Galen Vesa
So, what do we do? The question hung heavy in the air. I walked from one window to the other but, all around us, endless and growing sea of dead ones stretched in every direction.
* There are more than when we arrived. *
Much, much more. When we battled our way in, the plains were traversable. Now? A countless crowd stood squeezed, body to body, hardly moving. All with their gaze fixed upon a point beyond us.
Inside the city things were happening along a similar direction. Streets were packed with the undead and the crowd grew by each passing second.
“We found the witch. What now?”
An old knight with an eye patch broke our silence and asked the unspoken question. Suddenly all their eyes were turned on me.
“So, Khareen.”
Leon’s voice made me turn away from the window.
“About the gratitude you were mentioning earlier. Now would be a good time.”
Ah yes. I said something along those lines. But what could I do? Go down and blast away all those monsters?
*That we cannot do. You can hardly manifest a minimal amount of mana and you wish us throwing fireballs left and right? Tempting yet not possible.*
Create a portal to a safe place?
*No. That kind of magic requires an enormous concentration and a steady stream of mana.*
Create a magic carpet and fly us away from here?
*Creative and possibly achievable although keep in mind that the very moment you would loose consciousness we would plummet to our death.*
Then if we go low enough…
*Some of them can jump over the city walls and possibly even higher. Besides, even if we would risk such endeavor, you have seen how far this crowd goes. Remember how breaking those doors felt like? I can only promise you that the strain of keeping ten people afloat and moving them at the same time, will be worse.*
And where did that leave me? We stay here and die? We try some magic trick and then we die? We do nothing, and we still die?
*Eventually, yes. Although I believe our current companions would deal with us before starvation could take them.*
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
I studied Dosie, the ferru woman curled into a ball and shaking underneath the wall, away from us. Whatever she and Erta felt, grew worse by each passing minute and perhaps at the same time our chances of survival dropped.
Erta, should I call her?
*The spirit Queen? *
A few hours ago I swore to myself, to never call upon her name.
*Desperate times often require desperate means. Do what you must human. *
***
Dosie Whiteclaw
Doomed! Doomed! I doomed us all!
Oh goddess, what have I done. I’ve dragged us all this way just to find that, quib! What have I done.
“You all right Dosie?”
Leon’s hand brushed my back. I have doomed him as I’ve doomed myself.
“I’m sorry. This was a mistake. That one will not help us. We will die because of my error.”
Leon studied the witch we find within the dungeon. Her back curved in an inviting fashion as she leaned towards the window watching the darkness outside.
“Don’t blame yourself. We were dead the moment we entered this city. We simply exchanged weeks of slow and maddening death by starvation into days or maybe even hours. And I will always choose death on my own terms rather than at the teeth of what crawls through those cursed corridors.”
“Besides, you’ve got good taste. She has a nice rump. Think she would join us for a round of some final pleasure? I wonder if all ferru are as wild as you….”
I hissed and pushed his face away. I shall not repeat that mistake! Pleasurable… yet a mistake nonetheless!
Hugging my knees, I sat as far away from the humans as the space allowed me.
“We found the witch. What now?”
Carl, the knight that earlier doubted my idea of searching for a mage within the dead city, asked what we all wondered. A cold man. Cold yet reliable, his blade already saved my hide twice.
Knowing that this would come to it eventually, Leon let out a sigh and called to the witch.
“So, Khareen. About the gratitude you were mentioning earlier. Now would be a good time.”
The woman slowly turned, her odd unnerving eyes shined in darkness. Not by reflecting light like mine did but they shined with a sort of earie, mana induced, silver glow.
It pained me, but Leon spoke truth about her. Her curved, elvish frame, even under all the grime she accumulated so far, looked like a work of art designed by the most prestigious sculptor.
Even though her face seemed blank and devoid of emotion, her red lips curved into a gentle, hardly noticeable smile.
She seemed distracted, as if we broke her away from a conversation with somebody else. I shivered as she blinked with her inner, black eyelids. It gave her a sort of demonic appeal.
As if unsure of what to do, she lifted her arm, and watching intently a ring on her finger, she spoke.
“Mother of the Wind, come forth.”
That was no spell, but I could feel the intent behind those words. A call to a servant. A call that cannot be ignored. A call that shall be answered.
Suddenly my fur stood up and sparks jumped between my ears. With a susurrus of falling leaves, gusts of wind gathered inside and condensed into a fully corporal spirit that stopped and bowed before her.
“My love, your wish is my desire.”
The spirit spoke, floating in a flirty dance round and round the one who called her.
“Can you take us safely, away from this city to a place of our choosing?”
The witch asked.
“No. I cannot my love. This place is sealed within a barrier that hardly a spirit can pass. It is impossible for mortals to traverse it, even with my help.”
Suddenly a nauseating wave of terror shook me. I have never felt such powerful hate. O Goddess of light protect me!
The spirit suddenly stopped and turned its head in the direction all the undead were facing.
“I must go my love. My presence here is, unwelcomed. It puts you in danger. Seek out the norther tower. There is a passage underneath it that leads all the way to the edge of the meadow. If you wait there until the barrier collapse, you may escape this place with your life.”
The spirit pointed towards the north.
“Go my love. Do not dawdle. The unliving one is at the doorstep.”