“So,” Nathen started as the two groups of warriors got ready, “you can speak the kobold’s language?”

“Nope,” Masood shook his head, “Ascenders can speak with anyone who has a language. Something to do with speech being a desire to communicate and our souls working to facilitate it. The Church of Guidance should have told you this.”

Another mistake he’d made, Nathen thought, suppressing a wince, he’d seen the church as a mere tutorial and bypassed it. How much information was he missing? If he made it back to Templeholm he’d have to stop by and ask some questions. Hopefully they’d still be willing to assist.

The mole tunnel seemed small from the outside, only large enough for two men abreast, but it quickly opened up into a rather vast cavern. The compacted dirt walls somehow holding up despite there being no support structures. Both groups had lit torches to provide light, casting flickering shadows all over the uneven ground. They started to make their way deeper when everyone froze at the sound of something down the tunnel. It was a weird sound of dirt moving over itself, and for a moment Nathen was afraid there was a cave in coming. But the wall of dirt that emerged was slow and halted regularly, and paused upon entering the entry cavern. To his surprise the dirt moved aside as a mole’s head poked through, small beady eyes scanning the cavern while a long nose sniffed loudly. It looked remarkably normal to Nathen, just far larger, than a normal mole. Or it did until the rest of it’s car sized body pushed through the dirt.

It had three pairs of arms, the middle pair, where a normal mole’s arms would be, were the largest, rippling with muscle and ending in a collection of thick, curved claws. The other two were only slightly larger than a human’s arms and were positioned above and below the main set. Four short fingers ended in sharp, scythe like talons on each of these extra limbs.

Rainer was the first to charge forward, shield first with his sword poised behind it, to be quickly followed by Brage and Nathen. The Kobolds were quick to follow, all of them armed with short blades that had a wicked hook at their end and wooden shields. Before they made it halfway to the giant mole, their target made its first move. The two smaller, upper limbs cocked back, fingers splayed wide, popping into position as if the limbs were double jointed. At the same time both arms jerked forward, one claw from each shooting off, crossing the distance between the mole and Nathen in a split second. Rainer took one claw on his shield, the spinning blade deflecting off it with a loud clang, leaving behind a sizeable dent in the steel. A kobold was the other target, the claw cutting deep into its shield and throwing it to the ground.

In quick succession the mole launched four more claws, two from each of the upper limbs. More ready for it this time Nathen managed to barely avoid one of the spinning blades as it hummed through the air. Masood ducked under another, while a cry of pain from their allies indicated that at least one kobold had been struck. But before the mole could fire off any more the melee fighters reached it, Rainer leading by slamming his shield into the long snout of the creature while Brage jumped in an attempt to slam his axes into the monster’s eye. The mole, however, wasn’t a pushover in melee, reaching up to bat Brage aside with one of its main arms while it lunged forwards to try and grab Rainer in its mouth. Its teeth were short and flat, but Nathen had no doubt they could crush bone with ease.

Nathen darted forward under the limb that had smacked Brage, bringing his sword up to cut into the forearm and leaving a long red gash. He was forced to dance backwards as the mole brought the limb down to try and crush him. A pair of arrows slammed into its shoulders as the melee fighters backed off, causing the creature to let out a dull roar of frustration. It once more lunged forward, swinging its main limbs to force everyone back while its top arms fired off their last claws at the ranged fighters. But even Nathen could see new claws slowly emerging from the stubby fingers, it was only a matter of time before it was rearmed.

Then the Kobolds fell onto its other side from where Nathen stood, their hooked blades gouging chunks of flesh out with each swing. The strange beings fought like wolves, darting in for quick strikes when there was an opening but quickly backing off. One of their number was notably faster and stronger, and Nathen assumed it was their lone ascender. The mole, clearly not enjoying the attacks turned its attention to the kobolds, allowing Nathen and Brage to dash in and lay on some damage of their own. As they did a card of wood seemed to fly in and stick to the monster’s hide, a pulse of light blue light covered its body and it noticeably slowed down. This gave the two human melee fighters plenty of time to carve out large chunks of flesh from the sluggish mole.

By the time the card wore off, a couple dozen seconds later, its flank was covered in blood and wounds. Clearly panting it flailed with the desperation of a wounded animal, but by itself it was no match for both groups of warriors. A couple minutes after the monster appeared it fell still, collapsing with a last grunt of pain.

“How many of those are there?” Nathen asked as they recovered following the battle. The kobolds had gathered around the one of their number that had taken a launched claw at the battle’s opening.

“At least a dozen,” Masood shrugged.

“At least they aren’t that dangerous,” Nathen remarked.

“One at a time, they aren’t,” the other man corrected, “but don’t get cocky, in groups they can launch volleys of those claws and… well, as you can see a single claw is all it takes.”

As he spoke he motioned to Kobolds, their injured member clearly having expired. Nathen simply nodded in silence as he watched the dog like people grieve over their lost member. Not knowing what else to do he went to help dig out the mole’s body so the group could proceed.

\*\*\*\*

“First group incoming!” a Slayer knight shouted just before the rumble of approaching riders reached Gregory.

“Like we practiced!” Gregroy shouted, taking his place between one of the intermittently placed spikes in the first trench. The rest of the knights followed suit, forming lines of men with large gaps between them. The mounted knights used these gaps to pass through their lines while only slowing down a little. Gregory noted many, both man and horse, were injured, some with small thrown spears still sticking out of them. There were also noticeably fewer knights than what left, casualties were expected but he’d hoped they’d be minimal.

As soon as the riders passed the knights on foot quickly moved to fill the gaps, bringing their assortment of weapons to bare. And they had to move quickly as the mutts weren’t far behind the riders. The first, fastest Mutts were quickly cut down by the line of knights, but even as the horses settled behind them the ground continued to shake. Despite knowing how many Mutts there were Gregory paled as he saw the trickle of canine monsters quickly turn into a flood. The narrow confines of the valley forcing the beasts to scramble over one another in their struggle to reach the humans.

With his halberd leveled, Gregory attempted to look calm, his kinetic blast snapping out to slam into a mutt every few seconds. The uncharged blast wasn’t that strong, but even without that slowing down a mutt would cause it to be pushed to the ground where he hoped it would be trampled. But as the tide of mutts made it to the main line he quickly became too busy stabbing and chopping to aim his blasts properly. Thankfully he barely needed to aim to hit something. Even the bow armed knights in the back didn’t bother aiming, instead focusing on firing as many arrows into the air as possible.

The bodies quickly built up on both sides, the shallow trench rapidly filled with the bodies of dead mutts as the knights cut them down as quickly as they could. But it wasn’t a one sided affair, for every dozen mutts they put down an attack got through, a feral beast lashing out with a claw even as an axe took it in the head, a crude spear sticking out of the mass of mangey fur. However it happened the injuries were mounting, and barely ten minutes into the melee Gregory signaled for the line to begin backing up. The frontmost fighters slowly took steps back with each shout. The mutts continued surging over their dead to attack. It only took a few minutes of slow retreat before the knights had crossed the second trench and, with another signal from Gregory a lit torch was thrown into the pitch filled trench. A wall of fire burst up between the two groups, the bestial Mutts quickly backing off, barking and growling angrily at the flames.

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“We’ve got maybe half an hour,” Nathen shouted, despite being out of breath, “injured to the back, take a drink if you need it.”

Just as he’d hoped the mutts had an animalistic fear of the flames, allowing the Slayer Knights a short reprieve. They could cycle out the wounded, apply some first aid to minor injuries, replace their weapon if it was damaged, but most importantly it gave them time for the worst effects of the Mutt's curse to wear off. He took a long pull from a water skin and turned to check on Lex.

“It’s working,” she said with a broad smile, she seemed covered in blood but none seemed to be hers, any injuries she had were minor. He grinned back, turning to look over the line of fire. The flames weren’t perfect, at either side of the crevasse the occasional brave Mutt seemed willing to sneak a bit closer. Thankfully some Knights had taken it upon themselves to menace them with spears.

“Still,” Nathen said, having to speak loudly to be heard over the constant sounds from the angry mutts beyond the flames, “I didn’t expect this many.”

“This looks like the main host,” she agreed as they made their way back from the line of flames to the second line of stakes, “we’ve definitely bought Templeholm time with this.”

“Now to make the most of it and make it back alive,” Gregory muttered to himself.

\*\*\*\*

“That’s, what, six moles?” Nathen panted as the latest monster fell silent.

“I think so,” Masood nodded, checking on the cloth wrapped around a cut he’d taken a couple fights previously.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, how do those cards of yours work?” Nathen asked, “I’ve seen them slow an enemy, I think you stunned one earlier…”

“It’s my main ability,” the other ascender smirked, “with Vituss any skill can become dangerous.”

“Any skill?” Nathen asked.

“Yup, there was a guy who could use a fishing pole to tie people up in combat at the camp for a while. He died a few years back.”

“Was he a fisherman in his past life or something?”

“Yup, and I was a casino dealer,” Masood said, loudly shuffling his wooden cards in the air before him, “honestly the hardest part was figuring out how to make cards in this world.”

Nathen smirked as the group got moving again. He was pleased with his new sword, but the spirit within it seemed less than impressed with him. Mid battle it would point out improvements he could make, like a more aggressive version of his basic stance ability. Unlike his own ability the sword seemed intent on pushing him, it demanded he move faster, hit harder, cut deeper. Even with his focused strikes ability empowering him as the fights went on it simply demanded more. Nathen had the feeling there was something it was aiming for, but with limited communication all it could was push him in the right direction.

Still, he was eager to see what it intended, already his swordsmanship had improved noticeably, basic sword stance leveling twice more. He could already tell that he was one of the strongest fighters present, none of the kobolds could keep up, even Rainer and Brage seemed to recognize that they could learn something from him. Only Masood remained an unknown factor with his odd card throwing skill.

“Oh, great,” Rainer said from the front of the group, having emerged into the next cavern. Or, rather, the final cavern judging by the number of moles present, Nathen noted. More than there being five total moles, there was an odd… thing at the far end of the cavern. It almost resembled the roots of a plant, breaching the walls of the cavern. The only reason he knew it wasn’t a plant, however, was that it had the same fleshy coloration of the moles, seemingly covered in hide, not wood.

“Shit,” Masood swore, “they’ve rooted already.”

“Rooted?” Nathen asked.

“That root structure?” Masood replied, pointing across the dark cavern, “it creates more monsters. I don’t know where they come from but leave a monster nest around for too long and one forms.”

Even as he spoke one of the fleshy roots seemed to burst open, blood and other fluids pouring out alongside a small mole, clearly a newborn. Everyone, man and kobold, shuddered at the sight.

“It’s trying to replace their numbers,” Masood said, “we need to stop it, but first priority is the moles. Nathen, think you can handle one on your own?”

“I can try,” Nathen nodded.

“Then go wide, the right most mole is yours, we’re go up the center, and our friends can handle the left side,” Masood continued, exchanging a glance with the ascended Kobold who nodded in reply.

With his own nod Nathen lifted his blade, and dashed to the right. He tuned out the footsteps of the others as they ran into battle, narrowing his focus on the mole in front of him. Its upper and lower limbs popped forward to send a barrage of spinning claws at him. After several battles Nathen had learned to follow the projectiles, ducking under and through the flying talons as they hummed through the air. Jumping over a slash from the mole’s main claw he feinted a strike to the mole’s nose before spinning to the right when it lifted its other main claw to block. His blade flashed in the flickering torchlight, rapidly opening a series of long cuts in the mole’s flank. He’d learned that it was nearly impossible to outright kill these massive creatures, there was too much flesh protecting their vital organs. Instead the best tactic was to bleed them out. A blow to the skull could also put them down, but they could protect their head with all of their arms, making it difficult and risky to strike there.

A spinning claw bounced off his sword as he deflected it, moving back in to land more attacks when his instincts and blade both screamed at him, warning him of danger. He desperately scrambled to jump back, but the wild swipe by the mole still caught him in the shoulder, slamming him into the wall of the cavern. He had only an instant to recover from the blow before he was forced to duck and roll forward to avoid more fired claws. His shoulder ached, and he felt several cuts on his arms from the claws. But the worst was his focused strikes bonus was almost entirely lost. The spirit of the blade seemed to have expected this, as if looking down on the ability entirely. Like it was a waste. Nathen couldn’t disagree, more and more he’d found that focused strikes was only useful in limited situations where he already overpowered his enemy. He’d need to find a way to change it.

The sword’s spirit roared its approval at that thought, focused strikes had potential, but had a fatal flaw, it seemed to say. But this wasn’t the time for that, Nathen batted away another claw fired at him, blinking away the blood threatening to cover his face as he closed in on the monster mole once more.

\*\*\*\*

Gregory was exhausted, the battle had been going on for hours by this point, the knights having retreated to the third of five pitch filled trenches. They’d killed easily thousands of mutts by this point, yet there seemed no end to the mangy beasts. Even as they cut down the numbers of more feral mutts, the more intelligent examples of their race continued to increase in numbers. More mutts held weapons than not by now, and half of them wore at least some tattered leathers. They were less likely to get in each other’s way, had more options for attacking and didn’t commit to attacking regardless of risk like the feral mutts did. This lead to a reduction in casualties on both sides, the battles dragging out longer and longer before the Knights were forced to fall back behind the next line of fire.

The appearance of more ranged weapons like slings and throwing spears meant that even the reprieve bought by the flames was limited. It still gave the knights a chance to cycle out the injured and grab a drink, but they had to keep their eyes open for flying projectiles. Their own archers were running low on arrows, as there had been a limited amount they could get their hands on in the single day of prep.

Despite everything, most of the blood running down the dry streambed belonged to the mutts, while nearly every knight had some injury, they were better about cycling the injured back, meaning that while injuries were common their number of dead was rather limited.

“Two more,” Lex said, clearly as tired as Gregory was, “two more flame walls and we pull back, right?”

“That’s the plan,” he nodded. The last flame wall was the largest in order to allow the knights to mount up and retreat back towards templeholm. While many were injured he felt confident they could at least make it that long.

“How much of the horde do you think we’ve killed?” he asked as he caught his breath, the most recent flame wall had only been burning a few minutes so they had plenty of time to relax.

“At least a quarter,” she said, looking past the flames to the mass of beasts as they snapped and growled at the flames, “maybe a third? I’ve never heard of a horde this large before, but we must have put a dent in it by now.”

Gregory simply nodded, pulling his waterskin out when a barking, rasping howl echoed down the valley. In an instant everything went dead silent, the mutts, previously pacing and growling froze in place. All the humans were similarly silent, caught off guard by the sound. There was something different about this howl, it was deeper, louder, more commanding. Everyone turned to look at the now eerily still beasts to try and find the source. Before Gregory could say anything another raspy howl echoed down the valley, as one the front rank of Mutts threw themselves into the fire, remaining silent even as flames consumed their fur. Before the first beasts could begin properly burning the second rank of mutts walked forward in unison, tossing themselves onto their burning companions.

“Everyone back!” Gregory yelled in fear, “form up on the spikes!”

A third rank of mutts fell upon the fire, the flames almost entirely smothered by the mass of bodies. Then, with a final echoing howl the spell seemed to break and the mutts burst into action once more, surging forward to trample what flames remained.

“What was that?” Gregory asked in a yell as he stabbed the first mutt to come into reach.

“I don’t know,” Lex replied, “a pack lord maybe? The texts speak of larger hordes having leadership but this?”

It seemed unnatural, Gregory finished in his mind, unleashing the gathered power in a blast that took the head off a Mutt. His mind racing even as he fought, how would they retreat now? If they could repeat that trick the amount of time the flame walls could buy was vastly limited.

“This is bad,” he growled as he brought the axe head of his halberd down on another mutt.