“Agatha, you’re back?”

Agatha didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there, huddled against the wall. If she had waited even a few seconds to split from the group… and Frederik. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel or what she was supposed to do. She was upset, yes. But she needed to do something. But what was she supposed to do? Frederik was the foremost of the city’s leaders. Were the priests leading a coup?

Was she a target? And why by all the gods had Geoffrey been glowing?

“Agatha? Are you alright?”

She looked up. Wayne Loramoor, an elderly colleague of hers from the essential engineering department, was squinting down at her over his reading glasses.

“Don’t go out there, Wayne. It’s war out there.” She said, eyes wide.

Wayne furrowed his brow.

“War? What are you talking about? There’s no war…” He stepped past her into the doorway and stuck his head out to get a good look into the square. “It’s deserted. There’s no… oh.” He withdrew quickly and went pale and clutching his cane tightly.

“Agatha. Who is that out there?” he asked.

Agatha got to her feet. “It’s merchant prince Frederik.” She took a breath and asked. “He’s really dead?”

Wayne looked at her in confusion. “What. How? I mean, yes, I’m sorry. What happened?”

Agatha shook her head. “Come on. I need to get to the lab. You can help me. I’ll tell you about it on the way. We’re in a lot of trouble, and that’s not even about…” she swallowed, “...that out there. It’s worse than that. But I think we might be able to help.”

–-----------

“So. Uh… the captain’s your son?” Rory asked awkwardly as Reshid finished closing his wound and turned to hand the knife back to Yarem. Em and Charlie had disappeared as soon as they noticed the tension in the air. Rory hadn’t really been in a position to excuse himself after Orem approached along with Yarem, who had a medical kit with a scalpel on him.

Seeing Reshid’s discomfort, he offered to heal Rory himself, but Rory had refused, so he did it himself, with helpful instructions from Yarem. Their healing methods didn’t work exactly the same way, but Yarem had a much more thorough medical education than Rory did. Combining surgery and magical healing was standard practice for priests of Lynhild.

“He ran off with the army a long time ago. I had no idea he was here.” Reshid answered and then pointedly added, “or alive, for that matter.”

Orem cleared his throat, looking around and obviously uncomfortable.

“We’ll talk about it later.” He said. “Unless you want to explain to me what you’ve been up to the past few decades that inspired the gods to condemn you to an afterlife in the Deep.”

Reshid scoffed. “That’s not how it works! What have they been teaching you?”

But Orem had already turned around and was walking away, clearly unwilling to engage in an argument. He barked a few orders, and the guards rushed to form ranks, pouring out of the surrounding buildings. A handful pushed past them into the crypt to secure the entrance, but they clearly weren’t expecting any further trouble from that direction.

“Come on.” Yarem helped Rory up. “They’re going after the lich to try to support the guardians in bringing it down. You can rest in one of the buildings we cleared out over here till it’s over.” He looked over to Reshid. “You can come as well. I’m sure that the captain and the guardians will want to hear your story.”

It was a very polite way to be detained, but Reshid hadn’t come all this way to get separated from his friends again. Rory would be ok now. Besides, it looked like Charlie, Em, and several other revenants were forming up to go with the guards.

“No, I’m doing fine. I should go with them, I’m sure they’re going to need a healer.”

Yarem winced slightly and looked embarrassed. Reshid tensed, already expecting his refusal.

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be allowed. The guardians would not react well to anyone from the Deep Paths using unnatural magics on themselves or the guards for any reason.”

“Oh.” Reshid relaxed. “That’s not a problem.” He pointed to Em, Lonnie and the other revenants. “I’m going to support them, not the locals. I’m sure you can handle the rest.”

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Yarem cocked his head and shrugged. “I guess that’s probably fine then. I have a healing station set up over there. You can join me there, if you’d like.”

It was the same building he’d pointed Rory to a second before. The medic was already walking through the door. Reshid shook his head.

“No, thanks. Keep an eye on Rory for me, though. He has been through a lot.”

With that, he joined the others, greeting Lonnie and checking him for injuries—he didn’t have any. It was nice to have the entire group back together again, except for Idrin, of course—but she was probably fine back at the village.

The revenants were led by a few regular soldiers and lieutenant Meuren. Reshid didn’t know her well, but her face was familiar and Charlie seemed to trust her. That was good enough for now, he supposed.

The guards moved forward in a well-coordinated formation. The front two ranks were outfitted with old-fashioned pikes—probably to hold off the supernaturally tough monsters while the back ranks riddled them with bullets.

It would probably work on vampires and werecreatures, with enough bullets. Still, there were quite a few uniformed bodies lying around the crypt’s entrance. Reshid very much doubted that they’d be able to do anything about the lich himself.

Finding the lich, as it turned out, was not going to be a problem. The running battle left a swath of destruction. Collapsed buildings, bodies, fires and gaping holes in the cobblestone street led uphill, toward the administrative district and the city’s temples. Within a few minutes, they could hear distant thunder which slowly resolved into sounds of impact, screams, the roaring of flames and the clatter of falling stone.

In the rubble lay bodies—civilians who were taking shelter when buildings were torn down around them. Approaching the battle, they found their first dead priest, still recognizable by the black robe of the order of Morana. Around the next bend lay two more, both of the order of Derevan. Then, just a few steps further and they suddenly found themselves in the middle of the fight.

The priests were packed tightly into a knot, mostly facing away down the road and advancing on Antonius even as he continued back away down the street far more quickly than someone should be able to do while fighting the city’s entire complement of undead-killing specialists.

The lich summoned bolts of fire down on them, hurling swarms of bricks from the walls of already-collapsed buildings, and simultaneously blocking the concentrated attacks of the priests. Meanwhile, the massive insectoid werecreature, unseen until it was too late, darted in from the side and snatched a priest, who was looking the other way, with his mantis-like arm.

The Gyirgian priest that Reshid had noticed earlier saw, however, and called out, holding his spade in front of him like a talisman. Tripping, the werecreature fell down, but it didn’t lose his grip on its victim, who was already bleeding heavily. The monster’s foot was buried in the street up to its reverse-jointed ankle. Bellowing, it pulled upward, lifting a cluster of cobblestones that seemed to have fused to its foot, and smashed it down, mostly breaking them to free itself. As it did so, it drew in its victim’s essence with a single, overpowering effort, eliciting a hoarse cry from the priest.

Reshid could feel it from where he stood.

Then, it threw the man forcefully against the remains of a nearby wall, where he impacted with a sickening crunch, and dove behind cover.

Orem was already shouting orders, which Reshid was too distracted to catch, but guards responded quickly. They advanced toward the priests, helping to cover their backs while they focused on the lich.

The revenants, along with Frederik’s remaining soldiers, moved to where the werecreature had disappeared. Reshid followed, stopping for only a moment to check on the unfortunate priest—he was dead.

Instead of poking their heads behind the wall segment, one of the soldiers lit a grenade—something Reshid was fairly certain they hadn’t had down in the Deep paths—and lobbed it over. A loud boom washed over them, then they moved. By the time Reshid could see what was going on, a revenant and a regular soldier were already down on the ground. The werecreature was nowhere to be seen, but three vampires were fighting, and they moved quickly.

Unlike the regular soldiers, though, revenants had their own abilities. Reshid recognized Errol, the vampire who had attacked the village and abducted Lonnie. Lonnie had engaged him and was hard pressed, but he dodged and blocked gamely. The vampire would have easily overpowered him if it weren’t for the other revenants. Charlie and a stone elementalist that Reshid didn’t know were trying to flank him while the others were split between the other two. The mortal soldiers stayed further back, trying to get a clear shot.

At first, it looked like stalemate, but then one of the vampires faltered. He labored for breath, looking around frantically. Seeing Em, he reached down and scooped rock from the ground as if it were soft mud, and flung it at her. It hit her head with a thunk and she went down. The motion distracted him, though, and a beast-type revenant who looked like he had attuned some kind of bovine essence rammed him head-on. He crumpled, and died moments later as several other fighters descended on him.

This seemed to distract Errol, who wasted a second trying to help his companion. Charlie recognized his opportunity and dove in. He snaked one arm around the vampire’s neck and rammed the point of his knife down toward the vampire’s side. Errol blocked the second attack easily, but failed to recognize or react to the much more lethal threat. His eyes bulged as black rot spread from his neck, growing as Charlie poured more and more of his putrefying essence into the creature where his skin touched the monster that had attacked their home. Errol kept struggling for a moment, but was already too weak to break Charlie’s hold. The rot spread to his head and the creature’s movements became less coordinated—he was dead a few seconds later.

Reshid looked around, realizing that he’d just been standing there.

“Ah shit.” he cursed himself. “Damn my ass to a dark hole.” Quickly, he dropped to a knee next to Em and checked on her. She was fine, just a bit bruised up, but he gave her a bit of healing anyway just to be sure.

There were a few cuts and bruises among the others, but no serious injuries to treat. Still, four people were dead. Reshid didn’t know them, since they were former prisoners and one of the soldiers, but he still felt bad for them. He needed to get better. If he could learn to heal people more quickly, or without having to get close enough to touch…

“Foul creature!” a clear, powerful voice rang out above the noise of fighting. “Enemy of the true gods! You have brought treason and destruction to a city of the gods and trespassed under Vaclar’s shining eye! I bring the light of his judgment!”