fate's pawn 22

 

Chapter 22

 

The sunny, if somewhat green from overgrowing plants, curved corridor held the heavy door to the temple, and Harkon shrugged, turned the handle, and kicked it open, standing back as he did so.

Arrows whistled out into the corridor.

“In the name of Alethos, I abjure undead,” cried Harkon, making the gesture to call the glyph-spell, his own magic backed up by power from his god. He leaped into the room.

Kaz, moving rapidly in his wake, gasped in awe as several skeletons, waiting on guard with drawn bows, seemed to start to collapse sideways, and indeed, crumbled, falling into dust.

The temple was dark, and the muffled-feeling Kaz could sense on the walls showed that heavy curtains, or at least, cloth, had been hung over the traditional stained-glass windows, which showed scenes from the life of Alethos.

“Bollocks,” muttered Harkon. “A little light would reduce his powers.”

“Fold cloth,” Kaz muttered, aiming the laundry-room cantrip at the nearest curtain. It might not cause harm to the vampire, but it would be more convenient for her fellows, and if it did reduce his powers, all well and good.

The curtain obediently folded itself neatly, revealing the window showing Alethos, wounded in the thigh by Tor. Kaz took that as a good omen, and wondered that she had never put together in her own mind that incident, and the wound she had healed on Alathan.

“Forgive me, dear one, I diverted your thoughts from dwelling on it,” her god spoke in her mind. “I feared that if you knew me for who I was, it would make it harder to get to know you properly as you would be overwhelmed. And, as we discussed it, I believe I was right to do so. You could not have acted naturally, and been slightly bossy towards me, in your eagerness to help, if you were in awe of me.”

“I would have been overwhelmed; and terrified to suggest it because it would have seemed presumptuous. Excuse me, love, I’m about to be busy.”

There was a loving chuckle, and Kaz was heartened.

Behind Kaz, Lelyn was also folding curtains, and the light, filtered by overgrowing plants, at least permitted the non-trógling to see.

A dozen zombies backed the now two or three skeletons, and they wavered before Harkon’s power.

The door into the treasury opened, and the bloodsucker gave a hiss of dismay to see the cleared windows. He swirled his cloak and turned, to retreat into the darker room beyond, signalling his undead minions to attack.

“Fold cloth,” muttered Kaz, hurriedly.

Casting a spell on a person of high magical resistance was beyond her; but his cloak was not him.

The vampire would soon fight his way out of the folding cloth, but in the meantime he was prevented from fleeing, and was briefly trapped. As the cloak inexorably tried to fold itself up neatly, taking little account of having a figure within it, the bloodsucker, taken by surprise, and hampered by being a part of the folding, cried out in sudden fear, and fell over. Kaz sniggered.

Harkon saw his chance and ran as fast as he could, knocking aside Zombies as he went, leaving them to be dealt with by Svargia and Protasion, backed by the others. His sword burst into flame as he ran, invoking the spell to do so, and one Zombie thrust aside fell back ablaze.

“Harkon has the sucker. Kill the rest,” said Kaz, harshly. She kindled a torch, using the shaft to whack at the skull of a skeleton, after jumping clear over the blade it swung, and thrust the burning tip of the torch into a zombie as she made for the altar, the stone sword which used to stand on it shattered beside it, and the crudely added glyphs of darkness and chaos.

“Meld broken stone,” muttered Kaz, pushing the parts of the stone sword together. It took a couple of the cantrips used in caverns. She had brought a hammer and chisel from some of the tools they had brought, and deftly cut away the darkness glyph. A cantrip grew one fingernail, and she scraped into the chaos glyph to join up the six sparks of chaos, converting it into a rune of magic. She carved out the rune of truth at the same time, slit her finger, and ran blood into the runes of her god.

She had intended to destroy the basin with hammer and chisel, but something made her pick up the stone sword, now mended, struggling with its weight, and praying that she do this right.

The weight reduced.

Behind her, the others had formed a circle around Rynn and Zon. Zon was handing out torches, having lit one, and conserved his own meagre magical power by lighting others from it, and Rynn was lighting fire-tipped crossbow bolts to fire into Zombies. It did not much matter if they hit head or chest or elsewhere, as at least the fire caused damage that would not regenerate.

A zombie loomed at Kaz. Its appearance was decidedly soapy.

“Lather,” said Kaz, at the face.

The sudden froth which covered the eyes blinded the zombie and Kaz, on a raised dais, managed to bring down the stone sword on its head.

It went down.

 

Harkon was in combat with the vampire, which had managed to get a hand free from durance laundered, and reached out to find his throat. The spirit, rebound into the dead body, was able to act like a disembodied spirit and attack his, even as the monster used main strength to fight out of the folded cloak, and twist away from the threatening flaming blade of the Lord-Priest of Alethos, perhaps the one type of being the vampire truly feared. Harkon knew it, but he also knew that this was a fight he could lose. He must not lose concentration on hitting the vampire with his flaming sword, but no more must he give it the chance to tear at his spirit, ripping away chunks of his magical centre, trying to exhaust or kill him, and preventing him from casting more spells, whether battle magic or god-magic. Indeed, he must concentrate even to maintain his flaming sword.

 

Kaz sighed a shuddering sigh of physical strain as she lifted the stone sword again, and plunged it, point first, into the bowl. The bowl shattered, with a loud clanging noise, the black stains on its inner surface making Kaz shudder.

“Cleanse stains,” she said, hoping the cantrip would work.

And then she felt an assault upon her senses, the feel of something clawing and biting at her very essence. She remembered what Harkon had said, about being able to attack spirits physically if you had the will do to so; and her fingernails were still claws of stone carving from the cantrip. If they could carve stone, they could carve spirit. She felt the attacking spirit flinch, and bit at it as well. Contrary to common folk takes, Toróg could not eat stone, but they had stronger teeth than humans. She took a good bite on the vile tasting spirit and hung on, shaking her head to shake it and cause more damage, like a dog, with a rat, raking at it, and pouring her anger into it.

 

Harkon was fighting the vampire spirit in his own way, but combining physical attack with mental, and doing what he could to damage the body with fire. A loud clanging noise seemed to cause the vampire to flinch.

“Alethos!” cried Harkon. “In your name I abjure this unnatural creature and rend his spirit from his vile chaotic body!” He felt the power of Alethos channelling through him as he pulled back his sword arm and thrust the flaming tip right through the vampire’s neck. Snarling, he let his own spirit reach out to cling to the severed spirit of the dead vampire, unable to flee properly as disembodied spirits could do, being bound into a body, now dead. Like Kaz, Harkon obeyed instinct to rend at it, using his own hands to pummel at it.

 

“I am getting sick of these fucking skeletons letting my sword slide through their sodding bones,” growled Protasion. “Give me the heftiest torch you have, Zon!”

Zon lit, and passed forward a hefty branch, green and heavy with sap, cut to make up the numbers. Protasion thrust his sword back into its scabbard, and started using the burning brand as a shillelagh, laughing as he shattered the dried-out skull of one of his assailants, which collapsed into a heap of bones.

“Hope you aren’t ever geased not to use any weapon but sword, if you plan to use that method in future,” said Lelyn.

“I’m going to have a sword made with a long grip and a heavy pommel, so I can reverse it to whack skeletons on the head with my sword, but with the other end.”

“Don’t you think that’s bending the spirit of any such geas?” said Svargia.

“Alathan said that the geasa are to make us think and be closer to Alethos, surely he will approve of a good way of dealing with something he hates?” said Protasion.

“For a hero of the cult, if that is what he is, Alathan has some rather odd ideas,” said Svargia, disapprovingly.

“Or, maybe, because he is higher in the knowledge of Alethos than most people he recognises that some cult dogma has stagnated, and has a truer view of our god than those who are hidebound,” said Lelyn.

Protasion brained another skeleton, and Lelyn neatly beheaded a zombie. Svargia booted the head away from the rest of the body, which fought on, blindly.

Lelyn shuddered, and Rynn put a burning bolt through its body. It reeled off, trailing noxious smoke.

 

Harkon dropped his sword, the flame having died, and concentrated on pummelling his spirit, as well as rending it with his own power. It was weakening, and he redoubled his efforts

 

Kaz growled.

“Wring!” she said, using another laundry cantrip to add strength to her hands to wring and twist the spirit, like wringing water out of washed clothing. It started squealing, and she dug in her claws.

 

The last zombie fell to Protasion’s shillelagh, and the group quickly fell to beheading any bodies and cutting the arms and legs off feebly struggling bodies.

 

Harkon felt his undead opponent’s spirit falter, and with sudden precision in his head, he knew how to drag the last vestige of its force into him, and gasped to realise that he had ripped power from the vampire to boost his own.

 

Kaz reached down for the stone sword and wrenched it out of the last fragment of stone bowl which fell away, and drove it through the spirit.

Power coursed through the sword and into her hand and through into her body. She felt stronger, as she had done when she had healed Alathan... Alethos. And nothing was attacking her.

Lightheaded, Kaz sat down, clinging to the stone sword.

 

 

“Are we all done here?” asked Harkon, pleased that his voice was not shaking.

“I think so,” said Protasion.

“Kaz?” asked Harkon.

“Did you know that washing cantrips seriously upset spirits?” said Kaz.

“Washing cantrips? Is that what you did to the bloodsucker?” asked Harkon.

“I cast ‘fold’ on his cloak,” said Kaz. “I figured you could do with him slowed up and hampered and not in the dark of his inner sanctum.”

“If you weren’t the beloved of someone else, I’d kiss you,” said Harkon.

“You may kiss me as a brother,” said Kaz.

Harkon gave her a hearty buss on the cheek.

“Well, now we have to put a stake through the heart of my erstwhile playmate, though I fancy I destroyed his spirit so he cannot come back, even if his neck wasn’t seared. But let us not be incautious,” he said.

“And we need to burn the zombies and skeletons, and check out the rest of the complex, including underground,” said Kaz.

“Underground? I don’t think the temple has lower levels,” said Harkon.

“You’ve never stayed in one as a penniless lay member, have you?” said Kaz.

“Er, no; Torval left me enough to make my way,” said Harkon.

“Underground are the storerooms, the laundry, the boiler-room for the heating in the winter months, and the kitchens,” said Kaz. “Some of the decorative columns are chimneys, you know.”

“I had no idea,” said Harkon. “We could burn bodies in the boiler room.”

“Or we could do it in the open where we know we don’t have to deal with damaged chimneys, and can see they burn all through,” said Kaz. “But we need to check out underground in case there are more, and I don’t know about you, but I’d like to make sure none of these can regenerate behind us before we look.”

“I concur,” said Harkon.

With the still-burning pine pitch torches, disposing of the bodies was easy enough, and they sat to watch them burn.

“It’s not even midday,” said Protasion.

“Good; I don’t want to mess about below ground after nightfall,” said Harkon. “Kaz! Are there any windows?”

“Yes, there are half-basement skylights between the outer circle and the inner,” said Kaz. “Haven’t you noticed them?”

“To be honest, I’ve only spent time in the temple since I was given a room in the inner circle as a Glyph Lord,” said Harkon. “The gymnasium is also in the central section, as is the common armoury.”

“We might be lucky enough to find more armour for Rynn and Zon,” said Kaz. “If the preservation spells held. Armour kept for the children of the hierarchy.”

“Good point,” said Harkon. “The smell is dissipating; we would be wise to eat before we do any more, some of you are rather pale.”

“Goodness, I wonder why,” said Lelyn, with heavy irony.

“You all did well,” said Harkon.