“Because after what you did in front of him, I have to be!” Carver answered with a snarl, both he and the constructs whirling to chase me as I danced around behind them.
“Is that so?” I asked, surprised at the man’s candor to what I had intended to be a simple taunt as I continued to run, forcing the trio to turn after me. Easily dodging their slow-moving attempts to catch me, I decided to take the opportunity that Carver had given me, and I replied to him another, harder question. “So what’s the deal? You need to kill me yourself or big orc daddy Zhul will kick you out of his horde instead?”
Landing with precision, this time all my words earned from the man was an angry growl as he tried to force his way past the dervishes to attack me, his large form and their singularly focused nature causing them both to get in one another’s way. It wasn’t until Carver resorted to physically shoving one of the constructs out his way, enough so that he knocked it down, that he was finally able to close towards me, slashing out with his long claw-tipped arms. Surprised by his reckless attack, I was only able to block one of his claws with Savagery, the other catching me square in the shoulder with enough force to pierce through my armor. Reeling from the blow with a loud hiss, I threw myself backward to pull free of his talons before once again moving my feet as fast as I could to keep both Carver and the still-standing dervish from pinning me in place. But with their attention so fixated on me as they gave chase, they completely abandoned the construct that Carver had knocked down in his haste to get to me, allowing Amaranth the perfect opportunity to pounce on it while it was completely defenseless and alone.
Having broken away from the other two dervishes that we’d originally attacked when the opportunity had presented itself, I managed to catch sight of my familiar leaping onto the construct as it tried to rise before I was forced to turn away and deflect a slashing blade-arm. That lack of sight, however, didn’t prevent me from hearing a loud crunch and a truncated wail that soon followed Amaranth’s shift in focus, followed by a loud curse escaping from Carver as he twisted his head in the direction of the sound.
“Ugh, damn it!” he exclaimed, his earlier frustration only continuing to build as he snapped his head back towards me and snarled a familiar word of power, slashing one of his claws in the process.
Already knowing what to expect the second that I heard him speak, I saw my surroundings flare with magic as the outline of a dark cloud suddenly appeared on top of me, followed by the sickening touch of corruption. Yet much like the other spells that both he and Zhul had cast on me, the supernatural darkness had no effect in blinding me, True Sight once again giving me perfectly clear sight through it. But as I soon discovered in the seconds that followed afterward, I hadn’t been the target for the spell.
Amaranth had been.
Feeling my heart skip a beat as I saw all three of the constructs turn to rush towards my familiar, who had frozen the second the darkness had appeared, I immediately moved to shift from my rapid flight to reuniting with Amaranth. Only to run square into Carver the first moment that I tried to.
“I figured that would finally get your attention,” Carver growled as he slid in front of me, using both his body and his claws to cut off my path towards Amaranth. “All of this running around is starting to get on my nerves.”
“Then you should have sent all those dervishes against me,” I replied to the man as I blocked one of his attacking claws, the brief contact enough for me to draw another surge of mana from him. “Because if I can outrun the three of you at the same time, then I can outrun you by yourself easily.”
To demonstrate the point, it was as my words ended that I activated Alacrity and used the edge in speed it granted me to deke Carver out not once, nor twice, but three times as I feinted left, right, and left again in quick succession. The rapid series of movements ended up completely unraveling the shaman and left him completely flat-footed for when I finally made my move and threw myself into a roll directly between his widespread legs. While Carver had gained much after transformation with regards to speed, it was still far from enough to match what I was capable of, thanks largely in part to the essences I’d melded to my armor and the extra edge granted to me by the nearby tenacity totem. That advantage had me on the other side of the man in the blink of an eye and sprinting towards Amaranth, shouting a warning to him in the process.
Reacting instantly to my words, Amaranth didn’t hesitate to launch into motion, the cat leaping away from the dervishes descending upon him just in time to avoid being sliced to pieces. From there, he easily found the border of the arena, the sand of the fighting ring meeting the hard dirt beyond. With us both running towards one another, it was only a matter of seconds from there before we were reunited, but at the cost of the two of us finally becoming pinned in place as I rushed headlong into the constructs chasing Amaranth. Slashing out with Savagery as I charged into them, I managed to land two punishing cuts on the closest dervish pursuing my familiar, the second attack drawing a deep groove across its skull, even going as far as to shatter one of its empty eye sockets. That was all that I was able to offer, however, before I was forced to defend against an avalanche of blade-arms descending upon me, with even my enhanced speed unable to help me block or deflect them all.
The result was an explosion of pain all across my body as I was forced to rely on my armor to protect me, some of the attacks skipping off the hard metal, leaving only bruises behind, while others found a way through and cut into the flesh beneath. Staggering from the multitude of blows, it was only because of the battle potion running through my veins and the immediate healing magic provided by the totem I’d emplaced that I was able to stay standing after weathering the initial onslaught. Fortunately, the exchange rapidly improved in the seconds that followed as Amaranth came to my aid, the cat overcoming his blindness by drawing on my senses through our mental link. Clawing at one of the dervishes and sending it skittering backward, his presence immediately eased the pressure on me just enough so that I was able to twist in the direction of Carver, hearing him running across the sandy arena ground towards us.
Turning just in time before he arrived, I was able to burn through a portion of the mana I’d drained to cast a Concussive Blast in his direction, the spell blunting his momentum enough that he didn’t simply charge straight through Amaranth and me. That burst of magic, while slowing him, did nothing to prevent him from still lashing out at me as he closed into melee range, his claws scything through the air to attack. While not having quite followed the plan that he likely intended when he’d first dropped the corrupting cloud on Amaranth, the result had eventually turned out to be exactly what he’d wanted, with the two of us finally surrounded by him and the dervishes.
Cut off with no avenue of escape to resume our attempt at a running battle, we were then forced to desperately fight on top of one another, the next several seconds passing in a blur of adrenaline and pain. It was only when Carver’s spell finally ended and Amaranth regained his sight that everything snapped back into focus, my familiar not wasting a second in sending a wave of fire out towards a pair of the dervishes.
Sensing an opportunity, I twisted towards the injured creature and followed up with my own Flameburst, burning both it and its partner a second time, prompting the construct to also begin to wail, signaling that it too was near death. Realizing that this was a chance to change the pace of the battle in our favor, I didn’t hesitate in following up with a secon
d attack, this one in the form a powerful two-handed, Shocking Touch-charged strike against the already damaged dervish’s skull. Connecting solidly, that blow was all that was needed to finally shatter the magic that granted the bone its supernatural resilience, thereby allowing Savagery to slice straight through it in a spray of electricity. Then, like a puppet with its strings cut, the now rapidly disintegrating dervish promptly fell to the ground in a heap, marking one less creature for Amaranth and me to worry about.
At least until we turned our attention back towards Carver, who as we soon discovered had remained far from idle during Amaranth’s and my assault on the constructs.
“You are wasting your time, Lyrian!” he shouted as I turned back towards him, my heart instantly dropping the instant he came into view. Or rather when he and another quartet of shades came into view, the shaman having summoned them in the few seconds while our attention had been fixated on the constructs. “Nothing you do here will change anything. This town, as well as you and all the others you’ve pulled here, are done for. You might as well as give up and save yourself the struggle.”
“That’s what you think, Carver,” I replied as I once again fought down a surge of ravenous hunger, the two spells that I’d used in quick succession having nearly completely drained me dry of everything that I’d managed to absorb over the last round of fighting. “But from where I’m standing, we have you all exactly where we want you to be.”
“Then you’re all fools,” he growled as he and the shades all lunged forward at once, forcing Amaranth and me to once again weather another storm of claws that descended upon us. But this time, however, there was nothing that either of us could do to break their assault, there being simply too many attackers for us to do anything about.
I replied as I did my best to defend against too many claws slashing out towards my body, let alone find a way to counterattack against them. Despite my earlier bravado towards Carver, there was little doubt in my mind that unless Amaranth and I did something to even the odds that we faced, and soon, that we would inevitably succumb to the weight of our attackers.
But what can we do? I asked myself as I scrambled to come up with a solution, mindful of the slow weariness that was entering my body—one that the half-spent battle potion still coursing through me wasn’t able to take the edge off. I knew that once the potion wore off, Amaranth’s and my situation would only worsen further as exhaustion took its toll. Which makes trying to run again a bad option. We’d barely be able to make it anywhere before we were gasping for breath. We need to do something here that’ll buy us time and let the healing totem do its work. But, what exactly? Both of us are practically out of mana, and we won’t last long enough for me to drain enough to do something with…or will we?
My thoughts paused for a second as I suddenly recalled the first time that I’d fought Carver after he ambushed us, realizing that there perhaps was something that I could do to possibly give Amaranth and me a fighting chance. Or if failing that, then at the very least possibly deny Carver whatever it was that Zhul demanded from him in order to keep his place amongst the orcs.
It’s a long shot, though. A Hail Mary that might not even work, I thought as I seriously considered the option, my eye glancing over towards the aforementioned man and noticing once again that his form looked to be somehow thinner than before as if it were slowly wearing out. But then at the same time, it very well might.
Realizing that everything would come down to what happened next, I steeled myself for what I knew I had to do, sending a quick warning to Amaranth explaining my intentions.
I assured, having expected a little bit of resistance from the cat.
Having sensed it finishing its recharging cycle moments earlier, I turned my attention towards the Ring of Force on my left hand, once again calling on its power. Feeling it build rapidly in my fist, I lashed out towards Carver and his shades with it, sweeping my hand in an arc before me. The motion promptly sent out a wave of energy towards them, violently shoving them all back. In the case of the shades, the ring’s effect was enough to throw them nearly six feet away from us, their ethereal forms more vulnerable to its magic. Carver, on the other hand, was less affected, the blast only sending him staggering backward half as far. Yet that short distance and reprieve from their combined attacks bought me all the time Alacrity needed to burn through the remainder of my mana pool.
Here goes nothing, I thought as I mentally braced myself, feeling my hunger roil inside me as I purposefully pushed myself over the edge before the tree’s natural aura of magic could restore my mana, seeing a pair of warnings flash across my vision.
You have run out of Mana!
You are affected by [Ætherial Hunger]!
Welling up from within as if it were a living creature, the primal desire to sate myself slammed to my mind, the ravenous emotion threatening to overwhelm me as it had before. But this time, I was ready for the all-consuming need to devour everything, just barely managing to hang on to a piece of myself before my vision finished taking on an azure hue, and the hunger took over my body. Feeling like an animal awakening from a deep slumber, it only took a second for me to see something bright appear in the center of my vision and for me to instinctively lunge towards it with an explosion of speed, crossing the distance separating us in a heartbeat. As I did, I managed to flinch in surprise at my explosive movement at the same time that my hand raked itself across the center of its body, clawing deep into the hard surface that it met.
And tearing it free.
Letting out a triumphant growl at my success, I felt a surge of much-needed power flow into me from my strike, causing me to lash out once again at my target, this time with my other hand. But as the limb appeared before me, a part of me couldn’t help but notice that my other hand’s claw was different than the one I’d struck first with, its shape appearing longer and thinner than the other. Despite that, however, I saw that it performed even better than my smaller claw as I struck, its longer length allowing me to drag it across the entire length of the glowing figure and send another, this time even larger, swell of energy rushing into my body. But with those two strikes, I saw that the brightly lit azure shape was beginning to move, shrinking away from me as it extended a set of its own claws to threaten me. Recognizing the things for what they were instantly, I felt a spike of anger flow through me at their sight, instinct demanding for me to lash out at them. Reaching for them before they could reach me, I brought my long claw to slice at the offending limbs, catching one of them with all the strength that I had to bear and sheering through their tips.
A loud shout that I couldn’t quite understand filled my ears as the glowing figure abruptly shrank away from me, pulling its other claw back before I could also strike against it. As it did, other glowing figures suddenly appeared
on either side of it, their shapes not as bright as the larger one but enough to still hold my interest, especially when I saw that they all had claws too and were rushing towards me. It was then with barely a second’s hesitation that I threw myself towards them with the same speed that I had at the larger figure, using my longer claw to slash at one of them before they could reach me. Sweeping through the air, the claw passed through the smaller shape without any resistance, its brightness dropping drastically as another soothing surge of power flowed into me. But that single strike was all that I was able to manage before the other glowing figures fell upon me, their claws reaching out towards me.
It was difficult to make out what happened next as my vision then thrashed around faster than I could follow, the glowing figures appearing so close that they blocked out my ability to focus on any one of them at a time. But that confusion lasted briefly, until the brightness started to fade away, the glowing figures vanishing one by one as I swept my claws through them, the ravenous hunger that dominated my thoughts slowly beginning to fade. Feeling almost sated when the last of the figures disappeared, I had just enough time for my mind to begin to reawaken, the little piece of myself that I’d managed to keep intact from the hunger’s grasp reaching back out to take control.
Which was right when something hit me with enough force to send me sailing off my feet.
Reeling from the unexpected burst of pain that broke through the fading hunger as I landed on the ground, it took a second for me to realize what had happened—something had managed to injure me. The thought caused one part of my mind, the primal part, to immediately react to the sensation with sheer animalistic rage, while the other, the part that had just reawakened saw it as a chance to regain control once again.
Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4) Page 93