The Homunculus Knight

"From a perspective of pure practicality, my band's way of war is superior to all other knightly orders. The strength and senses of a vampire combined with an archer's skills simply make for unparalleled killers. So, with that in mind you need to understand the bitter irony in the fact most Duchy nobles scoff at the very notion of picking up a longbow. They see no point in personally shedding blood unless they're close enough to taste it. Which means, I need to be creative when finding potential initiates to the Black Feathers. Hence, why you are here, and instead of a larder." - Lady-Captain Donnina Gens Soren speaking to a captured poacher.

They cut up the masks using Yara's stargent knife, then burned the scraps within a wrought iron stove, which Kit hoped would be enough to cleanse any trace of the faerie magic. As for the strangers' corpses, well, she'd been an old hand at moving bodies even before gaining the strength of an ancilla. With the remains left well away from their shelter, and where some hungry ghouls might find them, Yara returned to the tower, finding Kit working at a feverish pace.

Cloistered away in the building's dusty workshop, he sat hunched over a pea-sized peridot, peering at it through a spit-polished magnifying glass, hands busy manipulating a collection of jeweler's tools, and the occasional eldritch spark. The only pause in his frantic efforts came when he'd rub absently at one ear, with a repetitive familiarity Yara knew instantly to be a nervous tic. He'd been shaken by what happened and was trying to regain stability via diligence, which was a problem considering what needed to happen next.

"We can't stay here."

Kit looked up from his work with a jolt, having apparently not noticed her standing in the workshop's doorway for well over a minute. Recovering himself, the magi shook his head. "No, not until I'm done."

"However those people were, they aren't working alone, we need to run."

"What we need are weapons and tools," he snapped. "Both of which, I'm making progress on."

Yara flinched slightly at the frustration in his voice, but Kit had already returned his focus to the gem. Muttering quietly, he reached out to his lantern, the accursed thing sat on the table next to his workstation, and drew a string of strange light over to the gem, where it coiled into the stone, infusing it with a faint glow akin to the lantern's own. Weaving more and more of the luminescence strands into the stone, Kit increased its brightness until the peridot shone with an uncannily vivid green hue. Then, just as the light became painful to see, Kit twitched his fingers, and one of the gemcutting tools flashed, doing something to the stone, so its brilliance faded into mere phosphorescence.

Eyeing the gem, as Kit set it aside before picking up a new specimen, Yara found herself painfully reminded of how deep the waters she now treaded were. All of this was so far beyond her scope, she could only do what she'd always done in times of trouble: run and hide. Except that wasn't what she always did, at least not anymore. She'd staked a noble, a true vampire of lineage and standing, and she'd ambushed her like an alley cut-throat. The very thought of the act, of how it felt to drive cold metal into colder flesh, made Yara feel more sick than when she'd bashed the masked strangers' brains. Such a crime was beyond belief, and would have seen her worse than dead back in the Duchies, even if it had been at Dietrich's command. None but a noble could be allowed to shed noble blood.

As these thoughts and the malaise that went with them settled onto Yara, Kit suddenly stopped working and turned to her. "I'm sorry for getting snippy."

That had not been at all what she'd been expecting. "It's… fine."

Kit shook his head. "I can't go taking out my fear on someone else, that's not who I want to be."

Yara didn't respond; she didn't know how to respond, so she just stood there in silence until Kit spoke again. "My master, my mentor, the man who helped me become a proper person, he sent me here for a reason. I thought it was to help deal with the plague's fae element, but now, now I think it's bigger than that."

Hand cupping his ear, as if to shield it from a blow, the magi whispered. "Those masks are sidhe magic, and that fact alone is frightening. But when you add in how the spells were being used, well then, it's terrifying. Those people who tried to trap you with the ghouls weren't magi, changlings, or anyone else that makes sense. Someone or something must have given them those masks, and that means there's enough faerie spellcraft available to fritter away relics on random madmen."

Looking up at her, eyes filled with fear and confusion, Kit finished his chain of thought. "This city is more cursed than I thought. It's not just the ghouls, the plague, and the vampires; there are eldritch powers at work here. Powers, I'm supposed to face, with what? My shitty inheritance and a clever song?"

To punctuate his last words, he prodded both the lantern and his ear, bringing Yara's attention to the long-healed scarring along the outer cartilage. Seeing that she was staring, Kit turned away, so the old injury wasn't visible. With a weary sigh, he then returned his focus to his work. "Sorry about that."

Unwilling to move from the safety of the doorway, Yara finally found her words, repeated, familiar words. "We should run and hide then."

Kit offered her an expression of mixed annoyance and confusion. Before he could say anything, Yara quickly elaborated. "My mistress, the paladin, and the angelblood will be coming soon. Whatever is in the city, they can stop it. We just need to survive until then."

The mild frustration on the magi's face shifted into something softer but infinitely crueler: disappointment. "That's not who I want to be. I'm not happy to just survive and do nothing more. I don't want to be just a victim of the world; I want to be part of it. I mean, isn't that why you saved Alia and Mina?"

Yara recoiled from his words; they stung like salt on a scar for reasons she couldn't quite understand. "My mistress wouldn't have wanted them to die."

Kit let out a sigh and shook his head; actions that somehow hurt more than a punch. "I hope you'll understand what I mean one day. I didn't for a long time."

Picking up one of his tools and looking back at the gems she'd gotten for him, the magi muttered. "Well, let me finish on some of these. No matter what we end up doing, it's best to have options."

Nodding jerkily, Yara stepped from the room and shuffled a little down the hall before coming to a stop. Legs feeling shaky beneath her, she leaned against the wall and slid down it, mimicking an action she'd seen her mistress do several times. Wrapping her arms around herself, Yara stared at the opposite wall and wondered why Kit's words had hurt so much. In fact, why did everything hurt so much? What had she done to deserve-

She shut her eyes and thought of the angry soldier who'd demanded her head. All she'd wanted was to please Sir Dietrich, to help him in his quest; so she told him what she thought would work. She sowed a seed in bloody ground, and now she reaped her just rewards. As she studied the decaying plaster before her, Yara was struck by a thought, one that should have been obvious. The gods saw time differently and sculpted both past and future into shapes they preferred. But the gods also protected those they deemed worthy, those deserving of their love. Had the pantheon seen what she'd do? That she'd point an executioner's blade at entire villages, and help kill hundreds just to feel the warmth of the sting and her master's approval. Was that why the world was cruel to her, why everything hurt? Did the gods see how pathetic and disgusting she was from the moment of her birth, and see no point in offering any kindness, as they knew she'd never deserve it?

"BANG"

A loud noise ripped Yara right out of her ever-darkening thoughts. Knife in hand, she ran back towards the workshop, the terror at what she might discover so great, it left no room in her heart for its earlier melancholy. But thankfully instead of broken flesh or rampant magic she found Kit on the floor, coughing violently, waiving away the cloud of noxious vapor that swirled about the room. A large, oddly shaped scorch mark decorated his workspace, and flecks of sizzling crystal were scattered about. Sitting up, from where he'd been knocked off his bench, the magi started to smile, but then winced as his split lip leaked blood onto his chin.

"Well, they wasted no time in coming to rescue us."

Yara stared at him in confusion for a few seconds before moving forward to help the magi in his efforts to stand. Taking her hand with a grunt of appreciation, Kit gestured at the ruined gemstone. "I wanted to be able to locate our friends when they made it into the city. So I created an enchantment using my lantern to hopefully locate sources of holy power in the city. At worst, that would help us find good places to hide; at best, it seemed the smartest way to know if Cole or Deborah were nearby. It worked, perhaps not as cleanly as I'd have liked, but I still got a dousing. Someone rich with sanctity is close, real close."

It was then that Yara finally recognized the shape of the scorch mark; it was an hourglass. Seeing her dawning comprehension, Kit smiled wider, uncaring of red dying his lips. "Let's go find the paladin."

Well, it was bound to happen eventually; one couldn't roll the dice with unknown magic so many times before they landed on a losing number. Still, Cole couldn't help but marvel at the sheer ironic hell of his latest metaphysical mutation. He was dead, very dead, having taken an arrow to his throat, and another all the way through his brain; and yet, he was still conscious. Staring out of his unblinking, remaining eye, he could only watch the stars overhead and scream silently at not being able to do a damn thing as Natalie worked hard to get herself captured or killed.

She hadn't run; she'd done the near exact opposite and instead was trying desperately to drag his corpse away from where he'd died. Hands wrapped around his gauntlets, tugging him over the bridge's uneven stones, Natalie kept up a litany of curses and pleas. "Come on, fucking come on! Just a little jagging more!"

Cole wanted to tell her to rip out the arrows and leave him. She could get to better cover at the very least, not stay out in the open right in the archer's line of sight. Speaking of which, where was the hunter? Had he been atop one of the bridge's supports, or somewhere else? Guessing was pointless without more information, and even if he could figure out his killer's location, he couldn't fucking tell Natalie. Utter helplessness pressed down upon him, making his rapidly growing claustrophobia even worse. While he could still use his senses, there was a distance and distortion to them. While that kept the pain of taking two arrows to the vitals away, this was small comfort compared to how trapped he was. He'd been paralyzed before, but this was different; he experienced the world through that distant window but couldn't get close enough to reach through it.

Something whizzed through the air overhead, and a yelp escaped Natalie. But before Cole's cooling blood could drop a few more degrees, he heard the clink and clatter of steel striking stone; she'd dodged the arrow. Letting go of his hands, Natalie slipped away, a whispered apology on her lips. He wanted to tell her she had nothing to be sorry about, that she needed to run, to live, to escape. But he couldn't so much as take a breath, let alone speak.

Seconds later, something new grabbed him, something with much less delicacy. Several sets of jaws had clamped onto his armor and were continuing Natalie's efforts. Hearing the panting of phantom wolves as they worked, Cole offered a silent prayer to both Master Time and any god of lupines that might care to listen. The Lupus pack quickly dragged him along the bridge's worn stones, dodging another arrow in the process. Soon, he was behind one of the broken barricades, Natalie crouching over him, her wolves keeping watch all around.

"Okay, okay, we can do this," she muttered while grabbing the arrow in his neck. With a wince, she pulled at the shaft and then swore, as its barbed nature became apparent. After a moment's hesitation, she grew two of her fingers into long claws before whispering to herself. "It's just like chicken in the kitchen, just like that."

She widened the wound in his throat and got the arrow free. All things considered, it was the least painful surgery Cole had been subject to while awake. But those morbid thoughts were knocked aside as his eye caught sight of the dripping arrowhead just pulled from him. He knew the make of that cruel bit of steel. The archer who shot him was a Black Feather Knight, one of Duke Umbria's more subtle servants. As Natalie tossed the arrow away, Cole found himself wondering how many of Harmas's leaders suffered similar deaths as his.

But such thoughts on the conspiracy that killed this city would need to wait, as Natalie got to work trying to wiggle the second arrow out of his brain. This more than anything else, confirmed his current state was fundamentally different from the magic that probably spawned it. He wasn't holding onto life through miraculous fortitude like Acolyte Lyander had done, no, his soul's connection to his body had changed, for how else could he be thinking clear thoughts while his lover was lobotomizing him?

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

A painfully sharp snap echoed through Cole's head, and he wished he could wince as Natalie held up the broken shaft. The arrowhead was still inside him, probably lodged into the tatters of his optic nerve. This would complicate things; his body normally expelled intrusions during resurrection without much hassle, but a jagged edge lodged deep in delicate tissue would certainly slow down the process. Kneeling above him, Natalie looked back and forth from his eye socket and the arrow, clearly weighing her options.

"Fuck it."

She snapped the already broken shaft in twain, dropped it, and then got to work hoisting his corpse up onto her shoulders. Through a combination of undead strength and a barmaid's experience in helping drunkards to the door, she lifted him up and started staggering away from the damaged barricade. Forced to stare at the street and her feet, Cole found himself truly hating this newest ability of his. For him, death was a thing of helplessness, rather than finality, a fact doubly reinforced by his new awareness but unchanged impotence. For the life, or perhaps, more accurately, death of him, he couldn't understand why this was the way his soul rebuilt itself.

"How much does that armor jagging weigh?" half-moaned Natalie as she managed to balance him enough to jog properly. Weighed down by his clanking corpse, she moved at painfully human speeds, but still reached the bridge's end without either of them taking another arrow. Now, she instead had to contend with those all this commotion had attracted. Even dead, Cole could hear them, smell them, the shuffling, groaning mass of corpses that surely by now would be filling the entire street before Natalie. For the first time in as long as he could remember, the presence of ghouls truly frightened the Homunculus. He'd been eaten alive before, but even that nightmare ended in death; now he wouldn't be so lucky.

Cursing, Natalie shifted him on her back and reached out with her hand, swatting at the air, as if to drive off a cloud of gnats. "Out of my way!"

Cole felt something then —a pressure, a pulling —on his very soul. It was like he stood in waist-deep water, experiencing a river's current, while still keeping his balance. As the sensation faded, and with it, the signs of ghouls, Cole understood. Natalie had used her powers to drive off the approaching swarm, and he'd reacted to those same powers. This new form of death he experienced wasn't a parody of Lyander's finale miracle; it was something closer to becoming a ghoul. The idea he might suffer that lowest form of undeath, the type he'd spent years snuffing out, across the entire continent, filled him with a mix of revulsion, confusion, and undeniable dread. If the arrowhead wasn't out of him in a few hours time, would he rise up as a shambling cannibal?

As Natalie ran through dead streets, seeking somewhere safe, Cole racked his mind for some answer, some solution to this latest madness. First things first, he compared all he knew about ghouls to his own situation, finding more uncomfortable similarities but not a total match. According to both Isabelle and the Temple's libraries, the unfreed dead were not initially aware of their predicament. The shock of death kept the soul in something like a vague dream for the first few hours, a state, certain practices, like covering the face, or washing the corpse, could extend. But when that last reprieve ended, a soul awoke to their dead flesh and the prison it had become. From there, they suffered the rot and ruin of their body, tainting the Aether with miasma, until the corruption grew strong enough to trigger reanimation.

Until now, Cole hadn't even properly experienced the first step in this ugly process; for him, death was a cessation of being. His candle of life was simply snuffed out, just waiting patiently for another spark to reignite it. Currently, he seemed, fittingly, trapped in the second stage, but with a few caveats. While he could feel the world around him, his sense of pain was dulled and distant to the point that his ridiculous tolerance let him easily ignore it. Furthermore, he could still think clearly, despite being both dead and brain-damaged, whereas ghouls were subject to their body's condition; it's why destroying the brain was enough to stop them, if not free them.

This disconnect and continued cognition forced Cole to reassess things slightly. Perhaps he wasn't so much a soul trapped in a corpse, but a curse still clinging to its broken vessel. That was a subtle, but important difference, with implications he might take advantage of. Common ghouls couldn't wield any magic they might have had in life, but a curse was already a spell in itself. Could he call upon his mantle even in death? If so, that alone might make this torture worth it. Yet, any experiments would have to wait until his body wasn't draped over Natalie's own. As ensuring he didn't accidentally freeze her, back during the battle with the bats, had been hard enough.

Taking another corner, Natalie entered a tight alley and slowed her pace. He couldn't hear or smell any nearby ghouls, which was probably the reason for this change. Instead, his ears caught an oddity in his partner's footfalls, the tiniest crack and crunch beneath her feet. There was sand, or some other residue, on the cobblestones. Focusing on his nose, but unable to breathe, he sifted through the faint ambient scents that reached him. Hidden within the various layers of rot and neglect was a faint but starkly familiar aroma: salt. The street had been strewn with a paltry dusting of crushed salt. Just as Cole realized this, a sound echoed through the alley, a metallic click, followed by deafening thunder.

The world turned white, and everything was pain, dull pain, yes, but pain nonetheless. Heat scorched at Cole's skin, a behemoth's roar broke his ears, bright fire blinded his eye, a phantom hammer rattled his organs, and bushels of arrowheads struck his armor with enough force to send the Hakon steel ringing. The ground came up to meet Cole, and he rolled over himself twice before lying still and useless.

As the brightness dimmed and the ringing left his ears, other infinitely worse sights and sounds greeted him. Natalie, or what was left of her lay a meter away, screaming in abject agony. The blast had torn her apart, shredding both her arms and legs into ashen scraps. Rivulets of black ichor tried desperately to flow over the mangled stumps, but the sheer variety and intensity of wounds stretched the Alukah's power. Dozens of thumb-sized holes had been punched into her abdomen and chest, each giving off a sizzling smoke cloud, as whatever made them was still searing his partner's innards. She'd been struck by silver and would die a wretched death, as her body wasted every drop in her cistern trying to repair the ever-growing damage.

Cole had seen other vampires killed this way, and even then, in those twisted leeches, it had disgusted him. The idea of Natalie suffering such a fate pushed him into a state of abject terror. He couldn't lose her; he couldn't lie here again, watching his lover die a horrific death, unable to do something.

Reaching into his soul, into himself, he felt the power of Master Time; he could call upon it, shape it, and… and do what with it? At best, he might freeze Natalie into a torpor, to preserve her blood and mind; but would that be enough? No, that would be a final gamble; other options needed to come first, but what options did he have? A mix of sharp stings and spreading coolness caught Cole's attention then; he knew those sensations, he'd also been punctured, and was leaking blood through gaps in his armor. Blood! That was it, he needed to get her blood; if she had ichor, then just maybe she might expel the silver and survive.

Focusing on the growing pool of red surrounding him, Cole mustered every last bit of arcane focus he possessed to cast a spell and save his love. Speaking not with words, but with thoughts, he pleaded to the Aether, offering up half of what remained in him so that the rest might reach her. "I empty my heart of all that is red, to keep you, its owner, from the realm of the dead."

Reality twitched ever so slightly, and from that ripple, a current was born. Serpentine lines of blood flowed over the salted cobblestones and reached Natalie. By now, she's stopped screaming, and instead, a rattling hiss escaped her peeled back lips. The frenzy of starvation was upon her, and with it came bestial simplicity. Her wits and magic were beyond her now; only Cole could still help.

The lines of red slithered up the vampire's body, where they were quickly consumed by her ebony ichor. There was no time or energy for the niceties of traditional feeding, black, simply swallowed up crimson, before putting it to use fighting off true death. Litre after litre escaped Cole's corpse, but all this did was turn a losing battle against the silver into a protracted stalemate. Yet, it bought time, time for the feral creature wearing Natalie's ruined flesh to react. Crawling forward on blackened stumps, the vampire followed the trail of blood to its source. Like a striking serpent, the feral leech bit into Cole's neck and started feeding with rapacious intensity.

Pushing away his own disgust at having his collar of scars expanded in such a way, Cole stared blankly at the creature drinking from him, silently praying he had enough blood left in him. Yet, as the sounds of the drinking vampire grew louder and more grotesque, Cole knew this particular prayer would go unanswered. If he was going to save Natalie, then a greater price must be paid: more lives and more blood. Thankfully, the Homunculus had an idea where to find them.

Letting his consciousness drift away from the physical, Cole turned his focus inward, to that place he'd visited many times but feared to even think about: the ashlands of his soulscape. He'd listened to Natalie talk about the meditative techniques involved with accessing a mindscape, and knew reaching his hellish inner world was possible, but he doubted such theoretical knowledge would prove practical. Still, he focused on that blasted, corpse-strewn waste and reached inside himself, past his mind, past his mantle, and into the core of what he was. Then, to his genuine surprise, the world shifted, and he found himself falling away from the distant window of his body's senses, falling down into storm-wracked clouds of soot.

The first thing he noticed upon entering his mindscape was that he had two eyes again; the second thing he noticed was how crowded the sky was. With every bolt of white lightning, hundreds, no, thousands of limp silhouettes were illuminated around him. The soul hollows of a dead city, now trapped here inside of him. Grimacing at the knowledge of what he was about to attempt, the Homunculus whispered. "I'm sorry."

Turning his focus to the rapidly approaching ground, Cole braced himself. "But this is my mind, my soul, my curse, and I need all it can offer."

He struck the ash with a heavy thud, but landed cleanly, body intact. Stepping out of the cloud his impact had made, the Homunculus looked around for a life to offer. It didn't take long; standing a little ways away was a nude man covered in scars, staring at him with hollow eyes. Marching over to his doppelganger, Cole grabbed the body by the shoulders and spoke to himself.

"This place, it's filled with ruined corpses representing my deaths, and empty husks representing my stolen lives. It's Isabelle's rework of a vampire's cistern, and if I know anything about that terrifying, amazing woman, I know she'd never limit herself or her creations. If a vampire can spend excess blood to empower themselves, then I should be able to spend the hollows I've absorbed."

He stared blankly at himself, but that didn't matter; Cole wasn't speaking to be heard, but to help himself better understand how he worked. "I've done this before, haven't I? In the oubliette, after Dietrich and the farm? I just need to know how!"

No answers came, only the steady patter of corpses striking the desert all around him. Pushing himself away, Cole stared up at the sky and roared. "HOW!"

Lightning split the hellish heavens, a bolt cutting its way between clouds and corpses as if a divine warning against the trespass he demanded. Reaching up to the sky, threatening to throttle away its judgment, Cole screamed once again. "HOW DAMN YOU?!"

The world turned white as a thousand thousand bolts crisscrossed the sky, weaving through each other, becoming a singular spear of sky fire that now hurtled down towards the Homunculus Knight. It struck like a falling star, but instead of smiting him, it struck another him, the one he'd grabbed. As the lightning faded and sparks scattered, Cole looked into his own eyes, or eye. Before him stood a maimed corpse, with grievous wounds to the neck, eye socket, and right side. For the barest moment, the body, his body, stood upright, and then it crumpled onto the ash.

Somewhere else, another body spasmed, as bits of metal were pushed free from gaping wounds by regrowing tissue. This other healing, but still broken vessel, began to bleed properly, fresh blood materializing in its tattered flesh, just to be drunk down by a starving monster.

A ragged sound, half between a sigh of relief and an exhausted sob, escaped Cole as he fell to his knees. Staring down at his own corpse, he took a moment to shut his single remaining eye before offering a prayer. "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."

In that moment, Cole couldn't tell if he'd just committed the highest blasphemy or invented a new kind of sanctity. Ultimately, the theological implications mattered little to him. Offering a benediction for the sewn-together soul-scraps he'd sacrificed just seemed the right thing to do.

Standing up and staring out at the bodies all around him, Cole tried to understand exactly what happened. That he'd tapped into his nature's power was obvious, but the details alluded him. Was overpowering emotion and intent all it took to? That seemed possible, considering how desperate he'd been to save Natalie in the oubliette and then escape Dietrich outside Vindabon during the two previous times major anomalies occurred. Yet, when wasn't he always filled with emotion and intent while dying?

Realizing no answers would be forthcoming, Cole stared up at the sky, noticing the storm had calmed, the roiling lightning turning into the occasional petty bolt. Wondering at the symbolism of this, he examined the heavens until his eyes fell upon the warped moon, hanging low near the horizon. Staring at its seething surface and the corona of silver haloing it, Cole caught sight of an oddity upon its surface, an indistinct blotch of color and… sensation. He could feel the spot on the moon, see it, and feel it somehow. Staring deeper into the mark, even as a wave of vertigo flowed over him, Cole realized what was happening just as it finished. He was back in the waking world, peering through his broken body's senses.

What greeted him wasn't pleasant, but better than the alternative. The feral vampire still clung to his neck, drinking greedily as fresh, living blood flowed from him like a stream's headwaters. But from what little his corpses could sense, the vampire's torso wounds weren't smoking anymore, the silver finally excised by excess regeneration. Similarly, his own head felt different, with an odd pressure present towards where the back of one eye should be; the arrowhead would be free soon.

With the immediate crisis quelled into something more manageable, Cole busied himself focusing on anything other than the vampire consuming him, mouthful by mouthful. The salt on the road was what first came to mind. Its presence explained why there hadn't been ghouls in this alley, as they avoided the purifying substance where possible. This had been a defensive measure, a simple deterrent, that would go unnoticed by all but lesser undead. But the same couldn't be said about the vicious war magic that Natalie suffered. That hadn't been a subtle form of protection, but judging by the silver projectiles, a brutal spell meant to kill dangerous undead

All of this together, combined with the fact that no one had come to finish them off, told Cole they'd walked into a preprepared trap, one meant to be ignored by ghouls, but be lethal to vampires or similar. The frightening mix of complementary complexity, aiding deadly simplicity, reminded Cole of some things he'd seen fellow restbringers use before. A fact that would normally be comforting, as it spoke to potential allies, except right now neither Natalie nor he was in a position to make good first impressions. But hopefully, the excess lives he'd spent would have them both returned to normal before long.

No sooner did that thought cross Cole's mind than the cosmos decided to punish him for his optimism. From somewhere deeper in the alley, away from the direction he faced, there were footsteps. Slow, steady footsteps that crunched over the scattered salt, only to be drowned out by another altogether stranger sound, a low rhythmic creaking that Cole recognized, a heavy crossbow being cranked into readiness.