Bonesmith (House of the Dead, #1)(42)

Bodies burst from the soil in every direction. Not whole skeletons, but fractured skulls and shattered limbs, bits of dust and debris coalescing into a truly haunting sight.

Next to her, Julian cursed, while all around cries of fear and alarm pierced the crunching, cracking sound of shifting earth and bone.

Several people turned tail and ran without a second thought, but the pirate was not one of them. He’d staggered back in alarm, dodging the bones underfoot, but was soon shouting orders and dragging his people bodily into position.

“Get the bone witch!” he said, shoving a pair of bandits toward Wren while the others circled Julian.

“Stay he—” Julian began, but Wren had already started moving. She wasn’t trained for this shit, not like Julian, and had to use every trick and tool in her possession—including the ability to move quickly and sense the bones beneath her feet while the others only stumbled blindly.

She put distance between herself and Julian, spreading their attackers and scrambling for her next move. They mostly carried steel knives, though she’d spotted several cudgels and a few short swords. Wren’s blades could block a blow or two, but if that metal was even remotely sharp, it would start to chip away at the bone. That was to say nothing of her armor, which was made to protect against the touch of the undead, not the living.

Like she had with Julian, Wren used a few clouds of bonedust to buy herself time, but whenever she opened a bit of space between herself and her pursuers, one of them would cut off her escape and herd her back toward the others.

While she played a strange game of cat and mouse, Julian had started to cut down his foes with brutal efficiency, the blades at the ends of his staff wicked sharp.

All around him his attackers dropped, but he wasn’t dealing death blows. Every time one of them fell, they stood up again, however worse for wear. He was still holding back.

Before Wren could yell at him for that, an earsplitting screech rent the night.

Her heart stopped. That was no normal cry of pain or fear. That was a cry from beyond the physical realm.

That was a cry from the undead.

How she knew, she couldn’t say—ghosts didn’t speak. Didn’t cry or moan or shriek their fury. Everything they did was soundless and incorporeal, just as they were. But as surely as she knew the truth of that statement, she knew that the sound she’d heard was not living. Not human.

She spotted the ghost at once, near the signpost. It seemed she had disrupted whatever bones had been keeping the ghost in place, just like she had with the many-elbowed arm in the Bonewood, and now it was free to move.

It slowly coalesced before them, a shining greenish light, reaching such a feverish brightness that many of the raiders covered their eyes or looked away, howling in pain.

Even Julian flinched, leaving only Wren to watch as the figure took shape.

There was something very wrong with it.

Its neck was bent at a horrid, unnatural angle—confirming Wren’s suspicion that there was indeed a gallows here once upon a time—making the ghost’s figure strange and misshapen. Still, it formed in detailed clarity, including the broken neck and dark, blood-flushed face.

To be able to make sound… Following the logic of the undead scale, Wren would classify this as a tier-four geist—able to affect the world around it. Which meant it could do more than just make noise.

Wren tried to spot its body among the mess of bones she had made, but she was no reapyr. She couldn’t set this spirit free. Her only chance was to damage it enough that it temporarily vanished.

At the appearance of an actual undead, the bandits immediately scattered, choosing their lives over whatever coin they’d hoped to procure with Julian. Even the horse followed suit.

This was, however, a mistake.

Never turn your back on a ghost.

Never run.

The angry spirit latched on to the movement, lashing out at the nearest living targets. Two of them got away, but the third…

Wren stumbled forward, but it had happened in an instant. Looking fearfully over his shoulder, the bandit had run headlong into the ghost as it came to a stuttering halt directly in front of him. He ran clear through, and the result was as swift as it was brutal.

Deathrot.

His screams died in his throat, the deathrot blooming across his chest and up his neck like an ink stain, visible over the collar of his filthy shirt.

He dropped to the ground, twitching. Some deathrot could be reversed, or at least stopped from spreading if it started in a limb or the touch was mild enough. But this ghost had hit his chest first; he didn’t stand a chance.

The rest of the bandits were gone, and now it was just Wren and Julian.

The ghost’s attention shifted and homed in on the ironsmith. He was the nearer target, and unlike Wren, he was defenseless.

He remained rigidly still, his staff outstretched—though it would prove utterly useless.

Wren had no choice but to utilize a long-range weapon, but her knucklebones would not be enough to stop a tier four, and her throwing knives wouldn’t make enough of an impact.

There was only one move that would work. Sheathing one of her swords, she took the other in a two-handed grip and raised it over her head.

She flung it with all her might, blade over handle like a throwing ax. She pushed with every scrap of magic she had left, guiding the blade so that it spun faster and faster before impacting with the ghost’s middle, slicing it in two.