For the rest of the evening, the serpent tribe acted in the most welcoming manner. They invited the rest of Bali's men into the village and quickly laid out woven mats in the pavilion, offering each of them a seat. They placed in front of the guests plates full of food from their own kitchens that settled Bali's ravenous stomach. The meal was feast-worthy too, for a tribe that lived deep in a jungle so far from the civilization. The meat came from wild hogs and chickens and the drinks from the sap of rare trees. The cucumbers and tomatoes looked freshly picked, and the herbs were aromatic.
Bali was bone tired. So, after a long day of journey and a belly full of meal, it took seconds for him to fall asleep on a soft, warm bed.
In his dream, Bali saw his mother, tossing and turning in her bed, an ethereal shadow behind the curtain of a net. Her agonizing screams filled the room. Bali watched from the door, powerless and wordless; he was not allowed to enter the room, lest the affliction that gripped her corrupted him. The air was heavy with the stench of rot, but that did not turn Bali away.
"You must leave," Royal Healer Shatadru said to young Bali. The old man's eyes were teary and full of apology.
Bali wanted to protest, but no words came out of his mouth. His feet moved by themselves, a step back that he did not want to take, and the healer closed the door to the chamber. His mother's painful wails escaped from behind the doors, and suddenly, it all turned to ice. Bali woke up with a start, the chill still biting into his skin. It was unusual; fire demons like him never felt cold.
The guest-chamber was warm and comfortable, but the open window let the cool night breeze in. Bali raised himself from the bed to close the window when distant screams floated in. Realizing he was not dreaming anymore, he dashed out of the room, straight into the corridor, and immediately came face to face with the tantric.
"Those are surely not the cries of joy," Tantric Vyom made a pert remark when he saw Bali.
Another loud cry of a man spilled in from the direction of the gates to the village. The two quickly took to the stairs and headed towards the village square. By then, others too had noticed the shrieks and came out to investigate. A small throng was gathering in the square; Bali found Sage Parasu among them.
"Over there!" someone pointed to the gate.
Bali spotted two serpent men, hurriedly slithering towards them. They must be the guards at the settlement gates. Their terrified shrieks roused the rest of the villagers, and soon the entire village was out in the streets. Bali and a few of his men rushed ahead, and halfway down the village road, Bali noticed a third serpent man struggling to make his way up the road. He could barely move, and Bali saw why. The man was drenched in blood; he had lost parts of his tail as if someone had clawed and bitten at him.
"They are coming for us," one of the two guards shouted at the crowd, his face horror-stricken.
"Lord, protect us," the elder chief's voice trembled from the side.
In the light of the full moon, Bali saw at last the malevolent force that the men were warning them about. Plodding towards them was a figure that looked as if it had come back from the dead. It was nothing but a moving corpse, half its face eaten away by raw ulcers, its skin covered in festering abscesses. The one eye it had was regarding the crowd with a soulless gaze, searching for its next prey.
"The afflicted," Uncle Bhringi whispered in a hushed, urgent tone.
Even from this distance, Bali could smell the foul smell of the scourge, which was all too familiar to him. A maddening rage came over the agni asura. Not losing a second, he conjured a sharp air disc and sent it flying towards the approaching enemy. The serrations of the disc cleanly sliced off the afflicted's head, and it slumped to the ground like a log of wood. Sighs and exclamations of relief rose from the crowd.
Few of Bali's men ran over to where the figure had collapsed, and others rushed to help the fallen guard.
Bali turned to the rest. "There is nothing more to fear," he began to say but noticed the frown on Sage Parasu's face. "What troubles you?" he asked.
"They usually come in hordes. That afflicted cannot be the only one," Parasu quickly shared his concern, and Uncle Bhringi nodded in agreement.
In the heels of those ominous words, the ground began to shudder. The quake was hard enough that some lost balance, falling on their back. It came to an abrupt stop. Bali bent down to help the elder chief lift himself from the dirt. And then, the ground began to shake again, and it did not stop this time.
Bali heard the shouts of the people and the whinny of the frightened horses. Despite having a serpentine lower half, the serpent people were losing balance and falling to the ground. The smaller huts collapsed into the dust. Some of the torches lighting the pavilion fell off from their sconces to the wooden floor and threatened to set fire to the entire pavilion.
"Tantric!" Bali called out to Vyom, signaling to the pavilion, and the tantric immediately caught on.
He swiftly flicked his finger, and the air around his hands froze into icy crystals that he hurled towards the fallen torches. The flames died down immediately.
The very next moment, the shouts of the people turned into shrieks, clamoring to get away from where the afflicted was slain. Bali pushed through the crowd to check the matter and a cold chill passed through him. Where the afflicted had fallen, the earth had split, and through the crack, claw-like hands poked through, followed by the entire body. In the distance, a flock of afflicted had burst through the gates, quickly making its way towards the village square.
Like a thunder, Narsingh shouted, "Slay the enemy," raised his weapon, and ran into the approaching group of the undead. He lunged at one of the afflicted, and in a flash, the undead was cut down in two pieces. Yet again, wherever the pieces fell, more undead afflicted crawled out of the ground, as if by some spell.
None of the scholars there had an answer to how to stop the undead who were pouring out of the underlands. Bali and his men began to slash and hack at the afflicted, cutting down as many as they could; yet, every time one afflicted was butchered, three more came out of the cracks on the earth.
Sage Parasu conjured his own tantric battle-axe and launched at the horde of the afflicted. Bali whirled his steel sword around him and immediately slew five afflicted, tearing out their rotting entrails into the dust. Even Naga Rathi, the serpent courtier Bali had never seen fighting, had taken up an arm and was valiantly fighting off an afflicted.
Yet, in his heart, Bali had a sinking feeling that their valor might not be enough to win over their enemies. With every passing second, the afflicted army was growing and attacking and killing more innocent serpent people. The air was reeking of death and blood and rot.
"Use your Agni Tantra!" A woman's voice sailed in. "You need fire magic to kill those wretches."
Bali sliced off the head of one of the afflicted and turned his gaze in the direction where the voice came from. His eyes found the dark silhouette of a maiden, against the light of the torch flames at the gate. She was using magic to bend the fire from the torches and burn down the afflicted. They were turning into ashes in the blink of an eye, and where those ashes fell, there was nothing but smoke.
Use of fire magic in the OneRealm was restricted, and Agni Asuras rarely used it. But Bali knew there was no other choice.
Without losing another precious second, Bali roared to his men, "Agni Asuras, gather up. Stand between the afflicted and the rest. Assume your asura form. Wield your Agni Tantra and burn down the enemy."
Thirty of Bali's men, the fire demons, immediately abided by the command. They all arranged themselves in a large circle as a barrier between the undead afflicted and the living ones. Their skin began to redden and smolder, like ember, and their eyes flashed red like rubies. Bali charged at the afflicted, his hands held up, and mouthed the tantric chants soundlessly. The fire energy began to flow through his arms, and soon, deep red gouts of fire unfurled from his hands and leaped onto the afflicted.
The rest thirty of the agni asuras also began to wield the fire magic, targeting undead enemies. The burning afflicted let out a sharp keen filled with a deep anguish and pain. In a matter of seconds, they all turned into ashes under the intense heat of the fire and vanished into the dust. All there was left in their place was thick, rising smoke.