Tallah [Book 3 Complete]

"Whatever the two of you are doing, wrap it up." Tallah snapped at Christina's distracted presence.

The binding on her back burned with whatever it was the ghost was channelling, and Anna's was no better. The point in sending Anna out had been to gain information about whoever it was that led the creatures, but the tide was turning and soon fire wouldn't be enough to keep the monsters at bay.

Not only were the things spectacularly hard to put down, they were also difficult to keep down. No sooner did she burn a whole cluster to ashes that another sprung up and attacked, each time more ferocious than the previous. Human shapes had been shed for far uglier, more terrifying tentacled and clawed forms.

She held the pass with the soldiers at her back, but things were about to take a turn for the stupid: the whole pass threatened to overflow with flesh.

Why is it always flesh? Why? Why? Why?

She'd seen enough of the glistening pink stuff to last her several lifetimes. Soon she'd not have the stomach to look at a steak.

Humanity reduced to an amorphous blob of glistening, writhing, flowing muscle, grit, organ meat and bone. It revolted her to the core.

Eyes, hundreds of eyes, floated atop that stinking mass, staring at her in unblinking terror. Just looking on the atrocity made her own stomach tighten in rage, bolstered, to her surprise, by Christina's own anger.

The ghost was mute with either the exertion of what she did with Anna, or the anger of the sight. Later, once they were past whatever new stupidity this was, Tallah aimed to learn what the ghost's theory was.

'You've no appreciation of how fine a spectacle this is,' Anna said, consciousness snapping back with a backwash of confusing sensations. 'Or how it was achieved. Bad time to give you details?'

"Terrible." Tallah loosed out two fireballs that exploded with dull splashes, their concussive force absorbed into the blob. The air was choked with the stink of cooked meat and burning hair, and now the screams had begun. Wailing, bone snapping, teeth gnashing, stomach gurgling, it made for a horrid cacophony. "Quick notes only. And where's Vergil?"

Anna settled back into Tallah's head, illum exhausted and not drawing in anything fresh. She let off a kind of smug satisfaction that could only mean she'd learned something interesting.

'Boy's making sure your bed warmer doesn't get himself eaten. They'll be along. Try and not hit the upper shelves to our left.'

Tallah waved back the soldiers, signalling for them to see to the civilians. This was a strange assault, if that's even what it was. The creatures paid no attention to her until she fired on them, and even then they were more concerned with getting past her than fighting. Like a tide, the flesh tried to flow by her. It climbed up the pass's walls, filled its crevices, spilled over the jagged rocks to leave behind bleeding detritus.

It was hard not to vomit.

'I was under the impression that Ort's priests were human,' Anna said. 'The thing we found was nothing of the sort. If it manages to shake off the gift I've left it, it should be headed for us here. You might want to let the healers and soldiers handle the fodder.'

The chanting had ceased, or was entirely covered by the screams of the creatures converging on her.

"I need Bianca," Tallah said as she retreated from the onslaught. Her lances did nothing anymore, the multi-limbed, multi-bodied things headed her way grown resilient to pinpoint attacks. The best way to go about it would be her devourer in this case, but first she needed a bird's eye assessment of the situation.

'I'm here,' the ghost answered almost immediately. Christina had swapped and left Anna to recuperate after her efforts.

Tallah rose into the air and climbed high enough to get a proper view of her challenge. Breath stuck in her throat once the full picture revealed itself.

She'd been burning the tendrils of one end of a column that looked to be spanning miles. The whole mountain pass, as far as she could see among the rocky ravines, was choked with bodies, like red ants climbing up the mountain's skirt. There would be hundreds there, if not thousands, all shuffling grimly forward. It looked an army ready to face the daemons of the Cauldron.

"Not what I had in mind when I figured Catharina would send a relief force."

Those farthest back were still human, while the part she'd been scouring had melted and gelled together into the grotesque menagerie of ill-fitting bobs and ends.

'How big is Ria?' Anna gave voice to the very same question that had popped in Tallah's mind.

The nearest city to the Cauldron was Ria. The only city, bar some scattered villages. Tallah hadn't visited there in years.

Bianca stirred with a worried tremble in her voice. 'The last census I've had on my desk reported fifty thousand souls in Ria, rounded down, with about five to ten thousand more scattered in the countryside.'

Those were chilling numbers. Though, at least, from their vantage Tallah didn't think the numbers down there added up quite that high. Still, far too many to scour, especially if all of them were as resilient.

Even a hybrid devourer would not make a considerable dent. The risk of dropping in exhaustion after the casting was too great if they couldn't be certain of results.

She spied Sil rounding up the healers and setting them to work on building barriers. The dragon was fully alert now, prowling the high rocks, head whipping back and forth, as if trying to decide on its next course of action.

"Blast the spider," Tallah groaned, cursing Luna's absence once again.

'That hardly seems fair,' Anna protested. 'We've no way to know it would've been of any use.'

"I'm open to suggestions on how to tell that black beast to eat only these ones coming up. One human likely looks the same as another to it."

'It's not attacking yet. Doesn't it strike you as odd?'

Tallah wove several fire orbs and drifted them down into the boiling mass. It wasn't advancing towards the camp but, instead, seemed to keep track of her as she positioned herself in the air. Countless eyes followed her path and ignored the flames she seeded. Leolind's Immolation had worked well on the spiders of Grefe as a self-feeding attack, so it might buy them time here as well. At least enough for her to figure a way out of the box they were trapped in.

Sil herded the civilians up into the cliffs, away from the pass. Liosse had the soldiers guarding them, while Vilfor took a force high into the shelves, likely to scout out a way to run. Bar that, they could collapse more of the ravine right atop the monsters, sealing their advance.

That left all of them stranded with very little food and water, no shelter, at the mercy of whatever storm decided to lash the mountains. Was it far worse than being devoured or incorporated by whatever madness this was?

Tallah could scarcely remember ever feeling more uncertain of the path forward. The Cauldron was taken by the daemons, the pass by these monsters. She could fly ahead and then transfer people by shards to safety, but what would happen while she was away? Would the healers manage the barriers?

Could the barriers contain such a flow of madness? Indecision froze her in place, halfway through her weaving. No way back. No way forward. Stuck on a blasted mountain between two insane forces.

"Hail, Tallah Amni!"

She spun at the sound. It came from above. A fireball was in her hand before she even saw the shadow descending.

'Don't let loose,' Anna said. 'It seems it's survived. I believe it might want to talk.'

"I am tired of being talked at," Tallah sneered. "We haven't had much luck letting our enemies talk."

The figure approached on bat-like wings, descending in jerky sputters of motion, falling and catching itself as if terribly wounded. For a moment, it had the shape of a giant worm, then it melted into that of a man, and even that kept shifting.

"Silence, faithful ones. Be silent, children, for we are among friends."

It was a man's voice, loud and booming, talking through gasps of pain. The seething sea beneath stilled as if frozen in the moment, all its voices quieted. The soldiers all tightened their ranks, weapons glinting in the faint midday light.

Only the voice of the healers still echoed, and the low rumble of the dragon as it approached among the cliffs, head raised.

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"Hail, Tallah Amni. I am a friend," the man said.

A leprous friend at first glance. Human-shaped but bat-winged, the new comer looked to be rotting alive. Skin slouched off muscle as if from a flaying knife, and deep gauges opened and closed on his face, bleeding and suppurating. He let out gasps of pain as his wings kept his aloft.

Even with her poor eye sight, Tallah could skill make out the tiny flecks of golden text covering his face, not to mention the two colours: gold and red. A priest of Ort indeed, at least by his colouring. The face itself was unremarkable, ageless in the same way most of these bastards looked, features sanded down to near anonymity.

Unless one counted the wings.

"I'm no friend of yours," Tallah answered as she wove.

"Everyone is a friend come the Reaping," the man answered in his booming voice. "And the Reaping is come. We all now embrace the Lord of the Harvest. Ort's judgement is come."

Tallah got a sudden, inexplicable surge of fury climbing for the bottom of her spine, up her back, into the very core of her brain. Christina shunted Anna into the work and rose just behind Tallah's eyes, her attention electric. The ghost's earlier anger came back twofold. Tallah had never seen her old friend more than annoyed.

'He dares!' the ghost growled.

Peace, Christi. Tallah found herself in the strange position of tempering another's anger. The ghost strained to channel and she had to block the attempt off in order to keep her own power available.

Instead, she gestured at the mass of corpse meat beneath. "Is that the fabled Reaping, then? People hollowed out and turned to… that?"

"All flesh is but vessel, Tallah Amni. All flesh is but temporary. They are all embraced by the Lord of the Harvest now, all taken to his side, away from this world of pain."

'All eaten. They've all been consumed, Tallah.' Christina strained against Tallah's will. 'This is the proof. This is what Isadora tried to do to me. This is exactly what the gods do.'

Peace, Christi, Tallah repeated. I know. Let it talk. It's too much coincidence they've come for us up here, right now. This column was on the march for days to get here.

'Let Tallah talk,' Bianca interjected. 'I recognise that horrid face. I've seen him often in Catharina's Court.'

"Whatever you call it, I'm not interested." Tallah rolled her shoulders and fought to release the tension Christina exerted against her muscles. "Why are you here? Why are you attacking us? We've no fight with your god." She had to swallow down the word "maggot". It likely wouldn't have gone over well.

"You fight us," the priest rejected. His right cheek came off his bone whole, dropping with a wet splat to his shoulder. Skin and meat began regrowing. "And you wounded the Lord's servant without any provocation." The words came slurred through the hole in his face. Whatever Anna had doused him with, it kept working. "I will say nothing on the matter if you just make it stop. Please. It's quite uncomfortable."

Even from the depths of the work, Tallah could still perceive Anna's delighted cackle.

"We defended ourselves." She ignored his request. "One does not find inhuman creatures on the path and assume good intent."

The priest raised an arm and pointed a long, black finger towards the Cauldron's direction. "Our march is to meet the hordes that have overtaken the wound of Vas. I am on a holy mission to defend the realm from their evil. We do not serve opposite ends, Tallah Amni."

Her eyebrows rose at this. "You want to fight the daemons? You're very welcome to it, then. Let us pass, and you can go and do whatever you please."

'Is that wise?' Bianca stirred, her curiosity added to Tallah's. 'For all we know, they might just bolster the numbers there.'

Tallah found herself surprised at the thought that followed. By Christina and Bianca's reactions, they shared in her amazement.

We can't fight the world. If I can let this battle pass us by, the better.

"I seek your alliance, Tallah Amni," Ort's creature went on when she didn't answer it. "You have been to the Wound. You know the lay of the land. Join my holy war. Help me banish this threat back to the Hell that has spawned it."

'He doesn't know what's there,' Christina said. 'He's going blind. Let them kill one another.'

Tallah looked to the mass of flesh beneath, still keeping the creature in the edge of her vision. Christina had a devourer prepared and barely held back. The mass kept expanding backward, swallowing up the new arrivals, growing like a flood.

"I've people to care for," she said. "Get out of my way and I will stay out of yours. That's all the help I'm willing to concede." She drew in her full charge of illum and infused herself. "Don't, and I will show you how I've survived the daemons."

"Always the fighter. Always defiant. Always on the wrong side, even if it's just your own." The priest shrugged. "If we can't be friends, let us not be enemies, Tallah Amni. Lord Ort's offer still stands, you know. He can teach you so much and show you—"

"I don't care." Tallah brought steel into her voice. "I will deal with your ma—god in due time. He and I have unsettled business. For now, I offer passage. What guarantee do you offer me that you will not turn around to hit me in the back?"

Ryder turning around at her peace offering and shackling her with an exploding Vergil had been a lesson that was still settling in her bones. The numbers beneath could easily overwhelm her small group of survivors even if she unleashed all power that she and the ghosts could bring to bear. The priest, at least, did not seem to want to fight here and now, and the creatures beneath had been reactive so far.

"I give the Lord's own word that I do not seek to harm you and yours, Tallah Amni," the priest answered with excessive patience. "Heal this bane you've inflicted on me, and I will give you my personal word of no ill intentions."

"Aratol's the lord of honour, not Ort. I need more than honour."

For the first time a flash of anger crossed the man's coloured face. The text shifted minutely, crawling like bugs across his skin.

"Lord Ort has claimed this land for his own. These people—" The priest gestured expansively, encompassing both his mob and Tallah's own. "They are all Lord Ort's treasures. They will all embrace the Reaping when the time comes, for in the end all of us must be as one. I call your bluff, Tallah Amni." He pointed his finger at her and his features quickly rearranged themselves to the beatific smile. "You can make me bleed. You can make my flock bleed. You can fight to the last drop of illum you can muster, but you cannot triumph against the Lord of the Harvest. My word is all you get, and it will have to be enough. My patience is not eternal."

Tallah pushed away Christina's incandescent anger and demanded Anna.

Oh really, you overgrown corpse worm? If Anna had been so confident, then Tallah trusted she had something in store for the creature.

A tendril of blood snaked out of Tallah's finger, quick as lightning, and stabbed into Ort's servant.

The scream that bubbled out of him seemed to fill the world. His shape shivered and shrivelled. He broke apart.

'I only had the barest charge of illum when we first met,' Anna cooed. 'Tell me if my mastery of your form rivals your master's.'

"Make it stop!" the creature howled.

"I'm growing increasingly bored with the gods," Anna spoke through Tallah's voice. "They all lord power over us, yet they all rely on the human form to achieve their goals. We've met two so far and both had little more to offer than their power." She twisted the power inside the priest and the man's howls of agony turned to gurgles. Bianca floated them closer and Anna held the man up into the air on tendrils of blood. "Why are they afraid of coming as themselves? Why do they keep mimicking us? Why are you so human inside if you're meant to be more than human?"

Tallah received all the understanding that Anna had gathered on her first assault. The priest was immortal only because he was being fed a steady stream of illum that kept rebuilding damage to his physical form. He was strong, inhumanly so, but inside built just the same as any other man. Like the aelir and the vanadals and the elends, the creature knew pain, knew pleasure, had a brain and a heart, was every bit the same as any other mortal.

There were too many similarities between Ryder's creature and Ort's. Both were built upon the human form, both shared its weaknesses. Tallah couldn't strike at the soul within the shell, but Anna could strike at everything else.

"You can die, creature. I can unmake you. Or I can have you be unmade for every single heartbeat for the rest of your existence. You test our patience, not us yours. Understand me?"

Anna allowed the priest a breath between screams.

"Answer, servant of Ort."

"I understand. I understand. No more."

Hollowed out, but still such slaves to the natural.

'He can wriggle free of this. I can see how his consciousness ebbs when I push harder. Get your promises and let's move on before he figures it out.' Anna whispered urgently.

"Take your creatures and go," Tallah said, voice as hard as she could make it. The priest gasped in agony, allowed a moment's reprieve. "Do you still think I can only make you bleed? Do you think yourself safe from my wrath just because your god's got his hand up your arse?"

There was no answer. Just an angry glare and a slow shake of the head.

"Then be on your way and we'll be on ours. Fight your war. Do not touch my people or there will be a reckoning."

And for our sake, I hope you weren't bluffing, Anna.

The ghost exuded too much confidence to have been anything but genuine. Still, too much confidence had been their undoing for a long time now and Tallah was set on never repeating the mistakes of the past season. She forced herself to remember every humiliation she'd endured thus far, and hardened her resolve not to repeat them.

It was time they changed their approach to their enemies' ploys, and it began now.

They descended, leaving the priest to fall before he caught himself on his wings. Tallah landed atop an invisible bubble set around the civilians as many of the were still flocking up the cliffs. Moments later, the priest began chanting again. He floated away, towards the cauldron, and the monstrous procession followed. A flood of crimson meat passed them, then an endless stream of dead-eyed humanity that shuffled and stumbled along.

Night descended and Tallah remained vigilant, surrounded by light sprites. Those that didn't make it up into the cliffs remained behind the barrier, huddled behind the soldiers. Children cried and were silenced.

The walking dead kept walking, tens that became hundreds that became thousands.

Mol'Ach and the priest would clash eventually. Of that, Tallah was sure.

She was less sure of which force she'd gamble on, and if the whole idea had any merit altogether. Whichever side emerged victorious, it was still a horrid loss of humanity. The horrors of the Cauldron could only fester and spread.

Not once had the priest mentioned Catharina. Only Ort. Tallah doubted the empress was aware of this development.

Light dawned again before the last of the dead was passed. Whoever could sleep, had. The healers had cycled around to maintain the barriers all night.

Come the morning, they all began crying out in pain.