The Ghost's Crusade

XVIII: Drystan (cont.)

Drystan didn't have to be given any more incentive. He immediately hacked his way through the few remaining homunculi in his path with little finesse in order to make it to Tiernan and Akkali as quickly as he could. He slid to his knees and came to a halt mere inches from the barrier she still kept erect even though the siege had broken.

"How long has she been like this?"

"A good five minutes," replied Tiernan, signaling to the girl in his arms to remain quiet. She had been clamoring at the Inquisitor to help Akkali and immediately quieted down once she saw he was finally taking action. "She's ice cold and her markings... they look almost normal now."

Break her connection with the barrier, urged Arathron as panic began to set in upon the revenant's mind. He must take the staff and pry her arm from the wall.

"You need to use the staff and knock her hand free of the barrier."

"And what guarantee do I have she's not going to kill me when she snaps out of whatever the Inferno this is?"

Drystan relinquished control of his body briefly so he wouldn't have to keep translating for the revenant. "She is no longer here. Her spirit has drifted beyond Eral and the longer she maintains this channel the further away she will be carried. Should I not be able to find her she will die and you may very well have to dig yourself out of that barrier. And I am not certain that is even possible for I still do not understand how she is even capable of this."

Before Tiernan could reach for it the little girl under his guard had the white-silver staff in her hands and was trying to shove one end beneath Akkali's palm where it lay flat against the barrier. With the man's help she pried her fingers free and Drystan braced himself for the aftermath.

His chest compressed as all the atmosphere in the vicinity suddenly seemed to vanish. A second later the ear-shattering pop of displaced air jarred his teeth and knocked everyone flat to the ground, pressing them all into a deepening crater of earth the exact size of the area within the barrier. He watched Akkali topple sideways like a tipped stone and remain fixed where she fell as though she were long dead.

The little girl scrambled forward and hung her arms around the mutt that had been following Akkali. "Why didn't that fix it? What's wrong with her?"

"Hallia, take the dog and back up," instructed Tiernan sternly but without anger. Compliantly the child shuffled back a few steps, tugging the mutt with her and releasing her white-knuckled grip on the staff as she went. The Inquisitor looked towards him. "What else can be done?"

Drystan leaned forward and turned Akkali over to lay flat on her back, then motioned over his shoulder towards where the Inquisitors were steadily driving back the small horde of imp homunculi towards the open field. "We're going to try and pull her back, but I'll be useless while we search. There's hundreds of those things crawling around, and with Basilides dead there's no telling what they'll do now. I need you to watch-"

"You worry about this," he said as he waved his hand over the Enkiri, "and I'll worry about that."

Nodding he gripped one of Akkali's hands firmly between his own. "This might get... a bid odd for you."

"As if anything having to do with you can be classified as normal these days," muttered Tiernan with a frustrated sneer.

Smiling at his friend, he inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. Slowing his breathing, he let Arathron begin his search, and the revenant seized control of the direction of his thoughts with what could only be described as panic. Never before had he felt such alarm come from his old friend, not even when they had found themselves relegated to a rather gruesome death by being ripped apart in a storm of venomous lightning from Pandemonium. The man was actually terrified that he had somehow gotten Akkali killed though Drystan knew her far too well to believe she'd literally lay down and die.