Snippet #2814604

Thump. Thump. Thump.

In a slow, mesmerizing cadence, the sticks pounced upon the drum like weapons. One after the other, each resounding blow sent shivers through her body like an echo. There, standing mingled with the face of the festival crowd, a small girl felt an even smaller hand holding her own. She felt safe.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The girl lifted her head skyward. The Sacred Flame was growing darker. Its radiance began to recede into itself, devoured by something invisible to the eye -- color washed away from the streets and the shadows cast around them crawled into the fading light as though it were alive.

She wanted to squeeze their hand for comfort as a sudden tightness gripped her lungs, but only empty air brushed aginst her frigid fingertips. And as if drawn to him, her eyes returned to that man on the drums. His hands were no longer moving, and his eyes seemed to pierce through her with a silent knowing.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Then, she realized. There was no sound in this world. That was her heartbeat she was hearing.

***

One of the corpses opened its eyes.

In repositioning himself for another potshot with the bow, an unlucky bandit's leg ventured a little too near and was instantly seized by something that had, until just now, lain entirely prone on the sewer walkway. His eyes widened in horror as black smoke erupted from his ankle; the hand that grasped him tightened like a burning iron, sinking deeper into his flesh as it burned away through disintegrating meat. The man shrieked like a wounded animal and kicked wildly at the corpse, not even his rotted, drugged out brain was capable of dulling the pain.

With one hard tug, he yanked himself free and drunkenly staggered into a full pratfall that left him collapsed on his rear. Searing fire crept along his pants from the shin up, which he desperately tried to extinguish by swinging his leg around until in an uncharacteristically intelligent move he remembered where he was. Scampering toward the flow of sewage on all fours, his entire body was suddenly lifted up by the back of his collar before he could douse his leg and was unceremoniously thrown against the wall.

In the split second that he was dazed, the corpse -- now standing -- pinched the knife from his belt and drove his own blade through his side. A light love tap on his shoulder set his torso abruptly ablaze, and she kicked the burning man into his bow-wielding partner, spreading the gift of fire to the next startled bandit.

From the far side of the ongoing battle, disciple of the Sacred Flame Maria Solaster stood to her full height, back from the dead. She felt along her ribs with charred fingers and sensed wet, sticky blood soaking through the cloth. Well, maybe she hadn't escaped death just yet.