Chapter 3 #2
With the whole trunk revealed, it was clear the curse ate entirely through the oak. Everything, from the outer bark to the core, was diseased, the remnants of crystallized, frozen sap a gooey black.
The rune must have amplified the curse within the tree, same as it did the bones.
If the enhancement rune was placed on Azkanix’s skeletal fragments and blighted trees throughout the forest, the curse would spread at an unprecedented, unstoppable rate.
This was bad. Very, very bad.
Cerise slipped the axes into her hip harness. “Take me to the next one.”
The bear grumbled in consent and meandered into the woods.
Dusty snow drifted through the canopy cracks, melting on their bodies, as the bear led Cerise from marked tree to carved bone, engraved bone to cut tree.
She slashed away the runes in the wood and shaved off those on the skeleton, bone pieces cascading into their necrotic pools at the base with bright pulses.
The axe blades grew sticky with black corrupted sap, and Cerise grimaced at the cloying curse.
She’d need to be extra careful when cleaning the metal at home.
The spot of sun roved behind the lilac sky, shifting to a dull mauve as they hiked through the densest part of the forest into more open woods.
Rather than twining into diseased webs, tree branches rose high and alone, errant rays of light peeking through gliding clouds and shimmering on the snowy ground.
Cerise, used to days of cutting wood, carrying logs, and wearing layers of thick clothes, didn’t weaken on their trek.
As usual, her knee ached, but walking breaks were easier on her joints than the incessant standing required to hack down entire trees.
The muscles in her arms hummed with use, invigorated rather than fatigued.
Yet as the day wore on, the bear’s steps grew heavier, its head sinking lower to the ground.
Cerise cast it sideways glances, trying to ascertain if it was disappointment or exhaustion that weighed it down.
Whatever ailed it, the beast lumbered on.
They reached an open patch of forest, sunlight shining on the snow. The light melted it in patches, where pale azure and lilac lilies peeked out of the ground.
Zyrdriel’s Mercy. For an unknown reason, the curse didn’t affect it. Perhaps it truly was a mercy from Zyrdriel. But that meant the Celestial decided his flowers were worth saving more than his worshippers.
Cerise clenched her jaw, staring at the hated plant.
It was also called Idle Lily, since depending on how it was prepared, and the part of the flower used, it could be a potent drug that left one limp, staring at the ceiling.
How many people she’d seen succumb to its addictive embrace.
From the clerics of Vhypael’s Temple to the wounded veterans in war camps.
It wasn’t a mercy. It was a bane.
Looking away from the flowers, Cerise turned her focus to the sky and lifted a hand to estimate the remaining length of daylight.
“We need to head back in—”
The bear roared, a monstrous, powerful sound full of rage.
Cerise whipped around, a sharp pain coursing through her damaged knee she barely registered.
She tightened her grip on her axes, braced for its charge, for of course it would finally take the opportunity to attack her when her back was turned.
It lured her out into the woods with the false sense of alliance and now—
But the beast bolted in the opposite direction from her, bounding deeper into the woods.
Cerise humphed, curious, and traded out her axes for Beloved, hobbling after the bear as quickly as she could, given the abrupt, fierce ache in her leg.
It roared once more, a surprising hatred in its rumbling considering the otherwise gentleness of the beast. Dread curdled Cerise’s gut as her fighter’s instincts urged her forward, and she grit her teeth against the anguish, picking up her pace to catch up to the bear and the danger it sensed.
Not because she cared about its wellbeing. She hardly knew the creature. But it had proven helpful, bringing them food and somehow sensing the runic curse. She needed its aid. That was all.
Cerise tracked the beast’s paw prints to a wide clearing of blackened aspens, branches drooping with the depression of their decay, where the bear charged toward a heavily cloaked figure.
The short and stocky silhouette stood beside a splinter of Azkanix’s bone, feet planted firmly outside of the necrosis.
Even at this distance, Cerise noted a hammer and long chisel in the figure’s hands, glinting in the fading light.
Cerise’s heart hardened as her pace quickened.
This was the monster amplifying Azkanix’s curse.
And the bear charged at him without a thought. Without assessing what other weapons or magics the necromancer had in his disposal.
The necromancer turned his gaze to the bear, cold and calm.
The beast would perish from its recklessness.
Cerise sucked in a rallying breath and, ignoring the wrenching of the muscles and tendons around her knee, dashed after the bear, Beloved’s axes ready to slice through the necromancer’s neck.
A flash of sickly green and molten red broke through the forest from their right as soon as the bear ran past.
A beast, about half the size of the bear, with six off-white husks as long as her forearm and black eyes that glistened with hellfire chased after the bear.
Its leathery body, pockmarked with bristles, had long gashes through it which glowed in two colors: the same necromantic green as that around Azkanix’s bones, and that of angry, fresh flowing lava.
A lichboar.
She hadn’t seen one of those monsters since her service in the Undead Wars, where necromancers used them to source fonts of power in the earth where the veil between this world and the Lich God’s was thinner, making their magic both easier to wield and more powerful.
They were also used in battle; the sharp, elongated tusks goring through her comrades’ stomachs as easy as Eirwen cut through fish bellies the night prior.
Cerise’s abdomen clenched at the memories.
Summoning her last remnants of stamina and strength, Cerise urged her legs to move faster. The bear was now trapped between the necromancer and his lichboar, the monster gaining on the bear due to its otherworldly magic and the bear’s exhaustion.
The bear skidded in its tracks, seeming to hear the boar grunting and squealing behind it.
Snow tufted around the bear as it stopped, swung on its haunches and lifted a front paw to whack against the boar’s face.
The boar ducked beneath the blow and whipped its head to gouge the bear with its tusks.
The bear rolled to the side, but not quick enough to avoid a gash tearing open on a hind leg.
It roared again, standing to its full height despite the wound, spittle flying from its terrifying jaws.
The necromancer approached, tools discarded for a damaged staff.
Made of metal and stone and studded with luminescent gems, strange effigies of sticks, fur, and hair hung from it.
Putrid green and purple necromantic energies pulsed through the hole in the center of the staff’s head.
But the bear was focused on the lichboar, which tossed its blood-coated tusks over and over, giving the lumbering bear no spare second to look elsewhere.
“Behind you!” Cerise shouted, breaking both the bear and lichboar’s attention.
The bear glanced back toward the necromancer as the lichboar swung its head to Cerise, lowering its too large skull down as it prepared to charge her.
Heartbeat pulsing in her ears, focus pinpointing, she steadied Beloved in her hands and braced herself for impact.
“Threxilon, no! Get the beast,” the necromancer shouted.
With a growling huff, the lichboar ground an irritated hoof over the snow then switched directions, charging back at the bear.
Cerise grit her teeth and ran after it, swinging Beloved’s axe at the back of the lichboar’s skull.
Threxilon ducked, perhaps sensing the change in air or hearing the whoosh of the blade, yet Beloved still clipped its ear, sheering off the bristled, pointed tip.
The boar squealed with pain as droplets of blood sprayed, hissing on the snow as it melted through.
The bear swiped at Threxilon in its dazed hesitation, its powerful paw raking against Threxilon’s face, sending the creature sprawling.
Cerise darted around the bear’s back, where the necromancer, who’d been summoning a green haze through his staff, flit his gaze toward the wounded familiar.
In that moment of distraction, Cerise leveled Beloved’s dagger tip at the necromancer’s bearded throat.
He paused, at first tensing as the blade nicked his skin, sticky red running through his scraggly facial hair.
He lowered his staff, the cloying magic around it dissipating.
Threxilon staggered to its feet, staring at the group, and the necromancer’s body relaxed, leveling a cool, disgusted look up at Cerise.
Teeth still grinding together, forcing herself to take steady breaths, Cerise took in the necromancer’s visage.
A dwarf, she stood over three heads taller than him.
His skin had the typical ashen hue of the living who used too much necromancy, slowly killing their own life force.
His scruffy, braided beard was a shade lighter than his wiry, brown, greasy hair.
His hazel eyes shone with hatred. When he sneered, revealing his stained, yellow teeth, his dry lips cracked, a thin line of blood running down his mouth.
Cerise couldn’t help but return the grimace of disgust.
“What are you doing to my forest?” she growled, a sound mimicked by the bear beside her. Its body vibrated with suppressed rage. Snarling, lips peeled back and fangs bared, it looked ready to tear the necromancer’s head off.