fellgrip was a jailer of the dead. It was trailed by a coterie of lesser phantasms – its wardens. These spirits clustered about the hunched thing, whispering to it and lashing out at the other, lesser chainrasps with clubs and rusty axes, driving them away from their master.
‘Fellgrip,’ Pharus said. Fellgrip twitched its chains at the sound of his voice, and their rattling sent a shiver through Pharus’ soul. The temptation to strike the Spirit Torment down was almost overwhelming – something about it unsettled him, and instilled in him a sense of terrible foreboding. It stared down at the old woman with malign intensity, and he extended his sword between them. ‘Go. Collect the tithe. This one is mine.’
Fellgrip gave a disgruntled warble and drifted away, followed by its lackeys. Arkhan had bound the creature to him, somehow, as he had bound several other powerful spirits. Pharus turned back to his prey.
The old woman still stood as if frozen. Steam billowed, mingling with the smoke of the bonfire, enveloping them both. Several of the wagons were starting to move, their great wheels shaking the earth. Pharus reached out, almost gently, and caught the old woman by the throat. She barely struggled. There was a wound on her arm, and he could see the black strands of deadwalker poison spreading through the flickering light of her soul. A quick death would be a mercy for her.
He raised his blade. It yearned to taste her blood and flesh, and he yearned for it as well. To sup on the moment of her death, to take some of her warmth into himself. He was cold. So cold. So empty.
Something silver flashed out of the corner of his eye. He felt a blow and flung the old woman aside. The younger nomad stood before him, holding the silver sword of the man he’d killed. She darted past him, to the side of the old woman. ‘I won’t let you hurt her,’ she shouted. Her voice echoed strangely, and he paused. Her face reminded him of another… younger, but with the same eyes, full of fear and determination…
…hurt her…
…won’t let you hurt her…
He twitched the echo aside and raised his blade.
…the dead were everywhere in the streets, everywhere he turned…
…his halberd swept down, chopping through a door as dead hands caught at him…
‘Elya,’ he croaked. A name. Whose name?
…a small girl – Elya? – wailed as something from the grave clutched her to its bosom…