Alan was still mentally numb as they crashed through through the trees of Pinwood. He didn't even remember how they had ascended the steep slope to the ridge above, save by the sheer force of panic-driven flight. Garthur and Daphne carried the limp, bloodied form of Vick between them. He was so much dead weight, but Garthur had enhanced his own strength with a prayer, to match Daphne's unnatural power.
Ahead of them, Windhawk hissed back in a whisper, "Here! Quickly now!"
Faringalia turned upon hearing that, and waved her hands at the woods. Nothing seemed to happen, but Alan figured whatever illusion she had cast was not meant for them. He crashed through a tangle of thorny, twisted vines and into a clearing. Broken flagstones lay long overgrown with weeds and roots, while the shattered remains of ancient stone walls rose like broken teeth against an evening sky from which stars just barely started to peer forth.
He knew this place, at least. Pinroot Keep. On more than one occasion, the original Reavers had descended into its corridors to chase their fortune. Now, they sought that same, yawning entrance to shelter from the horrors that chased them. It was a little more ruined than it had been in decades past, but the structures had been so crumbled by the passing of centuries before that a few more loose stones here and there was hardly enough to make him lose his way. Soon he found it, the arched passage and worn stone steps that descended into the darkness.
Alan paused long enough to motion the others in. Windhawk plunged down into the depths, relying on her elven sight to find their way, and soon Daphne and Garthur followed, with their burden held between them. Faringalia was the last to pass, and Alan reached to take her hand, letting the gnome girl lead him into depths where the inky black couldn't sustain human sight. He didn't want to light a torch until he was certain that their pursuers were not going to follow.
"He's bleeding bad," Garthur's voice rumbled from the darkness once they finally reached the ancient floor so far below.
"Do what you can," Alan whispered back, his own gaze fixed on the entrance above, just a dim outline of a slightly less dark patch to mark where the sky was. He certainly couldn't hear the two sisters around, but only time would tell. With a sigh, he leaned against the wall to catch his breath.
As the dwarven priest began to tend to the wounded Count, Alan tried to piece together everything in his mind. It wasn't so much any degree of complexity in the events of their flight, but simply the shock of what had been exposed when Faringalia stripped away the illusions.
Slowly, fragments of what he had seen crept in from his scattered thoughts. The eyes had caught him first. The sclera were coal black, the iris a hideous yellow. Despite how those eyes stared, her lids were thick and puffy, giving an almost sleepy look, while her skin was a sickly, slick looking green, and riddled with bumps and pustules. Her hair was the color of rotted wood, and hung about her head in loose, limp, and wet strands. Patches of her bare scalp were visible here and there. To complete the visage, under a hooked and pointed nose that was substantially longer than in her human guise, her mouth was a broad gash that opened almost from ear to ear, showing rows upon rows of black, crooked teeth. It was like gazing down a pipe lined with bent and rusted iron nails.
The creature that was Tam was as tall as ever, but gaunt and hungry looking, almost waifishly thin. Her arms were long and ended in sharp, black talons. The black fabric of her top was still there, but it covered just as little as it did before the revolting reveal. Her breasts hung with little support within the fabric, misshapen and distended.
She was a hag. Not merely an old crone, but a vicious magical beast that preyed on human men. He'd never encountered one himself, but had heard tales of men being taken in by their facades, only to be slaughtered and eaten once they were unable to sate the creatures' unnatural lusts. She was in the process of lunging forward when Daphne's twin blades penetrated her to either side of her spine. Those black and yellow eyes widened as blood began to pour forth from her mouth. In a single blow, the assassin had done her work, leaving the monstrosity gurgling and thrashing against the edge of the table.
Relief at the quick dispatch of the beast before them was short lived, however, for Vick's wails were suddenly punctuated by the sounds of claws tearing through flesh, and a wet, choking gurgle. The shadows cast on the curtains from the fire pit that back-lit the scene were unforgiving. The other two sisters were clearly monsters as well. Where the first had been almost terribly gaunt, the two silhouettes looming over Vick's were bloated and swollen, one with a crooked spine. Vick was laying within their grasp, twitching and spasming. Blood splattered the fabric of the curtain, beginning to soak through.
Windhawk sheathed her blade and quickly whipped her own bow up, but by then, Alan was already leaping onto the table. His soft soled boots carried him up and over the obstacle in just a few paces. The wood surface creaked under his shifting weight, then the dead hag wheezed a useless breath out when he planted one foot firmly between the corpse's shoulder blades, and leaped over Daphne, toward the curtain.
With a woosh, the whirling weight of Jhernyr ripped through the air, right past Alan's head. It impacted the curtains and tore them from their moorings, before continuing on and striking one of the beasts beyond solidly. There was a solid sounding crunch, but the figure revealed did little more than recoil. An inhuman shriek once more rose, though this one was higher pitched, and filled with rage rather than terror.
The scene revealed by the tumbling fabric was almost enough to kill Alan's forward momentum. There, Vick lay basically nude, only his unfastened leather breeches still on. His eyes were beginning to glaze, and though he still moved, it was weak. His great chest and ponderous belly were torn open, blood poured forth to soak over his attackers and the sheets of the bed below. His armor was scattered about in pieces, having been hastily removed earlier, and one thick fingered hand was grasping weakly toward where his great black blade lay sheathed, not more than a foot out of his grasp.
He was flanked by the sisters of the thing that they had killed, and their hideousness was easily an equal to her. Stringy black hair hung from patchy scalps, and their skin was green, coated with a thick, slimy perspiration that made them glisten in the firelight. Where one had a grossly bulbous nose that resembled little more than a fist stapled to her features, the other had almost no nose at all, just a recessed, skull-like cavity. Their eyes were as yellow and black as the previous hag's. Both were nude, and ponderously fat. Their bulk made even Vick seem positively svelte. Massive, low hanging breasts were bared, and might have been a saving grace in some men's eyes, save for their nature. Covered with weeping sores and angry red pustules, one of the hags had a nipple missing, and instead a yawning, puckered hole offered a dark entrance into her frame. Both of them were covered with his friend's blood.
One of the hags, it was impossible to tell which sister was which at this point, still straddled Vick. She was near crushing him with her renewed weight. Her thighs enveloped his hips, and he was likely still inside her. This was the one that had been struck by Garthur's hammer, and she was cradling one thick arm, rubbing the claws of her other up and down her own flesh. The second beast, free to turn to the onrushing rogue, swept one long arm out. While the claws failed to penetrate the old rogue's enchanted leathers, the impact was incredible. Her unnatural strength shocked through his chest where that mere glancing blow had landed, and sent white hot lances of pain through his only recently healed wounds. It was enough to stop his advance in its tracks.
Jhernyr tried to return to the dwarf on its usual trajectory, but the hag who had been struck hastily gripped at the curtains that still wrapped about it. She struggled to keep hold with one arm, but when her sister let out a shriek of absolute rage, she turned her own sickly yellow eyes over. Those eyes followed the other hag's gaze along toward where Daphne was drawing her blades from the corpse of the hag that had been Tam.
"Sister!" The two shrill voices rose in unison, "They killed our sister!"
