Chapter 37: A Familiar Embrace

Chapter 37: A Familiar Embrace

After resting and checking on their equipment and Blessings, Clifton and Lilian helped Thorley dress his wound. It was wide, but thankfully, it hadn’t gone too deep.

“Apologies,” Lilian addressed Lucan eventually. “I couldn’t do more. My magic is weakened by the Elder Root.” She glanced upwards.

“It was plenty.” Lucan gave her a reassuring smile. He’d once read something about the Elder Roots interfering with magic. Apparently, only ritualists were unaffected by it.

Cordell got to take a brief glance at his Blessing before Lucan bade them move again. Torches were lit and weapons readied. They crept through the darkened length of the passage slowly and, thankfully, safely. It seemed the Wyrms had alerted each other to their presence and attacked them with all they had.

Once the soft glow of the moss bathed them again, Lucan relaxed. They’d still have to be alert of course, but at least they could see any would-be assailants.

The passage branched again and Lucan had to pick a direction randomly. Cordell marked it and they proceeded. Fortunately, the branching passage didn’t get any narrower, keeping all the characteristics of the previous one.

It only took them a short while to come upon another patch of darkness. It seemed that the Kewmer Wyrms were common in this part of the Labyrinth.

Lucan glanced at Clifton who nodded an affirmation, then he instructed everyone to be ready. He heard Lilian preparing her spell early this time, while the men readied themselves.

Thankfully, this encounter passed by easier than the last one. They’d gotten the measure of the beasts, and Lucan was happy to cut a swath through them. He killed the three that pounced on him this time and assisted Thorley with a fourth and a fifth.

After the last of the beasts had been put down, Lucan ordered a retreat once more. When they were a safe distance away, he allowed them to summon up their Blessings, with the same watch arrangement as last time. He did note that Heath and Ryder weren’t getting the same chances the rest of them were. So, as he summoned his Blessing, he decided that he’d bring one of them up front when they began moving again.

You have slain a lv1 Kewmer Wyrm and absorbed part of its Vital Essence.

You have slain a lv1 Kewmer Wyrm and absorbed part of its Vital Essence.

You have slain a lv1 Kewmer Wyrm and absorbed part of its Vital Essence.

You have slain a lv1 Kewmer Wyrm and absorbed part of its Vital Essence.

You have slain a lv1 Kewmer Wyrm and absorbed part of its Vital Essence.

You have leveled up.

Race: Human

Level: 5

Vital Orbs: 5

Mind and Body

Physique: Iron I 0/15

Spirit: Basic 0/1

Skills (0) 0/100

A chant echoed from behind Lucan, then shards of ice whizzed from above them to meet the incoming mass of man-like beasts. The shards pierced skin and drew purplish blood out of the beasts, yet they didn’t slow their advance.

“Their flesh is full of compressed bone,” Lucan shouted behind him without looking. He heard a whispered complaint in response, then a different chant began and he caught something from the corner of his eye, a globule of water forming above them, its size increasing by the moment. Yet he couldn’t give it much attention as the Ashkievs were upon them.

Thankfully, the beasts were wider than an ordinary man, which forced them to approach their line of four with three of their own and two more following in their wake.

Lucan ended up facing one of them on his own while his three companions handled the other two. “They can summon bone at a moment’s notice. Be vigilant,” he said.

He kept his shield even as Heath discarded his to properly handle his unwieldy greatsword.

The Ashkiev opposite Lucan covered the last yard of distance between them in a much faster step than the norm, forcing Lucan onto the back foot. A fist raced towards him even as he raised his shield to meet it. The impact echoed in his shoulder, but instead of the fist being deflected, he felt it hooked to his shield. Lowering it, he observed three curved bones extended from the beast’s forearm, their sharp tips digging into the steel plate on his shield.

Lucan pushed his shield to the left while his right hand brought his sword for a heavy cut to the Ashkiev’s joint at the elbow. The shift in his shield forced the beast slightly off balance and allowed him to deliver the strike. Again, the beast’s skin easily parted but Lucan’s blade didn’t make it farther than that, several bent bones barring its way. Feeling as though he was grinding against stone, Lucan retracted his sword before the beast’s free arm descended on him with another strike.

He stepped back and wrestled his shield free from the bony hooks. Too late for his shield to intercept, Lucan parried the incoming claw strike with his sword. The claw was deceptively bare, yet once his sword came close, five sharp bones came out where nails would be but longer than any claws he’d seen before. The beast tried to catch his sword with its impromptu claws, but Lucan was vigilant to it, sliding his sword free with a slicing motion and grinding metal against bone. Already, the beast was readying another strike with its recently freed hand.

Frustrated with being on the back foot, Lucan glanced at Heath who was on his left. The man-at-arms had been struggling against his opponent, but a timely intervention from Cordell gifted him the advantage. Seeing that his plan could work without him being impaled by a flanking attack, Lucan angled his shield to the right and shifted himself to stand sideways instead of squared off against the beast.

Meanwhile, the Ashkiev had wound back its originally offending arm and was in the process of trying to skewer him with the bones that now covered its fist in the form of a humongous, twisted spearhead.

With the beast committed to its attack, Lucan succeeded in receiving it on his angled shield as he intended. The bone spear sheared off a layer of steel from his shield while Lucan stepped into the beast’s guard. So close, the beast couldn’t leverage its arms for a timely attack, though Lucan saw bone beginning to protrude from the skin on its side to threaten him. He didn’t wait, however, quickly bringing his prepared sword into a weighty thrust through the Ashkiev’s ribs. The stacked bones in its chest would’ve weathered his assault had he not used Wraith Strike. Instead, his blade, carried by its momentum and his Skill, broke through a bone and slid between the rest, promptly reaching its destination and piercing the heart.

The beast, as though having had its strings cut, collapsed.

Lucan was frustrated by the limited space he had to move, particularly because he couldn’t use the Star properly. So instead of waiting for another beast to come to him from further back, he stepped forward, free of the formation he’d created but assured by Heath’s advantage over his opponent. Lucan immediately noted that instead of two enemies in the rear, he only met one, the other having stepped in place of a fallen comrade that had been facing Ryder.

Before he could clash with their enemies’ reserve of one, a large globe of ice smashed into the beast’s head, driving it to the ground. Lucan didn’t know if it was disoriented or dying, but he wasn’t about to pass the opportunity. He turned on the Ashkiev facing Heath and hamstrung its two legs smoothly. The bones packed in the beast’s legs kept it up, but it still lost most of its maneuverability. It tried to backhand him with a forearm lined with menacingly sharp bones, but he used his Star and moved to the back of the Ashkiev facing Ryder and Cordell. He gave it the same treatment as its peer and only watched briefly as his men-at-arms began to dismantle it.

Then he noted that the one smashed down with Lilian’s globe was rising again. The ice globe, cracked and parts of it splintered, was reforming itself under the mage’s chants. Water was forming on it and freezing visibly.

Again, as he stepped forward to face the rising enemy, the globe impacted its head with a heavy thump, driving it back down. The globe then rose and descended onto the beast’s skull a third and final time before it could recover. The impact made the beast lay down for good, though it also shattered the ice globe. Regardless, Lucan stepped in to ascertain its death, working his blade between the packed bones in its torso until he found a proper gap to slide it through and reach its heart.

Behind him, his men were finishing Heath’s opponent, the last remaining Ashkiev.

As it fell, their narrow battlefield grew quiet except for gasping breaths. Lucan observed the aftermath. Ryder’s stiletto had been a fortunate weapon against the Ashkievs, easily sliding between crowded bones. The quick man-at-arms had made short work of the first beast with assistance from Cordell, the latter having taken it upon himself to keep the two younger men-at-arms on his flanks alive instead of committing to any single fight.

Lucan himself marveled at how much of a difference Wraith Strike had made between him and his men. There was a reason entire lineages sometimes depended on passed-down Skills. Even Kingdoms were somewhat reliant on the Skills passed down among their vassals when it came to their way of war. The mounted men of Bitis, for instance, had most of the Elder Lands’ non-magical ranged Skills passed down from generation to generation. The difficulty of earning a bestowal had made it difficult to spread the most potent Active Skills around, eventually making them a carefully guarded resource.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the perplexed voice of Ryder.

“I’m certain, yes,” Ryder said, addressing Cordell. “The first one I fought was wounded. It wasn’t even walking right.”

Clifton’s voice came from behind to add to their conversation. “The noise, it didn’t make sense either, though I could barely hear it. There’s–”

Before his man-at-arms could finish, Lucan heard the subtle noise of something scratching through the earth. He was standing sideways to keep an eye on the passage further ahead. But the noise was so quiet and came so swiftly that he only had a blink before it grew more aggressive, more...near. A yell from someone coincided with the wall behind him exploding into pieces and peppering him with earth and stone. And then, familiar black arms wrapped around him from both sides and pulled him in.