Return of the Favor
Once again united with the remainders of the vampire hunters' squadron I hurried to pick our way toward the lower tier where one of the two bells we were looking to take over was located. Now that I was already familiar with the layout of the cathedral's corridors I easily oriented myself in the mazes of passages and confidently led the way for my human companions to follow. However, their knowledge of the system of secret tunnels was a worthy skill as well, and at some point of our travel it proved to be valuable for another time.
"Wait, Raziel!" Bolgor shouted after me when I was about to turn round another corner.
I looked back over my shoulder and saw the leader of the hunters' squadron standing about thirty yards away from me and leaning upon the wall with his arm. He was clearly out of breath after the hard running, and his brothers Zolyn and Ansek appeared to be badly emaciated too. It was needless to say that these humans could not move as fast as I did, and the exertion it had taken them to catch up with me must have been dreadfully exhausting.
I ran back to them, thinking that they wanted me to allow them a brief respite, but then much to my pleasure Bolgor dissuaded me out of this assumption.
"There is another concealed passage here that can save us a lot of time." he said hoarsely, visibly trying to recollect his strengths as quickly as possible.
Upon this phrase one of the arbalesters walked about ten more feet past me and pressed some brick in the wall, while the other one did the same still standing where he was. The indicative groaning noise was instantly heard from the left wall and then one of its huge bricked fragments moved sideward, revealing a long flight of curved stairs leading down into darkness.
Bolgor stood erect and walked to the opposite side of the corridor where he took a torch from the wall, then returned to the new-opened entrance.
"Come along!" he called on and hastily entered the tunnel, his brothers inviolately stepping after their commander.
I was the last one to walk into the passage, and once I did the shunt fragment of the wall that opened the way for us to enter immediately moved back into its place, shutting almost pressure-tight.
And so we went down the stairs into the obscurity, the flames of Bolgor's torch and my ghostly sword lighting our dark path from two sides. The walls of the passage were thickly lined with dust, indicating that it had not been opened for a very long time. Evidently neither the Zephonim, nor the vampire worshippers were aware of all these immured sections inside the cathedral, or at least of this particular one.
As we kept on descending deeper I began to notice some strange murals painted on the tunnel walls. Their style pointedly related to the human artistry, which was recognizable by the distinctive profile and side views of the portrayed figures. Yet the themes of the pictured events were far more difficult for me to decipher. The first mural I discerned depicted a group of humans worshipping a creature with multiple pairs of arms and two heads. The next mural showed the same two-headed multi-armed creature lying defeated at the feet of his former worshippers that were now praising another being that looked like a winged dragon. And finally, the third wall painting to come into my view described another group of humans drawing up in line to give alms to a creature that resembled some kind of a gigantic sea-serpent.
All the murals were made in a relatively easy technique without any precise details or peculiarities of the painted figures, which gave me an impression that their authors were more focused on sending a certain message to those who were meant to see them in the future rather than recreating the sight of these scenes.
"Do you know what events are depicted in these murals?" I asked one of the two crossbowmen pacing ahead of me.
The one marching closer to me gave me a brief look through the bars in his black helmet and then glimpsed at the last painting with the serpent as if he had never noticed it there before.
"No." he said without much pondering. "These pictures had been made by the architects of the cathedral centuries before we were even born."
He paused for a second then added, "Seems like pieces of some arcane mythology to me."
I made no reply, realizing that he was simply no right person to discuss such topics anyway. Nonetheless the information about the age of these paintings was rather worthwhile in its own way, for it raised another elaborative question: if these frescos really were that antique, were the events reflected in them the mere folklore fantasies of their authors or in fact some reality-related occurrences that had either happened by the time they were portrayed or were predicted to happen in eons to come?
Shortly afterwards the hidden passage brought us to the intended target as Bolgor found a lever in the dark and pulled it to open another wall fragment in our way. We walked out of the tunnel into another empty corridor - a complete twin of the majority of corridors we had already been in, with no differential signs of the scenery to mark our next step.
"Do you remember which way is the bell to be looked for?" I asked Bolgor, seeing that the passage we were in now offered little hint.
"Absolutely." the mortal replied steadily and carelessly threw his torch aside. "Our way lies to the right."
Without losing a second we immediately followed Bolgor's direction, each of us again beginning to run as fast as one's legs could move. Just like before I ran ahead of everyone, my enhanced speed carrying me away from the hunters for a quite considerable distance. Though the passage Bolgor led us through had already greatly accelerated our progress I was still determined to reach both bells at the earliest possible moment before the Zephonim or their human zealots would have been able to suspect anything and unearth our intents.
But soon it became manifest that these hopes were not meant to come to fruition when all of a sudden I detected the imminence of another unfriendly ghoulish creature on our way. Strangely enough this time there was no sound of rattling arachnid legs or trails of vampiric aroma in the air to disturb my senses, but merely a very untypical, but distinct visceral feeling of impending danger. And though I was unable to pinpoint from where exactly it was coming I was dead sure that the stalker was somewhere close, so I started warily whipping around myself with the Reaver raised at the ready.
"What happened, Raziel?" Bolgor hailed me from behind.
"Stand back!" I shouted, halting them with a gesture of my left arm. "We're about to get ambushed!"
The hunters stopped in their tracks and alarmingly drew their weapons, preparing to meet the upcoming attack. Our enemy, however, was still nowhere to be seen, while my sensation of it being somewhere nearby just would not stop ripping up my inside like an itch that could not be scratched. I still kept looking in every direction and so did the warriors, all of us trying to see or hear any signs of the insidious threat.
"Where are they?" bawled out Bolgor. "I don't see anything!"
I left his question unanswered, still continuing to concentrate on whatever could signify the apparition of our foes.
Then after a short moment of deadly silence I heard some rapping coming from above. I glanced there and saw the ceiling beginning to creak and crack in several places with dust and sand heavily cascading down from all the clefts. It lasted several seconds until the cracked area finally collapsed completely, huge bricked fragments falling down with wallop and kicking up thick yellow clouds of dust that momentarily blanketed the entire corridor.
I sheltered my eyes with my left forearm, trying to keep at least partial view of what was happening, but once I discerned the first silhouettes of dystrophic spider-like figures starting to drop from the aperture the source of aggression became pretty clear even despite the poor visibility.
As the dusty clouds subsided there were already about seven Zephonim - both adults and fledglings - present in the corridor, half of them turned to face me and half of them turned to face the vampire hunters. I did not know if they were anyhow aware of our plan and the part the humans were playing in it, but they were clearly intent upon demolishing all of us at one go. I realized that now I would have to rapidly battle through the whole pack of these ghouls to prevent them from getting their hands on Bolgor and his brothers, otherwise the top of this contaminated cloister would never be attained.
Suddenly one more Zephonim dropped into the middle of the vampires' sprawl, its back at first turned to me. This one was another adult, yet there was something unusual about its appearance: the contours of its body seemed to be surrounded by some lurid glowing blue aura like the one the inhabitants of the spirit world usually had.
Then the monster turned its snout to me and I beheld the same blue light gleaming from its eyes, lastly grasping the reason for that disturbing feeling of the approaching hazard that I had recently experienced.
This Zephonim staring at me now with its burning sepulchral gaze was a revived vampire, similar to the one I had met before on the Melchiahim clan territory. Once dead, but now reanimated back to life with the return of its wandering soul to its corpse this ghoul was now like me a dweller of both material and spectral dimensions, which is why I had sensed its forthcoming even without any physical signs of its presence. But the worst part about this similarity between us was that this beast was now a soul-devouring creature too, which made it capable of obliterating me for perpetuity.
Apparently it was a little precipitant for me earlier to have told Bolgor that my enemies could not destroy me, as I had cleanly forgotten about those of them that could invade this realm from the Underworld. After having recalled the battle with that revived Melchiahim vampire in the Necropolis and how it had nearly decimated me within an inch of my existence by draining my soul energy I comprehended that now there weren't only the lives of my human companions, but my own at stake in this combat. The only difference between the previous fight and the current one was that now I had the Soul Reaver to even my chances against this living dead fiend and its pack-mates. This time I had to retain the sword's power by all manner of means, for one slightest mistake could be separating me from the most fatal issue.
Galvanized by the extremeness of the situation I providently took the defending stance, leaving the privilege of the first strike to my opponents. The Zephonim did not linger to take that opportunity and advanced on me straightaway, two of them concurrently clinging to the aisle walls and shooting web at me.
I jumped back, evading both strings of sticky substance, as in the very next breath another arachnid lurched at me with its spiked arm cocked for a diagonal blow.
Having already become used to these beasts' speed and fighting style after all the skirmishes I had had with them I managed to sidestep the attack in one split-second move and then slew round full circle, cutting the monster across its fibrous torso in two with an inverted swing of the wraith blade.
The Reaver cried out a howl of triumphant gluttony once the exorcised soul of the devolved vampire was sucked into its flame, as I quickly turned my attention to the remaining combatants. The ghouls looked to be shocked at how easily I had eliminated their partner and no longer seemed to be hurrying to throw themselves at me.
After a short moment of constraint the two wall-hanging Zephonim started slowly and cautiously crawling in my direction, while the revived one remained standing on its place in the rear, its posture though discernibly showing that it was ready to spring into action at any moment. Obviously these wretches were trying to lure me out of the defensive position and then assault me collectively, but I knew better than to fall for it and continued to patiently wait for a suitable chance to counter.
Several seconds of constrained duel of tenacities passed and then the Zephonim on the left wall had lastly snapped and leapt at me with an aggressive shriek. This was the very movement I had been anticipating and I promptly lunged forth as well, skillfully sliding under the flinging beast and shearing it with the wraith blade between its legs.
The arachnid ghast thumped down on the floor and began to scream in unadulterated pain, savagely spilling a crimson spray of blood from its cleaved groin.
I swiftly climbed back to my feet, looking to capitalize, but then the revived ghoul standing abaft had eventually decided to join the fight, dashing at me with both its forepaws spread for a hard shot. The thrust didn't catch me off-guard, but it was still very abrupt and I only managed to roll away from it without applying any countering manouevre.
Once my feet hinged upon the solid ground after this tumbleset I rapidly darted back at the living dead ghoul, aiming at its eerie fanged muzzle.
To my surprise the revived Zephonim didn't try to dodge my attack, but instead sped forth at me in the same manner, its clawed forelimb shot directly into my face. It was almost as if the vampire knew that I was apprehensive of getting injured and was ready to run into my assault for the sake of still inflicting damage on me.
In a fraction of a second I realized that I needed to somehow redirect my move and writhed in mid-air like a serpent, avoiding the monster's streaking talons by a hair-breadth's, but doing this at the cost of missing my own shot as well.
We landed about ten feet away from each other then simultaneously turned around, our firing gazes meeting once more in ambience of boiling fury and adrenaline. To the left of me the sounds of obdurate battle between the hunters' cohort and the rest of the Zephonim's pack could be heard, but I tried to put it aside for now, knowing that I could not afford to be distracted until I was done with my most formidable adversary.
The resuscitated vampire and I started slowly circling each other, each of us biding one's time for a moment to deliver another lightning-fast stroke.
Suddenly my vision caught a glimpse of the distant wall behind my enemy's back and I noticed that the fourth Zephonim that used to hang on it seconds away was no longer there. I comprehended that in the full rage of the struggle I had lost the sight of that beast, and now its unpredictable location could put me in some very undesirable jeopardy.
I fluently swept eyes over the place, trying to spot the skulking ghoul, as the returned-to-life Zephonim instantly took advantage of my disorientation and pounced at me.
I ducked from the rush, but this time the deformed vampire didn't stop there and continued to take further swipes at me, forcing me back to the passage wall. The creature's lithesome moves would not leave me neither time, nor room for a precise counterstroke, and I realized that I had to change my tactic to get out of this onset.
After evading another swishing blow I jerkily leapt aside out of the gollywog's way and rolled toward the distant wall. The Zephonim hastened to creep upon me, but I quickly recovered my feet and drove the beast back with a threatening flourish of the Reaver blade.
The undead brute took several precautious steps backwards then bended all its limbs with a loud crackle, looking to take a spring at me. Once it did, I made a back somersault, planting with my feet against the hind wall and then propelling forward with acceleration.
As the being landed on the ground and then saw me diving at it with the wraith blade swung behind my head for a crushing blow it crustily bounced back, but for this once my swoop was too fast to be eluded that easy and I still managed to graze the ghoul's snout with the sword's flaming nib.
The revived Zephonim recoiled back from the contact with the Reaver's ethereal corpus, getting its whole face burned and its lower jaw split nearly in half. As the wounded arachnid began to screech and pluck at its scorched and gashed muzzle with blood heavily dripping on the floor through its sharp claws I lastly became ready to recapture the initiative and finish off the monster for good.
But when I made a move to send the ghoul's raptorial spirit back to where it had come from something abruptly snatched me by the right shoulder and dragged me back with force. The unexpectedness of the jerk made me lose balance and fall, my husk getting lugged hard against the bricked fundament like a sack of bones.
I angrily glanced over my shoulder and found it being stuck to a thick mesh of cobweb stretching forth toward the shadowed corner of the corridor. This revelation got me even more enraged and I viciously tore the web-string with my left-hand talons then jumped back to my feet, eager to confront my lurking assailant.
In a few seconds a pair of radiating diabolical red eyes peered out the corner's gloomy space and then the skeletal frame of another spider-like ghoul stepped into the light, its clawed paws still holding the other end of the cobweb. Without much heart-searching I fathomed that it was the very ghoul that had escaped my field of vision earlier before.
Infuriated with that sneak-attack it had carried on me I discarded my defense strategy and for this once charged first.
The Zephonim skewed from the lethal sweep of the Reaver to the left then attempted for a backlash, but I countered by chopping its face with my free hand talons.
The blow momentarily rendered the beast blindsided, allowing me to gain the momentum and drive the wraith blade straight into its gaunt thorax.
With a flash of power the Zephonim's bony carcass exploded, its charred remains hurtling almost all over the passage.
As the Reaver joyfully gobbled another unbound soul I redirected my attention back to my previous adversary. The revived arachnid had already recovered after its injury, the wound on its jaw almost completely healed with only the blackened scald from the wraith blade's fire still covering most of its snout. And so had recovered another Zephonim standing behind it whom I had maimed in the groin earlier before. Despite me having been dominant in this combat so far I had only managed to get rid of two ghouls by now, while two more still remained alive, including my most serious foe. With their regeneration ability the vampires could not be neutralized even with the most powerful shots unless only they impaled, decapitated or implicitly eviscerated them. I had to make my further attacks more precise and direct them at the monsters' most vital organs if I wanted to prevail in this confrontation.
But with such proficient enemies as the Zephonim it was easier said than done.
Both Zephonim again started slowly pacing about me, looking to be trying to surround me from subtending sides.
Suddenly the ordinary vampire yarely jumped to the right wall then bounced off it upwards, hitching with all its limbs to the ceiling. Then the predator rapidly scaled the vertical ground in my direction, its scraggy paws moving like crazy.
Sensing that the beast was up to something disastrous I swiftly leapt into the air after it, trying to knock it off the ceiling with the sword.
At the nick of time the Zephonim dropped back on the ground, snaking off my vault and causing me to land on the floor with my back turned to it. As I did, the ghoul jumped me from behind, brutally biting into my flesh with everything it had.
The drastic energy depletion at once gave me the sickening feeling of faintness, but this faded in comparison with the perception of the most terrible thing to have happened – the loss of the Soul Reaver's power.
The feral vampire on my back continued to sink its fangs and talons deeper into the cloak of matter covering my astral body as I fondly kept on striving to throw it off me.
Quite by chance I got an insight of what was ahead of me and saw the revived Zephonim also making a menacing move toward our grappling duo.
As the living dead ghast swung its forelimb at me I realized that the things were about to get even blacker and brusquely twisted about myself, exposing the arachnid on my back to the coming blow. The shot immediately wiped the Zephonim off my spine, letting me get out of its 'embracement' and temporarily retreat a safe distance from the epicenter of this butchery.
As I recollected my strength and looked backwards a most fascinating spectacle came into my view: the Zephonim that had just accidentally taken the undead vampire's hit for me was now getting its soul energy siphoned by the latter. Apparently it happened automatically each time a revived ghoul injured another being, but in any case the soul-sucking beast did not seem to hurry to break this streaming flux of energy flowing from its partner's wound into its voracious mouth.
The deflating Zephonim was screeching in agony, experiencing perhaps the most terrifying and excruciating feeling possible – the gradual bereavement of its living essence. But an ordinary vampire soul was not as adapted as the spiritual essence of a wraith or a specter and could not sustain such exhaustion for long, so in less than a few moments the arachnid's spirit was already drained to the very last drop. When it happened, the energy flux between the vampires disappeared, and the gaze of the desolated one went unseeing before its emptied body turned into dust like a crumbled statue.
The eyes of the revived Zephonim glared with repletion and then the monster set them on me, the glowing blue halo delineating its body now becoming even brighter than before. After the devourment of its fellow's soul the burn on the ghoul's muzzle had vanished completely, but the beast still didn't seem to be satiated yet and was now as before regarding me with a hungry gaze, its vile chaps slobbering detestably.
Behind me the sounds of massacre between the mortals and the vampires still wafted loudly, but I could not even cast my glance there, being aware that taking eyes off my opponent even for this instant could be a fatal distraction. The ultimate fight with the living dead arachnid was inevitable, so I vigorously spread my talons wide then squatted knees and flexed my spine, taking a convenient position for a quick lunge.
At last it was going to be a one-on-one struggle, with no other ghouls to help my rival, but with no wraith blade to help me as well.
Once more the undead Zephonim and I began to slowly walk lines around each other like two wild lions that were about to decide in a mortal combat which one of them was the true monarch of all beasts. The revived vampire measured me a good while with its flamboyant stare; its slow monotonous moves making me feel nearly mesmerized. Only a couple of minutes had passed since the very beginning of this brawl, but the tension filling the air of this place evoked sensation that the fight had already been lasting for hours.
Then a tiny flicker ran over the ghoul's burning eyes and it tore at me all in a breath.
It was my heightened reaction and reflexes that saved me from the slice of talons across my mid-section, and once the danger blew over I instantly took the offensive and charged back at the Zephonim.
The monster responded with a dodge of its own, flitting away from my attack so fast that its scrawny bulk almost blurred in the air. With both of us being extremely nimble and agile this confrontation was manifestly not going to be an easy one.
We started exchanging mutual repetitive feints and recharges, both moving featly and dexterously as if we were almost dancing in the midst of the carnage between the humans and the vampires taking place a dozen yards away from us.
For a long moment none of us was able to hit one another, but at some point I managed to outperform the Zephonim and catch it with my cloven hand across its torso.
My blow budged the arachnid off its place for several feet backwards, its black hind limbs harshly nuzzling against the floor from impact.
Seeing that my thrust had thrown the ghoul off its stride I dartingly bolted at it again to deliver the winning stroke, but then in the dying second the reanimated vampire sprinkled a blob of soupy web from its wrist right into my eyes.
Blinded, I flitted past the revived Zephonim by inertia and dropped on my knees then started feverishly scratching at my face to dispose of this goo the beast shot at me.
The whole process took only several seconds of my time, but even that was more than enough to provide my adversary with the margin of speed it needed.
The moment I managed to peel the viscid substance off my eyes the returned-to-life beast fiercely ravened at me and slashed me to the back of my neck. The attack took me almost entirely by surprise and I fell face-burst with no single chance to keep my feet under me. In the same second the horrifying sensation that I had been so afraid of enduring again had finally overcome me and I instantly felt the strength of my very being beginning to bleed out of me.
I looked about me and clapped eyes upon the painfully familiar streamline of soul energy being carried away from my body into the soughing maw of the resurrected vampire. Just as before in the Necropolis it felt like my whole essence was being drained into nothingness, slipping out of my grasp like water through fingers.
Calling on the remaining reserves of my strength I forced myself into standing and tried to break the soul-devouring contact by distancing myself from the Zephonim. But the predator knew better than to let me escape so cheaply and at once seized me by the legs with two slings of webbing, again making me collapse to the ground and then starting to drag me back to itself like its captured prey.
Prostrated and dispersed I attempted to sink my talons into the bricked fundament to repress the draught, but the energy was leaving me too rapidly and my muscular power slackened altogether. Unable to withstand any longer I gasped in dismay and helplessly hurled down the floor, too weakened to even concentrate on retreating to the spectral realm.
Slowly my spiritual frame began to fade away and once again in a long period I felt the dreadful sense of the impending end that I didn't expect to come here and now envelop me. It was not the first time when I was going through this torturous state of being on the verge of absolute abolition, but now the idea of dying at the hands of a being little more sentient than a bogus animal was making this torment feel not only agonizing but humiliating as well.
With blousing veil of dizziness starting to cover my vision I feebly stared at the blurry figure of the revived Zephonim in front of me edaciously engorging my soul energy, its obnoxious face looking almost elated.
As the desolation of my spirit came to its maximum my eyes began to close flaccidly, embracing the inglorious defeat that now seemed ineluctable.
The grip of doom seemed to be already closing shut on me when all of a sudden I heard a raucous squeal of anguish coming from afore and then sensed that the last drops of my soul energy that I thought were about to be drained dry now mysteriously remained intact. For several seconds after this I continued to lie on the ground almost insentient until the poor residue of power left in me began to bring my spirit back to reality.
Once my vision cleared a bit and the first ray-lets of conscience returned to me I discerned that the flux through which my living essence was being siphoned off was missing, while the Zephonim that had been trying to exenterate me was hysterically howling in anguish and clutching with its elbowed front limbs at two metal bolts protruding from the back of its bloodied skull.
Before my clouded mind could even figure out what had happened my eyes saw Bolgor furiously racing at the revived vampire with its sword swung wide for a deadly shot almost in the equally same fashion he was when he came to my aid during our previous fight with the arachnid ghouls.
As this wisp of memory illuminated my inner self I perceived that for the second time in a row these humans had selflessly come to my help even despite my having told them not to risk their lives on my part. And if the first time it really was not that necessary, then for this once they had truly saved me from what could have been my ultimate downfall.
But unlike the ghasts we had battled heretofore this undead beast would not stay down even after two precise headshots and still managed to counterattack Bolgor with one brutal swipe of its forelimb that knocked the blade out of the man's hands and even tore a massive piece of plate from his armor.
The leader of the vampire hunters' squadron crumpled down and the head-wounded fiend began to pace toward its flattened victim, still grunting from the attenuating trauma. Then the Zephonim leaned over the warrior's hunched up body and aimed its right limb for what was probably going to be a deathblow, making me realize that the terrifying demise I had just evaded by inches could now be about to greet Bolgor.
My power was already starting to come back, but the body was still too extenuated to even sit up straight and the reserves of my soul energy were so poor that it would take only a couple of minutes for the flesh decay to shove me away to the world of the dead.
It was only through sheer force of will that I managed to align on my feet, struggling the trembling feeling of limpness with every move.
Once able to stand more or sure I summoned all the strength that remained in me and leapt at the resurrected Zephonim from behind, drawing my talons all the way through its unsuspecting back.
The monster whose sense of danger was now blunted by its injury gave another startled ear-piercing cry of pain as my left hand reached for its heart and squashed it like a rotten apple.
When I felt the warmness of blood-steam starting to run down my arms I took my hands out of the ghoul's spine, letting its skeletal carcass fall face-plant.
After that a new ethereal form began to burst forth from the vampire's cadaver like a snake crawling from a narrow hole. It was a vampire wraith – a devolved vampiric soul that had once managed to reinhabit its former corporeal vessel and was now being forced to abandon it for good. The world of the living was not its native realm and here its form was only a faint outline of itself, and even that was growing less distinct with every second.
Still the moment the wraith clawed its way through the Zephonim's corpse its visage temporarily became revealed to both me and Bolgor, and the leader of the hunters' squadron goggled at the inconceivable being emerging before him in intrinsic horror.
Once the phantom predator completely erupted from the flesh it used to occupy it wailed loudly and then disappeared altogether, leaving me with no soul energy to feast on at all. Unlike the ordinary souls the essences of vampire wraiths could not be absorbed on the physical plane and thus escaped into the spectral realm as soon as they broke loose from their carnal shells.
The last attack on the revived Zephonim had pushed me to the limits of my durability and now that the combat was finally over I could not help but drop to my knees with fatigue.
Beside me Bolgor lay frazzled as well, breathing heavily and dripping with sweat. But if his stamina was slowly, but steadily recuperating, then mine was only depleting none the worse with every passing moment, leisurely approaching the state of total desolation.
After a while Bolgor managed to raise himself upon an elbow and speak to me, "Th-thank you…" he murmured with a hearable painstaking.
I tried to pull myself back up too, but my eroding body just would not respond and I had to answer him with my face still nestled into the floor, "I'm the one who should be thankful in this situation..."
Bolgor said nothing at first, then smiled wryly the way he seemed to have a habit of doing from time to time.
"I told you that you would need help." he giggled, but his giggle quickly turned into cough.
In the meantime Bolgor's brothers Zolyn and Ansek had come up to us. Both arbalesters were eminently bruised and macerated, all hobbling slightly and missing several pieces of their heavy black armor here and there. Their quivers were empty, which meant that they had run out of arrows and the very last ones they had were spent on the living dead Zephonim.
"Are you alright, commander?" one of the crossbowmen asked.
"No worse than it ought to be." their leader replied in a confident tone and his brethren helped him get up.
Once on his feet again Bolgor took several seconds to gather his breath then gave me his hand in a proud and respectful gesture of help, which I comfortably grabbed by the cuff of the gauntlet and constrainedly pulled myself up.
When I rose to my feet I found them to be still shaking with slackness, threatening to drop out of me at any moment. Somehow I managed to keep them under me, but then my whole carcass began to blink and fade, indicating that it was a matter of seconds when my physical body would utterly dissolve into nihility.
At the sight of my evanescing frame Bolgor sharply shrank back from me, almost knocking off his fellows standing behind him.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked with a mixture of concern and puzzlement.
"My energy is dwindling…" I croaked. "I need a soul to feed…"
All three hunters exchanged glances, the one and only visible on Bolgor's face displaying pure bewilderment.
"Is there anything we can do, Raziel?" he referred to me uncertainly.
"Proceed to the first bell and wait for me there." I replied. "I'll be back in less than no time."
Before any of the warriors was able to say something in return, I released the matter around my haggard body, letting it dive into the liquid-like atmosphere of the spirit world. Only in this very moment I caught the notion that my promise to be back 'in less than no time' was a more than apt figure of speech, for in the realm I was entering now the concept of time was the one of no meaning at all.