Risen Chapter 30: Stonewolf

It was a scream that I hadn’t expected to hear. Of all of the mercenaries, Katrina had seemed the most indomitable. She had seemed that way because she simply was. The woman carried herself with a poise and confidence that reflected her utter faith in her own abilities - a faith that was, in many ways, entirely justified. The woman possessed a number of extremely powerful abilities, meshed together in a combination that would have given many villains of my own time pause.

On top of that, she wasn’t entirely normal.

Now, in a way, that was true of most heroes. Was it normal to throw yourself into danger, time and time again, ignoring the possibility of death? No, even I knew that it was strange. Still, Katrina was stranger than most.

As I had seen in the spar against Jack, she had an ability to ignore pain that went above and beyond what was reasonable. It spoke of an iron will, and of a bizarre mind. I had seen her be stabbed through the throat. I had seen her riddled with knives. I had seen her wounded beyond measure. She had ignored all of it almost outright, never doing more than slightly grunting in response. Even afterwards, she had acted as if the pain of the spar had not bothered her, treating Jack the same as she had before.

No, she was not normal. She had an ability to bear pain that was near unparalleled.

And so, when I heard her scream, I knew something was terribly wrong.

I dashed through the concealing cloud of Risen; their fragile bodies were sent whirling by my passage, creating a visible line of my path by dint of the gaps created. As I came closer, the buzzing sounds of Risen increased, the mass of flying insects growing by the second.

I pushed through, ignoring them. Without a command to attack, they let me by without challenge.

Then, I saw them.

Six gray-tinged men stood in a semicircle, facing Katrina and two other mercenaries. Robert and Hector, I thought. Behind them, Will lay on the ground, blood running from his side. His entrails spilled out, covering the ground in a macabre display of the human body. That must have been the source of Katrina’s scream, I realized. Not pain in the physical sense, but pain in seeing one of her men so grievously injured.

I rushed over, calling out as I did so. “I need a Risen to fix him!”

There weren’t many available. Unfortunately, traditional beasts were rather ineffective against the Gray Woman’s power. Those who were under its sway became strong. They became resilient. The Risen’s bones would have broken too easily, smashed under heavy fists. After that, the mercenaries would have had no defense, nor any offense. Many of the mercenaries had been forced to temporarily release their normal Risen beasts, instead favoring the swarms of Risen that even now assaulted the six gray men in a furious insectoid tornado. They didn’t have the life force to work with that would allow them to raise any more than that.

The swarms buzzed, as if filled with the anger of their masters, though I knew that was false. Among those present, only Roy and I possessed Unity. Still, commands could accomplish much, and humans held a surprising fear towards the insects of the world - even ones as enhanced as the gray men currently were.

It was enough to hold them back, for now.

Katrina looked back towards me, giving me a thankful nod. Resounding stomps cut through the buzzing drone that filled my ears. A moment later, a massive Risen appeared - far larger than I had ever seen in the city itself. Far larger than I would have thought possible for an ordinary person to raise, let alone continue to be mobile afterwards in the way that Katrina was.

I wasn’t sure whether she had worked out some sort of deal with the Spectral Guard, because there was no way that they would be okay with the thing walking around the city.

It was a hulking beast, built to such a degree that I was sure it would have had health problems, were it still alive. In a way, I wasn’t surprised at the size. I had been given a brief overview of what her [Augment] conduit could do; honestly, I was a bit jealous.

[Augment] was similar to [Unity] in that it had an extremely limited number of uses per day - one, to be exact. Despite that, it held perhaps even more power, though admittedly less outright utility. There was definitely something to be said for the ability to tether one’s mind into the body of a Risen, and it was certainly an ability that I outright needed. Still, there was also something to be said for commanding a hulking fucking beast.

Not that I didn’t have a few of those in Reaper’s Grave already, but they could be bigger. If anybody told you that wasn’t an appealing thought, they were lying.

Through the use of [Augment], a Marked could increase the mass of their Risen. There was a limit to how much a single Risen could be affected, at somewhere around triple the undead’s original mass, and the ability could only be used once per day - much like [Unity]. Not only that, but it took time to build up, providing a slow increase to the target’s mass each time until the Risen finally reached its maximal size.

Katrina’s Risen had clearly already reached that point - along with already possessing what I suspected was a respectable size. Were the Risen actually living, I was sure that its increased mass would have brought it to an early death, overloading the ability of its heart to pump blood through its veins. It wasn’t, and so it didn’t.

Instead, it had become a gargantuan example of its kind - in weight if not in height, as tripling its mass did not triple its resultant height. After all, it was similar to how a man with a height of eighteen feet - assuming that were even possible - would not weigh only three times as much as a man who only stood six feet tall. There was much more to mass than simple height; a triple-massed human would most likely be around nine feet tall at the greatest, and likely a bit smaller.

The same principle applied to Katrina’s Risen. Regardless, it was still an intimidating example of the strength of the [Augment] conduit - reduced slightly by the missing flesh and rivers of red that ran down its heavy flank, torn away by the Risen’s [Bloodbond] connection with its master in order to heal her injuries.

Katrina had mentioned earlier that her Risen was a Stonewolf, but I hadn’t yet seen what that meant. The quadrupedal beast walked on three-clawed feet. It was coated in an array of scales that greatly resembled stone, a coloration that I found slightly amusing given our current opponents, running up the Risen’s legs and across its back. At the spine, the scales formed into great ridges and sharp points, creating serrated edges that looked fully capable of impaling any number of creatures. That series of ridges continued down the creature’s spine, lengthening even further at the tail. The appendage was a mass of dangerous-looking spikes, each jutting out with jagged edges that scraped the bone street as it walked, leaving lines in the floor behind it.

Its eyes were small and inset, dwarfed by the sheer size of its head. Sharp, serrated teeth were mashed into its mouth, causing it to adopt a rather awkward expression, unable to fully close its lips without biting into itself. The Risen reached as high as my own shoulders, nearly six feet at the withers.

I wanted one.

No, I really wanted one.

But for now, I ignored that desire, placing one hand against the beast’s waiting flank. The other pressed Will’s dangling entrails back into his side. [Woundshift] activated, and the man was healed, tearing flesh from the Risen to do so.

Will let out a soft groan, recovering from the now-absent agony that had afflicted him. With an admirable speed, he pulled himself to his feet, dusting off his clothes and giving me a wordless nod of thanks.

I nodded back, turning towards the ongoing battle as another small wound appeared on the Stonewolf’s hide, replacing Katrina’s own wound.

The mercenary leader, despite being outnumbered, was in good form. Her limbs were reshaped into the same blade-and-hammer combination that she had used against Jack previously; with the upcoming guard detail, she had never bothered to remove them. That had garnered her a number of uncomfortable stares throughout the day, but the decision was proving sound.

It seemed that when the battle had begun, she had used the [Boneshape] that she had saved by not reverting back to further her transformation. Ridges of heavy bone lined her arms, stained crimson with the blood when they had pierced through her flesh, adding a second defensive measure to rely on.

One of the gray men rushed through the swarms of Risen, covering his mouth and nose with one hand. Waves of insects rushed at him, seeking to flit past the gaps, but he moved too quickly. He reached Katrina, letting loose a powerful punch. She raised an arm, meeting it with the bone-ridge armor.

It cracked, fracturing slightly under the strength of the blow, before immediately reconstituting through her connection to the Stonewolf. Her bonehammer swung, forcing the man to dodge backwards and abandon his attack. With one hand tied up in blocking the swarm, his ability to fight was severely hampered.

That was far less true for the Risen that the Gray Woman’s people had brought with them. I recognized the same canid Risen that I had seen in the alley and the warehouses, obviously the undead of choice for the criminals and addicts. They loped past the swarms in large, bounding leaps, heedless of the insects around them. Being Risen, there was no danger to them. With no need for oxygen, they would not suffocate regardless of how many bugs filled their lungs or blocked their airways.

Instead, they ran rampant, attempting to attack where their masters had faltered. They shot around the mercenaries’ flanks, clawing at their sides. Hector and Robert beat them back with a combination of thick shields and hammers, clearly designed for the sole purpose of blocking and shattering Risen. Still, it was clear that they were having great difficulty, as I would have expected. It was difficult to fight something that cared not for pain, nor for its life.

With that attitude, openings weren’t needed.

They were simply created.

Before I could attempt to intervene, one such opening formed. Hector landed a clean blow of the hammer, dropping his shield slightly to do so. One of the canid Risen’s legs snapped, but it ignored the blow, raking the man’s shoulder with its sharp claws. Blood welled from the wound, dripping down in rivulets. Had he not been wearing protective armor, he might have required a round of [Woundshift] to avoid losing the arm. As it was, the damage forced him back a half-step, allowing another to rush in.

It was sent flying backwards by the sudden rush of Katrina’s Stonewolf, given a command while the woman continued her own fight.

It made sense, of course. She was likely reluctant to use the beast against the criminals until she found out what conduits they held. As it wasn’t under [Unity], they might very well be able to damage the beast and heal themselves if it came too close.

Their Risen were a different story.

Before the massive Stonewolf, they cracked.