Chapter Eleven #2
me, but she’s plain gone mad if she thinks she can hold up down here.”
Isaac
scanned the firing line of the pirates. “Where is she? I don’t see her.”
“Check
the side. She’s doing a pincer.”
He had
been so dazzled by the elemental barrage of the thralls that he hadn’t noticed
the entirety of the battle. Streams of pirates ran low behind the walls of
their makeshift barricades, circling the line of thralls. Isaac squinted
through the dim golden light, unable to identify the pirates by anything other
than general species. He saw lions and hyenas and foxes, glints of steel and
fur.
“I
still don’t see her.”
“Humans
are just worthless in the dark.” Zaria pointed. “She’s on the left, leading the
charge.”
On the
left, the pirates were massing, readying their weapons, waiting for the thralls
to advance. Once they passed a certain point, the zoanthropes could rush from
cover and envelop the enemy from all sides. Isaac studied the shadowy figures,
trying to determine who could be the captain.
When he
spotted her, Isaac blinked in surprise.
Captain
Black Eye Soren stood two heads shorter than the brawny hyenas and lions around
her. She had white fur, stubby whiskers, and tall, pink ears. Her outfit was a
patchy collection of dark leather and loose fabric that was tangled beneath
several bandoliers of knives and grenades, which she had stockpiled so heavily
across her bodice that the weaponry was nearly a second set of armor. As Isaac
squinted through the gloom, he noticed a furless patch of skin around her eye.
He
stared for a time.
“That’s
Soren?” Isaac asked. “The Black Eye, captain of the Silent Saber?”
“One
and only,” Zaria replied. “I’m spyin’
several more of my mates decorating the floor. That’s going on her
conscience.”
“Zaria,
she’s a bunny.”
“Aye.
Fiercest of the waste.”
He
looked at Soren again, just to make sure his eyes were not deceiving him.
“She’s a bunny. She’s half your height! That’s the woman you’ve
been terrified of?”
“Just
watch. You’ll see.”
The
thralls had arrived at the palace steps, still launching a fusillade of ice and
fire. Soren put two fingers through the side of her snout. A whistle sounded.
All at
once, the pirates struck.
From the
palace, a salvo of quarrels erupted like a swarm of birds. Soren raced out from
the furniture barricade with a horde of pirates behind her, flinging a knife
from the bandolier on her chest. One thrall keeled over to the side, the handle
of a knife jutting from deep in his ear, and the next thrall barely had time to
turn before the bunny was impaling him at a sprint, both of their bodies
sailing across the pavement. With a graceful twist, Soren used the dying human
as a springboard to launch herself into the air, her powerful bunny legs
letting her reach a wide falling arc onto the next thrall. She smashed the
human into the ground, visibly denting the skull with a kick of her bootless
paw.
The
thralls did not panic. They began flinging elemental spells at their flankers,
turning as rigidly as a statue on a pedestal. The rest of her pirate crew began
to hack at the ends of the thrall’s offensive line—meanwhile, Soren dashed
straight into the center, dodging several lances of ice. She chopped off the
arm of a thrall with a single strike, kicking him into another caster. Isaac
struggled to follow her speed. In seconds, her white fur was soaked a shining
red, her tall ears flailing, the bodies falling around her like wheat on a
harvest.
A few
steps away, the last remaining thrall was in the middle of performing a
mnemonic gesture when her body seized, her skin shriveled away, and her limbs
went limp beneath her. The puppeteer had chosen to suck the slave’s energy into
themselves.
They
were admitting defeat.
Soaked
in blood, outlined by the flaming skulls behind her, Soren strolled up to the
shriveled husk, her white-furred paws leaving red streaks on the pavement. The
human girl was still twitching on the pavement. They were alive. The sigil on their head was dark. Weakly, the girl attempted to
raise a hand, as if begging for mercy.
Soren
gave a single slash of her sword.
A head
rolled away.
Suddenly,
the palace courtyard was silent. The only sounds were the faint crackle of the
barricaded furniture, which had been set alight with magical flame, mixed with
the groans and pains of the injured. A lion whimpered at his frost-bitten arm.
Ahead,
the palace of skulls burned silently, their eyeless sockets staring raptured at
the sky.
“Tend
the wounded!” Soren yelled, her voice echoing down the necropolis. She strolled
around the pool of fallen humans, impaling each at a time. “Man the perimeter!
I want double watches! Blackpowder rigged at every entrance! If a single human
gets through them walls again, you’ll be sucking maggots for grub!”
“Aye,
capt!” several shouted, racing to the ends of the courtyard.
“Larkin,
fix the blasted cannon!”
“Capt!”
A male
hyena went sprinting over to a mound of ice, which Isaac only now realized had
encased a wheel-mounted cannon, along with a gathered pile of chain-shot. The
pirate stared for a moment, clearly unsure what to do, before deciding to chop
with a hatchet.
“She’s
fucking down here, lads!” Soren yelled, reaching the end of the human thralls.
With a casual stroke, she spilled the guts of a young mage, slicing him like
the skin of a sausage. The human twitched and grasped. “I promise you! You keep
your mettle, you’ll find your vengeance! Glory don’t
come without cost!”
“Aye,
capt!” all the pirates shouted.
For a
moment, the bunny studied the dying human at her feet, as if something about
his feeble gasps was catching her interest. Isaac leaned up on the shoulder of
the golem. Soren jerked her head, catching the movement. She looked right at
his position.
He saw,
for the first time, that one of her eyes was completely black.
Isaac
ducked behind the golem, terrified.
“You
little shit!” Zaria hissed.
“Sorry!”
Both of
them remained still, their bodies dangling against the mouthed open torso of
the automaton. Isaac studied the runes on its stonework exterior as his breath
caught in his chest. Eventually, after what seemed an hour, Zaria pulled
herself back up the shoulder, taking a slight peek. A moment later, she
motioned him to do the same.
“We’re
clear. She didn’t see us.”
Isaac
struggled back up, pushing his boot against the wrenched open ribs across the
golem’s side. His arms were aching from the constant strain of holding himself
aloft. When he looked, Soren was marching across the courtyard, supervising the
surgeon as he applied salves to the worst of the burned. A pirate called to
her, and she kneeled at his side, listening close.
“Okay,”
Isaac said. “Fuck.”
“I told
ya so,” Zaria said.
“Yes,
yes, you did. Gods above. She’s horrifying.”
“That
she are.” Zaria watched the pirates begin to drag the dead humans away, leaving
long red trails in the knuckled pavement. “How the fuck’d she even get down
here, anyway? She buried the only entrance.”
Isaac
was about to respond when movement caught his eye.
A short
distance away, the fire on the pyramid of skulls was beginning to lose vigor,
the flames finding no purchase in the lifeless bone, though it was burning
hotly enough to illuminate the city beyond. Using this light, Isaac glimpsed
figures on the other side of the palace. The most prominent were another pair
of golems, their bodies twice as tall as the courtyard wall, their gun-barrel
faces maintaining an eternal vigil over the city beyond.
Beneath
the golems, a black army marched deeper into the necropolis.
Thralls.
There
were dozens. All of them wore black robes. There were so many bodies, moving at
such a distance, marching in such a swift, flowing
chaos, that the darkness appeared to fester like a thousand maggots birthing
from a corpse, the veil of shadows broken only by the glowing sigils carved on
each of their heads.
In the
middle, one person stood supreme. Their hood was shadowed. Their body was
formless beneath the billow of their robes. There was no brand of magic upon
their head, and no one among them who could resist
their command. For a moment, all Isaac could see of the puppeteer sorcerer was
a pair of glowing eyes, gazing in the direction of the palace.
A
moment later, the sorcerer was gone, fleeing deeper into the city. Isaac felt a
chill crawl up his spine, deeper than he expected.
“Isaac?”
He
blinked, coming out of himself. “What, yes? Sorry?”
“I
said,” Zaria said, “how in the flying cock did my captain get down here?”
He
cleared his throat, spying on the pirates once more. “Well, if I had to guess,
she likely dug through the rubble above to make sure you were dead. When she
didn’t find your body, she ventured through the open door to the catacombs. The
necromancer could not resist her because we’d already destroyed most of her
bones. And now she’s here.” He paused. “And it’s a problem.”
“It’s a
big fuckin’ problem, Isaac.”
“Well,
I’m sorry for heroically destroying my enemies. I’ll try not to do it again.”
“Get
your rest!” Soren yelled, strutting her feet over rivers of blood. Her voice
carried over the courtyard with practiced ease. “Get your grog! Tomorrow, we
hunt a traitor! I promise half the treasure to whoever brings her alive!”
The
automaton shook beneath them. It was a tremor in the earth, feeling immediately
familiar. As Isaac gripped himself to the golem’s
shoulder, feeling the ancient machine swaying upon its perch, he saw boulders
of dirt breaking off from the walls of the body cavity, all of which were big
enough to smash through several houses. Destruction rumbled through the city.
More
tremors bled below their feet. There was a rhythm being established. Soon, the
effect was like listening to a massive, beating heart. For a moment, it felt as
if the colossus was returning back to life.