“Mark?”
“Mark.”
“Set.”
“Start.”
The horses bolted out of cover, leaves fluttering in their wake. Just like that, both Alisson and Celis were exposed, and riding straight into hell.
Alisson didn’t particularly enjoy riding headfirst into danger, especially when that danger consisted of beasts and goblins. Not five hundred meters away were the two groups engaged in a small skirmish at the side of the town, one of dozens occurring all around the city. These wild animals were fighting tooth and nail for some corpses, and him and Celis were about to crash their little party with fire and brimstone.
Alisson was completely out of mana, though Celis was only down about a quarter. Alisson didn’t know what had taken place in his leave of absence to destroy the nest, but it seemed Celis had learnt a valuable lesson, all on her own. It seemed that she was finally becoming autonomous enough to where Alisson didn’t need to babysit her every action. She’d choose correctly without him, though still being relatively inexperienced, Alisson still expected Celis to make a mistake here and there; he just hoped that those mistakes wouldn’t lead to her death.
Alisson was shy to admit that he couldn’t imagine doing this whole journey without his apprentice. He couldn’t imagine not uttering a word to his fratello, and he certainly would’ve felt empty at not having someone by his side all the time.
Alisson quietly laughed at himself, he was charging headlong into a cesspool like a cataphract to an army, and he was thinking such otherworldly and reminiscing thoughts.
The engagement in Alisson’s vision drew closer, and soon, him and Celis were only seconds away from crashing right into them.
“Celis, now!”
After a moment, a few dozen Pict and Pictun spells whizzed by Alisson from behind, Celis had fired off the volley she’d been preparing. The yellowed bolts of energy flew and crashed right into both parties of enemies, goblins and beasts alike. It did good damage, killing some and wounding the rest. Alisson lowered Enhérejär as it clicked into a backsword, preparing a dice a goblin in half. It seemed Alisson’s cavalry skills had not faded, a goblin’s head was split in two as he rode by with a expert swing.
“Good luck Celis!”
“Mm!”
Just like that, the two horses, now exiting the thinned-out mob of enemies, veered and rode down separate roads, into the battlefield of Edringrad.
…
Alright, now’s my time to shine. Alisson and I are splitting up, and for the first time, I’m going to be a large factor in our success. There’s five store sheds that we spotted from the cliff, scattered around the village outskirts in a pentagon sorta pattern. It’s good that the sheds are far from the thickest of the fighting, in the center of the village, but their spacing means that me and Alisson have to split up in order to make good time. Me and Alisson are both taking two sheds each, and then we’re going to regroup at the final, most northern shed.
Speed is going to be my friend. I need to hit hard, and strike fast. From there, it’s just matter of luck on whether or not there’s anything edible in the sheds. I decided to take the side more primarily controlled by beasts, they’re less intelligent, but their more physically capable. After seeing Alisson bleeding from what he said was an arrow…I can’t say that I’m not scared of being hit with one of those things…Dealing with thrown weapons with that Alfonso guy was hard enough, but arrows, that move three times faster?
…I’d rather not push my luck.
As buildings blur past me, I see many beasts pass right in front of the road I’m traveling down, like they’re passing me up. One leaps directly over my head, and although it only lasted a second, my heart leapt in terror of the possibility that it was going to tackle me off my horse…from there, I would be devoured if I got pinned by a beast.
Alright, I’m closing in on the first storehouse. In the distance I see a few beasts dashing past and over the area, seeming to pour into the town endlessly. One of the beasts stops dead in its tracks, and stands on its hind legs, sniffing the air intensely. After a second, it locks its head on me.
Too late buddy. I leap of my horse, barely a dozen meters away from the beast, and roll across the ground, springing up and narrowly sidestepping the beasts counter rush. Before I can capitalize on its turned back, it spins round and jumps at me, baring its massive jaw. I draw my stilettos and bend my legs, preparing to let it impale itself on me.
Sure enough, the beast gouges its own throat on my stilettos, the weight of its body slamming into me and making me slide back a foot. I’m not going to die by being crushed, that’d be stupid, so I quickly pull my stilettos out and sidestep, letting the heavy corpse fall to the ground with loud thud.
I sprint over to the front of the relatively small shed with my mare right behind me. I see a lock on the door, so I don’t bother to try to be quiet. I kick the brittle wooden handle right through, then push open the door with a creak.
After a minute of scanning the shed,
“Tch…”
It’s empty. Crap. Well, it’s to be expected. Accepting and cutting my loss, I quickly remount my mare, and within seconds, we’re off, speeding to the next shed. The road I ride down is flanked on both sides by buildings, and beasts leap and jump across the road, whizzing right above my head. I can only imagine what kind of brawl is taking place in the center of Edringrad, I hear a hell of a lot of thunderous crashes and screeches of all kinds; there must be a ton of high ranking goblins there if they’re able to fend off so many beasts for so long.
Yeah…the amount of creatures vaulting over my head really seals the goblin’s fate, they’re fighting a unrelenting stream of these damned things.
As soon as I start mentally sighing in relief that there aren’t any worse beasts than the usual tunnel trash, I see them. The second shed, now extremely close, has another isolated two-way skirmish.
This time though, there’s two kinds of beast I see that are wide spread and well known, I’ve never fought them though, so I guess I’m lucky.
The first kind are quadrupedal yes, though they’re at least three times larger than the normal beasts, and they have no eyes. Their crowning feature is the bundle of tentacle-like tails at their butts, those tails are very powerful, and can be moved independently from one another, posing for an opponent who that has about a dozen attack lanes. It’s tails and odd head shape gave it the nickname of a ‘Spidertail’. It can also use its tails to move and maneuver itself, kinda like a spider, making the Spidertail extremely agile. All in all, there are two Spidertails in the mass of fighting subhumans.
The second type is a stubby humanoid figure, I say stubby, but it’s twice my height, it’s just very wide. They have really large mouths and hands, making their attacks deadly, but they’re extremely slow. It’s called a ‘Brockert’, from the snapping sound its hard-outer skin makes when the Brockert turns. There’s only one that I can see.
For me and Alisson, the Brockert is a far easier target, just because of its slow speed. The Spidertails are what I need to look out for, their agility and power is no joke. On the goblin side, amongst a swath of a few normal goblins, are two hobgoblins, but nothing else. The goblins are seriously on the back foot, the only reason they haven’t been devoured by the mass of beasts is because of their ability to coordinate and form a defensive line, and rely on each other for overarching fields of protection. The smaller goblins are in the front, desperately warding off the smaller beasts with their clubs and shabby swords; whilst the hobgoblins stand back, like sentinels.
As I near closer, one of Spidertails makes a massive push toward the goblin line, but in a show of surprising discipline, the goblins in the front hastily make way and open up a gap in their line, letting the Spidertail come soaring through…right into the loving embrace of a hobgoblin. The hobgoblin swings with its fists in a hammer downwards, caving in the Spidertail’s skull with ease as the goblin line reforms. Alright, now there’s only one Spidertail left.
Okay. I need a plan, fast. There’s no way I’m plunging into that cesspool, I’d need to be a 57th to be that headstrong; the problem is, they’re way too close to the storehouse to warrant me just sneaking around the back…
I think I have two options. I either dismount and whittle down the beasts, staying near the goblins for some relative area coverage, and then make a dash for shed when the beasts are thinned out enough.
I could also just try to hop over the fight, I mean, I’m pretty light, I’m sure I can just run across the heads and backs of some beasts if I’m quick enough…Taking into account the remaining Spidertail and the general agility of normal beasts though…I’m not confident one won’t just jump up and tear my leg off. From there…I’d be eaten alive…
I hop of my horse, letting her veer off to the left and behind the shed. Hopefully, they won’t notice her...
I dash forward, preparing a swath of inscripts on instinct. I make my entrance into the conflict by drawing my stilettos and stabbing a beast through the roof of its skull, before dashing back ways. From there, every few seconds a beast would break off toward me, and I’d handle them relatively easily, using the odd Pict spell when necessary. The goblins give me a few wary glances, but they’re far too focused on the mass of beasts right before their eyes rather than the distanced me. Good, I don’t need two enemies at once. Man, I’m so glad I have so much experience fighting beasts because of my travels, I definitely wouldn’t be able to stay calm in situation like this and fight off beast after beast.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
After about a minute, I’ve managed to kill six beasts who’ve strayed too close. Now though, that last Spidertail has its gaze set right on me, even though it doesn’t have eyes. It releases a high-pitched, undulating roar before it breaks away from the mass of beasts, bounding right for me.
Well, crap. I didn’t wanna fight you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t beat you. I tighten my gauntlets, the tips of my fingers hefting almost inch sized blots of yellow; I can’t hold many more spells, if I try to form anymore, I might die. Thirty Pict spells and a dozen Pictun spells look to be my relative limit…
There’s no way my dinky little weapons are going to be able to quickly kill that thing, my stilettos wouldn’t pierce deep enough, and my baselards are too short to cut its entire head off; not that I think I’d have the strength to do that though. I’ll have to use my spells, and hell of a lot them. I sheath my weapons in anticipation for the coming engagement, its better to be more evasive than have blades that won’t do a damned thing.
Two of the Spidertail’s tentacles surge forward, and grab onto the ground, pulling itself straight for me like the bolt of a crossbow. This Spidertail is smart, it’s using the rest of it’s tails to create a net behind it’s body mid-jump, to block off my means of evasion. If I unload all my spells now…sure I’d kill it, but then I’d have a massive corpse flying toward me; I’d be crushed like tinfoil. For now, I’ll use some spells to break its tail ‘net’ and safely evade.
My body drops low and I strafe to my right. As the Spidertail gets within a couple meters of me, I raise a hand and unload a dozen spells whilst rotating my hand, successfully severing the tails that it had extended on my right. With that, I’m able to escape its death lunge, its massive body whizzes right by me. This is my one chance to end this quickly, I need to blow it away while it stops it’s momentum to turns to me.
The Spidertail digs its paws and tails in the ground, stopping ridiculously fast for how large it is. It turns toward me with spittle flinging from it’s jaw, but, I’m already right next to it-
I unleash all of my Pictun spells as I dash past it. Each spell bores a hole into the beast, passing through its body completely. Spells after spell, the Spidertail is practically dissected by my razor of magic. My boots skid on the ground for a second whilst I turn, not letting my guard down. But, contrary to my fears, its legs wobble for a moment before it collapses. I shake out the hand that I used to launch off all those spells, the gauntlet’s practically boiling from all the Pictun spells that I just channeled through it.
Well, no time to tarry, the death of the Spidertail means I should be the most agile fighter in the area, so I make a break straight into the mob, and toward the shed. I hop over and under lunging beasts; the majority of them still only focused on the goblins. One leapt for me, but a quick draw with a baselard managed to finish it in a flash. I’m really loving my wrist-mounted baselards, I can attack in the same motion as drawing them, its really nice. As much as love my stilettos, swinging and dicing is a lot more variable than the linear thrusting I’m restricted to with the stilettos.
Reaching about the halfway point, I start to seriously consider if I’m insane, you know, running through a mob of beasts and all.
Before me is the Brockert, its side is facing me. Alright, I’ll make this quick, I don’t need that thing slapping me from behind. I leap up, and land deftly on it collarbone, though I’m a lot more unstable than when I do this with hobgoblins, cause’ the Brockert is a lot smaller. Regardless, I know that this thing has a thick exoskeleton, so I don’t think my baselards will do anything without ample momentum. I draw a stiletto, and, grabbing onto its skull with my other hand, I proceed to stab the Brockert in the neck, repeatedly. It’s hard as hell. But, I don’t stop, like breaking glass, I hear cracks and crunches with every stab of mine, and by the fourth time, my stiletto plunges straight into its body.
The Brockert starts to react, lifting its hands and turning its body; but it’s way too slow compared to me. I twist my stiletto around in its neck, firing off a few Pict spells as I do so. Satisfied, I vault the Brockert’s head, giving my stiletto one last hardy twist before pulling it out. I land with a roll, and continue heading for the shed, hearing the Brockert’s heavy body collapse into the ground, sending a quake through my feet. I hear and feel some other quakes, and when I look, two new Hobgoblins and a swath of smaller goblins have joined the fight as reinforcements. Wow, they even have bows-!?
I hear two arrows whiz by me, sending a spike of terror through my body.
Not cool! Seriously not cool! My legs bolt harder, instilled with fear.
I reach the shed, and, not wasting any time, I fire one Pict spell at the lock, and push my way in. For whatever reason, I close the door behind me on instinct, not like it’ll do anything though…
I take a moment to look at the dark interior, the only sources of light being small cracks in the wall, letting shining sunlight through.
After scouring over the shelves and boxes, I clench my fist in anger.
…Nothing! What the hell! Was this village going through a famine or something!?
…After standing still in frustration for a second, my training and adrenaline gets the better of me, and I push the loss out of my head. I fire off the rest of my spells at the far wall, and then give it kick, opening up a large hole. Thankfully, my mare is sitting right behind the shed, just as I’d hoped. I quickly hop on, grabbing hold of the reins. Within seconds, I’m riding to the last shed, where me and Alisson are supposed to meet up…hopefully he’s had better luck, else we’ll be forced to travel further east and into real Caliphate territory.
…It’s only been about ten minutes since I last saw Alisson, but a great surge of weightlessness overcomes me; I even find myself smiling. Ha…am I really that helpless?
I see the last shed come into view, amongst a plethora of beasts standing by it. They’re not fighting anything no, they’re standing still, roaring and howling at something not in my direction. Before I start to form a course of action, I see another horse blur into my vision, charging the beasts. Alisson, he’s ahead of me, by about a hundred meters. For the third time ever, I see he has his Opensen activated, his cute little ears and tails easily picked out by my eyes. It looks like Alisson will be using his Opensen regularly now that it’s been regenerated, huh?
He dismounts in a large jump, and in his fall, impales a Spidertail’s skull with the full length of Enhérejär. He doesn’t bother to pull Enhérejär out, he lets go, turning toward the closest beasts, a tiny tunnel roamer.
Alisson…there’s like a dozen of them…what exactly is your plan?
The tiny beast leaps at him, but he grabs onto it, grappling for moment before twisting its head, sending it limply falling to the ground. Enhérejär begins to split and separate into innumerable slivers…Ah…Alisson doesn’t have mana left, so the best he can do is rely on Enhérejär for his offense. In total, there are three Spidertails, and one Brockert, amongst a few of the usual tunnel ‘Roamers’.
Alisson nimbly evades both the full body of a Spidertail, and the smash of a Brockert’s arms. Yeah, his evasion? Leagues ahead of mine. With Enhérejär’s slivers forming up by his hand, he punches forward into the Spidertail that’d leapt at him with an open palm.
Uh…punching a beast…? Before I can think any further, Enhérejär’s slivers follow in his hand’s wake, though, they don’t stop at the hard hide of the Spidertail like Alisson’s hand did; they continue right on through, boring a massive hole in it. They soon exit on the other side, though, it seemed the rest of Enhérejär had attacked from the other side, for slivers exited where others entered. After a passing through the center of the beast like two rivers, the slivers float back into Alisson’s hand, forming into a backsword.
My mare now closing in, I don’t have any leeway for spectating, I hop off and pick my target, a nearby Spidertail not focused on Alisson. As I dash toward my prey, I see Alisson evade the other Spidertail, slicing at its side in his evasion. It attempts to lash its tails at him, but Alisson cuts through one, and closes in, impaling its head straight through.
It looks like these guys really don’t have a contingency for when an opponent cuts through their tails, I’ll keep that in mind. The Spidertail before me holds its ground, and unleashes all of its tentacle-like tails at me. Damnit, these things sure are proving to be more intelligent than their smaller counterparts; those tails are coming in from every damned direction. I’ll have little chance to evade.
I briefly consider purposely getting caught in order to be dragged in closer to the Spidertail’s head, but, upon further inspection, it looks like its tails end in sharp-looking points, I really don’t want to find out the hard way if those are actually dangerous.
Well, I can’t attack, I’d be impaled, I can’t dodge either, so I’ll play your game, beast.
I halt my legs, my boots kicking up a cloud of dirt with their skidding. I lower and draw my baselards. I’ll hold my ground, and cut through its attack. This is good training…yup, that's all it is…
I can’t shake the fear that I’m going to be overwhelmed, but for now, this is my only option.
The first trio of thick, sickly white and hairless tails approach. I cut two with each of my baselards, dropping my knee and just barely evading the last. Only one more poses an imminent threat, so I cut the tail that I dodged with one baselard whilst cutting apart the closest one drawing near.
Four down…a dozen more to go…
I spend the next ten seconds dodging and cutting through tails, bobbing away if there’s too many, and dicing as many as I can. After the Spidertail’s barrage is almost all but finished, it leaps at me, with front paws soaring for my body.
Alright…if you can’t handle your tails being cut, lets see how you handle your limbs being cut!
I dash forward to meet its main body, ignoring the sparse amount of remaining tails. I drop my knees and strafe low to the ground, preparing to evade it after I do make my attack. I twist on my heels, putting my body weight behind my blades, further squeezing out as much momentum as I can. And, thanks to my preparation, my baselards slice through one of its paws like butter. After bobbing under the length of its body, I hop up and above its back, preparing my killing blow. The Spidertail collapses forward on its front, completely bewildered with the loss of a paw.
An easy end; I fall down and finish it with a swift stab at the back of its neck, opting to use my stilettos for greater penetration.
Now standing on the Spidertail, I feel though my boots its body go limp. I look up over at Alisson. He seemed to have just stabbed the last enemy in the area, the Brockert, right in its large belly.
…Oh! I know what’s going to happen!
A second passes, and small bumps and deformities suddenly sprout on the poor Brockert’s body. Within an instant, those bumps pop, and slivers of Enhérejär spew outwards. Uh huh. Alisson purposely stabbed it like that, so that Enhérejär could tear apart the Brockert from the inside.
I trot over to him, our horses both encroaching now that the area is clear.
“How much did you find?”
I ask.
“Enough.”
Alisson replies gruffly, and I let out a sigh.
“Cover me while I get the rest-”
Alisson continues, turning to the shed we just fought to clear. I form up and stand guard as he kicks the door down. My eyes scan the rooftops, the odd beast leaping to and fro. Stray arrows and screams fill the sky, the goblins in the middle are really having a bad time.
Alisson soon returns with a bag over his shoulder, he loads it onto his stallion while I glare at his success with a silent pout.
“Alright, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Alisson's words bring a certain relief at a job well done. Even though I, I uh, I didn’t really find anything. I mount along with Alisson, and avoiding the rushing beasts, we speed out of Edringrad. We ride for about ten minutes in silence, still wary of any stray goblins or beasts. After the town is thoroughly behind us, and the horses’ breath was heavy from their sprinting, we slow down.
“It’s a good thing we were fast, I saw some of those tunnel digging beasts surface by the center. Edringrad will become a hive in due time with all of them gathering…”
Alisson says, scanning the road behind us warily.
“You saw the center battle?”
I ask. Alisson nodded his head.
“Mm. There was a goblin shaman there, and about a dozen hobgoblins. I saw some Bears there too.”
I shiver. ‘Bears’ is the name given to hugely large beasts, like, house sized ones. I really don’t get why humans give out such wacky names to such deadly creatures. Hell, Sidonians refer to the odd tunnel trash as a Roamer, but I’ve heard humans call them ‘Dogs’.
“Well, we shouldn’t have any enemies for a while except boredom.”
Alisson looked forward down the road. Looking forward as well, I can see the density of both bushes and trees diminish the further north my gaze goes; the Great Ipithid Plain was coming to bear.
***