Chương 27: 26. Miasmic Body

Tavian blinked his eyes open, feeling the dank, greasy filth in his ear and hair. His ears were ringing, and the muffled shouts of men sounded distant. His ankle was trapped beneath a heavy beam, twisted at a painful angle. The man laying beside him was dead, the wedge of a cracked plank pinning his head to the ground. A thick, splintered joist was driven deep into the ground, inches from his head.

"Hey!" he called for help, gasping with pain as he checked for other injuries. A bloodied Verosian lifted the beam pinning him, and Tavian dragged himself free. When he put weight on his left leg, pain shot from his ankle to his hip. Together he and the soldier climbed out of the wreckage. He pushed a wheel of cheese out of his way, and hobbled to help another man who'd begun extinguishing fires with the dregs of a broken wine barrel. His ankle was already swelling and stiffening.

Braun surfaced and performed a quick head count. Two more dead, three unaccounted for. The men who'd been wielding the axes in the corridor below. Braun scrambled to the pile of splintered wood, now blocking off that part of the dungeon.

"Hey! Hey!" he called.

"We're blocked off!" a man called back.

"We're alive, but Yamal's arm is broken." Grunts and clangs sounded.

"More ghouls!" another trapped man said. Braun began hacking at the wood, in a desperate attempt to free his men. Tavian glanced up; the ceiling was sagging in places now, and the other soldiers were going to struggle to climb back up to the staircase.

"Braun," Tavian said.

"Braun, stop!" he placed his hand on Braun's shoulder, and Braun looked at him with desperate eyes.

"They're good men," Braun said.

"We need to help them!"

"Yes," Tavian said. He pointed to the sagging ceiling, and the other men attempting to construct a way to climb out of the hole they were all in now. The men who'd been left guarding the top of the stairs had come to see what had happened, leaving their post unguarded.

"And they are too. You need to lead, all of them." Braun hesitated for a moment, torn between his obligations.

"I told you to lead," Tavian said.

"Now lead."

"We don't leave men behind." Braun looked desperately at his trapped men.

"We won't," Tavian said.

"Every man does his task. Do yours." Braun nodded, slowly, defiance sparking in his eyes. He didn't move. Tavian pushed past him and reached the wreckage trapping the soldiers. He began working to clear the jam. Braun began shouting orders to the other soldiers. Tavian reached through the barricade and pried with all his strength, tearing open a gap. He wormed his way through the tangle of shelf and floor beams. His boots squelched in scum.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he saw the shapes of three men, standing with their backs to him. They were hewing at ghouls with their axes.

"Get back!" Tavian ordered, pushing up in front.

"Get Yamal out, I'll hold the corridor!" The men fell behind him, and Tavian fought, his sword a blur in the dim light, separating dead limbs from dead bodies. Fire Stance was ideal for the aggressive, hacking blows he needed to fell these creatures, but it left him vulnerable. Pain shot through his leg with every shift of footwork. He did his best to ignore it. He heard the sounds of the men trying to squeeze back through the debris. The ghouls kept coming.

Tavian's sword clashed with another black dagger, and the miasmic blade snapped his sword in half. He continued fighting as best he could with half a blade. He'd made a foolish mistake, diving in here like a hero. A ghoul moved like a blur through the darkness. A black blade reflected torchlight. Tavian pivoted, cutting through flesh and bone. The ghoul's arm dropped away. It held the knife in its other hand, and jabbed it into Tavian's side.

Pain erupted like flames as the blade slid across his ribcage, cutting a long gash down, until it reached his gut and sank a few inches into his flesh. Tavian gasped, pushing himself backwards, away from the blinding pain of the stabbing knife. Something surged in his side, an icy pulse in his burning wound. His leg gave out. He dropped to the ground, desperately bringing his broken sword up between himself and the diving ghoul. A torch-lit ax cleaved through the air, removing the ghoul's head from its shoulders.

The creature crumbled to the ground. The ghouls stopped coming. A heap of them waist high lay piled in the hall.

"Thank you," Tavian breathed, accepting the hand of the soldier who'd come back for him. He checked his side in the dim light, pulling the black bladed dagger from his side. The wound burned and foamed with a black puss. Tavian wiped sweat from his brow, discarding his broken sword as he inspected his wound. He felt weaker. A haze of glowing essence pulsated around the room, like mana battling with miasma. He wrapped his tunic around the injury, pressing with his hand.

Hands reached through the wreckage and helped pull him through. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"Fill those gaps with more rubble," Braun ordered as the last man emerged.

"We're barricading that corridor!" Men leapt to fulfil the order. It wasn't a perfect blockade, but it would slow anyone trying to get through down enough that Tavian's men could respond. Braun had coordinated the construction of a makeshift ladder back up to the steps, and had retrieved the bodies of his fallen men. He helped Tavian up the steps. As they climbed up the larder steps, filthy, blood spattered, and breathing hard, Tavian caught Braun staring blankly into the distance.

He leaned on the wall, limping forward as he pressed one hand to the cut on his side.

"That was a disaster," Braun muttered.

"I should have pulled back. I shouldn't have kept pushing when we saw how weak the the timber had become." Tavian peeled back his bloodied tunic, to see that the wound he had was now black and festering. He stank of refuse. He needed Braun, he couldn't afford to have him falling apart right now.

"Objective accomplished," Tavian said, projecting false optimism.

"We blocked the tunnel, didn't we?" Braun did not seem buoyed. Soldiers carried unspoiled foodstuffs, and Tavian blessed their capacity to remember orders. The ghouls bodies were too tainted by miasma to be worth trying to sift, and were left behind. The three dead men were carried past.

"I killed them," Braun said, and Tavian couldn't find the words to argue with him. The miasmic wound burned in his side. Fear slid over him, cold and debilitating. His hand reached for his sword, when he remembered that it had been cut in half. He felt naked without it. As he walked, the pain in Tavian's side and leg throbbed in unison. Tavian gritted his teeth and tried walking normally. The influence of his kingdom leant him strength, but the pain was real. His side ached and throbbed.

It wasn't bleeding as much as it should, and that scared him. The miasmic daggers had done something to his flesh. There were others in the force cut by the daggers too. They would also need to be treated." Well done, Tavian," Lea said." You've managed to contain that entrance to the dungeons, and the miasmic surges have tempered slightly as a result." Tavian wiped his brow. They had accomplished something." That's great news,"Tavian said." We'll try to get to the other ones too."" Good.

Sealing them won't stop the surges, but I can clearly see it helping. The last surge had a much lower peak than average." As Tavian reached the courtyard, he composed himself. Every man, woman, and child here was depending on him for their survival.

He needed to stay strong and keep moral high. He stopped leaning on Braun, and walked without limping. If he'd tried running, he'd have broken into tears.

"Braun, will you check in with Shona? And make sure the men get the treatment they need?" Braun nodded and hurried off to fulfil his duties. Before he could enter the courtyard, two soldiers stopped at the gate and saluted him. Braun paused, glanced back to Tavian, then returned the salute. Tavian nodded in satisfaction, and he walked out into the sunlight. All attention was on him, so Tavian carefully crossed the open space, making his way to the triage area.

Uncle Erond had found a chair; Tavian recognized it as once having been in an alcove near the throne room. The man sat with his leg in a splint, elevated, barking orders at the pages tending to the needs of the injured.

"And two of you come move my chair," he snapped.

"The sun is moving, and I want to be in the shade! Easy now…" The boys set the man down gently, and helped him get comfortable. Tavian sat down on the ground beside his uncle, just a young ruler seeking advice from his elder.

"How are you doing, uncle," Tavian asked.

"My leg is doing much better, thank you," Erond said, sitting up. His leg, bound in a makeshift splint, rested on the ground in front of him.

"I much prefer high levels of influence, and the constitution bonus you gave me is helping. I expect I'll be walking again in no time." Calli hurried over.

"Tavian, I just had an idea. In the coresmith's workshop, there are some partially completed spell modules that we were working on. One of them is supposed to be a kind of shield…" she trailed off as she saw his pallid skin.

"Are you hurt?" she asked. Tavian gave a curt nod.

"Alisa!" she called, waving to a handmaiden.

"Alisa!"

"Alisa is tending the wounded," Calli explained.

"She's good with medicines and bandages." A honey haired young woman plopped a basket of medical supplies down beside Tavian. She scanned him with large, chocolate eyes, and Tavian found himself admiring her for a split second. She immediately started washing some of the filth from the side of his face with a damp rag. It stank, and she wrinkled her nose at the odor.

"Aren't you a bit young?" he asked her.

"Aren't you?" she shot back. Then she seemed to remember who she was speaking to, and added "My lord." Despite his injuries, Tavian broke into a grin. It was nice to have someone talk to him like an equal. Alisa smiled back.

"I hurt my ankle," he said. Alisa inspected the joint, rotating it in painful ways.

"Does this hurt?"

"Yes," Tavian winced. She twisted harder.

"What about now?"

"Yes, ouch! Ow!"

"Hmm… that's not good," Alisa said, probing his swollen ankle.

"It's worse than I thought."

"What is it? What's wrong?" Tavian asked, his heart sinking.

"Is it broken?" She set his leg down.

"Don't be a baby," she said.

"I've seen children tougher than you." Tavian rolled his eyes at her.

"Just tell me what's wrong," he said.

"How bad is it, really?" Alisa shrugged.

"You're being a bit dramatic. I think you're going to be fine. It's barely even sprained."

"What's this?" Calli asked, pulling at the fabric Tavian held pressed to his side.

"It's nothing," Tavian said. Uncle Erond sat up straighter.

"Tavian," he said.

"Let the medic see your wound." Tavian relented, wincing as the bloodied fabric tore away from his side. The gash in his side had turned black, the flesh hardening around it.

"Ew, that's gross," Alisa said, probing it with a finger.

"What did this?"

"Some kind of miasmic knife," Tavian said.

"But I'm fine. It's not even bleeding."

"I can try to bandage it up," Alisa said.

"But… you might want to do something about it."

"There's nothing to do," Tavian said.

"I'll let it heal."

"You can't ignore miasma," Calli said.

"It doesn't just go away. It accumulates. It spreads. We have to get it out of you somehow."

"I don't want everyone to know I was hurt," Tavian said.

"People are already desperate."

"We have to do something," Calli said.

"Alisa can bandage me up. Can't this be a tomorrow problem?" Calli scowled at Tavian, not liking the way he used her own words against her.

"No," she said.

"This most certainly cannot be a tomorrow problem. Alisa pushed Calli aside. The young woman got to work with a dressing.

"How would you even go about extracting miasma, anyway?" Tavian asked Calli.

"Well… I might be able to [Extract] it."

"You can't use [Extract] on people."

"Not while they're alive," she agreed.

"But I wouldn't be trying to sift you. Just the miasma in your wound, before it can taint more of your Essence."

"Go on then." Calli placed her hand on Tavian's wound.

"Stop moving," she said. Tavian sat as still as he could. A small swirl of black smoke hissed out of the injury as she [Extracted], followed by a few oozing drops of blood.

"It worked!" Calli exclaimed, green eyes twinkling. Alisa gasped. Calli did it again.

"You are so lucky to have me around," she said, grinning at Tavian.

"Yeah, thanks sis," Tavian said. Calli did it again.

"This might take a while, but I think it can work." A small puff of dark miasmic mist floated away in the wind. Tavian grunted.

"That didn't seem like it did much."

"I said it might take a while," Calli snapped.

"Maybe an hour or two?" Shouts rang out from atop the wall. Something was happing in the outer courtyard; Shona and her [Battlemages] began firing projectiles.

"I don't have that long," Tavian said.

"Patch it up." Alisa wrapped a bandage around Tavian, as Calli protested.

"Tavian, I need to treat that!"

"There are other men with the same injury," Tavian said.

"Treat them first. See if you can figure out how to do it faster." Calli scowled. Alisa finished applying the dressing as Tavian climbed to his feet.

"Someone get me a sword!"