The Dead City

The first dead man walked badly.

Xil noticed that before anything else.

One leg dragged. The head leaned too far to one side, as though the neck had forgotten part of its purpose. Torn clothing hung from a body that had been opened somewhere below the ribs and emptied of more blood than a living man could have survived.

Yet he came on.

Behind him, another figure pulled itself upright from beside a fallen wall.

Then a third.

Jandar drew his rapier.

“I was hoping they were only extremely unhealthy.”

“They’re dead,” Xil said.

“Yes. I had begun to suspect.”

Deacon’s crossbow came up. Zook moved left, putting a broken section of stone between himself and the nearest corpse. Vegon stepped backward, one hand already lifted, then hesitated.

Xil saw it.

The hesitation.

That was new.

Before the cave north of Arrowdale, Vegon would have reached for magic as naturally as another man reached for a sword. Now he measured the impulse first.

Xil understood.

He had begun doing the same.

The first corpse lurched closer.

It had probably been human. Male. Older than Jandar, younger than Deacon. Dirt filled one eye. The other stared without seeing.

Xil raised his holy symbol.

The dead man came faster.

Not fast enough.

Power answered Xil’s prayer.

Healing had always felt like invitation.

Even corrupted, even twisted by whatever wound had been left in the world after the Sundering, healing magic still carried the idea that something damaged might be persuaded to become whole again. Flesh remembered its shape. Blood remembered where it belonged. Breath returned because life wanted to continue.

This was different.

There was nothing to persuade.

Nothing to restore.

The thing coming toward him had crossed a boundary and remained where it had no right to remain.

The power that moved through Xil did not feel warm.

It felt final.

Silver light gathered around his hand and snapped outward.

The corpse stopped.

For one instant it stood perfectly straight.

Then every remaining muscle tightened at once.

Its mouth opened.

No sound emerged.

Light burned through the hollow places inside it, and the body collapsed as though whatever had been holding it upright had simply been removed.

Jandar stared.

“That was unpleasant.”

“For him,” Xil said.

Jandar looked at him.

Xil moved past.

The second corpse came around the wall.

Deacon fired.

The bolt struck high in the chest. The body rocked backward, then continued walking.

“Head?” Jandar asked.

“Usually a good choice,” Deacon replied.

“That is not the certainty I wanted.”

Zook struck from the side, cutting one leg out from beneath the thing. It fell, clawed at the stone, and kept coming.

Vegon spoke.

A small spell.

Careful.

Xil felt the magical structure form before the force left the elf’s hand. The corruption disturbed it, but Vegon held the shape. A narrow burst struck the corpse in the skull.

The head snapped backward.

The body stopped.

Vegon released a breath.

Jandar looked at him.

“That one behaved.”

“Yes.”

“Should we congratulate it?”

“No.”

“Good. I didn’t like it.”

More movement came from the ruins.

Not three now.

Five.

Then more beyond them.

Shapes emerged between collapsed walls, through doorways that had not led anywhere in centuries, across what might once have been a street.

Some were little more than skeletons dressed in fragments of ancient cloth.

Others were recent.

Those were worse.

Xil could tell the difference immediately. The old dead had become objects. Bone, dust, remnants of people reduced by centuries until identity had surrendered to time.

The newer ones still looked like someone.

A woman with braided hair clotted black with dried blood.

A man in torn work clothes.

Another wearing the remains of a leather apron.

Archaeologists?

Laborers from the expedition?

Xil did not know.

He disliked that he could not know.

“Back toward the wall,” Deacon said. “Don’t let them surround us.”

Jandar moved without arguing.

That was becoming more common in fights.

He slipped to Deacon’s right while Zook took the left. Vegon stayed inside the rough line they formed.

Xil remained at the center.

The dead came through the ruins.

Deacon fired first.

Zook followed.

Jandar waited.

He had learned quickly that stabbing a skeleton through the ribs accomplished very little. When the first one reached him, he stepped aside and struck at the knee instead. Bone cracked. The creature folded.

Jandar looked down.

“I am becoming educated.”

“Try not to hurt yourself,” Deacon said.

“No promises.”

Xil lifted the symbol again.

This time he did not direct the prayer at one creature.

He opened himself to the larger presence.

The dead were everywhere.

He could feel them now.

Not souls.

That would have been easier.

Whatever had once lived inside these bodies was gone. Xil knew death too well to mistake absence for imprisonment.

Something else remained.

A pressure.

A command without thought.

A wrongness without will.

It threaded through the dead like wire through puppets.

Xil reached for it.

The divine current answered.

The corruption pushed back.

He expected pain.

Instead he felt resistance.

Not the unpredictable twisting Vegon described when his spells failed. This resistance had another quality. Almost like two laws being forced into the same place.

The dead must remain dead.

Something had decided otherwise.

Xil chose his side.

The prayer left him as a single word.

“Enough.”

Light erupted.

The nearest dead recoiled.

Several skeletons turned away as though struck by a force they could not understand. One fled into the ruins, bones clattering against stone. Another collapsed against a wall and clawed at it, trying to move farther from Xil.

The newer corpses staggered.

One continued forward.

Xil felt the difference and hated it.

Whatever animated that body held more tightly.

Deacon’s bolt struck it through the eye.

That solved the problem more simply.

The fight moved through the street.

If it had once been a street.

That was the strange thing about Tavalon.

The ruins never quite behaved like ruins.

In Windmarch, old buildings remained buildings even when abandoned. Walls stood on foundations. Roads went where roads had been built to go.

Here, the land itself seemed to have interrupted the city.

One wall vanished into a slope of earth halfway along its length. The upper portion of an arch rose from the ground with everything beneath it buried. A flight of broad stone steps climbed toward nothing because the structure they had served was simply gone.

Not destroyed.

Gone.

Elsewhere, roots split masonry apart, and small trees grew from rooms that had been open to weather for centuries.

The city had not died cleanly.

Xil understood places like that.

The thought arrived unexpectedly.

He pushed it aside.

A skeleton came through a broken doorway.

Jandar destroyed its knee.

Zook struck the skull.

It fell between them.

“That works,” Jandar said.

Zook glanced at him. “We’ve done it three times.”

“I like reliable plans.”

“You complain about Deacon’s.”

“His plans usually involve shooting near me.”

“Only because you keep standing there,” Deacon said.

A corpse came over the wall behind him.

Xil shouted, “Deacon.”

The older man turned.

Too late.

The dead thing reached for him.

Jandar crossed the distance first.

His blade slashed across the creature’s wrist, changing the angle of the grasp without stopping it. Deacon dropped low.

Xil raised his hand.

Judgment answered again.

The corpse folded where it stood.

Deacon looked at Jandar.

Jandar smiled.

“You’re welcome.”

“You moved it six inches.”

“The correct six inches.”

Deacon reloaded.

“Try moving yourself six feet away.”

“See? Leadership.”

Xil almost smiled.

Then he saw the body lying near the wall.

Not walking.

Not moving.

A young woman.

Her coat was unlike the older remains around them. Heavy canvas. Reinforced elbows. Pockets made for tools.

Expedition clothing.

Xil crossed to her while the others watched the street.

She had been dead several days.

Perhaps longer.

There was no weapon near her.

A narrow leather case had fallen open beside one hand. Inside were brushes, small picks, measuring cord, and a broken piece of chalk.

Not a soldier.

A scholar.

The people who had come here to uncover the past had become part of it.

Zook crouched beside Xil.

“She came from south.”

“You can tell?”

Zook pointed toward the dirt beside the body.

“Maybe.”

Xil looked at him.

Zook sighed.

“Fine. She probably came from south.”

“That sounded painful.”

“I’m learning from Vegon.”

From several paces away, Vegon said, “I heard that.”

“Good.”

Zook examined the ground.

The ruined street held too many tracks. Old animal marks. Their own. Dragged feet from the dead. Gnoll prints.

Xil saw those now that Zook had taught him what to look for.

Large.

Clawed.

Fresh enough to matter.

And mixed among them, boots.

“Expedition?” Xil asked.

Zook nodded slowly.

“Some.”

“Going north?”

“Some.”

Jandar joined them.

“That is an alarming amount of uncertainty.”

Zook pointed toward a dark stain on the stone.

“Blood goes north.”

Jandar stopped complaining.

They followed.

The city changed as they moved deeper.

A ruined forge appeared among the walls, the anvil still sitting where some smith had left it centuries ago. The roof was gone. Half the floor had sunk beneath packed earth.

Jandar touched the edge of the anvil.

Xil looked at him.

“Do not.”

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

“You were considering doing something.”

“That is an unfair standard.”

Deacon passed them.

“Leave it.”

Jandar followed.

“Everyone has become very suspicious of me.”

“No,” Vegon said. “We have become accurately observant.”

Beyond the forge stood the remains of a much larger building.

Tall broken walls.

Stone ribs where a roof had once crossed overhead.

Perhaps a temple.

Perhaps a hall.

Whatever purpose it had served, the dead had claimed it now.

They came from both sides.

Skeletons through shattered windows.

Two corpses from behind a fallen column.

Another shape crawling from a depression near the wall where earth had filled what might once have been a lower chamber.

The battle should have felt different by then.

It did.

They were better.

Not good enough to make danger ordinary.

But better.

Deacon no longer needed to tell Jandar where his firing line was. Jandar created one.

Zook did not vanish into the ruins without warning. He moved far enough to flank, then returned before distance became isolation.

Vegon kept his spells controlled and narrow, refusing the larger bursts Xil knew he wanted to use.

And Xil found the dead.

Not individually.

As a presence.

He raised both hands.

This prayer carried no plea in it.

No mercy.

The dead had already received whatever mercy death offered.

This was for what remained.

Silver light spread through the ruined hall.

For a heartbeat every skeleton became visible inside itself, each bone outlined against the dark.

Then the light struck.

The nearest three collapsed at once.

Another turned and fled.

One resisted.

Xil stepped toward it.

The creature recoiled.

He could feel the force holding it there, some distant corruption insisting that bone should walk and empty flesh should obey.

Xil pressed harder.

“No.”

The command came from somewhere older in him than the Order, older than Windmarch, older even than the years he had spent hiding what he was.

The creature broke.

Not violently.

It simply ceased.

Bones dropped to stone.

Silence followed.

Jandar stared at Xil.

Xil lowered his hands.

“What?”

“I was deciding whether I should ever make you genuinely angry.”

“You should not.”

“That was also my conclusion.”

Vegon studied the fallen remains.

“Your magic is changing.”

Xil looked at him.

“No.”

“It is.”

“The situation changed.”

“That is not the same thing.”

Deacon stepped between them.

“Later.”

Vegon looked as though he wanted to object.

Then Zook spoke from beyond the wall.

“Definitely later.”

They found the graveyard behind the ruined hall.

Or what had once been one.

Rows of stone markers leaned at different angles beneath trees and creeping vines. Some graves had opened. Others had collapsed.

Xil stood at the edge.

Now he understood where many of the older dead had come from.

Jandar stopped beside him.

“I assume we are not digging.”

“No.”

“Good.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I am capable of learning.”

They did not remain.

By then the night had deepened and exhaustion had begun to matter more than curiosity.

Even Jandar agreed to stop.

That concerned Xil slightly.

They chose a sheltered section of ruins away from the graveyard and anything resembling an intact doorway.

No fire.

Too visible.

They ate from their packs by lantern light.

For a while nobody spoke.

Xil preferred it.

The dead city surrounded them.

Wind moved through broken stone.

Somewhere far away, water sounded against rock.

Vegon heard it too.

“River?”

“Maybe,” Zook said.

Jandar looked at him.

Zook lifted one finger.

“Do not.”

“I said nothing.”

“You were going to.”

“I resent being understood this well.”

Deacon checked his crossbow.

Again.

Xil watched him.

“You already checked that.”

Deacon looked up.

Jandar smiled.

“Oh, excellent.”

Xil ignored him.

Deacon returned to the weapon.

“Yes.”

“Why again?”

“Because I used it.”

Xil considered that.

“Reasonable.”

Jandar looked betrayed.

“You’re encouraging him.”

“I encourage competence.”

“That sounded personal.”

“It was.”

Zook laughed quietly.

For a few moments the dead city felt almost normal.

Then something screamed in the distance.

Not human.

Not close.

The sound echoed once across the broken streets and faded.

Nobody laughed after that.

They slept in turns.

At dawn, they continued north.

The tracks became easier to follow once they left the densest ruins.

Gnolls had passed through recently.

Many.

The expedition too, or at least some of it.

Zook found boot marks in patches of wet ground and one place where something heavy had been dragged. A torn length of canvas hung from a thorn bush.

Deacon touched it.

“Camp material?”

“Looks like,” Zook said.

“So they came this way.”

“At least someone did.”

Jandar sighed.

Zook looked at him.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m accepting your philosophy.”

“That seems dangerous.”

“It is.”

The sound of water grew steadily louder.

By midday they heard it before they could see it.

Not a river.

Falling water.

The ruined streets narrowed between stone outcroppings until the old city seemed to surrender completely to the land around it. Broken foundations disappeared beneath moss and earth.

Then the path opened.

A waterfall spilled from the rock ahead.

It was not enormous, but after hours among dust, ruined stone, and dead things, the sight of moving water felt startlingly alive.

White water dropped into a broad pool surrounded by dark rocks. Mist hung in the air. Green growth clung to the stone.

Jandar stopped.

“That is suspiciously pleasant.”

Deacon looked at him.

“You distrust waterfalls?”

“I distrust anything attractive we encounter while armed.”

“That explains a great deal,” Vegon said.

Jandar turned.

“Was that a joke?”

“No.”

“Even better.”

Zook was not listening.

He had crouched at the edge of the trail.

Xil saw his posture change.

“What?”

Zook pointed.

Gnoll prints.

Fresh.

Many.

Deacon came beside him.

“How many?”

Zook studied the ground.

“Enough.”

Deacon’s expression hardened.

“That isn’t a number.”

“More than Arrowdale’s scouts.”

Xil looked toward the waterfall.

The mist shifted.

For an instant he saw movement behind it.

Not water.

A shape.

“Behind the fall,” he said.

Deacon raised his crossbow.

Jandar drew steel.

The first arrow came from above.

It struck stone where Vegon had been standing.

Vegon moved faster than Xil expected.

A second arrow followed.

Then another from the opposite side.

“Cover!” Deacon shouted.

They scattered.

Gnolls appeared among the rocks.

These were not the ragged creatures from the road or the half-dead attackers at Arrowdale.

Armor.

Bows.

Better weapons.

They moved with discipline.

One fired while another advanced.

Two more emerged through the water itself, shouldering through the falling sheet from somewhere behind it.

Jandar stared.

“Well. That answers one question.”

A gnoll charged him.

Jandar met it.

The creature was larger than those they had fought before, with layered leather reinforced by metal plates across its chest. It carried a heavy blade in one hand and a shorter weapon in the other.

Jandar slipped the first strike.

The second nearly took him across the ribs.

Deacon fired.

The bolt struck the gnoll high in the shoulder.

It barely slowed.

Jandar looked offended.

“You usually solve that.”

“Working on it.”

Another arrow struck near Deacon.

Xil saw the shooter.

High rock.

Good position.

He raised a hand.

Then stopped.

Not undead.

Judgment would not answer the same way.

That mattered.

He changed the prayer.

Silver force struck the archer and drove it backward from the ledge.

It disappeared behind the rock.

Xil did not know whether it was dead.

He did not have time to check.

More gnolls came through the waterfall.

Zook shouted, “There’s a passage!”

Deacon fired again.

“We can appreciate architecture later.”

“I thought you’d want to know!”

“I do!”

A gnoll reached Xil.

Its weapon struck his shield hard enough to numb his arm.

Xil gave ground.

The creature pressed.

Alive.

Very alive.

Its breath smelled of old meat. Its eyes held recognition—not animal hunger.

Intent.

Xil hated that more.

The gnoll attacked again.

Xil blocked, shifted, and drove the edge of his shield into its jaw.

It staggered.

Zook’s arrow struck its side.

Xil finished it with a burst of divine force that threw it against the rocks.

To his right, magic flashed.

Vegon.

Too large.

Xil turned.

The spell struck two gnolls crossing the stream.

The magical structure twisted at the edge.

Vegon’s face tightened.

But he held it.

The force exploded outward.

Both gnolls went down.

Vegon nearly did.

Xil shouted, “Stay upright.”

Vegon glared across the battlefield.

“I was planning to.”

“That would be new,” Jandar called.

The armored gnoll struck him.

Jandar flew backward into shallow water.

Deacon shouted his name.

Jandar surfaced immediately.

“Still alive!”

“Stay that way!”

“I am making an effort!”

Another gnoll emerged from behind the waterfall.

Then another.

Xil understood the problem.

The water hid their numbers.

They could see the battlefield.

The five could not see them.

“Deacon!”

The fighter fired, then looked toward Xil.

“The fall,” Xil said. “They’re using it as cover.”

“I noticed.”

“Then stop them leaving it.”

Deacon understood.

He shifted position onto higher stone where he had a clean line across the base of the waterfall.

Jandar saw him move.

So did Zook.

No discussion.

Jandar pulled the armored gnoll farther right.

Zook moved left.

They opened the center.

Deacon fired.

The next gnoll through the water took a bolt in the chest before it could orient itself.

A second appeared.

Another bolt.

Not dead.

But staggered.

Enough.

Xil struck it with divine force.

It fell backward through the waterfall and vanished.

For the first time the flow of attackers slowed.

“Again!” Deacon shouted.

Vegon raised his hand.

Xil saw him hesitate.

Then choose something smaller.

Good.

Three sharp bolts of force crossed the mist and struck an archer above the pool. The gnoll lost its footing and tumbled down the rock face.

Jandar got inside the armored creature’s reach.

His rapier struck once.

Twice.

The gnoll roared and swung wide.

Jandar ducked.

Deacon’s bolt arrived through the opening.

The creature stopped.

Looked down.

Then fell.

Jandar turned toward Deacon.

“That one was near my head.”

“You moved.”

“You’re blaming me?”

“Yes.”

“Fair.”

A roar came from behind the waterfall.

Deeper.

Louder.

The largest gnoll yet stepped through.

Heavy armor.

Broad shoulders.

A weapon long enough that Xil could not decide whether it was intended for battle or execution.

Jandar looked at Deacon.

Deacon looked at Jandar.

“No,” Deacon said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

Xil raised his holy symbol.

The gnoll charged.

The fight collapsed inward.

There was no clean formation now.

Only water, stone, steel, breath.

Zook struck first and was thrown aside.

Jandar came in from the right.

Deacon fired from the left.

Vegon’s spell failed in his hand.

Xil heard him swear.

The gnoll swung.

Jandar went down.

Not wounded badly.

Knocked away.

Deacon’s next bolt struck armor and lodged without penetrating.

The gnoll turned toward him.

Xil stepped into its path.

The weapon came down.

His shield caught it.

Pain shot from wrist to shoulder.

His knees almost failed.

The gnoll leaned into the weapon.

Xil looked up at it.

Alive.

Angry.

Certain.

For a heartbeat he remembered the dead in the ruins.

The difference between them.

The living could choose.

That meant judgment belonged to them differently.

He shoved upward.

Not enough to overpower the creature.

Enough to change the angle.

Jandar’s rapier entered beneath its arm.

The gnoll twisted.

Deacon fired.

The bolt struck the exposed side of its neck.

Zook hit the back of one knee.

The creature dropped.

Vegon raised both hands.

Xil saw the magic gather.

Saw the distortion.

Saw Vegon correct it.

The spell struck.

The gnoll hit the water and did not rise.

Silence came slowly.

First there were no enemies moving.

Then no weapons striking.

Then only the waterfall remained.

Xil stood in the pool with water around his boots and listened to everyone breathe.

Five.

All five.

Jandar sat on a rock.

“I have changed my opinion.”

Deacon reloaded.

“About?”

“Waterfalls.”

Zook was already moving toward the falling water.

Jandar pointed after him.

“Apparently not everyone has learned caution.”

Zook ignored him.

He climbed across the rocks at the pool’s edge and disappeared partly behind the spray.

Deacon called, “Zook.”

No answer.

“Zook.”

“I’m here.”

“Stop disappearing.”

“I found something.”

Jandar sighed.

“Of course he did.”

Xil followed with the others.

The waterfall struck the rocks hard enough that conversation became difficult near it. Mist soaked Xil’s hair and ran cold down the back of his neck.

Zook stood where the stone wall curved inward.

Behind the falling water, nearly invisible from the trail, was an opening.

Not a cave mouth exactly.

A path.

Cut stone beneath centuries of mineral stain.

Gnoll tracks crossed it.

Many.

Zook looked back at them.

“It goes behind.”

Jandar wiped water from his face.

“Behind the waterfall.”

“Yes.”

“I want it recorded that I dislike how obvious that sounds after we nearly died discovering it.”

Deacon looked into the opening.

Darkness waited beyond the water.

Vegon stepped closer.

His exhaustion vanished beneath curiosity.

Xil noticed.

So did Jandar.

“No magic,” Jandar said.

Vegon looked offended.

“I did not say anything.”

“You were going to.”

Xil almost smiled.

They had all begun doing that to one another.

He looked through the falling water.

Behind them lay the dead streets of Tavalon, the ruined expedition camp, the graves, the walking dead, and enough gnolls to prove none of it was accidental.

Ahead lay a path hidden behind the waterfall.

The archaeologists had gone north.

The gnolls had gone north.

Everything in Tavalon seemed to lead deeper.

Xil touched the Silver Crown mark beneath his sleeve.

Then he stepped toward the dark.