87

85 - Overwhelming Forces

The second chamber looked ordinary, with seats and sofas, a writing table, a couple of bookcases, and cabinets. Ulric smelled something out of place though.

'I smell the blood of animals. And not what I call fresh.'

Caylais scrunched her nose.

'Indeed, yuck.'

Valdys looked at the music box playing on one of the cabinets while her paranormal sense gave her chills.

'There is a different kind of death lingering here. Something twisted, unnatural.'

Elzbieta watched single spider threads cross the walls.

'It feels more like a trap than a regular room.'

A thud of something dropped on a heavy wooden table came from the other side of the double doors on the far side. Ulric sneaked closer and listened.

'I can't make out what's going on. I hear shuffling and some noises I don't recognise.'

He squatted and looked at the keyhole.

'Either the hole is plugged, or it's pitch black inside.'

Iphigenia moved behind him.

'You still want to continue with the attack?'

He looked up at her.

'We can't hide the death of his servants, so we have no option other than to finish what we began.'

She nodded, and the others agreed. They moved in an attack formation, and Ulric placed his paws on the door handles. The call from the other side startled them.

'What's keeping you? Show me who you are.'

Ulric looked left and right at Iphigenia and Elzbieta. Elzbieta gave him a slight nod. 'We're invited, darling.'

He opened the doors as he stepped inside in a large, candle lit room with walls and ceiling covered in webbing, and small and large cocoons hanging from them. Dornus sat at a table on the other side of a large trapdoor in the floor, pulling a piece of meat from a hunter carcass. He stared at them with fully black eyes set in a sixty-something year old face. 'I take it you surprised my servants somehow, otherwise you wouldn't have made it this far.'

Iphigenia glanced briefly at several spiders hanging on the wall on her side of the room, the bodies the size of her hand with thin legs, and faint dark green and yellow irregular blobs on their mostly black exoskeletons. They sat motionless while they watched the party.

'You all seeing these things?'

Valdys had seen a lot of spiders in her time, but these gave her an eerie sensation.

'Even though my skin may be dead, these make it crawl. There's something deeply sinister about them.'

Rachael gripped her staff and stepped away from a nearby spider rubbing its frontal pair of legs. 'I may have a thick coat, but I don't like a spider like this crawling over me.'

Dornus rose from his seat, and the party stared at the right side of his naked upper body. Most of his right arm was missing, and a good chunk of his right side around his lower ribs. 'Seems we're not dealing with your average kind of vampire.' said Ulric.

Dornus laughed once. 'You can say that again.' he said, and part of his body above his hip transformed into a spider, pulled free, and crawled away. 'A wizard attacked me during my transformation, and something went horribly wrong with his spell. Now I can't return to being a full vampire, and I have a need to feed on meat. Seeing how disgraceful my current state is, my servants prepare animals down below in secret, which I then retrieve here to feed on. Or better said, the spiders which are part of me.' He lowered his left hand to the table, and one spider crawled up on his arm. 'And now I need to find myself two new suitable servants since you killed them.'

Ulric chuckled in mock amusement once. 'You can save yourself the trouble since we're here to finish you off.'

Dornus grinned. 'The only thing you'll finish, is your lives in my trap.' he said, and gestured behind them.

Tipper and Caylais looked back at the doors covered in webbing and several spiders above them. Tipper groaned. 'I hate that sticky stuff.'

'Yes.' said Caylais. 'I hate pulling it out of my fur.'

'How about I'll do it for you, kitten?' said Ulric.

Caylais liked the idea of his fingers going through her fur. 'I'm tempted to roll in it now, lover.'

'Then let's end what we're here to do quickly.' said Ulric, and sprung like a compressed coil at the surprised vampire.

Dornus had not expected the bloodwolf creature to have the courage to attack at once, but he had not lost his skills for fighting since his last war against the original humans of the country. He sidestepped the attack before Ulric could reach him, swiped at him with his claw-like fingernails, and dodged Iphigenia's sword before swiping at her.

Iphigenia reacted fast, but he still cut her thigh. She spun away while Elzbieta passed her and stabbed her sword at Dornus.

His presence turned into a blur when he sidestepped her sword as well, and slashed at her face.

His fingernails scraped against Ulric's scaled fist, and he barely evaded the spiked one thrust at his own face. He slipped back as fast as he could from the enraged demon wolf.

Ulric used his anger from seeing Iphigenia hurt to boost his speed and strength, and drove the vampire farther to the back of the room with his punches. A warning flashed in his mind when Dornus grinned as his back touched the wall.

Spiders shot past Ulric and wound many silk threads around him before he knew it. He snarled as the strong threads tightened and trapped him. The girls tried to evade the spiders shooting past them, but were quickly ensnared in cocoons attached to the floor and ceiling.

Dornus moved closer to Ulric, who struggled to free himself from the tight bonds. He smiled triumphantly at his catch. 'Looks like I'll have some food to tide me over while I look for new servants.'

Ulric stopped struggling and returned a calm gaze. 'Time's up.' he said. Fur spikes pierced the layer around him, and he thrust his paws through the breach in front.

Dornus looked down in shock at the two daggers stuck in his chest, then glared at Ulric. 'I'll make all your deaths slow, and yours the last one so you can see them all suffer.' he said, and fell completely apart into spiders.

Ulric ripped the last remnants of his bonds apart, and cut Iphigenia's cocoon open first. When she was partially free, she cut the rest herself while he cut Elzbieta's. Valdys conjured up blades of ice to cut her cocoon, and together they freed the others while fending off the spiders trying to ensnare them again.

They wasted no time cleaning up the crawling creatures, with Conchim wiping many into a corner with a swipe of her wing and controlled burst of wind magic, where Yingshien burned them, and Rachael and Tipper smashing others with their staff and spade. Valdys herded spiders with her shield spells towards Iphigenia, Elzbieta, and Caylais, who stunned them and made it easy for the other two to stab them.

Ulric hunted for the heart spider, and spotted a group crawling up a web covered old bookcase. The scent and sound was faint, but his target was one of them, and he rushed at them.

Dornus willed the spiders at the rear to shoot sticky threads at the bloodwolf while he willed the spider holding the core of his existence to the top of the case.

Ulric swiped at the webbing shot at him, caught up with the spiders, and stomped hard on them while reaching out fast for the topmost spider climbing the shelves. It went up on the top, and he climbed after it. Its abdomen disappeared into a horizontal crack in the brick wall. 'Shit! It escaped!' he snarled, angry at not being fast enough.

***

'I can't tell you anything about an artefact, or anything that might be of value around here.' said Coëllo, while she and the others of the party she was now a member of were taking a break. 'It was a dump infested by these undead creatures when I came here.'

Elyta broke off a piece of bread. 'Wait, you saw this as a dump? Not as a big, empty tower?'

The hare looked at the rubble around the stairs. 'An abandoned tower city full of worthless junk, but plenty of opponents to fight and become stronger.'

Elyta looked at Tarrence. He pulled a strip of dried meat from his pack and leaned back against a higher step. 'It is possible for the concealment spell to only work on those who are looking for valuables.'

'So we're thieves then.'

He nodded slowly while he chewed on his bite. 'We are here to search and take an artefact that doesn't belong to us in the first place.'

Elyta thought being a thief was a little insulting, when they were merely retrieving property for the original owners.

Tarrence looked at Coëllo. 'Have you been to the top floor?'

She thought about it for a moment. 'I don't think so. The highest floor I've been on and where these stairs end, has it surrounded by large doors. They're locked and too strong for me to open, so I don't know what's behind them, but I have a hunch there are a few floors above that place.'

Tarrence exchanged a glance with Gigacks. 'Looks like we'll have to find out if we can unlock them.'

They arrived at the top of the stairs a while later, without any more hindrance from the undead apes, and looked around at the large, black stone double doors, and the statues of demon warriors adorning the walls in between them. Gigacks examined one pair of the doors. 'Spell locks.'

Tarrence stepped closer to the stairs and looked down. 'How long to break them?'

'Not sure. They're layered.'

'Work as fast as you can. I suspect we won't be alone for long.'

***

Elzbieta pierced the last spider alive in the room with her sword. 'What do we do now?'

'Ready ourselves for likely our fiercest fight yet.' said Valdys. 'Malyssa!?'

The vampire girl appeared as the party stepped into the middle room. She tried not to look too cheerful. 'Did you kill Dornus?'

Ulric grumbled. 'His heart spider escaped.'

Malyssa's excitement died down. The other Old Ones would soon know about the party, and if they were captured and talked, they'd also know about who provided assistance. She would die if she was lucky, and she didn't feel lucky when Old Ones were angered. 'They'll hunt us down, and you don't want to be caught alive.'

Iphigenia wiped her sword clean. 'I don't want to be caught at all.'

'Any place we can defend easily or has an escape route?' asked Valdys.

Malyssa thought hard and went over all the places she knew of in the burg and outside. 'There's a storeroom with fortified walls and a well leading deep down. There might be a way to escape through there.'

Ulric looked at the others. 'Shall we?'

'I don't think we have any better idea, darling.' said Elzbieta, and the others agreed.

Malyssa hurried as she led the others down through empty hallways and staircases, and stopped at a junction. 'Follow this hallway, then cross the courtyard it leads to, and take the first left in the passage on the opposite side. The storeroom is there. I will call out my people to interfere as much as possible to give you time to escape.'

Ulric looked down the hallway. 'Straight on to the other side, then left. All right.'

'Good luck.' said Malyssa, and hurried into another hallway.

'Move fast.' said Ulric, and jogged quick but cautiously towards the courtyard.

They checked the empty place from the doors, then hurried across it when all seemed clear, until a group of vampires appeared through the doors on the opposite side. 'Shit!' snarled Ulric.

Iphigenia noticed more coming from doors on her side. 'More are here.'

Caylais saw the same on her side. 'And here.'

Tipper looked back, already knowing what to expect. 'We're surrounded.'

Conchim looked up to see several vampires standing in windows higher above them. 'They're above us as well.'

The vampires in front parted to let a elder lady in a wide, faded red dress through. 'You have nowhere to go.' she said in a clear, loud voice. 'You killed some of our kind, and the only way to reduce the length of the punishment you'll receive and find your death sooner, is to tell us how you invaded our burg, and who helped you.'

Ulric looked back at the others. 'We're out of options, girls, time to go all out. Don't take unnecessary risks and worry me.' he said, and bolted straight at the Old One. The vampires next to her closed around her as she quickly stepped back, and he clashed with the ones in front.

Vampires above burst into flocks of bats, crows, and red-brown four-winged bugs as large as a hand, with a stinger at the end of its abdomen. Conchim and Yingshien took to the skies at once to engage the flying creatures.

The lower vampires at the doors didn't stand idly by, and stormed the party. Valdys quickly erected a barrier with a couple of openings for the others to take on their attackers one by one. The girls cut and hit them down, but they recovered sooner or later, and attacked again.

Elzbieta hew the head of one vampire clean off.

'We can't keep this up! Even when we're stronger, they regenerate too fast and keep us outnumbered!'

Ulric punched the throat of one vampire with a spiked fist, then crushed his chest with a hard stomp.

'I can't kill them fast enough either. Keep fighting but look for a way out.'

Conchim cut the vampire animals with her talons and daggers while Yingshien torched them with more ease, now that she wasn't restricted by the space around her.

'We're in the middle of the burg. There's no shorter route to any of the sides but I'll keep looking for a way from above.'

Caylais zapped several vampires in front of her and noticed the vampires at the back on her side causing a commotion that had nothing to do with their fight.

'Something's happening over here!'

The vampires near the doors shouted and spread out, and others poured out of the doorway and attacked them.

A familiar face appeared in the back.

'It's Malyssa! Her friends are attacking the rear!'

said Caylais.

Tipper and Rachael saw vampires attacking each other. 'They're fighting among themselves!' said Tipper. 'What's going on!?'

Valdys sent down a ring of ice spikes on the vampires just outside the barrier. 'Malyssa's group joined the fight! We might have the numbers now to defeat the Old Ones and their clans!'

Rachael broke one vampire's throat with a thrust of the end of her staff. 'I really hope so.'

***

Tarrence walked up to Gigacks after a search of all the doors and statues for hidden passages or items. 'How's it going?'

Gigacks kept his gaze on the lock with his hands pressed on either side. He snipped parts of the complex spell circles surrounding the lock. 'Found the core key to undo the spells. Disassembling them now.'

A low rumble rose from beneath the stairs, and Muni and Coëllo looked down the centre. They didn't need to see the deranged undead apes crowding the steps as they hurried up them, to know they were coming. The noise sent a tremor up Muni's spine. 'I thought they feared you enough to keep them from attacking us.'

Coëllo didn't like the different sound of their usual cries. She had killed enough of them up to three at a time to put the fear of her in them, but something more insane must drive their new attack. 'I think there's something they fear even more than me. And I never fought a large group at the same time. I'm not that strong or stupid.'

Muni kept his eyes on the darkness for a glimpse of the apes. 'Whatever you do, Gigacks, you better do it a lot faster!'

Tarrence looked at the statues lining the walls and made some quick estimates. 'Grab all the ropes and give me a hand.'

Elyta coiled the long ropes around and between the torsos of opposite statues, and the four of them pulled them tight. Muni groaned loudest as they exerted all their strength. The statues tilted slowly forward, then toppled and fell down loud onto the floor.

'No time to sit and rest.' said Tarrence. 'Pull them to the stairs.'

With more effort, they pulled the statues towards each other and the top of the stairs. 'Nearly there.' said Tarrence when their torsos hung above the steps, and with one more hard pull on the ropes, the statues went over the edge and crashed down onto the stairs to become a barricade. Tarrence jumped onto one to untangle the ropes. 'Hurry! We aren't finished with just these two.'

By the time they piled several statues onto the stairs and blocked them enough to hinder the rush of apes, the first of them appeared from the darkness below. Elyta pulled the last rope free from one statue. 'They're here!'

Tarrence looked at Gigacks. 'How far are you?'

Gigacks worked on the last few partial circles. 'Almost done.'

Tarrence grabbed his daggers and went over to the top of the stairs. 'We'll hold them back here until the doors are unlocked.'

That first ape jumped and worked his way over the barrier, only for Elyta to stop him with one arrow to the head. The second ape jumped onto the stone body pile before the first one hit the stairs.

Elyta shot several down, until Muni and Coëllo had to assist when more apes crawled and jumped over the barrier. The front of the horde poured over everything, but slow enough for the party to cut them down in their path.

Gigacks removed the last of the spell circles, and turned two sunken handles in the doors. They stuck at first, then turned with a grating sound at the second attempt, and he pulled open the heavy doors far enough to slip through. Torches lit up a hallway he suspected encircled the stairs area, and more stairs opposite of each pair of doors led upwards. He didn't sense any danger. 'You can come!'

Muni felt relief at those words and beheaded an ape with more energy. 'About time!'

Tarrence stabbed one ape with his daggers into its half rotten eyes. 'Run!' he said as he kicked the now completely dead ape away, and sprinted to the open doors.

86 - In a Pinch

The Old Ones and their underlings did not back down from the fight against the intruders and the rebelling vampires, but the ragtag bunch of different members were much stronger than they had experienced with their kind before. Corstyn was proud of his bug form, and despite the occasional mocking of his ability, the others knew they were no match for the agility his creatures possessed and the nasty bite from their mandibles. Even Dornus did not like to engage him in a serious fight. He grumbled at the effort it took to come even close to the harpy. He had never met anyone as nimble as her in the air and each time he closed in on her, she either stabbed the bug or swept it aside with a directed gust of wind. Telling the others to help him with their bats and crows was no use since they were busy assaulting the dragon, and although they as high vampires controlled many creatures at once, they all lacked the ability to direct attacks at more than one target at the same time. But he needed only one of his bugs to reach her and bite her to gain control over her, and thought hard on how to do it.

Yingshien spit out large balls of fire left and right, and thanks to the crows and bats flying close together, she burned many with little effort, but their sheer numbers and regeneration still made things difficult while they annoyingly pecked and scratched futility at her scales. She needed them to be packed tighter so she could take them down faster than they could regenerate. She watched Conchim blast a wave of the bugs away, and it gave her an idea.

Conchim halted in mid-air when Yingshien flew up behind her and whispered something in her ear. She liked the plan, gave her a nod in confirmation, and flew to one corner of the open space. Yingshien flew to the side, and Conchim concentrated all her mana. With one strong thrust of her wings, she sent off a severe gale through the open space.

The airborne vampires lost control of all their creatures caught in it as they tumbled through the air and smashed hard into the far corner. Before they recovered and regained their orientation in the packed and fluttering cluster though, they watched the dragon sweep down on them.