Page 75 of Empire of Death
“Buy your men time.” Callum moved forward to the gates, which the soldiers continued to hold in battle. “Command them to follow you. Lure everyone’s attention away from the sea. Come on, this way.” He reached for me and grabbed me by the arm. The world spun before I was pulled away again, somewhere behind the lines of soldiers next to the general. Where we stood on the rampart, I could see the Barbarians coming into the city from the sea, ten thousand strong, burning and destroying everything in their path.
The general realized I was there and flinched because I’d appeared out of nowhere.
“I’m Queen Rothschild of the Southern Isles. King Ithaca has been executed by the Barbarians. If you don’t defeat the enemy, the Empire Colonies will be conquered by vampires. We need archers. We need cannons.”
He blinked like he didn’t know what to make of my instructions.
“Go.”
He heeded my command and hurried off to execute orders that he should have given himself. The Empire Colonies had been ambushed by the unexpected assault, so that meant King Ithaca had been so arrogant in his belief the alliance would be secured that he didn’t bother to plan for the alternative.
“Raise the dead,” Callum said. “There are enough bodies to add to their ranks.”
I saw the dead piled in the mud, their bodies stacked on top of one another in the middle of the battle and thrown off to the side. The battle had only begun because the crows were just gathering for the feast.
“Raise the dead and lead the resistance,” Callum said. “The soldiers will follow your lead.”
I’d only issued the silent command a handful of times, so the process was still foreign to me. Mostly based on intuition, I focused my mind the way I had on that dead shark beneath the surface, felt the souls of the dead littered on the ground, and like I was lifting something from the ground, I raised them with my mind.
All together, bodies rose from the mud, just cut down so their corpses were fresh. Blood continued to ooze out of most of them like they were still alive. There was a momentary pause inthe battle, the Barbarians steadying their swords to watch their fallen foes rise once more.
Callum grabbed me by the arm, and then my world whipped around before I stood just a few feet behind the front line, the sea of Barbarians in their intimidating armor cutting down the strangers that I fought for.
“Protect the queen,” Callum ordered.
The dead that I’d just raised advanced toward me, their movements slower than they would be if they still had beating hearts, and they formed a perimeter around me, their backs to me to limit the number of enemies that could reach me.
The pause in the battle continued, the Barbarians having witnessed the same phenomenon in Riviana Star, the same change in the tide that cost them the battle. But they didn’t flee this time. In fact, some of them smiled.
The difference in their eyes was there, the vertical slit that made them reptilian. It took me a moment to remember exactly where I’d seen it before, but then the realization struck me like a cannonball fired straight at my stomach.
Viper.
But they didn’t look quite like him, as if they were a different type of vampire.
About half of them appeared to be vampires, while the other half retained their mortality. They issued a barbaric war cry like they were orcs rather than men, and then continued the onslaught.
“They’re much stronger as vampires,” Callum said from beside me. “And remember, you stand in the mud. Your footwork is compromised. But you still have my strength and my sight.”
I unsheathed the blade from the scabbard across my back then gripped it by the hilt with a single hand. I was in a faraway place without my own soldiers to protect me, but the dead who protected me here somehow felt like kin.
“Xivin, show them the might of the Death Queen.”
The Barbarians rushed the front line, all of them hell-bent on reaching me, like I’d personally wronged them in the past. It took the heat off the other soldiers with wounded morale—and drew the attention to me.
They were fast, sprinting through the mud like it was no obstacle for them, and the line of dead that served me blocked most of the onslaught. Of course, a few made it through, and they rushed me like they would eviscerate me and then hang my body for all to see.
The first one reached me, and I met his blade with mine, gripping the hilt with two hands, and I parried his blade and struck it down. But the strength of the assault was undeniable. Without the strength of a god, I might have been overpowered.
My blade danced in a flurry, and he met my attacks with furious eyes. Back and forth we battled, the mud difficult to navigate. He had the upper hand because he was taller, and I couldn’t dance around like I normally could. But I had the strength of a god, a constant rush of power that never waned, and I defeated him in a few swipes of my blade before he collapsed.
More came for me, several at a time, and Callum remained quiet as he watched, giving me no feedback as if I needed none. My legs were able to slide through the thick mud because of the strength of his legs within my slender body, and I held my ownagainst the vampiric Barbarians and bested them before they hit the earth.
“Move forward out of the mud,” Callum said from behind me.
We advanced away from the castle, pushing the battle back in our favor to dry land.
“The men follow your lead.”
