The Elder Blood Chronicles – Book Three(26)

“Inside, and then we will talk,” Fiona said with a smile that held no warmth to it at all. She turned away from them and disappeared into the dark interiors of their make-shift shelter.

“I suppose we do bicker a bit too much,” Jala mumbled. The loss of Finn was a deep wound and Fiona’s words had prodded it sharply with her words.

“She was being a bitch,” Valor replied, offering her his arm for support as they headed into the cave. “I will cut her some slack on it, however. Having your head removed by your husband no doubt makes you bitter toward matrimony as well as being dead for three hundred years. I suppose she has a right to be nasty tempered.”

“Speaking of bitchy,” Fiona drawled turning to look directly at Valor with a smile, “I suppose hobbling around with broken bones has the same effect on you. Sit down while I rummage about in here and see if I can find anything useful.”

“What is that smell,” Jala rasped, turning her head away from the innermost part of the cave. The air was fetid and the worst of it seemed to be coming from that area.

“The rotting dead. This was Nasurai’s lair,” Fiona replied calmly and summoned a light spell above her hand. Raising her arm she held the light aloft for them to get a good look at their surroundings.

“Nasurai Blackwolf?” Valor asked in astonishment. He barely seemed to notice the tangled bones and rotting flesh that littered the floor of the cave. Jala however, found her gaze fixated on the grisly display and felt her stomach lurching in response.

“The one and only. You just destroyed what remained of him, but don’t trouble yourself over it. Anything that was good in him died long ago. Death saw to that. He was one of her five guardians. With luck I can guide you around the other four so you do not have to fight them,” Fiona replied in a distracted voice as she prodded the pile of bones with her boots.

“I thought the Darklands held spirits. Yet, you aren’t a ghost and those certainly have a bit of flesh left to them,” Jala said weakly, her stomach still complaining at the stench.

“If you are going to vomit, hobble back outside for it, please. There is enough filth in here without adding more,” Fiona said without so much as glancing up. She kicked aside another pile and a wave of putrid air rose from the tangle of bodies. Small white forms wiggling through the rusting armor drew Jala’s eye and she stared in disgust at the maggots until Valor stepped in her path of vision.

“Take out the bottle of brandy I have and hold it under your nose,” Valor suggested quietly before turning back to Fiona. “Answer her question. The Darklands is supposed to hold the souls of the dead not the bodies. Explain why everything we have faced so far is flesh and bone.” His voice took on a sterner note as he addressed her and she stopped rummaging through the pile long enough to look up at him with amusement.

“Ahh. That’s adorable. Does it work in the sunlit lands? When you growl and snarl, do the puppies above cower?” Fiona asked, her tone mocking. “The more powerful of the dead can emulate bodies,” she began, motioning down at herself. “As thus. They are by no means our true forms however. We don’t eat, breathe, or piss as mortals do. We are simply solidified essence, and we don’t like to discuss it. Nasurai however was a demon. One of Death’s little creations. As I said, she has five guardians so those would be greater demons and then all of the little creepy crawlies you have seen would be lesser demons. The ones near the edge of the forest were animals in life. The ones by the boundary where you came in were formerly goblins. The deeper you go in, the bigger and badder they get.”

“Animals? According to the scriptures all animals are innocent in the eyes of the gods and thus pass immediately into the life stream once more to be reborn,” Jala objected, her nausea finally starting to subside. She leaned forward to watch Fiona but was careful to keep her eyes locked on the woman’s face rather than the pile of death she stood in.

“Be sure and tell Death that when you see her. She seems to have real difficulty letting anything return to the life stream. Now these sorry bastards that I’m wading in currently were like the two of you – living creatures that crossed the boundary. A few of them might have actually been heroes who came here to set things right, but most of them had darker purposes…” Fiona’s voice trailed off as she stooped and plucked a rotting leather bag from the pile. Lifting the flap she began to dig around inside, mumbling to herself as she did so.

“Let me try healing your ribs,” Jala said quietly to Valor as Fiona’s attention was distracted.