“I’m going to try a taste”

Reshid was standing with his back to a rock wall, trying not to smell the putrid breath coming from the vampire who had just spoken. He and several of his friends had gotten bored and it looked like he was about to pay the price. Not for the first time, Reshid wished that he could do something other than heal people.

He had learned that his abilities let him walk away from just about anything, provided that he had the essence to heal himself available. They did not, however, make him immune to pain. While he doubted this bored vampire would actually kill him, he had practically no way to defend himself.

The arrogant bully looked human, except for his fangs and odd complexion. He had a water affinity of some kind. Most vampires seemed to keep their elemental abilities hidden, but this one liked to show off. Reshid was still dripping wet from a remarkably disgusting display of the creature’s talent a moment earlier.

Rory had, at that time, wisely made himself scarce, hopefully staying out of trouble.

Feane was sitting nearby, watching and grinning in amusement with her mouthful of fangs.

At first, Reshid had appreciated the wight’s casual attitude, mostly leaving him to do whatever he wanted while they waited for the order to march up the stairs. Now, he wished she would take her duties as his and Rory’s minder a bit more seriously.

Then, as if hearing his thoughts, Feane sat up and finally said something.

“Not a good idea, vampire. Master wants him to work soon.” She said in her odd accent.

The vampire turned to her with a rasping chuckle, and his odd little group of cronies laughed with him. One, a werecreature who looked like he had incorporated all of the most useless features of both a pig and a bird snorted awkwardly as he laughed. He had a squat beak that featured blunt, obviously non-avian teeth, cloven hooves, a tail, and a patchy, uneven coat of feathers, but no wings. A real genius, that one.

“Watch who you’re talking to, little wight.” The vampire said, “I’m just having a little taste. He’ll be fine and the Master won’t even notice.”

Before Reshid could react, he lunged at him, pinning him against the wall with arms that felt as hard as iron. Pain lanced through his shoulder as the monster bit down.

Like a freshly unclogged drain, essence gushed out of him. He shuddered, horrified and disgusted at the same time. For a moment, he couldn’t help but picture the vampire as a gigantic tick, sucking the life out of him.

Then he had the startling realization that, while the essence had left him, he could still feel it inside the body of his attacker.

It was very much like when he healed someone. With time, he had learned to manipulate his power and guide it, even when it was already working on a patient. He knew that a few other revenants could manipulate their element at a distance, but that seemed to be a matter of their own idiosyncratic essential expression.

There was no time to dwell on it, so Reshid did the only thing he could think of—he reached out and commanded the essence to do what it did best—to make things grow.

The vampire reeled back with wide eyes and stuck out its tongue as if it were about to vomit. Reaching up to his neck, he scrabbled at his throat impotently for a moment as spit flew from his lolling tongue. Reshid smiled coldly. Choke on that.

The long, creepy pink tentacle lengthened rapidly, thickening further and further at the base, distending his throat grotesquely until it looked like some sort of exotic sea creature trying to squeeze its way out.

Horrified, the bully’s friends took a hasty step back. Behind them Feane’s amusement at Reshid’s plight had transformed into howls of laughter at the vampire’s suffering. The weird pig-bird werecreature let out a sound that started out as a squawk and transitioned to a terrified squeal.

Then, with a low, wet pop, his neck tore open. Dark blood squirted out and he toppled over, falling flat on his stupid face.

Reshid flinched as a bit of warm blood splashed on his face. The others studied him with wary expressions.

He looked down at the dying bully, whose thrashing had subsided into irregular twitching as blood gushed and began to pool. With a wince, he stepped back.

Maybe he wasn’t quite so helpless after all. That had been… graphic, to say the least. Hopefully he could avoid doing that to anyone else.

Besides, for all he knew, that might have only worked because the vampire was already trying to pull his essence into himself. After all, he hadn’t accidentally caused deformities in any of the people he’d healed.

“It’s like some kind of eldritch demon! What did he put inside him?”, the pig-bird idiot squealed, gaping at the grotesquely oversized tongue, now larger than the vampire’s leg. A moment later, he turned and ran, still squawking and making disgusting pig noises. The others followed at a more measured pace, very pointedly not looking at him or the body. Clearly, they wanted nothing further to do with the situation.

Seconds later, they were alone.

“Come on.” Feane gestured toward him, “We will go and wait elsewhere. Someone will ask about this, and I don’t want to explain it to anyone, really. Do you?”

Reshid shook his head, feeling drained. The answer on the tip of his tongue was cut off by a bright light flared above them—a signal from the lich, no doubt.

“Ah.” Feane smiled. “Time to go.”

“Go where?” Reshid asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Up, of course.” she said, pointing toward the newly repaired stairwell. “Now, where did that little human friend of ours get to?”

Rory, as it turned out, had been watching from nearby as he sat next to the ruins of a tent,trying not to draw attention to himself. Reshid spotted him approaching, now that the immediate danger had passed.

Feane led them toward the stairwell, away from the misshapen corpse. By the time they arrived, the first wights were already moving, climbing up the still-warm stone steps.

Various werecreatures and vampires remained, clustered round Antonius and probably receiving more specific orders. Feane didn’t move to join them.

They settled into the queue at the stairwell among the lich’s forces, and Rory started fidgeting uncomfortably. Reshid didn’t mind waiting—he certainly wasn’t eager to climb those stairs. The longer this took, the more likely it was that Duskhaven would be able to muster a proper defense before the lich got there. That was good for them, but not exactly ideal for him. If Geoffrey was anything to go by, the Guardians wouldn’t bother to distinguish liches and ghouls from revenants.

Then again, his healing had protected him from the lich. Maybe it would be sufficient for this, too.

“What are we doing? Shouldn’t we be going with them?” Rory asked, apparently losing his patience.

Feane patted him on the arm in a motherly way. “Don’t worry, young man.” she said, “Healers in the back. We will go last. It’s safer.” Then she grinned wolfishly, an insane glint sparking in her eyes. “Besides, the master has big plans for you. Don’t want you hurt. Not too soon.”

Rory shuddered and pulled his arm away from her. Reshid couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment.

–-------

Bright sunlight flooded the crypt as the heavy door swung open on well-oiled hinges. The gathered soldiers and revenants squinted in the sudden brightness. Then an old man with a long, white beard stepped through, ducking slightly to avoid hitting his head on the low door frame. Behind him followed several more people, all dressed in priest’s robes of various colors.

The leader carried an ornate staff with a glowing crystal that, along with his white robe, marked him as the city’s high priest in service to Vaclar the Illuminator. Charlie recognized him immediately, of course. He was from Duskhaven, after all, and Aethelbert was an important public figure.

Next to him stood three less familiar priests wearing robes that identified them as representatives of the other orders that called members to join the Guardians—the temples of Morana the Reaper, Lynhild the Healer and Derevan of the Hunt.

The frown on the high priest’s face looked as though it had been carved there as he studied their faces with a penetrating gaze.

Charlie was glad that he wasn’t sitting too close to the door. He’d met the man once and doubted that he would react well to seeing a revenant in uniform. Nor did he think he would be able to hide his own contempt for the self righteous lying asshole. After all, the high priest was the spiritual guarantor of the Scions. He had been the one to promise his followers deliverance from the very fate that had claimed Charlie.

Turning to Meuren, Aethelbert gestured to the door.

“Lieutenant, you and your soldiers will exit and report to Captain Orem. He’s waiting to debrief you.”

Saluting, Meuren began barking orders, getting her people up and moving. While most of the priests simply stood in silence, waiting for them to leave, the one wearing the red and white robes of a priest of Lynhild moved to help, grabbing one of the more seriously injured soldiers under the arm and helping her along.

Meuren nodded to him appreciatively, then turned back to Aethelbert. Quickly, she explained exactly what was coming up behind them. All the while, the high priest’s unwavering frown remained, showing no clear reaction.

“What about the others?” She asked, nodding toward the former prisoners to change the subject. “We went through a lot of trouble to save them. They’re formally allies of Duskhaven, by writ of merchant prince Frederik. I know it’s not allowed under normal circumstances, but we need to let them out while you deal with the lich.”

At that, the Aethelbert’s frown deepened even further, which Charlie had not thought possible.

“Yes, I’m sure they would consider that very convenient.”

“What?” Meuren asked, puzzled.

“We do not follow or enforce laws of mere circumstance like a common city guard, Lieutenant.” the priest hissed. “Our purpose, rather, is to manifest the indomitable will of the gods themselves. None of those condemned to the depths and the darkness may step into the light of the holy sun. To suffer such a thing is to spit in the eye of the gods themselves.”

Now it was Meuren’s turn to frown, jaw tensing.

“Do you dare utter such blasphemy to my face again?” The priest challenged.

Growling under her breath, Meuren stepped out into the sun, leaving Charlie, Em and the former prisoners alone with the Guardians.

Aethelbert gestured to the other two guardians, who stepped forward hefting the weapons of their orders. The priest of Morana carried a stone dagger whose power Charlie could feel even from where he was sitting. He could almost smell the essence of decay and death radiating from it, somehow imbued into the stone itself, or maybe set into it somehow with a crystal that he couldn’t see.

The other held what looked like a common spear. He knew, of course, that a guardian would never carry a mundane weapon. It just wasn’t similar enough to his own attunement to allow him to sense it.

All of the revenants shrank back, and Charlie saw as both of the troggs quickly ducked through a doorway to get out of the priests’ line of sight.

“You are going to explain to me exactly what our ‘esteemed’ merchant prince has been doing in the Deep Paths.”

He was looking directly at Lonnie. Charlie had lost track of him during the hike up the stairs, and it looked like the tall, wiry water elementalist had been up front with a small group of other former prisoners.

For his part, Lonnie looked remarkably unimpressed by the imposing figures as he shrugged.

“He was trying to fight the ghouls in the Deep Paths. Doing your job, as best I can figure.”

“Hmph. What’s your name, creature?” The priest asked rather rudely, considering that Lonnie looked very nearly like a living person. The only clear tell was the unnaturally fluid way that he moved—and he hadn’t moved, yet.

“Polonius of Esciano.” He answered. “Who are you?”

“What was the merchant prince’s purpose in sending you here? Why would he weaken the city’s forces by throwing them against a lich of all things, only to then warn us of the attack?”

Lonnie stared at Aethelbert incredulously, then shook his head. He huffed out a laugh, then shook his head again.

“Wow. Okay, let me make sure I understand what you’re saying. You think Frederik wants the city to get destroyed? Like, what, just to spite you personally, or why?”

The high priest’s expression turned thunderous.

“You confess!? Those who wallow in depravity need no reason to act as they do, they simply are as they are.”

“Right, sure. But how do you even come up with something like that? Are you even listening to yourself?”

Aathelbert took a breath, looking as though he were about to start shouting, but Lonnie continued, talking over him.

“Hey, you really remind me of this guy I met down below. His name’s Geoffrey. Are you related, maybe?”

The priest glared at Lonnie, clearly enraged at his insolence. Behind him, the elderly priest of Morana was unsuccessfully trying to suppress a small smile.

Maybe he really did know Geoffrey.

“Guards!” Aethelbert barked.

Seconds later, armored soldiers streamed in, mostly placing themselves between the revenants and the priests.

“Split them into three groups and put them under guard in the grottoes near the entrance. We will intercept the lich at the head of the stairs. Once that’s dealt with, we can question these creatures more thoroughly about their dealings with our esteemed merchant prince.”

Most of the guards moved toward them, but Charlie saw metal glint in the light of the priest’s staff as one of the guards standing behind him raised his hand.

“Watch out!” he called, but it was already too late. Blood fountained from Aethelbert’s neck as his throat was slashed wide open.