the edge. The string hung in the air, then lengthened and thickened into a hawser. “How are you going to get Crystamel’s spirit into the zombies?” he asked.
“The same way they got the demon into me.” Before she could think overmuch about it, Dagmar jumped over the edge, grabbed the rope, and slid down.
The zombies saw her coming and reached up for her with their chilly hands. Most of them were covered with nasty sores, and the stench of rotten flesh hung on the air. Dagmar slid straight toward the morass. If this didn’t work, she was going to need a whole lot of mint tea for her breath. Assuming she lived. But warriors fought to the—
“I knew you’d come back,” cooed the zombie king. “With you on my side, pretty warrior, we’ll take the keep and I’ll rule the country forever.”
“Eat, eat, eat,” groaned his mother.
Dagmar didn’t reply. She simply dropped into the middle of the zombie horde like a swimmer dropping into the world’s nastiest swimming hole. The hawser above her vanished. The zombies clumped around her. They grabbed her arms and gnawed on her mail, but were unable to penetrate the links. The armor held.
Dagmar took a deep breath—the smell made her promptly regret it—grabbed the nearest zombie, and bit it on the arm. Her teeth sank into the soft flesh, easily breaking the skin. Dagmar’s stomach threatened to come up and have a look around, but she fought it back down and ran her tongue over the wound, giving it a good dose of spit before shoving the zombie away.
The zombie stumbled, but had no other reaction.
Uh oh, said Crystamel.
Other zombies were still pulling at her, gnawing at her and breaking teeth on her armor. They apparently hadn’t twigged to the idea of going for her knees like the little boy. Dagmar grabbed another zombie.
“I love that you’re so aggressive,” giggled Herbert. “I’ll make you my captain.”
Dagmar bit the zombie’s peach-soft flesh and shoved it away. Still no reaction.
“I’m not getting in,” Crystamel reported. “And your spirit is losing ground.”
She was right. Dagmar felt the interior light pulsing stronger and stronger, a star that was going to explode any moment. Grimly, she drew her sword. At least she would die like a warrior, defending her brother and earl Bidd—and those in the keep. More zombies closed in.
And then she knew. Crystamel had it at the same moment.
“I’m the opposite of them,” she said in Dagmar’s head. “If you want to share my spirit, you can’t bite them. They have to—”
No! Dagmar thought. But her sword was motionless in her hand.
“You did it once. You can do it again.”
This is different. More zombies were chewing on Dagmar now, still foiled by the chain mail. A warrior fights to the death!
“Sometimes a warrior has to stop fighting,” Crystamel said.
Dagmar looked up. Ramdane seemed far away at the top of the keep, but she could see the frightened look on his face. Biddlemeyer looked equally concerned. She remembered her mother—and Biddlemeyer’s. She couldn’t save her mother, but she could save his. If she stopped fighting. Like a warrior.
“Eat, eat eat,” said the mother zombie. The light pulsed so strong inside her, she felt like she was about to burst.
It was the hardest thing she had ever done, there in a crowd of zombies, to drop her sword and shout, “Ramdane! Get this mail off me!”
“What?” he shouted back. “Why?”
“Just do it! Now!”
He threw something from his belt at her—she didn’t see what—and in a flash of green light, her chainmail unraveled like bad knitting. The zombies fell back as wire coiled at her feet with a bouncy, springy sound. Dagmar spread her arms, standing vulnerable among the undead.
“Bite me!” she said.
For a heart-stopping moment, the zombies paused. Then they clustered around her again, grabbed her arms, and bit.
Dagmar forced herself to let them. Oh, it hurt. It was like being stung by a thousand wasps, stabbed with a dozen daggers. She cried out, but with each bite, she felt a little of Crystamel’s light leave her, and the pressure eased. Each zombie that drew blood dropped away, squirming on the ground before the gate. And each one . . . changed. The festering wounds healed, the smell faded, the skin lost its pallor. From each one fled a small shadow that raced back to Herbert the zombie king. He staggered, and his tin crown went crooked on his head.