预计阅读时间/ERT： 16 minute(s)
3
It turned out that, Smelly, among many other soldiers in Lann’s unit, did not get to sample that bottle of punching pretty ever again. Lann had to kill some of them twice or maybe more. It was hard to tell who was who when those freshly undead ghouls had ripped their own faces apart.
Lann wiped his face, feeling sweats were slowing freezing on his skin. He had to concentrate on to not staggering in the deep snow while keeping an eye on the sky. With the cover of banks of storm clouds, Gargoyles might came again any moment. He looted the healing potions from the corpses then passed them to the fleeing living soldiers on their way, hoping those would help them to make it to Anevia’s camp. The spiral road to the Lost Chapel seemed to be endless. The snowstorm was getting worse by seconds.
“Go back to the base camp.” He told Ember, “This is no place for a child. Anevia could also use a healer.”
Ember shook her head. “I won’t let them hurt my friends.” She helped the old man got to his feet. Her voice was barely audible in the raging snowstorms, but it was firm. “I will make this through.” A little flame was dancing in her palm.
“Listen, we can’t let you just – “ Kurt Eklund raised a hand to stop him. The Commander took off his thick cloak and wrapped it around Ember.
“You can come, but stay behind us.”
Ember nodded. Soot the raven gawked, then hid under the large cloak. Probably less windy down there.
Lann glared at the Commander’s back, since when we need a child to fight this war? He also noticed that after Gargoyles’ night raid, the Commander was eerily quiet. Of course he still had to give orders, but Kurt Eklund seemed to be even more withdrawn and distant than usual.
Another pile of crusaders’ corpses was around the corner. Wait, did one of them just secretly grip a sword? He recognized that silhouette, it was Smelly the drunken soldier, but his neck was definitely twisted in a wrong way.
“It’s a trap.” Kurt Eklund stopped before Lann, drawing the same conclusion.
“What we gonna do, Commander? May just to charge head on.” Seelah asked, “It’s too dangerous to climb the cliff in this weather, plus, anything can happen to Irabeth now, we need to pass them to get to the Chapel. “
Kurt Eklund thought for a moment, then he turned to Lann. “Do you still have that bottle of spirit with you?”
Lann blinked in confusion, but then he understood. The Commander obviously did not ask for the spirit for a sip. Lann passed the bottle. The Oread rummaged through the backpack, mixed a few more ingredients into the bottle, took out a piece of dirty cloth, dipped into the spirit, then gave it a twist to seal the bottle.
“It is a shame that we’ll have to let them have it early.” Lann said dryly. He did not like the perspective of burning people, especially those poor sods he just fought along side with a few days ago. Yes, they were already goner when they got raised against their wills so he understood the necessity, but – “Care to do the honor yourself, Commander?” He did not mean to sound this vicious, but it was what it was.
Kurt Eklund did not seem to notice or care the sting in Lann’s voice, he just nodded and kept the bottle. “Wait for my order.”
He slightly bowed his head and offered a short prayer, almost like a murmur. “… a sanctuary opens when there is beyond salvation, a road appears where there is no escape. Deliver the dispossessed from their flesh prisons, Gray Lady. For all things must start, and all things must end.”
Strangely, Lann heard birds chirping. Then Kurt Eklund stroke the match, lighted the soaked cloth, and then threw the incendiary bottle onto that heap of ghouls. His dark glowing scythe followed.
At first, Lann had to narrow his eyes in front of sudden burst, then he recognized these screaming bodies, twisting either from heat or pain. Shaken, yet his hands did not stop. It was better to kill them before they felt the engulfing flame.
By the time of the fifth arrow, the engagement was over. They marched through. The greasy remains crumbled into ashes beneath their feet, then smeared into dirty, half-melt snow. The stench of burning flesh was overpowering. Lann could not get rid of it from his robe for days even he had stood quite far away at the beginning. So, this was how death in the battle smelled like.
Ahead of him, seemingly unaffected by the horrifying sights, Kurt Eklund was fighting, even fiercer with the new scythe at hand. Lann let go another arrow, finishing off a ghoul who tried to sneak behind the Oread. He could not shake off an uneasy feeling that something about the Commander was not quite right.
They pushed through the rest of enemies like a hot knife cutting into butter. After that romantic drama between the lilitu and the drawf, Nulkineth, the demon turned dead crusaders into ghouls, almost came as a disappointment.
“Hey, hey! What are you looking at? Look at me – I’m right here! Do I need to bite your soldier’s heads off for you to notice me? I can do it, you know!”
Just like a child who believed he could get to be treated seriously if he yelled loud enough. Lann thought. Then he saw the eerie glow of the Commander’s scythe. A voice full of contempt and weariness spoke:
“Foul corpse-eater! You will never turn another mortal into a ghoul. In the name of Pharasma, this is the end of your sacrilege!”
Later, they said, the most scary part of it was not the Commander brutally cut down Nulkineth with a swing of his scythe (some would say it just like Deskari did to Terendelev back in Kenabras), nor the way the Oread gripped and raised the demon’s head like a trophy, or a declaration. It was his eyes. One would think Gorum must get better of him after witnessing all these cruelties and bloodshed in the Lost Chapel, puffing him up with bloodlust and rage and frenzy to storm the demon nest, but no, the Commander’s pupiless eyes were cold and clear. His voice was calm and steady, resonating through the battlefield like bells tolling at funeral.
The question was, Lann wondered, for whom the bell tolls?
Leave a Reply