Chapter Thirty-Five
The Ancient Shepherd
Carter came shoving back to the front with James held by the scruff of his neck. He grabbed Michael too and hissed, “In! Now!” but the sheer number of people were blocking up the entrance to the bunker.
“Carter. What is that?” Michael asked, his tone as cold as a winter’s night.
Carter steered Michael’s face away and urged, “Don’t look at it!”
Michael couldn’t draw his gaze away.
It was a corpse more than it was anything else. Mostly a torso, halved at the waist, moving like it was floating upright in water. ‘Moving’, was perhaps generous. It was drifting in their direction, as though guided by some invisible current. The only thing Draendican about it, was a set of shoulders and a head.
The creature’s body ended at roughly where the hips might’ve started. Instead of legs, strips of torn and rotting flesh hung there instead, not even so much as connecting its body to the ground. Its entire mass was grey and white like ashen bone, all completely made from patches of hanging meat, ripe with decay. The rot was not a fresh one either, it was dried and ancient, almost mummified.
Its head was little more than a skull, tall and angular like a deep-sea fish, with great eye sockets and spine-teeth, long and thin like knitting needles. Every time it moved its mouth, the long bone-teeth grated through the holes which had been drilled through the creature’s upper-jaw after cycles and cycles of the same, tormented motion. It had no neck, instead there were strange, loose strips of flesh connecting its shoulders to the skull, full of gaps so big that the sun shone through, casting dark slices of shadow onto the ground.
From the sockets of its shoulders hung a mess of silver tendrils, almost like tentacles, moving and twisting idly by the creature’s side, ending in thin, needle-like points lightly touching everything before it, like a blind-man making his way through a foreign street. Nothing else about it reminded him of anything living. Or of anything at all.
Jack looked over their heads and a bead of sweat rolled down his temple as he saw that the Reaper was only twenty paces away from the nearest soldier. It still drifted toward them, as though unaware that they were even there. Jack bowed his head for a moment and sighed before looking to Sidney.
Sidney held his eye for a moment and shook her head silently. Don’t, she mouthed.
Ilo was one of the last twenty or so Legacies making their way and he fell in beside Jack and Sidney as the others crammed inside. He was one of the few still wearing a sword on his belt. His knuckles clenched tight on the handle.
Michael and his company of friends squeezed in through the doorway. They moved down a cold, stone staircase which led into an enormous single level, spanning the width of the entire keep. Lit only by torches and filled with single mattresses. It was clearly not meant to house anyone in any situation besides an emergency. Michael turned to see Jack still ushering others inside, angrily grabbing Ilo by the arm in an attempt to force him in too.
The corpse drifted ever closer. Its sightless head rolling vacantly from side to side as its long, needled teeth glistened in a pale light.
The last pair of Legacies pushed their way in and Sidney followed sharply.
Ilo made to enter after her when he saw the Reaper stop, like a piece of driftwood hitting the shoreline.
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It’s pale bone skull seemed to lull in the direction of the hatch and then it slowly twisted toward its right.
Jack felt the breath leave his lungs as he watched it look toward the doors of the Paladin Wing. Jack pleaded in his heart but he knew it was for naught.
The doors were not properly shut, and the gusts of wind in hall were pushing them open and pulling them shut in quick succession, filling the chambre with intrusive little metallic taps, echoing endlessly in the hall.
Jack reached for his mace.
Tap-tap.
Those who could see him from the bottom of the steps tried to get Jack’s attention, waving and pleading silently. Many tried to climb the stairs but Sidney held them back.
Tap-tap, tap-tap.
The Reaper drifted toward the Paladin Wing door.
The doors pulled open again and Jack’s heart stopped. For a flash, he saw the group of Legacies hiding behind it. They hadn’t even gone to the roof.
Tap.
The maceman closed his eyes and recited a handful of names, for he knew there was no way out through that corridor. Even if they ran now, they wouldn’t make it.
He stood and pulled his mace from its holster with a soft, metal ring echoing softly off the walls.
The Reaper didn’t stop but its head did twitch at the sound.
Jack stepped as quietly as possible around the creature’s rear and spotted the light beneath the door shifting. Jack cursed them internally and took a long, silent breath.
Then with no warning whatsoever Jack smashed his mace into one of the marble pillars as hard as he could, sending the sound screaming through the silence. At the same moment he roared, “To the bunker, now!” and threw himself backwards to the floor.
The creature twisted on the spot with unnatural speed and its tendrils fired like bolts of lightning, smashing through the entire pillar like it was clay.
Stone dust and fragments rained and its vacant eyes stared soullessly at the spot he’d struck. Its silver, swirling tentacles twitched and jittered, reaching out toward it, hovering mere feet above where Jack lay, motionless.
Behind the monstrosity, the Paladin Wing door was pushed open as quietly as possible and the handful of petrified Legacies began inching their way toward the bunker, barely five steps behind the Reaper.
The monster caressed the chipped stone on the pillar as Jack did everything in his power to keep his armour from crinkling.
The younger Legacies made it all the way to the bunker door. And then, the last boy’s boot squeaked on the polished floor, and it may as well have been a wounded animal.
Everything happened in an instant.
Jack shoved himself up and sprinted toward them.
Ilo leapt out from the bunker, grabbing the scattered mess of kids.
Three of the Reaper’s arms fired out from its rotting shoulder toward them.
Ilo’s free hand pulled the last Legacy in toward the door as he shouted and stepped to the side, trying for his sword.
Jack dove and tackled the younger Legacies down the stone steps with a hideous crash. But Ilo wasn’t among them.
Three tentacles ripped into Ilo’s chest before he could bring out his blade. He looked to the monster with a small, confused look on his young face.
The Reaper drifted close and loomed over him for a quiet moment, and then let him fall to ground, like he was nothing more than another leaf in autumn.
Sidney grabbed the bunker hatch. She saw the light leave Ilo’s eyes and she slammed the door closed with a boom, and the blue, magical fire flared up at its edges again, sealing them all within.
Everyone sat and stared at the staircase in silence. Someone wept in the dark. Others held their friends and trembled. Some clutched their knees with their eyes shut tight.
Jack was on the ground, on all fours, trembling. Sidney stayed where she was, utterly frozen. The sea of Legacies were silent as a graveyard.
Flinn pushed through the crowd to see Jack, unable to lift head. He knelt down and his face was full of confusion.
“Ilo?” his voiced echoed.
Jack lifted his head and looked at the young man, one eye blue and one eye green, both grey in the dark. Jack shook his head, and Flinn’s frown deepened to the point of disbelief. Before Flinn could stand in outrage or shout or plead, Jack pulled him into a tight hold and it took a long minute but Jack didn’t let him go, and soon Flinn began to cry the silent, strangled sob of a person broken in half.