by Dante King
She slumped in Kumi’s arms as the color drained from her face.
“My father,” Kumi said. “He won’t be able to defend himself. Not against monsters like this.”
“Then, we’re wasting time standing here,” I said.
Vesma, Kumi, and I bounded up the staircase and over more dead guards laying in front of a small archway. We emerged into a courtyard full of peaceful pools and coral statues. Three creatures clustered around a pile of corpses on the pavestones.
“Prepare yourself,” Nydarth whispered to me. “These are not easy prey to vanquish.”
Beach-ball-sized bodies opened up into maws of razor-sharp teeth. Thin arms and hands tipped with claws as long as kitchen knives clicked together as the monsters turned to face us. But the most peculiar thing about them was the glowing lures hanging from their faces. The luminescent objects danced in hypnotic patterns.
“Ethan,” Nydarth whispered, and her voice sounded so distant. She called again, but I barely heard her this time.
All I wanted to do was put down my sword, take a seat, and watch the lures sway. The esoteric pattern held mysteries, I was certain, and if I continued to stare at them, I would discover their secrets.
An open palm suddenly cracked me across the cheek, and reality shattered the hypnosis.
“Snap out of it!” Kumi shouted.
She punched Vesma’s shoulder, and my girlfriend broke from her trance.
“Try not to look directly at the lures,” Kumi said as we advanced on the anglers.
“I hear you. Any tips on fighting these things?” I asked.
“Carefully! The moment your mind wanders, look away.”
I called forth the power of water to reinforce my Frozen Armor. If I couldn’t face this opponent head-on, then I would have to fight defensively. I’d lure them in and watch for opportunities to strike.
“I did warn you,” Nydarth whispered.
“You said they weren’t easy prey,” I countered. “You mentioned nothing about their lures.”
Kumi raised her arms, hummed a song, and water flowed from the pools scattered across the courtyard. She wove it with her fingers, created threads of Augmented magic, and directed it to me and Vesma. Aches and weariness built up over the series of fights faded away. My Vigor surged faster than ever through my veins.
“All right, you creepy bastards,” I said as I advanced toward the anglers with the Sundered Heart held in front of me. “Come and get some.”
I kept my distance and used my peripheral vision to watch the three anglers while I waited for them to strike. Instead, they remained where they were, almost disinterested. They quit staring at me and dropped their heads to the guard corpses laying at their feet. Fanged maws tore into the dead fishfolk as they feasted.
Vesma neared them from the flank and stabbed at one with her spear, not fast enough to get past its claws but enough to draw its attention. It lifted its snout from a corpse and snarled at her. Another shallow stab, and it lumbered after her. The other two anglers scrambled away from their meals and joined the first.
“I can’t look at them,” I said to Nydarth, “but you can. Give me a heads up, will you?”
“But of course. Anything for you,” she purred. “They’re taking their time and toying with you. Play it safe and back away slowly.”
I did as the dragon spirit told me and backed away toward Kumi. The princess was still humming a tune, but she drew her daggers as I neared.
“I didn’t think you could actually fight,” I said. “I thought your daggers were just ornamental.”
She frowned at me. “Really?”
“Not the time for jokes?” I asked as I remembered her father was somewhere deeper inside the shrine, probably surrounded by monsters.
Kumi grunted as she pounced on an angler. It whipped around so that the lure was facing her, and the princess was forced to back away.
I summoned an Ash Cloud around a monster, and the glow of its lure faded behind the smog. Then, I heard a sucking sound, and my magical cloud vanished into the angler’s gaping mouth. Its lure flickered before my vision like a strobe light, and I tore my eyes away before I dashed backward. I heard the monster’s jaws snap after it’d pounced to my previous location in a flash of speed.
“Shit,” I said. “I thought an Ash Cloud would have worked.”
“Not easy prey,” Nydarth whispered.
And they were much faster than I’d thought. They only had the appearance of sluggishness.
Vesma backed around one of the statues and baited an angler after her. The creature followed her in the same way a cat followed a mouse. These predators weren’t violent and fast. They were slow, careful, deadly, and had all the time in the world.
But we didn’t. Kumi’s father was in danger.
Vesma raised her hand, and an Untamed Torch flared in her palm. She directed a blast of fire to the base of a coral statue beside her, and the explosive force blew away a chunk that tumbled to the ground. The statue teetered on its suddenly unstable feet. The vampiric angler, fixed on Vesma, didn’t notice the sculpture until it toppled over. A resounding crash filled the courtyard as the statue crushed the angler into paste.
The other two anglers spun at the noise and raced toward the fallen statue, apparently drawn by the noise. They didn’t use eyes, not on bodies like that. They followed sound.
“Vesma!” I shouted. “Untamed Torch!”
She didn’t need telling twice as the two anglers bolted toward her. She sprang away from the fallen statue just as the two monsters found it.
I summoned the power of water to create a cloud of Smothering Mist. I poured as much Vigor as I dared into the huge mass of mist and sent it to blanket the vampiric anglers and what was left of the courtyard decoration.
“Now!” I roared.
A torrent of flames rippled free of Vesma’s hands. I reached out, found the heat of her technique with my Vigor, and channeled Flame Empowerment into the attack. Vesma’s gout of flames expanded outward into a firestorm. It collided with my Smothering Mist, and a deafening hiss from steaming vapor filled my ears. The anglers made their first sound as their delicate senses were fried by our combination attack.
And it wasn’t pretty. It was like a chorus of boiling tea kettles.
I caked myself in the ash technique, Fire Immunity, and leaped into the boiling steam.
“Directly ahead of you, sweet man,” Nydarth said.
I swung my sword and felt it connect with something before it passed through it. A lure dropped to the ground and came to rest at my feet.
“A little lower, Swordslinger.”
The Sundered Heart rippled through the steam, and I felt cartlidge give around the blade. The vampiric angler collapsed at my feet with another tea-kettle squeal. A lure swung through the steam and threatened to steal my focus again.
“A low and fast sweeping strike,” Nydarth urged me.
I obeyed instinctively and claimed a hand of knife-like claws for my efforts before it could rip through my thigh.
“Now, press the advantage,” the dragon spirit instructed from within my sword.
I sliced downward and found the vampiric angler’s thick body. The Sundered Heart tore effortlessly through the creature’s flesh just as the steam began to dissipate.
I stalked past Vesma as I flicked blood from my sword.
“We’ve got a king to save,” I said as I spotted Kumi already hurrying across the outer courtyard toward a giant set of ornate doors.
I raced after her with Vesma on my heels.
The doors of Qihin Palace would’ve been impressive, if not for the blood and gore smeared across them.
“They’re locked,” Kumi said as she pushed against the doors. She pounded on them three times before she yelled and balled her fists.
“I’ve got this,” I said. “Get behind me.”
Kumi and Vesma gathered at my back as I sheathed my sword and summoned an Untamed Torch. Flames gathered between my outstret
ched palms as I continued to feed it Vigor. When the fireball was the size of a watermelon, I launched it toward the doors. The wood exploded in a cloud of smoke and splinters.
“We’re too late,” Kumi whispered.
I couldn’t see very far through the smoke, but a mess of fishfolk corpses lay among mounds of severed monster parts.
The smoke cleared, and the smell of blood and viscera hit me. Huge pillars twisted upward to hold an enormous ceiling of latticed coral that opened into an enormous skylight. Gongs of burnished bronze bore religious symbols and hung from each of the pillars, splattered with streaks of blood. Midday sunlight streamed down and glistened off a shallow pool that spanned much of the room. Corpses lay at the far end of the pool, and above them sat King Beqai of the Qihin in a simple chair.
“Father!” Kumi cried. “You’re alive!”
He was a large man, his muscular chest decorated with a patchwork of silver-blue scales. His humanoid torso gave way to dozens of squid-like tentacles that coiled around the legs of his chair and ran down into the water in front of him. His skin was turning gray with age and was spotted with dark blotches. Stringy hair and a kelp-like beard swarmed down his shoulders and over his chest.
He looked completely oblivious to his dead bodyguards in the pool before him. He also seemed not to see Labu and three other fishfolk fighting for their lives against a pack of vampiric anglers in the very same room.
Water splashed against my feet as I darted through the doors with Kumi and Vesma at my side.
Chapter Nine
It was clear that the few remnants of King Beqai’s bodyguards were down to the last of their strength. The monsters not only outnumbered them but had them pinned against a wall on the far left side of the pool. These anglers didn’t move with the same slow, terrifying pace as the others I’d just killed. They vanished into the ankle-deep water as if it was a door and sprang out of it from unexpected directions.
“We have to get to your father,” I said to Kumi. “The anglers have hypnotized him.”
“No,” she said. “He’s meditating.”
“Meditating?” Vesma asked. “At a time like this?”
“When Father is lost to the world, nothing can reach him.”
Three anglers charged a fishfolk guard, and one of their claws caught hold of his arm and twisted. I raised my hand and bathed the space around the anglers in an Ash Cloud. There was a sickening snap as the bone broke and blood sprayed from the wound. The guard howled in pain as the angler reeled back and snapped viciously at the clouds of ash that whirled around its head.
Labu turned aside a strike and hissed as a claw raked him across the open arm and added to the blood that clouded the water. He dived clear of another slashing claw, and it missed him but claimed the life of the guard behind him.
Vesma lit up the pool with a blast of fire to catch the anglers’ attention. They vanished into the water despite the lack of depth, and I froze in place. I couldn’t kill what I couldn’t see, but, at least, the anglers had taken their focus off Beqai. I advanced slowly through the water and kept my eyes peeled for even the slightest ripple that would indicate the location of an angler.
“We have to draw some of them off,” Kumi said. “Otherwise, Labu will be overwhelmed.”
I fixed my eyes on the nearest gong. “I’ve got it.”
I focused for a moment and aimed a single, large thorn of Stinging Palm at a gong at the other side of the pool. The wooden projectile burst from my palm and struck the gong. A note resonated throughout the palace hall. I didn’t stop there. I sprayed a series of smaller thorns into the other gongs hanging from pillars and sent up a cacophony of ringing.
“There’s your distraction!” I yelled to Kumi above the echoing gongs.
The anglers melted out of the water and swiveled their huge, sightless heads from pillar to pillar. Two blindly rushed toward the gongs, but the third bounded toward us and lunged in with claws outstretched.
I turned aside a handful of claws and and slid around the confused angler. Vesma joined me, and we hit the angler from different sides. The echoing sound of the gongs had it confused. The creature couldn’t fix its attention on either of us, but Vesma was too focused on not looking at its lure to strike with her spear. I couldn’t say I blamed her after our last fight against these things.
I channeled the power of ash and cast it through the air in front of me. A black cloud appeared around the angler and further confused it. It backed away from us as my ash technique muted the distracting light of its lure. Its claws snapped at the empty air.
Vesma charged straight at the creature and rammed her spear into its side with all the force of her charge. The blade sank deep into its flesh and found a vital organ. The angler flailed at Vesma, but she ripped her spear free and slid out of range.
Kumi sensed an opening, jumped in, and plunged both knives into the monster’s side. The princess dragged her blades back along its body, and blood poured as she sliced a long chunk from the angler’s flesh. It screeched again, but this time, it was a fading noise that turned into a mass of bubbles as the creature fell dead in the water.
The second angler stood at the next gong and slashed at the bronze disk with a serrated claw. For a moment, I found my gaze drawn by its lure, and I had to force myself to look at the ground beneath the angler’s feet.
“Stay focused, sweet man,” Nydarth warned me. “I will guide you, should you need it.”
I raised the Sundered Heart Sword as the pathways for Untamed Torch ignited within me. I was about to raise my hand and send a fireball to blind the creature when I spotted Vesma’s flaming spear and had an epiphany. Instead of throwing a fireball, I gripped my sword with both hands. My left hand was still drenched in Vigor, waiting for release into an Untamed Torch technique. Instead of manipulating the energy into a flaming sphere, I let it flow out of my hand and along the Sundered Heart.
The blade burst into flames, and I heard Nydarth chuckle to herself.
“Excellent,” she said.
With my flaming sword held aloft, I closed the distance between myself and the angler in a single bound. Nydarth hummed happily as I brought my sword down in a cleaving blow that bisected the creature’s head. The weapon cauterized the wound instantly, and no blood spilled from the corpse.
Kumi stood in the center of the pool as she chanted and swayed from side to side. She wound her arms around each other, and the water rose in obedience to her Wild magic. The liquid formed tendrils glowing with the power of Vigor. Her movements changed as she directed the water across the hall to where the fiercest fighting was.
The enchanted liquid ran down her brother’s body and those of his comrades, washed away their blood, and healed their wounds. The guard’s broken arm shifted back into its normal shape, and the skin healed over as Vigor made the broken strands of life whole again.
Labu and his companions attacked the anglers with fresh enthusiasm and energy. They worked together like a well-oiled machine and took their turns to attack while the others provided defence.
Inspired by Kumi’s example, I called upon the power of water. It was stronger here than anywhere else I had been outside of a Vigorous Zone. I realized that the pool and gongs were more than mere decoration. This was a place of respect and worship, one that made the water spirits stronger and so, enriched the magical flow.
I drew the power from my pool of Vigor, enhanced by the energy filling the hall, and let it flow through my flesh. My Frozen Armor grew thicker as I used my recent experience to better shape it. Small plates appeared over weak points in my defences. The forearms and shoulders bulked out to absorb more hits. Carefully articulated gauntlets appeared around my hands as each joint of the fingers misted into a separate ice plate.
While I reinforced my armor, Vesma ran around the outside of the hall, hitting each gong she passed with her spear and building up a wall of noise that echoed all around us. The anglers turned their heads at every one of the ringing tones. Confusi
on filled their postures as the echoing cacophony filled the world around them.
I took the opportunity to charge the nearest pair of anglers. The first one didn’t see me coming, and I caught it by surprise. My blade flashed into its side, but the blow didn’t cut as deep as my last one. The creature whirled around and gnashed its teeth as it swung its claws at my head. I parried the attack, spun the Sundered Heart around, and sliced off the creature’s hand. I stabbed it through one of its bulbous eyes as the creature stared at the bloody stump. There was a spurt of thick ooze, and the angler collapsed.
The other one’s attention was fully on me now. It swung its lure, and I had to look away to avoid being hypnotized by the mesmerizing light. While I was distracted, a claw hit me in the leg and took out a chunk of my armor. A second blow carved a gash in the ice across my chest and staggered me. My foot hit a body, and I fell with a splash onto my back.
The angler vanished into the water only to appear immediately next to my head. A claw darted down, and I rolled aside. The blow caught me in the shoulder, but my reinforced armor absorbed its force. Fragments of ice flew as the angler struck again and hit my forearm.
I got to my knees and summoned an Ash Cloud around the angler, but this one was smarter than the rest. It vanished into the water beneath the cloud and reappeared beside me. It lunged with its clawed grasp and squeezed my forearm with horrifying force. My Frozen Armor shattered and left my flesh exposed. The claw tightened, and pain shot through me as blood ran down my arm. The Sundered Heart wobbled in my hand as my grip on it weakened.
I brought my other hand around until it almost touched the angler’s arm and unleashed a fireball that seared the scaly limb and brought a stink of scorched flesh. Fire might have been mostly ineffective against a water creature, but the monster still released its grip on me and backed away.
I clutched my sword with both hands and swung it at the space above the lure. The blade sliced through the strand of muscle that kept the glowing orb attached to its head. The lure flew away and splashed into the shallow pool.