toward the gate in the wake of his blast, but it was already opening. Black steel licked out of a cloud of darkness as Faran slipped through and took the next one’s head. I followed on her heels, stabbing another through the heart as Kelos killed the last with his dark fire.
The time of sneaking was over. At this point, only striking fast and hard had any chance of success. I turned and raced for the far end of the hall, trusting the others to do their jobs without need of any words from me. Someone—Kelos, probably—slammed Devin’s cell shut behind us, a small mercy that verified my trust.
Knowing what I might have prepared in the same circumstances, I threw myself down on my belly a few feet short of the door, sliding along the slick jade tiles to pass through the door at ankle height. The vision of the Shades operates equally in every direction, and I was able to focus my attention up and back as I went, watching as a pair of risen leaped forward from either side of the door, only to crash into each other when the life they smelled wasn’t where they expected it to be.
They died together, chopped in half by a goddess-forged sword, though whether it was Faran or Kelos who wielded it, I couldn’t say. As the impetus of my dive slowed, I tucked into a ball and converted the last of my forward motion into a roll that put me back on my feet. The stairs were just ahead, with four more risen standing side by side on the third step up, forming a gate of rotting flesh.
There were more risen in the room around me, sensed more from movements at the edge of my attention than by truly seeing them. Though darksight may operate in every direction, the human mind—no matter how well trained and highly experienced—simply isn’t equipped to fully deal with all the information that comes in that way.
I knew they were there, and I knew that none of them were close enough to prevent me from reaching the stairs, but their exact number and positioning was a thing beyond my ability to know in that moment. Neither did I care. The biggest danger from the risen came when they could use numbers against you. As long as I kept moving, I could ignore those behind me. Of course, if I slowed down, they would swarm me under.
When I reached a point eight feet or so from the stairs, I brought my swords up and back so that the blades pointed over my shoulders, and my elbows were in front of my chin. Then, as I took two more running steps, I snapped them forward and out as hard as I could. Edges met undead flesh at knee height. The risen are hard and tough, filled with a darkling curse that strengthens them against mortal steel. The swords of my lost goddess cut through eight legs like a scythe through wheat. The dead fell around and on top of me as my steel struck the jade-covered walls of the stairs, shattering tiles with a ringing crash.
Behind me, the remaining dead turned in toward the stairs and their fallen brethren, putting their backs to the gallery . . . and to my companions, who hit them like a gale of darkness and steel. But I was only vaguely aware of the carnage behind me as I kept my attention focused up and forward. The stairs entered the room above in its center, coming up through a low-walled and open-topped well rather than a door.
With perhaps ten steps left to go I registered a half-dozen figures moving to cut me off. If they were risen, they were of the hidden variety, sustained in the counterfeit appearance of life by the blood of the innocent. They wore the garb of high officials of the church—Sword and Voice both.
Four more steps, and reverse my grip on my swords . . . five . . . six and a leap up and to the side. As I hit the top of my jump I jammed my swords down over the lip of the wall around the stairs, using them like a vaulter’s pole to lever myself up and over the barrier.
I landed in a squat, and flicked the shadows away from my eyes to get a fix on the room around me. It was a big open space, with a wide-swung pair