Chapter 292: Hand on Glass

Theresa put her ear to the wall on the right side of the tunnel. She swore.

“It sounds like they’re massing,” the huntress warned, quickly moving to the left side and pressing her ear to the wall’s surface. Frenzied voices were increasing behind the thin rock. “Here too!”

“How many?” Alex asked, listening to the echo of monster voices coming from behind and in front of the team. They were growing louder, getting closer.

“At least ten on the right! A dozen on the left! Maybe more, it sounds like chaos in there, so it's hard to tell. If we move up, they’ll be behind us.”

“Then I can bust the walls open and flush ‘em out,” Grimloch said.

Without another word, the group moved forward, surprising Cedric with their level of coordination. Ahead, chitters came closer, shrieking and clicking, growing louder.

“Wait!” Theresa held up a hand, cocking her head, listening intently. Everyone stopped.

“I hear it too,” Grimloch growled, his grip tightening on his maul, pausing mid- swing.

Theresa put her ear to the stone again. “There’s another one here too!” she said.

Alex swore, glancing at the map; there weren’t supposed to be any secret passages in this area.

Then realisation hit him.

“The rumbling!” he said. “The dungeon core must’ve been making hidden passages all this time! I bet there’s secret tunnels all along here!”

Cedric—at the front of the group—moved to the right side of the tunnel. “Aye, there’s another one up here too…I can hear—”

Rmmmmmmble!

The dungeon shook again, drawing a growl from all three of Brutus’ heads. His fangs and eyes shone in the dark. Alex remembered the trapped temple floor in the Cave of the Traveller: the silence-spiders had used it to lure the unsuspecting to their deaths.

“Then we will have to make a stand,” Khalik drew his short sword as a screech from Najyah echoed off the tunnel walls. “As you said, they’ll be a hand closing around glass, though they may think otherwise. They are thinking they’ll surprise us from the sides. So, we’ll make our flanks as hard to break as our head and tail.”

“Damn right,” Alex said, digging into his pack. “I’ll send my swarm of beetles down the right tunnel.” He switched the potions in his Wizard’s Hands: changing sleep for booby-trapped flight.

“I’ll take the right too,” Theresa made her stand beside Alex. “Brutus, you take the left!”

With one bark, as if he were acknowledging Theresa’s instruction, the cerberus whirled toward the left, sniffing and growling.

“I’m with you big guy,” Thundar said, moving beside Brutus.

“Take these!” Alex pulled out four potions of haste, one each for the minotaur, huntress, and cerberus, then quickly drank the last one. The magic rushed through him, slowing the world to half-speed as Theresa gave Brutus his, then swallowed hers in one gulp as Thundar did the same.

“I will focus on clearing the enemies coming from our front,” Isolde said, nodding to Khalik.

“Indeed,” Khalik said.

“Oi, you lot talk a bunch,” Cedric said. “They’re comin’.”

‘Get ready, Claygon,’ Alex mentally communicated to his golem.

Whoooom.

The sounds of fire-gems powering up mixed with clicks and harsh cries echoing from the tunnel in front, and behind them, increasing in intensity.

“They’re getting into position behind the walls.” Theresa said, her enhanced hearing catching movements through the stone. “They’ll attack us soon.”

“Get ready,” Alex said.

The group started casting spells, readying for the chitterers to make their move. The spellcasting seemed to act like a catalyst for action from the enemy.

In a flash, frenzied chitterers poured around the bends of both tunnels, screeching in a flurry of motion. They looked like ‘elite’ warriors: taller and huskier than those they’d fought outside and they carried better weapons—steel blades wrestled from past victims.

At the front of the line…were true monstrosities.

If most chitterers were twisted mirrors of humanity, then these creatures must have been the warped images of much larger races. A knot of giant chitterers strode at the front of their groups, each nearly as tall as Claygon or Grimloch, with barrel chests and massive arms the size of Alex’s bulked-up thighs. Their legs were as thick as old oak trunks, and their wide shoulders more resembled rows of walking bricks six rows deep. Pieces of stolen armour was lashed to their bodies, adding to the image of walking fortresses of rusty metal with hands that gripped giant bone clubs with sharpened blades forming brutal spikes that protruded from the tops.

Despite their bulky frames, their skulls were strangely small, like a child’s head sitting atop the body of a giant. The smaller chitterers swarmed behind them with spears and bows at the ready. Bow strings were already tensed, ready to fire.

“Unleash our fury!” Isolde shouted.

Crackle!

She loosed her lightning at the same moment Khalik launched a spiked volley of rock, and Cedric shot a ball of flame at the creatures coming at their front. At the rear, Claygon let loose his fiery wrath.

Whooooosh!

Fire beams struck from the back, blasting through the tunnel behind and filling it with an explosion of flame. To the front, Isolde’s lightning raked an armoured chitterer leading a line of monsters, and crackled through those piled in behind it. Khalik’s spikes slammed into a larger chitterer, piercing it countless times through gaps in its rusty armour.

Meanwhile, Cedric’s fireball soared past the armoured monsters and landed directly within the ranks of those behind them.

Boom!

If the armoured ones thought they’d been spared, they soon learned otherwise when the ball of flame detonated, turning their backs into an inferno and washing their allies with fire.

Shrieks filled the tunnel, but the chitterers weren’t done yet. Monsters were still coming from further down the passageways.

Whish! Whish! Whish!

“Arrows!” Hogarth shouted a warning.

Archers had gotten off a few arrows as they ran. Most went wide, hitting walls, the ceiling or floor, but one headed right for Cedric. He raised his spear, shifting it into a shield and caught the arrow in one fluid motion.

“They’re coming from the sides!” Theresa shouted. “I hear the stone shifting!”

“Get ready!” Alex called on his summoned creatures and fell into the first position of the Spear-and-Oar Dance. His Wizard’s Hands put away the map for later then floated in front of him open-handed as the other pair held the potion bottles.

Thundar conjured his illusionary duplicate and Brutus snarled.

Crash!

The stone walls on either side suddenly burst apart, revealing tunnels filled with screeching monsters who lunged at Alex’s team, giving cover to the ones behind, allowing them time to draw their bowstrings.

With the potion of haste running through him, Alex saw the monsters’ every movement in slow motion as he approached, using the Mark and the Cleansing Movements to guide his hands.

His rope was hanging loosely between his fists like a garrote.

Whiiish!

Arrows whizzed toward him and Theresa while spears thrust forward.

His deflective force rectangles snapped them aside, swerving them into the stone around. Theresa swept one with a blade, then turned away an oncoming spear.

A spear thrust straight for Alex’s chest, but with the potion of haste coursing through him and with his heightened reflexes, it was almost like it was gently drifting toward him. He willed his defensive spells aside, striking out with both hands and wrapping the rope around the spear-shaft before the chitterer could withdraw it.

He gripped the rope tightly—avoiding direct contact with the spear in case the Mark reacted—and pulled hard.

The chitterer struggled, trying to break free, but Alex backed up, dragging it forward.

Schwish!

Theresa’s curved blade came down, slashing the top of its head; it stopped moving as her blade parried the thrusting spear of the next attacker. Her life-enforced reflexes and haste magic made her a blur, even to Alex’s enhanced senses, allowing her to overcome the reach and speed of the spear.

She cut it away, slashing at the enemy in a whirlwind of steel. In a heartbeat, and with three quick movements, the armoured chitterer was slashed between the gaps in its armour three times, it lay still, then tumbled to the ground.

Alex uncoiled the rope, releasing the spear it was wrapped around and let the weapon clatter to the ground.

Time for reinforcements. “Eat the bowstrings!” he barked at his elemental beetle swarm. They clustered together, buzzing around with what seemed like a leisurely momentum as another volley of arrows were loosed. Two force rectangles popped as the projectiles hit them while Alex danced away from chitterer spears.

He held the rope between his fists again, and moving with the speed gained from the haste potion, rapidly dragged one chitterer after the next to Theresa who made quick work of them with her blades. They worked in tandem until the monsters realised they should let go of their spear handles as soon as his rope caught the weapons. But, they’d been slow to figure that out. Alex looked around the cave floor where a mound of chitterer dead had appeared at their feet from their teamwork. ‘I think I’ll be keeping the rope.’ He thought, smiling. Up ahead, he could see bowstrings snapping in two as the elemental beetles chewed them, turning the bows from deadly range weapons into nothing more dangerous than sticks. His team could easily handle sticks. His smile broadened.

“Return!” Alex called the elemental beetles back, then willed his Wizard’s Hands into both tunnels: his and Theresa’s, and Brutus and Thundar’s. He didn’t dare risk a glance behind, but timed things so each Wizard’s Hand had enough time to travel deep into each passage.

Then when they were in position, they crushed the bottles.

Crunch.

Poooof!

Booby-trapped potion gas filled the air.

A breath later chitterer screams joined it.

The sound of cracking bones, bangs, dull thuds, thumps, crashing, colliding bodies and terrified shouts echoed through the tunnels, as the monsters were flung every-which-way by the booby-trapped potions, slamming into walls, ceilings, floors, and even their allies. In heartbeats, the rear of the ambushing chitterer force collapsed, giving him and Theresa more time to crush the ones in front.

With him disarming them, her cutting them down, and by using the booby-trapped flight potion on them, the hordes of Ravener-spawn rapidly collapsed. As Theresa cut another chitterer down, he took a glance behind.

Thundar and Brutus had also pushed into the tunnel, trapping the chitterers between them and the cloud of potion-mist behind them. So far, the front and back lines of each group were holding up well. Alex could feel their mana surging as they brought spells to bear against the monstrous forces. Stone ground as more hidden passages opened in front and behind their team, but the would-be ambushers were just more fodder for magic, weapons, cerberus jaws, eagle talons, and big, clay fists.

Until suddenly, another mana surged.

Alex gasped.

He’d felt that sort of mana before: a dark mana tinged by something hungry. The dungeon core. Mana gathered right above him and Theresa.

His eyes flew wide.

“Get back!” he shouted, grabbing her and pulling her back.

Thoooom!

A wide stone barrier plunged from the ceiling above, forming a wall that nearly dropped on the two of them.

“Everyone back!” Alex shouted. “The dungeon core’s making new walls! It's trying to separate or crush us!”

Thundar swore and sped toward the group with Brutus right behind.

Alex felt dark mana surging again.

Crash!

More walls dropped.

One hit the cave floor inches in front of Thundar and Brutus, separating them from the rest of the team, nearly crushing the cerberus. Another one slammed down behind Claygon and Grimloch, isolating the two giants from the others, while another confined Alex and Theresa.

Stone scraped and grated through the passageways, but now Alex felt the mana retreating. The surge he’d felt that had altered so much stone had been immense: hopefully, its mana wasn’t unlimited and it couldn’t do that too often.

Dark mana flowed downward, building up below.

For an instant Alex felt something pass over the group…like a presence aiming its attention on them. The feeling was familiar: a similar yet distant one to what he’d felt from the dungeon core in the Cave of the Traveller. It was strange.

It seemed to lightly touch them, but if anyone else noticed, there were no sounds of alarm coming from anyone. Then, Alex felt it pause. Suddenly, that odd consciousness rested on him, focusing intently like a watchful eye. It seemed to be searching, examining him for a moment.

Then it recoiled, as if scalded.

For a breath, Alex felt something like emotion surrounding him before it broke contact.

Something very sharp. Something unsettling. Something like…

Recognition.