Pillar

Chapter Seventeen

Gaul let out a cry as the Vessel swung a lazy backhand at him, the muddy limb slinging about globs as it moved. The ice spear still spun, albeit in a far slower fashion, burrowing into the Vessel’s chest, pushing teleplasm and ruined muscles from the ragged hole. The Vessel reached up and, with a grunt, gripped the spear with a massive palm, the shards snapping beneath the might of the giant’s grip. With a grunt, it began to pull it out of its body, grinning from ear-to-ear. It spoke a phrase with derision, the alien tongue sounding far more put together than how a troll normally spoke.

“Gaul, go for the legs! Try and slow it down!” Vivian cried out as she funneled energy through her hands, crackling lightning dancing from her fingers as she incanted the Air Prince’s energy. It was a quick and easy spell, one which she’d used countless times.

Gaul darted forward, slashing the back of the right knee with an audible slopping of mud serving to protect the weak spot. The Vessel chuckled, deep and throaty, grunting as it worked the spear out of its chest. Vivian felt the surge of raw electrical power course through her arm and threw two bolts of lightning into the creature’s knee. The bolts arced and twisted, the Air Prince showing his capricious nature, but they found their mark and blasted through the mud, scorching flesh and bone as they cooked the undead’s right leg.

Still, it didn’t drop. The mud had hardened into dirt over the leg and was cracking off, revealing pallid flesh beneath, blackened areas showing torn flesh and exposed bone, teleplasm slowly leaking from the cauterized flesh.

That was the opening Gaul needed. Twirling around, he wedged his blade into the wound, sliding the flat of his sword beneath the kneecap of the monster. With a squelching pop, he forced the bone to detach, floating around within the leg beneath the rotten skin as if it were someone running their fingers down the fabric of a pillowcase from the inside. The Vessel roared, abandoning the endeavor of removing the spear from the hollow of its chest top better address the attack on its leg.

Gaul was just barely able to raise his buckler in time to catch the sabers that were the abominations claws. The metal buckled and tore, forcing Gaul to drop and roll beneath the Vessel’s legs. He quickly undid the buckle tying the round shield to his arm, dropping the bloodied metal to reveal his useless forearm, the bones sticking through the exposed flesh through the holes in his bracer, blood spattering onto the muddy expanse of bridge. He was clenching his teeth, but even as he fought the pain he stabbed the sword into back of the Vessel’s knee.

Vivian charged another lightning bolt, flinging it at the former troll’s head. The arc missed by a hair’s breadth as the behemoth leaned away, the right leg buckling beneath its immense girth. It growled in the foul language several words, most likely threats, and reached out to Vivian, forcing her to back up. The bridge was only so wide, and the titan could reach her easily. Thinking fast she called on the Air Prince once more, throwing up a vortex of air around herself.

The whipping wind bit into the mud-covered claw, wiping away the blood and grime to reveal the putrid black veins beneath, pumping visibly. It fought to force its arm to remain steady, her control over wind far better than nearly any other aspect of the Air Prince’s domain. Channeling what she could into her staff, she charged it with one of the Quartz Emir’s favorite abilities: hardening a weapon.

The staff struck true, knocking the meaty paw out of the vortex while shattering talons, several fingers now bent at awkward angles. Vivian nearly doubled over as the swing had stretched her chest wound, and she could feel it open once more, slowly bleeding into her chest bindings.

“Son of a b***h…” she whispered, bringing up a hand to press on her wound. Muttering the plea to the earth spirits, she felt the flesh knit together slowly, her glowing hand closing the wound slowly but surely until blood was merely oozing from the hole instead of gushing. Breathing in deep, she could feel the wound stretching still, the freshly sewn skin just barely holding together. Looking up at the Vessel, she scowled. The creature was staring down at her with obvious hunger and seemed intent on fulfilling its wish to swallow her whole.

Raising her arm, she felt the energy in her tattoo swirl and flare to life as she willed the magical ink respond to her will. Lowering the vortex wall, she is unleashing a concentrated bolt at the vessel, aiming for its gut. The sickly wave hit it hard, draining water from the wound at a rapid rate, the mud drying while the low-slung stomach began to shrivel. The Vessel seemed to panic, stepping forward only to fall to its ruined knee, cracking the stone of the bridge. Gaul’s sword, still wedged in the back of the knee, had obviously done something to cripple the beast. Vivian rushed forward, slamming her empowered staff into the animate corpse’s ugly face.

The lower jaw broke, bones forced through the thinned skin as teeth fell from the mouth like rain. Its piggish eyes bulged wide as Vivian raised her staff once more to bring it to bear. It, faster than she could reason, whipped its broken hand forward to slam into her bodily like a colossal club. She flew into the opposing stone wall, her staff falling from her grasp as she screaming in agony. The splintered talons hadn’t stuck her like a blade but rather raked over her like an angry tiger would while mauling someone who attempted to poach its cub.

Her left arm was bleeding heavily, her vest now mere ribbons and her pants were now soaking through with blood from the deep scratches she’d received across her stomach and hips. Her face had a nasty cut running from the side of her mouth up the right side of her cheek, creating a bloody smirk that was gushing blood out. She could feel the broken bones in her left arm shift painfully, white hot lances of pain stabbing behind her eyes as her body complained of the wounds it just received.

Pushing through the pain, Vivian raised her right arm and called upon the Air Prince more, pulling on the Astral as much as she could. Funneling even from her tattoo, she began draining the air around her as crackling electricity danced over her arm and along her body. The Vessel grinned, pushing itself up into a kneeling position with its good arm. Vivian could practically hear the monster’s thoughts.

Seen this trick and not impressed, eh? Vivian thought with spite. Here we go then, you bastard! I hope you can handle this one!

Unleashing the torrential stream of lightning with a scream, the bolt let out a thunderclap as it ripped through the air, striking the ice spear wedged in the monster’s chest. The bolt forced the heavy chunk to explode in a massive spray of sharpened ice, blowing the Vessel in half with a spray of teleplasm and putrefied organ meat flying in every direction. The good arm fell forward, no longer connected to the shoulders and head that fell over the back of the bridge and into the water below.

Vivian dropped to her knees, her right hand burned from the release of energy. Hundreds of opened cuts and sloughing skin left the wound a bloody nightmare.

Gaul, looking worse for the wear, limped through the gore, pushing aside larger chunks with his good arm. He took one look at Vivian and frowned. Looking around, he picked up her staff and leaned on it, his glove and covering offering him enough protection from the poisonous wood.

“You going to live?” He rasped.

Vivian looked up and tried to smile, only to feel a tooth shift in her jaw, the pain from her torn cheek forcing her to stop. She nodded slowly, not trusting herself to move quickly. She looked at Gaul and jerked her head at him.

He chuckled. “I had the trolls body blocking me from the worst of the explosion, so I just got soaked by the green slop. You’re the one peppered in shards of ice.”

Vivian internally frowned, looking down over herself. Sure enough, dozens of coin sized razors of ice had peppered her. She could feel one sticking just below her right eye, melting slowly. Luckily, they were cold enough to provide some relief, numbing the pain. Still bleeding, Vivian felt herself growing woozy, and allowed herself to slump against the stone wall for support.

Gaul reaching into a side pouch, withdrawing a short-stemmed ram horn. Bringing it to his lips, he blew into it low and long, a low and mournful cry that reverberating across the valley. He repeated the first cry with one just as long and sad. He lowered the horn and stared at Vivian for a moment.

“All I can say,” he began, “is we did all we could. It killed Dora before we could even react. Both of us are pretty messed up, but we could take that monstrosity down before it could do anything truly dangerous to the people in town. Something that size could have swam up the Vreba and into the River District, claimed dozens of lives before we could mobilize. If we don’t die of blood loss, I’ll make sure that Captain Remus knows about this.”

Vivian just nodded. Her eyes were heavy, and she could feel sleep coming to take her. She was depleted of energy, physically and mentally. Her body felt like it was full of molten iron, and her clothe were stained an unwholesome amount of red and green from the combination of blood from both her and the Vessel.

If I was able, she thought with a bittersweet smile, I’d gather some of the teleplasm for Bleak. He said he just got some in so I imagine he wouldn’t mind a little more for Cassie to munch on.

Gaul walked over and slumped down the wall next to her, using his free hand to pull out some linen rolls. He unrolled them in a messy whip of the wrist and began pressing them over Vivian’s hips and stomach, attempting to staunch the blood flow. She winced at the pressure but didn’t move. When one was learning to harness the arcane secrets, you became used to pain.

She’d studied various forms of combat to stay in shape and maintain a certain amount of control over her body. It was paying for itself now as she was sure without it, she’d have passed out in a puddle of teleplasm.

Probably rise as some nasty monster, heh… have enough teleplasm on me to make sure of it, Vivian thought before the train of led somewhere darker, wait… vessels must be made. What was strong enough to take down a troll this size long enough to perform the necessary work to make it rise as a Vessel?

Her thoughts were derailed as she heard the tromping of metal on slickened stone. A half dozen infantry, all bearing spears and shields were wandering onto the scene. Vivian looked up and saw Tobias to be among them. She would have smiled if she could.

“Over here, hurry up! I think she’s bleeding out!” Gaul cried, still stuffing linen wraps into her opened stomach.

Wincing, she could vaguely see the worried expression over Tobias’s face as she was lifted, her vest removed as someone began rapidly began issuing orders. “I need water and everyone’s bandages, cough ‘em up people! Tobias, don’t just gawk at her, hand me your water skin!”

“Y-yes sir!” Tobias replied, pulling the skin from his hip.

Vivian stopped fighting the desire to pass out, allowing the medic to handle her as gently as she could be handled, lowering her head onto what she felt to be a stretcher. Closing her eyes, she fell into a deep sleep.