Chapter 2: The Ankouzes Tomb

"Get up. Rin!" The Lieutenant was not gentle and much of an ass.

"Captain wants you in the officers' mess."

I groaned. I cursed. I proclaimed a curse of the worse death. An idiotic grin spread over his face, pinched the nerve in my elbow, rolled me onto the floor.

"I'm up already!", I groaned and felt around fro my boots.

"What the hell is the reason for waking me up so god-damn early?", I gritted my teeth, he was gone, of course.

The officers and sergeants were all there.

"Will Blessing pull through, Rin?" the Captain asked.

"I don't think so, but I've seen bigger miracles."

The Captain went on about our strange 'visitors' the other day.

"But the Syndic is being stubborn. He's still upset about the conquest of Pearl. I suggested he be more flexible," the Captain continued explaining what's happened.

Gabby snorted, "We should refuse if he tells us to fight those northerners?"

"Possibly. Fighting a sorcerer could mean our annihilation."

Wham! The mess door slammed open. I backed up closer to the wall as the small, pudgy man blew inside. Captain jumped up and clicked his heels, "Syndic."

As always he had to make a big show. He viscously slammed his fists on the tabletop several times.

"You! You ordered your men to with draw! I'm not paying you to cringe like dogs under its master's boot."

"You're not paying us to become martyrs, either," the Captain said, reasoning.

"We're not the police, maintaining order is not our job."

Like everyone else, the Syndic was frustrated, tired, scared, and emotionally frayed.

"Be reasonable," the Captain suggested, but almost a plea. "Beryn has passed the point of no return. The streets are ruled by chaos, the cure is now the disease."

I liked that; I had begun to hate Beryn.

The Syndic shrank into himself, "Then there's the matter of the ankouze. And the raven from the north, waiting off the Island."

Perump came our of a half sleep, "Off the Island?"

"Just waiting for me."

"Interesting." The little wizard lapsed into semi-slumber again.

I produced a copy of our agreement as Captain and Syndic bickered about the terms. He fussed over a lot of meaningless stuff, wanting to throw his weight around.

Token started snoring, making it harder for me to not even giggle at the display before me. Captain soon dismissed us, resumed arguing with our employer.

I guessed about seven hours passed as I slept, then Perump came in and woke me. I looked around as a dozen others joined us, not realizing what was happening.

"We're going to look at the tomb," Perump said.

"What?" I wasn't fully awake and everything caught me off guard as my doziness slowly wore off.

"We're going to GoNome Hill to take a look at the ankouze tomb."

"Wo, now wait a minute…"

"Scared? I always thought you were Rin."

"Grr, What're you talkin' about?"

"Don't worry. You'll have three top wizards along, with nothing to do, but baby-sit your ass. Toad would go too, but the Captain wants him to stay on guard."

"Why are we going?"

"To find our if vampires and werewolf's are real."

"Neat trick."

The ankouze threat has done what no force of arms could, stop the riots. Perump nodded, dragging fingers across his little drum thus the name.

I wrinkled my nose in frustration as we came upon a dog mournfully howling his fallen master.

"The price of order," I muttered, the dog won't budge either.

"The cost of chaos," Perump countered, and thumped on his drum, "Not quit the same thing, Rin."

We reached the tomb; it looked as were told by rumors and legends. It was very, very old, and where the lightning-blast could clearly be seemed. On think oak door had once held strong was not in toothpicks and fragments laying scattered for a dozen yards.

Silent pulled me behind him, as we got closer. Thought it was kind of funny, if I went somewhere Silent wasn't far behind. Course usually Spider wasn't either seeing as how he is my guardian and all. Token, Spider, and Perump put their heads together. Token and Spider then took stations flanking the door, a few steps back.

Perump faced it head on. Perump was doing his thing again, flinging his arms up oddly, like a parody of a martial artist, "How about you fools open the door?" he growled.

"Idiots. I had to bring idiots." Wham-wham on the drum, "Standing around with fingers up their nose."

Silent and I growled at Perump, he was sometimes very pompous, we grabbed the ruined door.

It fell easily. Perump being the smartass, he rapped his drum, let out a battle cry, and jumped inside. Token bounced inside, Spider moved up behind him in a fast glide.

Inside Perump let out a high-pitched girly scream and started sneezing. He stumbled out, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, eyes watering.

He went gray, "Wasn't a trick." He said sounding like a bad cold.

"What do you mean?" I demanded. He jerked his head towards the tomb. Spider and Token came out sneezing. I slid to the doorway with Silent close behind and peeked inside. I couldn't see anything; dust was as thick as the trees in the neighboring forest. My eyes adjusted as we stepped inside.

There were bones everywhere. Bones in stacks and heaps, bones sorted neatly by the insane. Strange bones they were, similar to those of a man, but to my medical knowledge of weird proportions.

There must have been sixty bodies originally. They really did pack them in way back then. Ankouze for sure… Beryn buries its villain's uncremated.

I shifted, there were fresh corpses too. Before I started sneezing, screwing up my vision I counter eight dead soldiers.

I dragged a body outside, let go, stubbed backwards, it was sick. Silent caught me from flying back too far. I smiled faintly at him as he helped me regain control, I turned back to examine my prize.

The others stood around looking ill, I felt a little relieved that I wasn't the only one.

"No phantom did that," Token said.

Perump nodded vigorously in agreement. More shaken than the scene called for, I thought. Spider got on with business, conjuring a small breeze and had it sweep it thought the tomb. Silent stepped closer to me as I shifted, the smell of death.

"You okay?" I asked Perump.

He looked at my medical kit and waved me off.

"Just remembering. I'll be okay."

I shifted again, damn, I felt someone's eyes boring into me, but couldn't see anything. Silent moved closer for comfort.

"Remembering?"

Perump tilted his head, "Yeah, we were boys, Toad and me. We had just been sold to become apprentices of Martigan. A messenger came from a village back in the hills."

He bent down beside the dead soldier, "The wounds are identical."

I tried not shake, but I was scared. Nothing human killed that way, but looking at the wounds they seemed calculated. The damage seemed deliberate, the work of a malign intelligence. That made it more terrible.

I knelt down and began my examination. Spider and Token eased back into the tomb. I swallowed hard, "NO bleeding."

Perump shifted uneasily, "It takes the blood."

Spider dragged out another mangled corpse.

"And the organs when it has time."

The second body had been split from groin to gullet. The heart was missing. Spider went back inside, Token came out shaking his head.

"Well?" Perump demanded.

"I wish it was a prank like me first thought… but this… it's the real thing."

I felt sick, Silent knelt down beside me, steadying my sway.

"There were sixty nine of them sealed up in there. They are each other. This is most likely the last one left."

Perump jumped. I looked at him, "What's wrong?"

"That means this thing is the cunningest, nastiest, cruelest, and craziest of the whole lot!"

I felt really uneasy, "Vampires? In this day and age?"

Perump sorta leaned, "Well… not strictly vampires. It's like… umm… a werewolf sort of. Walks on two legs by day and four by night."

I stiffened, the peasants around my home village tell such tales, but this was one I never heard of. Silent helped me up.

"They're from the far south. The jungle," He stared out into the sea. "They've got to be buried alive."

Spider deposited another corpse. Heart-eating, Blood-draining Ankouzes. Ancient darkness-wise, filled with a millennium of hatred and hunger. The stuff nightmares are made of.

I looked up at him, "You can handle it, right?"

He shifter, "Martigan couldn't. I'll never be his match and he lost an arm and a foot trying to destroy a young male. What we have here is an old female. Bitter, cruel, and clever. The four of us might hold her off. Conquer her, no."

He was shaking. He gripped his drum so tight it started creaking. I shifted uneasily, 'old female, umm how could he be so sure?" my thoughts died as Silent glances at he- telling me not to pursue the conversation.

Beryn's streets remained as starkly silent as those of a city overthrown, but chaos died.

Spider, Perump, and Toad tracked the monster. Feeding the hunger of an age, the thing only seemed to function on a purely animal level. The factions besieged the Syndic with demands for protection.

Captain wasted to time.

"Our situation is grim," he paced tirelessly. "Beryn is demanding a new Syndic… they've asked for the Company to step aside."

Somewhat of a moral dilemma.

Captain continued, "We're stubborn and tough. We honor our commitments the best we can, but we don't die for lost causes."

Questioning his unspoken proposition, I protested, I'm very traditional… except for the whole women are inferior thing.

"Rin, the question of survival of the Company is the one of the table."

"Captain we've taken the gold, it's honor that's the question. For centuries the Company has met the letter of it's commissions. Consider the Annals, even during the Revolt of the Chilins."

"You consider it, Rin."

"I stand on my right as a free soldier."

I was irritated. I felt Silent come up beside me; it was obvious that not everyone agreed with me.

Lieutenant nodded his head, "Rin had the right to speak."

He was more of a traditionalist than I. This action took Silent by surprise I could tell, for the longest time he'd get into glaring matches with Lieutenant cause I was a women.

I talked for a while, but half of me did want to sell out.

"Are you finished yet, Rin?"

I sighed, "Fine if you can find a loop hole, yeah I'll go along with it."

Perump mocked me with a drum roll.

Toad chuckled, "Leave that all up to Token, after all he was a lawyer, that is before he found a better job in pimping."

Token took the bait, "I was a lawyer? Your mother was a lawyer's-"

"Enough!" Captain cut him off with a large fist on the table.

"Rin gave the ok, go with it, find the out."

The others looked relieved, even Lieutenant. My opinion, as Annalist and physician, carried more weight than I liked.

Silent was really close by, I shifted the room was really crowded.

"An obvious out is the termination of the Syndic… In our battered state, who could blame us if an assassin slipped past?"

Perump gave me another drum roll, "You've got a disgusting turn of mind, Rin."

I looked at him in irritation, "Well we would maintain the appearance of honor. We do fail as often as not."

Captain's face broke out into a grin, "I like it. Ok, let's break this up before Syndic asks what's up. Perump, you stay, I've got a job for you."