Riggs lifted his elbows off the ground, slowly planting one hand flat against the ground, then the other. Debris shifted as he lifted his knees up next, slowly getting his good foot under him. He waited for the debris to feel stable, allowing Noctessa to get into a crouch. Riggs shifted his weight back and forth, feeling where the collapsed building was coming down on him.
He tilted his head to the left. “Go that way when I stand, move fast.”
She grabbed her bow and Riggs’ shield, then he saw her muscles tense, coiling like springs.
He pushed up, lifting himself higher and higher with his good leg.
Then he managed to get his injured leg planted as well.
“Go!”
He stood with a roar of effort, pushed up with his entire body to throw the collapsing building off of them. Noctessa leapt in the direction he indicated with feline power and finesse, clearing where debris started to land without difficulty. Some of the building started to fall back towards him, but Riggs bashed it aside and followed Noctessa’s path, leaping with all the grace of a bear.
He stumbled to the ground, then started to stand. Dust from the fallen timber stung at his eyes and he shook his head, still trying to clear the ringing from his ears.
One of the bandits ran directly towards him, a rusty sword ready to chop down at him with a two-handed, overhand swing. The man was partly on fire and screaming, though Riggs felt the noise more than he heard it. The big man grabbed the closest weapon at hand and stood up swinging, knowing it was too late to deflect the blow.
Before the man could bring the sword down, an arrow whooshed past Riggs and sunk into the bandit’s gut. He staggered, coughing up blood. Riggs’ support beam smashed against the bandit’s torso, the wood and man both shattering from the impact. The snapped wood and body flew off in different directions, landing in cobbled stones that had turned molten from the fire’s heat.
No wonder pa preferred to use a maul...
He turned and saw his companions staring at him in shock. He smiled and gave them a thumbs up, dropping the broken beam and picking up his shield as Noctessa slid it to him.
Lyraal gestured up at the keep and shouted at them, “Ge.. t.. e.. keep!”
He nodded and started jogging, giving the field of cooling molten rock a wide berth. Lyraal and Noctessa followed, the latter snapping off shots at the surviving bandits who decided to flee. One bandit even managed to make it out the eastern gate before an arrow swooped down from the air and pinned them to the ground.
They were closing on the keep’s gate when the dead bandits started to stand back up, gripping their weapons as they had in life. Their dull eyes glowed with the same dark, purple energy as the pulsing, jagged mark scarring their flesh – and their spirits. They charged towards the party with a courage and determination that none showed in life.
The first of the fallen to rise was the archer, nocking the arrow it didn’t get a chance to while alive and aiming at Riggs in the lead. Despite the arrow impaling its own eye, the creature’s aim was true. Riggs finished strapping on his shield just in time to intercept the projectile as it soared towards his face, biting into wood instead of flesh. He kept his shield raised to protect his chest and head, and the creature loosed two more arrows, one grazing his less armoured leg as he ran and the other thunking into his shield again.
Riggs heard himself roar as he slammed into the creature with his shield, the arrows stuck in it snapping off from the impact. The creature flew several feet through the air to crash into an unfired boulder. Riggs stumbled on his bad leg, caught himself, then moved towards the inner gate and the behemoth’s skeleton that blocked it. Noctessa came up behind him, quickly firing another arrow into the creature’s remaining eye at close range. The force snapped its head back, but it continued to stand, albeit disoriented.
“I thought you said destroying the head would kill them!” Noctessa said, and Riggs was surprised to hear her voice.
“These aren’t mere zombies!” Lyraal snapped back, running hard as three of the creatures chased her – still ablaze from being caught in the periphery of her fireball.
“Then what are they!?”
“Something much worse!”
“Very helpful, thank you!”
“Destroy joints or anything that will slow them down!”
Riggs hesitated as he came upon the bone barricaded portcullis. Noctessa rushed past him without slowing and vaulted off one of the large ribs, contorting her body to avoid being caught upon broken metal or bone. She rolled with her landing and continued running up the spiralling ramp that led up the keep.
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“Riggs, move!” Lyraal shouted, running past him as well. They dived into the rib cage and crawled through it to the other side, roughly shoving aside bone and debris that sliced at their bare arms. Lyraal turned to wait for him, waving urgently for him to follow.
Sighing, he backed up a few steps and charged. Lyraal’s blood-shot eyes widened and they jumped back as he smashed through the large bones, shield first. He bashed other bones out of his way until he climbed out of the creature seconds later, acrid bone dust stinging his nose and throat. Realising that his shield was destroyed from the initial impact, he undid its straps, admiring his work against the monstrous skeleton.
Riggs started running when he saw the three burning bandits rush through the large gap he created, the smell of burning flesh overpowering the scent of bone and urging the big man to move faster.
Shaya, please give me some of your wisdom so I can live through this day.
He ran past Lyraal as they completed a glowing green spell circle on the ground. He looked back to see a wall of earthen spikes stab out from the ramp, impaling the undead bandits chasing him. They struggled while impaled, slowly pushing limbs off the various spikes to escape, while the fire continued to consume them. Their reinforcements saw the spikes and slowed, climbing over them carefully.
Distracted, he tripped over the remains of an ancient horror and toppled to the ground hard. Lyraal ran by him, barely slowing as they pulled him up. He looked back and saw five of the creatures chasing them now, more of the risen bandits catching up.
Cursing himself for getting distracted again, he looked forward while running up. As he rounded the next part of the ramp, he saw Noctessa aiming down the shaft of the thickest arrow he had ever seen. She murmured another prayer or incantation, waited for Riggs and Lyraal to pass, then loosed. Wood splintered in an explosive blast followed only by splattering noises behind them.
“Two more down!” The druid shouted, catching up to them easily. “But the fae will follow me no further into this tainted place!”
They rounded the next part of the spiralling ramp and saw the entrance to the keep looming up ahead. Heavy iron doors stood shut, dented from the last siege and rusted from the passage of time.
“The doors are barred,” Noctessa warned, eagle-eyes squinting at the crack between doors up ahead.
“Riggs, break through those doors!” Lyraal ordered.
“I don’t have the strength-”
“You will! Noc, cover me!”
The druid spun out of Riggs’ vision, an arrow nocked and loosed in one smooth motion. Riggs aimed towards the center of the doors, lowered his shoulder, and closed his eyes. A spell circle snapped behind him and with every step, he felt the stone beneath his feet and the earth’s strength pouring into him. His shoulder connected and the iron doors burst open before him, the wooden beam shattering from the force.
“Riggs, wait! Close the door.” Lyraal called, as his sheer momentum carried him well past the door.
He turned to Lyraal as they entered the keep behind him, an excited grin on his face. The grin faded when he saw them, their eyes red where several blood vessels burst. He watched Noctessa run into the keep moments later, a creature hobbling towards her with an arrow through its knee, and then he slammed the doors shut in its face.
“Move,” Lyraal whispered, exhausted. They held their staff close to the crease between the doors, and a white-hot flame shot from it. As the staff traced down the crease, the metal doors slagged together, sealing themselves. Riggs backed away from the smoke and stench, knowing better than to breathe it in. Lyraal held the spell for no more than two seconds, welding only a few inches of the doors, before the spell sputtered and they dropped to a knee. The doors shuddered and banged against their hinges as the undead bandits threw themselves against the door, their own bones breaking from the force. But the weld held, for now.
Riggs helped Lyraal up, eyes widening as he saw the blood rushing from their nose. They shrugged off his helping hand and nodded forward. “Keep going, I will be fine, I just channeled too much Aether through my body in too short a time to recover from it.”
Noctessa nodded in understanding, and the three of them walked down the long hallway, catching their breath as more ancient bones crunched beneath their boots. Alcoves built along each side were once filled with proud statues depicting the celestial warriors of the Goddess of War and Honour, but the statues lay strewn about the hallway, long ago dismembered and shattered. Riggs looked upon the desecrated statues and felt rage stir within him.
How dare they desecrate anything so pure...
His anger disappeared in an instant when he saw the person standing in the keep’s central chamber.
We swore to be together, forever.
“Andromeda!” he cried, rushing forward.
“Riggs, no!” Lyraal shouted, reaching for him but grabbing only air.
He passed under an ornate arch and entered a grand central chamber, illuminated by sunlight that filtered through different colours of broken, stained glass windows high above. Plaster covered towering, vaulted ceilings, cracked and worn to the point that the art was unrecognizable. The main hall was large enough to host a kingly party, with a set of stairs on each side of the room sweeping up to a raised balcony for someone to address the crowd below. Beneath the balcony stood a large, marble altar, with the symbol of Shaya etched into the wall behind it – a raised longsword and balanced scales embossed on a kite shield. Painted with fresh blood atop the symbol was a sickening, jagged rune within an arcane circle, the same as the one scarred into the bandits. The blood seemed to pulse and shift on the wall, as if it still flowed through the veins of some living creature.
Four alcoves on either side of the room matched those in the hallway they came from, but one statue still remained intact in an alcove to his left. It stood as tall as Riggs, wielding a longsword and kite shield, both of polished, gleaming steel. This stylization of the Goddess’ chosen was sculpted in marble to wear only flowing, sleeveless robes over a muscular, but feminine, body. The left half of the carving’s head was shorn off and fractures webbed much of its form.
As the blacksmith passed, the statue’s head rose. But Riggs saw none of this, his eyes set on the woman who stood before the altar as he ran.