Page 48 of City of Stone and Silence

For a moment, we all freeze. Then I straighten up, square my shoulders, and walk out into the room.

Rot it. I never thought we’d get to Prime without a fight, and he obviously knows we’re here. If he’s going to come at us, I’d rather it be somewhere we have room to maneuver.

The rest of the crew follows. I crane my neck to look up at the shadowed figure, but I still can’t see much.

“Welcome to my domain,” Prime says. “I must say I’m a little surprised to have so many guests. It’s been quite a while.”

“We won’t be staying long,” I tell him.

“Oh, I imagine. Such anger.” He gives that beautiful laugh again. “You’d think I’d done something to you.”

“You attacked us,” Zarun says, stepping up beside me. “Your corpses killed four of our people on the beach, and would have killed us all.”

“Am I really to suffer this insect bleating at me?” Prime says, with an irritated sigh. “You, Eddicant, are welcome to stay. I am sure we have a great deal to learn from one another. The rest of these … people…” His tone turns contemptuous. “Well. I’m sure I can find a use for them as raw material.”

Eddica swirls around us, and I hear the shuffling of many feet. My blades ignite with a snap-hiss, and my armor shimmers into being as I shout a warning.

“Here they come!”

There are three other doorways leading into the circular room, and corpses boil out of all of them, a dense crowd of the things scrambling over one another in a near-mindless attempt to reach us. Before they can even get clear of the doors, though, pillars of flame blossom in their midst. Safiya, Ylla, and the other Myrkai users in the crew stand shoulder to shoulder, orange-red auras blazing around their hands, lines of Myrkai power glowing across their exposed skin. The chamber is suddenly thick with the smell of burning flesh as the horde of corpses stumbles on, dozens of them crumbling into ash and bone, crushed and pulled apart by those coming on behind.

Some manage to get through the flames with only a light scorching. As we’d planned, though, Thora and the other Tartak users form the second line of defense, slamming the writhing bodies backward with bolts of concentrated force, magical energy flickering blue-white in the air around our little group. Thora herself is strong enough to break bones and crush skulls, but even some of the weaker talents can still fling the creatures backward into the flames.

The few that trickle through this gauntlet find the rest of us waiting for them. Honestly, there aren’t enough to go around. Zarun and I confront them with Melos blades, and without darkness and panic on their side the shambling creatures are unthreatening opponents. Aifin, ablaze with golden light, flickers from place to place without seeming to occupy any space in between, and the corpse-things in his wake fall apart into neatly sliced sections. Jack, laughing, plays with the monsters, letting them close in around her before shifting into her own shadow and reappearing behind them, hamstringing them with a short blade.

It feels like only moments before the fight is over. Huge piles of burned corpses are heaped in front of each of the three doorways, with dismembered monsters scattered across the floor of the room. As far as I can tell, we haven’t taken a scratch, our group still packed into a tight circle. I find a wild grin spreading across my face, and turn back to the figure on the balcony.

“We’re still standing, Prime,” I tell him. “You’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”

“I suppose I will,” he says, urbane and unbothered. “Let me see what I have that might serve.”

There’s a new sound from the tunnels, the heavy scrape of claws against stone. I drop back into a fighting crouch, blades crossed in front of me, trying to watch everywhere at once. In spite of everything, I feel calm. Whatever he has, we can handle it—

Something jumps up on the mound of charred bodies. It looks like a cross between a lizard and a vulture, covered in colorful feathers, walking on two massive legs with short, crooked arms tipped with claws and a long reptilian tail. A narrow snout holds a jaw full of viciously curved fangs, and another claw like a sickle juts backward from each of its heels. I guess that its head would be about level with mine if we stood face-to-face.

The thing is as unmistakably dead as the rest of Prime’s minions. Its hide is torn and decaying, with rotting muscles and polished white bone showing through the gaps, and huge clumps of feathers are missing or caked with dried blood. In spite of its state of disrepair, though, the thing moves fast, quick and graceful, head darting from side to side. It hops down from the corpse-pile and stalks toward us.

“Do you like it?” Prime says, genially. “I found it under the ice, out where the Harbor meets the rest of the world. It’s amazing what you can turn up with a little digging.”

In answer, Safiya hurls a bolt of flame at the lizard-thing. It sidesteps, lithe as a snake, and the Myrkai blast explodes against the stone wall. A moment later, though, Thora spreads her hands and bonds of blue force close around the monster’s limbs, locking it in place. A half-dozen more blasts of fire catch it head-on, blowing apart its rotting flesh and ancient bone, until there’s nothing left but scattered, burning pieces.

“Now that’s a shame,” Prime chides us, with a sly chuckle. “Fortunately, there’s more where that came from.”

The wave of lizard-things emerges from the darkness of the three tunnels at a dead run, as fast as a charging horse but far more agile, dodging around one another in a chaotic maelstrom of feathers, claws, and rot. Bolts of flame whip out, but the monsters avoid them with preternatural grace, closing the distance in seconds. The Tartak users have more success, bludgeoning the things backward or—in Thora’s case—ripping them in two, but they can only stop a few. I hurriedly reshape my left-hand blade into a shield as the onslaught rolls over us, and then I don’t have time to spare for anything more than what’s in front of me.

The lizard-things attack without subtlety or any regard for their own welfare, as one might expect of the dead. One of them comes directly at me, and keeps coming even as my blade carves a slice off its snout. I interpose my shield, and its jaws scrabble at the Melos energy, drawing coruscating sparks. It backs off, and I take the chance to lunge, spearing it through the throat. It’s an instinctive move, striking for the vitals, and it’s worse than useless here—the monster simply ignores me, its clawed hands tearing at my exposed arm and drawing more sparks from my armor, sending a wave of heat running across my skin.

I pull back, hurriedly, and give way a step. I’m aware of the others fighting around me, and out of the corner of my eye I catch sight of a shadow slithering across the stone floor. I attack again, this time with a sideways cut that severs one of the thing’s hands at the wrist, then get my shield up as it tries to rake my stomach with its hind leg. My hand is starting to burn as green energy writhes between us, but I hold it in place long enough for Jack to materialize out of her shadow and take the thing out at the knee with a quick stroke. I sever its head as it falls, leaving the creature thrashing on the stones.

“Hey, pack leader,” Jack calls, flicking shreds of rotten flesh from her blade. “Getting a little hot!”

Rot. I turn and give the battlefield a once-over. Several of the lizard-things are on fire or torn to shreds, and Zarun is finishing one off with a series of elegant cuts. But our tight group fragmented as the creatures bounded into us, and not everyone got out of the way in time. Ylla is standing over Kotaga, who rolls on the floor clutching a bloodied shoulder. Fire spurts aimlessly from the hands of a pigtailed girl lying spread-eagled on the stones, her stomach opened from navel to crotch and spilling crimson entrails. Beside her, an infuriated Safiya hammers firebolt after firebolt into the corpse of a monster already reduced to charred meat.

Blessed’s rotting balls. My lips twist into a snarl. The remaining creatures have backed off, circling. Prime, I’m going to carve you into tiny rotting bits—

The ground shakes. First once, then again, dust puffing from between ancient stones. From the center tunnel, directly in front of us, something new emerges. It makes the lizard-things look like chickens; it’s so tall it has to duck its head to get under the arch. When it straightens up, it rises above me, as high as a second-story window. It’s shaped vaguely like its smaller cousins, but has no arms at all, only a massive set of jaws big enough to swallow me in a single bite. The feathers that run down its flanks are blood-red, with great rents torn through them to show gleaming ribs and muscle black with rot. Its tail, tipped with plumes, lashes back and forth like a cat with a cornered mouse.

“That’s a rotting big beastie,” Jack mutters.