Fallen Friends

“Keep freeing the wheels!” Anna told Clara as she popped the door open and clamored for the roof.

Hands reached up for Anna’s feet.

A yellow butcher’s knife clipped them off at the wrists.

Atop the roof, the reason for the darkness was obvious.

An enormous five story high tentacle had sprouted from a building at the end of the side street. Unlike an octopus’ smooth tentacle, this one was like a giant bundle of pale ropes, a living cable braided from millions of fungal threads. Ethereal silver swords and green great axes adorned its surface while smaller clear holes punched right through weeped milky fungal exudate.

Darker chitinous plates started to form on the living cable, armoring it up for the next barrage.

“It is too strong!” Dilara called, sweat beaded on her brow. The skin on the side of her exposed neck was raw and red. Her left hand quivered, a trace of blood dripping from it.

“Turn it to stone!”

“It will collapse on us!”

Anna kneeled and wrote on the carriage roof, sending up a bolt of necromantic energy, hitting the head of the cable and turning it to dust.

Fungal threads rapidly started filling back in the missing length, reconstituting it.

“Aim for the base!”

Anna wrote with an oil stick on her palm, the stylus switching mediums automatically.

Multiple missiles of purple-black energy blasted out from Anna’s outstretched hand. The missiles battered through the structure, demolishing it as they hammered the base of the tentacle in rapid succession.

The tentacle cable shuddered violently, thrashing about uncontrollably, flattening buildings beside it.

Anna and Dilara ducked in unison as it suddenly swiped overhead, flailing about.

“Hit it again!”

Another multitude of missiles struck at the base.

The tentacle violently seized then flopped over lifelessly, crushing some advancing zombies under its mass.

“Good job,” Dilara exhaled.

“Help!”

Down below, Clara was fending off multiple zombies climbing up the carriage sides, clipping off limbs with pastel knives to slow them.

Anna turned them to dust with a barrage of bolts.

The gauzed hand summoned a column of emerald tinged stone that slowly lifted up the back axle of the carriage, ripping the wheels free from the grasp of the roadbed hands. Fully freed, the front end spun in place. The mud magically firmed from silver threads, giving the wheels something to dig into.

The carriage jolted forward.

Anna steadied Dilara.

The two balanced each other atop the roof as the horseless carriage reached the end of the side street, turning on to another cobbled main street, picking up speed. Infrequent zombies that wandered out from the buildings were simply mowed over.

“We need to keep moving.”

“Are we headed the right way?” Anna asked.

“It has been a long time.” Dilara’s silver streak of hair fluttered in the wind. “I am not sure.”

Anna looked upon her face. “You are still beautiful.”

Dilara ignored the comment. Her face expressed hurt.

The earth sloped gradually, carrying the road above the level of the shallow pools.

“We seem to be headed uphill.”

The cobbled road reached a large dusty plaza. The air smelled faintly chemical. At one time there may have been grass but it was long gone. The skeletal remains of encrusted trees lined the plaza, reduced to central trunks with a few main branches. At the far end of the plaza stood a partially collapsed cathedral, constructed of stone with crystal flourishes. Adjacent to it was the churchyard, monuments to the deceased standing higher than the stone wall around it. Copious amounts of steam billowed up from thermal vents within the yard.

The carriage rolled over the dusty ground, slowing as it approached the center of the plaza.

A number of corpses formed concentric rings around a central point.

The outermost ring was armored men with mundane weapons.

The second ring was a mix of men and women dressed in linens and wools, some still gripping quills.

At the center lay two finely dressed young women. Their hair fluttered in the dry wind.

“It looks like a desperate final stand,” Clara said, leaning out a broken window.

The carriage stopped.

Green stylish ethereal stairs allowed Dilara to descend gracefully to the ground.

“This is it,” she said gravely.

Anna followed down the stairs, eyes never wavering from the fallen noblewomen.

“I should know them. But I do not.”

“I do. They were your apprentices,” Dilara replied solemnly. She stooped to raise the overgown of one, using it to cover the corpse’s face. She then began to search the woman’s satchel, producing two quills. She shook each, listening for internal ink. One was tossed aside, the other she tucked inside the pall.

“Any luck,” she asked of Clara.

“No,” Clara replied, straightening after covering the second noblewoman’s face.

“What now?” Anna asked.

“I do not know,” Dilara replied, turning to face the dry wind. “I am certain it will come for us soon enough.”

The wind blew again, carrying a small dust devil across the empty plaza.

“Dilara,” the wind finally whispered. “At last. You have come.”

“You wanted Anna to bring me. Here I am. Unwillingly,” Dilara replied, facing the wind.

“Good. Now this realm. Will be mine.”

“You are mistaken,” Dilara answered firmly. “It is mine.”

“We. Shall. See.”

Numerous pale fibrous tendrils pushed up from the plaza’s packed earth, seeking out the corpses.

Anna grabbed the corpse of the closest noblewoman, dragging it away from an outstretching tendril. She stomped on another with her foot.

Clara’s pastel knives severed those that reached for the other noblewoman.

“You cannot. Save them all.”

The tendrils wormed into the rotting, sunken flesh, filling each body back to full fungal vitality. The fallen slowly stood, faces replaced by smooth chitinous plates, hair shedding away as large mushroom caps covered their heads.

“The Great Undeath,” the stylus murmured. “Is at hand.”