Chapter 189: Black Orchard Gate

The Black Orchard Gate was opening beyond the Bone Orchard.

The team followed the route northeast, toward demon-hunter country, where the ground was black with ash.

Carcass fields covered the hills. In some of them, demon bones were piled on top of each other beside broken-down carts, and white and black scales were strewn across the wreckage. The wind blowing over the hills smelled of decay. The demon hunters’ camps stood behind low walls, where fires burned a poisonous oil to keep demons out. The team passed many worn-out flags planted in the ground. Austin Veyron was sure there were more dead than living on the Black Orchard hills.

The Black Orchard Gate stood in the middle of the field.

Two dead trees stood side by side around a gate of black wood. Bones that looked like fruit grew from their branches. At their base, the trees’ roots were tangled through the bodies of dead demons.

The sovereign echo’s black-and-white line led into the trees’ heartwood. Even from far away, Austin Veyron could feel the gate pulling at him. His mark began to hurt, and something inside him began to growl.

A horn blew from one of the hunter walls.

"Hold!" a woman called out. "No one crosses my field without stating their name and having their weapons inspected."

She was a grown woman wearing old leathers, with a red scarf around her neck and a scar running down the left side of her face. Six demon hunters stood behind her, their crossbows aimed at the Black Orchard Gate.

"My name is Captain Daria Voss. What have you brought onto my carcass field?"

"We’re following a source echo that wants to use your gate," Austin Veyron said.

Daria looked at the black-and-white line running through the gate. "If that’s the case, then you’re too late. The dead are walking."

One of the demon carcasses near the gate stood up. It was a horned demon the size of a cart horse, with black roots growing out of its rib cage. It opened its mouth, revealing rows of broken teeth. Ash spilled from its ribs as it rose, and its hollow eyes glowed red.

Many more dead demons began to rise out of the black ash.

THEY WILL SERVE THE LAST HUNGER.

Daria took the first shot at the demon walking toward the hunter wall. She hit it in the eye socket. It fell, but the black roots growing through it quickly pulled it back up.

Rin’s arrow struck the root keeping the demon on its feet. Orena drove her spear through its back, and Veyra grabbed the demon’s claw to turn it away from the hunter wall. Her left shoulder was still hurt from the fight in the vault, and the effort made her wince.

Austin Veyron felt the power of the field.

The demons on these black hills all had hunger left in them, and there were hundreds of them lying across the Black Orchard field. DEVOUR could use every one of them, and it wanted them all: demon bones, the blood still clinging to their scaled hides, and everything they had gathered over their lifetimes. DEVOUR would eat it all until there was no hunger left in them to call them back onto the dead road.

Veyra knew what Austin Veyron was thinking.

"What does DEVOUR want?"

"I want the carcass field."

"What will it create?"

"Enough strength that no demon will ever rise again on these hills."

"And a graveyard inside yourself," Sable said, holding the broken piece of the crown.

That hit Austin Veyron harder than the roar of the demon that had just stood up. He imagined hundreds of demons living inside him, their leftover hunger always stirring in his chest, always wanting to eat. It would make him powerful, but he would be carrying a graveyard with him forever.

Austin Veyron looked away from the carcass field and focused on the roots growing out of the Black Orchard Gate.

THEY WILL SERVE THE LAST HUNGER. ℴℴ𝘮

The field didn’t need the dead to be devoured. It needed them to belong to whichever hunger named itself last. Austin Veyron didn’t have to consume the field of dead demons. He only had to consume one word of that sentence, and the dead would belong to no one.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The dead-will-serve-the-last-hunger clause. Not the carcass field. Not the dead. Not the demon residue."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable said.

Austin Veyron placed the white root chain into the black soil.

DEVOUR began to open. The clause tasted like a freshly dug grave with space left for one more body.

THEY WILL SERVE THE LAST HUNGER.

He consumed last.

The roots stopped growing out of the ground and began to recede. The horned demon fell, and the rest of the dead demons stopped moving. The Black Orchard was still full of death, but it no longer served a single hunger.

Daria lowered her weapon a little and looked at Austin Veyron.

"You didn’t consume the dead."

"No. They aren’t my dead."

"That was a good answer," Daria said. For the first time, she seemed to show Austin Veyron some respect.

Another wave of dead demons began walking across the far side of the hill. These weren’t whole demons like before. They were only bones with roots grown through them, shaped into demon faces where their heads should be. The sovereign echo was taking pieces of the Black Orchard Gate to make these new demons serve it.

Daria began yelling at the demon hunters to get into position and defend the camp. She was commanding every line on the hill at once.

"No, don’t do that," Austin Veyron told her. "We’re going to plan together."

"Do you think I need your help to protect my camp?" the captain snapped.

"No. I think the roots are waiting for one person to lead them."

The bones began walking toward them.

Daria looked at Austin Veyron, then at the roots growing out of the ground around her feet. They seemed to be leaning toward the sound of her voice. She gave Austin Veyron one more look, then nodded. "All right. I’ll take the west side of the hill. You and your group take the gate, and my hunters will protect the living."

They were no longer following one command. They were splitting the lines to work together.

Everyone spread out across the hill to fight the dead demons coming their way. Rin climbed a broken watchtower with two demon hunters, and they shot arrows at the roots holding the dead demons to the ground. Orena stood beside Daria, cutting down the bone demons that came at her. Veyra and Sable went straight for the Black Orchard Gate and began cutting the red root words out of the tree’s bark. Every time they cut a piece away, the tree shook.

Nyra stood beside Austin Veyron with her heart shard ready in her hand. "The echo is trying to take over this tree. It’s turning the bodies of the dead demons into roots. If it reaches the deeper wood, it will be able to travel to the Grave March."

Tessa and Ceryn laid their maps on the ground, showing where the Black Orchard Gate’s route led. A new branch was forming toward the Grave March.

THE GRAVE MARCH.

The heartwood of the tree began to pulse.

A face appeared in the bark.

It wasn’t smooth anymore. It had the shape of a demon, with teeth growing out of its mouth and roots growing from its forehead like horns.

"You keep refusing power when it’s offered to you," it said. "You come to every place where power gathers, yet you never use it. Someday, your body will be strong enough to hold all of your hunger."

The bark around its mouth moved and cracked as it spoke, and the roots at the bottom of the gate moved with it. Austin Veyron could feel the gate wanting DEVOUR to take it. It was loaded with demon residue that could be used to stop this threat.

But then it would become a source living inside him.

"Target?" Veyra asked.

Austin Veyron looked at the line that ran through the Black Orchard Gate and connected it to the sovereign echo.

THE GATE OWNS THE DEAD ROAD.

"The gate-owns-the-dead-road claim," Austin Veyron said. "Not the gate itself. Not the field. Not the demon remains."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable said.

Austin Veyron drove his root chain into the tree.

DEVOUR opened and tasted the claim. It tasted like thousands of dead demons standing beneath one flag that ruled them all.

THE GATE OWNS THE DEAD ROAD.

He consumed owns.

The heartwood of the tree cracked open.

The roots that came out of the Black Orchard Gate traveled into the dead demons and pulled them back into the ground. The bones fell apart, and the face on the tree split in half, dropping bone fruit onto the ground.

The opening between the two trees was bigger than it had been before.

A gray landscape stretched out in front of them, covered in graves and torn pieces of dead demon armor. A wind blew through the Black Orchard Gate, carrying the smell of dirt and rust.

The Grave March.

Nyra felt her heart shard pulse and took a deep breath, as if she had felt something on the other side of the gate.

The sovereign echo made its way through the gate, leaving a black-and-white trail behind it on the dead road.

Daria looked at the open gate and the carcass field, now still.

"The echo will be able to use the dead demons buried in the Grave March if it gets there."

"The gate won’t be able to close until the source branch is dead," Tessa said, marking the map she had laid on the ground.

Daria made her way along the wall to check on each of her demon hunters. Some had cuts on their arms and legs, but they were all alive. Then Daria looked at Austin Veyron. "We know where some of the first marches are. We can take you there if you want."

"Is that something you want to do?" Austin Veyron asked.

"Yes. The dead should rest, not walk."

All of her demon hunters nodded at her words, and Austin Veyron knew they would have done it without being told.

Daria sent two demon hunters back to the camp with instructions on how to handle the dead on her field. No body was to be moved without at least three people witnessing it. If a root had to be burned, the reason had to be written down. And no one was to take power from any old battlefield they found. The rules wouldn’t solve every problem that came up while Daria was gone, but they would help calm the hunters who might not know what to do.

The group packed their things and tended to their injuries. Veyra rubbed her left shoulder and said nothing about the pain. Then they stood and faced the open Black Orchard Gate.

On the other side, they knew, a dead army was waiting to be commanded.