she would be lurching—or careening or whatevering—along with all the others. The boy tumbled aside in a smelly heap.
“Run!” she shouted at Ramdane, because everyone knew that shouting run at someone who was already running made them run faster. They fled the village and headed up the hill toward the blocky keep, finally outpacing the zombie villagers.
A chilling laugh floated over the rooftops behind them. Clinging atop a chimney was a tall, thin man in a ragged coat with a tin crown on his head.
“A talismonger and a warrior!” he whooped. “You will both join my horde!”
“Who the heck is that?” Crystamel demanded from ankle height.
Dagmar didn’t bother to reply. They reached the blocky keep and pounded on the main gate. The place was too small to have a moat.
“Let us in!” Ramdane shouted. “Zombies!”
A head poked between the gaps in the crenellation above them. “How do we know you aren’t zombies?”
Dagmar glanced over her shoulder and tried not to panic. The zombie horde was lurching up the road behind them. “Zombies don’t demand to be let in.”
“It’ll take too long to open the gate.” The man pointed to the zombies stumbling up the road. “They’ll get here first. You understand.”
“Oh, for—” Dagmar swore, and drew her sword. The zombies were close enough for the groaning to become audible.
“Don’t panic yet.” Ramdane felt among the talismans at his belt and came up with a tiny wooden ladder. He held it in both hands and concentrated for a moment. “Climb,” he said in a strange, deep voice.
“You’ll be mine!” came the awful, chilly voice. The man with the tin crown was in the thick of the zombie horde, with the little boy riding on his shoulders in a ghoulish parody of a piggyback ride.
The zombies were only a few paces away now. The old zombie lady was among them. “Eat!” she cried.
For an awful moment, Dagmar was fourteen years old again, a young warrior at her mother’s funeral, looking down at the cold corpse of the woman who had loved her and kissed her good night, and then abruptly wasted away from a heartless disease that ate her from the inside out. The next day, the earl had gifted her with a chainmail shirt, and as the chilly metal settled on her shoulders, she swore to herself that she would spend the rest of her life fighting, to the death, if necessary. It was the warrior’s creed: never give in; always fight.
With this in mind, Dagmar waved her sword at the zombies. Crystamel, feeling left out, jumped in front of her and barked.
Ramdane’s ladder expanded in his hands. It spun itself into something made of air and light and expanded upward. The man pulled back as the ladder reached the top of the wall and hung there, not quite touching it.
“Come on!” Ramdane scooped up Crystamel and bolted for the rungs.
Dagmar eyed the rungs. “Are you sure—?”
“Climb!” Ramdane was already halfway up. The zombies were within clutching range now. Dagmar sheathed her sword and scampered up the slender rungs after her brother. It was like climbing fog.
And then the thin man with the tin crown threw the boy. He landed on the ladder just below Dagmar, and got his cold hands on her shin above her boot. He bit her, and she felt the pain straight through her leggings. Dagmar kicked out and managed to shove the boy off the ladder. He fell into the horde below, knocking down two zombies who were themselves trying to climb the airy ladder.
“Eat!” screamed the zombie lady.
Don’t think, don’t scream, she told herself. Just climb.
Heart in her mouth, she hurried up the ladder and dove onto the tower. Her leg throbbed. Zombies were making their way up the rungs, but the moment Dagmar was safe, Ramdane tapped the top rung. The ladder unraveled and vanished. Zombies tumbled like rag dolls to the ground.
“You will join me!” called the man with the tin crown. “You will all join my kingdom!”
Dagmar ignored him and slumped behind the crenelated barrier at the top of the tower wall. Crystamel, pushed by instincts she couldn’t ignore, stood on her hind legs and put her nose into the guard’s crotch.
“Good musk,” she said, “with a delicate overlay of fear sweat.”
“You’re a talismonger,” the guard breathed, ignoring Crystamel for the moment.
“Probably handy to have someone like me around,” Ramdane said.
“Because you stopped that entire horde single-handedly?” the guard said.
“Little help here,” Dagmar put in. Already, she could feel ice crawling up