“Ugh!” Yuriko grunted.

Her Anima had taken the brunt of the impact but she couldn’t help but mentally assess herself. No pain in her back, a bit on the legs and arm. Her right fist throbbed with the backlash of her strike, but the pain was muted. Honestly, she had more concern with her backpack. The impact might have burst her canisters. Still, now wasn’t the time to think about that!

She rolled to her feet, and her eyes sought her assailant. The snake and lizard-kin were shooting more crossbow bolts at the Stone Auroch, while the Vizugmonians were taking distance.

“Elder Yuriko!” Rhox yelled frantically, her expression visibly upset, but it eased when she saw Yuriko stand up.

‘Off with the backpack.’ she thought, quickly tripping the quick unstrap latch.

The pack dropped from her back and she guided it with the back of a leg so it would roll towards the side. In the meantime, she created her Animus blades and got ready to throw herself back in the fray.

The Auroch was fast. And nimble. Much too agile compared to its size and awkward looking horns. She had scant time to think. As she watched, the beast snorted another plume of smoke and caught a lizard-kin. The poor man’s leg turned to stone mid-leap and when he landed, his leg shattered. He looked too numbed to scream.

“Burning Moon!”

She yelled as she charged, blades crossed in front of her. The Auroch reacted to her, for that matter, one eye had always been trained towards her even as the beast attacked the other warriors. It swung its head, aiming to strike with the pointy horn, Yuriko parried with her blade, creating a fountain of sparks where the edge met the bone.

While her blow wasn’t enough to arrest its momentum, it was enough to deflect it down. Yuriko jumped and landed on the horn, then jumped towards an eye.

Mwaoooo!

Grey and red blood splashed from the broken eye. Even more smoke cascaded from its mouth and nose, even as it whirled, bucked, and kicked in pain.

“Argh!” Rhox screamed when the Auroch dragged her along with her threads still attached to its rump.

Yuriko kept hold of a horn, flipped over its head then started stabbing along its neck. The scales were tougher than they looked as even her Animus blades were having some difficulty piercing though, even with the third dance in use.

Still, repeated strikes at precisely the same spot had some effect. After the third stab, a scale broke and the tip entered the flesh, but it was at that point that the cow rolled over. Yuriko barely managed to jump off. She rolled on the ground until she came to a stop next to a stalagmite.

Right next to Masa and the other cats too. The catkin’s eyes widened in surprise and she yelped.

“Look out!”

Yuriko looked up and saw the auroch already back on its feet and charging. She pushed off the ground and dodged out of the way even as the beast slammed into the rock formation, and a moment later, it snapped.

“Eeeaaaah!”

Screams from one of the cats. An unfamiliar voice though. Yuriko couldn’t pay much attention to it and moved to take advantage of the open flank. Her Animus blades aren't strong enough! Sparks flew from the scales and the blade bent, then snapped, dissipating into base lumens.

“Chaos!”

Yuriko extruded another blade. The auroch was thrashing wildly but it didn’t stay in the same space. The warriors dodged and counterattacked but the scales were too tough. An occasional lucky hit managed to hit its joints, nose, or ears, but often, luck turned to misfortune as the beast rounded on the poor fighter. A kick with its sharp hooves, a gore from the horn, or a blast of orange flame, spelled a warrior’s doom.

As for her, Yuriko managed several successful strikes, but none in a critical area. She did her best to divert it from killing the others and she had succeeded several times in doing so, but she only needed to fail once, and a life would be snuffed out.

Rhox’ threads finally grew thick enough to tangle its hind legs but no sooner had it staggered than its tail, glowing red with heat, burned through the silky threads. Then it made a beeline for the Ahas clanner, managing to swipe her to the side. Rhox collapsed in a heap some distance away.

Anda menaced the Dire Beast from behind, often shooting a crossbow bolt that managed to stick into skin. At one point, he started to glow orange and a silhouette of his ancestral totem, unsurprisingly a tiger, formed around him. He tossed his crossbow behind him, jumped on top of the bull’s back and hung on using claws from his hands and toes. They must have been really sharp since they sunk into the Auroch’s scales and into its flesh if the sudden runners of blood could be believed. But the Dire Beast ignored him, focused as it was on Yuriko. She had managed to land a powerful cut on its flank, leaving a gash nearly a pace wide.

The Lucentian numbers were fast dwindling. A dozen to start and now, merely four left. Masa hung back, while Dai attempted to attract the beast’s attention, waving his broken tower shield to and fro. As for the last member of their team, she was scuttling about the battlefield retrieving her throwing knives.

“Watch out!” Dai yelled to Hixe.

She’d wandered too close to the Auroch’s rump and it kicked. The Kutin woman’s eyes widened as she attempted to jump out of the way. The sharp hoof caught on her leather cuirass, carving a long line along its side while the force spun her around. The Auroch spun and breathed smoke and she stepped into the cloud before anyone could react.

“Ahhh!” Yuriko yelled in rage.

Her blades weren’t strong enough! She wasn’t strong enough. Though the monster could barely do anything to her, she couldn’t defeat it fast enough! What made it so different from the other Dire Beasts? The Hound was bigger than it, so was the bear and the snake! But it packed far more of a punch than those other ones did!

She channelled twice as much Animus into forming a blade and it thickened considerably. But a simple glance was enough to tell that it wasn’t as sharp as her initial conjured blades. Still, if it was tougher, then she could put more of her strength into it. She could just rely on the third dance to give it an edge!

The third and fourth dances used in tandem. She couldn’t combine all four yet, no matter how she tried, but any of the three and the fourth were possible. The edge of her Animus blades grew jagged.

She ran up to the Auroch, who lowered its head and tried to gore her. She dodged under the huge horns then slashed at the base of both horns with either blade. The fourth dance did odd things with her attacks. In this instance, it created several afterimages and a fore-image. It clashed against the bone, and the rest of the images slashed less than a moment later. Sparks flew from the impact point, and each subsequent blow dug deeper and deeper into the horn. By the time she finished the slash, it had struck the bull’s horn five times. It hadn’t cut through, of course. A significant amount of Animus had been invested into its horns, but the force of multiple impacts, ten strikes, drove straight into what passed for the creature’s brain. It staggered backwards, head hanging low.

“Again!” She spun to the side and used the same move to cut down on the neck at, with left and right blades alternating impact points. She cut down a few inches before her weapons hit bone. Then the damage simply stopped. It was too tough. She danced back away from a crazed counter but had to deflect a horn with a blade. The parry had been awkward though, and the shock travelled down her arm, numbing her right side. Still, the Auroch had been stunned enough that it couldn’t follow up.

Masa’s face was stained with tears and Anda’s was set in a grimace. Dai only sighed. Rhox was out cold and the surviving Lucentians were people Yuriko didn’t know. She could see their knees trembling though.

She pressed the attack. The Auroch was on its last legs. She dodged another attempt to gore her, but it was painfully slow now. She burned her Animus to the third and fourth dance. The fourth drained Animus for every action she took, much like an Empowered Strike. There must be a way to keep its power constant, but she hadn’t discovered how yet. The Golden Silhouette didn’t show any advanced moves, but then again, she hadn’t been able to use her Facet freely since she’d met with Masa and the snakekin.

Her strike cut the Auroch’s knee, and it collapsed. She and the others stepped back, out of reach. Plumes of smoke billowed, but they didn’t stay coherent for long. The creature would eventually bleed out, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She stalked around the creature and cut at its neck until she finally beheaded it.

A ragged cheer rose from the survivors.

“Check the others,” She ordered hoarsely. They followed. But alas, other than Rhox, only one other snakekin survived, but this one had lost an arm.

Rhox got up to her knees, her head swaying. A moment later, her breakfast made an encore appearance. The stench, along with the hot bloody scent from the beast, set off Masa, and she, too, puked her guts out.

Anda and Dai were whispering to each other. Yuriko walked up to the fallen snake-kin and gave her some water. Then she approached Masa and gave the catkin one of her bamboo water canisters.

Afterwards, she dug the Ivory out of the Dire Beast. It was an order of magnitude bigger than the Hound’s, though it was the same as the Serpent Kings.

“I wonder if this is edible?” she wondered.

“Yes,” one of the surviving snakemen muttered.

“See if we can bring it back?”

“What’s the use? It would be tough and sinewy meat. And with how we are, it would only be a burden.” He stared pointedly at the tunnel entrance covered by rockfall.

“Think we can find a way back?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good.”

“Elder Yuriko, a word if you please?” Anda called out to her.

Yuriko nodded her assent, though she tried to hide her surprise. The tiger man had been quite reticent with her.

The snakeman she’d just been talking to narrowed his eyes while he watched her talk. She only noticed because she looked back at him. As soon as she did, he lowered his gaze and tended to the crippled snakekin.

“What is it?” She asked once she came close to Anda and Dai. Masa was still out of it, though she wasn’t injured in the slightest.

“First, I would like to give my thanks in your words that allowed us to leave the stockade.”

“Think nothing of it,” she replied, waving him off. “It’s merely a promise I made.”

“Ah, yes,” Anda muttered, “though I fail to see how Masa secured your aid.”

“Well,” Yuriko hemmed, “it had been a while since I last saw a person, so it was a spur of the moment thing.”

“Nevertheless, we are grateful.”

“Alright. Is that it?”

“No, I’m afraid that I’ve another matter to address.”

Anda’s gaze wandered towards the wounded and the dead. Their only casualty was the other Kutin woman, but from the looks of them, they weren’t that troubled. But then again, their inhuman features meant that she may be misreading their emotions.

“We wish to leave.”

“But you gave Otlaca your parole.”

“A forced oath is no oath,” Anda hissed.

“No,” Yuriko frowned. “An oath is an oath. If you were under duress then you should not have agreed.”

“They starved us for weeks,” Anda said flatly.

“You look hale to me.”

“Hah,” he barked, “that’s just my fur. I’ve lost nearly ten Jin of weight.”

Yuriko winced. “Still. Hrmm, I won’t stop you if you wish to go, but I will not aid you in oath-breaking.”

“‘Twould be foolish,” Dai interjected. “If we follow the tunnels here, we would no doubt arrive in Lucenti’s territory. We would only be captured again and this time, executed as spies.”

Anda tugged at his ear in frustration before he sighed, “Yes, you’re right, old friend. But would Otlaca really let us go once we reach the surface?”

“We’ve nothing to lose,” Dai laughed. “Well, only our lives, but we lost control of that the moment we were captured.”

“Indeed.” Anda bowed to Yuriko. “Then, Elder, thank you for your kindness and your words. Please treat this discussion as though it were wind.”

“I understand."

She let the survivors rest for an hour before they gathered their dead--the ones who were still intact, anyway. Those who had been turned to stone had degraded into dust immediately after the Auroch died. Rhox’s team gathered keepsakes instead. Anda took a medallion from the dead Kutin woman, though having been subjected to the smoke, she too had turned to dust. Only some of her gear had survived.

When they were ready, Rhox led them to a different tunnel, and then it took the greater part of the day before they finally made it back to Forgestride Enclave.