B4 Interlude 26: Strangspine, pt. 9

An icy chill shot through his veins as Bronwyn felt his stomach drop. The statue. The totem — It was alive, a thinking creature. And it was controlling the beasts.

He might have lacked an identification skill, but he knew it was strong. Too strong for them. He could see it in the way it moved, in the sheer weight of that strange energy that rolled off it. And, more than anything else, the sheer volume of beasts that had fallen under its command.

They had to leave. Now.

Gods’ scorn. He should have listened to Yanera and Julis.

“Flee,” he hissed, slamming his feet into the ground as he brought his shield up to cover their retreat.

His friends moved flawlessly.

Julis drew on his mana.

Dros drew his crossbow and racked a bolt in a single fluid motion.

Yanera slipped to the front, standing a half-step in front of him with her giant greatshield, bolstered like a moving wall.

All but running back, Bronwyn kept his eyes locked on the strange creature. Gods, he wished he knew what it was. It couldn’t be a greater beast, the being was of no race he’d ever heard of. Monstrous and unique. An unknown.

The creature’s eyes drilled into him, and one of its hands snapped through the air.

With that movement, the cowed beasts that surrounded it came alive. Howls filled the air, not just from below them, but above too.

Snapping up, Bronwyn stifled a curse as he saw a wave of living creatures pour out of alcoves and ledges higher up the mountain spire. Three-quarters he had no name for, every colour of fur and type of scale visible as a wave of living flesh clambered down towards them.

“Fuck. Defensive circle. We’re not getting out that way.”

Readying his shield, Bronwyn reached for his skills before he turned his attention back to the figure, still in the centre of the clearing.

It watched him with the same placid disinterest.

The creature could talk. That meant it could be reasoned with. Perhaps it was a matter of territory. An unintentional challenge towards supremacy. If they could bargain their way out…

A dismal weight settled in his stomach. He didn’t rate their chances, but by the gods, they had to try.

The creature spoke first.

“The moment has been struck, and your die has been cast. My sacred duty. The cleansing fire of challenge. Must come.”

Every word that burst out of the creature’s mouth was garbled, chewed through its separated jaw and ripping hiss. It was inhuman to an utter degree. Not even the garbled half-language of the lower races was so displeasing to his ear.

Bronwyn caught sight of Yanera constantly shifting, adjusting her shield as she tracked dozens of beasts that slowly padded down to cut off their easy retreat.

“I don’t like this, Bronn. I don’t like this one bit. Feels like it’s going to be another one of those bad days.”

Bronwyn grit his teeth. Oh, how he wished he could brush off and laugh at his friend’s anxiety. But he couldn’t. Not when they were surrounded in the middle of an army, a thousand hungry eyes staring at them.

Yet seven of them gripped him most of all. Burning red.

He had to speak. That was his duty.

His tongue was drier than sand, and his lips clung together like lovers facing execution, but Bronwyn forced himself to open his mouth all the same.

“Hail!” he yelled, standing tall with forced confidence as he projected his voice to the creature below. “We are silver adventurers from a local city, come to investigate recent unusual behaviour and migration of beasts, and to investigate the disappearances of villages nearby the Spine. I would entreat peace and speak under a flag of neutrality, if you will have me.”

Gods, he hoped it would work.

The creature was so hard to read. Was its manic twitching insanity? Humour? Rage? He didn’t know. He only clenched his sword, ready to draw, but kept it sheathed all the same.

The thing’s segmented, scaled jaw jittered, opening wide. Each side waggled, and the sound of rolling gravel and a deep hiss left its naked throat.

“You speak of peace. Peace is found in the quiet of death. Before then, there is only struggle, as the great System has decreed. Within it, purpose may be found — as mine has. Talk has no part in it — but we may talk all the same, if it pleases you.”

Bronwyn breathed heavily. It was so tense it felt like he would snap his own spine.

What in all the hells did that mean?

He looked to his side, finding his friends’ eyes. They looked back at him, wild. By now, Julis had a spell at the ready, but he hadn’t cast.

Yet the creature had said it would talk. So he would talk.

“It is clear you have control over the beasts of this region. If the surrounding villages have encroached on your territory, merely let us know, and we can organise for them to recede. We have no direct quarrel with you. We only came to ensure that the local beasts weren’t being ensorcelled by some sort of mage.”

Bronwyn bluffed as hard as he fucking could. It was all horseshit. Convincing nearly a dozen settlements to leave after they’d settled down and bunkered in through everything else was impossible. And as if the Guild would let some unknown monstrosity with control of an entire army go uncontested.

But he didn’t care about lying. Not one whit, if it got him and his team out alive with information to share.

Still, the creature seemed alien. Closer to a beast than a man. Different even from the greater lineages like the Meles. You could see it was a wild thing, half mad with devotion to something that he couldn’t quite grasp.

The creature tilted its head, processing his words as it looked up to the sky.

“Please tell me one of you has managed to analyse this thing,” Bronwyn hissed to his backline the second he broke eye contact with it.

“I didn’t want to risk it,” the duelist replied in a scratchy whisper. “Who knows how it would react?”

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“I did, the second it moved. Got nothing. Its Mask is made of adamant — hit me back something fierce.”

Bronwyn ground his teeth together. So they were still blind.

A heartbeat later, the strange monstrosity, encircled by beastly worshippers, looked back to him.

“The villages encroached on nothing. There is no territory, no supremacy. Only the challenge, and duty.”

Bronwyn could have torn his hair out. Duty to bloody what?

Was it acting under orders from something even worse and more terrible?

His frustration got the better of him, a hard note entering his voice.

“Then why direct your beasts to slaughter villagers and pick them off like a predator in the night, when they were defenceless compared to an army, weak and helpless compared to you? Women, children, slain to the last. There is no challenge in that. No purpose, like you speak of. They were no threat to you.”

The monstrosity seemed utterly unperturbed at his anger. Its multifaceted jaw opened wide once again, and Bronwyn realised with a start that the rolling, gravelly hiss was laughter.

Its eyes burned into his.

“But I am a threat — a naked fang, bared at the world. Death and the slain draw the strong like flies to vinegar.

“My purpose must be realised.”

Palms slick, Bronwyn tightened his grip on his kite shield.

This was going nowhere.

If this beast wanted a fight, it would have one. He just needed to make sure it wouldn’t be with him and his team. Not alone, not isolated as they were.

“If you seek battle and the clash of blades so badly, let us leave. We will bring word of your demands to ones far better suited to challenge you than us.”

It had to take the bait.

The creature seemed almost stumped by his response. Seven eyes blinked independently as it looked over its shoulder, seemingly pondering the endless sprawl of beasts behind it.

There was no way they would all make it. Trying was too risky.