“Dahhh!” Dnoeth reflexively jerked his right arm away from something cold and slimy. Looking up, he had a split second to take in the single-horned, bulging black form that loomed above on the cliff edge before its tongue wrapped about his left wrist and yanked.

He hurled upward, flailing frantically with his free hand to cut the foul black line, and managing to catch it couple times. But the climbing pick wasn’t designed for fighting and it skipped off. Focusing, his Daedrium withdrew from his feet to his hands where it formed into a matched set of claws.

His body lurched about, keeping him from gaining his bearings. Dnoeth was grateful, he wasn’t sure what the demon was doing, but it wasn’t eating him yet, and being tumbled around was a preferable to that.

The motion calmed momentarily. He caught a glimpse of black cord, focused, and slashed at it. His claws cut though the tongue like it was made of paper.

His body responded to being in freefall instantly. He tucked, reoriented himself, and landed gracefully, finding himself more than halfway back to the tunnel. His eyes found the demon. Blood and black ooze sprayed from the stub of its retreating tongue, then it disappeared into its nightmarish mouth.

Its mandibles reared up while its split jaw worked open and shut as if the beast was chewing or clearing some foul taste. Saliva ran freely from the maw, steaming to vapor on its chest. Then the tongue stub flicked out and the demon inspected it, patting at the oozing end with a clawed hand in apparent disbelief.

The demon’s visage darkened, wrinkles creasing about its many eyes as its body began quivering in fury.

Dnoeth started scrambling back. He’d landed only a handful of paces from the horror, and that was feeling like a couple caverns too close.

The Baltaris bore done on him with sheer malevolent intent. Dnoeth’s shaking hands fumbled for his Cyff as the fury of its full attention came right at him.

He cursed himself for gawking, instead of pulling the weapon instantly after cutting the thing’s tongue. He gave up and raised his claws.

The beast slowed, respecting their lethality, then it unleased a whirlwind of overhand attacks. He dodged and positioned his Daedrium claws to ward them off while continuing to back away. The swings veered away from his blades, but each miss hit the ground like thunder, causing tremors that affected his balance.

Completely on defense and near to losing his footing, Dnoeth’s head spun, searching for Ramal. His arrows might cause the beast to split its attention so he could strike back. Maybe he could hamstring the creature if it had to fend off arrow attacks.

A clawed hand hammered the ground just as he stepped and Dnoeth stumbled left. His arms jerked instinctively to the side, leaving him wide open.

He felt the follow up blow coming and tried to lessen the impact by bending with it. It didn’t matter, the strike landed on his right shoulder like a wrecking ball.

The crack of bones snapping sounded far away. Dnoeth’s body crumbled, his world bounced, then came to rest, nothing but cold, rough stone. Then he was being dragged into the air by the leg and everything was upside-down and swaying.

Drunkenly, he tried to fend off the thing that had his leg. His right arm didn’t respond. He couldn’t even feel anything from it. Something heavy was pressing into the right side of his head making it difficult to see. He flailed with his left hand to push the thing away and managed to bat it forward. Oh, that’s my arm. That’s not good.

The beast bellowed and he was jerked to the side. His dead arm flipped over his eyes and the flash of its Daedrium claws caught his attention. Could he still use that Daedrium? The arm swung back, and he saw the Baltaris with its other clawed hand raised defensively. Two arrows protruded from its head. Ramal was back.

Dnoeth reached to his bonded metal pulling on the claws in his worthless right arm to reinforce and elongate those on his left. The metal responded and began to roll, he felt it distantly as if it was moving up a phantom limb.

Then it reached the destroyed nerves in his right shoulder and they were instantly restored. As if a dam had burst, feeling from the arm rushed back. With it came overwhelming pain, causing his whole world to fuzz.

Dnoeth screamed, losing track of everything but his Daedrium, which he shoved into his left hand.

Then, he heard the smallest chime, a whisp of Daedrium rolled into his shoulder, and the pain disappeared. As it faded, he returned to reality bleary and with water in his eyes, distorting his vision. But his left hand felt heavier, deadlier.

He blinked the haze away and concentrated. Dnoeth was hanging directly in front of its face, offering him a terrifying up-close view.

Fighting off panic, he noticed several metallic arrow shafts piercing the sides of its head. Apparently Dnoeth was being used as a living shield, preventing Ramal from targeting the demon’s eyes and mouth.

He looked toward his feet, searching for the hand gripping his leg, searching for a target. The demon clicked rapidly, pulling his attention back. Curving black arms, lined with serrated teeth, spread wide from the creatures mouth closed toward his head.

He tried to recoil but couldn’t. In a flash, Dnoeth realized they were its mandibles and he was about to be decapitated.

Dnoeth’s good arm lashed out. He watched three curved blades, nearly as long as his arm, slice through black bone. He barely felt any resistance at all.

What were those? He wondered.

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Then he was wrenched up, head like a ball on a string, and hurled backward. Dnoeth hit the ground, bounced, and hit again. His head swam again, and everything blurred. Distantly, he worried about permanent brain damage.

He could feel himself sliding over the ground and he knew that could be bad. Although he couldn’t quite recall why. He was moving away from the Baltaris. That was good right?

The void. The thought broke through his mental haze and he jammed his clawed hand into the stone. It was more difficult that he thought it should be, his claws were way too long. But they bit and held.

Dnoeth jerked to a stop with nothing beneath his lower half. His legs slammed into the vertical cliff face and pain erupted from his right calf where the Baltaris had clamped on.

For a moment he wondered what was at the bottom. Ramal said it was a sphere, maybe he could just slide down the inside of the curve.

No. Dnoeth wasn’t dead yet, his team-mates needed him. He needed to get up.

He hauled on his anchored arm, dragging himself forward and swinging his legs to the side. It took a couple tries, but he got his whole body back on level ground. His right arm flopped uselessly, and he pulled his left free of the stone. Or at least tried too, extracting a full foot and a half of Daedrium blades before running out of flexibility.

Using his elbow on the floor as a pivot, he levered them out in a small cascade of rock. Dnoeth pushed onto his back and held his hand up. Three massive swords swung into view. “Woahh.”

The moment evaporated. His head was filled with haze and his right leg burned like it had been dunked in a tub of acid. But he was still alive.

Something squished under his back. He rolled once and looked. It was the tongue. A bit of pride swelled at the sight. His contribution so far felt more than inconsequential, and he felt pretty good about that.

Dnoeth knew his body was a mess, he wasn’t even sure if he could stand. He checked his health bar and his gut clenched at the thin bit remaining. It, maybe, represented ten percent health. An icon flashed, a human outline with blood drop in its chest, and his health dipped further.

“I need healing.” But they had no healing abilities or potions of any kind. He made a mental note to try and fix that.

The Baltaris roared. The noise drove daggers into his mind and Dnoeth thought his ears might bleed. He lifted his head just enough to see five red eyes and a silver fletching where the sixth should have been.

Thick black ooze ran from dozens of other half buried arrows. Fucking get it Ramal.

Groaning, Dnoeth pushed up to a sitting position to look at his leg. The demon’s clawed hand hadn’t cut the Daedrium reinforced leather, but midway up his calf, it was visibly narrower from being crushed. Its unnatural hourglass shape turned his stomach. Each heartbeat sent throbbing lances of pain shooting from it.

Retracting his oversized claws and with a herculean effort, Dnoeth managed to get his left foot planted and push up to his feet. When he tentatively put weight on his crushed leg, the pain almost caused him to collapse again.

For as long as he lasted, Dnoeth would be hopping. It wouldn’t be long, even a grazing blow would kill him at this point, if he didn’t die from his injuries first.

He felt for his Cyff. Unbelievably it was there, and his pouch of scales still felt like it was full too. He didn’t question the miracle, it was probably Daedrium related anyhow.

His right arm was still numb, and Dnoeth had a thought. He pushed his bonded metal to his leg, intending it to provide the same numbing effect.

It worked. The pain disappeared and he was left with a stiff phantom leg he could only swing at the hip. That was better than searing pain.

Jamming his left hand in the Cyff frame, his last bit of Daedrium rolled into it and filled the tiny control channels. He activated its destructive stance and scales flowed out of the pouch onto the frame forming the Glaivis. Maybe he could land a solid stab before he died.

He noticed that things had gone quiet and he turned to face the enemy. The Baltaris had its arms up, guarding its face from Ramal’s arrows and its one horn was starting to glow. The glow grew brighter and brighter with each passing moment. That can’t be good.

“Get away from it!” Ramal yelled as he flew back in the void.

Dnoeth tuned and ran as fast as he could with one dead leg and one dead arm. The right side of his body acted like a marionette with some of its strings cut.

His attention was caught by a faint whoomph from somewhere out in the void. He looked toward the sound and something streaked across his vision.

Behind him, a wet thwack was followed immediately by something slamming into the cavern wall. The impact shook the ground.

“Holy Shit!” Ramal cried out.

Dnoeth looked back over his left shoulder, then hobbled around searching for understanding. The Baltaris wasn’t there.

Then he saw it, slumped against the back wall. He blinked, completely befuddled. Black ooze and blood were pouring out of a basketball sized hole in its chest.

Dumbstruck, he stared at the indominable beast as it bled to death, seemingly pinned to the wall. He turned to Ramal, but the large winged man was hovering and looking toward the far side of the cavern.

He looked back at the Baltaris just in time to see the glow on its one horn wink out. A system notification indicator blinked on in the corner of his field of view.

It was over. Somehow, someone had pulled them back from the brink. His energy vanished. He collapsed onto his left knee then fell over sideways before rolling onto his back.

His health was down even more, it was only a few percent now. Was he bleeding out? Despite having only half of a working body, Dnoeth didn’t remember any blood, it was all internal crushing damage.

Internal bleeding. He realized with a groan. That was something he’d never had to deal with before. Damn it all, we won and I’m still going to die.

There was movement off to his right and Ramal came into view a moment later. The man loomed over him, wings folding back. He was statuesque, like an Olympian. Everything about him commanded respect without needing it. Dnoeth admired that, he wanted to be like that.

Dnoeth blinked lazily up at him with a smile. “We won.”

Ramal cracked a little smile and snorted. “Yeah, somebody saved our asses.” Visually he scanned Dnoeth’s form. “You look fucking horrible.”

“Gee thanks. I feel about the same.”

Ramal knelt by his leg and Dnoeth experienced the sensation of a dead log, attached to his hip, being rolled back and forth. It was strange, even more so than walking with it.

“There’s no blood.” Ramal sounded worried. “What the hell Dnoeth, why are you still losing health?”

“No blood?” Dnoeth responded dreamily. His eyes flitted closed as the chimes began speaking to him. His last words floated out of a mouth that he couldn’t be sure was his. “There’s lots of blood.”

Dnoeth followed the chimes and did what seemed natural, he joined with his bonded metal. It was safe there, the Daedrium was like family.

He took his position at the head of the metallic army that lived inside his body. They had a job to do. Now that Dnoeth had arrived they got to work.