Chương 40: "We can't beat it"

Ch 40: "We can't beat it" The scout unit emerged into a large open cavern. At the far end was a small single-story building with four langren guards stationed outside. Jatrix slowed from Lope down to a walk and the rest of the unit slowed down to match her pace.

"For those who've never been here before, behold the great fortress of Rockhold," she said with a wry smile. Zhen studied it. For a fortress is was rather underwhelming. It seemed just to be a solid well-made stone building. There was a heavily reinforced door and guards, but otherwise it appeared ordinary. He had spent little time beyond his village before meeting Shuo, yet even to him it seemed somewhat modest for something called a fortress. The guards straightened as Jatrix approached.

She produced a folded document from her pack and had a brief exchange with them before they opened the doors to let them in. Zhen stepped through, then stopped. The building they had come through was merely an entrance. Beyond it stretched a massive hall carved from the rock that framed an extraordinary view at the far end If Ruo-Chen's mansion had offered views of mountains and forests, Rockhold was all heat and glowing stone. A cavern sprawled below Rockhold that stretched out further than he could see.

Vast lakes of molten lava were scattered over the cavern floor below with wisps of smoke rising from their roiling surfaces. The Eye traced the qi flowing through them. Crystals still sporadically provided light but the glow from the lava painted everything a dull red.

"Not what you expected?" Jatrix came up next to him.

"Welcome to the Deadlands." Langren soldiers moved through the hall in organized chaos, carrying reports, weapons, supplies. None of them spared them, or the view, a second glance. Jatrix led them down a wide staircase carved into the cliff face. Zhen glimpsed doorways opening into chambers of barracks, mess halls, and training rooms where soldiers drilled with weapons and techniques. Everything faced outward, to keep watch over the Deadlands through the openings in the rock.

The fortress was the cliff, hollowed out and shaped into a military stronghold that housed thousands. After several minutes they entered what appeared to be an administrative section. The chaos of the upper levels faded away to be, replaced by quiet studiousness. Desks lined the walls with the langren who were sat there working through stacks of papers. Jatrix stopped before a door near the end of the hall. A male langren sat at a desk outside, his fur showing grey at the muzzle. He looked up.

"Scout Captain Jatrix. Welcome." His voice was polite and professional.

"Sentinel-Lord Prave is expecting you. He has asked that you go straight in." The secretary rose and knocked at the door.

"Enter." The voice from inside was crispe and confident. The study beyond was the epitome of military efficiency. Maps covered one wall, marked with various annotations, while a large desk dominated the center, its surface buried under neat stacks of reports. As they entered Jatrix and the scouts saluted the langren who sat behind the desk then stood to attention. Sentinel-Lord Prave was older than Gaarch, his mane streaked heavily with silver. Scars crossed his muzzle and forearms.

His eyes lingered on Zhen before he tuned to Jatrix.

"At ease." Prave's tone was crisp.

"Orders have come down from the highest level. Rockhold stands ready to offer you whatever assistance you require."

"We are grateful, Sentinel-Lord." Jatrix bowed her head.

"We have the supplies we need, and more troops would just slow us down. What would help most is current intelligence about the Deadlands. We are heading deep." Prave's jaw tightened slightly.

"How deep."

"As deep as we can without breaking the Accords." Prave gave her a long look then threw a glance at Zhen before replying.

"There's never a good time to cross the Deadlands." He stood, moving to the wall of maps and tapping a large chart showing the cavern system below.

"But conditions are particularly dangerous at the moment. It's the molten burrowers' mating season." Zhen caught the shift in posture among the other scouts. Even Jatrix, usually relaxed, went still.

"They've risen from the deeper chambers and are congregating throughout the Deadlands." Prave traced several areas on the map.

"That makes them aggressive toward anyone who enters their territory. We've already lost two harvesting teams this week."

"How many?" Jatrix asked.

"Hundreds. Perhaps more. They're everywhere, but they're more prevalent toward the center and ease off again toward the Veinwalkers' border." Prave turned back to face them.

"And that's not all. Both our people and Veinwalker scavenging parties are out in force, trying to harvest the burrowers. You'll be dodging them as well. Beyond that, you'll still have to face the normal dangers in the Deadlands you're already aware of." He paused and a look of frustration came over his face.

"Having said that, the ecosystem in the Deadlands continues to fail. It's slow but it's happening. I've asked many times to lead an expedition to find out what's happening but I've been denied. People in the homelands just don't care what's happening out here on the border. If you spot anything while you're out there I would be grateful to see your full report." The room fell quiet as they all took it in. Zhen was pleased to see that at least some of the langren were bothered about the Thirsting Veins dying.

"I can arrange beds if you wish to spend the night here before you head out," Prave said.

"Thank you, sir, but no. We're on a tight timeline," Jatrix said.

"We leave now." They descended through more levels and the air grew hotter as they went. Finally, they reached a massive gate set into the cliff face. Guards worked a mechanism, and the gate groaned open. Beyond it, a narrow path switchbacked down the rest of the cliff to the cavern floor. Zhen followed the others out. The heat hit him like he was back in the forge and despite his tempered body he started to sweat. He glanced at the others. Somehow, despite their fur, they seemed able to cope.

They reached the cavern floor and set out into the Deadlands using Lope. The air shimmered with the heat, and lava lakes stretched in every direction. The Eye showed Zhen the dense qi flows of fire- and earth-attuned qi twisting together within the lava. The veins of ore had disappeared, but Zhen trusted the langren knew what they were talking about and they would reappear once he reached the Veinwalkers territories.

Occasional langren appeared in the distance, either individuals or small groups, all of who veered away as soon as they spotted the scouts. In the farthest lakes, massive shapes breached the surface. Thirty feet of segmented body that left trails of cooling stone that were visible even from a distance as they moved through the lava. The scout unit moved through the oppressive heat for a few hours until Varth raised his fist. Ahead, a cluster of langren worked on a massive carcass half-submerged in cooling lava.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. The team looked up as their group approached, and Zhen saw their guards put their hands on their weapons. Their leader, a female with rust-colored fur, stepped forward.

"Scout Captain." She dipped her head in respect, though her stance remained cautious.

"You're a long way from Rockhold."

"Passing through." Jatrix gestured at the dead burrower.

"Sentinel-Lord Prave mentioned that it was dangerous right now due to the mating season."

"He wasn't exaggerating." The harvester's ears flicked back.

"Lost sight of my newest tracker yesterday. Found the last pieces of him this morning near the eastern flows."

"Veinwalkers?"

"Spotted three scavenger parties since dawn. They're keeping their distance, but they're harvesting same as us." She turned back to her team, who continued to cut through segments of armored hide.

"Smart money says we all get out fast and avoid each other. No profit in fighting." Zhen circled the burrower's corpse, studying its structure. The segmented plates were scored with deep gouges and fractures, and its jaw hung open to reveal rows of stone-grinding teeth. At the other end it had a wicked stinger that curved from its tail. The Eye showed that, even though it was dead, dense earth-attuned and fire-attuned qi still threaded through the remains. He turned to the team leader.

"I'm impressed. How did you kill something like that?" The harvester's leader barked out a laugh.

"Kill it? You are new, aren't you?" She gestured at the wounds crisscrossing the burrower's hide.

"These beauties do the work themselves. Males fight over the females during the mating season and tear each other apart. We just look for the losers and harvest what's left." Jatrix crossed her arms.

"How is the harvest this year?" The leader's amusement faded. She reached into her pack and pulled out a stone sphere roughly the size of her fist. Veins of crystallized qi ran through its surface, pulsing faintly.

"This is core from this one." She held it up.

"About as good as we've seen in years."

"That's good?" Kames sounded doubtful. She glanced at him.

"Exactly. My grandfather used to tell me that when he was young, cores came out twice this size. Apparently, his grandfather claimed they used to be big as that human's head." She tucked the core away.

"Now? This is our best find in three seasons. Most are smaller. Barely worth all the risk." Zhen frowned. This was another symptom of the problem he was here to solve. The spirit beasts were suffering, their cultivation stunted by whatever was eating away at the heart of the Thirsting Veins.

"We should move," Jatrix said.

"Time's passing." The harvester leader nodded.

"Safe travels, Scout Captain. Watch the northern lakes. Saw movement there this morning that wasn't langren. Also a word to the wise. If you see any of these alive," she gestured to the body of the molten burrower, "run before it works out you're there. Anything else won't end well for you." Bidding farewell to the harvesters they headed off again, leaving the team to their work.

The deeper they moved into the Deadlands, the more densely packed the lava lakes became, and the more frequent their encounters with the molten burrowers. The first one surfaced perhaps half a mile away from them, a massive serpentine form that breached before sending cascades of molten rock across the cavern floor and disappearing again. Two more appeared minutes later, their segmented bodies twisting around each other, biting and stinging.

Every few minutes, another shape broke the surface somewhere in their field of vision. Jatrix raised her fist after a couple of hours bringing them to a halt near a cluster of rock formations.

"Water break. Ten minutes." She turned to Zhen.

"I saw you using Stalker's Prowl against Borin, right?" Zhen nodded"Good. It works in combat, but it's meant for hunting, which is why it's so helpful for us scouts. Let me show you how to use it properly." She crouched low, qi flowing through the meridians in her lower body in a pattern Zhen largely recognized but with a few modifications.

"You're not trying to blend with shadows or move fast. You're trying not to be there in the first place. Make yourself part of the landscape. Flow around the awareness of anyone who is watching." She demonstrated again and her form seemed to blur at the edges. She wasn't invisible, but she was somehow less noticeable. Zhen activated Stalker's Prowl, and after a couple of failures, he was able to adjust his flow of qi to match Jatrix's. Instead of dampening sound and concealing his intent, it made him unremarkable.

Background noise to anything in the Deadlands.

"Good," Jatrix said.

"If a burrower surfaces near us, freeze and let the technique do the work. It won't help if it locks onto you, but this might mean it won't notice you in the first place. Only issue is that you can't use both Stalker's Prowl and Lope at the same time so we have to trade off stealth and speed. For now we move fast." They continued on using Lope to move quickly. Several times they slowed and used Stalker's Prowl to get past burrowers that had gotten too close.

It worked exactly as Jatrix had predicted, allowing them to slip past the giant worms while they fought or languidly swam through the lava. After another few hours the path ahead narrowed between two vast lava lakes. Perhaps a hundred feet of solid ground separating the large molten seas. They were halfway across when Zhen felt a subtle tremor through his feet. His head snapped left and he saw a couple of bubbles lazily rise to the surface of the lake.

"Move…" Jatrix started to say, but she was too late. The lava erupted and thirty feet of molten burrower rose directly beside them, its jaw opening wide enough to swallow any of them. Superheated magma cascaded from its body, spattering across the stone path. Zhen stepped back and used the Eye. The creature's armored hide was infused with earth-attuned qi while he could see fire-attuned qi in the gaps between each segment. The corpse they had seen earlier didn't do justice to the real creature.

This living monster didn't have meridians or a dantian. It was just raw spiritual power bound into a physical form. The burrower's head swung toward them despite them all using Stalker's Prowl. Its jaw gaped and it lunged at them Zhen slammed his palms into the ground. Earth-attuned qi surged through his meridians, pulling stone and rock into a massive barrier between the scouts and the burrower. The creature's jaw closed on the wall and crushed it.

"Spread out!" Jatrix already had her war hammer in her hands.

"We can't beat it, we just need to get past." The burrower lunged again as they scattered. To buy them time to get away, Zhen created another wall, this one angled, trying to deflect rather than block. The burrower crashed through it without slowing. The spikes Zhen formed on the barrier's surface hit the creature's head and simply snapped off. Its skin was too dense and too saturated with earth-attuned qi for his techniques to have any effect. Zhen drew his war hammer and channeled qi into his throat.

He unleashed Growl of the Crushing Maw, the translucent wolf's head surging toward the burrower's face. The creature didn't even flinch.

"It's blind!" Jatrix circled wide, trying to flank.

"But it knows we're here. Don't waste qi on Stalker's Prowl any more." The burrower swung its head as Jatrix tried to dash past it. Its stinger lashed out and she was forced back and almost into the lava. Zhen created a platform of stone in a ramp next to her. She sprinted up it then leaped back onto the path just as the stinger smashed through where she had just been standing. With the instinct of a predator, the burrower fixed on Zhen. Zhen dove aside as it lunged and his war hammer already swinging at it.

The Eye had found a weakness. A finger-width gap of exposed tissue between two segments that was already closing. Zhen struck immediately with the spike end of his warhammer and wrenched it sideways, tearing the gap wider. Superheated black ichor welled up. The burrower shrieked and thrashed, trying to shake Zhen loose. With one hand, Zhen grabbed the broken edge of the segment and held on. With the other, he drove the war hammer's spike into the exposed wound again and again.

Each strike sent the ichor flooding over his arms and burning his skin. The creature's movements grew frantic. It twisted, its segments folding in on themselves as it tried to reach him. Zhen struck one final blow, and the burrower dove down. Zhen barely managed to release his grip before the creature plunged into the lava lake, disappearing beneath the surface in a cascade of molten rock and its own black blood. He landed heavily on the path, breathing hard. Burns covered his forearms.

Nessra had a gash across her shoulder and Varth had a slight limp, but everyone was still standing.

"You all able to move?" Jatrix asked. They all nodded and Zhen looked around as he did and had a spike of panic. More bubbles were rising up from the lava lakes. A lot more. He turned back to the others.

"Run!" They all turned to look at what he was seeing, then sprinted, pushing Lope as hard as they could. Behind them, the lava lakes began to boil. They had barely cleared the narrow path when the Deadlands erupted. Five burrowers breached simultaneously, their massive forms twisting around each other in a frenzy. The stone path where they had fought moments before disappeared under a cascade of molten rock as two burrowers crashed together above it.

The scouts kept moving and didn't slow until the fighting was a distant roar behind them. Jatrix finally raised a fist and called a halt near a cluster of cooling spires. Everyone collapsed, gasping for breath in the hot air.

"Well," Kames said between breaths, "that could have gone worse." Zhen looked back at the battle still raging in the distance and had to agree. They bound their wounds quickly, then pressed on. As they went they passed numerous more lava lakes, their surfaces occasionally disturbed by massive shapes moving beneath. But no more burrowers surfaced near them. After several more hours, Jatrix called a halt.

"I was intending to push through to the border without sleep, but after that fight, we need to rest up in case we face another burrower. We'll camp here." A shallow alcove opened in the cavern wall, barely deep enough to shelter them but offering protection from the worst of the radiant heat. They ate dried meat and hard biscuits from their packs without speaking, too exhausted for conversation.

"One-hour watches," Jatrix said.

"Varth, then Nessra, Kames, Zhen. I'll take the final shift. Four hours' sleep each will have to be enough." Zhen laid out his bedroll and used his pack as a pillow. The stone floor pressed hard against his shoulder, but exhaustion pulled him under within moments. He felt like he had only been asleep for minutes when a heavy hand pressed down on his shoulder. He stirred, groggily assuming it was Kames waking him for his watch. Then something cold and sharp pressed against his neck.