Her dark eyes blinked.
You’re here, she mouthed.
Then she apparently processed what I had just said and looked around.
“DO NOT BELIEVE THE UGLY, STUPID BOY!” the Jolly Dark Dipshit shouted at Anahita as more claws burst from the floor. “HE IS WRONG! HE IS STUPID! HE HAS ALREADY DIED TO ME ONCE! I HAVE DEVOURED EVERYONE YOU EVER KNEW, MY NAUGHTY LITTLE STELL! I WILL DEVOUR MILLIONS MORE IF YOU CONTINUE TO BE COY WITH ME! YOU KNOW I CAN!”
“I KNOW YOU CAN’T!” I roared, my voice nearly as loud as the Umbra’s in my dragon form. “You’re full, asshole! That’s why you haven’t eaten anyone else since you started chasing her! That’s why you never ate me!”
I saw Anahita blink again in realization, and I knew she was processing my words.
Cavus let out another roar as the nearby claws attacked me.
“YOU LIE! I AM NOT FULL! I STILL HAVE ROOM FOR MY LITTLE STELL! I WILL ALWAYS HAVE ROOM FOR MY LITTLE STELL!”
My Gale Cloak batted his claws away as I drew the sword of light, giving the massive room another source of radiance.
“Oh, shut the hell up, you creepy bastard,” I growled, making Claimh Solais glow bright with my rage.
As more and more claws converged on me, seeking to overwhelm my cloak and bury me with sheer numbers, I swung the golden blade around me in a complete circle, sending a sharp band of golden light in every direction.
Segmented claws snapped apart and burned, but the ground beneath me began to give way.
I flew directly into the air, hovering as a massive hole opened up beneath me. Breena flew next to me, and a moment later Anahita used her own Air magic to join us.
But beneath us, the cavern floor had collapsed into a massive sinkhole with no visible bottom.
I looked around to see that the tunnels leading into this room had collapsed as well, giving us no visible exit, except possibly somewhere far below us.
Darkness yawned below us, no matter how much light I shined.
But if I looked closely enough, I could barely make out a massive, serpentine form with hundreds of segments, and twice as many legs skittering around the walls at the edge of my vision.
CHAPTER 40: RISE UP AND RAGE. ROUND 6
“WHAT NOW, LITTLE STELL?” the monster far below us boomed, as its segmented body clicked and chittered along the walls. “WHAT WILL YOU DO, NOW? YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO GO. NOWHERE TO HIDE. YOU CAN STAY HERE AND STARVE, UNTIL YOU ARE TOO WEAK TO RUN. AND THEN I KILL THE UGLY, STUPID BOY AND HAVE MY LITTLE STELL! ALL BECAUSE YOU LISTENED TO THE UGLY STUPID BOY!”
Anahita, for her part, was ignoring the Umbra, rounding on me instead.
“Why did you come here?” she demanded in a quiet voice. “We are in his realm! He can do anything here! And why do you look like that? Is this that dragon of yours that Breena keeps mentioning?”
“Obviously,” the little fairy piped up, “what did you think I was talking about?”
“Nevermind,” Anahita said quickly, shaking her head and addressing me again. “Challenger. What did you mean when you said he was full?”
“I mean just that,” I replied grimly, looking at the bottomless depths below and wondering when my dragon form would end. It felt like the scales surrounding my body were starting to get loose, and the elemental power surrounding me felt strained. Crossing through the portal in this form must have tasked me even further—or I was able to notice the duration better since I had nothing else to do. “He already gorged himself when he invaded your world so long ago. He made a point of devouring every body of every member of your friends and family, and he’s probably devoured others as well. But he hasn’t devoured anyone since he’s come here. Not me, a Challenger. Not any of the numerous people inhabiting Avalon’s worlds. Not even one of the Icons. That’s why he wasn’t threatening you with collateral damage sooner. Because every person he killed right now was a person he couldn’t eat later.”
“LIES!” the monster roared far below us. “THE UGLY STUPID BOY LIES! STELL! GET AWAY FROM HIM RIGHT NOW!”
“Screw off, you giant basement freak,” I mumbled, as I looked back at Anahita. “How’s your mana? Are you in danger of falling any time soon?”
“No.” The beautiful woman shook her head. “But this monster claims to have forever. If he is not wrong, we will all go tumbling down eventually. This is why I am not happy you have come here. You have only ensured that you will share my fate.”
“Damn straight,” I retorted, floating just a little bit further away from her. “You’re going to kick his ass and win, and I get to claim an assist.”
“You still do not understand!” Anahita hissed. “This is a far more dangerous thing than facing him in the open desert, in our own world! Now that we have fallen into his realm, he will be able to heal endlessly, no matter how much damage we inflict! No one has ever beaten an Umbra in their own realm! No one can! No one ever will!”
Daughter, a quiet, familiar voice whispered to her, strong enough to reach both my ears and Breena’s, even though Anahita didn’t seem to notice.
Crown her, Invictus said, now speaking to me, and write love on her arms.
“Anahita, that’s no longer true,” Breena said softly. “Wes has faced Cavus on the Umbra’s terms for the last three battles. And each time, he’s helped one of us destroy Cavus.”
“That’s impossible—” Anahita started to hiss, before catching herself. “Right. Our primary body told us of the Challenger’s special relationship with that word. Very well, Breena,” the dusk-skinned woman continued, showing suspiciously more composure than Merada and Via had in this situation. “I suppose I can believe that the man who can rescue people from Horde Pits might have some special way to defeat an Umbra. Tell me how we can help Malcolm achieve victory.”
“Actually,” Breena said, taking in a breath, “it’s sort of the other way around. Let me explain—”
He shouldn’t be letting us talk this long, I reflected, growing suspicious. He’s not that patient. Not when she’s right in front of him.
My eyes moved from watching Cavus’ giant form skitter along the walls far below, to scanning the glossy black stone walls all around us.
I still didn’t understand how Cavus could tunnel so easily through what resembled a giant mass of onyx, but he had done so. And he would probably perform other feats inside this place, right up until Anahita realized that she was the true ruler of this place, not him.
As I thought that, I caught sight of gray, corpse-like hands crawling across the stone walls surrounding us.
Then, the stones beneath those hands began to speak.
“Stell,” a fatherly voice said from one of the shinier ones, “It’s okay. You can’t help us by beating him. Promise Daddy you’ll run. Promise Daddy you’ll run, and hide, and never look back.”
Anahita stiffened at the sound of that voice, and my patience expired.
“Oh, fuck no,” I growled as I dismissed my sword and summoned Skybreaker. The bow expanded even further as my dragon form enhanced the weapon, and each of the arrows in my new quiver felt like they had gained five or ten pounds of dynamite. “That’s crossing a line I don’t have to tolerate. No one’s letting her put up with that again.”
I fired an arrow toward the stone pretending to be my girlfriend’s devoured father, and the rock blasted apart.
“Breena,” I called as I moved away from the women to have more room to fight. “I’m going to let you talk to your other body. You’ll be able to explain your victories better than I can. Meanwhile, I’ll keep Cavus from interrupting your conversation, and see if the Soulcurrent will activate again.”
“Okay, Wes,” Breena said with a nod, “thank you.”
I drew more arrows quickly, relying on my enhanced Deftness, and fired arrows at the rest of the gray hands skittering along the walls.
This was the first time I had used Skybreaker in my enhanced state. The difference in power was surprising. Instead of merely blowing respectably sized h
oles into solid stone, my augmented arrows left massive craters that shook everything around us.
And when I fired enough arrows at the same spot, the opening of a tunnel began to form.
I reminded myself that I knew Earth and Shaping magic, and realized we might well have better options than simply floating in midair until our mana ran out.
But by now Cavus was probably about to talk again, so I turned the next few arrows at his massive, multi-legged form.
He reacted quickly, skittering out of the way of at least two of my shots, but one of my blazing missiles exploded against the Umbra’s insectoid bulk and illuminated him.
He had taken the form of some tunneling centipede, but with two rows of legs. The first row of a hundred or so legs were scaled and toed like a lizard’s, and they gripped the smooth stone walls with ease, letting him scamper along the rocks with surprising speed. The second row of legs were the massive, multi-segmented, chitin-covered claws that had ripped through the solid stone to attack me earlier. They tapped on the rocks as the massive monster scampered about in a way that had created the chittering sound I had heard before.
Several of them were still broken, though I saw the humanoid, corpse-colored hands crawl along them and quickly repair them with their purple magic.
The Umbra’s carapace was divided into dozens of segments. As my missile blew a hole in one, I could see that the edges of each segment had teeth and a thin, lip-like line that connected with the next segment to form a monstrous mouth.
The segments closest to the injury I had just landed growled and hissed wordless phrases of pained hate at me, but the monster’s head reared up to take my attention next.
As usual, the Umbra had gone with the ugliest face possible. Cavus’ giant centipede body ended with a house-sized, night-black lizard head that had for some reason added the oversized mandibles of a scarab, the antennae of a centipede, and three compound, insectoid eyes with dim little lights that writhed about behind them.
That head reared up at me, opened its mouth and oversized mandibles, and bared its two rows of sharp teeth at me.
I fired another arrow into the bastard’s face.
The mandibles snapped shut in time to detonate the arrow early. The Umbra’s head rocked about, but the mandibles themselves looked intact except for a handful of smoking new cracks.
“You lied to her,” the monster hissed in a low voice that reached my ears, and probably no one else’s. He skittered up the walls of the hole, coming closer to us—though he still shouldn’t be able to reach us from the walls, given the width of the massive hole we were hovering over. “You lied to my little Stell, and said that I was full.”
“I can see that my words have offended you,” I replied in a quiet voice, not wanting to distract Breena and Anahita from their conversation. “I invite you to submit all complaints in writing to the nearest office of I Don’t Give A Shit.”
I ended my statement with another volley of arrows, just to provide better customer service.
Cavus snapped another one out of the air as he scampered about and dodged the rest, still trying to circle around me.
“I am not full!” the monster hissed at me, but the desperation in his voice made me think that he was arguing with himself at least as much as he was arguing with me. “Not when it comes to her!”
Another arrow cracked into a carapace segment, but then the mouth-joints opened wide and spewed the purple energy blasts that Cavus usually saved for the ends of our fights.
I flew about to dodge the attacks, but there were over fifty of the purple missiles, and I was not nearly as experienced in aerial combat as I was fighting on the ground. A dozen of them slammed into me, diminishing my Gale Cloak, tearing through my defenses, and searing into my vital guard.
Definitely hit a nerve this time, I reflected as I arrested my fall with the remnants of my elemental shroud. Serves the bastard right.
“Not when it comes to her!” the Umbra repeated. “I will have her! I will devour her! I do not care if I have to vomit her up a hundred times before I can finally keep her down, I will make her fit, and then I will make her pay, and then I will never be mocked again, because everyone will know that I have claimed all of the brightest little jewels of the Expanse! Now watch me prove it!”
His words made my vision go red with rage and disgust, but I still noticed his mouth and mandibles stretch wide open.
An oily, frog-like tongue launched out of the centipede-lizard’s mouth, twisting towards the two women high above me.
Fury and expletives became me.
My dragon jaw opened wide as every angry oath in Teeth’s genetic memories blasted out of my throat. The Gale Cloak exhausted as I converted every last shred of it into spinning disks of blood-red lightning, ice-blue fire, and emerald-colored gusts of eldritch hate. The Friction Slices struck the disgusting bastard’s tongue in a half-dozen locations, slashed completely through, and then curved back around to sever the sickening organ a half-dozen times more.
But that was still too good for the giant centiprick, so I angled my fall to aim toward his position. As I fell near the unsevered portion of his tongue, I dismissed Skybreaker and summoned Toirneach, hacked at the offensive tendril, spun around for balance, and then hacked at it again, sending black blood everywhere.
The last of the tongue withdrew back into Cavus’ mouth, where it would hopefully stay for the rest of his already too-long life. The gray corpse-hands crawled into the Umbra’s maw, where they would no doubt try to repair the damaged organ resting inside it.
I kept falling toward him, because he had just launched an attack directly at Breena and Anahita, and because I had frankly had enough of his shit ages ago.
Besides, I had a couple targets in mind.
The Umbra’s lizard head roared at me and shouted a bunch of insults and other stupid shit that I had already heard at least a hundred times by now. His mouth joints released another volley of purple energy bolts at me, some of which I couldn’t dodge unless I managed to both re-cast my Gale Cloak spell and completely break off my attack.
So I just kept my course and braced for the attack, grunting in pain as purple fire washed over my body again and savaged my vital guard.
As the energy blasts overwhelmed my vision, I twisted through the air and tried to dodge the next attack that had to be coming.
I was partially successful. Cavus’ massive stag-beetle pincers snapped closed. Had both of the telephone-pole-sized pincers caught me, it would have probably torn me in half.
But thanks to my evasive maneuver, only the left one managed to graze my back, shredding a huge gash of my dragon-scales and damaging the Atlantean and Woad armor underneath.
I felt the gold and red scales surrounding the wound start to shed as well, and I knew that I was running out of time.
Teeth and I would have to find a way to work on our powers’ duration, but for now I had bypassed Cavus’ last real line of defense.
As his head jerked up to try and bite me with his lizard fangs, I adjusted my descent, summoned Shard in the form of a heavy spear, and drove it into the Umbra’s left compound eye.
The giant bitchapede let out another pained scream and jerked his head violently about. I tuned out his meaningless noise, kept a firm grip on his spear to avoid being thrown off, and managed to kneel closer to the gaping wound.
Then I used Toirneach to hack the opening even wider, and a little blue light flew out of the bloody tear, squeaking with desperate joy.
Cavus continued to try and buck me free, but I used the hook end of Toirneach to pull myself over to the middle eye, and then stabbed Shard through it as well.
The monster let out another pained scream that left me feeling satisfied instead of sympathetic. He repeated the scream when I commanded Shard’s spear point to widen into a voulge blade, which tore the opening wide enough for a little green light to fly out, darting quickly toward the cavern’s ceiling.
Then I hurled Toirneach into Cavus
’ final remaining eye.
The axe of the Woadlands landed with a thundering crack, shattering a massive hole in Cavus’ final compound ocular orb.
See any more? I asked Teeth as the orange Starsown orb escaped imprisonment, looking around myself as Cavus continued to buck and bitch about how hard and unfair his life was.
Nope, my inner dragon replied, but I think we need to get off his head before—
Purple energy exploded against my back. As I staggered forward, I turned to see an army of corpse-gray hands crawl into view, rear up on their palms, and fire more energy blasts at me.
I dove and wove and dodged, but I was currently on top of a mass of smooth chitin that violently rocked about, and had toothy, energy-breathing mouths at every joint. I took a half-dozen more blasts to the back before I was finally able to leap clear of the monster’s body.
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