Chapter 17 - Descending the Roost

Hulbard was used to rattling with every step he took but now the rattling of his armour was joined by the satisfying clink of gold coins. It was just the sound he'd needed to lift his weary spirits. A reminder, with every dogged step, that their time in Dalághast hadn't been wasted.

They'd ransacked the treasury; a dozen canvas sacks had been dragged out of their packs, filled to the brim with glittering gold, and lashed to every available place they could find on their bodies. More had flowed into every pocket and pouch the companions had, while anything not deemed absolutely necessary to their survival had been left behind. Hulbard felt the weight of his own pack drag against his broad shoulders, while his waist bristled with canvas bags that jingled against his thighs as he moved. Their combined weight was considerable, but a burden he was happy to bear.

Despite their exhaustive efforts, they'd still been forced to leave the better half of the gold coins behind, unable to make enough room to carry it all; a fact that Shankhill lamented most bitterly.

Hulbard had no way of knowing how much each coin would be worth, but he figured the solid gold currency of a long dead civilisation would fetch a fair price in just about any market he could think of. Between Sorcerers, collectors, antique nuts and nobles, he had no doubt they'd be able to move the gold without any real problems, even without Shankhill's contacts. Then there were the territories which dealt in no real currency, only the quality of each coin. There, even a single bag of gold coins would be worth a solid fortune.

Their spirits were high as Hulbard led the way back up the narrow staircase and into the main hall of the bastion above. As usual though, his elation didn't last long. He was the first to surmount the steps and spot the three figures waiting for them at the base of the iron staircase.They were standing so still that he had to do a double take. Stepping to one side, he cleared the doorway for those behind to follow and had to resist the urge to heave an exasperated sigh.

"What now?" he mumbled irritably, his adrenaline already spiking as he scanned the trio ahead.

Even from a distance and with the hall still cloaked in shadow, he could tell there was something 'off' about their appearance at a glance.

"Who are they?" he snapped over his shoulder at the hulking form of Darthalius.

"No one I've ever met before," Darthalius' voice rumbled through the air, "But if I had to guess...they would be the Blessed. The founding masters of the three great disciplines the Roost was built to honour. They should have been interred in the uppermost chambers of this hall, though I would guess our confrontation with Laertus woke them up".

That set Hulbard's senses on edge and his unease only mounted as he examined the three figures gathered beneath the staircase, filling the hall with stoic stillness and silence. On the left stood a tall, emaciated man with grey skin that reminded him of a corpse. His features were so sharp and angular they might as well have been carved from stone, his hair shaved and his glittering eyes sunk deep into dark sockets. He wore a battered leather hauberk, only loosely studded with sparse iron rivets and, in one loose, long fingered hand, he held the curved handle of a single bladed axe.

Next to him stood a shorter man in a heavy, scarred iron breastplate, his figure bowed under the weight of it. A shock of wispy white hair hung about his features, though Hulbard could see little enough of them in the gloom. What he did see was the grey blindfold tied tight around his eyes. This one's arms had been wrapped in threadbare strips of grimy, grey cloth and he held a coiled whip in one hand.

The third and final figure was by far the strangest. He crouched on the right, long legs sheathed in dull armour. Large, forward curving blades had been fixed to his shins, angled outwards at a vicious angle to slice into anyone the wielder kicked; a vicious looking piece of weaponry, if someone were fast and nimble enough to make use of those lethal blades.

His chest was likewise covered in a bulky, angular breastplate, but not the figure's arms. Those were completely absent. Above, he wore a full faced helm crowned with a pair of ivory horns sweeping back over the figure's ears. Or, he corrected himself, where he assumed the man's ears were at least.

"What makes you think it's them?" Shankhill asked, peering around Hulbard's shoulder.

"Because I see hints of my own curse in them," the construct grated.

Lifting one huge hand, he pointed to each of the three dead men in turn.

"The artist with no eyes. The sculptor with no hands. The poet with no voice".

"Cruel," Knox muttered, joining them just outside the doorway.

"My heart bleeds," Shankhill said sourly, "What do they want?"

"They're probably not too happy about the fact that we just walked out of their vault with our pockets full of gold coins," Hulbard said quietly. "I know I wouldn't be".

"What do we do?" Skye's voice this time from behind, soft and wary.

"I do not know," Darthalius grated quietly.

"Do you think they'll mind if we try to leave with all their gold?" Shankhill whispered.

"Probably," their guide allowed, "Though it seems possible they might just want us to leave them in peace since they haven't attacked yet".

"That sounds like my kind of scenario" Hulbard muttered skeptically, "Anything to avoid another fight in this place".

Glancing towards the yawning doorway that led back out onto the apex of the Roost, Hulbard began to walk towards it with all the confidence he could muster. He kept his gaze riveted to the three figures every step of the way and their heads turned as one to watch him go. Something about their cold, silent presence sent a shiver up his spine.The air between them was so thick with tension that he could almost taste it.

Hulbard was so fixated on them, that he didn't notice Shankhill drift away from them. He didn't hear the scuffing of his feet against bare stone as he climbed. He only heard the resounding, jarring clash of metal striking stone when he was halfway to safety. Hulbard whirled.

Shankhill hung from the outstretched arm of the dark statue set just within the hall's doors. The fist sized emerald necklace lay beneath the pedestal, where he'd clearly dropped it.

"Shankhill," he breathed in mounting horror, "You fucking idi-"

The hall suddenly resounded with the grating crunch and crackle of stone shifting. The sound rang out until it filled the hall to its very rafters and reverberated from its walls like rolling thunder. The great statue lurched into sickening motion. It stepped from the alcove like a nightmare brought to life and shattered the tiles underfoot with its weight alone. Shankhill squealed as the colossus sent him sailing through the air with a casual sweep of its arm. He crashed into the tiles just in front of Hulbard and slid clean past him, but he didn't even spare the man a glance.

He couldn't take his eyes off the towering behemoth that had just come to life before his very eyes. Standing almost twenty feet tall and carved from jet black stone, it had been sculpted to resemble a man in a loincloth. Its left hand had been outstretched to hold the necklace, but in its right, the monster held a vast stone halberd. The blade alone was easily as tall as Hulbard.

Stern, unmoving features turned to regard the trespassers with surreal slowness. All three of Darthalius' dead Blessed started forward as one.

"No," Hulbard breathed against the inevitable, "Shit! Run!"

Turning, he saw Knox already helping Shankhill off the floor and he nearly bowled the smaller man over as he thundered past.

"Run!" he snarled again and they flew through the gaping doorway.

Crossing the plaza beyond was a shaking, jolting blur. Just as he reached the staircase leading over the edge of the monument, Hulbard snatched a glance over his shoulder and felt his heart seize in his chest. The doorway exploded outwards as the statue barrelled into it, showering chunks of marble across the plaza they'd just left behind. A cloud of grey dust billowed forth and the monster came marching through, a great dark shape against the swirling vapour.

With his heart pounding in his throat so hard it felt like he could scarcely breathe, Hulbard flung himself down the spiral staircase after the others. Darthalius leapt past him on the way down, all six limbs moving in a flurry of frantic motion. Rattling down onto the platform below the Roosts' peak, Knox took the lead. He sprinted down a nearby roadway, aiming for the way they'd come.

"Whe-where a-are we…" Shankhill gasped with every jarring step.

"Run!" Hulbard barked back at him and that one order resounded within his own mind, blotting out everything else except the blind need to escape.

Careening around a corner, he took the next flight of steps three at a time but he'd barely landed in the street beyond before there came a momentous crash from behind. The impact rocked Hulbard to his very core and nearly flung the armoured giant clean off his feet. He skidded on the marble tiles underfoot, half fell and only just caught himself on the corner of a low wall. His eyes flitted back towards the platform beneath the Roosts' apex. The dark statue was standing there, rising from the crouch it had landed in. White powder rose around its feet from where its bulk had pulverised the marble upon impact.

Hulbard lurched back into an ungainly, lumbering run after his companions, every breath rasping through grit teeth. Shankhill was just ahead, floundering under the weight of gold in his own backpack, only barely keeping pace with Quintus. Even above the hammering of his own heart, though, Hulbard heard the thundering footsteps following. He saw Shankhill look over his shoulder, heard him squeak as his eyes went wide. The damn thing was moving faster than any of them had thought possible.

A shadow fell over him and Hulbard shot one last desperate look behind, just in time to see one of the statues feet plunge straight through a balcony to one side. It jerked at the very last second, saving itself from a plunge with stunning speed and agility. It moved fast for something of its size. Too fast.

The balcony split and fell away, crashing to the tiered levels below. Righting itself with an ungainly wrench of its body, the onyx statue brought its halberd sweeping down in an overhead slash. Instinct made Hulbard skip to one side as every muscle in his body reflexively clenched. The blade crashed into the ground to one side with all the weight of a falling mountain, scarcely three foot distant, spraying him with shards of shattered stone and splitting the platform apart under his feet.

"No," he gasped against the inevitable, feet scrabbling against the tilting, writhing stone underfoot.

A crack shot ahead of him through the marble, split a building in half and sent it crumbling to dust. His companions scattered around it and Hulbard felt the ground underfoot tilt sickeningly towards the murderous drop on his right. He danced clumsily across the cracked ground and flung himself on while one half of the entire platform began to splinter apart and fall to pieces. He flung himself headlong after the others, overtaking Shankhill in a sprint down a wide staircase. They left half the plaza behind to plunge into the open abyss in their wake. They landed in another plaza with low buildings gathered on the left and a series of slender, smaller platforms on the right.

Something cracked into the stone behind him and Hulbard was suddenly struck from behind, lifted clean off his feet and sent skidding across the plaza with a grunt. Chunks of marble skittered ahead of him; had the statue just flung a fistful of rubble at him? Son of a bitch. He grated to a halt on his back after several feet and looked up to see the monster loom over him. That great, stone halberd tilted back and then plunged towards him with sickening finality.

Instinct made him roll. That was all that saved him.

Again, the blade sliced into the cold, white marble tiles with devastating force. Enough to sunder the plaza in half. He tried to find his feet but something was wrong; the world tilted around him and his feet skidded on the tiles. Flailing, he fell back to his knee, mind swimming, guts heaving. He was staring at the ground when it broke apart beneath him. With a sickening lurch, it suddenly fell out from under him. He flung out a hand for the nearest ledge but his fingers closed on empty air.

"Fu-" he gasped as the world opened up around him.

Muscles seized in terror, he plummeted into empty space. His eyes locked the ledge overhead, past the crumbling stone falling all around him, watching numbly as it soared higher and higher by the second. Primal terror sank into his very bones and stole all thought from his mind.

Hulbard fell almost forty feet before he landed in a pool of water. It struck him like a hammer, rattled him to the very marrow of his bones before closing in around him. Kicking and flailing, he plunged to the bottom of the pool, tangled in his own cloak, dragged down into the dark depths by his armour. He tried to find his feet, to right and orient himself but before he could, Hulbard felt an impact ripple through the water.

Damn.

That one word was all that passed through his mind before the pool suddenly tilted backwards, sloshing most of its water over the side in a tidal wave that almost dragged him with it. Rubble from the destruction above had rained down on the platform below and it had given way with a sickening lurch, cut free of the Roost. Snarling through grit teeth, Hulbard was slammed against the wall of the basin as it entered freefall. He experienced a surreal moment of stillness, before the water remaining in the pool was whisked past him. Above its lip, he saw a sprawling vista of balconies fast approaching from below. There were several of them but the closest was rising with staggering speed towards him.

Fighting through the paralysing terror, he crouched as the platform tumbled and flung himself into empty air with all the strength he could muster, eyes fixed on the closest platform, still some ten feet below. It took a single, frenzied heartbeat to realise he'd mistimed the jump. Badly.

He plunged past his target like a comet. Instead of landing on the platform above, Hulbard smashed into the slanted roof of a building some fifteen feet below. Of all the impacts he'd suffered that day, this one was by far the worst. He scrabbled mindlessly at the grey slates but the weight of his armour and gold laden backpack dragged him inexorably towards the edge. Winded and disorientated, there was nothing he could do to stop his descent.

Hulbard crashed down into the street below with a resounding crash a second later. He lay sprawled on his back for a long, long moment before remembering to breathe. Air flooded into his burning lungs and pain seemed to bloom with it through his entire body. His first exhaled emerged as an agonised groan of sheer surrender. Blinking blood and sweat from his eyes, Hulbard painstakingly made himself sit up with a monumental force of will. His vision swam but instinct drove him on and he slowly worked one knee under himself. Shoving himself back upright was a grueling test of his endurance.

He barely heard the thunder of approaching footsteps, looked up just in time to see the statue looming. Hulbard scarcely registered the fact that the statue had caught up with him before a figure of crimson flesh with too many arms crashed into the creature from above. Darthalius slammed into the statue with enough force to wrench it off balance. Its foot missed its mark and plunged past the edge of the nearest balcony. Hulbard's eyes widened as he watched the colossus fall ponderously from view.

He staggered drunkenly across to the edge of the precipice and peered over it. Darthalius grappled with the vast creature as they plummeted towards the ground far below with truly staggering speed. He winced when they struck the ground some three hundred feet below with a dull, delayed crunch. Hulbard watched the black rubble below for a long second before carefully stepping back from the abyss.

His senses were still swimming after his death defying flight through the air, but instinct made him take stock of the situation; his muscles were aching and heavy, but there was no sharp, stabbing pain when he moved to suggest he'd broken anything in his fall. He could walk and that was the most important thing. Hulbard groped at his side and found both of his weapons there, before reaching for his shield. It was gone, but it only took him a second to spot it lying on the ground nearby, where it had come loose after his impact with the ground. The sight of it so close made him heave a sigh of breathless relief and he was about to march across to it when he caught a glimpse of something in his peripheral vision and turned to see a figure standing at the head of a nearby flight of stairs.

One of Darthalius' Blessed stood before him. Hulbard's senses snapped back into focus as he stared up into the scowling, pallid face of the axe wielding creature he'd seen in the temple high above them now. His eyes darted left and right, but the roost was suddenly very still and very silent. They were alone. He was alone.

Taking a deep breath, he took a cautious step towards his shield. Dropping into a compact crouch, the Blessed propelled himself into the air. He soared over Hulbard and landed on his shield with a resounding clatter. Rising to stand tall, the warrior kicked the shield back behind him and sent it sailing down a narrow alleyway. Hulbard reached for his side, managed to drag free one of his weapons and could tell from its heft that he'd found the warhammer instead of his flail.

He drew in a deep breath, exhaled it slow and smooth. Fresh aches were already blooming across his entire body, clamouring for his attention, but Hulbard pushed them aside, buried them under the sight of a foe in front of him. The Blessed hefted his single bladed axe and Hulbard eyed it warily; too light to be a serious threat but he'd seen similar weapons dent simpler armour than his own in the past and watched the men inside crumble under the sheer blunt force trauma.

The warrior artist before him now only wore a breastplate and Hulbard had already sized that up as well. It was all broad lines, flat and graceless, with no angles to help deflect incoming blows like his own. The warhammer would make mince meat of it, given half a chance. Hulbard doubted his ability to land a clean blow when his muscles felt like lead and his very bones hurt down to the marrow, but he'd never been one to shy away from a little pain.

The Blessed bolted for him and Hulbard stepped to meet him with a weak growl. He judged the range as they came together and brought his hammer around in a tight hook, aiming for his foe's head. The creature jerked his head back, let the weapon whir past his face and ducked low. His axe skittered across Hulbard's gut with a screech, snagged on one of the bags at his waist and spilled gold coins across the ground underfoot. Hulbard saw the axe come sweeping down in an overhead slash and smashed it aside with his bracer, sent the Blessed staggering but couldn't land a killing blow before he spun away.

"Come here, you little bastard," Hulbard hissed, advancing after him.

The creature before him ducked low as he came forward and that axe came around in a blur, aimed for his throat. Hulbard tried to swat it aside with his bracer again, but this time the hooked axe caught his forearm and dragged it aside, but not before Hulbard had swung. This time, his hammer crunched into the figure's gut with a clang, flung him off balance with a muted grunt.

Before he could regain his balance, Hulbard stepped close and caught the Blessed's left wrist in a vice like grip. He saw those long, grey fingers snap open and drop the axe into his waiting left hand. That hooked blade skittered across Hulbard's lead knee, almost sweeping it out from under him, but he kept a firm grip on the dead man's wrist, holding him fast. The axe whirred down in a vicious arc, coming back towards his shoulder, aiming for between his helmet and pauldron, but Hulbard had been waiting for that and he caught the blade on the haft of his war hammer. Their weapons scraped together and locked fast as he twisted, hooking them together.

Twisting the axe aside, Hulbard grit his teeth and heaved with all his considerable weight against the lighter man. He saw the warrior poet's eyes twitch as he was suddenly heaved backwards, and felt him struggle in his implacable grip. He drove him back until the Blessed slammed into the wall of the very same house Hulbard had just fallen from. Leaning down over the scowling creature, Hulbard used every ounce of strength left to him to pin his foe in place against the smooth stone wall.

Hulbard growled as he leaned down over the artist, every muscle in his body locked tight, every breath a surge of fresh fire through his aching lungs. Blood and sweat poured relentlessly down the left side of his face. The warrior artist glared up at him with dark eyes filled with unyielding, animal hatred, but his own body was trembling with the force of holding him at bay.

Hulbard leveraged every inch of his greater build to twist the creature's weapon down and away while keeping his right arm pinned between them. He tried to find the right footing to knee him, but couldn't guarantee his own balance and didn't want to give the Blessed any chance to slip free. So instead he took a deep, ragged breath and braced himself. There was a soft crackle as amber lightning darted between the spikes of his pauldron and he saw those beady eyes dart towards them.

More lightning rippled across his breastplate with a soft crackle, filling the air between them with an acrid, burning stench. The Blessed surged against him with renewed vigor, but Hulbard had the height and leverage, had the bastard pinned against the wall with nowhere to go.

Instead of guiding the energy towards his hands, he drew it inwards instead, coiled it around his body like a spring about to snap before letting loose. A crackling shockwave of amber lightning exploded outwards. It harmlessly splayed across the stone surrounding them but it tore through the Blessed like a hurricane. Everyu muscle in his body explosively locked and went into spasm. A soft, stuttering moan was spat from his spit flecked lips as the lightning ripped through his entire body in one fell swoop. Shoving himsefl backwards, Hulbard hefted his war hammer, took aim and swung.

Metal met flesh with a sickening crunch and a wet, meaty pop. With one swing, he reduced the Blessed's skull to pulped meat and shards of bone. Standing over the headless corpse, Hulbard watched it writhe in the throes of a seizure. It was an ugly way to fight and an even uglier way to die, but he'd seen it all before and decided long ago that it didn't matter so long as he was the one left breathing afterwards.

A sigh emerged from his lips as an exhausted growl. His heartbeat was hammering so loud in his ears that he could hear nothing else, and every breath felt like fire in his lungs, but he was alive and that's all that really mattered. Chest heaving, he turned to survey his surroundings. The Roost was still. Everything was eerily silent except for his own laboured breathing echoing back at him inside his helm. Grunting with satisfaction, he turned away from the trembling corpse and began his descent.

Hulbard made it a handful of levels before he heard his name being called from overhead. Lumbering to a sluggish halt, he turned to look back the way he'd come and saw Know on the edge of a platform above him. Lifting a hand to signal that he'd heard, Hulbard walked towards a nearby balcony, where he all but collapsed onto a blocky stone bench. Stretching out his burning legs, he settled down to wait for them.

Reaching up, he unclasped his helm and set it by his feet before lifting his fingers to the cut above his eyebrow, wincing as the split flesh there throbbed and sent needles of pain lancing through his eye.

It took his companions several long minutes to work their way down to him and as they drew closer, Hulbard saw that they definitely looked a little more ragged than the last time he'd seen them. Knox led the way, favouring one leg and wincing with every step he took, Trastgor had a shallow wound across one side of his chest that looped over his left shoulder and Quintus was ashen faced with exhaustion. Leaning heavily on his staff, the Sorcerer looked like he was about to keel over at any moment. Shankhill came slouching along behind and just the sight of him set Hulbard's heart to racing again.

"You're alive!" Knox beamed as he approached.

"You sound surprised," Hulbard noted wryly, smiling despite their circumstances.

"I am," the hunter chuckled, "Last I saw, you'd just gone over the edge".

"Yeah," Hulbard grated out the word with a sigh, "Thought I was dead myself there for a minute but a building broke my fall. I ran into one of those Blessed bastards afterwards and put him down".

"The other two are dead too," Skye spoke up as they gathered around the bench and her voice was a breath of fresh air after his death defying plunge, "What about the statue? Did you have anything to do with it falling over the edge?"

"Not really," Hulbard shook his head, "It came after me and Darthalius tackled it. They both went over the edge".

"Darthalius is dead?" Quintus asked sharply.

"I'm pretty sure he's a fine paste under the rubble below," the warrior told him.

"Uuuugh," Quintus groaned loudly, "Fuck! We needed him".

"So long as he took that statue with him, I'm not sure I see the downside," Shankhill piped up and just his voice was enough to make Hulbard's irritation start to seethe. "I never much liked him to begin with. Gave me the creeps".

"He saved my damn life," Hulbard half growled, eyeing the slender man, "From the statue you woke up.The same one that almost killed all of us multiple times over, set those other three bastards on us and took our only reliable guide over the edge of this forsaken place".

Shankhill lifted an eyebrow, though Hulbard couldn't tell if he was surprised by his tone, the news or the palpable tension bleeding from the armoured warrior.

"Unfortunate," he said evenly, "But we always have that mystery Sorceress to help give us some direction down here".

"That is beside the fucking point, Shankhill," Hulbard told him quietly as he laboured his bulk upright, "I almost died because you couldn't leave the damn thing alone. We all almost died. What use is that emerald to me if I'm dead?"

He tilted his head to one side and an edge crept into his voice as he took a step towards the smaller man.

"How much is it worth to you, Shankhill?" he asked in a dangerously quiet tone, "My life? Trastgor's too? Knox and Quintus? What about Semekt?"

"Alas, we'll never know," Shankhill told him with a theatrical sigh.

"And why not?" Hulbard growled.

"Because the idiot dropped it," Skye scoffed, "The statue stepped on it".

"In my defence," Shankhill shrugged helplessly, "It was hard to hold onto when I was flying through the air".

"Was the gold not enough?" Hulbard snarled, leaning down over him until Shankhill took a careful step backwards.

He held up his hands and flashed one of his most placating smiles.

"What can I say?" he asked, "It's not in my nature to leave something shiny behind".

"It's not in your nature to fight either!" Hulbard barked, loud enough to make him flinch. "Because I see everyone else here battered, bleeding or on the brink of a heart attack except you!"

He punctuated the word with a stab of one finger to Shankhill's chest, hard enough to send him stumbling back a step. It was what he settled for, when really he wanted to smash his face to bloody ruin with a punch.

"I am not a warrior," Shankhill said slowly and Hulbard could see his mask slipping; he was starting to get annoyed now.

While the rest of them had been beaten and bruised, a little poke to the chest was enough to rattle this man's nerves.

"No," Hulbard hissed, "You're not. You're a fucking idiot. And if you ever endanger my life by being a fucking idiot again, I'll endanger yours. Do you understand?"

"I'd watch your tone if I were you," Shankhill told him and this time, his voice was soft and his expression serious.

"Or what?" Hulbard snarled, his entire body rigid with the need to smash him to the ground, "What the fuck are you going to do about it? Something stupid to get us all killed? Because it seems like you've been doing that already you cowardly little bastard!"

"I'm not going to do anything," Shankhill told him calmly, "Because I won't have to. The four armed assassin behind you though? Probably going to do something, I'd say".

All it took was an instinctive twitch of his muscles and lightning danced across Hulbard's spiked pauldrons. Semekt? Hammer or flail?

"Enough," Quintus snapped, stepping between them, "Hulbard, you've said your piece. Shankhill, you fucked us back there. Don't let it happen again".

They stared at each other for another long second before the warrior turned away with a grunt of lingering annoyance. Stooping to pick up his helmet, he slapped it back into place and strode away with Knox and Trastgor by his side.