Unbound

Chapter Ninety Six - 096

SCREEEEEE!!

Dust and debris filled the air, while residents of the Dust scattered in a panic. Cries of pain and fear were everywhere, nearly drowned out by the screams of the monstrosities. Heva Groktis tried to still her racing heart, searching the street for her family.

"Mama! Mama where are you!?"

A woman with dark black hair and wide copper eyes emerged from the dust, her red arms wrapped around a squirming toddler. Both were covered in dust as they stumbled from the cloud.

"Mahria! You're alright!" Heva cried in relief as she gathered up her daughter and grandson, her own copper eyes leaking bright tears. "Where is your father? I haven't seen him since..."

"He--he distracted one of the creatures. He drew it into the streets, away from Bhed," she clutched her son tight in fear, and the little boy clung to her. "I haven't seen him since, Mama."

Heva's heart broke at her daughter's words, and she turned from her to gaze back into the drifting clouds. The sounds of crashing stone and pained screams still filled the air. The creatures were nearby, she knew it. Her old bones burned. Heva raised a trembling hand to her chest, to soothe the ache that jabbed against her ribs.

"How many are there, Marhia? Did you see?"

"No, I Analyzed three of them coming down our street, but we circled wide to avoid them." Her daughter scanned the street around them, the setting sun doing little to illuminate the cloudy shadows that clung to the cobbles. "I think they're a few streets over now."

Heva didn't have Analyze, never was able to learn it. Mahria had learned it from her late husband, a Guilder, before he'd disappeared in the Foglands. "Disappeared" usually meaning he'd been left for dead by the Humans. Non-Human Guilders rarely lasted long, Hobgoblins less than most. A shrill scream echoed among the buildings, and a crowd of noises filled the air.

"We have to move, we--" Heva's voice broke. "We have to run, now."

"Where Mama? I ran into Dedra, and she said she saw thirty of these things landing in the Dust. Where can we go?" Mahria's voice shook and her copper eyes flickered wildly about the street. She flinched when she saw two stout figures run toward them through the gloom, but as they came closer she recognized them.

"Jask! Oveh! Where're you going?" Heva cried out toward the two Dwarves, her neighbors for years now.

"Run, Heva! Run!" Jask yelled. "It's coming!"

HISS-SKREE!

A blurred shape, shimmering blue and green in the failing light, zipped through the haze. It was huge, easily ten feet tall at the shoulder, made up of armored segments and sporting six legs. It landed upon Jask, scythe-like claws slashing down. The Dwarf's head came free from his shoulders in a fountain of blood.

Oveh's grief-stricken screams tore through the air, shocking Heva and Mahria from their stupor. They turned and ran.

"What is it?" Heva panted. She was too old for all this activity, her stats having diminished with age. She looked at her daughter as they ran. "What has come here?"

"Prismatic Wretch. Level 35," Mahria's gasped as her eyes streamed with tears. She'd known Jask her entire life, a kindly man prone to giving out sweets to a mischievous child. She clutched little Bhed tightly. Her eyes found Oveh, who slogged beside them with grim determination. "Insectoid type. Fast and strong, but they have a paralytic poison too."

"By Vellus' holy heart," Heva gasped. A level 35 loose in Haarwatch? It was the horror that kept parents up at night, of the wall falling and the denizens of the wild overrunning the city. "How did they get beyond the wall?"

Not just one. At least three. She gripped her amulet as they came around a tight corner, all of them breathing hard. Blind gods protect us, deliver us from the Night!

A rapid-fire chittering was all that warned them before a iridescent green claw swiped from around the corner. It missed them by a hand-span, hitting the building instead and a shower of shrapnel rained over them all. Oveh fell, hit in the face by a brick. She tried to drag herself backward, pushing back with one arm and leg.

"Another one!" the Dwarven woman cried, perhaps pointlessly. The Prismatic Wretch had already emerged from around the corner, it's chitinous body glimmering in the dim light of the setting sun. It had a wide head with two huge, segmented eyes on either end. The bottom of its head was filled with twitching mandibles and rows after rows of needle-like teeth. It hissed at them and swung its scythe-arms forward, snapping them closed with enough force to rattle their bones. The Wretch scuttled forward and jabbed again, this time aiming for Oveh.

The Dwarven woman screamed, but her body wouldn't move any faster.

A burst of fire slapped against the monster's chest, a ball no larger than a Human skull. The Wretch flinched backward, swiveling its head to find the attacker. It screamed in fury as it saw Heva, standing twenty feet away with her hand outstretched and still smoking.

Heva swallowed, sweat pouring down her crimson skin. Her daughter looked at her with wild, confused eyes.

"Mama, you can't fight it," Mahria pled. "It's stronger than us both. We-we wont--"

"Run, my heart. Take your sweet boy and run," Heva smiled at her daughter and kindled another ball of flame in her hand. "I'll buy you time."

Mahria's eyes filled with tears, and Bhed started to whimper. "No, Mama. You can't."

"Go! Now!" Heva turned and hurled her flame at the Wretch again. It splashed off its head, making it screech in annoyance. She didn't turn when she heard the sound of running boots, but her eyes glimmered with tears. "Come, you damn bug! I've more for you!"

The massive insect skittered forward again, it's six legs easily maneuvering through the debris strewn street. It passed right over the prone form of Oveh, and Heva breathed a sigh of relief. Then Oveh growled and thrust her hand up, causing a spike of stone to burst from the cobblestones. It stabbed into the Wretch's underside, scoring a deep mark in its chiton.

SCREEEE!

The Wretch ran at the Hobgoblin. Heva gathered more fire, letting it pool in her hands like water, but she was trembling. It was a minor Skill meant for starting cookfires or lighting candles. Yet it was the closest thing she had to an offensive Skill, well used despite not even being Apprentice Tier. Heva knew it was useless.

Vellus protect and Noctis preserve my family, she prayed as the Wretch closed the gap. She closed her eyes and let her tears fall. Let this be enough.

*WHUMP-CRSSSHHH!*

Heva flinched at the noise, but there was no pain. She cracked open an eye, and gasped.

Before her, among a cloud of stone dust, the road itself had been sundered. A crater had formed beneath the Wretch, and it scrabbled ineffectually at the sides of it. After a moment, her ears registered the sound of flesh on stone, a rhythmic cracking that was punctuated by screams from the Wretch. When the dust cleared further, she could see a dark figure astride the bug. They were unleashing a flurry of strikes down into its carapace, and streamers of green gore splashed outward with each hit.

The Wretch screamed again, but Heva noticed the change in timbre.

It was terrified.

A sudden crash, and the Prismatic Wretch went still and silent. The figure stood up from the creature's back and leaped out of the shallow crater they had made, landing heavily a short distance away. Heva gasped and took a step back. The figure turned toward her, and in the failing light she could only make out the shine of bright blue eyes beneath a heavy cowl.

"Are you okay?" He asked. His voice was a pleasant tenor, not as deep as some, but definitely male. "Are you hurt?"

Heva shook her head, then turned into the distance. She gasped in renewed terror. "My friend, Oveh, she's back there!"

The man turned, his cloak flaring with him. "Shit. Another one," he turned to her. "Uh, wait here, please."

The ground cracked beneath him as the man launched himself upward, easily clearing the dead Wretch and its crater, and landing halfway to her friend. Another insect had scuttled from the shadows and fought against the Dwarven pottery master. Heva was surprised to see her friend put up such a good fight; the woman was throwing spears of stone out of the ground itself, each one from a different angle. The monster was forced to bat them away constantly.

However, Oveh was clearly slowing down by the time the man landed nearby. He hit the earth with a loud crash, sending a spray of cobblestones into the Wretch. The creature reared back, but recovered nearly instantly; it lashed forward with its huge fore-claws, hissing viciously. The man didn't move, but the air pulsed in front of him and a series of lightning bolts speared up from the ground and into the insectoid. The Wretch's momentum was halted, though Heva could tell it strained against whatever power the man used.

Then he punched it.

"By all the lost gods," Heva whispered to herself. Her knees, two knots of pain from all the running, felt weak and wobbly; only through sheer willpower did she keep herself standing. "Who is this man?"

The Wretch was sent stumbling back, and the man advanced. In a flash he was at its side, keeping up the pressure with constant jabs and strikes. There was an air about him, something Heva couldn't identify but seemed unnervingly familiar. The thought fled when she saw her friend stir on the ground.

Heva cautiously moved forward as the man fought the monster to a standstill. It was still screaming, but it was now actively trying to flee the blue-eyed man. Tendrils of shadow whipped outward and tangled up the Wretch's limbs, preventing it from scaling Kall's tannery at the end of the road. She hurried a little more now that the coast was clear, and rushed to Oveh's side.

"Oveh, my dear! Are you alright?" The aging Hobgoblin stooped and helped Oveh to her feet. She was a Dwarf and just as stout and dense as that usually meant, thick with fat and muscle. "Come, we have to get out of here."

"Heva?" Oveh asked, a little dazedly. "Where's Jask?"

"He--he'll be right along. Let's get going, alright?" Heva wanted to scream at Oveh's words, her heart aching far more than her knees or back. It made her think of her own husband, still missing on this terrible evening. She hurried her friend back toward the crater, toward where Heva's daughter had fled.

But when they approached the broken hole, they heard the unmistakable sound of movement within it. A glistening blue-green claw slammed into the cobbelstones, and the Wretch leveraged itself out of the hole.

"Blind gods!" Oveh cursed, nearly causing the both of them to trip. "They're undying!"

The Wretched slithered forward with an ungainly thump, and Heva saw that most of its legs had been shattered. It chittered its mandibles and a clear liquid oozed from its needle lined mouth. Heva conjured another speck of fire, but before she could launch it, the Wretch lunged forward.

SKREEEE--AWK!

A dark object whipped past them, sizzling in the increasing dark. It impacted the Wretch square in the face, and sickly gurgling noises erupted from the creature's wide open mouth. Heva watched in rapt disgust as the thing's face began to boil and melt before her eyes. It collapsed with a squelching thud.

"Haah, haah, jeez," said a voice behind her. Heva jumped and turned toward it, only slightly relieved to see it was the blue-eyed man. He stared a little too long at the melting corpse of the Prismatic Wretch. His hands clenched and unclenched a couple times too, and Heva swore she could hear his tendons creaking. "Those things...they're tough."

He stepped up toward them, but stopped when both Dwarf and Hobgoblin women flinched backward. He put up his bare hands, still streaked with green ichor. "Sorry. You both okay now?"

Oveh nodded, but her entire body was tense. Heva cleared her throat. "We're fine, I think. But please, if you see my husband, save him. Please."

The last was in a terrified whisper as the reality of their situation sunk in; she had little hope her Lanis survived. To the man's credit, he nodded and stood up straighter, his eyes remarkably bright in the gathering gloom. She still couldn't make out his face though.

"I'll do what I can," he said and then someone else was screaming. Another series of insectoid screeches pierced the air, and Heva turned toward them.

"Those are nearby, on Weevil Way maybe." Heva turned back to the blue-eyed man, but he was already gone.

Oveh was shaking, trembling really, and she gripped the Hobgoblin's arm tightly. "Who in Avet's name was that?"

"I--" Heva took a shuddering breath. "I don't know."