Last Rites (Darkling Mage 6)

Herald aimed his hand at the ground, grimacing as he erected a wall of ice just behind the curtain of shadow I’d called out of the Dark. A flimsy defense against what the Overthroat could muster, but better than nothing.

“You’re doing a good job, Asher,” Herald said, clutching his chest.

“You’re doing a great job,” I said. I placed a hand against Herald’s back, this time whispering. “Take it easy.” He nodded.

“Hnnngh,” Asher grunted, his forehead slick and gleaming. “It’s – it’s all about – respect.” More – impossibly more skeletons erupted from the earth, answering Asher’s call. “I respect them so much,” he grunted, his face wrenched and twisted from the effort.

With the support of the undead, it at least looked like we had a fighting chance. Royce and Romira dashed past us, along with a squad of Hands, all of them wielding orange globes between their fingers. Good. They were going to incinerate the shrike pods, to stem the tide and allow the rest of us to return our attention to the Overthroat.

And the skeletons were helping there, too. By the rickety dozens they threw themselves at Shtuttasht, gangly, spiked limbs clambering over the Old One’s body, dangling and reaching at its neck, thrusting sharp, wickedly taloned hands into the flute-like openings at its throat. The Overthroat shook and shuddered, bucking as it attempted to throw off the swarm of the living d

ead, but somehow it was working. The Old One was being overwhelmed.

So the only thing left was to deal the final blow. But how, and where? I sprinted up to Carver, finding him arguing with Bastion at top speed.

“Snap its neck, or sever it,” Bastion was saying. “If I get close enough, and get support, I can cleave that thing’s head right off its body. Decapitate it and it’s dead.”

“It’s never that simple with the Eldest,” Carver hissed. “You saw what happened with Dustin’s sword. It glanced off the Overthroat’s neck, and now it’s stuck in that abomination’s forehead like a – Dustin.” Carver’s eyes widened as he caught sight of me, and he clutched my arm. “Your amulet. You must try again. If you can seal the portal from this end while the Overthroat is still attempting its incursion – ”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Then it’s like a guillotine. Seal the gateway, and I cut off half its body. Kill it.”

“I can do that myself,” Bastion said. “That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time.”

“You are more than welcome to try,” Carver growled. “But only the gargantuan pressure of a portal snapping shut would be enough to kill the Overthroat.”

“Right,” I said, reaching for my amulet. “Let’s give it another shot.”

But before I could coax out its energies, I noticed the change going over the battlefield. The undead were falling off of the Overthroat’s body, their skeletons growing still, inert. I looked over at Asher, only to see that the light of his necromantic power was flickering. Fading. He looked down at his hands, at his dissipating aura, his mouth open in disbelief.

“Carver,” I said. “This isn’t good. What’s happening?”

Thin ropes of black substance, like slime, were rising from the earth, replacing the pale green mist that manifested from Asher’s power. They threaded around the bones of the fallen, snaking between ribs and crevices, into skulls and eye sockets. After the briefest pause, the skeletons shuddered back into unlife, rising once more from the earth. But this time, they weren’t facing the Overthroat.

The skeletons shambled as they turned inward, their empty sockets burning with hollow, dark malice. They were looking at us: at the members of the Boneyard, and the Lorica.

“Asher,” I called out. “Better get them back in line, buddy. This looks real bad.”

“It certainly does,” a woman’s voice said.

From out of the mobs of skeletons stepped a living corpse, its hair in stringy clumps, decaying flesh barely clinging to its bones. Izanami, the goddess of death, was wearing her true form.

“What have you done?” I said. “I thought we had a deal. I thought you were over it. We were supposed to be even.”

Izanami gave me her corpse grin, then extended one rotted hand, spreading her fingers. As if spurred by an unheard battlecry, the skeletons rattled forward, racing for our throats. When she spoke again, Izanami’s voice was guttural, thick, patronizing.

“Now, we’re even.”

Chapter 31

The goddess of death had wrested control of Asher’s undead army. As wicked as their skeletal talons were when Asher had commanded them, now the undead had grown more vicious, more bloodthirsty, raking their claws in terrible arcs at the Lorica.

Screams filled the air. The shrikes were down, and for all I hoped their birthing polyps had been incinerated too, but this was a brand new threat – one we definitely didn’t need.

Asher was on the ground, his palms pressed into the grass, retching. The mantle of power surrounding him had faded completely, his body drenched in sweat. I thought I saw a cleric attending to him, one of the Hands who specialized in healing. Good enough. We needed all the help we could get.

We were up against a goddess of the underworld herself, in addition to the growing danger of the Overthroat. And with our forces scattered, the Old One had more room to maneuver, more time to pick and place its attacks. Stray beams of brilliant, searing white fired from Shtuttasht’s horrible maw, scarring the ground, scattering mages in their wake.

More shouts sounded from around the graveyard. Had the Overthroat struck home and actually killed mages? I couldn’t bear to look. Where the Overthroat’s fetid breath touched the earth, more of the glistening black polyps rose to the surface, bringing with them yet more of the infernal shrikes.