The Ghost's Crusade

XIX: Akkali

Waking to a pitch black room with her markings seething like acid etchings Akkali nearly snapped the neck of the first person she found within reach. Luckily it was Drystan, the only man capable of actually surviving such an assault.

"Where are we?" she asked, stretching out her impossibly sore limbs and finding her tongue had a cotton-like taste for some reason.

"Antenox outpost in Sonnes," replied the Inferi from where he sat slouching in a chair at her bedside. "The keeper here decided to house you in the basement in case you had a fit and tried to wreck something when you woke up." She caught sight of his smirk as he turned up the wick on a nearby lamp sitting on the floor. "I informed her and her revenant of your destructive tendencies. Their names are Sachiel and Moiral, by the way. Moiral's bit grumpy, but they're a good sort."

She slung her feet over the side of the low cot she had apparently been laying in for more than a few days. Her clothes were gone, and she was wearing what amounted to a wool bag with an opening in the back for a bedpan. All in all it wasn't one of the worst situations she could imagine herself waking to. The room was warm and dry, she trusted the company, and it was pleasantly quiet. The rug beneath her feet was ghastly, though. The jagged pattern was so garish she was glad age had faded the colors to rusty orange and a sort of rotten lemon yellow instead of the eye-bleeding shades she suspected they had been when first woven.

"How long this time?"

The man's expression became an odd mix of guilt and sadness. "A fortnight. You were worse off than last time. Much worse. Sachiel swore up and down you were dead for the first few days and Moiral was convinced Arathron was wasting his time trying to reel you back in."

"Is Arathron-"

"He's fine," Drystan assured her with a placating gesture. "I'll be healing and talking to myself for the trip west but he doesn't think it's a big deal." He picked himself up out of his chair slowly and stretched out his own legs. "Speaking of which, I should head out now that you're up. Farseeth has been hounding me to get a move on for days."

Nodding she moved to stand and discovered her body was opposed to the mere idea of being upright. Reluctantly she stayed put and resigned herself to waiting for her still-sleeping limbs to catch up with her will to move. "I'm going to worry, you know."

The Inferi shrugged. "We'll be fine."

"Archer and Lauthen are just as neurotic about being careful as you say I am," she said with a scowl. "And they fight just as dirty as I do. Whatever took them out isn't going to be a random demon or werewolf sent to clean up some Oratio's mess. You and Arathron are both absolute shit at planning ahead, Drys. It'll get you into trouble this time."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ser Cynical." He folded his arms against his chest and leaned against the door frame. "Let us worry about that. You should clean up, speak with Sachiel upstairs, and maybe head out to check in with the clan. I'm not completely sure all those things are out of the warrens so we asked Caspar and Kvasir to stay with them just in case."

Akkali sighed, feeling unexpectedly exhausted despite just having woken up. She had been away for over a month, normally not anything to get worried over, but with Drystan heading off on a high-priority task she really did need to get back and check in. He was right; there was no way either of them could tell if any more of Basilides-Cyril's war party had been left below ground. Knowing that Caspar was with them let her worry a little less; the man could never remember to lace his boots properly but he was a powerful Hesperi, probably at least as powerful as she was despite both his and his revenant's distaste for violence. Her clan had taken to looking after the man like their favorite scatterbrained grandfather and she trusted they would be safe enough while he was with them.