Chapter Thirteen #2
stood at the edge of the giant crater, staring down the empty tunnel.
“Zaria!”
The
earth was silent. Only his voice echoed back.
All at
once, he heard a new sound.
It was
coming from behind. It was the same dry scraping he had heard in the catacombs.
He turned, and an overwhelming ocean of bone surged towards him.
He
paled in terror.
The sea
of sliding body parts emerged from the depths of the necropolis, surging toward
the palace. The waves were taller than him, composed of an incomprehensible
amount of corpses, all mangled and blended together, gushing in streams and
currents. It closed upon his position with all the monstrous weight of a
tsunami, smashing through what remained of the palace walls, leaping forward in
a raging shower of bone.
He had
failed. He had walked right into the sorceress’s trap. All along, she had just
been waiting for the right time to strike. Now, it was here.
He was
alone. He had no chance.
He had
failed his father.
He
turned his body towards the flood of bone. He kept his stance firm on the
ground, just as he had been taught. He performed the mnemonics for his
anti-necrotic light, building it into a solid dome of light around him.
Isaac
put all his energy into the spell, bracing for death.
A
moment later, he noticed a shift in the tide of bones. It was splitting at the
crest, forming a gap, parting as neatly as a fork in a river. Once the wave of
corpses rushed upon him, he found himself perfectly encased by two walls of
bone, streaming by with such weight and force that he was battered by the
overwhelming sound of scraping bodies. Only a few bones grazed the edge of his
light.
Instead,
the bulk of the flood rushed into the tunnel the sandwyrm had left behind,
creating swirls of limbs and skulls and spines. The ocean of bodies disappeared
through the ground, as if sucked away by some malevolent force. Soon, it was
gone.
Not a
single bone had touched him.
He
blinked, once again alone in the shattered palace grounds. He should’ve been
dead. A flood of such proportions could’ve easily pierced through his light,
shattering it with no more effort than a cup made of glass—instead, it had
deliberately avoided his presence. In fact, it had gone very far out of its way
to avoid hurting him. A great deal of focus and control would’ve been required
for such a feat.
The
sorceress had just spared his life.
He
blinked, stupefied.
Soon,
the ground began to shake again. The buildings of the dead city crumbled and
fell as more chunks of earth gave way. Isaac wobbled on his feet as the
vibrations turned into shuddering quakes, building into a flood of motion.
Moments
later, in a distant part of the city, the sandwyrm erupted from the ground,
impaling itself through the roof of a college. Instead of reaching high into
the body cavity, it beached itself across the ancient streets, smashing through
houses with an unstoppable momentum, squirming and writhing violently as it
slid back towards the palace. Isaac ran to the side, suddenly faced with an
incoming creature that thrashed with the size and weight of a castle wall. He
dove over a giant, shattered skull, narrowly avoiding the impact of the
sandwyrm’s mouth.
The
dragon was completely covered in bone. Each of the thousands of body parts
wriggled into its skin like maggots through a corpse, burrowing into the open
cracks Isaac had carved in its scales. Green blood oozed from the flesh, thick
as slime. The wyrm flailed along the courtyard,
rolling itself over and over on the pavement, trying to rub the bones away, but
its mad efforts only stabbed the corpses deeper, flagellating the flesh with
spines and arms and ribs.
Its
wings spasmed. Its glittering scales broke like glass. With another heave, the beast roared in pain and fear.
Something
flew from its mouth.
A glob of
blood and saliva splattered on the pavement, rolling with the viscosity of
mucus. Once it rested, the pile of fluids began to twitch. Isaac recognized the
shape.
“Zaria!”
He ran
to her, through fields of shattered skulls and the falling showers of blood. As
he rushed, he saw she was wrapped in a shell of green, viscous liquid,
something close to the texture of a rotted yolk of egg. Zaria struggled upward,
stabbing her poleaxe through the broken pavement, gripping the haft for
support. Isaac ran straight into the disgusting miasma, covering himself in the
sandwyrm’s fluids as he helped her back to her feet.
“Are
you alright?” he asked, trying to check her for wounds. “Do you need aid?”
Zaria
wiped a sheet of dragon blood from her face. Slowly, she bared her teeth. With
a vicious growl, she yanked her polearm from the ground, pointed it at the
flailing wyrm, and shouted: “You’re fucking mine!”
She
charged at the massive beast, axe blade held high, completely covered in blood,
screaming a war cry at the top of her lungs.
“Oh,”
Isaac said.
By now,
the wyrm was thrashing recklessly, shaking off
rainstorms of bone with every thrust of its segments. The air was thick with
blood, flying limbs, and slivers of scale. Despite its efforts, Isaac could
still see an army of corpses digging through the hide and muscle, burrowing
through the meat like a pestilence of bugs.
When
the dragon bellowed, it opened its maw wide, and Zaria sprinted towards it
again, holding her weapon in a spearing thrust. She slammed into the roof of
the creature’s mouth with all her weight, the spear and axe disappearing so
deeply into the flesh that half her polearm became buried inside. The beast
gurgled, its tongue a jagged hunk of meat. With desperation, it tried to crush
her with its undulating rows of teeth, but Isaac had followed behind, and he
cast a gust of wind so sharp that it physically parted the dragon’s jaw. He
intensified the gale, flaying flesh, severing mandibles, catching the beast in
a stalemate of force as it struggled to close its mouth. Meanwhile, Zaria had
yanked her poleaxe back from the bleeding maw, bathing herself in a shower of
blood, thrusting again, harder, deeper, stabbing over and over, like a
blacksmith attempting to pull a tooth.
The
sandwyrm rolled onto its back, the roof of its mouth now pointing down. Zaria
did not waste the leverage. She climbed up, stood tall on the dragon’s mouth,
and impaled her polearm deep into its head.
The
wyrm’s roars ceased immediately.
For a
moment, its segmented body flexed, the wings going stiff, a deep gurgle
sounding across the barren streets of the necropolis. Another moment passed,
and its jagged tongue flopped onto the rim of its mouth, a horde of breath
wheezing out in a final sigh. The only part that still moved was the rivers of
blood flowing from its body.
It was
dead.
They
had killed a wyrm.
Zaria
ripped her poleaxe from the dragon’s mouth. A slime of brain remained on the
spear. Soon after, her legs buckled, and she collapsed onto the pavement.
Isaac
ran over, trying to help her stand. It was a difficult process. She was heavy,
he was winded from casting spells, and every attempt to sink his hands through
the noxious shell of dragon blood felt like digging through a swamp.
Eventually, he managed to lean her weight against him, smearing all the
horrible fluids across his robes. Together, they struggled back to their feet.
“I
don’t know whether to thank you or smack you,” Isaac said.
Zaria
lifted her head, eyes wide.
“What
do you think—”
“Isaac.”
“You charged
at a wyrm. I was trying to distract it! That
was the entire purpose—”
“Isaac!”
He
turned and looked.
The sea
of bones was coalescing again. A flood of corpses tumbled over the shattered
pavement, sockets and joints connecting together, all the pieces building
themselves into nests and masses, mashing into swarms, layers upon layers
compacting together, growing taller, churning higher and higher, consolidating
into a solid, writhing wall of death. The bones encircled them completely. They
could no longer see the necropolis.
There
was only bone.
Death.
Decay.
The
eyeless gaze of a sorcerer’s slave.
With
Zaria’s arm draping over his shoulder, Isaac cast his anti-necrotic light,
burning it into a thick shell around them. The circling tide of bones flinched
back as they singed themselves on the edges, the entire ocean shifting like an
uncoiling snake. They were restraining themselves. With this kind of necrotic
mass, the sorceress could have easily overwhelmed his spell, crushing them
beneath the weight of her power.
They were
at her mercy.
But she
was staying her hand again.
In
front of them, the swirling bones shifted. Something bulbous popped out of the
stream, held at the top of an elongated pole of vertebrae and fingers, which began to uncannily resemble the stem and thorns of a
rose. At the head of the flower was a human skull, leering in their direction,
rising like a lighthouse above a stormy sea. It stopped growing just at the
edge of the light. The empty sockets seemed to gaze.
For a
moment, its lower jaw rattled back and forth.
“Isaac,”
the skull said.
The
voice was thin and hissing, struggling with the word. It sounded only barely
like the modern, common language.
“Isssssaaaaaaaccc.”
“Isaac,”
Zaria said, gripping her weapon. “What’s happening?”
“I
don’t know.”
“Please
remember your fucking books now, love.”
“I
don’t know!”
“Isa—Ic—aaaaa—Isaaaaac.”
The
skull attempted to come closer, the squirming stem growing taller. Isaac
intensified his light, expanding the dome outwards. It slapped the skinless
face, forcing the entire stalk of bones to flinch away, curling like a
dandelion in the breeze. When it came back down, the skull had partially
melted, a trail of liquified bone oozing from its cheek.
“What
do you want, necromancer?” Isaac asked.
Around
them, the bone wall slithered back, the streams inside boiling faster. There
was a hiss of attempted words.
“Have