capture you while you’re close to me,” Rune promised. “Do we need to go inside?”
“This is the city of Necrosis,” Blue told her. “It is the capitol of the death shimmer. Our lord inhabited this city and it was inside Necrosis that his hand was slaughtered.”
Rune raised her eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“The splintered Army of Death and Darkness is inside this city. It’s imperative they reconnect and fight for you. You’ll need them.”
“What makes you think they’ll follow us?”
Blue lifted her chin. “They’ll follow you.”
“Also,” Nadaline said, “I heard tell a new hand arrived. He’ll head them. Separated they are nothing. Led by their hand…”
“With the hand, the Army of Death and Darkness is unstoppable,” Blue finished.
Rune lifted an eyebrow. “Their shimmer was taken and they’re hiding from the witch. I’m thinking unstoppable is a bit of a stretch.”
“Damascus took their leader. The members of the Army are not alive, exactly,” Z said. “They need a lord, leader, or hand who can command them. And it takes a very powerful person to do that.” He shrugged. “We need them.”
“First,” Blue said, “we have to get inside and find the new hand. He’ll have to call them. Animate them.”
“How do you know the hand is inside the city?”
“We don’t.” Blue’s voice was grim. “We believe he appeared there. There were reports from the city that the dead stirred.” She shook her head. “We’re almost sure.”
“Okay,” Rune said. “Fine. Let’s get inside the city and get our backup of death soldiers. But then we march on the shimmer of magic. I’m not wasting more time. Flesh will find us.”
She had to get the cure. Even if she could be cold enough to never take it back to her world, she was rotting.
No one disagreed, but she had a strong feeling they weren’t finished convincing her to visit the Flesh Shimmer before the journey to take down Damascus.
“Let’s make this quick,” she said, and shot out her claws.
Blue laughed, quietly. “It won’t happen quickly and before we’re out of the city we likely won’t…” She took a deep breath and gestured helplessly. “We may not all make it back out.” She looked at Z.
He gave her hair a quick tug. “We’ll make it out.” Then his gaze hardened as he glanced around at all of them, and lingered on Rune. “Stay together.”
Blue pulled silver blades from the sheaths strapped to both her thighs. She gave them a sharp whip through the air, and they lengthened to the size of swords.
“Impressive,” Rune said, and turned to Mad Nadaline. “What do you have?”
Nadaline shrugged. “I have a little touch of magic, Princess. I’ll make out okay.”
Rune smiled at Z. “You can still fight?”
“I’m Shiv Crew, sweet thing.” He returned her smile, his deep green eyes crinkling at the corners. He shook his dirty-blond hair out of his face, then slid his blades into his hands. “I can still do everything.”
He took her breath away.
“The witch’s army will be watching for us,” Blue interrupted. “They’ll know Rune will seek the dead.”
“Fuck them,” Rune said, wiping sweat from her forehead.
“They’re dangerous, Rune,” Nadaline said. “They—”
“Wait.” Z held up a finger. “Be quiet.”
Rune frowned. “What is it?”
He closed his eyes. “Something Gunnar the Ghoul said. Give me a second.”
Rune shivered as a cold, furtive finger scraped its way down her spine.
But at last he opened his eyes and shook his head. “It’s gone.”
“Maybe you’ll remember later,” Rune said. “Doesn’t matter. We know what we have to do.”
Why did the fucking ghoul have to be so cryptic? He could have told her everything and saved them all a hell of a lot of time and trouble.
Without another word, they began walking toward the city. They’d slip inside the gates and blend with the teaming humanity there.
“Where do we find the Army?” Rune asked, as they got closer to the city.
“We don’t,” Nadaline said. “We find the hand. He’ll find his dead.”
“They’ll be deep inside the ground,” Blue told her. “Buried.”
The terrain outside the city walls was rough and jagged. A single dirt road wound toward the city, bracketed on either side by malodorous ditches.
Trees grew in abundance, but the grass was dry and brown, the land flat.
“It’ll be hard to sneak in,” Rune said.
“Yes,” Z agreed. “Guards are everywhere. Fighting is unavoidable, but we need to dodge them for as long as possible.”
None of the people inside the city spilled over to the outside, and that was because, Z informed her, Damascus had forbidden it. They were all to stay inside