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“Not yet.”
My heartbeat pulsed in my throat, reminding me that I was still alive. On instinct, I backed away from the necromancer. When he looked at me, the coldness in his eyes melted into a strange distant sadness.
“Now,” he murmured.
The undead man staggered to his feet. Wendel retreated, glanced at his blood-slicked hands, and grimaced as if the filthwas all that bothered him. But his bravado didn’t entirely hide the haunted look in his eyes.
“You can feel them die?” I asked.
He shuddered. “Yes.”
I unsheathed Chun Yi. My sword looked pitiful by the light of naphtha-fire, as if technology trumped magic.
“Wendel,” I said. “We have to run.”
He took the crossbow and checked the quiver—only one bolt left. That gave him two shots. Two slim chances to kill.
“Run,” he said. “They want me.”
I stared at him. “I won’t abandon you.”
Singeing heat buffeted us as the salamanders advanced.
He glanced into my eyes. “You take the left tunnel. I will take the right. When they follow me, you attack them from behind.”
“Okay.”
He turned to his minion, the undead man. “Time for you to say goodbye to your friends. Run to them. Bring them down.”
The undead man swayed on his feet before obeying. Blood seeped from his neck and soaked his shirt. He shambled straight at the salamanders, who seemed confused enough that they stopped torching the air.
Wendel shouldered the crossbow. He squeezed the trigger. A bolt whirred down the tunnel and embedded itself in the eye of a salamander’s gas mask. The pyromechanic toppled backwards. The other pyromechanic shouted, muffled by his mask.
I gripped my sword. “Time to run?”
“Not yet,” Wendel said.
He hauled back the crossbow string and loaded another bolt. The undead man, with no sense of self-preservation, staggered in front of the remaining flamethrower. The salamander set him ablaze and left him to burn.
Black smoke choked the cramped space. I gagged at the smell of roasting meat.
When Wendel fired the crossbow, the bolt missed the salamander and clattered off the wall. “Run!” he shouted.
I lunged down the left tunnel. I ran headlong before I skidded to a halt. Sweat soaked under my arms. I whirled around just as the salamander lumbered into the junction.
Wendel fled down the right-hand tunnel. He hadn’t bothered to hide himself. When the pyromechanic saw the necromancer, he pursued his prey. Flames licked the walls and blackened the stone.
I chased after them, my breathing ragged.
What if Wendel was trapped? What if I was already too late to save him?
25
The intense heat from the salamander’s flamethrower sizzled over my unprotected skin. My eyes watered from naphtha and smoke. When the salamander heard me coming, he started to turn ponderously.
My legs aching, I summoned a burst of speed. My hand flew to Chun Yi.
I swung my sword. The blade sang through the air. Reflected fire gleamed in the eyes of the salamander’s gas mask.
