Six were dead.

Nearly everyone was injured.

We arrived with fourteen and now only eight, including myself and Merrik, were still standing among my squad of Forged warriors.

"Get a hold on those spines," I highlighted the Graven's midsection on our team's vid-link inside our helmets. "We need to split it open and expose the core!"

I couldn't tell if the hidden mass was a brain or a heart, but both the vascular and nervous systems converged through a central organ.

My squad moved like masked assassins, bounding through the chaos as they regrouped and shifted formation. Even with the losses, these warriors were incredible.

No wonder Oru chose them each personally.

The Graven whipped around, crashing into everything with long squiggling cords of orange plasma cascading on and off, creating deadly conduits between the crystal spine tips. Yet still, my squad had the creature skittering on the defensive.

Shar'koth stood out in the frenzy. Officially, he was attached to the landing crew as a liaison between us and the dreadnought, but he was the first to catch onto the plasma ignition timing and his speed was unrivaled.

Kazz'mon trained him well!

The Zhaguai worked together, tethering its spines to the ground with braided noose cords and garrote wires clamped to their spears and longswords.

Shar'koth got extra creative with an old-style pair of long-spoked shurikens. He linked them together with a long vibro-razor cord and sent them flying to sever off the crystal spines nearest to our target. Combined with the blasts from his comrades' proximity mines and heavy blazers, it was only a matter of time until the Graven's white crystal carapace had no choice but to crack open.

"It's triple armored," I shouted from the Graven's head when the core was finally exposed. "Hit it with everything you got!"

The few remaining minions were taking potshots at my head with poisonous projectiles and Merrik had taken to leaping short bursts with a jetpack to thin out our audience.

"Melee weapons only," I gave my squad the last bit of guidance I could offer. "The last strike must decimate everything! There's no such thing as overkill!"

We'd been fighting this thing for too long.

The Forged warriors were quick to take out the guardian and most of the minions who tried to sneak in and snag easy meals.

A shame killing this thing won't equal winning.

I wasn't keen to make the killing blow.

The last thing we needed was me limp and out of commission for who knows how many hours, but I was prepared to do what was necessary to complete this rescue mission.

I can't coddle them...

Death by victory wasn't an experience I wished on anyone, even warriors who believed themselves impervious to the insidious temptation of ultimate power.

Either way, I was ready to end this Graven permanently.

One of the Forged warrior's bodies was stuck, impaled by a spine, and smoldering on fire.

I had to commend Shar'koth for taking a moment he didn't have to fire a lone constrictor collar at the base of the spike. The metal band constricted and snapped the crystal to let the fallen Zhaguai drop loose.

"The core crust will rupture soon!" Shar'koth alerted the others.

I had to chuckle. Even amid the mayhem, Shar'koth's voice was just as cool and determined as his mother's.

A strange shimmer caught my attention while I was in the middle of gouging out the Graven's compound eyes to keep the creature blind.

The Graven turned emerald green and massive translucent bubbles began expanding all over its carapace.

"Move!" I yelled.

One of the Forged warriors, Dytte, was swinging a two-handed battle axe down on the core to crack it open and failed to sidestep the bubble in time.

The Zhaguai-sized bubble popped and sprayed her in sticky green droplets.

"Get Dytte free!" I commanded the others, but it was too late.

Dytte's face was sealed beneath a film of green. She could barely squirm to claw at her face before suffocating and going still.

"Shit," I growled. "Keep clear and burn those things off."

Merrik swooped in on his jetpack and set to cauterizing the bubbles around me while I continued blinding the Graven.

The others didn't miss a beat. They worked in unison, half of them burning the bubbles while the others kept the creature bound and continued blasting at the core.

"To your left, Elder," Merrik hollered.

Three bubbles ballooned around me almost instantly.

Merrik took hold of the center strap on my pauldron and flung me off the beast.

I was pissed at first until I spun around and saw he only had time to burn two of the bubbles.

The third burst and took hold of his foot when he tried to jump out of the way.

The Graven thrashed and dragged poor Merrik along for a violent ride, but that stubborn old Elder was nowhere near finished.

He switched on his blazer and locked on his targeting system.

"We don't have time for you to grow back a foot," I chuckled at him over the intercom. Even in its upgraded one-handed configuration, a blazer wasn't a precision weapon.

Merrik fired and holy shit, he hit his target!

He rolled and hopped loose and sprinted over to confirm I was uninjured.

"The core!" Shar'koth bellowed.

Merrik and I turned. There it was, all greasy and pulsing.

Shar'koth darted in on all fours, under and between the still-blinking orange plasma cords like a cheetah outrunning a plume of napalm.

He pounced up through a perfectly timed pause in the plasma charges, spun, and brought his full weight and the tip of his scimitar down on the Graven's life source.

The Graven and Shar'koth roared.

Merrik took a step forward, but I caught his shoulder.

This was a battle only Shar'koth could enter.

The Graven's moan petered out into a pathetic whimper, then the overgrown centipede slumped and withered.

I always hated this part. The elation and rush of a power flowing in, knowing that would be agony to tear it out.

Don't make me face your mother with your blood on my hands.

The others backed away but kept their weapons ready.

Black ooze crawled up Shar'koth's legs, and like anyone being violated for the first time, he thrashed his yellow quills, trying to prevent it from breaching his helm and entering his mouth.

It only takes a millisecond to consent.

Shar'koth screamed and clutched his chest until, to my relief, he raised his scimitar and slit his throat.

Then he followed through and nicked his wrists.

"Hold," I raised my palm to the others.

Black and viscous blue were still flowing strong.

We must be certain.

Shar'koth wobbled and tried to take a step, then he collapsed to his knees and flopped on his face, seemingly dead.

"The black is nearly gone," I pointed to the black flakes crumbling in the wind.

"Ready for that transport?" Groon checked in over our comms. "Comes with two med-techs, a full arsenal, and ample space for the living and dead."

"Thought you'd never ask," I twitched my ears, signaling for my squad to gather Shar'koth and our casualties. "Think I speak for all of us when I say, where're all the live people at?"

"We'll do our best to get you as close as we can," Groon clicked with a snicker. "The drop will be on a tight window. Secure the wounded and prep to deploy on the mountainside. Leave the rest to us."

The shuttle dove in a few minutes later and we loaded in.

"String Shar'koth upside down," I directed my squadron of freshly initiated Vigil warriors. "Don't let him get sucked into their demented timeline."

The last thing we needed was for him to get wormholed off to some distant Graven's lair.

Dytte, Set'esh, Thet, Moril, Je'kai, Yune, Auk'maul.

If I made it home, I planned to construct totems in their honor and pay respects to their sacrifice.

"Is this assignment everything you dreamt of?" I nudged Merrik as we squished in beside the window.

"You don't make it easy," the Elder laughed and cracked his ankle that got stuck on the Graven.

"This is me just getting started," I smirked while double checking the charge on all my weapons.

The shuttle lifted off and flew over across the wasteland with the Joyful Tyrant temporarily thinning out the insanely high wall of vines grabbing at us from below.

"End of the line," the pilot brought the shuttle to a hovering halt just short of the damaged shuttle.

Bat minions were swirling and an unwelcoming pack of hyenas were clawing up the side of the mountain.

Myself, Merrik, and the remaining six Vigils jumped out of the shuttle's side hatch and belayed to a narrow cliff shelf. Those possessing jetpacks had time to replace their battery cells, but opted to conserve the limited charge for unexpected emergencies.

The broken shuttle was barely recognizable as a spacecraft, but someone had taken the time to fortify the outside.

"Make no assumptions," I cautioned as we closed in on the vessel. "Be ready for anything."

My Vigils zipped along the near vertical rock face like well-armed jumping spiders.

Everything in the air tingled that this was a trap.

Please, let there be at least one person left alive and uninfected!

My ears sprang up at the faint thump of two heartbeats, Zhaguai and razkur.

"Two distinct life signs, Elder," Vrom, one of the Vigils confirmed with a bioscan.

We approached diagonally from the east while interceptors buzzed the area, shooting down encroaching bats.

BLAZZTZ

The cannon mounted on the top of the broken shuttle fired in our path.

A pale razkur arm extended from a crack in the shuttle's broken hull, waving for us to get out of the way.

"Spread out," I splayed my ears.

There was a slurping sound; wet, long, and wriggly.

The rocks below our feet erupted as a dozen hateful tentacles burst from the mountain.

"Bold Step!" I unleashed my chain sickle.

You wanted me here, come and face me, coward!

A wide tentacle slapped the broken shuttle and rattled it loose from the ledge.

"It's sliding!" I flung my sickle and snipped every tentacle in front of me to get that asshole's attention.

The Vigils fired their grappling hooks and secured the shuttle before it started tumbling.

"Get them out!" I growled.

Bold Step was hiding, and I was done playing his games.

"Elder!" Merrik ignited his jetpack and zipped in to cleave a tentacle aimed at my back.

The surrounding shadows warped into a circle.

"Aww, he's not one of your filthy mates," Bold Step cackled from the dark crevasses. "Here I was, hoping to induct another disciple."

Fuck this position!

Fighting a Corrupted Slayer on even terrain was a nightmare, but there was little to nothing we could do clinging to the side of a cliff face while two-thirds of a brittle shuttle dangled on suspension wires.

I glanced back at the Vigils attempting to pull the two survivors from the wreckage. The Zhaguai was Lor, Oru's Third, and the other was a male razkur I didn't recognize.

We needed to get that psycho out of here for any chance of keeping those two alive and safe.

"Do you believe he will follow if we move away?" Merrik spoke up.

"I don't know," I gnawed on the inside of my lip. "He's pigheaded and petty."

"Very well," Merrik activated his jetpack. "We'll appeal to his dishonor." Then my bodyguard took flight toward the broken shuttle and left me unprotected.

Centuries ago, I wrote ballads to serenade Red Spider into combat.

It didn't feel right recycling the melodies for Bold Step.

He and the old bounty hunter slaughtered many Thorngate citizens in the name of survival. I couldn't judge them for committing the same crimes I was guilty of.

Bold Step was worse.

He chose the side of selfishness, greed, and gave in to corruption.

My thoughts devolved into those malignant nightmares haunting my sleep that was meant to be shared peacefully with my lifemates.

Bold Step warping my memories of Thorngate and infecting my waking hours with uncertainty.

I let my voice soar with the rage festering in my gut.

One last time, I sang my heart's desire to Bold Step; the color of his blood that I wanted to spill, the pleasure of ripping his skin apart with my teeth, the impact from the base of my sickle dislocating his skull.

Bold Step's ubiquitous voice lurked from every nook and cranny.

I couldn't pinpoint the source, but I was pleased it wasn't emanating anywhere near Lor and the razkur being pulled from the shuttle and carried up the incline toward Groon's transport.

A larger black shadow amassed and slithered up the mountain

"You want this too," Bold Step whispered.

Suddenly, a mass of tentacles bolted for the survivors.

WOOOM!

A wall of white light cut off the Slayer's tentacles.

Several interceptors coordinated their cannon fire overhead.

The Corrupted Slayer screamed and emerged from the black glob, encircled by stumped cauterized tendrils writhed all around him.

"I only want you!" I snarled and whipped my chain sickle at his head.

To my annoyance, Bold Step ducked and shambled off down the rocky slope.

"There's no escape!" I shouted after him, skidding down the mountain.

Out of nowhere, my eyes drooped and my limbs became numb to the passing rocks.

This was familiar, effortless... too comfortable...

I shook my head and realized it was the call of the Graven drawing me far away!

"Leave me alone!" I tried to slow my slide.

A large circular portal opened below me, revealing a sideways view of Thorngate.

Black clouds churned above the city skyline with an eternal ring of white lightning crackling at its center.

There was still time to stop my fall.

"Elder, no!" Merrik howled behind me with his jetpack firing beyond maximum. "The survivors are safe and onboard!"

"No!" I roared in defiance. "I will not back down!"

Then I planted my feet on the mountainside and leaped headfirst into the inevitable.

...

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~A. E. Shelly (a.k.a. Oloo)