We burst into the kitchen and slammed the door shut behind us, unsure if the mold creature could grow all the way there, but hoping it couldn’t. I was breathing heavily, panting and out of breath, but the air I sucked up greedily was still fouled, and the deep stench of it turned my stomach. This time I did throw up, and I had barely enough time to turn and try to vomit off to the side instead of on Cadoc or Amaia.
I wanted to slink down against the door and rest a little, but my inflamed nostrils kept me alert.
“Next room,” Amaia said shortly, pointing, clearly in as much discomfort as I was and eager to get out of the kitchen.
No further discussion was needed. As much as I’m sure we’d like to have prepared for whatever lay in wait in the next room, we’d never be able to prepare in the kitchen, and falling back to the barracks was hardly any better.
We chose the door to our right, which would have been straight ahead if we’d been coming from the barracks.
We scrambled out of the kitchen and into a wide, tall room. It was lit as if by magic, a bluish light suffusing the surroundings.
We were on a platform, mirrored by another platform directly across from us, and between the two was a lower passage running like a trench below. A lower floor, I thought, and wondered at where it led, and how we could get down there. Or if we even wanted to.
I’m certain all we wanted to do was rest, perhaps discuss the heat-stealing mold monster and how we might defeat it, formulate some sort of plan. But it was clear, almost immediately, that this wouldn’t be allowed to happen.
Below, in the trench-passage, were two groups of people. If people is the right word. One group, to the left, were adventurers. The other, pressing on them from the right, were Kalamuzi, armed with rusty swords and clothed loosely in the bloody, too-large remnants of what once was armor. The Kalamuzi outnumbered the humans - there were six of them, and the adventuring party was a group of three, like ours. There were the corpses of already-dead Kalamuzi littering the ground, but their brethren trampled them underfoot, undeterred.
They were engaged in a life or death combat, but it was clear that the adventuring party was losing. They were being pressed hard by the rats, and for whatever reason, they stood their ground rather than run through the door behind them. Perhaps they feared being struck down while fleeing - the Kalamuzi could likely outrun them. Or perhaps there was something worse that way.
In the front of the party was a large man, large enough that he must have been a body-mage. His face was covered - as was the rest of him - in thick, gleaming armor, and the Kalamuzi were only held at bay - such as they were - by the swinging of his halberd.
Behind him a ways was a young woman with an unexpected weapon - a slingshot. She pelted the Kalamuzi with metal balls, which left great bruises when they connected. But she was panicked, and missed as often as she hit, and the ratmen seemed to forget the pain of their wounds almost as soon as they received them.
And taking the rear, back pressed nearly up against the wooden door, was another woman. She was lightly armored, same as the slingshot shooter, and she held a staff with both her hands. It was an intricately carved piece of lumber, the tip of which glowed orange with power. The moment we had entered, we saw a bolt of yellow light shoot from the staff, and decapitate a Kalamuzi in an instant - which had brought their number down to the six remaining. But now she looked faint, leaning on her staff to stop from tumbling over.
All of this we saw in an instant, and Cadoc was shouting immediately. “To arms!” he cried.
Glances were stolen our way, even in the heat of battle. That was a mistake. The Kalamuzi, in their bloodlust, were less easily distracted.
The armored man, head turned, missed a Kalamuzi approaching from his flank. He had only turned away for a moment, but that moment was all it took. With a terrible squeal, the monster thrust its blade into the gap between two armor plates, underneath the man’s armpit. The man bellowed out in pain, and while a silver ball hit his attacker square in the head just afterwards, visibly caving in its skull and dropping it to the ground, the man had stumbled, and the enemies had smelled their advantage. They were upon him within seconds, blades slipping into him like pins into a cushion. He crashed to the floor, and then claws replaced blades as the Kalamuzi tore off his armor, revealing the pale, dying man beneath. The rats feasted.
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I wanted nothing to do with this battle, but luckily, I didn’t have to convince Cadoc to stay out of it. Amaia I could have convinced easily enough - she didn’t seem to care about anything - but Cadoc would had died fighting the rats, if he could. He tried - he searched frantically for a way down - but there was no path. The platform we stood on ended in a cliff, sleek and without purchase, and the drop was far enough to maim, if not kill. We could let down a rope, but it would take much too long to descend, not to mention how vulnerable we’d be while doing it - we’d never save them in time. Anyone could see the tide of the battle had turned against them now, and it was grimly obvious that their time was nearly done.
There was a part of me that wanted to help, the same foolish part that had attacked a guard, but I didn’t have a revolver any more. Cadoc used a sword, Amaia used a spear, and I used my antisword. Even with our magic, we didn’t have much in the way of ranged attacks - my nails would never reach, and while Amaia could disarm them of their weapons, what could she do to teeth and claws?
We could do nothing but watch the man be devoured.
The shooter continued to fire at the rats, and picked off another one, cracking bone as another round bullet destroyed the rat’s narrow cranium. But most of her shots missed, and her panic was clearly written on her face. She was crying now, and she kept looking at the remains of he companion like she couldn’t believe he’d really died. A few shots hit the Kalamuzi in the arms or torsos, which was just enough to anger them and take them off of their meal. Soon the group was advancing again.
The woman with the staff could hardly stand. It looked like she was trying to wave her staff again, face contorted into an expression of immense mental strain, but nothing came from her staff. Perhaps she was out of mana.
The shooter continued to fire as the rats surrounded her, and she backed up until she was in the far corner. She killed another one, but the remaining three were relentless.
The woman with the staff didn’t wait to see the result. She turned and fled, tripping and then collapsing against the door, only to pick herself back up, swing open the door, and stumble into the space beyond, out of sight, pulling the door shut behind her. The rats didn’t pursue - they were busy. The door closed just as the screams of her companion began to ring out - the last sounds she ever made.
Then, before long, the only sounds were those of gnashing teeth and tearing flesh, and the rats continued their feasting.
Cadoc was fuming, and I had begun to feel similarly. I didn’t want to watch these people die. It was true that I knew we would have died if we were down there, fighting beside them, and I could be at peace with that. They were strangers, after all. The real rub was that I couldn’t do anything. If I was more powerful, I could have helped them without a thought. Instead, I was afraid. Weak.
Cadoc had been yelling obscenities at the ratmen, trying to draw their attention, but it hadn’t worked.
“I cannot allow these fiends to run off unpunished,” he said. “Lower the rope. I will have revenge upon them even if I do so alone, and perish doing so. I am not my parents.”
I fingered the ring in my pocket, thinking. Not as weak as I used to be, I thought. Now, I have options.
I placed my hand on Cadoc’s shoulder. “Wait,” I said. “Maybe there is a way we can attack them.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier!” Cadoc yelled. “Did you enjoy watching them die?”
I bristled. “I hadn’t thought of it earlier. And we might have harmed them more than helped them, anyway.” Cadoc flinched. I suddenly realized what I had said. I didn’t mean to rub in the fact that Cadoc had distracted the armored man, but… well, maybe part of me had wanted to do just that.
“What’s done is done. There is nothing we can do now but kill the rats. Amaia,” I said. “Grab a knife from your pack. How are you with heights?”
-
It was lucky for us, in a gruesome way, that there was plenty of food for only three remaining Kalamuzi.
We had seen before how they could swarm a person, and strip flesh from bone within seconds. But with two bodies split only between the remaining three, they spent a long time eating.
We spent that time sharpening. Cadoc summoned long sticks, while Amaia sharpened them with her knife. Then I would melt nails onto their tips, and they would cool around the points like wax. I wasn’t sure how much utility the fire would add, but if the spear pierced their guts, perhaps I could burn their intestines. They would die more painfully, if not faster.
When we were done, there were a dozen spears, which could be ignited by me with a thought.
Amaia was the most familiar with spears of the three of us, so I passed her the ring. Cadoc and I both wished her luck. She had been happy to volunteer for that part, though of course I could never know exactly why, if her reasons were the same as ours or not.
I should not say ours. Cadoc acted out of revenge, and it was clear the scene reminded him of his childhood. I, on the other hand, wished only to prove that I had grown in power. That I could do what I wanted to. That the rules of the world still applied, and if I acted as Tom would have - with the heroics, and all - then my power would be able to keep up with my ambitions. I wanted to prove that to myself, again.
Amaia slipped on the ring, and promptly rose an inch off of the ground. She stepped forward, a bundle of spears poking out from her pack - which was actually my pack. We had dumped mine, filled it with spears, and given it to her. She had stubbornly refused to dump her own, and left it on the ledge.
She walked on air unto she stood over the center of the chamber, within throwing range of the Kalamuzi, who still gnawed at bones below. She readied the first spear.
“Go,” was all she said.
I flexed an invisible muscle, and the spear’s tip ignited in flame. She threw the spear, and it soared beautifully before impaling one of the Kalamuzi. It pierced clean through, finding one of the many naked spots of fur. The Kalamuzi’s back had been turned, and it now looked down to see a flame burning before its eyes. It made a little noise of confusion before collapsing.
The other two Kalamuzi sprang to their feet, yelling angrily in their gibberish language, but they fared no better.
Now I decided to wait before lighting the spears, to save my mana. One spear went wide, just past a rat’s ear, but the third throw hit it in the torso. It’s shabby armor stopped it from piercing far, but the tip had entered. I ignited it, and saw the wild eyes of the Kalamuzi grow wide as it felt its insides lit aflame. It clawed at itself, trying to wrench the spear from its torso, but died before it succeeded.
The third made it as far as the cliff, and tried to climb its way up. The Kalamuzi were fast, and their claws were surprisingly sturdy - it had actually made it half way up the cliff before Cadoc dropped a large stone on its head. It fell, and another spear ended its life.
Despite it all, I smiled, looking over the battlefield. This is what it feels like to be in control.