Rend Hope (20 page)

             
"Looks like you've been through hell stranger." Henry called out, the man didn't respond, he just kept limping forward.  Henry kept his distance, not wanting to be within this man's reach if he proved dangerous.  The wounded stranger groaned again, but this time he was struggling to form words.

             
"Hen...ry." The man managed to breathe out.  The long-haired deputy's face lit up in recognition.  It was Luke, one of the members of the missing scout team from a few days ago!

             
"Holy shit Luke!  How the hell did this happen to you!?  Where are the others?!" Henry asked, practically shouting.  His only answer was another groan as Luke collapsed into the sand in front of him.  Henry quickly ran over to the fallen man and hoisted him up.  He wrapped Luke's right arm behind his neck, holding his right wrist with his right hand.  Henry then grabbed Luke's waist with his left hand, supporting his weight. 

             
The long-haired deputy half-carried and half-dragged Luke back to Jacob, who was also recognizing Luke.

             
"Is that Luke!?  What happened to him?" Jacob demanded.

             
"I don't know, but we need to get him inside and to Lady Rosalind's clinic.  They can patch him up there." Henry replied, Jacob quickly took Luke's other side, and together the two deputies helped their wounded comrade through the south gate.

             
"Make way!  We got wounded!" Jacob called out, whatever civilians that were in their way quickly parted for them.  They had made it to the southern district's first intersection of dirt roads when Luke spoke again.

             
"S...sto...stop." Luke managed to breathe out, Henry turned to look at his wounded friend.

             
"Stop?  Why should we stop?  We need to get you to one of the clinic's healers." Henry told him softly, Luke's lips moved, but the sound they made was too hard for Henry to hear.  The long-haired deputy placed his ear closer to Luke's mouth.  "What was that Luke?  I didn't catch that."  Luke looked at him then, his eyes bloodshot and through them Henry saw how scared the man was.

             
"I'm...dead...al...ready...trap...it's...a...tra..." Luke managed to get out before convulsing violently causing Henry and Jacob to release their holds and back away from him.  Luke continued to convulse, falling to his knees.  The two deputies then noticed with growing alarm that they could hear Luke's bone and cartilage stretch and snap.

             
The deputy formerly known as Luke threw his head back in a terrible wail of agony, falling to his knees.  The shirt of his tattered uniform ripped apart and came completely off.  Exposing his brutalized chest, a giant black glyph was painted there and it was glowing a dark purple color.  Henry and Jacob could only watch in horrified fascination as it began stretching out from Luke.  His chest ballooned outward and the symbol's glow began to permeate throughout his entire body.  That's when the fascination ended for the two deputies and the panic set in.

             
"GET AWAY!" Henry managed to saw before he was engulfed in a massive blast of dark magical energy.

**********

              A loud explosion stirred David Watkins from his thoughts.  The mayor of Midas City quickly lifted himself from his chair and ran to the nearest window.  In the distance a large column of dark grey smoke rose from the air.  David quickly realized that was near the south gate.  Did the necromancer get through the city's magical defenses?

             
"Savior help us." David said to himself, his eyebrows furrowed and his lips set in a grim line.

Chapter 17

              Rosalind, Marie and Markus were out of the bar about two seconds after hearing the explosion.  As they regrouped just outside the building, they noticed the large column of dark grey smoke in front of them.

             
"That's where the south gate is!" Marie exclaimed, Rosalind was busy concentrating, she could sense the work of necromancy, powerful necromancy, but how?  The glyphs she had drawn on the walls of the city should have prevented this kind of thing from happening.

             
"We need to get down there and contain whatever threats there are in the southern district." Rosalind ordered.  "We'll spread out and...Marie that better be water you're drinking!"

             
Marie gasped as she realized she was caught.  The teenage girl had been in the middle of raising a bottle of vodka to her lips.  Markus immediately recognized it as the bottle Rosalind had given him, he shook his head in amazement.  When the hell did Marie get time to grab it?  She was closer to the door than they were.

             
"Umm what happens if I say yes?" Marie asked, Rosalind threw her a sideways glare.

             
"I smack you upside the head for lying." The blonde woman answered, Marie paused for a moment.

             
"Okay...then no it's not water." The teenage magi-apprentice replied, Rosalind nodded in approval.

             
"Good girl.  For your honesty you get to help the David with his paperwork after we take care of this." Rosalind told her, there was a small smirk on her lips as she conjured up a pair of wings made of white energy on her shoulderblades.  With one flap she was airborne and heading towards the pillar of dark smoke.

             
"Ah come on Rosalind!  That's way worse than getting smacked in the head!" Marie whined.  She was about to follow when a gust of wind knocked the bottle out of her hands and into Markus'

             
"Sorry I haven't got a gift from Rose in over two years, I want to savor this one." He told Marie, winking.  The blonde aeromancer then bent his knees and leapt high into the air with some assistance from his sorcery, following Rosalind.

             
"Fucking adults, no fun at all." Marie grumbled and then moved to follow.

*********

              Nicole was having the strangest dream, that's the only way she could describe it.  She had been lying in her bed with her husband, Quentin.  When a sudden loud noise assaulted her ears and her vision was filled with grey and black.  Suddenly she was no longer in her bed, but she was flying, head over heels.  Nicole flailed her arms wildly trying to find some purchase, any purchase, to stop her disorienting flight.

             
She fell on something then, something hard.  The impact jarred every bone in her body and she began coughing.  When Nicole was finished expelling the smoke and dust from her lungs she propped herself up by her elbows and looked up to see that her house was burning.  Quentin's body lay face-up in front of her.  She noticed that half the right side of his face and part of his upper torso was horribly burned, the flesh seared right off.  Her husband's scream of agony should have brought her to her senses, but her vision was blurry and her body felt so heavy and why was everything so quiet?

             
Nicole detected movement from the edge of her vision to her right.  At first she thought it was one of the deputies trying to help Quentin, but as the figure came more into her vision, she noticed that something wasn't quite right with this person.  For one their skin was very pale, almost white, and another it seemed to be melting off of them.  The person also didn't seem to have any clothes on, didn't they have any decency?

             
The dazed woman watched as the person with pale and melting skin approached the supine form of her husband.  The figure seemed to shamble along more than walk, like they were trying to figure out how to make their legs work.  Their fingers were weird too, they were long, about a foot long and they seemed sharp.  This was verified when the person raised its right hand and plunged its dagger-like fingers into Quentin's chest.  He couldn't even scream, Nicole heard a faint gurgling sound emanate from him and watched as he spat out a large volume of blood.  The red fluid ended up covering his face, he quickly slumped and lay still.

             
Nicole screamed out his name, but her voice seemed so quiet, so distant.  Was this a dream?  Yes, it had to be a dream that's why her hearing and vision was so messed up.  Any second she was going to wake up with Quentin safe and sound beside her.  Her cry had drawn the melted person's attention, it turned to look at her and Nicole got a good look at its face.

             
What was left of it.

             
The person had no eyeballs, only empty and dark eyesockets.  The lips were melted and warped around its teeth, which were crooked, but sharp.  It looked like a skull with bits of pale flesh clinging to it loosely.  Nicole gasped, it wasn't a person, it was a monster.

             
The melted monstrosity began shambling towards her.  Nicole attempted to get to her feet, but her body was unresponsive.  It felt like she had invisible weights on her back.  She continued to try and get up, but all her efforts proved fruitless.  Finally, the monster stood right in front of her, its right hand raised and ready to impale her.  Nicole rationalized that since this is a dream it would be fine, her death in her dream would awaken her in the real world and she could just laugh it off with her husband.

             
The ghoul stabbed Nicole through the top of her head with its right hand.  The woman's body twitched for a few moments before going still.  The undead creature then extracted its hand from her smashed head and began shambling towards its next target.

             
Nicole never woke up.

**********

              Sahiron felt his stomach tighten and he threw up another pile of vomit.  When he was finished he glared to his right, at Ebrim.

             
"That has got to be the most messed up way I have ever used to infiltrate a city." The former inmate commented, Ebrim grinned.

             
"My apologies, whoever made those glyphs on the city's walls knew their stuff.  This was the only way I could think of to get us in undetected." The dark-haired necromancer responded.

             
Sahiron had to admit, Ebrim's method was definitely innovative.  He had somehow used a spell to compress both of them and scores of ghouls into one necromantic glyph.  This glyph was then placed on the torso of one of the deputies they had kept clinging to life.  After that all they had to do was let the critically wounded deputy get picked up by his peers.  The glyph compressed the necromancy's power enough so that the glyphs adorning Midas City's walls didn't activate.  Once they were through the gate, the glyph uncompressed which resulted in the huge explosion just now.

             
While it was effective, traveling while sealed inside a glyph was disorienting to say the least.  Sahiron had no idea why Ebrim wasn't throwing up his lunch like he was.  He was still trying to tell up from down.

             
"Let's see, they must have a place where they keep records of some sort.  A city this large can't function without some sense of order.  I need to find them." Ebrim mused.  Sahiron looked at him questioningly.

             
"Why do you need the city's records?" The former prisoner asked his ally, Ebrim turned towards him a smile on his face.

             
"I just need to verify a theory." The dark-haired necromancer said cryptically.  Sahiron stared at his ally inquisitively for a moment but then shrugged, their alliance was only short-term so whatever reason Ebrim had for needing the city's records was his business.

             
"I think I know where I can find them." The former prisoner stated.  "I'll get you your little records Ebrim, you just keep whatever heat these fools send at us occupied."  Ebrim's teeth showed in his smile.

             
"A gesture of good faith?" The dark-haired man inquired.

             
"Something like that." Sahiron answered, leaping effortlessly onto a building's rooftop to his left then disappearing from Ebrim's sight.  The tall man began to walk casually deeper into Midas City, whistling a tune as his blue scarf billowed in the wind.  Things were about to get interesting he surmised.

**********

              "My god, I've never seen so many...dead at once." Marie said in almost a whisper, horrified.  Markus and Rosalind were not as fazed, they were survivors of Havenway after all.  While seeing a street littered with the dead was a terrible sight.  They had witnessed much worse in their former hometown.

             
"Focus!" Rosalind barked, "More will be dead if we don't act quickly.  I sense the stench of necromancy just ahead of us."  The trio of magi looked ahead, about fifty meters in front of them, the blood-ridden street was filled with light-brown smoke and dust, hindering their ability to see things.

             
"Something's coming, several somethings." Markus reported, a number of shadowy outlines could be seen through the dust, judging from their unnatural stride, they weren't human.  Finally one of the outlines pierced through the veil of smoke and dust.  Revealing to the trio what looked like a skeleton with pale flesh that almost looked like it was melting off of it.

             
"Ghouls." Rosalind stated simply, mustering as much hate into the one word as she could.  "Let's clear this street out quick, there must be more of them all over this district.  We'll need to be fast to contain them."

             
"Got it." Marie acknowledged.  She glowed green for a second and her clothes were replaced by a grey metallic looking armor that covered her from head to toe.  The helmet she wore was shaped like a dragon, the eyeholes right where the dragon's eyes would be.

             
Marie immediately dove into the fray, diving into the middle of a group of ghouls.  She smashed her right armored fist into the face of a ghoul in front of her.  One of the creatures to her left got brave and swiped at her head with its left claw.  Nimbly she ducked under the undead creature's swing then planted her left boot into its midsection, knocking it into and through the window of a nearby building.

             
The teenage magi heard a screech behind her.  Reacting quickly, she turned and raised her right forearm just as the ghoul was about to stab her in the back with its own right hand.  The ghoul’s claws hit the armor on Marie's forearm and shattered into dozens of tiny fragments.  It screeched again, whether in pain or outrage Marie didn't know or care.  She reached out with her right hand and dug her fingers into the things throat.  Gripping tightly, she twisted back around and flung the ghoul into a crowd of its brethren.  The impact smashed a bunch of them into the dirt-packed street, covering it in the combined melted mass of their pale flesh and bones.

             
Rosalind stretched her right hand out, fingers spread and palm facing another group of about eight ghouls.  Her hand glowed the color of ivory and a giant glowing white hand constructed from her sorcery appeared beneath the group of ghouls, snatching them up.  Rosalind closed her fist and the giant hand likewise did the same, crushing the ghouls it had grabbed.  Dark fluid seeped from the giant fist, flowing like a river and soaking the street.

             
Markus wasn't even paying attention to the ghouls.  Something in the air had caught his eye.  The aeromancer blinked, was that a man in a straitjacket leaping through the air?

             
With a casual wave of his left hand, Markus sliced a trio of ghouls in half with a blade of wind.  He then leapt on top of the building to his immediate right.  With the better view allowed from higher ground, the flannel-clad magi was able to confirm that there was indeed a man in a straitjacket leaping from rooftop to rooftop.  And he was heading toward's the mayor's office.

             
Markus had a bad feeling, it wasn't some sixth sense brought to him by sorcery, it was just a bad feeling in his gut.  There was no other way to describe it.  Whoever the man in the straitjacket was, he was more than he appeared and not in a good way.

             
"We've got trouble!" Markus called out, a moment later Rosalind was by his side.  He quickly pointed out the man in the straight-jacket, who was rapidly becoming smaller as he headed away from them.

             
"He's headed towards the mayor's office." Rosalind said out loud, Markus nodded.

             
"Judging by the superhuman leaps he's making I think it's safe to say he's got some sort of sorcery." The aeromancer noted, he turned to look at his former girlfriend.  "So you getting any necromancy vibes from him?" Rosalind's eyes narrowed as she focused.

             
"Yes, but it's dampened, it's that straitjacket he's wearing." The hoodie-clad woman replied.