Page 75 of Shardless

Another crash echoed through the empty street, closer this time. Taly crept forward, edging around a corner and ducking behind an overturned food stand. Around a bend in the road ahead, she could see a child huddled against the wall of one of the few buildings that were still intact. Splintered crates surrounded the trembling girl, and she was whimpering pitifully, her hands clasped protectively over her head. Her long, dark locks covered her face like a sheet. Three men, tall but gaunt, towered over her.

Taly couldn’t see the assailants’ faces, so she had no way to tell if they were fey or mortal or somewhere in-between. If they had magic, that could pose a potential problem if she were to interfere. Judging by the rags they wore, theyweren’t highborn, and while that was a point in her favor, even a lowborn fire mage could prove worrisome if worst came to worst.

Still, Taly couldn’t just let them beat up on a kid like that.

“Hey!” Taly shot her pistol into the air. The sound reverberated harshly through the empty street. “That’s the only time I’m going to miss. I suggest you go on about your business and leave the kid alone.”

The girl’s frightened eyes glanced over at her, searching for the source of the shot. She was fey—Taly could see the pointed tips of her ears from here—but the color of her eyes was too muddy to make her anything more than shardless. Even if by some chance the kid had enough fey blood to be considered lowborn, she wasn’t nearly old enough to have completed her Attunement Ceremony. That meant she didn’t have any magic of her own. Nothing useful, at least.

None of the attackers turned her way, so Taly fired off another shot. “I lied.Thatwas the last time I’ll miss. Seriously, guys—you’re testing my patience!” Picking up a rock, Taly hurled it at the group of men. One of the assailants finally flinched, and she smiled grimly when three heads swiveled in her direction, the small girl momentarily forgotten. Without hesitation, the child scrambled to her feet and darted off in the opposite direction.

As the three thugs shuffled closer, Taly drew in a sharp breath, and her grip on her pistol faltered. Though they looked like they had perhaps once been men, the resemblance was superficial at best. There was something soulless about them—the way they moved, the way theirflesh seemed to sag off the bone beneath pallid, bloodless skin. Each step jerked their bodies from side-to-side, and their eyes… their eyes made her stomach churn. They were flat and dull, almost like the life had been drained away only to be replaced by an immeasurable depth of pain.

One of the creatures’ mouths gaped wide, the joints of its jaw creaking in the silence of the abandoned city. Its chest heaved, it gave a feral cry, and before the echo of that tortured wail had ceased, the group charged forward, careening down the street at a pace that shouldn’t have been possible.

“Shards!” Taly yelped, backing out of her hiding spot, desperately trying to keep some distance between them and her.

Her finger twitched rapidly, and three pops of gunfire sliced through the air. One of the men grunted as a bullet found its target, but none of the strange undead soldiers fell. She readied her next shot, but her targets were moving too quickly for her eyes to follow, lurching erratically as they ran. The creatures’ auras, their golden afterimages, sputtered to life, but even that wasn’t enough. At the rate they were moving, it was just a blurry fog that clouded her vision as she tried to aim.

She tried to steady her gun and take aim, but a sudden sharp stinging sensation in her wrist made the pistol lurch in her grip as she fired off another salvo. The shots ricocheted ineffectually off a nearby piece of metal roofing that lay strewn across the street.

“Damn it!” Taly cursed when none of the bullets found their mark. Her pistol clattered to the ground as the sting intensified, morphing into a dull burn. The wave of heat continued to rippleup her arm, a crescendo of agony that grew more intense with each passing moment. The pain dominated every thought, every sense, and she dropped to her knees, clutching at her arm even as the creatures drew closer.

What is this?she thought, tears leaking from her eyes.

As suddenly as the spasm of blazing anguish began, it abruptly released its hold on her. Taly’s eyes immediately popped open, and her head whipped around, frantically searching for her discarded gun. When she caught sight of the pistol, she groped for it, whirling to face her attackers.

“Oh, no. Not again,” she whispered, coming up short. Her stomach dropped, and she shook her head, unable to decide if the sight in front of her was a blessing or a curse.

The creatures were no longer sprinting towards her. Their movements had slowed, almost like they were running through water. With each decelerated lunge forward, their bodies seemed to hang in the air, coiled in a web of gilded threads. Their cries were long and drawn out and sounded garbled to her ears.

A manic laugh bubbled up out of her chest.Blessing! Definitely a blessing, she thought when their ghostly auras finally snapped into focus. They were hazy and undefined around the edges, but the golden specters were distinct enough for her to see. They moved just one step ahead of their physical counterparts, showing her exactly where she needed to aim.

The moment didn’t last long. The creatures were already starting to speed back up again, shaking off the gossamer strands that impeded their movements. Not wanting to waste thischance, Taly raised her pistol and fired off six more rounds, using the golden visions to guide her shots. As time once again found its correct rhythm, the men, or things that used to be men, fell to the ground—their knees shattered.

Without warning, the air drained from Taly’s lungs, and she doubled over, gasping and desperately clutching at her throat. It felt like something had been forcibly drained out of her. The feeling was horrible—like drowning. She sucked in breaths of air, relieved when the crushing weight on her chest began to lift.

As the pain faded to the background, Taly looked up. Thosethingswere still moving towards her, clawing at the ground and dragging their ruined legs behind them. They might have once been human—or fey. She didn’t know. It looked as though their ears had been ripped away. Their eyes, sunken and grotesque, swiveled in decaying sockets, and their mouths opened wide as they groaned and gurgled.

Taly’s hands were shaking as she gripped her pistol. Three more shots. This time she shot to kill, aiming straight for their heads. All three gave a sad little jerk as their lives were snuffed out. Murmuring a silent prayer to the Shards, Taly hoped that if there was anything with any feeling left in these dead husks, they would find some peace now.

Nearly out of ammunition, she re-holstered her pistol and pulled out her spare. The market square was just around the bend in the road ahead. She took a hesitant step and then another towards the three bodies that lay unmoving in the street. As she came closer, her stomach convulsed. The stench filling the air was, for lack of a betterword,awful—like decayed carrion. It made the air feel heavy with rot, and she vainly tried to blot out the smell by pressing her face into the crook of her arm.

The street was too narrow to go around. Eyeing the nearest creature warily, Taly gave it a sharp kick, keeping her pistol trained on its body. She gave it another kick, just to be sure it was down, before she started picking her way through the corpses.

Rolling one of the creatures over onto its back with her foot, Taly took a moment to study it. The thing’s cheeks were hollowed, and there was a dark, gaping hole where its eye socket should’ve been—right where she had shot it.

“What the hell?” she mumbled, bending down to get a better look at the dark, coagulated fluid around the ruined eye-socket. The wound wasn’t bleeding. In fact, the creature seemed to be covered in lacerations and gashes, but none of them bled. The blood spattered across its body had long ago clotted and congealed.

Beneath the tattered edges of its shirt, a long gash split its abdomen from hip to sternum—another un-bleeding wound with more of the same black, viscous fluid smeared along the putrefied edges of its torn flesh. Embedded in its chest, just above its heart, was a violet crystal. It was large, the size of her palm, and it glowed and pulsed, almost like a heartbeat.

Shadow magic?Taly thought with growing horror. How was that even possible? She had never heard of any kind of spell this heinous.

The thing gave a twitch, and Taly stumbled back, drawing in a sharp breath when a golden haze enveloped her. A hand clamped down on herwrist, the vice-like grip forcing her pistol to the ground. Turning on her heel, she instinctively twisted out of the thing’s grip. Years of combat training with Skye made the movements second-nature.

Zephyr was in her other hand in an instant, and she plunged the blade deep into this new attacker’s belly. Something cold dripped onto her fist as she felt for the small toggle just beneath the cross-guard. Slamming her thumb down on the crystal switch, Taly braced herself as a rush of air left the tip of the dagger. The gale of wind spiraled outward in an unforgiving blast, and the creature’s abdomen exploded, chunks of flesh splattering against the walls of the alley. The thing’s body, now torn asunder, fell to the pavement in two pieces.

Taly shook off the fragments of shredded entrails from her blade and wiped at the patina of viscera and ooze that now coated her face and body with her sleeve. There were three more of those creatures moving in behind her now, most likely lured by the sound of her gunfire. They looked different from the ones lying on the ground. Those, even if they didn’t look alive, still could’ve passed for men. The things in front of her had no spark of life left in them. They looked like raw meat that had been left to sit in the sun a little too long.

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