After some time, Hirrus began to suspect that Nidra’s breakneck pace had been purely for the purposes of antagonizing Alric. While keeping ahead of him, she matched his pace perfectly so that he could keep up, even while carrying the other man’s body. She may have been trying to push Hirrus to his top speed, but if that was the case, she should have been doing the same again now. But she was pacing herself instead of vanishing into the distance.

To a degree, he’d thrown his lot in with her when he’d chosen to follow. But now he found himself lingering on Alric’s warning that she may betray him.

He’d dismissed the concern out of hand before. He hadn’t been afraid of her having some loyalty to Rumi.

But now he saw that there were other ways she could betray him. As much as their goals may align, they might have dramatically different viewpoints on how to achieve them, especially with respect to Alric’s presence.

He had to be wary of her, even if it wasn’t for his own sake.

Despite his concerns, Hirrus found himself enjoying Nidra’s company. With Alric asleep, they were able to travel in proper silence. Hirrus still had nothing to say and she didn’t feel the need to fill every moment with pointless noise. They made good time, and Hirrus was finally able to push the chorus of that song about the bounty hunter out of his mind.

Night fell within a few more minutes, though the moonlight leaking through the forest canopy was enough to see by. The call-and-answer of hunting beasts had gone silent, but that did little to reassure him. He could feel eyes on him. He wasn’t sure if he hoped it was or was not the baying monsters he’d heard.

They came from the side of him.

As soon as the flash of teeth appeared in the darkness, he knew he should have expected it. For some foolish reason, he’d expected any attack to come from behind, their pace putting them in the mind of fleeing prey to be pursued. Pack predators were smarter than that, though. It wasn’t as if Hirrus could keep a pace that would prevent them from catching up and flanking him.

The first attacker hit Hirrus hard enough to set him off-balance. The damage was trivial - not even a thousand total - but the impact sent him staggering sideways into a tree. He nearly fell on his face, but Alric’s sleeping form flopped from his grip and to the ground first. The sudden loss of weight let him catch himself, and before he had even processed what he was up against, his weapons were out and swinging.

Despite the already-obvious difference in raw power, his weapons caught only air. Before any of his attacks could connect, the beast that hit him melted into the darkness, vanishing into the trees.

Hirrus almost gave chase. The part of him that he unleashed when a fight broke out wanted to use his newest Arcana to show these beasts the difference between a hunter and a killer. But as soon as he took a step, he realized that the fall hadn’t woken Alric up. The man was defenseless, and if Hirrus abandoned him, something in the dark might see to it that he never awakened again.

Either the monsters, or Nidra.

Standing over Alric’s body, he waited and watched the darkness. The next attack came on so swiftly his reaction speed outran his mind. His icy greataxe hit the beast before his eyes even registered what color it was. The axe smashed into the low-level monster for fifteen thousand damage without even being a critical hit.

Its corpse didn’t hit the ground; it splattered in an arc across the trees.

The most solid part that was left was a wedge-shaped head and a stubby clawed foot. The beast’s rough, leathery skin was purple, with a splotchy stripe pattern. All he could see of the head otherwise was one beady eye and a mouth filled with rows and rows of serrated triangular teeth. The only other thing he could glean from it was that it was something called an Ambulatory Selachii.

The next attack was a feint, a shockingly sophisticated tactic for a simple beast. A flash of white teeth and purple hide appeared from the darkness, and vanished again before it was within reach of Hirrus’s blades. And then another on the other side. Was it the same beast? Or another? He was unsure. There could have been a whole pack of them lurking in the shadows, feeling him out before attacking in force.

Hirrus focused his attention on his hearing. Closing his eyes was dangerous, but he wasn’t actually afraid of their attacks. His primary concern was how long they could draw out the encounter with hit-and-run tactics, while he was unable to pursue while protecting Alric. Every moment they were engaged in this fight, they were not getting closer to Rumi.

Something bit his leg, but the damage wasn’t worth opening his eyes. His ears detected the pack around him. They were moving around each other, obscuring their exact numbers, but it was dozens, not scores. They could never kill him with their numbers, but if they kept attacking one at a time, feinting and trying to wear him down, the fight might last until morning. The loose ring they formed around him meant that the only way he had to escape was through them. Even if he picked up Alric and tried to run, they would fall upon him and knock him to the ground again.

He also sensed something else. The rasp of leather on leather. The chunky sound of a wide-bladed weapon hitting flesh. The splatter of an enemy being utterly obliterated by the blow.

Nidra.

Hearing her work was slightly frightening. True to her explanation earlier, she only struck them one at a time, but she was brutally efficient. She darted from target to target with a speed that Hirrus found frightening. No wonder he’d struggled to keep pace with her. She must have had a dozen Arcana with smaller speed boosts, and with them all stacked up right now, she was nearly teleporting between the monsters. He tried to imagine putting up a fight against her while she darted in and out of range at speeds that seemed physically impossible.

It seemed her threats were far from idle.

However, it would take a long time for her to wipe out their numbers this way. Chipping away one at a time was not a viable long-term solution. He had the tools to deal with their numbers, but he couldn’t employ them while protecting Alric.

Or could he?

Another of the monsters darted up and chomped on Hirrus’s hip. The damage was barely worth noting. Instead, he focused on his Arcana. A part of him wanted to stack up as many buffs as he could, but these monsters were abysmally low level. Their threat came from numbers, not stats. Just about any of his abilities could kill them in one hit. Just the same, the long cooldown on the Arcana he had in mind meant he had to make sure it counted.

X’rhun’s Balance and Logarius Shroud would be enough, he figured. The Arcana took a few seconds to ready, but once they were active, he launched his attack. Flames of the Apocalypse bubbled out of the ground with a sizzling roar.

The ring of the attack wasn’t perfectly matched to the ring of pack hunters. But it hit the vast majority of them. Only five or six of the dozens around him weren’t standing perfectly within its boundaries. Hirrus had apparently overdone it by a massive degree. Twenty-seven thousand damage reduced every Selachii hit to smoldering ash in an instant. They died before they could even cry out. All that remained was ash and the smell of burned flesh.

The remaining beasts scattered.

Hirrus closed his eyes again and listened to them go. He wanted to be aware if one doubled back, but he had scared them off. Their hunting instincts were tied to the pack structure. Apparently if the pack structure was vaporized, so too went their desire to attack. The only figure approaching him was Nidra.

When she emerged from the darkness, she said nothing. His time with Alric had led him to expect conversation being forced on him at every opportunity, and so when she didn’t take the opportunity to remind him that such a display was exactly why she needed him, it was a surprise. But not an unwelcome one.

Hirrus took a moment to gather Alric up, struggling for a moment to arrange him comfortably. He couldn’t get him back into piggyback position while the man was unresponsive, but hefting him over a shoulder worked just fine for now, even if Alric’s dangling arms flapped limply against his lower back in a way that was a little uncomfortable.

As he gestured for Nidra to continue leading the way, he realized he had another discomfort that demanded a more immediate response. An unsourced message in his mind.

Congratulations! the message read. You have reached your Active Arcana cap! Subsequent Arcana will not be added to your active list. Please use the Arcana List menu to curate your Active Arcana list. Experiment to find the best choice of Arcana for you!