Page 288 of Scorched Earth

“I love you, too,” Lydia whispered. “Now let’s go save Mudamora.”

Together, the six of them pressed at a slow run through the forest of dead conifers. Thick black streams of blight spidered across theland, the air thick with the stink of rot. To the west was the wall that had once protected Mudamora from Derin before proving itself so woefully inadequate. Flakes of snow fell from the sky, the white dulling as it mixed with the bits of rot and dust that crumbled from the trees. The land was all shades of lifeless grey. As though they’d stepped into the underworld itself.

They reached the fortress that he’d once commanded. The place where it had all began, and it felt eerily like coming full circle as Killian took in the half-moon exterior wall of the fortress he’d lost to Rufina. It was much unchanged from when he and Lydia had last come through here in pursuit of Malahi.

“Do you see any signs of life?” he asked Lydia, who held her own sword at the ready, though he knew it was the least of her weapons.

She shook her head. They warily walked up the bank of the river of blight to where it flowed through the opening in the fortress’s wall. There were many footprints in the snow, and Killian noted the stone structure that had been built alongside the river of death so that travelers could pass through the wall without wading into the mirk.

He swiftly took in the crumbling outbuildings in the fortress’s courtyard, his memory still echoing with the screams from that long ago battle.

“There’s no one here,” Lydia murmured, but her eyes were on the path of footprints that ran alongside the blight to the tunnel through the wall that had defended Mudamora for so long.

“Do you think that portcullis still works?” Agrippa asked. “We get that closed, it will buy us time when the blighters break through Bercola’s lines.”

Killian couldn’t help but flinch, because if that happened, his old friend would be dead. “If there isn’t too much rust in the mechanisms.”

“Leave it to us.”

He turned at Lena’s voice. She and Gwen stood together, as they had for almost as long as he’d known them, loyal until the bitter end.

“We’ll get it shut.” Gwen lifted her chin. “You go put Rufina in the ground, Killian.”

Lena hurried forward to fling an arm around both Lydia and Malahi. “You two save Mudamora. We have your back.”

Killian swiftly showed them the mechanism for closing the portcullis. “Once you have it closed, run.”

Lena shook her head. “We’re surrounded by blight for days ineither direction. If we don’t win this fight, there is no surviving. We’ll hold our ground.”

“May the Six be with you.” He gripped both their shoulders. “It has been an honor to fight alongside you.”

With Lydia, Agrippa, and Malahi on his heels, Killian walked on the stone walkway alongside the river of blight. In the close darkness of the tunnel, the stink was oppressive, his eyes watering by the time they reached the other side. Tracks carried on up the pass, the blight stark against the snow. At the top of the pass was a ridge, and below was the valley that held Deadground.

The town and the mounds containing the corrupted tenders were still out of sight, but Lydia lifted a hand and pointed. “I can see the life the corrupted tenders have stolen from here, it’s so bright.” Shaking her head, she added, “It should be drifting. Dispersing. But it’s as though they’ve created a well from which it can’t escape.”

“Was it like that before?”

“Yes, but the scale…” Her jaw tightened. “What I saw before was a candle compared to the sun. Every life lost to the blight has come here.”

The portcullis noisily rattled shut as they climbed the pass, the air thin and cold, every breath labored as they climbed alongside the river of blight. Its black tide still had the strange effect of seeming to run both directions, toward Deadground and out into Mudamora.

“Can you see any corrupted, Lydia?” Killian asked as they drew closer to the ridgeline. “Rufina?”

“Even if they are here, I can’t tell among all this life. Everything glows.”

“Oh, she’s here,” Agrippa muttered. “And she’s bloody well watching.”

Killian’s instincts flared a heartbeat before a familiar female voice said, “How right you are, Agrippa. How right you are.”

111LYDIA

Rufina walked over the ridgeline and then down the slope toward them, two corrupted striding to either side of her. They stopped as she pressed onward, both of them drawing weapons.

“Welcome to my queendom,” Rufina said. “A taste of what is to come as Mudamora falls beneath my army. And it will only be the first, for soon all the West will kneel to me, the Six forgotten to time.”

She’d destroy the world to strike a blow at the gods. Lydia’s mouth curled in disgust, every part of her loathing the creature that stood before them.

“It was a clever ploy,” Rufina said. “After everything that the Empire has accomplished for me, I believed they’d continue to be allies of convenience. But I’ve lived too long and been betrayed too often not to have contingencies, and Marcus has paid a heavy price for his deception.” She smiled at Agrippa. “He’ll pay a heavier price still when I’m done here.”