The Ghost's Crusade

XVII: Tiernan

The Inquisitor took stock of what he had to work with and realized he had absolutely nothing but memory. Luckily he had a very good memory, but if Cyril had already managed to magically entrench herself within the girl's body he doubted merely a spoken ritual and his own willpower would be enough to force her out.

Across the discordantly colored field the mindless ball-fisted homunculi lurched towards Akkali, a wave of reanimated flesh guided by a single mind, their empty eye sockets bouncing from side to side with their useless heads as their skulls rocked from shoulder to shoulder. He felt the hairs on his arms and neck prickle and then stand straight out from his skin and noticed the thick musty library smell of the air burn away. Looking up he saw the markings along Akkali's exposed hands take on a rusted scarlet color and then stretch out, wrapping around the staff in her hands like a rapidly growing vine. Soon the staff was encased end to end in twisting tendrils of magic energy, and it wasn't stopping there.

Much as he had seen her do in the mine shaft, a solid wall of wavering magic expanded outwards from each side of the staff, bending backwards and striking the trunks of the trees that surrounded them. Each tree her magic touched was drained of the rancid colors that had overtaken it and returned to a lifelike shade. Behind him he heard the air crack as the wall closed up around them, sealing them inside a barrier of magic.

For a moment the homunculi hesitated, spreading out along the boundary of the wall as the one controlling them tried to figure out what to make of it. Then they surged forward as a single unit, stitched fingers colliding with the shifting magic and bouncing back as though it really was made of brick and mortar. Akkali stood rooted and unwavering even as the homunculi hammered on the barrier right in front of her face. It was as though she could see nor hear a thing going on around her.

In his grip Hallia writhed as Basilides', or rather Cyril's, spirit fought with her. The Oratio had possessed her body before he had been able to kill Basilides but the girl was obviously making her work to take full control. That was good, at least; unwilling subjects who could still fight back were the most receptive to the countering hex. Cyril was also weak, if her previous frustrated statement were to be taken at face value. Though she was young Hallia had a small chance.

Pressing one hand against the girl's forehead he shoved her head down rather unmercifully into the wet earth hoping it would make it harder for her to move and fight. Cyril screamed as though there had been a sword driven through her chest, writhing and biting at his other hand as he kept her chest pinned flat. After a few seconds of failing to gain purchase she started kicking with her feet, pummeling his armored side with barefooted blows that were probably breaking Hallia's toes. The mutt did what she could to keep her legs from flying about, eventually settling on clamping her mouth around the girl's right shin and relieving half of Tiernan's trouble.

"Come, blood corrupted," he whispered, tuning out the rising din of Cyril's murderous shrieks and the mounting fury of the homunculi's blows against the barrier keeping them at bay. "Come, spirit subjugated. By the grace of life redeemed. By the heart of sins for-"

Startled out of his recitation he watched as the same odd tendrils of magic he had seen in the tavern now sprung up from the damp earth all around them. The reached out and pierced through Hallia's limbs, spearing through her flesh and causing the Oratio to shriek in protest. Driven on by their master's fury the homunculi began to throw themselves again and again against the magical barrier summoned by Akkali and the shield began to waver.

Now pinned firmly to the earth by roots of magic that were slowing spreading along the ground towards the homunculi, Hallia's eyes shot open, blood red orbs with absolutely no white in them at all. "Filthy vine-skinned heathen! I will not loose to you!"