Rowin and Leina stumbled through the ancient passageways, the weathered stones unmarked by the decor they'd seen in the part of the complex where they'd first encountered one another. Their bodies were weary from the white water, the walk, and the fighting, but they pressed on, arms slung over each other's necks as they leaned on each other for support.
"And this warrior priestess, she's from outside the continent, too?" Leina asked.
"Pretty sure," Rowin replied. "They wound up here because they were lost."
"They must be strong, to have made it so far on their own."
Rowin nodded. "I think so. You gave me a run for my money but she seemed eager to jump in and help."
Leina hesitated for a moment. "Rowin, when I was under your spell, I remember hearing your voice but… not."
Rowin looked at her side-eyed. "How do you mean?"
"I heard it, but I also heard it on the inside," Leina explained, "the same way I heard Menace's voice."
"'Menace'?" Rowin shook his head. "Who'd name a kid that?"
Leina couldn't help but chuckle a little. "Bad decisions must run in her line. So, when I heard your voice, it was… empowering. I could feel myself able to resist her more. Then I imagined you in my mind, offering me help, and I got it. I forced Menace out and took back control."
They kept walking. Rowin said nothing.
"Rowin?" Leina asked. "What does that mean?"
"My name? No clue."
"Be serious! I mean what happened. Did you help me, make me stronger?"
Rowin shrugged. "Probably just a fluke, a way to work yourself up to breaking free."
'Liar!' Finnean's voice was like a hammer to Rowin's skull.
Rowin coughed and knelt down, dry heaving a few times before hammering his chest and reaching for his belt pouches. "Hope they didn't uncork in the river…"
What he produced was a vial of what looked like honey, but it was far too thin, sloshing around inside the glass tube.
"What's that?" Leina asked.
He uncorked it. "A hard-to-come-by pick-me-up." He tipped it back and downed half of it, then offered it to Leina. "Here."
"Why now?"
"Better now than the next hazard we find ourselves in."
Leina couldn't argue with that. She downed it, wincing at the taste. "Ugh, it's disgusting!"
"So is a stiff drink, till you get used to the taste." He accepted the vial back and stowed it.
Leina was about to retort when she felt the weariness of her limbs vanish. "Oh, wow! I feel better already!"
"You ought to." Rowin took her weight off of himself and stretched. "Now, let's go find the other two."
That would give Rowin time to think about what to say, in the off-chance that Leina's sudden mental power boost wasn't a fluke.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Shizuka and Tomoe shielded their faces as an unnatural wind whipped up. It howled with the sound of the disturbed dead, wailing black spirits beginning to coalesce around Menace's black aura of necromancy.
"My purpose is to my kingdom!" boomed the princess's voice. "No matter how many I have to enslave, no matter how much living blood has to be spilt, Amara will rise from the ruins of this desert and return to the paradise it once was!"
Several of the black spirits flew into the walls and disappeared through the stone. Menace gestured to herself. "And then, with me as its immortal sorcerer-queen, the Kingdom of Amara will rise even further beyond! None shall challenge our might! Ours is a legacy older than even the Queen's Blade! Amara will have hegemony once again!"
Menace pointed Setra at Shizuka and Tomoe, still clinging to the stone floor. "I offer you one last chance! Will you submit to the power of Amara, and offer your hands to rebuild the kingdom, its might, and its glory?!"
"Hell no!" Shizuka shouted over the gale. "Right, Tomoe?"
"I concur!" she shouted. "My duty is to the people of Hinamoto and to my sister priestesses, who gave their lives so that I may fulfill it!"
Authority gave way to anger. Menace stamped her foot. "If you will not follow in life, then you will serve in death!" She spread her arms and a wave of black magic came crashing forth from her body. "Now, rise, my servants!"
From out of the walls and even the ceiling, dead and decaying hands burst forth. They were followed by ancient, dehydrated husks of crudely embalmed mummies, while the ones from the ceiling were mere skeletons, held together by dark magic. The mummies groaned with unlife while the skeletons rattled and fell from above. Their eye sockets were as lifeless and dark as their slumber had been.
Tomoe slashed one out of the air, bisecting it from skull to groin and causing its dusty remains to shatter around her. The rest landed on their feet, cracks forming in their weakened femurs. Their fingers were like knives as they flailed at Shizuka's face and arms, pulling one of her bust straps aside and scratching her breast. Growling, the ninja elbowed it in the sternum and dropped low. She swept three to the floor with a kick, before stomping each of their skulls to broken glass.
"Go for their heads, Lady Tomoe!" she said, standing back to back with her leader. "That'll keep them down!"
Tomoe slashed another, taking its head off at the neck. However, this one stumbled inside her guard and went for her eyes. Tomoe quickly spotted its fallen head. A quick stab and a twist cracked its face and caused its body to crumble. The fact these skeletons were so spread out after falling from the ceiling, some into the water, made their swarm less concentrated. They were only able to attack in twos and threes, which Tomoe and Shizuka quickly took advantage of. The two Hinamoto women dashed apart, crushing each of the skeletons before two or three could coalesce into five or seven.
"They didn't take long to figure it out, My Lady," Setra said.
"Of course not," Menace replied. "My house could never be seen with such frail servants. They'll weaken those two so my guard will fare better."
Tomoe and Shizuka both caught that. 'Guard'?
They noticed it as the last of the skeletons were put down. Some of the mummies had turned and reached back inside their resting places. Those that emerged did so holding curved swords and crescent-shaped shields. These moved not with flailing desperation but in ordered sync, grouping together in squads of five. Already, two such squads were pincering Tomoe and Shizuka from one corner of the chamber. Another huddled in front of a doorway, blocking the exit.
That is, until a pair of swords burst from the two in the middle. One was a curved dueling saber, the other a longsword. They both swept up and blew each of the mummy's heads into a cloud of dust, before cutting down the other three as they turned to respond.
"Don't be so sure, Menace," Leina called, leveling the longsword at the ancient princess. "You wanted us because we're stronger than any of your other servants."
"And hotter, too." Setra would've drooled if he wasn't made of stone. He was ogling Shizuka's nip slip openly. "Me-yow."
"Don't be so sure," Menace said, raising her hand.
Her power flared as Leina and Rowin hurried to help their new friends. Shizuka and Rowin struck like a pair of scorpions, puncturing and prodding the gaps in the mummy squads' shield walls and spilling the salt inside them. It pooled on the floor at the mummies' feet, shriveling them further as their torsos slowly lost the substitutes for their insides.
Leina and Tomoe, meanwhile, had more trouble. Of the two, Tomoe was far stronger, so her sword could sever the legs of a mummy and cut into the one next to it before she leapt back to avoid a counterstrike. Leina, however, struggled to pull her sword free when the mummy she stabbed reached out and grabbed the crossguard.
Leina thought quickly and swung her buckler at the mummy's head, the point of its tri-prong design tearing the mummy's bandaged face off. The hole that was left groaned and blew salty, dusty wind into Leina's face, driving her back. Tomoe intervened quickly, cutting the mummy in twain and using the tip of her sword to toss Leina's back to her.
"Be careful!" Tomoe warned. "They're much smarter than they look!"
Rowin noticed it, too, as a pair of strikes from the mummies he was fighting forced him to draw his other sword. He turned his foes' weapons aside and sidestepped to avoid more attacks from the rank, before lashing out and cutting off a sword arm with the tip of Finnean. His other sword, mist billowing off its blade as it clanged against a pair of shields, wasn't much help due to the mummies lacking blood to freeze.
"Curse the khopesh and whoever invented it," he muttered. The weapons were made to slice at unarmored areas and Shizuka definitely fit that bill. She had to give ground and dart around the mummies' formation, but their soldier's discipline saw them stay together and simply pivot to keep her at their front.
She threw a pair of throwing knives into the group. Though they struck true, the lack of brain meant their mass wasn't enough to destroy the mummies' heads. So, she pulled out what looked like a sickle with a chained weight attached to the end.
He glanced at the other two women and saw Leina struggling. So much for his wild theory.
"Here!" A web of steel kept the mummies at bay as he stepped in front of Shizuka. "Go help the others!"
"Don't forget you still owe me a drink!" Shizuka said, before racing across the room. She leapt and vaulted off the ancient wall before a pair of throwing stars sliced through the elbow of a mummy that flanked Leina, weakening its strike and letting Leina cut through both its arm and its head.
All the while, Menace watched. Her interest was drawn to the lone living man in her chamber. With her newfound sense for magic, Menace could feel some strange but potent power lying in him. It was elusive, changing and morphing chaotically, like a plate of gelatin being juggled by a court performer. She couldn't pin it down; it was too… elusive.
"I must draw it out, then," she said.
"My Lady?" Setra asked.
"The power within that man, that's how my servant broke free," Menace concluded. "I can't tell what it is, so I'll have to see him use it." She raised her hand again. "Come forth, my captain!"
An armored hand erupted from the stone floor of the chamber, startling the trio of women who'd only just begun to turn the tide against the mummies. They fled over to Rowin, who was doing his best to fend off the ever-hostile mass of mummies that kept slashing and marching, marching and slashing. The tight formation and large shields were tripping him up; one on one, these mummies wouldn't have stood a chance.
Thus, the sudden reinforcements put a swift end to his troubles, the throwing knives, swords, and bucklers breaking the mummies' formation, followed by their bodies as Rowin was able to slide among them and cut them to pieces.
'Why didn't we do that from the start?' Finnean asked.
Setra's ears twitched. "Who said that?"
'...No one?'
What everyone else heard was the hollowed-out groaning from the hole in the floor. More mummies were punching their way out of the walls and crawling out of the holes already made, but this newcomer had his own resting place at the foot of Menace's spherical altar. He was a brute of a man, or had been, for he towered head and shoulders above the rest of the corpses filling the room. Instead of a khopesh, he emerged with an ancient ax, as long as Rowin was tall. The massive mummy captain's eye sockets burned with unholy light. They were fixed upon Rowin.
"Not good," Tomoe said, before a sudden wave of dizziness struck her and she collapsed.
"Lady Tomoe!" Shizuka cried. Her ninja reflexes alerted her to the waterskin tossed her way.
"We'll call this a loan," Rowin said, redrawing his blue dueling saber. "I expect to get that back when we're done!"
Shizuka smiled and nodded, before taking a quick swig. Leina seized the initiative and charged a pair of mummies crawling out of a newly-breached recess in the wall. She stumbled at the end but still managed to decapitate one while bashing the other's empty skull in. Tomoe was up after a moment of rest and a drink of water.
Rowin was busy distracting the formation that his lady friends had fled from.
'I hear magic words,' Finnean said.
"I don't like that!" Rowin replied, the tip of his blue saber scoring a hit in a mummy's shoulder. Ice burst out of the wound and blew the mummy's torso apart, opening a gap in the formation that let him chop off another's head at the temple.
"Submit, interlopers!" wheezed the giant mummy. "Submit to Amara!"
The flat of his ax came around and nearly smashed Tomoe and Shizuka aside. Shizuka dropped her superior and leapt in the air, letting the ax pass between them. Her weighted chain flew forward and wrapped around the captain's wrist. With a twist and a jerk, Shizuka was pulled from the air into the mummy's crushing embrace.
"Easy!" Setra shouted. "Don't damage that perfect pale figure!"
"Yes, subdue that man!" Menace concurred, pointing at Rowin.
"Yes, Princess."
The mummy lord, as that's what Rowin figured it was, tossed Shizuka before a mob of lesser mummy troopers. To her credit, Shizuka immediately started hacking and bludgeoning at them with her strange weapon, forcing them to keep their shieldwall tight.
Tomoe was up and went to help Shizuka. Leina saw her and ran over.
"One of you should deal with the new ones!" Leina said as she blocked a khopesh with her buckler. "Don't let them get into formation."
"Agreed!" Tomoe said. "Shizuka, you're best suited for that!"
"If you say so, Lady Tomoe."
Rowin only caught about half of that as he was once again facing the dilemma of dueling the undead. Sure, he didn't have to hold back, but on the other hand, this mummy lord was a lot stronger than Leina had been. He couldn't parry that ax at all, if he didn't want to be crushed by it. He ducked a swing and leaped in to strike, only to abort it and dash aside when the mummy made a grab for him. The ax came back around. He took the blow with both his swords but didn't even try to hold his ground.
He stumbled back, an easy thing to do with how strong the mummy was. It began uttering another incantation. Rowin recognized the words and, rather than interrupt, reached into his belt pouches and fished out a vial. When the mummy lord finished its incantation, it opened its mouth and squirted a stream of green liquid at Rowin's face. Rowin sidestepped the venom and drew back his fist. When the stream ran out, he popped the cork with his thumb and shoved his whole hand into the mummy's mouth.
"Have a drink on me?" he asked.
Shizuka glared at him from across the room. "Hey! You were holding out on me!"
The mummy lord retched and clutched at its throat, wheezing in whatever equivalent to pain the undead could feel. Rowin took the time to run it through with his cutlass, as Finnean may as well have been a normal sword against this thing.
'I resent that!'
All the mummy's clutching did was cause its hand to start dissolving as the holy water burned through its embalmed flesh. Angry, it swiped at him with its mutilated hand. Rowin ducked and cut its wrist. It simply leaned forward and barreled its severed stump into Rowin's chest. His armor blunted the attack, but that was peanuts compared to what Rowin feared might come next.
Even with one hand, the mummy lord was still powerful. It swung its ax in wide circles, carving chunks out of the stone floor with each swing. Rowin timed his next attack with its wild swings and jumped in close, uncrossing his swords at its leg like scissors. The mummy lord backed away with only a deep cut that expelled dust with every step. It then bludgeoned him with the stump of its wrist again.
Rowin stumbled back, feeling light-headed. Even with the pick-me-up he'd imbibed, or, rather, the half of it he'd imbibed, he could only go for so long. Potions were no substitute for food and rest. The mummy lord must've seen his weakness, because it tucked its ax under its arm and began another incantation. Rowin was wide awake immediately and moved to attack, only to find himself tied up in a… robe?
"Show me your power, strange man who would defy me." Menace walked up from behind him, her bandage-weapon coiled around her arm as she reeled him in like a fish. Setra hovered beside her. "It's the only way."
Rowin could see that the mummy lord's remaining hand was wreathed in eerie dark fire. He struggled to move as the mummy reached out to touch him. At the last second, the fog in his head cleared and he flicked Finnean up, stabbing the mummy through the palm. It wasn't much, but it was enough for him to drop low, drop his other weapon, and shoulder-hoist Menace into the path of the spell. Menace collapsed in a heap before him. He quickly retrieved his sword and snipped her robe-weapon loose.
"If you wanted my 'power'," Rowin said calmly, staring down at the prostrate princess, "you could've tried asking."
"I am the ruler of Amara!" Menace snapped, standing up and fixing her clothes. "I don't ask, I command!"
Rowin coughed and stepped back. He was wary of the mummy lord looming behind her. "All power everywhere, when you get right down to it, is a measure of choice, of options. I choose who I'm with, so I choose who gets my 'power'." He leveled Finnean at her. "Don't try to take that from me."
"How dare you…" Menace was beside herself. Her black magic aura surrounded her like it had Leina, only twice as intense and thickened with fury. As her mummy lord stepped past to fight Rowin, Menace was shaking.
"In other words," Menace seethed, "because I am limited in my options, the power of Amara is so weak that you would try to command me?! Me?!"
"No, no, My Lady!" Setra swooped in to speak to her. "That's not true at all!"
"Ah hell," Shizuka muttered, pulling her kusarigama free of a mummy's head.
Rowin had a sinking feeling that he should get ready to run.
"Everybody should bow down, right now!"
Dark, wailing spirits scattered from her body and the room started to shake. Rowin collapsed as he felt that power hammering at his skull, as well as his chest. Lucky for him, the mummy lord didn't go for a killing blow. He saw the others were similarly stricken, doubling over or leaning against the wall as the undead slowly surrounded them.
Tomoe wasn't one to go down without a fight, though. She pulled a talisman from her sleeve and threw it at Menace.
"Evil spirit, begone!"
The talisman exploded at the edge of Menace's dark aura. It only made it flare up that much more.
"Bow down before my power!" Menace's voice echoed with sorcery. "I command you!"
"Ah! My Lady, please!" Setra wasn't getting through.
Rowin could hear the sound of rushing water, and not from the waterfall. Gritting his teeth, he forced the malevolent influence away from his mind and hoped Leina could do the same. He lashed out and cut the mummy lord in two, its left shoulder and head sliding off the diagonal slash before it collapsed into a cloud of dust and salt.
He stowed Finnean and ran, grabbing Leina as he went. Tomoe did the same for Shizuka, chanting something under her breath as she did so.
"Kneel before me, servants!" Menace's command was useless. Everyone's fear of drowning overpowered her sorcerous compulsion.
"Where's this lead?" Tomoe asked as she followed Rowin down a passage.
"Away from here," Shizuka said, now running on her own power.
This left Menace alone with Setra as the ceiling crumbled and dark energies tore the ancient stone asunder. The water from the river rushed in and entombed the ancient princess once more.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
The four who'd wandered into this dead kingdom ironically found themselves spat out where they'd entered: at the entrance to the facade with the four grinning cat guardians. The water washed out onto the sand before spiraling down into the sinkhole that Shizuka had fallen prey to at the outset. This left the four lying in the sun, exhausted and wet but still alive.
A silent agreement was made as none of them attempted to stand, simply basking in the hot sun after spending so long underground. The cool mud quickly turned back into sand; the appeal evaporated with the water.
Leina was the first to her feet, the only one among them who'd laid down during the ordeal, even if it was upon an altar.
"Are you all okay?" she asked.
Shizuka was up next, having caught a breather while walking with Setra. "Looks like it."
Tomoe was third. She stumbled over to Rowin when he started coughing and failed to sit up right away.
"Rowin, are you well?"
He beat his chest and sat up. "Think so." On his way to his feet, he scooped Tomoe up and put her on his back.
"Oh my," muttered the priestess.
He screwed his eyes shut and shook the cobwebs from his brain. "I promised you I'd carry you to the river, right? So let's go."
"Why does Lady Tomoe get to be carried but not me?!" Shizuka whined.
Rowin grinned weakly. "Because ladies first, ninja girl, that's why."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Within the collapsed tomb, in one of the upper tunnels whose floor was now twenty feet lower and broken into pieces, Menace's final servant answered her lady's summons.
"Any time now, My Lady," Setra said from beneath the rubble.
"I'm here, Princess!" the servant shouted down. She was a cute, buxom girl with crisscrossing bandages that did nothing to hide her perfectly bouncy, reconstituted flesh. "I await your command!"
'I command you to dig me out, Sekmeti!' Menace's voice echoed in the mummy-girl's literally brainless head. 'Use whatever is necessary.'
Sekmeti thumped her chest with her fist, causing her hefty bust to jiggle. "O-kay!"
Author's note:
Someone posted fanart of Sekmeti from "Monster Musume" and I of course had to work her into Amaran hierarchy, with the commissioner's permission. Can't vouch for her personality, though; the Sekmeti from MonMusu was head honcho. The Sekmeti of Amara is second fiddle by default.
Anyway, same drill: if'n you like what you read and want one of your own, my commission details and rates are listed in my profile. Time's winding down to be grandfathered in before I raise the rates, so don't wait.