Chapter 22 - Triggers

  Cal slammed hard into the ceiling and then fell down towards the floor. It knocked the wind out of him and he was unable to react, but Meliana raised a hand towards him and said something that he couldn’t hear. Suddenly he was falling far slower.

  He had a few moments to watch chaos unfold beneath him as the goblins became the undead and turned not only on Meliana, Teth and the prisoners, but on each other. Kaila wasn’t telling them to attack anyone specific, she was just telling them to attack. He could see her up on the platform, hands over her ears, eyes forced shut and weeping, probably terrified.

  Below him, the undead crawled over Meliana, pulling her back to the floor. They were piling on Teth to his left, stabbing at him, tearing at his stone-like flesh and trying to rip him apart. Though they couldn’t do much to hurt him, they were heavy enough to hold him down, throwing themselves at him to get him off of his feet.

  Cal landed and looked back at the prisoners. “Get in the inner cave!” He ordered, kicking some of the goblin weapons at them as he turned on his feet and rushed for Meliana.

  They grabbed the weapons, though they clearly hated the idea - they were also made of people parts - and followed his instructions, hiding themselves where the troll had been waiting.

  Cal dropped his sword and picked up a hammer that one of the goblins had been using. He cringed as he felt the human skin covered handle, and the Devilkin skull head, but he kept hold, gripping tightly as he reached Meliana and swung the heavy weapon, using it’s weight to drag it over Meliana and through the skeletons. Their bodies were shattered and sent tumbling away into the throng of others. Cal let go of the hammer and it fly end over end into the army of the dead, crushing them until it lost momentum and bounced off of a zombie.

  With a final grunt of effort, Cal kicked the last of the undead off of Meliana then grabbed her hand and elbow, pulling her up. She had cuts and bruises all over her exposed skin, but her leather coat protected the rest of her reasonably well. “Can you fight?” He asked her as she steadied herself. He grabbed her sword from the floor and slashed at a small group of zombies as they approached. He raised a hand and fired a flame bullet at the one in the lead, knocking it down and tripping the others.

  He offered Meliana her sword back and she took it.

  “Teth is under that pile.” He said, pointing past the trolls corpse to where the skeletons and zombies had formed what looked like a hill of dead things. Cal could see emerald claws just peaking out the side, but the undead were too heavy for Teth to lift. No, they weren’t too heavy - he’d almost beaten a troll in an arm wrestle after all - but he was unable to get a solid grip to push them off him and they just kept piling on.

  Cal held his hand out to the side and summoned his sword back, then held it in his across-the-palm stance and aimed it at the undead closing in on them. “Viron!” He shouted, forcing a gout of flame to burst forth, burning the zombies flesh and cracking the bones of the skeletons. He swung it around slowly, giving them a little breathing room and Meliana aimed a blast of her ice attack at the goblins that blocked their way to Teth. Each skeleton she hit was shattered as its bones tried to fight the freezing effect, and each zombie was torn apart when its flesh disintegrated, like the troll’s face.

  Cal ran past her and he ignited his sword again with a whisper of “Vosh.” And a swipe of his fingers. He didn’t need to kill them all. He could see that Teth was fighting them, trying to get up, he just needed to lighten the load. Concerned that another gout of flame would hurt Teth as much as them, Cal had to take the slow way while Meliana protected him from others.

  He swung his sword up and brought it down on the uppermost zombie. Fire burst from the sword, scorching it and those around it. Cal grabbed the next one and pulled it free. It tried to launch itself at him, but he thrust his hand deep into it’s chest and threw it aside. Cal stabbed into the next one before grabbing it, lesson learned.

  One after the next he stopped them and pulled them off. It felt like he was clawing at a writhing mass, not a bunch of individual things. Every time he reached in it felt like he might be overwhelmed as his coat and hand would get caught on the edges of bones or grasped by little claws as they realised that he was an easier target than the earthen man beneath them.

  Cal wasn’t sure how many he had pulled off of Teth when the mound of undead began to undulate. He frowned and stumbled back just in time for Teth to appear, throwing the dead off of him, claws out, mandibles snapping as he roared up at the ceiling.

  As Teth’s roar ended Cal heard something even scarier. A wail of anguish. He looked up towards Kaila on the upper level and his eyes widened in fear as that sickly green energy pulsed out from her location. As the energy spilled out across the area it hit each of the undead that they had destroyed, and it pulled them back together.

  Cal cursed as a pair of destroyed skeletons at his feet began moving again. He stamped down on their heads and looked back up at Teth and Meliana. “MOVE!” He yelled at Teth, pointing at the inner cave.

  Uncaring of whether Teth followed his command, Cal spun on his heel and ran for the mouth of the cave. Meliana blasted out several more shards of ice to try and slow the undead’s advance and retreated alongside Cal. It took a few moments for Teth to get his anger under control again, but he also joined them, his claws fading and mandibles retracting as he dragged his sword with him to the entrance. He looked exhausted, several new emerald cracks littered his body.

  Inside the cave, the prisoners cowered quietly in the back, weeping with fear. “This isn’t good.” Meliana said as they took up a defensive position in the cave opening.

  “She’s turned on us.” Teth growled.

  In the mouth of the cave the undead’s numbers meant little, but it still wouldn’t take much for them to be overwhelmed. Fortunately it was also out of the way, so the skeletons and zombies who appeared to have only been told ‘attack’ rarely came for them. Cal shook his head. “She’s freaking out. She was about to get overwhelmed and I think instinct took over.”

  “She’s still doing it!” Teth shouted back as several goblin zombies rushed for them and he was forced to swing around with his sword, cleaving them in two. The upside to their zombification was that they were stupid now, the down side was that there were a lot more of them and they could reanimate at any moment.

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  “All right anger boy, you want us to kill you the next time you get your bloodlust on?” Cal responded, recalling the man’s attempt to kill him on their first meeting.

  Teth growled and made Cal look at him. “We kill her it stops.” he said matter of factly.

  “We don’t need to kill her, we just have to calm her down.” Cal argued, pushing Teth’s hand off of him and looking back out at the chaos. “She’s just scared.”

  “You think you can talk this down?” Teth asked, pointing his sword.

  “I think we can try.” Cal replied.

  “What’s your plan?” Meliana asked. Cal guessed that she was conflicted. She wanted to take the easy way out and kill Kaila, but they needed her for the mission.

  “Whoever goes will never make it up a ramp, but, maybe we can clear a path through the middle and one of us can get up the wall.” He said, pointing the way ahead of them and then quickly switching his hand gesture to fire a flame bullet as one of the goblins seemed to take offence at the pointing, charging him. “Then We snap her out of it.”

  “And failing that; you kill her.” Meliana replied.

  “Me?” Cal asked. “You should go. You’re the leader here you’re the one she’ll listen to.”

  Meliana shook her head. “You’ve been building a rapport with her. She likes your horse. You’re the only one she might listen to.” She paused a moment and added, “Besides; you’re the only one with magic jumping boots. You want to try it this way then this is your job, because it’s not mine and it’s certainly not his.” She motioned to Teth.

  Cal took a quick breath. When he’d suggested it he hadn’t actually imagined that it would be him running into the horde of undead. Unfortunately she was right. “Okay.” He said.

  “And remember what I said.” Meliana added, placing a hand on his arm. “If you can’t reach her then you kill her.” He looked at her and their eyes met. She was looking at him with a serious expression. One that read ‘I’m not playing.’

  Cal nodded. “If I can’t save her; I save us.” He promised.

  She frowned for a long moment and then nodded. “Teth, you stay here, keep the civilians safe. I’ll get you to the bottom of the platform. You do the rest.” She said. “Understood?”

  “Understood.” Cal replied. He took a breath and threw his sword down on the floor. It was light but it would still be a burden to carry it while he ran. “I’m ready.”

  The two of them darted out and Meliana sliced through the first couple of skeletons with her cutlass, throwing them aside more than destroying them. She came to a stop and raised a hand up in front of her face as if she were gripping something unseen. As Cal passed her he hear her whisper “Elwin!” and a piece of sparkling ice appeared in her hand. She threw it past Cal and onto the floor at the centre of the throng of battling undead. It slammed down and exploded, sending them - skeleton and zombie alike - flying backward. It also froze the floor, leaving a centimetre thick layer of ice.

  Cal leapt onto it, cracking it like he was on a frozen lake and ignored the few remaining undead as he balanced himself to slide across the ground to the other side.

  Quick shards of ice slammed into each of the zombies and skeletons that might try to intercept Cal as he slid towards or past them. He leapt off of the ice just before the platform with a twist at the balls of his feet. Power pressed down through his legs and into the floor. Cal was thrown up into the air and, just barely, onto the lip of the upper area of the cave’s overhang. Possibly the most dangerous spot in the whole of the cavern.

  The scene in front of him, as Cal peaked up over the platform and flew up into the air, was one of chaos and terror. Zombies and goblins fought each other everywhere you could see, taking up every inch of space leading up to the edge of the upper level.

  Behind them, about ten meters back at the cave entrance Kaila crouched with her head down, her hands on her ears and arms protecting her as best they could. Sickly green power emanated from her, keeping the undead moving and her protected.

  Around her though, there was about a meter of space, a perimeter where there were no undead, but there was no way for him to get there, except…

  He took a breath and concentrated on that spot right next to her. “Emdiness!” He yelled and that same sensation of being pulled from beneath his ribs by a hook dragged him forward and he vanished, reappearing beside her. The momentum of his jump sent him up another meter and he came down next to her in a crouch.

  The adrenaline of the fight fought off his disorientation and his eyes darted straight over to her, then he leaned in. “Kaila, It’s Cal. You’re safe, you can stop now.”

  She didn’t respond, except to start rocking back and forth on her heels.

  “Kaila! Adventurer!” Still nothing. He cursed, and then his mind flashed back to the visceral response he’d gotten from calling out to her in the forest back in Canyonvue. He cursed, braced himself and said, “Necromancer.” He didn’t yell it, he just said it, as calmly as he could, but her response was instant. She fell sideways away from him, and looked around at him in fear. The same green light glowed from her eyes, leaving a trail wherever they went and Cal wondered if she could even see him.

  It was made clear that she either didn’t recognise him, or didn’t care that it was him when she swiped in his direction and the horde turned from each other to him.

  “Oh Shi-” He muttered, eyes widening as they rolled towards him like a wave.

  As they slammed into him he expected to die. He expected that his life was over. He expected that he would be stabbed or bitten or simply crushed by the dozens of goblins as they crowded around him and poured over him.

  But he wasn’t.

  They grabbed him and held him, pushing him this way and that. Not hard enough to tear him apart, but enough that he was trapped.

  Did she not want to hurt him? Was she conscious enough to protect him from her fear? If so then maybe there was still a chance of calming her. Of ending this peacefully.

  “Kaila!” He called out again. “Kaila it’s okay, you’re safe now!” She still didn’t react.

  He wondered if maybe she couldn’t control it. Necromancy had a side that allowed you to contact spirits, it was dangerous and could go wrong. Maybe this was that. Maybe it wasn’t even her any more. “Kaila, I don’t know if… I don’t know if this is you doing this out of fear or something else getting more control…” He called to her, “but you can fight it! You are safe now. The goblins around you are under your control!”

  He fought against the goblins, pulling his right arm free and raised it to his mouth to help try and focus the direction of his yelling. “It’s all you Kaila! You can stop this! It’s Safe!”

  But nothing he shouted got her attention at all. Cal cursed, punching down into the goblins as if slamming his fist against a table. It wasn’t working. Nothing was. He was trapped now, unable to get back to her and he hadn’t gotten her to react a single… no, he had gotten her to react once. It hadn’t been a good reaction but… “All right, Kaila… lets give it another try.” He took in a breath, held his hand up like a cone and yelled, “Hey! Necromancer! It’s-” He wanted to say ‘it’s okay.’ He wanted to get her attention and then pull her out of it, but as soon as he said it, as soon as he triggered the response she reacted.

  She wailed in fear and another pulse of energy flooded out of her, but it didn’t only revitalise her fallen horde this time. There was a rumble and some cursing to his right, back in the direction of his allies. Cal turned to look and his eyes widened as he watched the Troll’s arm rise up and slam down again, pushing itself back up onto its knees. It didn’t make the noises of a troll and as it turned it’s head to face Cal he could see that it was not alive. It’s right eye was gone from Meliana’s stab and bits of brain were oozing down it’s face.

  It stumbled to its feet and turned to the inner cave, picking up its club ready to strike.

  Cal looked from it, back to Kaila. It was going to kill them, and the prisoners. He didn’t have a choice anymore. He raised a hand pointed at Kaila and-

  A shadow, quick and agile shot into the room, weaving between the skeletal and zombie legs. It weaved in and out, dodging every swipe and every grab until it was out from under the undead.

  It rushed through the space between them and Kaila and sank it’s little jaws into her arm.

  She yelped, but it was half hearted as, in that moment, she seemed to stumble back and with a quiet thud, she fell to her side.

  The undead instantly collapsed and the troll fell back down with a heavy thud. Cal was knocked to his knees with the weight of the undead and was thrown forward into the inner circle where he found Kaila unconscious on the floor with a full sized red fox sat on her body.

  “Hey Cal.” It said. “Spot of bother?”

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