The Ghost's Crusade

XI: Drystan (cont.)

“Pass on to Farseeth and Erathi that we're certain the goings-on in Baedorn aren't Pandemonium-related,” the Inferi said quickly, already feeling his hold on his temporary world start to slip away. “We're in the Shalewarrens searching out the real culprit because I think he may be related to the man grave robbing at Gendelheim.”

Kvasir nodded in acknowledgment but Drystan was far too close to consciousness now to hear his reply. All he could see was the revenant's mouth moving as he rapidly faded away into the nothingness that was starting to consume the entire fabrication where Drystan had placed himself. Arathron similarly faded away, though he could still hear his friend's voice within his mind. He dearly hoped the revenant or his partner remembered to deliver the message; he did not need Farseeth angry at him for not bothering to check in on top of the list of reasons she already had after chatting with the Inquisitor General back in Baedorn.

The dreamscape faded into the black nothingness behind his eyelids and when he woke he found he had been shoved aside, laying face-down on the stone several feet away from where he knew he was supposed to be sitting. Somewhere ahead of him he heard the sounds of Tiernan clashing with something and in a brief moment of panic he thought it may have been Akkali come back to take revenge on the Inquisitor for the insult.

Instead he saw that it was a renewed assault of homunculi as Arathron had warned. Three of them, and none seemed as old and decaying as the ones that had come crawling up out of the mine shaft earlier. They were all much more bulky than their predecessors, built with limbs taken from several men of different skin colors which had been attached to torsos and legs of people similar in stature to himself. Neither of the two attacking Tiernan had heads, which, if not for the stitched-up stumps of their necks, he would have found rather amusing. The third, hanging several feet behind them with glassy but observant eyes, had a woman's head fixed between its obviously male shoulders. In life she must have been fairly wealthy for her flesh was well-preserved using some sort of embalming technique, probably the reason why her head had been used... or re-used, as it were.

He pushed himself up to stand and drew his edged sword from its sheath at his back. Tiernan glared over his shoulder as he delivered a powerful kick to the sternum of the homunculus assailing him and forced it to retreat a few steps. “About bloody time!”

“Sorry,” said Drystan hurriedly, coming up to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “Did you catch which way they came from?”

“How many ways do you think there can be to escape a stone tunnel a hundred feet below ground,” hissed Tiernan through clenched teeth. “Honestly, Drys, you're just feigning stupidity at this point.”

Behind him Arathron warned that Akkali was approaching. He pressed Tiernan to the side just as the Enkiri doffed her traveling roll at their feet and darted between them, fists and feet encased in wavering amber magic that flowed forth from the markings concealed beneath her gray overcoat. She completely bypassed the first two constructs by weaving between them like a striking serpent and took off after the third, which had turned entirely around and began fleeing the scene the moment it caught sight of her. Within seconds the two had disappeared around a bend in the passage a dozen feet ahead.

Drystan signaled he was going after the leftmost construct and lunged forward, catching it just above the kneecap with his blade. Unable to feel pain, the homunculus instead locked its hands together and brought a sledgehammer-like blow down onto the flat of his back, crushing the air out of him and sending him face-first back into the stone. He rolled to the side to avoid having his skull stomped and pulled a longknife from his belt, reaching up and severing the tendons at the back of the construct's bare feet. The homunculus wavered, then stumbled forward just far enough for him to reach its elbows and haul it entirely to the ground and hack its head off with a few well-placed blows.