Page 39 of Ever Dark Academy: Volume 6

Army Of The Dead

The small, vole-like creature scurried onto the land where the army of the dead tramped in seemingly an unending line. Ryder felt a touch of guilt that he was urging the creature out into the death march, but he had to understand what they were dealing with here.

The tiny thing crouched down and hopped and trembled as it tried to inch its way across the river of undead, avoiding the tramping feet, the dragging claws, and the open maws. It had made it a third of a way across what Ryder estimated to be 500-feet of creatures when it suddenly arched up, whiskers twitching, a small squeak leaving its tiny mouth before it slumped over. Dead.

But not for long.

Green light suffused the small form and it levitated off the ground before it was set down again, but on its small paws instead of its back. It started to tramp with the other undead things, no longer under Ryder’s control. Another Immortal had it now.

“Holy shit,” Fiona whispered, having seen the same thing he had though she hadn’t felt the snap of its life force like he did. “Nothing touched it, but it died!”

“And then it came back,” Charlie added with a shudder of his slender shoulders.

“The ground here is studded with soul gems. Do you see?” Ryder asked.

The three of them were all lying flat just inside of the treeline with Khos hiding behind a particularly broad trunk. He pointed towards what looked like a clod of upturned earth where the creature had gone down, but when there was a break in the creatures and the moonlight streamed down that clod, it gleamed and showed it was a soul gem.

“So if we went out there, even if we ran really, fast… what would happen to us?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t think we want to find out,” Ryder admitted.

He thought he caught glimpses of dead Vampires out there. But they could be humans that had died and been resurrected, too. He wasn’t near enough to see their fangs. But he was guessing that Kaly was more likely to sacrifice other Vampires rather than a food source in Lasting.

Kaly not Caemorn. Caemorn wouldn’t do this. Not now.

“Let’s talk about this not so close to these things,” Ryder whispered.

He gestured for the others to pull back from their position at the treeline so that they could talk without risking some curious undead seeing them. Were the undead curious? He imagined that each and every one of them was imbued with something of Kaly’s paranoia so he wasn’t going to chance it.

Kaly and not Caemorn again. Caemorn is no longer paranoid. He is pragmatic and not a fool, but his psyche is not as brittle as it once was. So why do I keep thinking of him before all of this happened?

“I could try and teleport us,” Fiona offered uncertainly.

“Forgive me, Fifi, but if you come up short again, we could end up in the middle of that crowd and…” Charlie made a throat-slitting motion across his own neck.

Fiona sighed. “You’re right. We can’t risk it. Can we go around?”

Ryder reached out to Khos’ mind. The Dire Wolf sent him an image of a circular river of the undead surrounding a city of pale stone. The army of the dead completely encircled it. So they had to get across to reach it and any gate there.

“Wait! Wait a minute, if there is an army of the undead here, then it must be Lasting!” Fiona suggested. “Where else would there be one?”

“Foresworn,” Ryder said softly. “But we’re not there. I would know. Obviously.”

“But if this is Lasting then wouldn’t Caemorn know about this-this army?” Charlie pointed out with a flap of one arm.

“He’s never mentioned it!” Fiona sounded alarmed and shook her head. “He would mention it. Why would he even have it? What reason would there be to expend this many resources?”

“None that Caemorn has, but what about Roan or Artemis before him?” Ryder suggested. But even as he said it, he knocked those ideas down, “Caemorn would have disarmed this as soon as he absorbed most of his slices. So...”

“He would have, but maybe he had concerns about Roan coming here. Yet an army of the dead would hardly stop himself,” Fiona said.

“It wouldn’t. Perhaps we are someplace else. Some other city that hasn’t been claimed yet, but Roan has made his home here,” Ryder suggested. This would explain why he was getting such strong Kaly vibes rather than Caemorn ones.

“No,” Fiona breathed. “No, this place…” She looked up at the sky again, studying the stars. “This is Lasting.”

“But how can that be? Even if Caemorn hasn’t come here since he became himself–remembered himself–he would still sense this and put a stop to it,” Ryder said. He touched the center of his chest. “I can feel Foresworn in here. I would know if something of this magnitude were happening there. Caemorn would feel the same.”

In fact, he did know what was happening to Foresworn now. He could feel the spread of the undead. He pulled his senses back. It was too painful to feel his land dying. And there was nothing he could do about it right now.