Path of Dragons

Book 6: Chapter 91: Good Riddance

Book 6: Chapter 91: Good Riddance

The ka’alaki hulk lashed out, backhanding one attacker while grabbing another. Then, in a move that brought a terrible memory to mind, it ripped the woman apart before throwing one half at one of her party members. The other half went sailing across the square until it splattered against the wall of a building.

Elijah had survived something similar, but he didn’t need to investigate to know she wouldn’t duplicate that feat.

The remaining members of the war elf’s party skidded to a stop, but their defender didn’t have the dexterity to fully halt his charge. The hulk’s foot collided with his shield a second later, which reversed his momentum and sent him tumbling backward. When he came to a stop, he didn’t rise.

Someone screamed at the grisly turn of events. Only a few seconds had passed, and already, Ikan was out of the fight, another member of the group had been ripped in two, and their defender was likely unconscious, if not dead. That’s when Sadie made her presence known, sending out a Blade of the Avenger as she approached cautiously.

The hulk reared back as the massive sword sliced into its muscled torso. Blood – white and milky – misted into the air as a hunk of flesh fell free. The creature let out a roar of pain and anger as it recovered from the attack, but when it brought its fist down on Sadie, she met it with her personal shield. It flared upon impact, but it didn’t shatter.

As Elijah rushed forward, he saw the rest of the party let loose. The air filled with various spells and abilities. Some – like an enormous fireball that descended from above – were quite bombastic, but others like Dat’s subtly glowing crossbow bolts were more subdued. However, when they landed, it was clear which ones were more powerful. Dat’s projectiles exploded on impact, digging deep craters into the thing’s flesh, while fireballs and ice lances were decidedly less effective – at least individually. Together, they sent the creature reeling.

Then, Elijah, in the Shape of Thorn, arrived.

Without bothering with any abilities, he hit the creature with all the force his triple-digit Strength could manifest. But to his surprise, the hulk managed to hold its ground, even lashing out with a punch that sent Elijah stumbling backward.

Fortunately, as much as he relied on Strength, he wasn’t wholly dependent on his attributes to ensure victory. So, even as that attack was answered by a toxic thorn, Elijah activated Domain of Vines. Roots erupted from the ground, wrapping around the hulk’s legs as the thorny vines on Elijah’s shoulders and arms writhed hungrily.

He threw himself at the thing, but he didn’t do so with the intention of trading punches. Rather, he shifted to the mindset of a wrestler, wrapping his arms and legs around the hulk and letting his thorns do their job. As his vines encircled the hulk, sharp thorns sawed into its flesh like the teeth of a chainsaw.

Of course, it didn’t take the attack lying down. It twisted and grabbed, attempting to dislodge the thorny vines as much as it tried to throw Elijah free. It was successful in the first task, its Strength more than enough to rip those vines apart. However, due to Elijah’s high Regeneration, they continued to manifest ang grow until the thing was wrapped in a cocoon of thorny green tendrils.

Then, Elijah squeezed.

The vines reacted to his muscles’ demands. The hulk attempted to escape. It tried to break free. But as strong as it was, it couldn’t stand up to the unique combination of Elijah’s own Strength and the regenerating nature of the vines. Even as one was torn in half, another took its place. The creature was incapable of making any headway, and Elijah didn’t release it until the Domain of Vines ran its course.

By then, the thing had been inflicted with so much toxin that it could barely stand. When Elijah pushed free, the creature tried to follow, but it quickly stumbled, falling to its knees. That’s when Sadie stepped forward and lopped its head off.

Just before her blade passed through the thing’s thick neck, Elijah caught its expression. It looked at him, confused, as if to ask, “Why?”

Elijah had no answer.

So, even as it died, and the remaining peasants scattered, he turned his attention to the crumpled form of Ikan. The war elf was still alive. Elijah could feel it via One with Nature.

A burst of ethera drew his attention to that group’s Healer. He wasn’t as proficient as Ron – or even Elijah himself – but he was competent enough to bring Ikan back to relative health. Elijah wasn’t going to stand for that.

“Stop,” he growled, pointing a claw at the man. “If you cast one more heal, I’m going to tear you in half.”

“He’s going to –”

“He’s going to answer some goddamn questions before I decide if he gets to live,” Elijah interrupted. “If you’ve got an issue with that…well, too bad.”

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With that, Elijah advanced, his heavy footsteps thudding against the stone floor. At the same time, his companions took up positions opposite what was left of Ikan’s group, weapons at the ready. Lamar’s party did the same, clearly picking a side. The other group led by Brika wasn’t so decisive. They wavered in place, obviously hesitant to choose which side they wanted to support.

Elijah didn’t care.

He might not have been stronger than all of them combined, but with the support of his group, he knew just how easily he could kill each and every one of them. And after seeing what had happened, he wasn’t in the mood to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. After all, they hadn’t afforded the peasants that leeway, attacking them for no other reason than because they could.

Or that was Elijah’s assumption, which he intended to confirm with the fallen Ikan.

He knelt beside the broken war elf, and the second he opened his mouth, he felt a wave of indecision pass over him. The fires of his anger weren’t extinguished, but they were certainly weakened.

Elijah leaned in close and growled, “Stop doing that or I’m going to rip your head off.”

Ikan coughed up some blood. “Can’t blame me for trying,” he managed weakly. A second later, the effects of the mental ability faded.

Elijah nearly killed him, then and there, but he restrained himself. Not that Ikan deserved it.

“Why did you attack them?” he asked.

“It is the way of the world,” the war elf answered, coughing. “You of all people should understand that.”

“I don’t kill defenseless people.”

“Don’t you? Against you, I am defenseless. And –”

At that moment, Elijah saw a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. A second later, a dagger rammed into his side, and Ikan hit him with the most potent attempt at mental coercion yet. The combination of the pain and the sledgehammer of a skill sent Elijah reeling, but only for a moment.

He recovered enough to reach out, but it was like moving through quicksand. His claw inched forward, then latched onto Ikan’s head.

Once again, he squeezed.

The war elf’s skull cracked like an egg. Brain, bone, and unidentifiable viscera oozed through Elijah’s fingers as Ikan perished. A scream tore through the air and slammed into his ears as the owner of the dagger retracted the blade and tried to stab him again. Elijah backhanded the figure, almost nonchalantly sending them staggering away. He looked up to see a small elven woman, her face having been broken by Elijah’s blow.

She opened her mouth, but no words ever escaped her throat. Instead, whatever she meant to say was lost as Sadie decapitated her. The elf’s head remained in place for only a second before the body toppled, and the two pieces went in separate directions.

Elijah looked up to see that all but one of Ikan’s party had been killed by other members of the group. They had attempted an attack meant to save their leader – an obvious failure on their part. The only member remaining alive was the Healer, who was being held at the end of Dat’s shortsword.

“Dammit,” Elijah muttered, glancing back at Ikan as he let Shape of Thorn fall away. If the war elf had simply restrained himself, things wouldn’t have gone so poorly. “What did he think was going to happen here? That I was just going to stand aside and let this go?”

“Probably,” Sadie answered, stepping closer. She extended her hand, and though Elijah didn’t need any help rising, he let her pull him upright. “He must have thought you would weigh this against his group’s help and put our fate ahead of the deaths of those natives.”

“They were innocent.”

“It doesn’t matter to people like him,” Sadie stated. “They don’t care about things like that. It’s why the angels have people like the Inquisitors. Unrestrained by consequences, innocence ceases to matter. For some, the only thing they care about is getting stronger. Ikan was like that. So were the people following him.”

“Do you think they were coerced?”

“Doesn’t work like that, I don’t think. Maybe if the power disparity is too much, but I think his class just made people more susceptible. I can’t know for certain, though,” Sadie explained.

“I guess,” Elijah said, looking around. In addition to the dead members of Ikan’s party, there were dozens of slain ka’alaki peasants strewn across the area. And the bulky pile of flesh that had been the hulk was the most prominent. “Such a mess.”

After that, Elijah and Sadie headed back to the group. There was a needling thought in the back of his mind telling him to loot the war elf, but he wasn’t so disrespectful as to start rifling through Ikan’s belongings. Yet. He intended to do so before they left, though.

Returning to the group came with another issue. Brika and her group had disappeared at some point. No one had seen them go, but a quick search of their immediate surroundings didn’t yield any results. However, it did reveal a passage that was clearly meant as the main exit. After only a little discussion – and some surreptitious looting – the remaining two groups chose the only route they’d found and continued on their way.

As much as they wanted to take time to process the betrayal, there just wasn’t time. Not only were they on the clock in terms of the abyssal corruption infecting everyone remaining back in Nexus Town, but it was probably too much to hope that their arrival was entirely unnoticed.

So, they continued on.

After only twenty minutes or so, a clatter from up ahead brought the two groups up short. Elijah and Dat both adopted their respective forms of stealth, then took the lead. Soon enough, they encountered some dead ta’alaki. Some had been burned so badly that they’d been reduced to charred husks, while others had more mundane wounds. Either way, there were no survivors.

And that was only the first group of corpses they found. As they progressed up the tunnel, which had slowly changed from roughly carved and utilitarian to something a good deal more decorative, they found a half-dozen other dead ta’alaki. Eventually, they found a few that were still alive but unconscious.

“What do you think did this?” asked Dat, kneeling beside one such group. He looked up at Elijah, and added, “Some sort of monster? A rebellion? Brika’s group wasn’t strong enough to do this.”

“I don’t know,” Elijah answered, though he had his suspicions. He didn’t give them voice because it really wasn’t supported by evidence.

Over the next hour, they were continuously confronted by similar scenes. At some point, Dat returned to the group to let them know what to expect. Meanwhile, Elijah kept on, and then, at last, he reached the end of the hall.

It terminated in a sizable chamber that seemed a bit like a lobby to him. However, he was less concerned with the room’s purpose – or its décor – than he was with the battle raging before him.