Free The Rising King by Shea Berkley Page B

distance, skirting the bulk of the fighting as we labor to reach Orntho. That massive hulk of leathery skin and bones stands just outside the gates with a handful of his men. Waiting.
    That irritates me. It speaks of their confidence that we’ll fail to protect the city.
    Just when we get close enough to see him, the last of the sun’s light dips behind the horizon, plunging Teag into darkness. The Nightmare Men reach for their weapons. Orntho raises his hand to his mouth and breathes on a ring. The black stone turns pale and a thin white wisp rises, curls up toward the stars, and then surges toward the bones on the ground. Within seconds the bodies reconnect. In less than a minute, the crumbled Nightmare Men I’d thrown from the walls are moving, and in no time the whole group melds into the shadows and are gone.
    “Now that’s a nightmare,” Wyatt breathes, just as in awe as I am.
    I twist back and forth, looking for one of them to spring out at us, not for a minute believing they’ve gone for good. “How do we kill something that can’t die?”
    I feel a wave of panic surge. He breathed on that ring, and they came back to life. It shouldn’t be possible, but this place doesn’t live by normal hey-let’s-make-sense-out-of-life rules. “How are we supposed to deal with guys like that?”
    Wyatt grabs my shirt, pulls me close, and gives me a little shake. “Listen to me, Dylan.” His eyes glitter with confidence, and his voice demands I pull it together. “Everything dies. Everything.”
    A shout sounds and we turn to see one of the Nightmare Men who didn’t go into the city appear out of the shadows and strike down one of the firsts . The dude didn’t even have time to react, but I do. I shoot a series of fireballs. They hit the slapped-together body and it bursts apart. I turn to Wyatt, feeling a huge sense of relief. “There’s not much fire can’t kill.”
    “Lucky for us.” He stares at the smoldering piles of the Nightmare Man’s remains as if he doesn’t trust the obvious. I don’t blame him. Nothing is simple here. Nothing does what it’s supposed to do. My gaze stretches across the battlefield and I try to come up with a better plan. Something to shock the Rodarians into leaving, but I’m coming up blank.
    Wyatt slaps his hand on my arm, grabbing my attention. The disgusted look on his face makes my stomach sink. The Nightmare Man is re-forming, piece by piece. Skin and bone slap together, climbing up the body to make a horrifying whole.
    Wyatt lets go, and as he backs away, he says, “Find your dad and tell him. They need to know what they’re up against.” He then turns and runs toward the Nightmare Man, his sword raised for a fight.
    Watching him dive into the fight motivates me to haul ass back to my dad. Running toward the group of Rodarians still hacking at the barrier, I drop to the ground and slide baseball style back behind the city walls. I pop back up and search the area. Chaos reigns as people are yanked into the shadows and killed by the Nightmare Men’s unseen hands. It had to be the Nightmare Men who, without a trace, devastated the town Wyatt mentioned earlier. But why?
    A high whistle rips through the air, and I find Leo and Lucinda herding people out of the streets and indoors. Leo waves me over. “Something weird is going on.”
    “Yeah, the Nightmare Men are alive.”
    “What?” He looks at an empty cart where a pile of bodies once was.
    He has no idea. I turn to Lucinda. “Did you know about them, about how they reanimate at night?”
    “No.” She even looks alarmed, and I believe her.
    “They reanimate? As in, we kill them and they don’t stay dead?” Leo asks, his naturally deep voice getting higher and higher.
    No wonder they were so easy to kill. It was their plan all along to get killed behind the walls and then, once the sun set, rise from the dead and start killing.
    “We’re not safe in the shadows.” I create a ball of bright energy, and