The ghouls marched at almost a uniform jog, with hundreds of feet lifting and slamming into the ground in perfect rhythm. They approached with terrifying speed as the operations team carted out more tiles. A few men in dark coats and cloaks dropped their last sacks of tiles and drew weapons — as if they had any hope of stalling the oncoming force.
At least they’re not running, Peter thought in a fleeting moment of admiration. That was choked out quickly by a sinking stab of despair. He would be hacked to pieces for days. He wasn’t ready for this!
He twitched.
“Van Suer,” Director Stegeman hissed. “Get up front.”
Peter looked to Julian pleadingly, looking for some way out of his gruesome task, but the steward shook his head apologetically.
The beat of marching feet grew louder as the ghouls drew near.
“Peter,” Julian started. “I know it looks bad, but you can stop the line. Only so many can attack at a time, and you only need to stall them. They’re all coming down one street.”
Julian’s words did little to dispel Peter's sinking confidence in his motivation to perform his duty.
The ghoul force was only four streets away.
Director Stegeman turned on the men with weapons drawn. He barked orders at them to go back and clear the vault.
They hesitated to holster their weapons before returning to their job. The futile sense of protection their weapons offered probably did more to instill confidence in them than the court Band did for Peter.
“Maybe we should run with what we have?” Peter tried.
“That won’t work,” Director Stegeman repeated, his tone insistent. “Our plan required us to drain Rahashel dry. Only then will he be grounded without an army.”
“Speaking of an army, it’s almost here!”
The ghouls thundered as they marched up to Elm Way. Peter forced himself to stand still. The Director and Julian allowed him to take the lead.
Peter twitched twice.
The power of a court? It's more like the power of a meat shield.
Peter could see the black eyes of the front line clearly as they lowered a line of glistening spears.
Please, anything but this. Peter panicked.
The ghouls stopped.
The silence of their wordless halt was almost more defining than Peter’s pounding heart.
“Uh, what?” Director Stegeman said.
The ghouls didn’t advance; they just watched. Peter counted ten wide and ten deep—at least three blocks of one hundred.
Behind the spearhead team, the wagon was almost full of dark bags. Fire spread from the flaming barricades onto the buildings along the narrow road. Peter felt the fire’s warmth on his face. Each second of silence felt like an angelic hand that stayed his torture.
“Something’s wrong,” Julian growled. “I don’t know an overseer who can command so many ghouls.”
The ghouls turned to face either side and broke ranks as they ran down intersecting streets. They charged away, compelled by some unheard command. Hill View was empty in moments; if not for the sound of dry feet hitting the ground, there would have been no way of telling the street had ever been occupied.
Those who watched gripped their weapons tighter.
“Am I the only one who finds the empty street more unsettling?” Julian asked, bemused.
“I don’t,” Peter said, greatly relieved as the expectations placed on him ran away.
“If they fought us, that would make sense,” Julian said. “This doesn’t make sense. They’re probably cutting off our escape. We’re not in control here. We need to go now!”
“Well, it’s much too late for that now, don’t you think?” A high, raspy voice cracked from the roof of the estate.
They looked up to find a man with a falcon head looking down on them. He stood on the roof holding a peaked steeple for support. His bare chest was exposed to the damp air. He wore only a long skirt-like loincloth around his waist.
He shifted, and the steeple Peter thought he held turned out to be a spear. He stepped off the roof and dropped the full five or six stories, landing before them with a wet crack as his weight shattered several cobblestones and threw several more out of place. The falcon-headed elder lich stood up as casually as one would after getting out of a chair.
“These crop runaways and native defiers are getting gutsy, don’t you think?” a scholarly voice said.
A man with a ram’s head stood on the roof of the building across the street from the estate. He held a smoking clay pipe in his hand and wore a robe that covered most of his body.
A woman with a cat head stepped beside the ram-headed man on the roof, her hips swaying with each step. Her white gown, more a suggestion of fabric than a garment, hung dangerously from her figure, exposing a wealth of bare skin to the cold. Her gaze considered the scurrying mice on the road beneath her in a way more feline than human.
“Hmm,” she agreed with a sultry voice. “They are.”
“Bastet, will you help Horus dispose of these thieves?” The ram-headed man asked the cat lady. His tone was polite. He could have been inviting them to tea. In response, the cat-headed woman leaped from the roof and landed gracefully in the center of the road beside the falcon-headed man.
A man with a bull's head walked out from a side street. Each of his heavy feet made a distinct thud on the cobbles. The brawny, bull-headed man fell into step in front of Peter and stood beside the falcon-headed man.
Julian cursed.
“What?” Peter asked.
“General Montu. He’s back from Calacray.”
Finally, Sobek stepped in. The crocodile-headed elder lich stood beside the three on the ground, carrying a club that looked like a gold ball the size of Peter’s head, mounted on a stick.
Peter looked frantically for the jackal head, but Anubis — the one that killed his mother — wasn’t there.
Peter took a step back. Four elder liches blocked the road, and one was on the roof above. Somehow, they were more frightening than the horde of ghouls that fled the street.
“I think I’ll take over for this one, Peter,” Julian said.
Peter gratefully stepped aside, relinquishing point over to the steward.
“Let me see if I got this right,” Julian started. “Horus,” he said, pointing to the falcon-headed man and their apparent leader. “General Montu.” He pointed to the bull-headed man. “Sobek.” He pointed to Crocodile Head. “The harlot, Bastet.” He didn’t look directly at the scantily clad cat-woman. “And you …” He turned to the ram-headed elder lich still on the roof. “Must be Khnum.”
Khnum nodded in affirmation with a salute-like flourish of his pipe.
“Aren't you going to join us?”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline,” Khnum said. “This will be messy, and I’ve already bathed today.”
The words were funny coming from a ram’s lips, but Peter was in no mood to laugh.
“So this one knows us?” Bastet purred as she took a step forward; she had an alluring and feminine grace to her step. Her dress went to her ankles, but a slit up the silky fabric exposed an obscene amount of hip. As distracting as that would have been, Peter’s eyes were drawn to the gleaming sharp hand sickles belted over her skirt.
“I think I like him. Can I keep him, Horus?” she asked Falcon Head. She sounded like a child begging her father for candy. “Please?”
Horus laughed with a surprisingly high and raspy voice. “We’ll have to see,” he said. We’re not here for him; we're here for the crop who stole Rasminfrey’s Court band.” He pointed at Peter, and Peter just about wet himself.
“You’re not here to recover your tiles?” Peter asked desperately, trying to take the attention off of himself.
“The ghouls will handle the natives,” Horus said. “I’ll handle you, courtling. Besides, what makes you think that any of you are getting out of here alive?”
“You should worry a lot less about the kid and worry a lot more about me,” Julian said, drawing himself to full height.
“Who are you?” Horus asked in a mocking tone. “Their greatest warrior?”
“No,” Julian said. I’m the steward and Emissary of Nyamar, the true master of these worlds.”
All of the elder liches smiled at each other as if sharing an inside joke. They looked amused more than anything.
Montu, the thick bull-headed man, drew a strange sword straight on the bottom half and curved out on the top half. “Court Rahashel is the all-powerful, new god of these worlds, priest!” He snorted in a deep voice. “Kneel and renounce the imposter you worship; align your zeal with Court Rahashel, and we’ll let you serve him.”
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“I didn’t finish!” Julian snapped back. “I’m also the new steward of this estate —” Julian thrust an open hand to the side, and a spear that lay by a spent ghoul leaped from the ground and flew into his hand almost faster than Peter could follow, “— and you’ve unlawfully occupied the master’s house.”
“What?” Horus hissed as he leveled his spear threateningly, alarmed even. “That’s not Tijd interfacing! How did you do it?”
“Why don’t you try and take me apart to find out?” Julian taunted. “Domestics! To me!”
Julian’s three valets and two maids strode from the group of Nine Fingers and got on line with their steward. They wore black clothes, white aprons, and black gloves.
“I want the priest and the court alive!” Horus snapped suddenly. “Kill the rest!”
The four grounded elder liches rushed Julian in one coordinated strike. With inhuman speed and grace, their weapons danced forward — but the next moment, Julian was out of their range in a blur beside Peter. His eyes burned with fierce green light.
“Honor your stewardship!” he cried.
The elder liches looked at him in stunned silence.
Long-faced and suspicious, Hunter Maid Esmee was first to aid Julian. The pulsist clasped her black-gloved hands together, cupping them. Esmee grimaced with exertion as if she contained a growing pressure in her hands. She glared at Horus and opened one of her hands, making an opening in her seal. A bolt of clear green light darted from her clasped hands and struck Horus in the neck.
Horus was thrown back, and his blood sprayed the other liches. The bird-man tumbled across the cobblestone before coming to a stop.
“How do they do it?” Bastet shrieked.
“Run!” Julian cried to Nine Fingers, and in a lower voice, he added. “We don’t have much left.”
Horus’ head snapped back into place, purple smoke billowed from the wound, but his skin looked fine as the smoke whiffed off. He pulled himself to his feet, looking stunned but unhurt.
“Get the priests!” He cried again. “Khnum, the natives!”
A volley of rifle gas hissed from the support team, and bullets smacked into the elder liches.
They flinched and shook under the volley but righted themselves as purple smoke seemed to cleanse their wounds.
Peter ran back as Director Stegeman fired a shot at the liches.
“Wagon’s loaded; let's go!” he barked, and soldiers scrambled away from the liches, spurring the cart to action.
“Well, isn’t this disappointing?” the ram-headed lich chided from above. “Why haven't you restored your age, young Court? Or come with your ghouls or even take control of the remainder of Court Rasminfrey’s armies?”
Peter realized the elder lich was talking to him.
“At the very least, I would have expected you to kill, if not turn, the ghouls that you drain. Could it be that you haven’t synched with the Bedorven?”
“What are you talking about?” Peter demanded. This lich was much less frightening than the ones who engaged Julian. “They are dead —” Peter gasped as a terrible realization struck.
“Stab them in the heart!” he screamed at the Nine Fingers men, who were busy running. He saw a familiar face.
“Captain Visser!” he shouted, and the captain turned to him.
“They’re not dead!” Peter cried, pointing to the ghouls on the ground. “They’re sleeping!”
Tobias' eyes widened, and he cursed. He shot the nearest of the motionless ghouls in the chest with a pistol.
“It’s not exactly that they’re sleeping,” Khnum said in a calm and measured tone that Peter would have expected to hear from one of his school teachers. “It’s more like they’re empty. How did you not know that? You wear the Bedorven, right? This should be instinct.”
Peter grabbed a ghoul’s short sword and stabbed an empty ghoul in the chest several times.
“Leave it!” the captain cried. “Just run!”
“What about the domestics?”
Tobias looked. “I think they can take care of themselves.”
Peter looked towards Julian’s party. Julian and the slammist Hendrik fought in front, their eyes burning with green fire. They fought with strength on par with the liches, utilizing martial techniques unique to and guarded by the House. That must have meant Julian was a slammist as well. A slammist could very well rip through a human body with their hands, but the liches appeared comparably mighty.
Sobek landed a blow on Hendrik's head with his golden club. The club made contact and deflected off the domestic, but the glow drastically dimmed in his eyes.
Esmee's brother, the mover Albert, slipped up behind Hendricks and seemingly manipulated some impermeable force in his hands like an invisible slippery serpent. He built up whatever charge he was amassing and slammed both hands into Hendrik's back.
The slammist's eyes ignited with intensity, and Hendricks laughed in casual, good humor as he lunged at General Montu, spearing him through the shoulder with an open knife hand. The bull-headed lich bellowed and reacted, but Peter noticed Albert slink back pale-faced and shaken from whatever price he paid to supercharge the slammist.
Esmee continued to shoot thin beams of clear, rippling light from behind them, but each one came out noticeably weaker than the last.
Horus pointed, and a fiery bolt of purple lightning struck Julian. Julian staggered, then looked back at Horus. He seemed largely unaffected, but the light in his eyes had dimmed.
The surfer Gerard was locked in a deadly dance with Bastet. She swung her sickles, and the sullen domestic expertly skirted the attack without an opening to retaliate. Gerard's unnatural movement made Peter think of trying to get a piece of shell out of an egg yolk. The harder the cat-lich tried to shred him, the more easily he avoided her.
Basted overlooked Maid Ava, the clampist. Ava executed an aerial spin beside the lich. Four handless blades whipped around the clampist's body as if swung on spring-loaded tethers, and each one ripped through the lich like teeth on a spinning saw blade.
Elder liches shook off their wounds with puffs of smoke, and ghastly purple leech hands reached for Julian in return, only to be stopped by ripples of luminescent green glyphs flickering in the air.
Green and purple lights lit up the estate as Peter looked away. To his untrained eyes, it was a stalemate. Until Montu bucked Hendrik with his horns, and the slammist flew across the plaza and struck the estate steps. The hunter valet stumbled to his feet dazed, his arm hanging at a nauseating angle. With his eyes no longer radiant, Hendrik's smile was gone.
Peter expected the valet to run, but his eyes hardened, and he sprinted back to the fight, no more than a broken mortal man.
Peter nodded in respect and did the opposite by running behind the retreating group of men. He told himself it was because he was ordered to, but his relief at the command assured him he was nothing like the domestics.
“Not so fast.” Khnum pulled a small round clay jar from his belt. The lich lobbed it down at the fleeing party, and purple glyphs on the side lit up. The jar flew on its own accord in front of the wagon and shattered on the road. A line of purple fire snaked across and blocked off South Hill's view.
The men cried out as they were blocked off.
“Get to Horse Lane!” Director Stegeman barked at the captains. “Contingency plan. And somebody, shoot him down!” He pointed up at Khnum.
Khnum pulled another jar from his belt and dropped it onto the road below. It shattered, and bright purple light hissed and moaned as it siphoned back into prostrate ghouls that Peter had leeched. They started to twitch and rise.
“Get to their hearts!” Peter cried as he managed to stab one in the heart through the back as it tried to climb to its feet. It slumped, and dark purple smoke bellowed off of it.
Captain Tobias quickly responded, dropping a pair of ghouls with pistols before they could reorient themselves. Everyone else jumped away and shot at them blindly with guns and crossbows.
“Protect the tiles!” Director Stegeman hollered as he jumped on the wagon and shot at a ghoul.
The ghouls were all up. At least forty of them. They outnumbered the Nine Fingers operations team by a few.
“Hold them off!”
The heavily armored ghouls from before came pouring over the burning barricades that blocked the roads on all sides. The fire of the carts ignited their wrappings, but they continued, on fire and undeterred.
Great. Whose genius idea was it to set the barricades on fire? Now Peter was going to get stabbed and burned.
Five men went down in a skirmish where the ghouls clashed with Nine Fingers. Five men, because Peter was too slow.
Peter screamed and charged the front. “Make way or be leeched!” he cried, trying to ignore the dead men at his feet. He swung at a ghoul with the short sword he had taken from a fallen ghoul, and their blades clashed. He was close enough that his leech radius connected with at least three ghouls.
He blocked frantically as they all struck at him. He blocked some and missed most, but they dropped. Peter’s adrenaline masked several wounds that just ended up disappearing anyway.
More ghouls filed into their place. “I already killed you!” Peter snapped as he slashed one across the throat. Bandages split open as his blade cut into the tar. It didn’t do anything, of course, but it felt good. It was almost worth the cut across all four of his fingers as he tried to block its return strike.
Two more dropped, and he grabbed another short sword. Men fought and fell in line but at a distance from him.
Peter parried a short sword, but successfully this time. He learned his lesson about blocking too low. He slashed and cut, but his edge alignment was off, scoring only superficial scratches.
A ghoul dropped, depleted.
Peter took a moment to flip a blade, catch it point down, and stab the fallen one through the chest. He leaped and ran another one through but missed the heart.
It spun on him without hesitation and cut deep into Peter’s shoulder.
Peter took his opening and killed it before the leech did the job for him. Dark smoke whiffed off of the ghoul.
Peter laughed painfully despite himself. These ghouls fought like he did, with no sense of self-preservation.
Men screamed, weapons clashed, guns hissed, and the sound of the time vapors wailed a song of ethereal cries like damned souls pleading for recourse as they siphoned into Peter.
Two ghouls dropped under Nine Fingers gun gas, but the slayers were dropping quickly.
“Van Seur!” Stegeman hollered over the din of war. “Get out! Don’t let them get the band! Everyone cut your way through!”
The line caved. Peter slashed a ghoul across the forearm, then spun to join them. A spear pierced his back, but the ghoul holding it drained and fell.
Peter ran in retreat but accidentally started to leech some injured men as he caught up to Nine Fingers. Sticking with them would do more harm than good.
Peter veered off into a building that was once an apartment complex, and many ghouls followed.
Peter ran up splintered stairs and passed apartments, then slammed a door at the top of the stairs behind him. Moments later, something heavy slammed into it, to Peter’s dismay. The leech lights didn’t flare. He had hoped to leech his pursuers from behind cover.
He slid the bolt and ran for the window on the far side of a hallway. Sprinting at full speed, he screamed and threw himself through it. He plummeted headfirst out onto a side street. He must have broken his back when he hit the ground because he couldn’t move for a few moments.
Above, ghouls climbed out of the window. Peter grabbed his blade and ran.
Ghouls hit the ground with crunches and thuds and started right after him.
Peter felt pain, but the ghouls didn’t mend.
Many ran on broken legs, but they sprinted relentlessly. Peter tried to lose them, but five who seemed to land well kept up. Peter weaved through alleys and ducked between buildings, but the final five were relentless.
Distancing the horde, Peter turned to face them.
One hurled a spear, which impacted between his eyes, but the metal burned, and the spear dropped. Peter’s fatigue disappeared as he reset.
He charged the remaining five with his short sword. He dodged an attack and pinned the ghoul's sword arm to its body. Abandoning the sword stuck in the ghoul, he wretched its blade from its hands as it collapsed. He screamed in fury as he turned on the next one, and they stabbed each other through the heart at the same time.
The blade inside him burned away as he died. He wrenched his short sword out and spun on the remaining three. One of them dropped as the leech shield drained it.
No, he didn’t want to leech them. He wanted to kill the things as they stood, not when they were empty on the ground.
Peter screamed and forced his blade into a ghoul’s chest and danced away. He missed its heart. He jumped in to try again, but his leech finished it.
No! He wanted to do it himself! He screamed and plowed into the last one, knocking it on its back. He bellowed as he drove the blade into its heart. Purple smoke whiffed off the lifeless ghoul as its remaining internal time burned off.
Gasping, Peter stood. He ran the ghouls he leeched through the chest several times. He wasn’t precisely sure where the heart was, and he wanted to make sure these ones never came back. After regarding his handiwork with a surprisingly lucid sense of grim satisfaction, he stripped a belt off of one of the ghouls and buckled a pair of short swords onto his hip. Finally claiming an undamaged spear, he felt much less naked than being armed only with a bracelet.
Peter spat on a ghoul’s face, then crushed its dry head under his boot.
That was my countryman. Peter froze and considered the violence of his actions. What was he becoming? He was a seventeen-year-old school kid, not a homicidal old man who desecrated corpses. He shuddered, his hands cold and sticky from blood.
Peter turned down the hauntingly empty streets of his old home, spear in hand, and walked to the nearest maintenance hole. After prying it open, he slipped into his old sanctuary and the darkness of the sewer. Peter slipped away, but it was somehow different. He wasn’t a crop anymore, drifting in the privacy of the sewers.
Like Van Gutter before him, he entered the sewer as a Nine Fingers agent on the run.