Free Bone Magic by Brent Nichols

out a hand,
resting it on his shoulder. "I'm all right," he said. His voice was
tight with strain, but he no longer sounded as if he were on the
verge of panic.
    The fire was
just coals now. Tira's eyes had adjusted to the darkness.
Everything was lit with a soft red glow from the embers, and the
smell of wood smoke hung over the compound, along with the pungent
smell of the horses. Then she caught a whiff of something
darker.
    Rotting
flesh.
    "Here they
come!"
    "Hold your
positions," Carmody snapped. "Reserve squad, to me."
    Four of his men
had been working their way along the line of horses, putting on
saddles and bridles. They dropped the saddles they were carrying
and drew their swords, gathering behind Carmody by the west side of
the palisade.
    Tira heard the
rustle of footsteps through tall grass. She could sense the
faintest tremble in the ground under her feet. Then something
thudded against the palisade. There was a slippery rasping sound,
and a pale gleam as two hands wrapped around the sharpened top of a
log. A face appeared between the points, and a soldier moved,
slashing his sword across those white fingers.
    The attacker
fell, but half a dozen more appeared along the top of the wall.
Then Tira heard the scrape of flesh on wood right behind her. The
undead were attacking from two directions.
    "Steady, boys,"
Murf murmured to the men around him. There was nothing they could
do for the moment. The palisade was too high to defend unless the
attackers came over at a spot above one of the sentry
platforms.
    Men dropped
over the wall on the far side, and soldiers rushed in, hacking at
them as they landed. Then a pair of pale shapes dragged themselves
over the wall ten feet from the cart. It was supposed to be a sneak
attack, she supposed, with everyone's attention on the far side of
the compound. But Carmody's men were too disciplined for that. Murf
and another soldier closed on the first attacker, and another man
rushed over to deal with the second.
    The invaders
were a man and a woman. The woman faced Murf and another soldier.
She was heavyset, with a dress that had been torn off above her
knees. Her legs were white, streaked with scratches and scrapes
that didn't bleed. Her face was almost obscured by the greasy
tangle of her hair, but what Tira could see made her stomach
tighten. This was deadly combat, but the woman's face was blank and
expressionless. She looked like a human being, moved like one, but
there was no life behind that slack, mask-like face.
    The woman held
a long knife low in her right hand. As the soldiers lunged at her
she twisted to the side, then slashed upward with the knife. Murf
plunged his sword into her chest, and she ignored it, grabbing
Murf's sword arm with her free hand. As the other soldier hacked at
her legs, she pulled on Murf's wrist, tugging him forward
off-balance. Her knife scraped against the side of his breastplate
and slid upward.
    And sank
hilt-deep into his armpit.
    He fell, and
the second soldier brought his sword slashing across, mostly
severing her neck. Her head flopped sideways, hanging by a strip of
flesh, and she stood frozen long enough for him to take her knife
hand off at the wrist.
    The soldier
lowered his sword, looking around for the nearest threat. And Murf
rose behind him. Tira felt a brief surge of joy, thinking he had
survived. But Murf's face was slack and dead. As Tira opened her
mouth to scream a warning, Murf stepped forward and plunged the tip
of his sword into the other soldier's neck.
    Murf's head
turned, and Tira shrank back, putting the cart between them. He
broke into a run, ignoring her and Tam and Mikail, heading for the
main battle. Only six of the undead had come over the wall in the
main attack, but they had been joined by three of Carmody's
men.
    Tira turned
back to the soldier Murf had killed, but he lay unmoving on the
grass. The undead man who had come over the wall was flopping on
the ground, his legs broken, slashing with a knife at a