Bacorium Legacy (29 page)

“I don't believe in letting a man die with confusion in his mind,” Dreevius said. “So know this. We will have our war with Sono, and with all of the Alliance if they defy us. Zaow will die at the hand of King Zinoro. Sono will be nought but ash when we are through, and the destruction of your temple was just the first step in our campaign. Whether there was a princess here or not, we would have still murdered you all.”

Allma's body was still too numb to even struggle as Dreevius placed his hands on the sides of his head.

“Your
mistake
was defying Zinoro at all. That cost you a merciful death.”
 

It was slow - so slow that the numbness Dreevius' electricity had left in him was gone long before it was over. The pain was unbearable, and he screamed and cried and begged him to stop, all thoughts of honour and dignity and regret lost in the unbearable pain.

Perhaps to Dreevius it lasted only a few seconds - but to Allma it felt like an eternity.

Dreevius rose when it was done, staring down at the corpse of Allma - the head of which was twisted completely backwards - for the few seconds it would exist before it faded into mana.

He smiled. “That damn drunk almost made that one impossible for me, cutting off one of my hands earlier. Were I human, I wouldn't have been able to kill Allma in such a satisfying fashion.”

He placed his fingers together, cracking the knuckles on each hand, then he dropped the keyring on the floor and left, whistling as he went.

<> <> <>

He was back in the caverns, back in that thick darkness, with the glowing eyes of a thousand creatures watching from the shadows, warily, but not quite as afraid as they had been on his first visit. They ran, until the noise of the battle and the killing was gone, replaced by the silence of the underground.

They stopped in the tunnel for a moment to catch their breath. Emila looked exhausted, and Luca wished he could have helped her in some way. He would have even carried her, but his body was growing weaker all the time. He wasn't quite sure how he was even still able to move, but he felt like he could just push through any amount of fatigue. Emila however, looked like she needed the break.

Brand even looked tired, but he was holding up better than either of them.

“You wouldn't happen to know the way out of here, would you?” Luca asked him.

Brand shook his head. “From what I know, Ash was the one who always came down here. I knew there were other ways out of the temple, but I was never shown them.”

Luca's magick sphere of light hovered close behind them, illuminating the dark maze. He looked around at the various tunnels and passages in the underground.

Now that the dragon was gone, there was really nothing to hold the monsters back. Only their caution was keeping the threesome alive - the monsters didn't know if the dragon would come back, so they did not rush out. But there was fresh meat down there, just ripe for the taking. These dark things - they could see they were tired, and they were just waiting for them to collapse, so they could come out and have a quick meal of them. Eventually, though, their hunger would overcome their fear of Austille, and they would emerge nonetheless.

Luca looked over at Emila, who had grown pale in the hour or so since they had entered the cavern. Her eyes were hazy and unfocused, and her breathing laboured.

“Emila...” he said to her, “what's wrong?”

She shook her head, and smiled reassuringly. “I just feel very exhausted all of a sudden. But it's fine, I can keep going.”

She clearly wasn't fine, but the situation demanded that they keep going. Stopping to rest would end with their deaths.

“Here,” Luca said, going to her side. “Put your arms around my shoulder. You can lean on me for support.”

She didn't protest. Normally, he knew she would have put on a strong face and told him she didn't need the help. The fact that she didn't say that this time worried him.

They continued on, and after another half hour or so of wandering, they managed to find the subterranean lake where Luca had first met Ash the previous day. The blue light shone down from the gap in the ceiling, providing some faint illumination.

There, in that pale blue light, they saw something strange.

A beast sat by the lakeside, a strange creature that vaguely resembled a naked human, but clearly was not. Its skin was pale, its limbs far too long in proportion to its torso and head, and it had curved claws as long as a short sword on each hand.

It slowly turned its head as it noticed their presence, its eyes seeming to glow in the faint light.

There were various human limbs around it, lying half-eaten in a pool of blood. Enough for three people.

Luca drew in a breath. Those people - who else could they have been but-

In anger, Luca drew his sword, and Brand did the same.

The creature let out a low rumbling growl, and stood up, dropping part of an arm it had been chewing on. It started to walk towards them, moving in an unnatural way on its gangly limbs. Its long arms hung limp at its side, and the claws drew lines in the dirt, scraping against the rock beneath. The sound of it chilling to hear.

“Emila, just-” Luca began, half turning around to address her. He stopped when he realised she had fallen, her face a deathly pale shade of white. “Emila!”

She didn't answer him.

“Brand, she's-!” Once again, he was unable to finish. The creature had closed the distance between them with frightening speed, and it swung its long claws at them. Brand stepped forward first, slashing at the claws in the air. His blade hit them, and knocked them back. They did not break.

The creature stepped back, circling around him slowly. Its claws were so long that he could not close in and attack it, for any movement to do so was met with the creature swinging its claws through the air, keeping him at a comfortable distance. These claws, despite their length, were not flimsy. They were rigid and clearly sharp. Red blood dripped from them.

“Hang in there, Emila,” Luca whispered to her. Leaving her behind, he ran to where Brand was fighting the beast. He began to circle around to the left. Brand, realising his plan, continued to make feign movements towards it, forcing it to keep its focus on him. Therefore, it ignored Luca as he circled around to its backside.

Once he was behind it, he moved in to stab it in the neck. At that moment, it twisted its body in a sickening way, slashing at him with the claws of its right hand. At the same time, it slashed at Brand with the claws of its left hand. The two swings made a perfect circle. Neither of them were able to get close enough to reach it.

The beast seemed to be enjoying itself.

Having only barely avoided being sliced in half by its blade-like claws, Luca was forced to step back. His body was still too weak - he couldn't trust himself to be able to move quickly enough to dodge those claws if he was closer to it. Unfortunately, Brand was on his own.

He could, however, use magick. He took another step back, and started to gather his mana, readying his needle spell.

Emila then gave out a stifled cry of pain, and he cut his mana flow off immediately. Suddenly, the cause of her condition was clear to him. After all, the mana sustaining his life had to come from somewhere.

Even in the heat of battle, the thought of him causing her pain stabbed him with guilt. he couldn't use magick, which meant...

He would have to take a risk.

“Brand! I'll attack, and you use magick!”

Without waiting for a reply, Luca charged. The beast turned and swung its claws at him, which he caught with his sword. He felt Brand's mana surging.

While he held the right-hand claws in a parry, the creature tried to slash at him with the left. Just in time, he broke the parry and jumped away.

But he wasn't fast enough. The tips of the claws caught his legs, cutting right through his clothes and leaving a line of blood.

“Argh!”

Luca stumbled, and fell. Sensing his weakness, the creature completely turned away from Brand and ran after him. Its eyes widened in vicious excitement.

Brand then threw a ball of fire from his hands at the beast. The fire struck it in the back, causing it to stumble for a moment, but left no real damage. Brand threw another, which also hit its back, and also failed to even singe it.

It seemed almost amused.

Almost panicking, Luca analysed the situation. Magick was useless against it, and it could keep two fighters at bay even when they were on either side of it. Just what was this thing? He had never encountered, or even of such a monster, in all the years he had travelled with his father.

The beast drew closer, dragging its long claws behind it like a rake. Luca lifted
Siora
up, anticipating the next attack.
 

It never came.

Instead, a halberd flied through the air and pierced the creature's chest.

It did not cry out in pain, nor did any blood flow from it. It just turned to see who had attacked it.

In the distance, Ash, Selphie, and Jared were emerging from another tunnel. Selphie, her two short swords drawn, ran ahead of the other two. Ash did not have a weapon, and Jared had just thrown his, so they remained behind.

Brand moved in against the creature, causing it to divert its attention back to him. Realising this was their chance, Luca forced himself back to his feet, ignoring the wave of dizziness that threatened to engulf him. He ran to the beast and swung his sword, once again trapping its claws in a parry.

The creature was slowed down by Jared's halberd in its chest, and it was unable to fully turn to swing at them both like before. This gave Brand a chance he didn't have before. This time, he threw a fireball at the creature's face, momentarily blinding it. Then he swung his scimitar and cut off the thing's hand, claws and all.

With one hand gone, and the other trapped by his sword, the creature was unable to defend itself as Selphie ran up and placed her two swords before its neck in an X-shape. She swung them both, like a scissors cutting paper, cleaning decapitating it.

The head bounced away, and the body collapsed to the ground in a twisted heap.

<> <> <>

Luca immediately ran to Emila's side, ignoring the pain in his leg. She was alive, unconscious and pale as snow.

“What happened?” Selphie asked, as she wiped her swords off with a rag. “Was she attacked by it?”

“No, she just collapsed,” he said. “I think she's out of mana...”

Jared walked past them to the creature's headless body, and yanked his halberd out of its chest, green blood dripped from the axe-like blade.

Brand and Ash joined Selphie and Luca, who were kneeling beside Emila.

“It does look like mana exhaustion,” Ash muttered, looking down at her. “Has she been using a lot of magick?”

“She hasn't used any,” Brand told him. “Luca's the only one who has been using mana since we came here, providing illumination.”

Selphie placed her hand on Emila's forehead. There was a faint glow of mana as the princess checked her for injuries. “No, it's definitely mana exhaustion. She's not sick, and she has no physical injuries.”

“Her mana...” Luca muttered, unconsciously touching the spot where Dreevius had stabbed him. “The tether. Of course.”

“Tether?” Selphie repeated, looking up at him.

In fact, everyone was looking at him now. Brand in particular, who seemed to have an idea what it was he spoke of. Their expressions demanded an explanation. Time to come clean, it appeared.

“When we first met, I was dying,” he told them. “The only way she could save my life was with this spell she calls the Soul Tether. As she explained it, my soul is connected to hers, meaning that as long as she is alive, I cannot die, no matter what injuries I sustain.”

“Even if someone stabs you in the heart,” Brand said, clearly remembering the hushed conversation from before.

“Exactly,” he said. “Her mana exhaustion must have to do with this. When we were fighting that thing, and I went to use magick, she cried out in pain. I must be leeching mana off her without realising it.”

“Couldn't you just give mana back to her, then?” Selphie asked.

He shook his head. “The connection only goes one-way.”

The princess bit her lip, deep in thought. “I don't know what to do for her. I've never heard of such a thing as this tether before.”

“Me neither,” Brand said.

“Nor I,” Jared added.

Ash shook his head.

Luca looked up at them. “None of you have ever heard of this spell before?”

“Did she tell you this spell was commonly known?” Selphie asked.

“No quite. She said it was taboo, but I don't think she ever said it was uncommon. In fact, she rarely said much about it at all.”

Selphie sighed. “Well, the only way to recover from mana exhaustion is just with plain old rest. However, if you're leeching off her mana, it is possible that you just being awake might be preventing that recovery. Either way, it'll be hours before she's fit to travel, and we cannot stay here. There could be more Acarians about.”

“More?” Brand asked.

“Those three over there,” Ash said, pointing to the remnants of the creature's meal. “They're Acarians who were camped out here. We managed to sneak past them on our way through, but the princess insisted we go back when we heard the sounds of battle echoing in the caverns.”

“Not to save the Acarians,” Jared added. “But we might have needed to deal with whatever killed them, in case you or any other survivors came through.”

Judging from his tone of voice, he hadn't been in agreement with that decision. He seemed to care little for anything that could harm the princess.

“But as the princess said, we can't linger here,” Ash said. “There could be dozens of those things in here, for all we know.” He looked down at the head of the creature. “Just one of those was enough to kill three trained Acarian soldiers. And right now, I'm unarmed, and she's unconscious. That leaves us with four fighters, one of whom looks like he's about to pass out. If I were a gambling man, I would not bet on those odds.”