Riding in Far From a Foreign Land

The hollow wasn't particularly strong, but the iron chest plate it wore was heavy and Eridan had no leverage to throw it off. The mind numbing fear of being jumped by the hollow just when he'd thought himself safe was replaced with a feverish desperation to keep the glowing eyed, corpse-like monsters mashing teeth away from his neck. His arm was trapped awkwardly between them and all he could do was keep his wrist pressed against its neck, stopping it from tearing his throat out but incapable of pushing it back.

He tried to physically recoil into the floor he was trapped against, his pounding heart drowning out every thought. The pounding came to a head when the end of a spear burst from the hollows face. Black blood splattered over Eridan's face, and it took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to mewl outright in fear and disgust. Suddenly the weight was lifted from his chest and smooth hands were wiping the gore away from his face.

"Oh gods, Eridan are you alright?"

"Yeah Fef, just sh-shaken is all."

"Oh my god Eridan I thought you were about to…"

Feferi visibly cringed downward towards Eridan and covered her mouth with her hands as a cacophony of shuffling noises sounds out from the door not five feet away, faint shadows seeping in from the overcast twilight sky. Suddenly he remembered why he'd dragged Feferi, who'd been intent on continuing the search for that filthy peasant Sollux, into the first dilapidated house he could find. The encroaching horde of hollowed undead, one of several that seemed to continually wander the lower burgs of Lordran.

Feferi lowered herself and lay next to Eridan, one hand clutching her scavenged spear and the other nervously stroking her talisman while Eridan internally berated himself on his choice of weapon. While he was brilliant with the rapier, always his weapon of choice, merely piercing vital organs was simply not enough to keep down an undead for long. He'd realized this not long after they'd entered the gods' forsaken city, two years and one exile too late.

Still, he reached down and loosened the strap around his sheath, not willing to actually draw the blade and make any more noise than they'd already made. Or to dislodge Feferi from her place against his arm. Finally calming down, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the floorboards, absently stoking Feferi's arm in an attempt to comfort his terrified charge. In retrospect he realized he should have checked when they'd entered the house to see if it was occupied. He'd been so terrified of Feferi's refusal to take cover from the encroaching swarm, and so enraged that the reason for her endangering herself was that lowly bastard. That said bastard wasn't there to witness his terror at being attacked so unexpectedly was a small consolation.

Internally sighing, knowing that the first thing she'll want to do once the horde passed would be to look for fucking Sollux, Eridan adjusted as slowly and quietly as he could in a futile effort to get comfortable on the cold floor. Judging from the sounds of the footsteps outside it would be a long wait.

~)

Sollux rammed the spear tip of his halberd straight into the stomach of the hollow, pinning the flailing undead against the wall. He could hear the grunts and moans of the other undead closing in around him and attempted to pull his halberd from the hollows stomach. The hollow held fast to the weapon however and after a short struggle Sollux took one hand off the halberds shaft and pulled his talisman from its strap on his waist, snapping the chord in his rush. Gripping it tightly he recited the tale of Force in the most abbreviated form he could manage, rushing over his words and splitting his concentration between suppressing his lisp, which would interfere with the casting of the miracle, and the struggling undead trying to pull his weapon away from him.

He grunted as he felt a blade pierce his shoulder, just as he finished the incantation. The delay between incanting and casting was short though, and before the undead could plunge the blade through his arm a sphere of energy shot out from around his talisman, knocking the undead surrounding him down and blasting the hollow he had pinned even further against the wall.

Seeing his opening Sollux ripped his halberd from the stunned hollow and whirled around, using the axe-head of his weapon to disembowel and behead the hollows behind him. He turned again just as the hollow he'd pressed against the wall gathered itself and lunged forward at him. He rammed it back into the wall with the spear point, quickly withdrawing it before thrusting back into the hollow's chest twice more. Finally the hollow ceased struggling and crumpled to the floor, dead.

He and his companions learned not long after crossing the northern mountains that no single mortal wound short of beheading, bisecting, or severe disemboweling would really kill an undead. There were several hollows wandering the countryside just outside the city with rapier size holes through their hearts now as a testament to this trait, as well as a testament Eridan's stubbornness, the pompous bastard. Sollux however had deduced from watching that ass try to combat hollows, along with his own infinitely more effective and badass experiences fighting the things, that while piercing the heart didn't do much good mashing it and the rest of the chest cavity into a bloody, perforated pulp was pretty damn effective.

As he shook the gore from his weapon a short wave of dizziness hit him, his body's way of telling him that he wouldn't be able to cast many more miracles without rest. Long used to the sensation he held his ground and his grip on both his weapon and talisman. Once it passed, as if to spite his body's limit, he knelt down and began to incant the story of Heal, slower this time. He could feel the hole in his shoulder begin to tingle and the pain start to numb when the world exploded.

A thunderous noise broke out behind him. He turned to see the wall on the other end of the small plaza he'd found himself in crack and shatter all along its length. A second boom sounded out the ancient stone wall crumbled, and overtop the rubble walked the largest man Sollux had ever seen.

The stranger was nearly twice as tall as Sollux, and almost as wide, wearing huge, thick black armor and wielding a bladed mace. And any question Sollux may have had about the strangers sanity was answered when it let out a deep, rumbling roar before limping towards him, its mace held high. Taking note of the hollowed knights limp Sollux quickly changed his incantation to the longer but more useful tale of Replenish.

The knight was barely halfway across the courtyard when Sollux cast his miracle, and rather than waiting for the slow acting regenerative miracle to repair his arm he immediately hefted up his halberd and charged. The hollow knight swung downwards when Sollux came into range, and while he did manage to side step it at the last minute the force of the blow shook the stone ground to bits and rattled Sollux's teeth. He paled at the thought of a blow like that connecting. There was only so much Replenish could heal.

Before the knight could even lift his mace from the ground Sollux sidestepped again, putting himself as far from the knights mace as he could while still keeping the bastard in range of his halberd, and put all his weight into a thrust with the spearhead straight into the hollowed knights wounded leg. It bounced harmlessly off to the side. Sollux spun with the momentum and struck the knights leg again with the axe blade. It too was deflected away by the knight's thick armor.

Said knight, paying no mind to the soft plinks of Sollux's weapon striking its armor, laboriously pulled its mace back up and lunged to its side with a horizontal swipe the Sollux was barely able to back step away from. It too rolled with its momentum and spun with the force its swing, bringing its weapon across the stone floor in and upwards swipe. Sollux anticipated that move from watching the knight's leg distribute its weight. He did not anticipate the bits of stone brick flying into his face, ripped from the ground as the knight drug his mace across it.

His attempt to sidestep was interrupted when a brick crashed into his eye, half blinding him. The pain in his eye was soon dwarfed however by an explosion of fiery agony in his injured arm. And then there was nothing but darkness.

~)~)

When Sollux came to a few seconds later he was lying on his back, his arm in gory tatters above his elbow and barely connected to his torso, the pain withstandable only through the mild numbing effects of the still active Replenish, which was slowly trying to repair his maimed arm. And, of course, the knight was standing right over him, its mace raised over its head and ready to strike. He wondered if his last thoughts would be of Feferi, or of Thorolund and the church, the land he'd called home, before realizing he was being a dumbass and wasting his time for last thoughts thinking about what his last thoughts should be.

A barbed whip shot out from behind the knight, wrapping tightly around its neck. The knight dropped its mace to the ground and grabbed at the whip with both hands. Sollux watched wide eyed as the knight struggled to pull the whip free from its neck only to be forced into leaning backwards itself.

Just when the knight seemed to be gaining back some ground the wielder of the whip appeared in Sollux's vision, shooting through the air in a blur of red and black, using the tension in their whip to launch into a mid-air kick straight into the knights head. The knight's helmet flew off, and the knight itself fell to the ground.

The knight's assailant landed next to Sollux. It was a female, wearing strange, soft looking but tight fitting black clothing. A strip of cloth covered most of her face; the only visibly features being ruddy brown eyes and long, wild black hair. She knelt down and pulled Sollux into a sitting position.

"Now hold still, we'll probably have to cut off this arm but you should be…okay?"

Sollux followed her gaze to his injured arm, which was slowly but visibly healing through the lingering effects of Replenish. An annoyed Sollux was about to explain that yes, that was indeed happening and there was no need for her to stare gaping like an idiot when he saw movement over her shoulder.

"Fuck!" was all he could say before attempting to grab her and roll out of the way of the knight's lunge. To his surprise however she pulled him instead and fucking back-flipped to avoid it, flinging him awkwardly through the air in the opposite direction.

By some miracle he landed on his feet, the knight between himself and the mystery asshole who'd saved him. His Halberd lost, he pulled an old bronze dagger from his side bag, usually a worthless weapon but more effective than just his fists. He readied himself and, when the knight when for the obviously greater threat presented by the newcomer, dashed in.

He'd intended to distract the knight to that the stranger could land a critical blow, and so was surprised when the knight recoiled in pain when struck by Sollux's dagger, despite the knight's armor remaining unscratched. Apparently whatever blessing was given to that relic still had some effect. Still, the dagger seemed to frustrate the knight more than anything else, the same going for his ally's barbed whip. It became clear to Sollux that there was no way for them to win this fight.

Dodging another swing of the mace, Sollux took advantage of the time the knight took to pull its weapon from the ground to communicate to his partner.

"Hey numbnuts, this guy's gonna kick our asses if we keep this up! We need to get the hell out of here!"

"What are you talking about? We can take him! You just need to…"

She was interrupted by the knights tossed mace embedding itself in her chest. Sollux cursed and run towards her, sliding under the armored fist of the knight. There was light in her eyes, though blood dripped from her mouth as she tried to speak. Sollux cursed again before using all his strength to pull the knights mace from her chest, eliciting a weak shriek from her. Unwilling to look and what was likely a fatal wound and not having the time to heal it for her anyway, Sollux hefted her up on his shoulders and made a mad dash for the hole in the wall the knight came through. He was intimately aware of how much worse carrying her was making her wound, his back already becoming moist be her blood, but what else could he do? There was at least a chance he could cast a miracle on her if he could at least get her away from the knight.

He could hear the pounding of the knight's metal boots against the ground and even with its limp he knew he was barely outrunning it, the exhaustion of the fight combined with the extra weight on his shoulders taking a considerable toll.

As he struggled through the alleyway the hole led into he looked around desperately for some way to lose the knight quickly. A long chase would inevitably attract swarms of hollows. Unfortunately all he could see were decrepit houses and maze like streets, nothing the following knight couldn't navigate or break through. He'd have to get creative.

~)~)~)

Sitting up against an earthen wall, an undetermined distance underground, Sollux halfheartedly mused over how his creative plan went to shit. Instead of trapping the knight in the below ground basement of one of the burgs houses he'd ended up trapping himself. If he hadn't discovered the tunnel leading into the ground from the basement he'd have been slaughtered by that damned knight. He'd survived by luck, not skill, and though he'd never admit it he couldn't help but feel ashamed about that.

The tunnel eventually led him to a small underground chamber, more like a mine really, the walls and ceiling being nothing but dirt supported by wooden beams. All around the chamber were other tunnels similar to the one's Sollux found. Hopefully one of those would lead to a way out. That would be for later though, because right in the center of the room sat something Sollux had only heard about in whispered conversations and in the brief mentions of the holy texts. The whole reason they'd been sent to the ancient city in the first place; a bonfire.

At first he just stood there, mesmerized by the slow flame moving about the old rusted sword planted in a pile of ashes. He came to his senses when he remembered the injured girl he'd half dragged through the tunnels and immediately leaned her up against the wall, one hand going for his talisman and the other for her pulse. He cursed when he realized he'd lost his talisman along the way, though for the moment it didn't seem like it was going to matter. The girl was dead.

Sighing, he lowered his head in regret and mouthed out what funeral rites he knew. It wasn't much but, undead or no, she saved him. It was the least he could do. Just as he was getting ready to push her body back down the tunnel he'd come through, not wanting to have her corpse stinking up the central chamber, the bonfire made a loud crackling noise. He turned to see the flames themselves leaning over and collecting into a single mass off to the side, coalescing into some sort of shape. After a moment it became clear to Sollux what the shape was. It was a body. And it was beginning to stir.