The Homunculus Knight

Chapter 43: Eye for an Eye

“Me Pa was a true werewolf. He could turn into a great big mix of beast and man. I’m not like him. I’m just a member of the werefolk, a werekin or beastblood. But like most of my people I was bitten when I turned sixteen. Dear old Pa transformed and sunk his fangs into me arm. After that I could do all sorts of things like grow claws on that hand, or make my bicep thick as rope! See the curse didn’t go through my whole body, Pa’s blood stopped that, instead it got stuck in me arm. It's pretty useful, I gotta say, lets me do things like save that girl of yours. So will you untie me now or will I have to free myself?” - Arto of Scoiflem explaining to the villagers of Moiburg how he was able to cut a troll in half with a single sword-strike.

Cole barely managed to get Natalie past Masga’s barrier when the Dullahan caught up to him. Turning about, he parried an incoming strike and refocused on his opponent. While he appreciated Natalie’s attempts to help, Cole knew this wasn’t the type of opponent she’d fare well against. Witchfire would burn a vampire just as easily as mundane flames, Natalie was better off helping their friends, and leaving this foe for him.

Striking hard and fast, Cole drew upon his power, reinforcing his flesh, armor and weapon with Master Time’s gifts. Holy cold filled Cole and his halberd glowed silver as it lashed out. He’d never properly fought a Dullahan before. They’d always been too strong to risk direct confrontation. Still, the fact Cole had never crossed blades with one of the headless hunters didn’t mean he was ignorant of their dangers. Years before, Cole destroyed a Dullahan with Morri’s help, the pair relying on trickery to beat the monsters. But in the present, guile wouldn’t be enough, Cole needed every ounce of his martial skill.

Furiously, Cole hammered at his opponent, every strike of Requiem flowing into the next. Axe cuts, spear thrusts, staff strikes, and the occasional burst of magic worked to push the Dullahan back. Cole couldn’t afford to let the witchfire monster attack his friends, so putting some space between them and it was paramount. More than once, Requiem cut past the Dullahan’s guard, cutting into the molded bone it wore. Much to Cole’s annoyance, the magical cold infusing his weapon didn’t spread from his successful strikes. Cursed fire leaked from the rents Cole put in the Dullahan’s armor, scouring away the cold of entropy.

Accepting a strike on the torso, the Dullahan stepped in, bringing its bastard sword past Cole’s guard and slashing his hip. Cole turned with the strike, his armor catching most of the blow, but not all of it. Thankfully, the injury wasn’t deep, Cole’s frozen flesh stopping it from tearing muscle. In response, Cole let his quickly freezing blood power a burst of fire. Red flames spat out from the spark stone on his right hand, meeting the green witchfire and giving Cole time to reposition.

Now the Dullahan was on the offensive, its strikes were fast and brutal but not the worst Cole had suffered. Whoever this cursed soul was in life, they’d been an excellent warrior with years of experience. But as Cole stopped a sideways chop, it became clear that experience was working against his opponent. There was a delay to the strikes, a tiny hesitation Cole recognized from his own past. The Dullahan was new, probably only a month or two risen, perhaps even less. Cole’s foe knew how to fight, and fight well, but with a different body. Just as it took time for Cole to adjust to his increased strength, this Dullahan hadn’t fully adapted to the unnatural potency its cursed existence provided.

But a sword master unused to an undead existence was still a sword master. Halberd and longsword clashed in a hurricane of blows, neither opponent gaining a clear advantage. As the battle raged on, Cole became more confident he could win a battle of attrition against this foe. Each of Cole’s successful strikes put gouges and cracks in his opponent’s armor. While in contrast, Cole’s own armor weathered most blows without issue. It seemed a halberd infused with holy wrath trumped a longsword dipped in cursed fire.

Then, as matters ever did for Cole, things became more complicated. Masga’s shield fell and screams filled the cavern. Turning to his friends, his nose picking up the smell of blood and ash, Cole felt a surge of fear. The Dullahan lashed out then, seeking to punish Cole’s moment of distraction. In testimony to his growing experience, Cole deflected the coming strike and redoubled his efforts to put the headless hunter down. Gritting his teeth, Cole cut and thrust, frost swirling about him as he tried to finish this fight. Not long ago, Cole might have turned from his opponent, rushing to Natalie in a panic and earning himself pointless injuries. Now, he knew better, the only path to his love wasn’t past the Dullahan, but through it.

Crackling witchfire surged around the cursed soul, meeting Cole’s frozen wrath. Just as their weapons clashed, the powers inhabiting the two warriors dueled. Redoubling his efforts, Cole combined every trick and technique he could. Green and red flames snapped at each other, as Cole turned every drop of blood he lost into an attack. While the blood magic fire wouldn’t hurt the Dullahan, it was still a distraction. Lacking eyes, or even a head, Dullahans perceived the world through magic, and ironically enough arcane fire hampered their vision.

Using a burst of his flames as cover, Cole went for the Dullahan’s hip, seeking to crack enough bone to cripple it. Disoriented, the Dullahan tried to parry the strike, and only knocked Requiem’s axe-head upwards. Riding the shifting momentum, Cole struck his foe’s helmet. The stiff, unmoving helm had been in part what told Cole he faced a Dullahan, now its splintered top half sailed away. Just as Cole feared, the blow did little more than anger his foe. Stepping back out of blade range, Cole prepared another strike. Reaching up, the Dullahan gripped the remaining section of its helmet and pulled the carved bone free. In the armor’s place was a whirling bonfire of emerald flames, surrounding a screaming face.

As the witchfire crackled and shifted, the face faded in and out of existence, leaving sections of muscle, or bare bone exposed for less than a heartbeat. Even with that ghastly distortion, Cole recognized the features. The screaming visage of Pankrator Marcus stared out from within the fire. A hundred thoughts flowed through Cole then, all the questions this ambush raised, coming to the forefront of his mind. The necessity of battle had forced him to focus on dueling the Dullahan. But now, seeing that howling face, several terrible revelations clicked into place for Cole.

Whatever horrible event he’d sensed at Harmas swallowed up the Pankrator, spitting out this undead parody of the boisterous soldier Cole met after facing the wyvern. The powers that slew Marcus and enslaved his remains had come for Cole, Natalie and the Sage’s Stone. Staring at Dullahan Marcus, Cole whispered. “I’m sorry Pankrator, allow me to end your pain.”

For the barest moment, Marcus’s face formed into a smile before returning to its rictus. Roaring with all the rage of a caged animal, Marcus charged Cole, his blade engulfed in witchfire. Leveling his halberd at the charging Dullahan, Cole whispered. “Master Time, protect the living and protect the dead. Master Time, give us long lives and quick deaths. Master Time, keep our souls and judge them truly. Tenth God, Last Judge, First Cold, He-Who-Ends, Master of Time, stand with me now!”

Dancing to the left, Cole dodged a brutal overhead strike and sent a surge of fire towards Marcus. Requiem followed right behind the flames, hiding in their arcane currents. The Dullahan expected this and stepped into the blow, stopping the axe-head from biting him, and letting Requiem’s haft crack against his pauldron. Even strong as Cole was, the blunt impact didn’t shatter the bone armor, but he could still use the strike. Yanking hard on his halberd, Cole let its head bite into Marcus’s shoulder, pulling him off balance. Normally, bringing a burning undead horror into grappling range wasn’t a good idea, but with Master Time’s power coursing through him, Cole hoped he might have an advantage.

Using one of his newer tricks, Cole focused on the hourglass sigil marking his helmet and imbued the dwarven steel with holy power. While he couldn’t exactly headbutt an already decapitated undead, Cole figured if mildly magical fire could disorient the Dullahan, shoving divine fury right into its face might stun it. Marcus flinched away from Cole as silver light overpowered green witchfire. Seeing his chance, Cole kicked out at the Dullahan’s knee, shattering his foe’s poleyn and further robbing Marcus of balance. Yanking on his halberd with one hand, and kicking out with the opposite leg, Cole toppled the Dullahan.

Slipping past the tumbling bones, Cole shortened his halberd and shifted its mass to the spike edge. As Marcus hit the ground, Cole struck, coming in with an underhand blow, aimed for the Dullahan’s armpit. Naturally, the falling Marcus had thrust out his hand to catch himself, leaving the joint exposed. The hooked spike of Requiem speared through the underside of the Dullahan’s shoulder, cracking armor, and cutting the limb off. Kicking the severed arm away from the collapsing Marcus, Cole winced. There wasn’t a clean way to kill a Dullahan, or at least not a method currently available to Cole. As much as he wished to give Marcus a warrior’s mercy, Cole had to tear his former ally apart.

Requiem came up and down like a pick-axe, its sharp beak stabbing into Marcus’s backplate, ripping the crafted bone away like he was shelling a crab. Preparing another strike to sever the exposed spine before him, Cole barely caught sight of the next threat he faced. A wall of mutant flesh hurtled towards him, tree-trunk arms outstretched in a blow meant to pulp Cole. Throwing himself to the side, Cole rolled beneath the strike and came to his feet, Requiem lengthened back into a proper polearm.

Bear-like claws sunk into the stone, granting the new monster enough traction to stop its charge. Whirling about, the wickedly fast creature faced Cole, its muscles twitching with tension. Seeing the malformed thing before him, how its flesh combined the features of a dozen different predators, Cole hissed. “Strigoi.”

In response, the hulking vampire gripped a rocky outcropping, tearing it free and hurling the anvil-sized stone at Cole. Spinning out of the way, Cole suddenly found his own balance disrupted, as a score of rats erupted out of a crack in the rock. Thrashing about, Cole tried to tear the insane rodents from his body. Frostbite consumed the vermin near instantly, but that didn’t stop them from launching themselves at him, desperately seeking gaps in his armor. A fist the size of Cole’s torso hurtled towards him, catching the paladin clean on the breastplate. Cole’s chest instantly went numb as the Hakon steel rang like a bell. Hurtling backwards, Cole slammed into a boulder, his legs turning to jelly.

Only with his halberd’s help did Cole remain standing, as he desperately tried to steal back some of his breath. He’d just taken a blow that would turn a normal human into paste. Even with his enchanted armor, Cole’s reinforced flesh barely withstood the strike. Feeling at the dent in his breastplate, Cole decided he’d need Emma of Stonebone to make him a few sets of replacement pieces when he got back to Vindabon… if he got back, that is.

Remembering the world beyond his own paralyzed diaphragm and probably cracked ribs, Cole looked up at his opponents. Marcus was standing again, holding the arm Cole severed to his fractured shoulder. Witchfire flared from the sight of injury, and Cole could see the curse animating Marcus forging his bones back together. In front of the Dullahan were two contradictory but paradoxically kindred figures. The war-form Strigoi prowled towards Cole, a squat ugly dwarf by its side. Examining this newest threat, Cole noted the dwarf’s body seemed to undulate slightly, as if something was pressing out from beneath the skin.

A nasal laugh escaped the dwarf. “By the blood! It really is you! Long time since I saw you last, homunculus. I’ve got to say the scars are fitting.”

Cole recognized the voice,. Blinking away more of his confusion, Cole sucked in a breath. “The Tall and the Short.”

Thorm Shorttooth cocked his head and smiled. “Oh, you remember us! I’m pleasantly surprised, to say the least.”

Regaining his balance and leveling Requiem at the two strigoi, Cole growled. “Still acting as the Voivode’s hounds?”

Shrugging, Thorn replied. “We serve loyally and are rewarded. I’d expect you’d know something about that, considering… well, everything. Tell me, how long did it take you to get over the burned bitch and go crawling to the Tenth? I’m very curious how a madwoman’s favorite pet ended up in service to a God?”

Finally, taking a properly deep breath, Cole examined the two killers before him. They’d been there when Thoas fell, just another set of monsters among the legion that destroyed Isabelle. Even before then, Cole had encountered them. The Tall and the Short were Voivode Igori’s favorite enforcers; they'd attended many of the same events he had as Isabelle’s champion. Their presence was all the confirmation Cole needed; Igori knew he still lived. As the Homunculus Knight, Cole hadn’t been a match for either of these Strigoi, even with all the boons Isabelle showered him with. Back then, he’d been a very different creature, a true magnum opus instead of the broken unworthy paladin Natalie met. Now, things were different, and Cole couldn’t guess how he compared to his enemies, but that didn’t matter. Failure was not an option, it simply would not be allowed.

Mina couldn’t breathe, speak or do much more than think. The snake woman's coils wrapped about her chest, constricting and crushing the priestess. But even as every lungful of air was a hard-fought victory, Mina didn’t lose focus. Things were bad, very, very bad, but if she let the spell dissipate, then all would be lost. After Isabelle seized control of Natalie, she’d killed Masga and nearly killed Alia. If that scheming vampire bitch got full access to Natalie’s power, then they’d have no chance of victory. Cole was still fighting, even if Mina didn’t see the battle, she could feel it.

The icy power of a Paladin filled the Aether, calling out to those who knew how to listen. That chill, that shocking bite of her God’s wrath, helpt keep Mina focused. Feeling at the Aether, letting Cole’s mere presence empower her, Mina looked past the snake’s embrace and tried to see what was happening. Isabelle was still weakened, laying nearby, conspiring with the glasses-wearing vampire. Alia… oh Gods… Alia was on the ground, her scalp practically ripped from her head. Blood flowed down her girlfriend’s face in a red waterfall. That sight brought another wave of determination to Mina. She wouldn’t fail, she couldn’t!

Horrible serpentine eyes came into view, the lamia looming over Mina. Red lips split into a smile filled with a terrible hunger. A clawed hand reached out and stroked Mina in an intimate, almost affectionate way that made her stomach convulse. Glaring up at the monster, Mina didn’t have the breath to spare for a curse. Licking those lips with a forked tongue, the lamia chuckled, a husky, seductive noise sickeningly at odds with the situation.

“Hush now, little priestess. Don’t worry your head about things, just relax. It will make things so much easier for you.”

Glancing behind her, the lamia added. “Let's find some privacy and leave dear Wolfgang to his scheming.”

Mina tried to resist the impossibly strong coils wrapped around her, but to no avail. She was pulled away from Alia and everyone else, watching her girlfriend desperately trying to crawl towards her. Now alone with the monster, Mina stared up at the lamia. Fangs dripping with venom shone in the pale light and Mina tried to struggle against her bonds. Feeling hot breath upon her neck, Mina tensed as the lamia crooned. “Wolfgang might have some more use for you, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fu-AHHGH.”

Instead of feeling sharp fangs sinking into her flesh, Mina was greeted by the warm, slick patter of fresh blood. Looking up, she saw the lamia covering her face, screaming in pain. Sticking out from between the snakewoman’s fingers was the steel tip of a quarrel. As the lamia pulled shaking hands from her face, Mina felt sick at the sight underneath. A crossbow bolt stuck through the lamia’s face, entering at a diagonal near the temple and exiting right out of the eye-socket. Positioned as it was, the quarrel looked like some over-sized horribly placed piercing, punching through muscle, bone, brain, and eye. Yet the injury wasn’t enough to kill, at least quickly. Internal bleeding, infection and everything else might finish the quarrel’s job, but for now the lamia still lived.

A furious hiss grew in the snakewoman’s throat as she whirled on the bolt’s source. Alia knelt on one knee nearby, her crossbow dropping from shaky fingers. Spitting a gobbet of blood onto the ground, Alia growled. “Let go of her, you scaled cunt!”

Hands unsteady, Alia grabbed a metal vial from her belt and downed its contents in one. As the vial clattered onto the stone floor, Alia unsheathed her twin shortswords and slowly got to her feet. “I said let go of my girlfriend before I turn you into a fucking pair of boots!”

Mina’s blood went cold, she knew what was in that vial. Cole had only given it to Alia after explaining its effects in terrible detail to both city warden and priestess. It was a combat drug, and a viciously potent one as well. A normal human might be able to wrestle a troll using the concoction, but they risked tearing every muscle in their body in the effort, including the heart…

A tough beastblood might handle the drug better than most, but that would be a gamble under even the best conditions. Seeing how most of Alia’s scalp dangled from her head, and her front was soaked in blood; these were far from the best conditions. Cat and snake stared at each other and slowly the lamia unsheathed her own blades. A forked tongue licked out past red lips, and the monster hissed. “I…I am going to feed you your sow’s eyes!”

Alia’s hands were shaking again, but not from exhaustion, Mina could almost hear her girlfriend’s heart pumping faster and faster. “No, you won’t, if you want the Sage’s Stone then Mina needs to be intact. So unless you want to explain to four-eyes back their how you fucked up, you’re going to let her go, and then come skewer yourself on my claws.”

The lamia’s eyes flicked down to Mina, and with a hiss, she squeezed. To Mina’s shame, a strangled scream escaped her as bones broke. But before the damage could go from agonizing to lethal, the snake woman uncoiled from Mina, leaving the priestess crippled and helpless. It took every ounce of will left in Mina to keep the spell going. She could feel Isabelle fighting against the binding, but would not let them fall; stopping the arch-necromancer from claiming the Alukah's power was more important than anything else.

Laying as she was, Mina could only stare as the two opponents circled each other. They seemed to be strange mirror images of each other, both wielding similar weapons and moving with a predatory focus. Blood dripped down both their faces, and each wore an expression of concentrated fury. In a rasping hiss, the lamia continued her threats. “Those eyes of yours are pretty. I’ll take one as payment for your insult. I think it will look better in my skull than rotting with your corpse!”

Those feline eyes flicked to Mina, and Alia asked. “What’s your name, snakebitch?”

An amused huff escaped the lamia. “Cleanor. Why? Do you want to know whose name to scream when I’ve got the pair of you in my coils?”

Face masked with drying blood, Alia bared her fangs. “So I know what to have embroidered on the boots I make from you. My name is Cat-eyes, by the way.”

In the time it took Mina to blink, Alia had crossed the distance and was clashing blades with Cleanor. Wickedly fast, Alia’s shortswords were twin blurs, exchanging strikes with the lamia’s scimitars. Sparks flew from clashing steel as they dueled, each strike so quick Mina literally couldn’t see it. Alia wore better armor than Cleanor, which wasn’t hard considering the lamia was clothed in what amounted to ornate lingerie, but considering the speed of the fight the tough leather of a city warden wouldn’t be much use. This was a battle of speed and skill, whoever struck the first clean blow would win.

Alia danced around the snake, lashing out with experimental blows. None got past Cleanor’s guard, but they were non-stop, a never ending flurry of strikes always probing for an opening. Sitting atop her coils, Cleanor was on the defensive, her upper body weaving back and forth, blades flashing. As they fought, Alia kept moving constantly to the right, dancing on the edge of Cleanor’s blind-spot. It quickly became clear that while the lamia had longer reach, and a better defense, she couldn’t match Alia’s speed or acrobatics. Every exchange of blows wasn’t a simple strike and parry, they were blistering clashes with a dozen movements from both combatants. Alia would dance forward, ducking, jumping, and twisting beneath flashing scimitars, lunging out for scaled flesh to cut. Each time, Cleanor repositioned, deflected or stole back the initiative with raw aggression.

Neither snake nor cat could get the upper hand, and the fight dragged on. Blood poured down from Alia’s face and Mina felt a knot growing in her stomach, how much more blood could her girlfriend lose? This couldn’t turn into a battle of attrition, or Alia would surely fall. Staring down at her hands, Mina considered her options while muttering a focus mantra under her breath. She could not intervene, at least not without dropping the binding. Mina might land a sneak attack on the lamia, but that would let Isabelle break free. The knot of stress in Mina’s gut swelled as the terrible choice before her became clear. Save her girlfriend or protect the world from an ancient evil? How in the world’s name could she choose?

Yara and Kit ran away from the battle. Kit’s sweaty hand gripped onto Yara’s with a strength she hadn’t guessed he possessed. Holding up his lantern before them, Kit kept muttering under his breath. Yara couldn’t tell if he was casting a spell or just panicking, as another horrible scream cut through the cavern, she considered he might be doing both.

When it became clear their destination was the central tower, Yara asked. “What are we going to do?”

Kit stopped his muttering long enough to say, “A lock cave like this should have magical defenses. If I can awaken and aim them, then we might have a chance.”

Accepting that, Yara looked behind them, seeing another duel had started. The catblood was clashing blades with the lamia. Yara couldn’t imagine how Alia was standing, let alone fighting; but she was. There wasn’t any sign of the priestess though, and that concerned Yara. It was that traitors' fault everything was going so horribly. If it was up to her, Yara would use this magical stealth to put a blade in Mina’s skull, but that wouldn’t solve as many problems as Kit’s plan might.

Reaching the tower’s main entrance, Kit stopped, frantically examining the carved opening. After a moment, he cursed. “Fuck it, no time”

He pulled Yara into the tower and a freshly carved rune marking the doorway glowed red. Sparing a glance at the rune, Kit muttered. “Hopefully, whoever set that spell is too busy to notice us.”

The tower’s inside stunk of filth and decay. Dagger drawn, Yara glanced around, trying to find the smell’s source. Any glowstones built into the structure were dimmed or broken. The only light Yara’s sensitive eyes could pick up came from the sphere of illumination Kit had put in the main cavern and his lantern. Long deep shadows filled the tower and Yara’s gaze flicked about, every muscle in her body tense to run. Kit led them across the room, heading for the staircase leading up to the higher floors. Piles of rubble and debris covered much of the chamber’s floor, heaped up like crumbling middens.

As the pair walked between two of the piles, one of them moved. Yara pulled on Kit, yanking him away from the mound. The eldritch light of Kit’s lantern shone on the heap revealing its identity. It was a troll, or at least what remained of one. Desiccated and rotting, the troll lay on the ground, its sunken eyes staring up at Yara. Slowly, it blinked, and tried to move, only shifting its withered hulk a little. Turning about, Kit let his lantern illuminate more of the room. Two more trolls lay in similar states of living death, not to say undeath, but teetering on the brink between states. Missing arms and legs, the trolls were little more than shrunken torsos, their necks showing half a dozen puncture marks each. Seeing those unhealing wounds and the blank broken stares of the creatures sent a shiver up Yara’s spine.

Tightening her grip on Kit’s hand, Yara pulled him towards the stairs. They ran up the steps, heading towards the top floor of the tower. Once at the landing, Kit shut his eyes and paused for a second, his muttering turning into a low hum. Nodding to himself, Kit went to an unassuming door and opened it. Inside was a ritual chamber of some sorts, a large eight-sided rune covered much of the floor, its insides filled with self-similar patterns of precious metals and gems. At the rune’s center, connected to the greater rune by lines of inlaid gold, was a skull-sized crystal embedded into the floor. Over in the room’s far corner lay a dwarven corpse, the early stink of putrefaction wafting off it. Filthy and unmoving, the corpse was probably the caretaker of this watch tower.

Kit shut the door behind them and finally let go of Yara’s hand. Flexing her fingers, Yara watched as Kit stepped gingerly over the more intricate patterns of runes and reached the artifacts heart. Going around the outer-edge, Yara approached the corpse, curious if it might hold some clue to the spells woven into this chamber. Also, as someone raised in the Duchies and servant to vampires, Yara knew better than most to never leave a dead body unexamined.

Dagger at the ready, Yara crept towards the corpse, seeing its matted, filthy beard and stained clothes. Nearby, Kit started communing with the chamber’s magic, a low whistling hum escaping his lips. Cautiously, Yara reached out with her dagger and poked at the corpse's forehead. Its head lolled to the side, and it didn’t react, even when Yara felt the blade sink into filth-encrusted skin.

“FUCK!” spat Kit, pulling Yara’s attention from the corpse. Knife at the ready, she saw him frantically scrabbling over the floor, checking a dozen different spots on the rune. Looking up at her, Kit said. “They damaged the defenses! I hoped I might be able to call up sunlight or something similar using this array, but… well whoever attacked us thought of that.”

A small noise caught Yara’s attention, and she glanced down at her dagger, blood dripping off the tip, bright red, living blood. Eyes widening, Yara turned as the ‘corpse’ threw itself at her. Thick arms, heavy with the strength of madness, closed around Yara and carried her to the ground. Yellowed teeth snapped at Yara as the dwarf tried to bite, its dirty fingernails groping at her, trying to find something to break. Kit swung his lantern at the dwarf, cracking it in the skull. The strike barely stunned the dwarf, proving the byname of its people ‘thick-bones’ true.

Wild eyes fixed on Kit, and the dwarf lunged for him. Panicked and desperate, Yara lashed out with her knife, driving it into the dwarf’s chest. Forcing herself not to scream, Yara plunged the blade in and out of the dwarf, showering her and Kit with hot stinking blood. Red leaked from the dwarf’s mouth as he tried to claw at Yara, gibberish bubbling from his mouth.

Kit struck again, and using the opportunity, Yara drove the dagger up to its hilt and threw the dwarf off her. The dwarf tried to crawl towards them, but his blood poured free from a dozen stab wounds. Hand outstretched towards them, the dwarf stared at them, more of its gurgling words escaping in what Yara quickly realized was a death-rattle. The wild sickly light in the dwarf’s eyes faded, leaving the husk behind.

Slowly getting to her feet, Yara found Kit looking her over. “Are you hurt?!”

As panic faded, Yara felt the first twinges of pain reach her. She’d been scratched by the dwarf, a trio of long gouges going right through one of her sleeves. “Not badly, I’ll need to clean this quickly, but first…”

Stepping over to the dwarf, Yara flipped him on to his back and swallowed down bile. Stabbing down with her dagger she struck his spinal cord, taking three tries to achieve her intended result. Pulling her blade free, Yara looked at the stunned Kit. “He played dead once, and I don’t want him to reanimate.”

Staring down at her dagger, its tip dripping with blood, Yara tried to will her hands to stop shaking. She’d been responsible for deaths before, many in fact, but that was the first time Yara held the blade herself. Forcing herself not to throw up, Yara looked to Kit. “Was he saying anything in dwarvish, or just speaking in tongues?”

Kit frowned. “A bit of both I think. From what I understood, he was calling out for a master and… and begging for death.”

Shivering at that, Yara asked. “So the enchantments are useless? What do we do now?”

Hesitating, Kit glanced down at the now bloody lantern he still carried. “Whoever attacked us took the time to cripple the defenses. See, the main purpose of the array is to illuminate the cavern during a battle, and even produce false sunlight in a pinch. But that’s been totally wrecked. Vampires don’t have any need for light and wanted to make damn sure no one could use this against them.”

Yara thought she understood what Kit was saying, but knew her own insight into this sort of things was worse than useless. “Can you fix it?”

Kit shrugged. “I’m not familiar with dwarven magic, but maybe with a few days of work I could; which is not exactly an option.”

Squatting down next to the main crystal, Kit started to set his lantern down, but hesitated. Multi-hued sparks danced between the two glowing crystals, and Kit sucked in a breath. “I can’t fix it, but I can repurpose it.”

Placing the lantern atop the array’s locus, Kit fumbled with his bags, pulling out a dozen hair pins like the type he’d given Yara. Examining them, Kit smiled, a wild, desperate expression that entranced and unnerved Yara. Muttering to himself, he said. “The magical array is like a body, and this crystal is the brain. Just because the array is lobotomized doesn’t mean it's dead! I can’t fix it, but I can give it a new brain. Sure it won’t do what the old one would but…”

Turning to Yara, Kit held out one of the hairpins. “You killed that rat with a single good throw, right? Could you do something like that again?”

Taking the pin, testing its balance, Yara shrugged. “I think so? I don’t know for certain but I can try.”

Returning his focus to the array, Kit sucked in a breath. “Let’s do this.”