CHAPTER 33

  Breaking Camp

  Something poked the tip of Bash’s nose. He flinched, hands flying up like he’d been stabbed. “AGH! My face!”

  Lilly stood on Bash’s chest, feathers puffed and eyes bright, a dark-winged child in a raven’s shape. “Kwak!” she scolded, then jabbed him again with her beak, gentler this time. “Time to wake up!”

  Bash clutched his nose, rolling onto his side and groaning with all the drama of a dying Shakespearean hero. “Nora! Patrick! Help! She’s bullying me. This is domestic abuse. I want joint custody and weekends off!”

  Patrick didn’t even look up from cinching his pack. “Eat before we move.”

  Nora, arms crossed, watched with a raised brow. “She barely touched you.”

  Bash couldn’t help but pout. “Yeah, well… I still want a restraining order.”

  Lilly preened smugly. “You’re too slow!”

  Patrick shouldered his spear. “We’ll check ahead. Luis and Lilly with me.”

  Luis groaned but hauled himself up anyway. “If I die first, dibs on haunting Bash.”

  As the three moved off, that left Bash and Nora in the cold, quiet of the camp. Bash lingered a moment, then said, softer than usual, “You holding up?”

  She glanced at him, something guarded in her expression. “You've been tiptoeing around me since we left Londonland.”

  Bash rubbed the back of his neck, caught. “I just... figured you didn’t need more on your plate.”

  “I don't.” She looked away, toward the distant treeline. “But I don't need protecting either.”

  Bash’s mouth opened, then closed. He looked away, jaw working. “I keep seeing Richard’s face.” He exhaled. “I’m not sure I did the right thing.”

  Nora went very still. When she spoke, her voice was quieter than before. “Then why did you do it?”

  Bash met her eyes. “For you.”

  She held his gaze. “You think I made you kill him?”

  “No.”

  “Then own it.” Her voice not harsh, but steady. “He’s dead, Bash. He’s not coming back. And I'm not going to pretend I'm sorry about that.”

  Bash nodded slowly but didn’t say anything.

  She crossed her arms. “So what is this really about? Are you feeling guilty about Richard? Or about what you are becoming?”

  “Both,” Bash said quietly.

  Nora’s expression softened slightly. “Good. That means you’re not a monster. And for what it’s worth? Thank you.” She glanced toward where Patrick had gone. “Now pull yourself together. We’ve got work to do.”

  Bash nodded and turned back to his pack. The two of them finished breaking camp in silence, the kind that wasn’t comfortable but wasn’t sharp either.

  That quiet was shattered with the sound of boots pounding stone. Patrick rounded the bend at a half-run, Luis at his heels, Lilly flapping low over their heads and shrieking, “Hide! Hide! Hiiiiiide!”

  “Undead!” Patrick hissed, not breaking stride. “We need cover, now.”

  Bash grabbed his pack, Nora already on her feet, and the four of them bolted toward the nearest dark gap in the rocks. The outcropping would give them some cover.

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  The crack in the stone wasn’t much, only a slight cut into the mountainside. They shoved themselves into it anyway. Patrick hissed for quiet, and they pressed shoulder to shoulder, crammed so close that Bash swore he could feel Luis’s heartbeat in his spine. Lilly wedged herself above them, feathers shrunken in, clicking softly like she was holding her breath.

  The world outside was silent for a long, aching moment. Then came the scrape of metal on stone. Bash craned his head just enough to catch the slit of light near the cave mouth. Undead. But not the shambling, falling-apart kind.

  These were the same as the one from last night. Their armor was a patchwork of rusted steel and rotted leather, the kind of gear that looked stolen off corpses and never cleaned. One had a pauldron half-melted into its ribcage, the flesh fused to the metal, warped and puckered. Another’s jaw dangled loose, clacking against its collarbone with every step.

  They carried weapons still. Swords and axes notched from centuries of use. One dragged a spear that screeched across the rock with every step, a noise that made Bash’s teeth ache. Their eyes, what was left of them, glowed faintly yellow.

  The smell hit next. A rancid mix of damp rot, old blood, and ammonia. Luis gagged once, clamped a hand over his mouth. Nora’s fingers dug into his arm to steady him. Patrick held his ground, every muscle frozen.

  The undead shuffled past the crack, blades scraping stone, armor groaning with each stiff, unnatural step.

  Bash was starting to get worked up over the hiding, the fear already curdling into reckless bravado. “They’re just mobs,” he muttered under his breath. “I could waffle-stomp these bone bags.”

  He shifted his weight back, planting his rear foot and bending at the knees, preparing to leap out of the crevice.

  Stone cracked beneath his boot. Bash froze, just long enough to register the mistake. “Oh…” The ground gave way under the sudden load.

  “Bash, NO!” Nora shouted. There was no time to recover. No jump. No correction. The ground vanished and dragged them all with it. Together they dropped into the black.

  Above them, Lilly darted, feathers a blur. “Hold on!” she shrieked as rocks rained past.

  Bash tumbled, stone tearing at him from every angle. His shoulder slammed into a jutting rock, spinning him sideways. His hip cracked against another outcrop, and he heard himself scream. The fall stretched on forever. Two seconds, three, an eternity of battering impacts and blind terror.

  He tried to orient himself, limbs flailing, and somehow, his feet found purchase on a slope. He slid rather than fell the rest of the way, boots scraping against loose stone, and when the ground finally leveled out, he slid to a stop.

  Panic set in. The others. Bash scrambled to his feet, ignoring the protests from his battered body. His eyes swept the cavern, heart hammering. If that fall had done this to him, despite his stats and bullshit overpowered build, what about the others?!

  He imagined it before he could stop himself. Three broken bodies splattered across stone. Luis's stupid grin frozen forever. Nora's sharp eyes gone dull. Patrick’s sternness crumpled.

  “No, no, no!” He spun, searching the darkness. “PATRICK! NORA! LUIS!”

  “Up here, you idiot.” Nora called, the voice came from above. Bash's head snapped up.

  A ledge jutted from the cavern wall maybe twenty feet overhead. Nora’s face peered down at him, half-lit by the faint glow of moss. Behind him, Bash could make out movement. Patrick’s silhouette, and something smaller fluttering in circles.

  “You fell past us,” Nora called down, her voice strained. “The ledge caught us. Mostly.”

  Relief flooded through Bash so hard his knees nearly gave out. “Oh thank god. Is everyone okay?”

  “Luis is hurt.” Patrick cut in, his tone killing the relief.

  Bash found a path up, crumbling handholds and narrow footholds that his battered body screamed at him for using. By the time he found his way up, fresh blood dripped from his palms.

  The scene that greeted him turned his stomach to ice.

  Luis lay flat on his back, face ashen and slick with sweat. His breathing came in shallow, ragged gasps.

  Nora knelt beside him, hands pressed against his side where dark blood seeped between her fingers. A jagged cut on her forearm oozed freely, but she ignored it entirely, focused on Luis with an intensity that bordered on desperation.

  Patrick helped, pulling cloth and bandages and packing the wound. A gash over his left temple had swollen one eye nearly shut.

  “How bad?” Bash asked, his voice coming out hoarse.

  “Besides the obvious, he has a concussion and possibly internal bleeding.” Nora didn't look up. “We can stabilize him, but I need time and concentration. Which means I need you to not be here asking stupid questions.”

  Lilly perched on a rock near Luis's head, unnaturally still, her usual chatter silenced. She made a soft, worried trill.

  Bash looked at Luis, pale and broken. At Nora, bleeding while she worked to save someone else. At Patrick, half-blind and still holding the group together. This was all on him. “What do you need?” Bash asked quietly.

  Patrick looked over at him briefly. “Scout ahead. Ten minutes. No detours. Find us an exit.”

  Bash nodded. “Ten minutes. Got it.”

  “I mean it.” Patrick's good eye bored into him. “Ten minutes. Then come back here and report.”

  Luis groaned, his eyes fluttering. Nora's hands glowed faintly blue as she worked, the same strange energy Bash had seen her use before. Luis's breathing steadied slightly.

  Bash took one last look at his friends, broken, bleeding, but alive. Turning, he left them behind and began to search.