Chapter Text
The pressure of silence should never be underestimated. The lack of any discernible sound in Lacrimosa's ears was overwhelming, a strange thing for it to be, given that it should be expected that such quiet could afford better concentration. Instead, it split her senses. She could no longer rely on getting a feel for their new battlefield and the stats of her companions by their yells and grunts of pain, she had to have eyes on them at all times.
She watched one of the Ghouls, tattered robes trailing along the floor in such a way that she could almost trick herself into hearing the writhing of fabric by playing it in her mind. Lacrimosa's hand was still clutching Lady Aranessa's wrist, trying to drag her back, but the Ghoul moved faster, rearing back to plant a gnarled, decaying foot in the centre of Lady Royce's solar plexus, applying enough pressure to send her spinning to the floor and rip her from the cleric's grasp.
As it moved to get closer, trying to land another blow, she finally shook herself out of her stupor of surprise, suppressing the cloying, sickly stench of death that curled around every molecule of air. It hurt, an incessant pounding at the base of her skull, but it was a pain that would have to wait. Raising her sword, shield on her other arm to protect her midriff, Lacrimosa's mouth formed the words she had said for years. The little arcane boost, taught to her by a man she could not save, that allowed her to attack irrespective of her lacking physical strength.
But the silence in the room stopped her.
She could form the words, scream them out as loud as she wanted, but the sound would fizzle. The faintest hint of a bright white flare flickered, racing up and down her blade but then it too went out. Unable to execute the verbal component of the spell, Lacrimosa realised that she had doomed everyone in this room simply by her presence. It should have been Vaelus that accompanied Occtis, damn her better understanding of magic. Vaelus didn't rely on a bolstering cantrip to rip and tear and maim and carve and break with her weapon. But Lacrimosa did. And she couldn't do it. And when Occtis looked at her, seeing a powerful cleric who had said she would protect him, there was, in reality, just a woman with a sword and no way to use it.
Still, she had to try. And when the other Ghouls began to pour into the room like flies on wet carrion, she arced the blade high into an upward guard before spinning it with a deft flick of her wrist and slashing across the collar of the creature closest to her. The blow connected, but the force and burning radiance were not there. The thing did little more than stumble, pushing on. Lacrimosa narrowed her eyes, looking at the face of this Ghoul, its empty eyes and lacerated maw. She could tell from the way it moved and the unnatural focus of vacant irises that she was not its target. There were two Ghouls going after Aranessa; the others were intently focused on Occtis.
The Tachonis in the doorway, Occtis’ brother, had deemed her not even worth the effort. Useless without her magic. It wasn't just the ability to wield her sword either. Any spells she could have cast were nullified by the pounding silence that beat in her ears like a collective heartbeat of everyone in the room. Lacrimosa could not fight and she could not heal. But she could get in the way.
Taking a step back further so that Occtis was nearly pressed against her back, she changed the position of her sword to a more defensive one, using the edge of the metal to interpose between the Ghouls and the stretch of her middle that her shield did not cover. The first swipe of claws raked across the surface of her shield, leaving jagged marks across the black metal with a noise that, if audible, would have set Lacrimosa wincing. The next attack that was levied pressed against her sword, opening thick wounds on the creature’s hand as it injured itself just to dig deeper for a better chance at hurting her. That was interesting, and a fact she could use to her advantage. These things had been commanded to attack regardless of their own safety. If she played this incredibly defensively, blocked with her sword instead of her shield, she could have them whittle down their necromantic vitality on their own.
Two sets of claws came at once. The first points of curdled bone and nail reached for her legs, but got tangled in her skirt. The layers and layers of fabric and lace and cascading ruffles provided enough of a barrier that the sharpness could not puncture. The material was shredded, but had kept her from harm for a moment longer. Despite the use of so many layers, Lacrimosa told herself firmly that once this was over, she was finding a pair of trousers so her manoeuvring was no longer impeded.
The next attack caused the Ghoul to slice itself on her sword again, rending a clinical square of rotting flesh from its arm, but this time it dug deeper, reaching far enough to push the claws into the soft skin of her hip and closed its fist, tearing through her and drawing back a chunk of flesh as if it were a child reaching for a handful of sweets. Lacrimosa tensed, red blossoming from the wound. The skin was a mess of viscera and blood, dripping onto the ground and making the floorboards sticky.
It hurt like hell, but she fought through the seeping paralytic poison she knew Ghouls to have embedded in their claws. These creatures wanted Occtis and she had promised Thimble he would return safely. She intended to make good on that. Lacrimosa crossed her arms, changing the area her sword and shield were guarding so the injury she had just acquired was better blocked. The hand holding her sword was now hovering by her opposite cheek, her arms parallel with each other. She brought the blade across the space in front of her before twisting it upward to attempt to stab the thing in front of her through the neck. The first attack went wild, making the Ghoul snarl silently, but the second one struck. It didn't quite skewer its throat as she had hoped, but it opened a slender gash right across a pulsing vein, letting a foul, black blood pour out, rivulets falling down its chin from its mouth.
Lacrimosa's small victory meant nothing. The Ghoul she had hit reared back, and another took its place while her arm was on the comedown from the slash with her sword. It used one hand to bat her shield away, leaving her utterly exposed. The clawed appendage plunged through her stomach, cutting through the skin like it was nothing. She opened her mouth in surprise, her body curling around the intrusion as the Ghoul kept pushing until it was up to its elbow, and she felt those same claws shred her once again from the inside as its arm shot all the way through her body and out the other side. Lacrimosa spluttered, choking on blood that was beginning to well in her mouth, the concentrated metallic taste of iron making her gag.
Her legs were beginning to give out, shaking and trembling before going so limp that her body only stayed upright due to the arm through her stomach keeping her aloft. There was little she could do now, no will within her left to push off the impending paralysis, and Lacrimosa felt herself go entirely still, her body concave around the wound. The Ghoul slithered its arm back with enough speed that she hung in the air for a moment before crumpling. Her frame was trying to spasm as she hit the ground, but the paralysis prevented it, making her muscles tense over and over again, the repeated movement pushing more and more blood and gore from her stomach.
Her eyes remained forcibly unblinking, going dry as she stared at the view of the table she had from her place on the floor. Lacrimosa watched, unable to act, as the Ghouls who had since swarmed on Occtis grappled him, bringing him over to the table. He was looking at her in terror, mouth forming her name in a soundless yell. The creatures slammed the wizard onto the wood, one of them pouncing onto his chest like a gargoyle before producing a length of wire and jumping and bringing it down hard against Occtis’ neck, choking him with enough force that his head began to slide off the edge of the table.
Struggling, kicking his feet and trying to use one hand to move the wire, she watched him cast a spell in a direction she couldn't see in her frozen state, presumably the door and his brother. Slightly after the green light curling around his hand faded to a purple mist, Lacrimosa watched boots approach, and the older Tachonis hover over Occtis with a curved knife. She could feel the paralysis beginning to lessen as he leaned over, her fingers twitching, and pressed the blade into the wizard's stomach. He grinned and began to saw upwards.
The moment the Silence spell was dropped, it became too much. All at once the world exploded into sound. Octtis’ brother snarling a sentence she couldn't quite hear, the ragged breathing of the Ghouls, Occtis’ spluttering for air, the squish and slide of the knife in his skin. Lacrimosa tried to scream, but her lungs felt heavy as if filled with liquid, and only a faint gurgling came out instead. She could cast spells now. She could save him. But she had to get up.
She tried to stand once, but her arms wouldn't cooperate to brace off the ground, jerking around uselessly. She was too weak and had lost too much blood. Occtis was her priority, but she couldn't get to him if she herself was inches from death. Placing a hand over the hole in her stomach, she felt that faint crawl of cold seep down her arm.
“Áva nárië ná quénë.” She gasped.
Lacrimosa watched the white light seep into her lacerated flesh. The magic she had used was weak, barely enough to stop the bleeding and stem the pain. She didn't try to close the gaping wound; that was a task that would have taken longer and more magic. Magic she needed to save for Occtis. She had a matter of seconds to crawl to her feet, dragging herself up the table and grabbing onto Occtis’ coat for purchase. She reached a trembling hand out, placing it on his chest, the join of her middle and ring fingers intercepting the blade opening him up. Gathering her will, Lacrimosa cried out as the curved blade began to bite into her skin as the Tachonis continued.
“Áva na i morth ammen na nîn!” She screamed, looking down. Her eyes connected with Occtis’ and for a moment, she saw the fading colour returning in a bright flash as her spell began to coalesce. Her fingers were slick with blood, sliding into the wound so that her fingertips gently brushed the smooth swell of his organs. The crimson from her own hand, as the knife carved through both of them at once, dripped into him, icy droplets carrying her divine magic. And there was a moment when she saw relief in his face as she looked down. Gratitude and fear met pain and fury.
And then his brother pulled the knife out, catching on her palm as he did so, wrenching her hand away, and the light trying to stitch Occtis together died just as he did.
“NO!”
Lacrimosa was used to the pain of death. She had killed before. She had wrought death with ease, hand in hand with it, two figures on the same path. But there was something different about the pain of knowing the person dying. Of caring for them. It was a special type of agony she had only ever felt once before, and it was such bereft anguish that she had fallen to the ground. The same happened now, her legs giving way as a rift curled through her head. She couldn't look away, watching Occtis’ brother press the Stone of Nightsong into his chest and pull his hand away with the wizard's heart clutched between his fingers, dripping blood.
Just as she began to draw herself to stand again, a foul surge of necromancy blasted through the air, green light flaring outside the door. The world around Lacrimosa went dizzy as the sensation of more death than she had ever felt, more than in the battle that killed Sylandri, shot through the air like lightning. It felt as though a hot poker had pierced the top of her spine, making her blood boil and her bones melt. Whatever had happened downstairs, it had caused an irreparable crack in the veil between the Realm of Mortals and the Realm of Death. There was a force dragging her very heart downwards, the press of lost souls desperate for a home swelling and crashing like waves on a shore. There were more undead down there, with Vaelus. With her sister.
With a wretched scream, she shot a hand out towards the older Tachonis from the floor, white veins crawling up her hand, a faint trickle of blood crying from her left eye.
“CARNA I-THIL NAR AGLANN!”
A halo of feathers hewn from white light spun around her target's head as Lacrimosa drew on the tiny sliver of Sylandri's strength kept locked in her heart, cursing him. She staggered to her feet, a harsh glow encircling her body. Dropping her shield to grip her blade with both hands, eyes locked on Occtis’ heart in his grasp, Lacrimosa sprang forward with a brutal movement.
“Le nárië melme úvëa na nárë.” She whispered dangerously.
Lacrimosa brought her blade up, mouth pulled back in an animalistic snarl as the point pressed into his chest. The halo of feathers spun faster and faster before the illusions of light sharpened, drawing back and penetrating deep into his skull at the same time her sword breached his skin.
He fell back, catching himself on the doorframe as his body writhed and twitched. Doubling over to hack up blood, the older Tachonis brother then stumbled out of the door, Lacrimosa pursuing with a supernatural endurance, her heels clicking lowly on the floorboards.
“ETHRAND!” A voice from downstairs echoed. “Do you have it!?”
Turning towards the stairs and the source of the sound, Lacrimosa was flung to the side as a large wolf with fur resembling the hair of one of the Orc women she had seen back at Hal's thundered past, drawing to a halt just in front of her. She reasoned that this must be Thaisha; she had heard she was a druid of the Old Path, this canine body clearly a form she had shifted into to reach them at the Palazzo as fast as possible. The wolf cocked its head at her. Making a split-second decision, she turned back to the doorway, the pain flaring in her skull again upon seeing Occtis’ body.
“Deal with him while I help Aranessa.” She ordered, sprinting back inside the room without even waiting to see if Thaisha obeyed.
Three Ghouls were dragging Lady Royce towards the balcony. Lacrimosa charged at the first one, separating its arm from its shoulder in one swift strike. The next, she reached a hand out to, pouring cold radiance into the Ghoul's neck, making it hiss and loosen its grip. With there now being only one holding onto Aranessa, she grabbed her, pulling her back.
“Julien!” Lady Royce called, stepping behind Lacrimosa.
“Aranessa!” Lacrimosa could hear his voice faintly from the direction of the stairs. “Aranessa, where are you?”
Aranessa opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off, dodging back from a wide swing from the last Ghoul in the room.
“Julien, there's Undead at the top of the stairs,” Lacrimosa replied instead, calling loudly as she just grazed a blow with her sword. “Thaisha is fighting them. Don't let Ethrand get away!”
“It's too late, he's already gone!” A new voice yelled, likely Thaisha. She sounded hoarse and breathless, and Lacrimosa turned just in time to see a Ghoul slice across her back, making her drop in the doorway, unconscious.
She swore, eyes darting back and forth between the creature trying to get to Aranessa and the dying woman in front of her. She was a cleric. A healer. Her job was to keep death's hands from clutching at the souls of her allies even if their bodies were on the brink of giving out. With a wrought scream, she reached forward, grabbing the Ghoul by the head and pulling it forward sharply onto her waiting sword, skewering it.
She rushed to Thaisha's side as Aranessa muttered a spell that made a twisting green vine shoot towards Julien and give him some kind of magical buff. The two shared a terse nod as he tore in the direction of the last Ghouls that Ethrand had left behind and Lacrimosa dropped to her knees at Thaisha's side, taking a deep breath and beginning to cast her own spell.
“Lómi nîn ú-erië sí.” Lacrimosa whispered.
The breath from her mouth turned white and pure in the air, forcing itself into Thaisha's mouth. The word of magic, the last of her divine strength sapped, raced through the Orc's veins, igniting a spark of radiance within the arteries, blood and lungs jolting to life with a cold burn.
“Occtis!” Thaisha gasped, eyes flying open to lock onto Lacrimosa's.
“We can take him with us,” She spluttered, helping the druid to her feet, watching Aranessa begin to grow a sapling with her brow furrowed. “I've got him. Help the Lady Royce.”
Lacrimosa watched Julien finish off the last of the Ghouls and staggered back to the stairs with magical speed in the direction of where she knew her sister to be.
“Julien!” She called, voice desperate. “Save her.”
He was gone before he could answer.
With Thaisha and Lady Aranessa focusing their efforts on creating a large tree within the room, Lacrimosa turned to the table. Her heart constricted seeing Occtis lying there. In her mind, he should have been cold, but the warmth of his organs and entrails exposed to the air sent twists of steam curling upwards. She was almost too afraid to touch him as she reached his side, hands trembling to sheath her sword, pick up her shield and hike it up her shoulder so she could curl her palms under him and pick him up. The dead were heavy. Occtis weighed no more than the feathers of the wing of a Nightingale.
“Lacrimosa!” Thaisha called, gesturing to the glowing hollow of the tree. “Come!”
She had no strength left to hesitate.