Chương 43

Divide them. Alone, everyone is a target. The Aberrant crashed into the cavern with graceless rage, and everyone scattered before it. Everyone except Zana, who had barely made his feet before the Aberrant's dinner plate-sized paws crushed him into the dirt. Gleaming claws flexed, and the camouflaging bandit was no more. The Aberrant screeched, its heavy jaws soaked with thick drool. Another corpse dropped from its teeth, pieces of them scattering amid the dirt. The bandit who ran off…

The creature hesitated, its beady eyes sweeping through the room. Up close, Harker could easily spot the Sea's influence on the beast. It had been some sort of badger at first, big and hulking as all their ilk, but now it had mutated into a cross with a pike. A long, strong tail lashed behind its massive body, and its head swung to the side. Spiky dorsal fins on its back flexed with the motion as its beady eyes took in the three figures before it. Depth-Twisted. That's what Vilkos had called it.

A stage worse than Sea-Maddened, it was a Bestial Aberrant that had been exposed to an intense amount of the Sea. The fishy mutations were clear signs of that, as well as the madness that boiled off the creature like smoke.

"The sedation wore off! It'll kill us all!" Vilkos scrambled back, his legs not quite supporting his weight. Water flushed around him, blurring through his limbs and granting him strength. He seized a pack near the fire and ran for the exit.

"Get him!" Adhira flourished her axe.

"I'll keep this thing busy." Harker didn't argue, the difference between challenge and suicide suddenly clear as day. He ran after the bandit leader, but only made it three steps before the Aberrant stomped after him. It scored the earth with its claws, jaws stretching out to snap him up, but Adhira crashed into its side.

"You're mine, beastie!" She slammed the creature with the full force of her axe and body and the Aberrant tipped sideways. One of its paws lifted, but it dug into the loose soil and shoved back. Adhira was tossed off, but she wasn't done. Her axe was already spinning, looping through a vicious arc before slamming through the beast's scales. It bit through its hardened flesh, spraying ichor across the ground. The creature yowled, its voice sharp and gravelly at the same time.

Claws raked at her, but she blocked them with the haft of her axe in a shower of sparks.

"You're strong!" she laughed, a manic grin stretching her face.

"Show me what you've got!" Adhira grunted, her arms and legs straining as the monster's sheer mass fell atop of her. Without warning, the canny beast pivoted, rotating its heavy body into a twisting motion. Claws dripped with some sort of clear liquid and scrabbled against her weapon, but Adhira spun away, casting its weight into the earth. It dropped, shaking the ground, before it caught a slash from the girl's looping counterstrike. Ichor splattered the ground. It growled, unphased. Adhira twisted her axe.

"Perhaps some help, Harker!" It wasn't to be. The tunnel behind them rumbled and a series of higher-pitched bellows followed. Three more of the same badger-like creatures charged toward the cavern, all of them smaller than their big brother. Their backs were no taller than Harker's chest, but they bore the same spiked dorsal fins and gleaming scales amidst their black and white fur.

"Change of plans!" Adhira slashed at the Aberrant's furious paw again.

"You take the little ones, and I'll handle the big one!"

"Sounds good to me!" Harker ran, bending low as he went to scoop up his knives just as the smaller Aberrants broke into the cavern. They moved like water, their heavy limbs clawing open the earth with every step. Lacking the frantic aggression of their bigger brother, they also weren't as mutated. No tails and far less scales decorated their hide. Easier to kill. Harker threw his knives, but the first two failed to penetrate their hide. The third even richocheted off its eyes.

They did, however, catch the monsters' attention. The creatures swarmed him, snapping at him as they drove him back toward the cavern wall. Harker darted out of their reach, staying just ahead of their wicked claws, but couldn't best their speed. The Aberrants surrounded him, cutting off his escape down either tunnel.

"Clever." Harker brandished his blue dagger and fished out a length of vine. One of the Aberrants lunged at him, testing his range. Harker flinched back but snapped his vine forward. The Aberrant caught it in their jaws and he twitched the length. The end of the vine looped around the beast's head and caught against itself. Harker pulled tight.

"Got you!" The Aberrant threw its head back and Harker was nearly pulled from his feet.

"Gah!" He held on, dagger slashing toward the other two that tried to flank him.

"Sovereign Sight!" With at least one of the Aberrants holding still, he flared his Talent. The shaped cone of it cut straight through the beast. There was a token resistance, but it was paper before the knife of his attention and it gave way almost immediately. Sacred Depths… Inside of the monstrosity was a network of liquid stars. Tributaries, or something like them, cut across mundane flesh and organs like rivers of light amidst islands of shadow. The Sea had changed them, but they were still beasts.

He could feel their thudding heartbeat, see the flex of their forelimbs and taste the foul heat of their breath. The Aberrant pulled back again, but Harker felt it before it happened. He stepped into it, avoiding the lunge of its packmate and slashing his dagger at the third, scoring a wound across its snout. They retreated, and Harker pressed through their flesh. He gagged as he tasted the wet depths of their offal, parting the dark byways between those rivers of light.

Muscles bunched and organs squelched, but it center could not hide. Harker found it, the point where all blue-green starlight converged and pumped outward. There you are! The reservoir was in their bellies, close to their groin. It was heavily protected by their broad back, heavy limbs, and the scales that dotted their hide. Now I just need to get to it. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

He hopped back, letting his grip slacken on the vine as a claw scattered the ashes of the fire pit.

"You don't think that.." he darted left.

"... you'd be willing to roll over for me, do you?" The creatures bellowed at him, foam flecking their maws. Harker ran, the small Aberrants chasing after him. He reeled back his Talent, pulsing it around him to keep aware of his surroundings—and he never let go of the vine. It was still looped around the creatures neck, and as he ran around the fire pit, Harker had an idea.

"C'mon! I thought you were trying to eat me?" The Aberrants ran forward, jaws wide and eager—just as Harker looped the end of the vine around the log. The beast leaped over it, and was immediately snapped back as the log half-lifted from the ground. It fell, crashing sideways in a spray of sandy soil. Harker lunged, darting through its flailing limbs to sink his blue dagger into its belly. The point of light cracked as his blade cut deep, spraying Water in a gush of ichor and worse fluids. The Aberrant went limp.

One down. The others crowded in, a new ferocity in their movements. Harker scrambled back, barely retrieving his dagger before taking off toward Adhira… and their big brother.

"What are you bringing them here for?" she shouted, axe deflecting another massive paw. The Aberrants followed Harker, hounding his steps as he ran full out.

"Don't worry! I have a plan!"

"Does that include getting me slaughtered?" Adhira jumped back, but the enormous beast hit her with his tail. The heavy appendage took her fully off her feet, slamming her into the far wall with a resounding crack. Panic jolted through Harker, his breath catching in his lungs like it had thickened—but the girl was fine. He needed to be more concerned with himself.

"C'mon you great lump!" Harker barely kept ahead of the two remaining beasts as he raced toward their bigger brother.

"No weapon! No armor! Easy meal!" The greater Aberrant didn't have to be convinced. It leapt forward, pouncing toward Harker with all of its mighty weight. His Talent screamed at him and immediately he could see where the paws wouldn't be—Harker dove for it. He landed in a rough tangle, the remains of his tattered cloak sheared from his body entirely, but otherwise hale and whole. The lesser Aberrants weren't deterred.

They swarmed around their big brother's paw, jaws and claws reaching for Harker's defenseless back. He spun, Talent warning him of their approach—and of the greater Aberrant's ponderous, heavy swipe.

"Bye." He fell backward, just out of range, and the greater Aberrant smashed into the lessers. They tumbled end over end, fur, scales, and blood spraying into the air. Harker rolled to his feet, already scrambling toward the first of the fallen creatures. It writhed on its back, nearly righting itself when he lunged. His blue dagger cut deep, spearing through its reservoir. The creature gave a ragged yowl and fell limp. Two down! The greater Aberrant did not like that.

A gleaming red filled the Aberrant's eyes, glowing so bright it lit up the small cavern. The greater beast roared, opening a heavy maw to reveal a smaller set of jaws inside. Harker ran. The beast chased after. Its first step demolished the firepit, scattering its ashes and extinguishing its light in a single bound. Only the crimson glow of its wrathful gaze provided any light, too little to make out much more than the huge masses of monster that chased him down.

"Sovereign Sight!" His Talent pulsed ceaselessly, updating Harker on every step he took as he darted between scattered logs, piles of equipment, and the eager jaws of the lesser Aberrant. It hounded him almost as closely as the larger one, except it was faster. Every time Harker tried for a tunnel, the lesser beast cut him off. Twice the spiked fins on its forelimbs slashed into him, worsening the cuts he'd gotten from the bandit leader, and Harker's dagger still found no purchase against its scaled hide.

If he were anyone else, he wouldn't have tried again, but the lesser beast flinched when Harker swung for its eyes. It was all the hesitation he needed. Harker scrambled past the lesser Aberrant as the wind kicked up into a terrible gale. He twisted, wrenching his body sideways as wet claws swiped right over and under his path—and directly into the lesser Aberrant. The beast was torn apart. Ichor and offal sprayed against his back, and the last remaining Aberrant howled in unmistakable wrath.

He risked a look back and regretted it. The beast's fur stuck up on end, its dorsal fins quivering, and a scattering of sparks leapt between them all. Oh no. It shot forward, lightning gathering between its fins and head as it covered the distance in two massive strides. A deep, rushing wave followed behind it. Nothing physically present, but it roared against Harker's soul. The Sea within him roared back, flooding his reservoir with the untempered waters.

Sovereign Sight flared within him, telling Harker everything about the attack to come. Angle, pitch, intensity of heat, and the stink of ozone—he simply could do nothing to stop it.

"MOVE!" Adhira crashed into him, sending Harker sprawling a dozen feet down the cavern. Harker's world spun, a thousand impressions shattering and reforming as his Talent tried to sort through an explosion of sound and an impact enough to shake the cavern. He gasped. She stood in the beast's sparking jaws, but Adhira's axe kept it from closing. The haft and tri-blades were wedged between its teeth, and ichor poured from its lips, its gums splitting beneath the weight of its own fury.

"Torpor!" A wave of ennervation rolled through the Aberrant, and it looked like it wasn't the first time she'd hit the beast with her Talent. Its movements had finally become visibly sluggish, but she hadn't accounted for the lightning. The gathered bolts shot forward, blasting Adhira out of its mouth along with her bloodied axe. The Aberrant fell back, a deep, maddened whimper shaking the air of the cavern. It circled, pawing at its own face as lightning rained across its head. Adhira wasn't done, though.

"Leave this one to me, Harker." He finally managed to sit up.

"Gladly."

"Bulwark!" She ran forward, Water trailing behind her before a surging wall shot her up into the air at an angle.

"Jet!" The back-blade of her axe spat out a violent stream of liquid, sending her and the weapon spinning in a blurring wheel of screaming death. She tore across the creature, ripping through its back and leaving a trail of fountaining ichor before she impacted the far wall. Her feet braced against it, sideways as Jet propelled her into the vertical surface.

"One last go! Bulwark!" She jumped, and the wall erupted beneath her at the same time. Jet sent her and her axe hurtling back into the Aberrant's back side, and she landed blade-first deep in its haunches. Neck cording like steel wires, Adhira screamed as she heaved her axe down—and through—the monstrosity. It's hip sheared in half. The Aberrant howled, its lost limb flailing as it careened sideways with an earthshaking crash. Harker flung his finger toward its fallen form.

"The reservoir! It's in its belly." Adhira nodded. Her Jet had faded, but her axe still gleamed, deadly as ever. She stood up, dripping blood, and sauntered to the weakened beast.

"Sink swiftly, damn beast." The creature growled, lunging for her a final time—but not before Adhira brought her axe down. It cut through unarmored flesh and fat before directly bisecting the reservoir within. A gush of blue-green Water sprayed from the edges of the wound and the beast fell limp. The crimson light in its eyes flickered and died out entirely.