The OICW clattered against the slickrock at her feet. Somehow it had fallen out of her hands. She shook her head and reached for the Makarov in her pocket. It felt as heavy as a rock, as a, a boulder. Why was she so tired, suddenly? Sarah sat down, hard, and closed her eyes. She couldn't open them again no matter how determined she was. What was going on?
Oh,she thought. This time, yeah. It was. Magic.
She felt hands grab at her, rough hands. They pinched her around the thigh, around the upper arm. Someone was dragging her, she could feel the top of her head sliding along the rock. She couldn't hear anything, she was deaf. Her hands were pulled in front of her and encircled with a length of rope. She was being tied up.
Instantly her energy returned. Her eyes shot open and she could hear again'every ragged breath, every beat of her own heart. She turned her head wildly to the side to see what was behind her, what was flanking her. She was kneeling on a pile of bones. Somebody else's bones were digging into her shins, her knees. She rolled around, trying to get comfortable. She couldn't see Ayaan. The green lich'the one in the monk's robe, the one whose face looked like a skull'was standing next to her. He pointed, his arm stretched out, one bony finger stabbing at the air and she looked.
They had Ptolemy beaten to a pulp. His legs were splayed wide open and bent at wrong angles. His arms were broken in multiple places. Men in light blue paper shirts stood around him, sledgehammers balanced on their shoulders. A girl maybe two years younger than Sarah was bent over him with a pair of garden shears. She cut right through his painted face, cut away at the plaster at his neck. She tore open his linen and exposed his head.
His skull was the brown color of a Brazil nut. Papery skin covered the round back of his head while bits of withered flesh clung to his cheeks and throat. His lips had drawn so tightly over his teeth that they looked scalloped. His eyes were closed, sewn shut, two dashes sunk deep in their sockets.
Sarah could just reach the soapstone in her pocket, just touch it with the tip of her pinky. It was enough.
one here of mine is here mine,he told her.her save her
Sarah shook badly, her body vibrating like a milkweed pod in the wind.
One of the blue-shirted men held Ptolemy's head down against the rock. The other brought up his hammer and brought it down hard, made it clang against the ground as Ptolemy's skull burst into fragments that spun for a moment on the slickrock and then fell down and were still.
The green phantom grabbed Sarah's collar and dragged her to her feet. 'Walk,' he told her. No threats, no promises. Just walk. She stumbled forward, her legs weak. She passed through a gauntlet of cut-down ghouls and wild-eyed cultists but none of them moved toward her, none of them spat at her or shrieked names at her. Her eyes were very wide. The green lich marched her right up to the flatbed. There had been no attempt made to repair the damage she'd done to it. Sarah tried to gloat on that, to exult in how badly she'd hurt the Tsarevich. The message she was being sent, however, was to the contrary. She hadn't even slowed him down.
She swallowed convulsively. Acid was boiling in her throat but she refused to vomit. She was lead up to the side of the flatbed and then she was told to stop. She did so. She shoved her hands in her pockets. The Makarov was gone.
The green lich jumped up on the flatbed and leaned his face inside of the yurt. He nodded a couple of times'he must be discussing her fate with the yurt's occupant. He jumped back down and gestured at a living woman. She came over and handed him something. A Russian pistol. Her own pistol.
No undead creature could shoot a gun'it was an axiom of Sarah's existence. They just didn't have the eye-hand coordination. Their nervous systems didn't work properly. They couldn't run, and they couldn't shoot. Then again, she'd seen plenty of them run.
The green lich dug his finger through the trigger guard, then used his free hand to mold his fingers around the grip. Then he shoved the barrel against her chest. He smiled down at her and slid the handgun a little to the left.