XXIII

Dantera glanced toward Yoreno and Sir Xanderial one more time, then she looked across the chamber at Lord Shane and screamed her fury.

With a top-tier adventurer’s capabilities, she lunged forward with Ito Farralia’s tapered point leading her charge. The blade cut through the air as her feet glided over the hard dusty surface of the chamber floor.

But instead of striking Lord Shane, he shrunk in on himself and his body pulled back, his men closing the gap faster than Dantera thought possible, their swords bared and flashing like a bristly wall of death.

Her footwork was perfect, saving her from certain death as she moved her wrist in half a dozen perfected movements attained though countless hours of training and rote skill.

Despite the flashing steal from both her and them, no one was struck, and as she was surrounded from her left and right, was forced to lurch back.

Behind her Yoreno and Xanderial screamed, as if they were only now just reacting. No, in fact, they were only now just reacting.

This fight was far beyond their capabilities.

Giving the Black Guards no time to react to her sudden retreat, Dantera tossed a snap grenade, turned to avoid the flash of light as she bent down to the ground. She then stood up straight with such speed that her momentum assisted her in lifting her body and feet well above their heads as she turned like a cat and landed behind them.

She struck with Ito Farralia, lashing out with all of her skill, taking one Black Guard in the back of the neck and another behind the shoulder where he had little armor.

To avoid Lord Shane’s possible attack, she jumped, flipping over the Black Guards and landing on her feet. She then ran forward three paces and Yoreno and Xanderial, their sword arms raised and their blades flashing, rushed into her opponents.

Yoreno blinked as Dantera moved faster than he had ever seen. He lunged forward, screaming as she struck at the black guards, lashed out with something that blinded him. He took pause and stepped back.

As he blinked, dark images of the black guards remained imprinted in his vision as she screamed and flipped over them.

She must have killed one, because one of the Black Guards cried out and fell as she flipped back to their side and ran past them.

With his vision clearing enough to barely see by, Yoreno lunged, his sword coming down in an overhead strike. The Black Guards were still stunned and disoriented, much like Yoreno, but more so, giving him the opportunity to take one over the head as he split the man’s skull.

They lashed out with their blades, knocking Yoreno’s wrist aside to undo his defenses and kill him, but Yoreno was far more adept at swords than all that, and jumped back out of their reach.

Xanderial struck at them similarly, but he failed to kill any of his opponents. As they struck out in reprisal, a blade came over his armored gauntlet, the plate saving his hand from coming off as he jumped back.

Dantera whirled about, lashing high and low with her blade, her footwork like nothing Yoreno had ever seen.

She moved so quickly, he wondered if he would ever reach top-tier status.

With three Black Guards down, that left four more.

The two that had struck out at Yoreno lashed out at Dantera, their blades flashing in the torchlight of the chamber. What gave Yoreno, Dantera and Xanderial the advantage was that the Black Guards held their torches to maintain enough light to see by while Yoreno fought with both hands and no fire blindness.

Another Black Guard went down on his knees, blood spurting from his neck wound taken by Dantera. Yoreno lunged, sweeping his blade in a horizontal arc, but it was stopped when suddenly Lord Shane blocked his strike.

He moved, fast enough to cut Yoreno down without giving him a moment to react, but suddenly he was shunted to the side and fell heavily onto the dusty floor with a grunt.

Yoreno glanced up, raised his sword arm to defend as quickly as possible. It was a feeble attempt.

“Leave him to me!” Dantera called as she flicked her blade at Lord Shane. She parried his strike, then lashed out with a reprisal attack. But his foot work, though not as fast as hers, was very impressive in its own right.

Yoreno believed him to be just shy of top-tier status.

Xanderial screamed as he fought the three remaining Black Guards, his movements fast and jerky. He was in trouble.

Yoreno rolled.

“The spiderling!” Dantera called out as her and Lord Shane’s swords screeched with metallic ferocity unlike that of Yoreno and Xanderial’s fighting produced.

He rolled to his knees and got up, circled around Dantera and Lord Shane and caught a glance of a ruby-red glint from Lak’temora’s scepter as he hung back in the shadows.

Yoreno moved to assist Xanderial, taking a quick moment of his time to glance back toward the crack leading to the deeper passages. The spiderling was nowhere in sight, but its chilling scream echoed into the chamber. It would be upon them in moments.

Xanderial backed away quickly into the chamber where the spiderling came. Yoreno paused, surprised when one of the Black Guards showed his back. He took that down with a deft sword-strike. Crying out, he fell as the second man turned to face him.

Yoreno struck, but his blade was blocked. As the counter attack came, he didn’t back away. He needed to kill this man now to assist Xanderial with the last man.

He blocked the blow, barely cognizant of his own ability as he fought using pure rote instinct and cut the second man down.

There was movement from the corner of Yoreno’s eye—where the crack was.

He knew…

As the spiderling came out of the rent in the rocks, Xanderial slashed his Black Guard opponent across the chest, wounding him in the shoulder where there was a gap between his armor.

“Look out!” Yoreno called and pointed at the hideous sight of the spidierling, which appeared to him to be mostly man-shaped.

The Black Guard Xanderial wounded scampered to the side as he turned as saw the spiderling. He screamed and fell on his backside, his sword clattering across the floor.

He scurried back, leaving his sword where it lay.

Without taking his eyes off the spiderling, Yoreno bent and took up the wounded Black Guard’s sword where he had left it.

“Xanderial!” he shouted.

The man got up and backed away from the monstrosity before them, saw the sword and reached out.

Footsteps pounded across the floor as Lak’temora ran into the chamber, a grin of immense excrement and satisfaction on his face.

“Behold!” he said. “My work.”

“Gods!” Xanderial gasped.

“You truly are evil,” Yoreno said as he glanced from the sorcerer to his spiderling.

The spiderling was very much a man, but where that general shape ended, the “man’s” humanity clearly also ended. Instead of normal teeth, the spiderling had two black fangs protruding out of what was once the man’s mouth.

The spiderling’s clammy skin, the color of grey ash, was slick. The man’s eyes were closed, and in the middle of his forehead was a knot of shiny black bulbs like ghastly mushrooms.

“Oh gods!” Xanderial croaked, and bent over where he wretched onto the floor.

Lak’temora laughed.

The spiderling’s fangs clacked loudly, then he howled, his human arms spread out and his fingers with nails the length of his last small finger, curling inward.

Something wriggled on his back.

The inverted spider’s legs.

They touched the back of the wall and he crawled up the suface, making sounds so horrifying and inhuman.

Yoreno’s heart hammered as a knot formed inside his stomach.

Dantera snarled as the sounds of sword clashes echoed to them from the other chamber. He cursed. But Yoreno and Xanderial could do nothing to assist her as the spiderling looked down at them with hunger in its disgusting gaze.

“No more retching, Xanderial. We have to kill this amalgamation of evil.”

Xanderial stood up straight and tightened his grip over the hilt of his sword as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Yes,” Yoreno said with a nod. “Steel yourself, man.”

Lak’temora cackled. “I am pleased to know the effects my spiderling has on your pathetic souls,” he rasped. “Chilling, is it not?”

“You will find yourself in mourning over your creation before long,” Yoreno said. “Now send your monster at us!”

The sorcerer laughed. “Send him at you? Just so, Lord Brendara. I have been waiting to test my creation against a more worthy foe than the average knight who doesn’t know his sword from his ass!”

With those words, Lak’temora pulled his scepter back as if it were the handle of a whip and lashed forward, the ruby within pulsing with red brilliance. “Feast!”

The spiderling howled as it moved further up the wall and onto the ceiling, the man-parts dangling like a corpse.

“En garde!” Yoreno shouted. “For the end of darkness—and the Age of Readventure!”

He and Sir Xanderial screamed their battle cries.