Part F: Tristram
Fortunately, they found another waypoint up on the Black Marsh, otherwise they would have had to hike all the way through the underground passage to get back to the Stony Field. As it was, they were grateful for the chance to return to the Encampment, and rest for a while, letting Akara heal their wounds. They stashed the vast amount of gold they brought back with them; that should be more than enough to fund them for a while, especially since the Rogues, despite Duo's complaints, seemed to charge them lower and lower prices as they fought to drive out the Evil. Except, of course, for the slimy bastard Gheed, but they all pretty much agreed to avoid him.
The five warriors and Relena ate a small meal as the sun started downwards in the sky, and finally Akara stood up and they hurried back over to her. "I have translated the runes on this scroll," Akara told them. "Go to the Stony Field and touch the Cairn Stones in the order this scroll reveals, and the portal should open to Tristram. I do not know what you will find there, only that it took a tremendous evil to overcome the once great town of Tristram."
"Do not trouble yourself too greatly, Elder," Wufei told her confidently. "With the aid your Rogues have given us, there is no force of evil that can stand against the five of us combined."
Quatre felt a glow of relief, and -- almost -- pride at Wufei's words. Had it really only been a few days ago that he stood in front of the Den of Evil and shivered with fear? Some demons were stronger than others, but none of them were strong enough to stand up to all five of them. Not when they worked as a team.
Anxiously, Quatre stole a sideways glance at Duo and Heero. Assuming that they were all working as a team. The Necromancer had been closemouthed and subdued ever since they had faced the Countess, and Heero -- well, Heero was about as cold and indifferent to Duo as he had always been. But as long as there was no active resentment between the two, then Quatre doubted there would be a problem.
They stood at the Cairn Stones once again, and already the bodies of the demons they had killed earlier were decaying. Duo stopped by some of the better-quality bodies to call up new skeletons, but the rest dissolved under the relentless assault of Trowa's vines.
Relena stood off to the side, puzzling over the scroll. It seemed odd that she should be the one to read it, but as it turned out, she was the only one that could. Not that Relena was as literate as Duo or Quatre or even Heero in some of the ancient tongues, since Akara had copied the scroll into common anyway, but it turned out that Akara had truly abysmal handwriting and Relena was the most accustomed to it.
The five warriors arranged themselves in a circle beside the stones. Trowa reached out and laid his hand on the stone marked with a teardrop shape; it began to glow a soft blue. At Relena's direction, Heero, then Quatre, then Wufei, then finally Duo also reached out and touched their stones. As the last column flared into life, bright lines shot out to connect them with each other. The sky went dark, leaving the searing illumination of magic as blue lightning burst from the tops of the stones. The lines converged in the center of the ring, where an oval portal of light sprang into being, then expanded until it was large enough for a man to walk through. As soon as the portal stabilized, Heero took his hand off the stone, and the lightning died as the sunlight returned to its former intensity.
Quatre regarded the portal uneasily. He could almost see the shapes of buildings and creatures through its flat surface, but they flickered through its blood-red light. He took a deep breath, and mentally prepared his strongest spells as the warriors filed one at a time through the portal to Tristram.
They emerged on a scene from Hell.[2]
Tristram's houses were built of stone, but it seemed that even stone could burn, if the fires were hot enough. The buildings were wrecks, most of them collapsed piles of half-melted stone that still smoldered and glowed with the remainder of their infernal heat.
"This is what became of proud Tristram?" Trowa asked numbly, staring at the bodies.
The town's animals had been carelessly butchered, lying bloated across the scorched earth. Quatre's stomach turned as he caught sight of a twisted human body, limbs pinned to the ground.
"Oh... my God..." Quatre whispered, horrified.
"God had nothing to do with this," Heero said grimly, scanning the immediate area for foes.
"This was the work of the Devil," Duo said unexpectedly in a hoarse voice. His face was very pale, and his eyes distant.
A retching sound caught their attention, and they turned to see Relena throwing up the contents of her last meal. None of them could blame her; Quatre looked as though he wished he could do the same, as the horror of the slaughtered town sank into their consciousness. Dazed, they began to pick their way among the wreckage, following what had once been a road towards the town center.
"I see no demons," Wufei said quietly. "Perhaps, having ruined Tristram, they saw no need to stay here."
"All the same, be on your guard," Heero warned. "The forces of Evil are strong here."[3]
"Does Akara honestly expect this Deckard Cain guy to still be alive?" Quatre demanded incredulously.
"Help! Help!" The voice came from up ahead, in what would have been the town square. The five warriors exchanged glances.
"Guess so..." They broke into a run, ignoring now the heat of the flames from all sides. The fires were more active here, towards the center of the town. They skidded to a halt as the road became an open space, with three other roads leading away from the square. On the opposite side of the space was an iron cage hanging from a gibbet, inside of which was a grey-clad and withered-looking old man. He moved, turning in their direction as they entered the square, and they knew he could be no-one else besides Deckard Cain.
But something else was more pressing. One of the buildings on a corner of the intersection had not collapsed -- in fact, it was burning like a bonfire. The flames were teeming with more of the small demons, and their shamans, than the warriors had ever seen before. They crowded into the house, seeming to come from the fire itself, and as soon as they caught sight of the newcomers, they swarmed towards them with the familiar gibbering shrieks.
Here, hemmed in by the burning buildings, the warriors could not force their way past the small creatures to reach the shamans, and it was almost impossible to dodge the fireballs their shamans threw. That was not the worst of it, though, because it seemed that the little demons had sent up some kind of alarm; before they could really get their senses about them, more and more monsters began converging on them from all directions. More ghouls and skeletons, than they had seen outside of Blood Raven's burial grounds; worse were some kind of goat-headed creatures that walked and brandished weapons and fought just like men. Individually, the black-furred minotaurs were no match for the warriors, especially not for Heero and Wufei, but there were so many of them -- and more were coming.
The warriors found themselves fighting for their lives. Each of them was separated and surrounded by the monsters, and slowly forced against the walls of the burning houses. Duo struggled desperately to stay by his minions, knowing he was in deep trouble if he had to fight all these monsters without help. But his skeletons were taking a heavy battering, without getting a chance to swing in return; he saw pieces crumbling off of one of them, and knew he would soon be alone. He looked around, trying to see his comrades.
Wufei seemed to be doing the best, he and his shadow fighting side by side like mirrors of each other. The monsters had trouble surrounding him; he flickered in and out of sight, and could slip behind a demon and kill it before it even realized he was there. Heero was faring rather worse; the monsters crowded so close around him that he barely had room to swing. He was taking almost more hits than he was giving, and considering how many more of the monsters there were, that wasn't good.
Quatre wasn't even visible, inside a ring of constantly erupting fire and ice. Trowa seemed to be fighting desperately to get near him -- whether to find safety inside Quatre's magical zone, or to protect Quatre when he inevitably ran out of energy, it hardly seemed to matter. The body of his companion wolf lay trampled on the ground behind him, as was the remains of one of his animate vines; of his ravens, nothing could be seen. Had he even gotten a chance to summon them? They had all been so arrogant, so overconfident, that they walked right into this trap without even preparing first. They should have scouted the city first, gone around it to make sure it was truly empty before wading right in to the center of things, he thought uselessly, as the last of his creatures crumbled into dust.
He heard an anguished scream from somewhere on his right, and looked over just in time to see Relena crumble in the center of a tightening ring of demons. "Relena!" he shouted, and tried to struggle towards her, knowing that it was already too late for the Rogue; he saw the demons eagerly close in, hacking at the body with their crude weapons, before he was forced to turn his attention back to fighting for his own life.
He saw Trowa reach Quatre's side, supporting the blond sorcerer as he faltered from the strain of so much spellcasting, and began struggling in that direction himself, hoping that they could regroup somehow. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Heero start in the same direction, apparently having something of the same idea; Wufei, free for a moment from the melee, started heading towards the other side of the square and Deckard Cain while his shadow continued to battle the monsters.
Suddenly, over the heads of the tiny demons that still swarmed them, a blood-red giant appeared striding towards them. He looked like a man, except that he was as tall as one of the shambling brutes of the Dark Forest -- and the right side of his face was missing.
He started towards Wufei, apparently having no trouble seeing him. Duo shouted a warning to Wufei and ran towards the new demon, causing an explosion of bone splinters to fly into him. But rather than being fazed, the demon simply shrugged off the projectiles, and smashed Duo to the ground with a single blow.
All sound of the battle dropped out of Duo's ears, and he lay still for a moment, staring at the smoke that filled the sky. He faintly heard someone's cry of rage, and the strange sound of rusted metal creaking, and then Wufei's voice shouting "Deckard Cain -- get out of here!" He tried to move his limbs, to force them to obey him, to get up and fight, but he couldn't do much more than twitch his legs and flop from his back onto his stomach. Slowly, painfully, he up on his hands and knees, but he didn't have a chance to get up further, because then the monsters were on him, just like they had converged on Relena.
Quatre could only watch in horror as the giant contemptuously batted Duo aside, and the monsters that surrounded his helpless form. Heero roared with fury, and leapt to fight the monster, as though he were still fresh to battle, not flagging with injuries and fatigue as he had been moments before. From somewhere inside him, Quatre found the strength to cast another spell, a violently expanding ring of ice that froze the demons surrounding them and drove off others. Wufei dashed back into battle, attacking the giant from behind.
Finally, Trowa found the room to work, and was able to start casting his elemental spells. He summoned a firestorm, sending it through the ranks of the goat-men; the small demons and their shamans weren't harmed by fire, seemed to like it in fact, but not so the minotaurs. They died with mournful, almost bovine-like cries, but Trowa was not particularly inclined to feel sorry for them. Across the square, there was a flash of blue light as Deckard Cain created a portal that would transport him immediately to safety. Trowa couldn't help but feel momentarily jealous.
Heero was still battling against the demon giant with the zeal of a fanatic, looking strangely small against his towering opponent. As he kept the giant's attention on him, and Trowa and Quatre worked together to wipe out the lesser monsters, Wufei slipped over to where Duo had fallen and worked to drive the monsters away from his body. He stood over his fallen comrade, killing any demon who got too close.
The demon giant fell; Heero wheeled around, a berserker light still in his eyes, and turned on the minotaur creatures that remained. Bleating in panic, they turned to flee, but Heero pursued them, leaving Trowa and Quatre to clear up the minor demons that remained alive. They, too, scattered in all directions, and Trowa chose not to chase them.
Instead, he went over to where Relena had fallen, and knelt on one knee to check for signs of life. It was far too late for her, though, and he reached out one hand to gently close her lifeless blue eyes before getting up and heading over to Duo.
Quatre was already there, kneeling by Duo's side as Wufei sat propping Duo's head and shoulders against his legs. The braided warrior was still alive, Trowa observed as he joined the three of them. But not, it seemed, for long; he had a dozen deep wounds on his body, and Trowa could see the red life draining out of his already pale skin, leaving the necromancer as white and transparent as a piece of glass.[4]
"Trowa!" Quatre cried, looking up as Trowa hunkered down opposite him. "Don't you have any healing potions left -- even one?"
Grimly, Trowa shook his head. Like the rest of them, he kept healing potions on his belt so they would be easy to access, and like the rest of them, he had used every single one of them in that last battle. And, of course, he had kept no spares in his pack -- he hadn't thought of it, since they had never used so many at once before.
Duo's eyes were open, if glazed, and he smiled up at Quatre. "S'okay, Quatre," he whispered in a thready voice. "'M not afraid to die."
"Just hold on, Duo," Quatre instructed him firmly. "If we can get you back to the Camp, then Akara can heal you..."
"Not gonna make it," Duo said faintly. " 'M the Sh'ngami... now 's my turn..." He trailed off, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
"Damn it, Duo!" Quatre shouted, tears in his voice, and Trowa turned away.
He was startled to find Heero right there, the manic look gone from his eyes; his expression was grim and determined. "Move aside, Trowa," he said. "I will take care of the necromancer."
"There's no need, Heero," Trowa told him wearily, sick of the paladin's self-righteous condemnation of Duo's magic. "He's already dying."
"Move," Heero commanded, and despite himself, Trowa stepped back.
Heero knelt beside Duo, and the expression on his face cut off any questions that Quatre had been about to ask. He set one hand on Duo's throat, almost gently tilting his head back, and closed his eyes. His lips moved in prayer, and a golden light began to shine around him --
Around both of them, and to Quatre's astonishment, the gaping wounds in Duo's flesh began to close. Color crept back into his face, and he began to breathe steadily once more. As Heero ceased his prayer, and opened his eyes, he looked down to see Duo staring up at him. For once, the necromancer's expression showed none of its usual careless cheer, nor the bitterness that occasionally surfaced. Instead, he looked -- surprised. And, more than a little bit, awed.
"Heero?" he asked, almost inaudibly. "You..."
"Hn." Heero pulled his hand away, then stood and looked down at the necromancer. "You should still go to see the healer. I don't have the power to heal you completely."
He stepped back, and looked up to find the other three staring at him in astonishment. "What?" he said uncomfortably.
"You didn't tell us you could do that," Trowa said evenly.
Heero had the decency to flush, and look aside. "I... apologize," he mumbled. "I did not inform you of my abilities because I did not wish to share them with you. I... felt very strongly that the magics which enhance my strength, and speed, were too holy to be used by --" he cleared his throat -- "by nonbelievers."
"So that's why you're always outrunning us!" Quatre accused him. "It's not just that you never get tired -- you were using magic!"
Heero nodded, chagrined. "I was wrong to hide my abilities," he apologized. "I will not do so in the future. My auras should increase all of our stamina and fighting capabilities. We will need that advantage in the future, if the demons we face from now on are as powerful as the ones here."
"And they will be, that is one thing we can count on," Wufei said firmly. "If we are working as a team, then we cannot withhold any information that will aid us all. And if we are to face Diablo's minions, then we must work as a team."
A crashing noise from somewhere not too far away broke into their concentration, and they all looked towards the source of the noise, though they could not see it. "We can't stay here," Trowa said firmly. "We've done our job and rescued Cain; we're in no shape to try and clear every single demon out of Tristram."
"Especially not Duo," Quatre agreed, helping the braided necromancer to sit up. "Can you stand on your own, Duo?"
"I think so," Duo replied, though he swayed unsteadily as Quatre released him. He tried to take a step, then stumbled forward; Trowa moved to catch him, only to find Heero already there. Duo looked up at the paladin, surprise evident on his face, but then lowered his head and concentrated on walking, with Heero's help, back to the portal on the edge of town. They kept up a wary guard the whole way, but were not further attacked as they returned to the Stony Field, and the portal closed behind the last one.
[2] Figuratively.
[3] No shit, Sherlock!
[4] Those of you who have played the game should be groaning about now.
To Be Continued... *insert demonic laughter here*