The Dead Men Tales: Part 3

Corrival sat in his tent, reading some reports while at the same time eating the rather delicious stew that was his supper. It was late, about 10pm and his eyes stubbornly refused to focus on the paper in front of him, he sighed and put the paper down. Corrival wondered what was taking the Dead Men and Bone so long; it was only a 3 hour walk to Castle Bancrook and Bone had assured him that it wouldn’t take long to find the papers, he sighed again and pressed the heals of his palms into his eyes. Whatever the reason for the Dead Men being late, it would have to wait till tomorrow he was about to get up from his chair when Bone burst suddenly into the tent. Corrival jumped violently and his elbow landed in his stew dish

“Bone! What happened to you?” Bone was covered in blood and gore and had a piece of what looked like someone’s spleen stuck in her hair

“Hey Corrival, I got the papers you wanted” she said with a broad grin, obviously amused at his reaction to her gore-drenched state. The rest of the Dead Men entered the tent in a slightly less exuberant fashion and they all settled down at the round table in the center of the tent.

“What happened?” asked Corrival, his sleepiness forgotten “Did you find the papers?” Bone nodded happily and pulled the stack of papers out of her jacket

“Yup, it’s all here. Baron Vengeance ordered the construction of a bomb that, when triggered, releases a chemical into the air.”

“What does the chemical do?” Anton asked the question that was on all of their minds

“It renders all magic useless” Bone paused to let that sink in, then continued “Elementals, Adepts, Symbol casters, Healers… You name it, it would be useless” She looked around the table at all the grim faces “Luckily for you all, you have a brilliant scientist-”

“Have I met her?” interrupted Dexter and Bone gave him a withering look

“As I was saying…” she said snootily “I am brilliant and I managed to cross-wire the bomb-” Dexter interrupted again

“They had already built the bomb?”

“Yes, there was already a smaller prototype bomb with an effective range of about 50 yards built” Bone said with thinly veiled frustration “But I cross-wired the bomb that took a team of geniuses almost 4 months to build in about 2 minutes, then-”

“But…” started Dexter

“Will you just let me give my report?!” Bone half shrieked and Dexter fell silent “Thank you” she said grumpily “I cross-wired the bomb and then stole the plans. The war will probably be over by the time they build another bomb” She didn’t sound grumpy anymore, but very pleased with herself, so Dexter risked a question.

“Why did you cross-wire the bomb?”

“Because I’m a genius”

“You did it just because you could?”

“No idiot, I cross-wired the bomb so that it would explode and remove the powers of all the mages in castle Bancrook”

“When will the bomb go off?” asked Skulduggery and Bone looked at her watch

“It went off about an hour ago. I suggest that someone go over to Bancrook and see what happened, it was only a prototype bomb after all, it might not have worked” Corrival agreed and Bone ran off to go find a volunteer.

“How did she get covered in blood like that?” asked Corrival once she was out of the tent, then he amended “How did you all get covered in blood?”

“There was a fight. Bone did really well, actually” Dexter said, sounding a bit reluctant

“You sound surprised,” said a grumpy voice from the tent entrance and they all turned to look at scowling Bone

“Oh, this’ll be good” said Erskine, leaning his chair back on two legs and watching the storm brew

“Did you doubt that I could take care of myself? Did you think I would just be a burden?” demanded Bone. Dexter looked slightly abashed and didn’t say anything, Bone glared at him for a few moments, then turned to Corrival.

“I got someone to go and see what’s happening at Bancrook” she told him “I’m going to my tent now, if you don’t need me for anything else.”

“No, go get some sleep, you did well” Bone nodded and gave Dexter a parting glare before exiting the command tent. Dexter waited till she was out of the tent, then looked around at them all

“To tell you the truth…” he said reluctantly “She’s really rather terrifying” Bone popped her head back in the tent

“I heard that”