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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3420663" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 131THE GATHERERThe refugees must have seen them by their lights; the priest Nelan and another two men met them at the base of the nearest hill as they rushed forward.  The priest must have seen something in Talen’s eyes, for his first words were, “They are coming, captain?”“Yes.  Something big, a few minutes behind, at most.  We will take up positions here, on this hill, and cover your retreat.  You’ve got to get your people moving, and fast.”“Our people and animals are all exhausted, commander.  I don’t think they can run anymore.  Some of us, many of us, we can fight.”  The two men flanking him nodded; each carried weapons, a bow and an old Legion spear respectively.“With all due respect, what’s coming... you and your people won’t have a chance of stopping it.”“And you will?” the cleric asked, quietly. “We’re going to give it our damnest.  You are just going to have to ask your people to dig a little deeper, priest.  I’m sorry to make it so blunt, but if they cannot run, then they’ll die here, and not well.”“We will do what is needed, then.  Good luck to you, commander.”Talen nodded, already turning to his followers.  “Serah, you and Allera should go with them...” he began. “Like hells,” Allera said, while Serah added, “Sir, you are going to need my magic.”Talen snapped his hand across in anger.  “Look, you’ve already said that your powers are all but depleted, and you can’t be much good to me...”  But he left off as Shay touched his arm.  “We’ve all go to do what we can,” the scout said.  “What we must.  And right now, we’re wasting time we don’t have.”Talen looked at her, and smiled softly.  “All right.  Let’s get set up on that hill.”The eight survivors rushed up the slope, helping each other up the difficult ascent.  Rocks dislodged by their passage tumbled down the hill behind them, until they lay forgotten in the road.  Around the far edge of the hill, they could see the refugee caravan moving again, its animals and humans like moving numbly, slowly. But at least they were moving. “I think I see it,” Sextus said, pointing at the length of road they had just traversed.  In the weak light of the night, the moon and stars still obscured by clouds, the landscape was just a dark shadow, but the sound of the creature’s steps could still be heard, drawing their attention to what might have been a darker shadow in the near distance, moving closer. “Set the torches up on the summit, behind us,” Talen said.  “We want it to see us, but don’t want to ruin our night vision.”There was about a minute of mostly silent preparation, as the companions selected positions, prepared missile weapons, and otherwise readied themselves for what might come out of the darkness. Talen turned to Varo.  “I suppose you have some nasty power in reserve, priest?”With the light of the torches somewhat removed, Varo looked like a shadow himself in his black cloak.  “Unfortunately, my remaining higher-order spells are not of much use in battling the undead.”“No more summons?”“I have one of the less powerful variety of those spells remaining,” Varo said.  “I will use it to conjure another centipede, which may hinder the creature slightly.”“Be careful, Varo.  Your optimism may be contagious.”“I view events as they are, commander, not as I might wish them to be.”“Never mind.”  The sound of the approaching foe was getting louder, and Talen peered out into the darkness.  Now it was possible for all of them to see the oncoming thing, a massive, lumbering bulk, dark in the night.  It was at least forty feet tall, and just vaguely humanoid; it may have been the darkness, but it seemed to lack any clear distinguishing features.  The ground shook with each step it took. “Gods protect us,” someone said.  “Do you have a light spell, Varo?” Talen asked. “I do.  You wish to see your enemy?”“Yes.  Shay... your bow?”The scout came over with an arrow nocked, offering the missile to Varo.  The cleric cast the spell quickly, and as soon as the end of the shaft began to glow, Shay drew and fired.  Her composite bow had a decent pull, and the shot flew far out into the night, covering a good three hundred feet before it reached the apogee of its arc, and started down.  It covered another three hundred feet before it struck its target, sinking into the shoulder of the creature. The light revealed it to be a giant, walking hill, a thing of earth and stone.  It almost looked like an earth elemental, a creature that several of them had seen before.  But its true nature was revealed in the objects that jutted from its body.  Gravestones, weathered slabs of granite, even pieces of what had been small burial tombs.  Other things, impossible to discern at this distance, except that some of them... moved.  The corpse gatherer was a walking graveyard, and the dead that it bore lived on in undeath.“Let that thing have it!” Talen yelled, lifting his own bow high, and unleashing a shaft into the air.  Missiles shot out from the entrenched defenders, arcing out from the hilltop across the road.  Most of them struck the creature, even at extreme range, but none of them appeared to have any effect.  The monster continued toward their position, the ground shaking with each step it took.  As it neared the base of the hill, Varo cast his summoning spell, conjuring a huge monstrous centipede that appeared about fifty feet away.  The centipede shot down the hill toward the corpse gatherer, slithering smoothly across the uneven rocks.  The defenders continued their barrage of missiles, but while they continued to score hits, there was no evident damage from the impacts.“It’s like shooting a mountain!” Shay exclaimed in frustration. “Keep firing, we may be weakening it!” Talen said.  But even as he drew another arrow from his quiver, he glanced at Varo, who shook his head. “It will come down to close quarters,” the cleric said.  As they watched, the centipede lunged into the monster, snapping its jaws into a massive thigh.  The monster swatted the creature like a human swooshing a fly, and while the centipede was over thirty feet long, it was knocked flying as its “hand” smashed its body.  It landed twenty feet away, oozing fluid from its cracked body; the monster had barely broken its stride.   “Look!  Around its head!” Serah said, pointing.  As the monster continued to approach the hill, the companions could all see what the cleric indicated; orbiting the monster, familiar dark forms flying close around it.“Damn it, that’s all we need, more shadows,” Talen muttered.  He hadn’t meant to be heard, but Varo came up close behind him.  “Can you hold them?” he asked the cleric. “My ability to channel the power of Dagos was spent on the road,” the cleric said.  “But even if I could, I doubt it would have any effect.  That thing radiates negative energy like a beacon; I can feel it from here.  Even Gaius Annochus would be hard pressed to turn those shadows within its radius.”  Serah, huddled a few feet away, shuddered.  She’d left her crossbow behind in Alderford, so all she could do was clutch a healing wand and wait.  Varo clapped Talen on the shoulder.  “Brandish the holy blade; that will draw them.” Even as he spoke, the shadows detached themselves from the creature, and drifted up the hill, becoming almost invisible as they left the radius of the otherworldly light that still shone from the arrow stuck in the gatherer’s shoulder.  Behind them, the undead monster reached the base of the hill, and with a ponderous step forward, started up.</blockquote>

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