Chapter 75 – A Howl of Terror

  Fuelled by the Inner Fire that surged through his veins, Adam rushed down the rocky slopes. His savage roar reverberated through the cave; all caution or attempt at stealth was long forgotten. All that mattered now, was getting towards his enemy as fast as possible.

  All the way down, in the centre of the cave filled with visions from Caine’s depression, was the pale man: an exceedingly powerful Corrupted. He seemed in no rush as he walked up to Emily. Bare feet found their way across the rain-splattered mud. He dragged a spiked, rusted blade behind him, leaving a ragged trail. A far heavier weapon than his skinny, horribly scarred arms should be able to wield. The foul shadow that grew out of his back grabbed its own head and convulsed in desperate twisting motions.

  Emily didn’t move an inch as her gaze bore into her opponent. The Oquira she’d gathered made the air around her shimmer as if it hung above a heated surface. In one of her battle stances, trained as a Talon of Aves, she stretched one arm forward to focus on her opponent. Her other arm was bent, ready to fire any Invocation the situation required.

  Her eyelids twitched before she struck. With one hand in the Ironglass gesture, she conjured twisting chains of the bluish-white material, which spiralled towards her enemy. The Corrupted kept walking in his slow tempo and heaved his mighty weapon. The rusty blade cleft the two chains to bits with a single powerful slash.

  That seemed to be just the opening Emily was waiting for. Quick as lightning, she hurled her self-made spear. However, the shadow stopped twitching and uttered a maddening screech in the weapon’s direction; more agonized than any howl of pain, more terrible than any cry of war, more empty than the night’s sky. As if hit by a shockwave of power, Emily’s spear dissolved in mid-air. She widened her eyes and hastily ducked aside. The Invocation left a gaping gulley through the muddy ground where she’d just stood.

  The pale man never slowed down his calm pace. Like some mythical harbinger of doom, he didn’t seem to think he needed any kind of hurry to get his prey. He dragged his blade behind him through the mud again.

  Meanwhile, Adam stormed down the rocky slope, past the towering stalagmites. Some of the masked and ragged Corrupted that hadn’t curled up in a ball to wallow in their own misery turned to face him. However, their flailing attacks lacked any conviction; Adam elbowed the hollow creatures out of the way.

  Empowered by Schultora’s ever-painful Invocation, Adam’s arms were so hot that the relentless rain steamed off them. When he finally landed on the cave’s floor, he charged his opponent.

  With an unyielding glare, the pale man kept his grey-ringed and blood-shot eyes fixed on Emily. However, the shadow gazed at the cave’s ceiling above Adam and spread its arms wide. There, it conjured a wildly shifting grey cloud, in which the shapes of soundlessly howling faces and animals appeared and disappeared.

  Although it was definitely an Invocation from Worhaelis, it was different from the ones Adam had seen before. The clouds seemed denser and dark grey, kind of like a storm cloud.

  Adam’s eyes widened. He dashed aside, right before a torrent of shadowy droplets fell out of the cloud, alongside the ‘normal’ rain. Fat grey drops of misery burned holes in stone like acid, turning the rocky and muddy ground into a pocked mass of craters.

  With a wave of the shadow’s arm, the cloud extended sideways. And the area splattered by the acidic rain followed Adam as he ran.

  Meanwhile, Emily fired Invocation after Invocation at the pale man. He didn’t bother moving out of the way; he either shrugged them off or deflected them with his huge unwieldy weapon. He gave a sickening, tortured grin as he hacked right through an Ironglass barrier with the sound of shattering ice.

  All right, powerful melee attacks. And the shadow has equally strong ranged Invocations. It’s awfully slow, though. And I’ve seen cucumbers with better armour…

  After quick zig-zagging movements to dodge the acidic rain, Adam dashed away, making sure the pale man was positioned between himself and Emily. Then Adam charged. He wasn’t entirely sure how he would kill that shadow, but he’d find some way.

  Right?

  However, the insidious being sprouting out of the pale man’s back grabbed its misshapen head again and convulsed in twitching spasms. Before Adam could reach it, the shadow squeezed its eyes shut and screamed.

  This time it was not in agony however; it was in terror. An echoing screech of senseless, mindless panic.

  In an Instinct Invocation, undoubtedly stemming from Osaehin’s fear, a crowd of vague yellowish shapes appeared all around them. A wild horde of ghostly people and animals ran in all directions, screaming in a deafening cacophony of blind fear. Adam couldn’t help but jump aside as a boar, foaming at the mouth in fright, hurtled past him. People scrambled over each other to get away in the maddening chaos. The unnatural fear gripped Adam by the throat, making him take short shallow breaths, as his eyes darted around for anything he should dodge or evade.

  It's not real! It’s an—oh SHIT!

  Barely noticeable through the chaotic spectacle, a mass of mud-creeps dove towards his legs. Adam barely managed to jump and roll out of the way, painfully hitting his shoulder on the jagged edge of a demolished stalagmite. Standing up, he bared his teeth in pain. Just in time to see the shadow hurl a grey net. Even in mid-air, Adam could almost feel the weight of Invocation, with its terrible, self-deprecating sentences woven into it.

  However, sadness wasn’t the only emotion in the room.

  In the face of the Thuraum’s Corrupted, it was strangely hard to form any kind of anger. However, fear was all too present around him. And seeing the net reminded Adam of his own darkest days. And that void, that endless hole of loss without a hope of ever getting better, was something he’d avoid like the plague.

  “Osaehin,” his heart whispered.

  Embracing his own fear, allowing it to keep him alive, Adam darted away. Nimble as a gazelle being chased by predators, fast as a salmon slipping away from a bear, he slid across the muddy floor, barely dodging the smoky net.

  His instincts screamed at him to flee, to jump and hide in a hole between the rocks. But with teeth-gritting determination, he forced himself not to, despite the overwhelming opponent they were dealing with.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  As his eyes darted to all the threats around, he saw the group of ragged, shambling Corrupted that were still attacking the Thaler enclosure at the left side of the cave. However, without their leaders’ support, the Corrupted’s number had severely dwindled. The Thaler resistance used the protection and high ground given by their barricade to the fullest. One of the terror birds raised its long neck high and brought the pointed tip of its predatory beak down like a pickaxe, instantly killing its foe.

  Jahecca, the masked Thaler, was in the heat of the battle. After conjuring an Ironglass weight at the end of his staff, he smashed it into the head of a flailing Corrupted with a loud crunch. He was powerful. Experienced. Another threat to face when…

  Adam shook his head, trying to force his hare-brained fear out.

  The pale man’s gaze was fixed on Emily, who struggled to keep her assault up. I can’t leave her like this! I can’t make her fight that thing alone! He took deep breaths and focused on his own determination to get out of the Realm. To beat this miserable creep and ease Caine’s suffering. Gradually, the Invocation released its grip on Adam, slowly making him free to move on his own accord again. Although his feet instinctively wanted to run away, he made them run up to Emily.

  Meanwhile, the pale man unflinchingly continued his slow and inevitable advance. An enemy from which there was no true escape. One could run from depression, one could try to keep it at a distance. For a while. However, once depression had laid its cold hands on someone, even once, it would always return to—

  Adam slapped himself in the face. NO! Stop it!

  “Maybe I can get us out, through those clouds,” Emily whispered. “I could use Gaolom or Ironglass?”

  Adam eyed the thick grey Invocations the shadow had conjured to block the exits and shook his head. “That acidic effect will probably eat away at your Gaolom. And I’m not sure your Ironglass can fend off both the clouds and whatever the shadow will throw at us.”

  “Any bright ideas then, maestro?” she huffed, the exhaustion in her voice clearly audible.

  Adam rubbed the scars on his wrist. The battle had eaten at his reserves as well, while neither the pale man nor its shadow showed any sign of fatigue at all. Whatever Adam and Emily would do, they needed to make their next move count, as they’d surely lose a battle of attrition. To discuss their plans too openly might be risky as well; although the disturbing scenes on the sides of the cave continued to make their racket, Adam wasn’t sure if the pale man was able to hear or understand what they were saying.

  Then, Adam’s eyes widened and the corners of his mouth hinted towards a smile. “We need to keep him busy, keep his attention on us,” he breathed with a hint of excitement in his voice. “He can deflect Invocations with his blade, but maybe a broader approach would do the trick. If you create an opening, I’ll charge in and make some noise.”

  Emily squinted, as her eyes darted around the room. Then she blinked and focused on their opponent again. “Ooh, right!” With a focused frown, she gathered all the Oquira she could muster. The air around her shimmered with power and the temperature dropped even further. Then, she spread her arms and used both to conjure a multitude of little feather-shaped knives of Marrow. With a fierce battle cry, she fired her Invocations.

  As the pale man uncaringly continued his advance, the shadow that grew from his back bent forward and howled in agony again. The massive shockwave shattered many knives and sent the others flying in all directions; blowing them away like leaves in a sudden gust of wind. Both Adam and Emily jumped to the right to dodge the shadow’s Invocation that left a straight gulley in the mud.

  Roaring as loud as he could, with his dagger clenched in a white-knuckled grip, Adam ran to his opponent. Meanwhile, all the scattered Marrow knives stopped falling in mid-air, aimed their blades at the pale man and flew at him. The pale man swung his blade to deflect the knives and shards of Marrow that neared him from all directions, but couldn’t stop all of them; Emily’s scheme to attack him with a ‘broad’ approach worked perfectly.

  With a grin of excitement, feeling the hot blood flow through him once again, Adam charged. He vaulted up, clenching his dagger in two hands high above his head. That caught the pale man’s attention. Despite the swarm of brittle shrapnel that pestered him like an uncoordinated swarm of wasps, the pale man had no choice but to heave his enormous misshapen blade to defend. The tip of Adam’s stone weapon screeched as it slid along the metal surface before it cut the bastard’s hand in the end.

  The pale man locked his empty eyes with Adam; it reacted to his flesh being cut with a grey, sickening grin. His other fist flew at Adam, who held up both arms to defend. Cold and unforgiving as a boulder, it hit Adam hard enough to make him roll back over the ground like a ragdoll. Blind pain erupted from Adam’s arms and body as he crashed into the sharp rocks.

  The pale man wasn’t able to follow up on his attack, though, as Emily’s swarm of Marrow struck wherever possible. Shallow scrapes and cuts cut grey lines in the pale man’s skin. Unfortunately, Emily didn’t succeed in leaving fatal wounds, probably because of the distance and sheer quantity of knives, which made them exceptionally difficult to control. The Marrow weapons flew around their target in an uncoordinated fashion.

  However, judging by the intensity of the shadow’s convulsions as it desperately grasped the sides of its head, it was almost ready to fire another mad Invocation. Adam hastily backed away before the shadow opened its mouth wider than humanly possible. With an agonized, hissing screech, it spewed a cloud of thick grey vapour all around itself. The noise reverberated through the cave as the Invocation dissolved all of Emily’s knives.

  Ah, a smokescreen? And even more noise on top? Adam gave a dark grin as he moved away. Thanks for your kind cooperation.

  The shadow stopped hissing and the pale man stepped from the dark clouds, having picked up his blade with his one working hand. He suddenly froze in his tracks. The bloodshot eyes swivelled to what Adam and Emily had distracted him from.

  The cavalry had finally arrived.

  Three of the Thaler warriors rode their barded terror birds and charged straight at the big Corrupted. Daeryn, the armoured lady, and a young man with long flowing hair. With lances raised and faces contorted in sneers of fury, they screamed as one, “FOR LORD CAINE!”

  In the spur of the moment, Adam almost screamed along with them as he sprinted back into the fray; he’d rather fight the pale man by himself than recognise his buddy as a lord.

  The pale man spun around and parried the long-haired man’s lance with his blade. Before the terror bird could maul his side, the pale man hit the beautiful creature’s head with the pommel, killing the beast with a single blow.

  Daeryn, the bald lady Adam had seen before, roared with all her fury as she pulled on her terror bird’s reins. At full speed, her mount pounced the pale man and bit down on his arm. Dagger-like talons swiped over the broad pale chest. Baring her white teeth in a mighty roar, Daeryn plunged her lance deep into the pale man’s shoulder. He took lurching steps back in his effort to keep standing, but the foul shadow on his back lurched forward. The clawed fingers of its left hand had grown to the length of shortswords before it plunged them into the terror bird’s neck. The other hand disappeared into Daeryn’s belly.

  Daeryn’s eyes bulged. A vein on her sloped forehead bulged as her trembling arm pushed her lance deeper. With a bone-chilling shriek, the shadow pulled mount and rider from the pale man and threw them away like garbage. The lance followed soon.

  The elderly female Thaler screamed her hoarse battle cry as she rode the last terror bird to their target. With all the emotion of a stone, the pale man heaved his blade.

  But Adam was faster.

  At full velocity, he jumped and used both boots to kick the back of the pale man’s knee. The great joint buckled, and Adam immediately bent the pale sword arm onto the warrior’s back, using the arm lock his brother Joshua had once taught him. Emily’s chains of Ironglass wrapped themselves around the shadow’s arms, right before it could lash out at Adam.

  Both rider and beast screamed in their battle fury. The armoured Thaler raised her lance and struck, piercing the broad chest. As the impact bowled the pale man over, the Thaler jumped off her saddle and onto the disturbing Corrupted’s belly. With a savage growl, she drove her weapon even deeper, impaling him.

  The shadow contorted, flailing its limbs uncontrollably until it faded into nothing with a vile screech. Sighing softly in what seemed like relief, the first positive emotion it had uttered, the humanoid body relaxed and smiled genuinely for just a moment before it crumbled into nothing. Pale-faced and clearly exhausted, Emily grabbed the green sprite which flew out of the dirt that remained. Panting deeply, feeling the rapid beats of his left heart, Adam stared as the speck of light materialized into one of the prized ammonites.

  They had won.