Company Al-Mir was ready. They had been ready from the moment the two werecats noticed something amiss. While they had held their attacks at Arkk’s urging, that only meant they were all the more ready once the creature landed in their midst.
Dakka went for its legs with her axe. Crossbow bolts flew from four different directions. A bolt of lightning flew through the air while Zullie flicked her wand, sending out a blast of air.
The creature, tall and lithe with its carapace-covered limbs, did not want for dexterity.
It leaned back, picking one leg off the ground. Dakka’s axe swiped through the air, missing the clawed, insect-like end of its foot by a hair. With it leaning back, the bolts flew harmlessly through the spot where the creature had been before leaning. Zullie’s blast of air did hit it but only seemed to push it further into its lean.
The lightning bolt struck true. One of its four arms spasmed, fingers flailing wildly. It wasn’t enough to stop it.
It landed on all four of its arms, suspended upside-down. Leaning again to one side, it brought its blade up to bear, spinning on one hand while swiping out with that jagged sword.
The blade caught Dakka, Orjja, and Krett’al square in the chests, scooping them up and off their feet. Arkk could feel their pain through the link but not their deaths. They went flying, scattering away from the rest of the group, but they weren’t dead yet.
Lyssa jumped up as the blade continued around, launching herself over it even as she threw her chain toward it. The heavy spear tip made the far end of the chain lag behind the rest as the blade struck, looping around the jagged sword. Lyssa gripped the chain in both hands and pulled, trying to free the blade from its grip.
The creature turned its upside-down head, focusing its horizontal-pupiled eyes on Lyssa.
Arkk flung another, larger bolt of lightning at the creature’s arm. The resulting spasm made it release the blade.
Lyssa, surprised at the sudden lack of resistance, ended up throwing herself backward. The blade, pulled by her chain, followed and embedded itself into the ground mere inches from her head.
The creature made no move to retrieve it. It simply allowed its legs to fall back to the ground, crushing the cart and interrupting Zullie’s chant of a longer spell. A glob of caustic venom from Zharja covered Zullie’s sudden retreat. The gorgon had been standing still for the rest of the fight, just watching. Arkk had to wonder if she had been trying and failing to petrify the creature.
The poor old horse, which had been trying to back away from the creature since the fight started and had been unable to thanks to the cart at its back, went down to the ground with three sharp gashes across its side.
A shadow crept across the battlefield. For a moment, a jolt of fear coursed through Arkk, worried that this was some extension of the strange place he found himself in. The shadowy dome over the village hadn’t looked inviting and he was wary about some other enemy coming to attack. That fear turned to relief as he recognized the source. Razor-filled maws formed along the darkness.
Vezta snapped out. An oily black mass erupted from the ground. The razor maw on the end attempted to bite the leg of the creature.
The creature wrenched its leg free, twisting away with such force that it bordered on panic. Its face remained entirely placid. Which, if Arkk was correct in assuming that its face was cast from a hardened chitin, wasn’t all that surprising.
The sudden movement allowed Olatt’an to flip his crossbow onto its bladed end and swing down on one of its arms. It bit through the carapace, leading to a spatter of green blood over the brown dirt.
Seeing the creature bleed rallied those still standing. Joanne brought her heavy claymore down over its torso. That blade bit into the carapace as well, though not deep enough to draw blood. The carapace over its stomach must have been thicker than that which covered its arms.
“Zullie,” Arkk shouted, “keep it off balance!”
The witch poked her head up and over the toppled cart. Probably hating everything about the situation, she sent him a heavy glare. But she didn’t argue. Rather than try for another long spell, she brought up her wand and blasted the creature as it tried to right itself.
Arkk immediately flung more lightning at the creature. It didn’t seem to be doing long-term damage but the short spasms were damaging enough. Instead of overcharging one useless bolt, he fired off some smaller ones. One stopped a claw from decapitating Alma, letting the half-werecat send a pair of small crossbow bolts into its segmented neck. They didn’t dig deep into the carapace but it did look like they limited the mobility of its head. Another lightning bolt went into its arm just as it was about to catch itself from Zullie’s knockback. It crashed into the ground shoulder first, just in time for Dakka to rush back into the fray with her axe held high.
The axe to the creature’s chest didn’t puncture, much like the claymore, but it did knock the creature flat on its back. It tried to pick itself back up with its legs and arms. A razor-maw opened directly under its foot.
A horrid grinding filled the air. Like the sound of the watermill saw if a piece of metal fell into its path. Arkk had seen Vezta consume goblins in an instant. This leg held on. The grinding continued even as it tried to pick itself up. Dakka brought her axe down again. Zullie knocked one arm out from under it. Arkk caused spasms in another. More crossbow bolts jammed into its neck—Alma took ready advantage of that weakness—pinning its head at an awkward angle.
With a terrifying crunch, the leg came free.
At the same time, one last lightning bolt slammed into its face.
The entire creature thrashed. A stray arm caught Lyssa but it didn’t hit the werecat with its full strength. It just knocked the breath out of her.
All at once, the creature ceased moving. It went completely limp. Dakka continued to wail on it, trying to crack the thick chitin of its torso. Zullie had her wand ready to knock it over if it tried moving again. Olatt’an tried to pry his crossbow out of the gouge he had made in its arm. Alma looked to Arkk with confusion covering her face, as if he had any idea what was going on.
Closing his eyes for just a moment, Arkk reopened them, knowing they would be fully glowing with an ominous red light. “Hold,” he said, hoping he wasn’t going to regret this. “Dakka,” he said when she was the only one to continue her assault.
With a furious growl, Dakka turned away from the creature. One look at Arkk, however, and she snapped her jaw shut. All at once, she doubled over, clasping a hand to her stomach.
Blood stained her clothes.
“Go see Zullie. That goes for anyone else injured. We don’t know if there are more of these lurking in the shadows.”
The only three who weren’t injured, as far as he could tell, were Alma, Zharja, and Olatt’an. Everyone else had caught at least one attack. Dakka and the other two orcs had the most severe wounds, having caught that blade straight in the chest. He would have to give Lyssa some kind of commendation for disarming the creature so early into the engagement. It could have been a lot worse.
Vezta stepped up alongside him as he cautiously approached the downed creature. She, obviously, had avoided injury as well. “Do you think it is dead?” she asked, looking down at it.
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“I was just about to ask you the same question.”
“I suppose I could remove its head. Just to be sure,” she said, extending an arm toward the creature.
Arkk held up a hand, stalling Vezta. He looked down at the creature with a frown. Its eyes were open but unmoving, staring straight at the sky with those horizontal pupils. Its hair, black and long, looked different now that he was closer. Like a thousand ants all clinging to one another in long chains. It writhed slightly. The only movement the body made.
Moving away, Arkk approached one of its arms. While its sword had been in its other hand—part of an arm that now held a gouge from Olatt’an’s axe—the hand Arkk approached still grasped the wine glass. Despite the fight, it had come out unbroken. Why a wine glass? Why hold onto it for the entirety of the fight, somehow managing to avoid breaking it? That spoke of care and forethought, knowing where and how to place its arms so that it wouldn’t break the thing while performing the acrobatic tricks it had gotten up to.
Arkk had a hard time believing that this was some kind of beast that had attacked with no cognizance behind its horizontal pupils. It was a thinking creature, intelligent and aware. Sentient and sapient.
Crouching, Arkk tried to retrieve the glass.
The hand kept its grip. Arkk only tried for a moment, prying back the fingers, before realizing that the tension in its hand wouldn’t be there if the creature were dead.
It was still alive.
Standing slowly, not wanting to disturb anything to the point of waking, Arkk moved back to Vezta and, arm on her arm, put some distance between them and the monster. “How do you suppose we might restrain a creature like this?”
“With heavy chains and manacles. Or dismemberment. Or decapitation.”
Arkk crossed his arms over his chest. Things had worked out for him so far in his career as master of Fortress Al-Mir. Most of that felt like a combination of luck and determination. They had never taken serious casualties and had always managed to accomplish at least part of their objectives. Notable exceptions being the inquisitorial invasion of the fortress and the disastrous defense of Elmshadow. In the latter case, the only reason they hadn’t lost people was because Arkk had sent everyone else back before the final moments.
This could have gone much worse. A creature as tall as a building had no right to be laid low so easily. For the first few moments of the fight, he had feared that it would destroy their team without taking a scratch. His lightning and Zullie’s blasts of wind might have been the only things that allowed proper hits in. Numbers had helped and maybe numbers would have brought it down without magic but that was a chance he didn’t want to take.
If there were more of these things…
Arkk looked up, scanning the village. The shadowy haze still concealed most of it, preventing him from peering inside beyond a few paces. For all he knew, there could be a dozen more of these things just watching and waiting. Arkk doubted that these creatures were the original inhabitants of the village. The buildings were too small. But these creatures could have moved in, displacing or destroying the original inhabitants. Maybe it was just the one but moving forward assuming that would get someone killed.
They needed to retreat. Examine their options without a looming threat hanging over them.
Arkk wasn’t sure if—or when—the creature would recover. He needed to decide what to do about it before then. He wanted to drag it back to the fortress and see if it was a little more willing to have a discussion while incarcerated.
The cart was damaged. The front axle had snapped when the creature stomped on it to get at Zullie. Even if the horse could be healed with Flesh Weaving, the cart wouldn’t be going anywhere. They would have to drag it back. If it woke while people were in such close quarters, things could get bad.
“Do you think you can use your body to restrain it?” Arkk asked Vezta. “Tie it up in your tendrils?”
“If it is too strong, it will likely force itself free. I wasn’t able to judge its strength during our brief engagement, only its durability.”
“Do you think you could move it while restraining it?”
“Not easily.”
Arkk nodded and motioned toward it. “Restrain it. If it wakes and feels like it is going to break free, shout a warning. I’ll try frying its head again.”
“Very well, Master.”
Arkk watched for a moment as Vezta dispensed with her humanoid form. It was a fairly disturbing sight. Her flesh just bulged out into a large blob of oily mass. The human form folded up like a potato sack, disappearing into the mass of flesh. This was perhaps the first time Arkk had watched her switch between forms. She had done so before—and he had seen her already in the less shapely blob—but never while he had been in a position to watch.
It was just Vezta. He didn’t let it bother him.
Vezta managed to twist and bend the four arms and one and a half legs into something of a knot, pinning its limbs behind its back. She tried to haul it on top of the rest of her mass and even managed to take a few steps. It wouldn’t be enough to get back to the portal in any reasonable amount of time.
“Report,” Arkk said, walking back to the rest of his employees.
Zullie looked up with sweat beading off her brow. With the cart having been destroyed, so too went the cooling ritual circle. Concentrating on Flesh Weaving probably hadn’t helped. She opened her mouth but Dakka beat her to speaking.
“Think I broke every single rib,” Dakka grunted, rubbing at her chest. She had most of her clothes off to allow Zullie access to her wounds.
“Don’t rub,” Zullie said, swatting the larger hand away. “I know it feels weird but I hardened your skin to let your ribs heal better.”
“Oh right. You said that.” Dakka pressed a hand to her forehead. “I feel so… dizzy.”
“That’s probably because half your blood is spilled out across the sand. You shouldn’t have jumped back into the fight with that wound; she was practically in two pieces,” Zullie said, looking up at Arkk.
Arkk looked over his field commander with a more critical eye. Blood stained the clothes on the ground near her. A thin seam just above her stomach was likely where that blade had hit. The normally tan skin of the orc was covered in crusty, coagulated blood. The heat had done its job of drying it out.
She otherwise didn’t look harmed. The Flesh Weaving spell had done its work.
The rest of the group looked better than she did. The two orcs who had taken the blade along with Dakka didn’t look anywhere as bad. Not as much blood and much less evidence of the healing spell on their skin. Arkk had to breathe out a sigh of relief. If that blade had struck a human, Lexa, or one of the werecats, it probably would have bisected them. The natural hardiness of the orcs might have spared their lives.
“The horse is dead,” Zullie said, bringing Arkk’s attention to the toppled cart.
He grimaced at the sight of the horse on its side, eyes wide open and tongue lolling out. Yavin was going to spiral. The poor elf had taken to caring for the horse like it was his own. And now…
“I was focusing on the orcs. Didn’t realize how bad the horse had it until—”
“No, no. Focusing on the orcs was the right choice,” Arkk said, earning a few grateful nods.
“Still could have given them a patch job and then fixed the horse. But…”
Arkk shook his head. As much as the loss of the horse pained him, better to lose it than one of his employees. “Is anyone incapable of walking?”
He looked around the group, waiting for a response. Olatt’an was performing maintenance on his crossbow; slamming the end into the creature might have messed something up. Dakka, Orjja, and the other orcs were seated around Zullie or on their feet watching the shadows, depending on the level of their injuries. Alma and Lyssa stood near one another, the latter coiling her long chain while the former kept shooting wary glances at the creature and Vezta. Arkk wasn’t sure which Alma was more concerned with.
Nobody said anything.
“Where is Lexa?” he asked aloud, already using his Keeper sight to figure out the answer.
The gremlin moved through the shadowy village with a shadowy spell of her own wrapped around her. If not for the employee link, Arkk might have thought that he was looking into nothingness. Focusing a little closer, he could see the edges of the buildings and the occasional windows she peered into. When had she slipped away? After the fight? During? He didn’t recall her throwing any daggers.
She was headed in his direction, however. Arkk didn’t know if she had gotten turned around or if she was deliberately trying to regroup. Either way, he had both questions and a lecture for her upon her return. Scouting out the village would be helpful but going off on her own without even letting him know was concerning.
“Never mind. Anyone who can move, get the cart righted. If it looks like the broken axle can be repaired with some simple binding, do it. Vezta will keep the creature restrained but we’ll have to pull the cart to bring it back. We’ll take shifts,” he added at the groaning. “Zullie, if you can get the cooling spell working again, that would be good. Don’t want anyone fainting on the way back. Especially our injured.”
“Actually,” Zullie said, holding up a finger. “The horse is dead but I might be able to use a spell… uh. It might be considered a little necromancy,” she said, shifting. “But it would save us from having to haul that thing back on our own.”
Arkk folded his arms, frowning. He had a feeling he knew from which book she had learned necromancy. Arkk wasn’t necessarily opposed to it. There were always stories about necromancers and the heroes who fought against their empire of the dead. In every tale he had heard that involved necromancers, they were the villains.
This was a fairly pragmatic usage. Not like the legions of zombies that he had heard of. He didn’t see a problem with it.
Zullie, apparently taking his hesitation in responding as condemnation, adopted a scowl as she adjusted her glasses. “Not that I don’t trust Vezta,” she said, “but I don’t want to be pulling the cart myself if that thing wakes up.”
Arkk nodded his head. That was a good point as well. Anyone pulling the cart would be dangerously close to the creature. An undead horse that nobody cared for getting mauled again before he could fire lightning—or whatever it took to put it back down—was far preferable to the same happening to one of his employees. “Do it,” he said.
A wide grin spread across Zullie’s face.
Arkk watched as she rubbed her hands together, pulling a black book from the folds of her black robes, and wondered if he had chosen poorly.