Ebook 8: Chapter 30: Lich-Wyrm

Victor appeared up the scree-covered slope to the darkish cave entrance. It opened into the facet of the hill, some hundred yards from the place he and the others stood. He and the others had been watching one among Arona’s skeletons, the one with the lengthy, hook-clawed arms, scrabble upward. They stood in a slim valley between two rows of low hills. The surroundings was largely barren, with solely stunted timber right here and there, devoid of leaves.

Whereas they stared, hardly shifting, Victor checked out Tyn, who stood on his toes, clearly able to run for his hiding spot. They’d discovered him a spot across the hillside close to a pile of boulders the place he may watch no matter battle unfolded from relative security. “Hey, what the hell do you all eat round right here? Does something develop?”

Arona checked out him and shushed, however Tyn whispered, “Gardens, sir! There are of us who can deal with the soil with earth magic and—”

“Hush!” Arona stated, clapping a slender, pale hand over Tyn’s soiled, soot-stained face. “Grasper sees one thing.”

“Grasper?” Victor whispered.

“My minion.” Arona gestured towards the bony creature who’d, at that second, begun crawling into the cave opening.

Victor frowned, watching the skeleton slink into the darkness. He contemplated calling forth his coyotes and sending them as much as get a glance, nevertheless it appeared Arona had a lot clearer communication along with her minions. She claimed to see by their eyes. He glanced at Arcus, whose fiery fowl nonetheless circled a thousand toes within the air, and commenced to surprise if he shouldn’t attempt to add a brand new totem to his repertoire. He couldn’t assist pondering a flying one can be good—both as a scout like Arcus’s fowl or a mount just like the creature he’d seen Ranish Dar driving.

His thoughts wandered down paths of elder magic and his final expertise on the Spirit Airplane when he’d claimed Guapo. Ought to he inform Dar about these unusual, highly effective beings who’d visited him? How would they match as much as Dar in energy? May his new mentor defend him from these two who’d appeared intent on discovering him once more as soon as he’d ‘ripened’? It was laborious to say as a result of they’d solely given him a glimpse of their energy, and he’d modified lots since then. His musings had been interrupted when the bottom lurched underneath his toes, and an amazing whump of stale air, mud, and particles was thrown from the cave mouth.

“What the—” he began to ask however was reduce off as Arona cried out.

“It comes! Grasper isn’t any extra!”

Victor held Lifedrinker in each palms and watched the cave entrance, quickly constructing the sample for Iron Berserk in his pathways. Arcus had an identical concept—Victor may really feel the waves of warmth radiating from him as he wreathed himself in hearth and commenced to drift above the bottom. Arona had drawn forth a big, black, silver-rune-inscribed bone and set it on the bottom at her toes. “Purchase me a minute or two,” she rasped to nobody particularly. Victor shrugged, solid Iron Berserk, then bunched his large legs and leaped up the hill towards the cave opening.

Lifedrinker had grown considerably as she’d advanced, however she was nonetheless extra of a hatchet than a battle axe when he gripped her in his titanic fist. He held her outstretched in a single hand as he flew by the air and grinned savagely when a goal for his wrath emerged from the cave. The lich-wyrm was a lot as he’d imagined—an amazing, slithering creature of desiccated flesh and bone, wreathed in chilly, blue mist.

Victor had battled an historic wyrm on Zaafor, so he’d been anticipating one thing large. This creature wasn’t half the scale of that nice beast. How may it’s with such a lair? The wyrm he’d helped to kill on Zaafor wouldn’t have begun to slot in that cave opening. Nonetheless, this monster was in all probability 100 toes lengthy, with a physique as large round as a horse’s stomach. Its fangs had been like sabers, and it moved much more rapidly than Victor had anticipated—it had shot out of the cave and glided down the slope earlier than his leap ended, and he crashed onto the stony floor outdoors the cave.

The lich-wyrm was driving towards Arona, seemingly angered by her minion and tracing it to the supply. As a pillar of flames erupted from the bottom, flipping the monster onto its facet and sending it careening down the slope, Victor didn’t hesitate and solid Vitality Cost, fueling it with glory-attuned Vitality. He streaked over the damaged floor, gliding over the stones and damaged timber like a comet of glowing golden Vitality. Because the bony serpent fought to proper itself, he crashed into its facet with a violent concussion. His impression shattered bones, and misty blue Vitality erupted from the purpose of impression because the lich-wyrm flopped over in a tumble to the bottom of the hill.

His spell had protected him, as typical, nevertheless it had additionally stopped his momentum on the level of impression. Because the mud and mist cleared, he noticed the serpent-shaped skeleton shift, righting itself, as its damaged bones quickly regrew, filling within the injury Victor had executed. He was getting ready one other assault, bunching his legs to leap down the hill, when the sky darkened, and a swirling maelstrom of fireside appeared over the valley. Victor paused to look at as a handful of tumbling boulders alight with flames and trailing black smoke emerged from the cloud, falling like meteors towards the monster.

Victor knew all too nicely how a lot that spell damage. He glanced again at Arona as he waited for the flaming boulders to do their injury, unwilling to dive into the fray solely to be blasted again by the concussion. Arona was standing, arms large, sheathed in a scirocco of blue Vitality as her black bone stretched and multiplied, taking the type of a gargantuan, four-legged skeleton. It reminded Victor of museum exhibitions—shows of predatory dinosaurs. The factor, composed of black bones and claws, appeared like a cross between a Tyrannosaurus rex and an elephant. It had 4 legs ending in scythe-like claws, a physique fifteen toes excessive on the shoulders, and a head like an infinite crocodile.

The bottom shook, and a roar like a collection of bombs going off introduced Victor’s eyes again round to the destruction wrought by Arcus’s spell. The lich-wyrm had been obscured by mud, smoke, and hearth. Even so, he noticed the blue glow of its Vitality and caught glimpses of lengthy, yellowed bones shifting about within the destruction—it wasn’t lifeless. That was all he wanted to know; he charged down the hill into the lingering flames and choking smoke, and when he ran up in opposition to the beating monster, furiously working to restore its shattered bones, he went to work with Lifedrinker.

As he fought, beams of fireside lanced by the black smoke, scorching the monster, after which Victor was joined by Arona’s skeletal monstrosity because it trampled down the hill and smashed into the bony wyrm, flipping it over. Victor laughed and summoned his magma lash, whipping it forwards and backwards, wrapping it round bones, and yanking them out of the monster as the hearth burned the creature’s desiccated scales to ash. Lifedrinker cut up by bone after bone, and when she met the traditional armored conceal of the monster, she tore it like paper.

Victor chuckled and stepped over to the child. He grasped ahold of the fang and gave it a jerk, cracking it out of the brittle jawbone. “Right here you go.” As soon as Tyn took the mighty tooth, a glance of surprise in his eyes, Victor reached up and wriggled Lifedrinker forwards and backwards till she slipped freed from the cranium. “Have a great drink?” he requested, slinging her again into her harness. She didn’t reply with phrases, however he felt a wave of satisfaction from her.

A bizarre, grinding clatter caught his consideration, and he appeared towards the sound solely to see Arona’s bone monster collapsing into tons of of smaller bones that rolled over the stony floor to gather in a clump. It shivered and vibrated till it had condensed into the singular, black, rune-covered bone from which she’d summoned the creature. “We must always take a look at the monster’s lair, sir!” Tyn cried, already struggling to climb up the steep slope. Victor nodded and stooped to select up Arona’s bone.

“Don’t!” she cried, midway down the hillside on her method, little doubt, to gather the bone herself. Victor held it as much as present he meant no hurt, striding towards her. It was dense and heavy like lead, and the chilly that radiated from it was nearly uncomfortable, nevertheless it didn’t trouble his Quinametzin flesh a lot. She snatched it rapidly when he held it out to her, after which it disappeared into one among her containers.

“Isn’t it acutely aware?”

“After all!” she hissed, clearly flustered that he’d had her treasured merchandise in his grasp. Victor shrugged and began climbing towards the cave. He’d requested as a result of he nonetheless considered dimensional containers as unsafe for acutely aware beings, however he wasn’t stunned that Arona may afford a better high quality one which allowed for it. When he reached the opening, he discovered it brightly illuminated by fiery orbs and noticed Arcus digging by the bones and particles strewn about.

Tyn was climbing ever deeper, scrabbling over rocks and kicking piles of small bones, and Victor determined to let him and Arcus dig round. He didn’t essentially belief any of those folks, however he had a sense the child would cry out in the event that they discovered something. He stood within the opening and turned, folding his arms over his chest, surveying the unusual, darkish panorama of the pocket world. From the cave mouth, he may see fairly a methods, and judging by the moon, he was dealing with “north.”

Past the hills and the ruins the place he’d come into the dungeon, it appeared like some darkish, large mountains climbed towards the sky within the excessive distance. He was stunned to see a faint yellow glow within the facet of a type of distant peaks, and, squinting in opposition to the gloom, he was moderately positive they had been both tons of of little fires or, maybe, the lights of a city. “Rumble City, possibly,” he mused.

“I believe you’re proper,” Arona rasped, startling him. One way or the other, she’d approached and stood on the cave entrance with him.

Victor exhaled in irritation, reaching behind himself to press his palms into his decrease again as he stretched. “Why do I really feel like we’re losing our time going to this ‘Enclave’? One thing in my intestine’s telling me that Rasso Hine is up there, on that mountain.”

“I’ll see what I can study.” Arona reached into her darkish robes and pulled out a transparent, pale-blue crystal. With a surge of chilly Vitality, she threw it out of the cave mouth into the air, and it burst right into a misty cloud. With a despondent wail, the cloud coalesced into an ethereal, ghost-like factor that quickly surged by the air to the north, fading from sight in seconds.

“Shit,” Victor grunted. “Didn’t know you may try this.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know, berserker.” The phrases had been a dig—a little bit of ribbing, possibly—however her gentle, raspy voice and the finality of her tone made them sound extra like a confession. Victor checked out her, the moonlight making her pale face much more so than typical, however her darkish eyes had been centered on the black night time sky, and he or she didn’t have interaction his gaze. Earlier than he may query her additional, Tyn whooped from deeper within the cave.

“A chest!” his youthful voice cried. Victor couldn’t assist grinning, wishing he may share his prediction-come-true with a buddy. He turned to look and noticed a flare of fiery magic as Arcus summoned a disk of floating, flaming Vitality.

“He’ll deliver it forth,” Arona stated. “I’ve delved into many a dungeon with that man-child. That disc is one thing he makes use of to hold burdens.” Victor nodded, all of the sudden feeling like he was lacking out when it got here to utility spells. He questioned if he may persuade his bear to tug a chest out of a cave for him. A couple of minutes later, positive sufficient, Arcus and Tyn got here marching out of the cave with a big, iron-bound chest atop Arcus’s magical, floating desk of fiery Vitality.

When Victor stepped shut, holding out a hand, curious as to why it wasn’t burning the chest, he discovered the flames to be solely heat, not even scorching sufficient to burn paper. Arcus waved his pink rod, and the disc lowered to the stone flooring and sputtered out, leaving its burden behind. It was massive—giant sufficient to carry Tyn if he needed to twist up inside. Victor reached for the clasp however paused, trying on the others. “Can I open it?”

“It’s protected,” Arcus stated. “I disrupted the entice runes.” His phrases, as soon as once more, reminded Victor of his ignorance, however he shrugged and opened the heavy lid, exposing a pile of glittering treasures, one among which was a brightly glowing, rainbow-hued orb identical to the one Arona had gotten from the demise wind. He heard Arcus’s consumption of breath and Arona’s shifting toes, so Victor stepped again, afraid spells had been about to start out flying.

“Calm down, you two,” he growled. “Let’s take inventory of all of the treasure earlier than we fear about who will get that orb.”