Chương 99: Frenzy

Miriam launched Raging Spears at Onóra, two projectiles at once carried on the same current. The Banshee flicked them aside with little needles of mist, never even looking away from Eoin. She had called him "teacher." Róise had shared Ferris's story with them, and there was no doubt who this rogue gemsmith must be - but to find that she had been a student of Eoin's was unsettling.

"I think she's Fifth too," Róise said, blades at the ready.

"Fifth or not, she's alone," Cormac countered.

"We have Eoin at Fifth, plus you, me and Ferris at Fourth. Not to mention all these Crockern and Miriam. I don't know what she's thinking." Eoin launched his own needles at Onóra, who countered with easy precision. It was impossible to not take note of the similarities in their fighting styles - if nothing else the three lenses in front of her eyes would have given that away. Beside him, Ferris flung steel shrapnel from chainmail gauntlets he summoned from his pack.

These took more of Onóra's attention as they burned through her Mist fórsa quickly, but still none of them got close enough to touch her. Cormac activated At What Cost, while the world began to sway with Banks of Red Roses. Róise must have decided there was no point in trying Seven Drunken Nights on Onóra Róise leaped into the fray, her blue blades whirling as Cormac poured Onóra's stolen luck into her.

She batted away mist needles faster than Miriam could see, and the edge of one of her knives sliced open the blue fabric wrapped around the Banshee, though still somehow didn't draw blood. Miriam shook her head. Something was wrong here. Onóra was powerful, but Cormac was right. These were impossible odds. What did she have planned… Her eyes grew wide.

"Watch the tunnel!" she shouted. Onóra's command of "Frenzy" had not gone unheeded. The Crockern at the tunnel entrance shouted as waves of the Iron Dead crashed into the hole Cormac had made. Ferris bellowed for his Earth Natures to seal it up, but the iron-seeded claws ripped the false stone apart as quickly as it could be made.

"She doesn't have to fight all of us," Cormac said in awe.

"She's counting on us not being able to fend off both her and the Iron Dead."

"Well, we have to." Miriam looked back and forth between Onóra and the frenzying Dead.

"You help Eoin and Róise. I'll hold off the Crockern." Miriam wouldn't be much help against a Fifth on Eoin's level - not for very long anyway. She'd lucked out with clever strategy and bursts of her unusual power when going up against superior opponents, but in an extended fight she would not offer much challenge. She could offer much more help against Second-Levels - even if they were infested with iron.

"Back up!" She shouted at the Crockern, and unleashed a Waterfall, shoving the Iron Dead back into the tunnel. They didn't go as far as she'd hoped - the tunnel was crawling with them and all she was doing was smashing them together; unfortunately not hard enough to kill them. But that was fine - she just wanted room in the tunnel to try her new idea. She deliberately aligned the prism in her mind that controlled her fórsa Natures to put out all three.

She still couldn't separate them when they were activated all at once like this, but for the first time she didn't want to. Miriam's rotting vines crawled up the tunnel walls and thick, rancid water pooled at the unmoored roots. Once a spread of vines, water and a layer of Blight had covered about twenty feet of the tunnel, right at the feet of the Crockern who were now struggling to get up, she snapped her Natures fully to Blight. In each of the vines she wove the Blight miasma.

The theory on this was the same as when she had used her dryad abilities to attack Ultán through a piece of wood - as long as she maintained her fórsa stream, these manifestations counted as touch. Important for the next step. She thought she might call this one Fetid Swamp, in memory of her time in the Amberline Channels. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

As the Iron Dead tore their way back through the miniature swamp she created, they broke through the Blight-laden vines, the rotted material almost disintegrating at their touch. But not before the Blight passed on its blessing: Gangrenous Infection. Miriam's studies as a doctor in her town, as brief as her stint had been, were serving her well as a Plague Doctor Adept. She was surprised to feel that the Blight didn't seem as adversarial to the iron as any of her other fórsa had been.

They almost worked together - where the iron was continually breaking down the material of these Crockern's flesh, the Blight almost breathed new life into it - only to rot it further. Entire limbs began to rot away, tumbling to the ground to be kicked around by the other Crockern, themselves decaying. Miriam poured as much of her fórsa as she could into it - which was not completely refilled yet. She feared this was all she had.

"Here, Miriam," Sol said quietly, pressing two spheres into her hand.

"Oh, Sol, I have missed you!" Miriam said, absorbing her own fórsa back. It was like the most refreshing drink she'd ever taken. She could do this for hours!

"Those are my last ones," Sol said, his voice strained. The swamp was becoming choked with dead Crockern as Miriam's Blight ate through them. Several of Ferris's guards were retching in whatever corner they could find. She paid them no mind. In a moment she would Waterfall the crowd back once more and rebuild her swamp. Hopefully that would buy everyone trying to regain control of the stone enough time. ✧✧✧ Interlude 11 Miriam did her best to staunch the bleeding, but Namiah was going into shock.

At only twenty-four Miriam hadn't studied any medicine, but she knew it was a good thing that the bullet went all the way through, which it seemed to have. The wound was a ragged hole in his gut, gushing blood. Namiah's coat featured a ton of excess lace, which she ripped and repurposed as bandages, trying to keep as much of his blood inside as she could. She didn't know what wounds were fatal on a human - on a deer this would fester, but would allow it to still run away.

She wasn't sure if the bleeding actually stopped, but the layers and layers of cloth she applied to it seemed to slow the spread of bloodstains considerably. She slapped Namiah's face repeatedly, trying to get him to respond. Besides his possibly dying in the dirt, they weren't safe out on the road like this. How could they make it through Marybel now? She couldn't carry him. The horses had been killed - the carriage was little more than a box stranded in the middle of a farm road now.

She looked down at him, looking like he was in a pained sleep, mumbling and incoherent. Miriam could just leave him. She didn't owe Namiah Hallonel anything. She had saved his life, in fact - twice now! Why should she continue risking hers? He wasn't even that good of a man - no one in the nobility reached adulthood decent. In the end, she made the pragmatic choice. She needed Namiah to escape the Secret Police. So, she would do whatever she could to preserve him for that purpose.

If they were attacked again, however… everyone had a limit to the amount of altruism they were willing to die for, and she was rapidly approaching hers. The farm nearby had no horses, but she stole a pair of mules, with no farmer in sight to catch her. Probably the doing of the Secret Police, so that no eyes could attest to what colors the assassins wore when they gunned down the last Hallonel heir. Speaking of which, the bodies of the assassins had very little on them.

A few gold (what she would have done for that back in her poaching days with Thomas!) and more papers with encrypted writing. She saved those for later and abandoned everything else. She needed to move light. The only exception was a pair of well-made boots she pulled from the feet of the shooter who had hit Namiah - his feet were small enough to make it a reasonable fit and were far better than the slippers that passed for sportswear in the Hallonel estate.

She fashioned a sledge from loose wood, also stolen from the farm, and lashed it together with the thick leather reins she stripped from the dead horses. The mules were smaller than the horses, so she had to make adjustments to the tack, but she was able to repurpose them too. In the span of an hour she was ready to depart. Not towards Marybel. There was no chance she could make it through the city unseen and unless Namiah woke up soon, she didn't even know the name of the ship he had planned for them to board.

She would be better served avoiding the city entirely. Miriam knew there was an industrial port somewhere south. With the assassin's gold, the funds Namiah had on him and the barter of the extra rifles she now carried, she thought there was an excellent chance for them to find a berth in a ship that wouldn't ask too many questions, Miriam grimaced as she listened to Namiah's ragged breathing. If he lived that long.