Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 83: The Horde Rises

Toren Daen

My fire-coated fist connected with the jaw of the zombie. The head lurched to the side unnaturally far, its neck audibly snapping. The body was sent flying off the rooftop, arcing down to the street below. I barely spared it a glance before I spun, catching Alun's body.

His mouth was open in a wondering expression, his eyes peeled wide as if he still couldn't believe what had happened.

He was dead; his neck twisted at an uneven angle.

Bursts of shock and fear erupted behind me as everybody's mind caught up with what had just happened. Cries of terror and uncertainty erupted all at once, people clamoring behind me. Sevren blurred next to me, peering over the edge toward where the zombie had disappeared.

Amidst the outrage and fear, a hand gripped my shoulder. I turned slightly, still reeling at my failure to protect Alun. I'd seen this coming. But I'd been too late.

Jana looked down at the body with a haunted expression, her jaw trembling. "Alun... no, no no! Not like this!"

The distraught shield took the body from my hands, trying in vain to rouse him. I stepped back numbly, my thoughts a mess. I thought of that non-mage I'd failed to protect months ago in the Clarwood Forest expedition, his innards melted by an acidbeam hornet. I hadn't known him; not truly.

But I had a name to my failure now. It wasn't a stranger, condemned and hidden behind a helmet. Alun wouldn't have died if I hadn't entered the Relictombs. It was this zone that claimed him. The one changed by my presence.

"That was the one!" Hraedel said behind me, his voice angry. "She was the one who attacked us! Did she go rogue? She just killed her own teammate!"

Not quite, I thought, the picture I'd been forming settling. That was the sentry that the Twinfrosts had lost. Alun's wife.

Or what was left of her. What remained after the undead took her corpse.

She could have easily passed for a human if it weren't for the eyes.

"We need to move," Sevren said with urgency, stepping away from the ledge. "The undead are breaking into the building down below!"

That was possibly the worst thing the Denoir heir could have said. Where before there was fear, now there was panic. I saw it in the expressions of the Aensgar Exiles as they clamored to the edges of the building. The Frost twins' eyes widened, some unspoken communication passing between them. Even Alandra and Dima looked shaken by what they must have seen.

But these people were ascenders. They spent their lives always facing death, ready to trust their backs to strangers when needed. The Unblooded Party was the first to flush the panic from their systems, trying to manage a defense for the inevitable wave.

"We need to run!" Darrin yelled above the clamor of mages preparing for battle. "Jameson! We need your conjuring abilities, now!"

As Darrin hastily mounted an escape plan, my eyes were drawn to Jana. She hadn't moved a single step, even when near everyone else peered over the edge and began battle preparations. Her single hand clutched Alun's body, an empty look in her eyes.

"You need to destroy the body," I said to her quietly.

She looked at me, horrified. "Wh-what?"

"That's how they get more," I whispered. "They add the dead to their numbers."

I stood up, ignoring the look of betrayal that flashed across Jana's face. I walked up next to Darrin, drawing Oath and Promise as I did so.

"What's the plan?" I asked, not quite looking at the blonde striker. He had just finished directing Jared and another mage I didn't recognize to the edge of the building, instructing them to do something.