by C E Keene
Spear still tucked at his side, Arheis wrapped his hand around the haft, closer to the tip. As the Morditul broke out of its near-stasis, Mira loosed the bolt she’d readied, then followed it up with another. Both hit their mark, slicing into the corner of the beast’s mouth that Arheis had already opened up. She leapt backward, disengaging from the front lines of the fight, and Arheis could finally feel a rhythm. He was there when the beast tried to pursue her, thrusting his spear just beneath the Morditul’s jaw, yanking it out quickly, and dodging out of the way just before the beast’s jaws tried to close down on his arm. Zindar was ready to punish the miss, a flurry of slashes sending mud, scales, mucus, and blood flying in every direction.
It felt good to fight like this. To work alongside his companions and anticipate their every move, filling in the gaps in their formation so they gained a tactical advantage over their foe. And if this were like any other battle he’d fought alongside them, it would’ve been a turning point where they came back from certain defeat to win against all odds.
But that wasn’t what was happening.
The Morditul was still moving way too fast, its speed barely hindered by what they’d done. All three of them were forced to stay dangerously close just to pinpoint their strikes, and they all paid for it. The Morditul’s tail slammed into Zindar, catching his back as he tried to leap out of the way. Arheis lunged, putting himself between the beast and his friend, but without a shield he only had his spear to protect them both. Gritting his teeth, he held onto it with both arms and stayed steady, letting the Morditul all but impale itself until Arheis could see the tip of his spear poking out behind the beast’s shoulder.
And still it kept coming. It roared in fury, steam billowing from beneath the mud that just covered up whatever progress they’d made as soon as the Morditul moved. Arheis barely had time—or strength—to get his spear back, having to gamble with his legs by dodging and then planting both boots against the creature’s side so he had enough leverage to yank the weapon free.
It was Zindar who pulled him backward this time before the Morditul could whip around and snap the bones in his legs like twigs.
“Thanks,” he panted, getting a pained smile in return.
Mira hit him with one of the healing bolts, too, but it was obvious the Pruvari wasn’t moving at 100%. Maybe not even 70%.
“We can’t win this,” Mira said, firing off another bolt that practically bounced off the Morditul’s hide. “We need to retreat.”
There was no way they could get through this swamp safely. Arheis was certain of that. As relentlessly as the beast pursued them, it would follow until the mud eventually slowed them all down.
Zindar’s Fulcorn bought him another few precious seconds to think, the stag-like creature manifesting lightning in its wake and charging into the Morditul’s side. One glance at Zindar told him that wasn’t a long-term solution. Every collision seemed to be taking more out of the Pruvari, as if the spirit’s corporeal form was somehow linked to his. His gaze flew to Mira next as she readied another bolt. When he focused, he could feel… fear. Her fear, he thought, though maybe some of his own. She caught his gaze and held it, her countenance almost pleading.
She was right. If they didn’t do something, they were all going to die here. Or… Mira and Zindar would die. Arheis would eventually reawaken, probably right beside the mutilated corpses of his two friends.
And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let that happen.
“I have an idea,” he called to them, even as that idea formed in his mind, shaky as a newborn fawn. “I’m going to draw it back into the lake.”
“What?!” Mira exclaimed, her voice breaking on the word. “Are you insane? We can’t fight it there!”
“It’s the quickest way to get the mud off.”
He was already running toward the lake, his spear tucked against his side once more, hand reaching into his pack as the plan solidified. There wasn’t any time to hesitate. He needed to get the Morditul into the water, and then he needed to keep it there long enough for their attacks to matter.
Which meant he was going to have to go in himself.
“Arheis!” He could hear Mira’s panic, could feel it through the bond they shared.
It was almost enough to make him reconsider. But the Morditul was coming out of its stasis again, and they didn’t have a Plan B.
“Just trust me.” He looked for the Pruvari, finding Zindar running only a few steps behind him. “Get ready.”
Zindar nodded, his expression grave. Arheis wished there was time to better communicate the plan, but the Morditul was already charging through the muck, heading for him with all the speed and power of a freight train. He just had to hope his companions would fall in sync with him like they had in the past.
Drawing in a big gulp of air, Arheis flung himself off the bank, going for as much distance as he could get before he hit the surface of the water and dove under. His arms and legs worked as he fought against the dislocated shoulder, pain practically blinding him as tears sprang to his eyes beneath the murky lake. He struggled through, diving down until he reached the bottom, then pushing off against it with his feet to turn himself around.
The Morditul was already in the water, a current that hadn’t existed before being pulled around the creature as it shot straight toward him.
Arheis’ fingers closed around the object he’d pulled out of his pack. He had one shot to do this. One very long shot that had a snowball’s chance in hell of actually working the way he wanted it to.
But it was the only chance he had, and when the Morditul was close enough, he thrust the item forward, pulling his hand back seconds before the Morditul’s jaws snapped closed.
It was enough. The pressure of the beast’s teeth did what he’d hoped they would do. The shock-rock was activated, and a burst of electrical current lit up the creature from the inside out, shining through skin membranes that were no longer protected by mud. Gripping his spear with both hands, Arheis thrust it as hard as he could through the bulbous sack below the beast’s jaw, pushing the haft until he felt the tip shatter bone, then using his whole body to wrench it further.
> You critically pierce Morditul for 106 points of damage.
> Morditul is stunned!
There wasn’t any time to celebrate that actually working. Pushing off the bottom of the lake again, Arheis made a mad dash for the water’s surface. His lungs burned as he finally broke it, gasping and then choking as he bobbed back under for a few seconds. His gaze scanned the bank, finding Zindar and Mira both there.
“Be ready!”
His spear was still lodged inside the creature. He couldn’t do anything until he got that back, and trying for it now was a death sentence. Arheis swam for the shore in frantic bursts of energy, adrenaline keeping him going despite the pain. Mira crouched down, fury and terror in her eyes as she waited to pull him out.
But the shock-rock didn’t last as long as the Fulcorn’s attack, and he began to feel a sudden current swirling around him, pulling him in. The shore drew further and further away, his paddling more and more useless as he tried to fight it. Hundreds of teeth clamped down on his leg, piercing the flesh and wrenching free from their sockets. Arheis tried to use that to kick out and get some distance, but it was no use.
He was pulled under, wrapped up in that swirling current. Fatigue clawed bone-deep at his insides, making the Morditul’s role in all of this that much easier. Arheis felt his bones breaking, being crushed into near dust. Pain lanced through every inch of his body. And then there was nothing. Only blackness and a strange sense of serenity.
> Morditul bites you for 45 points of damage.
> Morditul bites you for 45 points of damage.
> Morditul bites you for 45 points of damage.
> You are bleeding!
> You are drowning!
> You have been slain by Morditul!
3
The last time this happened, Arheis awoke to find Mira sta
nding over him, tending to his many wounds.
It wasn’t like that this time.
When consciousness came back to him, it was almost like it had been forced into his body kicking and screaming. He couldn’t feel anything physically, but emotionally he was overwhelmed by a cascade of emotions that hit him all at once.
Horror. Sorrow. Anger. Each pierced him straight through, opening up holes in his consciousness that let the light in, as though a shroud had suddenly been removed from his eyes.
The edges of his vision were hazy, but he saw the lake, clear as day. He saw the Morditul rolling, thrashing, an incomprehensible tangle of limbs trapped in its maw. He heard Zindar’s voice, somewhere to the right.
“He’ll come back! We have to finish this.”
That son of a bitch…
Mira. The words were shaky, but he heard them inside his head like they were his own. The sound of a crossbow bolt clicking into place was nearly as close, and he finally realized he wasn’t seeing through his own eyes right now.
He was seeing through hers.
She steeled herself, resolve firming as she settled the stock of the crossbow against her shoulder and readied herself to fire. The Morditul thrashed out of the water, a leg hanging out of its mouth with the boot still on. His leg, he realized. And while he couldn’t really feel his own sense of disgust, he felt the pain of it all within Mira.
Her arms were shaking, her crossbow moving unsteadily. He tried to do something, to lend her some kind of strength through their bond, but it didn’t seem to work.
“I’m going to draw it back out of the water,” Zindar said, the words distant and hazy.
Mira’s gaze was unfocused, and Arheis could feel the sudden wash of nausea as though it were his own.
“Mira!” the Pruvari called again. “I need your help with this. We’ll only have a few moments before the mud hardens.”
“Right,” she finally said, letting out a breath.
Lightning arced through the air as the Fulcorn raced along the edge of the lake. It ducked its head and every bolt merged before hitting its horn and being directed into the water. Electricity skittered across the surface, and the Morditul—not directly impacted like it had been by the shock-rock—looked for the nearest exit.
Zindar was waiting there, and when the beast finally emerged, Arheis saw his own handiwork. The spear was still lodged inside the Morditul, and every time the creature moved, it wrenched it even deeper. Blood and viscera colored the creature’s skin, staining the water red. Zindar pushed off from the bank and twisted his body in midair to come down on the back of the beast, his blades finally able to open it up in earnest. He sliced from the shoulders down the back, and Arheis heard Mira’s crossbow fire as she shot bolt after bolt directly into the jagged wounds the Pruvari opened up.
It thrashed, spinning and rolling, trying to toss Zindar from its back. By the time it finally succeeded, the damage was done. It was weakening, growing slower and slower until it finally stopped, its body heaving with convulsions.
Mira walked closer, and Arheis was granted a prime view of Zindar’s sudden, rage-filled flurry as he turned the beast over and drove his blades into it again and again. He yelled while he did it, and Mira’s free hand clenched at her side, anger rising in her as well. Arheis got the distinct impression hers wasn’t directed at the Morditul.
“You don’t want to see this,” Zindar grunted as his blades opened the Morditul’s belly, exposing its organs.
“I saw it plenty with Brahdek,” she said tersely, her voice wavering.
Zindar looked up at her, his yellow eyes softening along with the rest of his expression. “This is different, Mira. You didn’t—”
“Just get it over with.” The words came out in a rush, followed by a “please” that even Arheis barely heard.
It took Arheis a moment to realize what was happening as Zindar sliced open the beast’s stomach. Digestive juices gushed out, but so did a partially-eaten limb. Then another. Then parts of a body that didn’t look even remotely recognizable aside from the armor. His armor.
He was seeing his lifeless body pulled piece by piece from the Morditul’s stomach. He couldn’t look away because Mira’s eyes were his eyes right now, and she held steady until the very last moment despite the fact that she was shaking. Her gaze fixated on the glowing Destiny’s Eye, the amulet that marked a player from NPCs—the item that allowed Arheis to essentially respawn.
And slowly—so very, very slowly—it did its job. Just… not in the way Arheis expected.
Instead of something game-y happening, like his body disintegrating and then respawning whole and unharmed, Arheis had to watch as his bones fused, his muscles reformed, his skin repaired itself, and his body was almost stitched back together piece by tiny piece. The Destiny’s Eye continued to glow throughout the whole process, and when it stopped, he felt relief coursing through Amira.
And then he felt nothing. The blackness returned, taking his cognitive awareness with it as he was transferred back to his very unconscious body.
The next time Arheis awoke, he was greeted by the sight he’d been expecting. Mira was looking down at him, brown eyes shimmering with unshed tears, brow furrowed in concern. He could see the canvas roof of the encampment beyond her and felt one of the hard cots underneath him. The smell of freshly-pressed herbs filled his nose, and he could hear the bustle of Lacerda in the distance.
He was alive and whole, which was definitely an improvement over watching his dismembered body piece itself back together.
Arheis tried to move, but his joints were stiff and his muscles tight. He let out a soft groan and tried again to sit up, only for Mira to place a hand on his chest and hold him down.
“Staying put is the least you can do right now,” she said tersely. Arheis thought he caught sight of a tear falling before she turned her head to call over her shoulder. “Vellis! Come here.”
The trainee hurried over, and Mira instructed him in what to do to ease the pain and promote healing. Arheis had assumed the Destiny’s Eye would take care of that, but it hadn’t put him at 100% after the Nepondus Queen killed him, either. This was part of the punishment for death. That and the serious cold shoulder he was getting from the woman who felt incredibly closed off, compared to the things he’d glimpsed just moments ago.
“You killed the Morditul,” Arheis managed, his gaze still on Mira even as she walked away from the cot; away from him. “I saw it. After I was—”
“After you were ripped apart, limb from limb?” she grated out, her back still to him, shoulders bunched together. When she finally turned, he saw she was trying very hard not to cry. “After you were devoured right in front of us, all because you refused to run?”
“We wouldn’t have made it—”
“You don’t know that!” Her voice was raised, and Vellis jumped in the middle of packing one of Arheis’ wounds.
“You saw the way it was moving through that mud,” he fought back, feeling the sudden need to defend himself. The herbs Vellis haphazardly stuffed into his open gashes burned, but he ignored them. “I had to do something.”
He’d acted under pressure. He’d done what needed to be done. In any other game, he would have been rewarded for taking such a bold, decisive action. It bothered Arheis that he was being derided for it here, when they both knew he had a lot less to lose than either Mira or Zindar.
“So you what? You throw your life away?” Her arms started to fold over her chest, then wrapped around her instead.
“Because this,” he gripped Destiny’s Eye with one hand, “means my ‘life’ is expendable. Yours isn’t. Zindar’s isn’t. I saved both of you by doing what I did. Why am I being raked over the coals for it?”
Arheis hadn’t even realized he was yelling until the skittish man who was working on him stood back, well out of reach. People passing by stopped in the streets, too intrigued by the outburst to keep moving. Mira’s jaw was held tightly, and she stalked back toward him w
ith fury in her eyes. Fury and pain and something that only hit him once she got close enough for him to see it; once she let down her guard enough that he could feel it.
She was hurt. Deeply. It was there in her eyes, in the way she still shook, and not just with anger. Arheis remembered what he’d felt from her as she’d watched him die, and the weight of it settled like lead in his stomach.
“You asked us to trust you,” she hissed, the words breaking on a sob that she barely got under control, “asked me to trust you, and I did. I trusted you enough to watch you die, Arheis. To realize that you and I may be bonded, but it’s obvious that trust doesn’t go both ways.”
Her words hit him harder than the Morditul had, cracking something deep inside of him. He never thought he’d lacked empathy, but in the heat of the moment, he’d been careless. He’d looked at the outcome, the fact that he was still here instead of what it took to get here. He’d done what needed to be done, and even now he wasn’t sure he would have done it any differently.
But this cost was… not what he’d expected.
Mira shook her head, swiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands, and turned to Vellis. “Finish packing his wounds, bandage him up, and give him something for the pain.”
“O-okay,” Vellis stammered, “but you’re… you’re going to be here, right…?”
Arheis realized right around the time the young healer did. She was leaving. “Mira, wait.”
He tried to push himself up, get to his feet, and go after her, but pain shot through his battered body. A system message appeared shortly after—the game’s version of kicking him while he was already down.
> Your relationship with Amira has worsened. Bond abilities may not function as intended.