Farther back, Drake helped Halco retreat while a fresh wave of zombies dashed forward. “Just the heads,” Rachel murmured, looking over her shoulder.

Exerting her will, she began setting the heads of the attackers on fire, one after another, working from the nearest to the farthest. The smaller targets required less effort than igniting the entire upper body, and the result seemed equally effective, leaving the victims writhing in the creek bed. After igniting the fifth head, Rachel felt blackness encroaching at the edge of her vision, and paused. She had a metallic taste in her mouth. Her head pounded.

Flaming bodies lay strewn between the zombies and their prey. The nearest zombies hesitated, baring their teeth to hiss at the fire.

“It got me,” Halco huffed to Drake, who had a supportive arm across his shoulders. “I saw worms enter my wrist. Take my amar.”

Sheathing his sword, Drake drew a dagger in one hand and cupped the other against the base of Halco’s skull, where his seed was located. Rachel glanced away as the dagger moved, but looked back in time to see Drake placing the amar in a pouch as Halco slumped to the stony ground.

Nedwin and Jason dragged Rachel up the far side of the creek bed as the undead attackers rallied, weaving between the burning corpses. The foremost zombies descended on Halco in a frenzy.

Without Halco slowing him, Drake caught up as Rachel, Tark, Nedwin, and Jason reached the base of the rocky butte. The others were already scaling it. The least steep side was still quite a climb, only leaning slightly away from vertical, although it offered abundant handholds.

“Can you manage?” Nedwin asked.

“No strength,” Rachel said. She doubted she could walk, let alone scale a steep wall. “Bad wrist.”

Aram landed beside Rachel after having dropped the last several feet of the descent. He heaved her over one beefy shoulder, as if she weighed nothing. The others were climbing. Aram started up as well.

Rachel found herself facing an onrushing mob of tattered men and women, old and young, grotesquely eager. Aram was rising, but the mob would reach the butte in time to claw at his boots, perhaps to climb after him and tear him down. She felt angry. These bloodthirsty creatures had attacked without provocation. They had killed Halco. They yearned to kill all of her friends.

Extending a hand, lips moving soundlessly, she focused heat on several in the front, then mentally pushed with all of her might, hurling her will at them with the psychic equivalent of a lunging dive at the end of a hard run. She dimly saw the flames engulfing them and felt the warm rush of heat as she sank into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER 23

THE SENTINELS

Jason peered down from the brink of the huge stone block as Aram climbed below him. He flinched back as the leaders of the oncoming zombies burst into flames, a few of them from head to toe, others along one side, or just the head and shoulders. Several zombies stampeded into their burning comrades, flames spreading as they tumbled to the ground at the base of the butte. Dry wails filled the night. The nearest unburned zombies fell back, snarling impotently.

Apparently Rachel had been eating her Wheaties! Jason knew she had been practicing her Edomic, but had no idea that she had grown so powerful. She had saved them back at the creek bed. Thanks to her, around twenty zombies must have perished.

As Aram reached the top of the butte, the zombies below resurged, dodging around disgusting bonfires to start climbing the little mesa. Drake, Ferrin, Tark, Nedwin, Nollin, and Corinne began hurling rocks gathered from the top of the butte down the side. Jason joined in, discovering that solid throws to the head sent the hideous climbers tumbling.

Aram gently laid Rachel on her back and bent over her. As Jason saw the barrage of stones successfully repelling the climbing zombies, he hurried to her side. She was breathing shallowly, her face pale.

“Wiped herself out,” Aram said.

“She wields serious power,” Farfalee acknowledged. “If she’s breathing, she’ll recover. Aram, we need you guarding the edge.”

Kerick approached Farfalee. “I see three of the dead standing aloof on the far side of the creek,” he reported quietly.

“The masterminds?” Farfalee asked.

“They’re the only enemies showing restraint,” Kerick said. “I suspect they’re coordinating the others.”

Jason gazed where Kerick had indicated, and saw the zombies he had mentioned. They stood side-by-side on a mound well back from the creek, still and silent, one quite tall and the other two rather short.

Farfalee set an arrow to the string and bent her bow. Jason wondered if an arrow could reach that far. She tilted the bow upward and released. The projectile curved away into the night, and landed in the head of the tallest zombie. He fell out of sight and the other two hid as well.

“What a shot,” Jason said, hardly believing it.

“I’ve had some practice,” Farfalee replied.

“They’re pulling back!” Aram called, hurling a stone larger than a bowling ball.

Nedwin approached Farfalee, jutting his chin toward where her arrow had flown. “Those three were the leaders?”

“Appears so,” she replied.

“I can get the other two,” Nedwin said.

“By all means,” she invited.

Dropping flat to the ground, Nedwin crept like a salamander to the opposite side of the butte from where they had ascended, then slunk over the edge.

“Don’t watch him,” Farfalee murmured, turning away. “If he succeeds, it will be by stealth.”

“They’re already re-forming,” Aram said.

“They might try to send some up one of the steeper faces,” Farfalee warned. “Corinne, watch that one. Nollin, the far one. I’ll keep an eye on the other.”

Corinne moved to watch the designated face. The others were gathering rocks to help repel the next assault.

“Drake,” Nollin said. “I’ll keep Halco’s amar.”

“If you prefer,” Drake replied, fishing the seed from a pouch. “That should keep the amar away from the fighting.”

Nollin grunted. “Some of us have to survive for the good of the mission. Seems like it’s chiefly my people laying down their lives on our behalf so far.”

“Which is according to plan,” Farfalee reminded everyone. “Nollin, please watch the rear approach.”

He hustled over to the far side of the butte to stand guard.

Two more attacks came in the next few minutes, both quelled before the zombies gained much ground. Aram could throw large stones with chilling accuracy, leaving undead enemies functionless after a direct hit or two. A pair tried to scale the back side, but failed.