Greg Keyes - Lord of Souls

But then the wind shifted, and she got the smell.

“Dead things,” she snarled, clearing Sister from her sheath. Then she raised her voice. “Alarum!” she howled. She grabbed Brennus by the arm and hustled him toward the other sorcerers, where her fellow warriors were hastily trying to form a phalanx.

She wasn’t quite there when they came out of the trees.

“So that’s true, too,” she said.

“Divines,” Brennus breathed.

They looked as dead as they smelled. Many had been Argonians, obvious by their rotting snouts, decayed tails, sharp teeth set in worm-festered gums. Others looked to have been men or mer, and a few were just-things. They moved twitchily, as if uncertain how to use their limbs, but they came at a fast march.

And they were marching, organized, falling into ranks as the landscape permitted. They were unevenly armed-some had swords, maces, or spears, but more than half had crude clubs or no weapons at all-but there were a lot of them, many times more than their thirty.

What surprised Mazgar most were their eyes. She had heard the rumors that an army of corpses walked beneath the flying city. She had imagined them as dumb, cattle-eyed beasts. What she saw as they drew near was something different, a glitter of malicious intelligence, a dark joy in the harm they promised.

“They’re coming up from the south, too,” someone shouted.

That was bad news. They’d left the horses and most of the supplies down there, not to mention their remaining six soldiers to guard them.

“Form up,” Captain Falcus hollered. “We’ve got fighting to do.”

“I thought they were supposed to be under the island,” Mazgar said. “These are a long way from it.”

“Well,” Brennus replied, “there’s the value of scouting, eh? Now we know something we didn’t before. They can send their troops out. Way out.”

“We can’t let them trap us up here,” Falcus said. “We’re going to have to pick a direction and cut through.”

“South takes us home, Captain,” Merthun the Wall shouted.

“South it is,” the captain said. “Re-form, now.”

Mazgar moved to the back of the formation, along with Jarrow, Merthun, and Coals. She pulled her shield off her back and got ready, watching the rotting things approach.

“And you thought this wasn’t going to be any fun,” Brennus said, at her back.

Falcus shouted, and the phalanx started moving behind her. Mazgar and her line walked backward, slowly. The dead sped up, and when they were six yards away, they charged.

She howled, and Sister swung at something that had once been a two-legged lizard. The sword smashed into its head and it split open, spilling maggots and putrescence all around her. The body came on, and so she slashed at it, still retreating.

Just up the line she heard Jarrow curse and gurgle.

“Jarrow’s down,” Merthun shouted. “Close the gap.”

They fell back, yard by yard, leaving a wake of rotting, twitching parts. She saw Jarrow’s body, facedown, receding.

Then she saw him start to rise, surrounded by the things.

“Jarrow’s still alive!” she bellowed.

“He’s not,” Merthun shouted back, his huge hammer rising and falling into the line of the enemy.

“But-” she began. Then she saw Jarrow’s wound and the dark gleam in his eye, and knew it wasn’t him anymore.

“Well, that’s no good,” Brennus opined.

“There’s the south line,” Falcus shouted. “Double time, soldiers. Rearguard, keep them off. We break through or die.”

“I’m not dying here,” Mazgar snarled, and let Sister do her work.

Wind opened Colin’s eyes, but it was the unfastened window that sped his heart, and the utter lack of sound that sent his fingers to the knife under his mattress. A hand met his there and gripped his wrist, hard. He swung over to kick at the vague shadow, but he was grasped at the ankles as well, and a bag was forced over his head, followed by a return to sleep that would have been gentle if part of him wasn’t screaming to the rest that he wouldn’t ever wake up.

He did wake again, however. The bag and the cloying scent of somniculous remained, but the drug itself was obviously dissipated. He was lying on a hard but inconstant surface, and he soon recognized by the motion that he was in a boat, on water. His hands and feet were efficiently bound. His captors did not speak, but he could hear their breathing and exertions at the oars. He couldn’t make out anything through the sack except light, but he felt the sun on his skin and guessed it was approaching midday.

Not much later, there was a bit of jostling and then the shock of the boat coming on shore. He smelled pine.

They cut the bindings on his feet and made him walk. He kept thinking he ought to say something, but his kidnappers behaved so professionally he knew there wasn’t much point. There was no talking them out of whatever they were doing with him. All he could do was wait, and wonder. Would he feel it? Would he know anything had happened?

Colin killed a man once. He died confused, begging, unwilling to admit even as the knife cut into him what was happening.

He wished he could have seen his mother again, and-realizing he was weeping-felt ashamed. He’d wanted to be braver.

The hand on his arm came away. He tried not to shake.

Then one of the men made a peculiar sound, a sigh like a very tired man finally lying down.

“What?” the other asked, before sucking a sharp breath.

Colin heard two distinct thumps-then for a moment, nothing. He wondered if he should run.

“Who do you work for?” a feminine voice asked.

He recognized it, and a deep chill wracked through him. The last time he’d heard that voice had been in a house in the Market District, just before its owner slaughtered at least eight men.

“Come,” she said. “Tell me.”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” he replied.

“Keep still,” she said. A moment later the sack came off his head.

And there she was, regarding him, Letine Arese. Her small frame, turned-up nose, and short blond hair made her seem almost like a little girl, but he knew her to be thirty-one years of age, and her blue eyes held a cold intensity that was quite un-childlike.

Those eyes narrowed now.

“You look familiar,” she said. “I’ve seen you. I suppose that makes sense.”

He glanced behind her, at the two bodies on the ground. Both were male; one was an Argonian, the other a Bosmer. They both seemed quite dead, although he could not see the cause.

“They brought you out here to kill you,” she said.

“I gathered that,” he replied. “I’m grateful you stopped them.”

“Are you? We’ll get back to that in a moment.” She folded her hands behind her back. She was dressed in Bosmer woodsman style, with high boots and soft leather vest and breeches. It was an odd look for her, in his experience-he’d only ever seen her in relatively fashionable city attire.

“What would you say if I told you they worked for me?” she asked.

“I would be confused,” Colin said carefully.

“Yes, I should hope so,” she told him. “They noticed you spying on me and brought it to my attention. So of course, I did a little checking of my own. Colin Vineben, from Anvil. Your father is dead, and your mother does laundry. You were recommended for and received training for the Penitus Oculatus, and recently were named an inspector in that organization. It was you who discovered the massacre of Prince Attrebus’s personal guard and the apparent murder of the prince, and you who suggested to the Emperor that the prince wasn’t actually dead. Which, as it turns out, you were right about. And now you’re spying on me, but without, it seems, any official authority to do so. So I wonder if you’re employed by someone else.”