Chapter 61. Sacrifice

he dredge roared into the encampment, shattering crates and tearing into the ox as they broke over the makeshift barrier.  Lemony swallowed a scream of terror as one of the beasts appeared beside her in a burst of shadow.  Ducking under the wagon and rolling out of the other side, she sensed the suffering of her charges and wrapped an enchantment around Twisted Lu as he knelt chanting in the midst of his raging spirits.  The wheezing grunts of oni caused her hair to stand on end and she dodged deftly past them to heal Uriel.  The elementalist rose gracefully upward, her form wreathed in flame, beautiful and helpless as the beasts closed on her. 

Hot shards of rock and boulders tore down onto the snarling dredge, the sound of their roars and pounding earth nearly deafening.  The odor of brimstone stung Lemony’s nostrils but she felt strangely reassured by it.  Uriel had not lost her touch and the elementalist’s visage was filled with concentration and malice as she summoned fire to her aid. There was no time to admire the show, however. Lemony rushed frantically to the aid of a knot of assassins that had hemmed in a dredge gardener.  She hastily laid an enchantment at the center of their tearing mass and was gratified as the healing seed showered Dwayna’s blessing over all of them.

She winced as the cries of her charges punctuated the frantic whirling of swords and whiz of arrows.  Fire and shadow merged with the crack of shattered bone and sprayed blood.  She glimpsed Huan Yue running frantically from a pair of oni and braced herself for the seething burn of poison as she drew the vile stuff onto herself, along with Huan Yue’s crippling injuries and bleeding wounds.  Her fellow monk, relieved of those afflictions, sped away, scraping the creatures off on Kiku and a pair of warriors.  Lemony cursed in pain as she bled and twisted in agony from the dredge poison.  Huan Yue cried out in gratitude once she was free to help and quickly mended then as quickly as she could.

Now the dredge gatherers turned their poisoned arrows upon Lemony, forcing her to duck behind the cart.  She swore as a couple of the arrows pounded into the wood beside her head dripping venom.  She glimpsed Morisedd curled on his side within it, helpless and vulnerable.

“I’m watching you, Murdi,” Lemony called to him, “Just hang on, we’ll get out of this mess somehow.”

Now she rushed out after Mai Ling’s band, clenching her teeth as she absorbed a massive wound from one of the assassins, restoring him nearly to full health but leaving her gasping and bleeding.  Once more Huan Yue restored her.  Lemony silently cursed Twisted Lu whose idea it had been to grant her no spell she could use for herself.  He was an evil, horrible, disgusting man and she hoped he would die.  Yet even as she thought this, she drew the accumulated poisons and bleeding wounds from him onto herself, staggering as their malevolent force overwhelmed her senses and she gasped in pain.

Huan Yue was hard pressed now, dancing away as a pair of dredge gutters sought to trap her against a tree.  Once more Lemony braced herself for the sear of toxins and the ache of torn muscles as she became crippled for the other monk, allowing her to flee.  But the woman had expended her energy upon healing herself and only shook her head sadly as she gazed back at Lemony.

At last the bleeding slowed and she tottered slowly toward Twisted Lu, seeding him with an enchantment and standing near enough to receive its benefit.  She sighed in relief as Dwayna’s blessing fell like warm summer rain upon her battered, poisoned flesh.   It was a short-lived relief, however, as Uriel once more rained fiery death upon their foes, scattering them as they drew too close to the wagon.  The ground erupted in flames and a pair of dying oni succumbed, howling in misery as they blackened and died.

It was hardly a fair fight.  No sooner had the oni collapsed than did Lemony choke on her own rising bile as one of the assassins was shattered against a petrified tree, his head bursting open like an overripe fruit and spraying the area with brains and blood.  Another was crushed beneath a dredge guardian’s sword, his abbreviated scream tearing at her heart. 

“Heal us, damn you!” snarled Kiku, slapping Lemony and spinning her around.  Stunned, she dived into a mound of ferns, her back to a tree as she waited helplessly for her energy to return.  There was literally nothing she could do as the last two oni tore past Twisted Lu’s spirits and cast a young warrior down with repeated stabs of their terrible blades and claws.  A gutter died in a welter of flames beside her and Lemony rolled out of the way of a second beast as Uriel screamed for her to run.

Too many.  The frail fabric of Kiku’s dishonored guild flailed and broke beneath the onslaught of the dredge.  Lemony screamed helplessly as a gutter burst from the shadows beside her and cleaved her shoulder with a blindingly painful grating of bone.  She fell writhing in pain as Huan Yue wrapped Dwayna’s divine wind around her and the enchantment worked quickly to seal up her wounds.  At last she could muster a little help for her comrades, seeding and finally, giving of her own health to preserve Uriel as the elementalist concentrated upon a mighty spell, unwilling to give ground as a pair of dredge guardians rounded upon her, blades drawn.

More pounding rocks, brimstone, screaming, blood.  The dust and smoke cleared to reveal more dredge corpses and the tormented figure of Huan Yue crushed beneath them. A spar of stone protruded through her back where she had fallen.

“No!” Lemony sobbed, screaming her despair.  The world blurred with tears but the sounds of death and suffering rang in her ears.  Too many.  But she had to keep on moving, running and dodging, pausing only long enough to heal her comrades.  Now she let them suffer the sting of poison and bleeding, for she dared not draw their pain onto herself with no means of healing herself.  And she could no longer give of her own life energy to stop death. 

Mai Ling bled for her, restoring Lemony with a surge of precious energy as the battle reached its dire peak and the final dredge gardner lay smoldering beside Uriel.  The oni had also fallen to intense waves of fire, their flesh burned black down to the bone.  Twisted Lu lay gasping with a sword through his chest, his blinded face agonized and his body bucking in pain.  Lemony glared at him coldly.  Good riddance.  She seeded Uriel protectively, granting shelter to those gathered around her as the dredge once more sought to tear her down.

And then she caught Kiku’s eye.  The vile woman was scowling at her.

“You could have saved Lu,” she snarled, “I dare you to save Morisedd.”

And with that, she drove her envenomed dagger into Morisedd’s breast, pushing it down into his heart so that his body shuddered and kicked in agony.  Lemony staggered to her knees in shock, the wind knocked out of her.

“No,” she gasped, “Murdi, no!”

He spasmed before lying still, teetering at death’s door, his eyes dull as his head rolled toward her.  Lemony sobbed in grief and rage as Kiku gathered her pack and vanished with a burst of shadow, abandoning her defeated guild.

“Oh Murdi,” Lemony sighed, forcing herself to rise and go to him.  Poor Murdi.  After all this time.  All for naught.  She reached his side and pulled the dagger from his chest, his blood welling up black and dark, a deep wound tainted with viscous poison.  Barely able to see him now through her tears, she stroked his agonized face and kissed him on the brow as she fought to save him with her remaining energies.  Her hands trembled over his body but the poison and bleeding were too much for her.

“I’m so sorry,” she wept as his life ebbed and his breath rattled in his throat.  She gazed over at Uriel, exultant in her aura of flame, the creatures burning and falling before her now.  The battle had turned.  The surviving dredge were fleeing.

“I can’t bear it,” Lemony cried, angry now as she thought of the gods watching this poor precious man and woman rended apart forever.  After all they had been through.  She had wanted to see them happy.  A little bit of happiness after a world of hurt.  Was that asking too much?  

Well, if that was how the gods wanted to play it, fine. She would reckon with them.

With a sob of pain she pushed her life energy into him, reeling under the infusion and gratified as color returned to his face.  Now she wrapped Dwayna’s energies around herself and drew away his pain, the bite of his wound tearing into her chest and the virulence of the poison causing her to howl in misery as she fell back, clutching the bloody hole in her chest.

“Lemony,” Morisedd called softly, “No.”

“I had to,” she gasped, “I had to.”

She felt the heavy press of blood in her laboring lungs, drowning now as she fought for breath.  Her chest burned with pain, her heart faltering and seizing where the dagger had ripped it and injected the terrible venom.  So this was death, she thought, blinking away tears.  She gazed back at the world she loved through a deepening tunnel of darkness.

“I’ll miss them.  I wish I could have been there for the wedding.”

“Lemony!” Uriel howled, her cry ripping the very air asunder.

“I’m sorry,” Lemony breathed, knowing Uriel could not possibly hear her now.  The ground seemed to open around her, drawing her down into its dark embrace, “Goodbye, my darlings.  I loved you so.”