Three monsters in front of the entrance were already down, sliced by the joint effort of the group’s warriors. Even Lykomedes, who contributed the least – as he had neither etheric powers nor Oswald’s marvelous build – managed to get a few strikes in with his spear. But the fight was not effortless, and Nua could see how Hessa, even in her best health, would not be able to hold her own against several of those creatures. Despite the awkward gait and hunched posture, ghouls were as fast as any desert predator and fearless on top of that. There had to be some ether in those long, thin limbs because their overwhelming strength made their blows challenging to take on directly - even for Oswald. On top of it, the party had a hard time maneuvering between the empty tanks and other broken contraptions. Right now, Lykomedes was steadying his breath and both Zaina and Quintus were starting to become winded; drops of sweat coalesced on the Northerner’s brow.
Deep in the darkness of the corridor, there was a sound of shuffling.
“Step back,” Zaina said, holding the bottle of liquid fire.
“How many now?” Nua turned to the king.
“Three more, and all the mature ones are probably out already.”
“Give me numbers, Anki.” The girl was gripping the hilt of her dagger. “All the mature ones, huh. So there are also the immature.”
“Four more except those three, and I am going to check on their breeding lattice,” the blue shape disappeared once again, with no explanation of what he meant by that. Nua gritted her teeth. What was that supposed to mean?
The silhouettes emerged from the entrance.
“Protect the eyes!”
The vial flew. There was a booming sound and a cloud of fire engulfed the door. The stench seared their noses. Through the ringing in her ears, Nua heard a heavy weight falling on the floor. Once, twice.
“The third one lives!” She shouted, and almost at the same time, Lykomedes jumped in front of her, brandishing his spear. Nua saw the thing that stepped out of the flames clearly only for a blink of an eye, but she was sure she’d be seeing it in the nightmares for days.
The ghoul was on fire, its skin flaking off like burnt tree bark. Its eyes, all the more striking in the eerie light, strangely human but void of any thought, glared from the depth of their sockets. The creature lunged, clawed arms forward, spreading a trail of flame and soot. Nua didn’t even register drawing on ether, and in the next moment, her knife landed squarely in the monster’s forehead.
Almost at the same time, the others followed. Lykomedes’ footwork was impeccable, making up for his lack of speed. He dodged the claws, then struck the ghoul below the ribs, the tip of his spear tearing through the burning skin folds and the monster’s insides. Zaina’s daggers sliced at its hide, and Oswald broke its neck with a wet crunch. The creature went down so fast that it was hard to tell who finally felled it.
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“Any more of those uglies?” asked Oswald.
“Four incoming,” Nua said. The smoke was clearing, and she used the moment to recover her knife. The ether was out of her system already. It was fortunate that the ghoul got massacred that quickly and no one saw what happened. It was so instinctive to reach for the ether, it felt so right, so natural – although the peppery, burning impression that she came to associate with sorcery remained. She would have to be more careful in the future.
“We slew a number of them already,” Lykomedes’s voice trembled a little. “Do these things ever get scared?”
“Nope,” Nua retorted. “Hessa says once they go at it, they go at it.”
“I’d give my heirloom estate for such motivation when working on my epic,” Quintus huffed, then raised his shield. “Here they come! Nua, get back!”
They were out of liquid fire and almost out of breath. Oswald and Quintus held the front, while Zaina and Lykomedes supported them from both sides. The space was tight, the floor littered with burnt bodies, and the four ghouls emerged one after another in perfect synchronization, with the deftness of hired killers. Oswald’s fist swing missed the target and Quintus met the full force of a claw strike with his shield. Lykomedes landed a hit in a ghoul’s throat but the spear got stuck for a frightening half a breath. Raya pulled Nua back with a gentle but determined tug.
“You can’t help.”
Oswald was fending off two ghouls, his guttural roar in unison with their moans. Lykomedes’ eyes were wide open, as he barely managed to slice at the monster’s arms, unable to find an opening.
“Raya…!”
“You’ll get in the way!”
Zaina earned a shove from a ghoul; it aimed to slice through her flesh, but she turned at the last instant, then used the momentum to carve out a good chunk of its arm. She was like a whirlwind, her movements barely perceptible, her focus crystalline in the face of danger.
Raya was right; unless Nua started burning ether like a furnace, she could not contribute to the fight. Not without impeding others and potentially harming herself.
There was the struggle, and the shouts, and the moans. Quintus barreled a ghoul with his shield, abandoning all pretense of proper swordsmanship. Lykomedes tripped at some point, but he took his opponent down, finally chipping off enough of its flesh that it stopped moving.
Then, suddenly, it was over. All four of them stood over the fallen, exuding heavy breaths. Lykomedes kneeled; his face was deathly pale. He was pressing his arm to the side.
“Their claws, they’re venomous,” Nua heard her own voice.
“I know.” Raya was beside him at once, fishing out elixirs out of her bag.
“Do you hear any more coming?” Zaina huffed.
“Not that I know of,” the girl said. “But I won’t be able to tell if they’re too far away. I’ll sneak ahead and see.”
“Anki, where are you?!”
Zaina shook her head.
“Too dangerous. And that’s my job.”
“You’re barely standing, and I’m not tired,” Nua said. “Anything comes after me, I run and shout. I fled these before. I’m good at running, so that you know.”
“Wait, kid…!” Oswald shouted, but she was already ahead of them.
“Anki!”
“I apologize,” the blue shape hovered above her. “Your companions indeed made short work of the ghouls.”
“They’re not machines. We could get killed. We need your help! Tell me what you’ve got.”
“Well, I took a good look at the lattice, and we are fortunate enough. None of the pupae is ready to hatch just yet. But you’ll probably want to burn that thing to the ground.”
“What you’re saying makes no sense.”
“I find this phenomenon hard to describe,” the king hesitated. “Sufficient to say, they did not come from the tanks. They used the patients as food. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
Anki glanced at her as if trying to find words. Nua felt her skin crawl. The king, speechless – it did not bode well.
“Have you ever seen… a honeycomb?”