The starsquid nearest to him faltered, and its movements grew sluggish as its inky blood oozed out of a wound. Cadrin darted in and delivered another long, shallow cut to one of its limbs. The babyfaced guild disciple kicked the blood-soaked creature onto it side and let it twitch. Cadrin laughed and leapt across it, ready to take on the next creature.
Kumi’s voice rose again in song as her brother jumped into the fray.
Ice crackled around Labu in thick plates, heavier and more square than the spiked version that Cardin wore. Kumi’s brother didn’t fling himself into the heart of the monster pack. He stood back, blocked the way to Kumi, and absorbed her flow of invigorating water into his back.
Labu summoned his own Ice Spear, a heftier version that lacked the barbed tip of Cadrin’s technique. He flung it at a straggler starsquid that drew closer to us. The projectile crashed through its armor, splintered the icy plates, and buried itself in dark flesh. The creature toppled nervelessly to the ground.
Another starsquid advanced toward Labu and filled the air with skittering clicks. The prince moved with purpose and constantly kept himself between his sister and the nearest predators. The prince blocked an edged blow with his barbed spear, spun the weapon around, and struck at the creature’s torso. Labu’s first strike glanced off its armor, but his next one went higher, and the tip burst through its neck. Black blood ran free as Labu wrenched at his spear. The creature dropped, its head almost torn off.
Labu’s glance sometimes shifted to Cadrin as he fought. Any time he saw the other man looking his way, Labu redoubled his efforts and became more aggressive.
“Time to show these darling children how it’s done,” Nydarth urged me.
“Is it my turn yet?” I asked Kumi, and she gave me a little nod.
I dashed past Labu, and a starsquid lashed out at me with a muscled tentacle spiked with icy barbs. I cut off the tentacle with a swing, but another mass of wriggling limbs shot toward me. My blade flashed as I severed limb after limb. I drove the sword into the creature’s head, and it twitched before rolling up like a dead spider.
The starsquids responded to my arrival by swarming me. I sliced through any tentacles that swept my way and stayed on the move to ensure the beasts didn’t get a chance to surround me.
A monster slammed into Cadrin’s back and sprawled him out on the sand. Two of the tentacled monsters stormed in for the kill.
Cadrin was a dick. But I wouldn’t place myself well in Horix’s good graces if I let him die. I made a fist and called forth the power of wood. I used the image of spears to fashion objects in my mind before Vigor flowed effortlessly through my body and out through my feet. A wall of spiked Plank Pillars shot out of the ground and skewered a single starsquid. The other monsters reeled back and avoided my wooden spears.
I charged to meet them, and one twisted around to face me and thrashed its barbed tentacles. The Sundered Heart sang as I hacked off the flailing limbs and called up an Ash Cloud around the beast. I flung the gray miasma into the faces of the two closest starsquids and ducked under another spiked row of suckers. My targets made wretched rasping noises as they struggled to breathe. I’d broken their focus for just a moment and blinded them. I stepped forward and claimed the head of the nearest one. Cadrin attempted to cut down a monster, but it threw him to the ground. I slashed across its armored torso and delivered a Stinging Palm into the gap in its armor.
I didn’t know exactly how fire would fare against these monsters when it had been almost completely ineffective against the lampreys, but now was the time to try. I drew Vigor from within myself and produced a one-handed Untamed Torch. The tiny fireball hissed as it shot toward a smaller starsquid and melted a hole in its armor. I drove my sword deep into its rubbery flesh, and it collapsed onto Cardin as he caught his breath.
I found it really hard to care about that.
“Such repugnant flesh,” Nydarth laughed within my mind. “And yet it will all fall before our might.”
Cadrin pushed the starsquid’s body off himself and rose to his feet.
“An Augmenter of multiple elements,” he said. “I’m almost impressed.”
“There’s blood all over your tunic, pretty-boy,” I retorted.
Cadrin went white and looked down at his ruined clothes.
Then, my makeshift wall of Plank Pillars crashed down, and a pack of fresh starsquids closed in aound us.
I used swift, light strikes to fend off as many of the tentacles as I could. But they were everywhere, and I started to take hits. Blood welled from gashes along my arms and down my side.
Something cool and damp brushed against my skin, and my ears filled with the sound of song. Kumi had sent her supply of healing water to me once more, not to strengthen my channels but to heal my wounds. Pain faded and flesh closed as the water washed across it. It left me restored and ready to continue fighting in earnest.
The numbers of starsquids seemed to increase by 20, and more continued to join them from out of the ocean’s tide. Cadrin had been right about the monsters being frenzied, but he’d never said they’d come in unceasing waves.
Ah, shit. I’d just made a terrible
