Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 268

The rain came out of nowhere, sleeting from dimensions unseen to appear as a fine mist. It fell slowly and Kerubim was amazed how gentle it was. It dripped upon his head, leaving a wet residue like sweat over his hairless scalp. Upon his gorget and breastplate it clung, forming droplets while his exposed arms glistened with moisture. He had expected a raging fire, he had thought the Noxia Interregnum would burn his skin and tear at the flesh of anyone exposed, but to him it was merely wet. The ancients failsafe was designed for one foe alone, specifically created to end the Hungering and no other, so it ignored the living. But for the constructs it was a nightmare.

All around false men and women collapsed, their skin steaming in the rain. It tore through them like acid, sloughing outer layers away. Clothing and hair dissolved into green mist, fingers and feet melted as their faces collapsed inwards. Noxious green droplets fell as their Nanocytes were infested with a Binaric virus, compelling them to produce Phospex, until it destroyed them. Bodies fell apart as puddles of acidic green spread, bones and internal organs appearing in the swamp, only to break apart in the vile brew.

Dannye was on his knees, holding his hands up before his face. The rain fell upon him as the finger of doom, condemning him to oblivion. He seemed to be struggling to understand it, watching as his fingers dropped off and arms withered to sticks. They soon dissolved too, leaving him a slumped dishevelled thing, jerking randomly as muscles were consumed from within. A faint voice issued forth, a last cry of confused horror as Dannye toppled reciting, "Error, errror, errrrrrrooor, eeeor, eroooooooo…"

Kerubim watched until Dannye was gone, destroyed utterly, leaving only a noxious cloud of vapour in his wake. "So end all Traitors," Kerubim growled triumphantly.

"Crow later dunderhead," Wulfe spat, "We gotta haul arse!"

"Huh?" Kerubim started.

"The Phospex," Jordig spat as he double-checked his helm's seals, "It's spreading!"

Kerubim glanced back and saw it was true, the green alchemy was running together, forming a lake of acid. Phospex was legendarily corrosive, attracted to motion and could burn through any armour, or flesh. It was enough to destroy the Hungering, but also fully capable of killing the survivors too. Even as he watched it began to eat through the floor, chewing great gouges into the surface they were standing on. In moments it would reach their feet, then they would be the ones drowning in acid.

"This way!" Jordig cried as he took off along the edge of the drop, trying to steer clear of any contact. Kerubim raced to follow, having no wish to end his days being devoured by green acid. The trio hurried to a stairwell and raced down it, then stepped onto a wall and ran along as if it was as normal as a jog through a park. Kerubim desperately tried to remember the way out but could see no familiar landmarks, even if he did there was no way the reach the entrance. Everywhere he looked constructs were falling apart, spilling noxious toxins into the world as they did so. Phospex was chewing everything apart, ripping free staircases, gnawing holes in walls and melting balconies. Stonework broke free and drifted away, only to be caught in the ever-growing clouds and disintegrate.

"We're not getting out the way we came in," Kerubim pointed out.

"Nah point anyway," Wulfe spat, "There be nowhere to run."

Jordig concurred, "This is occurring planetwide, anywhere the Hungering spread. The ancients made sure the Noxia Interregnum would be enacted globally. Given how much of the planet's mass must have been absorbed by now, the surface will be an ocean of Phospex in short order."

"Then what's our plan?" Kerubim gasped.

"Find Brontes," Jordig spat, "Trust he has a way out he didn't tell us about."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then we die together," Wulfe hissed.

Kerubim accepted this as he put his head down and ran. As they progressed the stone under their feet became more unstable. He could feel it with every tread, the weakness growing as vast chunks of the structure fell apart. It was like running over thin ice, knowing a deadly plunge was kept at bay by only the thinnest layer. One wrong tread could spell their doom.

They crested a corner and ran along a flat surface, even as Kerubim heard stone shattering in their wake. Jordig angled for a rising stairway, only for the stone to break apart as wisps of green mist pushed through from underneath. They veered off instantly, only to find fingers of toxins swarming across their path. In desperation they ducked under an archway, not knowing where it led but having no other option they took it anyway. Kerubim was surprised to find a construct lurking there, trying to avoid infection like a man hiding under a bridge from the rain. He wasted not a moment to shove the thing out of cover, throwing the construct into the rain where the Noxia Interregnum took hold.

They ran past as the figure began to evaporate into green mist and Wulfe spat, "We be running out of space soon."

"Here, left!" Jordig cried as he took stairs three at a time.

They hurried up and came onto a balcony, where Kerubim was relieved to find Brontes. The Cadmus robot was struggling to get his feet back onto a solid surface, pulling himself along hand by hand like a voidfarer across a ship's hull. He saw them coming and snarled, "Don't just stand there meatsacks, get me down!"

"Grab him," Kerubim yelled as he latched onto an arm and heaved him down.

The Cadmus struck at an awkward angle and stumbled for a step, but finally righted himself and spat, "I take it you found the trigger?"

"Dannae have ta," Wulfe uttered, "Pycelo flung Ruuka into that big beastie up there. Killed him, but he took the bastard with him."

"His name will be honoured," Kerubim intoned solemnly.

"Not if we don't get out of here," Jordig hissed, "Brontes, tell me there's another way out."

"Only one," Brontes told them as he set out. Kerubim wasted not a moment to give chase, pounding down a long opening between two crumbling blocks and over a bridge-spar that fell apart as soon as they had crossed it. Every step of the way Kerubim sensed destruction spreading, the strange realm being chewed to bits by the acid bite of Phospex. They saw no more constructs, all of them destroyed, but in their wake the corrosive bile spread faster and faster. Then the light started to falter.

Kerubim's head rose as he saw the fiery ball that lit everything start to blink, the brane shield generator had faltered when it unlocked its potential, now it too was being devoured. "We're about to go dark," he warned.

"Bugger," Wulfe spat, "That's the last thing we need."

"Hurry up," Jordig cried, "Where is it?!"

Brontes screeched around a corner and pointed to a slim tower that stood out from the surrounding buildings. It was upright relative to them, a pointed needle climbing against a backdrop of disintegrating structures. It looked a slim a prospect of escape but Brontes declared, "There, under that tower, there's a teleport array capable of reaching orbit…"

He was cut off as a deep rumble spread across the distance. Kerubim sagged as he saw the tower sway slightly, then fold into itself. The lower levels gave out as a cloud of Phospex gnawed through the foundations, causing the entire structure to implode. The top levels sank like a boat under a stormy sea, swallowed whole by a fog of grit and pulverised stone that surged out in all directions. With a rumble that shook the foundations of the world the tower collapsed, destroying any prospect of escape.

"Shitting hell," Wulfe spat, "So much fa that."

"Any other way out?" Jordig asked in a grim tone.

"None," Brontes growled, "We're stuck here."

Kerubim started to say, "So what do we…" when reality shifted. One second they were standing on flat ground, then next all of them were flung off their feet as gravity abruptly realigned. The floor they were standing on became a wall, the horizontal a sheer vertical and all of them dropped like stones. Kerubim was caught off guard and his arms and legs flailed wildly as he plummeted. There was nothing to grab onto and he fell twenty metres before he slammed into what was once a wall.

The other hit stone with eye-watering thuds, left groaning on the ground. A deep and painful ache lodged in his chest but Kerubim looked up to see masonry falling past, a rain of broken rock all falling towards what was now the downward's direction. Bridges tore apart as their weight shifted in ways they were not meant to, spars ripped from moorings and archways flew away, breaking up as they did so. The realm that had once been a perfect sphere was now a sheer drop, filled with pulverising rock, Phospex and rising darkness.

Wulfe sat up with a groan and grunted, "What happened to there being no up or down?"

"This place is coming apart in more ways than one," Jordig groaned, "The planet's gravity field has reasserted itself."

"Wonderful," Kerubim muttered, "Any way off this roof?"

Brontes heaved himself up and looked over an edge before saying, "Not unless you can fly."

"All I can see is Phospex," Jordig said as he looked over another.

"Go this way and we die," Wulfe spat from a third.

Kerubim cast about and saw they were out of options. There was no way off this roof, no path to safety. All avenues of escape had been cut off and it was only a matter of time till this perch was lost to them. If a falling boulder didn't smash them to paste then the climbing Phospex would eat the ground. He gave it barely a minute, at best, until they were all dead.

"That's it then," Kerubim stated blankly, "We're done for."

"Looks like," Jordig agreed, "Still we took out the Hungering, that counts for something. We go to the afterlife with our heads held high."

"Dead is dead," Brontes grunted, "There's no divine reward awaiting you."

"Speak fer yourself trashcan," Wulfe spat, "I'm gonna be quaffing mead in the halls of my ancestors before long."

Kerubim looked about for one final time, seeing their perch was about to collapse. He didn't know what to expect after death, the Emperor's halls as the Imperial Creed taught or cold oblivion as Brontes asserted, but either way it had to be better than this. Corrosive fumes, darkness and destruction on all sides, hell couldn't possibly be worse than this.

Wulfe clenched his fists and growled, "Any last words?"

"Nothing comes to mind," Jordig grunted.

"Last words are those with someone to remember them," Brontes spat.

Kerubim was about to say something but as he drew in a breath his vox-bead crackled and a faint voice called, "…E in, can… ar me?! I sa… th… Belisarius C… can you hear me?!"

"Cawl?!" Jordig exclaimed, "The vox is working again! "

"But can he hear us?!" Kerubim exclaimed.

"We're a long way underground but if I boost all power to my vox-emitter…" Brontes growled, "Cawl, come in you rancid sack of mouldy bones, we need immediate teleport extraction!"

The vox snarled with interference, "Bare... I ca… hear… but not… well… signal too weak for… eprtort lock. Need…"

"Can you boost the signal any more?!" Kerubim cried as he spied a wisp of Phospex gnawing through the edge of the roof.

"I'm at maximum power already!" Brontes snarled.

"Ah fer Frak's sake," Wulfe snarled, "Get ready for a big kick up the arse!"

The squat reversed his grip on his gravity hammer and did something to the haft. A spike shot out of the butt, a recharge port to replenish the generator. Wulfe twisted a ring on the handle again and then heaved the spike high, ramming it into Brontes' power core input port. Motive Force surged, wild and uncontrolled, dumping the Gravity Hammer's entire capacitor charge into the robot. Brontes' back arched and his hands flung wide as circuits struggled to cope with the massive overload, but with an electric shriek of distortion from his frame he sent a massive pulse of vox into the ether.

Kerubim sensed a static charge form out of the air, crawling over his skin like fire. A deep hum shook the air with vibration as eldritch forces birthed around them, rising into a crescendo of power. Kerubim had one last vision of the chamber falling apart, raining stone and rising Phospex closing in from all sides. Then light erupted in a ball of flaring energy around them, teleporting the survivors away and flinging them across dimensions far away from the dying world.