From the corner of her eye, Sonja noticed Caede creeping towards the stairs. He and Crispin had been sitting together in the far corner and away from her slayers. She couldn’t help worrying about what they may be up to. They had spent most of the moon talking in hushed tones, everything she managed to overhear seemed harmless: about their men or the Eternity Grail. Still, she couldn’t trust them, her gut kept telling her they would attack the moment she dropped her guard.
“Where do you think you are going?” Sonja asked.
“Down.” Caede pointed at the stairwell. “I’d like to check up on my men. This moon has been all so stressful on them. I think it would be best for me to instill some confidence. Make sure they know they should be helping your slayers catch these fog horrors and what not.”
Sonja’s gut twisted, were they about to strike against them? “Fine,” she said, knowing she couldn’t stop him, “but don’t try anything funny.”
“Me? Try something funny?” Caede grinned. “I think you’re mixing me up with someone else.”
Sonja raised a brow, watching the dark man sprint down the stairs. Her gaze shifted to the sitting man clad entirely in crimson armour. “What are you planning?” she asked.
“The same thing we’ve been planning this whole time.” Crispin’s eyes involuntarily flicked towards Wilbart. “Obtaining the Eternity Grail.”
Sonja smirked. “You think he can help?” She nodded towards the professor. “I’m afraid not, we’ve already asked him to locate it for us. He knows nothing.”
Crispin responded with a smirk of even greater smugness than Caede had offered. “Ah, yes, but did you ask properly? Did you force the truth to be divulged? Or simply ask once and accept a lie?”
A lump rose in Sonja’s throat. Could the professor have lied to her? Even if he had, now was not the time to second guess loyalties. “He doesn’t know of your Eternity Grail. For all we know, it could be completely imaginary.”
“Of course you would assume that,” Crispin said. “But think about it, you’ve seen the proof now.”
“What proof?”
“Vampires.”
Sonja had never heard the word, not before Caede used it last sun. “What?”
“The people that aren’t people. The horrors that attacked us. It’s clear now. You had no idea of their existence, but they know about you, Sonja. They have given Holtur protection, a protection that won’t last much longer.”
“Protection from what?” Sonja asked. She had no idea what these things were, but she knew they were trying to hold back the Brothers of Eternity; she saw it herself.
Caede roared from the bottom floor, his men echoed the sound. It was a sound of men preparing to fight, preparing to die.
“Darkness!” Crispin sprung from his idle position, slamming into Sonja’s chest with a fiery charge.
The strike caught her off guard, throwing her to the ground and catching her fur overcoat alight. “Stop him!” Sonja cried as she pulled off her blazing garment and began stomping out the flame.
Ansgren dashed towards Crispin with a short sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. He found himself flung in the opposite direction with a blast of Crispin’s conjured flame.
“Stay down!” Crispin demanded as Ansgren struggled to roll out the fire. “Or you’ll find yourselves in the same condition as your horrors.”
Sonja had wrapped herself back in her burnt furs and readied her claymore. The other slayers had stopped cycling, they were weary, but ready to fight. Below them, the sound of steel on steel, screams, roars, and cries confirmed the engagement of battle.
“Why?” Sonja asked.
“For the Eternity Grail.” Crispin grabbed Wilbart by the green scruff of his extravagant coat. Crispin then wrapped his arm around his hostage’s neck, using him like a shield. “This one is coming with us.”
“I don’t know where this grail of yours is!” Wilbart cried.
“Oh, we’ll see!” Crispin dragged the professor down the stairs with the slayers cautiously following. “Retreat!” he called out once he made it to the base of the stairs.
The Brothers of Eternity had already pushed open the heavy, stone door and had begun to flood out into the fogless, cobbled street. Last to leave were the two leaders with their captive, Professor Wilbart Formidor.
“The shroud are still out there!” Sonja called after them. She wasn’t sure if it was a warning, or an attempt to get Wilbart back, but she had already blurted out the words.
“That they are!” Caede called back, excitement twitching across his voice. The man’s eyes were open wide and his face covered in blood. “I’d suggest you run before they come back!”
“Captain, we need to close the door,” Zeilgen said, racing for the door. He too was covered in blood. Among the floor were dead men. Blood flowed across the stone. Despite whether it had been spilt from slayer or brother, the crimson fluid looked identical.
Sonja dashed towards the heavy door, only for it to become ablaze with flame.
“Better run!” Caede offered his suggestion once more, then turned to catch up with the rest of his men.
A high pitched screech echoed from a nearby street. It caught the attention of the slayers, revealing the fog roiling towards them.
“We need to close this!” Sonja cried. She went for the iron handle, but couldn’t bring herself to grip it tightly. The skin of her fingers that touched the metal singed with smoke.
Zeilgen tried for the handle with the same result. The fog powered towards them, harder. Somehow it knew there was a window of vengeance, and it was seeking it with fury.
“Kaarm!” Sonja cried out.
The large Altkrugan was rushing for her already. His eyes were moist and red as though he had been weeping. He grabbed the door and began to pull it shut.
Sonja turned back to look at the slayers, instantly growing aware of what had brought upon Kaarm’s sorrow. She knew that both slayers and brothers had fallen in the recent melee, but she hadn’t identified the bodies as of yet. It was then she noticed Lauf, Rahlman, Knoch and Lambert were lying on the ground, wounded and bloody. “Shit…” Three of her best scouts, and one from the south gate, were down. The Brothers of Eternity managed to fell all the slayers on her bottom team, other than Zeilgen, Ellard, and Hechond.
“Ugh…” A grunt mumbled from Knoch. Rak had already made his way to the man’s side.
“You right buddy?” Rak asked.
“Did we win?” Knoch spoke obliviously. He had a bloody gash across the side of his face and a bruised left eye that had already puffed up his face.
Sonja scanned the other three downed slayers to see if there would be a chance they might survive. Rahlman had a hole through his chest, Lauf had several through his guts, and Lambert’s neck was pumping a puddle of blood that drowned his head—none of them would be standing back up.
“Can you stand?” Rak asked Knoch.
A blood curdling scream came in place of an answer, followed by a wet explosion of internal organs. Kaarm hadn’t fully closed the door in time and the fog had caught up to them. The sound had given Knoch a strength, a second wind. Within a heartbeat he was back to his feet.
“We’ve got to go!” Sonja looked to the roaring fire before the bladed contraption. It was the only way out, to stay within the Hacknebel meant giving themselves to the shroud. “Now!”
“There’s got to be another way?” Hechond screamed. There wasn’t.
Sonja removed her burnt overcoat as she ran, throwing it over the flames in a hope to diffuse the fire. She then leapt over the blaze. Ember tendrils whipped at her legs, stinging her with intense heat. After almost tripping over a shroud corpse on the other side, she sighed in relief. Her body was free of flame and not shredded by shroud.
“Come on!” Sonja urged the slayers as Rak and Zeilgen, both assisting Knoch, emerged from the flames. The three of them made it through unscathed. Sonja’s overcoat was quickly burning up, and wouldn’t hold the fire down much
longer.
“You heard the Captain!” Zeilgen roared at the fire.
The rest of the slayers leapt through the blaze, managing to escape the building that was filling with shroud. The cobbled street was covered in incinerated corpses; the shroud were much more pleasant to be around in that state.
“What now?” Rak grunted.
“Junior!” Sonja’s eyes were glued on the entrance to the alley, soon the fog would be there too. “Would any of these buildings, any of them, be easy to break into?”
“No, Captain,” Bevan responded. “I locked them up good. I thought that was what you wanted.”
It was, at the time. Damn the kid’s efficiency! “We need to break into one of the buildings!” Sonja exclaimed. She turned her head down the alley. “We’ll go to the deepest point and break in there. Whether it’s easier or not doesn’t matter, it will give us the most time.”
The group of slayers burst into a sprint, leaping over charred—and further down the alley, suffocated—shroud while splashing through puddles left from the storm. The things were grotesque: thinly limbed with translucent skin, sharp claws and large black eyes. They didn’t appear as though they should share the same world as humanity, but that was to be said of pretty much all horrors that attacked Holtur.
Nordrachosten Alley was quite long for a dead end residential street, and the amount of shroud lives it had claimed was phenomenal. If these shroud were to stay dead, despite the losses, this moon would have been somewhat of a success. Sonja had heard the stories though, the fallen shroud would be reabsorbed into the fog if the two came into contact with each other. Her brother had seen it, as had Knoch, the possibly concussed slayer running alongside her.
“We’re almost there,” Bevan announced, “the Pinksohn residence isn’t far now.”
Sonja had never heard of the Pinksohns; they must be a weaker bloodline, not bred for slaying. A low cloud shifted, allowing second moon to light up the building at the end of the street. It looked similar to all the others they had passed down Nordrachosten Alley: double story, built from heavy stone, and linked to the residences on either side.
Six heavy beams of timber had been fixed across the dull iron-wood door, as had been done to all the houses in the street. It wouldn’t keep the shroud out if they really wanted to break through, but—as with the slayers—it would slow them down.
Hechond was the first to reach the door. He pulled two arm-length hammers from beneath his coat, handed one to Zeilgen, then the two of them began pounding away at the fixtures.
“Instantaneous barricade destruction necessitates the avoidance of an imminent demise!” Ansgren complained.
“Fog’s rollin’ in,” Rak added. He readied his crossbow and fired into the advancing enemy. There was no shriek or confirmation of a kill, the bolt was simply consumed by the fog.
“Shit!” Sonja swore. “The damn fog is reabsorbing them.”
“What do you mean?” Bevan asked.
“Look!” Sonja pointed in the obvious direction, the direction they were already looking. Wisps of fog latched onto dead shroud as it advanced, then slurped them back into the clouded mass.
“Filthy things are cannibalising themselves,” Ellard said. He then readied his shield and unsheathed his blade. “They won’t be getting this meal so easily!”
Sonja swallowed hard. She admired the south gate slayer’s bravery, but iron would be no match to the shroud if it caught up to them. “How’s that door coming along?” she asked.
“Junior barricaded it good,” Zeilgen said. He launched his hammer into the plank again and it gave way. “Four more planks to go.”
“Get those ones off quicker!” Sonja urged. “The shroud are almost upon us!” It was useless, but she unsheathed her claymore.
“Filthy shroud…” Knoch spat. “Filthy humans. Why’d them bruvers do this anyway? Betray their fellow man? It’s not right!”
“Three left!” Zeilgen yelled. The fog advanced.
“Caede and Crispin endure rigorous integrity privation,” Ansgren said. “An abhorrent representation of humanity.”
“Two left!” Zeilgen huffed. The fog surged forwards, closing the small gap between it and the slayers at greater speed.
Sonja knew there’d be no point in trying to fight, but wasn’t going to just roll over and let the shroud consume her without at least trying. She readied herself to swing wildly at the advancing tendrils of fog and the horrors harboured within.
“One more!” Zeilgen cheered, but it was too late, the fog was almost upon them.
“Fuckers…” Rak took a drag of a cigarette he had just lit, then flicked it out towards the advancing fog. The smoldering tip parted the fog, then the gap closed as the moisture soaked the tube of tobacco.
Once the fog was within a couple of metres, the slayers all readied their weapons and released a cry of battle. The roar of voices echoed about the dead end street, returning to the slayers much louder, and much more wyvern-like.
Plumes of flame scorched the street before them, pushing back the fog while sending charred shroud flying through the air. The six slayers all staggered backwards, holding a hand, weapon, or shield before their faces to protect from the blinding glare and intense heat.
The fire continued raining down from the sky, pushing the foul horrors back, until two large wyverns landed before them. Raithia and Reizexus. They skulked ahead, pouring flame into the retreating shroud. The eleven juvies floated around the alphas, blasting extra fire into the fog.
Sonja exhaled a deep sigh. Kallum, Volk, Tequidi, and the flame wyverns couldn’t have timed their approach any better. She was worried though, it had been a long set of moons. How was her brother holding up after it all?
“Last one is off!” Zeilgen called out. He and Hechond were so absorbed in removing the planks, they hadn’t noticed the flame wyverns behind them.
“Get in, all of you!” Sonja commanded. “Prepare to barricade the door from the other side, but wait until I return. I need to speak with my brother.”
“Yes Captain!” the slayers all responded in unison.
Sonja sheathed her claymore and ran between the two large wyverns. “Kallum!” she called out, looking towards the piloting sack attached to Raithia’s chest. His head was drooped low, black hair covering his eyes, drool falling from his lips. “KALLUM!” Sonja screamed, racing towards him.
“He’s s-sleeping,” Tequidi called out. “He h-had one of his f-fits. I gave him the e-elixir!”
“Are you sure he is alright?” Sonja called, taking a step towards the fog as the wyverns continued pushing it back.
“He’s alright!” Volk called out from Reizexus’ pilot sack. “I witnessed Tequidi get the elixir into him. He’ll be back to normal after a good rest.”
“I-I can feel him b-breathing,” Tequidi responded. “I’m s-sorry this happened.”
Sonja released a sigh of relief. She never liked it when her brother had an episode, especially when he was apart from herself or their father. “It’s not your fault Tequidi,” she said. “Thank you, for coming back. If you hadn’t we would have been done for.”
Volk laughed. “They were getting close!”
“Y-your welcome.” Tequidi stroked Kallum’s hair, offering a warm smile. “Y-you should fall back. I don’t know how long we can keep b-burning back the shroud.”
“There’s not many left in town,” Volk added. “It looks like the fog is headed to the southern coastline. We could follow it, see where it takes shelter?”
Sonja looked to her brother and hesitated. She wanted him safe, but the knowledge of where the shroud go after Holtur would be of great benefit to the town. “Follow them, but don’t wear out the wyverns. If Tequidi says to return, do so immediately.”
“Yes Captain!”
“How are the Brothers of Eternity looking?” Sonja asked as she turned away from the fog.
“What brothers?” Volk smirked. “I assumed they were all but wiped out. Shroud did a number o
n them!”
“Not all wiped out…” Sonja sighed. “Caede and Crispin survived and they have Professor Formidor. It was those two who wrecked the Hacknebel.”
“Shit…” Volk swore. “That explains why you’re out and about with the shroud.”
Raithia coughed, the air before her face growing cool and without flame. “R-Raithia’s oil has depleted!” Tequidi called out.
“Get in the house, Captain,” Volk yelled.
Raithia cleared her throat with a deafening roar aimed at the shroud. Reizexus summoned a huge plume of fire. Sonja ran towards the house that the slayers were taking shelter in. Well, they should have been sheltering within. Instead they were outside collecting dead shroud and bringing them into the house.
“You call this getting a barricade ready for the door?” Sonja asked, grabbing a couple of smoldering shroud corpses by their necks and dragging them along.
“The Hacknebel transpired calamity,” Ansgren said. “Ansgren demands comprehensive failure circumvention. Collection of cadavers would accommodate such an accomplishment.”
“Don’t try to take the credit!” Hechond smirked, throwing a shroud into the building. “It was Zeilgen’s idea.”
“We’re all recovering the corpses,” Zeilgen interjected.
“Regardless who’s idea it was, good plan, slayers,” Sonja nodded towards Zeilgen. Leadership material. “I’m back now, time to barricade the door.”
“Are you sure, Captain?” Zeilgen asked. “We could still gather more corpses first?”
“The reds won’t be able hold back the fog for much longer,” Sonja said, turning back to the wyverns. As if on cue, Reizexus’ assault ended and the two large wyverns took to the sky. “In!”
The slayers ditched the corpses they were dragging and ran into the building. Sonja was surprised to see the collection of shroud piled on top of each other. In that small time the slayers had gathered more than twenty corpses; a few of them weren’t even charred!
The Holtur Curse (The Holtur Trilogy Book 2) Page 20