Chapter 66: Chapter 66 – False Enemy

A half dozen howls sound out behind me, as one of the creatures chases me, its feet pounding out a rhythm. The gates are mostly closed, only giving enough room for me to squeeze through. I could jump over the wall, but it would be risky, and the others are ready to watch my back, so I charge right into the gap that they give me.

I slip through the wooden doors flying for another dozen metres before I can pull to a stop. The doors are slammed behind me, the creature slamming into them a moment after. Everyone steps back from the gates, even the guards on watch jumping from their towers and raising their weapons.

Theo doesn’t wait for the monsters to start climbing the walls.

“Evacuate into the ruins!” He shouts at the top of his lungs. “Abandon the walls, they’re coming over!”

His cries are carried through the camp by guards and researchers alike. I don’t know how he sees it coming, but a few moments later the first monster peaks its head over the wall, nearly catching an arrow from Nadia.

I’m tempted to grab my own bow, but I’m still horrible with it, and the enemies are so fast that it would be dangerous to take my hands off of my sword right now.

The commotion filling the camp isn’t nearly as panicked as I’d expected. A glance back proves that the people are racing to the open door of the ruins, carrying only small bags with them, and supporting each other when they stumble. It’s not like what I’ve seen from the people of the city. These researchers are more like mercenaries, they know what to do better than I would, and they don’t hesitate to leave most of their things behind.

It will still take time for them to push through the doors into the ruins, but they’re gathered together with guards ready to fend off any monsters that try to take them down. We only need to give them a minute or maybe two.

A shadow flies over the wall, a large beast that crashes and rolls along the ground before finding its feet and sprinting at the nearest prey. Its paws tear up the pressed dirt around camp as it flies for an empty tent, the researchers only a few steps ahead of it run, but they’re too slow.

Adeleya throws a ball of fire at the beast, but the flames only char its fur, and barely make it pause.

“Syr! Play distraction! Everyone else, top of the hill, give her cover!” Theo orders, covering a guard as he deflects the attack of a beast falling from above. “Pay attention to our retreat!”

I don’t spare the time to reply, charging at the beast and smashing my sword into its side as it nearly reaches the pair of researchers. Its teeth scraping the man’s legs, not quite managing to make him bleed.

My adamant sword doesn’t cut but instead clubs the creature aside, the incredibly tough hide somehow taking the blow without his entire body crumbling. The beast tumbles on ahead of me while I stumble to a stop, turning around to make sure no one else is in danger.

This is not a hunt.

It isn’t even a fight.

We’re retreating, and I’m giving everyone time to make it out alive. It’s not what I wanted, but it’s a good thing. A smart thing. Something that makes a difference.

If I were this strong back when my village… No. Not now.

The next attack comes from behind, the smaller creature I first fought outside the gate nips at my heels. I dodge to the side, half-heartedly swiping at the agile little monster while charging at the larger of the two. It’s already pushing itself to its feet, its movements still slowed from my last attack.

It’s still faster than me.

Drawing my shortsword and adjusting my balance, I ready myself for the attack coming. The massive wolf-like monster opens its jaws wider than should be possible its bloodied teeth shining as its messed fur flows back.

The second his feet leave the ground, I thrust my adamant sword into the earth to anchor myself in place. Dropping low to the ground, I thrust up with my shortsword. The strike lands cleanly, punching deep into where the creature’s heart should be.

The weight and force behind its leap can’t stop just because it should be dead, and the furred mass flies over me. I barely hold onto my shortsword, tearing it free as the tumbling body hits my buried weapon, before rolling a dozen metres away.

Sharp teeth sink into my arm while I’m still recovering from the attack. The smaller creature nipping at me while I’m distracted.

Before I can even take a swing at it, an arrow whistles into the creature’s shoulder, sinking in deep. The beast still doesn’t let me go, but when I grab the arrow and kick at the monster’s neck, tearing it free with a great chunk of flesh, the creature’s jaws finally loosen around my arm. Another hit to the snout frees me and I pull away.

My healing isn’t instant, and when I raise my sword, I don’t feel confident in my grip on it. I can’t quite grip things right anymore.

Recovering my weapons, I don’t waste my time finishing the smaller creature. The larger one is still moving, pushing itself along the ground and nearly reaching the main group of researchers at the door to the ruins. Even nearly dead, he’s snapping at them like a starved animal.

I leap up high and thrust my adamant blade into its shoulder to keep it still, pinning it to the ground while it dies. Not quickly enough.

More beasts are coming. We don’t have enough people, and the guards can’t hold off these things very well, but I could do something about that problem. I don’t have an army of skeletons, but I can still do something about this. I can still help.

Forcing my necromancy through the beast, I push at the inviolable core of the creature that I cannot break through. It’s still holding tight to life, refusing to let me take control, but I don’t have the time to waste watching it die.

Using my shortsword in my good hand, I thrust into its chest again and again, mashing its organs and loosening its grip on life until it finally gives in. My magic flows through the flesh, still warm with life, seizing control of everything that it was.

I push myself into the creature’s mind, claiming the creature as one of mine. The memories and thoughts inside are like a great big library, the words are readable if I take the time, but it’s easier to skim through the pictures of the books left out in the open.

“Grey,” I whisper his name, watching the cold monster standing over his cage, rattling his collar and chains.

A creature that fears the light and wants for blood. It takes pleasure in torture, twisting them, and torturing them. Starving them until they lose their minds.

“What…?”

I grit my teeth and glance over at Namor, the smaller of the ‘monsters’, circling us and looking for a chance to take a bite. Her face twisted with simple hunger. Desperate, mindless, and confused. She’s not herself.

Swallowing back my convulsing stomach, I see Lymir, Harkon, and Farro. Friends of Grey’s, their coats are torn and matted, their eyes empty of reason. He has seen them hunt, and fight, but this is different. This is madness.

“Grey. Fight. Protect.” I grunt the order, focusing on the battle through Crow’s eyes and sending Grey to the opposite end of the camp to fight off the men and women that he was once friends and family with. Nadia and Adeleya have noticed what I’ve done, letting Grey run free from their attacks.

They’ll lecture me later. They always do, but it’s better that they’re alive to lecture me.

Goro, the largest of their village, leaps over the wall and I attack before he can even set his feet on the ground. Grey’s memories spark at the sight. The great warrior Goro would never be so easily struck, and even though he rolls away and finds his feet again quickly, he growls low and hungry.

He snaps out at me again, and I thrust at his face. He’s fast but has no sense of pain anymore and tries to push past to claw at me. A second jumping swipe helps me to get some distance from him while an arrow and a fireball hit him hard in the back leg, slowing him down.

They’re more resilient than most things that I’ve had to fight, even if they’re acting more on instinct now than they normally would. If they fought as a pack, like they should be doing, we’d already be dead. They’re strong, very strong. Their madness pushes them even harder, but that makes them less dangerous in some ways.

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Grey tackles one of his siblings, Lymir, holding her down and biting down on her neck to hold her in place while the last of the researchers rush down into the ruins.

“Syr!” Theo shouts, everyone gathering near the door, ready to cover me as I return.

“Grey!” I call, pulling at his instincts and sending him back to Namor, his cub, as she’s stalking down Lothar. He catches her in his jaws, before wrapping his arms tight around her to keep her from escaping.

Not leaving them to wait, I charge in after my team, following them down into the ruins. Georgio is already closing the door while the others fight to hold back the rest of the enemies trying to pack themselves in after us. Grey has to fight to squeeze in front of them, pushing his daughter out for me.

“No!” I shout, grabbing the writhing furball and holding her down while the door pushes down. Grey backs away, his job done.

Lothar is already pointing his sword at the struggling beast in my arms. I roll in the way, getting scratched in the face by the young girl and taking Lothar’s sword in my shoulder at the same time.

“Syr!” Lothar shouts, pulling his sword back.

“No!” I shout, headbutting the writhing monster. “We save her!”

She barely even reacts to my attack, opening her jaws wide. I twist around, forcing my injured forearm deep into her mouth. Her teeth sink into my flesh, even though I’m hardening it with my magic. She doesn’t seem to care, pulling at my arm as if to tear it off.

“Syr?!” Adeleya tries to butt in, but Theo is faster. He pushes me to the side, pressing the creature down and forcing his arm under her jaw. It won’t be enough to make her pass out, or even to make her let go, she’s holding me down, driven insane by whatever that thing did to her.

Leaning in closer, I whisper into her ear.

“Namor, everything is going to be okay,” I whisper, the words that Grey gives me. Words that he’d say to her every night in the cages.

She tenses, and Theo tears her jaws open for me to pull my arm out.

 Lothar and Nadia are already here, holding down her arms and legs.

“Georgio, we need a locked cell. Now!” Theo orders, holding Namor up to his chest.

“This way!” the lead researcher replies, rushing ahead of us and clearing everyone else out of the way. Theo handles the young creature easily, tossing her into the room and kicking her away before slamming the door shut after her.

“Can I know why we’re keeping it?” Georgio asks, raising a brow as he looks between us.

“We need to know what it is,” Theo explains, not needing even a moment to think. “The greatest danger for a mercenary is the unknown, a creature like that needs to be properly studied and catalogued. If it has a weakness, we need to know. If it has a strength, we need to know that too.”

“And a young one would prove less dangerous… but why was it thrown down here by the other one?” He asks, looking thoughtful. “What was that?”

“I know as much as you do,” Theo shakes his head, looking down over me. “Syr, can you heal yourself? Do you need a healer?”

“I can heal myself.”

I zone out, turning my eyes back to the surface. The fighting has stopped now that we’re gone, and the insane people are rummaging around in the camp looking for anyone left behind. I wince as someone starts pounding on the doors, attracting their attention.

Will they survive? Or will they keep fighting like this until they pick a fight with something that will kill them?

I think it’s probably going to be the second one.

Georgio is gone after another brief discussion, leaving us alone. The others don’t even have to ask, I already know that they want answers. They’ve supported my crazy ideas, and they deserve that much.

“They’re people,” I say, my voice stopping before I can say anything more. “They’re people. A person… a hunter, a vampire, captured them and did something. He drove them mad then made them do this.”

“They’re people?” Adeleya asks, touching my shoulder and leaning down beside me. I’m healing myself, but there’s something different about the injuries, making it difficult to heal them. I feel hot all over and my blood pulses through me painfully.

It’s not enough that I have to be worried yet, I have the power to deal with it, but if there are others? Weaker healers with lots of patients? Or the people not being treated, locked in that room because we thought they were vampires.

“They’re people,” I insist. “I saw it in Grey’s head. They were a village before they were attacked and made to do this.”

“How?”

“They…” I sift through the knowledge in Grey’s thoughts, but if there’s an answer then I can’t find it flicking through the most obvious layers of his mind. “I don’t know. They weren’t angry and hungry. The vampire did that to them. Did something to make them sick…

“Get the healers. I think…” The fever, Grey felt it too. “Everyone bitten needs to be healed, right now.”

I jump to my feet and stumble as the heat runs through my veins.

“Lothar, Adeleya, reinforce the entrance to the ruins. Nadia, with me. Syr, do you know how long it will take before you… stop acting like a person?”

“A day or two,” I say. Grey’s mind gets muddy after he went insane, and it’s difficult to tell time after that.

“Okay, then we have time,” Theo says. “How is…?” He points to the surface.

“They’re gone, Grey and Crow are keeping watch,” I say, shaking my head and curling up. “The tents are a mess.”

“The door is safe?”

I nod, his tension easing a little at the response.

“Remember to be careful of the other monsters in here. Getting taken by surprise now is the last thing we need.” Theo says, leading us away while Namor pounds on the door that we leave behind.

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