Chapter 32
No one questions him as they grapple onto the nearest steed. Benny reaches his hand down to help Stide, while Ruben pushes Loch onto a gelding before mounting in a sweep straight after.
The only one who makes any noise at all is Loch.
‘Crows!’ he calls. ‘He’s coming! He’s coming!’
It’s not exactly an eloquent warning, but it’s more than enough as we all know from the tales that crows precede a Myrkr. The cold fingers of fear swipe down my spine.
‘Rose, get back on Elska, now!’ Kyor yells.
For once, I obey his command without hesitation, and I hastily climb onto the wolf.
My mouth has gone dry and I shudder as all around us the forest comes alive with the discordant sound of cawing.
Crows. Just like Loch said.
A flock so dense it could cover the sun with their black wings.
Elska lurches into a run. Leaning forward, I clutch my hands so tightly into her fur that my mother’s ring digs into my skin.
Fucking folklore and fairy tales. V?tte. Myrkr. I’m done with the lot of them.
Behind me, Kyor draws his sword. His body is rigid against mine. ‘Keep moving, Els,’ he urges her.
Elska’s muscles bunch beneath us as she powers forward. Her ears flatten to her skull, and she lets out another low, rumbling growl that vibrates straight through my bones.
This isn’t like with the unbounded dire wolves, when the entire forest went silent. Instead, black-winged birds flock from the sky, their multitudinous shrieks and squawks sending out a warning to flee. And we’re trying.
The horses’ hooves thunder over the ground, their terrified snorts pealing through the air, on and on. Yet in my heart I already know the truth. We won’t be fast enough.
We are clustered together and back in the dense thicket of the forest when the temperature drops so sharply I feel it like a blade sliding between my ribs. Our breaths fog the air.
‘Rose!’ Benny warns. ‘Deep breaths.’
‘It’s not me!’ I call back. ‘The cold, it’s not me!’
‘Keep moving!’ Kyor shouts. ‘Don’t slow down!’
The command is easier said than done as the horses and riders struggle through the dense undergrowth. And as we push on, I try to ignore the biting cold that stings my fingers and face.
Maybe it is me, I hope.
And yet as a sound reverberates behind us – a sound that isn’t quite animal and isn’t quite human – all the hairs on my neck stand on end and I know there’s no more running.
They come out of the trees without warning, without a sound.
No snarls. No groans. The only noises they make come from the rustling of leaves as they drag their feet towards us.
I know I shouldn’t look. I should focus on getting the fuck out of here, but there’s something utterly off in the way they move.
The way their limbs hang at their sides.
‘Rotting Ones!’ Loch cries, as if any of us were in doubt.
The shambling men are wrong in every way that matters. Not just the manner in which they walk. Their skin is mottled and stretched too tight over bone, displaying a crisscross of blackened veins, while their dull red eyes sit lifelessly in their sockets. Unseeing.
As I draw in a gasp, my throat chokes on the stench that fills the air. It isn’t hard to work out where they get their name – they don’t just look like they’re rotting, they smell like it, too.
Their chests do not rise and fall, I realise with increasing horror. Not just unseeing, but also undead.
‘Hate to say this, but they’re behind us, too.’ Caz’s voice trembles.
We’re surrounded, trapped. There’s no way out of this that doesn’t include a fight.
Kyor swears softly under his breath then raises his voice to speak to us all.
‘Don’t waste strikes. Cut off their hands and legs.
They won’t react to pain, won’t stop no matter how severe the injury is.
And they’re not after the horses – they’re after you.
The only thing we can do is immobilise them. Do not let them scratch or bite you.’
These aren’t the general instructions of a commander going into an unknown battle, I realise.
He’s fought them before. The realisation is like a hammer to my chest. With all the talk of Rottings, not once did he say, ‘Hey, I’ve come up against those guys a time or two.’
It’s another lie by omission, and yet again, I feel a fool.
The first Rotting reaches up towards us, but it doesn’t even touch Elska’s flank before Kyor takes its arm clean off with a single, precise stroke.
It’s a wound that should see any creature writhing on the ground, dying of blood loss.
But no blood comes. And it doesn’t fall.
It barely reacts. The limb on the ground twitches as if confused, fingers still flexing in the dirt.
I don’t have time to hesitate. I’m of limited use on Elska’s back – in Kyor’s way and slowing the dire wolf down – and as the Rottings are on foot, I can be as well.
I glance down at the ring on my finger. That burst of energy that flooded through me when I placed it on my body hasn’t faded yet.
I’m strong enough to fight. I know I am.
Without giving myself a moment’s hesitation, I slide from Elska’s back, boots hitting the ground hard.
‘Godsdamn it, Rose!’ Kyor shouts.
‘You’ll both be more effective without me, and I’ll be fine.’
He grimaces but lets Elska carry him away to a cluster of Rottings. It’s a small salve to my wounded pride. He trusts me to fight, at least.
Elska doesn’t hesitate, using her claws and teeth to rip and rend even as Kyor’s sword spins in wide arcs, slicing and dicing limbs.
Their movements are ferocious yet practised.
How the fuck he stays on her is a work of art, and if it were possible, one I would happily study.
But right now, I’ve got more important things at hand. Rotting things.
Given Kyor’s warning, I have no intention of getting close to them, but I shouldn’t need to. In fact, none of us should.
With a plan forming in my mind, I call to my green magic, ready to hold the Rottings in place the same way I did with Thessa and Stide, and yet as I reach out and grasp for the power, nothing happens.
Nothing comes.
Panic flares sharp and hot. I can’t feel my magic. That buzz between my ribs is utterly gone.
‘I don’t have my magic!’ I call out, in panic and warning. My green magic isn’t like the ice magic. Not once have I needed to fight to find it since Etta returned it to me.
A single further try is all I have time for. When my magic still does not rise, I draw my sword and dagger and advance on the Rotting thing in front of me.
Benny and Caz have joined me on the ground, fighting on foot, protecting Loch while he jabbers on astride his horse. As for the Quiet Ones, the Rottings barely seem to notice them.
We are their targets.
Three sweeping swings of my swords are all I use. Head first, then the two arms. There’s no chance this fucker is biting or scratching me.
And then I’m struck with a realisation.
Kyor has been training me to fight these exact creatures each evening. Training me to fight while keeping my distance. Motherfucker! We are going to have words.
I turn to look for the next nearest Rotting, only to pause.
‘Kyor!’ I yell at him.
But I have no need to finish my exclamation. Thessa does that for me.
‘Myrkr!’ she screams in warning, eyes wide in fear. The Sannings’ responses to the Rottings may have been to stay quiet and hope to go unnoticed, but they do not offer the same response now.
Stide jumps to the ground, wading into the fray and placing herself half a step in front of Thessa and the horses. She seizes her spear, sliding one hand down the shaft, bringing the point level and steady.
The Myrkr is draped in a cloak so dark it swallows the light as he rides into view astride a black horse with eyes like pits, steam curling from its nostrils. I can’t see the Myrkr’s face; I don’t know whether there is a face.
Crows spiral overhead, cawing in jagged, broken bursts. They land in the trees, on the ground, and on the Rottings themselves, black eyes gleaming with awful intelligence. Perhaps it was not ravens we should have feared all this time but crows.
It certainly feels that way as I raise my sword to the Rotting staggering towards me. I guess the part about the Myrkr being siphons wasn’t just part of a fairy tale either. It would explain where the fuck my magic has gone and why Kyor hasn’t turned this entire forest to ash.
I fight defensively, just as Kyor has been drilling me to do. It was never the Issen and their ‘poisoned blades’ he was training me for, but the Rottings and whatever foulness infected them. They are the reason he didn’t want to go through the forest. The reason he told me Elska wished to avoid it.
When I am less full of fear, I will kick him hard in the balls for holding yet more lies between us, but now is not the moment.
A Rotting scrapes a hand towards my face, nails extended like a cat shoved into water, and I rear back just in time, slicing off the offending hand.
The air around us feels heavy, pressed flat. The Myrkr brings with him yet more Rottings, and we are desperately outnumbered with our magic gone, ripped away as if it never existed.
Fear claws up my throat, but I have been stripped before and faced worse odds. I raise my sword and grimly throw myself into the fray again.
‘Don’t let the Myrkr’s blade touch you!’ Kyor warns.
As if called to action by the warning, the Myrkr lifts his sword. The metal is blackened, veined with something green and foul that looks like rot itself.
The ground beneath the tip of its horse’s hooves withers. Whether the Myrkr is a servant of Mortidem or not, I don’t know, but he sure as hell looks like death.
Another Rotting lunges for Benny and I intercept, ramming my shoulder into its chest. It’s a stupid action that puts me at far too much risk, but it pays off as it stumbles back.
I gag at the stench of damp and decay as I hack at its knee with my sword. The joint gives with a sickening crack and the Rotting collapses, still trying to claw at me with unnerving persistence.
I stamp down hard, pinning its wrist, and sever the hand. It keeps reaching all the same.
‘Rose!’ Ruben screams. I don’t know when he left his horse, but he is on the ground now, swinging his sword with even more force and vehemence than during his spars with Kyor.
Even Loch is fighting now, hacking and cutting at the Rottings around us with the kind of precision that only comes from hours of practice. It tells me more than words ever could how he’s managed to survive this forest.
If I had the time, my heart would ache for him, facing this alone these past few moons. Trapped with these things.
The fight occurs at every angle, Caz battling to keep the horses steady as they rear and buck wildly. The Rottings might not go for the animals, but the stench is spooking them all the same, not to mention the swords flailing around them.
‘The Myrkr!’ Thessa shouts. ‘The Rottings will leave with the Myrkr if we can force him away.’
‘How?’ I yell.
‘We have to focus on him. Injure him,’ she calls back. ‘Not the Rottings. Him.’
I nod, mind whirring. Yet before I can decide on the best plan, Elska barrels through the Rottings, tearing them down with teeth and claws. As the Myrkr turns his hooded head towards the dire wolf, she skids to a halt, snarling, hackles raised.
Kyor urges her forward still. A whine rises from her muzzle, but she doesn’t fight him. She knows who her next target is. Kyor’s attention is locked on the hooded figure.
The Myrkr moves faster than he should, his sword whistling through the air, and Kyor barely parries in time. The impact rings out, bone-deep and sonorous, sending sparks skittering across the ground.
‘Stay back, Rose!’ Kyor snaps at me as I start forward, though how the fuck he saw me behind him I have no idea.
Actually, I realise I do. He didn’t see me move – he just knew I would – and his barked instruction isn’t because I can’t fight, but because he doesn’t want me to. But if Thessa is right, then we need to attack the Myrkr, and the fuck I’m letting him do that alone.
‘Ruben! Benny! Keep the Rottings away from us!’ I yell.
There seems to be no point in instructing the others.
Caz has enough of a battle with the horses, and Loch appears to know what he’s doing far better than the rest of us.
And there’s no way I’m stupid enough to command Stide and think she’ll listen.
I sprint through the chaos, heart hammering as I duck low and surge into the fight, fury burning through the fear as I see Kyor and Elska squaring up to the Myrkr alone.
At their backs, Benny and Ruben defend them while they battle the thing of nightmares, but a single Rotting has broken through the line of defence, and I watch, heart in my mouth, as it heads to Kyor.
‘Kyor, watch out!’ I scream. ‘Behind you!’
He hears my warning, I know he does, yet he’s spotted an opening in the Myrkr’s defences and instead of retreating and defending his back, he pushes forward.
‘I’ve got it!’ Stide shouts at me.
Relief floods through me as Stide races for the rogue Rotting as Kyor plunges his sword towards the Myrkr, driving his blade into the terrifying thing that is sucking all our magic from us.
An inhumane wail rips through the air, and shrieks of pain tear from my lungs as my eardrums reverberate with the horrific sound of the Myrkr’s cry. Around us, the crows take to the sky, cawing as they flee, the cacophony slowly fading into the forest.
Behind Kyor, Stide raises her spear to take out the Rotting, but she doesn’t see that Kyor’s turning for it too. With both hands on the weapon, she thrusts forward with all her might, aiming at the creature’s neck. The spear severs the putrid flesh, but it doesn’t stop. It keeps going.
Straight into Kyor.