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The touch of a ghost was terrible. Even as Brandon wrapped himself in layers of bark the attacks of the ghost army were freezing spiderwebs of ice crystals onto his clothes and skin. Brandon could feel the cold creeping past the yew and into his flesh. He had some of the resilience of the tree that shared his body so he could withstand deep cold for days or months, but only if he was willing to lapse into hibernation.

With Cassie behind him that was a luxury he didn’t have.

Her song was carrying the ghosts away with growing speed but proximity didn’t equal efficacy and many of the ghosts most determined to push past him seemed the most resistant to her magic. Lobbing a short burst of fire from his saber dispersed a ghost easily. But as often as not they were reforming back at the core of the horde and returning for another pass. It wasn’t like he was in danger of letting any of the spirits slip past him but the fire reserve in his saber’s sulfurite was getting low.

The horde was thinning out on top. The center of the mass was moving closer to them and, as the ghosts passed on, it was dropping lower as well. There was enough thinning of the ranks for Brandon to make out the train’s conductor at the heart of it.

As the horde thinned fewer and fewer ghosts were coming on the offensive, more and more remaining with their master to keep him aloft. And that was when Brandon realized what was really happening. It wasn’t because cause he couldn’t stay in the air any longer, although that point was coming soon. He was coming to grips. “Hurry up, Cassie,” he muttered, “I don’t know how long I can hold him off.”

A subtle shift in the harmonics of her song set the frame of the train car under his feet vibrating. It was the only answer she gave. Hopefully it meant the song would, indeed, send the ghosts away faster but in the mean time a new issue crept up. He’d sent roots out of his feet and into the roof of the car to keep himself in place. But now the vibration was splintering the roof around them. There was no time to count ghosts to see if they were vanishing faster as the conductor had landed on the car only a few feet away.

He set the army of ghosts on Brandon in waves. Ice and cold rolled over him with freezing, hungry jaws and any protection Brandon’s clothes and bark might have offered failed in the face of the raging dead. Desperate, Brandon overloaded the sulfurite in his sword. It released all the power of fire stored within in a single burst, overflowing the weapon’s fuller and blasting the area with a wave of heat as strong as summer. Brandon’s layers of chilled bark kept all but the barest breath of that heat from reaching him. But the ghosts suffered terribly.

For a brief moment the space between Brandon and the conductor was entirely clear of specters, giving a brief glimpse of the portly man batting out sparks on his clothes. Then the ghosts were charging forward again. The horde had thinned even more but, with no fire in his sword, Brandon had no way to fend them off. In fact, the blade had shattered in the blast. He couldn’t even cut down the conductor if he charged him so there was no choice but to go the other way.

He pulled his roots up and pushed Cassie backwards, trying to make space. Grasping spectral hands still clutched at him, robbing him of warmth, but they were coming much slower than before. For a brief moment Brandon contemplated victory. He could transform the Yew rod currently binding him to his sister into a spear to kill the conductor with. But even as he dug his fingers into the weapon he realized it was futile. The cold had take a much greater toll on the dead yew than the living wood rooted in his body. It was far too brittle to shift without breaking.

Brandon snarled and threw the hilt of his weapon at the conductor. However even with the whip like strength of the yew behind his throw the ghostly winds easily deflected the hunk of metal before it reached its target. The bearded man leered at them, screaming, “To bad, Mr. Fairchild! Years go Avalon chose to stay out of the Lakeshire war. Wouldn’t even provide neutral diplomats! Now you finally pick a side a decade late and to top it all off you chose the wrong one!”

The statement barely made sense to Brandon. He little of the war in Columbia when he was a child but he did know there were several raging in Europe at the same time, a few going so far as to involve Avalon itself. It wasn’t like the Crown had the manpower to get involved with all of them. Then again, expecting coherent thought from the man might be a bit too much. Constantly consorting with the dead was a burden on sanity that few could endure for long.

“I don’t much care for your opinion on the decisions of the Crown or his Lords,” Brandon said. “I don’t even care why you’ve done all this. But the dead belong to the grave, don’t torture them any longer by keeping them here.”

The conductor lunged at him, his fingers cracking through frozen bark with ease. Brandon jerked away in pain and surprise. The conductor’s fingers dug in and he ripped an entire layer of bark away, shattering the roots of his belt and the yew rod that held Cassie in place. She staggered away, her song vanishing on a panicked note.

“Brandon, what happened?” She asked, the fear in her voice straining against her self control.

“Keep singing,” he said through gritted teeth.

“No!” The conductor screamed. “Enough singing! Enough of the whispering voices! I just want you all to be quiet and leave me alone!”

The man reached for Brandon’s face, layers of frost forming on his hand, face and hair. As the conductor’s fingers closed on Brandon’s forehead a surge of wind swept up from the bottom of the train. An angry red glow lit the scene from below.

As Brandon grappled with the conductor his mind grappled with these details. His mind presented him with a solution first. “Updraft.”

Confusion crossed the other man’s face when he heard the word. “What?”

Harper shot up over the edge of the sky train, a red hot piece of aluminum dragging him up by one arm. His other hand grabbed the edge of the train car and Roy pivoted around it. The fire in the aluminum jumped free, circling Harper’s head like a rogue sun. The rod of metal swung about and slammed into the conductor’s head with a sizzling thunk. The metal was still so soft it wrapped halfway around the conductor’s head covering his mouth and cutting off the man’s pained shriek.

The conductor’s hands flew up and tugged at the chunk of metal. At first the movement was frantic but it quickly grew sluggish as he slumped to his knees. Harper put a foot in the man’s side and shoved, sending his corpse toppling off the edge of the train and leaving the two of them alone at the end of the train.

“This isn’t over, Harper!” The eviscerated ghost from before appeared out of the horde, screaming. “I promise we will haunt you…”

His voice faded to a whisper as Cassie’s song surged forth with renewed vigor. The conductor’s death had weakened the hold the dead had on the world of the living and the renewed song seemed to wipe the remaining ghosts away like a rag wiped away the dew. They all vanished in a few seconds, save for one. Sam Jenkins lingered near the end of the train, a wistful look on his face, a hand raised in farewell Then he looked up to the sky and faded as well.

Harper took a deep breath and let it out, stripping his dueling gloves off. Brandon noticed the palm of the glove that held the aluminum during his brief flight had burned entirely through. “Well,” Harper said, rubbing that hand against his side with a wince. “If I ever see another ghost it’ll be too soon.”

That put an uncomfortable thought in Brandon’s mind. “Cassie?” He yelled, dashing back to her. “What can you see?”

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