The arms fell back and its right leg spasmed twice, as final signals sent from the remnants of its brain spread through the corpse. Then it was still, silence falling as the party turned to look at the still-settling rubble that marked where I’d been seconds before.
Silence filled the cavern for several heartbeats, until a groan of effort burst from Bane as he ripped the top from the small cage that held Oracle. She burst free in a flare of light and fury, flashing across the cavern to disappear into the pile of rubble, vanishing from sight.
“Cam!” screamed Miren, rushing to him and dropping to her knees, desperately tugging a healing potion out of her bag, and pouring it into his mouth, pulling his head up to stare into his lifeless, glassy eyes. The potion ran down his throat but did nothing, the life already gone from him. Stephanos crouched next to her, pulling her free and wrapping her in a grieving hug, tears running down his face as he rested a hand on his dead friend’s shoulder and squeezing once in sorrow.
“Jax…Barrett…” Lydia said, then coughed, dust entering her lungs as she forced herself to her feet. Staggering over to Barrett, she saw Jian moving to where Bane lay. A puddle of rapidly spreading blood lay beneath Barrett, and as she rolled him over, she winced. He was alive still, but his skin was ashen white with blood loss, and the multiple daggers that had sunk into him had been driven deeper when he’d fallen atop them.
Lydia went into automatic mode, the basic first aid she’d learned running through her mind as she worked to remove the blades. They were slowing the bleeding by blocking the damage, she knew, so when they were removed and the bleeding intensified, she moved as quickly as she could, pouring a healing potion into Barrett’s frozen open mouth, and then spreading another out, pouring it into each of the bloody wounds.
She frantically wrapped as many injuries as she could, desperate to stabilize him, before she dared move to the pile of rubble. A pile that slowly shifted, as something moved beneath it.
Arrin staggered toward the demolished structure, a mixture of desperate hope and fear filling him as he went.
He had no mana left for another spell, and the dagger he held in one shaking hand was little better than a glorified letter opener, but he was the closest, and the only one that was neither injured, trying to save a life, or comforting a grieving friend.
Stephanos and Miren forced themselves to their feet, readying arrows, and Lydia tugged bandages tight on Barrett’s prone form, then stood, leaving several wounds still slowly leaking blood. She moved forward, hefting her mace, and Jian joined her, his remaining healing potions used up on Bane, who lay slumped next to the remnants of the cage he’d freed Oracle from.
As they closed on the rubble, it shifted again, and they spread out, weapons at the ready.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I shifted, pain tearing through me, and I froze. I felt cold, so cold, except for my right foot. I could feel it pulsing with a familiar warmth and pressure as I slowly shifted my toes, which let me know that my boot was full of blood. Well, it was that, or I’d pissed myself, so I was kinda hoping it was blood, really.
I groaned again as something shifted close by, and the weight I felt pressing me down grew suddenly heavier. I tried to take a deep breath and found that I couldn’t. Whatever was pressing down on me was too heavy.
I closed my eyes for a heartbeat, consciously slowing my breathing, and forced myself to focus. I slowly re-opened my eyes and began taking stock of my situation.
I remembered aiming my naginata at the Drider as it fell. I’d charged it with the remnants of mana I had left, and I’d seen it pierce the bitch’s chest. The impact of her body slamming into me had smashed us both through the roof, with stone falling atop us, then the walls had toppled inward, and that was the last I’d seen for a bit. I’d blacked out, I guessed.
I could feel a lump on the back of my head, and when I brought my fingers forward, I could see something dark on them. It could be blood, it could be mine or hers, or it could be from the cut on the back of my hand. I swallowed hard and slowly reached out to brace myself as I figured out where I was.
I was face down, my legs were lower than my chest, and I was laid at a shallow angle. I had a mound of stone under my chest, and I couldn’t move my left leg. I was bleeding, according to the symbol on my HP bar, and I was down to thirty-seven points left, losing four a minute.
I had nineteen mana and figured just a few more points, and I could give myself a little healing, when it vanished, a mana migraine flaring to life and making me gasp with the suddenness of it.
I saw my health drop by the same, and I grunted in shock, my situation suddenly far more precarious than it had been.
It was… at least, until Oracle flashed through the rubble to appear before me, and I felt her tiny arms become solid as she pressed herself against my cheek.
I sagged, a tension I’d been filled with, for what felt like forever, dissipating into nothingness as I lifted one shaking hand to hold her.
She was safe, she was free, and she was okay, I laid there,
