Soul Fire Sale, chapter 15.

Here we are. Halloween story soon, with some luck. But for now, please enjoy this.

The sun was high in the sky, just beginning its downward arc. We were as rested as we'd ever be, having snatched a good four from morning to now. Nothing had attacked us, judging by how clean Loam was.

Thankfully, my golem hadn't snuck into my bedroll; things were awkward enough without all that.

Still, there she was, staring off into the distance, her eyes sharp as a hawks. Which was really weird, considering her eyes were clay surrounding the cheapest of polished stones one could find. Were they always green? Surely they had always been that green.

It wasn't important; I hadn't been shanked in my sleep yet, so I was ahead of the game. That was how it worked.

Oliver rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, then the drool from around his mouth. I pretended not to notice. "Good morning."

"Good afternoon," came the response as my companion focused on getting untangled from his blankets and turning himself upright.

We'd both slept in our clothes, of course, not wanting to be caught flatfooted.

I reached out; Loam was close enough. Feeding her mana was a bit harder through the shoulder than her forehead, but I managed. She was almost tapped out somehow.

She sucked in a good twenty percent of my total mana into herself. Interesting, and slightly alarming, for a different reason than the other reasons I was currently alarmed.

It'd be fine. I am currently content with the events that are unfolding. I am in no way in a chair with a cup of coffee watching an entire house burn down around me.

Goodbye, dear memes, I miss you already.

We had some bread which would do for breakfast - along with the remaining cheese. I took out my knife, cut the little loaf in half, and put slices of cheese in the center.

Oliver did the same, except he put his bread on a forked stick and held that over the remains of the fire for a few minutes. Grilled cheese? It wouldn't be the same without American, and this stuff tasted more like an off cheddar than anything else.

Whatever. I wasn't the boss of him.

I should ask. "Loam, is there anything else you need?"

Instantly my creation whiplashed her head around to stare at me, and I felt a sharp spike of foreign panic. Loam started twitching - which was more than a little dangerous, considering.

"Loam, it's not that deep. If you don't need anything, you don't need to say anything. If you can't say anything, just point at whatever it is or something like that."

Loam stilled. Then after a long moment, shook her head vigorously, some flashes of emotion stealing across her face so rapidly that I couldn't decipher what they were."

"That's creepy as hell," Oliver gave his verdict, pulling his ad-hoc grilled cheese out of the fire and swaying unevenly to his feet. He finally deigned to take a look around us. "Glad its your problem."

"Yes, thank you."

All jokes aside, I didn't think Loam would terminator me anymore. She was just... odd.

I was beginning to get an impression of a silent puppy; energetic and willing to do anything to please their human. What a difference a few days made.

My sort of sandwich was gone; how had that happened? I must have been hungry. I dusted my hands off and started packing up.

Oliver sped up, shoving his own sandwich in his face and then dancing as it burned his tongue. "There's no rush, you know."

Oliver made some noises around his sandwich that was no doubt supposed to be a response of some sort, which I ignored.

He did thankfully pull his food from his mouth and take a long pull of his water, so there was that.

There was nothing dead around us, and we'd both crashed, so we'd gotten lucky. Either that or the fire had warned off the animals that would kill us. Either way, I'd take it.

It was cold, but not too cold. I resettled my boots since sleeping in them made my feet itch, even with socks on, and whispered my current favorite spell; all kinds of life signatures blinked at me. Some were a little too close for comfort, and being small ones didn't fill me with any relief at all. The last thing I needed was mice deciding to cuddle with me as I lay passed out.

Eventually, we managed to get ourselves together; I pretended not to notice how Loam's head was snapping around as the life signs moved around us. I'd really have to investigate how that worked; as far as I knew, Loam shouldn't be able to piggyback on my spells like that. What other spells could she do that with? My defensive spells? If so, that would be useful.

I'd need to experiment later.

Oliver finally got his crap together. Without further ado, I started us off. "Loam, follow and defend me from any attack."

The feeling was instant - a focus I could only describe as sharp or honed. Well, maybe even laser like. Loam was letting me know she was locked in and ready.

"Oh right. Defend Oliver too, if it doesn't interfere with making sure I'm safe."

Loam's bottle green eyes flicked to Oliver and she nodded, almost to herself. Like I might if given such an order.

"Thanks," Oliver responded, and I respected it: he was almost able to keep the wry sarcasm out of his voice, in what could only have been a herculean effort.

The terrain was soon snow covered, and the angle of ascent changed rapidly, both up and down. We wouldn't have to actually climb until the last leg, and I was going to cheat for it, big birds be damned. Those things were likely to see and attack us before we got that far anyway.

We'd have to resolve to kill them, in any case. If I saw them coming, I was certain they wouldn't get close enough to hurt us. The issue was I couldn't look everywhere at once.

No, yesterday aside the birds weren't a problem, so long as we were careful. The real issue was whatever had made the undead monsters that chased the wolves down the mountain. If it was undead too, I wouldn't be able to detect it - I was a witch, not a necromancer.

What that meant was that I could make a reasonable fake of either a druid or a necromancer, but not actually do anything as well as either. I was better at curses or buffing people, but one was only useful when I had allies.

I could learn how to do the whole undead thing, including detection spells - but I didn't have them now. Should I correct the lack? Necromancers were even more hated or loathed than witches were, and I didn't need to be read up on this world to know that. It was a fantasy staple.

Oliver didn't have anything either, or he'd have mentioned it by now.

In the end, knowledge was knowledge. Forbidden or not, we - I - needed it all in order to survive here.

All the same, I wouldn't be raising the dead or anything crazy like that; stealing souls from any eternal rest they may have earned did not sit well with me, even as a card carrying atheist. If I saw proof that souls existed here?

Well, I was already planning on sticking to detection and the occasional death spell. Self defense was self defense, after all.

Somehow, my boot heels didn't slip in the snow, which was clearly magic at work.

Oliver was sliding a little, the poor guy. Loam didn't even break stride, because of course she didn't. I did catch a slight whiff of... wonder?

Ah, she was looking at the snow, wondering what it was perhaps. Which was a bit odd, since she'd seen some yesterday....

No, don't question it. Everything is fine, like the meme.

No sooner had I thought that then Loam shot past me like a missile, drawing her sword and... taking something to the face. Something that made a thunk, like the impact of a large book hitting the floor or similar.

Something dropped; slid off the impact site and fell to the ground. A stone? A very large stone?

Another sound, this one a wet sort of splurch noise, seemed to come from Loam herself, even as I was ducking. Ahead of us, sure, but where exactly? Who used stones that large as a ranged attack? I mean it wasn't catapult size, but it was large enough that anyone would have trouble throwing it any distance without a machine.

There wasn't a machine of any sort around us.

Not even a mile in, and this already.

The life signs spell was still going - and Loam was staring a group of them down, head cocked. A group right at the maximum range of the spell, clustered together and large, heading toward us.

A group that was entering my maximum range of the spell, which meant it was hundreds of yards away, amongst the trees, and somehow throwing stuff from that far. A group of them, whatever they were.

"We need to move, now."

Oliver was already running back and to the east. "Way ahead of you!"

How had he picked the right direction so fast? Luck, or skill?"

"What's the plan?" He yelled back as I caught up. There was no reason to worry about Loam; she'd be following me, watching our backs.

"We need to find a place... like a sunken stream bed or a hole or similar. Somewhere that the terrain limits anything thrown at us."

Oliver stopped, pulling up so fast I almost tripped over him running past.

Then he smirked at me, and turned around. "No, we don't need to do anything like that. Did you forget?"

What the hell?!? "Forget what?"

He took a hand and made a show of pinching his robe between two fingers with it. "These clothes are enchanted, and the enchantments are still strong. What are they throwing, rocks?"

Oh. Oh! Right, rocks were not enchanted, and so couldn't pierce the enchantment that kept any normal missile of any kind from hurting us. I looked to Loam, and she looked back at me with her perfectly unharmed face.

Golems were hard to hurt with anything that wasn't enchanted to - and my golem was fine.

I joined in our march back. Let no one throwing rocks deter us!

I still cast a spell under my breath, just in case. I'd know if the enchantments I knew of failed, and a little extra protection never hurt.

The life signs were still closing, and going somewhat fast, though slower than a wolf might.

I heard a whistle, and Loam was in front of me again. More thuds sounded, but nothing got through.

More importantly, the spell I'd cast on Loam wasn't triggered, so nothing that hit her would cause either of us harm.

That decided me: "Loam, kill every thing that keeps throwing rocks at us three. Go now."

With a burst of snapping leaves and twigs, she was gone. I didn't have to do anything but wait, now.

Oliver kept going. He was right... it would be better to get closer anyway, in case something else tried to take advantage.

A rock hit me from the side; I felt nothing, and it simply slid off; its momentum spent. It also didn't set off my protection spell.

I could hear Loam make contact with our enemy; the screaming was a dead giveaway. It sounded like... Apes? Members of the simian family?

I mean, the rocks made sense then; if it were apes, they used rocks as weapons often. Didn't they? Where was an expert when you needed one?

In the distance, a hairy arm flew. It wasn't connected to anything, and I could see the spatter of blood trail after. It certainly looked like an ape's arm.

Another rock flew, but this time I was looking for it and was able to sidestep. There, off to my right and up in a tree, was a huge great ape of some kind or another, bearing fangs at me. It moved, jumping from the tree it was on to another that was a good twenty feet away, hitting trunk and stripping bark, sliding down.

It was either charging or going for another rock; was it grabbing rocks, then climbing a tree, then throwing them only to repeat the process?

That seemed a little inefficient.

Now I felt bad. These weren't undead, only animals. I shouldn't be killing these.

Crazy pissed off animals, but still only animals.

No, wait. There was more to this. I needed a closer look.

I hiked my dress out of the way to better sprint, and gave that sprint my best effort.

Behind me I could hear Oliver ask where the fire was, just barely.

I found the first corpse, and it was as I thought; the arms were just slightly off, the body different from what I remembered our great apes looking like - but more importantly, if not for being obviously alive until a minute ago, I was looking at a smaller and less obviously mutated version of what we fought some nights ago.

The source of where those undead things had come from, probably. I didn't believe in coincidence; our cousins were intelligent enough, and now some of them were attacking human looking people first and asking questions later, which wasn't like the version of them I knew.

Yes, I was making some inferences based on facts not in evidence here, but something told me I was right or close enough to it. These guys had seen something enough like us to set them off because that something had done them wrong, and they were the source of the undead. This very tribe, somehow.

Now I felt even worse.

Yet, I wasn't a druid. There was no way to convince them that I meant them no harm since I couldn't talk to animals like Dr. Doolittle or one of those tree huggers. The only thing I could do now was defend myself, keep climbing the mountain, figure out the mystery, and learn the spell later.

Oliver pulled himself to a stop next to me, panting dramatically. Then he saw what was in front of us and summed up the situation in two words: "Well, shit."

"Come on."

I could really run when I wanted to; even with the ground as uneven as it was, I felt like I was all but flying across the ground. Like a deer must feel, I'd imagine, at least when it wasn't being chased and in fear for its life.

I found Loam up ahead, her sword through the heart of one of the apes, putting a boot down to yank it out. She wasn't even getting attacked anymore; the only apes left I could see were all showing their back and making tracks.

Loam yanked her sword out and crouched, a clear preparation for a sprint of her own. "Loam, stop. Follow me, and defend me if I or Oliver is attacked."

We'd let the apes decide if they wanted to continue this. My guess is, they would be too interested in burying their dead or whatever last rites they practiced. The ones at home showed signs of mourning, I was sure. I wasn't sure about what else.

If the bodies were still here when we started down, we could bury them ourselves. Assuming the relatives didn't try anything.

No more rocks flew at us; we had a straight shot to where the trees thinned out.

There was something we could do for this, and it wasn't that hard.

With a thought and a bit of a special dust, my dress and hat changed color. The spell was easy enough - but my clothing, supposed to take spells easily as some clothing took spray on detergents, fought me at first - it didn't want to be anything other than black.

At least the boots cooperated. With everything the white and off white of snow, and a little extra help from the spell, I'd be very hard to see from a distance. Or from the air, which was more to the point.

Oliver said a few words, and disappeared from sight, leaving his mouth for last so his smirk would linger in the air.

Loam was Loam. Sigh, I'd have to handle her too. I did have enough of my new special dust - so I threw it at her and cast the spell.

And ignored her as she sneezed.

Wow, the spell affected her differently; where it only hit my clothes and blurred my features, it completely changed Loam; she was all grays and whites from head to toe, and not just her clothes. Interesting.

I felt a burst of what could only be satisfaction coming from the link between us.

My spell was still up, so it was easy for me to turn to Oliver, who was now behind me some twenty feet away, and say: "Assuming you're ready, let's go."

I could hear him click his tongue at me. Then his voice, loud and clear: "That's an interesting spell you've got there; teach it to me sometime?"

"Sure, once we get ourselves established and set. Until then, your invisibility spell is superior."

Why wasn't I using it then? I could hear the unspoken question lingering in the air. The answer was simple. I hadn't tried this one yet, and while invisibility was a spell I could cast, this one was a witch class spell, and one that I had bonuses with, to use game terms. It was more effective for me and when used by me, and I wanted to see what that meant.

So far I was pleased with the results; even this close I could easily find my eyes crossing if I tried to focus on Loam, so from a distance, this weak little spell should be as good as anything else. The real question was how close an enemy needed to be - but that was always the question, really.

The thing to remember though, was that I wasn't the only creature alive that could do this; plenty of life signs were in front of us, and I couldn't see a single one with my eyes; the combination of snow and light making it just as hard to spot anything else as I'd made it to spot Loam and I.

Thankfully, the spell wasn't revealing anything large enough to quantify as a threat to us; if I had to guess, I'd say rabbits and a fox, maybe some ground hog type critters buried under the snow. We were past most of the predators of the mountain now, it was too cold for them.

How did the large birds withstand the cold? Was it as simple as the magic they had in them? Was it even magic, or was it something else, something with a scientific explanation? Questions, questions, and never enough time in the day for answers. I'd figure it out later. There would be plenty of time to explore the mysteries of this world should I survive. Even if exploring some of those mysteries meant I'd have to pin them to a mat on a metal dish and vivisect them like I'd done that frog in high school. I wasn't particularly squeamish, but shouldn't I feel a little more at the thought of cutting up some poor innocent creature that never did me any wrong?

Sheesh, my thoughts wandered too much for something like this. Did this body have ADHD or something? I hoped not - let's see. Snow, rock, and more snow. Biting wind that I barely felt, and little life signs around me. A whole bunch of nothing.

The snow was getting deeper, so that was a joy. It was already up to my knees, and while I wasn't sinking all the way through yet, it was only a matter of time, as the sun was still warming things up.

There was a real possibility of us setting off an avalanche later - but even if we flew, Loam was ground bound, and it only took one of us.

Still, Loam didn't need to breathe, and a simple tumble down a mountainside wouldn't do anything to her. "Oliver, we should fly. At least a foot or so up."

The mage of the hour stopped dead for a moment, then seemed to get it: "Right."

I pulled out my broom, and a bit later, I could feel the life sign that represented him join me in the air.

A faint flash of disappointment or something similar from Loam, though nothing managed to make it to her face.

"Loam, if the snow starts to slide, immediately flatten yourself to the ground and dig in."

I wasn't sure she could keep all that straight, but she nodded as if she understood, and she followed me as I started off again.

Clear evidence she could keep more than one thought in her head at a time - which was not something the spell used to make her stated was possible. The higher golems, the ones made from metal and with different rituals? Certainly... but clay was one of the weakest golem types you could make, and even cheating the way I did, the only way I could see it as possible was the last line of the description.

The one that said I, as a witch, was able to use the ritual to achieve better results than normal. This had to be what my stupid screen in my head was talking about, right? Surely.

Carefully we made our way up, while checking the sky. There were a few spots where something could come at us from the ground, but the sky was by far the bigger danger.

An empty one so far - not a single giant bird in sight, for some reason.

We weren't far from the top, now. A few hours at most.

We were leaving the life signs behind, even at our pace. Where was all the life? Even the plant life, which should be here and leaving signs was absent. Something was off, here.

There, what was that up ahead?

A flash of what could only be alarm from Loam... she slid in the snow.

Then she slid again as a blue hand that could likely palm her head thrust up from the snow and grabbed her leg. Then she was gone, even as I thought my way up.

There was no life sign, no sign of any kind; whatever it was, it was undead. Undead and had been laying there for some time, as the snow had fallen and crusted over it.

I guess as cold as it was here, the thing could stick around under the snow for years and not rot.

More hands thrust their way upwards, blue bodies cracking and creaking their way into visibility. It and its friends.

They were larger than normal zombies, and hairier. They looked like a mix of the apes we fought earlier and men, for all that such a thing should be impossible, even showing the clear stitches they had.

I did not want to re-enact the night of the living dead scenes. At least I should be safe at fifteen feet in the air; blue zombies can't jump, after all.

The real question was, could these zombies set off my protections or cause lasting damage to Loam.

I could use a simple spell here; one of the best ways to deal with zombies was fire, but the second best had to be acidic or corrosive substances. Oliver was already up past me, so he was out of the line of fire.

I grabbed the mushroom I needed; I needed to use the spell to tap the hidden reserve of corrosive poison it had and make more... then I'd eat it, and be able to spit that substance at will, for the next hour or so.

It worked for me since I was immune to such toxins.

Loam reappeared unwillingly, arcing over to get slammed into the snow as the patchwork zombie finally levered itself up and fully into sight.

It looked like it was made of animals and humans both. Was that a tail? A lizard's tail?

Spell complete, I had my snack, even as Loam took offense and swung, her sword a flickering flash in the sunlight. The arm that had been holding her flew free of its owner - and the owner did not seem perturbed at all.

My mouth... it was like I had a taste of something especially delicious, not that the mushroom tasted badly, but my mouth was watering suddenly, and there were only two places for this to go.

My first shot, my first spit, hit the first and now armless zombie right on the back of its ugly, patchy head; it began to sizzle immediately.

A zombie next to it caught fire suddenly, and wordlessly went through motions of distress, running with its arms out. So they feared fire, huh?

Motion from the corner of my eye had me turning just in time to catch one of the zombies actually passing under me, far too close for comfort. Another one was hunched over, preparing to jump. My spit caught it in the face, even as I willed myself higher.

Being able to dodge upward really was a superior tactic in this world; I was quickly getting sold on it. Even though I had to be easy to spot now, not matching my environs from both air and ground.

Some spit on the other zombie for good measure; I didn't quite manage the head that time, but a good shot at the neck.

A flash of anger, and Loam was streaking under me, her sword flashing the light painfully into my eyes again. Limbs went flying where she struck - but I couldn't help but notice those limbs had been outstretched to block the attacks and her blows, which should have gone at least halfway through those frozen bodies, did not.

The first one, however... Loam had ignored it once free, and that seemed fine because my spit was eating through it's head, as expected.

There were... many. This entire small field was coming alive, after a manner of speaking. Two dozen? More? Someone had been very busy here.

Just as I took it all in, another one caught fire. The first such had dropped into the snow, a surprisingly thoughtful response that did nothing at all to put out the hungry flames.

I needed to learn that one. I settled for just spitting like there was no tomorrow.

Since the undead couldn't reach us, their next move was obvious. They swarmed Loam, who turned into a small whirlwind of death, circling far faster than her nature should allow, twitching arms falling in her wake as she moved.

She was moving to stay under me, and any zombie crouching immediately drew her ire. Some few drew a twitching arm as Loam threw them, with enough force to stagger the things.

She was taking blows, however, blows enough to stagger her, just a little. I needed to help her out.

The first zombie I'd spit on finally collapsed, its head eaten through. The lesson was well learned; I needed head shots. I settled myself and started getting them.

There was really no doubt about the outcome now, even though it took more effort to kill these zombies than it should have. They seemed resistant to both attack and spell, and while slow, were less slow than my memories of this world suggested zombies should be. Well, normal zombies, and not stitched up horrors like whatever these were.

Still, it took far more flight time than I expected for them to finally stop moving, and allow me to go down and check on my ground bound partner.

She was motionless, watching around us carefully for any threat. Her armor was torn in more than a few places, but her shirt underneath seemed fine; the zombies hadn't really been aiming at her pants. She had no tears in her self, and only a few of what I would classify as bruises, places where she'd been marked by blows from the things.

None of the damage seemed any worse than superficial. Her sword was a different story, however. It was dulled and nicked, as if she'd been smacking large stones with it, or worse.

What were these things even made of?

"Whatever they were, they weren't normal," Oliver opined from beside me. I'd known he was there, which was the only reason he didn't take a mouthful of spit to the face.

"They took a spell almost tailor made to combust zombies into instant roman candles, and still took a good minute to die. The only good news on that is it panicked them, for some reason."

I had a theory on that, but I'd save it for myself. There was no reason to get into it now. "There is a house up there; I saw it before we got attacked."

"Where?" Oliver squinted, looking around.

I pointed. "Farther up. These were probably guards, of some kind or another."

"Right. Let's go see. Assuming we're all okay?" Oliver must be looking at Loam, who while looking pretty beat up, and still giving the impression of visibly panting to gather her breath, was at most only lightly damaged and quickly healing.

She was, however, chancing glances close to home around us. What was she...?

The snow?

"Go ahead," I told her, more to see what would happen more than anything else.

The response was swift; my golem marched forward to the nearest clean patch of snow and scooped some up, shoving it into her mouth and making chewing motions. All with a clear smile.

That was odd. What was even more odd was the snow was melting; Loam must be warmer than freezing, which only made sense I guess, otherwise she'd freeze and find it hard to move... probably.  How that could happen, the ritual was not clear on.

Whatever, don't question it now. "Yeah, let's go see."

Loam followed of course, even as she scooped and chewed.

I didn't want to cancel my spell just yet, so I was forced to spit occasionally like an uncultured savage. Watching it hiss and bubble in the snow was a little amusing, though.

The structure was more shack than house, having clearly seen better days. it was unpainted unvarnished boards, some of which were warped. I could hear the wind coming up in a whisper and howling around it. It wasn't large either, being about the size of most of the homes of the village we'd left, or even smaller.

The door was ajar but not blowing in the breeze; it was stuck fast in the snow drift just in front of it.

The inside looked just as chilled as the outside, but far more sinister; there were scraps of paper or whatever passed for it here all over. On every surface save one, even the bed, even tacked to the walls, and filled with handwriting I didn't recognize and complex diagrams I could almost decipher. Well, some of them, anyway.

The centerpiece was a very large overbuilt table, caked with dried and frozen blood and fluids, with a full set of crude surgical tools in a tray beside it. Clearly, this was where the magic happened. Just as clearly, whatever magic had happened here, the owner of it was long gone.

The real question would be if he or she would be coming back.