The Road to Death

6

Another howl pierced the Mournland night, closer this time, but this one came from ahead, not behind. Kandler bent low over the neck of his mount and spurred it on harder. Now that he knew what to look for, he spotted a glow limning the edge of a rooftop ahead on the left. Peering into the darkness below, he saw other glowing shapes moving across the roofs of the city.

Some sprinted like men. Others ran on all fours, more like wolves. One thing was clear, though. They were working together, speaking to each other somehow through their horrendous wails. Like a pack of hunting dogs, they quickly converged on their prey: the five riders on three horses, stampeding toward the shore of the Cyre River below.

“Can’t make it!” Burch shouted as he bounced along atop his horse. “River’s too far!”

As the only mount with a single rider, his beast champed at its bit, ready to charge into the lead. The shifter kept a tight hold on its reins with one hand, hauling the horse in behind the others. With his free hand, he reached for the crossbow strapped across his back.

Kandler knew the shifter was right. The ghostbeasts would catch them long before they reached safety. A roar right behind him told him that.

The justicar slung his blade from its scabbard. It was notched in three spots from his battle with Bastard, but he knew its edge could still bite. He’d had to pull it from where it was wedged into the floor of the arena in Construct, stabbed through one of the warforged leader’s arms.

He’d been the lucky one. Sallah’s sacred blade, a sword that burned with the power of the Silver Flame on command, had been destroyed in that same battle. She still carried a short knife with her, but it was a poor substitute.

Brendis had offered his sword to Sallah as a replacement, but she’d declined. “It was my blade,” she said. “I used it well, and I cannot take yours in its stead.”

“You used it to save my life,” Brendis pointed out.

Sallah had been unmoved.

Now, though, as Kandler glanced back at the woman urging her steed forward with all her might, he saw that she felt the lack of the blade. Brendis, thankfully, already had drawn his own sword. Silver flames crawled along the length of the blade like a living thing, hungry for righteous battle.

Kandler looked up past the young knight and saw that his sword was about to have its chance. Before he could shout a warning, the nearest ghostbeast leaped from the rooftop straight at Brendis’s back.

The young knight slashed out at the creature, his sword cutting a blinding arc through the dusk and slicing across the predator’s chest. Glowing blood splattered in a trail after the tip of the blade, and the ghostbeast unleashed a sound that made Kandler want to plug his ears.

The creature lashed out with its glowing claws, seeking a way to get past not only Brendis’s flashing blade but his gleaming armor too. Kandler knew that it was only a matter of time before it succeeded. Perched atop the back of the terrified horse, it was too close for the knight to strike at it again.

A wire twanged from behind the ghostbeast, and the creature tumbled off Brendis’s back. Burch’s mount trampled the monster beneath its hooves as the shifter slammed another bolt home into his crossbow. His wide, toothy smile stood out starkly in the dimness.

“I’m all right!” Brendis announced as he turned to face forward, glowing fluid splashed across his face and arm.

Kandler wanted to be relieved, but he knew that this was just the first attack of many to come if they didn’t get to safety soon. He scanned the road ahead, looking for some sort of shelter, someplace they could hide both themselves and preferably their mounts.

Dozens of open doors and windows gaped at him like welcoming mouths, beckoning him to dare their dark embraces. Any of them might have been the right place to go, to hole up until the ghostbeasts lost interest or the sun lightened the overcast sky again. They might just be openings into dead ends, indefensible spaces that could only serve as open graves.

Then Kandler spotted something off in the distance. At first he thought it might be another of the ghostbeasts glowing in the darkness, but the hue of the faint light spilling from the top of the Prime Pillar burned with a warmth he suspected the ghostbeasts would never know.

“There!” he shouted to the others, stabbing a finger at the rapidly approaching Pillar. “There’s someone there!”

“It could be a trap!” Burch said, his eyes searching the rooftops for another attacker, another target.

“If it gets us away from these things,” Brendis said, “that’s one trap I’ll leap right into.”

As the riders galloped closer and closer to the Pillar, Kandler realized that the light he’d seen must have been a signal of some sort, but to whom and from whom he could not tell. He just hoped they could reach the Great Circle, the open plaza that surrounded the Pillar, before the ghostbeasts could catch them.

A pair of the glowing creatures emerged from across the street ahead of the riders. They crouched low, ready to spring at the riders. A pair of wails that set up a disturbing harmony echoed in Kandler’s ears, and he felt Xalt cling to his waist tighter.

A bolt from behind Kandler sailed wide over the head of the creature on the right, and he heard Burch curse. The shifter wasn’t used to loosing his crossbow from horseback, and the constant jolting had spoiled his aim. Still, Kandler thought he might be able to take advantage of the effort, missed or not.

The errant bolt caused the ghostbeast on the right to dodge closer to the other, just where Kandler wanted them. He drove his horse straight at the creature on the left and swung his sword down at the other as it steeled itself for an attack at him as he passed.

Kandler felt one monster go down beneath his mount’s hooves as he drove the point of his sword forward like a lance, using the horse’s momentum to impale the ghostbeast on its tip. The dying creature slid forward along the length of the blade that ran it through until it smashed into the sword’s hilt, nearly tearing it from Kandler’s grasp. The thing was close enough that the justicar could smell its breath, like steel hot from the forge.

The ghostbeast hung there for a moment, clutching at its wound before trying to claw Kandler’s eyes out. The justicar let the tip of his blade fall toward the ground, and the monster slid off the sword with a gut-wrenching wail that lasted until Sallah’s steed trampled it into the pavement.

More howls reverberated throughout the city. Kandler felt like the sound alone might cause him to fall to his knees were he not clinging to the top of a horse spooked even worse by the songs of that unholy chorus. Instead, he just held on to the horse with one hand and to his sword with the other as they careened toward the Great Circle.

Kandler started to breathe easier as they raced closer to their goal. The legendary plaza opened slowly before them as they sprinted recklessly toward it. The light in the top of the tower grew brighter, and Kandler imagined that he heard the shouts of men over the thunder of the riders’ hooves. He didn’t know to whom they belonged, but they had to be better to deal with than the howling ghostbeasts.

Just before the riders reached the Great Circle, the road opened up into a small square that let out into the main plaza. As Kandler’s steed crossed into that space, something slammed into him and his mount, knocking him and Xalt from their saddle.

Kandler tucked himself into a ball around his sword as he hit the ground and rolled to a painful stop against an abandoned shop. As he scrambled to his feet, his sword out in front of him, ready to taste whatever the ghostbeasts used for blood, he saw that Sallah and Burch had reined their horses in and turned around to come back for Xalt and him.

“Keep moving!” he roared at them.

As he spoke, he turned to see the ghostbeast that attacked him tear open his horse’s throat, the hapless beast’s blood fountaining everywhere, blotting out the monster’s glowing form with blackness where it splashed against it.

“I think we’re in trouble,” Xalt said from behind the justicar.