Book 3 Chapter 47: I Wanted People to See Me
The Frasheid soldiers hesitated for just a moment as they attempted to size up Dantes and Jacopo. When more grayclad men made their way over the barricade though, the hesitant ones were pushed forward and attacked. They were young, Dantes noted, and not very well trained or prepared. Frasheid had perhaps saved their best men for putting down the slave rebellion back home. Between all the work he’d managed to do in the Pit and now this, he’d have to thank Gavain for everything if he ever saw him again.
Jacopo caught a spear, yanked the man holding it toward him, and carved a bloody slash through his face. He then leapt at another man approaching Dantes, and speared him in the throat before he could even raise his weapon.
Dantes held out his wooden hand, anchored his feet using some weeds that had pushed through the concrete and skewered five different men through the heart instantly before pulling it back, jerking their bodies toward him in such a way that he was able to throw them into other men that were attacking him. He pulled his pistol free from his hip and shot another man in the head that had been about to throw a piece of masonry at Jacopo.
While they fought, Dantes and Jacopo combined their focus and started to reach out, turning their attention from within the city to all of the men in front of them. They could feel the seeds sitting in the stomachs of hundreds of the men in front of them. They were still holding strong, in spite of the blood he’d fed them, fighting against the order he’d given them with their strong desire to grow and spread. He connected to each and every one of them, weaving together the small threads of life that were connected to him, and pushing even more life into them from the city itself, forging all of it into a rope with the thickness of a Mother’s Reach tree.
He took a breath, feeling the weight of the connection as he drove his dagger into a man’s eye that had gotten a little too close.
“GROW”.
Nearly all of the men knew something was wrong immediately as they felt a rumbling in their stomachs, but they pushed on for a few moments, more concerned with what was in front of them. Then the screaming began. Men collapsed to the ground, clutching their stomachs and screaming as the plants spread throughout their bodies. Dantes could feel the roots, vines, branches, and leaves piercing their stomachs and running through their veins in search of more blood to sustain themselves. Those who were not affected, who’d been lucky enough to avoid ingesting any seeds, looked around with a mixture of horror and confusion. The bravest of them grabbed their fellow soldiers, trying to help them in any way they could, or at least figure out what was wrong. Their courage was rewarded with branches and roots shooting through the men they were clutching and into them, searching hungrily for more life to sustain their impossible growth.
The guard looked on in terror as Dantes and Jacopo walked steadily over the barricade and into the killing field they’d been defending. A grayclad soldier managed to cut a root that was attempting to tangle his ankle from himself, and leapt at Dantes with his spearpoint aimed high. Dantes sent a flicker of his will out, and a different plant caught the man in midair and slammed him back to the ground before muffling his screams with vines that crawled down his throat.
Dantes made his way outside of the walls where he was rewarded with the sight of even greater chaos. Men screamed as they tore at the plants that wrapped themselves around them, a few men had managed to stay on their feet, and were stumbling around with thorn bushes slowly pushing their way through their skin, tearing them apart slowly. Dantes willed a bit more life into them, to speed the growth and end their suffering.