The magic pulled.
I pushed forward. Step. Another step. No asshole undead would drag me back. No. Not happening.
The magic tore.
I pitched forward and rolled, head over feet, curving my body around the shield, hitting every obstacle with soft parts of me, as if someone had stuck me into a dryer with a bag of rocks.
I crashed into a tree. The world swam a bit. I scrambled up. The shield lay in shambles at my feet, all except for the scale, which didn’t have a scratch on it.
A dark icy shadow fell on the trees next to me.
I grabbed the scale and spun around. Something white was falling, so I thrust the scale up in front of it and crouched underneath.
Foot-long spikes of ice sank into the ground around me, hammering the scale. I held the scale until the impacts stopped and dashed down the slope. Magic exploded all around me in cold bursts, rattling the teeth in my skull. The harsh stench of rot filled my mouth. Around me the trees groaned, as if pulled upright by an invisible hand. My throat burned.
I shot out onto the road.
The stone pillars loomed far in the distance to my right. I sprinted to them. My ribs were screaming in pain.
The trees creaked behind me. The draugr had made it onto the road.
My feet barely touched the ground. The draugr’s magic iced my back.
Something whistled through the air and a body hit the road in front of me, hurled by a supernatural force. Roman. The volhv wasn’t moving. I guess the binding didn’t work after all.
Between the pillars Ascanio swiveled the crossbow on the tripod, squeezed the trigger, and fired. The oversized bolt sliced through the air above me. Thank you, kid.
The world exploded with green. The blast wave slapped my back. I squeezed the last burst of speed from my exhausted body and cleared the pillars. I skidded to a stop and turned around. On the road the draugr stomped forward, an enormous monstrosity, dwarfing the trees, impossibly big. His magic swirled about him in a stormy cloud.
Raphael dashed out of the trees like a fur-sheathed nightmare and charged the giant, ripping into undead flesh.
I pushed Ascanio from the tripod and reloaded.
The undead tried to stomp on him, but Raphael darted back and forth, too fast, stripping dried muscle and gristle from the giant’s left leg.
Kate burst from the undergrowth and thrust her sword into the draugr’s right foot. I yanked the crossbow up and sighted on Håkon. Eat this, you undead piece of shit.
“Hit the deck!” I screamed.
Raphael and Kate dashed away. I fired. The bolt took the undead below the chest, burning it with emerald flames, and exploded. Undead flesh rained, but the draugr remained upright.
Roman staggered to his feet, his face contorted by anger. He screamed something. A flock of crows fell on the giant, ripping rotting flesh from its bones.
“Help the alpha!” I barked, reloading. Ascanio dashed to the draugr.
Raphael picked Kate up and threw her. She sank her sword into the side of the draugr’s leg. Magic snapped, and then a car-hood-sized kneecap crashed onto the road. Kate jumped clear. The draugr teetered and dropped to its knees.
“Fire in the hole!” I fired another shot. For half a second the arrowhead buzzed, lodged between the undead’s ribs, then it exploded, splashing emerald fire over desiccated flesh. The blast wrenched the draugr’s ribs wide open and through it I saw the shriveled sack of its heart.
The crows hurtled into the hole and out of the draugr’s back, dragging chunks of bone and tissue with them.
I saw the ravaged remains of the heart and fired. The arrow pierced the tough muscle. Bull’s-eye.
The explosion shook the ground. Chunks of rotting corpse pelted the ground and Håkon crashed like a falling skyscraper. His chin hit the dirt, his entire skull reverberating from the impact.
Ha. We killed an unkillable giant. Eat your heart out, Beast Lord.
Kate got up and limped toward us.
Her knee. She had an old injury that kept flaring up. I had completely forgot. Damn it. “Is your knee okay?”
“It’s not the knee.” Kate limped past the pillar and sagged against the cart. “He backhanded me, the sonovabitch. I hit a tree trunk with my hip. I swear this leg is cursed.”
Roman spat on the ground. His face was mournful. “Such a waste. One-of-a-kind and we had to kill it.”
It almost tore us to pieces and he had regrets. Wow.
Raphael strode to me. His eyes were on fire.
“Nice shot,” he said.
“Thank you. You were…” Awesome, brave, fast, amazing. “…not so bad yourself.”
Roman shook his head. “Such a waste.”
“I’ll split the teeth with you,” Kate said. “If you want them.”
He turned to her. “Of course I want the teeth. And the hair.”
The two of them started for the head, looking like two starved dogs who had just found a fresh juicy carcass.
Raphael grabbed me into a bear hug. I grinned at him. This wasn’t so hard after all.
Ascanio trotted up. “Why are they pulling his teeth out?”
“They’re magic,” I said.
“Do you want me to help them?”
“Yes,” Raphael said.
The kid went off to the giant corpse, where Kate and Roman argued over the teeth.
The draugr’s head moved.
“Watch out!” I screamed.
Kate looked at me.
I ran.
The eyes flared with green fire, the great jaws gaped, baring thick teeth. Kate whipped about, slicing with her sword.
I was six feet away when magic erupted out of the draugr’s mouth, wound about Kate, and dragged her into the maw, crushing her between those stumpy teeth.
I leaped onto the skull, pulled my knife, and sliced into the tendons holding it together. Let go of my friend, you fucker!
The jaws mauled Kate, trying to crack her like a nut.
Grisly flesh tore under my fingers. I caught a glimpse of Kate—she’d curled into a ball, keeping away from the teeth.
The tendons I had severed snapped right back together. I needed to cut faster.
We were rising. I glanced down. The draugr had pulled himself up.
“Raphael!” I yelled, slicing across the flesh. “He’s regenerating!” Where was he?
Slayer’s blade sliced through the flesh right in the corner of the joint where the mandible fit into the upper jaw. Slayer’s blade smoked. Kate was trying to cut her way out.
The draugr chewed, trying to work his massive tongue to shift Kate toward his teeth.
Flies blanketed the undead, turning into maggots, eating his flesh. I sliced and diced, the maggots ate, but the more damage we did, the faster its flesh grew back.
Kate groaned. I had to get her out now.
I went furry. Shreds of my clothes fluttered to the ground. I took a short running start up the draugr’s bony shoulder and kicked the temporomandibular joint. The bone popped with a dry crunch, announcing a dislocated jaw. The draugr’s mouth fell open and Kate dropped out.
A huge hand swept me off the shoulder and clenched me, squeezing. I snarled and bit. Pressure ground me. My bones whined. He was crushing me as if I were a rag and he were trying to squeeze all the squishy red stuff out.
The scent of gasoline slapped me.
The pain was unbearable now. My eyes watered from pain and fury.
The draugr gripped me harder.
My shoulder gave and I screamed when my arm snapped like a toothpick.
Something sparked. Through my tears I saw the flare of fire and Raphael, his beast face furious, climbing up the draugr a hair above the flames. Raphael leaped up, clawed his way onto the creature’s face, and tore an undead eye out of the left socket.
The draugr screamed and dropped me, slapping himself, trying to grab Raphael.
I fell. I tumbled down and suddenly something caught me. I saw Ascanio’s face. He dropped me to my feet. Next to me Roman stood, his hands clawing the air, his staff screeching.
Above us the draugr was a pillar of flame.
A furry form jumped off the draugr, hit the tree, and dropped down. Yes! Go, Raphael!
The draugr roared and turned toward us.
Roman strained.
The undead took a slow step toward us. Then another.
“He’s not burning up,” Roman screamed. “I can’t hold him.”
The flame coated the undead’s body, but none of the flesh actually charred. Damn it. Couldn’t he just die?
Roman’s feet slid backward. Raphael landed next to him.
Kate pulled herself upright. “What do we do?”
“We must break him apart and bury him. He is of the Earth, he belongs to it. The Earth will hold him.”
“I can break him if you anchor him for a second,” Kate ground out. “But that’s all I’ve got. No more magic left after.”
The draugr took another step.
Roman bent backward. His eyes rolled back in his head. Chains coated in dark smoke burst from the ground and bound the draugr’s feet and wrists.
Kate opened her mouth and said a word. The magic burst from her in a torrent and smashed into the draugr, barely touching me. Panic splashed me. My fur stood on end and a hysterical hyena cackle tore out of me, echoing Raphael’s lunatic laugh and Ascanio’s high-pitched giggle.
The draugr jerked back, trying to run, the chains snapped taut, and his body fell apart like a toy coming to pieces at the seams.
Behind me Kate fell to the ground. Roman sobbed once and crashed next to her. It was up to the three of us now.
We ran. I grabbed an enormous arm and pulled it with all my might, into the forest, away from the road, and dug into the soil, yanking the roots out and slicing my furry fingers on jagged rocks. My arms spiked with pain. I ignored it. I dug and dug, throwing fountains of earth, until finally I pushed the piece of the arm into the hole and covered it with dirt. Then I dashed to the road, grabbed the next chunk, and did it again.
The five of us were lying on cots in the Keep’s medical wing. When we had limped our way into the Keep with the scale, filthy, covered in blood and dirt, and wearing the delightful perfume of carrion mixed with gasoline and smoke, Doolittle had nearly had an aneurysm.
We had been strong-armed into the hospital wing and made to lie down in our beds. Even Ascanio, who had gotten off scot-free. Doolittle and his assistants examined us and quickly determined that Raphael had second-degree burns, I had a fractured humerus, Roman was dehydrated and had suffered a concussion, and Kate had two cracked ribs, a bruised hip, and her knee had gone out again. And then Curran walked through the doorway.
