The Ghost's Crusade

XVI: Akkali (cont.)

"We need to find Basilides," said Tiernan, turning towards the western woods and sprinting for the treeline. "He's controlling them from somewhere nearby if he could see that. That hex is only visible to living eyes, and only for four hundred yards."

"That fool need to ask the bastard why just can't be ignored can it!" she called after him.

"No, I've a powerful desire to cut the head off the son of a bitch," he shouted back over his shoulder. "Are you going to join me or just comment about how stupid we humans are until the smoke clears?"

"Both!"

Kneeling down she placed her hands on Jansa's shoulders, pressing her forehead against the mutt's muzzle. With a bit more concentration than she normally used she raised a barrier of magic around the dog, hoping that it would hold together long enough to keep her reasonably safe as they headed straight into the enemy's stronghold. Scratching her ears, she stood back up and ran after Tiernan down the sloping valley that contained the road up to the mine, then straight into the treeline from where all the homunculi had come.

She caught up with Tiernan easily, scanning the woods for any sign of life. They hadn't traveled more than a hundred yards in when a woman's shriek caused them to turn sharply north and tear through the underbrush towards its origin. A few moments later a maniacal cackle of the sort only uttered by vindictive witches in bard's tales followed. The trees ahead of them seemed to wither in the twilight as something sickly yellow overtook them in a thick cloud of miasma. It seeped into the bark like it was sap itself and then vanished from sight straight into the earth, pulled down like a blanket over something wholly unnatural.

Tiernan locked Akkali's arm in a tight grip and harshly yanked her to a stop. "Killing field."

"Papa! Mama!"

Hearing the shout she tore free of his grip and charged through the forest, pushing through the thick undergrowth until she reached the source of the sallow light. She recognized the stooped form of the barback Imarin, his flesh drained of any lifelike color as the ground itself reached up and pulled at every part of him, dragging him back down again and again as he struggled against the trap which had already stripped his soul. That he was still fighting the magic of the fresh killing field was astonishing; most gave up once they felt their spirit leave their body and resigned themselves to their damnation.

She ran forward and knelt down before the man. Recognition washed over his face as he grabbed her shoulders and fought the drive of the magic to kill her. "A madman-he took my little girl, killed my wife. We were just trying to leave this damn city. Please, please take Hallia from here!"

"Direction?"

Imarin managed to lift an arm and point further into the forest where the shadows clung to the ground like draperies. Then he grabbed her about the neck as everything left of the man was swallowed up in the foul hex of the killing field and tried to wrench her skull free of her body.

A broadsword cleaved the Enkiri's arms in two at the elbow, then came down and pierced through the back of the man's skull and sunk into the earth with a wet thump of finality. "Saor in seo animae Deireadh profanis."

Akkali pulled the severed limbs away from her throat and threw them on the ground, knowing that it would only be a moment or two before the magic revivified them to resume the attack. She rolled to her feet and took off in the direction Imarin had pointed, Tiernan close on her heels with his sword still drawn.

She shifted her grip on Arathron's staff, letting magic creep bit by bit through her body and into the wood. As she did it became even whiter than before, shedding the dull ash-gray it had been to take on the color of freshly fallen snow on a glacier. She could hear Tiernan stalking behind her cautiously, though she no longer worried about whether he was going to drive his sword through her spine. The look on his face as he had severed Imarin's head was one of cold and determined focus. He wasn't letting the man get away with what he had done to the girl's father, regardless of whether or not he was Enkiri.