-From Aphorisms: 16:48-50
Delre spat out the butt of the cigar.
The heat had seared it to ash, all but the last quarter inch of what stuck out from between her lips, staring out at the Bookkeepers rushing back forward again. There were still close to eighty of them all towards the bridge again, even the archers.
Why target a lone dwarf, when you could get inside and have your pick?
“We have to leave, now!” She yelled to Dan and Jon, slamming the doors shut just in time, stomping on both of the latches she had made, thick steel bars that sunk into matching holes in the bedrock that she had drilled.
She braced the doors anyway, leaning against them as she felt several bodies bounce off of them. The fastest of the cultists. The flames flickered still on the inside, but she ignored them.
Wood won’t last long enough for the flames to be a worry.
She heard axes slamming on the other side. Wood axes, splitting mauls, hatchets and chisels. Random tools appropriated for war.
“Fucking travesty on top of everything else,” She grumbled, before shouting, “hurry up! Get the bar!”
The door resounded with the force of bodies in between strikes.
Jon grabbed the oak drawbar, workman’s muscles straining as he did, cursing as he too got singed before he shifted his grip, and slammed it into place.
“Let’s go!” He said, turning as the sound of axes slamming into the wood got louder still.
Dan quivered, “Th-they’re just… gone!” It wasn’t the first death the young man had seen, but Del could understand the difficulty he was having now.
They had been friends. Comrades. People that had laughed together just yesterday at dinner, dreaming of the future, of lives where they didn’t have to keep stealing, or worry about being beaten by the guards.
Now? Now it just stank like burnt meat and hair, and there was no knowing if the void of their absence would ever be filled, or if it was, who it would be filled by.
“We don’t have time for this! They’re dead! Move!” Del had to force herself to be brutal about it. The fact that it was true didn’t make it any easier.
“They just died. She was screaming… and I just helped Hed with polishing his horns…”
“Dan!” Jon yelled, yanking his arm and giving him a shove to get him moving.
“We can’t leave them!” He shouted, fighting to go to the bodies, but Del shoved him too.
“Move Dan!” The door slammed harder and she looked back, knowing they would never put the fallen here to rest. She tried to swallow the knot in her throat. Grieve later! Be here for the living!
“But we can’t just-”
“We can and will!” Jon said, hauling on Dan. “Tim and the others need us!”
Fuck! The Dvundae warrior fought a fresh wave of worry. Damnit, that idiot boy better be safe.
Watching both Jon and Dan flee with the straggling remnants of the older gang members. Del hung back a little, letting them pull ahead, hanging back to act as the final line of defense to try and help their escape.
She grabbed a fresh cigar from the ground, it must have spilled out of one of the cheap wooden boxes from their supplies.
“Fucking cultists.” She said, eyes narrowing as she lit the cigar on a candle. “Think I’ll forget this?”
It wasn’t the dvundae way to forget a vendetta. She made herself stare at each of the fallen, memorizing their faces as she puffed the cigar alight. Searing them into her mind so that she could seek vengeance when the time came. A hotter flame than anything aether or nature could create.
CRACK! BADOOM!
With a hideous sound the doors finally gave, squealing their deathcry as they were shoved out of the way.
Tydrik!
Delre could see that there were still a few straggling kids grabbing bundles of bread and blankets, wide eyed with terror as they ran to the escape hatch that led into the sewers. One was Tim, and his bag clinked loudly.
“Idiot! Why aren’t you gone?” She snarled, smoke streaming from her mouth as she got out of position to put herself between the mob and him.
“I was grabbing supplies!” He whined.
The bag clinked louder as he scrambled over a pile of rubble, and it wasn’t hard to guess why. Bottles of booze. Stupid child, Wait… Disinfectant!
She caught him as he staggered and lifted him and his bundle off of the ground before setting him on his feet. “Take those to Lukas! He’ll need them! Grab any of the others you see and make them run!” She shouted, pushing him, and the boy ran, dark curls bouncing, pale gray eyes wide with terror.
Del shook her head and turned back to face the now charging horde, her armor now stiff from being deformed. There were too many to protect to get distracted now.
The mage walked slowly at the back, hissing and revealing long snake-like fangs, the guards around him barking out orders to the rest of the mob.
What the hells is that thing? She shoved her fear aside, and the emotion transmuted into anger. How could any leader allow something like that live inside the capital.
Bastard Emperor!
Ping!
An arrow pinged off her helm, bringing her back into the fight.
“Come on! You fucking weaklings think you can take this place without a fight?!”
They rushed in, and she planted her feet. She hacked through one, only to have the next behind her get inside her reach! She tried to dodge but was a hair too late.
Clang!
A hammer bounced off her pauldron with a loud clang! A two-pound crosspeen, tapered side first. It sparked off of the warped steel of Del’s armor as it did. Using forgetools for fighting! Sledgehammers and woodcutting tools were one thing, but that was inexcusable!
“Jackass!” she snarled, turning with the strike, slamming her gauntleted fist into his chest.
His ribs crunched from the blow, forcing him back, holding his chest. Del knocked the tool free of his filthy hand just before she hacked off his leg at the knee. But just like the bridge as soon as he fell two more took his place.
By the gods, she would make her killers remember her! She didn’t want to, but if she had to, she would go out as any Dvundae should.
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“You think I’ll make it easy!” she screamed, tears in her eyes as she twisted, catching an overzealous sword thrust, blade clattering against what was left of her armor, grabbing her current opponent by the wrist.
Thick calloused fingers twisted sharply.
Snap!
The cultist’s bone broke, and Del watched with grim satisfaction as it tore through the forearm and shirt with a spurt of crimson. The ax lifted and fell, hewing the Belmaian’s ribs before she dropped him, hewing into the following comrade as she stepped back, another arrow glancing off her helm.
“Tydrik’s purse!” She snarled in pain. A knife got through her mail, and she grunted, counterattacking viciously. It wasn’t deep, but somehow it marked the start of her downfall to her.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
Arrows whistled through the air into the enemy! And three of them screamed and died as they kept coming.
Del could tell by the accuracy that it was Rose shooting. One after the other they fell and it let Del retreat farther, get to a better position that forced them to come at her head on.
There were a few others with Rose now, also firing. Then Del saw several redrobes with ladders.
Shit! Breaking off the neck of the bottle!
“Dammit Rose, get with the group!” She screamed, grabbing a dagger off of a corpse, holding it in her off hand as well. Her buckler had been designed to accommodate one.
She caught a maul with the buckler, stabbing with the toe of the ax before she grabbed the groaning woman and pulled her in front of the swing of her compatriot behind her. Rose shot that one in the throat.
“Go and lead damn you!” The dwarf snarled. The group didn’t need Del, but it would fall apart without Rose.
“I am leading! Nobody gets left behind Del.” Rose shouted, tight curls pulsing with each shot. Dan and Jon were still together to Del’s right, fighting as a team where she stood alone. Others also joined, holding back the advance instead of running and closing off the exit.
Delre bit down on the cigar, and the distraction letting two cultists, a human and an orc, tackle her to the ground. Delre’s ax and dagger clattered out of her hands, and she only managed to keep a hold of her buckler. She hadn’t noticed that there was rubble behind her, blocking the pair from Roses shots.
She struggled against them, shaking wrenching, almost getting free several times as her muscles bulged under her armor.
“Tydrik’s steaming hammer!” Del could see a third rushing up with an inverted dagger. He had a shield that looked like it had once been a door of all things, and it caught several arrows from Rose as he ran.
The other two focused only on keeping the dwarf pinned as she struggled even harder now, actually managing to lift the human off the ground before the third cultist placed a foot on her arm, dagger raised.
The ground rushed towards Vivex, vines and branches too far away to reach!
Fuck!
A green clawed hand grabbed Vivex’s wrist, and her shoulder strained painfully around the arrow through it. Almost dropping her borrowed ax, she struggled to not cry out as she was pulled up into the canopy.
“Good job, fodder.” The female said, laying Vivex along the wide branch. She spoke out from under a strange garment of moss and foliage, looking quite a bit like a pile of debris caught on a branch. Even her bow didn’t look out of place.
Vivex growled, flashing challenge for a moment, but stopped herself after she registered the prefixes.
True praise. Still, the label rankled.
Apex!
“I am not fodder.” She hissed, gasping for air.
“For now, you are, fodder.” A male snarled, similar in size to Vuthra, voice deep and chest broad, though without the massive neck muscles. The Initiate could easily read his desire to call her a runt in his prefixes. He loosed an arrow, and a smoothskin below died.
Kill! It would be easy. She could do it with him distracted. Her hands clenched on her weapons, and again her shoulder twinged painfully. Giving her pause.
“Listen to your superiors.” The female continued, half lidded eyes sliding to regard Vivex, reminding the Initiate of her Provider. The adult held out her hand, eyes shifting to stare out at the battle below, “Give me your arrows. There is no time to teach you better accuracy now.”
Vivex growled and the mature Greenscales turned, and she could feel that there were more above her too. All staring at her, but she only looked at the female. A pattern of challenge flickered around the female archer’s eyes, and only her eyes.
She didn’t growl, but something about the look spoke of swift and violent retribution against Vivex if she didn’t start listening.
Tok roared and shoved the runeslave, grabbing his sword and swinging again, only to have it blocked once more.
Idiot. Just do it. She didn’t like giving away her things, but the mature female was right, she was the worst shot, something that was plain to see as she watched some of the others firing into the formations of the humans. So reluctantly, Vivex took the quiver from her back and handed it over.
“Good. You are young, Initiate. Be aware some are not as kind as I.” The female hissed. Vivex’s tongue flickered as the female belted the quiver about her waist, showing the underside of her garment.
Learn! Her Instinct hissed, focusing her attention on the garment.
Netting! Like Scithaan talked about. Draped about her body with the foliage tied to it with thin line. It dispersed the silhouette wonderfully. She thought about how she had overtaxed her skin during the trial.
It would be a good tool to make.
She could see that the adult remained mostly in the default coloration underneath. Colors only seeming to flash around her eyes. Like Ropemaker. So he could have overcome that with more experimentation on his end.
“Thank you for catching me.” Vivex said, feeling like it would stick in her throat. She looked over to Tok, panting slightly, needing a breather.
His sword bit chunks out of the giant’s club, then suddenly he kicked the thing in the stomach. The cut stitches in its back burst further and it staggered, panting the clearing with the thick black blood.
With a snarl Tok kicked the thing’s knee, the one she had climbed up. It was still acting oddly, and it bend the wrong way with the Provider’s strike!
“Error… m-m-must contin-in-continue-Why does it go on! Why does it n-n-not end!”
“I am your end.” Tok growled.
His sword flashed like a thunderbolt.
The earthbone plates rang as the head hit the ground, the corpse crumpling. Tok planted his foot on the carcass and bellowed at the parasites, eyes narrowed as they kept trying to pierce his scales with their arrows.
The humans were trying to flee, and the archers in the trees as well as the warriors on the ground refused to let them escape. Vivex’s tongue flickered. She could smell their fear. Acrid and tempting, her Instinct screaming at her to rush in once more!
No! Think! What is the Apex doing?
Her Instinct grunted and pulled back slightly to let her look. He was fumbling at a bag at his side, eyes wide with terror. She knew that look, that desperate look. She had seen it on the face of the poachers. The Initiate’s mind leaped to a conclusion once more.
Not this time!
She roared and rushed out along the branch, ignoring the mature Greenscale behind her as she cut another vine free, sticking her knife in her teeth as she swung to the ground.
Arubra would be avenged!
She let go of the vine, taking knife in hand and landing in a roll that snapped off the haft of the arrow painfully. She hissed in pain and forced her way forward.
Her legs pumped hard, her torso leaned forward, tail straight behind her, no weaving, no dodging. Only one thing.
Speed!
She crossed the clearing in seconds.
She could see it already in the mage’s hands.
Vivex pushed herself even harder!
Tok cleaved into the humans, but spotted her for a moment before she blended as hard as she could.
The tube was propped against Arubra’s tree.
Kill!
The same kind of scroll Tum and Jeg had used. And he was putting stoppers in the containers all around him, eyes still glowing as he maintained his arcane shield.
She was past the clearing already, leaping over a cart instead of going around! Sailing through the air, dust floating behind her as she landed on the bubble. The arrows stopped as she got in the way. He spotted her, seeing her wound most likely, and she snapped into her black and red, snarling, hurling the ax with her good arm!
It clattered against the shield, bouncing off and sticking into the dirt. She could see Arubra’s prone form.
She wasn’t moving!
“Stupid beast! You can’t get in!” He bared his teeth at her, canines slightly longer than Jeg or Tums, but still pitiful. That was a… smile? Why a smile?
No, different. Something about his words, the way he said them, made it clear it was a taunt. She roared at him, fully enraged now.
Thu-thu-thu-thum!
“Out of the way, neonate!” Tok bellowed, and she dove to the side as his earthbone blade descended!
CLANG!
Sparks flew, the earth shook, and leaves fell from the trees as the Blackscale swung the massive blade with both hands. And it didn’t pierce the bubble. Ringing.
And the mage made that odd hitching sound called a laugh, putting a stopper into the last container slowly.
Teeth! They were growing longer! And then to Vivex’s surprise he switched to the truetongue! Though he spoke with an archaic choice of words and prefixes that made her Instinct gnash and gibber with ire.
“Foolish ones! No force of arm can pierce my sanctum! Eat dung and perish! Naught exists which can overcome the power of this aether!”
Tok’s sword slammed down again! The bubble sank into the soil, but still the mage was unharmed. She wanted to rush in, but she would get in the way of Tok if she did.
Need to think! They couldn’t let this poacher leave unpunished. Even if he had been stopped. She knew that.
She looked at the sphere, ignoring his strange use of grammar and trying to think.
Aether.
CLANG!
She thought of the runeslave.
BONG!
The parasite laughed again, that taunting smile back on his ugly flat face.
She thought of her knife in the rootway.
BANG!
He tied the containers to his belt as Tok smashed into the bubble again.
The knife hadn’t been effected by the aether, and it had made both the runeslave and the monster in the temple react.
CLANG!
The mage brushed his robes, still sneering.
The runeslave and the abomination were both directly affected by magic!
The mage lifted the scroll.
Try! Try now! Her Instinct shrieked.
She drew the blade, lifting it high, sprinting forward.
Yes!
Tok pulled his next strike short, watching with a rumbling growl in his throat.
“So futile! What can the runtish subadult do that the Apex can’t? Amusing, leatherba-”
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhrik!
With the sound like ripping cloth her knife tore through the bubble, which popped just like one.
“This.” She snarled.
PATREON! It is at least 15 chapters ahead, and I am working hard to get it permanently up to 20, with plans to add even more! All money there goes right back into making the series as good as I can, and every cent of it is appreciated more than I can say.