Tallah [Book 3 Complete]

Vergil didn't get a chance to get properly dressed.

Licia had insisted on wiping him clean of dried blood as he struggled to get out of the old spiderweb weave. He wasn't going to ask where she'd gotten enough water to waste on wetting a rag just for him, especially as she'd only gotten to his shoulders when the commotion broke out.

Several people argued loudly somewhere on the edge of camp. Then there was… singing? Then screams.

Vergil threw aside the clothes and armour, fastened Promise and Biter clanging against his leg, and took off towards the chaos, leaving Licia and Cram halfway through whatever it was they were saying.

Listening took the kind of effort he didn't find himself capable of. Listening would mean engaging with the world and that was too much. Running to a fight? Yeah, that was easy.

Easiest thing in the world, actually. Nowadays, he was always armed anyway. Funny where he'd ended up from those early days in Valen.

But… those days hadn't existed at all, the ones where he'd bussed tables at the Sizzling Boar or where he'd throughout the city to earn his keep. None of it was real.

It came as little surprise that this, the whole insanity with Ryder, the daemon, the new core inside him, and even Tallah and Sil themselves… felt less real than a half-remembered dream burning up in the morning light. Nothing would matter because nothing could matter. Because nothing was real.

Everything could change at the drop of a hat. One moment he rode high on the ecstasy of striking back at life. The next he was a walking bomb poised to eradicate a whole continent.

Funny how dreams escalated.

For once, Vergil's head was as clear as could be. No pesky thoughts. No voices. Not even a whisper that wasn't his own.

Argia had finally gone offline, the only sign of its presence just a constantly blinking Connection lost in the corner of his eye.

Horvath had said nothing and remained resolutely quiet somewhere in Vergil's consciousness. Whatever the dwarf was doing, he was quiet about it. Maybe Ryder had even taken that from Vergil.

Which was fine, really. Nothing was real. Nothing mattered. The absurdity of a dead dwarf's ghost living in his head, downloaded off a cursed helmet, could only be the product of a dream. And, as it happened to all dreams, they must come to an end. Vergil had to wake up and face reality.

He was a slave to any force that set its eye on him. Nothing could ever change that.

A rock crunched underfoot as he picked up speed. Screams had gone past anger into panic and fright.

Panic built up at the edge of camp. Soldiers took note. Vergil saw Arin rising, then leaning for his battered shield.

People ran. They shouted. A girl, younger than Vergil, was dragging along two children even younger, hurrying them along towards the clustered healers.

The world reduced to a shapeless blur around Vergil as he ran and cleared the span of the camp in less time than it would've once taken him to take a piss. He could really run now and felt nothing at all to expend the effort. Stopping… took some effort. And a tumble. But that was alright too.

You often fell in dreams, and it never hurt. You either woke up or walked it off.

Vergil rolled, painfully hit a rock with his ribs, and finally came to a stop, people streaming past him.

"They're not right!" one of the was shouting. "Those faces ain't right!"

"Keep away. That one bit Allin. Took two fingers off."

"Call the healers. Adella! Find Adella!"

Music drifted on the air, a guttural chant that filled the narrow valley with bouncing, uneven echoes. It rose and fell like waves, but kept getting closer.

Vergil found his feet, bounced back, and straightened his back. It had hurt to hit the rock, but that was then. Now, nothing hurt, as if his own flesh was just a suit he wore, distant and sequestered from himself.

"Sprig," Horvath's voice spoke in his ear.

Vergil tried to ignore it. If he was dreaming, he didn't need to answer the voice.

Horvath punched him in the conceptual balls. It felt like the real thing as Vergil doubled over, hands suddenly cupping his crotch.

"Fuck," he groaned as reality slotted into place.

"Head full o' wool," the dwarf grumbled in his ear. "Took off half-naked, nae mind tae anythin', did ye? An' ye think ye get tae hae a good sniffle an' be left alane wi' it? Think I'll let ye bleed fer nothin', do ye now?"

Vergil groaned, the pain all too real. A mad world indeed. Imagined pain was real; real pain didn't hurt. For this to be a dream made no sense after all. All the shit he'd swallowed, all the pain forced onto him, all the humiliation and dismissal would've surely woken him by now. He was likely in one of the Experiences, on the Gloria, in some stupor, slowly spiralling out into madness. The CO2 scrubbers must've gone to shit again and he was moments away from oblivion.

"Quit yer lollygaggin' an' get yer heid oot yer arse. The sorceress be here! Act proper, sprig. ." Horvath snarled in his ear. "I've bloody well screamed at 'er tae act proper fer ye. Dunnae go embarrassin' me now, ye great lump. Ye fall. Ye rise. Easy as."

Tallah landed a couple steps away and gave him a quizzical look.

"What?" Vergil asked.

He straightened with some effort. For all the indignities visited upon him, this had been his first blow caught beneath the belt, conceptual or not. Trying to hide the pain, he drew his weapons and took two steps towards the commotion.

Already he could hear the clang of weapons and the gurgle of the wounded, all of it blanketed by the infernal singing.

"You don't have the physique to walk around bare-chested," Tallah said. "Get back and wear your armour."

"Get bent." Vergil licked his teeth and felt a grin spreading on his face. It felt good to tell Tallah off, even if he felt like apologising straight after.

They advanced together through the crowd. Tallah called for soldiers to see to the civilians, form a cordon and separate them from whatever was going on.

Vergil just advanced, hands tight around his weapons' hilts, eyes searching for the first look at his new enemies. What could they be?

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After the Cauldron, he'd stopped thinking there was anything else left that could surprise him or disgust him. He'd been in Erisa's warren and carried Sil after what the mad girl had done to her. He remembered the rats and the fantasy Aliana had cut out of him.

On the edges of memory, now that the veil was torn, he could even remember the black castle and the others held there. The flayed and the mad. The soulless. All the children with too many teeth in their smiles and too many fingers and too many eyes, unspooling his soul thread by thread.

A tremor grabbed the top of his spine and shook him violently. Vergil snarled and broke into a run.

He remembered enough horrors to go as mad as the dwarf had been. Whatever this was, he was going to meet it roaring.

"'Atta boy. Show 'em yer fangs," Horvath hooted in his ear. "Move, sprig!"

He did. Before Tallah reacted and before the path fully cleared, he leapt and found himself sailing through the air as if shot from a catapult. If this was just some flavour of unreal, then he may as well have some fun with it all. He'd fucking earned it ten times over!

Hesitation only hit him a moment before he hit the ground. What if these were other people? The empire's soldiers? Refugees fleeing some other horror?

He really didn't know what he was about to tear into.

He didn't bloody care!

A flash of pink muscle. A too long head. A cluster of things walking too close together. It was enough to drown out the niggle of worry, just before he slammed into the foe. All he cared for now was the wet sound Promise made as it tore into whatever that beast was, followed by Biter's smack and the heavy crunch of bone shattering. Blood sprayed. Something howled in pain and outrage.

He'd landed like a boulder atop some thing that looked liked a man but wasn't. Hard to be human and make a sound like the gut-wrenching heaving that one exhaled.

Vergil landing atop it crumpled the thing, folding it in half with a cacophony of snapping, crunching bones. The twin slashes of Promise and Biter passed through whatever else occupied that area in a flash, both weapons tearing through the monsters with the ease of a knife going through butter.

In a heartbeat he was already turning, swinging again, filling the air with blood mist.

"Leapt wi'oot a thought in yer heid, did ye? Aye, I'll make a berserker o' ye yet." Horvath howled as Vergil kicked out. His boot hit a monster with a wet, crunchy thud, and shattered the bones beneath the skin.

Tallah would be mad at him. There was no way she wouldn't be. Vergil broke every rule she'd taught him. "Don't overextend. Don't think you're bigger or stronger than your opponent. Play smart, watch the hidden hand."

A blurry slash with Promise opened up an artery on his side. In a moment he was blood blind. Hot, sticky life essence geysered out from wounds he inflicted as he turned and danced and cut, sliced, and fought his way forward through the suffocating throng.

Still, he didn't know what he fought. He didn't care.

Blood rose into the air in a cloying hot mist. It coated his arms, his naked chest, his unprotected face. It clotted his hair and stuck to the stubble on his cheek. The stench of it filled his nose. His eyes stung with the spray that hit him in the face. He roared and choked on it, the rust taste deep and thick on his tongue.

A paw slammed him in chest. He felt the bone-breaking impact of a fist the size of his head hitting his sternum. Air burst out of him through his nose, forming a blood bubble that burst with a dull pop.

Part of him knew the impact should've shattered him. Now, it barely hurt. He lashed out with the axe in the direction of the blow and felt the blade reach home, then heard the gurgle of pain.

No human throats could've produced those long whines of pain, or the frightened barks of alarm.

Claws raked across his chest, drawing thin lines of pain that were too easily ignored. Fingers grasped his hair. Hands wrapped on his neck. His pace turned ponderous, his legs heavy as things wrapped around him and weighed him down. Warm bodies. He was being smothered in warmth, arms and legs trying to pin him in place.

"Fuck. Off."

Body stench mingled with that of offal. Vomit scorched the back of his throat as he fought to free himself, the taste now turned painfully metallic. For all the vim and vinegar that had filled his veins, he was not invincible. Something slammed him in the back of the head and he staggered in pain, vision clouding with a mixture of tears and blood.

How far had he waded? What had he been fighting?

"Struggle, lad! Dinnae stop. Never stop, ye hear me! " Horvath yelled, as real as if the old warrior sat right besides Vergil's head.

An explosion rocked the world. Overheated air and grit sandblasted his face and the side of his neck. The grips loosened. Vergil yanked his sword arm free and swung at whatever it was that held his axe. A squeal of pain. The crunch of bone and the blade got stuck on the draw.

Another explosion and more yelling. Acrid smoke. Heat, as if something was burning right next to him. He forced his eyes open and ripped off lashes stuck fast with gummed up blood.

Tallah floated above, hands on fire, fireflies around her head. Her eyes met his and she was furious. A flick of her fingers and he found himself yanked up in the air. A body climbed with him, impaled on the sword. Hands grasping him slipped off him, their grip too slick to hold on.

The corpse dropped off his sword with a heavy thud. Vergil had a moment to see it clearly for the first time, and his stomach tightened in panic.

The sorceress dipped in the air as she tried to haul him to her level.

"Bones of my sisters, boy, you got heavy," she grumbled.

"Put me down," he snarled back, furiously wiping at his face to get the sticky blood out of his face.

Finally he saw properly what he'd been fighting: they were people. Men and women. Some were children. Most wore rags, and some wore nothing at all.

First was the panic that he'd been killing civilians. Then came the horror as realisation dawned.

None of the people looked right. Mouths hung slack, jaws distended in grotesque fashion. Some barely held their shape, muscles flowing fluidly beneath rags. The crack crack crack of bones snapping hadn't just been his weapons at work, but the constant rearranging of some of these bodies seeking fresh shape.

There were a couple dozens pushing through the narrow pass, shuffling along, barely aware of the soldiers trying to hold back the tide. Violence errupted every time their advance was impeded.

"Daemons?" he asked, finally noticing he was breathing heavily.

"No," Tallah answered. She raised a hand and blood flowed from under her fingernails. Five thin strands united in the palm and formed a small woman that Vergil recognized. "One of your colleagues?" Tallah asked the figure.

"No," Anna replied. "Not our work. Not our style." She turned to Vergil and leapt to him, sticking to his shoulder. "He's channelling illum now. There's power. I should be good for some distance."

"Obey Anna," the sorceress ordered. "Don't get in my line of fire. I don't need another mad bastard on my hands. Sil's enough." Tallah made a shooing motion with a hand and Vergil found himself flung through the air.

Anna clung to his hair as he landed painfully on his back, all the way up a cliff overlooking the choked pass.

"Right, then," Anna said in a tiny voice. "You're not drawing enough for me to remain coherent for long, so hop to it. Someone's singing hymns to Ort and Tallah wants that someone found."

"I don't understand." Vergil sprang easily to his feet. He had bruises and scratches and cuts all over his exposed skin, but none hurt as bad as they should've. He barely even bled.

Anna let out a slow sigh. "We don't understand either. But these poor bastards are little more than walking corpses right now. While you were exercising, we've been seeing roaches all over their heads. Ugly stuff." She tugged on a stand of his hair. "Not that way, you crazy goboid. I don't want you in the fight. Find where the hymn's coming from. That's Tallah's order."

"Fuck Tallah," Vergil said. And immediately regretted it as Anna dug a painful spike in the side of his neck, just at the same time as Horvath kicked him in the trousers again.

"Listen 'ere, ye dry shite," the dwarf said. "Now's no' the time fer a bloody crisis. I'll sit ye doon later, an' ye can hae a guid greet or whatever fool thing ye need. But now we fight. Get yer heid oot yer arse, eyes up, weapons ready. Aye, that's a good lad."

Another figure rose from among the cliffs, climbing nimbly over the rocks until he was paces away from Vergil. It raised a hand in the air.

"Ho, there," he greeted. It was Caragill, the scout master. "Cinder wants me with you," he said without preamble. "Threw me up here, so I don't know details. What's the mission?"

Vergil shrugged. "Find whoever's squealing and cut their head off, I'm guessing. I'm Vergil."

"I know. And you know my name. Come."

The valley filled with fire, smoke, and the strange stink of cooking flesh. In spite of it all, the singing only got louder. And the screams from the monsters never stopped.