Is it wrong to live with a Sorceress? Or: How Morathi Moved in and Ruined My Life!
Chapter Twenty: Cracking the shiny dome
The lair smelt rancid with half-chewed bones, rotten refuse, and detritus littering the floors.
Eric shivered and felt his whole body recoil the deeper they travelled. Beside him, groaning and trying to mute his gags, Frankie nearly threw up as he covered his mouth and pinched his nose.
Following behind Karl, Alarielle, and Morathi, the party turned from the main shaft-like corridor and into an atrium or junction of sorts. Slowly they rounded the narrow entrance, taking their steps carefully, as the room expanded on either side. Though the roof was low, it was still the widest chambre they'd seen so far. Despite this, one's sight was greatly impaired by the numerous stout concrete columns holding up the ceiling.
Immediately, Eric furrowed his brow as if in disbelief to see such a place. It reminded him of the missile sites in Tarkov, Fallout shelters and Vaults, and the creepier portions of Black Mesa.
That such facilities still genuinely existed, and their cold-war remnants had just been left to decay, forgotten underneath major cities were even more disturbing… He began to wonder, just how much infrastructure like this was still navigable?
Looking around Karl mumbled, "A city of the dead is built here…"
To his right, swinging her illuminating staff, Alarielle nodded. Her shoulders vibrated with revulsion, and holding a hand to her nose she hissed,
"It smells of a liches' sepulchre, a place that ought not be marked, honoured, nor remembered."
Beside her Morathi nodded slowly, "Agreed… Once we dispatch these foes, I think it wise to consign this place totally to ruin. Either by flame or waters, but soft now! Let us be wary of our voices, something tells me old bones are the least of the horrors to see here."
Frankie whimpered, his brow shifting in pain. Eric cringed too but whispered assurance to his friend. Then his throat dried, and he felt a compulsion to ask,
"Really, he… he couldn't have formed that large an army by now, c-could he?"
They made it a few more steps into the wide chambre before Morathi paused, a smirk across her lips. She turned to look at Eric, her voice deepening as she did her best Saruman impression.
"Who knows what they awoke in the dark of Khazad-dûm?"
Then she chuckled to herself.
Karl mumbled and whispered, "Argh, Druchii witch, hold your tongue! This is the realm of the dead now, and though you be fey kin we are all still living. Don't rouse them nor tempt fate with your jests…"
Frankie turned to Eric, his expression deepening with worry, "Wait, was. Is… is she being funny?"
Eric nodded slowly, "A little I think."
Morathi's smirk drooped, and she grumbled. Eric cringed, and immediately tried to spare her blushes, his voice a whisper but as emphatic as he could risk, "It was still a good joke though!"
She pursed her lips and ignored him, merely moving the tall, beautifully sharp, Heart-render. Continuing to shine light on their left, making sure they were not about to be assailed.
Alarielle, likewise, continued to watch and illuminate their right. The contrast between Druchii and Asur even extended to their magical torches…
Though each weapon was enchanted, the blade of Morathi's halberd was licked by black and purple flames. The fire eerily made no noise and flickered with unnatural cadence. It made Eric's head throb to look at, but the light was still bright and helpful, if not also paradoxically inky. He had noticed that it made the edges of shadows warp and bend strangely. It was an unnerving sight, and one which Eric quickly tried to ignore and not think too hard about.
Alarielle's staff by contrast was naturally the purer and pulsed with a warm hum. Its light was like a sliver of blue sky and sunlight. It glowed as if it was reflected from a mirror set at the top of her golden and bejewelled staff.
Between the women, and ahead of them by a pace, Karl Franz led the group. His wet cape swayed from side to side, and his plumes had thinned from the sudden storm earlier. Their usual fluffy appearance drooped with moisture and added an inconvenienced and irritated dimension to the emperor's gait.
Eric and Frankie kept closely behind the trio, always within arm's reach of any one of their taller, powerful, and magical companions.
They continued quietly on for several rows of columns.
After a half a dozen or so rows Eric began to furrow his brow in disbelief. Still, more and more, barely visible in the pitch-black cavern, continued… He had no idea how far the rows stretched in any direction, and very quickly they all realised they'd be lost if their lights were snuffed, or if they tried to turn around.
Eric eventually let out a nervous snigger, choking on a laugh and snorting as he realised Morathi had a point. It did look like the great hall of Moria… But far less grand, and far more terrifying. Thankfully the ceiling was low enough that the prospect of a Balrog instance was impossible.
Blinking Eric swallowed again, 'At least… right? There's… w-well… there's no way a chaos demon would be here, in league with the undead, r-right?'
His thoughts became a swirl of paranoia and worry.
Anxiety rolled over and churned in his stomach and with each step behind the trio of heroes Eric began to pray and hope that there would only be skeletons, zombies, ghoulies, and the creations of necromancers, rather than the soul-eating, Hellraiser, S terror princes of the daemon realms.
Despite attempts to calm himself, his head began to run through the catalogue of mobs, units, and lore for the champions and forces of chaos. The rot-based cults of Nurgle, the blood-drenched psychos of Khorne, the mind-raping pawns of Tzeentch, and…
Eric's eyes widened, then he blinked several times. He looked at Morathi, then Alarielle, then Karl. He looked at their backs. The texture of their hair, their skin, the fact they were walking and breathing, they were tangible.
Then he returned to his thoughts and His heart dropped… What would any real servant and infected carrier of chaotic corruption really look like? What would a Slaaneshi daemon be like in person, five feet away? Or a skull-for-the-skullthrone head taker? Would they be chittering and maddened like from a creature-feature horror movie? Or…
He shivered, his body felt a roll of electricity, and he chilled. Eric didn't want to know. He swallowed and he began to will it. Willing everything he had against that.
Beside him, and snapping him out of his thoughts, Frankie's voice asked meekly,
"Feels like we've been walking for ages… do you… do you think people will be okay up on the surface?"
Eric blinked, he hadn't thought about that either!
"I uh… I… holy fuck…"
A flood of concerns and worries hit him, and he stopped. Karl, Alarielle, and Morathi paused, each still vigilant, but they seemed obliging and keen to listen. Peering over their shoulders at the two smaller Humans.
Shaking his head, Eric's voice betrayed his own unease and uncertainty,
"I… I don't know Frankie. I hope so. I fucking hope so… Morathi did, aha, well you did pretty well with containing and closing that chaos portal and uh, dealing with all its monsters before, so… So maybe she can again?"
Alarielle narrowed her eyes, and Eric quickly added, "And of course with, well, with the two of you I'm sure that we can-"
Alarielle was almost about to smile when her ear twitched and she suddenly turned back around, hissing and interrupting, "Quiet!"
From the darkness came a rattling.
A skeletal, hollow, and chilling sound. They heard then more clacking, and the clicking of bony heels on concrete. Garbage was moved about in the gloom and there was laughter. Deep and evil. It echoed and built, louder and louder. Getting closer, looming and rasping and rattling…
Ever rattling and clicking and dragging.
Frankie shivered and stepped backwards, his whole body vibrating with fear. Eric followed suit, his fingers refusing to operate normally. The two brought out their respective phones, hands shaking violently, in a desperate attempt to help light the room.
Alarielle and Morathi squinted, they poised their weapons, and directed their lights into the inky black, searching the columns and alcoves ahead and to the sides. The clicking and dragging advanced, slowly, and steadily. It lumbered and groaned, rasping and scraping. But still, they could not see it. The magical torches engulfing their weapons seemed to dim, and the lights of Eric and Frankie's phones flickered and failed, somehow affected or interrupted by the growing presence approaching them.
"W-what is that? Wha-whaa what the fuck is that?! What is happening, m-my god, Dieu, quoi, quoi?!"
Frankie asked desperately, his voice cracking as he tried to maintain a whisper, "Like, f-for real? W-wha, what the fuck business d-does a skeleton have laughing!?"
The laughter seemed to intensify in reply to Frankie's fear.
Karl Franz grumbled, "Tis no mere skeleton…"
The emperor stiffened, his armour musically clinking and rubbing together. From his body language it seemed he recognised the voice behind the laughter. Then, surprising them all, Karl bellowed, as deeply, as masculinely, and as strongly as he could muster.
"Show yourself Carstein!"
He wrapped both hands around his sword and held it ready. The runes continued to glow warmly in the darkness, and he gave a few teasing swings back and forth.
Eric and Frankie scoffed, with Frankie nearly shrieking in fear at the sudden noise and betrayal of their location. But then, watching Karl swing his sword and hold it with such familiarity, the glow seemed to calm and assure.
As he swung it to and fro it acted almost like a lightsabre, blue and heroic in the darkness, the runes glowing and pulsing with purity. But then Karl boasted, his voice smooth and confident, as if he'd done this before. Eric swallowed in disbelief, cringing at first before then feeling warm in his chest.
Karl spat and looked around ahead of them, his eyes unblinking.
"You are a false lord Carstein, and nothing but a rotten corpse, a poor and pitiless pretender to Sigmar's throne! You'd destroy the Empire and only rule over its' ashes, if ever you had the wits to succeed farther than that tainted demesne of Sylvania! Like all your kin, I shall see you burned, either by the torch or the sun! And you forget fool, that the beating hearts of all men carry a fire too! A fire you shall never be warmed or embraced by again. You shall only be destroyed!"
The laughter persisted, and the voice echoed back, "Oh? And what pitiable flame dost ye claim this be?"
Karl, Morathi, and Alarielle continued forwards. Each column they passed Karl turned sharply, clearing and checking it of enemies.
Then Karl chuckled, his voice half boast, half test,
"I speak now of the fire of mortality. The heart of mankind. The lust of life, you foul, damned creature. All that which you have forgotten. Of what use is a kingdom for death's sake, of what use is your power and rule if naught but to test us and nothing more. You are not to succeed. Never are you to succeed, you lord over death? Why… to your true death is your only coronation. Your deeds wiped away and forgotten. Your bones ground to dust and scattered to the winds and under the seas."
To this, Mannfred said nothing.
Then rounding one more column Karl was suddenly attacked by the khopesh-bearing skeleton.
It shrieked, as if in delight to have caught Karl unawares. Its blade cut through the air with a horrid sound before biting into the edge of Karl's pauldron. He recoiled and growled, but didn't need to look to know the blow had landed against his armour harmlessly.
With a grumble, Karl turned his blade, the skeleton wrenched his sword from the armour and prepared a lunge. Karl beat the khopesh away and turned to the side, giving several teasing strikes back, but the skeleton writhed and turned, spinning and avoiding the blows far faster than it ought to.
Then Alarielle cried, "Emperor, above you!"
All looked up.
Hanging from the ceiling came several more skeletons, with bronze daggers and elaborate Nehkari pseudo-Egyptian looking weapons. They had the advantage and were ready to leap down to tear Karl apart.
But Alarielle sang and held her staff high, "Light of the sun, light of Isha, be with me!"
Like an arc-gun, she shot a wide beam of sunlight towards the undead and they stopped, stunned. It was enough time that Karl was able to beat back blade-tips and leap backwards before they could press their advantage and descend on him.
As Alarielle maintained the light beam, Morathi then growled and rushed forwards, bringing up her own hand. It crackled with her characteristic black and purple smoke, and in her palm a ball of swirling plasma began to form. She yelled a fouler Druchii incantation before then lobbing the orb of her spell.
"Fall back and let my miasma wither them!"
Karl rolled to the side, Alarielle let her sunbeam dissipate, and the party watched as the cloud of black smoke Morathi had summoned ate at the metal weapons the skeleton's bore. The bright bronze greened and burst with decaying colours. Their gold bangles and dress too lost all lustre, filming over with patina, before finally their bones began to darken and flake. The creamy ivory became brown before blackening and withering away.
Noticing they were all about to fall and fail, the skeletons raised weapons now without caution or care and merely advanced. Yet, with each step they took their joints failed further, their feet crumbling to pieces. Their shins fell from their knees. Eventually the squad of warriors had all fallen apart, and they had made wretched noises, raspy, rattling protests which finally silenced as the mass of warriors crumbled into dust and fragments.
Eric and Frankie shivered, staring at the larger pieces and recognisable remnants which poked out among the hodgepodge of bone dust.
Then Mannfred's voice returned,
"The realms of men, the lands of the elves, and even yours, chaos tainted Druchii… All of you breathe, and all of you shall cease to do so by my designs. I shall be your reaver, me and mine shall lay your lands low, one by one. Until all is silent, and all shall bow before my majesty."
Karl spat onto the skeletons, "I will be dead in a ditch, and I would see Altdorf in cinders before you'd ever get close to that Vampire!"
Mannfred hissed, "A ditch would be as grand as a temple-tomb for ye! You shall earn no respite son of Sigmar. I shall raise ye, and I shall torment ye, and ye shall know that I am truest."
Morathi growled and slammed Heart-render into the ground, the metal on concrete echoed shrilly in the dark.
"Come out and face us, pox-ridden vermin. I have put down sorceresses, vampires, and beasts each greater and worthy of more respect than you!"
He only laughed in reply. Then, behind the party, from an alcove in the dark, a shape began to shamble and move.
Alarielle and Karl turned, their faces stern and brows intense. Knife-like claws scraped along the walls, heavy muscle thundered down with each step, and the gait of the creature began to thunder. It was big. Morathi turned and braced Heart-render with both hands.
Frankie shivered against Eric and the two had pushed up against a column, the cool concrete at their backs ensured they weren't about to be grabbed or attacked from behind, but the fact neither really were able to defend themselves became more acute and worrisome.
Eric gulped and blinked as more of the creature became visible down the long corridor and path they had come.
"W-what… what is that thing! What is that thing!?"
Two eyes, icy blue, shone in the darkness, and then the great beast lumbered forwards. Its maw dribbled with black ichor and gore, and its teeth were all blade like; it's wretched smile was home to a hundred daggers.
Karl slowly stepped forwards, fearless, readying his sword, as he narrated.
"It's a grand ghoul, a fouler creation that I have not seen many times before… Only their corpses, brought before me in report… Eric, Frankie, flee ahead and stay from its path…"
Morathi blinked and her mouth was poised in a snarl, "This shall be interesting…"
Beside her Alarielle too raised her nose and her expression in disgust and she shook her head, "Not so. Step aside Morathi, Humans. This foe is mine."
Readying her staff and beginning a song, Alarielle whispered to herself and began to glow. Then, as if in a trance, she stepped ahead, and past Karl.
Pointing past the beast and onwards she ordered him, "Lead on! Find the Vampire, slay it… I shall best this beast."
Karl blinked and scoffed, before nodding in understanding. Beside him Morathi laughed falsely, "What? Such arrogance Everqueen, you-"
"Be still your tongue Druchii, this fight is mine!"
With a great cry Alarielle sprinted towards the ghoul and the beast lumbered overhead, turning and bringing its scythe-like hands forwards. Karl's mouth dropped and both Eric and Frankie cringed, with Frankie's fear rising to a strangled cry.
It looked as if the force and strength of the beast was going to cleave Alarielle in two, but when it collided with her staff, she miraculously held fast against it.
Light and magic sprang from the metal stave, licking and shooting like sparks against the concrete and the rotten flesh of the ghoul. It roared and slinked back, readying another strike. Alarielle dipped and rolled, going left and forcing the beast to pivot to keep track of her. It squealed in rage and its head turned from her to the group, back and forth, wanting to go for them all but forced to choose her.
Alarielle smiled, and goaded it, "Come now foul one! Unclean and unnatural, I shall set you free!"
She clinked her staff to the ground as she began to run around it in a semi-circle. Each click of her weapon brought forth roots, great green vines which writhed and snapped and heaved through the concrete to lash at the ghoul. Each vine grew thorns like barbed-wire and sought to bind the ghoul to the spot.
Morathi growled reluctantly, but turned, and pointed Heart-render forwards, "Onwards! Alarielle shall handle herself!"
Karl was about to protest, but a cry of pain from the ghoul was followed by a laugh of Alarielle's,
"Ha-ha! Take that! Come, feel nature's fury! Fear the light of Isha!"
Frankie and Eric both looked at each other, then to Alarielle. She avoided strikes and the ghoul spent its time snapping and cutting at the ever-growing vines. When enough of it was free it tried throwing blows through the air at her. Each time it swung it was just an inch of a miss behind her, the claws passing harmlessly by her body.
She laughed and leapt, her long flowing mane of blonde hair taunting and beguiling the ghoul's attempts. Alarielle was dancing around it now, toying with the beast, striking it at its knees, batting away its arms and cracking her staff against its joints with expert aim and force.
"Go friends! Go! I shall slay this beast, now go!"
Eric swallowed and nodded reluctantly before turning and running alongside Morathi, Karl, and Frankie. They ran ahead leaving Alarielle to her battle.
She continued to sing in elvish, her spells growing with strength and frequency as she struck and fought the massive ghoul. Viscera flew off the beast and it reeked like burning ozone whenever Alarielle scored a direct hit. It roared in anger, then she laughed and rolled away, leaping and dodging behind columns, pirouetting and circling around them for cover and making the horrid creature more frustrated and irater as it pursued her.
Sprinting, Karl kept his weapon poised, as they passed column by column. Not turning around he called behind to Morathi, his voice betraying his eagerness, "More light, Sorceress, if you please!"
"In a moment!" she replied.
Then caressing her weapon, Morathi spoke to Heart-render and the purple fire along its tang intensified, the tendrils licking and swirling around the metal, as if her very breath had given it fuel.
Eric looked behind, and it seemed like Alarielle was a distant blue beam of light now, jumping and dodging the large dark arms of the beast. Each strike she landed exploded, blue and white, it crackled and shone, burning his eyes like flashbangs.
Eric looked away and his eyes were full of sparkles. Rubbing at them and shaking his head he kept pace beside Frankie as they reluctantly ploughed on ahead.
"D-do you think she c-can handle that, that… fucking thing?!" Frankie tried not to screech, but his wild eyes in the dark showed his barely restrained fear.
Eric scoffed, "I've seen her go toe to toe with some big ass units before… ahh, ha-ha. She… she'll be okay! She's the Everqueen and a neigh-unkillable legendary lord… She's, she's got this! Augh, goddamn that was bright though, fuckin' talk about a team flash... s-shit!"
He desperately prayed, 'I sure as shit hope she's got this…'
Alarielle screamed with effort, the beast recoiled and squealed, it lashed and cut forwards, and then again, she leapt over it. Using both hands on her staff she brought it down towards the beast's back, and it tried to shy away from the light. With each successful blow it screeched harder and now Alarielle was well on the attack, pressing her advantage.
Morathi looked behind at Eric and Frankie, her lips a smirk, "She'll be fine!"
Karl bounded ahead, turning now and following a scent in the air like a hound. With Morathi close, and the boys trailing right with her. The tunnel narrowed again, and the farther they went the more distant Alarielle, and the ghouls' battle became, echoing eerily and shrilly.
The longer the tunnel went the darker it grew.
Morathi continued to whisper to Heart-render, but the light along the blade was struggling now. Like it was being siphoned or stolen by a wind or force unseen. Uneasily, Karl kept his blade poised and with each step began to slow his pace, keeping his breathing even. Eventually they began to see the flickering of barrel fires, and the tunnel opened into another chambre, this time devoid of columns.
They heard rasping, they heard clicking, and finally passing through the breech, the party had come to Mannfred's lair…
All of them stopped.
Ahead of them the area had been arranged like a sordid throne room. Red armoured knights stood at attention at the end of it, bodyguards to their great vampire count. Their weapons grotesque, their armour filthy and ragged. And behind them?
Rising high above his men, seated on a wretched throne of bleached driftwood, was the vampire count of Sylvania himself… The self-claimed True Von Carstein, the legendary lord, master necromancer, supreme douchebag, and the leader of the Vampire Counts,
Mannfred Von Carstein.
His eyes were intense, milky-white, and dead. Yet inset and sunken into his pale face with a captivating intensity. His stare was unblinking and penetrating. His skin was paler than alabaster, with black and blue veins spider-streaking underneath a thin and chalky layer of flesh.
His armour, blacker than pitch, ate the firelight of the barrels, and even seemed to reach for the flames of Morathi's halberd. It looked like rough worked, evil iron. Orcish almost… Like that of a Nazgul's plate. His broad arms and biceps were covered neither by plate, chainmail, or cloth, and instead the size of his muscles daunted and exclaimed his unnatural vitality.
His exposed skin was as much a boast as it was an intimidating warning. While most vampires in Human guise were lithe, graceful, thin creatures, Mannfred was broad. He seemed almost a barbarian in the wrong raiment. But then there was his his head, hairless, smooth, and pale.
It reflected light and shadow, and the veins thrummed underneath his flesh at the temples. His evil brain flooding with filthy ichor and thoughts. Sitting upon his throne he seemed to visually vibrate with power.
The air was stale, and foul, it smelt like a funeral home to Eric… of dead flowers, and bleach… of the old and sick, of urine and decay…
He paused, and his hands reached towards Morathi and Frankie.
His friend was as pale as a ghost, holding his breath and unmoving. Morathi's left hand moved behind her body and gave Eric's attempted touch a warm clasp. She tapped his knuckles in a motion of reassurance, but never did she look away from the vampire ahead of them.
Now they were there. Now they faced him. And they were outnumbered and devoid of a plan…
Frankie's lip quavered, his voice cracked, and he looked at Eric emphatically, "W-we… we… we're gonna, d-di-die here Eric…"
Mannfred laughed at this, and Karl furrowed his brow, half turning but not taking his eyes off their foe, he growled and roared, "Enough of that whimpering!"
Mannfred gesticulated, like the bastard he was, and chuckled, "Oh but it is truth! Ye speak wisely, it is too late for you Emperor, but ye else? Why, my mercy is still available. Ye must but lay thy selves at mine feet and kiss my ring and I shall-"
Morathi growled and swung Heart-render, "Be silent, corpse!"
Then with a scream she called out in Druhir and sent a wide, blade-like, projection of purple light. Mannfred turned, hissing and hiding behind his black cape, but his blood knights were unlucky. The arc of Morathi's energy blade cut across their shoulders and necks, cleaving their heads all from their bodies at once.
"Fie! You choose death then! I shall enjoy playing with your corpse Sorceress, I will glean the last secrets of magic from the contents of your skull!"
Karl growled and held his blade high, charging ahead, "In Sigmar's name, be silent!"
Mannfred opened his mouth, wider than ought possible, revealing fangs which grew rapidly. The shiny ivory rivalled that of a sabre cat's and he leapt forwards. He drew his own sword, a gnarled, blackened thing, it looked more like a rod of rough metal, but he held it high and when he collided with Karl the sound was wretched.
Eric and Frankie held their hands to their ears and fell to their knees.
Morathi leapt to the left and brought Heart-render high. Beating Karls rune fang away, Mannfred dodged her attack and now fought the two at once.
Clanging, and hissing, and striking. The three legendary lords crashed and sparked together in melee. They all exchanged blows with one another and Mannfred did not use mortal speech, instead he called out his own spells in a black tongue.
Frankie screamed and Eric tried to assure him till then finally with a whimper and fluttering eyes, Frankie collapsed unconscious.
Mannfred rolled back, and leapt in the air, levitating a moment and continuing to weave his spell. The room shook, the concrete began to groan and heave around them.
Morathi hissed and tried to injunct him, but it was too late.
Mannfred's spell concluded, and he laughed, deep in his throat, before sweeping forwards and bashing Karl to the ground.
The results of his spell became manifest as holes in the floor began to form. Sinewy, bony, arms began to reach upwards, clawing at Karl Franz. He roared, swinging his sword around him at the arms, cleaving and battering them with his holy blade. But the more he fought, the more arms he destroyed, the more seemed to come.
Morathi aimed Heart-render, and using her shoulders to help direct the weapon, she began lashing at Mannfred. He dodged and he beat, his sword clanging against Heart-render with a reluctant tone.
Then Morathi sang a spell of her own.
The heaving concrete continued to shake, pieces and flakes began to fall from the ceiling, dusty clouds exploded from the walls, and she screeched,
"I am the Mother! I am the Sunderer!"
Mannfred swept back, his hand making a motion, his red armoured blood knights began to reanimate, reaching for and returning their heads to their corpses as they shambled and slowly began to stand.
"You are an old, dried up, hag. Queen of a bygone age. None shall care nor know of your deeds whence I am succeeded!"
Her spell erupted with purple light, and a terrifying noise followed.
Morathi disappeared within a cloud of miasmic purple smoke, and when she reappeared her borrowed clothing from Eric was gone. Replaced by the gilded, iconic bikini-armour of her character model. Her head was graced now with her horned crown, and she shone with a perceptible aura.
But her face was one of malice, of focus, and surprisingly enough, entertainment. Her dark lips and intense eyes formed into an evil smile, and she began hitting towards Mannfred with graceful, long, arcing motions.
Without taking her eyes from her target, Eric could feel her voice echo in his mind, "Aid Karl you fool! Get the Emperor to strike him in the back!"
Shaking, shivering, and rapt with fear, Eric remained on his knees watching the horrid spectacle.
Morathi was nearly floating above the ground, and Mannfred seemed to fly from side to side, the two locked in duel.
Karl now was screaming, the clawing hands of the undead were trying to hold him fast, and the first and least damaged blood knight had drawn its blade and was advancing, poising itself to deliver a coups-de-gras, and end the line of Franz…
Eric, his body refusing to comply, could only watch on. His mouth was agape. His hands cold and clammy.
'I gotta… I… I have to… I have to move!' he tried blinking, but even that his body refused to do.
Morathi dodge a blow, and Mannfred laughed. He moved to her side, and she followed, chasing a false opening, then, swirling his cape and hiding his blade, Mannfred moved as if in slow motion.
Eric heard himself scream but couldn't recall making the noise.
The tip of Mannfred's cursed blade erupted through the material of his cloak. Morathi abandoned her higher position and brought Heart-render down immediately to counter, but it was all a plot… With her guard lowered and distracted, Mannfred let his cape slip and used his other hand to slash forwards, the strike reaping across her chest in four large lacerations.
His long, gnarled, claws were sharper than steel and Morathi hissed in surprise and pain, stepping back and falling a half measure from floating. She clutched at the wound and barked aloud now,
"Eric! Help the Emperor!"
Mannfred gave no respite, and pressed his advantage, continuing to attack her. Morathi was unable to say more as she was forced to become defensive. Towards Karl, the blood knight still advanced. But now the Emperor was clutched and held fast by countless bony hands.
The knight raised its blade, and Karl could no longer move his sword arm. His eyes through his visor were consumed with defiance and he drew a deep breath.
The cacophony and echoing noises dissipated, the heaving cracking groaning concrete silenced, the whole world became mute and soundless. All Eric could hear was a wet, thick, pumping in his ears. His pulse, loud, and strong, fwumped in his skull, and he became possessed.
He saw a pipe among the refuse, a length of burnished steel just a few inches longer than his arm.
There was nothing for it now… he could no longer think, he would let go of himself and merely do… His knees moved without his prompting, his whole body felt numb, he felt nothing on his skin or face.
Eric moved forwards, in a single motion stooping to pick up the pipe, then without error, he rose back up while continuing to advance.
The blood knight's skeletal smile was almost boastful as it brought its blade downwards. And Karl, slowly, and with a prayer on his lips, closed his eyes as the sword lowered, closer and closer, the impact coming. At this speed, at this angle, he knew it'd pass through his plate…
But Eric had both hands on his pipe now, and he brought them back, his arms tightening to deliver the hardest homerun, hole-in-one, slapshot, of his entire life. With a screaming, bellowing, deep set animalistic roar, Eric aimed and put everything he had into the strike…
The blood knight turned a fraction of a degree, and were it to still have eyes, Eric knew it would have been surprised.
Then time accelerated and he knocked the skull of the undead wretch clean off its fucking shoulders. Colliding with its body and sending the whole corpse flying back into its fellows.
Karl laughed and bellowed a cry of joy, "Sonofabitch you got him!"
Then, pivoting back around, Eric began sweeping his pipe back and forth, whacking at the ground arms like he had a machete. Then reaching for Karl's hand, Eric wrenched the Emperor back up and to his feet.
"Kill him, Karl!"
Mannfred, pushing Morathi back, furrowed his brow and tried to look away, but she laughed and bellowed,
"Keep your eyes upon me, you blood-sucking leech!"
Her voice changed, it shed its feminine tone and instead resounded forwards like that of a monster. Then she spoke a word incomprehensible, "Flehnahanin!"
The air moved and warped, as the vowels themselves seemed to fly at Mannfred. He jumped, trying to dodge it, but it collided with his chest and impacted as if he'd been hit with a ram. The Carstein was then sent across the room, and he smashed into the concrete like it was a movie. It would have been comical, if everything else wasn't so terrifying.
Karl laughed and began slashing at the knights, easily beating their swords and even using his gauntleted hand to punch through their weak bones. Eric balked and let out a nervous laugh at his own part, and seeing the hands attempt to trip Karl, set at them, bashing and hammering his pipe down at their brittle bony fingers.
Morathi twirled Heart-render and spat to the side, whispering a lulling song and touching her chest. Instantly her wounds resealed, but the blood she'd shed remained smeared across her pale bosom. She snarled and looked down at herself and roared,
"Your torment should be legendary! Were I able, I'd see you lashed and chained below Ghrond for a thousand years!"
The crater crackled and shot plumes of chalky dust, as Mannfred groaned and wrenched himself from the hole. Hissing vampirically, and growling aloud, he retorted,
"The tickle of a pox-ridden flea, Druchii whore! Mine powers are beyond yours, and yet grow, gaze upon them now, witch!"
Morathi bared her teeth, "I am Aenarion's Queen, I am the Mother! Corpse!"
Mannfred moved his hand and began to conjure a spell. A great orb formed in his palm and the world began to shake even more violently than before. Karl and Eric continued to fight the skeletons, yet more continued to crawl up from fissures forming in the ground. Each one slain gave way and space for two more born.
The earth it seemed was vomiting the warriors up now…
After they dispatched the last blood knights the newly summoned skeletons bore stranger and stranger dress. Among them, half-plated cavaliers or explorers, their iron rusted and eroded, but their blades still sharp and curved. But then Eric paled and shook in surprise.
The cutlass bearing ancient skeletons gave way to what could only be the French Royalists of Montcalm, their white coats were rotten and weathered, but he knew them by sight from their exhibits in the museum. Quickly, their old enemies followed behind them. Still wrapped in their scarlet, British red coats too started to reach out and rise from the countless growing holes and cracks below their feet.
Eric stopped and could only watch in horror.
Soldiers from every era now were rising… Tan uniforms of the Boer war, trench knifes and round helmets, web-covered helms of long-dead airborne parachutists…
"Morathi! T-th-there's too many!"
Karl continued to hack and cleave, dodging the bayonets of the musket men, and kicking the Great War conscripts back into their holes, but he eventually agreed,
"Use your sorcerery now woman!"
Mannfred laughed, the great chamber was filling now, his legions were growing, and he felt no compulsion to draw back into melee with Morathi.
"It is of no use! Look upon mine powers! I cannot be bested by thy paltry martiality! Now, elf, it is ye who shall be destroyed!"
Then, like a beam of light, singing and sprinting down the hall they'd come, Alarielle bounded onto the stage. Her feet were light and her body lighter. She smelt of summer flowers in the height of bloom, and like Morathi, she too had changed into her true form.
Her gilded crown shone with its golden sunshine, and her minty green dress flowed and blew with its own breeze.
Mannfred growled at her appearance, and hissed, "Nagash wished of your heads a prize! But seeing ye, I think naught! Mine servants shall rip of ye, and feast of all thine flesh!"
Morathi looked to Alarielle, the two shared a nod before yelling aloud and pointing their weapons to the roof of the chamber.
"If you cannot be bested, then you shall be purified!"
Shooting beams towards the concrete, Alarielle and Morathi began to burn a hole in the roof. Sunlight, pure and sudden, immediately poured down through the hole and all the skeletons began to hiss and recoil.
Mannfred furrowed his brow and shook his head, growling and protesting, he shot out bolts of magic, and he began raising something even larger.
"I shall set my grandest creation upon this world! I shall bring forth a terror from the abyss unlike any eve-"
A sudden and deafening crack sounded and rebounded off the concrete cave, stealing everyone's attention and making Karl, Eric, Morathi, and even Alarielle's ears ring.
Spinning towards the source of the noise, Eric saw that Frankie had regained consciousness. Still lying on the ground, while everyone was distracted, he had reached for the discarded rifle of one of the many re-dead skeletons… Bracing it to his shoulder and looking down the bolt-action's sites, he had aimed and shot at Mannfred…
Spinning back to the pale vampire lord, he sputtered and choked, stuttering and staggering. Above his brow, ruining the shine and surface of his tonsured and smooth lunar dome, was now a bullet hole.
"Ye.. ye shal-gh, I'd see tha,"
He coughed and vomited black, chunky blood. It dribbled down his chin, and even thin streaks of it began to flow from the hole in his head. He turned more and Eric cringed, the back of Mannfred's skull had semi-exploded, and more of the black, rotten, viscera was leaked from the massive gory exit wound.
Clicking the bolt and chambering another round Frankie screamed as he fired again. The skeletons, seemingly shocked at the attack on their master now went back into action and the party began to fight as one.
Mannfred tried to conjure a spell, but Morathi and Alarielle, taking inspiration from Frankie each held their weapons high and threw them towards the vampire.
Alarielle's staff melted his wards away, the black metal of his armour heaving and screaming at its pure light, while then Heart-render was able to pierce through and find purchase in Mannfred's chest.
He issued a loud, long, cry of pain. The skeletons all stopped and echoed it, screaming and shaking in place till they each fell apart.
Karl, jumped forwards, his rune blade high, and bellowed with finality, "Now, thou art ended Carstein!"
Mannfred, screeched, hissing batlike one ear-ringing and deafening final time before Karl swung his sword and removed the round, pale, head of the Vampire Count from his body. For good measure he then brought his blade level and stabbed it through Mannfred's chest, where his heart ought to be, and with a mighty blow, kicked the corpse to the floor.
At once the dust of the skeletons blew away and dissipated. The ground ceased to heave, and silence quickly fell upon them, all was quiet save for the panting of the living.
Blinking in disbelief and looking around, Eric began a nervous chittering laugh of triumph. He ran to help Frankie stand, and the three legendary lords moved towards Mannfred's corpse, examining and ensuring he was indeed, finally, and truly, dead.
At once, they then all began to make noises of exasperation and fatigue, chuckling and laughing among each other in victory.
Withdrawing their weapons from Mannfred's body, the remains of the vampire dried and withered, turning to dust and echoes before blowing away and disappearing.
Morathi, looking to Alarielle, Karl, and then to Eric and Frankie, slowly smiled.