Chapter 206 - Regrouping (Patreon)

With heavy footsteps, Zeke strode through the halls of the Seat of the Sultanate, splatters of blood and gore dripping from his blood mithril armor. The name felt appropriate, given the carnage he’d left behind. Abby walked beside him, with Pudge bringing up the rear. The sounds of fighting – or more appropriately, dying – echoed through the corridor from up ahead, so Zeke was unsurprised when he turned a corner and saw a scene that put his own efforts to shame.

Everywhere he looked, there were dead, dying, dismembered, and decaying bodies. A few still twitched, a couple moaned in agony, and others stared up at the vaulted ceiling, unseeing and with wide eyes. None were long for the world of the living.

And in the center of it all was Talia, her armor ripped to shreds and her pale, green-veined skin looking like it belonged on some macabre, marble statue. She bent over a pile of bloody rags that might’ve once been a person, her claws flashing and slashing, slinging blood and decayed flesh flying with every motion.

“Oh, my God…”

Zeke glanced to his right to see Abby, her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide with horror, as she beheld the gory sight.

“I was going to stop her,” said a voice from one of the nearby shadows. “But I think she needed this.”

“What happened?” Zeke asked, turning to face Carlos. The man was nestled in shadows, but Zeke could still see that his black clothing was splattered with blood.

“Ambush,” Carlos said. “They used the group as decoys, and when she…when she started doing what she does, they sprang the trap. Some kind of rune formation or skill that stopped her from moving. There was a healer, too. Church of Purity. That’s who…that’s who she’s…you know…right now.”

The man looked as if he was going to vomit, but that wasn’t surprising, given the state of the room. It was a charnel house of severed body parts, and the air was suffused with all the smells associated with mass slaughter. Blood. Bodily waste. And, as happened when Talia got involved, rot. Thankfully, Zeke’s helmet was mostly sealed, so it blocked most of the smells. The others didn’t have the same protection.

“I’ll get her,” Zeke said. “The battle’s not done.”

“What? There can’t be many others left in the city,” Carlos said. “I mean, there are thousands of Spiders, but these represent the majority of the evolved. And I assume you…dealt with the Eyes?”

“I did,” Zeke said. “Killed the leader, too. Lucius. No last name.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Zeke prompted. “You’re not surprised?”

“Not really,” Carlos acknowledged. “I knew he was around, so it was probably inevitable that he’d show up. Did he offer you a deal?”

“He did. I didn’t take it,” Zeke stated.

“Why?” Carlos asked.

“Other than the fact that he trapped us?” Zeke asked. It was a rhetorical question, so Carlos didn’t answer. Zeke went on, “I got an item recently. It tells me when somebody is being dishonest. And that man didn’t say anything that wasn’t a lie. He’d have turned on me the moment I let down my guard. Besides, I tried coexistence.” He gestured to the room full of dead bodies. “Didn’t seem to work out that well, did it?”

“Serves them right,” Abby said, still groggy. She’d barely spoken since regaining consciousness, and when she did, her words were bitter. Zeke knew that, more than anything, Abby hated being saved. Not the act itself, but rather the necessity of it. She wasn’t a princess in a tower, waiting for a knight in shining armor, and she despised being made to feel like one.

Of course, Zeke had tried to convince her that it wasn’t like that, that they were a team, and that it was normal for companions to help one another out and, when the situation called for it, to save each other. She never wanted to hear that, though. Instead, she always focused on the negative connotations.

Right now, though, Zeke couldn’t concern himself with Abby’s idiosyncrasies or character flaws. Another of his companions needed help. So, he stepped over the dead bodies and made his way to Talia. As he did, he saw a few scraps of what had once been a white robe beneath her; the rest of the garment was stained red.

Talia’s arms rose and fell with bestial fury, never stopping. Never slowing as she ripped the priest apart. Nearby, a pile of rent flesh in a black robe marked the spot where she’d begun her furious evisceration.

Zeke’s hand darted out, clamping around her wrist and stopping it cold. She quivered with unspent fury, whipping her head around and twisting to aim her other claw at his armored chest. Zeke caught the other arm and said, “It’s over, Talia. It’s over.”

With his [Heart of the Berserker] still singing in his veins, he was intimately aware of how easy it was to lose control. He’d been balanced on the edge himself, and so, he felt a kinship with Talia. Even before it had become a critical part of his skillset, Zeke had struggled with losing himself to the emotions that came with battle. So, he understood Talia in a way he didn’t think anyone else ever would.

For a long few seconds, Talia’s eyes danced with inhuman fury, but slowly, her features grew slack, and the tension in her arms fell away. As she went limp, Zeke pulled her to him, cradling her head in her hands as he whispered, “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Tears fell from her eyes, tracking a path through the blood and gore that coated her pale skin. Zeke tightened his embrace. For how long they stood there, Zeke couldn’t know, but all the while, he felt his skill stirring him to action. He hadn’t released it yet, largely because when he did, it would bring exhaustion with it.

And the job wasn’t finished.

But some things took precedence over battle, so he took the time to comfort Talia as best he could. He wasn’t a trained therapist – not like Abby – but sometimes, that wasn’t what people needed. Sometimes, they just needed a hug from a friend who understood what they were going through. Zeke could give Talia that.

Finally, after an indeterminate amount of time, Abby cleared her throat and said, “I know you two are having a moment, but we need to talk about what we’re going to do now.”

Zeke wanted to glare at Abby for the interruption. Didn’t she see how vulnerable Talia was? With her background, Abby should have been the first in line to offer solace.

Talia pulled away and wiped the tears from her cheeks. As she did, she said, “She is right. This is not the time.”

“What’s to talk about?” asked Carlos. “The only reason you came back was to help Talia and Abby. That’s done. We should leave.”

“Can’t,” Zeke said, the skill forcing the word into a grunt.

“What? Why?” Abby asked.

“There’s an army of undead headed this way,” he stated.

“There weren’t that many,” Abby said. “The guards could deal with them.”

“Right,” Carlos agreed. “I counted maybe a couple hundred at most. They shouldn’t be a threat to a city of this size. Even without…these fighters…”

As he trailed off, he gestured to the piles of bodies.

Zeke shook his head. “I don’t know what you saw,” he said. “But on my way here, I ran into a bunch of smaller groups that were merging into one huge army. Thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands. All headed here. I’m not a tactical genius or anything, but I’d bet my tower that the city can’t hold against that kind of force.”

Abby and Carlos glanced at one another, but Talia was the one to speak up. “We must save them.”

“What? No,” Abby said. “We don’t owe these people –”

“We can evacuate,” Carlos suggested, interrupting Abby.

Abby glared at him, then asked, “And you think that would work? You saw how fast those elite zombies moved. Not to mention that they probably have other flavors of undead. No – we can’t stop what’s coming. We need to slip out of the city and go do what we’ve been planning to do all along.”

“You don’t think we owe these people?” Zeke asked. “What about Taggert? The Union? They were good to us.”

“Because they were afraid you’d blow up the rest of the city,” Abby argued.

Carlos shrugged. “She’s not wrong,” he said. “Jariq holds no love for you. Fear is the only reason you weren’t attacked.”

Zeke sighed. Even the skill coursing through his veins wasn’t enough to keep his shoulders from slumping. He didn’t want to be feared – not by innocent people, at least. He wanted to be a hero. It was a silly, outdated, and unrealistic desire, but he’d always tried to make the best choices he could. He’d never knowingly endangered innocents and had even gone out of his way to avenge the wrongfully killed. He had achievements to prove it, too.

But even so, he’d left a swath of destruction wherever he went, and he was responsible for more deaths than he could count. Monsters. Humans. Giants. Demons. So many had died by his hands. And yet, he had done his best every step of the way. So, it was incredibly disappointing that, with all his efforts, people had a worse opinion of him than they did of actual tyrants like Lady Constance or the slain Sultan of Jariq.

There was a part of him that wanted to just leave the people to their own devices. They hated him, didn’t they? They feared him. So, what did he owe them?

But he couldn’t just abandon a city full of innocent people to their fate. He had the power to help, and so he would. Public perception be damned. He wouldn’t do it for their love or respect. He would do it because it was the right choice.

Turning to Talia, he said, “I hate to ask this of you, but you’re the fastest. I need you to head outside the walls and scout the enemy. Tell me how far away they are, how fast their moving, and what the army looks like in terms of numbers.”

“Of course,” Talia said. And then, without another word, she took off almost too fast to be perceived.

To Carlos, he said, “I assume you have contacts within the city’s guard. I need you to act as a liaison. With so many of the leaders dead, there will be confusion. They need to understand the threat bearing down on us.”

“And what do you intend to do?” Carlos asked.

Zeke said, “For now, I need to rest. But when the army of the dead gets here, I will fight. Hopefully, we’ll win. Then, once the city’s safe, we leave. You’re welcome to come with us when we go.”

“Bold of you to assume we’ll survive.”

“I have so far,” Zeke stated.

Carlos just shook his head, but Zeke didn’t need him to say the words for him to understand what was going through the other man’s mind. While Zeke was like a cockroach that refused to die, his friends weren’t like to be so lucky. Tucker hadn’t been, and Carlos had to be questioning which member of the group would be next.

But he could no longer leave the city to its own devices than Zeke could. He’d spent most of his time in the Radiant Isles defending the helpless, and he wasn’t like to stop now. So, he said, “Okay. I think I know how to talk to.”

Zeke nodded, and Carlos headed into one of the shadows, disappearing.

“What about me?” Abby asked. “Any orders?”

“You know I don’t give you orders,” Zeke said. In his mind, he didn’t give anyone orders; instead, he simply made suggestions. After all, no one else seemed willing to step up and organize the group. He didn’t want the responsibility – mostly because he didn’t think he deserved it – but even his meager abilities in that arena were better than nothing, especially in the absence of someone else doing what needed to be done.

“No, you don’t,” she said. “Still, what’s the plan?”

“Right now? I’m going to wait on Talia,” he said. “She’ll be able to tell us how much time we have. Hopefully, it’ll be enough where I can summon the tower, deactivate my skill, and rest. If not…”

“It’s still going?” she asked, her hand finding his arm. “That can’t be good.”

He shrugged. Indeed, he felt a pressure building behind his eyes that, from experience, he knew would soon become a splitting headache. He would still be functional, especially with his pain resistance, but it wouldn’t be pleasant. And with every passing minute he kept the skill active, the period of weakness that came with letting it go would be that much more intense. And it would last longer as well. He still had most of a day before it exceeded the longest period of activation he’d so far experienced – that distinction belonged to the time he’d spent on the Lake of Flames – but it was getting closer by the second.

“Probably not,” Zeke acknowledged. “In the meantime, I’m going to loot all these people.”

“A bit grim,” Abby said.

“I can’t really disagree with that,” he agreed. “But who knows what these people have on them? It might be some kind of life-saving treasure or something that will help us against the undead.”

Abby sighed. “We really should just leave,” she said. “We keep getting distracted from our primary goals.”

“I know. But I can’t just leave these people. They’ll be slaughtered.”

Pudge chose that moment to snort his agreement. Until then, he’d been nosing his way through the scattered corpses and body parts.

“And Pudge agrees,” Zeke said with a smile that wasn’t visible due to his helmet. He hoped Abby would hear it in his voice. “That has to count for something.”

Abby just shook her head. “Coming from him?” she said. “Not the vote of confidence you think it is. But I trust you, Zeke. And if you say we need to do this, then that’s what we’re going to do. More than anything in the world, though, I just want to leave this damned city behind us. I hate everything about it. The people. The stupid buildings. The desert. I just want to leave it all behind.”

“Me, too,” Zeke said. He had his own reasons – chiefly that everyone in Jariq either wanted to kill him or were terrified of him – but Abby’s dislike seemed personal. “Me, too.”

After that, Zeke began the odious task of looting the bodies. He was well experienced with the process, and it only required that he touch each individual corpse and give the mental command, but there was something altogether horrible about applying that ability to what were once living, breathing human beings. Still, he didn’t shy away from the necessity of the task, and soon, he’d made his way back to the council chambers. Once there, he picked up a few interesting items.

One was a simple-looking stone that radiated mana. It wasn’t identifiable, so he had no idea what it was. Even so, he knew it was valuable, partially because it had come from Lucius’s corpse but mostly because of the powerful energy it contained. He marked it for further study. He also found some armor that seemed perfect for Abby, largely because they increased the potency of elemental attacks and would hopefully bolster her [Thunder Strike]. If not, the leather set of black-and-blue armor was likely valuable, and they could sell it once they found their way to Salvation or back to Beacon.

There were some other odds and ends, but none seemed particularly useful for Zeke. There was some armor that might fit Talia, though, and he set it aside. All in all, it was a decent haul, especially when he started piling some of the furniture and decorations into his spatial storage. Most of it was far too gaudy for his taste, but the tower was mostly empty, save for what they’d managed to buy during Zeke’s previous convalescence.

Overall, they managed to stay busy until, a couple of hours later, Talia returned. Once she reached them, she said, “Three days out. Maybe four. And I estimate the number at more than twenty-five thousand. I did see some other bands coming this way, though, so that number could grow.”

“Shit,” Zeke muttered. “Okay. Three days should be enough for me to recover.”

With that, Zeke strode back through the Seat of the Sultanate and found his way to the plaza out front. Already, there were people gathered around; the battle hadn’t gone unnoticed, after all. However, it only took a single glance from Zeke to send them backing away. There were some benefits to being feared, he thought.

Once the area was clear, Zeke concentrated on the tower, and a moment later, it grew from the ground. Gasps erupted from the crowd, and more than a few of them turned tail and ran away. In seconds, the tower stood tall and imposing, a new monument in the center of Jariq.

Zeke almost didn’t notice that it had grown a few stories or that it was half-again as wide as it had been the last time he’d summoned it.

“Must not have wanted to be outshone by the Seat,” he muttered, knowing full well how silly it was to think that the building, as magical as it was, might have feelings at all. Pushing that from his mind, he and his friends stepped inside, the doors shutting behind them. It didn’t take Zeke long to find his way up the grand, spiraling staircase and to the rooms he shared with Abby.

After carefully removing his armor, Zeke took a shower, then collapsed onto the bed. Finally, after far too long, he released his old on the skill, and in its wake came a powerful wave of fatigue. Before he let it overwhelm him, Zeke said, “I’m going to take a nap now.”

And without waiting for Abby’s response, he fell into the deep slumber of the truly exhausted.