Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Iris
Nikolai and I each fell silent as we entered the small town of Fredrington.
I’d only been here once or twice before, but that was enough to know that what we were looking at now was definitely not normal.
Fredrington wasn’t a large town by any means, but it was home to many well-off merchants.
Finely made houses lined the cobblestone streets within the main square, accompanied by various shops.
On my last visit here, the streets had been bustling.
People had bumped into one another as they rushed back and forth.
There had to have been two to three hundred people who milled about this square on a daily basis.
Or at least… there used to be that many.
Now, there didn’t appear to be a soul in sight.
I jolted at the sudden sensation of Nikolai touching my wrist, instinctively reaching for my blades before I realized it was him.
Amber eyes met mine with a look of utter seriousness as he waited for me to calm and relax my grip on the weapons.
As his gaze lifted over my shoulder, he jerked his chin in the direction behind me.
I turned, following his line of sight, and gasped.
“Dear Gods.” The words were barely more than a whisper.
Corpses.
Three bodies all outside the open doorway of a home, as if they had been trying to run outside.
It took me a moment to force air back into my lungs, but once I did, I urged my horse forward tentatively. Another body lingered on the front lawn of the next house. Another lay in the street across from that. The once-bustling town was nothing more than a graveyard.
I lifted the scarf around my neck, covering my nose against the stench of death in the air.
The corpses were nothing more than bits of mangled flesh, skin torn open by what looked like claw marks and imprints of teeth.
I kept my hand on the Blade of Arto strapped to my hip, ready to grasp it if need be.
What kind of creature could do something like this?
Nikolai threw up his right hand to catch my attention, his golden rings glinting in the sunlight as he pulled his horse to a stop. Without breathing, he brought a single finger first to his lips, in a gesture to stay quiet, then to his ear in a command to listen.
I frowned. A gentle breeze tickled the back of my neck where strands of hair were escaping from where I had tied it back. The day was quiet. A gust of wind here, a call of a bird there, but nothing out of the ordinary.
There.
A hollow scrape, catching on the raised grooves of the cobblestone.
“Off your horse. Now!”
Nikolai threw himself down, not waiting to watch if I would follow as he unsheathed his sword and pointed to the road ahead of us.
Creeping from behind the corner of a tall brick house emerged what I could only describe as a sickening monster.
Monster wasn’t the right word, though. Because I had spent years studying Ciclopia’s monsters during my schooling and this wasn’t like any of the creatures she had made.
No, this might once have passed for a man.
He might have been tall, were it not for the dislocated leg that dragged like a dead weight behind him. His jaw dangled open at an unnatural angle, eyes unfocused and unseeing. Skin dangled from a cut on his brow. Viscera covered nearly every inch of him.
“What in all of creation is that?” I hissed, unable to keep the absolute disgust from my voice as I threw my left leg over the side of my horse and dismounted.
Nikolai chuckled darkly, dragging up the sleeves of his shirt despite the cold. He widened his stance and tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword, preparing himself to fight. Tendons and cords of muscle rippled under the skin of his forearm, distracting me for the briefest of moments.
“I suppose that is the reality of the Underworld bleeding into the Mortal Realm.”
I snapped back to attention, tearing my eyes away from the veins along his hand to focus instead on the approaching beast.
Its leg was a dead weight dragging behind it, leaving a slick trail of maroon blood across the stones. My upper lip curled back. “Gross.”
“Get ready,” Nikolai commanded as the creature inched closer towards us. “With this many bodies, I doubt he’s the only one here.”
A shiver worked its way down my spine as I sent a silent prayer that if there were more, they didn’t all look so positively wretched.
Then I sent a second prayer that I would finish off my half first and get to watch Nikolai slice through the rest.
Hours later, the smell still clung to me. It hung in a fog over my skin, leaving my nose burning and sending me gagging every time the wind brushed past. I was almost positive that there was no amount of bathing possible that would leave me feeling clean again.
It’s not like I was a stranger to gore and death, but having to face down what was essentially a legion of walking carcasses was not something I would likely forget anytime soon.
“What exactly do you think they were?” I wondered aloud, unable to stop thinking about the sight of those creatures for more than a few moments at a time.
Nikolai shrugged, irritation passing over his features. “I do not know, bird.”
He’d grown tired of my questions and complaints long ago, but I couldn’t help it. They were all I could think of. I could still hear their moans and hisses. I could feel their blood dripping down my spine.
“Do you think there are more of them? There have to be, right? It’s not like they just emerged from the Underworld and decided to make their home in this one single town.”
Another shrug and hum that was too much of a non-answer for my liking. How was he not as unsettled by this as I was?
“How many more do you think there are? Like… dozens? Hundreds. Gods, I really hope it’s not more than that.”
My fingers were stiff under my leather gloves, dried blood still coating them.
We’d moved through Fredrington and continued, not wanting to linger in the town in case more of those monsters arrived.
After hours spent riding while covered in this filth, though, I was starting to regret that decision.
Nikolai could have been a lookout while I took a quick bath.
Or two.
“You’re an assassin,” he reminded me dryly, not bothering to look back at me from where he rode a few paces in front of my horse. “Shouldn’t you be able to handle something like this?”
I straightened with a frown, sending a glare at his back. “I am an elite operative to be used at the king’s discretion.”
Finally, he twisted to look at me, if only to send me a withering glance. “And the prior king’s discretion typically required what of you?”
I bit down on my lip, refusing to answer his question and prove his assessment of my occupation correct. He turned away when I stuck my tongue out at him.
I was just thinking through my next stream of questions when my vision locked onto the coat sleeve of his jacket.
For a moment, the world started to spin so intensely that I almost lost my balance.
“Oh. My. Gods.” My shrill scream cut through the air.
Another gag worked through me, sending me lurching forward and gasping for air. Nikolai turned at the sound, eyes wide and scanning the area behind me. He was at my side in an instant, oblivious to the way I desperately leaned away from him.
“What? What is it?”
“There!” I pointed frantically at the elbow of his coat where a pinkish splotch of flesh lingered on the pristine fabric. “You have some on you!”
A myriad of emotions flashed on his features. Confusion, then irritation, then something far too close to amusement as he plucked the bit of viscera off himself and casually tossed it aside.
“What was that?” I squealed, staring after it.
He looked down at the little piece of flesh, tilting his head as he considered it. “Could have been some brain matter, or a bit of small intestine, I suppose.”
I gagged again, the sounds of my dry wretches filling the air. Nikolai threw his head back to stare at the sky, taking three deep breaths in.
“Must you continue making that noise?” Annoyance rippled in his tone.
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I bothering you from enjoying this otherwise oh so pleasant day?”
Despite himself, his lips quirked into the tiniest bit of a genuine smile before he turned away to hide it from me. He trotted ahead, not waiting for me to regain my sanity and follow after him. We rode in silence for a bit, our horses working up a large mountainous ridge.
“The library should be just at the top of the hill here,” he told me. His pace slowed, and he allowed me to reach his side, glancing over at me with eyes that narrowed inquisitively. “Tell me, did you read much as a girl?”
I felt a blush rising along the back of my neck.
He wanted to know if I liked to read. He wanted to know what I enjoyed doing because he was keeping a growing list of facts about me. He wanted to know facts about me because he wanted to know me.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d opened the doors to myself wide enough to allow someone to see the true pieces of who I was, but here was Nikolai, asking me to show them to him.
And even though I should have felt the overwhelming urge to remind him that we were strictly business associates and nothing more, I didn’t.
Because when he looked at me like that, with that genuine curiosity lighting up the gentle smile across his full lips, I forgot all about the mess we had just been in.
I forgot about the blood lining my clothing and the mission we were here to accomplish.
I forgot about all the reasons I shouldn’t let him get close to me, and I instead found myself wanting to give him this small fact to add to his list.
His eyes traced over my cheeks, smile widening when he realized I could have magically disguised my blush, but I didn’t. I let him see the pink tint color my cheeks.
Just as I was about to explain to him that I’d absolutely abhorred reading and formal education and much preferred activities that kept my hands busy, though, a thick booming sounded ahead of us.
Steady.
Rhythmic.
A routine pounding as if the Gods were stamping down their feet onto the Mortal Realm.
“Those are war drums,” I muttered to myself, frowning as I tried to piece together why war drums would sound in such a remote location.
All at once, realization crashed down on me. Those weren’t the drums of my kingdom anymore, because this wasn’t Athenia anymore. This was the land that Hyrax had claimed as his own, and those were his soldiers pounding down on the leather-coated snares.
Nikolai knew me well enough to know what I would do before I even moved.
“Iris, don’t!” He barked, pulling on the reins of his horse
But it was already too late. I kicked my heel into the side of my mare, urging her into a sprint to the top of the ridge. Hooves pounded behind me as Nikolai raced to keep up.
Dirt exploded into the air as I pulled my horse to a skidding halt at the top of the ridge, a heaviness bearing down onto my chest even as white fury streaked through me with such burning intensity that I had to cling to my control over my physical form.
There was smoke in the air. Plumes of black smoke rose out of the now-burning library.
Soldiers wearing new dark onyx armor fed the flames with books stolen out of the archives, all while dragging injured and dying librarians from the flames.
Those who were already dead were piled atop one another. Discarded. Disregarded.
Nikolai wrapped a hand around my forearm with an iron grasp, stopping me before I could even think of leaving.
“Don’t.”
“Those people need help!” I hissed, whipping my head around to face him.
He sighed, not daring to look away from me even as those eyes, now not showing a hint of their typical green flecks, flashed with remorse. “I know, little bird, but if we run down there now, we’re just as dead as they are. We can’t fight them all.”
Breaking away from his stare, I turned back to watch the scene unfolding below us, my heart aching as I resigned myself to it.
One of the first lessons I’d learned in the Order was to know when a fight was already lost.
Knowing that didn’t make it any less painful as Nikolai took hold of my reins and guided our horses away from the ridge so we could wait out the attack. He tied them off to a nearby tree, squeezing my shoulder briefly before stepping away to allow me a moment to myself.
Because usually I would prefer not to let someone else see me cry.
But I grasped onto that hand, locking it in mine and closing my eyes against the relentless sounds of screaming from below.