From The Ashes We Rise: Chapter 20...
Chapter 20 is all done! What's gonna happen I wonder? :P Also, this story has almost as many reviews as Wistful Kisses! I consider this quite an achievement considering I wasn't even aware of where this was going to go when I started it :3 Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews and loves this story!
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The symbols proved to be effective against sight; when Solomon stepped out of the bubble, it was as though the rest of the group had vanished, though they could still see him as though they were looking through a rippling curtain of liquid, almost like a waterfall. Skulduggery had to stick his hand out to remind Solomon where they were standing. As the Necromancer ducked back into the hazy bubble, Emma turned to speak to them all.
"Remember what I said. This bubble works on sight, not sound." She kept her voice low. "One wrong move, one foot out of place, Hell, even a kicked stone and they'll hear us."
"You heard her," Skulduggery said. "Watch your step, and follow Valkyrie's lead. She's the only one here that knows this place."
Having been suddenly and inexplicably dumped into the hot seat, Valkyrie took charge reluctantly. She instructed everyone to stay close together and to keep as quiet as possible.
"Normally I'd fly over and drop in from the roof. As it happens, not everyone here can fly, so we're gonna have to go in a different way. Unfortunately that means we have to get past all these Hollow Men. They might be slow, but there's a lot of them, and they can hear as well as any of us can. If it comes down to a fight, then we'll just have to see how it goes. I don't particularly want a fight with them today, I ache still from giving birth, so whoever they hear first, you're on your own as far as I'm concerned." And she set off walking, wishing she could draw on the strength of her magic to soothe the aches of having a baby. Everything was back to normal but the pains remained, an insistent but wonderful reminder that her son was back at home, wrapped up warm and safe in a soft blanket.
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The Hollow Men patrolled routinely in groups of a few hundred, scattered around the grounds at regular intervals, passing dangerously close to them. Valkyrie felt her heart thud a little faster every time the drew nearer. She could hear their papery skin rustle as they walked, and that, to her, was way too close.
It was all going so well, until one of the Hollow Men crossed through the bubble. The others around it stopped and tilted their empty heads, searching for their vanished comrade, while it stood inside the bubble, looking at the members of the group that stood frozen and staring straight back. It stood with a perpetual stoop, heavy hands and feet weighing down its thin papery body. And then it swung a fist and Alice leapt into action, splitting it right down the middle with a loud ripping noise. The foul gases inside escaped and billowed upwards, and Alice gagged, her eyes stinging.
Every head turned towards the noise, and in her distraction, Emma could no longer maintain the bubble of invisibilty shielding her family from the enemy. It disintegrated with a noise like breaking glass, and they were left, exposed, before an army of Hollow Men.
"I think," Skulduggery said slowly, "that now would be a good time to run."
They turned to flee, only to find their way blocked by row upon row of paper soldiers, easy to defeat when alone, but in such vast numbers? They were in trouble.
Tanith and Alice slid into identical fighting stances, swords raised, mirror images of one another. Skulduggery drew his gun and ignited a spark in his fist. Symbols glowed a multitude of colours down the length of Emma's arms as she turned to join sister, and Valkyrie stepped up beside her husband with shadows lashing angrily around her. Solomon smiled dangerously and took a tighter grip on his cane as Ghastly cracked his knuckles loudly. Valkyrie just had time to feel a swell of pride, before chaos descended.
Before she could summon shadows to defend herself, a Hollow Man was thundering towards her, heavy fists swinging awkwardly. She only had time for physical reactions; she twisted and the Hollow Man flipped, landing hard as she ripped its arm off, turning her face away from the vile gases. Before anything else could grab at her, she rose off the ground, gauntleted right hand dropping through several degrees centigrade in seconds. Shadows lassooed round five or six of the creatures and pitched them high into the air, where Skulduggery set them alight with twin streams of flame, their charred remanats fluttering down in a shower of ash flakes. Ghastly and Solomon were back to back, as were Tanith and Alice, all throwing punches and swinging deadly blades and shadow shards. Emma ran between bobbing figures, touching each one of them on the shoulder with finger tips that glowed a faint green. Every Hollow Man she came into contact with swelled up and exploded, sending disgusting vapours everywhere.
"Go find him mum!" she called to Valkyrie, and Valkyrie knew immediately who she meant. She turned and ran.
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Art could hear sounds. Noises. He could hear things coming from a distance, echoing through the webbed castle walls, down the long, ever-changing corridors to the Dying Room. That's what he'd come to call the dank hole he'd been left in; the Dying Room. A rather apt name considering his situation. Amid the haze of fever, as infection set into his wounds and sickness wracked his body, he managed to identify the alien noises as the sounds of fighting.
It didn't matter, they'd never find him. He was doomed to die, he'd already accepted his fate, and now it was just a matter of waiting for darkness to take him. He assumed he'd just fall asleep and simply never wake up again. He hoped that's what would happen, anyway. The thought of dying awake and knowing it was coming was almost too terrifying to bear.
And then he heard a voice. A single shout echoing through the castle, like a whisper snatched away on the wind.
"Art, where are you?!"
He tried desperately to place that voice with a face, any face floating around in his jumbled brain. Finally he found one that seemed to fit. Valkyrie. But it didn't matter. She was still so far awau, and he felt so very tired, and so very heavy. He could feel his breath slowing down.
'How ironic,' he thought faintly. 'How bitterly, terribly ironic, to die just moments before I am to be rescued. If Emma could see me now, she'd be ashamed.'
He didn't feel his head connect with the rough cot as he slumped sideways into darkness.