Don Bassingthwaite - The tyranny of ghosts

“Do we follow them in?” Makka asked, eyeing the ruins under the moonlight.

Yet another wail rolled out. “I don’t think so,” Midian had said. “They’ll come out again-or they won’t.” He found a comfortable perch in a tree with a good view of the ruins and settled in to wait, with Makka crouched below.

After that, it was just a matter of patience.

Geth acted without thinking, roaring and swinging Wrath in a flashing arc. The byeshk blade jerked in his hand as it hit the black tentacle that held Tooth, but smashed through it with a crack like splitting stone.

The cut tentacle collapsed into a long line of glittering black dust.

Tooth didn’t stop screaming, though. Ekhaas’s voice joined his, shouting at him to stay still. Geth spun around. Ekhaas had the bugbear’s arm in her grasp, struggling to hold it immobile as she beat at something black and squirming on his forearm. For an instant, Geth couldn’t help but wonder how Tooth had come to have a swarm of tiny insects on his arm-then he realized what the black stuff really was. Just like the rest of the tentacle, the end that had grabbed Tooth had turned into dust.

But it hadn’t stopped moving or released the hunter. The dust curled around his hairy arm as if it were a single unit, sifting back together where Ekhaas tried to scrub it away. None of it clung to her fingers. The curling thread flowed under Tooth’s skin through a bloody hole made by the sharp tip of the tentacle.

“I can’t move my fingers! By Balinor, just kill me. Kill me!” Tooth shrieked, and Geth remembered the skeletons with bones of glittering black stone. He clenched his teeth and made a decision.

“Ekhaas, stand clear,” he said.

The duur’kala looked up. Something of what he intended must have showed in his face, because her ears flicked up, and she stepped toward Tooth’s immobile hand, gripping it hard. Maybe Tooth saw it, too, because he tugged back the other way, probably more afraid than anything else. Between them, they pulled the arm straight-or at least as straight as was possible. The elbow no longer flexed.

Geth aimed higher as he brought Wrath down through skin and flesh and bone. No longer supported, Tooth staggered and fell, his scream finally ending. Blood gushed out of the stump of the bugbear’s arm. “Ekhaas! Tenquis! Try to stop the bleeding!” Geth ordered.

Ekhaas let the severed arm drop to the ground as she went to Tooth’s side. Geth knew the sound of falling limbs. He’d attended infirmary tents in the aftermath of battle. When a ruined limb had to be amputated, it fell with a meaty thump. It did not fall with a thud as if the bones within it were suddenly far heavier than they should have been. For a moment, Geth felt an urge to check the severed end, to see if the cut bone was white or black beneath the sheen of blood.

“Geth,” said Chetiin quietly, “look.” He pointed.

The thick line of dust that had been the tentacle was flowing back into the heap of rubble. Just beneath the sounds of Ekhaas’s healing song and Tenquis’s muttered words as he applied liquids and powders, Geth could hear a low sigh like running sand.

A sigh that grew into a slow grinding. He whirled around. “Get Tooth up! We need to get away from here.”

Tenquis looked up. His brown skin was ashen; his golden eyes seemed dulled. “The wound won’t stay closed. He needs bandages-”

“We’ll stop when no more tentacles can reach us.” He sheathed Wrath, squatted down, and slid his head and shoulders under Tooth’s remaining arm. The bugbear was groaning and only barely conscious. “Tooth,” Geth said as calmly as he could manage, “can you walk?”

Tooth’s head lolled in what Geth hoped was a nod. He stood up, taking most of Tooth’s weight, and started away from the rubble of the great hall. The hunter must have been at least a little bit aware of the danger-he managed to put one foot in front of the other.

“Chetiin, Marrow,” said Geth, “we need the fastest, easiest way out of here.”

“The gates are on the other side of Suud Anshaar,” Ekhaas pointed out.

“It’s a ruin. The gates are wherever there’s a hole in the wall. Chetiin, go!”

The old goblin nodded and darted into the shadows along with Marrow. Moments later, he reappeared atop a broken wall, waving them onward.

Behind Geth, a stone shifted and slid as the thing beneath the rubble started to struggle once more. Tenquis and Ekhaas glanced back, wand and sword raised. Geth didn’t look but just concentrated on the uneven ground ahead. “A little faster, Tooth?” he asked.

Tooth’s head lolled again.

An easy way through the ruins was impossible, but Chetiin and Marrow did their best, guiding them around the worst blockages. They moved faster, though, knowing that the worst danger of Suud Anshaar lay trapped behind them, at least temporarily. The stone skeletons held no more interest. Every muffled wail, every creak of stone brought a new clutching fear. Adolan’s collar of stones didn’t warm up in the slightest.

Tenquis stayed on Tooth’s other side, keeping an eye on the bugbear’s terrible wound. They’d covered perhaps half the distance to the outer wall when he hissed sharply and pressed an already bloody rag to the stump. “It’s open again. Geth, we need to stop and bandage it properly.”

Geth looked ahead, then behind. The rubble of the great hall was out of sight behind the broken base of a tower. He ground his teeth together. There was no point in having saved Tooth from the construct’s terrible power just to have him bleed to death. “Work fast,” he told Tenquis and guided Tooth to the shelter of a solid-looking patch of wall.

Not until he’d lowered Tooth into a seated position and had drawn away to allow Tenquis and Ekhaas room to work did he realize how much blood had poured down over his arm. The sleeve of his shirt was drenched. He snarled under his breath and tore the fabric away.

“You’ve stopped.” Chetiin’s voice came out of the shadows so suddenly that Geth jerked around and drew Wrath halfway before he stopped himself. He slammed the ancient sword back down.

“We’ll follow again as soon as Ekhaas and Tenquis have taken care of Tooth.”

“Take a longer rest if you need it. The way is easier from here.” The shaarat’khesh elder squatted down where he stood. Sharp eyes looked up at Geth from his parchment-skinned face. “You made the right choice,” he said.

“I hope Tooth agrees with you.” Geth settled down as well. “I couldn’t let him die like the people of Suud Anshaar.”

“I was thinking more that we’d need him to get out of the Khraal and back to Arthuun,” said Chetiin. “But even so, an arm in exchange for his life seems a reasonable bargain. And it will make his tale of a trip to Suud Anshaar that much more believable.” His smile was so thin that Geth couldn’t tell if he was trying to be lighthearted or simply stating the facts as he saw them.

Even that thin smile disappeared, though, as the goblin added, “What about the shaari’mal?”

Geth looked to Tenquis again as the tiefling folded a piece of clean cloth into a long bandage. “I don’t know. Wrath recognizes them.” He looked for the words to describe what he’d felt through the sword when the byeshk disks had been revealed. “Have you ever seen dogs from the same litter greet each other, even after they’ve been separated for years? It’s like that.”

“Perhaps Taruuzh forged more artifacts from the byeshk ore of Khaar Vanon,” said Chetiin.

“But everything we found pointed to the shattered pieces of the Shield of Nobles, even the inscription in the floor.” Geth rubbed his hands through his hair. “I don’t understand.”

Tenquis and Ekhaas rose from Tooth’s side and joined them. “We’ve done everything we can,” said Ekhaas. “He needs rest and a real healer. If we had the luxury, I’d say we should camp for the night, but he’ll last until we have a chance to stop again.”