The Drowning City - Amanda Downum [71]
“And no ancestors ever decide they want more?”
His throat bobbed. “It happens, but not often. I’ve seen the madness take a ghost, but an exorcism usually puts things right. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“This was more than one ghost.” She stood, moved farther into the village. She’d seen slaughter before, villages looted by bandits or savaged by demons, blood and bodies in the street, houses charred and smoking. All these buildings stood intact, neat-thatched and clean. No destruction, only death.
Not everyone had died as peacefully as the boy. She saw clawed faces, blood crusted beneath their nails. Wide-eyed, rictus-mouthed, hands raised to ward off blows.
Something moved in the shadows beneath a house and she started, reaching for her blade. Only a dog. The animal whined and barked, then bolted past her toward Asheris and the soldiers. One woman crouched, offering a hand. The dog whined again, but finally let her stroke his head.
Isyllt turned away from the soldiers. “Deilin Xian.”
The ghost appeared beside her, barely more substantial than the tattered fog. She snarled as she saw Isyllt. Then she looked around and her face slackened.
“Is this what you would have done to your great-granddaughter?”
“No,” the woman whispered. “Never this. The madness was on me, but I only wanted to feel again, to be flesh again.”
“Who did this?”
Pearlescent nostrils flared. “My kin, my compatriots. Those of us who fell fighting the Empire.”
Isyllt gestured to the corpses. “And this is so much better than the occupation?”
Deilin glared, then shook her head and looked away. “I don’t know.”
“Where are they now, your murderous kin?” The whole village reeked of ghosts, so strong she could hardly feel Deilin standing beside her.
Again the ghost sniffed the air. “Gone, mostly. But fresh corpses attract spirits.”
A soldier shouted, and Isyllt turned.
A corpse sat up.
She’d seen corpses stir before, as muscles stiffened or bloat swelled—this was nothing so innocent. A dead woman stood, moving with an eerie marionette grace. Her eyes gleamed like pearls in her death-bruised face. The dog growled and began to bark, rust-and-black ruff standing on end. Isyllt dismissed Deilin with a hasty word.
When the dead possessed the living, an exorcism might put things right. When ghosts or spirits possessed dead flesh, the result was not puppetry but a terrible melding. The result was demons.
A soldier fired and missed. The next man didn’t; the demon staggered but didn’t fall. The wound didn’t bleed.
“Do you have spell-silver?” Isyllt shouted. The answer became clear as the soldiers fired at more corpses, none of which stopped moving. She drew her knife, a bone-hilted kukri. Silver inlay traced the hilt and blade, wrapped the weapon in spells.
The nearest corpse twitched and lunged for her legs. The blade bit deep, jarring against bone. The demon shrieked as smoke curled from the wound. Her boot caught it in the face with a crunch. Isyllt yanked the knife free and swung for its neck. The demon screamed again; the next stroke caught its larynx and the cry became a gasp.
The third stroke opened its neck to the bone. Flesh crisped and blackened. Isyllt planted her boot on its head, forcing its face into the mud as she wedged the knife between vertebrae and sawed. She felt the spinal cord sever, both through the blade and in the rushing chill as the spirit left the flesh.
Gulping air, she staggered away from the mangled body. The corpse was harmless now, the spirit dissolved; demons only had one chance at life.
Another clawed for her, nails raking her outflung arm. She buried the knife in its gut and twisted. Nothing close to fatal, but it screamed as the silver burned. The stench of bowel filled the air as she tugged the blade free; ropes of blood clung to the metal, thick and sticky as jam. Someone else was screaming, high and unceasing.
“Fire!” she shouted at Asheris. “Fire will stop them!” The screams ended in a gurgle; pistol shots echoed.
She kicked the demon’s legs out from under