Chapter 11 – A Sprint of Precognition

The garbled screams and clicks of the Roots echoed through the ruined temple-like room. Their foul stench was everywhere as masses of the misshapen monsters crowded down below, blocking off all exits. Waving gnarled fists or sharp scythes, they seemed to cheer for their champion, like twisted caricatures of the spectators of Stormball games. Fun events, which Adam used to frequent with his friends. Long ago.

Now, Adam peered down into the darkness, trying to find the Root peacock. Since he was out of weapons at the moment—his pitiful table leg had been torn from his hands—he wondered how he could take that misshapen chicken down. In the lands he knew of, birds that were capable of flight needed to keep their weight at a minimum, resulting in relatively light and brittle bones. Although he wasn’t sure about the anatomy of some creature conjured by the Shepherd, he could try to break a couple of bones with a well-aimed punch or kick.

From the shadows down below, the peacock soared up again. Its body glowed brightly in shimmering shades of purple, revealing the gnarled masses of Roots on the ground. The beast flew up towards them in a wide arch. Adam squinted at their foe. This glow looks different from the illusion… is it gathering energy for some other Invocation? It sure is taking its sweet time though, could—

“THE REAL ONE IS TO THE LEFT!” Emily shrieked.

“What?!” Adam ducked out of reflex and rolled out of the way. He didn’t see the real peacock, yet he felt the wind brushing over his skin when it swooped by. The fake peacock, made of bright purple light, flew straight towards them.

“LOOK OUT!” Adam yelled as he jumped away from the Invocation.

The fake peacock dissolved in a flash of intense light, forcing Adam to squeeze his pained eyes shut. A faint brush of air on his skin and the sound of flapping wings were the only warnings that the real peacock was coming for him. He bent backwards, dodging a horizontal swipe of the beast’s claw. Out of reflex, he held up his arms to fend off the other talon, resulting in a trail of pain over the back of his hand. After forcing his eyes to open just a tiny bit, he bent his neck aside; right before the sharp beak would’ve torn his jugular apart.

Now that the Invocation of bright light was over, Adam’s vision gradually returned. He tried to punch the peacock, but it flapped its wings, causing Adam to hit nothing but air. With an elegant twirl, the Root monster vaulted towards Emily.

While the peacock spun through the air, something happened within Adam. A single deep beat of his left heart resounded throughout his body. All his thoughts and emotions stopped and all sounds faded away. The only thing that existed for him was the peacock and the way it moved. Deep within the fabric of his being, Adam knew it had jumped like this before. Suddenly, he could read every contraction of its vine-like muscles like a book.

As if the universe presented him with a choice, his consciousness was filled with the single move that could counter the peacock. The only question was whether he had the guts to do it.

Adam cracked his neck and sprinted forward. The last reserves of heat from his left heart poured through his legs, warming and empowering his muscles. As if he watched a script play out before him, Adam knew when the peacock would flap its wings and stretch out its legs by reading the minuscule movements of its limbs. He even knew when Emily would jump backwards to dodge.

And then, at that one fateful moment, it would happen.

Adam sprinted as fast as his legs let him and fell into a sliding kick. As soon as the peacock landed, putting its weight on one foot, Adam’s boots hit the beast’s ankle with the full momentum of his body. The joint snapped loudly. Squawking in pained surprise, the peacock fell like a mass of flailing limbs.

Adam blinked; his mind was slow and blurry. Before he could truly process what he’d just done, he fell feet-first over the edge of the stone arch. Adam screamed and grabbed the stone edge, causing him to slam face-forwards against the side of the structure. His feet kicked helplessly in the darkness while his arms trembled in the burning, titanic effort to hold on.

The peacock hobbled clumsily towards him, but Emily’s chain wrapped itself around its neck. She yanked it to the ground and jumped. Stretching her leg high above her head in mid-air, she formed a pickaxe-like blade of Marrow on her raised heel. The peacock struggled, but couldn’t stand up due to its broken ankle. Adam couldn’t see how it happened, but the whole arch trembled after the sheer impact of Emily’s blade. The Roots down below became eerily silent.

When the tremors in Adam’s tired arms increased, and his fingers slowly slipped away from the stone, Adam made a garbled cry. Emily ran towards him, grabbed him by his bracers, and pulled him up.

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“By the night…” Emily grunted, her face turning red. “What do you weigh?!”

Something in the back of Adam’s mind told him this might be the appropriate time to give a witty reply. Yet, his mind was slow and his head was heavy, as if it was filled with mud.

When he finally flopped down onto the arch’s surface, the rough stone hit him flat in his face. Adam laughed like a fool between his coughs either way; he couldn’t remember being so happy and relieved to lay safely on bare stone.

Hazy thoughts swam slowly through Adam’s mind. Even though his body was sore and stiff, he was still breathing and the pile of dirt that used to be a peacock most certainly wasn’t. Only then did he notice the fresco covering the room’s ceiling, barely visible in the dim light. An idealized depiction of Caine as a wise man was placed in the middle of a huge, circular pattern. It consisted of a vast network of spirals connected with lines, all in the same goldish-green colour. The complex design was decorated with small symbols and unintelligible lines of text.

Huh, pretty. Too bad that ugly moron is in the middle of it all. Perhaps it symbolises—

A sharp kick in Adam’s side startled him.

“Wake up, you idiot!” Emily hissed. She hoisted him to his feet.

Down below, the Roots huddled together closely. The Shepherd was at the centre and spread its thin arms wide. The Overgrowth vines on their bodies reached out and interwove into new shapes, seemingly ‘merging’ the Roots together.

Although Adam couldn’t make out what kind of bizarre hocus-pocus they were performing, he wasn’t going to wait and see. With Emily supporting him, they hastily made their way towards a long stained-glass window. It was placed high in the sloped wall of the pyramid, behind the fountain with the giant statues.

“Do you think you can get us through?” Adam croaked. His body was so sore and heavy, he almost missed the unnatural heat of his heart.

“Couple of Ironglass chains should do the trick.” One side of her mouth curled up in a teasing smile. “Should even be able to hoist the… heavier among us up there.”

Adam felt his face redden. “Oi! Muscles weigh more than fat you know?”

Despite her tiredness, she weakly grinned in victory. “I’m sure they do.”

“Bah, I knew I should’ve helped the peacock.”

“Ha! And now you’re stuck in here with me!” She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Don’t remind me… the huddle of Roots over there does look cosy all of a sudden. Might be room for one more.”

Adam and Emily neared the wall until they noticed something. On top of the head of Catherine’s statue, an unknown female warrior sat in a cross-legged position. Despite the rumbling, shrieking cries of the Roots, she sat utterly relaxed and fiddled with the handle of a savage red sword. The scar of a severe burn covered the right side of her otherwise sepia-brown skin. Her long and broad mass of black hair was bound in tight braids.

“Going somewhere?” she asked in a deep voice. “The years haven’t been kind to you, old man. That fight was a damn disgrace.”

Adam clenched his fists and raised his eyebrows; she struck a nerve with that one. Looks like we found our second intruder. He met her gaze with fury, determined not to show a hint of weakness. Her eyes bored into his as fierce as a lioness’s, although they seemed filled with deep disappointment. She trailed a thumb over the razor-sharp edge of her blade.

Strangely, the scorched brand of Schultora on Adam’s left heart flared up again as he returned her gaze. Vague feelings, like echoes of Schultora’s ability, emanated from his heart, although Adam repressed and ignored them the best he could.

“Well, nice to meet you too!” Adam said in the most sarcastic tone he could muster, trying to remember if he had seen her before. “I always prefer people to stare and comment on my physical decline instead of using their sword and helping me!”

The warrior was silent for a moment and stared at him in utter disbelief. “You twisted, sick piece of misery,” she replied coldly, spitting out every word like venom. “That’s what you have to say to me? Helping you?! You’ve lost your damn mind.”

She stood up and the few rays of orange light revealed more than the scars on her face. The whole right side of her elaborate set of plate armour, decorated with unfamiliar emblems of animals, was blackened. A charred stump hung underneath her right shoulder. An angry vein bulged on the impressive biceps of her broad arm. Softly glowing chains of a green, leaf-vein-like metal were tightly wrapped around her torso.

“Here I was, ready to finally finish you off,” she said, looking at him with disdain. “I could’ve killed you from the shadows while you fought that peacock, but I’m not like you. I wanted you to know who bested ya. To give you a chance to fight back, as a warrior should, you filthy swine! To have you beg for forgiveness while I break your every bone for what you did to me! Even though killing the sad shell of a man you’ve become will hardly satisfy me.”

Adam’s mind raced for what she could possibly mean. Whether she served the Roots, or if Caine had Tainted her to hate him, similar to what he did to Catherine. Emily gave Adam a sideways glance, unspoken questions in her eyes.

“Who are you?” Adam growled at the warrior. “Explain yourself!”

A guttural, reverberating roar emanated from where the Roots were gathering, a vastly different sound from what they had uttered before. With slow, slithering movements, a huge monstrous shape crawled towards them from the darkness.

“Let us through or die!” Emily shrieked, waving her chain. However, the way she looked back at the monster betrayed her fear.

“Ah, Emily, Caine’s sister in the flesh,” the warrior said without looking at her. “Leave, I have no quarrel with you. But if you dare to intervene, I’ll crush you nonetheless.”

The familiar stench of copper and earth became almost overwhelming as a colossal, snake-like being neared their arch from behind. The Roots had interwoven their bodies and their Overgrowth vines to form a single abomination and moved as one. The snake curved its misshapen, eyeless head to the same height as Emily and Adam and uttered a growl that rumbled from deep within the monster’s throat.

The mysterious warrior ignored the snake. She placed her outstretched hand before her chest while she looked Adam in the eyes: the traditional challenge of a warrior.