“Cunning is more effective against monsters than swords.” Marteel.

Varanian and queen stared at each other for a tense few minutes. Ice had formed around parts of her body, making her slower in her movements. But she hadn’t fallen. She’d landed. Garassk was much more injured at the moment. And she knew it. She had to.

He grabbed his dagger and assumed a fighting stance. The queen hissed and swung her tail at him. Garassk jumped to the side and ran for her. Her tail continued to crash down on him the closer he got, and he kept sidestepping it. He eventually managed to get directly under the queen. He grabbed a few more of the blizzard potions and tossed them at her feet. He had a hunch about what they would do, but he didn’t want to stick around and see if he was right. He just kept running until he reached his sword, slid, grabbed it, and rolled on the ground before getting back up on his feet.

He turned around to see the queen struggling to turn and face him. The potions were freezing her feet to the ground. She spread her wings and screeched with fury.

Garassk moved to the side and prepared to strike, but his movements were slow from the abuse he’d taken. Desperate to get the fight started, he tossed an exploding potion at his target. The vial shattered, a fireball burst, but as soon as it disappeared, it was clear that the queen’s outer-skeleton had shielded her from taking any real damage. He didn’t have time to think of a new strategy before the queen retaliated. She swung her arms and battered him against the walls. Every attempt to dodge or deflect an attack merely ended with him being batted around. It was like a cat playing with a mouse it intended to eat. By the time the beating had slowed down, his entire body felt like one bruise. Even he was surprised that he was still alive.

A bolt tore through her eye, causing her to rear back and stop short of her finishing blow. Garassk looked up to see Rathorn loading another shot. Before he had the chance to look away, Flint jumped from behind Rathorn and raised his spear, and drove it into the queen’s eye. He maneuvered all around her head as she struggled to fight back, stabbing repeatedly and creating more grievous wounds. Bloody rain spilled from each wound.

Garassk took a moment to look above the fight. The blizzard vortex was still raging above, and most of the smaller bugs were dropping from the “sky.” A few were flying towards the ground. Rathorn shot at them from his hiding spot. Diama jumped on one, and used it to kill the ones Rathorn missed.

Eventually, the queen managed to grab ahold of Flint and toss him to the ground. Before he could get up, she slammed her tail down, tearing through his armor, and pinning him where he lay.

Diama screamed. Garassk could only watch as the dwarf convulsed from the poison torturing his body.

“The… eggs!” he managed to gasp out before finally going stiff. Garassk noticed that many of them were now shaking. Without thinking, he grabbed the fire potion and tossed it at the cluster of eggs on a nearby wall. Let’s see what this does, he thought. Flames engulfed the entire wall, using the eggs as fuel to spread further.

We’re going to have to get out of here before that spreads, Garassk thought. The queen lashed out at him with renewed vigor, forcing him to dance around her tail, hands, and jaws. The death of her offspring had clearly hit a nerve.

But first we have to deal with you.

The queen spread her wings and prepared to fly, but Rathorn shot a hole through one wing, and Diama forced her mount to charge toward the other and sliced through it with a severed tail. She then forced her mount to crash into the queen’s back.

“This is for Flint!” she shouted, ramming the tail into the queen’s neck. The giant bug reared up and screamed, swinging one foot forward and forcing Garassk to jump out of the way. Diama pulled the tail out and ran for another weak spot in the outer skeleton, forcing the tail between as many as she could reach. Rathorn shot off the occasional bolt when he felt he had a chance of hitting something. Most of them found their mark. Garassk backed away as he waited for the queen to stop thrashing about. The heat from the walls was starting to get to him, prompting him to move away from them. He didn’t have much room to move, but he could keep going.

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Diama eventually decided to bury the stinger tail into one of the queen’s eyes, and jumped off of her. She hurried to catch up with Garassk.

“Now what?” he asked.

“We wait,” Diama answered. “Those tails have potent venom. She’ll die eventually.”

A foot stomped down in front of them.

“Don’t die. Great plan,” Garassk said. “Now let’s get out of here.”

Varanian and dwarf both backed away from the queen, who chased them down relentlessly. The faint click of Rathorn’s crossbow occasionally sounded off, but got quieter as they moved farther away.

“We’re running out of space,” Garassk muttered. “And time!”

“She can’t chase us forever!” Diama called out.

“She only has to catch up once!” Garassk shot back.

“We can slow her down,” Diama said. “There must be something we can do!”

All they could do after that was keep moving away. No other openings presented themselves. Garassk tossed his last few blizzard potions in her path, but they accomplished little.

Eventually, Garassk lost his balance near a small crack in the ground. He pulled himself out of it and had an epiphany.

“Get ready,” he told Diama, grabbing an exploding potion and placing it gently into the crack. He moved back towards her.

“Now we wait,” he said. “It won’t be long.”

“What?” she asked.

“Just a little closer.”

The queen did as he said, and drew closer. She quickened her pace, clearly in pain and wanting to end this as much as they did.

Eventually, her foot stomped down right on the crack. Despite having a good idea of what would happen, Garassk still jumped a little when the ground burst open. The queen staggered from the force of the explosion, but one foot fell into the newly-made crater as she moved forward. Caught off balance, and weakened from the poison, she collapsed onto the ground.

“YES!” Garassk shouted, reaching for another exploding potion.

“You did it!” Diama screamed.

The queen bellowed as he charged forward, tossing the potion into her open jaws.

“You want this?” he shouted. “You’ve got it!”

The potion landed right in the queen’s mouth, and exploded on impact. Unlike the outer-skeleton, her inner mouth proved vulnerable, as her entire head exploded into a yellowish gory mess. Her last roar echoed for a few seconds as her body sank to the ground, no longer capable of hunting them down, or terrorizing the dwarven kingdom in any way.