Shane Porteous - The Battle of Ebulon - A Shared Anthology

Returning to his human shape, Andrew focused his will into manacles of his own; chained by that will, the dead Orc’s escaping spirit was trapped, bound to him as one of his bean sidhe . The air rustled, dust motes and ground bones rising up to take form similar to the dead beast’s, albeit with the wounds that had killed it clearly visible. It thrashed against the air, obviously attempting to fight the invisible restraints that bound it to its killer, but discovered that such resistance was futile. Andrew’s grin spread wider in response.

“Awww. Poor baby. Shouldn’t have meddled with my playtime, you know. It might have been Irana standing in your place, otherwise…” He sighed, casting his eyes skyward. “And she would have been much better company, I’m sure. But you’ll do.”

Andrew narrowed his eyes, making a beckoning gesture to the thing. Thankfully the ghost saw at least as well as the creature it had come from, missing eye or no, and didn’t seem any more impeded by the darkness than Andrew himself was. It shuffled a step closer, hanging its head as though expecting another blow.

“Now, my little pet. You’re going to take me to this Galluk’ur. And then we’ll have a little chat about the menu. Here’s a hint: I’m not on it.” He gestured at the cell door with the razor. “Now march. On, you huskies!”

The ghost, head still hung low but unable to refuse the command of its master, turned and began to shuffle out of the cell, Andrew trailing behind it.

The bean sidhe had led Andrew through the warrens, actual light creeping in as they wound slowly upwards through roughly hewn stairwells and spiraled passages that appeared to be natural at first glance; with further inspection, he could see hundreds of pinprick-sized notches in the stone with occasional larger gashes. Looking at these kept bringing an image of something akin to a giant centipede burrowing its way steadily upward.

At one point he tried further conversation with the spirit of his former captor, inquiring as to their whereabouts. “Underhollow,” was the only word it said that made sense, and was merely repeated when Andrew had asked for more clarification; he could only assume they were somewhere below the palatial estate that he had first been taken to.

After a time they came to a more open place, a wide grotto perhaps twenty feet to a side, and apparently designed for more comfort than the rest of the place. Here there were brilliant torches flaring with blue and green flame that registered to his unnatural sight as well as his human eyes. Thick carpeting had been laid out to cover the dense soil, and crests in the style of the old people Andrew’s dreamself had once known — large triangular affairs, forged from steel, silver and gold, colored in blues, purples, blacks and toxic greens with mutant animals and skulls upon them — were mounted along the walls. Ah, the fomori’s lair. Where they can kick up their feet… erm… hooves and do what comes natural. He snorted as he took stock of the room, but did so quietly; the scent of blood, flesh and rancid anger and aggression was coming from somewhere up ahead, likely beyond the small green door that sat at the end of this hall, and he had no desire for the things manufacturing those scents to be aware of him.

Yet, he amended.

Snapping the fingers of his right hand, a dull purple spark sprung from the tips of his fingers and hovered for a moment. Brushing his hand at it caused the foo-light to blossom into a small violet flame the size of his fist and sent it floating serenely towards the closest of the torches. His lips quirked in an unpleasant and predatorial grin, Andrew directed the purple flame to each of the torches in turn, until all of them were glowing and flickering with his own purple fire rather than the balefire the Orcs seemed to prefer.

“There, that’s better,” he whispered. “And now that the stage is set…”

With another snap, the straight razor appeared in his left hand, gleaming and reflecting back the purple glow throughout the room. Pursing his lips and blowing at the back of his unwilling tour guide, the bean sidhe was scattered back into dust motes and moonbeams once again, leaving Andrew alone in the chamber.

Andrew slid along the wall towards the door at the far end, his natural attunement to negative thoughts and feelings proving almost as good as any radar scope, providing a general idea of what waited on the other side. Two beasts, one to other side of the door if his senses were correct. Several more scattered within, with something that radiated more violence, rage and jealousy than the rest combined, resting in the center of the others. That’s the one I want. With his power… Andrew didn’t let the thought finish itself, as planning too far ahead wasn’t in his nature. Still, with that amount of juice, he could return with a veritable army of bean sidhe and other dream remnants. The people above, those who claimed his mother’s blessing and looked so soft and weak, so fearful of war and what it would bring, would grovel before him… and if the Orcs — or whatever other beasts they feared — dared cause trouble elsewhere in the city, all the gods of old wouldn’t be able to help them.

Licking his lips in anticipation, Andrew shot one booted foot out and kicked in the door. Even as he did so, he slid to the left and into a pocket of shadow cast between two of the wall torches, his body evaporating into the darkness and sliding smoothly through the small cracks in the wall.

Two guards — similar in their physical respects to the one he had dispatched below, but both armed with gleaming golden pikes and daggers of cold iron at their hips, wearing breastplates of green gossamer and thick leather boots over their hooves — stumbled out of the shattered doorway as the remnants drifted down around them.

Slipping out of the shadows on the opposite side of the wall, Andrew flickered back to physicality directly behind them. With a savage slash, he tore a long flap of flesh from the back of one guard’s unprotected neck; as it flailed at the wound and its companion turned to face the intruder, Andrew executed a quick curtsey. “Shouldn’t have interrupted my playtime, dearies. Now you have to be my playmates.”

Whipping the razor back in the opposite direction, ignoring the heavy clanking of weapons being readied behind him, Andrew nearly decapitated the turning guard. His free hand dipped to the first guard’s belt, snatching at the hilt of the dagger — wincing and feeling a bit of himself dying, his fingers blackening at the contact as the iron’s sterile sanity rubbed against his chaotic nature — he jerked it free and shoved upward with it, burying it in the wound he’d already created and forcing it through to emerge from the creature’s eye.

Spinning, holding the razor out in front of his eyes as his dreamself drank deep of the dying Orc’s lifeforce, Andrew immediately put it to work and tethered their spirits to him as his features shifted into his true visage. Now wearing the hellish harlequin’s face, he sketched a salute as he surveyed his opposition.

There were fewer than he’d thought — apparently that central malevolent force, or perhaps remnants of previous inhabitants, had clouded his assessment — but the half-dozen fomori forming a rough line before him still appeared dangerous enough. Four were armed as the two he’d already killed, but the two in the center were much larger, had two eyes and full hands rather than the mutations evident in the others, and were hefting heavy mauls. From the stench and quiver of fear that they sent through him, Andrew could tell the heads were made of pure iron.

“ An maith la do duine digeanta. ” A good day to die, indeed. At least he’d be taking several of these pricks with him, he thought. Keeping the razor before him and willing that the bean sidhe forming behind him should prepare their own weapons, he made a beckoning gesture with his free hand. The two with mauls began to advance on him, their mates closing in behind them.