The Homunculus Knight

Chapter 45: Cold Dead Hands

“In those early days of the Rector Rubrum, there were many such as I in service to the Archduke. Angry, stupid young vampires forged in the Bloody Centuries and eager to claim lands and territory. Many of my ilk died, more often to rivals than any righteous mortal or other ‘proper’ threat. But some of us triumphed and became the founders of what you now call the Blood Duchies. As I was a little wiser than most of my fellows, I didn’t set out to conquer a city or enslave a mighty tribe, instead I sought an easier place of dominion. I found it in an abandoned castrum and the desperate wretches nesting in it. To my surprise, the mortals greeted me openly and eagerly. They said my coming was foretold by the mountains, and I were chosen by their god as their protectors. At the time I thought this was strange, but in my arrogance dismissed the implications. Now I wish I’d been more ambitious and never settled for the valley that would eventually bear my name.” - personal journal of Lord Johan Glockmire.

Cole was no stranger to combat. He’d been fighting his entire life and become something of a self-taught expert on many elements of battle. So he knew better than most what factors helped decide a fight in the favor of one side or another. Skill, both magical and martial, is important, as is knowledge of the foe and local environment. But the simplest and most obvious predictor of a battle’s outcome was who had the advantage of numbers. Of course, monumental imbalances of power could more than compensate for this disparity. The ill-fated riot Natalie tried to stop, and Cole’s own experiences fighting Eternal Soldiers spoke to that. But when two forces of roughly equal potency match, the one with more swords almost always wins. This ugly truth itched at the back of Cole’s mind, reminding him of the precariousness of his situation as he stared at the three monsters preparing to kill him.

Forcing down a lungful of damp cave air, Cole eyed his opponents. Marcus was the least dangerous for now. His severed arm was barely ‘welded’ back in place, and Cole could see straight through the Dullahan’s armor in some places. But the headless hunter was still a formidable foe and would not break easily.

Tallclaw paced back and forth, his hulking body almost vibrating with barely constrained energy. This chimeric form the strigoi wore reminded Cole of Petar the Feeder and his minions. But where the vampires of Glockmire were ignorant usurpers over-using a power they didn’t understand, Tallclaw was a centuries old killer of a particularly brutal bloodline. Those of House Narfin mixed features from animals they killed with an ease and creativity that set them apart from their fellow strigoi.

But in terms of strangeness, Tallclaw’s vampiric lineage couldn’t compare to Shorttooth’s. Cole stared at the squat dwarf, watching his skin writhe; while all around the paladin, dark shapes skittered and skulked, beady eyes peering out from cracks in the rock. It took a talented strigoi to swarm-shift and if Cole’s recollections were accurate, then Shorttooth practiced a technique even more difficult and vile than that. Well, at least he now knew where the rat Yara spotted came from.

Feeling the last flickers of pain from Tallclaw’s blow fade beneath the numbing cold, Cole asked. “What are you waiting for?”

Shorttooth shrugged, stroking his oily beard as he did. “Paladins are a-a rare treat. My war-brother and I-I want to savor killing y-you. Especially since w-we were otherwise oc-occupied back at Thoam. Also, considering t-the jaws of Wolfgang’s second tr-trap have finished closing, sta-stalling you some seemed a go-good idea. Tell me, who is the fle-fledgling? E-eh it doesn’t mat-matter, Wolfgang will find out for u-us.”

Cole exploded forward, his halberd glowing with holy light, but he wasn’t the only one to move. Tallclaw shot towards Cole, his warform a cyclone of sharp claws and poisoned stingers. Ducking beneath a troll arm capped with a bear’s paw, Cole lashed out with Requiem, cutting into thick hide and thicker muscle. A stain of frostbite seeped through Tallclaw’s flesh, spreading from the gash Cole put in his side. As the Narfin Strigoi pulled away from Cole, the creature tore at the ‘infected’ tissue, ripping a piece of itself away and casting it at Cole. Dodging the gobbet of rapidly dissolving flesh, Cole caught the barest hint of exposed ribs on Tallclaw’s wounded side before sheets of congealed black blood covered the injury.

Now standing too close to a crack in the rock, Cole was forced to spin away as a dozen snapping rats lunged out for him. A few of the bolder vermin latched onto his armor where they quickly froze. Desperately knocking away some of the more persistent rats trying to fit through gaps in his armor, Cole barely countered a gout of green fire surging towards him. Red and green flames clashed, swirling about the paladin and incinerating some of the surrounding rats. The moment the flames faded Cole rolled to the right, escaping a boulder-pulping blow from Tallclaw. To Cole’s horror and disgust half a dozen worm-tailed forms latched onto him the moment he touched the ground.

Cursing under his breath, Cole came to his feet and barely avoided the spiked ‘wings’ that sprouted from Tallclaw’s back. Marcus’s longsword came down then, taking advantage of Cole’s split attention and striking his pauldron and scoring the metal. Thankfully, the Dullahan could only use his off-hand and the blow merely knocked Cole off balance instead of taking his arm. Lashing out wildly with Requiem’s butt, Cole felt a mix of fear and desperation rise within him. This wasn’t a fight he could win. At best he might deny his enemies victory for a time. But this second trap Shorttooth spoke of bowed ill. A terrible weight in Cole’s chest told him he couldn’t delay until help arrived. No, his friends were probably trying that already, desperately hoping for him to come to their aid.

Working to regain his balance, Cole kicked out at the rats trying to trip him up. There seemed to be a constant trickle of the vermin, never enough to overwhelm Cole, but enough to harass him. Frantically trying to clear some space, Cole let a tongue of fire swirl around him, catching a few of the slower rodents, who were quickly replaced by more of their kind. Capitalizing on Cole’s distraction, Tallclaw struck, his paws ready to tear the paladin apart. Twisting away from the strike, Cole forced more power into his flesh and armor, willing both meat and metal to hold. Just the tips of Tallclaw’s namesake touched Cole and hakon steel tore. Yanked to the left Cole stumbled and fell, rats quickly gnawing on any unarmored parts of him even as they froze.

Before Cole could muster his power to drive off the swarm, a flash of green fire washed over him. Steam boiled off of Cole as his icy plate weathered the onslaught. Forcing himself to stand, Cole pushed through the emerald flame, his numb flesh barely acknowledging the new burns decorating it. Marcus’s attack had seared him, but more importantly, consumed the rats and forced Tallclaw to pull back. Cole did not know if some remnant of Marcus's will orchestrated the ill-timed attack as an act of resistance, or if the Dullahan’s desire to burn triumphed over tactical reasoning; either way, the paladin was grateful.

Blinking away frozen sweat and flakes of burnt skin, Cole prepared to counter-attack. His fights with the wyvern and dire bear spoke to needing tools for fighting larger foes. It wasn’t enough to simply hack away at some giant monster while the Cold of Entropy did its work, other faster methods were necessary. So now with a little space between himself and the two strigoi, Cole prepared his solution to this problem. Sucking in a breath, infusing it with holy power, Cole modified one of the earliest ways he’d used his mantle.

Exhaling part of his soul transformed into a killing fog had long been Cole’s winning move. In the wake of Glockmire, he’d been forced to realize it was costly and wasteful. It was better to strengthen his body and enchant his weapon than unleash that sort of attack. But after a few discussions with Mina and Kit, Cole found several improvements he could make to his frozen breath. Why spend so much energy creating a wave of entropy-blessed frost when mundane cold worse than any arctic blizzard might have a similar effect? Now, as he breathed out a bank of sparkling mist, Cole showed those modifications in full force.

The fog flowed from him, carried forward by an unfelt breeze, light glinting off the countless ice crystals suspended in the spell. Instead of practically vomiting up half his soul as a cloud of unstoppable death, now Cole merely exhaled a splinter of his essence, letting it diffuse into the Aether and bring with it a God’s wrath. Wherever the frozen breath fell, rats died. The first few ignorantly skittered into the cloud and freezing to death mid-stride. Others turned to flee, the luckier ones merely losing limbs or tails, the frost-kissed flesh snapping off like thin icicles. But in the center of the dying swarm was Cole's main target, Tallclaw, and he was no stranger to dangerous magic. Leaping to the side with simian dexterity, Tallclaw circumvented the cloud and came at Cole from the side, ready to catch the paladin in the wake of his spell.

Cole expected this and braced Requiem against the floor, ready to take his foe’s charge. Right as Tallclaw pounced, Cole exhaled for a second time and unleashed the other half of his spell. This time, his breath had no time to disperse and become a rolling cloud. This time it struck Tallclaw cleanly as a wall of holy cold. The strigoi’s scything claws and stabbing spines did not close in upon Cole as the monster intended, the muscles controlling those limbs froze and cracked impossibly quick. Instead of crashing into Cole and ripping him apart with lashing limbs and hungry jaws, Tallclaw impaled himself right on the halberd’s point. With a wet crunch, Requiem punched through Tallclaw, the speartip and axehead burying themselves in frozen flesh.

Hands numb from the impact, Cole stared up at the snarling mandibles an arm’s length from his face. The strigoi’s split jaws tried to snap at Cole, but flash frozen flesh merely twitched as the killing cold sunk deeper into Tallclaw. With a mighty heave Cole shoved on Requiem knocking the looming monster back, its legs cracking as it collapsed onto the ground. After a few tugs, Cole pulled his halberd free from the frozen strigoi’s chest cavity and brought its killing edge down upon the monster's skull. Bone rendered brittle by the cold splintered and Cole’s axehead sank clean through Tallclaw’s head, only stopping when it reached the warform’s thick neck.

Panting heavily, Cole stared down at the pieces of bisected skull before him. After sparing a moment he really didn’t have, Cole swore. “Fuck.”

Tallclaw hadn’t dissolved into a mound of ash, and bone like Cole hoped. Instead, the strigoi’s frozen body lay there mostly intact. Reaching out with his magical senses Cole could see faint wisps of emotion bubbling off Tallclaw. Despite taking the full force of Cole’s ice magic and two killing blows, the strigoi persisted. Cole wagered he might be able to hack through the frostbitten husk of Tallclaw’s warform and destroy his foe’s proper body, but that would take many minutes of grim work and he needed to spend that time elsewhere. Bitterly, Cole turned from his enemy, knowing it was a mistake, but also understanding he needed to capitalize on this opportunity quickly. Tallclaw was incapacitated; Marcus and Shorttooth were not.

Stalking away from his frozen foe, Cole moved through the sight of his first breath. Banks of cold fog still hung in the air, mundane side-effects of the supernatural frost Cole unleashed. The craggy ground was littered with frozen corpses, probably close to a hundred rats all caught in the fog. Cole absently noted the cracks and crevices many of the rats had tried to flee into were clogged with corpses. Some trying to enter the places of perceived safety, others trying to flee the frost that followed them into their boltholes. Cold air sinks, that's a simple fact, and one Cole used to his advantage, flooding the crude warrens with murderous temperatures.

Ignoring the almost-arctic air thanks to his powers, Cole kept moving forward. Kicking one of the closer rats, one that hadn’t tried to flee or didn’t have the time to. It exploded into a slurry of frozen ash and icy gunk. Repeating this test with another rat, this one near a burrow, Cole watched its broken but reasonably intact body sail away. Crude as his method was, it told Cole much about Shorttooth. A strigoi capable of summoning vermin or turning into them was already a tricky prospect, but those of House Tartuat like Thorm Shorttooth could do something far worse; they could combine the two techniques. Cole knew this when this fight started, but not what it truly entailed, now he had a better idea.

Shorttooth squatted atop one of the aardigs, or at least its frozen corpse. This had been the last in the convoy and the farthest from Masga’s shield. Cole didn’t know how the beast became isolated, but he hoped his cold killed it quickly. It seemed the canny strigoi avoided Cole’s breath by clambering atop the aardig, using it like a man might a boulder in a flood. In front of the dead beast was Marcus, a ring of scorched rock marking where he’d pushed back the frost. The Dullahan leveled his sword at Cole, and the paladin nodded. “I’m sorry for the delay, you’ll be free soon.”

Charging forward, Cole brought his halberd down in an overhead strike. Marcus dodged to the right and lunged forward with his own blade. Using his advantage of reach, Cole avoided the blow before shifting Requiem's momentum to cut at Marcus’s feet. Movement from Shorttooth pulled at Cole’s attention as Marcus parried. Sending a gout of flames towards the Dullahan, Cole refocused on the strigoi and realized Throm’s hands were pressed into the aardig’s flesh. But the silent strigoi wasn’t what caught Cole’s eye; the aardig was moving. A spasm worked along the beast's flank and Cole tried to understand what benefit reanimating the aardig might provide. The creature twitched, its squat bulk rocking while Thorm muttered oily words as his fingers sunk into dead flesh.

Moving towards the aardig, Cole kept a constant stream of flames in Marcus’s direction, hoping to delay the Dullahan. Striking out with Requiem, Cole tried to disrupt whatever magic Thorm worked. The blow was wild, guided only by one arm as Cole kept the flames flowing. Thorn didn’t need to so much dodge as lean back slightly to avoid tasting enchanted steel. Still, the halberd’s axehead bit into the aardig’s flank, cutting through cold-toughened flesh and splitting the beast's side open.

Thorm smiled, yellow teeth a cruel crescent in his oily beard. “Thanks for that.”

Cole expected frostbitten innards or dark frozen blood to pour from the aardig, and either disgusting option would have been preferable to what came in their stead. Rats, hundreds of fat black rats spilled from the wound, a chittering tide of sharp teeth and dark fur. Cursing, Cole turned his flames upon the rodents but it wasn’t enough. They swarmed over him, scrabbling for soft flesh to sink their fangs into. A surge of panic welled up in Cole as he felt one of the rats try and squeeze through the tears Tallclaw put in his breastplate. Flailing about, Cole struck with his halberd, and flames to little effect. Of all his weapons the cold still filling worked best. It killed each rat touching him in seconds, but every rodent was replaced by two more, gnawing through their dead kin to reach Cole.

Before the Paladin could call up another frozen breath or do something more drastic, fire smashed into him. Cole roared in pain as emerald flames burned his skin. Incinerated rats fell from his armor as holy cold and cursed fire dueled for his flesh. Frantically trying to knock away the half-burned, half-frozen rats clinging to his helmet and face, Cole took a furious strike to the chest. The blow took him right where his sternum ended and sunk through his damaged armor. Hot metal sank into Cole’s flesh, catching on his ribs and thankfully going no further. Knocked backwards, Cole felt Marcus’s sword slip free from his skin as he landed on his back. Desperately, Cole used the hot blood dripping from his chest to power a surge of fire; but it wasn’t enough. Marcus knew where he lay, a smoke screen would be no use.

Armored fingers shot through Cole’s wall of fire and closed upon his hand. Green fire surged from the gaps in Marcus’s gauntlet, choking Cole’s flames while the Dullahan squeezed. The pain took some time to arrive, but it eventually did, as Cole’s hand was slowly crushed by his foe’s adamant grip. Cole tried to reinforce his hand, but Marcus was strong, and his grip certain. Feeling one of his knuckle bones crack, Cole shortened Requiem into an axe and swung it with his free hand. Marcus didn’t even bother to stop the clumsy strike, letting it bury in his armor’s side and stop there. Marcus’s other hand gripped Requiem’s axe head, trapping the weapon while he continued to crush Cole’s fingers.

Clenching his jaw, trying to keep the scream building inside of him contained, Cole focused on the hourglass symbol on his helmet. Silver light shone dimly, and Marcus pushed through whatever discomfort it brought him. The terrible pain of having his hand slowly crushed weakened Cole, disrupting his concentration. While most forms of agony were old friends of Cole's, even he couldn’t block out what was happening to him. His palm was stuck between the metal of his gauntlet and his sparkstone; proving the idiom ‘between a rock and a hard place’ horribly accurate.

Through all this, the rats scurried about, staring at Cole with hungry eyes, but they didn’t come any closer, fearing Marcus’s flames. A small mercy, but probably the only Cole could expect at the moment. Those same flames licked at Cole, but found little purchase. The power within him was still strong and while he’d have serious burns if he survived this, Cole’s mantle kept his flesh reasonably intact. A strange mix of fog and steam flowed from Cole’s armor as he tried to find a way out. Releasing another freezing breath seemed the obvious option but the debilitating pain sapping Cole’s focus and Marcus’s resistance to the cold presented serious challenges.

An audible crack from Cole’s hand filled the cavern and the scream he’d been keeping caged finally escaped. Something, or more likely many things, in the paladin’s hand had just broke. Marcus’s grip tightened even further as Cole’s hand took on a new shape. Staring up at the Dullahan, Cole saw the face of Pankrator Marcus appear in the flames. In a voice like crackling fire the Dullahan spoke. “I’m sorry.”

Forcing his scream to end, Cole rasped. “So am I.”

He didn’t have any other options, Cole needed to unleash a blast of holy power, converting his entire soul into a storm of divine wrath. The act would kill him, and Marcus, but leave Cole helpless as the battle continued around him. Hating his weakness and failures, Cole pulled on his power, preparing one last miracle as he looked into the dark voids where Marcus’s eyes should be. Then something flew through the air and right into the flames of Marcus’s face. The fire barely parted and whatever it was, it traveled down the Dullahan’s open neck and landed somewhere with a clank. Then the horrible weight of Marcus lessened and the Dullahan’s expression became one of shock.

The hand holding Requiem in place shot out towards the ground near Cole’s head. Instead of crushing the paladin’s skull or otherwise attacking him, Marcus merely gripped the ground with incredible strength. Unwilling to waste this opportunity, Cole brought his axe in close and swung it at Marcus’s wrist. Frantically, Cole hacked at the armor and bone connecting the Dullahan’s hand to his own. As the paladin worked madly, Marcus twisted and thrashed, his movements erratic and pointless. With a final crunch Cole cut off Marcus’s hand and freed his own mauled digits from this foe’s grip. Marcus pulled away then, his arm and body retreating from Cole. Rolling along the ground, Cole came to his feet and stared at Marcus with shock. Marcus wasn’t pulling away from Cole, he was being pulled up, up into empty air.

Staring at this bizarre sight, Cole tried to force some sense into it. Marcus looked like he was doing a handstand, his legs dangling in the air, kicking frantically like a scared swimmer. The ground where Marcus’s hand gripped cracked, and the Dullahan drifted upwards. Suspended mid air, the former pankrator thrashed and spun, slowly ascending like a soap bubble. A noise half between a laugh and a cough escaped Cole as he finally understood what was happening. “Kit, you are incredible!”

Hand still outstretched from when she’d thrown the enchanted hairpin like a dart, Yara couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There were multiple levels to her disbelief. First was the fact she’d actually aimed correctly and got the makeshift dart to strike the Dullahan. Second was that no one, not even Cole, noticed her standing maybe five meters from the insane battle. Third and most importantly was that Kit’s spell worked exactly as he said it would.

After dragging Mina and Alia into the guard tower, they’d given up on explaining what had happened to the priestess. She refused to believe Kit’s explanation of events and denied having any memory of betraying them. Despite having both her legs broken and being near-delirious from pain the priestess had tried to attack Kit, claiming he’d been subverted by Isabelle. Before Yara could settle the problem of the traitor once and for all, Kit simply increased how much Mina weighed, trapping her. At Kit’s insistence, Yara bound and gagged the furious Mina instead of cutting her throat. The mad priestess had betrayed Yara’s mistress; there would need to be consequences for that, but Natalie could decide them later… if there was a later.

Aside from securing one ally and another ‘ally’ the rescue had proved Kit’s magic worked. He’d repaired, or at least repurposed, the magical array inside the tower. Yara didn’t understand the minutiae involved, only that Kit could now manipulate the gravity of anything touching one of the hairpins. He’d also kept her strengthened subtlety spell working without touching her, something Yara was thankful for.

So with Kit’s part done, matters fell to the thrall. Holding half a dozen of the enchanted hairpins she’d left the tower and approached the furious battle between Paladin and Dullahan. Except, by the time she arrived, the Dullahan wasn’t alone and Cole was in serious trouble. She’d hesitated upon seeing the flesh-beast and rat dwarf, and considered trying to find Natalie. That indecision actually saved Yara’s life, as Cole unleashed his killing cold right then. If she’d rushed to his aid, then she’d have been caught in the frost like all those rats. The lesson wasn’t lost on Yara and she waited patiently, preparing her moment to strike. It came soon enough, and she tossed the hairpin right into the Dullahan’s neck.

As the headless hunter floated away from Cole, Yara marveled at how easy the throw had been. She’d never played darts before and tossing rocks at mice in the cellar or barn back in Glockmire was about her experience in the matter. Yara assumed the rat she smashed was a fluke aided by those childhood acts of pest control. Now, as she danced the next dart through her fingers with unfamiliar dexterity, Yara wasn’t so certain. Muttering to herself, she whispered the word that seemed responsible for this strangeness. “Ancilla”

Cole didn’t know how Kit managed to hex Marcus like that, and right now, he didn’t particularly care. All that mattered was exploiting the opening and killing Shorttooth before either Tallclaw or Marcus became threats again. This, of course, was much easier said than done. Unwilling to risk interrupting whatever magic was at work with the Dullahan, Cole stalked past the floating undead and took stock of his situation.

His right hand was in tatters. The metal of his gauntlet was actually pressed into his flesh at multiple points. But somewhat more important than that was the bits of broken stone falling away from the mass of broken skin and muscle that had once been Cole’s palm. The sparkstone was shattered, the enchanted trinket now little more than bloody gravel. Taking a moment, Cole dug the worst bits of rock and metal out of his flesh and then after a moment's hesitation ‘set’ the bones in his hand.

“JAGGED HELL!” he spat as his hand took on a slightly more familiar shape. Glancing at his trembling fingers, Cole willed preserving cold into the ruined flesh. The pain subsided slightly, and he managed to squeeze his hand around Requiem's haft. It felt like his hand was trapped in a wet, stiff mitten sized for a child. Which, considering he’d experienced a crippling injury, was the best Cole could hope.

He next found the shattered remnants of Marcus’s sword on the ground nearby, the metal unable to handle the constant flux between extreme heat and cold. Feeling the comforting weight of Requiem in his hands, Cole was once again appreciative of the weapon's unknown maker. It also suffered from the fight, but much like both his lovers, it healed with some offered blood. Marcus’s blade hadn’t been so well made, having probably cracked in that final strike and sparring Cole from being impaled during the ill-fated grapple. Cole didn’t think for a second this bit of luck was happenstance; it was a coincidence, and Cole knew who ruled over those.

Weapon at the ready, Cole faced the next threat. Rats scurried about, unwilling to get close, clearly wary of another icy breath or similar surprise. Shorttooth still stood atop the ruptured aardig, a snarl on his face. Injured as Cole was, the strigoi didn’t seem to like his odds of a straight duel with a paladin.

Meeting the beady red eyes of Thorm Shorttooth, Cole roared. “MAGNI! MORTAE! MUNDUS!”

Charging forward, Cole quickly closed the distance between him and Shorttooth. The rats swarmed towards him, a chittering mass of black fur and hungry mouths. Ignoring his wounds, Cole poured power into his weapon, coating Requiem’s head in killing cold. Sweeping out ahead of him, the Paladin scythed through the closest rats, sharp steel and icy fog reaping a grim toll. But still the rats came onwards; leaping from the cave floor, trying to find purchase on the charging Paladin. Cole ignored the vermin, letting them freeze and die in droves as he launched himself towards Shorttooth.

Leaping up, bringing Requiem around, Cole met the strigoi’s eyes and felt a surge of panic. The fear he’d seen there before was gone, replaced by dry amusement. Unable to change direction, Cole gritted his teeth and swung Requiem with the grim certainty he’d fallen for a trap. The axehead sliced through the air and cut Shorttooth’s head clean from his shoulders. The head still smiled as it sailed away, even winking at Cole before falling from sight. Landing atop the aardig, Cole wasted no time and brought Requiem down again, trying to split the dwarf strigoi’s body.

The strike was clean but not perfect, and Cole tore Thorm from collarbone to crotch. Frowning as the headless body collapsed backwards, Cole’s trepidation only grew. He’d cut through lots of bodies and… and Thorm’s hadn’t felt right. The flesh gave way too easily once he got past the outer layer of muscle and bone. Disgusting as it was to admit, internal organs, even those of a vampire, had a distinct… texture when cut, a texture Thorm’s body completely lacked.

Knowing what he’d find, Cole poked the split open husk with his halberd’s butt. A half frozen rat wriggled free from the flesh, followed by more of its fell ilk. Thorm was hollow, his torso a plaster cast of dead flesh surrounding a rat’s nest. Even now some of the vermin fled their ruined home, surging up through the cut Cole put in Thorm, reminding the paladin of hornets fleeing a broken hive. Bringing an armored boot down on Thorm’s chest, Cole crushed the body and rodents inside of it. These rats died like they should, rapidly freezing blood splattering Cole’s sabaton. As the husk fell apart into grey sludge, Cole looked down at the sagging aardig corpse he stood upon. “Fuck”

Leaping from the aardig, Cole found the frost and fire scorched battlefield absent of rats, a sight that only made him more worried. Marcus was now three meters in the air, still thrashing uselessly, and the frozen bulk of Tallclaw remained where Cole left it. Glancing back at the hollowed out aardig, Cole now had a better idea of what twisted power vampires of House Tartuat used.

Thorm Shorttooth hosted a colony of mutant rats inside of him, creatures fed and altered by his power but still technically alive. By combining his control of vermin and ability to turn into them, Shorttooth could infect these rats with…with himself. He was a parasite inside each of them, exploiting the explosive breeding of vermin to spread his essence wide and far. A normal female rat could spawn a dozen offspring in a month, and the female half of that brood would be fertile in about the same time. But judging by what happened with the aardig, normal rules of reproduction weren’t applicable here. There were ways to speed up growth magically, or even clone a creature in minutes, but the usual result was a malformed horror with a lifespan measured in days. That…that was if you were using the rules of living flesh, not undeath.

Shorttooth didn’t need to grow a ‘working’ rat, merely a husk that his power could puppeteer effectively. This explained the difference in the rats Cole killed. Some were ‘actual’ vermin with living organs and tissue only controlled by the strigoi. Others were just husks of fur and muscle held together by a vampire’s power. But these husk rats were still dangerous and explained what the strigoi did to the aardig. At that thought, something else clicked into place and with it a flash of fear went up Cole’s spine. There were nine aardigs, that was a lot of flesh to use, and Cole hadn’t even finished with the rat swarm created from one.

The shadows in the cave started to move then, flowing towards Cole, from cracks in the rock and tiny alcoves he’d not even noticed. Thousands of black beady eyes stared at Cole as a tide of oily fur and wriggling tails moved towards him. In the growing ocean of vermin’s center, a column of rats formed. Bodies climbed atop each other, their fur becoming a writhing pattern of darkness like spilled oil. The rodents started to ‘congeal’ forming Shorttooth’s face and form. Wearing a robe of skittering bodies, the remade strigoi smiled at Cole.

“I’m curious about how y-you’ll resurrect from this, homunculus. Will y-your gnawed bones sprout ne-new flesh? Or will pieces of y-you burst from my swarm’s belly and fuse back together like I-I just did?”

Marcus plummeted down then, crashing into the rats; the spell Kit cast on the Dullahan having run its course. Slowly standing up, Marcus glanced over his surroundings while the rat swarm parted around him and his broken sword. Picking up the hilt to his weapon, Marcus seemed to take a moment to examine the hand-length of steel still usable. Green fire flared from the Dullahan’s hands and covered the surviving blade. Thorm gave the former pankrator a look and said. “Try to avoid b-burning my swarm, w-will you?”

Staring at the skittering mass of hungry jaws and the two monsters facing him, Cole let out a tired breath and rolled his shoulders. He knew the answer to Shorttooth’s question about his regeneration, of course, but didn’t respond to the taunt. Instead, Cole met the strigoi’s eyes and whispered under his breath. “Natalie, Isabelle, just hold on a little longer.”