I hit him once more, leaving a dent in his viscous face, then backed away, tempting him to follow. He stood still, so I darted forward and slammed him with both bones before backing up again.
This time, the creature stumbled out of the mud at the lake’s edge and onto dry land. He bellowed as he pursued me. I kept backing away to draw the creature from his place of safety. He left a trail of muck in his wake, but unlike the earth spirit, he didn’t seem to be deteriorating, just making this space more his own.
Twenty yards from the lake, I stopped. It was time to see how this thing fought on dry land.
The spirit lurched toward me. I waited until the last moment, then sidestepped. As the creature charged past, I brought both bones down on his left arm. The limb tore off in a shower of mud and fell in the dry dirt, leaving dark brown spatters across yellow sand.
The creature wheeled around, bringing his other arm about in a slapping motion. I ducked the blow and brought my weapons up again. They hit the arm from opposite sides around the elbow. Mud fountained around me, and most of the arm fell to the ground, leaving only a stump.
I straightened and raised my weapons to finish the beast off. But his mud form was shifting and reforming. Another left arm emerged and caught my next hit. A forearm grew from the severed stump and blocked another attack. Everything I had achieved had been undone in a matter of seconds.
The spirit had hold of both my weapons now. He used them to drag me closer, then let go and flung his arms around me. He pulled my face in tight to his chest, and I was smothered by the thick, muddy body.
I pummeled at the spirit, trying to force him to release me, but he only squeezed tighter. I was drowning in mud, unable to catch the slightest breath. My pulse pounded, and my heart raced, but for all my strength, the spirit was stronger, and I had no special move to break clear now. In the human realm, I could have shot him with fire or thorns, could have summoned protective ice or an ash dagger. Here, all I had was my bare hands.
I sank to my knees, hoping to pull myself clear, but the creature sank with me, maintaining his deadly embrace.
My lungs were aching, but I kept pushing against the spirit. I let go of the bones and wrapped my hands around his arms, trying to pull them away. At last, I slid out onto the ground, gasping for air.
The creature knelt over me, one fist raised and ready to strike. In desperation, I grabbed a fistful of dry, sandy dirt and flung it in his face.
The dirt didn’t blind the spirit as I’d hoped, but something more interesting happened. Where the sand hit, the surface of the mud spirit became drier and more solid until tiny cracks showed.
At last, something I could use.
I rolled clear in time to avoid being grappled again. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I saw dried, cracked parts appearing low down on the spirit, where it had touched the earth. I grabbed more dirt and flung it at my opponent.
The creature bellowed as the dry dirt hit him. Clearly in pain, he slapped at his cracked skin, only for chunks to fall away. This time, they didn’t regenerate.
The spirit stopped beating at himself and turned a malevolent gaze on me. I grabbed one of the abandoned bones and rolled to my feet. I swung the bone at a dry patch on the spirit’s arm, and the limb shattered. Earthen clumps sprayed through the air and scattered across the ground.
The mud spirit charged at me, and I stepped aside and cracked one of his dry patches with my bone weapon. While he had his back to me, I snatched up more dirt and flung it. The dirt struck his back, and the skin dried out and split.
The whole body of the spirit was thickening. Mud that had previously run across his surface now oozed with glacial slowness. His exterior was dry and cracked from his feet all the way to his knees, as contact with the ground used up his liquid. He kept charging at me, but I didn’t even bother striking anymore. I just flung sand at him and backed away, easily able to avoid his increasingly lumbering progress.
At last, the spirit seemed to realize what was happening. He turned his head toward the lake and heaved his crumbling feet around. I put myself between the spirit and his destination. I had both bones in my hands again, raised like a pair of swords. The spirit groaned and lifted a hand to fight me, but he could barely move. He had become so dry that everything was slowing down, while the heat of this desert land baked him solid.
“Ready for the big finale?” I asked.
The spirit opened his mouth, and I could see the desperation in his eyes. But he would not have shown me any mercy, and I had none for him. I swung the bones inward with all my strength, and they hit the spirit on either side of his torso. In a shower of dried earth, his body shattered.
I closed my eyes and felt the spirit realm recede. When I opened them again, I was back in the cave, listening to the snoring of my students.
I sat in the darkness and brought my attention to the power inside me. The earth and water channels were stronger than ever,
