Chapter 31 – The Butcher’s Corner

Hump gathered his will and prepared another Rockshot, reaching out for the stone shards that lay scattered across the ground from where he’d blasted apart the wall the day before.

Vamir dodged the salamander’s charge with an easy motion, spinning out of the way and appearing at the creature’s side. He moved like a wraith, so smooth and quick that it was as if he were gliding rather than walking. He swung his blade in a smooth arc, carving a silver line through the air as it sliced across the creature’s torso. The chamber hummed with the ring of steel, but the salamander didn’t falter. It charged past, its weight and speed making it impossible for it to stop on time. It tripped and tumbled, its large body knocking aside the cages that remained, before crashing into the back wall. The chamber shook. As it struggled to its feet, it let loose a panicked shriek and licked frantically at its side.

Hump couldn’t turn his eyes away. At first, he saw no wound. As it writhed though, tiny droplets of blood trickled out from a line across the side of its torso, thin as a papercut. But as the blood forced the wound apart, the flow increased, until it all came gushing out at once and coated the salamander’s scales in red.

One of the villagers tried to slip past and get into the tunnel, but his movement drew the salamander’s attention. Its pupils dilated, and then it sprung forward in a wild charch, barrelling through the cages that blocked its way. Blood and innards spilled across the ground in its wake, but the pain only seemed to have enraged it. The villagers backed away from it, two men stood at the front, wielding their tool handles like spears to try and keep it back. Behind them, a woman and another man clutched at two children, driven back into the bloody corner.

They struck the creature on its side, and it screamed. “Oi! Over here!” Hump shouted at the beast. Its head whirled on him, its one remaining good eye looking furious. He gritted his teeth against the tendrils of cold that quickly spread from his core and muttered the incantation for Light and directed the beam into the creature’s eyes.

It recoiled and Bud charged in from the side, his sword ablaze with frostfire. He drove the sword into its chest from behind its foreleg, while Celaine took the chance to leap onto its back. Her boots crackled with green light as she flipped elegantly onto its back, landing at the base of the neck and driving a dagger into the gap at the back of its skull.

The creature grunted, letting out a pained huff of breath. It staggered side to side as if it were drug, then thudded to the ground, its legs splayed beneath it. It kicked at the ground, trying to get its legs back underneath it, trying desperately to stand.

Hump rushed forward, jamming his staff into the wound to its side and channelling essence. “Blast!”

Energy erupted into the salamander’s exposed flesh. Its stomach ballooned, and blood gushed out even more profusely than before. And finally the beast went still. Celaine slid from its back as Bud pulled his sword free. The stench of blood made Hump gag, but when he heard Vamir’s order he forced himself to stop.

“Get them out!” Vamir shouted. Kobolds spilled out of the tunnel and encircled him, their small figures armed with clubs, spears, and rusty swords. When they came at Vamir, he lunged forward.

Vamir held the ground at the tunnel entrance alone. Silver light streamed from his blade like white hot magnesium. His blade was too fast to follow, but Hump could see the trails that followed it, carving patterns in the air that reminded Hump of runes. He dodged and cut aside javelins, each movement flowing into the next, his blade finding flesh with ease as he danced between the kobold ranks. His speed was inhuman, yet it was still not enough to fend off so many.

The cowardice of the beasts was gone. Led by three of the yellow finned commanders, they were organised and angry. They slipped past Vamir’s defence and into the chamber, attacking at his flanks and rear, each time it forced Vamir back further. Forced him to retreat so as not to become fully ensnared. That left the kobolds room to come after the rest of them.

“Bud, help Vamir,” Celaine said. “We’ve got this. Keep them back as long as you can.”

Bud nodded, stepping up beside the ranger.

Celaine moved to stop kobolds approaching from the right side of the chamber, trying to cut off the villagers’ route to the tunnel, while two more raced at Hump from the left.

They snarled, tongues flickering from their mouth like a snake’s, each carrying a wooden club. Hump retreated from them and toward the tunnel entrance, nearly tripping over a broken piece of one of the cages as he went. One of the kobolds ran at him, and Hump jabbed at it with his staff. There was no magic in the blow, but he struck it hard in the centre of its chest, making use of his superior reach.

The kobold went reeling, stumbling back as the second one struck out with its club. Hump raised his staff in both hands to catch the blow. The impact of the club reverberated along his staff and jarred his hands, but the club slid down along the staff. It caught Hump’s fingers and he helped, releasing his grip with one hand and using the other to swing the crystal focus down like a mace.

The kobold scampered back out of range and snarled, its mouth twisting into a toothy grin. Hump glared at the sinister creature and gathered his will.

Behind it, the second was back on its feet and a third had joined their attack. They came at him, screeching with their weapons raised. Alone, the small creatures weren’t much of a threat, but Hump knew better than to try and fight three of them.

He gathered essence and waited for them to step close. He was struggling for power, so there was no point wasting it at a distance. Instead, he tiptoed back, put on a worried face, and clutched his staff with both hands defensively. He looked between them, waiting. Even when they had an advantage the cowardly creatures feared a wizard. When one of them shouted something, and the last one to join them charged forward, Hump decided to remind them why.

He levelled his staff at the creature and channelled his essence into it. “Blast,” he snarled, and hurled his essence at the closest creature, focusing it into as small a space as he could. The wave of blue energy punched into the creature’s stomach, propelling it back and into the kobold directly behind it. It hit the ground rolling, and when it came to a stop its chest was caved in. Blood trickled from its mouth. The second kobold stood and positioned itself behind the first.

Hump gathered essence into his staff once more. With no time to prepare, and little wizardfire still inside him, he didn’t have many more attacks like that left in him. But it startled them and made them hesitate for a moment. A moment Hump could use to reach the tunnel entrance. To reach escape.

He used the chance to take note of the rest of the battlefield. Bud held Vamir’s flank, keeping the kobolds off his back and doing what he could to prevent any from passing. The knight moved as if he weren’t injured at all. His blade roared with frostfire, and an icy aura hung around him so thick that it made the air shimmer. Every few seconds they retreated another step.

Hump started to think about what they’d do next. Even if they reached the tunnel, the kobolds were still on their tail, and there was no sign of reinforcements from Oswald. They’d need to run all the way back to the forward fortification before they’d have help, and with this many villagers the kobolds would have more than enough time to pick them off.

The two kobolds coming for Hump backed away as he reached the safety of the tunnel entrance. Half a dozen villagers guarded it with him, warding off the kobolds with their makeshift weapons. One had already fallen to a kobold javelin through the chest, but the others roared in defiance as they held a route for the few remaining villagers to escape.

But as the kobolds backed away from Hump, they set their eyes on a different prey. A little girl and her younger brother were clutching each other in the butcher’s corner. The woman that had been with them was dead, her blood disappearing into the red stained ground.

Hump’s heart sank. The two kobolds rushed them. One of the children screamed and Hump let out a reluctant sigh. He wasn’t made for this. Chosen were the heroes that were meant to sacrifice themselves for the children, not wizards. Damn every bloody god above.

He began the mutterings of a spell, drawing upon the shattered stone that lay around him on the ground. Celaine beat him to it. A dagger flew through the air and embedded itself in the temple of the closest kobold. Before he’d even had a chance to gather essence, Celaine dashed past him, crossing the distance to the kobolds. She pulled her blade free of the dead kobold, slipped around a panicked thrust from the second, and buried her blade into its heartstone. She turned to glare at the others that came for them, face contorting into a snarl.

“Get out of here!” Celaine shouted.

Four more kobolds had broken off from those that were attacking Bud and Vamir, and came at Celaine in a circular formation, their teeth bared in a retaliatory snarl. The children screamed, backing even further into the corner. Celaine mouthed what Hump took for a curse.

Hump turned his power on them with his staff. “Rockshot!” he barked, unleashing the hail of stones into the group. Two fell to the ground, dead immediately, while the others were just sent staggering. Hump strode closer. He didn’t have the essence left for another shot like that, not at that range.

“Blast!” he said, sending off another wave of essence as the two righted themselves. Cold surged from his core, and he gasped. The essence staggered them, and Celaine whirled in to finish the job. She lacked Vamir’s reach, but right there she seemed just as fast, piercing their heartstones in two swift blows.

“Come on,” Hump said, rushing over to the two children and lifting them to their feet. He ushered them forward, but they didn’t move on their own. Hump looked over at the men at the tunnel entrance. “Help us!”

They looked at each other hesitantly, then an old man ran out from behind them. Hump pushed the children toward him and turned to face the next threat. More kobolds were coming, closing the gap that he and Celaine had just made. Behind him, he heard the villagers scramble free.

Hump swung his staff at a kobold as it charged in to cut them off, but a second cracked him hard on the shoulder. He cried out in pain, falling to the bloody ground. The ground was sticky with blood. The pain clouded his mind. He wanted to gag just from the smell, but he forced himself to roll onto his back.

The villagers had made it through, now he and Celaine just had to get out. He struck out from the ground with his staff, taking out the legs of one of the kobolds as another came at him with a spear.

Instinct kicked in, fear and desperation what little fire was left in him. He raised his staff and whispered, “Shield.” A thin sheet of power expanded before him, blocking the spear, and catching the body of another kobold as it charged for him with a sword. The creature struck it hard and stumbled back, disoriented by the invisible wall. Others crowded around it, slamming at it with their weapons and jarring Hump back with the force of each impact. He screamed, icy cold flooding through his arms.

Hump felt Celaine grip him by his shoulders and drag him back along the floor, as kobolds flung themselves at his shield, bashing at it to get through. The kobolds flung themselves after them, bashing against the shield, screaming with predatory rage. From this angle, their small bodies looked ravenous. They looked hateful, and they were out for vengeance. Through the mass of bodies, he saw Bud and Vamir trying to fight their way through, but another salamander had entered the chamber, blocking the space between them, and pressing them back.

“Celaine!” Vamir roared.

“We’re alive,” Celaine yelled back. “We’re going in the hole. Run!”

Hump couldn’t hear a response.

“What?” Hump asked, he glanced over his shoulder. He saw the butcher’s tool rack, and the black pit in the corner. “Bad idea!”

“Only idea,” Celaine restored.

Hump gritted his teeth then nodded. “Fine.” He released his shield for just a moment, then channelled every bit of essence he had left into his staff. “Blast.”

The wave of force blasted the kobolds out of reach. Celaine dragged him, and Hump rolled with her, diving straight into the hole. Then there was only darkness.

He hit the ground hard, something cracking beneath him. He groaned. The shadows swam around him. His head and right arm throbbed with sudden pain. He heard something land nearby, and forced himself to roll over, only to see Celaine’s green eyes staring down at him, swimming with green essence, a vertical pupil running through the middle of them. The only source of light in the darkness.

Those were no human eyes.