Page 101 of The Dead Queen

Beside me, I feel Hunter still.

“These are soiled,” Malen says, inspecting them in the flickering firelight. “Ruined at the hands of an unloyal King’s Guard.” He walks up to Hunter and holds them out for him to see. “You thought you could have the best of both worlds. A knight’s respect and none of the responsibility.”

He tuts. Then, quick as a striking adder, he turns and hurls the sword and gauntlets into the fire.

“No!” Hunter tries to lunge forward, but his father shoves him back down. He lands hard in the dirt, his hands still bound behind him. Firelight dances in his wide, disbelieving eyes.

As the bonfire blazes, the dented copper begins to glisten, then melt, dripping into the coals.

“You play a good knight, but you’ve always been unworthy,” Commander Malen says. “And now you’re a criminal.”

For one brief moment, I think I see genuine grief in his eyes. It’s gone before I can be sure, replaced by the stoicism of a man ruled by ambition and greed. He shakes his head, as if clearing it from bittersweet memories. Then he pulls something out from where it’s tucked into the waist of his armor. A moth dangles from a thin, silvery chain.

Grandmother’s necklace.

“Did you think I wouldn’t recognize this?” he asks, voice low. “She wore it around the palace every day, chin high, like she thought she was better than the rest of us. Like she was some kind of queen.” He spits. “She wasn’t even noble born. She was a traitor.”

The silver moth swings from the chain in his hand. For several long moments, the only sound is the crackle of the fire.

Then, a roar echoes throughout the valley.

Every soldier looks up in alarm. As one, we stare toward the forest at the edge of the valley, where trees are shrouded in shadows cast by the mountains beyond.

At first, what moves between the trees appears to be an illusion. Mist seeps out from the forest, curling around tree trunks and cascading over rocks. White, luminescent eyes blaze in the dark.

“No …” a soldier behind me whispers, his voice thick with dread.

A silent army of corpse beasts emerges from the forest, illuminated by the light of the full moon.

An enormous bear with jagged, yellow teeth steps out first. Its ribs protrude through its matted fur making it appear malformed, as if drawn by a severely disturbed child. Wolverines follow. Their long claws drag on the ground and festering wounds cover their bodies. A giant elk appears in the mist with an unnaturally large number of points on his antlers. It walks on broken limbs that bow with each step, bone piercing through blackened flesh.

Then, the wolves arrive. Dozens of them.

The great beasts slather and twitch as if held back by some invisible power. Their glowing, white eyes lock onto us, eager to rip us to shreds. I wonder if this all-consuming fear is what grandmother felt in her final moments.

I just hope the dead kill quickly.

Trailing behind them, almost invisible in the shadows, are two figures. One is unmistakably Tristan. Relief makes my limbs weak. But then, I notice the other figure and a chill runs down my spine. She is tall and unnaturally thin. She wears a midnight-black gown, her face obscured by a dark hood. Tristan stands several steps behind her in deference and I know, deep in my gut, who that woman is.

The Dead Queen.

The beasts wait at the edge of the forest, mist swirling at their feet. Every living thing in the valley has stilled. We hold our breath, waiting to see what will happen. The dread is so thick it glues us in place, like mud around an open grave.

Beside me, one soldier begins to hyperventilate. “They won’t come here,” he says. “This is Llwyn territory. They wouldn’t dare.”

But they would. I’ve seen it before.

The hooded figure raises a black-gloved hand in front of her obscured face and exhales a short puff of air. Smoke, as thick and black as midnight, billows out from her breath. The undead beasts charge toward us at impossible speeds.

I steel my spine for what’s to come.

The smoke reaches us a heartbeat before the beasts do, swallowing every orb of light, even the roaring bonfire. The knights at the front of the line scream first. Their terror is all the more awful in the dark. I’m afraid that horrible noise will be the last thing I hear before I die.

The smoke doesn’t linger. It slowly dissolves to expose chaos illuminated by the bright, full moon. Corpse wolves tear at the bodies of men as they try to crawl away. Wolverines slice through metal armor with their unnaturally long claws as maggots wiggle through their dead flesh, falling to the ground at their feet.

To my left, I hear pounding hooves. I turn my head to see the elk charging right at me, its many points sharp as knives. I roll away just in time, my hands still tied behind my back. The elk tilts its enormous, decaying head down and impales a knight. Blood spurts over the beast’s antlers, but it keeps running, the knight still screaming.

I shut my eyes, trying to forget the look of pain and terror on the man’s face. Straining backward, I reach for the moth knife still tucked inside my boot. My fingertips brush the cool silver as the rope bites into my wrists. Slowly, I ease it free. It slips from my boot and falls to the ground. Twisting to the side, I grab it behind my back. Sweat beads on my skin as I try to ignore the carnage and screams echoing around me. I can barely hold the knife behind me, but I drag the blade back and forth in small, scraping movements. It’s agonizingly slow, but finally, I feel the fibers give way.