Cenotaph of Bones: Chapter 40 (Patreon)

Chapter 40: Instincts

The crunch of impact with the stalagmites threw all of us into the side of the wagon with incredible force.  I was expecting to see flares of light from our armor shields activating, but the pervasive darkness absorbed even that.  The core on the back of my helm shattered with a wave of heat, the power draw sucking it dry instantly.  I moved my arms and legs to inspect them for damage, happy to find I was only bruised.  The groans from the others around me told me everyone inside was okay, but the screaming whinny from one of the horses indicated they hadn’t been as lucky.

“I’ve got it!”  Valerie’s voice seemed muffled by the thick dark qi surrounding us, like she was talking to us through a thick door.  The muttered curses of her thumping around in the dark made it easy to track her progress to the horses, where she must have used two of the three charges on her healing amulet to bring them back to full health.  “I think the horses are okay.  Make sure Donny doesn’t get near them.  We can’t tell which one is Scout right now.”

“Where is Donny?”  Chu’s voice came from the front of the wagon.  I was sure the makeshift Battle Wagon wasn’t going anywhere anymore, but at least the wooden contraption seemed to still be in one piece.  “I didn’t see him make it inside.”

“Donny!”  Valerie’s shout was loud enough to overpower the muffling effect of the dark qi.  “Donny, where are you!”

“Keep it down!  I’m fine.”  We all let out a collective sigh of relief when he spoke, his voice coming from somewhere outside.  “They’ll hear you.”

“Stars!”  Chu immediately dropped his volume, and I could hear him shuffling around.  “I don’t know what happened to the barrel of qi, but we still have the box of spare shield plates.”

“Don’t worry about that.  Everyone just quiet down, and try not to make any loud movements.”  I popped a fresh core into the back of my helm, and felt the hum of power pass through my armor.  “Make sure you have a fresh core to power your armor, and stand against the wall we hit.  If the undead make it inside, we should only have to fight what is right in front of us.  As long as you are fighting forward, you aren’t accidentally hitting each other in the dark.”

“Shhh…”  Donny’s quiet shushing was immediately followed by the scrape of bone on rock.  Dozens of skeletal feet were shuffling past us, somehow walking right past our broken wagon.  Finding out they were blinded by the flood of dark qi was a relief.  I had no idea how they could miss the giant Battle Wagon parked in the middle of the tunnel, but they managed it.

Recalling how long the last blinding wave of dark qi had lasted, I was surprised this one was still ongoing.  It was likely that because we were deeper underground, the amount collected from the various tunnels through the region created a longer-lasting flood.  We had only experienced a portion of the actual amount collected by the death cultivator.

A thudding stomp just outside the wagon marked the arrival of the undead beasts that had been hanging back, waiting for us to run out of energy.  I tensed up, ready to fight.  My senses were distorted by the dense power washing past us, but I thought I could feel my friends doing the same.  We all waited for the inevitable fight to kick off, but nothing happened.  The plodding steps of the unknown beast walked right past us, followed by a parade of other monsters.

We obviously couldn’t see them, but we could hear their various limbs and appendages thumping, scratching, fluttering, and slithering past.  It was worse not being able to see what they were.  My imagination tried filling in the images each sound represented, and a veritable menagerie of horrors paraded past us in my mind’s eye.  Intellectually, I understood that unless there was a Duke-level monster walking past, the five of us could easily defeat whatever was out there.  That didn’t mean my instincts weren’t screaming for me to do something.  I took a deep breath through my nose, reminding myself that I wasn’t some pushover ready to get squished by some unknowable evil.  The goddess Wrath surely wasn’t one of the monsters outside, after all.

I smirked at my own joke, doing my best to break myself out of the instinctive drive to lash out at the monsters walking past.  Luck was with us.  The horses mercifully stayed quiet, not even letting loose a quiet nicker of fear.  The sounds of the infected undead eventually passed us by, and we settled down onto the floor.

“What just happened?”  Jamila still spoke in a whisper, considering we didn’t know how far away our enemies had traveled.  “How did they not find us?”

“It has to be what the wagon is made from.”  A groan of wood announced Donny climbing through the hole in the top of the wagon.  The crunch of his boots on the grit of the ground meant he had dropped safely inside.  “Think about it.  They are animated and controlled by darkness and death.  This wagon is made from wood qi.  Life energy.  Their instincts must have walked them right past the thing that hurts them the most.”

“That makes sense.”  I touched the wood I was leaning against, feeling the faint aura of wood qi contained within.  “Although, I don’t like what this means.  If the uncontrolled undead have survival instincts, it means they might survive the death of the necromancer.  That means we will have to hunt down every single carrier of the infection before we can leave these caves.  Otherwise, the infection could spread like a wildfire.”

“Do we?”  Valerie’s voice carried a slight hint of frustration.  “When does the leadership of the Empire step up and start handling these threats?  The Sects?  The Clans?  The Kings and the Emperor?  Don’t they have some responsibility to protect the people that make up their organizations?  I can understand the mission to stop the nox, but if we have to also correct everything they unleash on the world, we won’t ever have a moment of rest.”  We all silently contemplated her statement for a few heartbeats.  “I say, we warn the General of the North about the qi infection at the same time we tell him about the nox.  He will have the manpower and organization to handle a threat this big, especially if he works quickly.  Before it can spread.”

I actually knew the current General of the North from my future-past, and she was absolutely correct.  The man could certainly handle the infection if he took the threat seriously.  That was the big ‘if’.  Ignoring us, or underestimating the threat, would mean the dream I had involving Alya might actually come true.

“We will just have to make sure he understands the gravity of the situation.”  Chu must have moved some, because his voice came from the opposite side from where we had been leaning.  “If he doesn’t, maybe seeing some of the bottled dark qi would convince him.”

“No, that is something we can never do.”  I lowered my tone, surprised at my own vehemence.  “Telling our secrets to someone who hoards power… they would kill you just for the secrets you know.  And if they are in charge of something like an entire kingdom, they definitely hoard power.  Even the best of them do it by reflex.”  I took out a wineskin and took a long drink before continuing.  “I imagine the giant influx of powerful beasts that have been dislodged from their territories by the undead will serve as proof.”

“That’s true.”  Chu yawned, causing a chain reaction for the rest of us.  “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m exhausted, and this darkness doesn’t seem to be going away.”

“Rotate through a quick nap?  Even half an hour would do us some good.”  Valerie was closest to the horses, and I could hear the distinctive sound of her brushing them.  “Even if the dark qi wave goes away, we can probably risk thirty minutes or so.”

“You guys go first.  I’m not exactly ready for sleep after almost getting crushed by the wagon.  If those stalagmites had broken, I would have been dead.”  Donny’s voice moved to join Valerie.  “We will tend to the horses, and wake you up in thirty minutes.”

“Fine, but also wake us if the dark qi goes away.  We should at least find out where the undead are as soon as we can.”  I heard grunts of approval, and did my best to make myself comfortable.  It wasn’t easy, but the exhaustion of the last few days overwhelmed me, and I nodded off.