Peter almost lashed out more than once, but as his body considered tensing, he knew Morris could sense it. Morris held his gun to Peter’s head, but Peter figured Morris would shoot him last if he didn’t act because he was unarmed. Peter concluded that his best chance was to throw Morris’ shot off course if and when he sought a more dangerous target.

A roar of flames, in tandem with a thousand gasping voices, filled the air from outside, and everyone spun at the ready. That noise was the court sound, normally associated with leeching, but there wasn’t anyone who could leech, right?

“They’re here!” Skye cried as he pushed into the ruins, shoving Iris before him. Owen showed up momentarily, apparently deciding it wasn’t in his best interest to shoot Skye. The operations officer’s tourniquet was gone, replaced with a clean dressing.

“What’s going on?” Morris demanded.

“A lich — the jackal? — he followed us somehow! They’re surrounding us!”

The King’s Cell faced the Final Cell, faces twisted in confusion as they processed the new events. Neither party seemed to think that shooting the other was in their best interest any longer.

“The band and the tiles are the least of our problems!” Captain Visser barked, “Let the hostages go. We’re going to have to blast our way out of here.”

Morris cursed and pushed one of Peter’s guns into his hands. He saw the sense in their crisis; he fought for money, but that money would be useless if he died.

“How many?” the captain asked in a forcefully calm voice.

Everyone turned, forming an outfacing circle. The ruins had several layers and were deep.

“About thirty,” Skye said.

“They’re heavily armored,” Owen added. “Potentially enhanced.”

“All right, I want everyone to the edge of the ruins. Try to do as much damage with your gas arms as possible, and then we’ll fight west. With any luck, we can escape to Macbare.”

“What about the tiles?” Doctor Aarts asked.

“Leave them. Anubis won’t find them; we’ll return for them later. Now move!”

Peter still had no idea where the team had hidden the tiles, but that was the least of his worries. He felt no confidence in how another encounter with Anubis would play out.

“Morris,” Peter said, “I had two guns.”

Morris nodded to Benedict, who produced his second weapon and gun-belts.

Taking the pistol, Peter turned just as Iris ran up to him.

“Peter, what’s happening? Why are you so old? Where am I?”

Peter held up a hand to stop her and handed her a pistol. “If we survive, I promise I’ll explain everything.”

She looked at the weapon in her hand wide-eyed.

“You know how to use it, right?” She was in the junior shooting club at their academy, but there was no way they shot Slagters.

In response, she hit the lever, cracked the barrel down to check the chamber, and then snapped it closed.

Peter smiled and handed her one of his ammunition cross-belts.

“Aim for the heart.” He said, but he had no comfort to lace into his voice.

Iris nodded without further question. That surprised Peter; in the past, she would ask questions and try to get every detail before doing anything. He saw the somber trust in her eyes and turned to the captain. He was giving the others some instructions in a low voice.

“Van Seur.” He said as he ran up to Peter. “I need you on the east side with Isabella and Van Den Hoek.”

Peter nodded.

Captain Visser nodded at Iris as he put a hand on each of their shoulders.

“If you are wounded or even killed, stay down,” he said with a dark glimmer in his eye.

“I’ll try not to run off if I die,” Peter agreed half sarcastically, but inside, he felt an unsettling chill.

“Fall back as needed and keep fighting to the end.”

“As we were meant to,” Peter promised.

The captain spun and headed to the northern end of the ruins. Peter and Iris ran to the east, Peter slowing to accommodate Iris' shuffle. They got to the outer wall with Isabella and Van Den Hoek, getting their first look at the enemy.

Peter saw eight ghouls fanned out, blocking their escape from this vector. The others would have them surrounded. The ghouls wore metal helmets with tall shields covering most of their bodies. They all held spears, leveled forward.

Peter instantly dismissed the ghouls as his eyes locked onto his enemy: Anubis, the lich who had taken his mother and used Iris against him, the one who stabbed him with the Druk and sent the old kings to murder the Nine Fingers.

Peter felt the burn of hatred against that beast.

Anubis saw him and laughed. “Van Seur, the Bedorven, the girl, the native who stole her, and the tiles! This must be my lucky catch!”

Peter felt grim satisfaction knowing Anubis wouldn’t get the band or the tiles from killing him, but he also knew there was no way out of this.

“You seem to have had little luck lately, Anubis,” Peter shouted back. “You failed to catch a crop, you failed to get the band, you failed to keep a hostage, and you failed to kill me. Don’t pretend like Rahashel needs you.”

“That’s Court Rahashel,” Anubis growled.

Behind them, they heard gun gas as those who had long-range weapons no doubt started their barrage.

“I’ll call him whatever I want, lich,” Peter barked. “And you’ll receive no quarter from us.”

Anubis laughed. “I’m going to kill your friends first, Van Seur, then I’ll finish with you. There will be no priest to save you this time!”

Anubis drew two hand sickles from his belt and clicked commands to his infantry; the ghouls rushed with a silent sprint.

Peter and his allies leveled their weapons as the ghouls marched in, closing the gap. Peter didn’t like the picture. The tall shields covered their hearts, almost as if they had been adapted to fight against Nine Fingers.

Van Den Hoek fired and clipped the top of a shield, throwing sparks and blowing off a piece of a ghoul’s head.

“Shoot their heads to impair their vision!” he barked as he started to reload.

The others fired. Peter’s slug slammed into the center of one’s shield, bending it horribly and knocking it off its feet. It was up in moments and undeterred.

Peter cursed as he fumbled with his reload. They were coming in fast.

Iris hit one in the shield with a similar result to Peter’s shot, and Isabella hit a metal shield with a bold from her crossbow.

“Fall back?” Peter asked as he snapped his barrel up and drew the seal breacher.

Van Den Hoek shot one in the exposed leg, the slug almost ripping it off completely, but the ghoul hopped on one leg at an aggressively terrifying pace. “Yeah!” He agreed.

Peter squeezed off a shot but didn’t see or hear a hit. He abandoned the rocky cover and pulled Iris after him. The ghouls’ tall shields favored the open ground. Hopefully, deeper in the ruins, they would get in their way and turn them around.

They ran through a broken doorway, and Isabella threw herself on the ground, back to the wall, while the others continued deeper. She readied a crossbow bolt from her hiding place. The ghouls sprang over the broken wall and ran after them through the doorway.

Iris fired, but her hand tightened before the shot went off. The shot went low and to the left, catching a shield on the bottom corner.

Isabella shot the last ghoul through the back as it passed her with her crossbow, and it dropped with a whiff of smoke drifting from its shoulders. The next ghoul in line turned on her. She dropped her crossbow and drew her falchion and a pistol. It stabbed at her, and she blocked and fired at point-blank range; it blew off a chunk of the ghoul’s shoulder, but quick as a viper, it stabbed again, running her through.

“Isabella!” Peter screamed.

She swung with her blade weakly, but the ghoul ignored it and ran her through again, dropping her to the ground.

Van Den Hoek pushed them through a doorway and planted himself just behind it so they could only come one at a time. The grim director drew his officer’s blade in preparation to make a stand.

“Feed me loaded guns!” he spat fiercely, the hatred on his face almost tangible.

Iris caught on and took his spent pistol out of his hand, putting hers in its place.

Two ghouls went shoulder to shoulder, pushing through the doorway. They were clumsy shoulder to shoulder in a confined space with such blocky shields.

Van Den Hoek moved expertly, holding off their attacks with his blade and reserving his gun for the offense. He fired but missed. Peter replaced his outstretched weapon with his own and loaded the new one.

Van Den Hoek put up a good fight. Blocking, firing, defending, firing. The two youths loaded and switched out Van Den Hoek’s empty weapons several times before fatigue set in.

He shot one in the heart, and it dropped; as it went down, a spear flew over its head and into Van Den Hoek’s neck. He gagged and staggered a step back, and two more spears went into him. This time, it was Iris who screamed her lament.

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Van Den Hoek’s body fell in a haze, and the spears dropped from him.

“Watch them die, Van Seur!” Anubis bellowed from behind the ghoul’s shoving in the front.

“Run!” Peter cried as he and Iris fled deeper into the ruins.

Undead pushed their way after them. They passed into a spacious chamber where the roof had caved in, illuminated by the pink light of the atmostorm climbing to its zenith.

Benedict also staggered into the room by another door, pursued by several ghouls. He stopped abruptly when he saw Peter and Iris. He turned to face the ghouls head-on.

Benedict fired off a pair of shots, reloading at a rapid speed. He dropped two of the ghouls chasing Peter and Iris, as their

[ Image: Ch 30.png ]

shields didn’t cover their hearts from his angle. He spun and leaped through a hole in the wall into the courtyard with the dummy wagon outside.

Peter pulled Iris after him as he followed. The drop was four feet, and when he landed, Peter cursed as he felt his leg wound open and a fresh spurt of warm blood soak through the bandage. He fell back as ghouls dropped down after them, spread in a semicircle. It was impossible to advance.

Nearby, Doctor Aarts’ body hit the cement as he was pushed off of a roof. Peter knew the doctor harbored no fondness for him, but it brought him no joy to see the doctor’s mangled body.

Behind them, Captain Visser and Van Dijk were pushed into the courtyard from the north.

“Van Seur!” the captain cried as he backed up until they were back to back with the wagon and surrounded.

“Where’s Isabella and Van Den Hoek?”

“Dead!” Peter gasped as he fired at an oncoming ghoul, knocking the shield off its arm. Looking closer, Peter realized the entire arm had come off. Iris followed up with her own shot to the chest and dropped it with a whiff of purple smoke from its shoulders. At least fifteen ghouls flooded the courtyard from all sides and made a circle of spears around them.

“She’s dead?” Van Dijk muttered, turning pale. He held his pike, which was splattered with black blood.

“Where are Morris and his gang?” Peter asked.

“Gone,” the captain grunted. “Once they saw an opening, they ran. Took the horses too.”

The ghouls stopped, leaving the remaining survivors with little room to move.

“Van Seur!” Anubis said as he entered behind his undead soldiers. His jackal head grinned at his trapped prey. “See your friends die. We can make it stop. Give me the Bedorven.”

“You are wasting your time,” Peter gasped as he fed another shell into his pistol. “I don’t have it. I would have leeched my friends to death by now if I did.”

Anubis stopped his smile melting. “What? That’s impossible; what kind of fool would give up that power?”

“I’m a Nine Fingers soldier, not a court,” Peter said. “I followed my orders.”

Beside him, Van Dijk trembled in fury, bloodshot eyes locked on the lich. “You killed Isabella!” He screamed as he threw his spear at the Anubis.

Anubis batted the spear to the side with a sickle, dismissed one of his weapons in purple flame, and summoned a lance of crackling purple. Van Dijk’s eyes grew wide. Anubis threw it. The cackling bolt hummed and hissed as it streaked across the courtyard and took the private in the chest.

He dropped without a sound, his wound sizzling and bleeding faint purple smoke. The pungent smell of burnt flesh reached Peter’s nose, and he gagged.

“Where. Is. It?” Anubis demanded.

“On the front lines of Julleck,” Peter said, “Being used against your army as they are trapped without tiles.”

Anubis’ eyes flickered over to the wagon.

“Oh, they’re not there either,” Peter rubbed in. “Face it, Anubis, yet again, you’ve lost.”

Anubis hissed at him but stopped. “I guess that makes two of us. You’re friends, your sister … your mother. You failed them all, and now you die. Neither of us is victorious.”

“You’re wrong,” Peter said. “Even now, as we hold against you at Julleck, as we stole your tiles, Court Rahashel will be crippled, his army reduced. If I have to die to make this step happen for Nosmeria, for Boslic, I should consider my death a victory.”

Anubis growled and stepped forward.

Captain Visser stepped in front of Peter defensively. “lich, if you truly wish to test yourself against a true soldier, dismiss your ghouls and face me.”

“Captain!” Peter protested. He had seen what Anubis was capable of, and as good a soldier as Tobias was, he was still a man.

“Don’t interfere, Van Seur,” the captain warned. “If I’m going to die today, it’s going to be with my men, and it’s going to happen while I stick this hiss pipe.”

“Who are you?” Anubis asked dismissively. “Never mind, I don’t care, kill him.”

Two ghouls stepped forward and attacked the captain.

Visser was ready for them. He destroyed one of their arms by sending a slug down it from knuckles to elbow, shredding it completely.

He engaged them with his officer’s sword, dropping his pistol and drawing another. He cut off a large portion of one of their faces with the sharp blade. He ran another down the chest and shot at Anubis.

The slug tore through the lich’s knee, and he cried out in surprise. The captain pushed past the two crippled ghouls and charged Anubis with a war cry.

“Fine!” Anubis snapped to the challenge. He summoned his second sickle and, in a flash, tore through the captain in a half dozen places, dropping his lifeless body to the ground in a single fluid motion.

“Captain!” Peter screamed, but the captain stared absently at the wall with glazed-over eyes.

Anubis turned to Peter and Iris, the final two humans. Peter felt Iris grab his arm tightly.

“Now,” Anubis sneered, “Beg, surrender, snivel, shrink, and break as mortals do.”

Peter looked at Iris, her defiant and terrified eyes. For a moment, he returned to that day as he watched, petrified, as a dog tore into her leg. Then, again: his mother lay dead at his feet, Iris helpless in the enemy’s grasp, and he volunteered to put the crop ring on first, but he still hadn’t fought. Now, they faced this dog-headed beast together, and Peter would be damned before he let Anubis touch her.

“Kneel, crop!” Anubis bellowed.

“I’m sorry, Iris,” Peter said, ignoring the lich, which infuriated the Jackal even more. “I couldn’t save you the first time, and I can’t save you now.”

“Van Seur! Look at me!” Anubis bellowed, stepping forward and trembling in rage.

“But this time, I’m going to fight,” Peter promised.

Iris nodded and let him go. “If you fight, Peter, then so do I.”

Peter nodded and drew his bayonet dagger.

Iris loaded her pistol.

“All right, Anubis,” Peter growled. “Let’s end this.”

Iris trailed behind in a practiced hop-skip shuffle, only touching down with her bad foot briefly so she could lunge with her right leg. She trailed behind as her accommodated gait was no replacement for two working legs. The ghouls made no move to stop them. Anubis glowered at them and then hoisted his sickles.

Iris shot him, and he didn’t flinch. She tossed the pistol, flipping it around, and grabbed the premernox icy barrel with her hands like a club. She didn’t grimace from the burn.

Peter got to the lich and sank the blade into his gut.

Anubis stared at him unflinchingly. “Futile.” He muttered before rearing and sinking his sickle into Peter’s shoulder.

Peter screamed as he remembered exactly how real pain felt.

Anubis drove his knee into Peter’s gut and slammed him, gasping, to the ground. He yanked the sickle out of Peter’s shoulder, tearing muscle and tendons. Iris screamed and smashed her pistol against Anubis’ head. He hissed at her and shredded her neck with his sickle. She choked and sputtered blood from her neck and lips, and Anubis kicked her across the courtyard, and she tumbled and flew like a rag doll, slamming into the brick wall.

“Iris!” Peter screamed as he tried to pick himself up, and Anubis stepped away.

“I told you I would do it.” Anubis hissed victoriously. “How does it feel? Losing everything a second time?”

Peter picked himself up, his left arm dangling uselessly, and ran to Iris.

“Iris, I’m … I’m so sorry!” he gasped as he dropped next to her lifeless body.

“You lose, Van Seur. Now … you may ask me to kill you.”

Peter noticed something. Faint purple smoke drifting from the wound on her neck.

Peter started in confusion but began to think, and then he smiled.

Iris’ eyes snapped open, and she was about to bolt to her feet, but Peter held her down and then held a finger to his lips, signaling silence. He hoped Anubis didn’t see the movement.

Iris nodded lightly and closed her eyes.

Peter rose and turned to face Anubis with confidence and a smug smile.

“Bravo,” he said. He would have clapped if he could move his arm. “But is this the best you can do?”

Anubis’ smile dissolved as Peter made his way casually towards him.

“Honestly, It was quite dramatic, all of it, really. Seeing the vengeance in your eyes …” Peter laughed. “All worth it.”

“What are you talking about?” Anubis snapped. Peter should have been broken, helpless, desolate.

Peter started to walk around Anubis, hoping to line himself up just right.

“I’m talking about the fact that you lost,” Peter said. “You revel in the agony of your enemies. I rejoice in the victory of my friends.”

“You’re mad,” Anubis hissed.

“Maybe …” Peter shrugged as he stopped just past the captain’s body.

“You can run now, Anubis, or you can kill me and die.”

Anubis sighed, “It’s no fun tormenting a madman.” He shot at Peter in a blur and sank his sickles into him, killing him instantly.

The captain’s final, private instructions to his men ...

“If you are wounded or even killed, stay down,” the captain said with a dark glimmer in his eye …

Van Den Hoek’s body went down in a haze, and the spears dropped from him as the heads burned away …

Van Dijk dropped without a sound, his wound sizzling and bleeding faint purple smoke …

Iris’ eyes opened, and her urge to jump to her feet …

Peter reset, and his wounds vanished. “Is that the best you can do?” He asked as he stared up at the lich.

“No!” Anubis gasped as he stepped back. “That’s impossible. You don’t have the Bedorven!”

“You’re right.” Peter said, “But I may have been misinformed about where it actually was … any day now, captain.”

Captain Visser’s eyes opened as he lay just behind Anubis, and he synchronized with the Bedorven. Like a terrible shadow in a nightmare, the new court leaped onto the lich, catching the sides of Anubis’ head in an iron vice grip.

The lich screamed, and the captain leeched him —-Not the passive leech field that Peter was stuck with, but a deliberate attack, with all the fury of a court.

Anubis shrieked and screamed as a bright purple light flashed, being pulled from the lich and into the captain. Anubis seemed to age and rot simultaneously as his time reserves were drained.

The captain laughed triumphantly, his eyes flared with bright purple court light. Peter could see the writing of the court band under the captain’s sleeve burn fiercely.

“Yes!” Captain Visser cried. “Little lich, hurting my men. Thought it would be easier, didn’t you?”

Anubis wailed and pulled himself free of Court Tobias Visser. He heaved big breaths of panic as his eyes searched for an escape. “Kill him!” he screeched at the ghouls.

The ghouls charged Captain Visser.

The court leaped among them, tearing them apart with his bare hands. Several of them managed to impale him with their spears, but the spearheads instantly burned away.

He moved through them, destroying them faster than they could reach him. He grabbed the final two ghouls by the face, and glowing figures of court writing flowed from his hands, working their way into the ghouls, reprogramming them. The ghouls stopped struggling against the captain and, under some unspoken command, turned on the fleeing Anubis.

“No!” Anubis cried as his former ghouls rushed him. He lashed out at them, cutting them down but gasping weekly for breath as he fought. The captain charged towards Anubis again. He seized his Jackal head in another hold.

“No!” Anubis howled, and the captain grinned, his eyes flashing with court light. The captain took a wide step and jerked Anubis’ head sharply.

Peter winced at the sickening snap, and the captain dropped Anubis’ rotted and aged corpse to the ground.

Around, the other members of the Nine Fingers stepped into the courtyard to watch in awe as the captain stood over their scattered enemies.

“This feels …” the captain looked at his hands hypnotically.

Peter ran over to help Iris to her feet.

Van Dijk got up, and the others Peter had watched die stepped in to join him.

The captain turned to face them, and Peter paused. Something was wrong. There was no control, only hunger.

“Everyone get back!” Peter warned as he staggered away from the court. The captain appeared to be going through some processes that never affected Peter.

“More.” Captain Visser growled. The captain held his hand to Van Dijk. Twisted tendrils of vaporous court light pulled from Van Dijk and siphoned into the captain’s palm.

Van Dijk screamed, and the others gasped as they jumped away.

“Stop!” Isabella screamed at the captain and jumped in front of the leech.

He started to leech her instead, and Van Dijk moaned as he dropped to the ground. He suddenly looked much older, probably close to Peter’s age.

“Tobias!” Isabella screamed as she entered her mid-fifties.

The captain stopped and blinked several times, glancing at the mortals before him, and then he saw Isabella.

“Captain, take off the band,” Isabella pleaded, her voice cracked with age.

Captain Visser stared from one to the other, then gasped as recognition entered his eyes, and the glow died. He cursed, pulled the ring off, and let it clatter to the ground.

He cried as he kicked it away, and Isabella snatched it up, careful not to touch it more than necessary. Her light blond hair had gone grey, and her posture bent slightly to reflect her new age.

The captain collapsed onto his haunches and shivered.

“Would somebody care to explain what’s going on?” Doctor Aarts demanded.

“The captain had the band the whole time,” Peter said. “He must have shared some of his abilities with us.”

The doctor nodded at the explanation. “And is there any reason you didn’t tell us?” The anger was apparent in his voice. “I just died!”

The captain was breathing slowly, and he looked at the ring longingly, so Isabella hid it from his sight.

“The commandant knew everyone would react poorly if they knew the band wasn’t Julleck,” he explained. “I was ordered not to tell anyone.”

“And why didn’t you use it from the start?” Doctor Aarts demanded. “Falling from the roof is fairly traumatic.”

The captain shook his head. “I had to minimize risks. With Morris’ boys, things got complicated.”

“And now they’re gone,” Peter grinned. “And we’re alive.”

Most others shook their heads as they still struggled to accept it.

“We did it,” Peter muttered as he looked at Iris. “We really won.”