Leaping onto the man with both claws outstretched, my familiar went onto savage the man, raking and biting him viciously as he pinned him to the ground with his weight. Eyes widening in surprise at Amaranth’s deadly pounce, self-preservation caught both Hido and his companion before they could even think of helping their fallen friend, the pair instinctively jumping backward and away from the giant cat. Yet as they finished their leap and landed back on their heels, they quickly realized their mistake, their movement having formed a small gap separating them from their ally.
A gap that I readily filled, moving to follow the pair and positioning myself between them and Amaranth.
“Anyway, speaking of friends,” I said in a conversational tone as I blocked an attack from both Hido and his partner, stopping them both in their tracks before they could reach their companion. “How has Ignis been doing the last little while? He was looking pretty rough the last time I saw him.”
“So I heard!” Hido exclaimed with a dark laugh, his attention flicking away from his fallen ally and up to my face. “That was great! Serves the arrogant prick right! I wish I’d been there to see it.”
“Does it now? That’s a pretty harsh thing to say about a friend!” I asked, a little surprised by the man’s reaction as the three of us exchanged another series of attacks.
Pressing me both at the same time, I had to work hard to stay ahead of the pair, deflecting a handful of probing strikes from Hido and the other Dread Crew adventurer. Knocking the adventurer’s sword out of the way first, I riposted with a sharp cut across his hand and wrist, a crackling arc of electricity accompanying the attack. Shifting back towards Hido as I drew my sword back towards me, I saw that he’d sent twin slashes at me, looking to take advantage of my divided attention. Catching the first easily, I managed to stop it in place with a hard parry before sliding my blade towards the second, which was angled for a low cut at my legs. But before I could reach it, Hido unexpectedly shifted its trajectory up towards my arm, allowing its tip to draw a line of blood across my inner forearm and earn a hiss from me.
“A friend?” Hido repeated with mock disbelief, his smile vanishing as I shook off the minor wound and Amaranth appeared back at my side, a smear of blood across his face signaling the fate of the fallen Tul’Shar. “Dude, you’ve met Ignis. Do you think he can be anyone’s friend? The guy is a pain in the ass all the time. You’re lucky you only get to deal with him occasionally.”
“Ah, that’s a good point I guess,” I replied as the both of us lunged forward to attack together once more, splitting our attention between our two targets. Closing the distance with Hido, I conjured a burning dagger in my free hand as I moved, seeing the man fall into a defensive stance, his eyes clearly wary of the flaming knife in my hand. “But if you’re having such a hard time in dealing with him, we’re offering a pretty good surrender package if you’re interested. Three square meals a day, clean bedding, peace and quiet. There’s even an upgrade option for a fresh start way the hell away from here with a clean slate if you’re interested too.”
“Oh, I know all about what your offering, Lyrian, the others have told us all about it,” the white-haired elf replied as he parried my attack, the both of us exchanging a quick flurry of blows as I worked to keep him on the defensive, all while making no motion with the dagger in my off-hand. As we battled, I was able to catch a glimpse of Amaranth out of the corner of my eye, seeing him fighting viciously with his opponent who already looked to be cradling what looked like a broken and bleeding arm. “But as annoying as Ignis might be, I’m going to have to give you a hard pass on that offer.”
“Dang, that’s a shame, man! Here I was hoping I could help a guy out,” I said, not having truly expected him to take my offer. Though to hear him confirm that they were still in contact with our prisoners was something I made a mental note of for later. “Though, I don’t suppose I could ask why?”
“Because I know what’s coming,” Hido replied in a soft, barely audible tone over the battle, all levity and banter instantly fading away from his voice and expression as a dark cloud came over his face. “And where I am right now is the safest place to be.”
Throwing himself forward as he finished speaking, the elf didn’t give me a chance to press him on what he’d said as I was forced to shift into a defensive stance of my own to stand up to his attacks. Escalating from there, the intensity of our fight ratcheted upwards as we shifted from testing one another’s defenses to actively trying to kill each other.
He’s gotten better, I thought as we squared off, Hido’s blades turning into a blur as he stabbed and slashed at me. It had been a while since we’d crossed paths in our battles on the plains, the man having disappeared at the same time as Carver. But whatever he’d been off doing in that time he certainly hadn’t neglected his skills, still managing to keep pace level wise with me, or at least close enough that the War Hex weakening me put us almost on equal footing.
At least when it came to physical combat.
Moving in one fluid motion, I finally made use of the burning dagger that I’d conjured earlier in the fight, throwing it forward almost lazily towards Hido, quickly casting a spell the instant that it left my hand.
Followed by two others in quick succession.
Taking hold of me first was Alacrity, the hasting magic causing the world around me to slow to a crawl, allowing me to watch as my dagger tumbled perfectly through the air, spinning once before it connected with a sweeping sword. The moment that it did so, it promptly dissolved into a harmless spray of fire and ash centered directly between Hido and me, doing little more than to create a brief cloud that temporarily obscured the other.
Which, of course, was what I’d been going for.
Continuing to extend my free hand after I’d thrown the dagger, it was right when the cloud was thickest that the second wave of magic finished forming, sending a burst of fire outward from my palm and shooting straight through it. Caught at point-blank range, there was nothing Hido could do as my Flameburst washed over him, bathing his face and chest with a short-lived blast of intense fire. Reacting to the flames, the man let out a yelp and tried to leap back in an attempt to escape the searing attack. Yet before he could fully do so, I finished casting my third and final spell, causing a long azure chain to suddenly shoot upwards from the ground and wrapped itself around one of his legs, fixing him in place.
Fighting the surge of hunger that rose up from within as I finished burning through a large chunk of my mana pool, I followed on the heels of my magic, bypassing Hido’s distracted guard and stabbing Splinter directly into his stomach. Piercing through his tattered hide armor easily, I thrust the azure blade deep into his body and quickly pulled it free, raising the blade for a killing blow before the elf could react. But as I slashed my blade towards his neck, a heavy jade spear suddenly shot in between us, catching Splinter on its edge. Hovering there for split second, I barely had the time to realize what had happened before I felt the weapon begin to push my blade away with surprising strength, prompting me to yank it back and glance towards its wielder. As I did, my eyes landed on a tall and heavily muscled orc accompanied by a bright crimson-hued wolf spirit and three large corrupted constructs.
Wait, that isn’t right, I thought as a surge of both familiarity and confusion shot through me, my gaze shooting upwards to glance at the orc’s face. How did he—
But before I could finish the thought, the massive orc broke into a wide smile, and a voice that I hadn’t heard in over a week filled my ears.
“Lyrian! There are you are!” Carver said as he swept his spear out to the side beside him, effortlessly slashing through the chains that held Hido in place and shattering them as if they were glass. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!
“I hear you’ve been giving my boys and girls a hard time over the last few days.”
Chapter 26
“Oh, you know me, Carver, I just do my best,” I said, finally finding my tongue as Amaranth fell i
n beside me with a low growl, the Dread Crew adventurer he’d been fighting nowhere to be seen. “Now I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t seen you for a while, but you’re looking a bit different today. Did you get a haircut or something?”
“Something like that,” the man replied with a dark chuckle that made my hair stand on edge as he struck a pose for me, spreading his arms out so I could better see his new form. “Do you like it? I decided to go with something a little…extra.”
“Oh, it’s extra, all right,” I stated as I continued to take in his new appearance, the looming shapes of what I now saw to be two corrupted dervishes and a single corrupted guardian causing a pocket in the overall battle to form around us.
Starting most obviously with his height, Carver’s stature had been extended by easily nine or ten inches from what I last recalled, forcing me to look upwards in order to meet his eyes, the man now towering high over me. But whatever transformation he had undergone hadn’t stretched him out unnaturally but had rather filled out his body proportionally, leaving him broader and more muscular than before. So drastic was the transformation that he could almost be compared to either Drace or Abaddon in build and size, his body rippling with the promise of physical violence.
Yet the changes did not end there, with his trademark stag skull helmet and his tattered, blood-soaked hide armor that I’d grown used to seeing on him nowhere to be seen. In their place, he was now outfitted with a finely crafted suit of hide and bone armor that protected the vital points of his body while simultaneously leaving enough bare to enhance his physique. Completing the change was the spear that I’d seen just seconds earlier, its rough haft appearing to have been carved from the bone of an unknown creature before ending in a large, jagged length of jade. Long enough to serve as both a spearhead and a sword at the same time, the pale green stone glowed with an eerie light from within, casting a faint emerald shroud to hover around it.
He’s become more orcish somehow, I thought as I finished taking in Carver’s new appearance, realizing that whatever hints of his previous half-orc nature that there’d once been, it was now completely gone. Now he barely looked different than all of the other orcs that I’d seen throughout the battle so far, save for his size, which still left him notably larger than the others. Did he find a way to somehow…race change fully to an orc? Can that even happen?
“I’m so glad that you approve. I’d hate to think that all my effort was wasted,” Carver replied with an even larger grin, completely oblivious to the dozens of questions on my mind. “Yet speaking of wasted effort…”
As his words trailed off, Carver’s spear suddenly flared with golden light and began to move, the orc shortening his grip on the haft and bringing it forward. Seeing it slice through the air, I instinctively readied myself to receive an attack before realizing that the spear wasn’t directed towards me in the slightest, but rather at Hido. Standing just beside and behind the man, the singed elf was busy clutching his stomach right where I’d stabbed him an expression of pain on his face. Moving faster than the man could react, the flat of the spear hit him square in the chest with enough force to visibly wind him, the golden light around its head instantly discharging itself in what I recognized as a flash of healing magic.
“Go be useless somewhere else,” Carver said in a dismissive tone, finishing his statement as Hido staggered back from the impact with a loud grunt. “It’s time for me and the other grownups to play.”
“Oof! Ow!” The elf wheezed before letting out a loud cough from the blow, his blood-covered hand coming free from his stomach to touch his chest where the spear had hit him, the former no longer bleeding. “Uh, y-yeah, o-okay!”
Flashing me a look that contained a mixture of humiliation and anger, I saw Hido struggle not to say something else to Carver as he took a step away from the man, getting out of range of his spear. As he moved, however, his eyes abruptly shifted away from mine and onto something behind me, his expression turning to one of fear. Not wasting an instant afterward, he turned to rush into the press of bodies still fighting around us, disappearing from sight at the same time that a voice called out.
“Lyr! We saw the constructs—” Freya started to shout only to cut out abruptly as she, Drace, Helix, and the others appeared beside me. “—Wait, shit! Is that Carver?”
“In the flesh, my dear,” the man replied, flashing the woman with the same orcish smile he’d given me while bringing his spear and pointing it towards us. “And I’m glad that you could also be here for this, because it’s past time that we all had a little talk about what you lot have been up to for the last few days.”
Pausing to channel a brief wisp of dark magic from a hand, Carver, his familiar, and the three constructs surrounding him all then exploded into action, lunging towards us en masse. Crossing the distance separating us in a heartbeat, I was lucky enough to find Carver fixating on me first, his spear slashing out in a wide-sweeping cut. Reacting quickly as we all scattered, I dropped down under the attack and rolled to the side, narrowly evading the spear’s jade edge as it passed over me. Pushing off the ground with a hand as I completed my tumble, I righted myself back onto my feet and replied to Carver’s attack with one of my own, slashing the sword across his body. Yet no sooner did I send the blade in Carver’s direction, did the haft of his spear flick downward, catching Splinter on its flat edge and pushing it harmlessly out of the way.
“So, as I was saying,” Carver said in a conversational tone after we both exchanged our first set of blows and the constructs swarmed over us, locking everyone into their own battles, “you and yours have been causing me a bunch of problems the last few days, making my guys and gals all antsy and opinionated about how I’m handling things. Some of them even went as far as to question my leadership.”
“Um, sorry?” I replied as we continued to fight, a series of loud snarls and growls from my left signaling to me that both Amaranth and Valefor were busily squaring off with one another nearby.
“You should be,” Carver stated as he thrust his spear in a short jab towards me. “Because of you, I had to cut my trip short and make a few examples to bring things back into line.”
“Well, maybe you should have thought of your travel plans before you started this war. It could have saved each of us the time and effort,” I replied, moving to block the spear thrust. But before I could reach it with Splinter, Carver suddenly pulled it back and shifted his grip on the weapon, whipping the rearmost haft of the spear in my direction. Reacting belatedly to the feint, all I could do was shift my arm to catch the blow on my vambrace, the impact afterward enough to bruise me even through my armor.
“Before I started this?” Carver repeated in a dangerous tone, the effect of which was partially lost as I retaliated to his feint mid-speech and managed to land a shallow slash just above his elbow, the injury turning his words into a hiss. “You’re the ones who started all of this! If you’d just kept your nose in your own business, everything would have been fine. But no, you had to interfere.”
“Of course, we did!” Freya shouted at the man in an angry tone as she threw herself forward with a burst of speed, breaking away from the dervish that she was fighting to attack Carver along with me and immediately forcing him on the defensive. “What were we supposed to do, stand by and watch? You were kidnapping our settlers and turning them into monsters! We saw it with our own eyes!”
“Oh ho, so you know! That means that you did find the little present that we left behind then! How perfect! I was worried they’d go to waste!” Carver replied, his expression widening into a savage grin as our battle rapidly intensified.
Reacting to her attack on its master, Valefor abandoned its fight with Amaranth and leapt towards Freya, causing Amaranth to belatedly follow behind. But the arrival of Carver’s familiar was only half of the rapidly escalating fight as the corrupted dervish that Freya had broken away from moved to follow her, filling the air with its slashing arms.
“They were all get
ting to the point of expiration, so it wasn’t worth it for us to take them with us,” I heard Carver say as we fought, my focus having shifted away from the man and onto the aforementioned construct, Alacrity just barely managing to keep me ahead of its attacks. “We all figured it was better off to leave them behind as a surprise just in case some wagging tongues decided to point you our way.
“Though,” he added a second later in a taunting tone, “if you know that, then that means you know what happens every time you break one of our toys. I have to say that I’m surprised that you all decided to hit them so hard this battle. I figured that you’d all try and save them, or something else needlessly altruistic.”
“We’ll save them by beating you first, Carver,” I growled back at the man as I mentally commanded Amaranth to take my place in fighting the dervish, the two of us swapping positions seamlessly in the blink of an eye.
Trusting that my familiar would be able to handle the creature, I channeled a handful of magic as I turned to face Carver once again, unleashing it in a burst of fire when he came into sight. Blazing outwards from my palm faster than he could react, the Flameburst managed to sear the better part of the man’s right leg before he could move it out of the way, a loud curse filling the air as he did so. The move, however, while effective, unfortunately also ended up costing me with my own burst of pain as Valefor lunged to bite and clamped its teeth on my outstretched arm.
Hissing at the pain and the accompanying sensation of mana being drained from me, I moved to dislodge the creature, accepting a second stab of pain while yanking my arm sharply towards me and slashing at it with Splinter. Choosing to hang on for a second too long before attempting to let go, the spirit wolf let out a pained cry as my æthertouched blade carved a line across its head and brow, causing its ethereal form to waver. Yet no sooner did my blade pass through the creature, did my world suddenly erupt into a spray of stars and dizziness as something hard slammed into the side of my head, causing my helmet to ring loudly in my ears. Momentarily dazed from the impact, I lost all sense of my surroundings for the next few seconds, my body reacting purely on instinct as I leapt backward and away from the thick of battle.
Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4) Page 33