The Inquisitor took stock of what he had to work with and realized he had absolutely nothing but memory. Luckily he had a very good memory, but if Cyril had already managed to magically entrench herself within the girl's body he doubted merely a spoken ritual and his own willpower would be enough to force her out.
Across the discordantly colored field the mindless ball-fisted homunculi lurched towards Akkali, a wave of reanimated flesh guided by a single mind, their empty eye sockets bouncing from side to side with their useless heads as their skulls rocked from shoulder to shoulder. He felt the hairs on his arms and neck prickle and then stand straight out from his skin and noticed the thick musty library smell of the air burn away. Looking up he saw the markings along Akkali's exposed hands take on a rusted scarlet color and then stretch out, wrapping around the staff in her hands like a rapidly growing vine. Soon the staff was encased end to end in twisting tendrils of magic energy, and it wasn't stopping there.
Much as he had seen her do in the mine shaft, a solid wall of wavering magic expanded outwards from each side of the staff, bending backwards and striking the trunks of the trees that surrounded them. Each tree her magic touched was drained of the rancid colors that had overtaken it and returned to a lifelike shade. Behind him he heard the air crack as the wall closed up around them, sealing them inside a barrier of magic.
For a moment the homunculi hesitated, spreading out along the boundary of the wall as the one controlling them tried to figure out what to make of it. Then they surged forward as a single unit, stitched fingers colliding with the shifting magic and bouncing back as though it really was made of brick and mortar. Akkali stood rooted and unwavering even as the homunculi hammered on the barrier right in front of her face. It was as though she could see nor hear a thing going on around her.
In his grip Hallia writhed as Basilides', or rather Cyril's, spirit fought with her. The Oratio had possessed her body before he had been able to kill Basilides but the girl was obviously making her work to take full control. That was good, at least; unwilling subjects who could still fight back were the most receptive to the countering hex. Cyril was also weak, if her previous frustrated statement were to be taken at face value. Though she was young Hallia had a small chance.
Pressing one hand against the girl's forehead he shoved her head down rather unmercifully into the wet earth hoping it would make it harder for her to move and fight. Cyril screamed as though there had been a sword driven through her chest, writhing and biting at his other hand as he kept her chest pinned flat. After a few seconds of failing to gain purchase she started kicking with her feet, pummeling his armored side with barefooted blows that were probably breaking Hallia's toes. The mutt did what she could to keep her legs from flying about, eventually settling on clamping her mouth around the girl's right shin and relieving half of Tiernan's trouble.
"Come, blood corrupted," he whispered, tuning out the rising din of Cyril's murderous shrieks and the mounting fury of the homunculi's blows against the barrier keeping them at bay. "Come, spirit subjugated. By the grace of life redeemed. By the heart of sins for-"
Startled out of his recitation he watched as the same odd tendrils of magic he had seen in the tavern now sprung up from the damp earth all around them. The reached out and pierced through Hallia's limbs, spearing through her flesh and causing the Oratio to shriek in protest. Driven on by their master's fury the homunculi began to throw themselves again and again against the magical barrier summoned by Akkali and the shield began to waver.
Now pinned firmly to the earth by roots of magic that were slowing spreading along the ground towards the homunculi, Hallia's eyes shot open, blood red orbs with absolutely no white in them at all. "Filthy vine-skinned heathen! I will not loose to you!"
"I can't keep this up forever, damn it," muttered Akkali through her clenched teeth, her voice seeming somehow distant and hollow. "Do something."
He looked from Hallia, fixed to the ground by wavering spears of energy that extended from the base of Akkali's barrier. Then he looked up at Akkali herself, her knees starting to buckle beneath the onslaught of the homunculi as she struggled to keep her wall up. Placing his hand back over Hallia's forehead he restarted his recitation.
"Come, blood corrupted. Come, spirit subjugated. By the grace of life redeemed. By the heart of sin forgiven. May this power part the sea. May this prayer uplift the soul."
Swearing in a language he didn't recognize Akkali hit the ground on one knee and Tiernan felt the earth buckle at her collapse. She struggled and failed to return to her feet as another wave of homunculi poured out of the shadows and joined in beating down the Enkiri and her wall. They were so thick the creatures tripped over one another trying to gain purchase with their fists against the magical shield. It seemed as though every homunculi on the field assaulting the Wessinberg lines had turned their focus on them as they attempted to destroy their last remaining creator.
Tiernan closed his eyes and focused, repeating the recitation again as fast as he could manage it. For some reason it wasn't working, though he knew he was doing everything in his power correctly. He had exorcised spirits before, though none from someone so young, and none had been as powerful as he expected the Oratio was. It was almost like Cyril was a fishhook that had looped through Hallia's soul. As hard as he pulled with words and will the Oratio's spirit was stuck fast.
"Akkali, can you hear me?"
"What the bloody hell is it now?" she hissed angrily, never turning her attention away from the homunculi onslaught.
"The rite alone isn't working. I need you to help me force her out."
"You're asking me for help with your witch-hunting rituals."
"Listen you cynical wretch. I can't pull her out and without a holy relic I can't push her out given I'm not a witch myself." He glared at her back hoping that some of the frustration he was feeling would bore through her spine and make her feel the tiniest bit guilty. "Lend me a hand or I'm going to have to cut the head off this child."
With a deep breath Akkali pushed herself off the ground and propped herself up to stand using the silver staff like a cane. She glanced back over her shoulder and he saw that she had once again ripped several stitches free, a thick paste of rust-red blood mixed with sweat and dirt slathered across half of her face. "Explain quickly."
"We need to push Cyril's spirit out," he said, clamping his hand down over Hallia's mouth as she made to scream her dissent at the plan. He felt her teeth sink into the flesh of his palm and swallowed the curse he would have dearly liked to utter at that moment. "Like an arrowhead. Normally I could do it with the rite and one of the hexed holy relics but since I don't have one you're going to have to provide the secondary push."
"Never easy is it," muttered the Enkiri.
"You escaped slavery in the Empire," he replied. "How difficult can this be?"
"Don't patronize me you ass." She twisted her hands together and gritted her teeth so loudly Tiernan could swear he heard it over the din of the homunculi hammering away at the barrier. "You had better damn well be ready for anything, Inquisitor. I have no idea what this will do to people like you."
"What do you mean 'people like me'?"
"Not Inferi."
True to form Akkali gave him absolutely no time to prepare, turning around with the staff gripped in one hand while keeping her left fist planted firmly against the magical wall fending off the homunculi. The barrier shrunk dramatically as whatever she was doing shifted, the walls closing up around them until they were within his elbow's reach. They now sat enclosed in a column of magic which was rapidly cycling through shades of orange and red as though someone had carelessly tossed scarlet dye into a frothing whirlpool. Each enemy fist hammered against the barrier created a new swirl in the color, and the longer Tiernan stared at the constantly merging and re-merging spirals the more dizzy he became.
She forced the base of the staff against the center Hallia's chest and said in a low and vicious tone, "I will not be loosing to some inbred Imperial whore."
As Tiernan began repeating the exorcism rite in full he watched as the silver wood shifted into a seething white color which began to bleed over into the tattered dress the girl was clad in. For a moment he worried that the fabric might catch fire before he realized that it wasn't the dress but the flesh beneath that was starting to glow pale and white.
A wave of homunculi broke upon the barrier and quickly surrounded the greatly decreased area it shielded, hammering away with fists and occasionally foreheads in attempts to break through. Akkali stood rigid against the assault, her eyes narrowed and fixed on his face. "Exorcise faster, Inquisitor. There's more of them headed this way."
Ignoring the urge he had to ask her exactly how she would know something like that he redoubled his efforts to push Cyril's spirit out of Hallia's body. He had participated in only one exorcism himself, though every Inquisitor learned from their very first days of training exactly what was expected to happen during one. He thought that with Hallia being Enkiri it would have been easier to separate her soul from the human one trying to take over the body, but that was proving to be very wrong. Either Cyril had already obliterated what was left of the little girl's soul, or they were too indistinct from each other to start with.
"I can't get a firm hold on Cyril's spirit. I don't think I-"
Akkali growled at him almost like a feral dog. "Try harder."
"You don't understand, it's not that-"
The Enkiri shrieked in pain and crumpled to the ground on one knee. Tiernan watched the swirl of colors cycling through the barrier explode into one brilliant flash of red as another wave of homunculi piled atop the ones already hammering away. He counted at least three dozen of them smashing their ill-stitched fists and faces into the wall stopping them from swarming the two like a nest of enraged hornets.
Pressing her forehead against the staff still clutched in her fist she muttered, "Keep trying, zealot!"
"Stop arguing, wretch!" he shouted back in reflex.
"Useless bastard," she snarled through clenched teeth.
Tiernan's jaw locked up before he could reply, caught off-guard by something wholly unnatural rising from the earth on his right. He twisted his head to the side and watched as a tendril of white magic erupted from the ground and twined itself around Hallia's arm like a constricting snake. A moment later three more wound themselves around her remaining limbs, each sprouting thin vine-like wisps which sunk into her flesh and finally ceased her struggles against the Inquisitor.
"Fear me, Oratio," hissed Akkali. Her voice at that moment was unlike anything he had yet heard from her. Each word echoed with a hatred he could feel like white-hot steel from the forge pressed into his face. "I am your death eternal."
Something creeping up his spine caused him to lurch forward and loose focus on what Akkali was doing, startled that something might have broken through the barrier when he wasn't looking. More of the strange white magic was wrapping its way around his feet, crawling up his back and twining its way down his arms to his fingers. It was an odd sensation, warm where it came into contact with his flesh but somehow making him feel even colder than should have been possible given the clime. Sleep started to weigh heavy on him, and if he wasn't keenly aware of the fact they were surrounded by raving homunculi he might have laid down and given in to the unnatural exhaustion beginning to gnaw at his mind and weigh on his eyelids.
"Focus, Inquisitor," wheezed the Enkiri, coughing hoarsely as the siege refused to relent.
Shaking his head to ward off sleep he focused on his task he restarted his incantation a third time and found that the words came more quickly than they had before. He spoke them as fast as he dared, focusing on the differences he knew there had to be between the Oratio and the girl, and the further along he got the more clearly he could see the face of Cyril, not Hallia, staring back at him from the ground. He remembered the Oratio as being unnaturally attractive when she had been sent before the headsman in Warsfenn, one of the long-haired dark-eyed beauties Drystan used to rave about meeting if he ever made it back to the Empire proper. Those that had gathered and all been of similar opinions, remarking how strange it was that someone so lovely and graceful could have done such gruesome things. Some even believed she had to have been put up to it by a cruel husband or father figure.
The creature staring back at him, however, was what Cyril truly looked like: an emaciated, years-withered woman with sallow skin and sunken, dead eyes who had kept her beauty by means of hexes and magics powered by unwilling souls stripped from nameless victims. Veins of black bile traced up and down her neck and arms, seeming to grow only more pronounced as the light being given off by Akkali's magic flared brilliantly against the shadows the spirit struggled to draw around herself and conceal her presence.
Tiernan reached forward and grabbed at the shade as he saw it separate itself from the little girl, but his fingers passed through it like smoke and dug into the chilled earth. He tried again and this time the threads of magic that had entwined themselves with his hand sprung forward and snared the spirit like the hooks of a fisherman's line. As he continued his incantation Cyril shrieked as what remained of her soul was pulled apart piece by piece, the hooks becoming little claws that reached out and tore away at the creature in harmony with his spoken words. The more he wished the claws to become larger and work faster, the more of them appeared, first from his arms, then springing out of the shaft of the staff Akkali still held firm against Hallia's chest. They shredded Cyril's ghostly form like ants disassembling a carcass and whisked the pieces away into the brilliant white light flowing from the staff as though it was their nest.
A forceful crack of thunder in his face threw him back onto his rear and ceased his recitation. His eyes widened as he watched the remains of Cyril's spirit disappear into the staff, her final wail of defeat causing the homunculi beyond the barrier to assail it in one last unified attack of futility. The staff shifted in color from a sickly yellow to a putrid green before the white light began bleeding back into the wood.
Robbed of their leader and their purpose the homunculi staggered about in frustration. With her left fist still planted firmly against the flickering red-orange wall, Akkali pushed herself up to stand and lifted the staff away from Hallia's chest, then buried the end in the earth with a pained cry of effort before collapsing back to her knees. She reached out her free hand and patted the mutt that had followed her on the head, then exhaled slowly and lowered her chin to her chest. The dog whimpered uneasily and pressed its body up against her thigh, settling its head against her knee.
Tiernan leaned forward and checked on Hallia. The binding threads of magic that had held her in place while he pulled Cyril's spirit from her had dissipated, though there was still a faint glow where they had been that was almost mist-like in its consistency. After making sure she was still breathing he lifted her head up from the ground and tried to rouse her.
"Hallia?" he said softly, keeping one eye on the girl and one on the flailing homunculi just beyond the barrier. "Hallia, you need to open your eyes for me."
She flopped over in his arms and grabbed at his sleeve with a frail hand. "Papa... Mama..."
Sighing in relief he wrapped his arms around the girl and said, "It will be all right, child. You're safe."
"Someone was singing to me, just like my nana..." Hallia whispered, looking over at Akkali. "They're hurting her!" She stared up at him with wide silver-blue eyes. "You have to stop them!"
The Inquisitor looked back at Akkali. She still sat where she had collapsed, her shoulders slumped and her hand splayed against the barrier she still somehow kept intact against the disjointed but infuriated attacks of the homunculi surrounding them. After watching her closely he realized her markings had dulled from their white-silver color into a deep emerald green that would have been perfectly normal for any other Enkiri and the air around her had taken on a chill like the depths of winter itself.
Hallia pulled weakly on his arm and when he failed to react quickly enough to her pleas she began slapping him frantically on the shoulder with both hands. "Help her too! Can't you help her? You're an Inquisitor! You can kill those things!"
Tiernan set the girl aside and rose to stand, claiming his sword from where he had left it at his feet. Moving to test whether the barrier only kept things out, he pressed his own hand against the swirling orange-red magic and suddenly felt glacial teeth sink deep between the bones in his arm and tear at his flesh. He recoiled almost instantly, shaking his hand free of the numbness that followed. Nothing had been permanently damaged, but he doubted he had the strength to force his way through the wall.
"Shit." He knelt down in front of Akkali and waved his hand in front of her face. When she didn't move he finally became worried. "Can you hear me?"
The only answer he received was a slow exhalation that blew a puff of fog in his face. Looking around he summed up the remaining homunculi that surrounded them. Over half of them had scattered to the trees, most likely the ones that had been created last. The oldest ones, the ones most closely attached to Cyril and Basilides, were undoubtedly the ones that lingered to hammer away at the place where they had last felt their masters' pull. Even so, he doubted he would stand much of a chance against so many of them. They would certainly slaughter the defenseless Hallia and most likely the mutt that sat at Akkali's side. He could only focus his attention on so many directions of attack at once when forced to fight with a sword instead of his longbow.
With a slight bit of amusement he could hear the cannon fire had finally changed directions. Instead of lead balls striking stone the air was filled with the distinct thwumps of the artillery impacting earth and flesh, broken up occasionally by the thunderous crack of canister shots being loosed against denser ranks of roving homunculi and ripping them to shreds in a hail of shrapnel. Then he heard the distinct metallic shrang of steel biting into bone in a direction nowhere near the Wessinberg lines.
Tiernan turned his eyes south and tried to see through the wavering magic wall that was being pummeled by the homunculi. He heard the shout of one of his more senior Inquisitors announcing the finding of another horde of the imps fleeing into the woodlands. It was followed by a decidedly more panicked-sounding voice from behind one of the larger trunks nearby.
"Tier, you're still alive in there, right?"