• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“We can’t outrun them!” said Riona. “Head back for the gates.”

“Too many between there and us!” said Dougal. To the others he shouted, “Follow me! We’re going to the palace!”

Riona shot Dougal a hard look, and he said, “The ghosts think as they did in life. They try not to leave the city itself. So they should not violate the king’s chamber without approval.” He grabbed her arm and hauled her along with him for a few steps until she was back up to speed. She punched him in the back as she finally matched his pace.

“You idiot!” she said. “Why did you wait? What did you see?”

Dougal bit his tongue. This wasn’t the time for the kind of discussion such words demanded. Instead, he just ran.

They wound their way through the streets of the city, racing toward the royal chambers. Because Dougal knew the way, Ember and Gullik, still carrying Kranxx, slowed down for Riona and him to catch up. Now in the lead, Dougal sprinted straight for their goal, and hoped that it was still standing.

Ahead of them rose a pillar of light, the energies of the Foefire itself coalesced into a single blade raised against the sky. When Adelbern summoned the Foefire on the battlements, he opened a sinkhole down through the catacombs that laced the foundations of the city. From that sinkhole rose a tower of radiance, the lasting memory to his great spell.

They turned right before they reached the luminous pillar, snaking through narrow alleys half-filled with rubble, leaving the ghosts behind. At last they reached the open court before the palace itself.

Dougal’s heart quailed for a moment, for the lower reaches of the palace were blocked, their entrances crushed, the upper floors pancaked onto the lower ones. A single long staircase reached up along an inner wall. Dougal checked his mental map and saw that it would lead to the royal chambers themselves.

Unfortunately, the staircase was guarded. A squad of ghostly soldiers stood there waiting for them. When they saw Ember, the guards at the gate drew their swords and charged at her. “Death to the invaders!!” they shouted. “Death! Death!”

“Is there any other way out of here?” Ember said as she drew her sword.

“No!” Dougal glanced back to see the soldiers they’d run from in the main square gaining on them fast. “We need to go through the guards! The royal chambers are at the top of the stairs.” Dougal unsheathed his sword then, and the ebon blade seemed to hum in his hand.

“There are fewer of them ahead of us than behind,” said Riona, her own blade drawn.

“Forward we go, then!” Dougal growled, turning back toward the steps and immediately running into Gullik’s massive form. The norn grabbed Dougal to prevent him from tumbling backward.

“Hold him.” Gullik pressed Kranxx into Dougal’s arms. “Bear’s nose! He’s a good friend but a lousy passenger! I will hold back the ghosts for you.”

“But what—”

Before Dougal could finish his thought, much less his sentence, the norn leaped past him, swinging his axe over his head. “All right!” he bellowed at the oncoming horde of ghosts. “Who wants me to send them to their eternal rest first?”

Riona grabbed Dougal and pulled him past Gullik as the norn pressed forward toward the bunched ranks of spirits. Above them, Ember had already begun a doomed battle with the ghosts guarding the gate. Her flashing blade and claws bit into their ephemeral forms, cutting through them like smoke. While this did not seem to cause the ghosts any obvious pain, after enough such blows they began to dissipate like fog, and hope leaped in Dougal’s heart.

Kranxx shoved hard against Dougal’s grip. “Put me down! Right now!”

“You don’t stand a chance against the ghosts,” said Dougal. “And quit squirming!”

“Of course I don’t stand a chance, you idiot! But you do. Put me down!” Dougal set the asura down on the stair beside him. “Now get in there and use that sword of yours!”

Before Dougal could reply, one of the ghosts that Ember had dispatched re-formed from the