The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 15: The Yellow Death, Part 3

 Ammas grimaced, holding his dagger aloft. The Dead whispered, moaned, begged to be unleashed on these horrific parodies of their own existence. The cursewright knew they would make even shorter work of these abominations than they had of the werewolf who had violated the sanctity of his temple. But he had not rested properly since then, and overuse of the salve could put a fatal strain on his body. Until the situation was beyond hope, they must rely on more traditional weapons. For the time being he wasn't worried. He knew from experience that if one could overcome the consuming terror these things evoked even in the hardiest soul, then they were not too difficult to combat.

If their numbers remained small.

The xylophone player was now upright, hammers striking at the metal bars, their chimes ringing in an ominous cheer across the tavern. The dead soldiers began to rise, the mandolin player grinning from under his belled cap, bony fingers strumming at his instrument. Some of the uniformed skeletons bore rusted weapons, but for the most part they only groped forward with yellowed claws, their jaws champing at empty air, yellowish smoke rising from the powdered remnants of their flesh. The stink of sulfur was almost unbearable, and even behind her kerchief Carala began to retch.

"Out! Out!" Ammas cried, physically dragging Carala backward but quickly losing his grip on her in the confusion. 

Vos and Denisius needed no further instruction, hustling back into the corridor, where Casimir crouched at Barthim's feet as the giant tumbled rock and broken fragments of wood from the blocked passage. He was working as fast as he could, but he was too distracted to have made much headway. 

Perhaps twenty yards down the corridor, just visible in the ring of Casimir's lamplight, half a dozen skeletons clad in rotted soldiers' livery staggered toward them. They did not move especially fast, but nor was it the shambling gait one might expect from a rotted corpse. Bony toes scraped against stone. The powdery clots of corruption that held them together creaked and crumbled as they advanced.

"Go!" Ammas roared to Vos and Denisius, brandishing his dagger. "They can be killed! Don't fear them! Don't wait for them to surround us!"

Denisius swallowed hard and charged, roaring, sweeping his blade in one hand and his torch in the other. Vos was right beside him, doing his best to avoid the flaring arc of Lord Marhollow's torch. Vos's sword cleaved a skull into fragments, sending the skeleton below it flying backwards, shattering on the ground, the bones twitching inside its uniform. 

Denisius's blade and torch caught a ribcage between them, crushing and igniting it at the same time. The cluster of bones flailed madly on the ground rolling over and over, its uniform blazing, the clots of yellowed powder bursting into flame, destroying its fragile cohesion.

Between the two of them Denisius and his servant made short work of this cluster of skeletal warriors, reducing them to yellowed splinters. Some of these -- larger fragments like femurs or forearms -- twitched and writhed on the ground, clicking insensibly against the stone.

Ammas was not idle, having stormed into the tavern. Doors had swung open at the far end of the hearth and behind the bar. From this latter entrance staggered an enormous skeleton clad in nothing but a half-rotted apron. Clusters of wild black hair clung to the yellowed skull, and its jaw worked restlessly as it clambered atop the bar. The skymetal dagger lashed out, left and right, to Ammas's fore and backside, each stroke smashing a skeleton to flinders in a gout of blue flame, casting wild shadows upon the tavern walls. Fully half the skeletal warriors here were already destroyed, and those playing their maddened song made no indication they had any goal beyond making that unearthly music.

From the darkness of the spirit salve Ammas's eyes glared wildly. Carala was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished when Barthim had shouted for help.