Guild Of Zeroes

Chapter 31

I felt a lot better with a few layers of wool and steel and between me and the world. We had traded our social call clothes for our battle gear and stood at the mouth of a scorched archway that led into the burned quarter.

Mouse pulled up the hood of his drakeskin robes and raised Stargazer's staff high. He muttered a spell and the tip of the staff burst into a globe of soft white light. "Follow me," he whispered.

I held my sword's scabbard tight, doing my best to stop it from rattling and clanking around. The last thing we needed was a host of undead pouring down on us. Unfortunately, there was no hope for Quin and Javelin. We'd done our best to persuade them into lighter kit, but they weren't having any of it. They rattled along behind us dressed in their full sets of plate and mail. Javelin carried a stout sword on her hip and a sack of short spears over one shoulder, and Quin had found themself a monstrous new sword that was almost taller than Mouse was, along with a shorter blade and a narrow dagger. Mouse was insistent that wherever we were heading was going to be too small for a sword that huge, but Quin wouldn't budge. Honestly, I think they were in love. It was my new secret mission to make them look at me the same way they looked at that sword.

I paused on the other side of the arch and wiped the soot off of a brass plaque standing on a plinth in front of the remains of a dead tree.

This quarter remains burnt and broken, the plaque read. So that we may never forget the cost of denying one's duty and the price for selfishness that was paid with the blood of innocents.

"So," I said. "Do we get to know what happened here now?"

A pile of blackened timbers shifted to my left, and I dropped my hand to the hilt of Hawk's sword. Something pushed it's way clear of the debris and a spear whistled past my ear before I had the chance to draw my sword. Whatever was in the pile let out a sharp squeak and fell deathly still. Javelin strode past me and retrieved her weapon.

"It's okay," she said. "It was only a rat." She shook the animal's carcass free and put the javelin back into the quiver over her shoulder.

"Gods," Mouse whispered.

"I know," she said. "Pretty impressive shot, right?"

"No. That could have been one of our people."

"Oh, please. If it was one of ours they would have said something."

Quin shoved both of them into an alley between two ruined buildings and towed me in after them. "Unless," they hissed. "They were trying to hide from the cohort of undead coming towards us."

I peeked around the corner of the building and bit back a curse. There were a dozen soldiers marching through the ruins towards the archway we had just passed through. A dark shadow flew in front of the sun and I looked up to see the horrific form of the malformed dragon Wraith had become soaring over the city.

"Well shit," I said. "We can't catch a break can we?"

"We can take them," said Javelin.

I pulled back deeper into the shadows. "Not before that dragon sees us. We need the relic to put him down."

"Then we kill them first," said Javelin.

"Wait," said Quin.

It was too late. Javelin stepped out into the center of the street and threw a spear through the chest of the lead undead. It crumpled under the blow but sucked in a wheezing breath and pushed itself to its feet.

"Gods damn it all," I cursed, stepping out of cover and joining Javelin in the street. I whipped the shortbow out of my quiver and drew an arrow. I took and breath and let it out slowly, loosing the arrow and sending a shaft whistling through the corpse soldier's eye. He dropped like a puppet who's strings had been cut.