“Ready your gear. Collect your thoughts. Make your peace, and ask your blessings from the Primes.” I looked over the assembled faces one final time. “Join me at the entrance when you are ready, and we will cleanse this evil from the world once and for all.” I snapped to attention and banged my shield against the wooden platform beneath my feet. “Dismissed!”
The assembly burst into action as the men and women prepared for our imminent assault. Some formed teams to lift short segments of spiked barricades, which they carried towards the small, unassuming cave entrance at the base of the mountain beside us. Many dashed to various tents or supply crates to gather one final piece of equipment or to sharpen their weapons one final time. Others knelt down in the snow to offer silent prayers to the Primes and beg for protection.
You should not be here. I watched them from my place of elevation with a growing feeling of sadness in my heart. This is not your fight, and yet, you are here. Had I not been so blind, perhaps I could have prevented this entirely. I could have seen Virram’s scheming with his Council and put an end to it. And yet...I did not. My eyes turned from the camp before me towards the darkness to the west. Had I not been so blind, they would be here beside me. We could have finished this without spilling any more of Kaldan’s blood. Just the three of us.
A loud bang pulled me out of my introspection as two men carrying supply crates collided with one another. The time for regret has passed. Only action remains. I hopped down from the makeshift stage and followed the line of torches that led to the mine entrance. For the main thoroughfare of the most active mine in Kaldan, it was an unassuming thing: a roughhewn wooden frame that supported a tunnel only ten feet in diameter, with a parallel set of iron tracks leading into the darkness. Though it was no different from the darkness of the night around me, I felt a chill sense of foreboding emanating from the inky blackness of the mine.
I scratched again at the back of my neck as the bizarre prickling feeling continued to grow in strength. Do not let your nerves distract you, I thought to myself as I took in a measured breath. I will lead this army to success, or to failure. Their lives rest on my shoulders. Kaldan rests on my shoulders. The idea pressed down on me with a tangible weight, but at least it took my mind off the buzzing at the base of my skull. It ends tonight, one way or another.
“Commander,” a gruff voice called out from behind me. I turned to find an old man in mismatched plate and scale armor standing in a stiff salute. His thick white beard ballooned out from beneath a heavy half helm, covering the worn family crest on his cuirass. “Your support division is ready.”
“Thank you, Gerard,” I nodded, scanning past him to his assembled crew. A small group of soldiers stood around a hefty pile of supplies near the mine entrance. Spiked barricades, oil urns, and heavily reinforced lanterns made up a vast majority of the collected support materials, all packed on pallets and crates strung on improvised slings. “Gather the remainder of my captains and bring them here when they are ready.”
“No need!” a sprightly voice cried. “We are already here and ready to serve, Commander.” The voice belonged to a young man with a sharp, chiseled face, sparkling yellow eyes, and fiery orange hair that fell down past his shoulders. Bryce was no older than twenty, and despite never having participated in anything more than friendly sparring matches, his passion for combat was unmatched. His enthusiasm had brought him forward to volunteer as head of the vanguard for the Shadowmine operation, and although I had my misgivings, his charisma and ability to inspire other men were too invaluable to pass up. “Your vanguard is ready to receive orders.”
“Mining company ready to serve, ma’am, as is the defensive infantry,” said Rex, the former owner of a small mining outfit near the maw and the current leader of the mining division for our assault. He clapped a hand on the shoulder of a tall, spindly girl who stood beside him in heavily padded chainmail. His daughter, Challa, was a fresh-faced recruit to the city guard in Yoria, but she had abandoned her newly appointed post to join in our reclamation efforts.
“Ready to serve, ma’am,” she echoed her father, stamping her tower shield against the ground. A moment later, the noise repeated a dozen times over as her following of defensive infantrymen mimicked the gesture.
I eyed the full assembly one final time. We have come too far to turn back now. I strode towards the entrance of the mine, then turned sharply and raised my shield above my head. “Men and women of Kaldan, we stand upon the precipice of action. Once these fires are lit, there is no turning back. I ask you now, in sight of all the Primes: Will you stand with me tonight?” An impassioned chorus of cheers answered me. Satisfied, I motioned to Gerard at the front of the crowd, and he stepped forward with a flaming torch in each hand. He approached the cave entrance and lowered a torch to a large metal sconce set into the wall.
Brilliant flames leapt from the inset sconce and rushed along a channel in the cave wall, illuminating the darkness of the tunnel before us. He quickly crossed the entrance and lit the matching sconce on the opposite side to similar effect, then hurried back to his place in the formation. Adrenaline began to pump through my veins as I stared down the flickering mineshaft, watching the flames travel until they gradually disappeared into the distance. It has begun. The buzzing in my spine grew more intense, and I grit my teeth against the feeling. Nerves cannot stop us now.
I turned back to my army and banged my heavily gauntleted fist against my shield. “Tonight, we rid the world of this evil forever!” I shouted, raising my fist into the air. A hundred different battlecries rang out at once as I turned back to the mine entrance, keeping my hand above my head in preparation to send the army forward. I closed my eyes and took what I knew would be the final peaceful breath of my life.
In the moment before I threw my hand forward, the tingling at the base of my skull resolved into a crackling, disjointed voice inside my head. Don’t. Go. Inside. My blood ran cold as I stood locked in place, stunned into momentary inaction by the ominous warning. Dormant synapses flared to life within my brain as I desperately tried to link the voice to one I knew—one I was desperate to hear, but knew I never would again.
The moment passed, and I reopened my eyes, suddenly more set in my resolve than I had been seconds before. Tonight, I make amends. I gave the forward signal with a mighty bellow, then charged into mine headfirst. Hundreds of heavy footfalls echoed behind me as I ran, but they slowly fell away as I outpaced them in my all-out sprint. I tightened my grip on my shield as I ran and felt a comforting tingle in my arm; as in every battle before, the artifact seemed to sharpen my mind and prepare me for the combat ahead.
The first Serathid nearly caught me by surprise as it came into view around a particularly sharp corner, already aware of our presence and charging out to meet us. As I had hoped, the narrow entrance tunnel restricted the beast from its full range of movement, and it began our fight with a single horizontal swing of its bladed forearm. I caught the strike on the outer edge of my shield as I began to twirl, using the momentum of the attack to quickly spin around to face its exposed midsection. The twirl ended with a devastating blow against its chitinous body that sent it stumbling into the opposite wall. Before it could recover, I kicked off of the tunnel behind me and launched into a followup attack, landing the harsh edge of my shield directly on the cracked impact point of the first blow. Its shell snapped and collapsed, and I felt a satisfying, secondary crack as its spine broke. The beast fell to the ground without so much as a shudder, and I gave my shield a hard spin to clear the dark ichor from its edge.
My battle only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough time for Bryce and the rest of the vanguard to catch up with me. At the sight of the dead Serathid, they all let out a victorious yell, and I continued deeper into the mine with the three dozen soldiers close behind me. The echoing noise of our advance began to deepen in tone as the tunnel widened, and we quickly found ourselves at the site of our first main objective: Shadowmine’s Nexus, where countless tunnels a
nd mining elevators all met in a single, cavernous space. A blazing channel circled around each side of the cave, but the ceiling and center of the massive space remained shrouded in murky darkness. Four Serathids scuttled towards us from the back of the room, nearly disappearing as they entered the half-dark center of the cavern.
“Vanguard, hold!” I shouted, banging my shield on the stone floor. I took note of the positions of each of my nearby soldiers through the nervous scuffing and scraping of their boots and armor, and I took small, shifting steps to better reposition myself around them for the incoming attack as I waited for my next signal. The sound of our reinforcements charging in behind us sent a wave of relief through my body, and I lunged forward with another warcry as the second phase of our reclamation began. “Charge!”
I led the vanguard forward to stop our foes with a head-on attack in hopes that our defensive line would have time to set up behind us. Breaking away from the main force, I dashed to the left where one of the Serathids had veered away from our assault in an attempt to catch us in a pincer. My abrupt change in course drew a second beast away from the pack, splitting their forces evenly between me and the entirety of the vanguard. Knowing I would be flanked by the reinforcing Serathid in mere moments, I sprinted harder towards my first target in an effort to capitalize on the solo engagement while I had the chance.
The beast reared up onto its hind legs and launched towards me with both scythes pointed directly at my head. I slid down onto one knee and planted my shield against the cave floor, then braced my shoulder against the metal as the attack landed. The full weight of the Serathid crashed into me, and I roared in exertion as I fought back against the assault. With a final burst of energy, I rose to my feet and threw the beast back into an off-balance teeter. My shield flew out along its geared tracks and whipped skyward in a brutal uppercut that caught the Serathid full in the face, knocking it onto its back.
The glittering shield continued in an arc over my head and came down just in time to catch a sideways cut from the flanking beast. Without proper time to brace myself against the attack, it threw me to the side, and I skidded along the stone in a low crouch. The separation gave the upended Serathid time to regain its footing, and the pair charged me in unison a moment later. A burst of adrenaline slowed the world around me as I prepared my counterattack. Glance parry the first with fourth switch, momentum transfer over the second, disable movement, re-engage first, repel, finish the second, finish the first.
Time jerked to double speed as the battle commenced. I feinted a dodge to my left as I slid right, baiting a downward stab from the left Serathid. The attack was well wide of my position, but I still reached out with my shield to catch the blow. As the bladed arm made contact, I depressed one of the levers in the intricate mechanical grip of my shield, and the force of the blow set the stained glass disc whirling around its midpoint. I launched into a sideways flip as the telltale swish of a blade through air hissed out from behind me. The second beast’s scythe grazed along the armor on my back as I passed over it and continued to careen towards the attacker. At the midpoint of my jump, I flipped another switch, and the shield immediately locked back into place; its sudden change of momentum yanked me forward, and I rolled onto the back of the second Serathid.
I took a knee on my unwilling mount and raised the shield over my head before bringing it down with both hands onto the beast’s left hind leg. The chitin and bone beneath shattered all at once, and the Serathid tilted dangerously to one side, dumping me into a controlled roll along the ground. I landed beneath the wounded beast’s companion and stared directly into the monster’s hideously distorted face. Thick strands of pale orange spittle dripped down onto my skin from the beast’s cavernous, circular mouth as it struggled to reposition itself to a more advantageous position. I pushed myself up on my shield and threw a punch with my heavy gauntlet, connecting directly between the beast’s empty eye sockets.
The blow knocked loose a hail of small chitinous shards that pelted my face as the monster reeled in pain. Its bladed arms rose and fell dangerously close to my head as it launched a volley of panicked attacks, seemingly unable to accurately locate me despite my immediate proximity. Failing in its repeated attempts to stab me, it suddenly lowered its central body and began to gnash its multiple rows of teeth as it grew closer. I repeated my earlier attack again and again, bashing the Serathid’s broken carapace with my fist until its foul, dark ichor coated my hand and splattered across my face. With a final, triumphant roar, I broke through the beast’s skull and embedded my fist in its brain.
It gave a single, violent spasm as I withdrew my arm, then collapsed. I rolled out from beneath it a second before its hulking weight crunched against the cavern floor, where it remained, unmoving. My body begged for respite, but I pushed myself to my feet and turned toward my remaining foe. A bladed arm was there to mee
me, flying in a pointed stab directly towards my chest. I barely had time to raise my shield to catch the blow, and the attack violently jarred my shoulder, sending a sharp spike of pain all the way back to my spine. Gritting my teeth, I hopped onto the back of the dead Serathid and pushed onwards, circling left around my prey to force pressure onto its broken hind leg.
Despite its injury, the beast continued to launch a flurry of vicious strikes as it backpedaled. I parried each blow with increasing ferocity, quickly flicking an array of levers to rock my shield side to side in order to counter the monster’s fearsome range. After a particularly extended overhead strike, the beast stumbled and fell backwards onto its wounded leg, and I pressed my advantage in a flash. My shielded rocketed out to smash against its torso, then bounced back to add even more momentum to my unarmed punch. The pair of blows stunned the beast into inaction and gave me enough time to bring my shield down edge-first onto its back. It struggled feebly to regain its footing, and another downward strike ended its suffering permanently.
A gurgling scream cut short my desperately needed moment of rest before it began. In my intense focus, I had shut out everything apart from my immediate surroundings, and it took me a few seconds to catch up with the rest of the world. A fight between my vanguard and the remaining two Serathids had taken place parallel to my own, and as I sprinted across the cavern to assist, I saw it was nearly over: One of the beasts had been slain, and the other looked as though it would soon follow. The victory had come at a cost; five men lay dead on the stone floor, and another half-dozen limped away from the battle with vicious, bloody wounds.
Bryce held up his sword in triumph as he noticed my approach. “The Shield is with us!” he cried. “With me, men! We will not fail!” His orange hair burned in the flickering torchlight as he pushed to the front of the vanguard, leading a renewed charge at the remaining Serathid. The beast flailed as it bled from innumerable cuts, slashing in wide strikes in an effort to catch as many soldiers as possible. One of its bladed arms cut through a portly man garbed in chainmail and snagged on his spine; the momentary hesitation was all the front line needed to advance and pierce the beast’s shelled body with a half-dozen stabs, and it fell to the ground after a final, pitiful shudder.
A warhorn blasted out from the cave entrance as I regrouped with the vanguard. We may yet live to see the morning. “Fall back to the defensive line!” I shouted, waving the men back. While we were fighting, the defensive infantry had moved into position behind us, forming three equal ranks of soldiers positioned equidistant from the cave entrance. Large rows of spiked barricades stood behind them in a tight circle, with a final group of soldiers as a last wall of defense should the perimeter somehow be breached. I made my way to the front formation and addressed the woman holding the horn. “Challa.”
“Commander,” she nodded. “Everyone is in position. Mining is underway; Shadowmine’s construction lends well to a collapse, according to Father—er, Rex,” she reported, correcting herself. “We’re only a few minutes out from completion.”
“Good. Hold ranks here and continue to relay—
”
“Commander!” Bryce cried from the formation on our right. “More of them, at the tunnels!” Challa and I snapped to attention and stared across the dark expanse of the mine. Where the various mineshafts all met at the far wall, three shadowy figures scuttled back and forth in the darkness. As we watched, their numbers swelled from three to four, then to six, then seven, and beyond. The Serathids hung back at the opposite side of the cavern, shifting in and out of sight in a teeming mass but making no immediate move to advance on our position.
“Stand your ground!” I bellowed to my gathered forces. “We will hold this entrance at all costs. We will not falter! We will not fail!” I banged the edge of my shield against the ground in a constant rhythm, and the cave soon echoed with hundreds of stomping spears, boots, and shields. Just a few minutes more and we will be rid of this Primes-damned scourge for good.
Challa shuffled closer to my place at the head of the formation. “Commander?” she asked, her voice nearly drowned out by the pounding beat. “What are they doing?”
“I...do not know,” I answered, shaking my head. “They appear to be waiting for something. Perhaps there are more of them down below.”
“Can we, uhm...can we hold off that many?”
“Yes,” I said firmly, “we can. We hold the advantage in our formation, and we will be prepared when they charge. When Rex signals the tunnels are ready, we will retreat immediately; we need not endanger more lives hunting these beasts through the tunnels.”
“Yes, Commander,” Challa replied, her relief clear upon her face. “We will not fail.”
I felt the corner of my mouth begin to curl into a smile. “When this is finished, Challa, I would have a word—” A sudden, thunderous crunch shook the stone beneath my feet. I whirled to my left to find the source of the impact, and my blood turned to ice in my veins. A Serathid stood directly in the center of our leftmost formation, violently bobbing up and down after its impact with the floor. A half-dozen soldiers laid at its feet, crushed down into sickening positions.
Restart Again: Volume 3 Page 46
