Darryck halted abruptly, one hand raised. My breath stilled as did my body. So did Myccael.
Ahead, barely visible in the wavering light, was another sign. A small knife. Human-made. Wedged into the wall at shoulder height.
“Thalia’s blade,” Darryck whispered.
I recognized it too. The handle was wrapped in the black-and-silver weave she favored. A gift from Myccael, once upon a time. It hadn’t left her hip in rotations.
“She’s marking territory,” I murmured, awe creeping into my voice. “This is some kind of message; they’re not just running. They’re fighting.”
“They’re stalling,” Myccael added. “Giving us time.”
“Let's not waste it,” I said, my voice hard now.
We kept moving, deeper into the mountain’s guts. The tunnel angled downward, the floor slick with something too dark to be water. The stench shifted from damp moss to rot and bile, so thick I could taste it. I exchanged a look with Myccael and Darryck. We all felt it. The air was wrong here. Heavier. Charged.
As if on command, all three of us stopped, our warrior instincts taking over before we even heard it: a faint scrape of claw on stone.
Then another.
With a loud screech, the breathless silence was shattered. A shriek echoed down the corridor like a jagged blade as a mass of flesh and fangs barreled from the shadows. Eulachs. The first one fell from the ceiling, mouth open in a snarl, eyes crazed with bloodlust and filled with the singular stupidity of a predator that has never been beaten. He didn't stand a chance against my sword, which was already out as I shouted, “Ambush!”
Steel met flesh in a clash that rang through the hollow bones of the mountain. Another Eulach came from the side tunnel, then another from behind. We were surrounded. The three of us turned back-to-back in an instant, a circle of steel and fury.
“Watch for a super,” I barked between gritted teeth. “They hang back. Discharge a Zuten weapon and damn the consequences.”
“I’d rather fight three at once than be on the receiving end of one of those snygging things,” Myccael growled, ducking low as a claw swiped at his head. He drove his blade up through its jaw with one smooth movement.
“They don’t come to fight,” Darryck added darkly, cleaving through the thick skin of one lunging Eulach. “They come to end it.”
The Eulachs were faster than those we’d fought before. Stronger, too. As if they’d evolved overnight. And they weren’t just attacking, they were coordinating, driving us backward toward a funnel point.
“We’re not getting pinned,” I snarled, slamming my boot into the kneecap of a charging beast, then driving my sword into its exposed flank.
“On your left!” Myccael warned, whirling to cover me, but Darryck was already there, his blade slicing clean through the Eulach’s arm at the elbow.
It happened again; in a blink, the air changed. My skin prickled. My senses screamed.
“Watch out!” I barked.
We were still fighting off the first wave of Eulachs when something stepped into the flickering light at the far end of the tunnel. Larger than the rest. Taller. Its skin was glossier, darker, as if it had been dipped in obsidian and left to harden. But it wasn’t just its size that turned my blood to ice; it was what it held—a Zuten pulse weapon.
“Super,” I hissed.
The thing raised its arm. The weapon began to hum. I lunged forward, but too many Eulachs were in my way. I would never reach the thing before it discharged the weapon, uncaring that it would kill its own army.
"Cover me," Darryck yelled, and without hesitation, fully trusting that Myccael and I would do just that, he pulled Thalia’s dagger from his belt and threw it. The blade spun end over end, flashing once in the dim light.
It hit the beast just below its throat, straight through its unnatural flesh.
The scream that followed was not of pain; it was offury.It reverberated off every wall. Pierced bone. The ground shook beneath our feet.
And worse—it was echoed.
A howling broke out throughout the tunnels. Dozens of voices. All in the same unholy timbre. As if killing this one hadwounded them all.The super Eulach convulsed, then collapsed. The pulse weapon sparked uselessly as it hit the ground.
The other Eulachs seemed to falter, but we didn’t. As one, we drove forward, cutting, cleaving, snarling. They tried to scatter, but there was no escape. Not this time. When the last one hit the floor, Myccael bent over, breathing hard.
“We lost the element of surprise,” he said flatly.
