“Come, devils!” I bellowed exultantly. “Come and slake my ceaseless thirst! I shall smite and slay until not one of you stands, and only twisted flesh and sundered bones shall remain in my ruinous wake!”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” barked Asenthine as he calmly dispatched another adversary. “But not all of us have the benefit of your ensorcelled vesture!”
“Fear not, Asenthine! If you fall in the fray, I shall battle on and avenge your death!”
“That was not my meaning,” the Alunai hissed irately. “How does the witch fare?”
“How should I know?” I gnarred, cleaving another Niaughu to mangled ruin.
“The spell she cast, you dolt!” Asenthine bellowed. “See through her eyes!”
“Ah, yes!” I replied. “In the grip of the red rage, I had all but forgotten!”
Immediately, I focused upon D’vartha, striving to picture the witch’s alluring form in my mind’s eye. To my astonishment, my field of vision instantly began to shimmer as the battleground’s vista melted briskly away to be replaced by the subterranean tunnels of Esmadrunga’s labyrinthine barrow. I was indeed seeing through D’vartha’s eyes, presently beholding a charred and twisted mass of dead Niaughu in the torchlit cavern before me, evidently dispatched by the witch’s sorcery. Moments later, another image coalesced in the shadow; that of the tentacled and tumescent form of Esmadrunga herself. I felt a shudder of revulsion as I gazed upon that familiar and disquieting entity; its pallid, moss-encrusted bulk shuddering obscenely in the slime-befouled depths and its vile, vaguely porcine countenance leering malevolently. I witnessed D’vartha’s staff blaze abruptly with viridescent light, the sudden luminescence filling the foul subterrane with a scintillant and purifying aura. Instantly, the black eyes of Esmadrunga glimmered and her toothsome maw yawned wide. I continued to watch enthralled as D’vartha swiftly proffered the severed head of Xycanthia to the demonic queen, placing it reverentially within that viscid, pulsating orifice. A scant second before Esmadrunga’s dagger-like teeth closed about the decaying skull, Xycanthia’s dead eyes turned suddenly to behold her sister, the malefic orbs flaring brightly with a fell, crimson light. A ghastly, ululating scream then escaped the slain vampyress’ rotting throat and a heartbeat later, the grotesquely bloated monarch of the mound promptly devoured the feculent offering whole. The image within the barrow then became shrouded in shadow and for a fleeting moment I was overcome with a sensation akin to falling from a precipitous height. With a jolt, my vision abruptly shifted to the marshy battleground once more.
“Well?” snapped Asenthine tersely.
“She has communed with Esmadrunga,” I replied, feeling a sharp pain lance suddenly through my temples. “But there was no sign of Nesadomntha!”
“Then we fight on, and pray that witch’s exploits have wrought something worthwhile!”
A deafening, bestial howl crested the tumult of the battle and I turned swiftly to behold the ongoing struggle between Merklethenon and Sabarium. Both of the primeval vampyric behemoths had evidently suffered grievous wounds during the course of the savage conflagration. The panther’s ebony hide was riddled with deep gashes and the flanks of the mighty elk were likewise scored with a latticework of red furrows. With a final, guttural roar, Sabarium splayed his ensanguined scimitar-claws and leaped, his mighty muscles propelling him toward his adversary like a razor-fanged shadow. The dread claws of the night-cat duly tore six direful lacerations in the leathern wings of the black elk, but with a desperate lunge, Merklethenon succeeded in driving his twisted antlers deep into the panther’s unprotected abdomen. A torrent of blood spattered the elk’s muzzle and shoulders as the myriad needle-sharp points of those vile horns clove through the cat’s steely muscles and sinew. A heartbeat later, Sabarium’s lifeless frame crashed to the gore-choked mire and Merklethenon threw back his blood-sodden head to bellow his victory to the heavens.
“The beast is slain!” thundered Asenthine, his eyes agleam with exultation.
“But the hordes still come!” I replied. “There is no end to this madness!”
I stood now back-to-back with the Alunai swordsman, our steel glimmering like a radiant atoll in the midst of an aphotic sea. My searing shell of phantom-armour blazed with an effulgence so powerful that the legions of Niaughu surrounding us were evidently loath to press their attack, their bestial bloodlust clearly tempered by stark fear of the blistering magicks of my frozen steel. Casting my gaze across the mire, I noted grimly that the last of the stoic swamp golems had finally succumbed to the vampyric onslaught. The bloodied Merklethenon stood some yards distant, steadfastly keeping at bay a pack of batrachian fiends, while to my left I spied the azure form of Wrathmane moving slowly to our position, his searing hooves cutting a swathe through the Niaughu throng.
“This will be our last stand,” I hissed to Asenthine. “I will fight on until they overwhelm me, or until my enchantment is depleted.”
“How long can your ghost-armour endure?”
“The answer to that is unknown to me,” I growled. “But at any rate, against such a horde as this… I fear we may fall before the sun rises.”
The seething ring of Niaughu slowly began to press in upon us, their rutilant eyes sparkling balefully in the gloom. My cerulean sword pulsed and thrummed with eldritch energy as they crept closer, its gleaming aura illuminating the vile, distended faces of the undead horde.
Asenthine nodded solemnly. “Then let us make it a death worthy of legend!”
Suddenly, a powerful tremor shook the marsh, causing the mire to tremble and churn. Instantly, a blinding viridescent light blazed from the great mound of Esmadrunga, its source evidently the labyrinthine network of tunnels deep beneath the swamp. With an ear-splitting din louder than any thunderclap, the lucent green corona exploded from the barrow’s moss-encrusted surface and surged forth in a scintillant wave, engulfing the throngs of Niaughu in an immolating storm. Every fiend touched by that purifying nimbus was instantly blistered and burned, their flesh seared pitilessly from their bones and the remnants briskly reduced to little more than cinereal ash. Swiftly, the viridian light dissipated, leaving only charred and lifeless husks in its wake and a preternatural silence which brooded over the ensanguined mire. Lowering my sword, I glanced at the barrow to behold D’vartha emerging slowly from the tunnel at its base. A sardonic smile curled the witch’s lips as she hefted her staff and strode purposefully toward us, her crimson tresses entangled with moss and leaves.
“I gather your covenant with the queen of the mound proved fruitful?” I enquired as she approached.
D’vartha regarded me quizzically for a moment before replying. “Esmadrunga? Ah yes, she was most vexed by her enthrallment. Once the spell which shackled her was broken, she chose to rid the world of her ill-spawned brood.”
“And what of Nesadomntha?” snapped Asenthine. “Where is that depraved devil?”
D’vartha’s eyes narrowed. “I did not encounter him in the depths. I found only the Niaughu and a score of the necromancer’s cultists.”
Asenthine’s face instantly became a mask of bitter anger. “Damn that accursed bastard to the Thirteen Hells!”
As if in response to the Alunai’s malediction, a great cloud of writhing black smoke abruptly manifested atop the mound. The stygian mass of fog pulsed and roiled for a moment before rising slowly into the night air, whereupon a familiar shape became visible within the undulating mist.
“Nesadomntha!” hissed Asenthine, brandishing his rapier.
The necromancer glared at us from the centre of the noisome maelstrom, his eyes ablaze with a fathomless hatred. “Deluded fools!” he rasped. “Revel in this hollow victory if you must, but know that you have thwarted merely one facet of my grand ambition!”
“Ha!” I roared. “Your foul vassals shall not overrun the land! We have sent them back to the black limbo from whence they came!”
Nesadomntha cackled derisively, his great braided moustache awhirl. �
�Pathetic defenders of humanity! Mankind is a plague upon the face of creation! If left unchecked, his virulence shall one day render this world a blackened husk… a barren and blighted purgatory! Only the embrace of death can avert this prophesied fate! The world must be cast to ruin, and once it has fallen, it shall be remade by my hand, a new genesis hewn to my own masterful design!”
“You’re a madman!” snapped Asenthine.
“Mayhap,” the necromancer whispered. “But as your proud Alunai race fell, so shall fall the race of Man! His citadels shall be razed to the ground, his armies shall be hammered into the dust! And those who survive the great purge shall be rendered malleable and all too willing to submit to the glorious dominion of Nesadomntha!”
“Such lunacy shall never come to pass!” I shouted. “Not by your hand, nor by the resurrection of your dead overlord!”
“Ghormanteia?” spat the necromancer with palpable disdain. “His vision was limited and his hubris unparalleled. In truth, I owe you a great debt for despatching him. I toiled in his servitude merely to learn his arcane secrets, all the while plotting to overthrow him when the opportunity arose. My treachery was a hundred years in the making! Those witless acolytes who even now strive for his rebirth shall ultimately bend the knee to me, for I shall rule supreme over man and vampyre alike, a divine god-king enthroned atop a charnel-mountain of the dead!”
“I have heard enough!” I thundered, hefting my numinous blade. “Come then! Pit your sorcery against my steel for the fate of the world, if you dare!”
Cruel laughter welled suddenly in the necromancer’s throat. “I think not! I shan’t debase myself by engaging vermin such as you! Seek me if you must, manling, but know that I cannot be vanquished! My glorious destiny is etched in the very firmament itself!” And with his voluminous sable cloak billowing as if it were an extension of the mist which entwined him, Nesadomntha uttered an incantation in a tongue unknown to me before lifting his twisted staff and disappearing abruptly from our sight like a spectral apparition.
“He has eluded us!” exclaimed Asenthine.
I lowered my sword sullenly. “We will pursue him.”
“But how will we ascertain his destination?”
I turned to D’vartha. “Can your magicks track that villain through the void?”
The witch’s brow furrowed momentarily. “I… believe so. Give me… a moment.”
“Do not tarry!” barked Asenthine, moving briskly to Merklethenon’s side. “We must give chase at once!”
I regarded D’vartha closely. Something about her manner seemed odd, but I deemed her fey demeanour to be attributable to the rigours of the recent battle. Whispering an oath and doffing my helmet, I strode to where my steed Wrathmane waited. His chanfron and peytral were slick with the green ichors of the Niaughu, but thankfully he bore no serious wounds from the fray.
“Merklethenon has suffered grievous injury,” I heard Asenthine enounce behind me. “He may not be able to take to the skies until healed by the blood of a living creature.”
“Then find him a rat or a lizard to sup on,” I growled. “But do not deign to offer up an innocent human to the beast.”
“You know I would not be so base,” snapped the Alunai irately.
“Yes, what a nefarious deed that would be,” whispered D’vartha, a strangely cold edge to her tone. “A vampyre daring to feed upon a human. How repugnant. How perfidious. One could almost deem it an aberration of nature.”
“Do spare us your keen wit, D’vartha,” I grumbled as I removed my azure gauntlets and adjusted the cinch strap of Wrathmane’s saddle. “Kindly set to your task of locating the necromancer.”
“What an onerous burden you bear, my dear Karnov,” the witch continued, her voice now noticeably tinged with contempt. “You, who have dedicated your life to ridding the world of the vampyric scourge, burning with your righteous rage and bloated with such sanctimonious resolve.”
I tensed imperceptibly as I heard the sorceress approaching me through the mire. Although I did not turn to face her, my hand fell swiftly to the leather pouch at my belt.
“Yes, what a thorny conundrum indeed,” hissed D’vartha. “How full of self-loathing you must be, wielding your vaunted enchantment which drains the souls from the hated undead. Is such irony lost on you, Karnov? For in truth, what are you if not a vampyre yourself?”
I whirled an instant before D’vartha’s dagger plunged into the base of my skull. Acting instinctively, I wrenched the blade from her grasp, holding her slender wrist in an iron grip. The witch snarled ferociously, her green eyes ablaze with a malefic rage. Swiftly, I pressed to her forehead the sapphirean gem given to me by Hegumen Hordane the Hierophant. D’vartha struggled desperately, shrieking in pain as the crystal made contact with her alabastrine flesh.
Staring directly into the woman’s fever-bright eyes, I bellowed with untrammelled fury. “Get the hell out of my witch, Xycanthia!”
The crystal flared suddenly with a blinding radiance, and for a fleeting moment, D’vartha’s body tensed. Then, with a great shuddering exhalation she fell limply into my arms. I withdrew the jewel from her brow and inspected it. The small stone’s sapphirean hue had faded and it now resembled a shard of darkling obsidian. Additionally, it was strangely warm to the touch. Casting the tainted gem aside, I felt for D’vartha’s pulse and was relieved to find it strong and steady.
A moment later, Asenthine appeared at my side, his rapier poised. “What diabolism is this?” he hissed.
“Her beloved sister’s final act of treachery,” I muttered sullenly. “Make ready, Asenthine, we’re leaving this blighted mire!”
Chapter V: The Search for Nesadomntha Begins
D’vartha slowly regained consciousness and fixed me with a bone-weary gaze. “Where am I?” she whispered.
“A place of safety,” I replied, brushing a lock of crimson hair from her emerald eyes.
Two hours ago, I had utilized the mystic transference powers of the Cosmic Ice to evacuate my allies from the accursed marsh of Kharag-Ghul, etching the lambent sigils which would open a portal between earthly locales. I had been able to effortlessly transport the entire party to safety, such was the magnitude of the energy I had absorbed from the multitudes of slain Niaughu. Swiftly bearing the insensate form of D’vartha to an abandoned crofter’s hut in the moorlands of Duros Zuil, I had placed her upon a ramshackle pallet bed within the dilapidated structure and patiently awaited her recovery.
The witch’s eyes abruptly widened in panic. “Xycanthia!”
“She is gone,” I assured her. “I banished that vile soul from your body. The Hierophant of the Order of Mikrash gifted me an arcane jewel before our departure from his realm. I’ll wager that wily old sod suspected more than he cared to divulge.”
D’vartha sighed with heartfelt relief. “Ah, my dear sister. Her spirit awakened mere seconds before Esmadrunga devoured her earthly remains. I felt her enter my mind, her power no doubt bolstered by Nesadomntha’s necromantic influence within that corrupted sanctum.”
I nodded. “I surmised as much, in truth.”
“It was all I could do to keep her spirit from consuming me completely,” the witch stammered. “The struggle was dire. Her hatred for you was so powerful. I tried to stop her…”
“It is done,” I muttered. “Her malign soul now wanders the Outer Darkness, where it shall remain forevermore.”
“I pray you are right. Twice now has my mind been supplanted by another… my flesh serving as a vessel for a malefic consciousness. I vow it shall never happen again!”
“That’s an oath well sworn, lass!”
A wry smile then curled D’vartha’s lips. “It seems I needed your assistance after all, Karnov.”
My brow arched wryly. “It must truly have pained you to admit that.”
“Aye, well, don’t get used to it,” the witch scowled.
“Can you divine the whereabouts of Nesadomntha?” I asked. “Asenthine and I have made a pact to hu
nt down that elusive necromancer.”
“Yes,” the witch replied, rising unsteadily from the crude bed. “And I shall accompany you on your quest. I have no desire to return to my arcane garden. Not after the vile taint which my sister placed upon it, at any rate.”
“I… we would welcome your company,” I grumbled.
D’vartha suddenly gripped my hand, her face a mask of grave concern. “You mean to slay Asenthine, do you not?” she whispered tensely. “Once the threat of Nesadomntha has been dealt with?”
My brow furrowed in vexation. “You know me too well, witch. I am oath-bound to purge the land of the undead. It matters not that he claims to hail from a race of benevolent vampyres. In truth, I scarcely believe such things are possible. Asenthine and I shall have our reckoning. But I will strive to ensure that our final battle is fair.”
“And then you shall seek to discover the secrets of the Cosmic Ice, guided by the dream of which you spoke?”
“I shall.”
D’vartha sighed sorrowfully, her eyes downcast. “Know that I will not be able to accompany you on that journey, Karnov. That quest is for you alone to undertake. I only pray that you are prepared for the revelations which await you.”
I moved to the ruined door of the hut, taking up my gently glowing helmet from a broken trestle table. With a start, I suddenly spied my reflection in a broken looking glass which hung adjacent to the door frame. The face which stared back at me from the depths of the tarnished mirror was gaunt and weary. The pale blue eyes were grim and shadowed with a profound solemnity, and the once ebon beard was now shot through with streaks of grey. I sighed, acknowledging the ruinous toll which the previous several years had exacted upon both my spirit and my flesh. The man I once was had perished; he had died alongside his beloved wife and son. In his place was something stronger, more pitiless, and inestimably darker of soul. Such was the price of my enduring vow and the power which accompanied it… and it was a heavy price indeed. Gathering my thoughts, I donned my helmet and turned back to D’vartha. “Join us when you are ready.”
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