Chapter 12 - Bared flesh

The silence of Dalághast changed as they left the flooded port behind and it took Hulbard a few minutes to realise why; without the constant sound of rushing, rippling water, the city was consumed by a silence and stillness all its own.

The ruins that had come before had usually been empty, but alive in some way or another that the grand city before them now lacked. There'd always been some signs of animal life, from deer, elk and moose to nesting birds and basking lizards, but here, only the choking weeds rising from whatever stranglehold they'd been able to claim between the stone underfoot seemed to live and breathe.

There adventures had taken the band of sellswords to ruins that could have only favourably been called rubble but the structures around them now, for all their age, were still mostly intact. Their empty doorways and windows gaped at them as they passed, the rooms within blanketed in deep shadow despite the clear sky overhead. There was something about it all that left Hulbard with an uneasy feeling in his gut. The sheer emptiness of such a huge place, once filled to the brim with life, left an eerie impression sneaking its way up his spine. Judging by his companions furtive glances, he knew they could feel it too.

The only sounds accompanying them now, beyond the softly keening wind, were those they made themselves; the gentle rhythm of Hulbard's rattling footsteps, the soft rustling of Skye's robes, the measured tapping of Quintus' staff on the flagstones, the rasp of Semekt's scales.

The roadway led them from the sea wall to a large plaza, where the slabs of multicoloured stones underfoot had been arranged into a vast fresco. Seemed strange to Hulbard, putting so much time and effort into something people were just sure to walk over every day, but he'd always been more inclined towards weaponry where aesthetics came into it. More grass and spindly weeds stabbed through the cracks between them, clutching at Hulbard's legs as he passed.

The space was dominated by a circular marble plinth with a towering statue of dull white, grey specked marble. Though the figures features had been worn away into an expressionless mask by the biting wind, it still stood tall and proud with a ledger in one hand and a quill poised above its open pages in the other. The wanderer's paused in its shadow to survey their surroundings and Hulbard quickly picked up on the fact that most buildings opening out into the plaza sported very long, rectangular windows across their fronts that immediately put him in the mind of a marketplace. He supposed people must have sold goods from their homes at one point in the distant past, but now those makeshift shelves sat as silent as the grave beneath personal gardens and terraces, many of them complete with the skeletal remains of stone shelters.

Narrow streets wound outwards from the plaza, while another roadway just as wide as the one they'd just traversed led deeper into the city.

"A primitive marketplace of some kind," Quintus surmised airily.

"Still looks better than most places nowadays," Shankhill quipped.

"Which way do we go from here?" Knox asked, scanning the rooftops.

"Well, if you want that question answered, seems to me like the best bet is to hop up onto one of these rooftops to take a look around," Shankhill suggested.

Hulbard picked out the nearest building with a large rooftop patio and led the way through its empty doorway. Beyond, a space stood behind the open window at the front of the home, where stock had likely been arranged but which was now coated in a thick layer of dust. Again, the warrior was struck by the eerie truth that people had once lived and thrived in that room and thoughts of their daily lives, long since extinguished, clamoured for attention inside his mind. It was, like the city surrounding that lonely room, a spine chilling reminder of just how merciless time could be. Feeling a dull, aching sense of melancholia rising within his chest, he pushed the thought away and began to climb.

A narrow staircase up to the small second floor of the building, where a second doorway opened out onto the rooftop he'd seen from below. The stone underfoot was choked with creeping vines where they'd spilled from their pots and taken hold of the terrace. The rooftop itself was scarcely much taller than its neighbours, but it still offered them an advantageous overview of their surroundings.

A variety of rooftops, lacking the grand statues and facades of the port district rolled away from the plaza below, creating a picturesque skyline broken up by several larger buildings here and there. Each and every one of these giants looked wider than most villages Hulbard had seen in the past, bedecked with ornate architecture and crowned with statues of their own. Even from where he stood and with his amateurs eye for such things, he could make out the intricate scrollwork scrawled across their faces. Despite the closer building, though, his eyes were drawn further north, to where a colossal archway of white stone shone in the morning sunlight. Beyond that again, he saw the shadowy outline of a spire in the far distance.

"I'm going to assume that's where we're going," he said, pointing.

"I would imagine so," Quintus replied, squinting shrewdly, but Hulbard saw the man's eyes darting across the closer structures, "Let's keep going".

Retracing their steps, they made their way back out into the deathly still plaza and continued northwards. This time, Quintus led the way with Skye at one shoulder and Hulbard at the other. The older man was utterly engrossed in their surroundings while their companions traipsed or slithered along in their wake. He spoke in hushed reverence, while his Apprentice hummed and absently nodded along to his comments.

With nothing to add to their conversation, Hulbard scanned their surroundings with an eye for anything out of place, instinctively searching for even the most minute signs of danger lurking amongst the empty shells on all sides without really knowing what he was looking for. It wasn't long, though, before the buildings along the roadway began to capture his attention instead.

Great structures of stone reared above them, wrought with arches and inscriptions the likes of which he'd never seen before and it didn't take someone with Quintus' understanding of the place to get sucked into the marvels of what had been built around them. The entire scene, without the constant gurgle and motion of rushing water, left him with a strangely unreal sense of isolation. There seemed too much to see everywhere he looked, but one in particular caught his attention.

Opening onto the roadway ahead of them, a vast structure of gold veined black granite towered above its neighbours. It was also the first of the larger buildings they'd yet to cross directly, linked to the road by a set of weather worn, grey steps that led up to a looming doorway almost twenty feet in height and occupied by a set of brass doors.

Niches lined the walls in place of windows, each one varied in shape but invariably housing a multitude of different statues. These ranged from single figures in robes or impractical looking armour to twisted, winged creatures leering hungrily down at the empty streets below.

Higher still and the rooftop was practically alive with more of the grotesque sculptures. Most had been artfully arranged to look like they were clinging to the stonework, while others held aloft spears, swords and scepters with wild expressions on their faces.

"Now that's an interesting looking building," Hulbard commented, nodding towards it.

Curiosity was starting to get the better of him with so many intact structures now surrounding them in place of the half flooded, decrepit ruins they'd spent the last few days traversing and he'd counted on his companions feeling the same way as he cast the bait.

"It looks like a theatre, if I had to take a shot in the dark," Quintus told him, thoughtfully stroking his long, braided beard, "The works I read from authors and refugees fleeing the fall weren't very straightforward, the language and style is archaic, but I remember a poem that mentioned their performances being watched over by creatures like these. I wish I'd taken the time to memorise those accounts. That way I'd be able to start quoting grandiose descriptions about places like this but honestly, I never thought I'd need to. This place was a legend. Little more than an easy mark in an exam for most historical students".

"Such a shame we don't get to hear you start butchering poetry," Shankhill chuckled. "I'm not sure how we'll survive without that invaluable experience".

"Comfortably, I think," Knox suggested, "But this is one strange looking building all the same. Even for this place".

"I'm glad you think so," Quintus eyed the street ahead before taking stock of the sun's position overhead, "Because we're going to be taking a look inside".

And there it was, Hulbard's little trick; with his mere suggestion, it was easier to second an opinion he wanted than to offer the idea himself. Especially when it was Quintus making the decision. All it had taken was a little prodding and an eye for the Sorcerer's mounting curiosity to exploit the situation.

"Sounds like a plan," he agreed heartily, already loosening the weapons at his side.

"I suppose we might as well while we're here," Shankhill shrugged.

"I have no love for this idea," Trastgor's deep, bass growl came from behind and Hulbard turned to see him regarding the building with a furious frown.

Not surprising, it had to be said, when the Kurgal had never been overly fond of buildings to begin with.

"You have no love for anything civilised," Quintus snorted before starting up the steps, stride sure and smooth.

Skye gave Trastgor a helpless shrug before following her Master and Hulbard fell into step at her shoulder.

"Don't worry Trast," he heard Knox say from behind, "It's only an empty building".

The brass doors stood slightly ajar and their faces were crowded with inscriptions, many of which had been completely eroded away by the passage of time. Hulbard thought he could pick out the vague outlines of curtained stages here and there amongst the weathered carvings, portraying men and women with their arms outstretched towards an imaginary crowd or caught mid leap in an acrobatic dance.

"Have any of you seen a play in a proper theatre before?" Skye asked quietly, eyes wide as she looked up at the towering doors.

"Can't say that I have," Hulbard told her, brows furrowing as he tried to make sense of the inscriptions, "I've only seen a few puppeteers at markets and the like. Nothing even close to this".

"Same as myself then," the Apprentice muttered.

"Can't imagine that they did much with puppets here," Quintus added and, when he saw their equally blank expressions, continued, "They would act out stories on stages in places like this. Other people would dance or sing and their audience was the general public instead of exclusively aimed towards the nobility. It was all very much aimed towards the common man, but they would have balconies for the wealthier patrons, servants with drinks and foods at the ready, soldiers and guards on standby, that sort of thing".

"Sounds like exactly the kind of place I'm going to be lording away my time when we get out of this cesspit," Shankhill declared as he joined them, "Now get in there. There might be something decent we can loot".

Hulbard was first through the opening and the others followed along in his footsteps, stepping into a tall and wide entryway cloaked in cloying shadow. A dull lance of light stabbed through the slit between the doorways to illuminate little besides a worn, threadbare carpet leading deeper into the building. Beneath a fine layer of dust, Hulbard got the impression that it had once been gold in colour and trimmed with silver thread. Above that single ray of light, everything was lost in deeper gloom, but it was just enough to make out another entryway ahead, opening into a much larger hall.

Hulbard heard the rasp of flint against steel and half turned to accept the oil lamp offered by Trastgor. The wick burned bright within a glass case and its light was flung forward into a flickering yellow beam by a small mirror set behind the flame. Hulbard swept it across the entryway, making out whorls and swirling designs wrought into the stone around it but little else. Silence hung about the emptiness without even the whistling wind to break it, adding to the surreal sense of scope and scale beyond what he could see.

Hulbard was the first through the second archway and into the chamber beyond, where he was met by an immeasurably immense hall. The beam of his lantern swung right, cutting through a darkness so thick he'd only ever seen the same in caves before, while Trastgor's sliced left.

Wooden pews materialised before the questing light to either side of an aisle stretching away from the entrance into an endless void of night deep darkness. Even in decrepitude, it was clear the furniture had once been beautiful, with artfully crafted arms and the tattered remains of cushions running along their seats.

"The stage would be down there," Quintus' voice was soft and subdued as he pointed down the aisle with his bladed staff and they set off along the aisle between row after row of empty seating.

Every sound their movements made in that space died the moment it was born in the immensity of that dark hall and, despite his curiosity, Hulbard's fearless stride was a lie. A cold dread began to take hold as he plunged into the cavernous, expressionless dark of that place. Their lanterns lit the way but picked out nothing substantial beyond the seats to either side. There was nothing of the night in that hall; only the eeries absence of definition and even that seemed to be closing in around them in a choking embtrace. The entrance grew more and more distant with every step they took and, after almost forty of them without an end in sight, Hulbard's thread was beginning to falter.. Skye's voice, soft as it was, made him flinch at its suddenness.

"It feels weird here," she half whispered.

"About time you felt it," Quintus grumbled, "The entire city feels that way. You're just never focused enough to feel it. You're on edge right now. That's why you're finally feeling it".

Hulbard was about to hush them when his lantern picked up the distinctive glint of metal ahead, at the very limit of its reach.

"Look," he hissed instead, taking a step forward and he felt the others crowd close behind.

Hulbard panned the lantern's dull light left and right to reveal a wall of pitted grey metal ahead of them wrought into the likeness of twisting vines lined with jagged, razor edged leaves. These had been sculpted around a tall stage of half crumbling wooden boards almost as tall as he was. Trastgor' lantern joined his own and together, they rose higher to take in the scope of the platform arranged before them. Their lights picked out a trio of wooden poles planted on the stage, rising into the air and set at subtle angles to meet overhead.

As Hulbard's beam of light travelled towards their tips, he froze. The warrior's heart skipped a painful beat as he gaped at the sight rearing above them. Not poles. Spears.

A figure had been neatly impaled at their tips; lifted high off the stage, the man had been skewered through his guts, one of his thighs, an arm and chest. His head lolled grotesquely backwards like a chicken with a snapped neck. The sockets stood empty but even so, they seemed to stare down at Hulbard. His flesh was as withered as aged parchment and stretched thin over protruding bones. One of his arms had been spiked near the wrist to bend the limb into the semblance of a man reaching for help, while the legs had been neatly folded up behind him. The other skeletal hand was closed around one of the shafts piercing his chest, its grip still locked tight in place. The spears themselves were stained a deep brown with age old blood.

Hulbard stared at the scene, aghast at the sheer wrongness of the sight for a long, silent moment. A thousand thoughts vied for attention within his mind but he could bring none of them into focus. Instead, he simply stood and stared.

"Alright," Knox hummed softly, "Anyone got an explanation for this one?"

His Kurgal companion had already turned to rake their surroundings with his lantern, panning the light across the barren seating to either side. His beam rose higher to play across the indistinct shapes of low balconies built into the nearest wall. His heavy falcata rasped free of its sheath and the Kurgal hefted it, face set in a frown.

"Well, clearly someone had a good time here," Quintus said, "Take solace in the fact that it doesn't look recent".

The Sorcerer took a step forward. There was the sudden sharp sound of rustling from the stage. Everyone froze. All eyes turned towards the corpse but it remained as motionless as when they'd first seen it. The rustling came again, like a heavy roll of cloth being disturbed. There was a flurry of movement; Hulbard's warhammer leapt to his hand, Knox slipped his bow free of its sheath, Semekt reared and reached for his blades with a low, reptilian hiss. There came again the deep rustle of heavy cloth being shifted and something loomed into view behind the speared centrepiece of the stage.

A round of exclamations went up as Hulbard's lantern illuminated a slab of flesh. Not skin. Flesh. Bared, glistening crimson muscles streaked with blue veins moved into the orange light and took on the looming form of a humanoid figure. Even hunched over, it was easily taller than the warrior by a good three feet, the misshapen lump of its head almost lost between the mountains of the creatures shoulders. Resting there though, atop a short and thick neck, was a face with four eye sockets but only one glittering, pale eye. As if it had been hastily stitched together by a blind man, its ruin of a jawbone was jagged and asymmetrical as it yawned open to reveal another jaw within. The lantern light played across rows of triangular, irregularly shaped, razor sharp fangs.

A low, hollow bellow escaped that vast, barrel chested beast as Hulbard's blood ran cold in his veins. He felt the rumble of its thread as the beast lumbered forward through the soles of his feet and the breath hitched in his throat. Instinct saved him; Hulbard stumbled back a step as the creature dropped to the floorboards from the stage with a hollow thud, drew back and his arm and smashed the lantern into the ground at his own feet. It shattered in an instant but he barely heard the sound of glass breaking as it spewed liquid fire across the carpet and nearest pews. He backpedalled and the others did the same as the monster moved towards them, a dark shape against the deeper darkness, and stepped into the flickering flames, awkwardly hobbling after them.

They'd never been intended to deter the thing though, only illuminate the area and by the flickering flames, Hulbard set his sights on the loathsome monster. The warrior didn't freeze. He never froze when faced with a fight, but bile rose in his throat as horror warred within his heart, urging every muscle in his body to turn and run. The unnatural abomination before him was beyond anything he'd ever seen before and the very sight of its skinned flesh rippling in the chaotic flames turned his stomach. Instead, he found his shield and it slid into position in front of him of its own accord.

Through the haze of shock, fear and revulsion, he squashed the questions wrestling for his attention, judged where his companions had been and took a step to his left; straight in front of Quintus and away from Knox.

One of those impossibly long arms came up and around, a solid swathe of darkness against the lesser shadows. Hulbard angled his shield by instinct and stepped into the blow, felt those claws screech across the face of his shield before being deflected wide. The stroke continued on to sunder one of the pews to shards in an explosion of splinters.

Hulbard was sent stumbling back a step and he only distantly heard the hum of an arrow passing through the air close by. It sliced into the creatures chest, missing its head by mere inches, but the beast never so much as flinched. Instead it swung at Hulbard again and he was forced back a step by a blow against his shield that almost tore him off his feet.

As he found his footing with a vicious snarl, a lance of sapphire blue light split the darkness. Spawned from the tip of Quintus' staff, it slashed into the monsters shoulder and sheared a chunk of flesh away from it. A monotone, grating gargle boomed low and sonorous from the skinned beast as droplets of thick, black blood sprouted from the fresh wound. The toll of its deep, hollow bellow ceased as the beast dropped into a crouch, ready to spring at them. That was when Hulbard caught a glimpse of Semekt through the roaring oil fire he'd ignited. Four scimitars struck as one, slicing across the monsters hamstrings with a sinuous, fleshy 'snick!' The wicked blades wrought a red harvest through the bared flesh, bringing the giant to its knees with a crash and giving Hulbard the opening he'd been waiting for.

He bulled forward and raised his hammer high with a bestial roar. The weapon plunged down into the creature's misshapen head with all his weight behind the blow, but glanced free of its angular skull as it trashed and snarled. The impact was enough to nearly rip the weapon from his grasp and Hulbard was dragged off balance in a heartbeat. A massive hand slapped against his breastplate and flung the warrior back a step. His heel caught on the tattered carpet and he floundered back into one of the pews with a crash of metal.

Ignoring the pain blooming between his shoulder blades, Hulbard lurched back upright with a growl, his senses strained to their limits as the skinned beast whirled, reaching for Semekt but only catching the nearest pews, rending them to pieces with a monumental crunch. Hulbard's eyes narrowed on the lumbering shadow backlit by the flickering flames. A thought was enough to ignite the power within his armour. It responded to his will in a heartbeat and sent warmth radiating through his limbs. The topaz gems inset into his armour shone with a light wholly their own as he took another step forward. Pinpricks of gold lightning snapped between the spikes of his armour, cracking where they arched from one point to the next. It licked across the plates of his armour, filling the air with the rhythm of raw crackling.

The beast lurched, groping for Trastgor while Semekt's blades cut deep from behind, its head hanging low. Seeing his opening, Hulbard threw himself forward. Amber lightning surged up the haft of the warhammer in his grip, igniting in an instant with a loud, buzzing hum. It collected around the head of the weapon to form a pulsating, rippling halo of dazzling orange light. His aim was true. The warhammer smashed into the creatures skull with an explosive 'CRACK!'

The lightning housed in the weapon detonated in a shockwave that reduced the monsters head to a fine pink mist. A spray of teeth, trailing sparking lighting, zipped through the air to land among the pews.

With the lightning bleeding outwards from the gemstones across the plates of his armour, Hulbard took a measured step backwards and the creature smashed to the ground at his feet, limp and lifeless. The amber light flickered across the spikes along his pauldrons, warring with the glow from the dying flames behind the corpse for a long second before the energy dissipated into the surrounding air with a gentle hiss, leaving them all shrouded in silence save for the spitting, burning oil.

Looking to his companions, Hulbard saw the tension explosively drain from them; Knox grinning wide, Quintus huffing a breathless sigh, Skye's eyes gleaming. None of them looked hurt, which had been his real concern given what they'd just faced and the warrior heaved his own sigh of relief. Lifting an ironclad hand, he dragged several stray braided strands of hair back from his face and shook them out. He focused on steadying his heaving breathing and felt his frenzied heartbeat starting to follow suit.

Once he'd gathered his wits, Quintus stooped to pick up the second lanter, dropped by Trastgor in his own charge but unbroken, and approached the carcass. Everyone gathered around him as the Sorcerer panned the orange light across the mountain of bared muscle they'd all just felled, none daring to speak for a long moment. With a closer look at the thing, Hulbard saw that they weren't the first people it had fought; deep wounds crisscrossed its body ranging from gashes to puncture wounds that looked like they would have sank into every vital organ the creature possessed. His eyes ran lower, across its thighs where Semekt's scimitars had done their work. Here were a host of fresh wounds, but he could see that in the lantern light, the blood leaking from them was black. Thick and awash with chunks of flesh, it had already stopped flowing from the precise cuts.

Last, there was the tattered remains at the tip of its short neck, blackened from the explosive burst of lightning. Instead of the bright spray of crimson, arterial blood he expected to see with any decapitation, only black sludge was drooling to the floorboards. The blood had already congealed inside its body. The thing had been dead the entire time.

Hulbard shot a glance towards Knox, trusting the hunter to not only pick up on the same oddity but reach the same conclusion. His companion was thoughtfully licking his teeth as he considered the carcass and, as if on cue, he looked up to meet the warriors gaze and a silent understanding passed between them. Neither said anything to the others; it was enough that they knew.

"So," Hulbard's voice was loud and brash after the battle, dispelling the silence in a heartbeat as he turned to Shankhill, "Does this convince you that our mysterious guide was telling the truth?"

"It certainly helps," the smaller man gulped.

"Have you seen enough yet?" Trastgor growled at Quintus next.

"Would you believe me if I said no?" the Sorcerer replied, slate grey eyes narrowed into the dark above the creatures body.

"Brakshúl!" Trastgor growled vehemently.

Hulbard snorted. The Kurgali would for a jackass seemed about as adequate as any response he could have come up with, but he still wasn't about to translate for the Sorcerer.

"While I'm sure this furry ape just called me something less than flattering," Quintus hummed, "I want to see where this thing came from. I want to know what it's been doing here all this time".

"Well...it is dead," Skye said, nudging the beheaded creature with the toe of her boot. "I guess we can do whatever we want now, right?"

"I wonde-" her Master began but he was hushed by a sharp hiss from Knox.

"What's that?" he snapped, head cocked to one side like a hound on the hunt.

Hulbard's senses strained to catch up with the hunters but when they did, he heard it too; the sound of shuffling, shifting movement from the stage, where the first nightmare had emerged from. Whatever was moving around there now sounded smaller, but it also sounded like it most definitely wasn't alone.

"On the other hand…" Quintus drawled, "It is only a theatre. There really can't be much back there worth looking into".

"Agreed," Hulbard said, already edging back from the stage, "We probably don't need to waste any more time here".

As they heard the rustle of a heavy curtain, they turned and ran. With nothing but Trastgor's swaying lantern to guide their way, they thundered back the way they'd come through the inky blackness. Hulbard's heart thundered in time with his crashing footsteps, filling his senses until he couldn't hear anything else, until he had to question whether what he thought he heard behind them was really there or just a part of his imagination. Ignoring them, he focused on the sliver of light lancing through the doorways at the far end of the hall. They plunged headlong through the narrow gap and back out into the blinding sunlight.

There, they stumbled to a halt on the grey steps of the colossal theatre, collectively panting and gasping for breath. Doubled over with his hands planted firmly on his knees, Hulbard half turned back to the open doorway and, listening as best he could, thought he could hear the faint, erratic sound of padding footsteps deep within the building, though he couldn't tell whether they were coming closer or growing fainter from second to second.

"That was an experience I never want again," Knox commented dryly, "Always knew nothing good could come from artists".

It wasn't a particularly funny comment, but his tone combined with their faltering adrenaline and mounting relief sent a ripple of exhausted laughter circulating through the group.

"Next time," Hulbard added, "Let's try to avoid the death traps, yeah?"

"If only it were that simple!" Shankhill clapped him on the back, "Onwards to our next big adventure!"