As the Chaos Marauders’ blood drained into the soil around the tower, the
curse on the orruk pirates lifted and the Swordfyshes realised they had been
manipulated. The Slann’s weird ranted warnings suddenly made sense - he had
been trying to stop them letting the curse out of the Vault.
Krashhart and Old Mudgob both knew the crew wanted to follow the smoke: They
could all feel the war-beat of Ghur pounding in their heads and their chests.
And even if there wasn't any loot to be found at least there seemed to be some
good fights wherever it went. Krashhart also wanted to know
what the zog was going on so, at the very least, he would be able to
tell a good tale out of all this.
+++
The Swordfyshes travelled west, out of the Gnarlwood and over the river. Soon
the land dried out and they could see a towering black fortress on the
horizon. They almost caught up with the black smoke when it disappeared into
the remains of an ancient city, half sunk into the drifting sands of an
encroaching desert.
As they rushed headlong into the ruined streets they stumbled into a dozen or
more skeleton warriors.
A Soulblight Vampiress was already coalescing from the black smoke and she seemed to
be almost back to her full strength. A large number of the skeletal remains of
her warrior-servants had already started to rise around her, they clawed their
way out of the crypts from a previous age, that peppered the dusty ruins.
They were enacting a ritual to tap into a ley line nexus - stealing some of
the power of Ghur to complete the Vampiress' rebirth.
As the intersections of ley lines awoke, and the raw power of Ghur flooded
through the ruins, the pirates felt they had the upper hand. But as usual they
were over-confident in their hopes of stopping the undead from tapping into
the arcane energies.
The Vampiress' rebirth summoned another of her thralls, but this one was far
more powerful than the dusty bones of a long-dead retainer: An Abhorrant
Archregent let out a bestial howl as he made straight for the pirate Shaman;
Old Mudgob.
Docker Goff laughed manically as he took on a ridiculous number of skeletons -
time after time he parried their rusted spears aside but even so many of the
antique weapons got through his defences. He was stabbed several times by the
skeleton spearmen's attacks while he fended them off, protecting Old Mudgob.
Krashhart barrelled into the Vampiress. When a punishingly-accurate swing of
his favourite weapon, the Gorkstikk, smashed into her it arced crackling green
sparks and she dissolved back into smoke.
~ ⦽ ~
The Swordfyshes headed south, across a dusty wasteland, back toward the
forest. They didn’t know if the Abhorrant Archregent completed the ritual or
even if they had actually permanently killed the Vampiress.
That night the Swordfyshes sat round a campfire, under the cover of a ruined
building, in sight of the Gnarlwood but not too close.
As they ate they discussed the battle with the Vampiress' minions. They had
crowded the pirates out of the ley line nexus by sheer weight of numbers, but
Krashhart had already ordered them to fall back when "the job" was done.
Old Mudgob worried that, even though the Vampiress was gone, the skeletons
might have kept going, completing the ritual in their jerky, mechanical
movements. As the pirates had withdrawn the Abhorrant Archregent had clawed at
Old Mudgob, wounding the shaman. But he was more annoyed by leaving the ley
lines to the undead than the injury.
Leeway Ruk had watched their backs as the Swordfyshes disengaged and he was
sure the Abhorrant Archregent had been up to something as there were some
weird purple lights in the sky above the city as they legged it...
~ ⦽ ~
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