Soulburned: The School of Souls
Chapter 19 (Part 3): Widening Cracks
Fog and darkness blanketed the mountainside, turning what was a typically picturesque scene into an unobservable miasma.
Thale ran silently through the night, Magnus and the rest of his team close behind.
They were almost there.
Ahead of them, about a mile from the Kovite's excavation site, Thale could see torches bobbing along through the fog, no doubt a Kovite patrol.
The torches were less than useless. Even on a clear night, they'd do little else besides ruin your night vision. On a night like this, they were worse and turned you into a beacon.
Right, Thale sent via Pulse Stone. The party easily wove between these outer patrols and crept closer to the encampement.
Thale was surprised to see that the Kovites had constructed a palisade around the camp, and he could already see that they had assigned several patrols to walk along the outer edge of the camp.
Guard. Tree. North. The Pulse stone vibrated out. He couldn't be sure which of his companions had sent the message, since all of the Stones shared the same frequency glyph, but he was fairly confident that the blurred silhouette that appeared to be pointing towards a copse of trees, was Declan. He would still have his Logos tracking spell active.
Thale peered into the tree line, trying to locate the threat.
There. he thought.
An archer sat in a tree stand, facing towards the palisade, a horn dangled from the stand from a cord. A longbow rested across the man's lap.
Engaging, Someone pulsed.
Thale tensed. This was it. Contact.
An arrow whistled softly as it materialized from thin air. It took the archer through the temple, and the man fell wordlessly from the stand. The only noise that disturbed the quiet night was a faint rustling of leaves and the crunch of snow as the man's corpse landed.
The accuracy of the shot suggested that it had been fired by Rhyandra, she had always been the best archer in his unit.
No one moved for several heartbeats.
Clear. Advance. South. Thale Pulsed, strobing out the pattern in quick succession.
The crew crept closer to the camp, then after a brief exchange of Pulse Code, began circling the palisade, looking for an opening.
There were several.
The largest was a purposeful opening, large enough for even the Horrophant to walk through. This entrance was, obviously, heavily guarded, and while Thale was quite proud of their stealth spells, he didn't think they'd be able to walk through such a highly-scrutinized area without consequence.
The next candidate means of ingress was a simple gap in the palisade where two of the sharpened logs weren't quite close enough together.
Thale pulsed out a marching order, using only the first initial of each of his companion's names.
Breach. M. B. D. R. T.
Magnus entered through the gap. If they were immediately compromised, he was the most likely to be able to fight his way out alone. Thale took up the position of rearguard.
The camp was filled with makeshift tents and clumsily erected buildings. The Kovites didn't seem to be expecting an attack here. The invaders that Thale could see through the gaps of fabric didn't even seem to be soldiers. Where Thale expected to swords and spears, he saw shovels and pickaxes.
The Horrophant trumpeted.
It was getting closer.
The beast didn't seem to need rest, but during their scrying, they had discovered that it did return to the camp often. Magnus suspected that it needed to pull energy from the Soul Stone to remain on this plane of existence.
Go. Center Building.
Thale didn't want to be anywhere near that thing. They all picked up the pace, ducking in between tents whenever they drew close to a patrolling guard.
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The tent at the center of the camp was the largest. It was made from the stretched, leathery hide of an ice whale, a subtle reminder that the Kovites had once been a coastal people. Two guards were stationed in front of the tent, and unlike the majority of the camp's denizens, these men were at least armed.
Thale crept closer, sticking to the shadows.
"Think it'll take much longer?" one of the Kovites said.
"Shaman thinks the Old Ones will break through in the next few days. He's already sent for a war party." The other replied.
"Good, I'm ready to move back into the city... Wood walls and fireplaces will beat these damn tents every night of the year... and that thing gives me the creeps..."
"Don't let the Shaman hear you say that..."
"Yeah, yeah. Trust me, I know."
Thale circled to the back of the tent and pulled out a knife. He cut a small hole into the leather and peered through the hole.
Four red, cylindrical, crystals were evenly spaced through the tent. Each was held vertically in steel stands. A fire raged in the center of the room. It had no visible fuel, much like one of the Braziers, but was otherwise quite mundane in appearance. The crystals glinted ominously in the firelight. There were no guards inside, just the two out front.
Thale shook his head.
Why is this camp so undefended? They're practically begging to be raided!!
Thale suspected that the Kovites believed the barrier so impenetrable to make any threat of counterattack infeasible, and they were largely right. If it weren't for the Artificer's strange amulets, the barrier would be just as much a prison as it was a defense. As it was, the city was already running low on supplies, its supply line from the northern half of the continent having been cut off.
He zipped his knife through the leather and quietly stepped through.
B. Right.
The blur of Barlow moved into position behind the guard on the right. Thale moved to the one on the left.
Go.
Thale's guard was dispatched in only a moment, but Barlow's struggled and wrenched free. The man started to shout, but Barlow jumped onto the man's chest and wrapped his hands around the guard's neck, they both tumbled to the ground.
The guard struggled against his invisible attacker, slashing and stabbing wildly with a knife.
The blade found Barlow's ribs through a gap in his Quickwood. He gasped in pain, shattering the illusion that had held him in obscurity. With a quick twist, and another grunt of pain, Barlow snapped his attacker's neck.
"Void. Fucker got me." Barlow hissed.
D. Cast. Thale pulsed.
Declan materialized next to Barlow, already whispering the incantation for another cast another illusion spell.
Rhyandra moved to the door flaps, careful to move them as little as possible as she peered out into the darkness. Any waves she inadvertently sent through the leathery fabric appeared to be caused by only the wind.
Barlow ground his teeth together and tore a strip of fabric from his tunic. He began wrapping the fabric tightly around the knife, careful not to remove or jostle it. Once he had staunched the blood, he tore another strip of cloth from his tunic and stuffed it into his mouth as a gag.
Thale winced as he saw how much pain the man was in.
Hold. Thale pulsed.
Barlow nodded, then blurred as Declan's spell activated. In another moment, Declan disappeared as well.
Magnus slapped the sticky explosive substance against the largest of the four crystals.
Planted. 10 minutes.
Move out. Thale pulsed in response.
They moved out into the camp.
A shout of alarm, then the sound of blaring horns shattered the silence.
A red beam of light erupted from the Soul Stones.
In the distance, the Horrophant trumpeted.
"Move!" Thale shouted, his Chameleon spell shattering as he vocalized the command.
The shrieks of Imps filled the air.
Imps started bursting out from the tent and scrambling towards them, their strange spindly limbs scratching at the stones. One of them launched itself, and landed on Rhyandra's back, despite her camouflage.
She screamed in pain as the creature's claws raked across her neck, above the Quickwood's protection.
Haste.
In an instant, Thale had cleaved the monster in half with his Shrive Blade.
He dismissed the spell and then pulled Rhyandra to her feet. He had only just managed to get her upright when he swayed, suddenly light-headed. She caught him.
Eros that had been absorbed into the sword over weeks of Thale's recovery had flooded his body all at once, making his head swim. It was the first time he'd drawn from the sword directly, the first time in weeks he'd drawn from his Eros. The sensation was heady and exquisite. For a blinding moment, he felt like himself.
With a shudder of grief, he forced himself to taper the connection between him and the Blade back down to a trickle. Already the sword was forcibly pulling the Eros back from Thale to refill itself. Thale began to shiver, but he managed to steady himself.
"Careful, lad," Magnus said, suddenly appearing next to Thale. "The Eros you've stored in that sword's the only thing keeping you breathing, you drain it too much and I don't even think I'll be able to infuse you fast enough to keep your heart beating." he began pouring Eros into Thale. "Draw from the Eros from me and Sylane, not the blade."
He'd done it reflexively as if he'd taken a deep breath before plunging into cold water.
"It won't happen again."
"It will. Be careful."
More Imps descended on them.
A blinding flash of light and the cracking sound like that of a dozen whips made the Imps flinch in pain. Declan was casting disabling illusions at the creatures, distracting them. Magnus sent an arc of Shriving fire coursing through the group of imps, causing them to burn out of existence in an instant. Already more were approaching.
The Sclerans ran for the edge of the camp.
Barlow grunted as the effort of running shifted the knife around, he started to slow. Magnus scooped him up, although he was still camouflaged by his Cameleon spell, making it appear that Barlow was not bobbing through the air.
They made it out of the camp and into the treeline. More imps descended on them from the trees, resulting in another scuffle. After several more minutes of running, they burst back out of the trees, only a few hundred feet from the barrier.
We're going to make it. Thale thought.
The Horrophant crashed through the trees behind them. Its metal tusks uproot ancient oaks in seconds.
"Shit!" Magnus shouted.
They reached the barrier.
Declan and Rhyandra slammed into the dome of light, slowing for only a moment while they forced their way through. The dome discolored slightly as they breached the other side.
Magnus reached it next and practically threw Barlow through it, before bursting through himself. The injured man screamed as he passed through the barrier but otherwise seemed unharmed.
"Move, lad!"
Haste.
The burst of speed carried Thale to the dome in a heartbeat, but the beast was right behind him.
Thale leapt for the dome.
He was most of the way through it when a writhing tentacle gripped his leg and slammed him to the ground.
The Horophant trumpeted in triumph and began pulling
Thale screamed in pain as the barrier began burning at the flesh of his leg.
Magnus brought his sword down, severing Thale's leg just below the knee.
"Fuck!" Thale shouted as he clawed his way away from the searing wall of light, blood already beginning to pool onto the snow and rocky ground.
The beast continued to probe at the barrier with its trunk and tentacles, bluish green cracks had formed in the barrier where Thale and his companions passed through. One of the one of the writhing appendages managed to slip through.
Then the bomb went off.