The massive doors swung opened violently, as the cold wind burst into the central chamber. Two priestesses, who had been watching over the bathhouses entryway, were thrown back from the sudden gust of pressure. Lanterns along the wall were crudely hushed into silence, shrouding much of the bathhouse in darkness.
Outside, it was chaos. The hellish rain descended in such a downpour that it was hard to see anything beyond a few feet. The sounds of crunching bone against the solid marble pavement was unlike anything Junipor had ever heard before. It was a cacophony of sickening cracks, a crescendo of sharp bangs that hurt her heightened senses.
The haunting chorus of crunching bones alarmed everyone in the bathhouse, and Junipor rushed to put on a robe as the steam evaporated quickly. The hair on her tail was standing straight, and so too was the scruff along the tips of her ears. Even with her ears tucked low, the noise was impossible to shield from, and would highlight many a nightmare in the following days.
Junipor's ears twitched, taking in all the sounds as she watched the scene in horror. Despite everything, there were some things that grabbed her attention just beyond the veil of death. Behind the grisly curtain were sporadic shapes of villagers desperately seeking shelter. Several were crying out in pain as they reached the bathhouse. The tiny bones were sharp, and several small pieces were embedded in the skin of those rushing inside.
One outcry stood out above the rest.
Junipor rushed to the door, and tried to look through the downpour. Her sharp eyes struggled to find the source of the noise, and she held her breath while trying to seek it out. Not far away, just a couple dozen yards at most, a small child was screaming. While she couldn’t see him, the noise was more than enough to guess his position, and without a second thought, Junipor rushed out into the bone rain.
She dashed forward, ignoring the pain of bone shards stabbing into her shoulders, and ran toward the source of the noise. She found the small kit huddled in a ball in the middle of the street. The boy could be no older than four winters old, and yet Junipor found him frightened and alone. He was nearly buried in a pile of bone fragments.
Just as she scooped him up, shielding him with her own body, Junipor fell to her knee as a large femur bone slammed against her forehead. She stifled a scream, grinding her teeth while trying to get back on her feet. The calloses on her toes tore as she stepped on the sharp gravel now paving the streets. The weight of pain was more than she could handle, and Junipor could taste the bitter tang of blood in her mouth. Still, she tried in vain to carry the child back to the bathhouse before the rain smothered her completely.
Blood ran down her legs, and coated her arms, as Junipor struggled with each step. Sheer adrenaline was the only thing keeping her from collapsing onto the ground, although the jarring pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced.
Junipor's vision blurred, her eyes squeezed shut. All her training, all her strength, meant nothing when being buried alive under a torrent of howling bone! Just as she was about to fall to the ground, feet giving way under the duress, a sudden static electricity tickled her ears. The temperature dropped around her as a bubble of compressed air made her ears pop. Junipor scowled from the sudden ringing, the sharp pain in her ears was almost as bad as the stabbing bone chip in her thigh.
But…there was a sudden absense of rain, or blunting impacts, as the bones seemed to halt in mid fall just above her head. An invisible shield seemed to extend a modicum of protection, guarding the immediate vicinity around her.
Near the bathhouse steps, the human stood with his arm outstretched. While a towel was draped around his waist, his upper body revealed stunning layers of musculature, and a fairly impressive physique. With his hand reaching out, he spoke a series of words that seemed to throb with power.
She couldn’t make out the words, she couldn’t even remember them as they were spoken. Just trying to make out each syllable was like trying to grab hold of a stream of water pouring between her fingers. Her head throbbed trying to understand what the human was saying. Regardless, the words of power seemed to cause a ripple through time and space, forcing the bone rain to halt in mid fall. His power seemed to only stop the rain around herself, and Junipor watched as the bone’s shrouded the world around her.
Relieved, Junipor walked forward. The rain slowed to a halt with each step, and resumed its descent behind her, once the air pocket passed. Static electricity tingled between her fingers and toes, and the air around her smelled burnt and chalky.
“Hurry,” the human cried out with his eyes shut. A red tear graced his cheek, and his hand was shaking as if an unbearable weight was pressing down against his palm.
Junipor grunted, trying to hasten her step. Blood soaked down to her ankles, and her knees were burning. Deep gouges covered her skin, particularly over her back, and several sharp bones were embedded into her shoulders. Yet still Junipor kept her pace with adrenaline fuelling her veins until finally reaching the marble stonework of the bathhouse stairway.
The human cursed as he nearly fell to the ground, the magical arts he employed were clearly reaching his limit, and his arm threatened to fall to his side. Junipor held the small kit close to her chest, and muttered a prayer in preparation for the next slam of bone that was certainly about to come down on top of her. But just before the human failed, a sheering heat lit up the sky above her.
Fire consumed the bone rain. A carpet of heated wind tore through the skies like a spear, as a gout of flame boiled the very bones into dust. Seldie had rushed to the humans side, and spewed everything her lungs could muster. It only offered the barest of reprieves, but it was enough for Junipor to lunge forward. It took all the strength she had left to make the leap, but she landed on the bathhouse doorway, and was swiftly dragged inside before the humans hand fell, and the bone rain crashed.
Junipor struggled to see through the red haze, and could barely hear the words of concern from Seldie who crouched next to her. Francesca jumped to the young Pharine in her arms and chirped until one of the priestesses came over to look at him.
Despite all the blood, there was no pain. In fact, Junipor realized her skin felt rather cool. A soothing tension coated her shoulders, then ran down the arch of her back and finally quelled the itching cuts along her thighs. One of the femur bones fell from her right leg, while another fragment of a jaw slipped painlessly from her left arm.
Even her ears, which were screaming in pain only moments ago, felt surprisingly unharmed. Junipor looked down, and saw as several of the deeper gouges were sealing themselves, healing instantaneously in front of her eyes. Scar tissue pulled together torn muscle and exposed sinew as the blood coagulated.
Once her vision cleared, Junipor looked around to notice the blight born hovering behind her, with her arms only centimeters away from her skin. She hadn’t muttered a word, but was somehow able to heal the wounds with remarkable efficiency.
“It’s just like old Reomus predicted.” The human’s voice was haggard and tense. Sweat ran down his brow, and every finger on his right hand was broken. Several were snapped back, with bones sticking out from the skin. If Junipor hadn’t known better, it looked like the human had his hand bashed with a forge hammer.
“He just had to keel over and die, didn’t he? The first time he makes a decent premonition, and the old buzzers ticker pops!” Domitilla’s sarcasm wasn’t very sensible, and clearly Caius wasn’t happy about it.
The Teifling noticed his scowl, but didn’t seem the list bit alarmed. “Don’t worry I’ll tend to your hand in a moment. First got to help out our hero here.”
“What is this?” Junipor found the tension in her shoulder blades lessened, and the strain in her triceps fully relieved. The only lingering pain was in her toes, where small bits of bone were still coming loose.
“Don’t forget to thank the blight born,” Domitilla said in mockery. Barely a bead of sweat could be seen from her efforts, and she rubbed her hands after finished healing Junipors injuries. “Seriously, no thank you? Well there’s no pleasing you is there?”
Junipor grumbled, not sure how she felt about the Teifling somehow healing her wounds out of thin air. She couldn’t help but wonder if this was how curses were spread. Then again, what about what happened last night? Had the blight born already marked her with some kind of accursed sorcery? The hairs between her legs tingled just thinking about it.
Junipors wounds tended too, the Teifling then turned to her human companion. All the while, the sounds of the bone rain continued in earnest.
