“Therapy?” Nua frowned. She was sure she heard the word at the market, around the stands with herbs and oils. “You mean as if for healing?”

“That is correct.” The king flew ahead. “Tell your companions to beware. Some of these were destroyed recently.”

Nua’s heart jolted.

“Everyone!” she waved. “Stop. I see something suspicious.”

The party, already halfway into the chamber, halted with a bit of apprehension. From the look of it, they were itching to get their hands on the room’s contents. The first thing that came to their attention was the broken containers, positioned horizontally in rows on the marble floor like some sort of magical hospital beds (Nua would probably remember the medic’s house for the rest of her life). There was more, however. Strange metallic contraptions decorated the sides of the healing containers, and plenty of others were attached to the walls. Crystals of all sizes and shapes, glistening with golden and azure sheen, were fitted into the machinery, and even though most looked dimmed and broken, they still gave the chamber an otherworldly impression. Last but not least, the interior did not lack desks and lockers, though most of them were located in the collapsed part of the room.

All of it looked ripe for plunder and so the party, duly excited, was lacking caution.

There was an exit on the other side of the chamber, partially blocked but open. The king hovered nearby it for a moment, then he returned to Nua.

“Show them these two, I’ll be back in a minute. Make them remain wary; this is no time for looting.” he flew over the cylinders deeper in the room, then shot ahead before she could ask him to explain his suspicions.

“What did you notice?” That was Zaina, whose professional attitude prevailed over greed.

“Here.” Nua maneuvered between the broken glass and toppled contraptions. She indicated one of the containers that Anki showed her before. “See? Don’t touch it.”

The sharp glass fragments were not eroded, and the tank’s metal coating looked brighter than the others. According to her experience, Nua suspected that all the artifacts were fueled with ether before; a close inspection revealed ancient symbols inscribed along the whole apparatus. So they probably were as new until they got broken. There was still a puddle of dark gelatinous substance at the bottom of the container as if some sort of liquid leaked out, then the rest evaporated.

Thanks to her night vision, she also caught sight of a detail that Zaina apparently missed.

“What did they keep in here…? The fire dancer wondered aloud.

“A body.” Nua pointed to a small shape lying near the broken glass. It was a skeleton of a human hand, its bones still connected with blackened, desiccated tendons. “It had to be in here for a thousand years. Dead or alive, I’m not sure. But preserved like salted fish, as long as it was inside. Because I’ve seen dead bodies before and I can tell that this hand is not that old.”

This was not a lie. There were… things you could stumble upon in the scrapyard that Nua never told Hala about. Scavengers died sometimes, the most common reason being the combination of alcohol or poppy overuse and lack of attention. The one she found once probably had no friends that knew where he was going. Or no friends that cared, at all. His body was picked apart by carrion feeders, but the skeleton remained, propped against a wall and half covered by vegetation.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

She didn’t even remember it until now, the shocking images pushed back and quickly forgotten. But Anki’s healing seemed to unlock her mind, and now she found it easy to recall her experiences as if they happened yesterday, limited as they were.

Zaina nodded. Everyone had to come to the same conclusion because they readied their weapons. All of a sudden, a window appeared before Nua’s eyes. It was Anki’s doing, but she did not suspect it and couldn’t help but look startled. Indistinct humanoid shapes were moving and wriggling in near-total darkness, ambling toward the observator.

“Brace for contact, Nua,” Anki warned. “You’re about to learn where the new ghouls come from.”

“Guys,” she said. “I hear ghouls. Like, many of them.”

Quintus nodded, his shield and gladius already prepared. Zaina downed a vial of ether and reached for thin, vicious obsidian daggers, her eyes glowing, irises like little red circles. Raya stepped back and gestured Nua to follow.

“Good,” Oswald growled. The light was reflecting off his long Northern sword. “I was starting to get bored.”

A figure appeared in the entrance, abnormally tall but hunched, its skin sagging, its three-clawed arms almost dragged on the ground. At first sight, its movements seemed awkward, as it was shambling toward them at a steady pace. The next moment the creature opened its maw, filled to the brim with needlelike teeth, and faster than Nua could blink, Oswald and the ghoul clashed.

The long sword tore through the ghoul’s body, slicing its shoulder. The sheer force of Oswald’s hit broke the creature’s bones, and both combatants stepped back, preparing for the next attack. Zaina, her line of view clear now, tossed two daggers with the agility of a dancer, one in the monster’s throat and the other driving straight into its eye.

Was it a human being, it would be dead already. But the ghoul still had the force to retaliate, and oblivious to the danger, it jumped ahead. Oswald stepped to the side, allowing the beast to stumble over the glass container and lose its rhythm, then struck at the back of the monster’s neck. Tendons and the spine were split and severed, and the head rolled on the floor.

Nua let go of the breath she did not know she was holding. Oswald fastened his grip on the sword and waited, staring into the darkness.

Then, two more ghouls shambled out of the entrance.

At this point, Nua found herself holding the hilt of her blade. Raya put her hand on her arm.

“They’ve got it.”

Oswald and Quintus attacked from the sides. The exchange of blows was a blur and Nua found herself instinctively infusing her body with minuscule amounts of ether just to observe the fighters. Somehow, Zaina kept scoring hits with her obsidian daggers, then she switched to two short blades, made of rare black bismuth bronze, the alloy suddenly recognized by Nua in a flash of remembrance. She brought a scrap like this once. It wasn’t produced anymore and all the weapons made with it came from the recycled ancient scrap.

“Don’t get distracted,” Anki’s voice sounded in her ear. “There is a breach on the other side of the corridor, and two of them are coming from the back. They’re almost here.”

“Raya!” Nua shrieked. “Behind us!”

The priestess cursed loudly in a foreign tongue.

There was a moment when Nua was certain that she will have to join the fight. She braced herself to draw as much ether as she could just at the right moment, hoping that no one was paying attention. Two other ghouls unhurriedly walked through the entrance in the back. Nua held her breath again. Then, she caught sight of a small object flying, and a pillar of flames blew up where the ghouls were standing.

“Blessings of the One,” Raya said, holding another ceramic bottle of what seemed to be liquid fire.

“Ifrits in Seven Hells, Raya!” Zaina shouted. “Give me one of those, if you can!”

Raya turned to Nua.

“Can you hear more of them coming?”

“Not from this side,” Nua said, relaying Anki’s words directly as he was giving her the information. “From the other, though, there are two... three more.”

The priestess took a few cautious steps in Zaina’s direction.

“Take the blessing from me. And I implore you, do not drop it unless it’s on the ghouls!”