The Coroner (Promo Sample)

She reached the end of the catacomb hall from within the charnel crypt and stopped to catch her breath. A pounding heartbeat filled her skull with a deafening cacophony of rapid rhythmic beating. The sconce above flickered from where she leaned against the wall.

A draft? I am close to the exit.

She thought to herself while wincing from a sharp pain in her thigh,

…just a little further.

As her physiology and faculties returned with the slowing of her respiration, the coroner checked herself for any signs of a potential breach in her uniform’s black leathers and wools. As her hands hastily followed her eyes in a frantic search for signs of tears or hemorrhage, a thundering roar echoed in the distance. A ground-shaking force suddenly collided against the subterranean cavern wall from far below whence she came. Dust and debris fell around her.

There was no time to lose. She knew she had to keep on the move or face certain death at the hands of her predators. She reached for a pouch found on the hard leather and steel-plated brigantine and produced from within a small copper syringe. The liquid within the glass vial swirled and bubbled.

As the light of the burning sconce reflected off the glass, vibrant hues of sparkling sapphire danced across the porcelain white thin-beaked mask. With her free hand, she twisted down on the plunger, forcing a long hypodermic needle out from the metal hub housing. Finding the wax-sealed port near her right arm, she plunged the icy large-bore needle into the antecubital fossa.

A pulsating force tapped the plunger against her thumb, indicating the needle had found its mark. A hard, forced plunge drove the cerulean contents of the vial deep into her bloodstream and towards her pounding heart. The drug moved quickly, being drawn closer to the vital organs with each thunderous pound of her heart. Pulling the needle from the arm and shattering the vial against the stone floor of the crypt, the mortalist fell back against the wall in a violent cacophony of spasmodic fits and rigors.

Her body temperature was the first to respond, a soul-chilling sensation followed by the rapid, widespread dilation of the pores of her skin. Beads of sweat began to percolate across her lower back and forehead. One by one, her thighs and biceps muscles swelled from increased blood flow, the muscles contracting, becoming akin to corded steel bands. The diaphragm dropped. The lungs expanded as they filled with increased air volume. The rapid and violent change in her anatomy and physiology from the self-ministered dose of anthemene was as torturous as intoxicating. The situation was dire, and her life was in jeopardy.

The occasion called for an entire vial of the body-altering substance. Twitching and writhing against the wall, the coroner grabbed her head with both hands. The drug had finally started to take hold of the brain and all five of her senses. Sight, sound, scent, touch, and taste. The woman tilted her head back and burst out a blood-curdling scream. The pitch of her demoniac wail started high, but the longer she held the shrill, the tone dropped to a bellowed roar. Her bloodshot eyes opened, pupils blown and shaking like a wild animal. The body-wide aches and pain had dissipated, and only a controlled rage remained. She sprang from the wall and bounded up the next flight of stone stairs.

The sound of clamoring claws and demoniacal howls were closing in on her from below. She drew her pistol from its holster and pressed down on the side lever to break open the receiver. A large-bore brass casing came barreling from the receiver, tumbling, and clanging down the stone steps behind her. The woman reached to her belt and grabbed a heavy grained, thick shell from the bandolier. Quickly, she shoved the red-tipped round into the receiver and gave the firearm a hard flick upwards.

A loud click rang out, and she pulled back on the large steel firing hammer. The entrance was finally insight as the mortalist bounded up the last stretch of stone steps. Crossing the threshold, the floor erupted underneath her sending dirt and stone debris in all directions.

The chunks of exploding stone hurdled at her as she dropped to her knee guards and slid to the side of the crypt’s entrance. The center of her back touched the cold stone floor as stone debris and worm-ridden earth soared over her coroner mask’s thin, short beak. As the debris cleared, she rose. Using only her quadriceps muscles to stand, the coroner rose to meet the oncoming blow of what hunted her so passionately. Leaping into the air, she landed on the outstretched tendril of the beasts and darted up to the creature’s head. A backflip and the pull of a trigger sent singed fur, pus-ridden flesh, and shattered jagged fangs in every direction.

As she downed one beast, another came barreling from within the freshly erupted earth. The woman landed on the balls of her feet and tumbled forward through the doorway before smoothly transitioning into a series of somersaults to create a safe gap distance. Wheeling around in a quickened pirouette, her eyes caught the huge stone gargoyle above the crypt entrance. As the creature frantically searched around the crypt’s entrance, the woman holstered her arm and switched to the spring-loaded crossbow attached to the top of her steel and leather arm bracer.

Three successive steel bolts drove a deep crack into the statue’s base. Drawing a rope dart from her vest, the woman launched the roped ballista at the gargoyle’s base. As the blade became buried into the stone, the beast within the crypt was drawn to the sound. It wildly turned and slammed its titanic tendrils into the stone floor, shattering the stone into pebbles.

A deafening roar erupted from the creature, sending salivated pus and emulsified bile pouring over hundreds of rows of jagged fangs.

Come and claim your prey.

The beast lunged from the crypt entrance on all seven of its tendrils with another ear-splitting roar. The amalgamated snout of the creature became graced by the light of the full moon as it crossed the threshold. Timing her hold, the coroner pulled with all her might on the tethered rope. The stone gargoyle fell to the muddied earth with a force that shook the ground, crushing the creature’s head and body in a cavalcade of fetid blood and bone, pierced flesh.

The obstructing gargoyle momentarily sealed the door, but a cacophony of howls from within the crypt signaled the arrival of more. The woman looked through the opaque fog that slowly flooded around her. Her eyes quickly scanned the path below, straining to catch a glimpse of the iron gate of the charnel yard. A way was clear. However, the position of her unseen foes had her hesitating to decide. Quickly she twirled to assess the path up toward the holy sepulcher on the hill above. The moon’s flaxen rays slowly became enclosed within the fast-approaching blanket of turgescent fog.

As the tumefied smog swallowed the ancient, abandoned church, the notion of seeking any sanctuary from within was lost. The roars below rang out from below the crypt and reverberated throughout the encircling mist. The howls from the entombed beasts had finally been answered by a cacophony of unanimous cries of more from the nearby hamlet. The coroner could hear the thundering clammer of approaching beasts.

Her time was up. With another dexterous handspring down the hill, the coroner made haste to the bell tower in the middle of the dilapidated town. The woman vaulted through broken windows at breaking speed as she cleared empty house after house. As she reached an abandoned warehouse opposite the bell tower, another creature came bursting through the front of the double iron doors.

Time slowed from within her mind at the sight of the lumbering amalgam bounding toward her. Calculating the trajectory and factoring for speed, the coroner fell back and entered a sideways slide. Dodging the creature’s wild lashing, she quickly drew her short coroner’s cane from the holster on her thigh and pounded the flattened pommel on the hard stone floor. From within the hollowed interior, a spring-loaded lister knife came jutting out from the opposite end. Two perfectly placed slashes of the lustrous steel blade sent the creature’s head soaring from its torso and across the warehouse floor. The headless heap of a rotted carcass slumped to the floor as the coroner sprang back to her feet from the warehouse floor. Rapidly she appraised the warehouse interior for any sign of a quick exit. Spotting a nearby rope pulley, she advanced toward the contrivance and lept up the dangling damp rope.

She climbed rapidly and leaped from the pulley onto the second-story landing. The sound of more could be heard from below, but her eyes remained focused on the open loft door ahead. Her racing mind started to estimate and measure the upcoming gap distance. Holstering her cane and picking up pace, the coroner loaded a rope tethered bolt into the housing of her wrist crossbow. Aiming with an outstretched arm, she held her breath and squeezed down on the firing lever. As it spiraled through the air, the steel bolt shined like a shooting comet under rays of amber moonlight. The steel bolt stuck firmly into the wooden shingled roof of the bell tower’s monastery with a burrowing thud. Taking hold of the rope in both hands as she approached the loft doorway, she held her breath and began to count to four.

On the second count of her bounding stride, the coroner bent her knees and sprang into a high arching forward side tuck straight through the second-story loft doorway. As she got to the count of four in her mind, she braced herself for the impending hard impact. Her body barreled and crashed through the rotted wooden ceiling of the dilapidated monastery. Hitting through the center of a weathered wooden beam, the sound of snapping bones and collapsing shingles filled the musty monastery air. Her tumbling body plummeted downward until finally crashing into rows of partially stacked pews and piles of moldy books.

She had multiple contusions, fractures, and a splitting headache from the fall but the adrenaline-infused anthemene rush forced her quickly up to her knees. The massive dose of anthemene she had injected began to work through her wounds as she heaved deep breaths through the reanimation of her wounds.

The sound of cracking bones and snapping ligaments re-aligning from under her taut skin forced a series of writhing grunts before falling forward on extended arms. The pain was over, and her breathing slowed to an even pace. Rising with an amended frame, she felt the ground shake once more as the creatures had caught up with her again. Pounding against the side of the monastery, they meant to bring the wall down through brute force. She scanned the room, her eyes finally meeting a doorway on the far side of the choir.

She pulled her cane and readied the blade again before running and vaulting over obstacles en route toward the tower entrance. The entrance led to a hollow high rise, lined with a narrow wooden spiral staircase as far as her eyes could see. Climbing the tower’s stairs, a collapsing stone wall echoed from below and through the tower entrance, followed by the clamoring and howling of more foul beasts.

I won’t make it to the top in time.

Looking out from the banister railing to the tower’s center, she saw a bell pull dangling in-between next to the center chiming rope. Reaching over the banister, she grabbed the rope, peered upward, and gave it a firm tug. Satisfied with the rope’s integrity, she sprang from the stairs and held on tight to her last lifeline. Clutching the thick heavy rope with her legs and one hand, she cut the adjacent bell pull with her cane blade.

The plummeting of tethered sandbags shot the coroner to the top of the tower. Looking below, she could see the heavy bags crushing the skull of another beast. Dozens more tore through the doorway and began to climb up the walls with tentacle-like appendages. As she reached the top of the landing, she jumped from the rope toward the stairwell. A twist of the cane pommel sent the double-edged blade sliding back into its housing before being holstered on her hip.

The coroner then pulled her pistol and reloaded the chamber, this time with a glass tipped round filled with a green viscous liquid. The woman quickly reached into her vest and pulled out two round glass vials from small leather pouches. Throwing the vials down the tower shaft and pulled back on the thick steel hammer while pointing the long octagonal barrel down the shaft. She closed her non-dominant eye, steadied her breathing, and took aim. As the heavy glass flasks met the encroaching creatures, the coroner held her breath and gently pulled back on the trigger. The fiery blast from the steadied barrel sent a specialized round whizzing to meet the glass.

As the green viscous-filled bullet contacted the flask, the entire center of the bell tower shaft erupted in a fiery display of roaring green flames, quickly turning every creature in its path into smoldering green cinders. The emerald flames rained down a haze of pyroclastic fury upon the remaining ascending beasts below, shrieking as they dissipated into piles of burning and writhing scorched meat.

Bullseye.

The desperate act of buying time came at an uncalculated and foolhardy price. The volatile mixture of vitriol and ether vapor ignited an emerald flame so intense that it could bring both tower and town to ruin. The reflection of embers danced across the crimson mirrored lenses of her coroner mask as she witnessed the unfolding chaos she had unleashed. The incendiary madness malignantly consumed beast, wood, and stone with anarchical indiscrimination.

As the structure’s integrity began to groan and creak under the corrosive force of the expansive cataclysm below, the floor started to sway beneath her. She looked around in haste, plotting a course for her next stunt. But there was nowhere left to go. She loaded a flint round into the single-chambered receiver of her breech-loading pistol and sent a comet trail of scarlet smoke and flame out over the city towards the far-off fort on the outskirts of town. The last flare trail soared out and fizzled in the distance. The coroner focused her gaze and prayed for the return signal, of a roaring bonfire.

As the green flames rose higher and higher towards the tower belfry, there was still no response from the military installation on the horizon. She reached for her bandolier to grab another flint shot, but her fingers only groped at emptied leather sleeves. The coroner had spent her rounds, and there would be no promised aid for rescue. A pillar of green flames erupted from the side of the tower, sending molten, flaming stone to the adjacent houses near the bell tower.

The thatched roofs soon followed in the spreading infernal blaze she had caused to buy herself time, a moment to still the chaos. As she stood on the belfry railing of the slowly collapsing tower and looked out over the horizon, a single shudder of mortality rose within her. Her raven wheeled over the far-off fortress. The echoes of its shrilling caw reached even her.

Thanks, old girl, but I am afraid this is the end of our partnership. Go home, Vixen, and find yourself a new companion.

From far below the tower, a bone-chilling squeal filled the smoke and fog-filled air. Recognizing the distressing sound, the coroner ran to the opposite banister railing. Leaning over the banister, she gazed down to behold her chestnut colored Solarnian Destrier fighting its way toward her in the streets below.

The destrier bucked and reared as it fought through rapidly encircling pythonic interfused deviations. The horse squealed and groaned as it struggled to reach its stranded and distressed master. The thought of those monstrosities tearing and devouring her horse sent a heart-shattering pain piercing her chest. The coroner choked down a welling of tears as she yelled below to her faithful companion.

“EMILIO! Goddess, damn you horse, get out of here! Save yourself and go! EMILIO! NO!”

As she shouted at her mount, the bestial horde swarmed over and engulfed the panicked foaming destrier. She fell to her knees and cried in a trembling, tear-filled rage.

Her screams of heart wrenching pain reverberated throughout the vacuous night air over the flames and carnage below. The last sight she witnessed before dropping to the wooden floor was that of her loyal companion being torn apart and consumed by the horde of bloated slathering beasts. The pain quickly turned to a vengeance thirsting rage.

Rising from the wooden floor of the belfry, the coroner began to assess her remaining stock and gear. Formulating and finalizing the details of her last stand, the coroner began rigging her chymiac vapors and salts with the remaining alkahest and brimstone chargers she had. Before she could descend from the fiery collapsing bell tower and avenge her horse’s death, a sudden whip on her ankle from behind sent the coroner to her belly.

Flipping over onto her back, she could see the visage of a smoldering, half-charred beast clinging to the side of the shaft entrance toward the middle of the belfry. The corrosive ichor from the flagellated appendage began to singe the leather of her knee-high boot and gaiter, burning through till the Kreiger steel plating of her shin guard was exposed. Acting quickly, she grabbed ahold of a nearby banister railing with one hand and reached for a throwing knife with her other. But her hand only groped more empty pouches.

She unholstered her other cane, and with a push of a button, a spring-loaded steel rod shot from the weapon and split the head of the burning creature in twine. But just when she thought she was safe, another climbed up behind it and lashed out, snatching her other ankle. As the beast jerked and writhed, it pulled on her with all its remaining might. No longer a desire to feed but motivated through a pure lust for death and carnage.

The tower swayed once more before a crashing sound from below signaled the start of the tower’s collapse. The giant heavy brass bell chimed with the swaying of the building, the reverberations jarring both coroner and beast alike. As the bell tower started to tilt, the weight of the pulling beasts began to take its toll on the thin wooden banister railing. A hissing crack of wood sent a splinter over the ocular of the coroner’s mask. Looking up, she could see the start of cracking in the wood. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. She began to slowly count down in her head from within the stillness of her mind. One by one, the cacophony of stifling background noise washed away all noise and sound from around her until nothing was left but the beating of her heart. Silently she began to pray.

Goddess Myrina, Selenestic Mother of sorrows and Dianastic mother of mercies. Hear my prayer and grant me courage. I face the gates of evil, and death blows her furious horn.

The beam cracked once more as the coroner slowly opened her eyes.

“This is for my horse. You cyclopean, grotesque, swine-sarding cunt!”

A sudden snap of the banister rail sent mortalist and monster plummeting to the central fire chasm of the tall bell tower. As both woman and monster slide into the fire, the Mortalist drove her blunted cane deep into the beast’s skull as the sound of the dying creature became engulfed in a roaring rupture of emerald flames. The bell rope slid against the charred and chipped wood floor until finally snapping taut with a loud crack. As the rope pulled down, a single toll of the brass bell rang out across the burning hamlet under the mist-shrouded light of the harvest moon.

Across the moor, the tiny flickering of a signal fire began to take shape. As the raven dove down and wheeled over the fort, its caws grew louder and louder over the sound of the fort’s garrison started to rouse at the sight of the rising and roaring green flames engulfing the hamlet on the other side of the Perthmyre Downs. The women of the guard emerged from their barrack, bunking in armored coats and tricorn hats, to see the commotion from Lazzar Perish. The garrison’s captain came from her lodging and walked the castle’s outer bailey, a spyglass in hand. As she assessed the hamlet, her face grew pale in shock at the sight she beheld in the lens.

“By the goddess.”

Uttered the wide-eyed captain, her skin crawling with chills. Dropping the glass, the captain of the guard whirled around and braced herself on the battlement. Peering down from the crenel, the captain shouted to the courtyard below.

“LIEUTENANT!”

A younger woman came running from the barracks into the courtyard, confused and half-dressed. Placing the yellow and blue tricorn hat upon her loose untidied flaxen hair, she looked at the battlement with bewilderment at the commotion around her. With her sheathed broadsword and sword belt clutched in hand, she shouted back up to her commanding officer.

“YES, CAPTAIN!”

The captain pointed to her rear and shouted below, hoping all would hear her command.

“RALLY TO ARMS! MAKE FOR LAZZAR PERISH!”

The lieutenant gave the captain a hurried salute and echoed the order to the guardswomen of the garrison.

“RALLY TO ARMS AND MAKE FOR LAZZAR PERISH! SOUND THE HORN AND SOUND THE DRUMS! TO ARMS, DAMN YOU! STRIKE THE BANNER!”

The sound of horns and battle drums rang out from the fort as the women of the Turnian Guard dressed for battle and made ranks. Crossbows and spears leaped from the weapon racks behind the garrison’s quartermaster station. As the gates opened, the captain began to lead the forces toward the forsaken Lazzar Perish riding atop her white war courser. As the garrison troops marched to the beat of drums, the green flame roared over the horizon. Pillars of smoke from the hamlet’s comprehensive fire rose high in the abyssal twilight sky until they almost covered the face of the low-hanging harvest moon. As the garrison troops encroached the village’s borders, the path behind became quickly enclosed in a rapid envelopment of dense fog.

The garrison captain gripped the reins tightly as she halted her troops on the outskirts of the hamlet. Peering through the overgrown bramble and overgrowth surrounding the path to the front gate, her eyes caught a glimpse of something bounding from the outer wall of the village and into the tree line. As the mysterious entity darted out from the shadows of her periphery, the white stallion reared and whinnied in fear.

Pulling back on the reins to still her spooked mount, the shrieks and shouts of terror erupted from the rear ranks like a flash of sudden lightning. In a state of confused panic, the captain ordered her soldiers to stand their ground and fight their lives.

As the sounds of battle commenced outside the village, the collective screams of horror were soon drowned out and smothered by the clanging of the great bronze bell of the tower. The tolling continued to ring over the burning city as a lone raven’s croak echoed across the mist-shrouded moor.