Elysia swore. Although she tried to stop coughing, it was no use. Her lungs rebelled against the foul stench that rose from the death chamber, and rivers of tears ran from her eyes. She had never in her life smelled anything so disgusting. It was as if he were assaulted by the combined scents of all the sickroom stenches she had smelled in her lifetime. She felt sick just smelling it, and she had to fight the urge to run and vomit.
The sight of what was happening inside the tomb hadn't helped settle her stomach either.
Inside, she had seen a room lit by the otherworldly glow produced by magic lamps. Within an elongated chamber, about a dozen ratfolks, the most repulsive and leper-looking of all she had ever seen, sprawled comfortably among the open sarcophagi of long-dead nobles. On the floor of the chamber lay huge stone coffins, their lids removed and their contents scattered. Skulls and bones were everywhere, and among them lay ratfolks. Unnerved and sick-looking, standing in pools of their own pus, vomit and excrement, they gnawed at the bones of the dead. At the end of the room, the sickest and most vicious looking ratfolk Elysia had ever encountered before was stirring the contents of a cauldron set over a roaring fire. She would occasionally stop to spit into it or add stinking rotten meat from a wormy carcass.
As Elysia watched, one of the creature's fingers had fallen into the evil bubbling potion, and the wererat hadn't even blinked. She paused for a moment to add a glittering powder that could only be manastone, and then she continued stirring. She later witnessed a strange ritual: a live rat was introduced into the stinking mixture and then retrieved. Even the dark hero remained rooted to the ground in his fascination with horror, and she watched every move the ratfolk made as if he were trying to fix it forever in his memory.
Elysia knew that what she was seeing had something to do with the spread of the plague. She didn't quite understand how or why, but she was sure it was. Those evil rat degenerates and their monstrous rune-engraved cauldron had to be involved in creating the disease.
One look at her disgusting appearance told him that she had to be like this. She then she had felt the uncomfortable urge to cough, she had tried to contain it, but the more she tried the more stinging she felt inside her lungs, and the cough threatened to explode. Unfortunately, she did so during one of the moments of rare silence among the wererats.
The ratfolk chieftain froze, his nose twitching almost as if he could sense Elysia's presence, though she couldn't figure out how that was possible amid the concert of coughs, stinking farts, and raspy breaths that filled the chamber.
All doubts, however, vanished as he gestured at her with a gangrenous paw. Beside her, Frey snapped out of her petrified horror, raised the greatsword and bellowed her war cry.
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"Intruders!" thought Caldofil. Humans had found the entrance to that sacred place, dedicated to the most sacrosanct manifestation of the Great Rat God by his humble servants.
Was it some vile betrayal that had brought them here? Although it didn't matter. These fools would soon pay with their lives for their folly, for the Plague-priests of Clan Morbus were among the deadliest of all ratfolk warriors when roused into their rightful frenzy. And if that failed, he could call upon the potent mystical powers that his foul god made him the recipient.
♦ ♦ ♦
As Elysia watched, the priest raised his staff high and tilted his head back to bark a series of incantations in the high-pitched, screeching language of ratfolk. He gave the impression that words were torn from the depths of his body to form fiery figures on his tongue. When he spat them out, they turned into retina-searing flaming runes, bending and fluctuating before leaping and touching each of the followers in turn. When this happened, a great halo of sickly light surrounded the skin of the ratfolks, who seemed to absorb it through their bodies. The ratmen's mangy fur stood on end, their tails stood upright, and a hideous glow came into their eyes. They jumped up with electric energy and grace, shrill cries of defiance coming from their throats.
Frey charged into the warm, misty chamber, and Elysia followed, as the wererats rose and reached for their foul, filth-encrusted weapons. Frey struck left and right, killing as he went. Nothing could stand against his sword, and no one who had been sane or sane would have attempted it.
And yet these ratfolks did not turn to flee as other wererats might have done, they did not even take defensive positions. They attacked with a mad frenzy befitting the dark hero himself. They jumped forward, foaming at the mouth and their eyes rolling back and forth. For a moment, Frey was held back by the tremendous force of his onslaught, and then they were on top of him, biting, clawing, and thrusting.
Elysia slashed at the one closest to her, and it turned, swift and sinuous as a snake, to face her; the air hissed through her teeth, and the madness was evident in his eyes. The catgirl saw that the bandages around the creature's chest were stained with pus. She plunged her sword into that area, and the blade sank in with a monstrous sucking sound, almost as if she had punctured a mass of jelly.
The pain did not hold back the rat-man, who advanced directly towards her up the blade of the sword, so that each time he plunged deeper into her chest. If he felt any pain, he gave no sign of it. Elysia watched in horror as the ratfolk opened its mouth to reveal yellowed teeth and a leprous tongue covered in white tartar. She then knew that of all the bad things that could happen in that place, allowing the creature to bite her was the worst.
She swung out with her left fist, catching the Plaguepriest square in the muzzle and knocking his jaw to one side. The force of the punch sent several rotting fangs flying from the creature's mouth, falling and skittering across the filthy floor.
The ratfolk turned to look at her with wide, evil eyes. The catgirl took the opportunity to put herself on one foot, wrap her other leg around one of the creature's paws, knocking it to the ground as she swung the sword around inside its oozing chest and ripped it out; but the creature continued to live. She pounded her fists against the stone slabs around her, spasming with horrible nervous energy. Somehow, Elysia knew, there was some evil sorcery involved when a creature so weak and sick proved so difficult to kill.
She brought one of her boots down on the creature's neck, crushing its breathing canal and pinning it to the ground as she slashed at it repeatedly with her sword; but the ratfolk took a long time to die.
Elysia looked around her to see how Frey was doing.
The dark hero held his own against the crazed ratfolk, but nothing more. He held one at a distance with one of his oversized hands; yet others climbed over him and pinned his deadly sword arm. It was a huge group, a fight between Frey's hulking strength and the horde of sorcery-dominated Plague-priests.
Elysia explored her surroundings desperately, knowing that if Frey fell to her, she would only have a few moments to live.
The sound of muffled footsteps behind her told her that more ratfolk were arriving, returning from whatever insidious mission they had set out on.
Runes of fire still leaped from the priest's lips as he chanted the magic words, sending them flying through the air.
Elysia, turning her head, saw the spectral glow settle on the fur of two other priests, who were wrought with the terrible transformation. The cat girl thought that things were not looking good. Unless something was done about the priest, the end of both of them had come. With death on her soul, she knew that she was the only one in a position to do anything.
Without giving herself time to think, she jumped onto the nearest sarcophagus, then onto the next. She stepped over the continuing scuffle between Frey and the ratfolks, and continued toward the priest.
More and more flaming runes leaped into the air between the priest and his followers, and Elysia knew, without a doubt, that this was the source of the others' strength. The leaps brought the catgirl closer and closer to the boiling cauldron and the monstrous lord of it. At last she paused, petrified with fear and indecision.
The next jump would have to take her over the cauldron to the priest, and the prospect of her was terrifying. One slip, or a simple misjudgment of distance, and he would end up in the bubbling potion. She didn't want to even think about the consequences of something like that.