IRON SOULS
IRON ARC
I: Cathedral and Dock
Caithas pushed open the fire-scarred, rotted doors of the cathedral, and saw that bodies littered the floor of the place, and yet more lined the walls, as if placed there by some gentle hand. Unfortunately, they also seemed quite fresh, and this confused Caithas as to when the city may have burned; if the city itself had been burned nearly to its foundations, why were there a mixture of decayed corpses and then these fresh ones? It just didn't make much sense to the swordsman, and as he pored over this, he began to walk forward. He happened to bump his foot on one of the corpses, and it stirred with an unholy moan. As if responding to the solitary cry, several more groans and various raspy noises floated through the air as quite a few more corpses sat up and began to struggle to their feet.
Caithas looked around as at seven Hollows stood and began to shamble towards him, unarmed. Their arms hung limp by their sides, the skin on their arms just as drawn as the skin on their dead faces. He noticed that their eye sockets were blackened, yet they seemed to still be able to see. How he hadn't noticed this while fighting the first Hollow that he encountered, he'd never know, though he'd later chalk it up to panic and the desperation to survive. However, he knew now that if he didn't move fast, he'd be torn apart despite the armor he wore.
He tore towards the first Hollow he laid eyes on, and he sent his blade arcing through the air towards its arm, severing it from the elbow down, and he completed the swing with the shortsword slicing down into the top of another Hollow's skull, almost splitting its head in two. He withdrew the weapon as the monster fell dead, and he twisted around to stab another one in the stomach. Caithas brought the blade up savagely, carving into its chest, and he withdrew the sword and kicked the Hollow away as he struck another with his small shield. He brought his shield crashing into the neck of the first Hollow he had attacked, crushing its throat, and he finished it with a quick slash across the chest. He turned to see the Hollow he had stabbed standing up from where it lay on the ground, and it staggered towards him.
Caithas knew full well he had to keep moving fluidly or he would be overwhelmed, and with that, he brought his blade through the wounded Hollow's throat, sending its now-disembodied head tumbling to the ground. He jammed his shortsword into the fourth Hollow's ribs and punched his shield into its face, crushing the remnants of its nose. He pulled the shortsword from its ribs, and he tripped it with a swift lower kick that sent it crashing to the ruined floor of the cathedral. He hacked away quickly at a fifth Hollow, carving up its torso and sending it staggering backwards, and it fell dead as he decapitated the last standing Hollow. With that, he finished off the last Hollow that had attacked him with a sword through the back of the head. The beast screeched briefly before finally dying, and Caithas withdrew his weapon from the dead creature, stepping away from the carnage-filled scene.
Dead Hollows had finally joined their scorched compatriots, with some body parts laying next to the forms that had once possessed them. As Caithas took the time to observe the shattered, bloodied windows of the place, he heard soft clapping come from behind him. He whirled to see a man in a ragged longcoat, a rare thing these days. The longcoat-wearing man wore a leather doublet on his torso, and wore a pair of black leggings with brown boots. The other man himself had incredibly white hair, and his eyes were bloodshot and almost entirely red as thus. "I see you've come to this cathedral, perhaps in the hope of getting out of Rast. Well, I'll introduce myself. I'm Jien Lamar, the former priest of this church. You may be asking yourself even now, 'Why former? And what is it with your eyes?' Allow me to explain: The fire ripped through this church and slaughtered almost all of my flock, and my eyes...they are worn red with worry, worry for the survival of this place."
Caithas grunted demurely, and responded, "In that case, I am Caithas of Rast. I don't know why I'm here in this ruined city, but I just want out. I need to get away, and I don't care where I go." This earned him a chuckle from the longcoat-donning priest, who replied, "Well, then. You'd be best off going to the docks of this place. The fire caught throughout most of the city, though I noticed the docks are relatively unscathed. In fact, I even saw a rowboat there. But, don't rest easy yet," said Jien Lamar, "as there are still yet beasts in your way. You're not going to have an easy time of it; in fact, I hardly survived the trip from the docks back to this ruin."
This brought a worried expression to Caithas's face, and Jien Lamar felt his body shake softly with an effort to contain mirth. "Oh, worry not. I watched you as you slaughtered those demons, and you handed them with aplomb. Surely you can handle a beast at the docks. Well, on with you then. I need to organize last rites for all the souls that lie here. I would've done so when the fire had finished burning then, but it had been chaos, so I had had to hide."
Caithas crossed the room and clasped Jien Lamar's shoulder. "I thank you for your help, friend. I hope that you endure this place. It's still dangerous outside the cathedral, even in the ashen streets."
Jien Lamar looked calmly at the knight before him, and said, "Endure? There's nothing left to save here, my boy. The city's burned nearly to cinders, and anything that's walking out there is either one of those mindless demons or a soulless marauder who wants to pillage anything that still stands. You've proven to be an exception, but I root myself in reality. In any case, you should go. I fear for my life and yours both even as we stand here...The last thing you should know is that the door at the back of the church leads to a tunnel that leads to the docks. Good luck to you, Caithas of Rast. You'll need it every step of the way."
With that, Caithas nodded grimly at the former priest, and set off to the back door of the church, which was behind the dimly lit altar, and he opened the half-broken wooden door. He closed it behind him, and Jien Lamar watched as the knight left the cathedral. The priest picked up a sword that had been dropped in the church by a marauder who had been killed in the fire, and he looked over it. He began to murmur a soft prayer to the Ancients, his hands stroking the blade as he spoke the words to himself. When he finished, he took one long look at the sword, and he raised it high. He plunged it into his own belly, his eyes widening as the cold steel sunk into his stomach. He fell to the ground, twitching as his hands left the sword. As he convulsed in his death throes, he gasped to himself, "Nothing...left...to save..."
Meanwhile, as the priest prayed and committed suicide, Caithas was halfway down the small tunnel, and it was nearly pitch-black in the stone recess. He couldn't observe his surroundings, as there was almost nothing to see but the light of the door that was a ways ahead of him. He strode slowly towards it, half-full of dread due to the fact Jien Lamar had said there was a terrible beast waiting at the docks. He pondered how he would deal with it, whatever it was, as he neared the doorway, and he could tell that the door was damaged, like the one he had come through at the ruined church's altar. He reached out for the knob, and made to turn it, but the door fell away from its hinges as he pushed it, causing him to stumble, and thus lay eyes on the monster that awaited at the docks.
Caithas's eyes grew wide as he observed the...thing. He wasn't sure how to describe it, other than a massive lump of what appeared to be sludge that formed numerous faces in its many sides. It pulsed with the sludge that comprised it, and it groaned rather loudly every few seconds. Feeling as though he would eventually be driven mad by the sound, Caithas began to charge towards the docks, making his way down steps with considerably less ash on them than the streets he had walked to reach the cathedral. The steps down to the dock were made of limestone, but time's passage had led to them being bleached white and pockmarked with signs of age, such as many of the stairs being chipped and some outright broken away. Caithas charged down now, his sword and shield in hand, and even as he moved he could feel the breath slowly escaping him, as if urging him to stop and rest, but he disregarded the feeling. "I don't know what that thing is," he gasped as he approached the massive sludge pile, "but I intend to kill it so I can get out of here!"
As if it had heard him (which it most likely did), the abomination turned slightly, as if to face him with one of its many visages. Its low, trembling moan filled the air around the two combatants, and it shuddered slightly as it began to move towards Caithas. The knight prepared himself by bringing up his shield, and as if he had expected it, a massive spike shot out from the creature's mouth, and it struck against the shield, causing Caithas to stagger backwards from the force of the blow. Caithas lowered his shield as the massive spike retracted, and ran towards the monster, and he began to strike into the mass that was this horror, his each and every stroke desperate.
Caithas realized that it was going to do something as it looked to the smoky sky above, and then it seemed to almost belch out a skull. Caithas found the skull almost trivial, until it began to drift towards him. He realized something was off when he saw the pinkish glow in its eye sockets, and he found himself right – and too late to move – as it began to gather power, and then it exploded in a burst of magical power, sending Caithas flying backwards against the shattered steps, breaking some more of them on impact. The knight struggled to his feet, clutching his shortsword and his shield. That precise moment was when he realized that this creature wasn't one of the Hollows he had so easily vanquished in the cathedral; this was something that could kill him with ease.
He then decided that charging in blindly would bring him death and nothing else, and he began to study the horrifying monster that writhed across the docks from him. A spike shot out from its mouth, and he raised his shield to block the blow from the monster. He capitalized on the moments that it took retracting the protrusion to strike out at it multiple times. This eventually devolved into him circling around it, deflecting its blows as he would strike at it afterward. To Caithas, it was almost...boring. The battle didn't carry the exhiliration that the battle against the seven Hollows had held, and he didn't feel as though it would be particularly exciting to fight this beast any longer.
Finally, it tilted back again, as if to belch out another skull. Caithas grabbed onto the sludgy beast and climbed onto its supposed chin, and he plunged his weapon over and over into its mouth. It screamed as he struck at it over and over, the bloodlust in his eyes taking over as he removed his sword from its mouth. He jumped away slightly and thrust his sword out, causing it to carve a downward line through the body of the beast. It screamed inhumanly as it began to die, deflating and spreading out, dripping into the water of the docks below. It eventually exploded into a shower of light, and Caithas saw something where the beast had been. He walked over to it and picked it up, and saw it was a large lump of some kind of rock. He decided it would be valuable to keep, and he tucked it into a pocket.
He turned to see a pair of rowboats, and one of them was severely damaged, yet another was in pristine condition. He climbed inside the working boat, and grasped the oar, and began to stroke the oar through the water, pushing himself forwards into the ocean, and away from the burnt kingdom of Rast...
END OF I: CATHEDRAL AND DOCK
THE NEXT CHAPTER:
II: LARANDAL
