“Why are we attacking at night? Aren’t vampires and demons stronger in the dark?” Lynch whispered from his place next to Blake on the ridge overlooking the road into town. The manor rose in the distance, moonlight dying as it hit the black stone, making the great bulk only visible through its absence, a hole cut in the sky.
“Common misconception,” Blake whispered back. “Vampires only lose strength in the daytime if they are in direct sunlight. Buried deep in a crypt or cave, the vampire will present its full strength regardless of the time of day. The best way to capitalize on a vampire’s inherent weakness to…”
A grinding noise drew Blake’s attention from the manor below to the man at his side. It took a moment for Blake to recognize the noise as clenched teeth, mashed in irritation.
“Hmm.” He changed topics. “As for demons, if they are in possession of a physical form, the sun will not affect them. Light will damage and banish all but the strongest demon if they are in astral or animal form. I do not know how sunlight affects Other Servants. From the appearance of the Gate in the noonday sun above Kindale, supposition is the purifying light of day does not harm entities of the Other.”
“And Revenants?”
“The sun is not a weakness in and of itself. More of a part of the larger whole. Sunlight will not harm a Revenant, but without sunlight, a Revenant cannot be vanquished. To make an analogy, if—”
“I get the point,” Lynch interrupted. Blake had been about to use one of his favorite metaphors, but there was no stopping the soldier. “How does sunlight help? Don’t we need to hurt him enough to put him down for good, like the vampire?”
“The succubus will require a little more than simple physical damage, but yes. Hurt the Revenant enough to keep it down, and cut it to pieces and bury each in a different pit during the hour of noon. Silver needs to be buried with the head, and salt in the others. Purify and protect.”
“Almost sounds like the stone men of Kindale. Except the cannons for arms.”
Blake nodded. “Revenants and golems share some key characteristics, but the Revenants are invariably bloodthirsty. Golems, they depend on their creators for temperament. Golems would be the easier to dispatch.”
“Too bad there’s not a rulebook for demon servants from another world, eh?”
There was much wrong with Lynch’s statement, but Blake decided it was easiest to keep his mouth shut. He was less likely to talk himself into punching the soldier.
“It is too bad,” Blake agreed. “We have seen enough here. Let us return to the Granny Woman and begin.”
The pair pushed themselves backwards down the slope, crouching to keep their profiles hidden behind the crest of the hill. Akisoromokevheje and her servants were more active in the dark, and possessed sharp eyesight. It would do no good to be ambushed while trying to launch a sneak attack.
“Some rich dirt around here,” Blake said as he stood and brushed his palms clean.
“Soil.” Lynch’s voice was hard, and sharp.
Blake nodded. "That is what I said.”
“Things grow in soil. Dirt is what the wife scolds you for tracking into the house.” The soldier’s voice still held the tone of warning and impending violence.
“Soil, sorry.” Blake put his hands up in acquiescence. “Never had a wife to scold me about anything.”
“Ye’re never gonna if ye do no shut yer trap,” the Granny Woman’s voice came from the dark space between the trees. “Half the valley can hear yer jabberin’. I dunno why I must keep remindin’ ye both. Damn fools.”
“We ain’t too loud,” Lynch said. “Besides, it’s near midnight. Most of the people are asleep by… oh. That’s why we’re attacking at night. Less people are awake, and it’s the monsters we have to worry about.”
“I am impressed. I thought it would take you longer to figure out the reasoning.”
The soldier grunted in response.
“Were you successful?” Blake asked the Granny Woman. “The spirit is back with us?”
“Gray One,” a voice rumbled from the trees. The tops shook as if in a strong wind, then calmed, leaving one swaying crown approaching. “TheRavendid not eatyou.”
“No,” Blake replied. “Signal necklace?”
“Aye,” Granny Esmer said and lifted a rounded river stone lashed in simple rawhide cord. A simple device designed to crumble if the spirit’s body failed again. Blake did not expect it would, but he liked to be prepared.
“Does he remember what happened to him?” Lynch asked. “I mean, in the ma-”
“Ifyouspeak of the death of mybody, I remember. The Demon is strong, thescent of theRaven empowers her.”
“Ah.”
“I donotwish death again. I will not bejoiningyour fight with theRaven.”
“Then what did you summon him back for?” Lynch asked Granny Esmer. “He doesn’t like his body in the first place.”
“Ain’t gonna be fightin' the Raven, but he’d love a rematch with the Revenant.”
“The deadwalk abominable. The mountainswillgrind them to dust.” The air shimmered with the spirit’s last word and Lynch raised an involuntary hand to block any incoming threats.
"Alright,” Lynch said. “Didn’t fancy having to deal with the relentless undead myself.”
“You get used to it,” Blake said.
“Dunno 'bout ye, but I hope I never do.” Metal clanked as the Granny Woman swung a large sack to the ground from her shoulder. “Get out yer lanterns an' let's get a move on.”
“Careful with those,” Blake admonished. He grabbed the bag from the Granny Woman and checked inside. The lanterns appeared undamaged. He pulled them out and inspected them before passing them out. Aside from a few scratches and dents in the hard iron casing, the lanterns were in working order. They were old, a design Blake was not familiar with.
“Worrywort,” the Granny Woman said. “These’ve served me well fer decades. A little bump ain’t gonna harm ‘em.”
“What’s so great about these lanterns?” Lynch asked.
“Custodes Noctis Lanterns. Called Monster Hunter Lanterns, but the term is not quite correct.” Blake held his up, metal handle creaking in its ring. As long as his forearm, the lantern was a heavy construction of curved iron plates arrayed around a solid base, hinges and slides across the joins. The whole of the lantern was covered in intricate symbols carved deep in the metal. Blake flicked open a small door, one of several doors of various sizes. Blue light slipped out of the small opening in a solid beam, illuminating the ground at his feet.
“There is an elymis stone in the lantern base,” Blake explained, tapping the section in question. “Solid elymis produces a copious amount of light, as a byproduct of its crystallized magic nature. Consequently, elymis mines do not have a need for external light sources and-”
Lynch cleared his throat, interrupting Blake’s explanation about the need of elymis miners to wear shaded glasses, or to have golems working the mines. “I was at Kindale, I know about elymis.”
“Ah. Yes.” Blake did not let the interruption stop his train of thought. “The elymis is encased in this iron shroud, with provisions to change the intensity of the light, direction, span. A complex device. This is not all-”
“Repels the darkness an’ what’s in it, an' is a minor shield fer the bearer.” Granny Esmer gave Blake a quick smile. “I were no sure if ye were gettin’ to the point or nah.”
“I was getting there. The context is important.”
Lynch rubbed the bridge of his nose. "The mumbling doesn’t help. These lanterns are fancy, and good for hunting monsters?”
“In short, yes.”
“Then why didn’t you say so?”
“Knowledgemusthold the right knowledge,” rumbled the mountain cracking voice of Kashehotapalo. “Enoughknowledge. Thedemon must fall.”
“Spirit’s right,” Lynch said, shouldering his long rifle and picking up his own lantern. “Let’s go.”
“Fine,” Blake said, “But do not blame me if you die from running off half-cocked.”
“Kashehotapalo, can ye be a dear an' check on the borders o' the estate? We’ll be along quick, an' I do no want any surprises.”
“Watchingeyes willbe blinded, Wise One.” With that, the hulking root and stone body vanished, melting into the ground and leaving no trace. A puff of vapor left Blake’s mouth in the pocket of cold left by the wake of the spirit.
“Not going to be anyone left alive, is there?” Lynch asked. He tried to hide it, but Blake saw how Lynch tried to suppress a shudder.
“Unlikely,” Granny Esmer nodded.
True to her word, when the three arrived on the edge of the manor grounds, having seen no other living beings on their way there, a body waited for them. The entrails still steamed in the cold malevolent air of the spirit, the cold air of the mountain peak.
“He is a thorough one,” Blake said. “I would not fancy trying to put down a rabid nature spirit.”
The closest he had come to confronting a spirit like Kashehotapalo had been a water sprite in Straits City. Sprites were weak as a rule, but this one had been empowered by the proximity to the Great Lakes, fed by the flow of water between the Eyrie and Heron lakes. The raw power of these lakes, true inland seas, turned what should have been a simple ritual appeasement into a grueling purification and imprisonment. The sprite still drove the waterwheel at a carriage builder, for all Blake knew.
“Rabid ones’re easy.” Granny Esmer spat to the side, narrowly missing the body. “Sane ones ye gotta look out fer.”
“Which one’s Kash?”
“Depends on the day,” Granny Esmer said.
“I’d say he’s pretty rabid right now,” Lynch said, nodding at the body. “Seen better after a mortar strike.”
“You sure the bonds on him will hold?” Blake asked. There were stories in legion of spirits and other subjugated denizens slipping their bonds and slaughtering their captors.
“Ain’t under any bonds, no like ye think. Simple give an' take agreement.”
“What's he get out of it?” Lynch asked. “You get servitude, what’s his benefit?”
“Do it matter?” Granny Esmer pointed to the manor a hundred yards in the distance. “More urgent matters ahead.”
Lynch grunted but did not say more. Blake agreed with the soldier. Once this was over, and if they all survived, he would need to have a conversation with the Granny Woman, one he suspected neither would enjoy.
“What’s the best approach?” Lynch asked. “Not much activity in the house. ‘Course, I doubt undead need light to see.”
“They see better without it,” Blake explained. “Though, it is not seeing in the same way as the living. More of an extension of their senses and-”
“Magic,” Granny Esmer interrupted. “They see through magic.”
“Ah.” Lynch nodded as if she had answered everything. The soldier was willing to accept magic as an explanation for every unknown phenomenon. Where was his sense of wonder, of curiosity? Blake supposed mindset was what separated the simple soldier from the Knight. “Front door or back door?”
“Front door,” Blake said. “Revenant was in the kitchen the last time I was here, and Lynch has confirmed it seems to stay there. The more time we have to get into the manor and activate our traps, the better.”
“While I’d normally be opposed to a frontal assault without overwhelming artillery, in this case I’ll make an exception,” Lynch said.
“Good, because you do not have a say in the matter.”
“Surely ye have no enough enmity betwixt ye to fight as we stand on the literal doorstep o' evil?”
“Fine. How’re we going about this? Split up, take the main floor first?” Lynch licked his lips, eyes bright with battle fervor.
“We stick together, and take the upper floor first. The charms and traps you left should stall the Revenant long enough for us to clear the upper chambers. Kashehotapalo will deal with the Revenant when it gets free. It is our task to end the demon.”
“Look at us, three wouldbe demon slayers.” Lynch grinned at Blake and Granny Esmer. The Knight snorted.
“Only two, I have already slain demons.” He grinned back at the soldier and saw the man’s own falter for a brief moment before solidifying.
“Good stuff. Let’s get going.”
The first obstacle proved to be the door. The door itself was the same black iron behemoth Blake remembered, with minor differences. There had been greater security measures implemented since he had last been here.
“Looks like Akisoromokevheje is expecting visitors,” he whispered to the others.
“Ye mean the Warding?” the Granny Woman asked. Blake ignored the dryness of her voice.
“New, and nasty.” The air was distorted around the door, the heat shimmer from paving stones in the midsummer sun. Blake could see, or feel, the traces of Intent around the frame, guiding the energy of the wards. The energy had a red shine to his mind's eye, a crimson coursing underneath it all. Blood magic, ritual sacrifice. “Blood magic.”
“Ye sure?”
“It is a style of magic I am sadly well acquainted with.” It was curious only the door had been warded. Blake would have expected the surrounding grounds to be covered with a detection ward at the very least.
“The stuff the Aztlans used? With demon summoning?” Lynch asked. His voice was quiet, but Blake was concerned the deep rumble might still give the inhabitants warning even at such a low volume.
“They were the most prolific users of it, yes.”
“Can ye remove it? I see what ye mean, but I’ve little experience with blood magics.”
“Yes,” Blake said. “The warding is not too sophisticated, I will disrupt it.”
“I thought you said it was a nasty one?” Lynch’s voice still sounded like a giant bumblebee and it was surprising the walls did not rattle.
“A nasty one, but a simple one. A bear trap is nasty to get your foot stuck in, but it is a simple lever and spring.” Blake hunched his shoulders, preparing his mind for the task ahead.
“Give me some space,” he said. “I am going to try and disarm this.”
Intent, medium, method. To counter an active blood warding, he needed blood to focus the counter intent. Fortunately, he had a whole body-worth he carried around with himself. Slipping a small knife from its sheath at his waist, Blake nicked his forearm, careful to avoid any major blood vessels and tattoo lines. He would not need anything near high volume for this working. Interacting with an already enacted blood magic only took the smallest amount, compared to the starting volume.
When three ruby drops had slipped out onto the silvery metal, Blake drew precise runes for entry and peace into the air. In the center of the shimmer cast by the flow of energy around the doorway, to disrupt the working. The warding accepted them, blood magic ever eager for more blood.
A good caster would have spelled against the possibility, but Akisoromokevheje had evidently not seen the need. The shimmer faltered and spread away from the door, leaving only traces around the frame. The blood had vanished from the knife blade, absorbed by the ward as the runes altered it.
“Cleared,” Blake said. “Do not touch the frame.”
Lynch clapped a heavy paw of a hand on Blake’s shoulder as he passed by, accompanied by a brief nod. Granny Esmer walked by, inspecting the warding as she did. Blake slipped the knife back into place and followed. He left the door open.
Lynch led the way, Granny Esmer close behind. His physical prowess, silver axe thrust through his belt, and long rifle with affixed bayonet for material threats and Granny Esmer to spot immaterial threats made for an effective breach team. Esmer had her messenger gun at the ready if Lynch needed any help. Blake followed behind, watching for anything the pair might have missed, or was creeping up behind.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, Granny Esmer began to chant under her breath. Waving hands and shaken trinkets accompanied the chants. Activating the charms Lynch had left behind on his trip to the Lady. Blake energized his charms as well, visualizing them as active. He had already formed his bond with them when they had been made, allowing for such ease. A weaker enchantment done this way, but quicker and easier in a hurry.
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The first time Blake had been in the manor he had not gone beyond the first floor, invited straight back to the dining room and thrown into the kitchen. As Lynch knew the layout best, he was the one to lead the charge.
The group passed through the first room and passed the slumbering form of an enthralled farmer, crumpled against the blank wall. Blake was struck by the sheer blackness of the stone walls, as if they absorbed all light. Even the blue light of the elymis stone was dimmed by proximity to the black rock. He hoped it was a trick of the light, or a natural aspect of the rock revealed by the night. The implications of other explanations were troubling.
The entrance to a stairwell was tucked into the back corner of the room. A servant’s path, lifting into the upper reaches of the manor, hidden from the prime inhabitants. A less intrusive way through the manor was the ideal path for the three trying to kill the inhabitants. Another thrall lay unconscious on the bottom step, victim to Blake’s charms.
“Smell…” Granny Esmer whispered as they reached the top of the stairs. Blake could smell it too, the scent of iron and sickly sweet rot. The room the stairs led to was empty, dark wood panels surrounding a pale red carpet. There was not a single item in the room and only a single door leading to the rest of the upper floor. The smell was strongest near the door.
“Akisoromokevheje’s pantry,” Blake said. Vampires tended to keep a stock of bodies, but usually disposed of them after draining the blood. But with the strange nature of the entities inside the shell of Akisoromokevheje, standard behavior could not be relied upon.
“The other side isn’t going to be pleasant, is it?” Lynch said with a grimace.
“T’would no expect so, nay.” The Granny Woman rolled her wide shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”
The door whispered open on its hinges when Lynch unlatched the handle. From the look on his face, the soldier had been expecting a much harder time of it. With the opening of the door came a flood of rotten air, an almost physical thing of malice and anger. The bodies of the dead, carrying out their last possible act of vengeance on the living.
“Yeshas preserve us,” Lynch croaked in the doorway, blocking Blake’s view of the other side. Granny Esmer solved this issue by pushing through the man, forcing him to duck under the door frame. When his sight was clear, Blake could see what gave the career soldier pause.
A long corridor stretching the length of the manor crossed in front of the servant’s door, and more rooms branched off. The interior walls were bare wood, all paint and paper removed. On the far ends of the hallway, black stone marked the exterior of the house, narrow windows set deep into the stone letting in the smallest light from the moon sliver. Doorways stood open, doors hanging lopsided from their hinges or missing entirely. Shadows danced around the frames and the ends of the hallway faded to near darkness at the limit of the circle of light cast by the lanterns.
Everywhere Blake could see held bodies. Piles and heaps of corpses, discarded like trash. Illuminated by the blue light of the elymis, the bodies looked thin and washed out. What little blood there was glimmered maroon where it had leaked from puncture wounds and ragged tears across the torsos. Young and old, men, women, children. The missing of Quincy Hill, left here to rot. Their final resting place a pit of hell. Some had been here for months, others days at most. Many lay where they had been dropped, with limbs askew and bent beyond human limits, but several lay outstretched, arms reaching for help that would never come. Several bodies were withered like they had been left out to dry in the middle of the Dehas plains, little more than dust and leather.
Blake had seen worse. Yehway help him, but he had seen worse. There were things out there, in the hinterlands of human awareness, creatures and entities beyond the savagery mere humans could conceive. Blake fought them, slew them, burned them to ash, because it was his Calling, his life purpose. The Blood of the House of Yeshas was the Shield of humanity, and the Iron Knights the Sword.
The monster at the heart of this was still roaming free, seeking more victims, and Blake’s Sword hungered. It was necessary to harden his heart to the misery he saw, to the horrors. Emotions could not get in the way of the Iron Path, not when there was a Hunt on. A lesson Blake had spent many years learning. Lynch and Granny Esmer had received no such lesson.
“Try to breathe through your mouth,” Blake offered. “It will not make the smell go away, but it may help.”
Lynch nodded and began to pull shallow breaths through his mouth. After a second he coughed and pulled the collar of his shirt over his mouth.
“‘S not helping.” His eyes were wide over the edge of his shirt, darting around the scene as if he could not decide where to look. At the bodies or away from them.
Blake shrugged. “Wait in the stairs until we need you. There is nothing animated here.”
Leaving the soldier to mutter prayers to Yeshas and Yehway, Blake continued.
“Bet the soldier ain’t listen well to the advice.”
Granny Esmer fared a little better, holding a small bag to her nose, full of what Blake assumed to be herbs. Whatever it was, it only blocked the smell, not the sights. The horror in her eyes was the same as the soldier’s. To her credit, she kept pace with Blake as he began collecting what information the carnage could show him.
“Was it this bad the first time?” Blake asked as he walked further into the macabre scene. It became evident it was not only whole bodies left up here, but pieces as well. A leg, most of a torso, a jaw. Different sizes and skin age meant it was not one body shredded into its lesser components. No bite marks in anything Blake could see, an interesting deviation from the vampiric behavior he had expected.
“True no. Those was drained o’ blood. Made ‘em look waxy. This…”
“Mm. She must have let the Revenant off his leash. Explains the enhanced dismemberment.”
“I thought you said the Revenant was a resurrected Federation soldier? How could a soldier, a protector, do… this?” Blake looked back to see Lynch standing firm in the doorway, his posture a guard at his post. He still held his coat collar tight over his lower face. The eyes above the collar were ablaze with anger and horror in equal parts.
“I said before, but it bears repeating. The risen dead are not who they were. They may have memories, instincts, knowledge they possessed in life, but the undead, particularly a Revenant, hate the living.” Blake searched through the bodies as he talked, nudging arms and legs out of the way with his feet. He tried to convey respect as he did so, but there was only so much respect these poor souls might expect so long as their killer still survived.
“Commanded by a stronger undead, they will exact, with glee, every savagery they might conceive of upon those who still breathe the air they cannot.” Blake looked up at Lynch, urging him to understand. “Do not think of the Revenant as a living soul trapped in his body against his will, and he needs help. There is nothing you can do for him, because his soul is not there. It is the echo of the man locked in his body, driven by mankind’s most basic instinct. Take every chance you have to destroy the thing, or it will kill you.”
Lynch grunted in return and gave a single curt nod. He would not like it, but Blake was assured the man would do what was needed in the end. It may have had something to do with the way Lynch set his jaw, visible even hidden behind the collar, or how his knuckles whitened around the long rifle in his hand.
Blake noticed a faint flicker at the edge of the elymis light and wandered closer, taking care to step over the bodies. The flicker grew more pronounced as he drew nearer, resolving into a pool of darkened light around a small black object in the middle of a room.
The object appeared as a statue of a squat humanoid creature carved of the same black stone as the manor walls. The ever present green shimmer oil slick was the cause of the flicker as the pure blue light of the elymis clashed with the black green of the stone. Despite the multitude of bodies spread through the level, there was a clear space around the figure, as if the pool of darkened light signified the area claimed by the statue.
When Blake tried to look closer at the figure, a wave of nausea struck him and the room spun. White flecks passed through his vision and he had to put his hand to the door frame to steady himself. Ignoring the stench of the dead, Blake took a deep breath to calm his reeling body. When he returned to a baseline normal, he prepared himself and looked at the statue again. He could only catch the barest details again, a humanoid shape, squat and bulbous, tentacles where the mouth should be, furled wings along the distended spine, too many fingered hands.
The nausea returned, and Blake’s body froze in place before his muscles clenched against his will, curling his body in on itself. As if his subconscious mind was forcing him to look away from the thing on the floor, the terrible, wrong, twisted thing, a thing like… the image of the Eye flared inside his mind, and Blake felt his body release its tension. The sudden absence of force pushed his body over as his mind overcompensated for the restraining motion it had gone through.
“You alright in there?” Blake heard Lynch call from near the servant’s door.
“I am alright,” Blake called out, feeling his voice drag on his throat. “Slipped on something.”
He pushed himself to his feet, taking care to keep the idol—for that is what it was, an idol to a most terrible being, of the sort found beyond the sky—keep the idol out of his direct sight. Blake pushed himself out into the hallway and found Granny Esmer standing silent, gazing at the bodies with a slack expression.
The Granny Woman had stopped by the body of a young woman laying by the servant’s door. Her long blonde hair was matted with blood, and the unnatural lumps under her skirt told Blake her legs had been broken before she had been left here. There was a trail from the nearest pile of bodies, the drag marks of this dead woman’s skirt through the grime, blood, and viscera. The Granny Woman was staring at the woman’s outstretched hands, frozen into claws by death.
“Wassat under her fingernails?”
Blake leaned down to look, bringing his lantern in close. Elymis was a wonderful light source, but it had its limitations.
“Wood,” he said. “Hmm. From a chair, killed like your Mr Slathern? Or… ah.”
Blake swung the door to the servant’s stairs closed. Long marks gleamed in the dark material, leaving the lighter interior exposed. Blood speckled against the dark grain, reflective in the glow from the lanterns. A grim reminder of the human drive to survive at all costs.
“Nowhere she could have gone. She tried anyway.”
“Susan Eldridge. She is—were—always a stubborn one. Told her folks she were to leave fer the city.” Granny Esmer sighed, puffing her cheeks out. “Did no matter which one, just ‘the city’. Stubborn…”
Blake put a hand on her shoulder. “There will be a time to mourn Susan, and all the people here. Right now, I need you to focus. Distractions will get us hurt, and we cannot afford hurt, not now.”
Granny Esmer nodded. “Akis can no die soon enough.”
From out the window, a dull boom could be heard out in the grounds. The sound of splintering wood and tearing metal soon followed. Inhuman growling and screeching filled the night air, shattering the heavy silence. Blake was surprised the Revenant had taken so long to get free. The Granny Woman must be even more skilled with Charms than he had thought.
“Looks like we have run out of time,” Blake called to Lynch. “The Revenant is free, and Kashehotapalo has come to meet it.”
“Hope he wins the rematch too,” Lynch called back.
“We shall see. There is nothing for us up here.” There was the idol, and Blake was eager to study it if given the opportunity, but not now. It would have to wait for after. “Nothing, living or dead. Back to the main floor. I suspect we will meet resistance this time. Be prepared.”
“Aye, I agree with ye. Down we go.”
With the noise kicked up by the conflict between the Revenant and Kashehotapalo, there was little need for discretion in their movements. Lynch led the way back down the stairs, rifle trained in front of him, heavy feet making the entire staircase vibrate as they descended. Blake feared the wood might shatter under the force, but they made it without issue. The slumbering thug remained at the base of the stairs, no noise enough to break through the charm.
Fierce roars and shrieks of fury and pain sounded outside the manor, the clash of titanic entities. The living embodiment of the surrounding land and the dead remnant of man, full of mankind’s darkest passions. Blake told himself he could not hear stone shattering, or flesh tearing, but he knew the two entities were capable of inflicting such punishment upon each other.
“This way!” Lynch said as he shouldered open a door Blake had not noticed in the wall. The room on the other side was as sparsely decorated as the upper floor, save a single small table set underneath the window. Shriveled flowers sat in a glass vase, a bare inch of dark scummy water at the bottom. Lynch passed through without a pause to the next door.
Blake gave a pause, scanning the room to see if there were any hidden threats. There was nothing but a suspicious dark stain near the wall, showing a dark, dark red in the light of the lantern. The heavy air of death hung about the room. The entire manor had the air. This was… older. Perhaps the first death to occur in the building. There was nothing else in the room. Blake moved on.
As he passed the window in pursuit of Lynch and Granny Esmer, a black blur caught his eye outside. When he looked where it had been, he could see nothing but rustling bushes, swaying as if in a high wind. But there was no wind. A ping came from where Granny Esmer was standing.
“The necklace broke.”
Glass shattered and wood screamed in the room Lynch had crossed into and Blake rushed in. The blur resolved itself into the withered form of the Revenant, glass shards and splinters clinging to its frame from its passage through the closed window. One arm hung loose by the barest thread of skin, and the flesh and leathery skin had been stripped from the lower face, leaving a bare jaw with gnashing teeth. The other arm was raised before its eyes, both to block the light of the Custodes Noctis lanterns and threaten the humans before it.
Malice burned in its eyes, fires contained in glass orbs. A growl lifted from its bared throat, a noise no human body could make. The sound of death approaching. The Revenant stepped forward, a single step taking it halfway to Lynch. Blake drew his Big Iron and targeted the Revenant’s head. He could not get a shot off without the fear of hitting Lynch, so he stepped to the side for a shot to clear.
The soldier yelped in alarm and brought his rifle to bear as the ferocious undead bore down on him. The report of the shot was a thunderclap in the confined space and the flash of the elymis powder igniting was blinding. If one was not of the Blood of Yeshas. Blake saw the Revenant knocked back a step, a hole punched through its chest. A killing shot, if the heart had still beat. The Revenant stepped forward again.
A second thunderclap sounded, loud enough to make Blake wince. The blast from Granny Esmer’s messenger gun tore into the Revenant, lifting it off its feet and throwing it back into the gap left by the shattered window. The undead monster hit the edge and rebounded into the room to land in a heap. Its left arm was gone at the elbow, removed by the fearsome power of packed iron shot and a fistful of powdered magic.
“You got it!” Lynch shouted, pumping his fist into the air.
“I-” The Granny Woman was cut off by the howl of rage from the twisted corpse. Lacking use of its arms, it still fought to climb to its feet, spine scraping screams freezing its attackers in place.
It was a blessing the creature did not have the dexterity of a living man, for all its indomitable strength, else they would have all been dead. The paralyzing scream was the first Blake had encountered in a Revenant, and only once before had he encountered anything with the raw power to stop him in his tracks with a sound. Desiccated limbs rasped as they struggled to lift the hollow remnant of a man, stiff and stilted.
But the creature could not find its feet before the blade of an axe found its neck. The silver edged axe cut through the malevolence animating the body and sent the head rolling across the floor. The axe lifted into the air and fell again, each swing cutting yet another piece from the flailing cadaver. Lynch yelled as he swung the axe up and down, up and down into the remains of his brother-in-arms.
Blake caught the rolling head with his foot, stamping it into the carpet. The jaw snapped at him, and the eyes blazed. No matter. The body was being destroyed as Blake watched. There was little immediate danger the Revenant could pose. A finger flew by Blake’s nose by inches to land in the fireplace.
Thunk thunk thunk.
Each strike sent bits of flesh and bone through the air. When nothing larger than a cannonball was left whole of the Revenant, the axe stopped falling and Lynch stood back. The axe was held limp at his side, chest heaving.
“Surely that had to help?” the soldier asked, his eyes wide. Not with terror, as Blake might have expected. No, the man looked exhilarated.
“Aye, that’d help,” Granny Esmer chuckled. Blake did not laugh. He scanned the room, straining his senses to detect any new threats.
“No way we have gone unnoticed. Eyes peeled for Akisoromokevheje, any sign of defenders.” The other two manor invaders paused in their celebration at the reminder of their grim task. Granny Esmer stepped to the side to put her back in a corner, giving her a full view of the both entrances to the room. A hideous ‘ka-ka-chenk’ signaled Lynch cycling his rifle’s bolt to reload another round.
“Piece of shit,” the soldier muttered. Blake allowed himself a smile after he was satisfied there was no immediate threat. The manor was silent, save for the breathing of the invaders and the gnashing teeth of the undead head trapped under Blake’s boot.
“If she has not come out now, she is not going to,” Blake said. He reached down and picked up the Revenant’s head by the hair. “Time to deal with this before we continue our search.”
“Take care of it?” Lynch hefted his axe. “Didn’t we?”
“No in full,” Granny Esmer said. “Look.”
Lynch followed to where she was pointing and jumped backwards. “What in the Name of Yehway!”
On the floor at Lynch’s feet the dismembered pieces of the Revenant wriggled in place, moving against nature toward a central point. As Blake watched, two of the closest pieces, what appeared to be a fragment of a foot and an ankle, contacted each other and the flesh melded together. Bones creaked and ligaments snapped as the foot worked to reassemble itself.
Blake sighed. “One of the unpleasant realities of facing the higher undead. They go down hard.”
With a grimace, Lynch kicked the wiggling pieces away. They hit the wall with a dry thump.
“What do we do now? It gonna come back for us to fight again?”
“Nah.” Blake kicked a chunk of torso into the open fireplace. “Big pieces to the side, here, and smaller pieces in the fireplace.”
He raised an eyebrow at Granny Esmer.
“Fine,” she said as she began to collect what pieces of the Revenant surrounded her. “Makin’ an old lady clean up after ye. Where has the dignity o' youth gone?”
“Youth?” Lynch asked, kicking over his own body chunks. The Revenant had been dead long enough to dry its blood, otherwise this would have been a greater horror than it had already been. “We’re all over half a century, youth is a vanished memory.”
Granny Esmer nodded at Blake. “The boy is a youth. Ye an' I are old an' wise, soldier.”
“Well that is quite enough,” Blake said. He dropped the last of the small bits of hacked Revenant onto the hearth and pulled out his canister of Everstrike matches. The mouth of the Revenant worked beside the fireplace, teeth catching against the cloth Blake had stuffed there to silence the clacking teeth.
“You still got those?” Lynch asked. “You didn’t get some fancy magic ones when you left the Army?”
“They are cheap,” Blake said. “And I only need them for the initial flame.”
Slipping a hand into one of his many pockets, Blake pulled out a handful of blue powder and sprinkled it over the remains piled in the fireplace. There did not need to be order for an extermination, after all. The concentrated elymis hissed where it touched the undead material.
“You may want to step back,” Blake warned. Granny Esmer stepped to the other side of the room, but Lynch shuffled to the side beyond the mantle. Blake shrugged. “Your eyebrows.”
In one smooth motion, he struck the match, threw it onto the pile of parts to burn, and spun around while tucking his face into the protective cover of his coat elbow. The expected fireball did not come. When he poked his face from behind his arm, he saw the match had not sustained its flame on its journey into the pile.
“Goddamnit,” he muttered and lit another match. This time it did ignite the elymis powder. The resulting fireball roiled out of the stone enclosure, up to the ceiling where it shone like a beacon before extinguishing itself. The smell of wood char filled the air, and the sharp scent of vaporized evil.
“Fuck, that smells,” Lynch coughed as he waved his hand in front of his face. “Love a good fireball, though.”
“Always wondered what drew you to artillery,” Blake said. It was a little mystery he had never been able to puzzle out about the big man.
“Explosions make my heart go boom.” Blake did not even need to look at Lynch to see the grin on his face. He rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you throw a fireball at it?”
“A fireball? Do you have any idea how much raw magical power it requires to create fire from nothing? Easier to throw a horse than summon a fireball. Matches do fine.”
“Thought you magic types loved your fireballs?” Lynch asked, scratching his neck. Blake could only shake his head. The lack of knowledge among the common mundanes was astounding, and it was a disgrace the way the Magus Collegiums perpetuated the lies.
“What 'bout the rest?” Granny Esmer asked. “Burn it too?”
“These parts are too big to end in fire. Those we will bury with silver under the noonday sun.”
“Well, they’re still joinin’ back up. What do we do 'til then, let ‘em?”
In answer, Blake bent and scooped up a large chunk, a length of shin, and threw it with strength out the window. “The farther the pieces are apart, the harder it will be for it to reassemble itself. Throw some out into the grounds, down the hallway, up the—do not throw anything upstairs, it might use the bodies.”
“Gross,” Lynch said, but bent to the grisly task. Esmer kicked parts down the hall and Blake joined Lynch in throwing pieces out the shattered window. The Revenant was leaving out the way it came in, as unexpected both times. All but the head. Blake fashioned a rope sling to hold the head to his waist, taking care to stuff the mouth so it could not get its teeth in him.
“Hey,” Lynch pulled up short, “what happened to Kash? He beat it last time.”
“He punched it through a wall before. Akisoromokevheje must have enhanced the Revenant since. It certainly had its want of corpses.” The more death fed an undead, the stronger it grew. The primary drive of the undead was their undoing. If they were not driven to kill, Blake could see the undead being left to their own devices, or utilized for any number of tasks.
“Kashehotapalo be a fresh summon. Few hours is no enough to have the same strength as years.”
“Seems to have done enough damage to allow us a chance to harm it,” Blake added. “Without that, we would have been much worse off.”
“We did pretty alright there,” Lynch said. He patted the axe at his side. “Could've taken him.”
“No, we could not have, not how this night went. If it was a lone Revenant, on prepared ground and the proper tools? Yes. Tonight we hunt even more dangerous prey, and we are unprepared.”
“But-”
“Don’t get yer expectations up, soldier. Don’t dwell on the battle when we’ve got a war to finish. That’ll get ye killed.”