Cenotaph of Bones: Chapter 24 (Patreon)

Chapter 24: Answers

“Chu, Valerie, and I will go check on the injured.”  I pointed to Valerie’s medallion, which held three healing charges.  “ We might need that to help.  Donny and Jamila should check on the horses, and make sure our defenses are still standing.  We’ll join you when we finish doing what we can to help.”

“Sounds good.”  Donny stored his own chair and started heading for the door.  “Yell for us if you need something.”

We split up and went our separate directions.  When we got to the area the sailors were using, it was immediately obvious to us where the injured were being held.  There were eight men with deep wounds lying on cots, and one that sat in a corner mumbling to himself.  Jamila and Chu immediately got to work on the regular injuries.

The rusty blades the skeletons had to have been using could make a person very sick if not treated quickly.  The Lockjaw disease was a terrible way to die.  It starts with the injured person having trouble opening their mouth, and ends with their breathing becoming more and more ragged, until they die.  No cultivator was immune to the disease until they reached Sage, when their body was reforged in the crucible of advancement.

While they worked to heal the injured, I went to check on the man who had been bitten, Shoop.  He was rocking back and forth slowly, hunched over with his knees to his chest.  Before I could reach out and lay a hand on his shoulder to inspect him with qi, the captain appeared at my side.

“He’s been like this ever since we got him in here.”  He pointed to a smear of blood on the floor at Shoop’s feet.  “At first, he was drawing something on the floor in his own blood.  He wouldn’t say anything, just kept making these swirls and mumbling about his core.”

“How long has it been since he was bitten?”  I crouched down to look into Shoop’s eyes.  They were glazed over, and he was sweating.  “It looks like he has a fever.”

“At least three, maybe four hours.”  He looked back at the other wounded.  “We did what we could for them, but since we are sailors, most of the men are good at wind and water qi.  The only cultivator truly efficient with wood qi was my boatswain, and he died when those bugs attacked us.”  He shook his head, remembering what had happened.  “I understand what is wrong with the others, but Shoop is a solid man.  He normally doesn’t act like this.”

“Well, we will do what we can for them.  I’ll let you know if we figure out anything.”  He then turned and left without acknowledging what I said.  Still a jerk.

I reached out to touch the man, but he flinched back.  Okay then, it would cost a bit more qi, but I didn’t need to make physical contact to inspect him.  A quick spin of my cores allowed me to extend a small net of wood qi, and I cast it over his head and shoulders.  Which caused an immediate reaction.

Shoop punched me in the face hard enough to rock me back on my heels.  He was screeching like a wind banshee, and I had to strengthen the net to hold him in place.  I heard a commotion behind me as people rushed into the building to see what was going on, but I stayed focused on what I was doing.  I had to, because I wasn’t just being attacked physically.  There was an infection in the bite mark, and it immediately tried to jump into me through my net.  It was something I had never seen before.  And infection, in the qi.

A disease that attacked the host through their cultivation?  That shouldn’t even be possible!  I could feel it crawling up the qi threads, slowly twisting them into a new shape that tried to expand and reverse back on me.  I immediately cut off my connection to the construct, but it didn’t dissipate like it should have.  Instead, it jumped at me.  I rolled backwards, avoiding the attack, and it scuttled on the floor after me like a spider.  It was growing, and in a heartbeat doubled in size, from about the circumference of a dinner plate to that of a shield.

Luckily, an arrow from Valerie flew over my shoulder and spiked it into the ground before it could jump after me again, but Shoop leaped over it and landed on my chest.  I was still in my armor, which mitigated most of the damage.  I still had my breath knocked out of me from the impact.  I don’t care how tough or advanced you are, getting the wind knocked out of you still hurts.

I grabbed Shoop by the wrist and elbow, and twisted my hips to throw him off of me.  I used my hold to lock out his arm and guide his face straight into the floor.  The impact smashed his forehead against the stone, and he went limp.  I quickly got to my feet and looked back at the abomination still trying to break free from the hunk of pointy metal holding it in place.  A quick burst of fire and wind qi created a fireball that engulfed it in flames.  The hissing sound it made as it crisped into ash made my skin crawl.  It didn’t sound like it was in pain, it just sounded angry.

“What in the stars-forsaken realms of madness was that!”  Chu was already by my side, a wave of wood qi from him passing through me to check for injuries.  He was holding my hand to do it, since our armor stopped him from healing me normally.  “Was that - thing - inside him?”

“I have no idea what that was.”  I cut off the flow to the fire, and the acrid smell of whatever that thing had been burned my nose.  Another burst of wind qi, and I pushed the smoke outside the nearby empty window.  “And it wasn’t inside him.  Well, it was, but it wasn’t.”  Chu looked at me like I was spouting nonsense.  I guess I was.  “It’s hard to explain, but that certainly wasn’t natural.”  I pulled out one of the sets of orichalcum chains I had in my belt.  “We need to secure this man, and separate him from the others.”

“The hell you will!”  The captain was walking through the door, his face a thunderhead of anger.  “I will not have you shackling my men.  You were supposed to help him, not hurt him!”

“Captain, this is for his own protection.”  I waved my hand at the pile of ash around the arrow still embedded in the floor.  “He has some kind of qi infection I didn’t even know was possible.  I think… I think it might be sentient.”

“There is no such thing as a sentient infection.  Or a qi infection.  I don’t know what you think you saw, but it wasn’t that.”  He moved to separate us from the unconscious man.  “You can go now.  We can take care of our own.”

“You’re making a mistake.”  I indicated the ash spot on the ground again.  “At the very least, separate him from the others, and post a guard.  Doing that wouldn’t hurt him.”

“Fine.”  He waved a hand toward the door.  “Now go.”  As I started to walk out the door, he spoke again.  “When you find a way out of this place, come and let us know.  Until then, it would be best for you to stay away.”  I left, my fists clenched in anger.  His inability to see what was right in front of him meant an enemy I had no idea how to defeat was left to still threaten us.  This could only end badly.

The three of us returned to our area in silence, considering the eyes and ears that were still nearby.  A sailor seemed to be positioned at every turn along the way by happenstance, funneling us straight out of their side without giving us the opportunity to circle back.  More than one glared at us, fingering weapons as we passed by.  I got the distinct impression they didn’t like us very much.

It only took a few minutes to get to our side of the small village.  The walk felt much longer, considering the circumstances.  Once we entered the building we were using as a camp, Donny and Jamila immediately got to their feet.

“What happened?”  Jamila rushed over to Chu, and I could feel her spinning her cores in preparation for a fight.  “We felt you doing more than just healing over there, but then it just stopped.”

“We were debating about going to help.”  Donny swapped his axe for a chair from his storage and sat down.  “But when it stopped, we were afraid rushing in there would only make things worse.”

“You made the right call.”  I started pulling off my armor and stacking it so I could look it over for damage.  “The two of you rushing in there, ready to fight, would have probably escalated things.”

“I don’t even know why we are bothering with these people.”  Jamila started copying me, removing her own armor with the help of Valerie.  “They only make things worse at every opportunity.”

“Their ship was destroyed because of us, and none of them would even be here if we hadn’t asked the Auction House to provide us with transportation to the Northern Province.”  Valerie was having problems getting the side clasps on Jamila’s armor to loosen, making her grunt with effort.  “So we do hold at least a little responsibility for their safety.”  Finally, the chest piece came free, allowing both of them to sigh in relief.  “Though, if they keep making things difficult, they have no one to blame but themselves if things get worse.”

“Why would things get worse?”  Donny was already done removing his armor.  “What happened over there, anyway?”

We quickly explained what happened with the man who had been bitten, and that led to a long discussion about what we should do next.  Obviously, no one had any idea about how a qi infection even existed in the first place, but it was a unanimous decision for all of us to stay in our full suits of armor and not allow ourselves to be bitten.  Not that getting bitten by a walking corpse was near the top of any of our to-do lists in the first place.  That this must have been a creation of the nox was never in question.  I had no idea how they were doing it, but we would put an end to it somehow.

After cleaning up as best we could, and making sure our armor was back in top form, we quickly got fully dressed again.  Considering the possibility of another sudden attack, sleeping without being completely protected was a bad idea.

I had problems getting comfortable at first, but after such a long period of no sleep I was quickly nodding off while trying to refine the qi in my cores.  Chu volunteered for the first watch, and I was asleep not long after laying my helmeted head on the hard stone floor.  My last thought before drifting off was about the necromancer.  Instincts told me finding him would be the fastest way to put an end to this disease, so that had to be our priority.  All we needed to do was find him.