Bokaj and Jaken both jumped out of the corner of my eye and looked at me for clarification. “I forgot to make one for Tmont, man. Shit.”
I felt a small thud on my head and looked up in time to see the limbs of the same tree shaking slightly. A perfect replica of the original wands was between my feet.
“Thank you, Dregnortillo!” I called to the tree. I went through the familiar process of enchanting it, and after a few test cuts on the leather, we were all able to secure the wands to our bodies.
After that, it was time to rest and prepare for the coming excursion into the cultist village.
Chapter Twenty-One
“You must awaken. It is time.” Maebe gently shook me awake. I had fallen asleep using her legs as pillows while she gently ran her nails over the top of my head between my ears.
“Thank you.” I smiled up at her sleepily.
I sat up and stretched out a bit. The light was gone completely, but somehow, there were lights on in the village. Must have been enchantments. The moon was high above us, half full and beautiful to behold.
“I know I don’t have to ask, but will you be alright out here, Maebe?” Muu wandered over.
The queen of the Unseelie Fae regarded him for a moment that seemed to make him squirm before answering, “I will be well, friend Muu. Your concern is… appreciated.”
He nodded to her and walked away again with a mildly worried look.
“He means well, I know,” Maebe watched him steadily as he left, “but he is the only one who actively engages with me other than you usually, and I enjoy seeing him squirm.”
“You are one sick individual,” I teased her. Her confused look made me chuckle. “Sick as in there’s something wrong with you mentally. It’s meant to be teasingly unless someone really is sick. You’ll get it eventually. Hey, I’m gonna miss having you watching my back. Also, don’t worry—the guys will open up to you eventually.”
“Do not worry,” she replied coolly. “If I do not believe that you are safe, I am coming in after all of you. Experience be damned.”
“Glad to know the cavalry has our back.” Jaken smiled at her and offered her his fist.
Maebe, who had seen the gesture thrown around dozens of times, clenched her fist and rapped her knuckles against Jaken’s. He grunted and shook his fist, and Maebe stepped forward to check and see if he was okay before Jaken’s telltale shit-eating grin was visible.
“Got ya.” Maebe was confused but actually returned his grin.
“You will not ‘get’ me again, little Paladin.” Her grin had sudden feral implications.
“Fuck, she’s scary as shit,” Jaken muttered with a shiver as he walked away.
I kissed her cheek and shook my head while I walked over to stand next to the others at our agreed upon entry point. We watched together as Maebe’s hands began to move surely in gathering motions. Shadows began to pull from the tops of the trees, beneath them, and even our own shadows began to move toward her.
After a few heartbeats, she sent the shadows along the ground toward us, and we scrambled out of the way. The darkness crawled up the side of the barrier, causing a burning scent and a crackling sound. Maebe pressed her hands together with her palms out and pushed them forward toward the barrier. Then she pulled her hands apart with a small hiss of effort, and the shadows gripped the barrier and pushed a hole large enough for us to walk through.
As soon as we moved through, the opening was gone, and Maebe was just on the other side of the barrier.
“Be safe, and remember—if you take too long, I am coming.”
I nodded and turned back toward the village. The sense of death and decay was stronger here than it had been with those creatures the other night. I felt a warmth on my chest where the wand was strapped to my body. It made moving a little odd, but the emerald and wood were both sturdy, so it was alright. From the looks on my friends’ faces—they felt it too.
As we moved through the village, the simple buildings of unpainted wood were untouched. There was nothing of real note inside any of them except a pile of mushrooms here and there. If you ignored the fact that they looked vaguely person-shaped and sized, it was a cake walk.
But there were dozens of those same fungal grave sites indoors. Then there was the building furthest from our entry point, a large one with paintings and runes that I recognized as Celestial from my book, but I didn’t dare pull it out to research them right then and there.
“I don’t like the way that place looks,” James said flatly.
“What do you wanna bet that’s where these assholes worship?” Yohsuke crouched slightly and started forward. Jaken was in front of him in an instant.
“Let me.” He put a hand on Yoh’s shoulder and then began to cautiously move toward the building.
The dark wooden doors were wide open and bolted that way, as if to encourage the members of the community to come in and worship at all hours.
The ramp that led to the doors wasn’t a steep one, but it was worn and clear except for the smallest mound of mushrooms we had seen. I frowned as I tried to ignore the fact that it had most likely been a child. Hopefully, they hadn’t suffered.
“I say we blow the bitch from the outside,” Muu mumbled behind me. I turned to look at him. “Place feels wrong.”
“There could be people inside,” Jaken reasoned before he shook his head. “No. We’re going in.”
“You gotta have spells in rings, do ‘em now,” James said. “Zeke, I think it should be Purify. Pump it all in there.”
I raised my eyebrows but couldn’t find any fault in that idea. Yohsuke offered me his empty ring, and I filled it with a fully-powered Purify spell before handing it back. I still had a spell stored in my ring of storage—Mass Regrowth. I’d be keeping that. No telling what was going to happen, but I’d rather have that.
We waited a few minutes for my mana to fully recharge before we trudged up the small slope into the building.
There were more mushroom mounds inside as we entered and our eyes adjusted to the dim light. There were torches along the walls that lit the room well. I counted at least two dozen mounds at a glance, but what truly caught my attention was a hooded figure seated on an altar as if he were seated on a wall.
“Ah,” the figure’s tone sounded odd. As if there was no genuine surprise in it, and he was trying too hard. Like seriously bad voice acting. “A fresh round of potential hosts.”
“We aren’t anything like that,” Yohsuke spouted angrily.
The scent of decay was strongest here, and the more I looked at the figure, the more my skin began to crawl.
“Of course,” he slowly held a hand out to his side, like he was cautiously patting a dog. “You must be here to worship me in your own ways. These other people did. They were the ones who summoned me, you know?”
I was going to tell him to shove it, but Bokaj touched my hand softly, I looked, and he shook his head and mouthed, Wait.
“They were tired of those uppity Gods above constantly having their way. Foiling plans. Stopping their adding to their numbers. So, I offered them the means to achieve their end.”
“But you aren’t a god,” James accused.
“Of course not.” The creature chuckled. It pulled the hood from its head. Beneath was an average-looking man with a balding pate and smooth, sallow skin. His eyes were gray, but where the whites should have been, there was blood—not running but an angry red. “The Gods are weak, imperfect things clinging to tenants set forth to subjugate the weak so that their worshipers’ blind faith will fuel them.”
He stood slowly. Almost cautiously, like he was afraid of moving too much or too quickly.
“I, on the other hand, am strong enough to take the strength from many in a more direct route. I am all, and all eventually are me.” Slowly, a benevolent look passed over his face, the creepy smile mechanical and puppet-like. “Once this barrier fades, as I am already corroding the blood magic that seals me here, I will be free to grow and b
ecome the god I am meant to be. What they cannot be. So much more than the mere minion that I once had been.”
“So, then what are you right now?” Jaken asked. His shield and weapon had been out from the start, but he had begun raising them a little as the thing had begun speaking.
“I am Decay.” The man’s neck popped audibly as his head tilted a little too far. The question marks above his head and HP bar changed to reflect the name. “I can feel the Radiance about you, Paladin. Come, let me cleanse you of that abominable lie that your ‘beloved’ goddess has fooled you with. Allow me to show you the truth.”
Decay level 32.
“Sure.” Jaken shuffled forward, and the fight was on. We couldn’t let this thing do whatever the hell it wanted.
Jaken’s longsword slashed, shining in the light slightly and stopped as Decay flicked his hand out.
“Foolish, but I do not blame you—I blame the lies.” It hissed and stepped forward slowly.
Even though its movements were clunky and stilted, it hit Jaken hard enough to throw him through the wall behind us and into the yard. Shit.
I brought my axe to the ready and watched as James was just suddenly there in front of Decay, his Dragon’s Tooth blade slicing toward the figure. Then I watched Yohsuke step forward and slash with his Astral Blade. Decay’s right arm fell, and the scent of rotting produce became overpowering. Yohsuke shot back off his feet as James fell and flattened himself with a shout of pain.
His health bar plummeted by fifty percent, and the issue made itself known. A black arm with a dark, fluctuating cloud of noxious looking gas around it, flexed. The muscles of it were insanely perfect, and it was a little clearer why it had seemed so weird for the creature to move. I looked, and his display changed.
Decay level 38.
“I had so hoped to keep this body intact a little while longer.” Decay sighed, attempting to adopt a saddened look. “That just means one of you will have to remain intact. Oh well, necessary sacrifice for a better world, eh?”
“You talk too fucking much,” Muu spat vehemently, then launched his older short spear at Decay from twenty feet away.
The spear’s flight stopped in Decay’s monstrous stank hand and immediately split in half. The clatter of metal on the rough wooden floor was a wake-up call.
“Get out!” I roared. I shoved Muu toward the hole in the wall. Bokaj was already moving with his bow working overtime. I created a stone hammer with Stone Weapon and smacked Decay in the chest while he was distracted by the arrows that peppered his chest and still-human arm. Where each hit, more of the gas filtered out of the wounds, and the arrows turned to rust and disintegrated. The hammer hit forced him back ten feet, but he kept his footing.
I grabbed James and threw him toward the hole in the wall as he flashed with Ki, his health pulsing back up to full.
Decay began to walk forward toward us, and I abandoned the hammer toward his face with extreme prejudice. It was highly unlikely that it would hurt him, but if I committed to an attack over running, I was more vulnerable than I could risk at that moment. Better to be rid of the now-useless spell and join my friends outside.
The night sky was a little lighter as the moon rose above us, but the creepy sight of Decay stood in the doorway. He snapped his fingers, and the mounds of mushrooms began to stand. They were vaguely humanoid, but they were crooked and crumbly in places. One of them grabbed me around the chest from behind, its arms touching the wand touched to my chest through the cloth. I felt the wand heat against my fur, and the arms loosened a bit.
Enough for me to dive backward and on top of it before rolling out of the grip. Once I was upright, I slashed at it with Magus Bane. The axe sliced cleanly through.
I caught sight of my friends making short work of the horde of decomposing dead and then caught movement toward the building. Decay walked among them, and each one he touched brought his barely depleted HP bar closer to full. Even as he touched them and they turned to dust, his focus was on us. He stepped within range of Yohsuke and the Spell Blade punched forward with his ring.
Six of the creatures dropped in clouds of dust, and Decay snarled savagely as a portion of his face was hewn away by the spell. His true expression of rage peaked out, and the blood red of the human eyes was mirrored by a glowing, red orb staring out at us. The mouth that the flesh didn’t cover was too large and had too many teeth. Once more, his level went up, the more his true form was exposed.
Decay level 55.
More arrows peppered the body, and a concussive blast of force and fumes shook me from my feet. I slid on my back longer than I might have thought. My health dropped steadily, and I coughed. Eighty, seventy-five, seventy, sixty-five percent. Shit.
I stood and limped toward the majority of my friends. James managed to get away from the blast, and I didn’t see Muu, so I figured he was skyward.
I used the ring of storage I had and cast Mass Regrowth on myself, Bokaj, Yohsuke, and James.
I looked at my friends, banged up and hurting despite the healing and regeneration that they had received. I looked at the angry Decay and noted that he was still above three-quarters health.
He stood and surged forward, slamming into Jaken’s shield with the one human fist it had left, knocking the floating thing aside. Jaken’s sword danced, attempting to slice at him with a glowing golden light surrounding it. It was doing a little damage but not enough.
Yohsuke threw a Star Burst at him, and the creature batted it aside and into James. He punched it and flew back on to his back. The monk flashed with Ki, and he began to sit up.
Muu brought out his lance and attempted to help Jaken keep Decay’s attention. The blackened hand snatched an arrow out of the air and plunged it into Jaken’s shoulder, his health decreasing to sixty-five percent.
I shifted into my owl form, took to the air above them, and saw our opponent kick Jaken away from him, and Muu backed away slightly.
I picked that time to shift to fox form, then to Ursolon and plummeted toward Decay’s head. I thought I was going to land on him and smiled, but he stepped out of the way and kicked me so hard I flew twenty feet to his left into a smaller building.
I dropped to sixty percent health and tried to drag myself back to my feet. It hurt so badly. This was going shitty, and yelling ideas to each other was out of the question because he would know.
I came out of the hole in the smaller building and watched Yohsuke land a single cut on Decay before the adaptor was slapped from his hand, and then the creature backhanded Yoh away from him.
I came back out and took stock. James was trying to dodge the asshole as he swung at him, taking damage from being too close. There was no way. The more we hurt him, the stronger he got, and he had more mushroom creatures joining the fight from inside the chapel area.
“Mushrooms!” I called, and the others began trying to kill them, Tmont crashing out of the house beneath Bokaj’s position to slice into a few of them.
They fell, but they were coming still, and Decay had begun using them to heal again.
Fuck it, there’s no way we can beat this thing on our own, not if his level keeps going up so much and he can heal like that.
I bared my teeth. “Butterscotch!” I shouted loudly over my shoulder.
To their credit, my friends didn’t look at me half as oddly as Decay did, and he had thrown his arms in front of himself defensively.
The night around us stilled, and I watched as a wave of shadows depleted from the area that we had left Maebe outside the barrier. A slight whiffing noise reached my ears and a grunt, then quiet.
I watched as Maebe, Ruler of the Unseelie levitated regally into the opened grounds of the village.
“You are truly beginning to show wisdom.” Maebe smiled sweetly at me. She looked at the others, then Decay and frowned. “Why is a Greater Fiend here? Why does it feel so wrong? Is it that it could be a minion of War?”
“I am Decay. I come to cleanse this world and take my place as
the rightful ruler of all. War holds no sway over me anymore. I am above him.”
“I am Queen here,” Maebe shot back simply. She held her hand out, and I stepped closer to her.
“Don’t touch him. He can cause serious damage that way.” She acknowledged my advice with a nod and clenched her fist.
A snap of cold flash froze the ground in a straight line and ice burst from the ground, smacking into the creature. He shot from his position into one of the buildings behind him.
Maebe’s other fist radiated pure midnight energy, and she pressed the palm to herself. She ran the hand down her form, and the shadows coalesced into a dress, long enough to touch the ground as she floated there.
The creature stepped from the rubble, and I watched as Muu rocketed toward him from above. A good majority of the human meat suit was gone now, and as Muu closed with Decay’s position, a handful of energy slammed into Muu and threw him into a building behind us. As soon as the front wall burst, Bokaj was there and casting his own Heal spell on the Dragon-kin.
Ooooouuuuch, fuck that hurt. Muu’s thoughts projected to me.
I looked at my friends, and they had heard it too.
“Mae, keep him still. I have an idea.” I touched her shoulder softly before I moved toward my friends.
Get your wands out, guys. We need to stab him with them while Maebe has him distracted.
Jaken, Yohsuke, and I collectively pulled our wands from our bodies and handed them to James. I touched him and gave him Shadow Blessing to help him sneak and dodge a bit better.
I’ll wait until he’s really distracted, but as soon as I’m done—I’m hauling ass away. James walked away from our huddle, trying to psych himself up and get to Bokaj and Muu.
Maebe and Decay were trading blows. Decay sent shockwaves of disgusting energy at her, and she countered with shadow and ice. He sent one such shockwave at us, and Maebe deflected it with a wall of ice. Another building fell, and the barrier began to crackle a little. Like watching the fuzzy channel on cable, it was kind of there, but the fuzz was distracting.
Decay began to make a gathering motion with his hands and focused his sights on Maebe completely. As he prepared to loose his foul spell, James materialized behind him and stabbed down with all his might. Decay shrieked inhumanly and dropped to a knee, the spell forgotten momentarily as he clawed at the wands sticking into him.
Into the Dragon's Den (Axe Druid Book 2) Page 45