He whipped it through the air again, securing it to an upper beam and tugging to make sure it was secure. Wren stepped against him, and he wrapped an arm around her once more.
“One… two…”
“Three,” Wren said, and they jumped, swinging smoothly along the bridge. At this rate, they’d cross it in no time.
They were just extending their feet to land when the beam above them snapped, shrieking loudly and dropping them in midair.
They landed hard, skittering across the pocked and unsteady deck, the broken metal swinging dangerously above. The iron plank beneath them groaned ominously, and Julian hurried them both off of it and onto one of the crossbeams.
“Well, this bridge was clearly not built to code,” he said, somewhat indignantly.
Wren laughed despite herself. “No shit.”
He recoiled his whip and sheathed his remade sword before kicking at the plank beneath him, then craned his neck to look at the broken beam above. “This iron was never properly treated, and obviously no one’s been maintaining it. I don’t think we should try that again.”
The steady rumble of the approaching revenants came to a sudden halt.
They had reached the bonedust.
Wren held her breath, then expelled it in a gust as the revenants recoiled, angry hissing noises emanating from their mouths—though no flesh moved to make the sound.
A surge of triumph rose in her chest, only to be quickly stifled. A fat raindrop landed on her nose. Then her forehead. More followed, pattering against the metal and creating a tinny, echoing song.
Never mind the soon-to-be-slippery bridge planks. Never mind the diminishing visibility as the drizzle slowly turned into a downpour.
The bonedust—any minute now, their only defense against the encroaching undead would be washed away.
“Do you have any other ideas?” Julian asked.
“Keep moving.”
They darted from plank to plank, leaping over gaps and holes or sidling along the railing to cross when whole pieces were missing. Julian used his whip to carefully tie them together, and every time his foot slipped or balance wavered, Wren’s own body felt the jolt. The reverse was also true, of course, and when her boot went clean through a rusted plank, Wren’s descent was halted by the tether.
They constantly looked over their shoulders, watching as the undead pushed against the bonedust barrier, which was growing flimsier by the second, until, with a triumphant screech, one of the undead broke through.
Julian tried to make a barrier of his own, reaching for the iron behind them with his magic, bending and warping where he could, making the surface uneven and causing the bars and beams to snap loose. It worked, causing several pursuing bodies to fall, but the undead were fearless, and when their way was blocked, they simply found another—or plunged into the misty nothingness below, their descent followed by a distant, echoing sound of impact.
With a growl of frustration, Julian stopped moving and turned, planting both hands against the deck. He wrenched up the entire plank, tossing it roughly aside and leaving the revenants no way to cross. Wren gaped, temporarily distracted by his sudden, ferocious strength.
But, after two more revenants dropped, the remaining half dozen undead finally did the one thing Wren feared.
They left their bodies behind.
The process took time. First they released their corpse, drifting into the air like steam in the hot sun. In this case, the rain actually worked in Wren and Julian’s favor, making it more difficult for the ghost to coalesce and re-form. Difficult, but not impossible.
Julian turned, fear flashing in his eyes, but then his face went as white as bone.
Wren, who had paused in her progress to watch him work, whipped around to find a revenant crossing the bridge from the other side. She had been so distracted by their pursuers that she’d forgotten to be on guard for what lay ahead.
She cursed. Bonedust would be useless in the rain, and knucklebones wouldn’t do much against a revenant with its rotting body for protection.
Raising her single sword—Julian had her other one, currently tucked into his belt—she took her battle stance.
This revenant was fresher than the others; it looked almost alive, save for the pallor of its skin and the way a sickly green glow emanated from the wound in its chest. But while its remaining flesh and muscle made it stronger, it also made it heavier.
As it took a step toward Wren, the iron plank beneath it bowed slightly under its weight. Another step, and then the plank gave way.
It would have been a lucky break… if Wren had not been standing on the same plank.
Her breath caught, and once again she expected to plummet to her death—but then her body came to an abrupt, painful stop, the wind knocked out of her as the iron whip dug into her stomach. Distantly, she heard Julian shout in surprise as he slammed onto the ground, her body dragging him down with her.
He managed to cling on to something, because Wren stopped falling.
She dangled, gasping for air, but the panic was not entirely for herself. The bridge was crawling with revenants, and rather than being his defender or his shield, Wren was now deadweight, pinning Julian to the bridge and making it impossible for him to fight.
They were both trapped, unable to help themselves or each other.
There was only one thing to do.
She twisted in midair. “Julian!” she cried, swaying back and forth as she tried to look up and see his face, blinking through the rain. His head was visible in the space where the plank had once been, but the board he balanced on shrieked and groaned in protest. He slid forward a bit, arms scrambling, trying to find the strength, the leverage to haul her back up again. “You have to let me go.”
“What?” he said, gritting his teeth and straining against the pull of gravity. Wren felt the whip around her middle tug, raising her slightly, before she slumped down again. She could try to climb it, to swing it toward the bridge supports below. But every pull in her direction, every movement to save her life could cost Julian his. He still had her bone sword. He could defend himself—if he let her go.
Wren looked down into the nothingness of the strange green mist. “There’s water,” she said. She had heard it—before, when the other revenants fell and again when the one who’d broken their shared plank plummeted from the bridge. She’d been too distracted to truly register the sound until now.
It was hard to gauge the drop, to know how wide or deep the water… But there was only one way to find out.
She was reckless, after all. Foolhardy.
And for all her family’s accusations of selfishness and arrogant pride, Wren was no coward, and she wasn’t about to start being one now.
Julian had called her brave, and she would prove it.
“You have to drop me, or we both go down. There’s water. I’ll be okay.”
He stared at her, shaking his head, even as the ghosts continued to detach from their bodies, preparing to strike, and the metal plank he was pressed against creaked. All he had to do was let go—Wren had told him to, so he could do so free of guilt or shame—but the stubborn asshole did no such thing.
“I won’t,” he said, focusing on her with renewed determination. His hands, which had been bracing against something she couldn’t see, released their grip and sought the whip instead. His body slid forward precariously, and Wren cried out in alarm.