27 The Risen Dead

SARSCHA TODRALAN AWOKE, gasping for breath, kicking off the thin Paldanar silk sheet. She had spent hours tossing and turning, unable to achieve sleep. She must have at some point, but for how long she’d no idea. Her skin was sticky with sweat, the sheet damp.

The unbearable heat had descended like a suffocating shroud two days ago. Sitting up, she swung her legs out of bed so her feet could find relief on the cold flags of her bedroom chamber. Reaching for a gown, which lay draped over the end of the bronze bed, she rose and padded to the window. The shutters had been flung open wide, but there was no breeze. Nothing to offset this interminable warmth.

Staring out towards the ocean, she noted its stillness, almost like a smooth dark mirror. No waves. The whole thing felt unnatural. Running a hand through her short silver-blue hair, she shuddered, mentally telling herself to get a grip. A year ago, it might have proved enough, but not these days. She had seen too much, learned too much of the true nature of the world. Now everything took on an unnatural cast, whether real or imagined, no longer the simple soldier’s life where everything made sense.

As she stood there in her thin gown, she felt it. Something wasn’t right. She padded back to her bedside, to a small bronze table, and retrieved an iron dagger from its sheath. A gift from one of the many well-wishers on her official appointment as imperatrix, it was of Nephilim make and valuable. In truth, she’d rather have had a proper iron sword. Still, she felt a familiar comfort in the cold bone grip snug against her palm.

During daylight, her room’s high ceiling depicting friezes of garden scenes. Now it was all in darkness save for a little moonlight through the open window. Dare she light a lamp? She had dismissed her servants in the early evening, unable to tolerate their constant fretting and fawning.

Maybe I’m losing it, she thought. Just open the damn door you fool woman, and check with the officer on duty. Lie, and say you heard a noise. There was no doubt she couldn’t mention anything about a feeling. Soldiers didn’t understand or care about feelings. Either there was an enemy, or there wasn’t.

She eased open the door, heart pounding. Unfortunately, her fears were confirmed as she noted the slumped form of a guard in the antechamber. The wide room was in gloom with just a single wick lamp left out for the guard, its oil running low. There would be guards in the corridor beyond the antechamber, but she decided that calling out wasn’t a good idea. Not least if they were already dead, it wouldn’t be of much help, but if the guard in the antechamber was dead then that meant the killer was close. Besides, she was a trained soldier. It was up to her to save herself.

She began to ease the door shut when a hand gripped it and shoved it back open. Sarscha waited for her moment and then struck at the dark assailant, to find her dagger stabbed into ... nothing.

‘Shssh!’ hissed a thin voice, and she realised it was Licolo the youngest of her viral mages, if one could call her young. She’d been born two centuries earlier apparently.

Still holding the dagger, Sarscha felt the magical block Tezcat had placed on it fade. She lowered the weapon to step back and admit the undead girl.

‘What are you—’ the imperatrix began, but Tezcat placed mottled cold fingers to Sarscha’s lips. The girl then began to move about the bed chamber in the near darkness as though hunting. Something is here, Sarscha thought, in the palace, and it has Tezcat rattled. Well, if it has her worried then I should be terrified. And yet she wasn’t.

She assessed her situation. Whatever it was hadn’t entered her bed chamber. It had killed her guards but it had not harmed her, at least not yet, which meant it was still outside. But Tezcat had entered. A sudden suspicion began to grow at the back of her mind, as Tezcat magically lit one of the room’s lamps, but the imperator dismissed it.

She trusted this girl, no matter that it went against every instinct in her bones. Perhaps, because of it. Sarscha Todralan had never chosen the easy path.

‘Whatevers it was, it’s vamoosed,’ the undead girl announced, stood in the middle of the room, hands on hips. ‘I bet it got one whiff o’ me and were scaredy stupid, see? Near pissed itself, I’d bet.’

‘What is going on?’ Sarscha demanded, returning to the window to close the shutters despite the heat, now the room was lit. She wanted to take no chances.

‘Well, er,’ the undead girl began, biting her lip, ‘I counts twelve guardians, um, you know, um, full dead. Cold corpses.’

‘Yes, Cat, I know what dead means. Have you raised the alarm? I don’t hear anything.’ There were more than twelve guards within the palace complex.

‘Whats for? Other soldiers will just gets dead too,’ said the girl. ‘It were something rights down and nasty. I knows I scared it off, so ...’

‘Run and alert whichever Heaven’s Guardian you find. The bodies still need to be examined and dealt with and an investigation into the deaths opened. Tell them to triple the guard and add in a few mages for good measure. Then I want you to return. I think I might need you to stay here tonight.’

Tezcat stared at her, not moving an inch. ‘Okay.’

‘I’m not scared.’

‘Okay.’

Sarscha bit down on the urge to snap. Tezcat was at times like a young child or an unruly teenager, like the daughter she’d never had the time to have. She had come to love her, but sometimes ... ‘You frightened whatever it was away. It therefore seems prudent to keep you nearby.’

‘Okay.’

Especially since her self-professed guardian, Ralan, had disappeared again. She almost snorted at the memory of him pledging himself to her service. ‘I will be there when you need me most,’ he had vowed.

Well, she thought, I need you now and guess what, you’re not here. It vexed her because she’d begun to grow fond of him too, son of the unholy Grim or not. Her Darken would be close by at least, which was something. Nothing could’ve harmed him, or well, she didn’t think so.

She briefly lifted the dagger in her hand. ‘I doubt this would’ve proved much use. You don’t know what it was, do you?’

‘Somethin’ nasty, but I ne’er gots a proper look. Dark and shadows were all what I saws of it.’

‘Go on then,’ said the imperatrix with a nod, and the undead girl leapt to obey, exiting the chamber.

A few seconds passed and the first screams erupted, followed by shouts. Tezcat came rushing back inside, slamming the doors behind her.

‘What is it now?’ Sarscha demanded.

‘Well, er, um,’ the girl stammered.

‘Cat?’

‘Well, it looks likes we is under attack,’ she said in a rush. ‘Lots o’ down and nasty somethings are attackin’ the palace.’

‘Nasty somethings? Can’t you be more specific?’

‘Um, well, like nasty dead somethings.’

Oh, hell, thought Sarscha. So much for scaring off whatever it was. She glanced down at the girl. ‘Help me with my armour.’ She had kept it and her sword close by in another room next to her bed chamber. An old habit she found she couldn’t break. ‘You will remain with me. We will fight whatever has come to Icarthya together, viral and breather. Side by side, yes?’

Tezcat grinned. ‘You bets we will,’ she said, and then leapt to obey.

And we must hope, thought Sarscha, ‘to the Spectrum above that we prevail.

‡

STEPPING OVER THE BODIES in the palace courtyard, the imperatrix felt like her old self. The enemy was likely something beyond her comprehension, but such things no longer surprised her as they once did. There was an enemy, and the smell of fear never changed, nor the scent of death. Much was the same. Iron short sword in one hand, a steel dagger in the other, she led a group of Guardians she’d gathered along the way. Her Darken now accompanied her.

Tezcat scouted ahead, keeping to the shadows, which wasn’t hard. The torches were quenched, the courtyard lit by moon and starlight. She was grateful for a clear night. She didn’t want to use torches, giving themselves away to anything watching, but fumbling about in pitch darkness also didn’t appeal.

The dead they’d discovered thus far were mostly soldiers who had been stationed at posts throughout the palace, but there had been some servants too. Already they were removing the bodies. It had been decided that burning them quickly was best.

Few of her servants would’ve been up during the night, but she spotted several in sleeping gowns. Tezcat was a little way ahead, kneeling by another body. Motioning her Imperial Guardians to halt, Sarscha and her Darken moved to join her.

‘This is wrong,’ Tezcat hissed as they reached her. ‘They is rotted from inside to outs.’

Sarscha noted the black veining pulsing through the bodies, even in the faint moonlight. ‘Magic?’ As though it could be anything else.

The viral girl nodded. ‘Somethin’ isn’t right,’ she noted. ‘I never seen this afore.’

‘You don’t say?’ said Sarscha’s Darken, his features hidden beneath his cowl.

Tezcat stuck out her tongue at him, and then said to the imperatrix, ‘We must go inside. Seal them doors good.’

‘Whatever did this was already inside,’ the Darken noted.

‘I isn’t stupid, stupid. It were inside and now it’s not, but it left something behind.’

‘What?’ asked Sarscha, but before the girl could answer, the corpse at their feet began to move. Oh, I see.

Tezcat beckoned to one of the greencloaks as they made their way back, whispering an order to the woman. The soldier glanced at the imperatrix, but Sarscha just nodded. She trusted the girl’s instincts in all matters magical. She had to.

Without a word, they hurried back to the palace, gathering any survivors they found. Whoever had visited the palace had killed as many as possible, but had not dared face her mages or Darken. At least, not yet.

Back inside the palace proper, as the guardians sealed the doors, they hurried through the corridors. However, as shouts and the clash of weapons erupted, Sarscha halted, turning to go back. This caused her Darken to also turn and block her path. The angel, Raziel, lowered his hood and said, ‘No,’ in a firm tone. ‘You must not.’

Sarscha ignored him. ‘Cat, are you with me?’

Tezcat was at her side in an instant. ‘Yes, imperatrix.’

‘This isn’t wise,’ Raziel insisted.

‘You are my Darken, not my mother. Now shut up and help me.’

The angel uttered a long sigh. ‘I can see why Darkens are often a sour and unpleasant lot.’

‘You are an angel,’ said the imperatrix, and with a nod to Tezcat, ‘and you are an undead mage. I am a veteran of numerous wars. If we three cannot hold back this whatever it is, then there is no hope for us in whatever comes after.’

Raziel grunted but kept his peace, which was better than she had expected. She’d train him yet. After all, he was new to the role. They moved back down the corridor, keeping some distance between them, passing beneath the large carved arches, the niches with alabaster and gold statues.

The trio discovered the remainder of the Imperial Guardians fighting to hold the palace doors. One door was ajar, several of the dead having gotten inside. Not undead. Just dead. All of them people familiar, and some whom she had known well. Servants, folk from the city and soldiers too, all with their skin bloated and blackened or worse. There were a few skeletons in the mix too.

The living hacked at them, shearing off limbs, and sometimes heads to stem the dark tide. Raziel joined their number, and his sword flashed like white fire as he cut them down by the dozen. It wasn’t a sword he’d been issued with either.

As though at some silent command, the dead having spotted the approaching imperatrix, ceased their attack. All at once, their mouths yawned wide, their jaws dislocating. A dark vortex opened, but before it could do whatever it was meant to, Tezcat struck back with her power. Tendrils of viralic magic lashed at the corpses.

Sarscha felt the blood draining from her face, and then her entire body. The hairs on her skin stood erect, a tingling from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine. The corpses exploded, pieces of limbs flung in all directions, but not before two shraeds managed to come through the vortex. Massive winged shadows with talons, they had skull-like faces with gaping red pits for eyes.

Their monstrous wings and talons swiped at the defenders, spraying blood and entrails. Bronze or iron armour proved no obstacle. They loomed within the corridor, their molten eyes fixed on their prey, the Icarthian imperatrix.

Tezcat turned her attention to the shraeds, but before she could do anything, an unseen force swatted her aside, slamming her into a wall.

One of the shraeds folded up its wings and rushed Sarscha, but Raziel was there to thwart its attack. His sword hacked at the winged menace, and an unearthly screech drew blood from Sarscha’s ears. She fell to her knees, weapons falling from her hands as she clutched her head. She managed to raise her head, and saw the second shraed attack the angel. Sarscha realised what a fool she’d been. I can’t do battle against these things. All I’ve done is put my too most loyal friends in harm’s way.

She retrieved her short sword and dagger, getting back to her feet, holding them uselessly in her hands. All she could do was watch. Running never occurred to her. She couldn’t see Tezcat, but guessed the viral was unconscious.

It was then other mages arrived in number, perhaps three dozen, with a female Imperial Guardian close behind. The same guard Tezcat had spoken to earlier.

Clever girl!

The viral mages attacked without hesitation, using a combined weave of power like a black tide, which washed over the shraeds, forcing them back to the doors.

With the otherworldly creatures distracted, Raziel struck the first and nearest with his sword. A soul shard, Sarscha realised. A weapon powerful enough to either wound or destroy them. She had not known the angel possessed one.

She watched the first shraed wither from the shard’s touch although it didn’t perish. The next moment, the corridor was empty, the creatures gone.

Well, thought Sarscha, that’s one way to wake up in the morning. To Raziel she said, ‘What was that all about?’

‘I believe,’ he answered in a cold and somewhat disheartening tone, ‘the dark witch has arrived. Angrboda is in Icarthya.’