A Monster Life Ch. 22-24

In front of pillars at the sides stood stone knights. Ulric expected them to come alive as soon as he attacked but the number of them wouldn't pose a big problem as long as he kept moving. He only needed to buy time. Faded tapestries hanging from the walls, most with ragged edges, featured gruesome battle scenes of decapitations, impaled bodies. The tile pattern on the floor included many blood red tiles.

The sound of ancient pages being flipped came from a doorway at one side. Ulric suspected that was where he'd find Demetrus and slipped inside the hall and moved silently along the wall towards the doorway.

Demetrus stood at a book stand at the far side of the chamber dressed in a black robe with white curved strands, his back towards the doorway. Bookcases filled to the brim with books and more death related paraphernalia covered the walls apart from one spot, where another book stand stood. The book on it had a visible aura like a swirling black and deep red mist. Ulric would have bet everything he had for it to be the book they had to destroy.

Demetrus flipped another page slowly. Ulric looked back into the hall, wondered once more why he was here in this world and if he wasn't sure he was dreaming all of this, then set his mind to the task before him because he didn't have much of a choice. He felt he'd eventually lose his sanity if he couldn't regain a little of his own world's reality. He moved into the doorway, tensed his body, and sprinted towards Demetrus's back.

Demetrus spun around and threw Ulric back against the far wall of the hall with a single word.

Ulric shook his head to clear his mind and vision. 'Fuck!'

Demetrus walked out of his study and spread his arms. The white strands from his robe came alive and danced all over it while he spoke, and the stone knights twitched.

Ulric grinned slightly, stood up, and ran to the side at the first step the knights took. 'I'm not afraid of a few stone brained knights!' he growled. The closest knight stabbed at him and he spun around to evade the sword, then punched a piece from the knight's arm with his armoured fist.

The next knight came at him and he ducked and jumped to get out of its fighting range. He made a faint towards Demetrus but the bald and pale faced necromancer with hollow eyes gave him a thin smile. Ulric jumped aside with a sense of impending doom growing in his gut, and froze in horror when the knights and the dead depicted on the tapestries came alive and stepped out of them. 'Oh fucking shit!' he growled.

They came at him from all sides and Ulric went for the ones right in front of him. One knight stabbed at him and he jumped aside, hitting a walking corpse with an axe in its chest. His direction was blocked by another corpse and he had to jump up and kick himself away via a pillar to an open spot on the floor.

He growled in frustration while he punched the iron helmet from a tapestry knight and searched for a way out of the hall. Before he could make another jump, more undead and knights tried to grab him and he had to knock them out of his way. They kept coming though and his heart raced not just from fighting, but the fear he might get overwhelmed and not make it out whole. 'Fuck fuck fuck! he growled.

He grabbed an undead at the front and used him as a shield to rush through the line of opponents on one side. He thought he might still make it out if he could thin the numbers towards the open doorway and punched and slashed at everything coming near him, then cursed again when more warriors came from the tapestries and blocked the way towards the doorway.

A white flash from the other side of the doorway blinded him while a rush of ice cold air hit him and panicked moans surrounded him. He blinked when his vision returned and saw Valdys standing at the doors, gazing furiously at Demetrus with undead and knights thrown to the floor away from her.

Demetrus shrieked her name and she reached out her hand to Ulric. He didn't hesitate and ran for her.

Demetrus's shriek rang through the hall and corridor as the two ran away after a group of rat skeletons. Sounds from armour clashing and stone scraping came from every side but the rats guided them swiftly through empty passages and into tunnels where they had to crawl to get through.

***

Ulric slumped back against the wall of a wider section of a tunnel where the rats has stopped. 'Girls?' he said through the familiar link.

'Wolfie! Are you all right!? We sensed you were in trouble!' said Iphigenia.

'I was.' he sighed. 'I failed. There were too many of them and I couldn't fight them all. If it wasn't for Valdys clearing the way I might not have come out with all parts of me still attached.' He turned his head to look at Valdys and held his breath when he saw her lying still on the floor. 'Valdys!' he growled and crawled over to her at once. He brushed her grey hair out of her face and put his paw on her cheek.

'What is it, Wolfie!?'

She's very weak!' he said.

Valdys opened her eyes slightly and raised a trembling hand. A vague tally screen appeared in front of Ulric's eyes.

'Shit!' he said. 'Her numbers are almost down to zero!'

'No wonder then.' said Elzbieta. 'She's going to need a very long rest to regain some strength.'

'I think we can stay here for a while but I doubt we're safe long enough for her to recover.' he said and gazed at her list. 'Wow, she has a long list of abilities, no wonder she could blast all those guys away. She must have used her last energy to save me.'

'It's possible for someone to learn and gain a lot of abilities but if they never use them they won't become stronger.' said Iphigenia. 'She had time enough to learn but no reason to use them probably.'

One rat skeleton chittered urgently at Ulric and he gave it a nod. 'We have to move again.' he said and carefully lifted Valdys in his arms. 'How are we ever going to get out of here?' he muttered.

###