“Dustin,” Herald cried. “Snap out of it!”
My gaze lingered on him as he fired sheets of frost out of his fingertips. Ice wouldn’t do much against the creaking bones of the risen dead, but at least it slowed them down. I watched as Bastion gritted his teeth and clenched his fingers, splintering and smashing skeletons with every gesture. He was running low on juice, like I was, and soon the rest of our team would burn through their arcane stocks as well.
“Dustin,” Herald said again. “Help us fight, or get out of the way.”
“There’s a third option,” I said, my hand on autopilot as it reached into my breast pocket. “This had better work.”
He eyed the crystal in my hand warily, unsure. “Whatever it is, Dust – just do it. Whatever helps.”
I hurled the crystal at the ground, barely dodging out of the way as a thin shaft of pure moonlight shot from the earth and rocketed into the sky. It pierced the clouds, then silently exploded into a pulse.
Nothing, for some moments. I thought that the gods had lied, and once again abandoned us. But the clouds parted. Out of the darkness the moon and stars themselves seemed to descend. Pinpoints and shafts of light blurred and refracted, until they arranged themselves into the shapes of men and women straight out of myth and legend. The Midnight Convocation had come to answer our call.
Apparitions of milky-white soldiers astride ghostly images of fierce warhorses raced from out of the clouds, charging the skeletal army, swords upraised as their forms turned corporeal and trampled the undead. Bones splintered and cracked under the rampage, and my spirit soared as the riders headed straight for the Overthroat’s portal. Each horseman burst into a pulse of pale light as it struck the Old One, and every blow caused it to recoil.
Rays of concentrated moonlight and gleaming black spears of pure shadow rained down from the sky, the Midnight Convocation confronting the Overthroat with their fullest fury. Artemis laughed as she plucked her bowstring like a harp, each arrow that she fired magically splitting into twenty, savaging both the undead and the Overthroat alike. Amorphous clouds of white-hot stars fell from Nyx’s fingers, colliding against the Overthroat’s skull, sticking there and burning like twinkling napalm.
The Old One’s claws raked at the earth as it backed up. It was working. Shtuttasht was retreating. The army that Izanami had stolen from Asher was all but destroyed, and we were getting so close to victory that I could taste it.
Then the Overthroat opened its mouth and bellowed, a horrible, bone-shaking sound, like a bomb siren, an omen. The flaps of decayed alabaster skin and flesh at the thing’s neck unfolded, like the petals of a flower in bloom, and where each hole had been lingered a glowing, spinning orb of brilliant white light. The sweat on my forehead went cold. The Overthroat had only been firing out of one barrel. Now it had seven, and the night filled with the Old One’s horrible end-song as they charged to fire.
“Scatter,” I shouted, amid the panicked cries of the other mages, the gasps of shock coming from the gods themselves.
But no one anticipated the strike. With a blast that shattered the air, the Overthroat fired a humongous beam of ivory light not towards the graveyard, but at the sky, its immense magical force screeching as the lance of power carved an arc through the clouds. It was attacking the Midnight Convocation directly.
A bloodcurdling cry pierced the night. Someone was hit.
From the darkness above us Chernobog roared his fury. I followed his gaze, finding the last traces of Metzli’s body suspended in midair, her face frozen in pain and terror, her limbs and torso torn and ragged. She wasn’t bleeding, but her body was disintegrating into tiny motes of fading light. Stardust.
My heart clenched. One of the gods had passed. There were exceptions, sure, but an entity that died outside of the protection of its domicile was well and truly dead. Of all the entities, I hadn’t expected Chernobog to mourn the hardest, his furious wails echoing through the night. For all his pomp and arrogance, the god of darkness truly did care for his siblings.
The assault of magic from the Convocation, the rain of supernatural power that assailed the Overthroat like a hail of bombs came to a sudden stop.
Chernobog’s voice boomed over us all. “You called and we answered, mortal whelp. But now one of us has fallen in battle. This was not within the terms of our contract.” His eyes smoldered as they met mine. “Pray that you do not perish the way our sister did, for we will find you once more. The Midnight Convocation will remember.”
It was as if a hand had reached into my chest and pressed tight. If we survived the night, the entities of darkness would still want to kick my ass. I clenched my fists. We needed a win. I looked on as the gods faded into the sky. I couldn’t read Artemis’s expression, but she shook her head at me as she vanished in a beam of moonlight. Nyx’s emotions were clear, though. Tears like starlight dripped down the indigo of her skin.
“I’m sorry, too,” I muttered. “For everything.”
This was up to us, now. At the end of the day, humanity’s fate was still up to humanity after all. The Overthroat was making its move, clambering into our reality again, any ground the Midnight Convocation might have gained for us cleared in three of its mighty steps.
“This can’t be it,” Herald mumbled. “So many dead, and they keep dying. If the gods can’t help us, who can?”
We had one last shot, but I didn’t even know if it would work. The chamber I discovered the other night, deep inside of the Dark Room. I could go there, see how I could put an end to things.
Herald must have seen the intent in my eyes, the way my body began to waver as I attempted to shadowstep, because his face hardened, his hand whipping out to clasp around my wrist.
“You
’ve got something stupid planned,” he said. “I’m not letting you do it.”
“We don’t have a choice,” I said.
“But you’re not doing it alone. If you’re going – wherever you’re going, I’m coming too.”
“It’s not going to be fun. And I don’t even know if it’s going to work.” I sighed. “Herald? I’m scared. I’m trying my fucking best to do the right thing, but all I am is scared.”
“Good,” Herald said, his jaw clenched, his fingers threading through mine. “Then we’ll be scared together. I don’t see how anyone’s expected to go up against the primal forces of chaos and keep their shit together.”