Daily Writing Challenge: Day 7(Part 2) - Loyalty
The clamor of arms and armor echoed throughout the halls as the fighting continued. A billhook sliced through one of the flowers with ease as it collapses into a head of thrashing weeds, the puckered bud gasping and thrashing with it's feelers into the fetid air of the sewer.
"Buggers just don't know when ta quit!" Roared the mercenary with a cackle, that is before he was sprayed with the sap of the flower. It coated his mail hauberk quickly and sent it to a sizzle before dropping his hook. Hands would scramble at the mail as it burned through the cloth of his tunic and between the chainmail quilting. "Get it off get it off!"
A strong pair of hands with a sharp knife quickly ripped away the melting cloth and tossed it aside. The woman standing over him with the knife was grim and splattered with grime upon a face that could have been called almost pretty. Handsome was the preferable term for her. "Pick up that hook! We haven't got time for you to be sloppy."
"Aye ma'am," gasped the fallen man as he patted at his chest a moment a sigh finding that the dirty tunic had taken the brunt of the sap. Turning away the knight would march among the men as they held the line against the Hag's garden. Her long knife was still wet with sap from her own pruning but it would hardly be the last as she surveyed the tide. The plants just kept coming.
"How long has this been going?" she asked quietly to what she thought was herself.
"Years," the knight would turn quickly to find the creaking step of the witcher, Eldridge. His face could have been a mirror to her own considering the circumstances surrounding them. He looked tired but also determined as he came to stand beside her. "Status?"
"We are under siege from all sides except with how we came thankfully," she responded with a faint hint of satisfaction in her men. They weren't the Knights of the Rose or heroes from any story, but they were stalwart and knew their business. Though their business was less about clearing fields and more about murder usually. "We will hold and push forward."
The witcher did not respond as he watched the mercenaries swing their pole-arms in the open room. In the tunnels the hooks were practically useless for how and they had to travel along the rancid canals but here is where they were meant to shine. Keep the archespore at bay. Avoid the sap. Pray the numbers would thin.
Kill the Hag.
"Where is Paxrin?" The lady would ask curiously, as she looked back where they had come from. She had asked the question but she could clearly see him, he was standing at least right now despite his ruined face and wide eyes behind the bandages. Arms wrapped about his body he rocked back and forth watching the events unfolding around him with a mixture of terror and a strange level of calm. Eld would nod toward him.
"I've got him sedated at the moment, but I'm unsure of how long it will last." The witcher spoke low still despite the chaos growing around them, his yellow eyes would leave the bard to see the carnage growing around them. "They're growing wilder."
The knight would nod softly as she adjusted her belt, the strap tightening as she frowned. "Where are they all coming from?"
"Judging from the right and left tunnels here it would suggest the Hag has set her nest in one of these spots. Which has yet to be determined but," Eld watched the left tunnel with a grimace as he fingered the hilt of his Griffin pommeled sword. "We can't fight these all day."
As if on cue the line to the right broke. A wide swing of one of the hooks went to wide and clipped the other mercenary in the hip causing him to cry out in pain as he dropped his weapon. It was all the spores needed to rush forward with the killing field broke. The man who had missed had all of a moment to say 'I'm sorry mate' before the vines had him. Thorns rushed through him like knifes as they constricted on him, sucking and rending into the body with the ferocity of a starving dog. He didn't even have a chance to scream.
His wounded companion did.
10 men had come down with the witcher, knight, and bard armed for a an eye rolling battle against the flora of the undercity. It was laughable to think flowers were as dire as imagined. But after Paxrin's tale and look, they had sobered before they came down. Now with two men being feasted upon by the cannibals of the sewer, heads were perking up and glances growing far more fearful.
The witcher was first to act as he limped forward with his long creaking step, his right ripping the silvered sword from it's wide scabbard to brandish the hacking weapon. His left hand was curling quickly in an odd formation. Thumb out. Index in. Two and four spread. The fifth curled to form a cup. The flames swept the archespore quickly and brought hot mercy to the dying.
"Reform the line! Back up! Reform the line!" The knight cried as she rushed forward, waving her knife in the air to rally her men to close up ranks. Hearty and well versed the eight others back up, swinging their poleaxes at the monsters as they began to press in. Eld began to back up along with them, swinging his silver sword with a flash to lop off vines and burn the rest. He was glad that the poisons running through his veins were feeding him so, with this much fire called he doubted he could hold out as long as he would be needed to.
But there wasn't going to be enough time.
Closing his fist to silence the fire, Eld would fall back further letting the hook men do their work as they threshed the maddened plants. Paxrin had run back up now and was on the ground cowering in the middle of the round of soldiers. The sedation was running out again as he held himself rocking back and forth.
"There's whiskey in the jar. There's whiskey in the jar. There's whiskey in the jar."
Eld grimaced hearing the haunted words, guilt was beginning to fester in his heart for bringing the man back down here. It had been a poor choice.
He needed to get the Hag.
"I need to get to the Hag," Eld spoke loudly for the knight to hear. The woman looked back at the witcher, her face speaking volumes of what good his obvious need was.
"What do you want to do?" She spoke now, frustration in her words. The fallen had been her men, she didn't want to bury anyone down here.
The witcher licked his lips in thought as he looked from the left tunnel and right tunnel. Two choices. Choose wisely.
"We split up."
Brows arched hearing that, the knight curious and dubious at the same time. "You want to split the party?"
"We can't last this siege, there's to many of them. We take the gardener though and we stem the tide of archespore. Right or left?" Eld pointed toward where the line had originally broken and where it still held strong.
"It won't work," the knight replied. "There's to many for four men to handle on either side. So unless you're gonna torch your way through it all, gonna need a different plan."
Nearby the vines began to grow wilder as they fought back on the left side, the hooks flashing in the low light and still burning remains to the right. They were mad but they seemed to pressing harder to reach the center. The mercenaries were fighting hard and holding but the flowers seemed to be ignoring the killing blows for them almost as if they were eye their true prey.
Cold fear grasped the witcher as he felt his mouth go slack as he looked to the center of their hold-fast. Paxrin. They wanted the bard. He was marked by them and they needed meant to finish their meal. Eld looked to the knight who was already coming to realization as well to what was happening and what needed to be done.
"Left," she spoke softly. "Take three and I'll take five. We go left. You go right."
"Why left?"
The knight shrugged. "I don't want to step over my burnt brothers."
"I'm sorry," Eld grimaced and nodded. "I didn't know their names. I don't even know yours."
"Would it matter?" She replied softly before moving past him.
Nodding was common for the those with lives of violence, it saved on time as well as breath. She gave him only two more. "Get moving."
She knelt beside Paxrin and gently lifted him up to his feet, her gloved hands gently rubbing his arms as she spoke softly. The bard would nod to her. Eld hoped she had told the man the truth, but he knew he'd be lying to himself as much as she was to him. The knight had the bait and he was the hook now.
The knight was urging Paxrin on as he gave a look around him, whispering again to himself the same words over and over again.
"There's whiskey in the jar. There's whiskey in the jar."
"There's whiskey in the jar," Eld whispered softly as the pair continued down the tunnel away from the oncoming battle and into the maelstrom that could only be the hive. Eld was in front, his hand outstretched in the same formation as earlier. Thumb in. Sign of Three. Fifth bent. Quen. The shield before them used as almost a battering ram to push through whatever archespore go in their way as the sign's magic pushed those it touched away. Those that did not steer away were soon caught in a very surprising power all it's own.
Crossbow slung over his back with lantern held in front of him, Janus had his own hand cocked in a formation as well. Thumb out. Index up. Middle bent. Ring stands. Fifth out.
"Aard!" The bard's voice rising above the squirming and thrashing masses of flowers, a short burst of kinetic energy blasting forth to push one back into the wall that had come up the canal. A grin was plastered to Janus's face as he watched it slam into it with a splat and plaster of sap to the stone. "Not bad huh?"
"You don't have to say it each time," Eld spoke as he pressed on, concentrating to hold his shield as he pushed down the hall.
"Oh I know but ya know, adds to the drama ya know? Quen! Igni! Fongu!" Janus laughed as he kept his lantern raised, his mirth a clever way to mask the fear of diving head first into the hornets nest.
Eldridge felt like he should reprimand him for his joking at a time like this, but despite his downing of his potions earlier he dared not lose his focus on reaching the end of the left tunnel. This all had to end today.
The march forward was hard but fortunately not slow or as long as anticipated as they at last arrived in the what could only be the lair of the archespore. To call it shocking would be an understatement.
Much like the Hag's lair this too was a small alcove of a room, the canal from the tunnel arriving to an old grate at the base of the western wall likely leading further into the sewers or even outside the city. Above the grate was a landing and the horror truly began there. The stone floor which had been a mossy and lichen encrusted mess from entrance on into the old sewer was teeming with black roots here. Vines pulsing and undulating with a life all their own, hundreds of the baubles that had been seen on the archespores elsewhere were quaking as the seeds festered with a sickly green glow. As the floor writhed with the roots of the monstrosity so to did the walls and the ceiling, half grown flowers pushing forth from thicker roots to squirm in their spot as they begged to flourish. But all roots came back to one spot, just as the Hag silhouette had been tattooed to the wall so had this figure.
It's arms were lashed to the wall by the roots, it's belly a grotesque bloated planters box of the roots and vines that might have been thought to the strung out innards of a man. In a way they were as they rose through the corpse as it shivered against the wall. It's face hang loose with a rotted jaw hanging opened, small red flowers growing from between bare bone as they quivered to match that of the gold baubles every few moments. Eye sockets as well produced a pair of the same archespore that grew on the walls, the red petals burning bright in the green glow of it's seedlings. Flesh had long since melted from the corpse but it's strange chest still seemed to rise and fall with the root system boring out from it's midsection. The hands hung like a prisoners as it lay pinned to the wall, one hand full of bone fingers hanging limply. The other only held half a middle and ring finger.
"Tymora," Janus whispered staring at the horrific effigy.
Eld grimaced and bowed his head as he felt his shield fall in a scatter of ember dust. "Pax."
"What?" Janus gaped as he looked from his uncle to the thing hanging on the wall. "The survivor?"
The witcher nodded softly as only men of violence understood. Or rather of shame.
"Well what do we do?" Janus looked back down the tunnel, the walls starting to move again with what they had pushed to get here. Beyond that he could hear the sounds of fighting again. The boundary was down.
A deep breath was taken and released as he looked back up to the trapped Paxrin, his flowered gaze staring back at him. He'd damned the poor man by sacrificing him to get to the prey for his job. In the long run, the bard's demise had been worth it to save the city. But it didn't change the fact that he'd betrayed him and left him to die here. Eld's eyes drifted beside the trapped troubadour to see a soft glint of rusted metal beside him, a pauldron long since wasted. At least he hadn't been alone.
"I'm sorry Paxrin, truly. I am sorry," Eld's voice spoke evenly as he looked to the pair of crimson flowers, locking eyes with the dead. He doubted there could be forgiveness for what had happened, but there would be rest.
A sudden shake to his shoulder brought him out of reverie as Eld looked back to Janus, the green eyes wide with fear. "Eld they're here! I can't hear Al or Duncan. What do we do?"
Eld grimaced and looked to his nephew before looking back down the hall at the squirming massive plants inching their way toward them. The witcher moved in front of his godson and took up a position with his hands fixed. "We burn it. We burn it all."
Thumb out.
Janus started to breath heavily as he held the lantern, his eyes wild as he looked about the vile room.
Index bent.
Eld extended his hands as he began to see in the soft green glow the large petals of crimson inching into the eerie light.
Middle straight.
Flowered eyes began to quake as a slack rotted jaw jiggled with a wet rattle.
Ring spread.
The vines began to whip about as three of the archespore passed the final portal into the hive room, the buds within petals wide open with hungry thorn riddle teeth.
Fifth curled to form the bowl.
"Go to hell ya lily livered shit!" Janus roared as he reared his arm back and chucked the lantern at the growing corpse. The metal cage spinning through the air as Janus lifted his hand quickly in the formation of Aard, teeth bared as he felt the surge blow through his spine and up through his palm. Kinetic force slammed into the lantern as the metal smashed into the chest of Paxrin covering it in the lantern oil and sparking it to flame. Quickly the flames spread over it and began to follow the path of the dripping oil as they began to lick at the base of the roots of the archespore hive. Behind him, Janus could already begin to feel the heat as see the light as Eld let loose his own flames.
Igni.
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