CHAPTER 641: THE DEAD COMPANY (1)

Rodion cut him off, stepping between with calm inevitability. Anterior plates flared like overlapping shields. The creature’s swipe crashed harmlessly against the alloy-root composite, sparks spraying. Rodion didn’t budge.

A piston hissed. The construct’s right arm telescoped, elbow joint popping, and hammered down in a sledge-stroke. The creature splattered against a pillar—lumpy bark bones cracking like kindling. Not finished, Rodion’s forearm rotated, panels separating to reveal a bank of tiny eel-blue emitters. With a soft FWOOMP a lattice of shimmering silk shot out, blooming mid-air into a net. The strands wrapped another attacker that had been mid-leap, freezing it like an insect in amber and pinning it to the wall.

Neutralized. Rodion’s voice glided into Mikhailis’s earpiece, sounding smug despite its monotone.

"That’s my boy," Mikhailis muttered, adrenaline sharpening every syllable. His heart hammered so loudly he worried the Hollowguard could hear.

But the swarm was gathering. More shadows slid from alcoves: a hunched figure with two torsos fused at the spine; a crawling thing whose hands were sprouting leafy antlers; a stretched silhouette whose every movement left wisps of grey mist swirling behind. They drifted over the floor without footsteps, disturbing only skeins of dust.

Too many, Mikhailis thought, eyes darting. Need a field equalizer.

He plunged a hand into his coat, fingers searching until they found a cool, curved vial sealed in wax—psycho-gel, loaded with pheromonal cocktails cultivated from the chimera ant queen herself. One crack against the floor released a sticky, translucent plume that crawled outward like living fog.

The nearest ghoul inhaled—if that rattling chest-cavity motion counted as breathing. Its head cocked, mandible-roots twitching. Then it screeched, a sound half hiss, half rusted hinge. Instead of charging, it shuffled in circles, as clumsy as a newborn fawn, distracted by conflicting signals its corrupted nerves could not parse.

Thalatha capitalized. She flowed past Rodion, cloak snapping like a banner. Her foot hooked behind the creature’s ankle, dagger flashing up in a tight arc to sever the spine just below the skull. With the same momentum she pivoted, dagger reversed, and rammed the hilt straight into another monster’s sternum, dislodging fungus-riddled ribs. Bits of rot flaked away in her wake.

Behind her, one guard loosed a narrow bolt of pale-green energy from a wrist wand. The blast carved a furrow through a lurching abomination, dissolving its shoulder into mush that splattered against the walls. Another guard covered the flank, spear spinning to keep distance, but sweat shone on his brow—they were trained for raiders, not nightmares.

Rodion’s sensors whirred. Three additional hostiles approaching from rear corridor. Deploying deterrent. The construct’s chest plate slid aside like shutters, and a soft thump launched two ovoid canisters that bounced once before erupting into billowing tangles of phosphorescent silk. The strands adhered to shadowed limbs, hardened instantly, and snapped taut like snares, flipping creatures onto their backs.

Mikhailis saw an opening. He darted sideways, coat tails whipping, and knelt by the writhing forms. A slender root-ward stake—etched earlier that afternoon—was yanked from his satchel. He slammed it through a gap in the floorboards, twisting until the glyphs kissed exposed sapwood. A pulse of violet light rippled outward in concentric rings. Every undead within the immediate radius hiccupped, fungus patches on their bodies blackening as if burned.

Across the corridor, the doubled-torso creature convulsed. Its lichened ribs cracked inward, trapping whatever malignance animated it. Sluggish amber fluid oozed from seams, sizzling where violet light touched.

Thalatha exhaled—a small, satisfied sound. "Ward resonance holds," she called, voice surprisingly steady.

"Don’t jinx it," Mikhailis puffed, wiping perspiration from his eyebrow with a shaking sleeve. More specters lurked just beyond the failing torchlight, shapes dancing at the edges of sight. If Rodion’s right, one misstep and we’re surrounded.

The humanoid with antler-hands lunged forward, talons sweeping. Mikhailis sidestepped, the thing’s claws missing by a thumb-width, and delivered a downward elbow to its forearm. He felt decayed wood fibers snap beneath his strike. Pain thrummed up his arm—he wasn’t built for heavy combat—but adrenaline masked most of it.

The monster hissed. Thalatha’s dagger flashed over Mikhailis’s shoulder, severing the exposed limb in a single arch. She pivoted into a back-kick that sent the half-limbed corpse stumbling.

"Your form’s improved," she noted, not pausing.

"Panic makes a great instructor," he wheezed. She gave the faintest smile before diving into the fray again.

Behind them, Rodion scooped the still-thrashing silk-netted ghoul with mechanical arms, hoisting it like a bundle of sticks. With one smooth motion, he hurled it down the corridor. It smashed into two more oncoming shadows, sending all three careening into a heap of dust and broken bones.

A guard cried out—one of the vine-pauldron frontliners—his spear knocked aside by a lean wraith whose mouth split the wrong way up its cheek. Before the elf could recover, the creature’s finger-roots shot forward, seeking flesh.

Mikhailis acted on instinct. He ripped a second vial from his coat and lobbed it underhand. Glass shattered at the elf’s feet, releasing another cloud of psycho-gel. The creature faltered, jerking its head as if stung by invisible wasps.

"Guard your left!" Mikhailis shouted. The elf recovered, plunged his spear clean through its midsection, and twisted. The husk slumped, roots unspooling like pulled yarn.

Rodion’s voice cut in. Hostile count reduced to six. Silk reserves at 42 percent. Suggest coordinated push before additional entities assemble.

"Working on it," Mikhailis muttered through clenched teeth. One hand hovered near the ant-queen tattoo beneath his glove, feeling it pulse hotter with each undead that fell. She’s feeling this—somehow. He had no time to unpack the thought.

The corridor stank of rot, of uprooted fungus and scorched spores. Each breath scraped lungs. Sweat dripped down Mikhailis’s temples, and his left hand trembled—not from fear, but from adrenaline spiking too hard.

Another shriek cut through. A tall figure, spine bowed backward, advanced on Rodion. Its chest cavity glowed sickly green, as though moss had replaced its lungs with ghost-light. Rodion pivoted, locking joints, and met the charge head-on. Metal fingers grasped fungal ribs, squeezing until cracks spider-webbed. But the creature pushed back, surprising strength born of unnatural sinew.

Mikhailis spotted the weak point—the luminous sac inside its torso. Without thinking, he sprinted, drawing a short root-knife from his belt (gifted by an apprentice earlier, almost decorative). He slid under Rodion’s arm and stabbed upward. The blade pierced the sac with a wet pop, and hot, viscous sap poured over his wrist like molten resin. The glow sputtered, then died.

The monster went limp. Rodion dropped it with a dull thud. Appreciated, he quipped.

"Don’t mention it," Mikhailis panted, flicking sap off his sleeve.

Noise swelled behind them—guards rallying, Thalatha’s blade whistling through stagnant air, Rodion’s servos whirring as he repositioned. Mikhailis dared a glance at his HUD. Red triangles diminished, though a few still fluttered, uncertain.

He touched the vial shards at his feet. The psycho-gel puddle had begun crystallizing, forming amber droplets that released faint pheromone haze. The nearest ghoul wandered in slow circles, eyes unfocused. Good. Confusion equals time.

He extracted another root-ward stake, pressing a thumb over the glowing glyph to arm it. But the moment lingered—doubt trickled in. Plant it or save it? Each stake burned bright but brief; if he used it now, his room’s threshold might lack defenses later. His gaze flicked to Rodion, who met it with a blank optic.

Decision snapped. He slid the stake back into its slot. Better to rely on Rodion’s silk and Thalatha’s steel for the last handful.

"You have a plan?" Thalatha called, voice carrying over the clash.

"Working draft!" he shouted back. "Step one: survive!"

"Acceptable!" She ducked a sweeping claw, counter-slashed, and rolled clear.

Rodion emitted a rising tone—an auditory countdown he’d installed for synchronization drills. Three chirps: his signal for a coordinated volley. Mikhailis nodded, drew another vial, and angled behind Rodion. The construct readied twin silk grenades.

Three, two, one—

Grenades launched in twin arcs, exploding overhead in a lace of glowing threads. Mikhailis shattered his vial on the floor, pheromone vapor billowing upward. The combined software-coded silk patterns and scent confounded the remaining undead, locking them in place.

Guards surged with renewed courage. Spears struck true, blades found rot-soft joints. Bodies dropped—some wriggling, some still, all leaking mossy ichor that steamed where it touched violet ward light.

Breath heaving, Mikhailis scanned the corridor. Only one monster remained, weaving drunkenly near the wall that led toward his quarters. Its face—half bark, half warped elf skull—gapped open in silent, dogged hunger.

Mikhailis felt anger flare—more at the invasion of his long-awaited bed than at the horror itself. He tore a warded root-staff from a fallen guard’s back sling, hefted it like a quarterstaff. The glyphs along its length glowed in response to the brand beneath his glove.

With a guttural cry—half battle shout, half oh-for-the-love-of-roots—Mikhailis drove the ward-staff forward. The polished haft was heavier than it looked; bark-metal layers made the thing hum in his palms like a struck tuning fork. Its glyphs burst vivid violet at the moment of impact.