Chapter 14: The Wound

Chapter 14: The Wound

The fangs lunged at Mariannes face to devour her alive.

Reacting quickly, the swordswoman raised her free left hand and stabbed the monstrous rat in the eye. A layer of bone grew over her thumb, as it crushed the eyeball and hit the soft flesh underneath.

Shelleys fangs stopped within an inch of Mariannes face as the monster let out a screeching roar. The noblewoman channeled the Blood through her arm to strengthen it, frantically keeping the monster at bay. She tried to wrench her other hand and rapier free from the monster, but his grip remained strong as steel.

Shelley frantically tried to shake Marianne off him, but she refused to give ground. Though his clawed fingers tightened around her throat and prevented her from breathing, she kept pushing her thumb deeper into the rats eyeball. A fountain of blood erupted onto her gloved hand, and she sensed Shelleys skull slowly crack under her tight grip. A little longer and she would tear his head apart.

Eventually, the pain became too much for the cultist to bear, and he tossed her off him with inhuman strength. Marianne rolled on the cold hard floor as she gasped for air, but her foe lunged at her again the moment she got back to her feet.

The beast charged at the noblewoman on all fours, claws out. He pounced at her like a cat on a mouse, but Marianne dashed to the left to dodge his claws. The rats tail swiped at her head, forcing her to keep her distance.

Hes faster than me, Marianne thought while gritting her teeth. She still struggled to breathe correctly due to her sore throat, and worse, Bertrand still wriggled helplessly on the floor not so far from her position. But completely unskilled.

Shelley assaulted her with a whirlwind of claws and bites, screeching all the way. The left side of his face dripped with blood, making the beast look even more savage. Having learned the lesson from their last clash, Marianne kept her distance and remained on the defense. She side-stepped and backflipped, letting the beast exhaust himself while she waited for an opening.

Her time came when Shelley attempted to pounce on her again and left his flank exposed. Moving to his blinded left, Marianne stabbed him in the chest with her rapier right between the ribs. The monstrous rats hide felt strong as armor, but her Soulbound weapon pierced him all the same. Marianne knew next to nothing about rat biology, but she hoped to have hit a major organ.

Shelley pushed her back with his tail before covering his wound with a hand. The cultist let out a high-pitched screech, and Marianne heard a chittering symphony answer his call. A horde of bloody-red eyes looked at her from the laboratorys shadows, and a tide of vermin rushed at her from all sides.

With few options, Marianne attempted to use the exorcism spell Bertrand taught her. Using the Blood, she expelled a part of her soul outward like a blast; the magic took the shape of a red light radiating from her, disrupting the invisible bond between Shelley and his rats.

Unfortunately, her lack of practice showed. While the light caused many of the rodents to recoil in fear, not all of them did. A few rats pursued Marianne and forced her to move towards the black pool to avoid being encircled.

You will be the new sacrifice! Shelley shouted, as he brought a flask from beneath his tattered rags. Recognizing the same blinding substance the cultist used to burn Bertrand, Marianne quickly grabbed her pistol with her left hand. She didnt have many bullets left and her weapon was prone to jamming, but she banked everything on one shot.

Her aim remained true, and she blasted Shelleys flask before he could throw it at her.

The substance inside ignited, and Marianne barely had the time to cover her face as it unleashed a flash of bright light. Shelley let out a roar of surprise, but didnt scream as loudly as the helpless Bertrand. Marianne winced as she heard her retainers cries of pain, the light burning his skin to reveal the festering flesh underneath.

Though the noblewomans eyes struggled to adapt to the lighting, she heard some rats scampering in her direction to exploit her distraction. Marianne fired a warning shot, but one attempted to leap at her face. She backhanded it with her pistol midair, sending the beast flying into the black blood pond.

And the dark oil erupted.

Marianne held her breath as an immense mound of black slime rose from the pool; a monstrous mass of oozing darkness larger than a carriage. The rodent she had thrown into the pool screeched from atop this protoplasmic horror, the vile substance tearing its flesh apart and filling its skin like a bag.

No, you fool! Shelley screamed in genuine terror. His left hand was missing two fingers where Marianne shot him, with glass shards piercing his palm. Theyre not worthy! Not worthy!

Marianne couldnt take her eyes off the black slime. The call that almost led her to throw herself into the pond was now replaced with primal revulsion as she witnessed the black substance change the rat in its grasp. A second head grew out of the rodents neck, one with three mouths. New eyes opened all over its tainted fur, and they soon overwhelmed the rats body mass. The rodents screeches turned silent, as the cancerous mutations devoured him from within.

Eventually, they became too much. The poor rats skin burst open like a pierced balloon and exploded in a shower of blackened blood. Bertrand! Marianne shouted a warning as she dashed at her wounded friend. Get away!

Too late.

Though Marianne managed to avoid getting soaked by the black rain, a droplet hit Bertrand as he recovered from his wounds. The vampires skin had started to regenerate from exposure to the bright alchemical light, but the black slime touched his festering shoulder. The infection immediately spread through him like a wildfire, blackening his dusted flesh.

Bertrand! Ignoring all caution, Marianne rushed to her retainers side, sheathed her rapier, and prepared to put a hand on him. Maybe a healing spell could help him

Back off! her retainer snarled before her palm could touch his shoulder. His mouth had transformed into a maw of sharp fangs, and a layer of translucent skin covered his eyes.

The cloud followed the noblewoman even as she ran between cloning vats and workbenches, but Marianne channeled the Blood through her legs. Her speed increased twofold, and she soon left the eldritch fumes in her dust. The cloud persisted until a large stone fell from the ceiling, shattering a glass container and spraying the ground with fluids. A warm, half-formed clone of Sarah Dumont rolled on the ground, and the eldritch entity stopped pursuing Marianne to feast on this easier prey.

It seemed the pistols bullet did hit Shelley on his way out, as the noblewoman noticed a trail of blood on the ground. It was faint, only a few droplets, but clear enough. Marianne fled into the heart of the lab as it burnt behind her, following the trail towards a small tunnel dug into the crumbling wall; she and Bertrand probably missed it on their way in, as it was so small that a human needed to lower their back to move inside.

Marianne bent as she rushed inside, leaving the collapsing, burning lab behind her. She heard a boulder block the way behind her, and felt dust falling on her head as the tunnel trembled. I need to get out, Marianne thought as she frantically crawled through the tunnel. The whole place was collapsing on her.

Never before had Marianne felt so stressed. Each time the walls shook, she worried about being buried alive. The air grew thick and dusty, making her cough. All the way, she prayed that Bertrand found a way out; so long as he lived, even as a monster, he could be cured.

Marianne had no idea how long she crawled through the tunnel, as she lost herself between twists and turns. Did it go to the center of the world, or to a darker horror than the one she left?

I wont die here, Marianne told herself. The Soulstone necklace around her neck seemed to pulsate against her skin, waiting for her soul to pass on to better catch it. But in this place, nobody would find it. Her spirit would remain trapped beneath Verney Castle, forgotten until the end of days.

Marianne prayed to the Light for deliverance. The tremors weakened the deeper she went, though they were followed by a loud and terrible noise. The noblewoman pressed on nonetheless. She refused to perish here, buried and forgotten. She had too much to do.

She didnt die.

At long last, Marianne heard the sound of crashing waves and reached an exit. Her boots hit a thin layer of water, as she emerged from the tunnel into a small cove roughly one kilometer away from the Verneys castle.

Speaking of the fortress, the quake had caused it to crumble. A good part of the cliff supporting the keep had collapsed into the Lightless Ocean, leaving only a pile of rocks rising from the waters. Smoke rose from the ruins, though Marianne couldnt tell if the fumes belonged to Shelleys flames or the eldritch creature he had released upon the world.

Maybe Bertrand was buried under these rocks, or he managed to fly away to safety. Marianne needed to inform the Knights. To uncover the rubble, to bring biomancers to cure him. She refused to let her retainer and old companion perish as a monster.

The noblewoman walked along the cove, following droplets of blood along the sand with her pistol in one hand and her rapier in the other. She couldnt see far in the dark, but she wouldnt relent. She would find that abominable cultist, and end his life here and now.

The trail continued for a while, before abruptly stopping. Marianne looked around with her psychic sight, trying to detect the presence of magic. She expected Shelley to get the drop on her, but no ambush materialized.

A horrible doubt formed in Mariannes mind, and her gaze turned towards the Lightless Ocean. She squinted and focused, until she distinguished a small shape on the water far away from her.

A boat.

Marianne let out a cry of frustration as she opened fire on the escaping vessel. She fired two more shots before her pistol ran out of projectiles.

It was all for naught. As the boat vanished from her sight, Marianne lowered her weapon in silent rage.

Shelley had gotten away.

Not for long, Marianne thought as she glanced at her left thumb and the rat blood soaking her glove. With these fluids, the Knights spellcasters could locate Shelley almost anywhere. Wounded as he was, the mutant cultist wouldnt get far and the authorities would hunt him relentlessly.

But though Marianne had managed to send a messenger bat to the nearest guard station, it might be days before reinforcements arrived and Shelley would get a headstart. It wasnt hard to figure out where he went.

The spawn is alive, Marianne remembered the cultists words. Considering who he had been trying to clone, it didnt take long for the noblewoman to connect the dots. Hes going after Valdemar.

If Shelley was foolish enough to get near Lord Ochs protege, the lich would slay him easily enough. But why would he? Why was Valdemar so important to the cult? Marianne thought of the black blood in the cave, about the force lurking inside the phantom hamlet of Vernburg.

Shelley was a dangerous foe, but only the maddened thrall of something far worse. A dark force was at work in the region, and Marianne had barely scratched the surface of its activities.

Inside me, Bertrands words resonated in her mind, inside you.

Marianne needed to get to the bottom of this. Not only for herself, but for her retainer. Shelley knew the nature of the substance that transformed the vampire into a monster; perhaps he knew how to cure it.

Im going to hunt you, Marianne swore as she looked at the Lightless Ocean, her fingers clenching on her weapons. Like a dog.