“There,” I said with a smile. “I’m all filled up.”
I blocked a swipe from the salamander, jumped back, and lifted my left palm. Wood magic surged from my center and along my arm before infusing the air in front of me. A Plank Pillar burst from the ground, and a heavy thud sounded as the salamander struck the other side of the wooden wall.
“Didn’t burn it this time, buddy?” I said. “You must be getting tired.”
The creature hissed furiously, and the planks shook as the lizard gouged at them with claws and teeth.
I let the Vigor flow again as the wooden wall fractured beneath the salamander’s onslaught. It snarled as it sprang toward me, and I brought forth another pillar. This time, it appeared beneath the salamander. It was the tallest, widest, toughest Plank Pillar I had ever summoned. The wooden creation struck the salamander in midair, and I continued imbuing the pillar with Vigor. With the constant stream of magical energy, it continued climbing upward until the salamander wailed as the pillar smashed it against the ceiling. There was a crack of bones breaking as the creature went silent.
The Plank Pillar disintegrated after a second, and the salamander dropped to the ground, flat as a pancake. Even though the corpse looked like it had been pressed with a rolling pin, a tiny orb in its chest was completely unharmed.
The object was still secured by sturdy tendons, but the cage of bones that kept it safe was completely crushed. I carefully cut the tendons and pulled out the core, a glowing sphere that crackled with heat and power. I was tempted to press it against my chest then and there, to absorb the power straight into me, but Rutmonlir had ordered us to bring back each core we found. And I knew from past experience that absorbing a lot of power at once could be unsettling and might throw me off balance for the rest of the hunt. If I was going to beat Hamon to three scorched salamander cores, I needed to stay at my best.
The first salamander had proven far more difficult than I’d imagined, but I now knew that even fire-breathing had limits. I was also improving my ability to use only as much Vigor as necessary to keep my body cool. The channels inside my body had also grown in power, and I felt that I would be able to preserve Vigor for two more killing moves.
I slipped the core into the folds of my robes and tucked it beneath my belt before I exited the chamber. I traveled down another three tunnels but found no salamanders. With my lure destroyed, I had nothing to draw them to me, either. Returning to Rutmonlir was out of the question. I doubted I would find my way back to the entrance in less than an hour, and by that time, Hamon could have retrieved all the cores he needed. I’d kept track of my movements, so I wouldn’t get lost, but time was of the essence.
I heard heavy footsteps echo through the tunnel behind me and paused a moment before I saw Hamon sprinting toward me.
“I have two!” Hamon roared as he sprinted to close the distance between us. “I only need one more.”
He’d also removed his robes from his chest, and vicious burns marked his skin. They were far more serious than the ones I had earned from my first salamander. He still carried his lure, and I figured that maybe this time, I would purposefully let him get ahead.
At the fork in the passage, I went left, into a downward sloping tunnel. I pressed my back against the wall and hoped he would continue ahead of me. As soon as he passed me, I whirled around and pursued him.
“You’re too slow, peasant!” he yelled.
I balled my fists and willed myself to keep up with him. My Vigor was depleting by the second, but I couldn’t stand the thought of losing to Hamon. With his lure still intact, he was bound to come upon a salamander at some point, and I’d be the one to kill it first.
I sprinted into another cavern, leapt across a lava stream, and headed downard. This tunnel was darker than the chamber had been. There were fewer gems in the ceiling and fewer glowing seams in the walls, making it harder to see what was underfoot. I almost tripped over an ember sprite before it hissed and ran off down a fissure to one side.
The tunnel had more twists and turns, ups and downs than a roller coaster. It forked repeatedly as it headed deeper into the mountain. Soon, Hamon had outpaced me by a good two minutes, and I wondered whether I’d ever find him. But the fork I’d passed seemed to have been the last, and I could hear sounds up ahead: snarling and grunting, thumping and clanging. The unmistakable noises of combat.
I drew my sword and crept closer. Soon, the tunnel opened out into a vast chamber. This seemed to be a nest. Broken egg shells, some of them a foot across, lay scattered amid a heap of glowing rocks. The floor around them was littered with gnawed and splintered bones. Young had been raised here, though they were no longer around. All that remained was a single scorched salamander, the largest one I’d seen so far.
It was fighting Hamon.
I watched from the shadows as Hamon and the salamander clashed. The guild initiate was fighting with a pair of curved shortswords, their hilts ornate and their blades wickedly
