After her previous outbursts, I was surprised to see her accept the information with relative calm. “I’ll come with you. I promise I won’t get in the way,” she answered.
The immediate reversal of her attitude puzzled me, but I quickly let the thought go and refocused on the task at hand. “Good. Let’s go.” I strode across the clearing to where Bella and Elise were waiting. “Thank you for coming to me with this, Elise. We’ll take care of it,” I said, motioning to Lia and Marin behind me. “Please wait here until we come back. I promise you’ll be safe.”
“I’m not worried about us,” she said, stepping forward to wrap me in her arms. “Primes watch over you,” she intoned. After a final squeeze, she moved on to my companions. “You too, Marly. And you, dear,” she said, giving each a hug in turn. Bella gave us a deep bow, remaining quiet as she stood behind Elise.
With our goodbyes out of the way, I turned and led our party down the dirt road, slowly increasing my pace until Marin began to struggle to keep up. I pushed my Detection out to its maximum limit, stretching over the forests and fields for miles in every direction. Although we had a specified direction to head in, I was unsure how much time had passed since the ambush took place, and I was determined to find the beasts no matter how far they had moved in the intervening hours.
We sprinted out of the forest and onto the main road in total silence, gradually slowing down as Marin’s breath grew strained. I kept a close eye on her mana reserves as we traveled to ensure she wasn’t entirely spent by the time our combat started. While it was clear that she was tired, she showed no signs of stopping and made no complaints. The hardened resolve on her face was familiar; I could see Val in her eyes, inscrutable and unfaltering as steel.
I planted my heels in the dirt and skidded to a sudden halt when the first sign of the monsters’ auras appeared at the edge of my Detection. “They’re close,” I murmured, tilting my head towards the forest in the direction of the presence. “We’ll go slowly from here.” Turning to Marin, I put a hand on her shoulder and gripped it tightly. “I promise that we’ll do everything we can to keep you safe, but I need you to be on your guard. If things go wrong and you’re forced to fight, don’t hold anything back.” My eyes fell to the massive gauntlets on her arms. “Do whatever you can to survive.”
“I will,” she said firmly, clenching her hands into fists.
“Now stay behind us,” I commanded as I turned back to the woods. As we made our way off the road, I sent a pulse of mana forward to completely encompass the static void in my head. Where the first monster we had faced had held a perfectly circular field around it, the field before us was slightly oblong in shape and seemed to undulate back and forth at various points around its edge. There’s definitely more than one in there. The thought sent a fresh wave of anxiety tingling through my already wired body, and I leaned against a nearby tree to compose myself.
A sudden wave of blissfully cool energy washed over me, scratching an itch at the back of my mind I hadn’t been able to pinpoint since we had returned from our canceled adventure. My head rushed as I incorporated an entirely separate set of sensory inputs: cool air against bare skin, hands gripped tightly around matched longswords, and a view of myself, standing frozen in the forest, through different eyes. My shoulders relaxed as we shared a mutual sigh of relief. Hi, we thought in unison, both smiling. I missed you.
With my head feeling whole once again, I pushed forward with renewed confidence. The trees became more densely packed as we continued deeper into the forest; initially, tall grass and wildflowers had filled the ground between the sparse emberwoods, but they quickly subsided to mossy, root-covered dirt with hardly an arms’ breadth of space between the ancient tree trunks. Any light that managed to filter down through the thick cover above us was tinged red from the emberwood leaves, giving the forest a seemingly sourceless crimson glow.
I stopped our advance a dozen yards from the edge of the monsters’ auras. The forest was far too thick to catch sight of them, but my Enhanced Senses picked up on the sharp tap of their talons and scythes against stone as well as the unmistakable ripping, dripping, squelching noises of a beast consuming its prey. They’re eating. We’ll catch them unaware. Our thought was triumphant, pointedly ignoring the idea of what their meal might be.
“Marin,” I whispered, turning to face her, “we’re here. Once we enter their aura, they’ll know, so we have to move quickly. You won’t be able to extend your mana, either; just focus on your enhancements and listen for our orders. When you catch up to us, stay at least twenty feet back.”
“When I catch up?” she asked, wrinkling her brow. “You want me to wait here first?”
I shook my head in frustration. “What? No, I want you to do your absolute best to keep up.” It took me a moment to remember that Marin wasn’t tapped into the mental bond I held with Lia, so she couldn’t see the plan we were constructing while I spoke. “We’re going to outrun you, but you’ll know where we’re going.”
Her eyes hardened at the apparent challenge, accentuating the steely calm of her face. “Okay.”
Satisfied, I turned back towards our target, but my gaze caught on Lia’s eyes. I watched the golden, sparkling pools with fascination as they stared back at me, revealing my own hard, icy-gray eyes in turn. My hand raised to her chin and brushed along her cheek, and I nearly recoiled at the feeling of the leather across our shared skin. Whatever I wanted to say to her faded away into the swirling sea of our shared experiences and left me with a single thought.
Forever.
Without a word, we turned and charged ahead into the forest. The glowing map in our head fizzled away as we entered the suffocating aura. Each footfall rocketed us forward at impossible speeds, and we wove between the trees in an intricate dance of spins and leaps that carried us closer to our final destination. Marin followed along behind us, her footfalls heavy, awkward, and fading in volume as she immediately fell behind. Lia and I covered the hundred-yard dash in just under two seconds, and the scene we had been trying to predict finally revealed itself.
Four of the beasts were packed around a pile of mangled, bloody corpses within a tight circle of trees. The monsters stood with their legs and arms twisted at sickening angles, suspending their bulbous bodies just inches above the ground where they feasted on their kills with gaping, lipless mouths. Three more monsters were suspended ten feet above the corpse pile, their limbs stretched across the tiny clearing to anchor themselves with claw and scythe in opposite emberwoods. The hanging beasts bobbed wildly as they fought to lower themselves down far enough to bite into the closest body. Each of the monsters was entirely identical to its neighbors in shape and size, differing only in the pattern of violet veins that ran along their faded orange chitin.
We processed the entirety of the situation in a split second. Seven of them. No space to fight them all at once; trees will give them vertical movement and block our line of sight. Plans flashed behind our eyes as we split apart and circled their formation. Press the surprise. Drop the suspended ones and retreat. Find out how they move in close quarters.
Our initial attack caught the beasts before they had a chance to react to our intrusion. I kicked hard against an upturned stump and launched into the air, sailing up to the level of the highest hanging monster. Taking my sword in both hands, I plunged the blade straight through the center of the beast’s suspended torso, severing the spinal cord I knew was buried deep beneath the chitinous armor. It gave a single, violent shudder before it fell limp, hanging between the trees with its scythes and talons still embedded deep in the wood. I perched on the swinging body for a brief moment before I withdrew my sword and jumped backwards, dislodging the dead beast from the trees down onto its scrambling companions.
While I struck from the air, Lia attacked from the ground. Her swords whipped up in symmetrical arcs that severed the back legs of the lowest-hanging beast, causing it to swing forward and collapse onto the corpse pile as rotten purple blood gus
hed from its wounds. The onyx blades clashed above her head in a shower of golden sparks, instantly combining into a brutal greataxe. She hammered the weapon down with a fearsome roar and split the wounded beast through its midsection, spilling its putrid entrails over its stunned allies. The mountain of monsters writhed with flailing limbs and spurting blood as Lia reformed her longswords and dashed away, regrouping with me a dozen yards from the scene.
Marin crashed to a halt at her designated distance behind us and looked upon the scene with an expression of pure horror. Her wide eyes were locked on the foremost beast, which glistened beneath the sanguine light of the canopy as it finally began to right itself and move towards us. Its bladed arms scraped against mossy roots as it crawled out of the tangle and skittered forward. The speed with which it moved was unnerving and entirely unexpected; where the trees grew too close together for it to run normally, it reached its scythes up and clambered sideways along the emberwoods, vaulting from tree to tree in a terrifying display of acrobatics.
“Back!” I shouted, waving Marin away. “Back, now!” The three of us sprinted along the path we had followed into the forest as the monsters formed up and gave chase behind us. It was difficult to map the positions of the five remaining beasts without Detection, but our Enhanced Senses gave us accurate enough directions via the harsh clacking of talons and the fetid stench of blood. A second layer of dread set in as the sounds and smells spread apart into a wide semicircle, the edges of which raced ahead of us on either side. Pack tactics. Flanking.
Our deepened mental bond flared to life, and our voices spoke in matched echoes as we created our new plan of attack.
They’ll catch us if we match Marin’s speed, but—
—we can’t fight them all at once in here—
—especially not with her with us.
She can make us space to fight—
—if we give her time.
We’ll split their pack apart—
—and choose our battles until then.
We can do this.
“Marin, we need your help. Can you help us?” Lia asked as we ran. Marin’s eyes scanned the surrounding trees for signs of the pursuing creatures with a singular focus, leaving the question unanswered. “Marin,” Lia persisted, more sharply, “listen to me. We need you if we’re going to get out of this alive.” The command snapped the girl out of her fearful silence, and she gave Lia a small nod. “When I give the signal, we’re going to stop running, and you’re going to knock down as many trees as you can, as fast as you can.”
Marin’s mouth moved to respond, but no noise came out apart from a hoarse wheeze as she struggled to keep up her frantic retreat. “I—I can do it,” she repeated in a raspy voice, flexing her gauntleted fingers in anticipation.
As soon as I heard the confirmation, I cut hard to one side and sprinted away from Lia and Marin, doubling my speed on an intercept course with the beast that led the right flank. The tight arc it followed in an effort to get ahead of us left it separated from the rest of the pack, and I rushed ahead to press my one-on-one advantage. Just as we had hoped, the closest two beasts broke off from their advance and swarmed towards me; now separated from my group, I appeared just as isolated as my prey. You’re clear.
“Now, Marin!” A melodic knell sounded through the forest as Marin skidded to a stop and rang her fists together. She leaned back and held up an armored fist, then rocketed at the nearest tree with reckless abandon. I watched through Lia’s eyes as the tree trunk vaporized into a glorious hail of splinters and sawdust, sending leaves fluttering madly through the air as the top half of the emberwood rained down in massive, spiked chunks. Marin stood in awe of her destruction with her fist still outstretched, hovering where the tree had stood moments before.
“More!” Lia shouted, planting both her swords in the dirt beside her. “More, Marin!” Marin shook off her stupor and leapt sideways towards the next tree, striking it with a similarly devastating blow. Lia knelt and hefted up a ten-foot-long chunk of jagged wood from the wreckage on the ground. She tested its weight in her arms as she stood and turned to the approaching pair of monsters, then sent it screaming downfield in their direction. The missile grazed against chitin as the closest beast dropped haphazardly from the trees to the ground to avoid the attack, taking a moment to right itself before it continued its charge.
The rhythmic tremors of Marin’s rampage echoed in my chest like a wardrum and pushed me harder towards my own foe. It hung upside down in a towering emberwood, its taloned feet securely lodged in the bark as it waited motionless for my arrival. While the beast’s ovaline body was suspended ten feet above the ground, safely out of my normal reach, its bladed arms hung down nearly to the forest floor, gently swaying back and forth in anticipation. Hollow sockets watched me eyelessly below circular rows of dripping teeth as I burst into view and made a snap assessment of my position.
Six seconds until reinforcements arrive. I rushed ahead, ready to spring into the air and spear the beast through its chest, but the waiting scythes flashed up towards my gut before I left the ground. I caught the blows on the flat of my sword and was immediately thrown backwards from the immense force of the attack. A spike of pain shot through my back as I smashed into a nearby tree, and my Pain Reduction activated autonomously. Four seconds. My legs coiled up beneath me against the emberwood and launched me in for another clash, this time at a lower angle. I slid beneath the beast’s rising blades and impaled my sword into the tree trunk, activating the Shatter rune in my ring with a burst of mana.
The tree transformed into a rapidly expanding cloud of fine sawdust as it disintegrated entirely from root to leaf. With its perch suddenly destroyed, the beast clawed in vain at the air as it tumbled end over end. My sword flashed in a whipping arc over my head as I split the monster in half, rewarding me with an immediate shower of steaming viscera. The acrid slime covered my face and chest, but my body was already moving before I had a chance to react with disgust. One second.
A new pair of bladed arms hissed over my head as I rolled to the side just in time to avoid being decapitated. Time to leave. I took my feet and sprinted back toward Lia and Marin, stopping a dozen yards later to dodge another attack as the second beast raked at me with its talons from above. Our intricate dance continued as I made my way back to my companions; whenever one of my pursuers stopped to make an attack, the other would scuttle ahead along the trees with unnatural ease to position itself directly in my path.
I’ve got you. I felt a light breeze on my face as a spiked projectile whistled by, only a few inches from my left ear. It caught the closest beast square in the midsection and sent it reeling backwards as the wood exploded against its chitin. The remaining monster behind me fell back to regroup with its fallen companion, clearly having learned a lesson from the slaying of its ally. Now unharassed, I turned my attention toward the clearing Marin had created ahead. A beautiful pillar of golden sunlight spilled through the gap in the trees, banishing the otherworldly red glow around the thirty-yard-wide arena.
Marin continued to expand our haven on the opposite side of the clearing from Lia, well away from the advancing monsters. The pace of her destruction had drastically slowed as her energy reserves flagged, but she continued to carry out her orders dutifully. “Marin,” I called out as I sprinted into the clearing, “that’s enough.”
She jumped at the sound of my voice and whirled around to stare at me as if she were in a trance. “I...did it?” she asked, her arms falling to hang limply at her sides.
I put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her close, rotating my body to shield her from the advancing beasts. “You did it,” I answered, “but we aren’t done yet.” I pulled her along to the center of the clearing to stand beside Lia. My appearance had stopped the pair of creatures Lia had been holding at bay; they skittered side to side in the shade of the trees, awaiting their own reinforcements as we watched them silently.
They have the numbers advantage, but they can’t press u
s out in the open. They have the advantage in the woods, so we can’t flush them out. It’s a stalemate. The remaining two beasts appeared from the shadows, and all four immediately scuttled into the trees, obscuring themselves in the thick red foliage. We could burn them out, but a forest fire here would be nearly impossible to stop before—
Our thoughts were cut short as a tree at the edge of the clearing buckled violently, and four shadows blotted out the sunlight above us. “Move!” I shouted, tossing Marin by the shoulder to the edge of the clearing. Eight massive razors fell on us like artillery fire as the beasts dove blade-first into the earth. I redirected the closest scythe and sidestepped the next as Lia dodged away with a tight back handspring. The monsters fell in a perfectly planned pattern, separating Lia from Marin and me with a wall of teeth, blades, and armor.
Lia and I acted before our strategies were fully formed, playing them out in vivid detail through our mental link and making minute adjustments on the fly. Instep. Rising parry, slide up to cut joints—
Angle those up more; their scythes pull back harder than you’d expect.
Noted. Cut scythes, flip up, switch to greatsword, plunging stab, finish off the first one.
Javelin the first, bait the attack unarmed, resummon, clash, roll under, stab up through the mouth.
There’s no room for error in that.
I know.
We carried out the parallel attacks before the beasts could press their newly gained advantage. Lia dashed forward inside the closest monster’s guard and raised her twin swords above her head, parrying its scythes as they fell on her. The onyx metal skittered up at an angle along the inside of the bladed arms and caught at the weakly armored joints above her. As soon as they found purchase, she flicked the blades out in matching arcs and sent the scythes spinning to the ground. The beast reeled back in pain, but Lia followed, leaping up to plant both feet atop its armored carapace. She launched into the air before her platform stumbled to the ground, reformed her greatsword, and plunged the blade straight through the back of her second attacker. It punched through the beast’s back without resistance and burst out from its stomach, continuing down until it sank into the ground.
Restart Again: Volume 3 Page 36