The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 15: The Yellow Death, Part 5

 Barthim, Denisius, and Casimir had cleared a sizable gap through the rubble, Denisius having pelted back and forth adding fuel to the wall of flames. Vos stood midway between the passageway and the blaze, sword at the ready, dusted head to toe with that awful yellowish powder. 

The skeletons were becoming bolder, some grazing their fleshless hands into the fire, drawing them back as the powdery clots that served them as ligaments ignited. The alarm in Barthim's voice was merited, though: around Vos was a burning half-circle of blackened bones and smoldering clothing. Some of them had apparently charged through the flames, overcoming whatever lingering instinct it was that gave them an aversion to fire. As Ammas watched, another one made the attempt. It hurled itself with shocking speed through the fiery barrier, a figure drenched in flames as it sprang at Vos, seeking now not only to claw and strangle but to burn.

Vos deflected its blows, cleaving one arm from its ribcage, severing its spine at the waist. It fell to the ground in pieces, fingers and toes clutching the floor. Flames licked upward. The corridor was illuminated in a hellish haze of reds and yellows, and the smoke was beginning to make breathing difficult for all of them. Vos's dusty clothes smoldered faintly.

"Leave them!" Ammas roared, beckoning to Vos and Denisius with his dagger. More of the skeletons were making their way through the flames, all becoming walking torches as they did. Whatever burned in their eyesockets reacted to the fire, gouts of orange flames spilling from their skulls, hideous thick smoke rising in twin columns from every blazing head. 

Ammas knew they could not exist under such conditions for long; that fire consumed them rapidly, but they could do enormous mischief before they were destroyed. Denisius charged past him, panting and nursing a burnt hand; Vos followed, pausing for Ammas to go ahead of him through the passage. Beyond the rubble, Barthim and Casimir were struggling with a door. Luck was with them, seemingly, for though it was barred the bar was on their side. But it had been braced against the door for so long it would not move easily, even with Barthim throwing all his strength into it.

"Go, Ammas," Vos hissed. "I'll cover your back."

"No. Take Carala. Try to get that damn thing open. You need me to cover your back, not the other way round."

Vos, who after all had served with cursewrights in his youth, didn't need much convincing. He took Carala's hand and guided her into the excavated passage, stepping ahead of her to help Barthim with the door. Denisius stood behind her, taking a spot between her and Ammas, sword brandished awkwardly. The blisters on his fingers were swollen and miserably aching. Beyond the cursewright's shape he could see what looked like dozens of the yellowed skeletons, most of them aflame, a river of bone and fire implacably worming toward them. The passage Barthim had dug out was more confined than the passageway they had fled, and the smoke was becoming a real danger. Denisius could feel his eyes burning. His breath caught up in his lungs, painful and harsh.

Then Ammas spoke -- he spoke to people who were not there, and the sound of it chilled Denisius right down to the marrow.

"Take them!" he roared, thrusting his dagger at the marching rows of skeletons, as if commanding an unseen cohort. "Their death was denied, give them the mercy you never felt!"

What Denisius saw next he could never adequately describe. A wind so icy it chilled his face, even here in this tunnel where it only blew indirectly, blasted across the skeletal legions, knocking them backward -- even sending some of them sprawling -- and extinguishing the reeking fires in thick plumes of smoke. Something could be heard, something that howled and gibbered and screamed, but at the same time its volume never rose beyond a whisper. In some ways it reminded him of the screams he had uttered in the worst nightmares, the ones where some terrible thing demanded a full throated scream but all that he could summon was a puling whistle.