The sounds of ruffling cloth wakes me up, probably morning. I feel rested without last night’s weight in my chest. I rub my cheeks and the corner of my eyes to shake the last of my sleepiness. Yea, I just have to make do with how things are, I can do this, no problem. Last night’s mantra steels me enough to open my eyes and find the group getting up.

Most of them appear to be putting away blankets in their packs. It’s not even winter so I didn’t feel the lack last night, not that they would have given me one anyway. The only one not doing anything is Nicolas, standing watch in front of the fork in the tunnel, his pack is already made and on his back.

I get up and make my way to the backpack I left near the fire, putting the ham leg and empty pot away inside, luckily someone used a bit of water to wash away the last traces of the meal from the pot last night. Well maybe not luck, Yvonne seemed to know enough to think of doing that.

“We’ll be advancing faster today.” Lady Lance’s voice rises above the surrounding noise, shaking me inside more than it ought to. “Eat this while we walk.” She adds, taking a sack out of her pack and taking a small bread roll out, throwing one to each of us.

I take my place in the middle of the column as it forms, taking the tunnel on the right as it departs, but this time my lack of vertical prowess compared to those around me starts feeling like a failure on my part.

I spend the next half-hour angry with myself for having the thought especially since I am more than aware that their height is born of privilege, not of any effort on their part. What tears me out of my thoughts is the sound of concealed exchanges coming from in front of me. I spot the source almost immediately, Patrick and Nicolas are making a poor attempt at having a discrete conversation in front of me.

“ … ldn’t have lost, she cost me ten silver.” Patrick complains to Nicolas as the latter takes a few quick steps to catch up and walk almost side by side together.

“Bah, you won those by tricking Lady Lance anyway, she didn’t use any more flow than you should have access to during the race.”

“It was a fair trick.” Patrick protests. “That wench shouldn’t even be considering such things above her station to begin with.” He retorts, fuming.

“Oh come on!” Nicolas throws with exasperation. “It was obvious how smitten the peasant was, you’re just socially blind.”

Nicolas’ annoyance makes him forget to control the volume of his voice and the second sentence he utters echoes loudly through the tunnel, no doubt heard by the whole squad. My cheeks heat up and I plunge my head down between my shoulders. I see Nicolas with the corner of my eye, receding back to his position in the column right behind Patrick.

The first part of the next hour is spent in an uncomfortable silence, surprising me as I fully expected to suffer through the same kind of jeers and laughter they were enjoying so much last night.

“Alright, slow down and walking pace for now.” Lady Lance orders from behind me, I manage not to startle this time. “We need to make a decision now because the leyline this tunnel runs parallel to will end in about one kilometer.”

“What option do we have other than keep scouting ahead?” Yvonne asks from the front of the column.

“We have enough elements to warrant returning to Baron Buton with a report.” Nicolas answers.

“What elements? All we know so far is that smugglers probably didn’t dig this tunnel that serves no obvious purpose and leads nowhere.” Patrick objects, pointing at the tunnel with a wide wave of his left arm, right hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

“That along with the odd tracks.” Nicolas points to one of the small ridges on the ceiling. “Is enough to justify asking for a company of soldiers to explore, perhaps also send a scouting mission to the old mine.”

I take the bread roll out of my pocket and start devouring it as I throw glances around me, noting that Patrick isn’t the only one with a nervous hand on his weapon. They’re spooked, I don’t like this.

“I’m of the opinion that we should keep exploring this tunnel until we hit the relative point where the leyline ends.” Gerald speaks up. “If we find nothing there, we go back to the fork and either retreat or explore the secondary tunnel that may lead to the mines.”

“What if we find something?” Nicolas asks.

“Well our mission would be complete then, would it not?” Gerald says with a shrug.

“I tend to agree with Gerald on this.” Lady Lance intervenes. “The nearest possible answer to the enigma behind this tunnel is a thousand meters this way.” She points forward. “If we find nothing or more tunnels we will go back and report what we know.”

“I would rather we go back now, Leomi.” Yvonne speaks up, somewhat reluctantly. “This is not a mystery we need to solve ourselves, it would be more prudent for your safety if we went back.” I follow her dominant right hand and find it not on the pommel of her sword but directly holding the grip, ready to unsheathe it.

“As much as I value your concerns, Yvonne, I was tasked by the Duke to meet with his vassals and assist them if asked to. I cannot and will not go back to Meria and report a retreat from empty tunnels.” She shakes her head. “If we find nothing at the end, so be it, but until then, stay sharp and keep the slow walking pace until we reach our destination.” Lady Lance effectively ends the conversation with her orders.

The column that paused at some point during the talks, reorganized itself. I slip into my position and follow the pace without effort, considering whether or not to enhance my senses with flow. I concentrate and gather a decent amount of energy that I split in four small flow enhancement constructs, similar to the ones I use on my muscles but with a different intent. I send one to each eye and ear, anchoring them.

The dark tunnel doesn’t seem brighter to my eyes as the constructs take effect but the details that were previously blurry to me are now slowly becoming more defined, the edges that were lost in different tones of gray are now visible. Lot of good that does me considering there is only leather armor and stone for me to stare at, but I curiously feel better already as I center myself with the rhythm of our boots scrapping the ground, finding a bit of confidence thanks to this small action.

When we get to about a hundred meters away from our objective, the tunnel begins to slowly grow wider while the small ridges present on the walls gradually fade while those on the ceiling do not. I manage to discern the end of this tunnel in the distance and how it widens abruptly, perhaps reaching a room or another crossroad.

Just as I notice that, I hear the sound of leather scrapping against leather behind me, throwing a glance above my shoulder I see Lady Lance with her right fist closed and raised above her head. She raises a finger in front of her lips before tapping my shoulder with the same left hand, nodding towards Nicolas in front of me.

I tap his shoulder and he does the same for Patrick after throwing a backward glance at Lady Lance. The column grows gradually slower and quieter as we make our way towards our goal, I hear torches switch hands as they all place their dominant hands on the grip of their swords.

When we are just a few meters away from the opening, our steps have slowed down to a crawl and the whole squad has taken to stepping sideways with their left shoulder facing the entrance, hands shifting but remaining on their swords as they slowly fall into a different formation.

Clement walks past me to take point next to Yvonne while Nicolas and Patrick take position on either side of me, leaving Lady Lance and Gerald behind us to close the march. The squad advances at a snail’s pace, so slowly that even an amateur like me understands that this is out of prudence and not an effort to maintain the hexagonal formation.

When we are about a third of the way inside the room, Yvonne’s head looks down to the ground, attracting my attention towards it as well, finding a few puddles of water on the ground in front of the group. She raises a foot and slowly lowers it towards the water, presumably to avoid making noise, while Clement keeps his eyes forward, unaware of the puddle under his own foot. His foot hits the water a single second before Yvonne’s.

Not enough time for me to try to warn them of the oddity, not enough time for her to actually change course anyway as her boot hits the water and she takes her footing in the puddle.

The same thing happens to both Yvonne and Clement as their boots disturb the water. I watch, fascinated, as the same thing happens to both puddles but with a single second delay for her. The sole of their boots become covered in ice as the water they’ve just agitated suddenly freezes over and the rest of the pond follows suit, water changing into ice within fractions of a second.

“Stop!” Lady Lance shouts from behind me. “Its an ambush! Disperse the torches to give us some light.”

I see four torches fly in four different directions around us, providing us with a wider view of the room and revealing dozens of identical puddles around us. The sheer normality of having such a thing as a puddle of water in your way combined with the darkness concealing the oddity of their number and position around us has just landed us in a trap.

We could retreat back into the tunnel, I realize after a moment, but that would mean abandoning both Yvonne and Clement if we cannot free them before the ones responsible for the ambush arrive. I immediately rush forward while the whole squad unsheathes their weapons, throwing my hands around Yvonne’s waist, patting all over her belt looking for her knife.

“What the fuck are you … !?” She swears, looking down at me with an annoyed expression.

I ignore her and unsheathe her knife, kneeling on the ground right behind her knees to get as close to her trapped boot without disturbing her footing, I explore the front of the boot with my left hand and slip my fingers under the laces when I find them, leveraging the knife under the strings and cutting them in a single motion.

As fast as it seems I am going with my heart thumping in my chest, I become conscious of the fact that it is too late to call for a retreat when I start hearing sounds coming from in front of us. Dozens and dozens of sounds made by something impacting against rock and making a clicking noise.

I look down to my knee and drop the knife to swipe the dust away from a small portion of the ground and reveal flat rock. I shoot back up to my feet and take a step back in fright as the sounds get louder. My nerves almost reach their breaking point when creatures of obsidian black color enter the radius of light formed by the torches in front of us.

There is a precise dozen of them, they are approaching us on their four legs, each about half as wide as a human’s and a full third shorter. Their legs connect to the almost horizontal lower trunk, melding seamlessly into the carapace.

The upper part of the trunk seems to fulfill the function of a torso, inclined forward and covered in interlocked pieces of carapace, each of the pieces links into the next, creating a natural armor with no obvious weak point that seems to provide them with both protection and flexibility.

Their heads are shaped wide and flat with a single piece of uniform carapace covering it entirely, the edges of that piece brush against the creature’s shoulders, no doubt to protect their necks. The most unnerving thing about them is perhaps their obvious lack of eyes, but their arms are most definitely the source of the oppressive fear the creature induces in me.

Their arms are large, definitely as large as a trained human biceps would be, they seamlessly meld into the shoulder caparace pieces. The lower parts of their arms where forearms should be are instead twice as long as their upper arms and end in sharp points, giving the creature two very scary spikes as natural weapons.

twice as long as the previous and ending in a sharp point, giving the creature two very long and very scary natural spikes.

“Hold! Harden for the charge’s impact!” Lady Lance yells over the surprised swears and shouts coming from the rest of the squad.

But as the nobles are no doubt shaping flow into their muscles and taking crouching positions to receive the expected charge, the group of a dozen creatures splits into three groups of four.

The left and right groups suddenly start rushing forward at startling speed, going past our formation on either side by making cunning use of the space occupied by the puddles of water. A few of the creatures do step in some of the puddles but the pointy ends of their legs simply slide out of the ice, not even slowing down despite the ice covering their tips.

They take positions, leaving two creatures on each of our flanks while four of them cut our retreat by blocking the tunnel we came from. Their swift movements and obsidian black color makes them very hard to follow when they leave the few spots of torchlight around us, compounding on the terror they inspire me.

“Charge lion strikes.” Lady Lance’s voice is hard as she revises her orders. “Release when in range.”

At her words, each member of the squad takes a different position, Yvonne prepares a backhanded strike with her arm folding up and to the left across her chest, hiding her sword behind her back. Clement and Nicolas on my right raise their weapons straight above their heads while Patrick to my right seems to prepare a stabbing strike as his arm shifts backward, placing the edge of his sword in a parallel to the ground with its point directed at the creatures.

I turn around on my feet to find Lady Lance’s back as she takes a stance nearly identical to Yvonne’s, preparing her own backhanded strike.

“Steady …” She says, voice full of restrained tension. “We strike, we hold and we strike again.”

I cannot help but stare, fascinated, as all of the creatures charge our group from every direction at once. Their assault combined with the hard clicking sound of their legs hitting rock finally breaks my nerves. I collapse, dropping to my knees on the ground as I feel my bladder empty itself in my pants, sheer terror overtaking me as I watch the lines collide.

Lady Lance takes a calm step forward to bring the two creatures charging her in range of her backhanded strike, unleashing it with such speed that only an odd flash of polished iron is visible to my eyes, it cuts the closest of the creatures from shoulder to hip before it even thinks to use its spikes.

The other creature, however, is a step behind and throws both spikes one after the other in vicious stabs both targeting her center mass to make them harder to dodge. Lady Lance evades the blows by twisting her torso away from the first spike, bringing her sword up from its downwards position to deflect the second one up and away from her.

The dead body of the first creature remains between them as they follow that exchange with a few casual blows weapon to weapon with no weight behind them. Lady Lance takes a step back and breaks from the fruitless exchange, using the space created to flow back into her backhanded strike stance.

The creature’s head snaps sideways, making a thump sound as the two pieces of carapace collide, my eyes are immediately attracted to the sound while Lady Lance’s chin visibly lifts up towards the movement. At the exact moment of distraction for its opponent, the creature launches itself forward over the dead body with one of its spikes extended in front of it, like a miniature Templar charging with a small version of their majestic lances and no horse.

Lady Lance is taken off guard, unleashing her prepared backhanded strike ahead of time to strike at the spike and blow it away from her. I almost yell when I realize that the creature was not only prepared but waiting for it as it throws a second stab with its other spike against an off-balance Leomi who cannot evade.

She doesn’t panic however as her sword is once again in the same downwards position after striking, she demonstrates the speed advantage of a smaller weapon by turning the blade and immediately launching it upwards to swat the second strike away despite the off-balanced footwork resulting of her initial surprise at the creature’s trick.

“Leomi!” Yvonne shouts with urgency from behind me.

About at the same time, I feel someone’s feet bump into my back. I throw a glance over my shoulder to find Yvonne within reach of three different creatures, pressured with bleeding wounds on her arms and side while one of them literally walks over Clement’s corpse to get to her. His chest is red with blood and I can see at least three separate stabbing wounds at a single first glance.

I immediately turn back towards Lady Lance’s fight and find her stuck exchanging probing blows with her opponent, her face making a worried expression as she doesn’t seem to find the opening she needs to end the duel.

My knees are shaking despite resting securely on the ground already, but I’m close enough from the creature stepping over Clement’s corpse that it could decide to stab me in the back at any moment so I swallow my fear and throw myself forward, pressing my hands to the ground in front of me to get my legs under me and stabilize my first steps as I rush past Leomi, half bent on myself as I straight up jump-tackle her opponent.

I crash into the hard midsection of the creature, the link between upper and lower trunk and its center of gravity as far as I can tell from my vast experience comprising two full-fledged brawls, once at six and another fourteen years old.

But I don’t let it stop me as I bring the creature with me down to the ground, being inside the range of its two spikes I figure that it can only try to bludgeon me now, so I slip behind its back and place both feet on either side of the creature as I grab a different shoulder with each hand.

Once I have a firm hold over them, I use my leverage on the creature to stay out of reach of its spikes as it tries to skewer me by alternating strikes over and under its shoulder pits but I manage to remain in the blind spot behind its back so it never even comes close to hitting me.

I even manage to catch the end of the creature’s right spike, as it tries to slip it under its left armpit to stab me, effectively putting the thing into an arm lock. The stalemate gives me enough time to gather all my meager flow reserves and build the familiar muscles strengthening construct.

The sounds of battle around me are deafening between the cries of pain and Lady Lance’s sharply yelled orders, but I don’t spare any attention as my hands are quite literally full wrestling the creature as it tries to break my hold despite its disadvantageous position.