“There might not be any gnomes left to lead it to if we don’t help them now! If we run while it’s distracted—”
The Zolom finally smashed through the wall of vines, hissing when it found its prey gone. There was a new hollow tone to its hiss, perhaps a result of the gaping hole in its neck. How it had managed to un-impale itself from the tree was anyone’s guess. Here and there on its body still clung strands of spiderweb, and the serpent’s brown-and-black scales bore the marks of Benin’s fire, though they’d healed plenty since they’d been inflicted, with no signs of infection from the fetid marshwater.
It hadn’t pursued Lila up the slope. Instead, it was watching her, its sinuous neck swaying from side to side.
Odd. What’s it doing?
He heard the rasping slide of scales on rough stone, though the Zolom’s swaying head remained in the same place.
Up the slope in the darkness, Lila cried out again. A moment later Benin saw why. The Zolom had used its colossal length to spread itself around the area, and it lowered the struggling ranger back to the ground, its tail wrapped around her waist.
When her feet touched the floor, the snake didn’t let go. Instead, the tail’s tip curled tighter, forcing her to turn as more and more scaly coils encircled her, just like the vines she’d conjured.
But the Zolom was far more deadly than mere vines. Once it had Lila in a good grip, it began to squeeze. Muscles rippled along its coils as they constricted, and Lila began to choke. She soon ran out of breath, and Benin watched, frozen, as her face turned purple, her mouth wide in a silent scream.
He glanced up at the summit, torn. He’d made a promise to Corey. The gnomes needed his help. Lila had as much as confessed that she was working to hurt them all; her death here seemed an appropriate sacrifice, giving them the time they needed to race back to the crater city and stand with the gnomes against whatever threat she’d sent against them this time.
And yet.
They’d already abandoned her once. He, Coll and Tiri had left her to a fate too horrifying to contemplate. In a way, that meant they were directly responsible for all that had happened to her since.
Lila clearly wasn’t herself. Not only had she been manipulated by Varnell—Tiri had mentioned as much, though the hastily scrawled note she’d written Benin hadn’t exactly gone into detail—she’d also been taken by this Lord of Light, who was obviously some kind of demon.
Whatever had possessed her earlier had left her now; her face was no longer pale and black-veined, but purple-blue and terrified. Something had made her this way. And it was up to Benin to help her. He owed her that much at least.
But the gnomes…
A tiny hand patted his calf firmly. He looked down to see Ajax readying his spear. The gnomish warrior’s eyes were fixed upon the Zolom.
Benin banished the last of his doubts and began to cast.
Sixty-Four
Let There Be Light
Corey
It took my gem.
As the eight-legged enemy bounded off with my Core clutched triumphantly in its palps, the terror I’d felt at not being able to finish the exodus in time grew to paralyzing new levels. That fear was quickly replaced with outrage at the trogloraptor’s sheer gods-damned audacity.
It took my gem!
After the past month and more, after everything we’d been through, this spider’s impertinent master thought they could stop us from completing what we’d set out to do?
Not on my watch.
Our strategy had changed. After a moment’s Divine Inspiration, Gneil and the acolytes were sprinting toward the wagon that held one of our most useful assets. Rather than chase the creature away, we needed to stop it from escaping, recover my gem, then find a way to get rid of it—all before the timer ran down.
Time remaining for Exodus: 8 minutes, 55 seconds
Sheer panic and determination gave strength to my avatar’s muscles, as did the fury juice she’d taken from the cooks earlier. She flew across the ground in pursuit of the enemy, faster and stronger and more fearless than ever, and drove her spear into the back of the trogloraptor’s chitinous knee. Her second spear plunged into another leg an instant later. Then she was yanking them out, twisting and dodging to avoid being trampled as she leapt for yet another limb and began to climb, using her half-spears like a mountain climber’s pitons.
Any earlier compunction I’d felt at harming the creature was gone, replaced with the desperate desire to see the exodus through to its end come what may. The trogloraptor might be a mere puppet in the grand scheme of things, but right now it was standing between me and the future safety of my tribe.
Though Riskin’s weight was minimal, the trogloraptor’s legs were proportionally slender enough that her climb was hampering its movement even if it wasn’t hurting it. Its tough hairs and exoskeleton had prevented her weapons from doing much damage despite the fury-inspired force with which she’d driven them, so now she was climbing to seek a more vulnerable spot where the leg joined the body.
Repair complete!
Machine acquired: Mobile Trebuchet.
New vocations unlocked!
Issuing instructions via the Augmentary while free-climbing a spider wasn’t easy. The unfamiliar new “Machines” interface refused to accommodate my attempts to order the builders to load the trebuchet’s arm. However, I quickly realized why.
I selected the nearest warrior—a slinger whom I’d dubbed “Cannonball” for his tendency to use overlarge rocks as ammunition rather than standard-sized bullets—and allocated him the Trebuchet Operative vocation. Then I switched to Dovetail the carpenter, reassigning her as an Engineer. Both vocations had been unlocked with the completion of a functioning siege engine, probably because the trebuchet required at least one of each to operate it.
This time, the Augmentary allowed me to select the acolytes’ burden as the trebuchet’s ammunition. As soon as I did, Dovetail and Cannonball hurried forward
