Chapter 355 - 346 — The Throne’s Champions I
The third volley took the leading edge off the pillar at shoulder height and James felt the grit hit the side of his face.
He got a look at one of them in flight as it went past — not a bolt, not a projectile in any sense he understood. A short pale streak, no thicker than a finger, moving so fast that what he actually saw was the line it had already travelled. It went into the pillar on his left, made no sound going in, and came out the far side.
Where one had gone through Ronan’s shield rim, the metal had a hole in it with a white rime round the edge, and the rime was still there thirty seconds later.
He put his head round the pillar for half a second and got the shape of the hall.
Ninety metres up: the platform, the chair, the Steward, not moving.
Sixty metres up and coming: eleven Husk Soldiers, walking shoulder to shoulder across most of the width of the floor, in no hurry at all.
Behind those, five Bone Chanters, hands up, drifting forward in a loose line.
And behind those, right at the back, the two Shrouded Dead — three metres of blackened cloth apiece, moving like men wading.
Team Zero: fourth and fifth pillars on the left, with Maeve behind Ronan’s shield and Cillian one pillar further back.
And behind all of them, a hundred metres of empty hall and the four steps up to the door they had come in by.
`[MANA: 2,550 / 3,100]`
One skeleton.
---
There were six dead Throne Sentries on the flags between the pillars, in full harness, which was the best raise material in the building, and James had been standing next to them for four minutes.
He went along the line of the pillar bases on his hands and knees for two of them and did it fast.
`[SUMMON UNDEAD SKELETON — 80 MANA] ×3`
`[MANA: 2,310 / 3,100]`
Four skeletons, three of them in plate.
He sent all four straight up the middle at the Husk Soldiers, which was not to kill anything — it was to make eleven walking corpses stop walking, because the moment they stopped walking the Chanters behind them had eleven bodies in their own firing line.
It worked for about ten seconds.
"*There’s one*," said Cillian, from two pillars back. "Left of the line, he’s stepped out—"
`[CILLIAN WARD — LIGHTNING STRIKE]`
The Bone Chanter came apart at the waist and went down on the flags.
"One," said Cillian.
---
Eleven seconds later one of the Shrouded Dead lifted an arm.
James saw the whole of it because he happened to be watching that half of the hall, and it was not like the Pit Shaman at all. There was no staff and no light and nothing came out of anything. The big one simply raised a wrapped arm in the direction of the body, and held it there, and the Bone Chanter on the floor pulled itself together and got up.
The split across its waist closed as it rose.
It put both hands up.
"*It’s back*," Cillian shouted. "The one I just — it’s *back*—"
And thirty metres to the right, the second Shrouded Dead raised its arm at a Husk Soldier that Finn had taken the head off ninety seconds earlier.
That one got up too.
---
"Two of them," said Maeve, flat, from behind the shield. "It’s not one support unit this time. It’s two, and they’re at opposite ends of their own line."
James put his back against the pillar and did the arithmetic he did not want to do.
Five Chanters at five thousand two hundred each. Eleven Husks at six thousand four hundred. And two things at the back, fifteen thousand eight hundred apiece, that could put any of it back up as fast as Team Zero could take it down.
The first wave had been one Shaman with four guards and a clear route to it once he stopped wasting himself on the Runners.
This was not that. This had two restorers on opposite flanks with sixteen bodies between them and Team Zero, and killing anything in front of those two was a way of spending the afternoon.
*So don’t.*
---
He looked at the route through anyway, because he owed it that much.
Finn and Ronan, forward, through eleven Husk Soldiers, to reach five Chanters — which meant leaving the pillars, which meant forty metres of open flagstone with five things firing pale streaks that went through stone.
The fourth volley came down while he was still thinking about it and took a piece out of the pillar the size of a dinner plate, and one of them went through the shoulder of the skeleton nearest Finn and the skeleton stopped being anything.
`[SUMMONED UNIT DESTROYED]`
"No," said James, out loud.
"No what?" said Finn.
"We’re not going through them."
---
What he noticed next he noticed because he was already looking in the right place.
The Chanters were coming forward faster than the Husks.
Not much — a metre, maybe a metre and a half over the last half-minute — but they had started level with the front of the Shrouded Dead and now they were four or five metres ahead of them, and they were still moving.
They were following Team Zero. The Husks walked at the speed Husks walk at and the two big ones waded along behind, and the five things with their hands up were drifting forward to keep a firing line.
James watched that for six seconds and made the decision.
"We’re going back."
"*Back?*"
"Back down the hall. In stages, on my call, and I want the Chanters coming with us and the big ones not." He got his hand out to the side and pointed without leaning out. "Fourth pillar to the sixth. Then sixth to eighth. Ronan first with Maeve, Finn covers, Cillian moves last because he’s already behind."
"And if the big ones come?"
"Then we’re no worse off than we are now."