Soon enough, the worst of the mana exhaustion faded from the Orlethrem and the bramble of Elves got their more mobility challenged counterparts settled into sleds or packed as densely onto the few carts that had been strewn about Horrortown as possible and off the travelers went. They would not be making it far, not with the boulder strewn crest and trough topology of these coastal highlands, but any progress was forward momentum.
Ulric took point for the travelers, picking the easiest course possible, while Taipan did Taipan things, disappearing into the scraggly thickets and sparsely wooded copses that hung around halfway between the boggy downs and the rising rocky outcrops. Her ability to simply vanish into the wild was a thing to marvel. He was glad to know his own solid senses wouldn't be the only early warning they got if trouble came a calling. Tense alertness remained the order of the day, Varda punished mistakes.
Vigilance was rewarded with boredom. Nothing happened. For the six hours of ponderous travel, the only source of discontent was in the aggravation of the injuries of the Elves and the occasional hazard of loose rocks from under weary feet. That and the aggressively obnoxious tendency for the hard, smooth substrate here to blend with the grey green plant cover to make a deceivingly chancy stride.
More clouds were cresting the rise, low, rolling, and canvasing the horizon. Reddened by the descending Twins, the sea promised another gift of rain this night. Ulric had heard of places where it rained three out of every seven days but he'd never experienced it, and had sort of discounted the impact such frequent soaking would have on morale. He was learning, now, through experience. Nearly daily rain was oppressive when you had to be out in it. It also made travel a right bastard. The freshly wetted granite and basalt of these highlands was slick as glass and falls were frequent.
As if called from the abyss, a high rich voice, as if from an angel, called clarion across the highlands, "Curse these bastard hills and all who give us reason to travel them!"
It would seem his lovely lass had slid to the stoney ground again as she patrolled ahead. Between the loose mossy ground cover and the lichen that blurred where grass and bared earth bones came together, it was, essentially, impossible to avoid all of the slick spots. The various patches of wet on his pants, elbows, back, and chest attested to this reality. Some comfort he drew from his Sylvan partner's shared suffering. If it were only him falling, she would razz him endlessly around the camp fire for his clumsiness and, this way, he could raise counterpoint. Less amusing was keeping the carts from toppling over, a task that had put many of their wounded allies to pulling escort duty. The frequent ten and fifteen meter bluffs, places where the stone had sheared away from a hillside to roll into the peat bog below, were no laughing matter at all when traction was not guaranteed.
Fresh water, at least, was plentiful in these parts. They had not the ability to transport large volumes of potable water, and the swamps were swiftly discovered to be richly sulfurous and metallic to the taste. Not a source to be utilized without a light filtration and, preferably, a distilling to purify. Time for such things was a luxury and luxuries were sadly missing from this journey.
Twilight gloom was all that stopped the travelers from pushing onwards. Objectively, Ulric knew it was an abbreviated day of trekking. Emotionally, it was made long by its strenuous nature, oppressive atmosphere, and the weary bodies of those who traversed. That gloom he and his ragtag band of refugee Elves now saw to parting.
Salt-tinged air was soon given the flavor of wood smoke as small campfires sprung up across the dale through which they'd decided to call camp. From here, even the smoke would be dispersed before clearing the low rises around them and the group would be relatively safe from observation. Unless an enemy scout tripped into exactly this small valley or happened to be roaming the switch-backing fjord cliffs they would remain buried within the terrain.
Ulric rubbed the tightness out of his feet, his boots tossed aside in disgust. Even the fittest, most highly trained bodies would struggle through Prespang's Vatyn coasts. Poor footing, damp springy mosses, and an ungodly amount of elevation changes put strain on muscles unaccustomed to the region. If he were put to the question, he wouldn't be able to claim that they'd made better than twenty-six or so kilometers in all that afternoon. No chance at all of having hit forty, which was what he had hoped for when they set out. Even now, his ears picked up the sounds of pain that accompanied the worst of the injured, in spite of their grit to withhold evidence of suffering. Cruelly broken bones and mangled bodies could only endure so much of this kind of punishment.
In a way, it was good news. The barren, craggy fjords made landfall from the sea virtually impossible, except in very specific locations, around which the settlements along the Vatyn were already built. The well-nigh impassible bogs made inland travel untenable, but for the most desperate of circumstances. Which only left these highlands, their vales more specifically, as the likely places where even the most foolhardy would settle. That was to say, they didn't have much to fear from stumbling into villages as they crossed this swathe of Prespang. It was also unlikely that any forces searching for the escaped Elves, if even anyone knew they were gone missing, would think to search the desolation between Kistalfer and Port Edunshire.
Only a madman would do go overland rather than by ship. Hue Hue Hue.
Crazy like a fox, Ulric chuckled to himself.
Mist rolled in from atop the fjords and descended into their tucked away valley and the fires nestled therein became softly glowing points along the creek that meandered through the watershed. Ulric rubbed his hands together against the damp chill that served as a counterpoint to the ever-warming days. He'd guess it was topping some twenty-eightish Centigrade under the midevening suns. Probably scooting something closer to fourteen or fifteen now, and that damp air was making it feel far cooler. He was glad to get his own fire laid in and crackling cheerfully, the piney scent of the local trees spicing the smoke. It wasn't a few minutes after he'd gone round the other fires helping the Orlethrem who needed assistance and generally making himself useful to get everybody bedded down and fed that the rain came on in a steady drizzle.
He cooked his own meal in the shelter of his and Taipan's shared shelter, having donated his canvas Legranel rig to about a score of more needful pilgrims, those too hurt to be able to raise their own tents. Scents wafted out from the [Steelwood] pot, his old friend in this world, and he was dashing with salt to complete the flavor profile when Taipan entered, soaking wet and slightly bedraggled from her time scouting about.
Without a word, she stripped down to her skin, taught muscle covered in the appropriate places by generous curves, and layered by a satin smooth hide just darker than cinnamon. Needless to say, Ulric was a fan of the view, especially when she went to removing the thigh high leather boots. Unfortunately, it didn't last long as she immediately set to putting on a simple robe from her pack. He sort of missed the whole far eastern shrine maiden getup from back in the more peaceful days of Irielhos, but that stuff took up quite a bit of space. Besides, that many layers and a lady would roast making the pace his Shadow had held these last few hours. Once she had her garments arranged for drying, she held out her hand in a wordless demand for sustenance.
Ulric gladly ladled full a bowl and handed it off to her. His reward came from a deep sniff of the contents and a gluttonous inhalation of the stew. The bowl was offered to him again without speech and he, again, filled it. The bottom of that bowl was found with determination but the Iriel'en woman at least sat down by the fire this time.
Meals amongst the Deep Woods Elves were taken in silence, a custom that Ulric had found peaceful and adopted himself these days. His own bowl he ate from with gusto, and refilled immediately before scraping the bottom of the pot to give Taipan her third helping, this time with chunks of the crusty camp bread to slop out the broth. Both occupants of the tent then spent a quiet few minutes bustling around the big teepee arranging their gear and readying their equipment for rapid deployment.
Caution in dangerous territory was one of his Wife's tenets, to the odd warrior religion she cultivated in herself. None better he knew for navigating the wilderness than his Taipan, except, perhaps for her mother. Himself an avid camper and hiker in a time long before and a man who had scratched subsistence from the Vardan forests when he was dropped naked amongst the vast arbors of the [Plateau of Ancients] for months, Ulric knew he had perhaps a tenth of the skill for surviving out in the bush as his lady love. If she did it, it was a good idea to do in turn. Except when she assumed that one could see in the dark as well as she did, a habit that he found profoundly annoying.
Speaking of annoying habits, Taipan had curled up into the blankets to form an Elf burrito which precluded him from the use of seventy percent of the bedding without so much as a word. This, he was almost certain, was a power play by her, to force him to ask to be let into bed. Dozens of ways did Taipan have to attempt to subjugate him, and this one he wasn't going to allow. Iriel'en lived life as a competition amongst themselves. Contests were found in every aspect of life and they enjoyed challenging and being challenged. To be excluded from this was to be seen as unworthy of even being considered as an opponent.
Even were it not the case that it was one of his wife's myriad ways of fucking with him and rather that this behavior was merely a product of about seventy years of solo adventuring, he wasn't going to try to big spoon his way to warmth while his back cooled with the dying fire. So, he did what any rational person does in that situation.
Carefully, gently, so as not to disturb the dozing form within, the former engineer lifted the burrito containing his beloved up and tossed it out of the shelter to land in an outraged heap outside.
He was not ignorant of the fact that it was still raining as he did.
"Einar, you twice born bastard! You will pay with your heart's blood!" Screamed the rudely roused Elf, tearing her way out of the confining bedding.
Poking his head out of the shelter door he rejoined, "Well worth the price to enjoy the warmth of mine own blankets!"
Blurring with the speed of her leap he was hit in the hips by a shoulder tackle and a crafty hand that hooked his knee sent him to the floor. Ulric knew better than to let her have the initiative though and immediately locked his legs around the squirming form that was trying to achieve a knee bar.
He locked his ankles and gave an intentional squeeze, tensing his thighs against her sides and he felt her abdominal muscles lock to prevent him from rendering her unable to draw a breath. A reaching claw attempted to rake his eye and he had to burn a precious moment fending her off, mostly successful because the pressure he applied to her body with his legs was preventing her from breathing more than a shallow gasp at a time. He wrangled the arm and hooked it behind her back, overpowering her with difficulty. The other arm he similarly secured after a fairly intense struggle, that one he secured as well with the hand holding the first restrained arm.
Growling issued forth and he knew what was coming. Just before the teeth could latch onto his thigh, he snagged her silken locks and slowly, deliberately pulled the biting maw away from his tender flesh. Baleful emeralds took him in, their bronze flecks shimmering in the firelight and he saw in them that the fight was not yet out of her.
Grunting, Ulric clenched tighter and levered his knees into position one at her navel and the other in the vicinity of a kidney. Taipan was as fine a specimen of Elvendom as could be found, but Ulric was, in their words, a freak, with might that was very nearly unnatural for a Human. That strength he used now, in a mismatched opposition of his lower body against her core, a battle which she could not win. Slowly, timing to each begrudging release of breath he cinched the noose of his grip tighter until the Elf could no longer take breaths of any significance, in the way of an anaconda strangling a boar.
Ulric was rigid with the effort of holding the wrists in one hand and the gentle but firm hold of the hair with the other.
"Your bedroll is in the rain lass, and, unless I miss my guess, you're going to pass out from anoxia in about thirty seconds." Ulric reminded his partner, holding the jerking and squirming Elf in place.
Taipan chose unconsciousness, fighting until the end, and, after she was out, he put her into his bedroll and retrieved hers from the rain. He got the blankets and bedding drying by the fire, not badly soaked but certainly damp under the misting precipitation and was stripping down for bed when his mate bolted upright.
"Hominum!" Declared her gasping cry as she tangled herself in the bedroll and spare blanket.
This was immediately followed by a few light coughs and something in Elvish that he wasn't completely certain of, other than it involved his being grilled alive and served to some kind of animal. Soon enough though she relaxed and laid herself back down, resting in an easy, relaxed sprawl, as if he had not just had to body choke her to senselessness.
"You are improving Ulric." Announced the melodic voice of his mate approvingly, "You would not have thought of a compression submission when began our journey."
Checking the blanket with his hands to make sure it wouldn't hotspot and catch fire he observed, "Before our journey, I would not have imagined that I would find need to render my wife unconscious on occasion to secure my rights to a bed."
The husky chuckle that said Taipan wasn't angry about the contest results, graced his back with its sweet music before she reminded him, as she did every so often when this game was played, "It is good to know that you have not gone soft in my absence. I simply cannot abide a weakling, Glade Chief."
Taipan was gracious in victory, while the furs dried out, he only had to deliver a full body massage and prepare her a bath using [Stonewalls], river water, or snow, and heated stones from the fire before he would be allowed the privilege of his quartering with her. Pissing rain as it was, he was glad that he had not been forced to make the tiger in Iriel'en skin a bath, although, he wouldn't mind that massage.
Now that he'd earned his place in the bed, the pair of them assumed their regular status of his becoming her body pillow and they lay listening to the sound of the other's breath until sleep claimed them. As he drifted off, Ulric's thoughts went over the nights past and the times that he'd lost this little play of theirs. Squeezing moans from the woman's muscles was as much fun for him as for her. It's not so bad, he told himself, losing his grip on waking life, being bound to a Taipan.
Screaming.
Ulric shot awake, climbing out from the blankets even as the loosely robed woman next to him darted to her bow and threw the quiver over her shoulder, not even taking time to belt it on. She was outside in a flash, leaving him behind while he pulled on his own robe, having been asleep in the buff. Taipan's wisdom again bore fruit, she was already finding the source of the panicked shouts while he was grabbing his sword from its place next to the bed. Gleaming deep blue metal caught dying coals and a background part of his brain catalogued that the fireplace indicated Moon's Peak as he tore through the teepee flap, into the night beyond.
A heavy thump drew more cries and Ulric felt the ground shiver through his bare feet, even as he ran, eyes scanning the dark for the source of the fearsome impact. There. Something huge, silohuetted against the Coven, their vibrant crescents of witch-light illuminating a hulking form.
This monstrosity was easily as big as a tank, and as armored. The beast looked like an armadillo chimera'd to an ankylosaur, the stubby, ridged plates of armor on its tail giving way to a mace like clubbed end. That tail was buried almost entirely through the thin turf and into the craggy bones of the valley floor beneath. Mangled forms that had been people were scattered around it, and pulped remains fell away from the beast's weapon when it extracted itself from the stones.
Senses came alive as his core interfaced fully with his body, mana rippling through his body. It was like being born, in some ways. A world blurry and dim suddenly thrown into crystal clarity and he felt himself lit like a beacon. The Lord Instinct, ever waiting, sang in his thoughts, a melody of rage and violence. Here was a challenger, an interloper that threatened his sovereignty over all that he had taken under wing.
Ceraunic core humming Ulric gathered his power while the beast turned its ugly head. A long toothy tongue flicking out to taste the air and locate prey. It had no obvious eyes, its forehead smoothly armored plates. It had plenty of teeth though, half meter needles and recurved, to send hapless creatures inevitably down the wide gullet. Some taste must have caught the monster's attention, and Ulric wasn't long finding out what. A hobbling, desperately shambling trio of refugees were a bare handful of meters away and egressing as fast as their battered forms would allow. They wouldn't make it. He saw that immediately when heavy, bristled fur bearing legs lifted and it started into pursuit. It wasn't fast, but it had plenty of ungainly gallop to close on the near cripples.
*Chock*
A fleeting blue dart bored into the monster's flesh midstride, through a gap between forelimb and body no bigger than his hand, Taipan at work.
The behemoth released a shrill, piercing roar halting its charge immediately and jerked itself to curl around the wound just as two more arrows flew in from the dark to skip off the bony carapace. Ulric decided his course of action, now, to support the strategy of his more experienced wife. Beating against that ridiculous hide was wasted effort against this behemoth, they needed a way to circumvent the armor, and Ulric had something in mind.
[White Interference]
The circulating lightning in his core neutralized and he immediately attuned the turbulence hidden by serenity that was the harmony of Aquae. Water from the air and ground compressed at his call, like drawn to like at his core's insistence, pulled easily from such plenty around him. The sheer exhilaration of willing the world to change and seeing it do so soared through his being in spite of the circumstance, and Ulric channeled a beam of hydraulic power towards the monster wedging itself around one of its only vulnerabilities.
[Water Jet]
Mastery of this spell had turned a linear flow into a spiral and the finger width lance of water ripped into the ridged plates on the back of the monster's thick neck, hungrily drilling. The monster barely flinched at the pressure, didn't understand the danger of the insistent press on its body until the layers of bone failed and white-hot pain tore into its neck. The monster armadillo shrieked and broke off its attack on his wife.
Turning away, the focused beam Ulric held upon it drawing a carving along its armored hide, the beast whipped its tail and Ulric cut off his channel with a curse, throwing himself into the dirt as the damned tail elongated, plates separating connected by a dense cord of what looked like braided steel cable as thick as his thigh. The momentum of the beast, coupled to the lengthening of the tail sent its maul of an appendage hurtling through the air above him with audible fury. Ulric watched as the arc of the bony appendage sent it into a complete turn riding the force of its strike to reposition facing him, the tail itself contracted and arched over its back, ready to swing again, like a cannon in battery.
Godsdamn! That was dangerous!
There was no blocking that and Ulric had glimpses of the little Svartalfin's giant hammer. Same story, he absolutely could not be touched by that fucker or his ticket was punched. He got to his feet quickly, holding Xef'tocht with a little uncertainty. Could the blade get through that armor? Probably, if he put enough oomph behind his stroke. Would it rip him apart if the blow didn't destroy its central nervous system immediately? Also, probably.
A throaty chuff from the beast and a pawing of earth that tore stone like mud preceded the monster's charge.
Ulric fled immediately in the opposite direction, not daring the risk in the low light.
Momma Einar raised no fool and he wasn't going to even think of taking that thing head on. His bare feet flew over the ground and a glance over his shoulder confirmed that the monster was still coming, albeit not as quickly as he was going. Again, he cursed the darkness and activated [Ceraunoperception] to keep track of the beast behind him.
Hurried options skittered across the surface of increasingly distracting ones and Ulric focused to shut out the noise.
[Warrior’s Instinct]
Better.
Smoother thinking now, his legs pumped, feed slapped against stone and moss and Ulric Einar ran for his second life while hashing out his options.
Water worked well enough on that carapace, but that working was absolutely his best shot at defeating armor, and it was still too slow without some way to pin the tank beast down. Unless…distant memories of broken ceramics and shrapnel flashed through his adrenaline-fueled brain while he ran. Heat shock? Fuck that, Ulric cursed with disgust at the horrible idea, and at the minor skid across a loose patch of moss that only barely didn’t end in tragedy.
[Absolute Zero] needed him to be in touch range and he wasn't getting that close to it. Think Einar! He yelled at himself while his feet navigated the slick stones as he ran. Just don’t fall down is all warning whisper sounded.
Taipan was not idle, he though he saw a flicker of motion off to his right, just to the side of the monster and a pained shriek from the beast rose up as a second arrow joined the first in the oh so small gap in its protection. Brutal claws stabbed into the stone, stopping the Greater beast without grace, and it didn’t even completely stop before attacking the source of its pain.
The creature did that tail whip again, its bulk possessed of incredible agility for such size and the rough spikes of the tail whistled. Where Ulric had gone low, the beast had shifted its strategy alarmingly quickly, bringing the tail parallel to the ground. A small outcrop was obliterated in its passage, flinging shards into the dark that brought a pained yelp from one of the Elves that had not gained enough distance.
It would have turned his partner to Aes’r mist if she'd dove to the ground. However, Taipan had not gone low.
Spectacular agility on full display, a vertical leap took her up and a blue flare, shadow fire rippling across her bow threw her into a surreal contrast with the moonlit night as his Shadow let loose a three-arrow volley at the neck of the monster, projectiles having been held in a grip that Ulric wasn't sure he could make and still draw that wickedly powerful recurved composite stave.
One arrow skipped wide off the armor. A second hit at an angle and entered the flesh but stopped halfway up the arrow's shaft. The third was money and fletches disappeared into the monster's flesh. A keening wail rose up from the creature and its eyeless head focused on the falling Elf's form, even as her feet touched the earth from her jump.
Shit. Queasy anticipation seized him. This was where the bastard thing showed its trump card.
One thing he’d learned in his time upon Varda was that there was always a kicker with these monsters. Cynical expectation of the worst is frequently rewarded with the satisfaction of being correct. And also, the consequence of it.
Thrumming pulses of mana raked the earth beneath the monster’s claws. The dome plated face shimmered brassy and, before his very eyes their foe’s smooth carapace took on the luster of metal, blue-silver. Moonlight reflected as if from a mirror from the beast’s mana reinforced armor and Ulric knew cutting that creature was now strictly impossible, even for Xef’tocht. The posture of the beast shifted towards aggression. Uh oh.
The barbed tongue flickered twice in an instant and it launched itself towards Taipan who had gained distance following her triple shot. Lessons of the [Shrieking Ravager] were well learned, Taipan was in flight as soon as she landed, not waiting to see what the retaliation of the beast would be. She'd cut like a world class soccer player and juked sideways before vanishing beneath her cloak of Iskios mana. The creature made to charge before her abrupt visual camouflage took hold and it aborted, a sign that it possessed some kind of optical sight, from an organ Ulric hadn’t been able to see in the night.
Their enemy’s great toothy maw tilted in puzzlement. That confused pause lasted a breath. Which was all the head-start his partner got before another few flicks of its tongue found the taste of her passage and it took off to Ulric's nine o' clock, assuredly on her trail.
Ulric heard his Shadow's throaty yell as she ran, updating him, "Ulric! It sees by smell, movement, and the vibrations of the ground below! The monster is poisoned but there is no telling how long it can continue to attack before it succumbs!”
When the beast deflected to turn on Taipan, Ulric had halted his own flight and was plotting, especially when it became clear that invisibility was no camouflage against the monster's senses. Gods blood he'd have killed to have [Reaper's Basil] on him, that bastard would taste hell if he threw that powdered magma into its face. Irrelevant Einar, focus. It sees by smell, can it still be taste blinded? Burned? Shocked? All of the above? Maybe. Maybe not, with that ironclad natural armor.
Ice slid down his spine when he saw his Shadow's graceful form slide sideways, betrayed by the wet stones. Her hand caught her fall and sent her rolling just a breath before the treacherous valley floor was pulverized by a meteoric strike from above. Flying fragments of rock as big as a medicine ball pelted the Elf and knocked the wind from her lungs as she sprawled on the ground. Even dazed, his mate was aware of the danger and fought to her feet. He watched her form evaporate into shadow and the kneeling Elven form reappeared a dozen meters away just before the place she'd been got cratered again.
Ulric could see the effort that cost her, she'd been pulling hard on her mana, using layered skills to penetrate the monster's defenses and inflict maximum harm to it with every opportunity. By the sound earlier it was wounded, maybe even mortally so. But on it came anyway, berserk with fury to kill the insects that had bitten it.
Mana coursed inside and Ulric drew a throwing knife, linking it to his magic with a pulse of effort.
[Lightning Javalin]
Unleashing the energy of his spellform, a jagged violet lightning bolt took the beast in the head. Head snapping aside the beast staggered to a halt and nearly buckled to the earth. Only nearly though, and Ulric could just barely make out that the smooth, almost polished gray-brown carapace was now smudged and charred, sparking residues of his magic zipping across the shimmering mana of the beast’s armor hardening mana. And also, to his dismay, intact. It was, as he’d feared at the onset, nearly unphased by lightning.
So he tried again. And again.
Two more bolts of lightning split the dark, thundering loud. They were followed by a gale of wind bound by arcing light that crashed over the goliath form throwing a massive font of sparks against the shimmering mana shield. A shrill beastial scream rose up from the monster as it endured the assault.
But it withstood the best he could throw at it, scarred, but alive, mobile, and pissed.
“The armor is harder than steel and the shield resists my offensive magic Taipan! I don’t think arrows are going to do the trick anymore, either. We need a plan!” Ulric shouted, taking off immediately.
His attack had brought the beast’s attention back towards him, as he’d expected, and he was running again, slipping and sliding across uneven highland, while the wicked talons of the behemoth simply gouged into the earth below to give it traction. His bare feet slapped loudly on the rocks and his lungs were filling as he shifted into high gear, racing at top speed to stay ahead of the chasing predator.
While he ran, his partner, like a wolf, was angling for the Greater’s flank. She put his heart into his throat with an almost casual sidestep of the downwards stroke of that pulverizer of a tail and he saw her leap onto the monster’s plated back. Her knife glittered in the darkness before being consumed in black flame and she struck hard, a hammerfisted stab driving the blade into the adamant hide of her foe.
Sparks flew like a magnesium flint, showering from the blow. And again. Again. Taipan was lashing out like a lunatic, her hand gripping a plated ridge and her preternatural balance keeping her in place as the beast broke not its stride as it continued to try to close on his heels. All this he knew from a brief glance over his shoulder and, while his heart pounded and his legs churned as hard as he’d ever run in his life, he realized that he couldn’t do this for much longer. Ulric scrabbled into his belt pouch and he drew out the Tephras infused catalyst gifted him by Werona. Whatever juice was left to it, he needed something to turn the tables.
A flare of brassy light and a sound like a bell pealed too hard precluded an exultant shout behind him, from Elven throat “I have broken the shield!”
Abruptly sliding to a reverse pivot, Ulric was suddenly charging towards the creature’s massive jaws, which had opened wide in anticipation of feasting on its prey.
Ulric shouted, even as he damned himself for a suicidal mook for this idiot gambit, “You gotta bail, it’s getting hot!”
A gout of pyroclastic ash hot enough to melt bronze materialized as the man channeled magic into the instrument gripped in his hand, magic flowed and his guts clenched when jet black cracks snapped across the surface of the catalyst. Unable to halt its bulk so rapidly, monstrous form plowed headlong into the massive plume of cinder and brutal heat. Ulric saw his partner throw herself to the land below, rolling gracefully to her feet, as if she practiced egress from rampaging monsters on the regular. That ash filled the gaping, biting mouth and throat and Ulric concentrated the mana in his core to fill his body with potency, praying that the gem powering the Ash mage's working didn't explode as he tossed it aside in his sudden sprint toward the boiling cloud covered beast.
[Surge]
Empowered muscles threw the former engineer into a full steam baseball slide passing under the rampaging monster, and his cloud of ash. Braced against his forearm and shoulder, his artifact blade’s keen reverse edge hungering, Ulric dragged the weapon along its entire length across the super predator’s underbelly as he went.
The Glade’s Vengeance bit hard, its imbued edge parting the softer hide of the armadillo Greater’s stomach. Screaming its shrill cry, it tried to throw its bulk down on him reflexively but sheer magically enhanced momentum carried him through its rear legs. Knowing the tail awaited him now, he drove his hand hard to the earth and his flesh pained him as it was abraided by stone, and tore up moss and soil, and he threw his legs out to the side. The action redirected his painful slide, pushing him sideways, drifting on his thigh and hip, shredding his robe along that side. The bone mace smashed down where he would have been and the monster howled again at its newest wounds, burns to the throat and a sheeting of blood from its surgically opened guts.
Unbelievably, their enemy was still raring to go. Bleeding, its organs exposed glistening in the moonlight, poisoned, burned, and draining its core’s vitality to imbue its hide with titanium strength, the thing gained its clawed feet again and came on any way, furious rage consuming it.
Ulric’s own blood trailed down his scraped thigh and hip and he’d lost two fingernails on his left hand while altering his trajectory enough to not get pulped. Core howling, Lord Instinct howling, he was channeling all the mana he had left, ready to lay a killing blow of riotous lightning. He didn’t get the chance.
Lithe, graceful, elegant savagery blurred towards the beast, shadow made into weapons like great claws covering her hands, Taipan assaulted the monster slashing at its legs and undercarriage, her seemingly mindless aggression putting the creature on the defensive again as it tried to curl around its exposed abdomen. That club-like tail flailed trying to drive the ferocious Elf away, keeping her at bay, even as she continued to relentlessly drive against its defenses, sending sparks high into the night air with her blows, razored slices carved from the bone plates.
Ulric was almost transfixed by the sight, this two meters and seventyish kilograms of vicious Iriel’en that had been his wife showing the cunning violence of an Elf Hunter. He couldn’t risk a magical attack, not and catch her up in it. He couldn’t join her or he’d get in the way. Acid anxiety gripped the man as he watched, hating his inability to compliment his wife’s desperate attack. A single mistake, that was all it would take for his mate to be completely destroyed by the colossal strength of the Greater.
Taipan made none, dancing her midnight swords dance under the moons, Iskios her arms.
Death found the monster in a single moment of overextension, a too strong blow that lodged its appendage in its extended form into the stones, locked temporarily in place. Lancing towards the Greater, fast as her namesake, Taipan drove in and deftly drew a poison vial and punched it into the stomach wound, arm covered to the elbow in a claw of darkness. Deep into the cut Ulric’s had made went the Elven huntress’s arm, crushing the vial in her shadow covered talon, and she leapt away, too rapidly for the creature to even flinch away, glimmering green and bronze flecked eyes pitilessly beheld the slain monster that did not know it was dead.
Taipan, certain now of her victory and pushing herself to her limits, landed with her boots at a slightly unfavorable angle, her footing was not sure when she came to rest, the betraying rocks below almost toppling the Elf woman. Pained and furious, guts burning with toxin, the beast’s final act was to whip that tail again, slamming an outcrop with its momentum in a shotgun of stone shards that battered the woman's form, drawing a pained yelp to go with the thudding impacts that sent her prone to the ground.
Ulric threw himself forward, ignoring the now sagging creature to go to his partner, a swell of concern rising. Beyond that ultimate strike, the beast made no more attempts at offense, could not continue its reckless predation.
No mere smudge on an arrow’s head, within its vitals was a near to full vial of toxin so potent the smallest drop would shut off a smaller animal’s nervous system within a few minutes. The big old horror over there began frothing blood within a few seconds and its spasming limbs failed it, sending it crashing to the ground, despite its incredible constitution.
Sweating, bleeding, adrenaline screaming, half naked in the drizzling rain, Ulric was as alive as he’d ever been. His budding fears at Taipan being badly injured were allayed as she levered herself up. By the set of his Aes’r-Iriel’en partner’s shoulders, squared, even though she’d been slow to rise, so was she. To quote young Brighteyes from a time long ago, “They were glory.” And they had come very, so very close to being the opposite of glory.
There is no joy like living when death has its cold clammy phalanges around your neck. He closed in on the Elf girl, still basking in her triumph, without her notice and pounced.
"Ack! Ulric! Not here, in front of the Heavens and all who stand beneath them, you savage!" Cried out a surprised Sylvan warrior princess as he picked her up in a hug from behind and squeezed, gently but firmly.
"You maniac! What made you think dirking that monster was a good idea?!" the reforged man growled into her hair.
Relief unlike anything he'd ever known flooded through him and Ulric felt momentarily drained, like dread had been the only thing keeping him moving. Dread. Fear. He could have laughed. After her accusations of being unthoughtful about his own mortality he found plenty of concern about hers. Looks like Ulric Einar was certainly afraid of something after all, it just wasn't related to himself. Oh irony.
A shaky breath left him and the once recluse took up the Elf woman in an embrace and he refused to let her go for at least three minutes, ignoring her protests.
"If you are not going to pin my ears to my shoulders for further embarrassment, will you at least help tend my wounds?" Came a final, somewhat breathless, complaint.
Ahh, thank whatever resident gods great and small, he silently whispered, she's not too hurt to bitch. It was a good sign. Ulric let her go then and set to inspecting the wounded lass. Some contusions, pretty bad, in spite of how smoothly she’d been moving, some real grit in the veteran Huntress to ignore the pain.
Her yelp when he prodded her side probably indicated some pretty significant injuries to the rib cage, maybe more than bruises. His gentle probing at the nasty looking bruising and torn skin on her thigh drew a hiss of pain and narrowed eyes.
“It is likely broken, if in a minor fashion, Glade Chief.” Taipan assessed, with more calm about the injury than he could summon himself.
Mashed ribs and a busted leg. Both were drastically limiting to mobility and, as his lady wife had demonstrated with gusto, mobility was essential to her ability to fight and survive against men and beasts. For the time being, Taipan was out of action. She took the verdict with more aplomb than he did by a great margin, having been wounded in combats and hunts many times before. Never out in the wilds of a hostile nation, far, far from the aid of her cousins amongst the Elven tribes, however. Certainly never with a hundred and change of her kinfolk, wounded and drawing predators like meat drew flies.
With her own wounds tended, Taipan took obvious glee in returning the favor, cleaning his scrapes with ointment and wrapping them in tight bandages. His fingers she carefully tied together to prevent him from causing her bandaging from coming loose. The robes he’d been wearing were a total loss, shredded along one side and covered in blood, his own and the Greater beast’s.
Between the massacre at the wedding back in Bartala and now this he was just straight up out of clothes that weren't tie died in somebody's remains. Problems for future Ulric. Presently, they had to see about the refugees. Those that survived.
News was…not great, but not as bad as he'd initially suspected. Six were dead, three eaten and three pulped by the creature's tail. About three times that were wounded in one way or another by the initial attack, but then, they’d already mostly been hurt and so the calculus regarding events wasn’t much changed. The Greater beast, because that is no doubt what it was, especially once Taipan fished its awakened core, glittering facets of brassy orange declaring magical potency from its chest. At least they had not failed through incaution, the monster had come at them from an almost impossible to expect angle: straight up from underneath.
The creature had burrowed up from the underground right dead in the middle of the sleeping Elves. Most managed to get away, as the monster had started by eating those first three victims alive. It killed the next group in a single slap of its massive tail.
Bitterness spiked in him as he surveyed the carnage. Imagine, living through all that they had, finding hope to live again, to see home, just to be slaughtered by some fucking jumped up armadillo. It wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair. Fair was what you got when you had a gun on all parties involved, as near as Ulric could reckon these days.
For an hour, Ulric helped the Orlethrem bury the remains of their kin in a single grave. The hole needn't be large, most of the corpses had been rendered into paste. Still, digging through the thin highland topsoil and the rocky ground was a task and a half. At least it was easy to find the stone to raise cairns. Ulric didn't know what to say to these long-suffering folk that wouldn't sound patronizing, so he didn't say anything except for a simple "We live still, and the Twins rise early tomorrow, so get what rest you may."
Cold it may have been but at least it was real, a solid thing to hang onto. There would be a tomorrow for those that lived and that tomorrow would have to be dealt with. Best to do it well rested. Taipan had long since finished carving apart the monster while he conducted funeral services and loading the spare room in wagons with the more valuable bits, especially those biosteel cables in its tail. The meat was, of course, a no go, not after she’d loaded it up with a whole vial of toxins most insidious.
Well past the witching hour was it by the time a knackered Glade Chief returned to the dry of his shelter. He'd gone and found Werona Autumnclaw's Ash magic catalyst, too tired to be anything but grateful it had lasted as long as it had. Curiosity over why it hadn't completely broken down and detonated could wait for later, he was for his blankets. His loving wife was already abed, wrapped again in her Elf burrito from both their bed rolls. Cursing quietly, he retreated back through the pissing rain and dropped down to restoke the fire. Not for the warmth, not really, although the damp chill was leaving him somewhat puckered. No, it was for the comfort that crackling flame and radiant heat gave to the heart. Morale was likely to be in the shitter. His. Taipan's. Everybody's. Who would have thought such a thing lived out here in the middle of the crags digging burrows under the dale waiting for things to come to water? Anybody with sense, Ulric, he chided. Where else would life congregate but around fresh running water? It was a mistake to have been so relaxed.
Wait, no, fuck that he told himself. That's fucking wrong, Ulric remonstrated. They had done well, had set watch, had traveled with care and had responded as aptly as anyone could have. Varda was simply a lethally dangerous place, that was all. There was a reason all the towns had walls. There was a reason for the vast swathes of wild country between the pockets of civilization. Things went bump in the night out here, and they bumped real good like. All a man could do was be vigilant. Absolute safety was a pipe dream and he had to accept that about this life.
It was a habit of the Before, to dwell on what couldn't be controlled. Probably due to stress. The twice born Valin shook off that useless negativity and chose to focus on the good. Taipan. Alive and well. In a couple of weeks, she'd be right as right rain water, an analogy no doubt conjured by the persistent damned bullshit that seemed determined to fall from the sky constantly around here. He’d be fit as a fiddle in a few days and fingernails regrew just fine.
Without care for the grumbles of a lightly tenderized serpent, Ulric broke into her haven of furs and went to sleep spooning the soft form. The strong grip that squeezed his mitt was as much as he needed to know for most of the world to be alright at the moment.
Soon enough, the worst of the mana exhaustion faded from the Orlethrem and the bramble of Elves got their more mobility challenged counterparts settled into sleds or packed as densely onto the few carts that had been strewn about Horrortown as possible and off the travelers went. They would not be making it far, not with the boulder strewn crest and trough topology of these coastal highlands, but any progress was forward momentum.
Ulric took point for the travelers, picking the easiest course possible, while Taipan did Taipan things, disappearing into the scraggly thickets and sparsely wooded copses that hung around halfway between the boggy downs and the rising rocky outcrops. Her ability to simply vanish into the wild was a thing to marvel. He was glad to know his own solid senses wouldn't be the only early warning they got if trouble came a calling. Tense alertness remained the order of the day, Varda punished mistakes.
Vigilance was rewarded with boredom. Nothing happened. For the six hours of ponderous travel, the only source of discontent was in the aggravation of the injuries of the Elves and the occasional hazard of loose rocks from under weary feet. That and the aggressively obnoxious tendency for the hard, smooth substrate here to blend with the grey green plant cover to make a deceivingly chancy stride.
More clouds were cresting the rise, low, rolling, and canvasing the horizon. Reddened by the descending Twins, the sea promised another gift of rain this night. Ulric had heard of places where it rained three out of every seven days but he'd never experienced it, and had sort of discounted the impact such frequent soaking would have on morale. He was learning, now, through experience. Nearly daily rain was oppressive when you had to be out in it. It also made travel a right bastard. The freshly wetted granite and basalt of these highlands was slick as glass and falls were frequent.
As if called from the abyss, a high rich voice, as if from an angel, called clarion across the highlands, "Curse these bastard hills and all who give us reason to travel them!"
It would seem his lovely lass had slid to the stoney ground again as she patrolled ahead. Between the loose mossy ground cover and the lichen that blurred where grass and bared earth bones came together, it was, essentially, impossible to avoid all of the slick spots. The various patches of wet on his pants, elbows, back, and chest attested to this reality. Some comfort he drew from his Sylvan partner's shared suffering. If it were only him falling, she would razz him endlessly around the camp fire for his clumsiness and, this way, he could raise counterpoint. Less amusing was keeping the carts from toppling over, a task that had put many of their wounded allies to pulling escort duty. The frequent ten and fifteen meter bluffs, places where the stone had sheared away from a hillside to roll into the peat bog below, were no laughing matter at all when traction was not guaranteed.
Fresh water, at least, was plentiful in these parts. They had not the ability to transport large volumes of potable water, and the swamps were swiftly discovered to be richly sulfurous and metallic to the taste. Not a source to be utilized without a light filtration and, preferably, a distilling to purify. Time for such things was a luxury and luxuries were sadly missing from this journey.
Twilight gloom was all that stopped the travelers from pushing onwards. Objectively, Ulric knew it was an abbreviated day of trekking. Emotionally, it was made long by its strenuous nature, oppressive atmosphere, and the weary bodies of those who traversed. That gloom he and his ragtag band of refugee Elves now saw to parting.
Salt-tinged air was soon given the flavor of wood smoke as small campfires sprung up across the dale through which they'd decided to call camp. From here, even the smoke would be dispersed before clearing the low rises around them and the group would be relatively safe from observation. Unless an enemy scout tripped into exactly this small valley or happened to be roaming the switch-backing fjord cliffs they would remain buried within the terrain.
Ulric rubbed the tightness out of his feet, his boots tossed aside in disgust. Even the fittest, most highly trained bodies would struggle through Prespang's Vatyn coasts. Poor footing, damp springy mosses, and an ungodly amount of elevation changes put strain on muscles unaccustomed to the region. If he were put to the question, he wouldn't be able to claim that they'd made better than twenty-six or so kilometers in all that afternoon. No chance at all of having hit forty, which was what he had hoped for when they set out. Even now, his ears picked up the sounds of pain that accompanied the worst of the injured, in spite of their grit to withhold evidence of suffering. Cruelly broken bones and mangled bodies could only endure so much of this kind of punishment.
In a way, it was good news. The barren, craggy fjords made landfall from the sea virtually impossible, except in very specific locations, around which the settlements along the Vatyn were already built. The well-nigh impassible bogs made inland travel untenable, but for the most desperate of circumstances. Which only left these highlands, their vales more specifically, as the likely places where even the most foolhardy would settle. That was to say, they didn't have much to fear from stumbling into villages as they crossed this swathe of Prespang. It was also unlikely that any forces searching for the escaped Elves, if even anyone knew they were gone missing, would think to search the desolation between Kistalfer and Port Edunshire.
Only a madman would do go overland rather than by ship. Hue Hue Hue.
Crazy like a fox, Ulric chuckled to himself.
Mist rolled in from atop the fjords and descended into their tucked away valley and the fires nestled therein became softly glowing points along the creek that meandered through the watershed. Ulric rubbed his hands together against the damp chill that served as a counterpoint to the ever-warming days. He'd guess it was topping some twenty-eightish Centigrade under the midevening suns. Probably scooting something closer to fourteen or fifteen now, and that damp air was making it feel far cooler. He was glad to get his own fire laid in and crackling cheerfully, the piney scent of the local trees spicing the smoke. It wasn't a few minutes after he'd gone round the other fires helping the Orlethrem who needed assistance and generally making himself useful to get everybody bedded down and fed that the rain came on in a steady drizzle.
He cooked his own meal in the shelter of his and Taipan's shared shelter, having donated his canvas Legranel rig to about a score of more needful pilgrims, those too hurt to be able to raise their own tents. Scents wafted out from the [Steelwood] pot, his old friend in this world, and he was dashing with salt to complete the flavor profile when Taipan entered, soaking wet and slightly bedraggled from her time scouting about.
Without a word, she stripped down to her skin, taught muscle covered in the appropriate places by generous curves, and layered by a satin smooth hide just darker than cinnamon. Needless to say, Ulric was a fan of the view, especially when she went to removing the thigh high leather boots. Unfortunately, it didn't last long as she immediately set to putting on a simple robe from her pack. He sort of missed the whole far eastern shrine maiden getup from back in the more peaceful days of Irielhos, but that stuff took up quite a bit of space. Besides, that many layers and a lady would roast making the pace his Shadow had held these last few hours. Once she had her garments arranged for drying, she held out her hand in a wordless demand for sustenance.
Ulric gladly ladled full a bowl and handed it off to her. His reward came from a deep sniff of the contents and a gluttonous inhalation of the stew. The bowl was offered to him again without speech and he, again, filled it. The bottom of that bowl was found with determination but the Iriel'en woman at least sat down by the fire this time.
Meals amongst the Deep Woods Elves were taken in silence, a custom that Ulric had found peaceful and adopted himself these days. His own bowl he ate from with gusto, and refilled immediately before scraping the bottom of the pot to give Taipan her third helping, this time with chunks of the crusty camp bread to slop out the broth. Both occupants of the tent then spent a quiet few minutes bustling around the big teepee arranging their gear and readying their equipment for rapid deployment.
Caution in dangerous territory was one of his Wife's tenets, to the odd warrior religion she cultivated in herself. None better he knew for navigating the wilderness than his Taipan, except, perhaps for her mother. Himself an avid camper and hiker in a time long before and a man who had scratched subsistence from the Vardan forests when he was dropped naked amongst the vast arbors of the [Plateau of Ancients] for months, Ulric knew he had perhaps a tenth of the skill for surviving out in the bush as his lady love. If she did it, it was a good idea to do in turn. Except when she assumed that one could see in the dark as well as she did, a habit that he found profoundly annoying.
Speaking of annoying habits, Taipan had curled up into the blankets to form an Elf burrito which precluded him from the use of seventy percent of the bedding without so much as a word. This, he was almost certain, was a power play by her, to force him to ask to be let into bed. Dozens of ways did Taipan have to attempt to subjugate him, and this one he wasn't going to allow. Iriel'en lived life as a competition amongst themselves. Contests were found in every aspect of life and they enjoyed challenging and being challenged. To be excluded from this was to be seen as unworthy of even being considered as an opponent.
Even were it not the case that it was one of his wife's myriad ways of fucking with him and rather that this behavior was merely a product of about seventy years of solo adventuring, he wasn't going to try to big spoon his way to warmth while his back cooled with the dying fire. So, he did what any rational person does in that situation.
Carefully, gently, so as not to disturb the dozing form within, the former engineer lifted the burrito containing his beloved up and tossed it out of the shelter to land in an outraged heap outside.
He was not ignorant of the fact that it was still raining as he did.
"Einar, you twice born bastard! You will pay with your heart's blood!" Screamed the rudely roused Elf, tearing her way out of the confining bedding.
Poking his head out of the shelter door he rejoined, "Well worth the price to enjoy the warmth of mine own blankets!"
Blurring with the speed of her leap he was hit in the hips by a shoulder tackle and a crafty hand that hooked his knee sent him to the floor. Ulric knew better than to let her have the initiative though and immediately locked his legs around the squirming form that was trying to achieve a knee bar.
He locked his ankles and gave an intentional squeeze, tensing his thighs against her sides and he felt her abdominal muscles lock to prevent him from rendering her unable to draw a breath. A reaching claw attempted to rake his eye and he had to burn a precious moment fending her off, mostly successful because the pressure he applied to her body with his legs was preventing her from breathing more than a shallow gasp at a time. He wrangled the arm and hooked it behind her back, overpowering her with difficulty. The other arm he similarly secured after a fairly intense struggle, that one he secured as well with the hand holding the first restrained arm.
Growling issued forth and he knew what was coming. Just before the teeth could latch onto his thigh, he snagged her silken locks and slowly, deliberately pulled the biting maw away from his tender flesh. Baleful emeralds took him in, their bronze flecks shimmering in the firelight and he saw in them that the fight was not yet out of her.
Grunting, Ulric clenched tighter and levered his knees into position one at her navel and the other in the vicinity of a kidney. Taipan was as fine a specimen of Elvendom as could be found, but Ulric was, in their words, a freak, with might that was very nearly unnatural for a Human. That strength he used now, in a mismatched opposition of his lower body against her core, a battle which she could not win. Slowly, timing to each begrudging release of breath he cinched the noose of his grip tighter until the Elf could no longer take breaths of any significance, in the way of an anaconda strangling a boar.
Ulric was rigid with the effort of holding the wrists in one hand and the gentle but firm hold of the hair with the other.
"Your bedroll is in the rain lass, and, unless I miss my guess, you're going to pass out from anoxia in about thirty seconds." Ulric reminded his partner, holding the jerking and squirming Elf in place.
Taipan chose unconsciousness, fighting until the end, and, after she was out, he put her into his bedroll and retrieved hers from the rain. He got the blankets and bedding drying by the fire, not badly soaked but certainly damp under the misting precipitation and was stripping down for bed when his mate bolted upright.
"Hominum!" Declared her gasping cry as she tangled herself in the bedroll and spare blanket.
This was immediately followed by a few light coughs and something in Elvish that he wasn't completely certain of, other than it involved his being grilled alive and served to some kind of animal. Soon enough though she relaxed and laid herself back down, resting in an easy, relaxed sprawl, as if he had not just had to body choke her to senselessness.
"You are improving Ulric." Announced the melodic voice of his mate approvingly, "You would not have thought of a compression submission when began our journey."
Checking the blanket with his hands to make sure it wouldn't hotspot and catch fire he observed, "Before our journey, I would not have imagined that I would find need to render my wife unconscious on occasion to secure my rights to a bed."
The husky chuckle that said Taipan wasn't angry about the contest results, graced his back with its sweet music before she reminded him, as she did every so often when this game was played, "It is good to know that you have not gone soft in my absence. I simply cannot abide a weakling, Glade Chief."
Taipan was gracious in victory, while the furs dried out, he only had to deliver a full body massage and prepare her a bath using [Stonewalls], river water, or snow, and heated stones from the fire before he would be allowed the privilege of his quartering with her. Pissing rain as it was, he was glad that he had not been forced to make the tiger in Iriel'en skin a bath, although, he wouldn't mind that massage.
Now that he'd earned his place in the bed, the pair of them assumed their regular status of his becoming her body pillow and they lay listening to the sound of the other's breath until sleep claimed them. As he drifted off, Ulric's thoughts went over the nights past and the times that he'd lost this little play of theirs. Squeezing moans from the woman's muscles was as much fun for him as for her. It's not so bad, he told himself, losing his grip on waking life, being bound to a Taipan.
Screaming.
Ulric shot awake, climbing out from the blankets even as the loosely robed woman next to him darted to her bow and threw the quiver over her shoulder, not even taking time to belt it on. She was outside in a flash, leaving him behind while he pulled on his own robe, having been asleep in the buff. Taipan's wisdom again bore fruit, she was already finding the source of the panicked shouts while he was grabbing his sword from its place next to the bed. Gleaming deep blue metal caught dying coals and a background part of his brain catalogued that the fireplace indicated Moon's Peak as he tore through the teepee flap, into the night beyond.
A heavy thump drew more cries and Ulric felt the ground shiver through his bare feet, even as he ran, eyes scanning the dark for the source of the fearsome impact. There. Something huge, silohuetted against the Coven, their vibrant crescents of witch-light illuminating a hulking form.
This monstrosity was easily as big as a tank, and as armored. The beast looked like an armadillo chimera'd to an ankylosaur, the stubby, ridged plates of armor on its tail giving way to a mace like clubbed end. That tail was buried almost entirely through the thin turf and into the craggy bones of the valley floor beneath. Mangled forms that had been people were scattered around it, and pulped remains fell away from the beast's weapon when it extracted itself from the stones.
Senses came alive as his core interfaced fully with his body, mana rippling through his body. It was like being born, in some ways. A world blurry and dim suddenly thrown into crystal clarity and he felt himself lit like a beacon. The Lord Instinct, ever waiting, sang in his thoughts, a melody of rage and violence. Here was a challenger, an interloper that threatened his sovereignty over all that he had taken under wing.
Ceraunic core humming Ulric gathered his power while the beast turned its ugly head. A long toothy tongue flicking out to taste the air and locate prey. It had no obvious eyes, its forehead smoothly armored plates. It had plenty of teeth though, half meter needles and recurved, to send hapless creatures inevitably down the wide gullet. Some taste must have caught the monster's attention, and Ulric wasn't long finding out what. A hobbling, desperately shambling trio of refugees were a bare handful of meters away and egressing as fast as their battered forms would allow. They wouldn't make it. He saw that immediately when heavy, bristled fur bearing legs lifted and it started into pursuit. It wasn't fast, but it had plenty of ungainly gallop to close on the near cripples.
*Chock*
A fleeting blue dart bored into the monster's flesh midstride, through a gap between forelimb and body no bigger than his hand, Taipan at work.
The behemoth released a shrill, piercing roar halting its charge immediately and jerked itself to curl around the wound just as two more arrows flew in from the dark to skip off the bony carapace. Ulric decided his course of action, now, to support the strategy of his more experienced wife. Beating against that ridiculous hide was wasted effort against this behemoth, they needed a way to circumvent the armor, and Ulric had something in mind.
[White Interference]
The circulating lightning in his core neutralized and he immediately attuned the turbulence hidden by serenity that was the harmony of Aquae. Water from the air and ground compressed at his call, like drawn to like at his core's insistence, pulled easily from such plenty around him. The sheer exhilaration of willing the world to change and seeing it do so soared through his being in spite of the circumstance, and Ulric channeled a beam of hydraulic power towards the monster wedging itself around one of its only vulnerabilities.
[Water Jet]
Mastery of this spell had turned a linear flow into a spiral and the finger width lance of water ripped into the ridged plates on the back of the monster's thick neck, hungrily drilling. The monster barely flinched at the pressure, didn't understand the danger of the insistent press on its body until the layers of bone failed and white-hot pain tore into its neck. The monster armadillo shrieked and broke off its attack on his wife.
Turning away, the focused beam Ulric held upon it drawing a carving along its armored hide, the beast whipped its tail and Ulric cut off his channel with a curse, throwing himself into the dirt as the damned tail elongated, plates separating connected by a dense cord of what looked like braided steel cable as thick as his thigh. The momentum of the beast, coupled to the lengthening of the tail sent its maul of an appendage hurtling through the air above him with audible fury. Ulric watched as the arc of the bony appendage sent it into a complete turn riding the force of its strike to reposition facing him, the tail itself contracted and arched over its back, ready to swing again, like a cannon in battery.
Godsdamn! That was dangerous!
There was no blocking that and Ulric had glimpses of the little Svartalfin's giant hammer. Same story, he absolutely could not be touched by that fucker or his ticket was punched. He got to his feet quickly, holding Xef'tocht with a little uncertainty. Could the blade get through that armor? Probably, if he put enough oomph behind his stroke. Would it rip him apart if the blow didn't destroy its central nervous system immediately? Also, probably.
A throaty chuff from the beast and a pawing of earth that tore stone like mud preceded the monster's charge.
Ulric fled immediately in the opposite direction, not daring the risk in the low light.
Momma Einar raised no fool and he wasn't going to even think of taking that thing head on. His bare feet flew over the ground and a glance over his shoulder confirmed that the monster was still coming, albeit not as quickly as he was going. Again, he cursed the darkness and activated [Ceraunoperception] to keep track of the beast behind him.
Hurried options skittered across the surface of increasingly distracting ones and Ulric focused to shut out the noise.
[Warrior’s Instinct]
Better.
Smoother thinking now, his legs pumped, feed slapped against stone and moss and Ulric Einar ran for his second life while hashing out his options.
Water worked well enough on that carapace, but that working was absolutely his best shot at defeating armor, and it was still too slow without some way to pin the tank beast down. Unless…distant memories of broken ceramics and shrapnel flashed through his adrenaline-fueled brain while he ran. Heat shock? Fuck that, Ulric cursed with disgust at the horrible idea, and at the minor skid across a loose patch of moss that only barely didn’t end in tragedy.
[Absolute Zero] needed him to be in touch range and he wasn't getting that close to it. Think Einar! He yelled at himself while his feet navigated the slick stones as he ran. Just don’t fall down is all warning whisper sounded.
Taipan was not idle, he though he saw a flicker of motion off to his right, just to the side of the monster and a pained shriek from the beast rose up as a second arrow joined the first in the oh so small gap in its protection. Brutal claws stabbed into the stone, stopping the Greater beast without grace, and it didn’t even completely stop before attacking the source of its pain.
The creature did that tail whip again, its bulk possessed of incredible agility for such size and the rough spikes of the tail whistled. Where Ulric had gone low, the beast had shifted its strategy alarmingly quickly, bringing the tail parallel to the ground. A small outcrop was obliterated in its passage, flinging shards into the dark that brought a pained yelp from one of the Elves that had not gained enough distance.
It would have turned his partner to Aes’r mist if she'd dove to the ground. However, Taipan had not gone low.
Spectacular agility on full display, a vertical leap took her up and a blue flare, shadow fire rippling across her bow threw her into a surreal contrast with the moonlit night as his Shadow let loose a three-arrow volley at the neck of the monster, projectiles having been held in a grip that Ulric wasn't sure he could make and still draw that wickedly powerful recurved composite stave.
One arrow skipped wide off the armor. A second hit at an angle and entered the flesh but stopped halfway up the arrow's shaft. The third was money and fletches disappeared into the monster's flesh. A keening wail rose up from the creature and its eyeless head focused on the falling Elf's form, even as her feet touched the earth from her jump.
Shit. Queasy anticipation seized him. This was where the bastard thing showed its trump card.
One thing he’d learned in his time upon Varda was that there was always a kicker with these monsters. Cynical expectation of the worst is frequently rewarded with the satisfaction of being correct. And also, the consequence of it.
Thrumming pulses of mana raked the earth beneath the monster’s claws. The dome plated face shimmered brassy and, before his very eyes their foe’s smooth carapace took on the luster of metal, blue-silver. Moonlight reflected as if from a mirror from the beast’s mana reinforced armor and Ulric knew cutting that creature was now strictly impossible, even for Xef’tocht. The posture of the beast shifted towards aggression. Uh oh.
The barbed tongue flickered twice in an instant and it launched itself towards Taipan who had gained distance following her triple shot. Lessons of the [Shrieking Ravager] were well learned, Taipan was in flight as soon as she landed, not waiting to see what the retaliation of the beast would be. She'd cut like a world class soccer player and juked sideways before vanishing beneath her cloak of Iskios mana. The creature made to charge before her abrupt visual camouflage took hold and it aborted, a sign that it possessed some kind of optical sight, from an organ Ulric hadn’t been able to see in the night.
Their enemy’s great toothy maw tilted in puzzlement. That confused pause lasted a breath. Which was all the head-start his partner got before another few flicks of its tongue found the taste of her passage and it took off to Ulric's nine o' clock, assuredly on her trail.
Ulric heard his Shadow's throaty yell as she ran, updating him, "Ulric! It sees by smell, movement, and the vibrations of the ground below! The monster is poisoned but there is no telling how long it can continue to attack before it succumbs!”
When the beast deflected to turn on Taipan, Ulric had halted his own flight and was plotting, especially when it became clear that invisibility was no camouflage against the monster's senses. Gods blood he'd have killed to have [Reaper's Basil] on him, that bastard would taste hell if he threw that powdered magma into its face. Irrelevant Einar, focus. It sees by smell, can it still be taste blinded? Burned? Shocked? All of the above? Maybe. Maybe not, with that ironclad natural armor.
Ice slid down his spine when he saw his Shadow's graceful form slide sideways, betrayed by the wet stones. Her hand caught her fall and sent her rolling just a breath before the treacherous valley floor was pulverized by a meteoric strike from above. Flying fragments of rock as big as a medicine ball pelted the Elf and knocked the wind from her lungs as she sprawled on the ground. Even dazed, his mate was aware of the danger and fought to her feet. He watched her form evaporate into shadow and the kneeling Elven form reappeared a dozen meters away just before the place she'd been got cratered again.
Ulric could see the effort that cost her, she'd been pulling hard on her mana, using layered skills to penetrate the monster's defenses and inflict maximum harm to it with every opportunity. By the sound earlier it was wounded, maybe even mortally so. But on it came anyway, berserk with fury to kill the insects that had bitten it.
Mana coursed inside and Ulric drew a throwing knife, linking it to his magic with a pulse of effort.
[Lightning Javalin]
Unleashing the energy of his spellform, a jagged violet lightning bolt took the beast in the head. Head snapping aside the beast staggered to a halt and nearly buckled to the earth. Only nearly though, and Ulric could just barely make out that the smooth, almost polished gray-brown carapace was now smudged and charred, sparking residues of his magic zipping across the shimmering mana of the beast’s armor hardening mana. And also, to his dismay, intact. It was, as he’d feared at the onset, nearly unphased by lightning.
So he tried again. And again.
Two more bolts of lightning split the dark, thundering loud. They were followed by a gale of wind bound by arcing light that crashed over the goliath form throwing a massive font of sparks against the shimmering mana shield. A shrill beastial scream rose up from the monster as it endured the assault.
But it withstood the best he could throw at it, scarred, but alive, mobile, and pissed.
“The armor is harder than steel and the shield resists my offensive magic Taipan! I don’t think arrows are going to do the trick anymore, either. We need a plan!” Ulric shouted, taking off immediately.
His attack had brought the beast’s attention back towards him, as he’d expected, and he was running again, slipping and sliding across uneven highland, while the wicked talons of the behemoth simply gouged into the earth below to give it traction. His bare feet slapped loudly on the rocks and his lungs were filling as he shifted into high gear, racing at top speed to stay ahead of the chasing predator.
While he ran, his partner, like a wolf, was angling for the Greater’s flank. She put his heart into his throat with an almost casual sidestep of the downwards stroke of that pulverizer of a tail and he saw her leap onto the monster’s plated back. Her knife glittered in the darkness before being consumed in black flame and she struck hard, a hammerfisted stab driving the blade into the adamant hide of her foe.
Sparks flew like a magnesium flint, showering from the blow. And again. Again. Taipan was lashing out like a lunatic, her hand gripping a plated ridge and her preternatural balance keeping her in place as the beast broke not its stride as it continued to try to close on his heels. All this he knew from a brief glance over his shoulder and, while his heart pounded and his legs churned as hard as he’d ever run in his life, he realized that he couldn’t do this for much longer. Ulric scrabbled into his belt pouch and he drew out the Tephras infused catalyst gifted him by Werona. Whatever juice was left to it, he needed something to turn the tables.
A flare of brassy light and a sound like a bell pealed too hard precluded an exultant shout behind him, from Elven throat “I have broken the shield!”
Abruptly sliding to a reverse pivot, Ulric was suddenly charging towards the creature’s massive jaws, which had opened wide in anticipation of feasting on its prey.
Ulric shouted, even as he damned himself for a suicidal mook for this idiot gambit, “You gotta bail, it’s getting hot!”
A gout of pyroclastic ash hot enough to melt bronze materialized as the man channeled magic into the instrument gripped in his hand, magic flowed and his guts clenched when jet black cracks snapped across the surface of the catalyst. Unable to halt its bulk so rapidly, monstrous form plowed headlong into the massive plume of cinder and brutal heat. Ulric saw his partner throw herself to the land below, rolling gracefully to her feet, as if she practiced egress from rampaging monsters on the regular. That ash filled the gaping, biting mouth and throat and Ulric concentrated the mana in his core to fill his body with potency, praying that the gem powering the Ash mage's working didn't explode as he tossed it aside in his sudden sprint toward the boiling cloud covered beast.
[Surge]
Empowered muscles threw the former engineer into a full steam baseball slide passing under the rampaging monster, and his cloud of ash. Braced against his forearm and shoulder, his artifact blade’s keen reverse edge hungering, Ulric dragged the weapon along its entire length across the super predator’s underbelly as he went.
The Glade’s Vengeance bit hard, its imbued edge parting the softer hide of the armadillo Greater’s stomach. Screaming its shrill cry, it tried to throw its bulk down on him reflexively but sheer magically enhanced momentum carried him through its rear legs. Knowing the tail awaited him now, he drove his hand hard to the earth and his flesh pained him as it was abraided by stone, and tore up moss and soil, and he threw his legs out to the side. The action redirected his painful slide, pushing him sideways, drifting on his thigh and hip, shredding his robe along that side. The bone mace smashed down where he would have been and the monster howled again at its newest wounds, burns to the throat and a sheeting of blood from its surgically opened guts.
Unbelievably, their enemy was still raring to go. Bleeding, its organs exposed glistening in the moonlight, poisoned, burned, and draining its core’s vitality to imbue its hide with titanium strength, the thing gained its clawed feet again and came on any way, furious rage consuming it.
Ulric’s own blood trailed down his scraped thigh and hip and he’d lost two fingernails on his left hand while altering his trajectory enough to not get pulped. Core howling, Lord Instinct howling, he was channeling all the mana he had left, ready to lay a killing blow of riotous lightning. He didn’t get the chance.
Lithe, graceful, elegant savagery blurred towards the beast, shadow made into weapons like great claws covering her hands, Taipan assaulted the monster slashing at its legs and undercarriage, her seemingly mindless aggression putting the creature on the defensive again as it tried to curl around its exposed abdomen. That club-like tail flailed trying to drive the ferocious Elf away, keeping her at bay, even as she continued to relentlessly drive against its defenses, sending sparks high into the night air with her blows, razored slices carved from the bone plates.
Ulric was almost transfixed by the sight, this two meters and seventyish kilograms of vicious Iriel’en that had been his wife showing the cunning violence of an Elf Hunter. He couldn’t risk a magical attack, not and catch her up in it. He couldn’t join her or he’d get in the way. Acid anxiety gripped the man as he watched, hating his inability to compliment his wife’s desperate attack. A single mistake, that was all it would take for his mate to be completely destroyed by the colossal strength of the Greater.
Taipan made none, dancing her midnight swords dance under the moons, Iskios her arms.
Death found the monster in a single moment of overextension, a too strong blow that lodged its appendage in its extended form into the stones, locked temporarily in place. Lancing towards the Greater, fast as her namesake, Taipan drove in and deftly drew a poison vial and punched it into the stomach wound, arm covered to the elbow in a claw of darkness. Deep into the cut Ulric’s had made went the Elven huntress’s arm, crushing the vial in her shadow covered talon, and she leapt away, too rapidly for the creature to even flinch away, glimmering green and bronze flecked eyes pitilessly beheld the slain monster that did not know it was dead.
Taipan, certain now of her victory and pushing herself to her limits, landed with her boots at a slightly unfavorable angle, her footing was not sure when she came to rest, the betraying rocks below almost toppling the Elf woman. Pained and furious, guts burning with toxin, the beast’s final act was to whip that tail again, slamming an outcrop with its momentum in a shotgun of stone shards that battered the woman's form, drawing a pained yelp to go with the thudding impacts that sent her prone to the ground.
Ulric threw himself forward, ignoring the now sagging creature to go to his partner, a swell of concern rising. Beyond that ultimate strike, the beast made no more attempts at offense, could not continue its reckless predation.
No mere smudge on an arrow’s head, within its vitals was a near to full vial of toxin so potent the smallest drop would shut off a smaller animal’s nervous system within a few minutes. The big old horror over there began frothing blood within a few seconds and its spasming limbs failed it, sending it crashing to the ground, despite its incredible constitution.
Sweating, bleeding, adrenaline screaming, half naked in the drizzling rain, Ulric was as alive as he’d ever been. His budding fears at Taipan being badly injured were allayed as she levered herself up. By the set of his Aes’r-Iriel’en partner’s shoulders, squared, even though she’d been slow to rise, so was she. To quote young Brighteyes from a time long ago, “They were glory.” And they had come very, so very close to being the opposite of glory.
There is no joy like living when death has its cold clammy phalanges around your neck. He closed in on the Elf girl, still basking in her triumph, without her notice and pounced.
"Ack! Ulric! Not here, in front of the Heavens and all who stand beneath them, you savage!" Cried out a surprised Sylvan warrior princess as he picked her up in a hug from behind and squeezed, gently but firmly.
"You maniac! What made you think dirking that monster was a good idea?!" the reforged man growled into her hair.
Relief unlike anything he'd ever known flooded through him and Ulric felt momentarily drained, like dread had been the only thing keeping him moving. Dread. Fear. He could have laughed. After her accusations of being unthoughtful about his own mortality he found plenty of concern about hers. Looks like Ulric Einar was certainly afraid of something after all, it just wasn't related to himself. Oh irony.
A shaky breath left him and the once recluse took up the Elf woman in an embrace and he refused to let her go for at least three minutes, ignoring her protests.
"If you are not going to pin my ears to my shoulders for further embarrassment, will you at least help tend my wounds?" Came a final, somewhat breathless, complaint.
Ahh, thank whatever resident gods great and small, he silently whispered, she's not too hurt to bitch. It was a good sign. Ulric let her go then and set to inspecting the wounded lass. Some contusions, pretty bad, in spite of how smoothly she’d been moving, some real grit in the veteran Huntress to ignore the pain.
Her yelp when he prodded her side probably indicated some pretty significant injuries to the rib cage, maybe more than bruises. His gentle probing at the nasty looking bruising and torn skin on her thigh drew a hiss of pain and narrowed eyes.
“It is likely broken, if in a minor fashion, Glade Chief.” Taipan assessed, with more calm about the injury than he could summon himself.
Mashed ribs and a busted leg. Both were drastically limiting to mobility and, as his lady wife had demonstrated with gusto, mobility was essential to her ability to fight and survive against men and beasts. For the time being, Taipan was out of action. She took the verdict with more aplomb than he did by a great margin, having been wounded in combats and hunts many times before. Never out in the wilds of a hostile nation, far, far from the aid of her cousins amongst the Elven tribes, however. Certainly never with a hundred and change of her kinfolk, wounded and drawing predators like meat drew flies.
With her own wounds tended, Taipan took obvious glee in returning the favor, cleaning his scrapes with ointment and wrapping them in tight bandages. His fingers she carefully tied together to prevent him from causing her bandaging from coming loose. The robes he’d been wearing were a total loss, shredded along one side and covered in blood, his own and the Greater beast’s.
Between the massacre at the wedding back in Bartala and now this he was just straight up out of clothes that weren't tie died in somebody's remains. Problems for future Ulric. Presently, they had to see about the refugees. Those that survived.
News was…not great, but not as bad as he'd initially suspected. Six were dead, three eaten and three pulped by the creature's tail. About three times that were wounded in one way or another by the initial attack, but then, they’d already mostly been hurt and so the calculus regarding events wasn’t much changed. The Greater beast, because that is no doubt what it was, especially once Taipan fished its awakened core, glittering facets of brassy orange declaring magical potency from its chest. At least they had not failed through incaution, the monster had come at them from an almost impossible to expect angle: straight up from underneath.
The creature had burrowed up from the underground right dead in the middle of the sleeping Elves. Most managed to get away, as the monster had started by eating those first three victims alive. It killed the next group in a single slap of its massive tail.
Bitterness spiked in him as he surveyed the carnage. Imagine, living through all that they had, finding hope to live again, to see home, just to be slaughtered by some fucking jumped up armadillo. It wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair. Fair was what you got when you had a gun on all parties involved, as near as Ulric could reckon these days.
For an hour, Ulric helped the Orlethrem bury the remains of their kin in a single grave. The hole needn't be large, most of the corpses had been rendered into paste. Still, digging through the thin highland topsoil and the rocky ground was a task and a half. At least it was easy to find the stone to raise cairns. Ulric didn't know what to say to these long-suffering folk that wouldn't sound patronizing, so he didn't say anything except for a simple "We live still, and the Twins rise early tomorrow, so get what rest you may."
Cold it may have been but at least it was real, a solid thing to hang onto. There would be a tomorrow for those that lived and that tomorrow would have to be dealt with. Best to do it well rested. Taipan had long since finished carving apart the monster while he conducted funeral services and loading the spare room in wagons with the more valuable bits, especially those biosteel cables in its tail. The meat was, of course, a no go, not after she’d loaded it up with a whole vial of toxins most insidious.
Well past the witching hour was it by the time a knackered Glade Chief returned to the dry of his shelter. He'd gone and found Werona Autumnclaw's Ash magic catalyst, too tired to be anything but grateful it had lasted as long as it had. Curiosity over why it hadn't completely broken down and detonated could wait for later, he was for his blankets. His loving wife was already abed, wrapped again in her Elf burrito from both their bed rolls. Cursing quietly, he retreated back through the pissing rain and dropped down to restoke the fire. Not for the warmth, not really, although the damp chill was leaving him somewhat puckered. No, it was for the comfort that crackling flame and radiant heat gave to the heart. Morale was likely to be in the shitter. His. Taipan's. Everybody's. Who would have thought such a thing lived out here in the middle of the crags digging burrows under the dale waiting for things to come to water? Anybody with sense, Ulric, he chided. Where else would life congregate but around fresh running water? It was a mistake to have been so relaxed.
Wait, no, fuck that he told himself. That's fucking wrong, Ulric remonstrated. They had done well, had set watch, had traveled with care and had responded as aptly as anyone could have. Varda was simply a lethally dangerous place, that was all. There was a reason all the towns had walls. There was a reason for the vast swathes of wild country between the pockets of civilization. Things went bump in the night out here, and they bumped real good like. All a man could do was be vigilant. Absolute safety was a pipe dream and he had to accept that about this life.
It was a habit of the Before, to dwell on what couldn't be controlled. Probably due to stress. The twice born Valin shook off that useless negativity and chose to focus on the good. Taipan. Alive and well. In a couple of weeks, she'd be right as right rain water, an analogy no doubt conjured by the persistent damned bullshit that seemed determined to fall from the sky constantly around here. He’d be fit as a fiddle in a few days and fingernails regrew just fine.
Without care for the grumbles of a lightly tenderized serpent, Ulric broke into her haven of furs and went to sleep spooning the soft form. The strong grip that squeezed his mitt was as much as he needed to know for most of the world to be alright at the moment.
