Shrieker Horde

Chapter 13: Shrieker Horde

....

Liora hit the ground running, the Black Chord surging through her veins like liquid lightning. Each heartbeat sent waves of unnatural power through her limbs, making her movements inhumanly swift. The crystallization had retreated from her shoulder, leaving only her forearm encased in the glass-like substance, beautiful and deadly in the fading afternoon light.

Four cultists guarded the meetinghouse entrance. They turned at her approach, their black-bleeding eyes widening in alarm. Before they could raise their weapons, Liora was among them, bone scalpels flashing. Her enhanced senses registered everything in excruciating detail—the wet sound of a blade puncturing a throat, the copper smell of fresh blood, the subtle resistance as she severed an artery.

_Your hands were made to heal, not harm,_ whispered a voice that wasn't hers. _How quickly you abandon your oath, healer._

Liora pushed the Eclipse's taunt aside, focusing on the door ahead. Inside, dozens of heartbeats pulsed in chaotic rhythm—the Choir members, the child prophet, and somewhere among them, Alden and Aidan.

She reached for the door handle, then froze as the ground beneath her feet trembled. A distant sound—like the screech of metal against stone—echoed from beyond the village's eastern wall.

_Shriekers_, Liora realized, her enhanced hearing catching the distinctive sonic pattern. _A horde of them._

The communion would have to wait. She turned, racing toward the eastern gate, already calculating how long the village's defenses would hold against a Hollowed swarm.

Not long enough.

---

The child prophet's tiny hand pressed against Alden's forehead, burning with unnatural heat. Around them, the cultists chanted in that same disturbing cadence, their voices merging into a single droning note that vibrated through the floorboards.

Aidan knelt beside him, bound with the same crude rope, his face a mask of barely contained fury. The Shroudmark on his wrist pulsed in rhythm with Alden's own—two captives connected by the Eclipse's touch.

"This is your fault," Aidan hissed, low enough that only Alden could hear. "Your Bloodsong. Your brother's experiments. You opened the door, and now it's coming through."

"Quiet," one of the cultists commanded, striking Aidan across the face with an open palm. Black ichor smeared his cheek.

The prophet child smiled, her empty black eyes fixed on some point beyond the meetinghouse walls. "They're coming," she said, her voice carrying that eerie echo. "The Choir grows stronger."

A tremor shook the building. Dust rained from the ceiling beams.

"The healer approaches," the child continued, turning her gaze back to Alden. "Your crystal-handed friend. She brings death with her."

Hope flared in Alden's chest. Liora. Somehow, she'd tracked him here.

The prophet's smile widened, as if reading his thoughts. "But she will be too late. The communion has begun."

Before Alden could respond, the child pressed her thumbs against his eyelids. Pain exploded behind his eyes—white-hot and all-encompassing. Images flooded his mind: the Eclipse, a vast spiral of darkness against an endless void; the Veil, a shimmering barrier held in place by countless chained souls; his brother Elias, his body shattering into a thousand glass fragments that assembled into a new, monstrous form.

"Do you see?" the child whispered. "Do you understand now?"

Another tremor, stronger this time. The meetinghouse windows rattled in their frames.

"Something's wrong," one of the cultists said, moving toward the door. He opened it a crack, peering outside. "The eastern wall—"

A piercing scream cut through the air, so high-pitched and intense that the windowpanes shattered inward. The cultist at the door clutched his ears, blood streaming between his fingers. Outside, more screams joined the first—a cacophony of sonic destruction.

"Shriekers!" someone shouted.

Chaos erupted. Cultists abandoned the communion ritual, scrambling for weapons, barricading doors and windows. The prophet child stepped back from Alden, her face twisted in annoyance.

"The communion is incomplete," she said flatly. "No matter. The seed has been planted."

She turned to the rear door, flanked by two devoted followers. "Continue the preparations. The Veil must fall."

As the prophet disappeared through the back entrance, another sonic scream hit the building. Rafters cracked overhead. A section of the roof collapsed, crushing several cultists beneath splintered timber and slate.

Through the new opening in the ceiling, Alden glimpsed the darkening sky—and the twisted figures that circled above. Hollowed with impossibly elongated necks and gaping, vertical mouths. Shriekers. Dozens of them.

"Untie me," Aidan demanded, twisting against his bonds. "Untie me or we both die here."

Alden hesitated, then nodded to the investigator's crossbow, which lay on a nearby table. "Bit hard to reach."

Another scream shattered what remained of the windows. Blood trickled from Alden's ears, warm and wet against his neck. His glass eye vibrated painfully in its socket, tiny cracks spreading across its surface.

A cultist stumbled past them, clutching a ritual knife. Aidan stuck out his leg, tripping the man. As he fell, Alden rolled sideways, positioning his bound hands to grab the knife. The blade sliced his palm as he grasped it, but he managed to maneuver it against the ropes at his wrists.

Outside, the screams intensified. The village was under full assault.

---

Liora balanced on the crumbling remains of the eastern wall, surveying the scene below. The village square had transformed into a battleground. Shriekers swooped from the sky, their elongated necks twisting as they unleashed devastating sonic attacks. Buildings collapsed under the onslaught, trapping cultists beneath the rubble. Those who escaped the falling debris clutched their bleeding ears, disoriented and vulnerable to the Shriekers' razor-like claws.

The Black Chord in her system allowed her to perceive the Shriekers' movements with preternatural clarity. They weren't attacking randomly—they were being driven toward the village center, toward the meetinghouse where Alden was being held.

Someone was controlling them.

A flash of movement caught her attention. A figure moved through the shadows of a narrow alley, directing the Hollowed with subtle hand gestures. Even at this distance, Liora recognized the distinctive silhouette—Crespo, the Artificer who had betrayed them during the citadel infiltration.

_He survived the Silentstorm_, she thought with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. But why attack the Choir? What game was Crespo playing?

A Shrieker spotted her, its distended jaw unhinging as it prepared to scream. Liora's enhanced reflexes allowed her to duck just as the sonic blast rippled through the air where her head had been. The stone wall beneath her cracked, sections crumbling away.

Off-balance, she tumbled from her perch, the fifteen-foot drop happening in what felt like slow motion. She twisted mid-air, landing in a controlled roll that would have been impossible without the Black Chord's influence. Her crystallized arm struck the ground with a sound like breaking glass. Pain lanced up to her shoulder as tiny fissures appeared in the transformed flesh.

_Predictable_, whispered the Eclipse's voice in her mind. _The healer breaks herself to save others._

Liora ignored the taunt, sprinting toward the meetinghouse. The building had suffered extensive damage—half the roof gone, walls cracking under repeated sonic assaults. If Alden was still inside...

A movement in her peripheral vision—something flying toward her. She pivoted, narrowly avoiding a crossbow bolt that buried itself in the ground where she'd stood a moment before. Fifty yards away, a figure emerged from the meetinghouse's side entrance, already reloading.

Aidan Blackwood. The investigator had escaped the communion ritual—and based on his aim, he'd found his weapon.

And behind him, stumbling through the doorway with blood streaming from his shattered glass eye, was Alden.

---

Blinded on one side, Alden lurched after Aidan, disoriented by the chaos around him. His glass eye had fractured completely under the Shriekers' sonic attacks, sending shards of pain through his skull with every movement. Blood and clear fluid leaked from the damaged socket, staining his collar.

"Aidan, wait!" he called, but his words were lost amid the screams of dying cultists and the sonic assaults of the Hollowed.

The investigator paused just long enough to glance back, his face twisted with hatred. "This changes nothing, alchemist. You're still the cause of this."

Aidan raised his crossbow again, aiming not at Alden, but at a figure racing toward them—Liora, her crystallized arm glinting in the fading light.

"No!" Alden lunged forward, but his weakened legs betrayed him. He stumbled, sprawling in the dirt as Aidan's finger tightened on the trigger.

The bolt flew true. Liora, moving with uncanny speed, twisted to avoid it—but not completely. The bolt struck her shoulder, the impact spinning her around. She staggered but didn't fall, the Black Chord in her system keeping her upright despite what should have been a debilitating wound.

Aidan's eyes widened in shock. He dropped the crossbow, reaching for the knife at his belt.

From his position on the ground, Alden could see what Aidan couldn't—a Shrieker descending silently behind the investigator, its vertical mouth opening wide.

"BEHIND YOU!" Alden shouted.

Too late. The Shrieker unleashed a focused sonic blast. Aidan's body convulsed as the sound waves tore through him. Blood erupted from his ears, nose, and eyes. He collapsed, twitching.

The Shrieker turned its attention to Alden, its elongated neck twisting at an impossible angle. Before it could scream again, a crystalline hand punched through its torso from behind. The Hollowed's body spasmed, then went limp.

Liora stood there, breathing heavily, her arm coated in the Hollowed's thick black fluids. The crossbow bolt still protruded from her shoulder, but she seemed barely aware of it. Her eyes—normally a warm brown—had an unnatural sheen to them, pupils dilated to pinpoints.

"Black Chord," Alden realized aloud. "You took the Black Chord."

"No time for lectures," Liora replied, her voice strained. She grabbed his arm, hoisting him to his feet with inhuman strength. "We need to move. The horde is being directed."

"Directed? By who?"

A sonic scream shattered a building to their left. Through the falling debris and dust, Alden spotted a figure gesturing to the Shriekers—giving them commands they somehow understood.

"Crespo," he whispered, recognition and anger mixing in his chest.

The betrayer who had sold them out to the Artificers. The man responsible for the deaths of half their Dissident cell. Somehow he had survived the Silentstorm and gained control over Hollowed.

Liora tensed beside him, ready to charge forward, but Alden grabbed her crystallized wrist. "Wait. Look."

Crespo had spotted them. For a long moment, their eyes locked across the devastated village square. Then, deliberately, Crespo made a sweeping gesture. The Shriekers altered their attack pattern, focusing solely on the remaining cultists, creating a clear path from Alden's position to the village's western gate.

Crespo's lips moved, forming words that carried clearly despite the distance and chaos: "We're even."

Then he vanished into the swirling dust and smoke, his Hollowed horde continuing their relentless assault on the Choir.

"He's creating a diversion," Liora said, understanding dawning on her face. "Repaying a debt."

"For the time I saved him from the Weepers," Alden nodded. "Unexpected."

"We should go while we can."

Alden hesitated, looking back at Aidan's crumpled form. "We can't leave him."

"He tried to kill you," Liora reminded him, her enhanced strength already fading as the Black Chord's effects began to wane. Her crystallized arm was webbed with tiny fractures, threatening to shatter completely. "He tried to kill me."

"He knows things," Alden insisted. "About the Shroudmark. About the Veil." He gestured to his wrist, where the spiral pattern burned bright against his skin. "I need answers."

Liora's jaw tightened, but she nodded. Together, they lifted Aidan's unconscious body—Alden taking his shoulders, Liora supporting his legs with her good arm.

As they stumbled toward the western gate, the sounds of destruction faded behind them. The Shriekers had done their work well. The Choir's communion had been disrupted, and with it, whatever plans the Eclipse had for Alden's newly-acquired Shroudmark.

But for how long?

The mark on his wrist pulsed with each heartbeat, a constant reminder that the Eclipse's influence was now literally under his skin. And somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he could feel the seed the prophet child had planted—a whisper so faint he could almost convince himself he was imagining it.

Almost.

_The Veil must fall. The Veil must fall. The Veil must fall._

---

Crespo watched from the shadows as Alden and Liora escaped with Aidan's limp body. The Shriekers continued their assault on the Choir, methodically destroying the meetinghouse and hunting down the fleeing cultists. The child prophet was nowhere to be seen—likely escaped through underground passages that honeycombed the village.

He flexed his wrist, the Shroudmark burning against his skin as he maintained control over the Hollowed. The connection was tenuous, exhausting. Already he could feel several Shriekers slipping from his grasp, their primitive minds resisting his commands.

It wouldn't be long before they turned on him.

"We're even, alchemist," he murmured, though Alden was long gone. "Next time, I won't be so generous."

His debt was paid. The ledger balanced. Now he could return to his true purpose—finding Serafina and the stolen Citadel plans. The Umbral Veil's weakest points had been mapped by the original alchemists, information Serafina now possessed. Information that could either save what remained of the world—or doom it completely.

Crespo's hand went to the vial of Ash Chord hidden in his jacket pocket. His last resort. His insurance against failure.

As the last of his control over the Shriekers slipped away, he melted deeper into the shadows, leaving the village to its fate. Behind him, the screams of the dying rose in a crescendo of pain and terror.

The Eclipse would be pleased with tonight's offering of despair. The Veil would weaken just a little more.

And the countdown would continue.