COP S2.12 Cursed (Part 2)

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Previously on…

Tass and Lyn met up with Mise and two warriors. As they traveled, Lyn noticed her senn wasn’t reliable. They’d been led away from the road. When they arrived in Hofton and saw the terrifying result of the curse, she had a crisis of confidence. Mise and Tass convince her to carry on to the ruins.

The ruins were at least an hour’s ride from Hofton during the day in good weather. It took us at least twice that. The road had turned a deep purple with splotches reaching out into the fields and woods beside it. We went wide around all of it until we neared the ruins.

Mounds appeared on the flat open land I remembered from my previous trips to Kenuport. Not bodies this time. Thick, root-like tubes curled and twisted into masses of black and purple. If we got too close, they pulsated. I refused to let my mind think about what might explode out of them at any moment. Instead, I followed Mise. Trusting in the experience he said he had.

Tass and Bryn rode in the lead, with Tangwen last in line behind me. We slowed even more, searching for a clear path around the infected ground.

“Time we moved on foot,” Bryn said, stopping in an area seemingly free of the curse. He shared another look with Mise when we gathered. Though I couldn’t see their faces, it left me cold.

“Never seen ground so tainted. Horses aren’t safe either,” Tangwen held out her hand to Bryn.

“True.” He reached into a pack, pulled out a small metal spike, and handed it to her.

With a flick of her wrist, she extended the spike to the length of my staff and shoved it into the ground.

The others stepped back, so I did too. Seemingly satisfied, she reached over her shoulder and pulled out her weapon: a warhammer. I’d only seen them hanging on the walls in places I’d visited, and illustrations at the shop where I’d got my staff. The head was silver and flat on both sides. That was different, as most had some variation of a point opposite the head. The etching on it resembled what was on her armor, though I still couldn’t make out what the design was in the dim light. The shaft was thin and black; the grip contoured into it. I was left with the sensation it fit her perfectly, and knew it was true when she dropped it on the spike, driving it deep into the ground. There was a hum, something like when metal strikes metal, but deeper. My horse, that had been restless and pulling on the reins, relaxed. I could see the others do the same. “What is that?”

“Spigenn. It protects the beasts while we fight the cursed.” With a swift motion, she returned the hammer to its holder on her back, and tied her horse to the stake.

Mise took Tass’ reins. “A light, or two, so we can find them again when we need to.”

Two orbs, slightly more orange than red, appeared above us. With all the horses secured to some kind of stick that made them safe that I desperately wanted to read, Mise directed us towards the ruins. Just past the horses, he stopped us.

“Chaaz! The faster we start the sooner we finish,” Bryn unsheathed a long sword, also etched with imagery that was similar in style to Tangwen’s hammer. I still didn’t recognize it.

“Neither of them has been to battle, Bryn. Let alone faced such a foe. A moment please.”

Bryn held his sword steady.

“I’ve heard the stories,” Tass said. “I know what to expect.”

“You heard the version of the stories I chose to tell. Just enough to warn you, make you be wary. The risks we—you two especially—face are greater than you can imagine.”

Bryn twitched.

Tangwen let out an exasperated sigh.

“You know not to touch the cursed ground. Don’t let anything touch you. Use ranged attacks. Lyn, you stay with me and Tang. Bryn, you take Tass.” He glanced back and forth between Tass and I. “If either of you gets separated, return to the spigenn and wait. If no one comes by the time the sun breaches the sky, no one will be. Go, tell what happened to Runor Dantu. Asher will know where to look for him. If something other than us—even if it looks like us—comes, take a horse and ride away as fast as you can.”

“Can we go now?” Bryn asked.

Mise gave him a curt nod, not asking if Tass or I agreed or understood. The time for talking was over, it seemed. I pulled out my staff and tried to remember my training on launching fireballs. I didn’t need my staff for that, but it had made them more powerful. I’d need to dig deep to pull on that skill, and not for the first time I wondered two things: why had I let myself grow so weak in my non-senpann skills and why hadn’t I taken the chance to return to the wyrcome.

We hadn’t walked far when I noticed Bryn and Tass had separated from us and only the light orb leading them was visible.

“Stay with us,” Mise called out.

I picked up my pace to keep my place behind him and Tangwen.

“Thought you said it were ruins,” Tangwen whispered.

“They are,” I said.

“Not.”

I followed her gaze and saw a looming structure, somehow darker than the dark of the night. It stretched nearly as high as the walls of Yiat, though how wide I couldn’t say. I got the impression this was what it looked like in the past, as if it had reformed. I frowned and sent three bright white orbs toward the wall. They went straight through it, fading away as I let them go. “It’s not real.”

“Could’ve learned that without blinding us!”

A whisper had never been so loud. It was true. Even with the red orbs, I couldn’t see as well as before.

“Just hold,” Mise instructed.

She grumbled.

I didn’t need to read her to know she thought I should have stayed behind.

A screech sounded to my right.

Tangwen swung her hammer. Crunched bone. A sickening squish. Thud as it hit the ground.

“Ah!” Mise jumped in front of me, slicing through what was once a human. The blow didn’t stop it. He kicked it back. “Fire!” he screamed.

Another crunch and thud. And another.

I pushed fire through my staff, aiming it at the still-squirming parts of Mise’s attacker. The fireball sputtered out, dissipating before hitting the target.

“Mihkh, help us.” Mise stepped forward to cut down the next cursed attacker. “Try again!”

His words were drowned by Tangwen dispatching yet another foe, this time her hammer hitting metal. Screams emerged from the night—part pain, part battle cry. I sensed the rush against me. An energy I recognized as the one from the well when I’d almost succumbed to the curse. “Not this time!” I was done with being manipulated by dark curses and creatures.

Fireballs ten times the size of obuoo hit the stone ruins, cracking the fallen blocks. Movement to the left and behind them told me I’d somehow missed. But I wouldn’t let it get away and rushed to follow.

The shaft of Tangwen’s hammer hit me square in the chest. I fell back. Mise caught me, his gauntleted hands pressed hard against my arms. A vague sense of pain didn’t dull my anger. “What the hell? Let me go!”

She swung the hammer up and pointed it at my chest. “Do not leave the gint! Cheest Mise, she’ll get us all killed.”

“But her fireballs were impressive.” Mise’s compliment didn’t ease his grip.

Tangwen rolled her eyes and shifted the weapon away from me, ready for another attack.

“First rule when battling curses: Don’t leave the gint.”

“But it was getting away!” I tried to pull away, but he held firm. It took all I had not to blast him with fire just to break free.

“We follow together or not at all.”

A distant thud and grunt came from the direction Tass had been.

“Or, there is no need,” Tangwen said when Bryn cried out in victory. “Dawn is near, if they didn’t kill it, we’ll find it easy enough. If it doesn’t find us first.”

To the east, the sky was lighter, and my orbs seemed to stretch farther into the night. As I watched, the mounds around us deflated, the attackers’ bodies scattered around us withered, and the purple patterned ground returned to its natural hues.

Mise stood me straight and let go. “It’s receding. There’ll be no more fighting today.”

“We destroyed it?”

“Ha!” Tangwen prodded what was left of her last kill. “You destroyed nothin’.”

“She did break those stones there.” Mise pointed. “She nearly got it.”

“‘Nearly’ has killed more o’ us than them.”

“Now’s not the time, Tang.”

“Won’t be another.” She swung the hammer through the air before returning it to its holster.

I wished I could see Mise’s face, but he still wore the full helmet. Dark splatters were across one side and over his left breast.

“Mise.” I pointed toward them, and created a small white orb so he could see. The splotches faded, almost sizzled, away as I watched. Each left a mark etched into the armor. So close, and in bright light, it hit me. The markings on their weapons and armor weren’t some sort of carvings or symbols. It was the mark cursed blood left behind. Mise’s armor was covered in them. My jaw dropped.

He just stood there as I gaped. “How? If any of that had gotten on me…”

“The Gintinn doesn’t fail to protect. Even if it’s not earned, or they’re cursed already,” Tangwen said.

“I am no longer Gintinn. And we are all cursed in one way or another.”

For not the last time, I wanted to read him, see if I could recognize the burden he carried in his pattern. Not just out of curiosity for once. He’d saved me, and I wanted to help him.

“Hololo!” Tass’ voice broke the growing awkwardness before I said something to offend Tangwen again.

“Hololo!” Mise called in response.

“Over here. We found those tracks.”

They stood near the archway that led to the fountain. Getting there was easy now that the ground was safe to walk on. Bryn sat on one of the loose stones and had removed his helmet. A smile spread as we approached. He glanced Tangwen up and down, then checked Mise. “He did you proud, Mise. Never seen anyone wrap the cursed in a water bubble the way he did.”

Water. Of course that was his stoiksenn. Fire and water. Maybe that explained why we were so naturally at odds.

Mise pulled off his helmet. “I’m just glad you’re ok, Tass. What have you found?”

In the grey of dawn, we could see through the archway to a half wall toward the back and right. A scythe leaned against it, along with broken slabs of wood with writing on them.

“Are those the signs I supposedly ignored?” I asked Tass.

“What’s left of them.”

I held back my request for an apology. The urge to argue was there, tempered by my less than stellar performance in the battle. I hadn’t felt so low since the days following my becoming a casteni. Tangwen was right. I hadn’t earned the right to be equal with the gint. And I wanted to change that. I read the area, seeing if the ancient magic still lurked around the ruins of the black walls.

Nothing.

“Tass, can you sense anything here?”

“No. It’s gone, even from the fountain. It’s empty of magic.”

“How is that possible? Before it was bleeding off the walls stronger than most active magic.”

He shook his head. “And it’s been like that for as long as anyone remembers, or so the stories go.”

“It can move, if it has a host.” Tangwen said, her helmet still on.

Bryn and Mise put theirs on too.

“Same thing,” Mise said. “You two go left, we’ll go around right. This time, senpann’s in the lead. You’ll spot it before we do.”

“Lead? After what I did back there you want me to lead?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“You’re not fighting, you’re searching. It’s getting away so let’s not waste time.”

Tass and Bryn had already moved around the far corner of the fallen stones.

I tapped my staff on the stone walkway and opened myself to the patterns in the land. They held steady, looking just as I’d expect a non-infected bit of field or forest would. Larger piles of rubble cascaded out to the sides, making me wish I could see through them and not just the pattern within the stones. Anything could have been hiding there, and I tried not to leap at every sound.

Near the end of the ruins, another archway still stood. The surrounding ground went in and out of focus, shifting so much it made me want to lurch. In the daylight, it was easier to shift my attention to the physical stone, though my head still swam. “There. That archway. Something isn’t right. Not like before, more like the ground in Hofton.”

“Stay here,” Mise said as he stepped past.

I didn’t feel so much of a need to hide behind him. Still, I didn’t want any splatted cursed blood to land on me, so I did as he said.

Tangwen moved ahead until she could peer around the arch.

“Still there?” She asked.

I assumed she meant the strange patterns. “It’s fading. Wait. It’s gone. Everything looks the same now.”

“Just like Ecgeen.”

“Where?”

Mise shook his head. “Later.”

“Bryn and I go. Be faster alone.” She rested her hand on his shoulder. “You know what needs doin’.”

She and Mise performed some sort of ritual of clasping shoulders before she took off. A moment later, Tass rounded the corner, looking exhausted as I felt.

“We failed,” he said.

Mise sighed. “We’ve cleared the ruins. For now. And they will end it.” His voice trembled as he pulled his helmet off again. His expression was wearier than any I’d seen, even among the most wretched.

“Let me.” Tass placed his hands on his uncle’s head.

It was a familiar gesture, one I could tell they’d done many times. I looked away.

“Thank you.” His voice was steady again. “Let’s get you both back to the cabin. There’s nothing more for you to do here.”

The ride back to the wyrcome seemed to go faster than the ride out. We only slowed through Hofton to make sure the curse had disappeared like it had at the ruins. The remnants of the bodies remained. The houses were open, doors hung ajar, and a few animals wandered in a nearby field. Mise assured us that someone would come to take care of it all. While there, he stripped off his armor.

“I’ve never seen armor like that,” I said as he packed it away into saddlebags.

“Few have.”

When he didn’t offer anything more, I said, “Your family loves its secrets doesn’t it?”

“There’s a time and place for everything. Now is neither to discuss such things.”

“Secrets.”

“Are sometimes best left as secrets. We’ve got a long ride, let’s save conversation for later.”

That killed my inclination to ask not just about the armor but about why, who and how the remains of Hofton would be managed.

At the wyrcome, we delivered the horses to Jor, who held his questions too after he saw us. I stopped only long enough to give Spiri a treat and to find she was happy for having rested.

Tass then led us to the portal back to the cabin. It was in a nearby pond.

Water. Again.

“Please tell me that most portals aren’t in water.”

He smirked. “Only the ones I know.”

We emerged through the waterfall. My shoulders dropped, the feeling of home spreading through me again. I welcomed the bed Asher offered. Exhaustion pulled me deeper into the darkness. Not knowing if I had been the reason for the chaos in Yiat, the deaths in Hofton, or the activity at the ruins, I feared dreaming. I could only hope the fryn would keep them away. The demeid had broken through before though, and now whatever escaped the ruins was wandering free. Would it find its way to me even as I slept?

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