**Uh-oh. this is the chapter with the body horror and terror.**
"Enough!" Isthmus yelled as she lunged forwards, but with a great parry she staggered back when Sancha's blade met her own and Sancha continued her speech.
"The Warbound are a plague upon our world. Senseless violence for no reason. Every last one of you are -" Their swords clashed again and Sancha barely had enough breath to yell out "nothing but garbage!"
The Commander howled and lunged forth as their sword fight began in earnest. Sancha felt satisfied with her speech's effect however as the crowd below surged fourth to attack the city guard and help the family escape. Out of the corner of her eye Sancha saw the other two Warbound attempt to pursue them but she ducked away from the Commanders sword and grazed across the third Warbound's arm in an effort to draw their attention back to her. She succeeded, but was now thoroughly outnumbered. Sancha had won battles with much worse odds, her last and final fight notwithstanding on account of the fact they were so heavily intoxicated and unconscious it was more cold blooded murder than a fight. But Sancha was grossly out of practice, still shaky from the events of three days ago, and as she was years apart from the last time she paid tribute to The Warmaiden and freshly out of her current god's favor -- entirely out of magic.
Her opponents hadn't even tapped into their magic reserve yet, if they wished they could increase their speed, agility, and strength as long as they were still dedicated patrons of The Warmaiden. Which Sancha didn't doubt.
Fearing if she paused she would lose her wits Sancha fought with a kind of crazed determination. People were throwing things at the Warbound but thanks to poor occasionally a projectile would graze her own skin. Sancha furiously clashed steel against steel,her arms began to numb from the repeated impacts.. She managed to slash at the third Warbound, who now wielded a longsword, at his ankle causing him to collapse with his blood splattering forth across the wood. Dodging the axeman right into the commander's blade she just narrowly felt it graze by her hair, causing a good handful of strands to fly from her face in a frenzy. Thankfully none of her opponents were wearing armor so they were at least all even in that regard. The third Warbound reached forward from his position on the floor and Sancha kicked him so hard he rolled away from the impact, right within reach of the hungry audience below that grabbed and dragged him over the stage's edge. Sancha became aware that something warm was dripping down the side of her face and realized her ear had been grazed and was bleeding steadily.
The commander threw down her rapier and it dematerialized in a shower of sparks as she drew forth a greatsword of her own from another rune upon her arm. Sancha wildly lunged forth towards the commander before the weapon fully formed and caught Isthmus in a grapple. The commander elbowed Sancha solidly in the face. Stunned momentarily - Sancha was unprepared for when the axeman pulled her off and ,while now enacting his magic strength, threw her clear off the platform to crash onto the cobblestone below as he and the commander leapt cleanly from the stage ignoring the ground's hard impact. The crowd scattered wildly, guards and all, yet not straying so far as to miss what happens next.
As the commander and the other Warbound hoisted the now bleeding and stunned Sancha upward they took a pause. Sancha realized it simultaneously as they did. Something in the crowd had gone amiss. The crowd which had been in a riotous uproar just a fraction of the second before was smothered in sudden silence. Maybe the first real emotion to fall over the commander's face other than her previous rage was a chilling look of fear reflecting the presence Sancha could tell was forming somewhere far behind her.
It was the thing, the horrible dreadful pale face in the inky darkness. The hole that hungered for endless death and rot in a way that made The Warmaiden's pursuit for violence child's play in comparison. Sancha was able to successfully break her captors hold as they were both frozen in two clear portraits of terror. Spinning around Sancha saw the crowd had retreated to the furthest corners now creating only the loosest semblance of the former circle as they all stood towards the outermost edge and gauged whether they should flee or hide.
The only person left in the square near the remnants of the disassembled stage was a figure in a tattered traveler's cloak with faded rose robes peeking through. Upon their face was a look of abject horror and surprise at what was standing before them.
Sancha recalled Asa's fervent prayers earlier. She hadn't thought much of it at the time but there was power through invocation. Prayers were all well and good until overheard by something evil. All made worse by the fact that the prayers were probably directed to the being that evil thing had taken the place of.
Silently Sancha stumbled towards Asa unchallenged by the two Warbound who were now shouting in confusion for explanation. There wasn't anything there yet but the ground before Asa was bubbling up with a thick tar like sludge that spurted fourth from cracks in the cobblestone. Sancha pushed Asa back, breaking them from their trance.
"I'm sorry you were in trouble and -- I don't know I -- I was just thinking I was just praying -- it wasn't like I was." Broken apologies poured from Asa's mouth as all of their thoughts crashed into each other at once.
Still not quite getting enough air Sancha couldn't find the energy to reply but instead lead Asa back (although it was more like stumbling with all of her weight onto Asa to push them further away.) She tried to brandish her sword towards the rapidly growing amalgamation of writhing shadows that now grew in height from the center of the square but her arm finally gave out. Her sword clattered to the ground and subsequently vanished slowly into a fine glowing dust - almost as if it was involuntarily being spirited away and was trying to stay with its wielder.
People had chosen to smartly flee and hide, even Sancha unsure of the next course of action continued to head away with Asa's assistance as they caught on to the fact that they were preparing to run if needed. Meanwhile, the commander and axeman were glowing with power as they evoked their magic and approached the mass with weapons readied.
"What manner of magic is this." Isthmus shouted, addressing no one in particular.
Perhaps in reply the mass stilled. It finished forming almost twice the height of a human and a few times as wide. It was a column of pitch black darkness that gave the impression of a tear which had been ripped through the space before them. Like someone had taken a knife to a canvas and exposed pittch black darkness from behind. It was the same void-like darkness that seemed to swallow all light and sound, exactly like what she had seen and felt in the vision with the cottage.
There wasn't any sound anywhere in the city now, the wind was still, the sky was stuck just past sunset in a frozen portrait of starless twilight, and even the clouds had frozen.
Directly across from Sancha a face appeared in the void, looking directly across the city square to lock eyes with her. It was skeletal with taut grey skin that stretched over its sharply squirming flesh. Its mouth was full of sharpened teeth like broken glass in no natural pattern, and the deep hollow sockets where its eyes could have once been filled the space between them as if it were just inches before her. Its mouth opened even wider, not following any organic path. It just warped it's shape into a sharp toothed cavernous excuse for a smile. Then, once it was done staring Sancha down, it swiftly turned in an instant and launched itself upon the Warbound.
In a sudden flurry of motion the darkness formed its grotesque monstrous body with the excess darkness flipping around wildly almost like a cloak. It had skeletal and bony appendages that seemed to writhe with darkness underneath its oily pitch-black skin that all ended in dagger like talons. With one great bellow it filled the air with a hellish scream that endlessly echoed off of the walls with no sign of quieting. Every elongated sunset shadow in the square leapt from its place and formed horrible skeletal monsters with eyes you could feel boring through their skull to look and see even what they were facing away from.
No longer able to look at the grotesque circus forming before them Sancha finally found her voice just enough to croak out "run!"
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