Chapter 77 A Fight for Life
As the others took on the skeletons and zombies, I was focused on Devastey. If I could stop her, we’d still have to fight Zaran, but he wouldn’t be able to wake her and join their powers.
I reached back and smoothly fitted my bow with one of the silver arrows that the Glass Unicorn had given me.
I aimed for Zaran and, following him as he ran, let the arrow fly.
It hit his shoulder, and he let out a shriek.
Jumping off the kiosk, I raced toward him, trying to dodge his undead retinue.
The zombies and skeletons were spread out, but so were we.
Zaran was heading toward Devastey’s coffin, but he wasn’t there yet, so we still had a chance.
To reach him, I’d have to fend my way through three zombies and three skeletons.
Brynn was nearest to me and she was fighting two skeletons.
Reggie was facing two zombies; Thornhold had engaged two skeletons and a zombie, and Ray was preparing a spell, even as he was trying to fend off a zombie and a skeleton.
I took a deep breath and put on the speed. As an elf, I was light on my feet and zombies were slow, but the skeletons were another matter. They were surprisingly quick, and they weren’t easy to hurt unless you hit their joints and managed to break them.
Zaran glanced at me as he raced towards Devastey’s resting place. I brought another arrow forward as I ran, nocking it firmly. Then, pausing, I let it fly. This time it hit him in the thigh, and he tripped, falling. The silver was obviously affecting him by the scream he let out.
Two of the zombies were directly in front of me, with two skeletons on my tail now.
I let my body-intuition take over and dove between the zombies, coming out of the roll directly in front of a skeleton.
It swung at me with its sword, clipping me on the arm.
I launched myself onto it, knocking it down as we both fell.
I grabbed for the skull, twisting it as hard as I could so that it broke off the neck.
Tossing the still-chattering skull to the side, I grabbed one of the arms at the shoulder and broke that, too.
As I extricated myself and leaped to my feet again, I tossed the arm on the ground and raced beyond it.
I was on a collision course with Zaran—he was coming from my left and we’d meet in a few seconds.
Behind me, I heard Ray chanting, and the next moment, the sound of breaking bones crashed all around as he took out the skeletons.
He must have leveled up over the past couple of weeks, because instead of just turning the boney creatures, they shattered and fell to the ground.
Now we just had the zombies to deal with, and they were slower. More dangerous, yes, but slower.
At that moment, I found myself facing Zaran. He narrowed his gaze and reached toward me. His hand was glowing with a faint violet light and—instinctively—I knew that if he touched me, it would be curtains, lights out for me. That was death magic—I could feel it in my gut.
Without thinking, I dove to the side, rolling out of his reach. As I came up, I knew what I had to do. The others were fighting the zombies to give me a chance.
I headed toward Devastey’s coffin at a pace I didn’t know I was capable of. Zaran had paused, and he had the same look Ray had when he was preparing a spell. I had to reach her body before he cast whatever he was going to cast.
Another minute and I reached the glass enclosure. It was a coffin, yes, but it was made of crystal, and it was open. Devastey was a beautiful woman, but even in her sleep, I could feel the malevolence oozing off her. She was evil—it crept around her like a shroud.
As I neared her body, it hit me—I had to destroy her, yes, but that was just a fancy way of saying I was going to kill an unarmed, sleeping woman.
Again, I pushed my thoughts away and listened to my body.
My instincts were to get away from this pair as far and as fast as I could because together, they were an unstoppable killing machine.
I grabbed my silver sword—silver seemed to be the name of the game when it came to fighting necromancers—and, steeling myself, I brought it down on Devastey’s chest, point first.
As it pierced her body, instead of blood pouring out, a thick black smoke spewed into the air. I gasped—she wasn’t human.
“No!” Zaran broke his own spell as he screamed at me. “Devastey!”
I pushed harder, driving the sword through her heart. The smoke coming from her body swirled into a vortex over the coffin and then—with one long shriek—vanished. The body inside the coffin began to disintegrate into a fine ash.
I whirled to see Zaran headed toward me, his eyes glazed over, and he reached toward me, his hands glowing with a dread light.
I knew better than to let him touch me, and I darted to the side, glancing at the others.
While Brynn, Ray, and Thornhold were still taking care of the zombies, Ray was on the run toward me.
He shouted something, and Zaran staggered as if punched in the gut.
He turned to see Ray and waved one hand.
Ray tripped and sprawled on his face. I brought up another silver arrow and aimed it directly at Zaran’s heart.
He must have heard my movements because he turned to me again and, with one look at the arrow I had trained on him, he shouted another incantation.
A pillar of smoke consumed him, and the next moment, as it cleared, he was nowhere to be seen. I let loose the arrow, just on the off chance he was still there but invisible, but it landed on the ground a ways beyond where he’d been standing.
Zaran was nowhere to be seen.
Ray struggled to his feet as I ran toward him. He’d been burned by some sort of flame—he was blistering all along his face and his robe looked charred. As I reached his side, he fainted at my feet.
“Ray’s hurt!” I shouted.
Thornhold and Brynn were finishing off the last three zombies, but Reggie hurried over to my side. He knelt beside Ray.
“He needs medical attention,” he said.
“We have to get out of here,” I said. “I have no idea what the Summer Queen will feel if she finds out I killed her sister—and I don’t even know if I did.
I mean, the body’s gone, but something came out of it and went shrieking off.
And we don’t know if Zaran’s going to come back with reinforcements. ”
At that moment, Otsiano and the Glass Unicorn reappeared. “Come, we can help you now that you’ve finished the task,” Otsiano said. He picked up Ray as if the cleric were a light blanket and carried him over to the key portal. “Join hands around me, and Erenye, put your hand on Master Ashelainn.”
We obeyed without question. By now we knew who we could trust, and when a god tells you to move, you move.
As we stood in a tight circle, Otsiano whispered something, and the next moment, we were back in his kingdom, in the Crystal Forest.