Monster Blood Tattoo: The Peltrymam’s Behest 9

Sanguine or sanguinary draughts, various alembant concoctions properly called anima furia or cardifuriants that bring upon the imbiber what is commonly called war-spasm, making them brave, numb to pain, swollen with passion and even lusting for the fight, the best even rendering a person momentarily immune to the grim talents of a wit...- Factotum

The Wormway
Haltmire

11-16 Calor 1602 HIR

Having escaped the clutches of the cunning Lady of The Wight, the party continued the hundred miles or so to the edge of the Ichomeer.  The journey would take about five days.

They passed several abandoned farmsteads along the way.  At one of these, they heard the sound what at first seemed to a cow trapped in a barn.  Sister Angella, the memory of a bovine friend from her rural childhood echoing in her mind, rushed to see the animal. It proved to be other than a cow.  The horrific thing attacked but soon forced back into the barn which was set afire, accidentally burning some of the party who were too closely engaged.

On the fourth day on the road, the skies darkened and the wind grew to an enormous fury.  Soon the fury of a tornado raged towards them.

Thinking quickly, they unhitched the horses, abandoned the carriage and dove for the cover of a nearby rock formation.  The storm passed over them causing little injury.  Fortuitously, the carriage, although upended, proved easily repairable.

The next day, just a few miles from the fortress of Haltmire, the last Lamplighter stronghold on the Wormway before the Ichomeer, they came upon a smashed cart with its two murdered occupants lying upon the road.  This proved to be a corser cart, with two heavily preserved bodies within.  The two bodies were too finely dressed and armed to be mere grave-robbers. Accural found a paper hidden in one of the deadman's boots.  It was in a cipher he recognized as being used by the Silent Shadows, the corps of precursors and sicarian assassins serving the Archduke of Brandenbrass - another clue that the disappearance of Albany Reeves and the murder of her stepfather, the lamented Valentine Portent involved a far deeper secret.  Accural was able to decipher the missive.  It contained directions to the abode of Doctor Corvinus, the black habilist the party suspected of being at the heart of this mystery.

 As they examined the bodies, Lord Danny heard the sound of a multitude rushing through the woods toward the road.  He spotted numerous figures in the woods, with a ferocious demeanor and moving at a superhuman speed.

 Accural recognized the shield devices of the heavily armed attackers marked them as members of the Seven Seven, dread false-god worshipers of the slumbering horror Sucoth.  Seeing their speed and fury, Fransalir and Lorent recognized the effects of a sanguine draft.

Lord Danny hurled himself into the driver's post of the carriage and whipped the horses into gallop.  The rest of the party clambered aboard and the carriage rolled away.  The cultists charged after them.  With their preternatural speed they caught up with the carriage and began swarming over the sides fo the carriage. Flashing sword and crackling fulgar stave mixed with judiciously delivered combustants kept the fictlers at bay as the carriage rushed onward.

Up ahead, Lord Danny spotted a clot of red-hooded cultist crowded near a tree at the side of the road.  Flinging a witting attack at them while trying steer the coach simultaneously, he was unable to prevent the fall of the tree that blocked the road.  Several cultist armed with bows and crossbows took up position behind the tree and fired at the carriage.  

To the right of them, cultists came charging over a rise near the road.

To their left, more cultists appeared.  By small fortune, none of these seemed under the influence of sanguine drafts.  There numbers however were intimidating.

As Accural grabbed the reigns of the carriage, Lord Danny aimed his long rifle at a clot of cultists gathered about a hidden belch pot.  Danny's shot exploded the pot but as it did so, it roared forth and one of the horses took the full blast of the metal and stone from its contents.  Accural nimbly cut the traces from the dying horse and its companion labored on to pull them to safety.

Showing a legerity greater than his skill, Accural managed to drive the stricken carriage threw a gap in the trees next to the blocked load.  Again, blade work and combustive kept the horde of cultist from slowing their escape. 

Little over a mile down the road, the party encountered a group of lamplighters, a patrol from Haltmire, sent by the Warden General to investigate the sound of battle to their West.  The fortress still held fast with an ever diminishing garrison.  The lamplighters seemed surprised to learn that only the Wormway was in chaos; they had been led to believe that all of the Southlands, if not the entire human domain was dying at the hands of the monsters.

In short order they came to Haltmire, the last of the lamplighter fortresses; the fecund scent of the nearby Ichomeer was rich on the wind.  Although not as large or strong as fallen Winstermill, the fortress seemed secure.

They were taken to the Warden General, a stern old soldier, second in authority along the Wormway only to the absent Lampligher General. He proved a morose man, mourning his family lost to the monsters some time ago and lamenting the evil in this world.  However, he expressed the belief that he had found to the solution.  He showed them to the fortress great hall, opening its great doors while saying "Behold, the salvation to humanity's ills is only to be found in submission, submission to..."

"...the mighty Sucathes, Sucoth the Decayed, the Seven-mouthed Lord, the Swallower of Men, the Great and Terrible Maw, whom we shall awaken soon and bring the evil of all the world to an end!"