Chapter 411: Hopeless
Tauri’s world swam in a haze as she tumbled down a hundred feet into the darkness. She crashed into the rushing river, back first, and her vision darkened with pain. Icy water filled her nostrils and she gasped for breath, inadvertently letting more water into her throat.
Her mind was in a daze, pain crawled over her back, and her lungs burned with freezing water. She tried to move, to swim to the surface, but a sharp pain shot up through her right arm.
Tauri gritted her teeth and channeled brown mana into her veins and cast a strengthening spell. But her brown mana was sluggish, the pain and freezing temperatures disrupting her flow of mana. The spell failed and her muscles spasmed from the backlash.
The river’s powerful current dragged her deeper into its depths and her consciousness began to fade into cold numbness.
A small hand suddenly grabbed Tauri’s forearm, its claws digging into her skin. The pain and bleeding warmth shocked her awake. Her amber eyes shot open. It was too dark, she could barely make out a small figure dragging her towards the surface. Tauri tried to swim, she could hardly move, her muscles still reeling from the ruined spell. Yet the small figure was not deterred and kept swimming, dragging Tauri against the current.
They suddenly broke through the surface of the water and Tauri gasped precious gulps of air. The goblin dragged the exhausted orc to the rocky shore, before finally releasing her grip.
Tauri fell to the ground and coughed up water over and over. She fell over on her side and groaned weakly. Blood oozed out from dozens of small cuts where the ice shrapnel had hit her.
Tauri grimaced in pain and glanced at her savior. “You…?” she mumbled in surprise and exhaustion.
Srixa smirked tiredly, “I told you, if anyone is going to kill you, it’s gonna be me, not fucking gravity.”
“Thanks…” Tauri smiled through chattering teeth.
Despite several small cuts across Srixa’s skin, and the exhaustion in her every breath, she was hardly shivering. Tauri had never been more jealous and grateful for the Ebonian races’ natural resistance to cold.
A javelin of ice abruptly pierced the ground next to them. Tauri looked up, startled. Izgerd and the other frost trolls fired frost javelins from their terraces, where the bridge had once been anchored.
“Move!” Srixa grabbed Tauri by the shoulder and half-dragged, half-limped, their way to a small alcove in the rock wall.
Tauri and Srixa collapsed as soon as they made it to the small shelter. A few of the other hunters were lying on the ground next to them, most with far worse wounds.
“What happened?” Tauri muttered.
“Those troll bastards waited until they were across the bridge before they collapsed it with their elemental water magic. We didn't stand a chance…” Srixa said through clenched teeth.
“Where are the others?” Tauri asked, though she worried she already knew the answer.
Srixa bowed her head in frustration, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “The Troll Slayer and I tried to save the ones we could… but we lost most of our weapons in the river.”
Tauri suddenly noticed Otley sitting at the edge of the alcove. His head was bowed and his eyes closed. A large shard of ice from the shattered bridge protruded from his stomach.
“He swam in that condition…?” Tauri mumbled in disbelief.
Srixa nodded bitterly, “Besides you, I only saved one other. The Troll Slayer saved everyone else here, then he… he completed his duty.”
The sound of angry chittering and steel clashing against carapaces echoed through the cavern. Tauri peeked outside. It was dark, with only the blue light of terraces above, and large red eyes glimmering in the darkness.
Tens of skolguls crept over the rocky shore, their dozens of blade-sharp legs stabbing across the ground. Many of the centipede-like beasts had already caught the scent of blood and scrambled towards the alcove.
A single goblin stood in their path, fighting them off with his spear. Jahn danced across the dark shore, avoiding the monsters’ mandibles and blade-like appendages, and slashed his spear in wide arcs, the sharp edge glancing off the skolguls’ thick carapace.
Frost javelins fell from above as the trolls tried their best to strike the chieftain down.
The spear grandmaster dodged the onslaught of attacks with deft proficiency, yet with each step his movements grew slower, his reactions more sluggish. In the dim light, Tauri caught sight of an ice shard buried in Jahn’s thigh.
“He’s wounded!” Tauri said in horror. “He’s bleeding out, we need to help him!”
As if to answer her words, a myriad of more skolguls emerged from the tunnels scattered across the cavern walls.
“The bridge’s collapse must have drawn them to us,” Srixa said grimly. “You need to get you out of here.”
“What?” Tauri turned and looked at her, confusion written over her face.
“Our chieftain would never abandon his people, even if he would, he is too injured to escape. You are the only other person capable of scaling the steep walls. Use your magic to escape this place. Find Stryg and the drow if you can, if not, go back to Evenfall and tell them what has happened. The tribes will avenge us.”
“I’m not abandoning you!”
“We are already dead! Can’t you see that!?” Srixa yelled angrily. “I didn’t save you so you could die with the rest of us! Run away from this place. Tell the Lunar Elect we were betrayed.”
“But—”
Srixa grabbed her shoulder. “Please. Don’t let us die in vain,” she pleaded.
Tauri looked down in shame, “I can’t… I can’t climb the walls. I can’t feel my right arm.” She raised her bloody mangled arm, her right hand hung limply.
“No…” Srixa gasped, the last light of hope in her eyes dying.
“...It isn’t over,” Otley mumbled, blood dripping down his lips.
“Troll Slayer, you’re alive!” Srixa rushed over to his side. “Hold still,” she said and tried futilely to stop the gaping wound in his stomach from bleeding profusely.
“...It… isn’t… over… s…with… us…” Otley mumbled in a broken voice.
“Do not speak, save your strength,” Srixa whispered.
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“Look out!” Jahn called out in a panic.
A single skolgul had escaped past Jahn’s reach and skittered towards the alcove.
Tauri focused her thoughts, tried her best to ignore the pain wracking her body, and channeled orange mana into her left arm. She pointed her fingertips at the rushing monster and let loose a spiral of flames. The fire wrapped around the skolgul’s body, but did not reach past its thick carapace.
“Shit!” Tauri cursed and jumped out of the beast’s path.
The skolgul’s tail snapped at her in a burst of speed. Tauri raised her left arm to cover herself from the blow the best she could. Srixa jumped in between them and pushed Tauri away. The skolgul’s tail slammed into Srixa and her small body crashed into the wall with a sickening crunch.
“Srixa, no!” Tauri cried out.
Otley’s eyes snapped open and he roared with one last burst of strength. He kicked off the ground and jumped atop the skolgul. With one hand he gripped its antenna tightly, and with the other, he clenched his dagger, and stabbed the blade into the creature’s glimmering red eye.
The skolgul shrieked in agony and slashed at Otley with its blade-like legs. The goblin stabbed his dagger over and over into the beast’s head, cracking the carapace, even as his own flesh was sliced apart. The skolgul shook its head like a rabid dog and flung the goblin away.
Otley crashed into the ground in a broken bloody mess, unmoving. The skolgul angrily hissed with its chattering mandibles and closed in on him.
“Hey, over here!” Tauri shouted.
The monster swiveled its head around at the sound of her voice.
A torrent of flames exploded from the palm of her hand, burning through the broken carapace and searing the exposed flesh underneath. Its body seized up and collapsed, dead.
“Ugh… I think I broke my leg,” Srixa groaned weakly.
“Srixa!” Tauri limped over and knelt beside her. “You saved my life, again…”
“Didn’t mean to this time,” she grinned half-heartedly. “It sort of just happened…”
Otley choked on his blood and coughed feebly.
“Troll slayer! Stay with us!” Srixa cried desperately.
But as they limped over to Otley, they realized how severe his wounds were. His flesh and bones had been sliced apart and his innards were exposed and blood pooled underneath him. It was a wonder he was still breathing.
Srixa turned to Tauri frantically. “Can you heal him!?”
She bit her lip and shook her head sadly. “I am not a white mage, it is beyond my magic. These wounds are beyond even the greatest of arch-mages.”
“...I am not… afraid… to die,” Otley mumbled in a voice barely above a whisper.
Tauri smiled shakily, “I wish I had your bravery.”
“It… isn’t o…ver…” Otley mumbled once more.
“It’s alright, you can rest now,” Srixa whispered gently.
The ground trembled underneath them and the wall above them exploded in a shower of rocks. A skolgul thrice as large as the others burst through the wall and scaled down to the shore.
Srixa and Tauri watched the colossal creature in mute horror. Its dozens of sharp legs were each the size of a fully grown man. Jahn pointed his spear at the elder skolgul, but the creature ignored him and barreled right past him, straight towards the alcove and the light of the burning dead skolgul.
Tauri struggled to her feet and launched bolts of fire one after the other at the elder beast’s head. The flames splashed harmlessly over its carapace. The elder shrieked with indignation and charged her, its salivating mandibles open wide.
Srixa limped in front of Tauri, Otley’s dagger in her hand.
A crackling beam of lightning illuminated the darkness and struck the elder skolgul’s head, incinerating the carapace and burning a hole straight through its skull and the wall beyond.
Tauri and Srixa slowly turned around.
Standing at the shoreline, her clothes soaked, and her legs still in the water was Aurelia. Black dye dripped from the edge of her snow-white hair. Blue tendrils of lightning crackled at her fingertips. Her breathing was labored, but her yellow eyes were alight with cold rage.
“She is with us…” Otley closed his eyes, satisfied, and breathed his last.
Aurelia marched out of the water and past the alcove, her gaze fixed on the skolguls swarming around Jahn.
“You’re a mage…?” Tauri muttered in bewilderment.
Srixa held a similar expression of shock but she hurriedly bowed her head as the First Mother walked past.
A skolgul suddenly broke away from the pack and rushed Aurelia. She snapped her hand forward and a pillar of lightning arced out and vaporized the beast’s head. Aurelia walked on, her stride unbroken.
Another skolgul burst out from underneath her feet and snapped its mandibles out like a viper’s strike. Orange mana surged through Aurelia’s legs in an instant. She jumped high, evading the attack, then kicked off the wall, and landed on top of the skolgul’s head. The orange mana disappeared as brown mana flowed into her legs, giving her skin a bronze sheen. Aurelia kicked down with all her enhanced strength. The skolgul’s skull slammed into the ground and burst into a mess of green viscera. Aurelia hopped off the corpse and headed straight towards Jahn.
Countless frost javelins continued to fall down all around the rocky shore, several narrowly missing Aurelia. With a fluid motion, her hand scribbled out red arcane sigils in the air. She stretched out her fingers and the sigils responded in kind. The arcane wards expanded until they covered the entirety of the shore in a massive red dome. The frost javelins shattered harmlessly across the ward spell.
As Aurelia drew close to the skolgul pack several of them swiveled their salivating mouths towards her and attacked. Bolts of blue lightning crackled out from her hands, searing through the charging beasts and even the ones behind them.
The skolguls shrieked in panic and retreated back into their tunnels. They watched from the tunnel entrancers, their mandibles chattering angrily, as they waited for an opening to strike.
Aurelia refused to give them one. She strongly clapped her hands together and a ripple of green mana echoed outwards from the ground beneath her feet. The rocky shore rippled outwards and slammed into the wall. The wall trembled and giant chunks of rock began to fall apart, cascading into a small landslide that buried the skolguls’ tunnels.
The small earthquake continued until a large crack traveled up the wall to the troll’s terrace high above and sent it crashing down. The frost trolls cried out in panic and were suddenly silenced as their bodies exploded in a smattering of blood and viscera on the rocky shore.
Jahn leaned on his spear and breathed in a deep sigh of relief. “What took you so long?”
Aurelia ignored his words and knelt down next to his leg. “Let me see.”
“Ow!” Jahn winced as she ripped out the ice shard from his thigh.
She placed her hands over the wound as blood began to rush out. She narrowed her eyes in focus and poured white mana over the gaping hole. Slowly, the muscles and veins underneath the skin began to knit back together.
“I’ve stopped the bleeding. You should have regained the majority of mobility for now. But it’ll take me some time to fully heal the wound,” Aurelia said tersely.
“Time we don’t have,” Jahn noted.
Aurelia stared at the shifting rocks around the landslide. “That won’t hold them for long.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jahn stretched his legs from side to side. “I can finally move. This will be more than enough.”
“Mm…” Aurelia shifted her gaze up to the remaining terrace.
“I’ll deal with the rest,” Jahn gripped his spear and ran towards the emerging skolgul.
Yellow mana flowed around Aurelia and she jumped into the air and the winds carried her up like an arrow through the sky. She zipped up past the red dome and landed on the terrace in a cloud of snow and dust.
“Retreat!” Captain Izgered yelled out.
The other frost trolls turned to run. Aurelia’s shadow darkened around and shot out in various tendrils, coiling around the trolls like a whip.
Izgerd roared in defiance. Ice shards emerged across his skin and shredded the shadow tendrils imprisoning him. He hefted his war hammer and charged Aurelia with a war cry. Her fingers moved with quick shorthand, writing grey sigils underneath her palms. The sigils suddenly shot out like chains and wrapped around Izgerd’s limbs. The troll’s muscles seized up and he collapsed at her feet.
Aurelia snapped her fingers and her shadow tendrils sent the remaining frost trolls into the chasm. Their terrified screams echoed down below and were silenced with a heavy wet crunch.
Izgerd glared at her with clenched teeth. “You’re not the Sylvan’s emissary. You… they said you had abandoned Evenfall!” Izgerd said through clenched teeth.
Aurelia stared down at him coldly. “Where is Stryg?”
“I’ll never tell you anyth—!”
Dozens of purple tendrils of light shot out from Aurelia’s fingers and pierced Izgerd’s head. His body spasmed and froth slipped out the corner of his mouth as his eyes rolled up. Aurelia searched through his memories recklessly, without care for the severe brain damage she was causing.
Satisfied with what she found, Aurelia released the spell. The frost troll toppled over with a twitch, comatose. Aurelia turned around and flew across the chasm to the tunnel from which they came.
Tauri watched silently from below, her eyes wide in terrified awe. The range of the First Mother’s spells had been breathtaking, but the sheer overwhelming power behind them had left Tauri dumbstruck.
“Dear gods…” Tauri mumbled in disbelief, “She’s an Ebon Lord…!”