She wanted to be angry. She wanted to rage and cry and slash Snow from throat to belly. But she only walked on, silent.
Because Snow was right. She had known it, really.
Deep down, she’d been aware she couldn’t leave Skyll. Had known it when she couldn’t hear the echoes. In her deepest despair, when she’d been a prisoner of the crawlers, she’d have tucked her tail between her legs and she would have gone the fuck home.
But she hadn’t heard the echoes.
She would never hear the echoes again if she didn’t kill the witch.
“Fuck me,” she whispered.
There was nothing else to say.
Chapter Forty-Nine
After Fie’s time in the strange net, when she’d lost her face and visited Skyll, the little girl had seemed to regress mentally. Her speech had become more childlike—though that could have been due to the fact that she barely had lips.
But when the Army of Death and Darkness appeared suddenly before Rune and the others early that morning, Fie was no longer a child.
Not really.
Strad reached for her, pulling her off the shoulders of one of her men, and instead of winding her small arms around his neck and crying, “Uncle B’serk!” as she had in the past, she simply waited for him to get his fill of snuggles and hugs and put her back on the capable shoulders of her captain.
The look of loss in his face was unmistakable. His little Fie was gone. He would have to accept it, grieve, and move on.
“Follow us,” the captain said, once Fie was settled once more. “We have scoured the country and have defeated much of the enemy.”
Rune frowned.
“Have you not noticed the piles of dead and the lessening attacks on your group?” he asked. “That is our work. We have made it so you can face her on more even terms.”
“I’ll be happy to do that,” Rune said, “as soon as I can find her.”
He managed a scornful look, despite his major lack of skin. “We will take you to her. No one can hide from the Army.”
“Not even the witch,” Fie said solemnly.
“Especially not the witch,” he said.
“Why not?” Rune asked.
“Because we are dead, and the dead can see anyone they want to see.” Maybe he smiled.
Rune got in his face. “Z. I need to know where he is.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” The captain drew back. “I don’t know this Z.”
“Dammit,” Rune muttered. She’d known it was a long shot. “Let’s do this. Lead the way.”
Four of the dead stepped forward.
“Choose a ride,” the captain said.
“You have to be kidding me,” Rune said. “You can carry Fie. Lex, Snow, and I would be a stretch. The berserker? None of you people are carrying him.”
Definite smile. “We are forged in steel and magic, Princess. We can support your berserker.”
Rune glanced at Snow, who was nodding. “They can carry mountains on their backs. A mountain such as your friend is a small burden to them.” And she ran at one of the men, shimmied up him as though she were climbing a tree, and wrapped her arms around his neck. He hooked his long, apparently super strong arms under her legs and backed up.
“Next,” the captain said. “We do not have the luxury of time. You must hurry.”
Rune gave Strad a nod. “Go on. I have to see this.”
A tall man, strands of copper hair clinging to his skull, stepped forward. “I will attach this one.”
“Attach?” Rune asked.
Strad shifted from foot to foot, brow furrowed and face slightly flushed.
Rune grinned at his embarrassment but could understand it. Strad on the back of another man, even one of the dead? She would have given anything for a camera at that moment.
“Attach,” the captain says, “is what we do with our cargo, and in whichever way it is suitable. I carry our hand on my shoulders because she fits. Were I to lean forward or backward she could not tumble off. She is attached to me until which time I release her.”
“Dude,” Rune said. “That is badass.”
“Yes.”
“Turn around,” Strad’s carrier ordered.
The berserker hesitated.
“Please, Strad,” Rune said.
“Fuck,” he ground out. But he turned around.
The skeletal warrior rammed himself against Strad—and there he remained, a skeleton half buried, or so it seemed, into the berserker’s back.
Strad lifted an arm, and the skeleton’s arm lifted as well.
“What the hell?” Rune wondered.
The berserker grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “Badass.”
“Wow,” Rune said. “That’s the type of attachment I want.”