Iorrjaer

Chapter 35

The shambling, erratic, shuffling footsteps were approaching quickly. Barsabel looked around at her friends in measured panic. Kârael was still dazed from his ordeal. Bethar and Graphiel were examining their wards for any final, last minute, addition or augmentation. Rin and Chester were getting ready, in their own ways. Chester was unhooking different types of small metal rods from his waist belt and repositioning them in better areas of his waist belt and the bandolier across his chest. Rin was still hovering in her spot and looked to be doing nothing, but wisps of dust were starting to gather around her. Barsabel knew that she was preparing a spell. Shedmoth was gone.

She got up and dragged Kârael over to a wall, near Bethar. She then joined Chester and Rin.

"What do you expect?"

"Soldiers." Chester said, still adjusting the rods around his belts. "Not the friendly kind, either."

"Expect them to no longer look, or be, human." Rin said. The wisps of dust were now tendrils, spiraling their way around her and up towards her now outstretched hand. "They will be without reason."

Barsabel readied herself. She started to hop in place and shake out her hands, roll her shoulders and stretch out her neck. She had let herself go over Kârael and now she wanted to show that she was not a damsel.

Chester unhooked a rod from his bandolier and gave it a flick and it sprang alive and formed into a mace. He unhooked another with his free hand and did the same flick and it sprang into the form of a shield. Barsabel smiled and laughed a little.

"Dwarven magic combined with a little technical skill of Rickart," Chester said and noticed the monk's pause. "Head artificer for the Inglegaard in Khico."

"I know who that is!" Graphiel shouted and Bethar smacked the back of his knee.

Chester gave a hardy grumph, stowed his mace, unhooked two more rods from his waist belt and rolled them over to Graphiel.

Graphiel grabbed them, examined them and then flicked them both out into hammers. One was a simple broad headed hammer and the other was more of a pike.

There was no time for further jesting. The door that led into their room burst open and immediately donated the runes that they had placed and the cacophony and fiery explosion shook the entire guardhouse. Rin cast a simple spell to hasten the clearing of the dust and rubble and the effect had worked - several soldiers and guards lay strewn amongst the rubble and indeed, no longer looked human.

The next group that shambled in like zombies on limbs of which the skin had been broken and peeled away to reveal protrusions of exoskeletal armour and spikes. Rin's gusty blast was cast immediately upon their entry and the dusty wind blew them back into the opening in the doorframe. Their numbers betrayed them as they jammed the door, held in place by Rin's wind. Those stuck were torn asunder by those behind them and the rush continued.

Barsabel's moment of reprieve to process the terrible sight of the malformed soldiers, had not lasted as long as she had hoped. She slid her foot across the stony floor and caused a rippling barrier that tripped up a good amount of the guards and they caused those behind them to collide with the others.

Those that broke away, picked up speed in mere seconds and rushed towards them. Chester was already engaged and moving with speed and skill that she had not expected from him. He blocked and parried adeptly with his shield and anything that his mace came into contact with was sufficiently crushed on impact. Rin was moving, keeping her position a little higher as she cast spells that sent a soldier flying against the wall or into another.

Barsabel, lost in the ensuing chaos, only caught a glimpse of one of the soldiers breaking away from Chester and bee-lining straight for Bethar, Graphiel and Kârael's prone positions. Without thinking and letting her training take over, Barsabel intercepted one soldier and hit him with an open palmed strike that sent him flying towards the wall like a tossed jar. The soldier crashed into the wall and the breaking of the exoskeleton was almost sickening.