“Get up!” Discal shouted. “Enemy attack!”

The tents shook from the inside as his voice blasted out.

The others had woken up, and it would not be long until help arrived. But before he could revel in joy, the creature on top grew more agitated than before. It writhed like mad and his grip loosened over time.

When one of his hands slipped, a long blade, as thick as an arm at its base, came down at his face. His eyes shrunk in fear, the thought of dying gnawed at his mind. He turned his head to the side, sweat creeping down his face. The creature’s blade sunk into the ground a few inches deep.

The blade missed, but only barely as blood trickled down from a cut on his cheek. He smiled stiffly, the emotions behind were mixed with despair and glee.

The creature swiftly pulled back as creaking sounds like that of a gear rang out, and stabbed down once more. His hand that had slipped flew by like a hawk and grabbed the blade. He tightened his grip and blood oozed slowly from his palm. He refused to falter even as his muscles screamed. The creature realizing it was ensnared, rampaged to break free.

Slowly, the mire that had bogged his senses from being slammed to the ground gradually dispersed. His mind had began to grow clear, but as it did, waves of pain bombarded his senses. The clarity had brought control back to his nerves. He had ignored it before, but his body had finally gave way.

He gritted his teeth.

His chest was throbbing in pain. It seemed he had a few broken ribs; his sternum might even be cracked. A wet feeling also traveled by his side. Maybe he was bleeding, he thought.

When his mind reached his legs, the senses on his left thigh was numb and light, but he could not see why as the creature blocked his sight. Was his left thigh losing blood? he thought, and a sliver of panic invaded his demeanor. But he forced himself to remain calm, as death seemed far as long as he held on. It would not be late to heal his injuries as long as he survived.

His eyes narrowed into tiny slits from the pain, focused his sight to see what the creature was. But with the campfire shining directly behind the fiend, he only saw the creature’s indistinct form.

It’s not enough to gauge its true size, but it should do...

His left hand slipped, but his eyes shined with determination. The sound of a cord being released vibrated in the air. The fiend’s blade crushed down and stabbed deep into his left shoulder. He clenched his jaw, adamant in not showing a moment of weakness. At the same moment, his left hand grabbed the creature’s form.

The creature pulled back, its blade circling in his flesh, causing him to squint his eyes in pain. But he held the creature close by dragging it in with his left hand. The blade had wedged itself deep in his shoulder blade. A high screech rang out from the fiend, panicking to get away.

His right hand slipped, and the fiend’s other blade stabbed down. A sound of a fleshly-like cord rang out once more. The blade whistled in the air and Discal saw the serrated edge drawing closer at his throat. But he was prepared, and leaned to one side to dodge. The blade missed, a repeat of what had happened earlier, and it dug deep into the earth. He allowed himself to smile.

An opportunity, he thought, and turned the creature over even if its blade was wedged in his flesh. He bellowed and pushed the fiend on its back, light finally reaching its ghastly form. When his eyes flew by, the creature reminded him of the bugs he had played with when he was a boy.

It had a pair of short mandibles snapping at him in anger. But when he examined the creature closer under the light, the mandibles seemed strange. After a second of gazing at the raging creature, he soon found out why.

The mandibles were upright on its angular head like a deformed beak of a bird. It screeched every time its mandible-jaws lunged at him, the sound grating to his ears. And beside the mandible-jaws were compound, beady eyes, shining brightly in a plethora of colors that reflected his face.

His face contorted at the creature’s form.

His gaze traveled down, noting its small size, almost equal to a direwolf pup. It also had three pairs of legs, similar to the spindly limbs of a spider, jutting back and forth. When he looked closer, each pair was longer than the pair before, cascading down the creature’s length.

It was an odd black insectoid, one he had never seen before. And even with his entire weight bearing down, it would still easily slip through his grasp whenever his attention was not invested in full. It was not his strength was found lacking, but the creature proved to be too flexible under his hold.

Its forelimbs, the two blades, would slash at him at strange angles at speeds his eyes could barely catch. At the same time, its head and body would jerk to one side and to the other in hopes of breaking free. Its six legs would also rotate at the joints, and stood on the ground as if it did not matter whether it was upright or not. Discal sweated heavily, his muscles working to force the creature down. He had to end its life here and now.

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He looked around, his hands refusing to let go. In a second, his sight landed on the damaged sword by the side, and reached out with one hand. The pressure from the fiend increased tremendously as he did. He must be swift.

With sword in hand, he dodged the swipes from the creature’s blades. His upper body leaning back, his eyes turned sharp and caught the slight moment the fiend had extended its forelimbs too far. He raised the sword overhead with both hands.

As if time had slowed down, Discal’s senses heightened and caught every movement he could see. His scholarly mind did the calculations and plotted a course for his blade’s path, aiming directly for the insectoid’s head. With a low shout, he bore his entire weight down and fell his sword like a falling pillar of stone. His eyes dilated, as if a hunter seeking prey and mixed among his pupils was a trace of eerie white.

The creature’s head twitched to one side for every inch his sword traveled down. It jerked to the left, then to the right with variations each time. It was a target that never stayed in one place. But to the scholar whose eyes were like that of a hawk, it was nothing more but the misgivings of a child.

In a state he had never experienced before, his sword honed in on the gap between its mandible-jaws. After what seemed like a second at most, the blade had jabbed deep, the sensation of cutting through a hard shell passed by his hands. He relaxed, his eyes returning to normal. But immediately after, the creature’s mandibles clamped down, trying to break the sword in half. He furrowed his brows.

Resilient as an insect ought to be, he thought, a tired smirk on his face.

He twisted the blade and a crunch resounded out. With a soft screech, the insect’s legs straightened out then retracted back to its normal state. When he casted his gaze over, its head was gouged through and one of the mandibles hanged limply to one side. It should be dead, he thought, but unwilling to stay his hand, he recovered the blade and stabbed once more at the insect’s chest.

True to his worries, the creature’s forelimbs twitched and swiped at him with one blade. Discal easily dodged it by twisting his upper body to one side. With one smooth move, he stabbed the creature’s chest, and it cracked into pieces then caving in. A viscous colored fluid gushed forth between the cracks. By then, the compound eyes of the fiend turned dull and lost color under the light.

Discal heaved a breath; it had finally died, and unknowingly, a sliver of white smoke flowed from the creature’s mandible-jaws then bored into his beating heart. Without realizing it, his pulse beated a bit faster.

He stood up and took his sword covered in the creature’s blood. When he glanced over the blade, he saw smoke, almost imperciptible to the human eye, flowing from the tip. He kept it in his mind and stood up on his feet before realizing he had little control over his left leg.

He almost fell but managed to stay on foot by leaning the bulk of his person on his other leg. He looked down and a terrifying hole was on his left thigh, gushing out blood mixed with a sickly color.

Poison? he thought, his expression twisted in fear. But soon, senses from his left shoulder was also starting to become dull. His face lightened. “No...” he continued. “It’s paralysis.”

He turned his head to where the others were.

They were fighting with what little equipment they could get their hands on. Kaele did not even have her shield with her, nor did Samuel with his bulky armor plates. The situation seemed bleak, and when he looked at the edge of his sight, more dark figures loomed overhead.

But rather than succumb to the sniveling inner voices trying to convince him to escape on his own, Discal shook the dark thoughts away. He had to fight till his last breath, just as he did in the Accursed Woods.

There was hope here; he could fight for his life, unlike resigning himself to a slow death in the fog. He had a chance, as if it was an inch away from his grasp; it was in reach. Determined, he shouted, “Don’t get hit by their blades. You’ll get paralyzed!” Without confirming if they heard him or not, he retracted his gaze and scanned his surroundings.

There were dozens of them and probably even more hiding in the dark. The only hopeful light he could see was their numbers were not enough to overwhelm them like the direwolf horde from before. But even still, it was a terrifying sight, more so when they scaled the trees then barreling down like Death itself.

He unconsciously touch his left side: it was bleeding, and surprisingly, the wound was closing up although it was slow. But he kept it in a corner of his mind as he had more pressing concerns than a fast natural healing rate.

He heaved a deep breath and digested the information he learned so far, even as the creatures drew near. His mind processed the thoughts and when he recalled the uphill fight he just had, he realized they were weaker individually than a direwolf.

With that as a foundation, they only had two main concerns: the insectoids’ speed and nimbleness, and the power behind their strikes. He smiled, though it was faint. He thought, Just as long as they held the line...

“We could win,” he said, his voice resolute.