Page 117 of Alchemised

“Sol save us. It’s Blackthorne!” Penny said, her voice strangled with terror as they rounded the corner.

The shallow sections of the flood cathedral were filled not only with a horde of necrothralls but also a number of what looked to be the mortal Aspirants, lined up and blocking their path.

“Go back!” Soren immediately said, but he’d barely spoken the words before there came a scream of metal behind them, followed by a savage roar.

Chimaeras.

They were penned in.

Blackthorne stood at the front, barely armoured. “Capture Holdfast, kill the rest, and you will receive the immortal reward!”

There was an eager roar among the Aspirants, while the necrothralls just stood still, waiting.

“Stay close,” Luc ordered as he fell in, shoulder-to-shoulder, with Soren and Sebastian.

“Get across,” Soren said.

The plan, as much as there had been a plan, fell apart. There was no escaping with Luc when he was in the thick of the fighting. Helena’s fingers went for her daggers.

The first wave of necrothralls hit, and the group splintered like a wrecked ship.

Several necrothralls rushed towards Helena. There was no time to think. She moved on instinct, blocking, slicing, her dagger morphing to chase after crucial joints, while her other palm pressed flat and she jerked back, ripping their reanimation free.

The energy struck her, a blistering flare of power, and she sent it outwards, pulverising the necrothralls closing in.

There was light somewhere, fire, torches, reflecting across the frigid water that was already up to their knees.

The noise was deafening. The roar and chaos shattered the senses.

She looked for the others, but it was impossible to see them in the throng.

So many bodies, living and dead, moving through the dark.

Kaine had trained her to defend herself and flee, not fight in a melee.

She tried to key up her resonance, but there were so many bodies and movements and weapons swinging, it was dizzying.

She ducked a swinging club and lashed out with her knife, the blade singing with resonance as it tore through the waxy decaying skin, up the torso and throat, slicing through bones like butter, into the brain.

She twisted her resonance and the blade curved, severing the head completely.

Something collided with her, bowling her over.

A warm hand, wrenching her up. Ally, she thought, until she saw the steel-gauntleted fist, gripping a sword and swinging it towards her head.

She drove her knife up, the handguard just barely large enough to deflect, and then she stabbed towards the weak point near the shoulder, narrowing the blade as thin as she could until her resonance with the metal told her she’d pierced flesh.

She flared out the knife blade as it sank into the hilt.

She jerked it back and felt the warm, heavy spurt of hot blood across her hand as the grip on her loosened.

The sword fell, barely missing her head, and the Aspirant crashed into the water on top of her.

Cold water hit her head-on, painful as a kick to the ribs. She scrambled to her feet, fighting to get free of the body nearly drowning her.

She stabbed blindly, the water and noise and disorientation making it impossible to sense anything clearly.

She crawled out of the throng, found a wall, and got up, trying to catch her breath, trying to find the others in the flickering dark.

There was screaming. It kept going on and on.

It was Purnell. She’d snapped out of her daze and was now screaming at the top of her lungs, the sound bouncing off the walls, drawing attention. A group of necrothralls was closing in.

Wagner, who was nearest to Purnell, shoved her straight at them as he tried to escape. As she fell, Purnell seemed to become lucid again, comprehending terror sweeping across her face.

She was weaponless but quick. She leapt, somehow evading the clawing hands, and fled into the centre of the flood-filled room.

Half a dozen steps and then Purnell stepped too far, vanishing underwater.

Helena watched, praying that she’d resurface, that somehow she’d escaped the current. Something rammed into Helena, knocking her sideways. A boot came down on her wrist, and she inhaled water when she gasped with pain.

Fire tore along her ribs.

She crawled back towards the wall. Her clothes freezing on her skin. She turned, looking desperately for the others, coughing up water.

Wagner had somehow managed to reach the far wall and had a spear he was beating off necrothralls with.

Luc and Sebastian were fighting together in the centre of a horde, while Soren had broken away and was trying to reach Alister and Penny, who’d been backed into a corner far from everyone else.

The light flickered madly off the water, only giving glimpses. The chimaeras had caught up. Fangs and claws were flashing as Alister tried to raise a barrier. Penny gave a cry as her weapon caught in the shoulder of a chimaera and was ripped from her hands.

Soren raced through the water, his weapon morphing as he ran, trying to reach them before the chimaeras closed in.

An axe came swinging through the air, barely missing Soren’s leg.

Soren caught himself, stumbling in the water, and turned hard, looking around wildly to find his attacker. His weapon flashed, barely blocking a blow that nearly threw him off his feet. Now he was facing his opponent. Blackthorne barred the way.

Blackthorne, realising the disadvantage of his opponent, kept moving to the right. Making all his attacks from Soren’s blind spot. Tiring him.

“Soren!” Luc suddenly shouted.

Soren pivoted sharply as a chimaera leapt at him. He beheaded it in one clean sweep of his blade.

There was a horrible, wet cracking sound.

When Soren turned, Blackthorne had swung from the right.

The axe head was buried all the way through his ribs to his spine.

Blackthorne jerked the axe free and licked it as Soren dropped, vanishing into the water.

Everything went out of focus.

Luc was screaming, but Helena’s body seemed to abruptly come alive. She stumbled forward, slashing at anything in her path, trying to reach Soren before the river took him.

Luc was faster. By the time Helena reached him, Luc was already on his knees, pulling Soren up into his arms, stained with the rush of blood that poured out of him.

Sebastian was a moment behind him, immediately throwing himself into Blackthorne’s path and holding him off as Luc knelt in the water, Soren clutched against his chest.

Luc looked up when Helena reached him.

“Y-You can heal him, right?”

“Luc—”

But he was already pushing Soren into her arms, the weight dropping her to her knees in the water.

She held on to Soren with trembling hands, ignoring the throb of her wrist.

“I’ll cover you,” Luc said, picking up his sword. And then he was gone.

The battle did not stop for Soren.

Helena tried to ignore the fighting that raged around her, trying to focus. A thread was all she needed. She could keep him alive.

Just like she’d kept Lila alive.

But the wound was so big. Wounds like this didn’t survive a journey to the hospital. This blow had been lethal. Soren’s remaining life was feeble, slipping away as her resonance tried to grasp it.

Fingers brushed against her hand.

Soren was staring at her. “Two souls is still a bargain.”

The words had barely passed from his lips when a surge of cold deathly energy hit, slamming through Helena’s resonance.

She was so raw with exhaustion, so focused on trying to keep him alive, her vision blotted out as a jolt of death ran through her. She doubled over, for a moment too dazed to comprehend what had happened. Her vision cleared and Soren’s blank, sightless gaze met hers.

He was gone.

“No. No. No. Soren!”

He hung in her arms, his blood still flooding against her skin, the only warmth.

Helena looked around. Alister was calling to Penny to fall back as she fought the chimaeras using a knife, letting them get dangerously close before she could hit them. One mistake was all it would take.

Soren was dead. Purnell was dead.

Sebastian was doing everything he could to keep Luc protected, holding off Blackthorne.

Luc was fighting, but his focus was split.

He kept checking on Helena where she knelt with Soren clutched in her arms. She could see the desperation in his eyes.

The certainty that she was going to save Soren. That she could.

She met his eyes for one guilt-stricken moment and turned back, pulling Soren’s body against her.

“Anything,” she said, pressing a hand against his neck. “Whatever the price.”

She pushed the energy out of her body and brought him back.

It was more than just easy. It was instinctive.

She knew Soren, knew exactly what it felt like when he was alive.

Her resonance wound through him like a current, knitting the wound closed with absolute efficiency, stitching the severed sections of his organs back together, rejoining the bones, but she didn’t stop there.

She felt his mind return, a shadow, the barest glimmer of him, and she poured her energy into that.

Come back. Come back. You can’t go yet.

Soren blinked up at her, and she felt a connection materialise between them, a wisp. She strengthened it, because she couldn’t let him go.

“You can’t rest yet, you have to protect Luc,” she said, and heard the words echo through him.

Soren knew her. She could feel it. The familiarity she represented. It was horrible, feeling this abomination of life in her arms. For all her efforts, this was a shadow. Soren was a puppet she’d slipped her hand inside.

After so many years of healing, necromancy was effortless. There was nothing to hurt. She simply told Soren’s body that it could not die. He would fight as he’d always fought. He would protect them, because he knew how to do that.

He stood and helped her up, weapon already in hand.

Muscle memory lingered, like a sleepwalker’s habits, even when the person was gone.