Authors note: Hello and good day. I've had a tough week and haven't pushed through with any bonus-chapters but you can expect one in the coming week. I'll also draw a map and put out some old sketches.
I've also gone through the raw material better. I didn't feel like the patreon chapters were up to snuff but you can expect better wording and grammar from here on out. As always thank you!
_______________________________________________________________________
With his head just outside the guardhouse of the strange black city, Wretch listened. A low symphony of thuds came from deeper into the fortress, but strangely, there was no sound of the crows that should be nesting in the city.
“I can't hear any birds. Might be more of those things around, though,” he said and nodded towards the shattered corpse on the floor.
“That's fine, let's go. I need a drink,” Elenya said, unsheathing the borrowed Blinking Blade.
They moved forward with caution. Wretch in front, listening intensely, and Elenya behind with the dagger. Her cleaver swung over her back, unusable now that she was missing an arm.
They walked past an alleyway and he peeked inside. A part of a nearby house had collapsed, blocking the path. A shriveled corpse stood with its back towards them, digging through the stone and sand at a lethargic pace.
He gave Elenya a glance, and she shrugged her shoulders. They continued upwards along the winding set of stairs. Every now and then, a walking carcass shambled past in the distance, doing some menial task like carrying debris or brushing away sand with a broken broomstick that didn’t reach the floor. Endlessly mimicking forgotten labor.
One time, he heard the grinding noise of something heavy being pulled and the taps of steady feet. He steered them away from it, maneuvering in and out of ruined buildings and alleyways. After an hour, the path opened up toward the central tower.
“I hear thuds and moans,” Wretch called behind him.
Elenya cleared her throat, her voice dry as paper. “Let's check it out.”
They moved around a corner, peering onto a wide plateau of black stones, carefully cut and framed by massive pillars. At the center rose the base of the sky-piercing tower.
Two massive doors of black stone were shut, and a dozen shriveled corpses knelt or stood in front, moaning and hammering weakly at the silent gate. Above the door, a round glass window was partially intact, reflecting the light in a scatter of orange.
The fortress was situated on a hill, and the square offered a clear view of the crumbling rooftops and the desert beyond.
“Let's move around them,” Wretch said, and Elenya nodded.
They skulked around the edge of the square as something else brushed against his hearing. Something that made his dry throat itch.
“I hear water, on the other side of that door. A lot of it,” he hissed, licking his cracked lips.
He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but the eagerness had taken hold. Then came the sound of wings unfurling high above.
His eyes went wide. He grabbed Elenya’s wrist, dragging them both behind a pillar as a massive shadow floated over the city. He held Elenya towards the pillar, a hand over her mouth.
A caw came from above. A moment later, the ground shuddered with enough force to rattle the stray sand.
Elenya reached for the dagger in her belt, but Wretch shook his head. A low caw echoed from close enough that the hair on their necks rose. Had it seen them?
He could hear its movement, the rustle of feathers, the shifting of massive weight. A wave of dread and primal fear washed over him, urging him to run.
It’s trying to lure us into moving!
Elenya swallowed, and the creature froze. Wretch held his breath, pressing Elenya’s larger frame towards the pillar. A series of rapid stomps closed in. The dust on the ground vibrating to the beat.
A black hand grabbed the pillar they were hiding behind, just above Elenya’s head. The hand was large enough to almost wrap around the stone structure.
Each fingernail was white as milk and adorned with black figures of skeletal humans and birds.
The two hunters looked into each other's eyes as a low coo echoed from just the other side of the pillar. Wretch heard it extend its neck over his beating heart, and ever so carefully, he took a step around the pillar with Elenya, holding each other as in dance.
They caught a glimpse of the feathery body. Another soft coo came from less than a meter away, just on the other side of the stone.
For a moment, they stood frozen in each other's arms, both fighting the urge to run.
A bead of sweat formed on Elenya’s brow, and her grip around his wrist tightened. The bead slid down to her chin, growing in size. Another coo came from the other side of the pillar.
The bead fell. They both watched it fall towards the ground.
Somewhere deeper in the city, stone scraped against stone. A furious caw rattled the air, almost bursting their eardrums. Wind and sand exploded outward as the creature hurled itself skyward, shrieking as it vanished toward the lower city.
They both slumped to the ground.
Wretch met Elenya’s gaze and gestured for silence, then pointed towards the gate.
They stalked forward towards the living corpses, moaning in the shade of the tower. There were six of them, and Elenya pointed to the leftmost three and drew a finger across her throat.
A corpse turned. Dried skin clinging tight to the white skull, black holes for eyes, and slack jaws. A dagger pierced its cranium, and the corpse spasmed before falling to the ground. Five others looked over towards Elenya with moans of anguish, unaware as Wretch crawled up behind them.
Two blades of bone pierced the skin of his forearms, slicing at an exposed neck. The head thumped against the ground. Six seconds later, Wretch cut down the last one, catching the falling body and laying it onto the black floor so as not to make a sound.
The closed gate rose upwards, and Wretch gave it a glance. Vivid images were carved into the stone.
Legions of the dead mixed with humans marched and danced over hills towards a emaciated figure with outstretched arms. Skeletal hands clutched his face from behind. Clothes tattered and laughing skulls at his feet. The sight of the figure made his head spin, and whispers clawed at the edge of his consciousness. He looked away.
This place... What kind of being can do that? he thought. He'd seen things crawl over the walls of Nov Yanosk. Things that would threaten your sanity and make your stomach churn. But this was just a stone-carving. Not even the Saint had that effect.
He pushed the thought aside, they needed water, and he heard it close.
Elenya grabbed onto the stone handle, the size of a carriage wheel.
Shades of red danced on her exposed skin, and the stone groaned, a trickle of sand falling from the seams of the door. Ancient stone joints screeched, and they both froze.
It was quiet for a moment.
“It's fine,” Wretch whispered.
A piercing shriek echoed over the rooftops.
“It's not fine!” she said through gritted teeth.
Two massive dark arms plunged out of Wretch’s back. One dug its claws into the stone of the plaza, and the other clutched its malformed fingers around the handle.
“Pull!” Wretch said as the sound of beating wings grew louder.
Muscles flexed and joints ached as the massive door moved with a screech, inch by inch under their collected strength. A primal fear washed over them.
It's close!
“That's enough!” Elenya shouted.
Wretch let the arms grow back, slithering into his skin. Elenya pressed herself into the narrow gap. It wasn’t wide enough.
“I am stuck!” she let out as something whistled through the air towards them.
Wretch threw his weight against her, and they both tumbled through the narrow slit.
The ground shook, and the gate slammed shut behind them.
Wretch looked at the back of the gate. Two rings, just like the outside, adorned it.
“The cleaver!”
Elenya, having carried it for miles, swung it from her shoulder with her only hand.
They pushed it through the rings as a beak swung the gate inwards with a screech.
The rings grew taut over the cleaver, and the doors stopped, leaving only a few centimeters-wide gap.
Elenya and Wretch were on the floor, the beak and black fingers clawing at the gap in fury.
“That was close,” Elenya said.
The beak drew back, and an eye as large as a plate peeked through the gap, the iris focusing on them. With a screech, the gigantic bird drew back, and the gate shook again. The Blessed cleaver did not give way. A furious caw came from the other side, and with a gust of wind, the creature disappeared.
They both breathed out.
It was dark inside, but they could both hear the sound of running water, splashing from somewhere close.
Stairs led upwards to a platform, while two others spiraled downwards into darkness. The glass that could be seen from outside the gate shone through from above, streaking light towards the platform.
The tower was empty, void of any floors except this one and one at the top, leaving a structure much like an empty tube. The surface was filled with symbols etched into the black rock, reflecting some of the light. Occasionally, there was an opening along the inside of the tower, barrel-sized holes in the black stone letting the scorching light of the sun through.
“Wow,” Wretch said as he looked upward.
“After we drink,” Elenya answered.
“Those things outside were humans, or at least they used to be. This place used to belong to us, Elenya,” he said, still looking upwards.
She didn't respond, stepping up the stairs towards the platform and the sound of running water. He took a few quick steps to walk beside her.
“Astrid would have loved this!” he said while still looking around.
“Please, stop yapping,” Elenya responded with a sigh.
They scaled the stairs, quickly coming up to a platform only held up by the stairs from either side. The glass from above the gate let the suns shine through, perfectly illuminating the round platform.
The stone on the floor here was stark white, contrasting the black rock of the rest of the city, and symbols of a language he didn’t know spiraled across the surface.
“There it is,” Elenya said with palpable greed.
In the middle of the platform stood a structure of chiseled white rock, at least two meters wide and with rounded edges.
It was overflowing with water that fell like a veil down to the platform, running along grooves in the stone and disappearing down finger-sized holes.
A figure leaned on the massive chalice, dressed in rags and heavy plate armor discolored by the passage of time.
The figure was kneeling, but was still taller than Wretch. In its hand was a black cross, made of dark metal and intricate filigree depicting bones and skulls, each of the four arms of the cross ending in a polished spike.
They gave each other a look.
Stay dead, please, Wretch pleaded in his mind.
They both took a step forward from the edge of the stairs to the white stone platform. Elenya in her boots, and Wretch on his naked feet.
Rusty metal groaned, bones cracked, and leathery skin stretched beneath steel as the figure moved. A layer of dust and broken rust sailed out from the armor.
“Damn,” Wretch said.
The figure straightened. It was taller than Elenya, almost three meters by his rough estimate. It turned around as fire played along the black metal cross. It grew in length and thickness, extending to the size of a one-handed war hammer.
A blessed weapon.
The figure turned to meet them.
Across its armored chest hung a chained metal casket and cylinders on a rusty chain. The details of the armor itself depicted skeletal remains.
The helmet was the most striking piece, metal bent and hammered to look like skeletal hands reaching over a human face, a tiny slit between two of the fingers.
From the dark within, two fiery pupils lit. A dark pulse shot out of the figure, sending the dust twirling off the platform. Whispers moaned and chattered from the walls as the temperature dropped.
Elenya gritted her teeth and took a step forward. “It's do or die. We need that water.”
Wretch cracked his neck and stretched his clawed fingers. “Agreed,” he said as moans and whispers sounded in his ears.
The three Blessed circled the white stone. Each exchanged names with flaming visages.
Elenya, Butcher of Hordes, with red shades dancing on her exposed skin.
Wretch, Collector of Wounds, with squirming flesh and exposed claws.
Denmira, Last Custodian of Quarafa, emanating whispers of death and decay.