Cenotaph of Bones: Chapter 35 (Patreon)

Chapter 35: Blood Trails

The two of us followed the drag marks until we decided to stop for a quick meal.  It had died down to only an occasional drop of blood here and there, but we didn’t have a problem following it.  The new entrance that the undead had made was only a short tunnel that led into a regularly formed tunnel, and the sailors had chosen to travel in the direction with a slight incline.

“How far in front of us do you think they are?”  Jamila was eating a Perfect Prime Pear, the juices dripping down her chin and making a mess on her armor.  The vibrantly green fruit was something Chu must have picked up somewhere, because I certainly didn’t have one.  It helped rejuvenate lost qi, and the energy it provided would keep her from needing to circulate her own qi for several hours.

“They have wounded with them, and I would say the battle was only a day or two old.  That means we should catch up soon.”  I watched as she took another bite.  “Have any more of those pears?”

“Nope.”  She took another large bite, finishing off most of it.  “This was my last one.”  I sighed as I gnawed some more on my dry biscuit.  I didn’t want to take the time to warm up any of the things I had stored away, and most of my other food items needed at least some form of preparation to be an improvement over what I was currently eating.  “Tough luck, Jim.  I guess you could eat some of those Murder Goats you won the competition with.”

“Ah, I see how it is.”  Her sharp grin meant this was her form of revenge for beating her in the hunting competition we had weeks ago.  “Just couldn’t let that one go, huh?”

“It’s a pride thing.”  She tossed the core behind her, and got to her feet.  “Should we get back to it?”

The path wound upward for a good thirty minutes before we finally found where the sailors had holed up after their fight with the undead.  It was another set of ruins left behind by former occupants of the caves, but these were more recent.  They had carved into the side of a small cavern, creating a series of shelves they had built long rough stone buildings on.  They looked barely large enough to stand upright in, and none of the construction had the same sense of age and majesty the other ruins held.  Spots along the edges of the shelves were stained where waste had dripped down the walls, and dark splotches of soot on the ceiling marked the places cooking fires had been located.  These ruins must have been made in more recent times, possibly from a group that used it to explore deeper.  It would explain the lack of proper plumbing, especially if they didn’t intend to stay here long-term.

Jamila and I were able to make it halfway into the cavern before anyone noticed us.  Extinguishing our lights, we crept closer to better measure what we were dealing with.  Two sailors were huddled around a small fire, both of them barely awake on their feet.  Exhaustion painted their features, and I could sense neither had much qi remaining in their cores.  The saturated qi in the area had lessened the higher we went, but it must have still been enough to stifle their ability to cultivate properly.  We both silently agreed to approach their fire carefully with our hands exposed, not wanting to startle the poor men overly much.

“They’ve found us!  Get ready to attack!”  One of the sailors unsheathed a cutlass, and the other sprinted for the only building with light coming from its open doorway.  The one who had shouted stood his ground as he swung his curved blade from side to side.  “Back, back you evil things!”

“Whoa there, sailor.  I’ve been called many things, but evil is a bit of a stretch.”  I lit a torch, allowing the tired man to get a better look at us.  “We tracked you here from the outpost.  It looked like you had quite a battle.”

“All’s clear!  It’s the passengers, not more of those monsters!”  The sailor shouted back over his shoulder and lowered his weapon.  I noticed that he didn’t put it away, or relax his posture.  “Only the two of you still alive?  Or are the other three sneaking up from some other direction?”

“They are still alive.”  I lowered my free hand, and tucked my thumb behind the buckle of my belt as I raised the torch a little higher.  “It’s just the two of us here at the moment, though.  The others are recovering from an attack by the undead.”

“Sure they are.”  The sailor lifted his weapon again, aiming it toward me.  “Why don’t you go back to wherever you came from, and leave us alone?  Ain’t none of us trust you, and the captain ain’t around no more to protect you.”

“That’s why we came to check on you.”  Jamila stepped forward, her hands raised and empty.  “After we suffered a serious attack, we decided to come and make sure you were okay.”  She looked over the man’s shoulder, where a group of four more sailors were approaching.  She raised her voice, so they could all hear her.  “Jim found a way to cure one of us who was infected by those things.  If any of your people are sick, we might be able to help.”

“Help?  We don’t need more of your help.”  The largest of the men approaching was holding a hunk of broken stalactite like a club, and I could feel a strong aura of earth qi coming from him.  While only a Body cultivator, he had a strong connection to his chosen element, making the sailor more formidable than the average person at his level.  And making his improvised weapon a realistic threat.  “Those things took the captain, along with most of the crew.  There are less than ten of us now, and we wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you!”  I could feel his heart core spinning, sending power through his body.  “If I were you, I wouldn’t be standing around here for much longer.”

“Which way did they take the others?”  I tried to impose myself between Jamila and the sailor preparing to attack us, but she wasn’t willing to back down.  Deciding she could handle herself, I stopped trying.  “We can try to see if any of them can be saved.”

“Saved?  Saved?  Is that what you are trying to do?”  The large man’s knuckles turned white as he gripped his stone club hard.  “You sure confused me, because all I have seen are ways you keep managing to kill us!”

“Well, the feeling is pretty damned mutual, then!”  My own anger started spiking, and I had to keep my cores from spinning up in preparation to attack.  “You blamed me for the ship sinking, but if I hadn’t done anything, we would have been torn apart anyway.  Then, you drag an Angry Murder Goat stampede - didn’t think I’d ever say that out loud, by the way - down on our heads, and try to get me trampled to death.  Now, we come here to try and help you, and all you do is threaten me?”  My outburst left me feeling tired, and I moved to leave.  “We’ll go, and leave you to it then.”

“Wait.”  He looked down at his feet for a moment to think.  “Fine.  I don’t agree with everything you said, but you did come here to help.  That counts for something.”  The sailor tapped one of the men standing next to him on the shoulder.  “Bring Roberts out here, and let’s see how genuine this kid is.”  I sighed at him calling me ‘kid’, but it was just one of those things I had to deal with.  From his perspective, I was a lucky young cultivator who was favored by a powerful group, and he was a man who had most likely come up on the docks with no help but what his own hard work could earn.  “Roberts hasn’t been doing well ever since the last fight.  He wasn’t even wounded that bad.”

Jamila and I stood back to wait for the man to arrive, and I pulled out the two formation plates that I used for shielding while working on Donny.  When they stepped into the firelight while dragging the man, it was hard to hold back a wince.  The black veins had webbed across his face in a thick net, and I knew it would be much harder to save him.  Considering how hard the process had been on Donny’s body, I didn’t have much hope that Roberts would make it.

“Lay him down on the ground.  I’ll get started immediately.”  I stepped back to give them some room.  “Could you point Jamila in the direction the others were taken?  She could scout, and hopefully report back what happened.”

“Okay.  I’ll take her there, but you better get him fixed while we’re gone.”  The sailor left, taking another of his shipmates with him to help guide Jamila.  I wasn’t worried about them trying to do anything to her.  They would regret it if they tried.  The three cultivators headed for the exit, and I crouched over the injured man to use a pair of qi threads to look him over.

“Are any of you good at healing?”  I glanced up to see his friends all shaking their heads.  “Well then, I’m sure this won’t go horribly.”  Grimacing, I looked back down at the man I knew was on the brink of death.  My initial inspection revealed he already had the qi infection in his lower core, and it had spread throughout his entire meridian system.  The only thing keeping him from trying to eat my face off was the lack of qi in his heart core.  Apparently, the infection needed qi to be present for it to move through the body, and his heart core was almost completely void of energy.  “He is in bad shape.  I can’t promise that I can save him, but I’m willing to try.”

“Do your best.”  The sailor who had been on guard dropped to one knee next to me.  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Be ready to give him this.”  I handed him two pills, one that helped with qi absorption, and the other that boosted the body’s natural healing speed.  They were both lesser pills, because I didn’t want to overwhelm his system if he survived.  “I’m going to get started.  Fair warning, it’s going to get pretty weird, and you should make sure to not let the infection touch you as I draw it out.”

“What do you mean?”  The sailor immediately jumped back as the first glob of black goo erupted from a wound on Roberts’ forearm.  “Gah!  What in all the constellations is that!”

“It’s the infection.  The thing I tried to warn your captain about, but he ignored me.”  I activated the double layer of shields to isolate the gunk.  “I’ve been trying to help you guys this whole time, but everyone thinks I’m either lying, or outright attempting to sabotage them.  Even though I have no reason to do so.”  After it was isolated, I let it expand and die off.  Then, I repeated the process, drawing out as much as I could with some wood qi.  “I mean, really, how does me hurting you help in any way?”

The group fell into silence, either ignoring me or just disgusted and mesmerized by what I was doing.  I zoned out after a while, the repetitive nature of my actions making it difficult to stay focused.  It was the same thing over and over; draw out the infection, activate the shields, starve it, deactivate the shields, and then start again.

My patient’s condition didn’t seem to improve as time passed, and I was afraid he would die before I could finish.  I hadn’t seen what the process looked liked up close as someone died and the infection took over.  It was certain to be unpleasant, and having the double shields in place was a necessity if it happened.

“Jim!”  I looked up with a start, and Jamila was standing at the entrance, her armor’s shields sparking with dissipating energy.  “We have a problem.”