The other two corpses stumbled toward her, gnarled fingers slashing in wide, gasping arcs. One lunged for her or tripped—she could not be sure—but Helesys ducked to the right, missing its grasp and keeping the fallen between her and its still standing comrade.
The elf raised her cannon arm and with unspoken command another blast obliterated the corpse that was still on its feet. The remaining half fell forward just as the fallen corpse was pushing itself up out of the water. Helesys called upon her arm again and caught bodies in the blast. The water in front of her exploded, sending waves and body parts flying across the torch-lit, flooded room.
Forty paces away, Taunauk fought with frenzied speed, continuing his plight to keep the bulk of the undead from reaching her and the elemental. Explosions of water littered the room, circling around the elf’s position. The barbarian leapt and swung so fast—waves crashing and falling in constant overlap—that it felt like she was standing in the middle of a battlefield instead of an underground cavern.
Behind her, five corpses descended upon the water elemental. With breath in her throat, Helesys realized she could not help the creature. The waterspout was too large to shoot around and too large to circle around. Not before the undead reached it. She could only watch through the elemental’s watery body as distorted shapes closed in.
But it needed no help. One by one, the undead reached for the elemental and were sucked in and then hurled into the nearby stone column. The action happened in the span of a gasp and with catapult force. In moments all five corpses were broken and floated like limp dolls in the water, skeletons shattered so completely.
Two more undead were upon Helesys and they met the same violent, splitting end at the palm of her cannon. Several more crunched against nearby stone at the surging of the elemental. All the while, the barbarian’s axe crashed around them.
Violence filled the room and paused only once—when both weaver and barbarian scanned the room for any last corpses. There was only one and this time Taunauk marched toward it, his wake pushing aside the grisly remains that littered the water like stew.
Helesys turned back toward the waterspout. “Thank you.”
The water around her rippled as the elemental replied.
Yes. ...The water is still and polluted. I cannot stay.
Even in the short aftermath, as the water elemental spoke, Helesys saw grisly chunks of flesh swirl in its body. A dozen questions bubbled up in the elf’s mind, but one phrase spoke even louder within her:
“Ut vos errare in aeternum et ut ubique esse domum tuam.” Helesys said the old words because she felt she should. She felt them to be customary—necessary—and as she spoke them, she felt some magic flow with the blessing: May you wander forever and may everywhere be your home.
She did not know if the elemental would understand, but it replied in turn.
Yes.
The phrase was simple, but Helesys understood it to mean: And the same to you.
Then the waterspout shrank into the flooded room, its bright waters disappearing unceremoniously into the gray water of the flooded room. With waters that still churned with barely forgotten violence.
Then the water exploded with one last axeswing. With one last corpse.
~
Helesys turned to see her companion wading toward her from across the room. The full measure of the violence filled her sight. The entire breadth of the room was littered with the remnants of corpses. Had they slain so very many in such a short time?
As he approached, Taunauk’s face came into view in the torchlight. A half-smile on his lips.
“I do not remember who I am, but gods that felt good,” he said with a quiet sigh.
“We were clearly skirmishers,” Helesys added. The barbarian’s satisfaction spread to her, lifting her spirits.
“What of the disk?” he asked, nodding toward the metal clutched to her chest.
Helesys relaxed her grip—in the throes of battle she had nearly forgotten about it. She glanced at her wand-arm, realizing that she had thought only of it during the fray… It was such a powerful, yet innate, extension of her being that it had overshadowed her other limbs completely.
“What’s the matter?”
Helesys pondered her gauntlet a moment longer before replying. “It is a small matter but… I feel as if I lost myself in battle. I thought only with my arm, or rather did not think at all.”
Taunauk shrugged. “A tool is an extension of the body. A torch in the dark no different than an axe in battle. It is a piece of us. Does that trouble you?”
Helesys shook her head. Taunauk commanded his axe and the elf knew it would be the same if she held a torch. But her wand-arm felt like a mirror of that—as if it had thought for her, acted for her.
“I will dwell on it further,” she replied, putting an end to the conversation.
The elf held out the metal disc and Taunauk stepped abreast with her so they could both examine it. It was an exquisite piece. Not a circle, but an octagon about the diameter of her hand and of the same thickness. The metal was sleek and shiny—whether this was in spite of the gray water or due to its entrapment in the clear waters of the elemental, she could not say.
One face of the disc was engraved with the shoulders and mane of a wolf. The design itself was a simplistic silhouette and yet exquisite in line and curve, as if it had been pressed instead of hand-made.
“What do you make of it?” Helesys asked.
“Stamped.”
“I agree.”
“Light enough to hold onto,” the barbarian replied. “Do you feel magic within it?”
Helesys shook her head for she felt no magic in the plate.
