The Prophecy
Page 44
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“Come on, you lily-livered, monkey-lovin’, pea-brained pieces of shit! Come get me! Fresh meat!!”
The advancing guur clicked angrily as their hive-mates continued to drop around them, turning into flaming piles of goo. No matter how they attacked this wielder of fire, they kept sustaining incredible losses. The queen had retreated into the last grotto after narrowly avoiding being destroyed in the previous assault. A group of twenty guur had then been selected to sneak through the overhead tunnels to attempt an overhead attack. The rest were tasked with keeping the bipeds preoccupied while more reinforcements could be summoned.
Three of the most aggressive guur chose to attack the largest of the bipeds. As they rushed to overtake the human, a fireball slammed into two of the large insects, reducing them to deep-fried status. The third actually made it to the ungainly biped. Chittering victoriously, it leapt at its prey. It was then that it realized part of its abdomen had stayed behind, while the half with its head still attached learned what it was like to become a shish-kabob.
Breslin whistled in admiration. That human was insanely fast with his blades.
Pushing the remains of the insect off his sword, Rhenyon glanced around the cavern. Breslin was now advancing on the guur that he had been facing, hacking the bug into little pieces much like a chef would dice an onion, all the while deeply scarring the rocky floor in the process. Apparently the dwarf liked these things as much as he did. Speaking of which, what happened to the rest of the horde he had just seen? What were they up to?
“They just left their queen unprotected,” Steve observed, also noting the strange absence of the guur horde.
“I trust this not, sir Steve,” Rhenyon murmured. “Do not let yer guard down.”
“I hear that.” Steve looked at the last remaining alcove. “Time to finish this once and for all.”
At that moment, however, it started raining bugs. Big ones. The rest of the guur horde had reappeared, streaming out of numerous holes scattered all across the ceiling. Some chose to scuttle down the cavern walls while others elected to simply drop down, hoping they could score a hit on the deadliest adversary they had yet to encounter.
“Get back! Get back now!” Steve turned, grabbed Rhenyon by his right wrist, and executing a move that would make his old taekwondo master proud, hurled the startled soldier back amongst a group of fallen boulders, knocking Breslin down with him as well. At that moment, Steve’s jhorun, correctly guessing that some dire action was needed, once again took the guesswork out of his hands.
The very air in front of him detonated, generating a large, intense sphere of fire and heat that expanded rapidly outward in all directions. It caught the guur completely unaware, vaporizing soft tissue instantly, leaving nothing but empty carapaces everywhere along the ground. Dead, smoldering guur began falling from the ceiling overhead.
Echoes of the explosion continued to reverberate throughout the surrounding rock until eventually fading away, leaving a silence that was inexplicably deafening. The singed head of the captain appeared over a large boulder.
“Wizards be damned, Sir Steve!”