I squirmed free of my rapidly dead-raccoonifying outer coat and pants; ‘ACTING!’ was trying to tell me I should be mortified, but I was much more concerned with the way the squirming viscera seemed to worming its way through the fabric and tearing it.
Without all my Elskia clothing I felt the disguise strain, but the fortunate secondary effect from the upgraded level of ‘ACTING!’ had given me...assets...which filled the gap and kept my appearance credible. When I first donned the disguise I’d learned that certain physical traits were in fact considered ‘physical abilities’ for the purposes of the skill. The same skill fortunately also stripped any particular feeling of dysphoria and I felt as comfortable in my gorgeous Wyrm-Daughter body as I did in my own.
But that didn’t mean elves got to stare. Slap! I gave Terrence exactly what he deserved and turned to the more pressing matter.
All around us the impact splatters of the animal rain were shivering as the necromantic energy rebuilt them into not-so-living weapons. I’d learned from the Admiral that the Death Engine’s pulse only affected the recently deceased and only once—it wouldn’t reconstruct the dead a second time, fortunately for us. The overall function of the Engine as a weapon was beginning to become clear to me.
It would exploit the natural death in an area to produce recruits, then send them out to both capture and kill the living. Each new pulse would grow their ranks, and the captured creatures would be flung into hardened targets or sent long distances to target new areas. It was an ingenious weapon, and I couldn’t help but admire its designer even as I watched horrors form before my eyes.
In the previous Death Engine pulse the squirrel bodies had been left largely intact, whereas the hare carcass had been thoroughly mutilated. This simple difference had mattered on their reanimation. The squirrels had become the squirts, physically quite similar and of a seemingly mild temperament. The hare’s greater damage had required vastly more necromantic energy, with much more ghastly effects.
The pulverized remains around us were of another level altogether. In thirty seconds nothing resembling an animal was left. Flesh flowed, aggregated, and flowed again; the sound of muscle and sinew twisting and ripping in an unholy symphony filled the air; new flesh strained until bones snapped into sharp points and I saw the squirming red worms of marrow probe lustily. I wondered what a puncture from such a weapon would do, what it would leave behind to fester.
Strange forms rose from the carnage. They did not indulge in the limitations of living flesh; the familiar forms of bodies were eschewed, they became limb-things—many jointed amalgamations of claw and tooth and ichor dripping spike; sense organs were buried deep within cages of bone; strands of connective tissue ran in parallel, creating redundancies which could never be justified in life.
It was the complete subordination of life, the ascendancy of flesh as mere material—to be violated at will for obscene purpose. I was inspired.
“Numbskulls!” I called, “Adorn me.”
I didn’t need to clarify my intent in the slightest. A group of the nearest Numbskulls eagerly converged on my position, already disassembling themselves while in motion. My skeletons rapidly reconstructed themselves upon my body. Ancient bones girded my limbs and trunk, tightly bound to me by black tendrils of energy; layers of ribs slotted neatly over my own; flexible chunks of spine covered joints; and a pair of happily chattering skulls acted as pauldrons. The final piece came as a large skull was slotted neatly over my head, and I felt the cool touch of their flowing darkness tickle my temples.
I drew the Laughing Blade, and the whisper of enchanted steel had never sounded so sweet.
Funny-Bone laugh-chattered hysterically, shouting: “YES! YES! RISE SKELETON QUEEN!”
But there was no time to indulge in the performance, as the swarm collapsed upon us, and then there was carnage!
A flesh-construct loped towards me, a high-backed digitigrade which moved with eerie smoothness. Rising from its arched back were a set of fleshy ropes ending in fanged predator skulls, they snapped reflexively at the air, jerking spasmodically in stark contrast to the main body’s grace.
“What’s black and white and red all over?” I whispered.
The thing charged, skulls lunging to their fullest extent, teeth bared.
“A sword that just stabbed a mime,” and the Laughing Blade shivered.
I slashed to meet the beast, willing destruction into the blade. The creature stutter-stepped its charge and my cut was early, but the air it traced through looked warped to my eye. It crouched and then suddenly was midair pouncing for me, only for it to strike the distorted air. The distortion rippled and shot forward, gouging through a huge chunk of the creature in an instant. A glistening torrent of blood and bile gushed from the wound and half the skull-tentacles went limp as some internal support system failed. Its front legs collapsed underneath it, scarcely held on by a thin strip of flesh.
But what would have been a lethal blow on any living thing was scarcely even debilitating. It sprung backwards with a violent twist of its body and powerful legs. As I watched the still active skulls gnawed off the nonfunctional ones even while the paralyzed front limbs sloughed off of their own accord. A new set of dripping limbs unfurled from its body to replace the lost set.
It was noticeable smaller and had lost a number of its threats, but it had retained almost all of its combat capacity even after such a hit. It stood and began to circle to the side. It was adjusting, exhibiting a caution it had failed to show before. I wasn’t sure whether its behaviour change was due to its loss of mass or a revaluation of my capacity, but either way I couldn’t expect the same simplistic attack as before.
The fight around us raged on. The Numbskulls fought in absolute harmony: piling onto the creatures in crushing numbers; cushioning the falls of comrades which were thrown off; they prioritized entrapping limbs, since they seemingly didn’t have the strength to break it. Instead, once a Numbskull had managed to lodge itself upon a flesh-construct it would begin to bite. I saw dozens of Numbskulls with dripping flesh falling through their mouths, faces coated in red as they gnawed until tissue ripped and flesh failed. I could see the aftermath of their focused efforts on a few beasts corpses, still animated, but with every means of locomotion chewed away.
But my own opponent beckoned.
“Why are swords considered rude?” I began.
The creature jerked towards me the second I opened my mouth, seemingly responding to my speech. I began to adjust my stance, but the instant I moved it redoubled its speed, lightened by the offloaded flesh. I was unprepared for the sudden tempo change and only just managed to put the sword in front of its charge, but it didn’t hesitate to impale itself on the blade and tackle me to the ground.
I lost my grip on the Laughing blade in the fall as it twisted the handle away from me. Even through the armour I could feel its weight bearing down on me, and the impact of its limbs attempting to break through the bone frame. But they were clumsy for the task, and I kept squirming to prevent it from finding a good angle.
I groped blindly for the handle, desperately seeking my weapon. It grew frustrated with the continual failure of its limbs to find purchase and twisted around to give its skull-tentacles an angle of approach. Some kind of canine jaw lunged for me, but I jerked my skull pauldron into its path and blocked the hit. More of the jaws were circling around and I knew I wouldn’t be able so lucky on the next strikes. My flailing hand suddenly hit a solid rod—the handle.
“Because they always cut in line!” I gasped.
The embedded Laughing Blade shivered, but I didn’t have any leverage to move it. I tried to will something, anything, from it. The blade stilled, and then I heard a high pitched whine emanating from deep within the beast atop me. The sound intensified rapidly and then as it crested my opponent erupted in a geyser of gore.
The force of the pressure wave pushed me flat, but I felt the skeleton armour tighten their grip automatically on the Laughing Blade and it stayed in my hand.
“Right, right,” I breathed, that had been too close. “I don’t care if every bone in my arm is broken, I can be screaming for mercy, but do not let go of that sword.” I felt the armour squeeze slightly in response. Good, we understood each other.
I levered myself back up and took stock. Only about thirty seconds had passed, but it felt like thirty minutes. I could barely control my breathing, my limbs were shaking with adrenaline, and there was yet another layer of goo coating me. I was just getting started.
I didn’t have time to observe them before, but my moment of respite let me see the skill of the named members of the Bone Corps.
Funny-Bone and Bone-Head fought together. Bone-Head carried a shield and warpick which he used with devastating efficiency. Every movement was calculated to draw out an enemy, but attacks which seemed guaranteed to hit always seemed to end up striking his shield, and they never managed to evade the counter-blow from his pick. The weapon would slam into flesh, digging deep into monstrosities and sticking. Bone-Head would become an anchor from which they couldn't escape, and Funny-Bone would move in.
If Bone-Head was the foundation on which they fought, Funny-Bone was the flourish. She carried a single sword, a long slender blade which seemed utterly unsuited to the purpose of harming such resilient enemies. It would be, in any other hands. Funny-Bone would step within reach of a flesh-construct and with casual motion barely sidestep or divert every attack sent her way. The creatures would redouble their efforts, sure that they were only one more attack from landing a critical blow... and then Funny-Bone would begin her dissection. Cuts would be begin to land, daring slashes that just grazed a ligament which just happened to be bearing weight and cause a stumble. Then another, and another until the beasts attempted to create distance, realizing too late that every strike unerringly found a weakness, that the opponent before them was beyond any mortal mastery. This, I realized, was a thousand years of practice in action.
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The Admiral and Roam were not without their talents either.
The Admiral waded into the thickest fighting, wielding a cutlass with both hands, slashing great rents in his opponents as he fought alongside the Numbskulls. Wherever he went their focus tightened, they fought cleverly, creating opportunities for his blade and coordinating better with each other.
Roam was a skirmisher, dogging the heels of a beast and managing to keep it occupied until the Numbskulls could bring it down. What he lacked in stopping power he made up for in persistence and distraction.
Most surprising, however, was Terrence.
He was sprinting full tilt through the battlefield, screaming in terror. This action only seemed to excite some instinct in the flesh-constructs as they flocked to him like horror bees to his tender elf flower. At any given moment it seemed like a full fifth of the remaining horrors were fixated purely on trying to pursue him. Whenever several of them closed in, he somehow managed to slither out of the ensuing crush of flesh, slipping under attacks, bending away from snapping jaws, and leaping over the creatures as they attempted to tackle him.
And there, keeping pace with him through his flight, was Elyondril.
“There! Awaken to your superior capacity! You have one of the most pronounced Cautiousness ridges I have ever seen! Dodge that! Yes! Yes! Good! The fullness of flight expressed in the purity of the elvish form, inferior races could never achieve such focused purpose!” Elyondril ranted.
“Please! Give me a weapon!” Terrence begged.
“You need to earn it! Now RUN!”
They seemed to be doing fine.
I refocused my attention on my immediate surroundings. A pair of what looked like giant urchins made of bone and flesh were rolling up to me. As I watched one of them shrank inward, then suddenly thrust its lower limbs out and bounced high into the air. Yeah, none of that.
“Why do swords make good jesters? Because they always ready to cut up!” I swung the shivering blade and a wave of heat exploded outward. The falling urchin had no means to divert from its path and was enveloped instantly. I heard the pop-pop of fluids flashboiling and saw bone darkening as it cooked midair. Now that was more like it.
I turned on the other urchin, “How many swordsmen does it take to change a twitching lantern?” I asked. The Laughing Blade began to quiver lightly, anticipating whatever punchline was coming. I raced forward. These things were too capable on the offence—I needed to take the fight to them.
“THREE!”
The urchin began to roll backward, but I knew a feint when I saw one.
“One to hold the lantern!”
Its spike-limbs tensed, and I dodged at the last second as they shot forward into the space I had just occupied.
“Another to pour the oil!”
I slashed downward through the overextended limbs, using the mundane property of the Laughing Blade just being a really good sword. Using a sword to cut things, they never saw it coming.
“And a third to stab the fucking mimic pretending to be a lantern!”
I adjusted my grip and swung the blade back through the urchin. Rippling fire traced down the blade, and I blinked as the sudden waves of intense heat radiated towards me, but the blow was true and, even as I lost sight, I felt the sword rip through the monster. My mouth flushed with saliva as the smell of barbeque wafted into my nostrils.
“No! Bad mouth! Don’t eat the horrors!”
I blinked my eyes clear of tears and swallowed my mouthful saliva. A lady doesn’t spit, ‘ACTING!’ insisted.
“Next!” I yelled, and my Numbskull pauldrons chatter-cackled in response.
The next few minutes were a blur of puns and violence.
“Get to the point!” I screamed and stabbed a serpent made of entwined spinal-cords between a pair of vertebra. The bony gap suddenly became soft before the sword and I swept the blade along its entire length.
Its last gasp was a blow that sent me sprawling, but by the time I stood Funny-Bone had already moved in and finished the kill. I looked around for my next opponent, but I saw no free agents left. Numbskulls were finishing off the last of Terrence’s posse while the elf laid flat on his back, chest heaving desperately.
A wave of exhaustion swept over me at the sight of the supine elf. Laying down did sound awfully good right now.
“Alright Numbskulls, gitoff,” my armour reluctantly dismantled itself. “Oh don’t pout, you did great!”
I recieved a happy chitter-chatter in response to my praise.
Funny-Bone ran up to me and gave me a bony embrace.
“You’re terrible with that thing! Good jokes though!” she said and beamed at me as much as a skeleton could beam.
“Is that any way to speak to your queen?” I intoned imperiously, but the exhaustion hit and I relaxed, “maybe some pointers for your queen would help for next time.”
The slope around me looked as if it had been mulched by a group of butchers trying their hands at landscaping. Like a thousand strawberry smoothies in blenders had been turned on with the lids off. Like an abattoir had come to life and sneezed. It would be a trial and a half to find the squirts if they disappeared in the mess.
A beat passed, and then I had a moment of pure panic: where were my squirts? I searched my memory, sometime in the melee they must have come off but I couldn’t remember when.
“Gusher! Discharge! Where are you my wet ones?!” I called, but there was no ensuing splurt of liquid on the admittedly sodden slope. I held in my desire to act rashly, I had prepared for this eventuality. After figuring out the squirts homing instinct I’d doused them both in lilac fragrance I’d brought for when I needed to retouch my Elskia disguise. There was always a risk they would somehow elude me, but a strong and distinctive scent would bring me right to them. I closed my eyes and breathed deep.
Beyond the nearly overwhelming smell of gore I did detect the faint scent of the squirts scattered around the battlefield, but one direction was distinctly stronger. I hurried toward my boys, sniffing to reorient as the strengthening smell told me I was on the right course. It was not long before I found them.
A red smear on the earth, a pair of limp rags. Hesitantly, I reached for my special guys, but then Terrence was there grabbing my hand. I didn’t notice him approach. There were lots of things I didn’t notice I realized, like when had I started to cry? I couldn’t remember.
“They were just a pair of dead squirrels,” I heard myself saying, “but I really liked them. I’ve never had a pet before, except maybe Hugh, but he isn’t cuddly.”
Terrence rubbed my back gently, “I can’t claim to understand it, but I can see that you’re hurting. And clearly they meant a lot to you, or you wouldn’t be feeling this way. I know that you also just lost your father, and the process of grief and attachment can be complex. Losing someone can feel like losing everything, and sometimes small losses remind you of the large one again.”
I knew he was just trying to help, but Terrence was getting a little too close to the giant red button in my head clearly labelled ‘do not push’, but did he read it? No!
“It’s probably for the best,” I said, “at the rate they were losing fluids I was needing to restock them from the canteen every hour.”
The hand on my back froze, “The shared canteen?”
I nodded, “They’d pull it down right to their open wounds and somehow just suck the water right in. It was amazing to see. They were amazing.”
A complete lie, but the sound of softly gagging elf meant it served its purpose.
The moment wasn’t allowed to linger as I heard the approaching braying of a descending animal I wiped my eyes and stood, readying myself for the next onslaught, but there was only the single loud thunk of a landing elk and then the slope was quiet once more.
I glanced over and noticed there was something odd about the elk’s antlers; it looked like something white and round had been wedged into them.
“Lone!” cried Roam and he rushed forward.
It seemed I would not be alone in grief, though my own distress suddenly felt shallow and insignificant before Roam’s.
Roam clutched at the pale skull pulled from the antlers as that was indeed what had been crudely placed in the tines. A final insult it seemed from our adversary after destroying the squirts.
The rest of the Corps gathered to Roam to share in his grief.
“Lone managed it, against all expectations, she found the Engine. Even in her loss we can admire her ability,” said the Admiral. “A fine tracker. A great scout. An exceptional friend.” But Roam wasn’t listening, he just held the disembodied skull with its slashed runes and rocked.
The Admiral straightened, and I saw the fierce discipline of his leadership shine through.
“I’m sorry Roam but we can’t wait. Without the auxiliary’s guidance our window of opportunity is short—the Engine will move after this display, but we might still catch it.”
I took a breath and waited my chance to speak, Roam deserved the opportunity to grieve and with Doppelganger I suspected I had another means of tracking the Engine, but that same inhalation lit a sudden spark of suspicion, and a rapid search through my memory brought it for flame.
“Been walking through wildflowers, eh Roam?” I asked.