Crusader

Chapter 37

Cyrus followed her only a moment later, after a pause and a curse, and he yanked Windrider’s reins to lead the horse through the portal. He felt the air distort as he stepped through, the world seeming to upend and twist around him, light blinding him, until his feet settled on solid ground and he bumped into something ahead of him, and realized it was Aisling.

“Why does this look so familiar?” she asked, and Cyrus looked around the room they stood in.

It was a massive chamber that drew off into the distance, a room longer than it was wide, with torches burning in sconces on all the walls. Cyrus could smell something, a faint dustiness, and display cases lined every wall, while others sat in the middle of the floor. A tingle ran through Cyrus as he stepped forward, pushing Aisling behind him. “Because we’ve been here before.” He looked around again, saw the balcony in the distance with the stairs leading up to either side of it, and felt a shudder. “This is Mortus’s treasure room.” He took a step forward and laid his hand on one of the pedestals. “We’re in the Realm of Death.”

“Nice to see they left the lamps on for us,” Aisling said as she stepped up to join him. “But wasn’t this place filled with howling death when last we were here? Spirits of the damned, loosed upon the demise of their master?”

“Yes, that’s true-” Cyrus said, and stopped. There was a faint rattle, something clicking slowly against something else, as the torchlight flickered around them as though stirred by a wind he couldn’t feel.

“What?” Aisling asked, then froze at attention, listening. “Oh, gods.”

The rattle got louder, and a howling torrent of fury burst through the door at the top of the balcony. Souls, the damned, the trapped remnants of the God of Death’s collection filled the air around them, a tornado of spirits, circling lower and lower.

“Time to move,” Cyrus said, scooping up Aisling in one arm and pulling her back to the portal. Windrider was already turned and galloping through. Cyrus followed, letting the world distort around him as he stepped inside, and a moment later found himself back in the cave, in the circular chamber, and it was still empty. “That was lovely. If you ever leave me to jump into idiocy like that again, I’ll let you die.”

“You should really save that kind of sweet nothing for pillow talk, darling.” Aisling’s ears perked up and she turned, backing away from the portal as flickers of light flashed from within it. “Can those things follow us here?”

“I daresay we’re about to find out.”

“Oh,” she said sarcastically, “is that what you think?”

They backed away from the portal as shapes started to coalesce in the light, black shadows, and something began to emerge. A horrific screeching preceded it, as though something had taken to tormenting an animal and refused to let it go. The first shape came through the portal and a shock of horror ran through Cyrus from top to bottom; claws and a four-legged appearance became obvious first, then the rounded head and vicious teeth, followed by the black, glassy eyes that had no feeling behind them. It skittered out, one of the scourge, followed immediately by more.

“That’s-” Aisling said, her voice jerking to get the words out, “-the souls of the damned, from the Realm of Death, they turned into-is that-how is that possible?”

“They’re taking physical form.” Cyrus’s voice was a low growl, and it came from a part of his throat that wanted to scream, something he never did. “They can’t come through as spirits, so they’re taking form, and …” He turned, and saw others coming through the big entrance. “We’ll never make it out through the narrow passage.” He tightened his grip on Praelior. “Charge the big tunnel-NOW!” His last word came as a shout and he ran, sword swinging as he did so, his blade striking out as his legs pumped, chewing up the ground between him and the opening that seemed to lead out of the cavern.

The first of the scourge looked as though it was slithering toward him. He struck with his sword before it had time to react. More followed, countless, and he struck at them, too, using the speed Praelior granted him to stay a step ahead, clearing the tunnel, which although larger than the narrow passage, was only a few feet wide. They came at him a few at a time, but he moved on, driven, emotion bubbling over as he swung his sword. Daylight was ahead, and he kept on toward it-

They broke out into the sunlight and Cyrus’s eyes fought to adjust to the brightness. The sky was clouded over, but still somewhere above the sun shone, behind a cloud, and he tried not to blink from it as he sliced through three more scourge. He could smell rotting flesh, it filled his nose and the still air around him, even as the cold and the snow were obvious, the ground covered with white for miles all around. He looked down from the abutment he was on, a craggy trail of rocks, and below was a path leading to a village, teeming with the scourge, thousands of them, making the thirty or so he had cut through in the flight from the cavern look like a miniscule number by comparison.

“Come on!” he heard Aisling shout, and he turned after striking a few more down to see her already on Windrider’s back. The horse lunged forward and Cyrus jumped, catching a foot in a stirrup as Windrider passed and jerking himself onto the horse through sheer rote practice. They galloped down the hill and through the center of the town as the streets began to fill with the monsters, streaming out of buildings. As they rode by an open door, Cyrus could see bodies inside, a cloth dress that had been dull grey, stained now with blood and horror.

Windrider did not spare the speed as he ran, carrying them along the path out of town, galloping along a snowy road toward the pass they had come through only the day before. They did not meet any resistance, and the horse kept up the speed for as long as possible, until they were beyond the valley and into the pass, leaving behind everything that they had seen save for the horror which they carried with them in their minds.