Easy.
Right?
“I know your kind, Shade! I know how you fear the light!”
Vralin’s voice reverberated up the tunnel, his taunts sprinkled with the shattering of glass. Tyrissa slid to a stop where the tunnel was lit by a creeping, indirect light and emptied into a larger cavern. She looked back, listening for the others. Their route into the depths below Khalanheim had crossed a few places where the riftwinds flowed through and she had absorbed earth magicks off them to hasten her steps. She had pulled ahead, but Wolef had Slid even further in advance once they passed the final intersection of caverns and had only one way forward.
“Time and again we sent your kind fleeing into hiding, Shade!”
Tyrissa peered around the corner into the cavern. It was a wide, roughly circular space, about twenty feet high at the center. A number of tunnels fed into it, some too small for a man, others big enough to drive a horse-drawn cart through with room to spare. A forest of straw-like stalactites hung from the ceiling over a pool of water on the side of opposite of Tyrissa. Nearer, along one wall and lit up by a string of steady elchemical lights, was a partially enclosed space with all the trappings of a hide-out: a pair of small work stables, empty crates, piles of discarded items, and a bedroll. It looked disassembled, in chaos. They had caught him just in time.
“I knew you wouldn’t give up. You still want to repay me for the Radiant Halls and Enshala and every other time Ellie and I threw your kind back from whence you came!”
Vralin knelt at the center of the cavern surrounded by a cluster of crates, all but one kicked over and empty. He reached into the last one between shouts and tossed out handfuls of vials and jars, their shattered pieces adding to a wide, circular layer of broken glass that covered the floor of the cavern. Puddles of radiant white fluid from broken gloworbs formed a near-complete ring of light shining within the glass shards. Vralin was unassailable from the shadows, a glowing prize at the center of the cavern.
Tyrissa shot another glance back up the tunnel. They needed to hurry.
Vralin finished sowing the remnant of his elchemy production across the cavern floor and stood, shrugging his shoulders, loosening up. He patted the brace of throwing knives at his waist. Tyrissa counted six.
“You should have kept to the shadows and waited for your friends. You ruined the surprise.”
He wasn’t wrong about missing the element of surprise and it was a mistake for Wolef to get so far ahead of the rest of them. But it was the confidence in Vralin’s voice and the neatly prepared arena of light and glass made her stomach tighten in worry. The flows of air swirling through the cavern shifted direction and Tyrissa caught a faint, pungent smell in the air. Her mind went to tales of miners suffocating on bad gasses in the depths or the air itself catching fire from a wayward spark. But the scent was more organic than that, like the musk of an animal in heat.
“But this isn’t some point nationalistic pride. This isn’t some extension of our patrons’ eternal rivalry. No… this is personal. I think this is about that last Shade we caught. He looked an awful lot like you.” Vralin’s gaze darted around the ceiling of the cavern where the light of the shattered gloworbs was weaker. The winds around Tyrissa shifted once more, now strongly flowing into the cavern towards Vralin. She felt the core of earthen magick in her grow again.
“That one… he died slow.”
A sinuous flow of shadow slithered across the ceiling and Wolef dived out of the stone, blackened knives out. His scream of focused fury echoed through the cavern, the howl of a midnight hunter. Vralin coolly stepped aside Wolef’s falling charge, one hand throwing up a knife to greet the Shade. Wolef swung in mid-air and deflected the knife with a metallic ping. The Shade landed and promptly rolled aside, dodging away from Vralin’s follow-up throwing knife. Vralin drew his pair of slightly curved blades, twin hisses of steel. The winds intensified and began to whistle and howl against the countless nooks and tunnels that lined the cavern.
Tyrissa could hear the other three coming closer, the light of their gloworbs throwing wild slashes of light down the tunnel as they ran. Close enough. She jumped from her hiding place, pulled her staff free from its magnetic harness, and darted across the cavern floor toward the beginnings of the combat. Vralin and Wolef circled each other, waiting for the other to make a move.
Vralin looked past Wolef at Tyrissa. He waved the shorter of his blades with a flourish and she felt a spike in the wind magicks coursing through the cavern. A cyclone erupted around Vralin, the winds focusing into a single swirling flow that pulled the countless shards of glass into the air. Illuminated by the gloworb fluid, the swarm of flying glass created a scintillating, flesh-shredding storm of light.
Tyrissa came to a stop a few paces short of the storm. She could feel the wind magicks fueling it, but they were tightly embedded at the core of the flows. She felt only flickers of absorption from the storm. Vralin knew better than anyone how to work around someone like her. Kexal, Garth, and Hali soon joined her. The ground quivered beneath their feet, but with the barrier before them, the fleeting tremor went unnoticed.
“As I live and breathe,” Kexal said.
A shadow danced with a zephyr at the eye of the storm, their blades singing a lethal song above the roar of the winds. Tyrissa saw that Wolef was outclassed when alone. She knew what it was like to have wind magicks flowing through you, that slight extra beat of time to react. Vralin was too quick and the winds that whipped through the cavern aided his strikes and threw the Shade off balance. Fragments of glass spun inward from the storm, slicing across Wolef’s back, leaving red gashes in his pitch black clothing. He backpedaled in circles, deflecting Vralin’s attacks with increasingly frantic motions.
Kexal shed the pack of climbing gear and other supplies for the trip down. He pulled his shield off the pack and worked his arm through the straps. He had to shout over the roar of the winds, “Need to get in there and help him! Hali, you mind clearin’ this out?”
Hali nodded and rolled up the sleeve of her left arm. Vines wormed out of her skin, their coils thickening into a shield of greenery that was soon larger than the woman that held it. She calmly strode into the cyclone of glass. The vine shield exploded in a thousand tiny bursts of green fluid and particles. The shield was shredded in seconds but cleared away much of the glass. Hali held her ground amidst the storm as the vines withered away and let the remaining shards impact into her skin, tearing away strips of flesh and clothing alike. Her left side was soon a mess of glass shards and torn clothing, painted entirely by her strange amber blood.
Hali never even flinched.
The storm had been weakened, but there was still enough glass flying around to forbid Kexal or Tyrissa from aiding Wolef. Tyrissa seethed at feeling so full of earthen energy, but not having enough confidence in using it to harden her skin to deflect the countless cuts promised by crossing the storm. Garth’s crossbow barked three times. The bolts sailed straight and true through the storm’s remnants only to careen wildly as they drew near Vralin, snatched aside by invisible hands. Two flew by, harmless, but the third was caught on a cyclical flow of its own, circling above the two men like a bird of prey. Vralin took a step back and swept one sword though the air between them. The crossbow bolt made one last circuit then slammed into Wolef’s side. Vralin stepped back in and cut across the Shade’s chest, the tip of his sword throwing an arc of blood into the air. Wolef cried out and stumbled back.
NO!
Vralin turned towards them. He drew in and released a deep, slow breath. The storm withered and died in seconds, the magick fueling it dismissed. The remaining glass shards fell to the floor like a crystalline rain.
“Now!” Kexal yelled, jumping ahead of her, charging with shield held high. Tyrissa sprinted after him. They passed around Hali, the macabre sight of her only enhanced by her passive face. She stood still and already some of the shards embedded in her skin were being forced out by her preternatural healing. Two more bolts w
histled by and both flew off course, pushed away with little more than a casual flick of Vralin’s hand. He watched them charge for a moment, assessing the situation as if it were pieces on a game board.
“Apologies, Lisindir,” Vralin called out across the cavern. He let his bloodied shorter blade fall to rest atop his foot and reached for another pair of throwing daggers. His hand snapped up and Tyrissa deftly threw herself into a roll guided by the balance of earth magicks. The knives sliced through the air above her.
Hali screamed. Tyrissa looked back to see the Lifepact falling to her knees, her hands clutching at two knives embedded in her eyes.
She’ll be fine, Tyrissa reassured herself.
The clash of steel against steel brought her back to their target. Kexal and Vralin exchanged blows, the Weapon Master showing that his title was well-earned. He kept Vralin dodging and parry his precise strikes. For once, Vralin looked pressed and Tyrissa knew first-hand how much weight Kexal could throw behind a single motion. Even with the winds whipping around and trying to throw his balance, Kexal managed to catch most of Vralin’s counters with his shield.
Ignoring small collection of lacerations from the scattered glass shards, Tyrissa jumped to her feet and joined the fray. She kept to wide sweeps and big strikes that were easy for Vralin to dodge but kept him fenced in and within reach of Kexal’s sword. Focused currents of air whipped around them but avoided Tyrissa. Vralin knew it would be a waste and only aid her. The flows of magick were close enough to be absorbed in small amounts and enough to keep her filled with earthen magicks. Her training with Settan came without thought, the earth magicks allowing her to slide out of reach of Vralin’s occasional attacks, and acted as an anchor against the shifting air and swirling fury of combat.
Wolef was thankfully still alive and he crawled away from the melee, though his movements were weak. Garth ran up and dragged him back towards Hali, a narrow trail of blood following them. Again the ground quaked, and Tyrissa heard a deep warbling below the ring and crash of combat.
They kept up the pressure and Vralin began to let in too many small grazes from Kexal’s attacks and she nearly tripped him with one of her sweeps. Her store of earth flared as a blast of air hammered downward and sent Vralin flying up and away from them, his head almost brushing the high, dimly lit ceiling of the cavern. He landed thirty feet away without a sound, like a coin against a pillow, his back to the pool of water.
She and Kexal started after him in unison. Vralin reached down for another pair of throwing knives and Tyrissa tensed up to dodge, earth coursing through her body. As she ran, Tyrissa felt the barest flicker from the touch of air magicks, two thin conduits of wind between her and Vralin, centered on her chest. These two knives were meant for her. She smiled as she spun out of the way and felt the wake of the two knives as they missed her by inches.
Vralin scowled as they resumed their melee. His attacks were faster, more risky and desperate. The winds swirling around became more violent and less precise in their motions. It was almost over. They had him.
The ground quivered once more. A crash from one of the tunnels forced a lull in the combat as a deep wurm slid into the cavern. It was a monster, an oversized cousin to the wurms that burrowed beneath the Morgwood, five feet tall and twenty-five long. Its granite colored skin was coated in flexible plates, and two saucer-sized gray eyes gleamed from the white light of the broken gloworbs and regarded the cavern with stupid, bestial intensity.
“Huh,” she heard Vralin say in the relative quiet created by the wurm’s arrival, “The scent worked.”
The wurm slid further into the cavern, snorting at the air and letting out a series of low warbles. The wurm caught the scent of blood and surged toward Hali and Wolef. Garth loosed a series of bolts at the beast, one lodging in its mouth, the rest deflecting harmlessly off its thick skin.
“Ty, think you could help out with that critter? I can handle him,” Kexal said without taking his eyes off Vralin.
Tyrissa pulled away from their melee and darted across the cavern, boots crunching through broken glass. She looked around the cavern, mind racing to figure out how to deal with the monstrous deep wurm. Hali knelt above Wolef. Her eyes were scabbed over with rough golden patches of skin and she blindly pressed her hands to Wolef’s collection of wounds. Garth had feathered the wurm with a cluster of bolts, but only managed to gain the beast’s full attention. The wurm lurched forward and battered Garth aside with its snout, sending the Jalarni tumbling away.
Tyrissa slid to a stop at Kexal’s pack of supplies. She set her staff aside, knowing it would be useless against that monster. It was time to get creative. She dug through the assorted climbing gear that had been largely unneeded in the descent and pulled out a pair of long pitons with ropes tied to the rings.
The wurm closed in on Garth and its wide mouth opened to reveal rows of teeth shaped like rough stone knives. Pitons in hand and trailing the ropes behind her, Tyrissa charged up to the wurm and leapt onto the wurm’s back just behind its head. The wurm lurched and tried to throw her off, but the stability granted by the earth magicks flowing through her gave her a firm grip on the bony crest atop the beast’s head.
A quote from her old ranger manuals came to mind.
‘If surprised by a wurm in the wild, fight back. Wurms are generally ambush predators or scavengers and they do not expect their prey to put up much resistance. Even a relatively minor injury may convince the beast to retreat.’
Tyrissa leaned forward and plunged a piton into the wurm’s right eye. Viscous gray fluid exploded outward, coating her hand. The wurm screamed out a sonic shockwave that shook the walls of the cavern. Dark red blood followed as she shoved the spike in deeper until it crunched through bone. Tyrissa wrapped the rope tied to the piton around her forearm and shifted to the other side of the wurm’s head. The beast began to thrash around the cavern floor in another, more urgent attempt to throw her off. Tyrissa pulled herself toward the other eye and blinded the wurm with the second piton, birthing another explosion of goo and blood. The deafening pained shriek that followed could have been heard in Khalanheim.
The wurm blindly sought an exit tunnel and its warbling now had a rapid, panicked rhythm. Tyrissa attempted to steer the creature with either rope, pulling it away when it turned toward her allies. Kexal and Vralin continued to exchange blows on the far side of the cavern, both looking torn and bloodied. Garth limped away from the thrashing beast, towards Hali and Wolef. The wurm eventually found a side tunnel and dived into it, seeking escape. Darkness swallowed them and Tyrissa found herself as blind as the wurm while they barreled through the tunnels.
Wounded and terrified, the wurm plowed ahead through the tunnel in pursuit of some manner of escape. Tyrissa crouched low on the beast’s thickly scaled back, the heavy underground air tossing her hair in a wild mane. She held each grisly, makeshift rein steady. Any excessive motion or attempt to throw her off would result in a tug on the embedded pitons that produced another pained cry from the wurm. Her unwilling mount soon settled into a smoother flow.
Giant wurm riding is easier than I expected.
The roof above was frighteningly close, but the tunnel only seemed to be widening, the air growing fresher. Tyrissa risked raising her head to peer around the wurm’s pointed snout and spied the literal light at the end of the tunnel. Through equal amounts of good and bad luck, this particular tunnel ran right out into the Rift and Tyrissa could see the familiar shimmer of sunlit stone that indicated a plateau. The wurm only surged faster, oblivious to its approaching doom.
“Time to get off,” she muttered as she untangled herself from the makeshift reins, revealing wide streaks of rope burn. The wurm, now free of the maddening pull from within its eye sockets, began to buck violently to either side of the tunnel, sending showers of loose rock into the air. The sunlight had grown strong enough for Tyrissa to see the smooth floor of the tunnel rushing past below them, her vision rocked back and forth by the wild undulations of the
wurm. Jumping out to either side wasn’t an option; she’d be smashed between the wurm and the tunnel walls. She would have to leap from the creature’s tail and roll away, and hope that would minimize injuries. Too slow for comfort, Tyrissa turned away from the approaching mouth of the cave, hugging tight to the wurm’s back every inch of the way. She could hear the riftwinds ahead, their howls merging with the beast’s panicked bellows and the crunch of rock against scale to create a cacophonous din. She didn’t have enough time to crawl to the tail. However, there was enough now clearance above to stand.
Go, go, just GO!
Tyrissa pushed herself to a crouch and half ran and half stumbled down the wurm’s back. Each step was a fight for balance against the rumbling, twisting creature below. She had only crossed half the distance when the world burst into brilliant daylight. She shot a glace over her should and saw that the ground dropped away a scant hundred feet away. To call this a ‘lower flat’ would be generous as the plateau slopped heavily downward. The wurm lurched in an attempt to stop, realizing its fate all too late. Tyrissa took the sliver of extra time to dash down the rest of the wurm’s back, leaping from the lashing tail towards sweet, solid ground.
Tyrissa landed with all the grace of an avalanche and, much to her terror, continued to slide towards the cliff’s edge. Ahead of her, the wurm’s momentum pulled it over the cliff and the creature let out a final, mournful death bellow as it disappeared from sight. Tyrissa felt a minute trickle of earth magick from the riftwinds and frantically clawed against the wind-worn rock, seeking anything to slow her from joining the wurm in an infinite fall. Her body slid out into open air, her heart skipped a beat, and she closed her eyes against the terrifying glimpse of nothing below her save the Rift’s endless drop into mist-obscured depths. A scream died in her throat as a whimper.
Her left hand found a hold, a smooth but solid lip at the very edge of the cliff. Tyrissa threw every ounce of strength and every sliver of earth magicks into her grip. It held and she was yanked to a stop, her body smacking against the cliff-side. Her other hand snapped up and made another feeble hold on the edge. Her feet scrabbled about until they found purchase in a slight grove on the cliff wall and for the first time in what seemed like hours, she stopped moving. Tyrissa held fast to the cliff and let the ceaseless winds of the Rift buffet against her, savoring the gritty feel of the rock in her hands that might as well be life itself.
Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) Page 35
