Chapter 10
Army Of The Dead
The small, vole-like creature scurried onto the land where the army of the dead tramped in seemingly an unending line. Ryder felt a touch of guilt that he was urging the creature out into the death march, but he had to understand what they were dealing with here.
But not for long.
Green light suffused the small form and it levitated off the ground before it was set down again, but on its small paws instead of its back. It started to tramp with the other undead things, no longer under Ryder’s control. Another Immortal had it now.
“Holy shit,” Fiona whispered, having seen the same thing he had though she hadn’t felt the snap of its life force like he did. “Nothing touched it, but it died!”
“And then it came back,” Charlie added with a shudder of his slender shoulders.
“The ground here is studded with soul gems. Do you see?” Ryder asked.
The three of them were all lying flat just inside of the treeline with Khos hiding behind a particularly broad trunk.
He pointed towards what looked like a clod of upturned earth where the creature had gone down, but when there was a break in the creatures and the moonlight streamed down that clod, it gleamed and showed it was a soul gem.
“So if we went out there, even if we ran really, fast… what would happen to us?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t think we want to find out,” Ryder admitted.
He thought he caught glimpses of dead Vampires out there. But they could be humans that had died and been resurrected, too. He wasn’t near enough to see their fangs. But he was guessing that Kaly was more likely to sacrifice other Vampires rather than a food source in Lasting.
Kaly not Caemorn. Caemorn wouldn’t do this. Not now.
“Let’s talk about this not so close to these things,” Ryder whispered.
He gestured for the others to pull back from their position at the treeline so that they could talk without risking some curious undead seeing them. Were the undead curious? He imagined that each and every one of them was imbued with something of Kaly’s paranoia so he wasn’t going to chance it.
Kaly and not Caemorn again. Caemorn is no longer paranoid. He is pragmatic and not a fool, but his psyche is not as brittle as it once was. So why do I keep thinking of him before all of this happened?
“I could try and teleport us,” Fiona offered uncertainly.
“Forgive me, Fifi, but if you come up short again, we could end up in the middle of that crowd and…” Charlie made a throat-slitting motion across his own neck.
Fiona sighed. “You’re right. We can’t risk it. Can we go around?”
Ryder reached out to Khos’ mind. The Dire Wolf sent him an image of a circular river of the undead surrounding a city of pale stone. The army of the dead completely encircled it. So they had to get across to reach it and any gate there.
“Wait! Wait a minute, if there is an army of the undead here, then it must be Lasting!” Fiona suggested. “Where else would there be one?”
“Foresworn,” Ryder said softly. “But we’re not there. I would know. Obviously.”
“But if this is Lasting then wouldn’t Caemorn know about this-this army?” Charlie pointed out with a flap of one arm.
“He’s never mentioned it!” Fiona sounded alarmed and shook her head. “He would mention it. Why would he even have it? What reason would there be to expend this many resources?”
“None that Caemorn has, but what about Roan or Artemis before him?” Ryder suggested. But even as he said it, he knocked those ideas down, “Caemorn would have disarmed this as soon as he absorbed most of his slices. So...”
“He would have, but maybe he had concerns about Roan coming here. Yet an army of the dead would hardly stop himself,” Fiona said.
“It wouldn’t. Perhaps we are someplace else. Some other city that hasn’t been claimed yet, but Roan has made his home here,” Ryder suggested. This would explain why he was getting such strong Kaly vibes rather than Caemorn ones.
“No,” Fiona breathed. “No, this place…” She looked up at the sky again, studying the stars. “This is Lasting.”
“But how can that be? Even if Caemorn hasn’t come here since he became himself–remembered himself–he would still sense this and put a stop to it,” Ryder said.
He touched the center of his chest. “I can feel Foresworn in here. I would know if something of this magnitude were happening there. Caemorn would feel the same.”
In fact, he did know what was happening to Foresworn now. He could feel the spread of the undead. He pulled his senses back. It was too painful to feel his land dying. And there was nothing he could do about it right now.
A small penance for what I did in the past.
“I believe you, Fifi, that this is Lasting.” Charlie gazed around them.
“It does have that feel. Not that I traipsed out in the wilderness. I stayed in the city, of course, far from all of… this.” Charlie flapped a handkerchief that he’d fished out of the inside coat pocket at their surroundings as if he found them vaguely unclean.
“But something is odd about it. Even I can tell that.”
“If it is Lasting then maybe we won’t be harmed by the army. Maybe if we reveal ourselves,” Fiona began, “Caemorn will know we’re here and–”
“I’m an idiot! Balthazar! We just need to contact him and it will be sorted,” Ryder said.
“I have tried already,” Fiona admitted.
“You–”
“Of course. First thing,” she said.
“Of course, you thought of him.” Ryder felt a swelling of shame he hadn’t. “I’m just not used to having other Immortals to count on. But then why didn’t you say–”
“Because I didn’t hear anything! I felt like I was talking into a vacuum, but maybe if one of you tried it would work. The structure might have harmed more than my ability to teleport,” she said. “I was going to mention it, but the teleportation problem just sent it from my mind.”
“Right, no worries. I’ll call him. I’m surprised he hasn’t been asking for an update,” Ryder admitted with uneasiness. Why hadn’t the Eyros Vampire contacted them?
He reached for Balthazar’s mind. Balthazar! Balthazar, we need your help! Things have gone sideways.
Silence.
No, it was more than silence or maybe less.
It was like a vacuum was present in his mind as if all the mental air was missing.
With Balthazar connected to him, it always seemed as if there were live wires surrounding his mental space, but there was nothing now.
Almost like a room where all the doors and windows had been shut and sealed.
“I don’t hear him either. I feel almost as if I’m blocked from reaching him,” Ryder admitted.
“Blocked? Yes.” Fiona nodded. “That’s exactly what it feels like. Ever since Balthazar has known he’s Eyros, my head has always felt filled with energy.”
“It feels much like when Eyros…” Charlie drifted off, his brows furrowing.
“Like when, Charlie?” Ryder asked.
“Ah, well, during the War when Eyros withdrew,” Charlie said.
So he is that old. Interesting.
“Withdrew?” Fiona asked.
“Eyros used to spread out a mental net that allowed all of us to communicate telepathically,” Charlie said with evident longing. “It was so very convenient. Makes cell phones look like ancient technology in comparison.”
“All of us?” Ryder blinked. “Not just the Eyros?”
“I know that Balky is quite impressive as he is now, but he doesn’t remember all he could do!
I can’t wait for him to… well, that doesn’t matter.
The thing is that there was a connection between all of us that he facilitated back in the day,” Charlie explained.
“It’s starting now with Balky, but… but it’s definitely shut down at the moment. ”
“Balthazar would never do that.” Fiona shook her head violently. “Even if he was in dire danger, we’d be hearing him swearing and complaining and asking us for help, but he would never leave us in the lurch. He knew that this thing with Grayson was going to be hard. He wouldn’t shut us out.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Ryder agreed. “It’s almost like…”
“Like what, Ryder?” Charlie asked as if he really wanted to know, as if Ryder would have some insight that none of them did.
“It feels like he’s gone,” Ryder explained and felt his stomach curdle at the thought.
“Or not here. I don’t know what I’m saying.
We’re shut out, but I don’t sense… don’t sense Balthazar at all.
Not like he’s dead. Not that. I can’t explain it except to say it doesn’t feel like he’s here at all. But this does feel… feel familiar.”
“Like the War?” Charlie offered again softly.
Ryder forced himself to go back to those times.
He’d shut his mind down tightly back then so that Eyros couldn’t read his intentions; it was hard to say at first. But Charlie was right.
Because there were moments when he’d reach out to Eyros–to brag or taunt or even commiserate the loss of his beloved Ashyr–and the sparkly sense of energy that had been present for all time before that had been gone.
He’d been cut adrift. He’d been alone but for his pack and animal senses.
He who had always thought that was enough, had mourned the much greater loss.
Just like now.
“So this feels like the War for the two of you?” Fiona pointed between them.
Ryder nodded. “I don’t know how that could be, but it does.”
“What about Daemon? Can’t we contact him? I expect that Julian, Christian or even Elgar couldn’t hear us all the way out here, but Daemon surely could!” Fiona exclaimed.
Ryder nodded. Maybe it was time to bring in the king. Grayson might be in real danger. He had to chance it even if he was admitting he couldn’t do this all by himself.
Time is of the essence. Even if we can get past this army, we will need to get to a proper gate to get back to Nightvallen. If this is Lasting, it should be hooked up to Nightvallen, but… ah, it matters not!