by Cebelius
The massive two-story door groaned. It was designed to be barred against a besieger and had clearly withstood an assault.
"Asturial, help me!" Laina grunted, setting her ax aside to haul back on the door's handle with both hands.
"You are wasting your effort," the dragon proxy replied as she scowled and pointed. "The braces are still in place."
Yuri glanced up. At increasing heights — the lowest of which was eight feet — were three massive wooden braces set in slots on the walls that kept the doors firmly shut.
Laughter came again, this time recognizable as the spectral voice from earlier.
Its chuckling resolved at length into words, "Ahhh, so much better. With a proxy present, I needed the extra room the great hall provides. Swarm tactics, you know? Don't take it personally ... or do. It really doesn't matter. At the least, you have your map! One cannot say I am not a generous host."
Scrabbling sounds flooded the hall. Thousands of them. They came from every hallway but the one just used. Heavy thumps, scraping. Moans. Screams. Wailing. Haunting laughter.
"Asturial!" Yuri shouted. "Give Laina the shield and switch! You are our only hope! Hurry!"
The dragon proxy handed over her shield as recognition of his plan dawned in her expression.
"I'm going to run out of clothes," she muttered sourly, then knelt and closed her eyes.
"Everyone else, left side of the door! Twisted and Euryale, right! Laina, you take the center!"
Yuri ripped the enchanted longsword given to him by Terry Mack from its sheath and stood ready next on Laina's left as the horde burst out at them in an insane rush of bones and cobbled together body parts. He only had time to shout, "Protect Laina!"
Laina set the shield, supporting it with her foot at the bottom and her ax bracing the top, its butt propped against the wall behind her.
The horde hit them hardest on the right side, where they'd had time to gain more momentum for the charge. Neither Twisted nor Euryale gave to the rush. The former howled as she was clawed, stabbed, and bitten, but she tore apart the zombies and skeletal revenants that faced her with admirable resolve. Euryale did not even whimper at the grievous injuries she received, smashing apart whatever came before her with her brazen claws.
Yuri's sword flowed like water as he struck down those who reached him on the left side, its magically reinforced edge serving him well as it hewed through bone and gristle.
It was more than simple animated undead that surged toward them though. On the far end of the hall, where the largest corridors gave room for them, bone giants straightened and began to stride toward them.
Other, larger abominations cobbled together from several bodies apiece scrambled through the middle, and Yuri knew that if Asturial did not reach them within the next few seconds, they would be overrun.
The great hall was awash with corpses and the monstrous creations of the nameless necromancer that had taken up residence, but of him there was no sign.
Cowards, all of them. The Powers curse all Necromancers! Yuri thought savagely as he wove a web of steel before him, but it was a slowly losing battle not because the undead themselves pressed him back, but because the still bodies of the fallen were beginning to both restrict his movements and give those coming on behind higher vantage.
Hands, claws, and other less recognizable appendages were scrabbling all around Laina's shield, and Yuri realized that the minotress was screaming in abject terror.
"Hang on, Laina!" Yuri cried. "Just a few more seconds!"
The abominations were only feet away when the top half of the double doors burst inward under a titanic, ruby-scaled fist.
The splintered remnants sent undead tumbling throughout the hall, but before the last pieces had even struck stone a blast of fire shot down into the middle of all, turning the majority of the room into a raging inferno.
The lower half of the doors were wrenched out and thrown away as Yuri screamed to be heard over the sea of crackling flame. "Shift! Out the door but keep the shield up! Walk backward Laina! You can do it! Keep calm! One step at a time!"
The gout of flame pouring in over them panned through the room, but in the short term all that did was worsen the situation because the dead felt no pain. Now, instead of being attacked by corpses, they were assaulted by corpses on fire.
Twisted howled in pain, but before Yuri could even glance back Euryale shouted, "I've got her! Keep going!"
Then they were outside, and with no need for instruction, Asturial scooped them all up in one massive clawed hand and launched herself into the twilight.
"Mark well my words, monster hunter," the urbane voice sounded in Yuri's ear. "Whatever you came to find here is long gone. The world on that map is a fading memory. I suggest you take the shreds of luck that remain to you and flee. Even dragons must sleep, and such a corpse would be a pleasant addition to my already endless hordes."
Yuri said nothing. He could barely move, and felt wetness dripping down his arm.
Caught as he was in Asturial's grip, he could barely shift enough to glance down, and saw that in her haste to pick them up and flee, Yuri's sword had been pressed against his own arm and sliced it deeply. The inside of one of Asturial's talons was also bleeding, the end of his sword buried several inches deep in her scaled flesh.
It was only after he saw the wound that the pain registered.
Please, let that be the worst of it, Yuri prayed, though to whom he could not have said. It was a futile hope.
Somewhere behind him, Twisted continued to howl in pain, and Euryale cried, "We need to tend her, get us to the wagon!"
"I thought she could regenerate!" Laina shouted over the wind.
"She can! She's infested with something!" Euryale cried. "Hurry!"
It took another two minutes for them to reach the wagon, where they were unceremoniously dropped.
Yuri managed to keep his feet and whirled to see Twisted arched up on her shoulders and heels, howling as she grasped her left shoulder with her right arm. Almost every inch of her fur was spattered with blood, and it was obvious she had already had to recover from amazing amounts of damage.
Yuri blanched as he saw the wriggling mass worming its way through that arm under flesh and fur, and without hesitation he lifted his sword and struck.
The arm bounced away to a renewed howl from Twisted, who rolled away as the stump of her arm sprayed blood across both him and the grass.
"Put a tourniquet on her!" Yuri shouted to whoever was listening as he followed the movement of the arm and speared it with his sword, pinning the still twitching limb to the grass.
"Fire!" he cried.
"Step away," Asturial said, having already formed a new proxy as her war body settled nearby.
Yuri abandoned his sword and Asturial opened her hand to reveal a small blue flame. She twisted her palm, cupping the flame toward her target, and it shot out in a blue blaze that ignited first the open end, then traveled down to the hand.
He couldn't be sure, but Yuri thought he heard a high-pitched squeal as the flames consumed everything but his sword in only a few seconds.
Turning, he moved to Twisted. Laina had pinned her bodily to the ground and was using her sarashi to bind the bleeding stump of the werewolf's arm.
"Give her milk," Yuri commanded as he knelt, cupping Twisted's face with both hands, looking into green eyes filled with insane panic.
"We have you," he said. His words were firm, and her gaze fixed on him as he said, "I have you. We are safe, and you will recover. It is over."
"Drink this," Laina commanded, having retrieved a bottle from the endless pack she'd taken from Mila, who had in turn gotten it from Marcus.
Yuri nodded as Twisted's eyes bounced from him to Laina and back.
"Drink it. It will help, I promise."
The milk did help, somewhat.
Within a minute of imbibing, Twisted's stump skinned over, though the flesh was pink and new. Laina retrieved her now blood-spattered wra
p, looked at it a moment with distaste, then tossed it aside.
The werewolf whimpered as she saw her stump, then looked back at Yuri as she asked, "I've never lost a limb before. Will it grow back?"
He pulled her up, hugging her to him, heedless of the blood as he quietly admitted, "I do not know. But you are alive. That is what matters right now."
Twisted whined, then clutched at him and began to sob.
Behind him, he heard Asturial say, "That map better have been worth it, Yuri."
"It was worth it," he murmured, more to comfort Twisted than from any certainty. The map was tucked safely into his belt. Instead, he held the werewolf to him, stroking her ruff as he stared toward what had once been the city of Torp.
From where he was he could see the keep, and there, atop the highest tower, stood a figure wreathed in a halo of white flame.
Yuri did not have to wonder if the necromancer was staring back at him.
He knew.
11
Hang Ups
The minotaur horde did require Isthil's attentions to completely dissuade them from trying again, but when she returned to the group the next morning she had a huge grin on her face and thanked Terry profusely for sending her off to enjoy such a feast.
Terry hadn't asked for details, and Isthil assured him that they wouldn't see that group, or even likely any of its composite members, ever again.
There were four horses remaining, and between these they managed to redistribute the goods they would need for the journey. Most of the weight wound up in Terry's bullshit bag, a black backpack with red threading that he'd gotten as part of his reward for protecting Florence. It already stored his weapons and over a hundred pounds of books that had once comprised Volai Hart's library, but it wound up accepting pretty much all the spare clothing, blankets, and sundries they could cram into it.
In the end it wound up weighing almost forty pounds, which Terry estimated was perhaps a tenth the true weight of its contents.
Isthil agreed to carry four of the cocoons, two on each side, while the last was strapped in with the baggage atop one of the horses.
Mila and Shy rode two of the horses while the other two were used as pack animals. Halla didn't know how to ride and though she also lost mass when shrunken — enabling her to learn if she wanted — she showed no interest, preferring to walk along with Terry, who also declined to ride.
He had two reasons, the first and more important of which was that with Prada inside him, he weighed a ton. The second was that the animals still made him uncomfortable. Isthil had offered again and he'd declined using Prada's weight as his justification.
'It does not please me that you are using me as an excuse to keep from getting closer to Isthil, Husband,' Prada said testily as he jogged, easily keeping up with the pace set by the horses. 'It is obvious she wants to know you better.'
Better, or biblically? Terry silently mused.
'You know the answer to that,' Prada replied. 'I begin to believe, though, that if you keep her at a distance for much longer, she may leave.'
She's entitled to do that. She ASKED for her freedom, Terry thought. Now that she has it, I'm actually shocked she's hung around this long. I have no problem if she stays as just a friend and companion. There's nothing that says she HAS to be my woman. Maybe she's just staying to help me stick a sword up Thomas' ass. That's reason enough I should think.
'But she COULD be your woman if you bothered to try,' Prada pointed out, still obviously irritated. 'You need all the bond gifts you can collect.'
He grinned and thought, Not true. With Tyrfing, I can beat Thomas without being any more of a freak than I already am.
'Perhaps, presuming you can even REACH him as you are. Tyrfing is a possible solution to one PART of the whole problem. You are ignoring the forest for the sake of a single tree.'
His grin faded, and he glanced back at Isthil, only to catch her quickly looking away from him. The fact that her eyes glowed made it easy to see when they moved.
He sidestepped and fell back to walk next to her as he said, "Got a question."
"Aye?" she asked, glancing down at him curiously.
"What do you want out of all this?"
She blinked, then her lips twisted as she glanced away, seeming faintly embarrassed as she took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Ye dinnae much believe in small talk."
"I believe in it, doesn't mean I'm good at it," Terry said. "Seriously though, you asked me for your freedom, and here you are ... still here. Why?"
"Mebbe I'm waitin' fer pay," Isthil said, one corner of her ebon lips lifting as she arched an eyebrow at him.
"After takin' ye to the Wildervast, tendin' to Yuri, haulin' ye all the way back after ye showed up in the middle o' nowhere ... well, I figure ye owe me.
"Hell," she added, jerking her thumb over her shoulder, "Right this minute yer treatin' me like a packhorse. We should talk wages!"
Terry blinked, then hid his smile to play along. He gave her a suitably worried look instead as he said, "Would you believe it if I told you all my money went with Yuri? Laina and Euryale were pretty much supporting me. I don't have a single copper token left to my name personally."
Her brows drew down as she glared incredulously at him as she declared, "Yer fuckin' wi' me."
"No, they really were supporting me, and yes, I ... am totally fucking with you," Terry said with a grin before adding, "You started it."
She rolled her eyes and chuckled softly, then grew pensive as she said, "I s'pose I want ... I want t' know who you are, Terry Mack. Why're ye doin' all this? Was it really just because ye promised ye would?"
"No, at least, not anymore."
Terry glanced toward Shy, who rode ahead, chatting amiably with Mila. Halla, though, flanked Isthil, and made no secret of the fact she was listening in.
"It's complicated, but the simple answer is Thomas is wrong, and someone has to stop him. No one else is stepping up ... and I've got nothing better to do. Even if I hadn't promised, by now I'd be doing this anyway."
"Nothin' better t' do?! Yer cracked!"
He grinned and shook his head as he said, "I'm serious. I didn't say nothing I'd rather be doing ... that list includes just about anything else. But there's nothing I could do that would be better, for everyone. Celestine is a messed up place, but it's home to a lot of good people who have nothing to do with why templates like me get brought here. Blowing up the whole world because you're too stupid or too lazy to figure out and fix the real problem is just ... fucked, you know?"
Isthil blinked, then looked away from him for a long moment with a thoughtful expression.
"I was in the Zone for hundreds of years," she said at last, speaking as though her thoughts were still sorting themselves out. "I dinnae think, in all that time, anyone ever put Thomas' work in quite those terms. He thinks he's protectin' people like you, ye know. When the world ends, no more templates get stolen away from their rightful place."
"Yeah, I heard the spiel from the behemoth. I understand the argument and it might even work, technically. But that's like realizing your house has roaches and burning the place down to get rid of them. Stupid."
Isthil chuckled richly at that and glanced up at the sky as she said, "Wow. I'm tryin' to imagine what Thomas would say t' that and drawin' a complete blank. He just doesnae think like you do, no' at all."
"Ah, if only everyone thought like I did. World peace at last!"
Isthil gave him an incredulous look and he didn't wait for the question.
"Yes. I'm fucking with you again. If I ever run into a copy of me I'll beat the shit out of him."
"That's the guilt talkin'," Isthil said. "I swear boy, you really need t' get over yerself."
Terry laughed and said, "I'm working on it. Truth of the matter is that I didn't know then what I know now. If I had ..."
"OhhoHO now, dinnae trail off on me like that! If you had, what?"
Isthil's look was challenging. "You'da never set fo
ot in Florence? Never set out against the Twilight Zone? The world's problems are what they are, and here you are tryin' to fix one o' the bigger ones. Tryin' t' tell me ye'da set all that aside if you'd only known about it all before there was anyone t'see you quit?"
"Maybe."
There was a hard knot in Terry's chest as he thought about that. If he'd known then everything he knew now when he'd woken up in that sea cave what seemed like forever ago now ... would he have given up?
Prada spoke up from the knot of sash.
"My husband was tragically born without the ability to shift blame, much less responsibility, and if anything kills him someday it will be that. Presuming he'd known all at the start, he'd have sat on his ass agonizing for a while, then gotten up and gone looking for Shy."
Isthil pointed at the sash as she looked Terry dead in the eye and said, "Now that ... that is high praise for a good man."
He rolled his eyes and decided to play off the flood of gratitude and emotion by turning it into a joke.
"Can you blame me? Have you seen Shy's ass?"
"Aye, though I dinnae have the equipment I'd need t' properly appreciate it," Isthil said, chuckling. "At least, no' in the wakin' world."
The nightmare paused a moment, then looked down at Terry with a speculative expression. "Is that why you've no' offered me yer bond? Because I've a body ye just cannae appreciate?"
Terry squeezed his eyes shut a moment, then said, "Jesus. Not very good at small talk, are you?"
"Answer her question, Husband," Prada said primly.
"Dammit Prada!"
Terry scowled, then glanced up at Isthil and said, "If you want my bond, I can use Prada to give it to you ... but yeah, I kinda have a problem with the idea of sex with someone that looks more than a little like a horse. Sorry, but bestiality is way outside my list of kinks."
"Your list of kinks is a blank sheet of paper," Prada shot back before Isthil could speak. The blood devil had clearly decided now was a good time to press.
