“And those things are much too close,” Nathan added.
“They are slow-moving … unless they ambush us,” Nicci said.
With gasping, scratching sounds, two dust people clambered to the top of the stairs and emerged onto the shop roof, climbing through the trapdoor. With a swift kick, Nicci knocked both stick figures back down the steps, but more cadavers surged up the interior stairs.
Nicci looked around into the night and realized that the rest of the town had fallen silent. There were no more screams.
“Are we the only ones left?” Thistle whispered.
Nicci did not give any excuses. “Yes. But we will get out of here.”
They watched in dismay as two recently inhabited brick buildings also sagged and collapsed as the Lifedrinker’s magic turned the brick structures into dust.
Angry, Nicci focused on the rugged bluffs outside of town—a place of sanctuary where the solid ground would protect them. Better than here.
“Be ready,” she said. “I’m going to fuse the dust like I did before. I’ll make another path for us to run on, and it won’t last long. And the other dust people will come after us as swiftly as they can. We just have to be faster.” She turned to the young girl. “Can you do it?”
“Of course I can,” Thistle said. “Say when.”
Nicci gauged the most direct path to the bluffs outside of town. She gestured. “That way. Don’t look back. Don’t stop for anything—just run. I’ll make the ground hard, but we still have to jump off the roof.”
“I would make a comment about my old bones,” Nathan said, “but now isn’t the time.”
Bannon pointed down. “I’m more worried about those old bones.”
Nicci unleashed her magic and marked a path. With Additive Magic she created a solid structure, melding the sand and dust into flat, hard islands. Stepping-stones, since she did not have enough strength left to solidify the whole area. This would be enough. She made one appear, then another.
“Go!” she shouted. “I’ll make the rest along the way.”
Without hesitation, Thistle leaped off the roof and landed in the soft dirt. Before the dust people could respond, she sprang onto the nearest hardened stepping-stone, then jumped to the next, running ahead. Nicci dropped after her, following close behind so she could reach out and keep creating the path as fast as the girl could run.
Nathan and Bannon tumbled down after them. By now, some of the dust people realized what their intended victims were doing, and the sticklike mummies streamed around the remaining town structures. Two dry cadavers rose up to the left of Thistle, dodging the hardened sand. Seeing this, Nicci reacted with an angry snarl and thrust with a blast of air, which smashed the dust people to splinters of bone and dried flesh.
But more came.
Nicci and the girl ran toward the rock outcroppings, with Bannon and Nathan close behind. They fled the abandoned town. When they finally reached the hard rocks, Thistle scrambled up the outcropping, finding hand-and footholds as she climbed higher away from the dust people. The other three followed her, crawling up the pocked bluff walls until they reached the relative safety of a solid outcropping.
Thistle didn’t want to stop. “I know a way, follow me. If we go deeper into the canyons, they’ll never find us.”
Together, they fled into the night. Climbing higher into the rocks, Nicci glanced over her shoulder in time to see the last of the brick buildings collapse into dust. Then even the stone buildings began to shift as the ground underneath melted away and swallowed them. Soon enough, all sign of Verdun Springs had vanished forever.
CHAPTER 39
Even terrified and in shock, Thistle knew her way through the dark wilderness. Moving solely on adrenaline, she guided them by starlight along smooth slickrock ledges farther into the canyons, far from the reach of the dust people. They were all too exhausted and shaken to engage in conversation. The girl was obviously struggling to absorb what she had just been through, but she survived with a furious lightning-bolt determination that Nicci admired.
Finally, the companions reached the top of the bluffs, high above any threat from the Lifedrinker’s minions, and Thistle squatted on a flat rock under the stars. Her thin legs and knobby knees stuck up in the air; her shoulders slumped. She rested her hands on her patchwork skirt and just stared into the empty distance.
Nicci stood beside her. “I believe we are safe now. Thank you.”
Thistle began trembling, and Nicci didn’t know how to comfort her.
Fortunately, the wizard came up and bent down next to her. “I am terribly sorry, child. That was your home, your aunt and uncle.…”
“They took care of me,” Thistle said in a quavering voice. “But I spent most of my time alone. I was fine—and I will be fine.” She looked up with fiery determination, but when her honey-brown eyes met Nicci’s, they filled with tears. Her lips quivered and her shoulders began to shake. “Uncle Marcus and Aunt Luna always said I was too much responsibility for them to handle. Too prickly.” She sniffled, and Nicci could see her iron-hard strength. “I will be fine.”
“I know you will,” Nicci said. “Truly I do.”
A moment later, the girl broke down into sobs, rubbing her eyes. Bannon awkwardly put an arm around her shoulders, like a big brother. She turned, embraced him, and cried into his chest. The young man blinked, not sure what to do in the storm of grief. Reflexively, he held her in return.
“We will rest here,” Nicci announced, looking around at their high ground. “This place is defensible. We can move on in the morning.”
“Nowhere is safe,” Thistle said in a harder voice. She shook herself. “Except with you. We’ll all be safe together.”
Nicci took first watch while the others tried to sleep. They had lost their packs and traveling supplies during their frantic flight, but they made do. Nicci had her magic to assist them, but she suspected that Thistle’s survival abilities would be essential to their mission, even if they headed away from the spreading desolation.
Bannon and Nathan stretched out on the open rock, trying to rest. Exhausted, the old wizard slept soundly, and his eyes fell half closed, so Nicci could see only the whites between his lids. She was used to the fact that wizards slept with their eyes open, an eerie habit that unsettled those unaccustomed to seeing it. Now, though, she was more disturbed to realize that Nathan Rahl’s eyes were mostly closed. Perhaps it was another indication of how much of his magic he had lost since the world had changed. He was no longer whole. How had Red known what lay in store for them?