Agatha pushed through the crowded street, looking for the battle. It was an odd mix of curious bystanders and victims with burn wounds—the latter trying to get away, while the former were trying to get closer. She’d heard the sounds of explosions and impacts all the way from the Academy.
She was outfitted for a fight, though she was still wearing the same many-pocketed apron as always—everything she needed fit neatly into those same pockets and her belt pouches. No one here gave her a second glance.
Ahead, Geoffrey shouted something in his overly theatrical manner, when a blinding column of light shot up into the air. It hurt, like staring directly into the sun, and Agatha shut her eyes to block out the glare, but nothing else happened. When it died down, the crowd stood still, shocked. She kept pushing forward. She needed to see what was happening.
Finally, she broke through. The crowd thinned near the front—no one wanted to get too close to the destruction. And there was a lot of destruction. Toppled buildings lined both sides of the street, which was littered with rubble and bodies.
Geoffrey was still shouting to the crowd, but the screams and moans of the injured bystanders made him difficult to understand. She didn’t need to, really. He was victorious and the lich was dead.
He bent down, hacking at a trogg’s corpse that lay at his feet, ranting on about the demons of the Deep Paths and kicking at the body of a soldier in an officer’s uniform.
Agatha shuddered and looked away. Many of the dead and wounded were burned, while a small group of others looked completely untouched, lying next to the road. A few soldiers were clustered in front of them, looking apprehensive. Looking more closely at the bodies, she realized what they were.
Revenants.
Why were there revenants in Duskhaven? Who let them out of the crypt, and how could they have even reached the surface with the lich blocking the way? Did Geoffrey kill them, or the lich?
At that moment, one of them opened his eyes. Unnaturally green eyes, for a human, set in a lined face with a short, unkempt beard. It was Reshid.
For a moment, she thought he was looking right at her, but he didn’t seem to actually see anything. As a healer with powerful regenerative abilities, it made sense that he might survive something that had seemingly killed everyone around him.
The revenant raised his head, as if trying to find something.
Urgently, Agatha waved a hand at him, trying to get his attention. Geoffrey was facing the other direction and no one else seemed to have noticed him, but she was sure he would be better off if he didn’t draw attention to himself right now.
The motion got the attention of some of the people around her, who glanced at her and then toward the battlefield to see what she was waving at. Fortunately, Reshid was lying down flat on the ground again. It was unclear whether he’d seen her, or come to the same conclusion that she had on his own. Regardless, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“We have sat idle while evil festered among us! We go about our lives and expect the gods to save us from the forces of the Deepest Dark, yet we do not lift a finger ourselves.” Geoffrey said. He gestured at the destruction all around. “Today, our city has suffered the punishment for our complacency. But even as he chastised us for our impiety, Vaclar has brought low the enemies of the gods and begun the purge of the corruption that threatens us!”
The crowd roared, cheering their victory.
Geoffrey went on in the same vein, condemning the demonic invaders, the Old Gods below, the church’s political enemies and “those who seek to take the powers of the gods for their own”. Agatha looked around, annoyance at Geoffrey’s ongoing speech morphing into nervousness as the crowd repeatedly interrupted him with cheers and applause. Her clothes marked her as an essence engineer—someone who these people would almost certainly put in that last category.
The priests and soldiers didn’t do anything to stop him. Geoffrey clearly had the support of at least one god, and the will to force the issue with anyone who opposed him. While a few of them looked less than happy about it, they stayed quiet.
Then, Geoffrey raised his voice and it got worse.
“I will not rest until Duskhaven is free of the demonic influences that have cropped up under our noses. We will reaffirm our devotion to the gods and cleanse the corruption from our home.”
The crowd roared, but Geoffrey held up his free hand for silence.
“This is only the beginning! To truly live our devotion means more than just looking after ourselves here, in our own city. No, it is our duty, our holy calling to root out the evils that threaten not just us, but all of humanity. We will cleanse our world, for ourselves, for the gods, and for our children after us!”
The speech still wasn’t over, but Agatha had heard enough. She made her way back through the crowd, trying not to draw too much attention to herself.
She hadn’t made it in time to make a difference. The lich was dead, but so was Frederik, and probably most of the revenants. If their initial plan to slow the lich’s invasion down had worked, the attack shouldn’t have come so soon. They should still be chasing escaped prisoners in the Deep Paths. More importantly, all of the revenants should be up here, ready to turn on the lich during the fight. But she had counted fewer than 20.
She needed answers, and it didn’t look like she’d be getting them from any official sources. Geoffrey was obviously inciting a mob, and he was doing it with the priesthood and the city guard at his back. She could go home, but that was going to be a temporary solution until someone remembered her close association with Frederik and her role in his project.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
She could run—go to Iljaska, maybe. But that would mean abandoning her research, and that was unthinkable. Who knows how long she’d have to wait until she could find another suitable patron? And she had no idea how to contact Barty—or any troggs, really—without her local contacts.
That left her only one place to go—back down below. And she wasn't going alone... Not only was it far too dangerous to go alone, she also wasn't about to leave any more research subjects behind than she absolutely had to.
–--------
Reshid lay still and did his best to breathe shallowly as the newly minted paladin took credit for the city’s defense. Defending it against him, no less.
He’d healed Geoffrey, saved his life and made his victory against the lich possible. Worse, he’d done it moments before the man had murdered his son. Now, the asshole was making a play for political power.
He killed Orem, and he’d done it for… what? Convenience? Because he didn’t want to deal with the revenants in the city?
No—Geoffrey was a fanatic.
It was too much. Reshid wasn’t going to let this stand. Who gave him the right? The gods?
Geoffrey needed to die, and any god that would support someone like him was mad. Before he could do anything, though, he had to survive this, somehow. To escape.
He’d need to wait until nightfall, or at least until the crowd dispersed. Then, he needed to move, to find a way back down into the Deep Paths. The others needed to know what happened, and he couldn’t die here. Yesterday he thought that Orem had died decades ago. The elation of finding his son alive, only to lose him just hours later crushed down on him. Did Orem have a family? What if he had grandchildren here in this city. What would happen to them if Geoffrey had his way? Would he even be able to find out, if he managed to get through the day alive?
He was defeated, surrounded by dead comrades, however briefly he’d actually known them. If any of his friends survived Geoffrey’s attack, they were smart enough to keep still—just as he was doing. It made him want to lie down and die, but at the same time, it fed the burning rage in the pit of his stomach.
–----------
“One, two, three!”
Verena heaved another body onto the wagon—a soldier, not much older than her. Two other initiates of Morana, along with a handful of volunteers were helping her load up the bodies. Besides them, the street was deserted. The sun was setting, and no one wanted to start cleaning up the destroyed houses today. Bodies, though, were another matter.
It was a bad day to be on crypt duty.
The woman helping her trudged off, toward the remaining bodies without a word. Verena followed. She rolled one of them over, revealing the face of another young man in uniform, though this one didn’t look human at all. His skin had an unnatural texture and was blotched with different shades of brown, green and black.
She knew him—after all, she’d met him earlier that day.
“Be careful with that one. He’s one of our own.” She told the volunteer.
The woman looked up, startled. She had her hand on his neck, as if checking for a pulse.
“How’s that?” She asked, wiping the hand on her odd leather apron unconsciously.
“I talked to him and his friends here this morning. He’s the Hernham boy that got killed by Hildean sea raiders this spring. It was all over the papers.” Verena shook her head, frowning at the bodies. “Damn Vaclarites. Too bad they all got killed.”
“How’s that?” the volunteer asked. “Did you want prisoners?”
“Hmm?” Verena raised her eyebrows. “Oh! No. Nothing like that. They were helping us fight the lich!” She sighed. “I would have liked to hear about what the Deep Paths are like. We get ghouls and such coming up the stairs every once in a while, but revenants are rare! We never get news from below. At least—not that they tell us initiates…” She added in a not-at-all petulant tone.
“Ah. Well, in that case…” the woman replied, “what would you say if I told you that we might be able to get this one back on his feet?.”
It was useless, Verena knew. He practically reeked of decay—an essence her soul was naturally adapted to sense as a priestess of death. Like all of the bodies, he was dressed in charred rags, but now that she looked closer, she realized that he didn’t look burnt, like most of the others. Curious…
“What are you saying, exactly?” She said carefully. “And don’t be so loud, we’re not going to get very far if one of the Scions or a priest of Vaclar hears you. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone is still here to keep an eye on the general situation.”
The woman gave her a strained smile and produced a small device from one of her many pockets, which she set on the ground. Reaching down, she turned a dial a half-turn. Suddenly, the city noise all around them vanished.
Verena flinched, and looked around in surprise.
“Act natural.” the woman admonished, reaching down to grab Charlie’s shoulders. “My name is Agatha. I work over at the academy in essential engineering. I have some… experience with revenants.”
“Uh… What?” She answered, still wrong-footed by the wild declaration.
Agatha gestured at Charlie. “Revenants are very, very hard to kill. This one here in particular, and that one, over there.” She pointed over to a shorter, gray-haired man lying on his side. “If they’re not awake already, we can probably fix them up with a bit of the right kind of essence.”
“Wait a minute.” Verena interjected. “What is this? You mean that crazy paladin wasn’t lying about the city “consorting” with the forces of the Old Gods below!?”
“What? Geoffrey? No, no." She laughed. "That guy is exactly as crazy as he sounds. I want what you want—to put the dead back in the crypt,where they belong. And—” Agatha shrugged at her theatrically “—if a few of them happened to get up and walk down the stairs, then everything’s still working as intended, isn’t it?”
She bent down, rolling a bit of rubble off of a body to reveal one of the vampires. It was easy to identify, because both its hands looked as though they were made of stone, while its face had the mismatched look that came from attuning the essence of several different people, rather like that of a ghoul—though a little less monstrous.
The stone, she noticed, was slowly creeping up its arms. She drew a knife and rammed it through the corpse’s eye, twisting it around a few times for good measure.
Verena watched, eyes wide with surprise.
“What was that for? You shouldn’t desecrate the bodies!”
Agatha gave her a grim smile. “Well, we don’t need everyone to get up again.”