Matoya lifted me with her small arm and held me within her rags, all the while climbing over the Vandals along the walls and ceiling of her lair. I noticed, while held in the crook of that small but powerful arm's elbow, the stump of its twin on the other side. I was thinking of Oscar as we ran, and of Course Dolores, and wondering why under the darkened sky these Vandals gave their lives to save mine.
She stopped where the Vandals were clustering. It was another nexus like the one I found when I discovered the meat. Matoya did not speak, but with her two long arms placed people at key points of defense, forcefully pointing their weapons where she knew a foe could ingress. When she'd arrayed the Vandals in formation, she brought me to a storeroom filled with household items the Vandals had used to form a barricade. She tossed me into the room, then removed her mask while whirling around and striking at a profane creature with the pointed protrusion beneath her ragged hood. More baleful things came through unseen tunnels in the ceiling, and as the door shut, Matoya cast off her rags and went to work on the parasites with an array of clawed appendages.
Being behind that closed door was agony for me. I held Kendra tightly, much more for my comfort than for hers, and closed my eyes, wishing more than ever not to be seen. Now and then my eyes would open involuntarily, and see that the old and young Vandals we hid with were looking at me with the same confusion and disdain as the Ossarians.
But they never looked at me for long, nor did my eyes remain opened for long. The battle fought beyond our door was one of gruesome abominations. Instead of batteries of guns, Matoya's foes struck with ganglia of glistening tentacles, and in place of spears they thrusted their labrums and proboscises. I knew when Matoya landed a blow by the crunching of her clawed fist through a carapace, or the squelching from a fleshy mass being pierced.
It burned me to be isolated from yet another conflict while others fought for me. I will not lie to you and claim this frustration overcame my fear with any alacrity, as the din had subsumed into a clamour of allied shouts by the time I braved the traverse to the door. Matoya opened it, covered in fluids of various colors and viscosities. Behind her stood Turk, behind him stood Kobb. Kobb asked after Dolores, and I could only answer him with welling tears. His face sickened me for a moment, but only for a moment. I thought of the many woes their people had endured since the Icarus Ark made landing, and that these rangers should have died back then. Kobb accepted Dolores's death as readily as if it had been scheduled, so I tried to convince myself I was capable of the same steeling, achieving perhaps a middling facade. Seeking strength outside myself, I looked to Turk.
He did not look to me, rather he ushered several of the more heavily armed Vandals inside, along with his tarrasquin follower. I caught a glimpse of Omen Brought outside. Behind him were Rath and the others. I saw too Turk's tyfloch soldier. Her leathers were torn in several places, revealing her skin. I was so impacted by the sight, as only one exposed patch showed only a faint necrosis. I wished to see her out of her leathers, if only for a moment. Only in luminous paintings had I seen a tyfloch unmarred by rot. The smooth, downy plumage so vividly depicted there was here, on this girl, and while stained with dirt and dried splatterings it was beautiful. I looked at those tears in her leathers indulgently while Turk gave orders, grateful for the singular coloring of my eyes. Were the young girl to see me spying her as I was, she doubtless would misinterpreted my interest. I think Turk could tell, as he told me to 'guard yours' while thrusting a small gladius into my hand. His eyes are similar to mine, so it is within reason that he could tell by my subtle shifts where I looked.
At any rate, I took the sword and made to leave the room, but Turk gave a look and his tarrasquin follower pulled me back before the door again lowered from the ceiling. Again I was forced to endure the sounds of unnatural combat inside the room. I would have felt comforted by the presence of our reinforcements, but the fact that Turk and Kobb both found them necessary worried me. I looked upward, searching for crevices a parasite could enter from, and found one spot by virtue of the feelers caressing the ceiling from within its mouth. The tarrasquin was tall enough to reach the ceiling, and thrust upward with his short handled bardiche. The parasite fell to the ground and curled into a ball. It was disgusting, and several of us vomited. Its abdomen was a thin, clear membraned pouch filled with viscera and undulated pus. Its mouth opened like a flower, and there were multiple probing members protruding from from a thin, fleshy slot on either side of its feelers, which seemed to double as hands used to pull it forward.
Others came through the same crevice and others. More than a few of disparate kinds seemed to have encountered each other during their search for our fresh blood, and they fell through their entrances entwined, locked tightly in their own battle. They were quickly stabbed to ensure they were dead. I admit that I only took part in these killings, as I was all to aware of my lack of martial skill. After what seemed an eternity, the door opened again and Turk came with an arbalest and three cartridges holding thirty incendiary bolts each.
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"Short bursts," I heard him say.
I had never seen a repeating crossbow before, and this one, one of the zhuge models, looked like a small but brutal weapon. At the point a large parasite of indeterminable shape came hurtling through the corridor, swallowing the tyfloch girl and two Vandal men along the way. Turk raised his own zhuge and took aim, but all the remaining sellswords from Ossary dove on the creature. It turned and swallowed them, and one of them managed to live long enough to cut it open from the inside. I saw then that's its putrefied dermis was thick and gummy, and would prove very difficult to pierce. The tarrasquin all gave their lives to save us, as I discovered towards the end of the fight. That was the largest of the parasites to survive the regicide of the archon, and the sellswords fulfilled their final mission; dying in penance for the treachery of their cohorts. I doubt they sought death, but they followed us with absolute conviction, determined to protect us at any cost. Kendra wept for them. I would have too, but I was desperate to behave as these older men who were not daunted by danger. It wasn't a desire to appear tough or courageous, as you've likely judged, but it was out of a desire to be above fear and grief, both of which held my innards in their thrall.
When the fight was done, Matoya was leaning heavily on the wall of the entrance to her stronghold. I wondered why she had so many entrances to her home, but the answer came to me suddenly as the question was asked, as if my better sense was ashamed of my lack of discernment. Archons were a rare sight, and were not commonly found so laden with such deadly parasites, and Matoya could make effective use of the narrow tunnels leading into and out of her lair, where few other creatures could. She gave out a few parting gifts before closing her lair to the world for the rest of her strange life. To Turk she gave a spadone with a broad, gleaming blade that shook the air when swung. To me she gave a hood made of a shimmering grey fabric that covered my face without blocking my vision. It draped over my head and shoulders like a silk hood, trailing down the length of my back, and in its forging had been blessed with a warding boon that tightened its fibres when struck. To Kendra she gave her deranged mask, moving me a sigh.
I asked Turk why she said she was done with the world, and his told me to figure her words out for myself. I did not see her receive any wounds, but I saw little of the fight, and if she were not dying then I could imagine her wanting no more to do with the surface, being such an aberrant creature as she was. I lamented that her light bending cloak was not among her gifts. I was beginning to observe my gift for evading sight, but I could not extend that gift to others. If only.
Of the Vandals only one remained, a tired old man who left our company after our first meeting to discuss our destination. Turk swore himself to escorting Kendra and I to Haven, and then the old man wandered off to die. Noak and Millet remained with us, accepting Turk's offer to join his company, amd we set out on our first day's march. I pondered over the effect grief had on one's face as we walked. When Anassa felt at peace, she looked beautiful, at least to the extent I could find a giantess beautiful. But when she wept her face contorted without control, and had she seen herself she may have been embarrassed. Kendra was an anomaly in that crying seemed to soften her already delicate features, and I developed a curiosity over how I might appear when taken by tears.
There was a silent vigil for the fallen when we found a safe place, but it was very brief, a moment only, and we were again on our way. I remember very little of this trip besides the wrenching pain brought on by Kendra's death. I had hoped to write a detailed account of her last morning, recalling the sweetness in her voice as she sang of Dolores and Oscar and Omen Brought, and the poor tyfloch girl whose name I had not known. Dredging this up now is ripping my heart to pieces, and Turk has given me all the time means to. He is coming to me now with his spadone drawn, the same one given him by Matoya, and I must now end my account.
What happened after is too sad for me to recall in detail, anyways. A parasite had followed us and Kendra was nearest to it. I threw myself over her and took nearly a dozen stings, but its appendage pierced through me and she perished soon after. We left her there, fleeing from troglodytes who rose from their caves at the smell of death, and when I woke we were in the projects outside of Haven where Turk told me what had transpired. He told me then to never let the weight of Tarthas crush me, or to think life fleeting and valueless.
"What is the sea other than a great number of tiny drops?".
His words may have well come from beyond the clouds, so distant was my heart. He also told me of the Dolomites' great work, and that my mark showed that I was its completion, the one who could die a thousand deaths and continue the fight with my spirit intact. But my spirit had already been obliterated, and I was merely waiting for the next hazard to take me away from my pain. Turk's words eventually took root, but they by then I was a man, and had put that broken boy to rest. So I find it fitting to end the story here, with the soul healing words of the man who will bring me to my long awaited end. I leave you now, but the whole of my journey is before you. I began my tale at a time I felt most relevant, and after remembering retracing my steps to the end I felt that you should know of the boy I was and the loved ones he lost, of their bravery and their tragedy. If you wish to know more, precious reader, then read on. But I am done now, and will at last be given my long awaited reward. My parting words are that I gave Tarthas my all. I will also give my all in my duel with Turk, for I love and admire this man, and will not rob him of a hard won victory.