The Homunculus Knight

"Our investigations in the Thunderhoof Karstlands are once again proving the Book of Miracles is more literal than we assumed. Judging by the layer of ash we're finding in the soil, the Red Night of the Rabisu, described in the pantheon's propaganda, refers to more than the ur-ancestor's reign, but a very real phenomenon. Some cataclysmic event cloaked these lands in clouds of ash thick enough to dim summer sunlight into a crimson haze. The relatively localized, yet still extremely concentrated nature of the residue almost certainly rules out this being the result of a natural event, such as a volcanic eruption or a falling star. The Rabisu unleashed something here, a spell of world-altering proportions, and we will find any remnant of it that remains." - Excerpt from a letter by Sir Phineas Falxeye sent to Archduke Flavius Gens Dracon.

Natalie knew what she was doing was stupid, but that didn't change the fact that she couldn't see any other way out of this mess. Deborah and the rest of their allies were back at the barge, a kilometer upriver, safely out of the way of this mess and too far to help. Cole might be able to bring down a blizzard and take out the bat's but not before her mind, and maybe his, buckled under the psychic assault. If they were to survive this, then she needed power and expertise, with only one source close at hand.

Staring up at the yew tree before her, Natalie let out a mix of a whisper and a whimper. "I miss you, Isabelle."

Just a few months ago, if you'd told her that she'd miss the idea of being possessed by her mentor… Well, times change, and without Isabelle to rely on, Natalie needed to use her own strength, cursed as it was.

Reaching up to the tree's trunk, she found the contorted face of Dame Adalie, the first vampire she'd consumed. The moroi had been a skilled psychomancer, and if Natalie could add her victim's abilities to her own, then maybe she'd have a chance.

Speaking softly to the damned soul trapped within her, she offered words meant more for her own comfort than Adalie's. "You spent your unlife taking from others, only fair that you face the consequences of that in death."

Tracing the trunk section containing Adalie, Natalie found where it split into bough and then branch. Grabbing one of the fruit-laden branches, she pulled it close, ignoring the squirming feeling in her gut. Three berries last time, three berries had been enough to have her become the monster she'd always feared. Carefully, she plucked a single fruit, a black glistening pearl containing all the dreadful promise of Annoch the Binder. Placing it on her tongue, she burst it between her teeth and let a flood of blood and shadow fill her soul.

A moan escaped her stained lips before they peeled back into a wide smile. Oh gods, it was even better than she remembered. An ambrosia of dark power flowed through her, setting every nerve alight with a heady bliss. Eyes rolling back in her head as they turned deep scarlet, Natalie wanted to surrender to the pleasure, to drown in it and, in turn, drown the world in her majesty. She was heir to a lineage of red demigods; why was she here, suffering the attention of vermin? She should be bringing her wrath down upon Harmas, reclaiming her property, and repaying the slight of their theft with the lash's kiss. Why wasn't she-

Cole.

Cole was why. His fear, his pain, his broken heart. Memories of how he'd screamed after her last use of this power struck like a bucket of ice water, and just as that might rouse a drunkard from a stupor, those recollections washed away enough of the Alukah to let Natalie think clearly, or at least try to.

Head buzzing with the bliss of the damned, she surfaced from her mindscape and refocused on the chaos surrounding her. The bat swarm was almost upon them, kept barely at bay by the storm of frost surrounding her and Cole. In a testament to his growing skill, her knight had ensured there was an eye to his frozen hurricane, a place untouched by the killing cold, and where she now stood.

Gazing up beyond the icy gale, Natalie looked upon the bats, how they circled and dived, briefly daring the cold winds emanating off Cole to keep up the psychic bombardment. Now, instead of arrows falling upon an armored beast, slowly wearing it down through the weight of numbers, those psychic blows struck Natalie like raindrops on a castle wall, insignificant things unworthy of her attention. With the internal structure of her psyche reinforced with ancient pride, Natalie could take her time, peering into the bats and reconsidering her options. She'd intended to use this power to simply wrest control of the swarm, but where was the fun in that?

No, Natalie wouldn't lower herself to snatching away mutant vermin. These bats had inconvenienced her greatly and did not deserve the privilege of belonging to her, that was reserved for the worthy. Instead of claiming them, she would use their very essence as another stepping stone on her path of ascension.

Reaching up with her hand and her mind, she let power flow up and into one of the bats she could make eye contact with. A phantom chain of deepest black snaked through the air and wrapped itself around the rodent's mind, body, and soul. After punching through its pathetic defenses, she claimed it, but not as a slave, but as a tether form which her influence might spread. Unlike the corpse-tide the bat swarm wasn't truly united; these were each separate organisms, bound together by psionic and organic factors, but not so enmeshed that her chains might easily leap between them. If she was going to break the swarm, she'd need a new vector of attack, and one had already come to mind.

Power flowed up the chain and into the bat, granting her influence over that most basic element that defined her in life, and in undeath. She gripped the bat's blood, all of it, and with the simple gesture of closing her fist, burst the rodent like a rotten fruit. Blood sprayed out in a pink mist, slathering all the surrounding vermin in droplets of their kin. Each bat touched by the blood was, in turn, ensnared by her chain and then detonated, scattering its lifeblood as a tree might its seeds. Again and again, the process repeated, splintered bones and shredded flesh raining down like gorey hail amidst a storm of red.

Laughter rolled forth from Natalie as the echoing cracks and pops of dying bats filled the night. Both hands now raised up before her like a priest finishing a benediction, she took a moment to enjoy this ritual bath, before continuing her crimson work. Curling her fingers as if she could grip the sky and tear it down, Natalie called upon the raining blood, letting the mist condense into clouds, then pools, then rivers that flowed through the air down towards her. With a pleased sigh, she drank down the coming flood, letting it pour into her mouth and cistern, bringing with it power and soul echoes. As the last of her meal passed her lips, she smiled and sighed. With enough quantity, even such shoddy fodder gained a quality of its own.

Blinking away the droplets staining her eyelashes, she looked and found Cole, standing three meters away, ice wafting off him, halberd bared at her. The sight of him, ready to fight, to strike back at her, sent a pulse of fury through the Alukah. How dare he. How dare he- No, no, no, not again, she wasn't going to repeat old mistakes. That was the behavior of lessers, a mistake does not become an error unless it is refused ot be corrected, and to err is to be human. She was not human; she was the Alukah, but she was also Natalie, and she would not break her word or her property.

Letting her hands fall to her side, Natalie managed a small smile. "So, I have a new idea on how to get us into Harmas."

Cole's halberd didn't waver. "What is it?"

Gesturing at the mess of exsanguinated scraps surrounding her, Natalie continued. "The city's skies are now undefended, and I have more than enough blood and understanding to claim those skies for myself. We did well before, you riding me as wolf, now how about I take you flying?"

The tip of Requiem lowered slightly. "Are you… in control?"

A snort escaped her. "As much as I safely can be."

"What?"

Flexing and unflexing her fingers, working hard to keep the cruel mania from boiling over, Natalie replied. "I want control, right now, that's all I want. To control, to dominate, to own, to rule, to take and take and take until the world has nothing left to give!"

Her last words escaped as a shout before she snapped her mouth shut. "That's what I want, but it's not what I'm going to get. What I need is to get us into Harmas, and I need your permission to do that."

Worry and doubt sat plainly on Cole's face. She could work with that, the right words would… No… no. "I need you to make your decision quickly, we take to the skies or you stake me. The longer you hesitate, the harder this gets!"

"You can get us into the city?"

"Yes! I can fucking fly us right over the river tonight!"

Cole hesitated for a long moment, and then with a clenched jaw said. "Let's do it."

The moment those words left his mouth, a red cloud erupted from Natalie swaddling her in a crimson chrysalis. Running towards her lover, grinning madly, she felt a new skin slip over her, fur and flesh molding into a familiar form. Arms outstretched, she cupped the air with her wings and leapt into the air. Erupting out of the fog, she just got to see Cole's look of shock before her new legs grabbed him by the shoulders, and she pushed them both into the sky.

A whoop of joy escaped Natalie, emerging as an echoing chirp that cut through the night and revealed all its secrets. She could see panicked soldiers on the barge's deck, how they ran about like headless chickens in light of the bat swarm's appearance and disappearance. Mina and the others would be furious when they awoke, but Natalie didn't care. She would reclaim what was taken from her, and once that was done, they could focus on whatever little scheme Master Time and his fellows had put them up to.

Up and down, up and down, her wings beat, and below them the ground shrank away. But over the flap of leather catching the wind, and her all-seeing calls, another sound split the night, Cole's panicked yelling. Natalie could empathize; she'd hated being hauled through the air backwards by the Tiar the Werehawk back during the Vindabon riot. So, with a twist and yanks, she tossed Cole into the air with a slight spin, catching him easily so he was facing the right direction now. Yet strangely, his screaming only reached a higher pitch. She'd never actually heard him make a sound like this, and hoped he wouldn't damage his throat. Actually, that wasn't too big of a concern; he'd need to die soon to get his eye back.

Eventually, Cole's screams trailed off into a ragged cough followed by wheezing curses. "Shit, shit, shit jagged fuck."

A little annoyed now with his whining, Natalie leaned her head down to peer at him through bat eyes. It was hard to tell in the early morning light, but he looked awfully green; flying didn't seem to agree with him. Oh well, she'd get them to the city soon enough.

Letting out another reverberating shriek, Natalie drank in more of the twilight, enjoying how the reflected sound painted the world for her in such vivid detail. Forcing more strength into her wings, she beat them harder, pushing higher into the pale sky with every flap. If they were going to find Isabelle and Yara quickly, they'd need to get the lay of the land, and what better way than a bat's eye view?

As the sky steadily lightened, she drank in the approaching city. Built onto three islands amidst the Alidonar river, Harmas was almost shaped like a bird, the west and east islands forming the wings, the central island the body. Both wings were tightly packed, with buildings practically built on top of each other, except for the places where burned-out city blocks sat black and festering like rotten teeth. By contrast, the central island had more spread-out, and filled with elaborate structures, where space was wasted as a display of wealth. But Natalie paid little attention to the ostentatious brick and stone manors covering the city's heart; her focus was on the grove of barren trees sitting at the very southern tip of the central island. That had to be the Almgrove, where Yara and Kit might have been spat out by the mad spirit.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Adjusting her course slightly, Natalie flapped over the river and towards the southern half of the western island. If they could land by the grove and pick up her thrall's trail, then that would make one half of this mission so much easier. Besides, once Yara was back where she belonged, they'd be in the right place to find Isabelle. Afterall, where else would her miserable wretch of an uncle be hiding rather than the most important of the islands?

Leaving the river behind, she soared over the western city, taking a moment to examine the carrion bat's spire nest as she did. It was an old structure, perhaps an archaic bell tower allowed to survive the centuries out of cultural nostalgia or something similar. Natalie briefly considered landing her and Cole on one of its balconies. But storming the nest and consuming its owner would have to wait; she had other priorities right now.

Soaring past the tower and the few remaining bats now circling it aimlessly, Natalie's newly oversized ears picked up a curious sound, an odd rustling groan, that passed through the streets below like an ever-curious wind. It was the ghouls, those still trapped in this section of the city, singing their own dirge. When a ghoul sensed something, they groaned and moved towards the source, even, no, especially if that source was another ghoul. This was how they hunted, how they formed into corpse-tides; driven forward by a bastardization of humanity's greatest strengths, communication and cooperation. Or at least that's how Cole had described it to her. From Natalie's perspective, watching the shuffling corpses follow each other's own cries in a pointless spiral, they seemed more like an ant mill, a self-perpetuating and self-defeating cycle of action and reaction. Perhaps she might put these shamblers to better use soon?

Just then, the sun broke over the horizon, its red rays slicing through the pale twilight like crimson-stained glass, and striking Natalie like a hammerblow. Sudden overwhelming exhaustion wrapped itself around her like a suffocating blanket, and her wings faltered. She poured blood into her body, trying to drive off the lethargy, but every spent drop vanished with a puff like water on a hot stove. This wasn't normal, she always weakened in sunlight, but never to this extent. Was… was she no longer safe from the vampire banes?

Looking over at her spread wings, Natalie half-expected to see holes being burned in the thin membrane, but thankfully, the sun wasn't scorching her, just draining her power. Which was still a big jagging problem, considering she was at least a hundred meters up in the air, and only kept there by sheer effort. Already, she was starting to wobble, lacking the strength of limb to keep balanced upon the winds, and the exhaustion was just getting worse.

"What's wrong?!" Shouted Cole, his voice distant even to her sensitive bat hearing. Natalie was listing badly now, as inescapable weariness squeezed at her everything. Darkness and deafness closed in on the edges of her senses, and it was becoming hard to think. She was suffocating, suffocating on the fucking sunlight. As her consciousness bled like a cut artery, Natalie tried to find somewhere to land, somewhere safe, but all her flagging mind could catch were glimpses of worn rooftops and broken buildings. As her vision pinholed down to nothingness, Natalie decided safe wasn't going to be an option, so she'd settle for not going splat, meaning she'd aim for thatch instead of shingles.

"CRUNCH"

It was funny how life took on such perfect clarity in the split seconds before disaster. Cole had heard it argued that those micro moments of unique perception were one of Master Time's gifts to mortal kind, but he'd never particularly bought into that argument. Being able to know just how much you'd fucked up, right before you faced the consequences, just felt a little too cruel to be the Tenth God's work.

Hurtling down out of the sky, clinging to a giant unconscious bat, Cole intimately understood how his impulsive need to protect Isabelle had led him to this situation. Just a few hours ago, he'd been trying to talk sense into Natalie, hoping to dissuade her from this exact sort of mad scheme. But all it had taken was the possibility of his first partner being in danger, for him to throw away all caution and endanger both himself and his second partner in this truly spectacular fashion. Cole needed to do better; he needed to be better, but before that, he needed to survive this landing.

Natalie's failing flight had aimed them both towards the top story of a dilapidated building with a partially collapsed thatch roof. While musty straw was certainly better than brickwork, Cole didn't like the idea of being impaled by the broken timbers certainly hiding beneath. That being said, he liked the idea of Natalie being impaled even less, so in what little time he had, he grabbed her bat-form and twisted them both, trying to put himself between her and the oncoming building. Of course, normally, he'd be able to reinforce himself with magic, but right now, hanging onto an unconscious Natalie, Cole wasn't going to risk wounding her just to protect himself. All he could do was pray to his God and trust in his smiths.

His armored back smashed into the thatch, with a horrible ripping sound, sending up a cloud of mildew, dust, and disintegrated straw. Clutching the bat to him, Cole let out a pained grunt as he struck a rafter and started to tumble. The Homunculus hit the wooden attic flooring at an angle and rolled over Natalie, producing some awful snapping sounds from her delicate wings. Twisting with the momentum, Cole kept them from landing with him atop her, but she still took some ugly knocks before they came to a stop.

But of course, the lion's share of damage belonged to Cole. Air forced out of his lungs, he couldn't even groan in pain as flashes of color exploded behind his remaining eyelid. Slowly, fighting down the nausea of a fresh concussion, Cole opened his eye and blinked away the filth encrusting him. His vision wobbled in and out of focus, not helping in his efforts to keep his stomach's contents from escaping. But before Cole's body could decide if vomiting was worth the effort, he caught sight of movement from the other side of the attic they'd crashed into.

Trying and failing to stand up, he managed to get to a knee before brandishing Requiem at a corpse, an animate corpse. The ghoul reached out for him with bony hands, desperately groping at the dusty air, trying to get close enough to grab the paladin. But the noose around its neck kept the hungry corpse from going anywhere. Whoever this person had once been, they'd ended their life dangling from the attic rafters.

"B-b-bee right with yoo," slurred Cole as he turned from the attic's original occupant and refocused on the corpse he'd brought with him. Instead of a giant bat, lying on the ground next to him was a morass of black sludge, with a humanoid lump at its center. Quickly, reaching into the tarry excreta of a botched skinshift, Cole dug Natalie's limp form free. As he did this, he noticed wherever the sun punched through the thatch and touched the tar, it sizzled and smoked, turning into grey soot.

Disliking this but lacking the brain power to discern the meaning, Cole kept Natalie in the shadows as he scraped away more of the filth, and only then noticed one of his arms was out of its socket. Pausing in his efforts, the Homunculus dimly realized he should check himself over. He was concussed badly, that was easy enough to tell, as his helm still faintly buzzed against his scalp, the enchantment infusing it still trying to diffuse the blows he'd suffered. Everything from the back of his skull, down to his tailbone, hurt terribly, which at least meant he wasn't paralyzed. Similarly, none of his ribs were broken, but several had to be cracked, judging by the pain when he breathed. All together, Cole had been lucky; his eye and other injuries could wait until Natalie was secure.

Wiping away the film of black from her features, Cole gingerly opened her eyes and frowned. Her sclera had an odd pinkish hue that was rapidly fading, and hopefully with it the curse's influence. Reaching up to one of the many scratches the jagging bats had put on his face, Cole dabbed his fingers with blood and slipped them past Natalie's lips. Nothing happened.

Collecting more of his blood, prying her mouth open, Cole let the red drip down her throat. She swallowed, unliving instincts active even during torpor, but she still didn't awaken. Fear was now managing to push past befuddlement, and the Homunculus rasped. "Natalie?"

What was going on? What had happened to her? As dread mounted, Cole tried to grasp onto his more logical thoughts, but they were slippery compared to the tide of uncertainty closing in around him. She wasn't ash, and she was drinking blood, so she wasn't truly dead. But then what in the world's name was going on? Had there been some ward over the city they'd not considered? If so, then how in the hells was Wolfgang in the Harmas? If the spells could bring down the Alukah, then he wouldn't stand a chance. No, this had to be something related to her curse and the power she'd summoned to subdue the bat swarm. Was this some kind of backlash from overuse? Or had the swarm's master managed to slip some metaphysical poison through them?

Too many questions, and he didn't have nearly enough information or cognitive capacity to figure any of them out. So all he could do was what he always did. After setting Natalie carefully into the darkest corner of the attic, Cole managed to stand. Clenching his jaw, he rammed his shoulder into one of the roof's support beams, popping it back into the socket, and sending a new shower of dust raining down. Rolling the smarting joint, Cole approached the dangling ghoul and put a gauntleted hand upon the corpse's brow, ignoring its snapping jaws. A sputtering of holy power flowed from him into the ghoul, snapping the link between body and soul.

"Find peace in the next life," he muttered, before slicing the noose. Still sluggish and without any depth perception, Cole failed to catch the corpse, letting it topple to the attic floor with a thud. Wincing at this, Cole then arranged the body in a respectful position as he could, noting its condition as he did. The corpse was old, months old, but still, the early signs of the plague were visible on its papery skin. Had this person ended their own life to escape a slower death? Or was this a last desperate effort to stop from hurting anyone as a plague screamer? Cole didn't know, and doubted anyone but his God did.

Leaving the corpse, he found a spot near Natalie, with good sightlines on both the attic's trap door and the hole they'd smashed through the roof. Requiem in hand, body throbbing with dozens of injuries, Cole ran a finger along his partner's scalp. "Please wake up."

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," snarled Alia, voicing exactly what Mina was thinking as they looked over the riverbank covered in shredded bat carcasses. There had to be over a thousand dead carrion bats, or at least the pieces of them, scattered over the muddy ground and bobbing among the cattails—another gory monument to the madness that drove Cole and Natalie onward.

Staring out over the scraps, Mina fought back a yawn; as she didn't want to breathe in any of this filth. Rubbing away the last remnants of what little sleep she'd managed to snatch, the priestess let her eyes flow from the bodies to the river, and the dead city beyond. It was a hell of a thing waking up to panicked tales of a giant bat carrying someone into Harmas, but it was even worse realizing exactly who the bat was, and knowing how jagged things had just gotten.

Without Natalie, Mina couldn't access the Sage's Stone, and without the stone, Deborah couldn't use her miracles on the Alidonar river. All that the Pantheon and their agents had worked for seemed ready to fall apart because two monsters let the fear of losing someone drive them to abject idiocy. The Reaper of Sorrows must be smirking up from whatever infernal domain she called home.

Turning away from the mess, feeling too drained to be even properly angry, Mina asked the Seraphilim. "What now?"

Face set in a mask of weary resignation, Deborah started to mutter. "I didn't think they'd actually…"

Shaking her head, she collected herself. "We keep looking for another way into the city. But, perhaps that won't be necessary. They might return in a few hours, with Yara, Kit, and a scouting report in tow."

"Un-fucking-likely" growled Alia. She was taking this desertion the worst, it clearly prodded at some old wounds, ones Mina knew existed, but not the details of. "Even if this isn't a trap, those two won't leave until they've snagged that haunted skull they can't resist licking out. We're going to either have to go in after them, or sit here with our thumbs up our asses and prayer on our lips, waiting to see if they get themselves and the whole continent bent over the barrel."

Deborah just stared at the city warden in shock; it probably wasn't every day someone used such language in front of a divine representative. Wincing slightly, knowing it was never a good sign when Alia's oaths became so acidic, Mina said. "Sera, she's probably right."

With a sigh, the Seraphilim prodded one of the dead bats. "Then we prepare for the worst, and stand ready for whatever comes next."

"How?" snapped Alia.

"Lots of ways, but taking a whetstone to the two of you seems a good place to start." was the reply, but not from Deborah. Grettir, the werewolf mercenary stood leaning against a nearby tree, squinting out over the water. "That's probably why I'm here afterall, instead of another paladin, or more 'approprite' bodyguard for sunbeam. "

Deborah slowly nodded. "Yes, I'd considered that. The parallels between the four of us is just the right kind of coincidence the Pantheon enjoys"

A flash of understanding went through Mina. "You want to teach us?"

"Not particularly, but this stinks of fate, and I'm not dumb enough to question shit when the gods start setting the board for the next battle." was the werewolf's answer.

That earned a shake of Alia's head. "I jagging doubt the Pantheon considers putting us through our paces a priority."

Grettir shrugged. "Probably not, but do you have a better idea on how to spend our time while we go hunting for hippogryphs?"

"Is… is that a metaphor or-" started Alia.

The werewolf pointed at the dead bats. "The skies are clear now. We can get in once we find some wings."

Then turning about, he gestured widely to the surrounding lands. "A lot of abandoned noble estates in these parts, at least some of them had to have had a few hippogryphs for heading to and from the city. They'll be skittish after the plague and ghouls, but probably haven't gone too far from their homes. So, we just need to find them and some decent tack."

Alia considered this, then shrugged. "Eh, can't be harder than tracking an invisible horse that could walk through walls."