Chapter 55: Things that Should not Be

Chapter 55: Things that Should not Be

Things happened all at once after that. One second the haughty priest-candidate was arguing with his master and the next, he was being dragged off into the shadows too quickly for anyone to understand what happened, let alone stop. His panicked screams echoed off the walls, and the light that he managed to hold onto got further and further away. The very first thing that Todd had noted when they were getting ready this morning was that the man had only bothered to bring what was obviously a ceremonial weapon with him, which had struck Todd as laughable when one considered where they were going. Even someone that thought that going almost unarmed into a bastion of shadows like this palace didn’t deserve this fate, though.

Before he could react, Brother Faerbar and Brother Lucius were charging down the hall after the wailing priest. Their chain mail rattled as they went, and Brother Faerbar’s sword glowed all the brighter as he prepared to engage the enemy, but they didn’t even get halfway to the priest before there was a sudden explosion of light rippled outward, and his motion ceased. That was when Todd started to charge, too, with his mace in hand. He didn’t know what that was, but he knew what would happen next and what his master would want him to do. Brother Faerbar would slay the vile pit spawn that had dared to attack a servant of the light, but while he was doing that, someone would need to save the priest.

As Todd ran to aid the fallen priest-candidate, he tried to puzzle out what that abomination might have been, but he could think of nothing that he’d been taught which could match that description. For a split second, he’d seen it. It had appeared as a viper larger than a horse made of almost pure shadow, which meant that it had to be what? A demon? A work of clever and malicious sorcery? He knew that it couldn’t be natural, but he wasn’t sure of anything beyond that, and he didn’t have the time to wish that he’d focused less on swordplay and more on learning his letters.

When Todd arrived, he’d thought for a split second that the red-robed acolyte was practically unharmed. It was only when he grabbed him to pull him into a sitting position that he realized that those robes were soaked with blood, almost completely hiding the extent of the man’s injuries. Todd quickly peeled them back from the priest-candidate’s obviously broken arm and pushed him back against the wall when he started to squirm.

“By the light, that hurts!” he yelled, but Todd ignored him, trying not to gasp audibly as he saw the ruin that the priest-candidate’s arm had become. The blast of holy light had annihilated the beast that was attacking him, at least in part, but it did nothing for the crushed bones or the portions of the jet-black teeth that were already buried in the man’s pale flesh. This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

Todd mumbled a prayer of healing, and he saw the flesh try to knit together, but his strength wasn’t nearly enough to override the trauma that the injured man had received. His efforts did little, if any, good, though. Even with the gift of sight, he had little talent for healing and none for summoning the holy light. So, rather than try again, he pulled off his belt and wrapped it tightly around the injured man’s bicep to stem the flow of blood. This took longer than it should with all his squirming, but once he stopped cursing and passed out from the pain, it became easy enough to finish the task.

It was only when the priest-candidate’s life no longer hung in the balance that he looked up to his master’s fight. Though the thing had only seemed to have a single giant head moments ago, it had three now. One was half the size the previous one had been and would have had trouble making the sorts of marks that the injured man bore, but the two smaller heads were only big enough to latch onto perhaps one of his hands rather than the entire forearm as it had done. For all their reduction in size, they were no less threatening, though. Instead, single strikes with the shocking sort of power that could drag a man to his death, they now struck in a series of dizzying patterned attacks that were almost hypnotic and no less dangerous than the single giant head had been.

These were old dead, and they fought with strength and brutality, but without the speed of the living, that would make them a truly fearsome opponent. The real danger was how many of them there were. If there were dozens, they would finish cutting through them in minutes, but if there were hundreds, then they might well drown beneath the waves of the enemy no matter how many they slew in the process.

Todd held his master’s left flank, beating back every monster that came at him with his mace and shield until his arm began to feel like lead from the repeated, almost mechanical blows. They were so regular that they made him feel like he was practicing on the dummies back in Siddrimar rather than fighting a deadly evil, but the moment certainly put those rigorous drills into the proper perspective. These enemies were easy to hold off but hard to kill, and lacking Brother Faerbar’s height, he had to content himself with breaking arms and knees - maiming the undead into harmlessness rather than beheading them outright and granting them the peace of true death, which required almost more endurance than he had.

Fortunately, after only a few minutes of desperate combat, the tide of the dead began to wane until there were more dead bodies scattered on the floor than there were standing against them. Once the endless flow of the dead peaked and stopped, the battle was over in seconds. Without infinite reinforcements, the zombies were barely a threat at all to properly trained warriors. After that victory, the cadre quickly reformed in the intersection and counted only two squires, a paladin, and their priest candidate among the injured, but except for the red-robed acolyte, no one was seriously hurt.

“Brother Samael - take the others to the surface and tend to the priest. We will continue without you,” Brother Faerbar ordered. “Should the worst happen, then I trust you will put the torch to this palace so that none of this filth escapes.”

Samael nodded tersely, and a whole conversation was exchanged in that gaze. Of course, he could be healed and stay in the fight, but if he stayed, the priest would surely perish, so ultimately, no matter badly he wanted to fight, someone had to go, and his bloody wound made the choice an obvious one. He was obviously not pleased with being ordered to withdraw but knew better than to argue, and the wounded squires quickly made a litter with a cloak to carry the unconscious priest candidate to safety.

While Todd was securing the acolyte to the makeshift stretcher, he bandaged the man’s shattered arm and noticed that the terrible broken teeth that had embedded themselves had vanished. Though the most likely answer was that they had simply ceased to exist when the monster they belonged to was slain, he couldn’t help but visualize those broken shards of shadow burying deeper and deeper into the dying man’s flesh until they disappeared from view.

With a shudder, he shook the image from his mind and stood, readying his mace and torch as they prepared to head even deeper toward the sound of running water.