27. Ignatius #3
Even as he sent the words, he felt himself reacting to them as well. He thought of the echoes of his parents he’d touched the previous night, their love and belief in him lending him newfound strength. No matter what it took, he’d prove their faith in him warranted.
A flicker of recognition coursed through Iggie’s mind, but to his shock, it appeared to originate not from any of the souls within the golem, but from a fading echo in the air.
One of my slain undead?
Curious, Iggie reached out to the echo and instantly reeled beneath a flood of thoughts and emotions. Struggling to make sense of them, he glimpsed a familiar memory, realizing then who this must be. Julian.
There were scenes Iggie recognized: Matrim and Julian snuggled in bed. Matrim ranting about Erys while he bandied about the tome he’d stolen from the mage. Matrim’s terror-stricken face when he’d shoved Julian out of the way as the ritual collapsed.
But there were others as well that Iggie had never seen before—months of lost moments. They flashed before his eyes, too quickly for him to parse.
That’s because they’re not meant for me.
The echo of Julian sent every cherished memory pouring along Iggie’s duskflame, piggybacking off his magic to reach the souls trapped within the golem. Jumbled emotions followed, though one stood out above the rest: forgiveness.
From somewhere within the harmonite abomination, a soul trembled in answer. Then, it simply let go, vanishing from Iggie’s stretched senses in a ripple of disrupted magic. In quick succession, the other three trapped souls followed suit, until only Julian’s echo remained.
Thank you, Iggie sent, a tight band constricting his chest.
The echo wavered, and a sensation of peace crept over Iggie as it too vanished, departing after the others to whatever awaited them in the Great Beyond.
A terrible shrieking sound like nails on glass snapped Iggie out of his trance.
He blinked, searching for the source, and his eyes widened when they settled on the golem.
Jagged cracks crisscrossed its surface, the previously pristine crystals now on the verge of shattering as they flickered with out-of-sync shades of blue too quick for the eye to process.
Matrim and Julian had given the town a fighting chance.
Alistair wasted no time taking advantage of the opening, channeling his remaining strength into an all-out offensive as he hacked and slashed with his flaming sword wherever he could land a blow.
Rather than skittering off the crystal as they had before, these strikes carved divots in the hard material, widening cracks and sloughing off entire chunks of crystal with explosions of runeflame and voidflame.
The crippled golem’s attacks grew wilder, its lashing tentacles choking the mouth of the cavern.
Iggie’s heart skipped a beat when Alistair barely ducked beneath a blow, spinning away from the wall to give himself more room to maneuver.
Even with the aid of his dawnflame, he wouldn’t be able to withstand the beast’s frenzied onslaught very long on his own.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to.
With a mental command, Iggie sent his last two surviving skeletal grunts into the fray.
After a moment’s hesitation, he ordered Marlon and Cynthia forward as well.
He’d kept them close for years as a reminder of their sacrifice.
But he knew now that their love would live on inside of him no matter what.
Let them defend Alistair as they’d once defended him.
“Forward!” Liliana shouted from beside him.
Bellowing a slew of mismatched battlecries, she and the gathered townsfolk charged after Iggie’s undead. Taking advantage of their much-needed distraction, Alistair sliced through a patch of tentacles and resumed his assault.
Even with the golem weakened, the added combatants did little but slow its movements, hampering its ability to reach Alistair.
Still, that proved enough. The golem stumbled, what remained of its flailing tentacles unable to fend off the onslaught, and true hope blossomed in Iggie’s gut. They had done it! They—
The crumbling monstrosity bellowed a final, furious roar and surged forward with the last of its flagging might. A jutting crystal knocked Alistair aside, his sword clattering to the stone, and screams choked the air.
Iggie commanded his skeletons to face the brunt of the creature’s rage so that the other villagers could escape, but the golem hardly seemed to give any of them a second thought, charging right past as it shoved its way deeper into the passage. It was as if it…
His breath caught, fear rooting him in place. The golem was coming straight at him. Perhaps some part of it realized he was the one who had crippled it, or perhaps in its dying moments, it simply sought to carry out its orders and reach the rest of the villagers in the caverns beyond.
Either way, Iggie stood frozen for a long, stretching moment. He could try to run, but that risked putting others in the golem’s path, perhaps even leading it straight to where the others had sheltered. Or…
Or for once, I can be the hero.
As the harmonite abomination loomed, the tunnel trembling around them, Iggie smiled softly and closed his eyes.