CHAPTER 642: THE DEAD COMPANY (2)

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.

The head met the corpse’s sternum with a hollow WHUMP. For a heartbeat nothing happened, then brittle ribs splintered outward like dry kindling. A blossom of brown-grey spores exploded, floating around the torch-light in slow-motion spirals. They looked innocuous—almost beautiful—until the acrid, mushroom-rot tang punched into his sinuses.

Mikhailis gagged behind clenched teeth. Do not inhale. Do not inhale. He ripped the staff free, choking on the taste of old coffin wood. The creature’s frame buckled. Ligament-roots failed, and it toppled sideways, tumbling through the spore cloud like a sack of wet sticks.

Now only the ragged rasp of his breathing and Thalatha’s dagger clicking into its sheath filled the suddenly vast corridor. Dripping sap ticked in a distant crevice: slow...slow...slow, like a metronome reminding them the song of danger hadn’t ended, merely changed tempo. Rodion’s servos hissed into a low-power idle, an almost domestic sigh compared to the chaos seconds ago.

The brief calm let Mikhailis notice new details: thin spider-threads of silk still vibrated between wall and floor where Rodion’s net had ruptured; the aroma of scorched fungus clung to his coat; violet ward pulses faded gradually, leaving smoky after-images behind his eyelids. Somewhere farther off a root-warden bell chimed—a single note, sharp, accusatory.

He exhaled but his shoulders stayed tense. The HUD overlay flickered: no red triangles in immediate radius, only the drifting amber of soldier ants cleaning up spore fragments. He waited for Rodion’s confirmation anyway.

Area clear. Threat likelihood inside fifty-meter radius now statistically insignificant.

Statistically insignificant. Funny choice. Statistically, he should have been asleep two hours ago.

A shriek somewhere down-tunnel broke his thought. It wasn’t loud—more like a hawk’s distant cry—but every guard flinched. One Hollowguard pivoted, spear haft rattling.

The sound dissolved into air. Mikhailis wetted his cracked lips. "It’s like the roots themselves are whistling," he whispered. No one contradicted him.

The thing he’d downed gave a final shudder. He braced, ready for a last lunge, but the husk only twitched once—reflex, not malice—and sagged. Spore motes drifted upward like lazy snowflakes. He stepped back to avoid inhaling, boots squelching in mashed moss.

First, he ducked left—instinct, not plan—just as a rotted hand clawed past where his ear had been. The sudden motion made his side ache; somewhere in the scuffle he’d caught a stray elbow or talon. New bruise for the collection, he noted.

Second, Thalatha wove between two fresh attackers—dagger low, dagger high, then she rotated her bow into a blunt-force weapon. She slammed the horn tip through a desiccated sternum; bone crumbled like overbaked pastry. Her braids whipped behind her, scattering beads of crimson spore dust with every pivot.

"You treat that bow like a cudgel," he called, voice wobbling between awe and sarcasm.

"It’s versatile," she replied without turning, already spinning toward her next target.

Third, the psycho-gel cloud wavered. The nearest ghoul stumbled through that sweet-sour haze, arms sagging. Its spore-riddled brain couldn’t choose fight or flee; joints twitched in contradictory commands until one knee bent sideways and the husk sank to all fours, sniffing the floor like a confused hound.

Fourth, Mikhailis whipped a palm-sized glyph disk from an inner pocket. He jammed it into a natural knot in the root flooring. The disk pulsed a deep violet. Static tickled his fingertips, and a ripple of ward-energy chased along the wood grain. Wherever it touched mould, the lichen hissed, curled, and browned to ash.

Fifth, Rodion used that ripple as a targeting grid. Red circles bloomed over each staggered corpse. The construct’s helm swiveled in a perfect arc. One final wretch still writhed, pinned under collapsed growth.

"Hope your orientation guide mentioned undead patrols!" Mikhailis’ voice cracked halfway through the joke, but he kept talking because talking meant breathing and breathing meant not panicking.

"It’s the third time this cycle," Thalatha answered. She’d dropped to one knee beside the guard who’d slipped earlier. Her gauntlet pressed the side of the elf’s neck. "Pulse strong. He’ll bruise, not break."

"So the Blight powers up after bedtime." Mikhailis forced a grin that felt stretched thin. "Figures it’s a night person."

He glanced at his palm. The hex-tattoo—gift and leash from the chimera queen—glowed as if embers smoldered under skin. Each heartbeat made the lines flash, syncopated with the faint ward thrum in the floor. He flexed his hand; the glow eased but did not fade. She’s listening, he realized. Through me, maybe through the ants. Good. Let her know the stakes.

Rodion launched two more silk grenades. Translucent threads fanned out in wide cones, snagging any corpse not yet dust and dragging them to the tiles with a wet smack. Gravity did the rest, brittle forms caving inward.

A single creature remained upright, staggering like a drunk deer. Jagged splinters protruded from its ribcage where armor had split. It angled toward the corridor’s antechamber, perhaps sensing warm blood or simply following the call of emptiness.

Mikhailis’ frustration spiked. He yanked a fallen elf’s root-staff—formal, ceremonial, but still solid—and planted his feet.

"Wrong hallway, rot-bag!" Rage colored the shout, a brittle veneer atop exhaustion. He charged. Not graceful—his boots slid on crushed mushroom tissue—but momentum carried him.

RAAHHHHH! He swung overhead. Glyphs along the staff ignited, cascading purple flame with every centimeter traveled. Contact sounded like wood cracking in a winter freeze. The staff head punched through sternum, vertebrae, then root-wall behind, pinning the thing like a pinned moth. A final puff of spores escaped—snowy, delicate. He coughed, waving them aside.

Panting hard, he stepped back. Rodion lumbered forward, scanning.

No further bio-signs.

Mikhailis wiped sweat with the back of a shaky hand. "If I smell like compost, I blame you, buddy."

Rodion’s optic flickered—AI sarcasm on low volume. Procuring fragrance was not in mission parameters.

Nearby, Thalatha hauled the injured guard to his feet. She murmured something about breathing technique, then guided him to lean on a spear haft for balance. When she straightened, her eyes locked onto Mikhailis—assessing injuries. He shrugged one shoulder, then winced at the bruise blooming beneath fabric. She nodded once: understood.

A hush spread. Lantern-fungi still hid behind shutters; only Rodion’s chest light painted faint cerulean circles. Everyone waited for the next horror to crawl out.

Nothing came.

The corridor’s silence prickled. At first it felt like relief; then it edged toward eerie. Drip...drip...sap ticked in time again.

Mikhailis tapped a wrist control. His HUD zoomed out: the red threat markers were gone, replaced by normal ant patrol signals. Amber dots formed tidy concentric rings, sweeping for survivors. He exhaled longer than he meant to.

"This,"—he gestured at the pulp—"is what the Blight does: revives what shouldn’t exist, smuggles nightmares into quiet hallways." He scuffed a toe against spores, watching them smear.

Thalatha wiped dagger steel on a rag of decayed robe. "The Blight knows no rest. Nor can we." Her voice was low, tinged with exhaustion yet unbroken resolve.

No one challenged that. The guards re-formed ranks without command; routine kept fear at heel. One retrieved Thalatha’s bow, handed it over like an heirloom. She checked the limb, gave a terse nod, slung it.

Rodion shrank—armor plates folding inward, limbs compacting until he stood at Mikhailis’ shoulder height again, the shape of an oversized plush sentinel. The switch made him less threatening to the elves, easier on narrow stairs.

Field report ready. A feed scrolled across Mikhailis’s lens in thin orange text. Blight-Reanimated classification confirmed. Weakness: combined glyph resonance + pheromone confusion. Field suppression success 100 %.

"At least we found a recipe," Mikhailis whispered. He wasn’t sure if the words tasted hopeful or hollow.

Thalatha gestured ahead. "We should move before spores call cousins."

He didn’t argue. The party formed—a smaller knot now, one guard limping slightly but insisting on point duty. They started down the spiral hallway again. Every boot heel sounded too loud. The violet pulse of his earlier ward disk followed them for several meters before fading.

Minutes into the descent, gravity of fatigue set in. Adrenaline fled, leaving limbs heavy as soaked cloth. Mikhailis felt each stair in his knees. The vines overhead looked less menacing now, though he wasn’t fooled; he caught them curling ever so subtly, sensing stress patterns, maybe deciding if these travelers were friend-sap or foe.

He focused on mundane thoughts: I want boiled roots in honey. I want two pillows. I want to soak off this corpse dust. The wants marched in circle until the corridor emptied into the residential hall.

His door awaited: living bark warped into a gentle arch, its veins glowing faint amber. Home, such as it was. A place to drop weapons and maybe breathe without mold.

He reached, fingers trembling harder than he liked.

Scratch.

The sound was faint but deliberate—claw on bark, the same rhythm an impatient cat makes outside a door. Everyone froze. The injured guard sucked air. Thalatha drew an arrow, nocked silently.

Rodion’s voice fell to a whisper, almost intimate. Intruder sensors offline. Unknown entity at threshold. Recommend high caution.

"My traps should’ve sung if something breached," Mikhailis murmured.

"Could’ve sworn this place was empty..." His hand hovered inches from the latch. The chimera brand beneath his glove pulsed heat across knuckles—warning or welcome, unclear.

He flattened his palm. Bark under skin thrummed. Somewhere inside, gears of living wood unlaced. The door sighed open a finger-width, exhaling cool darkness that smelled of sap and old dreams.

No hissing. No growl. Just silence thick enough it felt like cotton in the ears.

Torchlight behind him painted a thin gold fan onto the chamber floor, revealing nothing beyond the first few boards.

He drew one steadying breath, lifted the staff again.

Curtain falls.