50 – Blessed One

Alexandra’s hand brushed the blade of her axe. It was hanging at her waist while she was tightly grasping her sickle with her gloved hand.

The Duskmaws were pacing around her and the villagers. Twenty, maybe more. She tightened her grip even more.

“We’re ready,” Durel said as he stepped next to her. With him, the man and woman she’d come here with. “We’ll open a path for you through the pack. You kill that thing. Understood?”

She bit her lip, and raised her head to look at the blessed Duskmaw standing on top of a house, overlooking the square. The Yshant’s red flower kept pulsing on its head. She didn’t know if it would be enough.

Alexandra turned her head. Behind her, the barricaded house where the village’s children were hidden. She’d completed her daily, there was nothing holding her back.

“Let’s do it.”

Durel nodded, and the three locals sprung into action. They dove into the Duskmaw pack, slicing at the roots and teeth trying to stop them. Alexandra followed right behind them. She kept to herself, not engaging unless a beast made it past her escort.

The tide closed behind them, more Duskmaws prowled behind them, looking for an opening. Alexandra caught a root-leg with the belly of her blade, and sliced it off clean.

The woman took a bite to the forearm ten feet from the wall. She drove her knife down into the beast’s head one-handed and kept moving.

The pack thickened as they pushed deeper. A Duskmaw lunged at Durel’s back and Alexandra opened its flank without breaking stride. Another came in low at the woman’s legs and she caught it with her knee, drove her knife down into its neck, kept moving. The man was bleeding from somewhere above his ear. Alexandra hadn’t seen it happen.

Then they were at the house, the three of them pressed against the stone, the Duskmaws circling at a distance. Alexandra looked up.

The eaves were a meter above her head. No window on this side. The stone was tight-fitted. Nothing to climb on. The blessed Duskmaw stood at the roof’s edge directly above her. The red flower pulsed. It looked down at her without moving.

“How are you getting up there?” the man said. His hand was pressed to a gash along his ribs.

Alexandra ran her eyes along the wall. Then the corner. Then the neighboring house, lower, a woodpile stacked against its side.

“Give me ten seconds.”

She didn’t have ten seconds. The blessed one jumped down, scattering its pack as it landed in front of the group. Alexandra backed up against the wall, sickle raised.

“You better have a solution for that,” Durel said, teeth clenched. He was holding his axe two-handed, heedless of the blood flowing down his arms.

Her hands were trembling, but she stepped forward. She had one shot at this. Even then, the price would be steep.

She couldn’t afford to miss.

But the beast was fast. Faster than she could keep track of. She needed to be as close as possible.

The beast growled, then raised its head into a howl. The red flower pulsed, causing the air around it to vibrate.

Alexandra felt it in her chest first, a deep pressure like a bell struck too close, then in her legs, the strength going out of them from the knee down.

Her right foot slid back across the cobblestone and caught. Her left found the ground a half second later. She straightened.

The three behind her hit the stone in quick succession.

The blessed Duskmaw’s head turned toward them.

She stepped in front of it. “Hey.”

It lunged. The root-leg came across her body faster than the others had moved all fight, and she got the sickle up in the wrong place. The blow caught her across the ribs and chest. She left the ground, hit the wall shoulder-first. A metallic sound rang off the cobblestones near her. She dropped to her hands and knees.

Next to her, Durel was the first to stand up. “Fucking curse. You good?”

She winced. “I’ll be fine.”

He grabbed his axe. “You need to do something. The others won’t last long without us.”

Alexandra stood up and dusted her pants. “I’m trying.”

She reached for her belt. Her sickle wasn’t there. “Fuck.” She didn’t see it on the ground either, so she grabbed her axe.

The blessed Duskmaw was circling left, roots dragging across the cobblestones. She tracked the pattern. Three steps, weight shift, pivot. Three steps, weight shift, pivot. Combat Sense laid it out flat and clean in her head, the beast’s next position already visible before it arrived there.

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She moved on the weight shift.

The axe was heavier than the sickle and she adjusted her grip as she closed the distance, choking up on the handle. The beast pivoted into her and she took the root-leg across her left shoulder instead of her throat. The impact knocked her sideways but she grabbed the root with her free hand and held on.

The Duskmaw thrashed. Her feet left the ground, came back down, left again. She got her legs around the root and locked her ankles together.

Its head came around, jaws wide.

She drove the axe head into the side of its skull before the bite closed. Not deep enough. The wood was thick and dense and the blade skipped off the grain. The beast snapped at her arm and caught the sleeve, the green teeth tearing through the fabric and finding the skin underneath, and she felt the burn of it along her forearm. Her weapon slipped through her fingers and landed on the ground.

She grabbed a hold of a leg and didn’t let go.

The Duskmaw slammed her into the cobblestones. Her hip took the impact, then her elbow. She kept her grip on the root.

It was now or never.

Life Curse.

Dark Bolt.

The dark needle materialized at the tip of her fingers.

More.

The blessed one was the equivalent of a Silver. She had to push the spell further. Consequences be damned.

She felt Life Curse churn somewhere inside her. It was building up, preparing something horrible for her. She gritted her teeth. Only when she sensed that her mitigating skill couldn’t do more, and that Dark Bolt would start draining her lifeforce, she stopped.

Alexandra released the needle point-blank into the blessed Duskmaw. It pierced the bark and she immediately felt the jaw weaken around her.

Using what strength she had left, she kicked the beast and wrenched herself free. Then she jumped to her feet and ran for her allies.

Durel was watching the blessed one. It roared. “What was that?”