The dead come after that. Bare feet, faster and faster. It feels like a dream. The rhythms familiar, the beats expected. Quickfish is sick with fear, too frightened to be sick. His stomach churns.
The first few fall as expected, Steelfinder catching them on the flat plane of her shield. Hammering forwards, one, two, down. A swift strike and on to the next. Beside her, Shipwright swings like a pendulum. Bones break. The brass sphere clutched in her fist spins and whines as she shudders through the air like a burning wasp. A kneecap inverts itself. A scapula bends in strange ways. Quickfish can feel the half-moons of small nails as Nigh digs her fingers in, her breath fast and shallow in her chest. He kisses the top of her head. Murmurs the little nothings his mother used to soothe him to sleep.
In front of them, Roof’s shoulders twist as he fights, his feet squarely planted to begin with, then slowly pushed back as the dead crowd him like worms seeking rain. His axe rises, falls. His teeth bared, and a shout on his lips. But there is a mountain-weight of them. And beyond the dead, Quickfish assumes, Astic’s army and Crowkisser, waiting, grey-cloaked and angry. He retreats slowly as their line is driven back foot by foot, the dead thumping against raised shields like fat flies against glass. Their screams raw and harsh, the air such a frenzied cacophony that Quickfish stops trying to hear words and just lets it beat against his temples. He pulls Nigh close to his chest, and sings to her softly, feels her heart hammering, her fingers fluttering against him like moth’s wings.
Steelfinder’s down to her last two comrades. The first man caught unawares by a lucky strike that careens off his armour and nicks his neck below the helmet. A blur of red. Something furious and rat-tongued plunging into his arteries as he turns to drive a fist into his friend’s face. Again and again until his broken knuckles are a mess of metal and splintered teeth. Steelfinder takes his head off, wet-eyed. She’s tackled from the side a moment later, reels into Shipwright, her arms weighted with screaming men and women.
Something barrels into Roofkeeper, and Quickfish catches him. They both go down as the dead swarm them like ants. He tries to keep Nigh in the hollow of his stomach, tries to keep his body between her, and the teeth and the hunger; to give her a second, just a second more.
He feels their nails against his skin and closes his eyes. The air ripples.
The stink of sulphur and saltpetre. Thick as incense.
The air ripples.
Quickfish’s teeth whine, his ears pop. His palm burns with golden fire.
The air ripples, and explodes.
Concussions of black and red detonate in his brain and in the room, the air swarming with geometrics which slam bodily against the dead, lifting them like writhing cats, hurling them against the walls. In their midst, back-to-back, hand in hand, eyes closed, Skinpainter and Shroudweaver. The shout that leaves Shipwright is like sunrise.
The pair hang in the air, lifted by the force of their magic. Red ribbon and silver thread billow around their tight clasped, outstretched hands. They sway in strange rhythms. The dead scatter like windblown leaves. In the lull, Quickfish struggles free of the bodies, pulling Roofkeeper and Nigh after him. His breath races. His fingers burn.
A few hectic moments pass before the shapes flow slower, the harsh edges of the geometrics softening and falling to grey. The pressure eases. As the last vestiges of sorcery fade like smoke onwater, the bodies of the dead slump, quiet. Shroudweaver’s toes brush the ground. He stumbles and staggers.
Shipwright runs to meet him, her arms out and ready even as he falls. And she holds him like a gift, like a memory, like a blessing. Kisses his blackened face. Presses her hands to the small of his back and rocks him like a child.
Behind her, Quickfish sees Skinpainter sink to their knees, their ribs rising and falling in shuddering gasps, flickers of angular red and black wreathing their hands, and a dark stain spreading under their ribs. Steelfinder rushes forwards, raises them up in an embrace. Leans in and mutters a few shadowed words into their cowl. They nod wearily and push her away.
Quickfish finally releases Nigh’s hand from a death grip. She looks at him irritatedly, then punches his leg.
‘Alright, alright.’ He laughs. ‘Not my finest move.’
She stares at Skinpainter. Juts her chin questioningly.
‘What?’ Quickfish says, ‘Looking for your sister?’
She nods.
‘I … don’t know, little one. She’ll be here soon, I’m sure.’
Nigh looks at him sceptically, sits back down and starts digging at her toenails.
For a few blessed minutes, there’s a kind of peace. Injured bodies slowly filling with injured minds. The dead struck down by that brief, furious burst of magic not slain, but stunned. Skinpainter, hung like dark cloth between Steelfinder and Roofkeeper’s strong arms, moves from person to person, fingers dancing over slick brows and pushing on bruised flesh. As they make contact, angular tattoos on their arms wriggle to life, ink flowing forth, crossing from body to body. At its touch, skin darkens and bone straightens. The angles tighten and the broken mends.
Fallen men and women push their way back into their bodies with weary effort. The soldiers they killed are not so lucky. All of Steelfinder’s cadre down. The gate guards not even in pieces large enough to call a corpse.
In the quiet, Quickfish could swear he hears the slow drip of blood. He might just be going mad. He takes Nigh’s smallfingers as they pick their way through the dazed and the dying. Whatever Shroudweaver and Skinpainter did here, it cleansed the room like a purging flame. Not even the memory of the dead lingers. Quickfish feels like a banished ghost himself. Lingering light and empty on the edges of things. Nigh tugs sharply on his hand. He’s been squeezing too tightly again. He loosens his grip, crouches next to her. ‘I’m sorry.’
She rubs her fingers resentfully. Shies a little closer.
Something burns in his chest. A little ache of loss. He runs fingers gently through her mussed hair, tries to remember what his mother would say. ‘Hang in, little one. Rough seas, is all.’
Nigh holds tightly, says nothing.
Quickfish wants the mountain to stay quiet, but the battle is far from over. Distant screams still swilling down through the darkness. He wants them to be safe, but there’s miles of rock above them, and all of it writhing with things that want them dead. And as if all that wasn’t enough, his palm itches furiously. He rubs at it, stretches the thumb out. Nothing helps. A burning like an ant bite, and the choking taste of honey every time he draws breath.
To distract himself, Quickfish watches Skinpainter work, tries to get lost in the steady movement of their craft. The returned dead rest, heads in hands, crying softly. Quickfish can’t comfort them. He doesn’t belong here, a ghost on the edge of the things. Doesn’t understand a single scrap of the murder happening inside this mountain.
