Chapter Twenty-Two: Reconnecting

TWENTY-TWO

“We’re nearly there,” Darren said to his small group of advisers around him. Roan wasn’t part of the knot of close knit friends, but he stayed close enough to hear them. Even with the amulet he was tired after an hour of fighting, shirt soaked in sweat and chest heaving like a bellows.

“Definite advantage, but not quite superhuman.” The continuous stream of energy had kept him on his feet and fighting longer than anyone aside from Taoya. Even the other bloodline fighters had backed up to catch their breath. Taoya was just on another level. Darren had had to fight to pull the big man off the frontlines, arguing that if this new alley led to another saferoom there’d be guardians to fight.

“Wonder if all the saferooms are rolling hills?” The question was enough to set off another round of discourse between the guards as they threw in their two cents. Darren and Taoya stayed in their own conversation, eyes locked on the alleyway that was nearly done being cleared out.

“Can’t get much further without more bodies to hold the line. Rotations are already too short. We’re going to have exhaustion start causing accidents soon if we don’t get reinforcements. That or retreat back down the halls, but we’d be abandoning everything we’ve gained,” Darren said to Taoya who nodded.

“We can always contract a bit. Let the skeletons have most of the hallways and just hold two for ourselves. That will shrink our footprint considerably,” Taoya suggested.

“If there’s not a saferoom waiting down this hall, that’s what we’ll do,” Darren agreed.

“Toaya! We have guardians!” A voice echoed down the hallway, bringing everyone’s attention to the end. Roan blinked twice as he repeated the words he’d just heard. Guardians. Plural. Roan was moving before he could think, racing just a step behind Taoya as the big man barreled down the hallway.

The clearing team had leapt into the graves to make room as the heavy hitters came down the hall. Behind Roan the rest of the sect fighters were a few paces behind, the teams that Darren had used to kill the first guardians.

“These halls are very long.” The hall was long enough that even at a near sprint he had time to think about the monotony of the crypt as he neared the end of it. The bouncing hammer on his shoulder was starting to form a bruise as Taoya gave a shout and leapt forward, clearing his viewline.

It was another cul-de-sac. Identical to their own in every way. Ten massive coffins propped against the walls with several of the guardians broken into pieces across the dirt. Unlike theirs though, three of the guardians were awake at the same time, standing silent sentinels with their massive clubs.

Bodies were laying in twisted and broken heaps along the far walls. Over a dozen of them with several of them wearing sect robes. Roan looked toward their targets and quickly scanned them, looking for a weakness.

Regardless of how many had died fighting to get to the portal in the back of the room, they had managed to injure the guardians. Cracks lined their bones from weapon strikes, long splintered wounds along their legs and lower ribs.

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Taoya saw the same things. Even as the guardians started to lurch forward towards them, lifting their clubs above their heads as they aimed at Taoya. Energy discharged in a crack of lighting as the big man shot forward. Bone exploded out in a wave of shrapnel as the leading guardian toppled to the side as its leg was pulverized.