The Undead King: The Saga of Jai Lin: Book One by Jared Rinaldi Page B

dress and stout body face-down in the grass.
    “Nan…” His knees went weak. The scab had been peeled back, the wound that never healed exposed to the air. This was different but all the same...
    Nan had not died in the yard, not as he remembered it. He had found her body in the kitchen, nothing more than bloody bones, her dress tattered ribbons. He had watched as Nina was killed, heard her scream echo through the house. The blood had spurted as paint would fly when flung from a brush. He could still hear how it had hit the wall, the soft patter it had made upon meeting the wood. This was different but all the same...
    Now Nina lay in the grass before him, her body spasming, her lips peeled back from her gritted teeth. She was having a fit.
    “Nina…” He said, crawling to her. She grabbed his forearm with a trembling hand.
    “The armies… are coming… war is coming…” She had bit her tongue hard, a pink froth on her teeth and foaming at the corners of her mouth. “The Undead King is coming…”
    “Nina, it’s okay. Just relax…” He realized any attempt to help her was in vain. Her face had gone white, her hazel eyes dark. She had breathed her last.
    Mercer screamed at the sky. For a moment, she had been alive, and again he had to watch her life slip away. It wasn’t fair, none of it was fair. Even in dreams, he could not save them. Different, but all the same...
    “It’s all your fault,” Mercer said to the dead men. They had gathered in a tight circle around him, shoulder to shoulder, swaying on their rotted legs. They didn’t attack, chomp or moan, only watched him with vacant yellow eyes. “You killed my Nina, my Nan. Now...” He reached for Jai Lin, the blade that always struck true, and it was there, strapped to his back as it almost always was. It rang as he pulled it from its sheath. “I kill you.”
    Cheeks incendiary, heart a piston; it was not melancholy or remorse that was filling his body, but a surging rage. He could feel the yellow eyes upon him, knew the dead men were silently laughing at him with their vacant stares. He tightened his grip on Jai Lin, felt a dark energy from the steel race up his arm. As swift as a hawk, as unfettered as a stream ; with one motion, he was on his feet, screaming and charging into the circle of undead. It was the cue they had been waiting for, as the dead men converged upon him, a dog pile of rotting bodies so dense that they blocked out the sky. Mercer felt their weight crushing the breath out of him, but still he slashed, he punched. He’d never give up, he’d never stop, he’d never…
     

Chapter Four
    Solloway
     
     
    “ N INA!” Mercer bolted upright. The sweat that beaded on his forehead and chest was cold, despite the heavy furs that he’d been sleeping beneath. It had all been a nightmare, he realized, albeit an exceptionally vivid one. Everything had been so clear, from the faces of his family to the things they had said. And what was it they had told him? Already, Mercer felt the dream slipping away, as all dreams eventually did. He closed his eyes and tried to remember his sister’s warning. War was coming, she said, and something about a king. He drummed on his temples with his fingertips, hoping to jar loose the nature of his dreams.
    “Are you alright?” The voice had the creak of seasoned leather. Mercer opened his eyes, startled to see an older woman sitting beyond the foot of Crow’s bed. She watched him with eyes as blue-gray and frigid as ice floes.
    “Yes. I just had a dream, that’s all.”
    “I could tell. It seemed more like a nightmare, the way you were rustling about. You called out a name. Nina?”
    “Yes, that was my sister’s name. I’m sorry, who are you?”
    “My name is Robin. I’ve come to escort you to breakfast. After you eat, Old Wren would like to have words with you.” She wore a dusky cloak like the other Black Wings, and her silver hair was in two braids just as Rainfall’s had been. She wore