I narrowed my eyes at the useless information in the Augmentary, then swiped it away.
Ris’kin was raring to throw herself back into battle; I could feel her urgency, like her entire body was a coiled spring waiting to be released.
Ket had gone quiet, for once heeding my request for peace, and perhaps sensing my need to focus. Still, I could almost hear her voice in my head urging us to retreat. I knew deep down that this was a fight we were not going to win.
But the thought of running away left a bitter taste in my mind. I was done being the victim. Done being naught but a desperate defender. And I could tell the rest of our little group were too.
Besides, Ket would kill me if we came back without Shanky.
I gritted fox-sharp teeth, then relaxed into Ris’kin.
Go, I told her.
Three
Hunter
Corey
My consciousness had barely formed the word “Go” before Ris’kin sprang back into the fray like an arrow from a bowstring. Nearby, the two gnomes who’d lassoed the mole-rat were picking themselves up from the ground, wincing at the rope-burns on their palms. My avatar leapt over them and sprinted after the disappearing Longshanks.
My lead scout was being dragged backwards into a side-tunnel. He looked about ready to pass out with pain, and with good reason. He’d been stabbing his half-spear up beneath the blesmol’s chin, but had achieved nothing much except to accidentally impale his own leg, trapped as it was by his captor’s wicked incisors.
The weapon, now abandoned, remained lodged in his calf, until a particularly vicious shake of the blesmol’s head loosened it enough to send it clattering further down the tunnel, accompanied by yet another yell from Longshanks.
“Corey…” came Ket’s voice again.
“Not now, Ket,” I growled.
The mole-rat had yet to notice Ris’kin—yay for its species’ short-sightedness, I suppose—and so we began to ascend the wall once again. If we were quick, we could scramble above the creature, then drop down onto its back. Surely not even the toughest of hides would protect it from a spear thrust to the top of the skull.
I hoped not, anyway.
As Ris’kin shimmied sideways, black-furred fingers gripping a narrow shelf of rock near the ceiling, Ket’s voice came again.
“I can sense your anxiety, Corey. Seriously, what are you doing? Are you okay? Is there anything I can—”
“NOT. NOW.”
My sprite’s hurt feelings washed through me, as did the sour taste of her own anxiety, but I let my irritation sweep it away. Ket always presumed the worst about me. Why did she assume something must be going wrong right now? Didn’t she trust me at all?
An agonized whimper from Longshanks below made Ris’kin push herself harder until we were almost in position above the mole-rat. I barely noticed. I was still seething about Ket’s lack of trust. And trying to ignore the fact that my defensive anger felt a lot like guilt.
Seriously, though. The sprite was always lecturing me from the high ground. Or was it her high horse? However the saying went, she was always high when she lectured me. She was—
Wait. That was it.
Stop!
Ris’kin, about to drop down onto Longshanks’ captor, resisted her instinct to ignore me and maintained her grip on the rock, though I sensed her frustration and confusion.
We have to get higher, I told her. Just for a moment.
Thankfully she obliged, hauling herself just a few feet higher, toward the dark patch I’d spotted on the rock.
Higher, higher, right up towards the ceiling—there. Got it.
Her forearms were trembling, both hands now clutching items in addition to holding on to the rock, her spear hand in particular beginning to cramp with the strain.
All right, Ris’kin. Now!
She let go, body twisting in the air once again as she plummeted downward. This time, there was no well-meaning idiot to get in her way, and she landed exactly where she intended—right on top of the mole-rat with the scarred eye. Her feet thudded down an instant after the tip of her spear drove into the back of its neck, where it embedded itself between two vertebrae—and stubbornly stayed there.
The creature let out a horrifying shriek and shook its head even more violently than before, whipping Longshanks’ limp form from side to side. The scout managed a squeak of his own before his head smacked against an outcropping, knocking him out.
He’s having a really bad day.
The mole-rat still hadn’t let go of his leg. In fact, the amount of blood now pouring from the limb was frankly alarming.
After one more attempt to yank free the spear, Ris’kin abandoned the weapon, instead reaching forward to take hold of the overlarge front teeth and try to pry the jaws apart.
Ris’kin was made for dexterity, not strength, but she was no weakling. I’d made sure of that when I created and evolved her. But the blesmol’s jaws were on a whole other level. They were clenched around Longshanks’ leg in an iron grip, and wouldn’t budge an inch, no matter how much my avatar strained.
That was, until Longshanks regained consciousness. With an awareness of his surroundings that was impressive for someone who’d just been beaten against a rock like a dusty carpet, the scout groped for his fallen weapon. Gritting his teeth against what must have been agonizing pain, he heaved himself forward and jammed the blade into the mole-rat’s eye.
A normal animal would have had the decency to drop dead. This one, clearly being spawned from the pits of hell, opened its jaws wide and let out a bone-rattling screech, but stubbornly refused to die. However, Longshanks’ well-timed recovery allowed two things to happen.
First, the mole-rat finally let go of Longshanks’ leg, freeing the scout to make his triumphant escape. Well, not so much triumphant as boneless, and not so much an escape as simply lying where he’d fallen, clutching his ruined leg and moaning, but still, it was an improvement on his previous situation.
Secondly, the sprig of ghoul’s beard—harvested from the ceiling a few moments ago, and
