Chapter 760: Follow Me

Dorian cut through the arm reaching past Alex’s fire.

The corpse turned toward him. A pale thread stretched from the open wound in its shoulder, passing above the rune line toward the patients approaching the junction.

He drove the body sideways with his next strike, pulling the thread away from the road with it.

"Keep them away from the road!"

Two of his ghouls moved with him. One struck the next corpse behind the knee while the other forced its upper body toward the ruined shop beside them.

The human beds were almost at the junction. The Queen had ordered them through, and his wounded still needed the same road. Dorian would have gladly left the humans to the fleet that claimed to protect them, but the ships were firing into both armies. There would be no road for anyone if these corpses reached it first.

They had to stop treating the street as a line they could hold by standing still. Every body that reached it brought more of the web into the space behind their weapons. Even killing an attacker at the edge could leave its blood and the pale strands directly in the patients’ path.

Dorian stepped beyond the fire and met the next group before it reached that point.

"Two on this side. The rest follow me."

He cut across the leading attacker’s chest, then moved left before the bodies behind it could surround him. His soldiers followed, striking from the open flank and withdrawing toward the fallen wall.

The red-eyed group turned after them.

That cleared the mouth of the avenue for a few breaths.

Alex’s fire rose into the space they had left. Selene brought the wounded through behind it, keeping her people close to the lower buildings.

A soldier was helping the old Sovereign who had fallen earlier. The younger vampire he had tried to carry was already farther along the road.

The old man’s eyes followed the bodies attacking them. He raised one shaking hand as a red-eyed woman passed on the other side of the flames.

Selene caught his wrist and lowered it.

Dorian could not hear what she said over the fight. The Sovereign turned away from the corpse and allowed himself to be led onward.

Dorian moved with his next strike.

He couldn’t let his fighters hesitate over a vampire’s face. The abomination above them had made a mockery of their race. Dead vampires dragged through human streets, attacking the few of their own people who had survived. Dorian cut down the next one before it could reach the old Sovereign.

A blade came under his guard.

He twisted, taking the cut along his left forearm instead of through his throat. The injury opened deep enough to weaken his grip.

He shifted his sword to his right hand and drove it into the attacker’s neck.

The body fell, still trying to pull itself toward the service yard.

Dorian looked past it.

Thepes was calling them again.

Several corpses stopped following the mobile fighters and turned toward the same point above the broken warehouses. Blood stretched from their wounds as they moved, drawing the pale threads across the street at a sharper angle.

One of Dorian’s soldiers stumbled as a corpse turned with his weapon still lodged in it. He hadn’t let go in time. The movement pulled him into the next attacker, which closed both hands around his arm.

"Let it go!" Dorian shouted.

The soldier released his weapon, but the corpse kept hold of his arm.

It dragged him toward the gap between two ruined buildings. Pale light ran across the broken stone in that direction, joining the thicker web above the service yard.

Dorian started after him.

Another attacker struck from his right. He blocked with his wounded arm and felt the cut tear wider.

One of his fighters moved in to help.

A second corpse caught that man’s leg.

Dorian was too late to warn him. Now the corpses had another man to drag toward the web.

A blood hammer struck the corpse holding the second man.

Its upper body broke away from its legs. Alex passed through the opening, caught the first attacker at the neck, and drove it into the road, crushing its grasping hands against the stone.

The pale threads around it tightened.

Purple ice spread across the gap beyond them.

For a moment, the pulling bodies stopped moving. Mingyue stood above the wall with both blades pointed into the space behind them, holding that short section still.

"Get them out," Alex said.

Dorian seized the first soldier beneath the shoulder. His wounded arm shook as he hauled the man clear of the corpse.

The other fighter wrenched his boot free of the broken body and crawled clear.

Alex pushed both remaining corpses back toward the buildings. White fire crossed the space between them and the soldiers, burning away the loose strands before Mingyue released her hold.

The bodies jerked toward the service yard. Both men were still beside Dorian, and he turned them toward the avenue.

"Behind the fire. Both of you."

The first soldier stared at the weapon he had left inside the corpse.

Dorian shoved him toward Selene.

"Move."

Alex was already returning to the mouth of the road. The fire there had weakened while he stopped the bodies dragging the soldiers away, and more attackers were trying to cross it.

Dorian followed far enough to take the pressure off his side.

Farther along the fallen wall, one of the fighters who had covered Dorian’s first turn lay motionless beneath a red-eyed corpse.

Dorian had seen the man’s chest crushed when the second group came through. He could no longer sense the man’s presence.

Another soldier started toward him.

Dorian caught the man’s shoulder with his bleeding hand.

"We can’t reach him from here."

"He’s still there."

"I know."

The corpse above the fallen fighter raised its head. Pale threads were gathering around both bodies.

Dorian kept his hand on the living soldier until the man looked away.

Then he took him back toward the road.

Selene met them at the near wall.

"Your arm."

"It still moves."

She looked down at the blood running from his fingers, then pressed a strip of cloth into his hand.

"Wrap it before you lose the grip you have left."

He wound the cloth around the cut while watching the next group form beyond the flames.

"How many are through?" he asked.

"The worst of ours have reached the junction. The shelter patients are coming in from the other side."

"And how many of my fighters are pushing human beds?"

"Two. They’re getting the beds around the turn so our wounded can pass."

He looked down the road. The line was moving, however much he disliked what was in it.

"Keep them moving east. I want those two back once the beds are through."

Selene nodded toward the fallen wall. "Two of mine will cover your withdrawal."

Two fighters. He wanted to ask for more, but Selene needed every hand she had to carry the people who could no longer stand.

Dorian tightened the cloth with his teeth, raised his sword, and went to meet the two fighters she had sent.

This time, he kept them closer to the fire.