Bonesmith (House of the Dead, #1)(53)
He lifted his head from the ring in surprise. “Iron? No, why would you think that?”
“It’s black,” she explained, disappointed not to have answered at least one of the questions she had about it, “and it sort of looks like a nail or something….”
Julian reached a tentative hand for the ring, then seemed to decide against touching it. “Definitely not iron.”
Frowning, Wren pocketed it and finished dressing, carefully replacing her armor and checking her weapons before collecting the bonedust. She reapplied her eye black, using the reflective surface of Julian’s breastplate—much to his annoyance, as he was currently wearing it—to carefully outline her lips.
When they were both ready, they put out the fire and loaded the remaining usable firewood into one of the bags. They’d be unlikely to have another sleep as comfortable as this one—roof and all—but with any luck, they could at least manage a fire in the days to come.
They headed north, crossing a shallow section of the Serpentine before the land around them opened again, flattening out before a dense forest. The river twisted west, following the higher ground, while their path took them east into the trees.
Julian hesitated a moment, staring after the water as if wishing he could remain by its comparatively safe shores.
Wren clapped him on the back. “I’m afraid your only protection from here on out is me.”
“How comforting.”
It was early evening, the temperature dropping along with the sun. The forest hung in suspended twilight, and Wren’s breath puffed in front of her.
“According to the old maps, we should be able to get through the trees by morning,” Julian said. “We can camp for a few hours, then proceed into the valley. After that… we’ll have to figure things out as we go. I know roughly where the settlements were, but things have changed since then. Still, we should avoid them. Whoever we might find there now, they won’t be living. Our best chance is to pass through unnoticed.”
It was a nice thought, but Wren doubted Julian truly understood how the undead worked, despite living in such close proximity to so many of them. They were drawn to life, and she suspected the ghosts in the Haunted Territory were starved for it. Her and Julian’s presence would be like the first drops of rain after a drought, and any undead in the vicinity would ravenously drink them in.
She tried her best to feel if any were nearby, but her range could help them only so far. Besides, her talent lay in fighting the undead, not avoiding them. If any did turn up, she’d be ready.
The ground sloped gently as they moved through the trees, which started out fairly sparse but were soon dense enough to make it difficult to see. When night came and the ceaseless darkness pressed in, a part of her longed to spot a ghost, to sense an undead corpse. Anything was better than this held breath, this taut anticipation.
They didn’t speak—though Wren had tried several times, much to Julian’s annoyance—and instead walked in silence, the only sounds the crunch of boots and their steady, panting breaths.
Julian kept up a relentless pace, and Wren reminded herself to be grateful for it even as her legs ached and her lungs burned. She would rather die than give him the impression she couldn’t keep up, and besides, this was all to her benefit—the sooner they rescued Leo, the better.
“How far is—” Wren began, but Julian cut her off.
“Shh,” he said, not for the first time.
“You shh,” she shot back, annoyed. It wasn’t sound that would bring the undead down upon them—it was their beating hearts.
He rounded on her, ready with an angry retort, but didn’t manage to get out a single word. Instead, his eyes bugged out, fixated on something over Wren’s shoulder.
She whirled around.
Her senses kicked into overdrive, along with her pulse, as she spotted the unmistakable glow of an undead hovering between the trees. It wasn’t near enough to clearly discern—probably twenty feet away and newly risen, but its indistinct edges were becoming brighter with every passing second.
And next to it… there was another light, fainter than the first. Farther away, Wren thought, until it started to move. Plodding ever nearer with a slow, lumbering gait.
This was not the movement of a ghost.
This was a revenant.
As it stepped between the trees and into her line of sight, she saw why the ghostlight had seemed faint and distant. The spirit was obstructed by its partially decayed body, the light winking and moving not between bark and leaf, but between flesh and bone.
Wren recalled what Odile had said, something about the way they moved, like a puppet on strings. She thought of everything she’d ever been taught about the walking undead, and somehow it still didn’t prepare her.
She returned her attention to the first undead she had seen, and now that it was closer, it became evident that it, too, was a revenant—though its body was in a much worse state of decay, allowing the ghost to more brightly shine through.
Wren swallowed, drawing her twin blades. Two tier fives heading their way.
Behind her, Julian shuffled his feet, staggering backward.
“Stop,” she snapped, glancing over her shoulder.
This was no different from every reapyr-valkyr training exercise she’d ever done—no different from the Bonewood Trial itself. As creepy as this forest had suddenly become, the milky-green light gilding the trees and casting Wren’s and Julian’s skin into sickly pallor, it had nothing on the Bonewood.