Another bone-jarring impact that slammed through me, rattling teeth in a skull that wasn't mine.
Crunch
My vision swam, pain exploding across my right shoulder where the blow landed. I staggered back, boots skidding on loose, wet scree. Again, I found myself trapped in another vision. The air here was different – cold, damp, thick with the mineral tang of underground water and the acrid bite of ozone. Not a forest, not a cave, but this time, it was a tunnel. Low ceiling slick with condensation, walls rough-hewn stone slick with algae. Dim, flickering light came from a single, guttering torch jammed into a crevice far behind me.
Before me, coiled in the narrow passage, blocking retreat, was the source of the blow. A Sucker. Smaller than the writhing giants in the first vision, but no less horrifying. Its form was a shifting mass of slick, grey-black flesh, like congealed oil given malignant life. Multiple jointed limbs, ending in hooked talons that scraped against stone, supported its low-slung body. Its head – if it could be called that – was a nightmare of sensory organs: clusters of lidless, milky-white eyes that pulsed with faint internal light, and a vertical maw lined with rows of needle-sharp, rotating teeth that dripped viscous, iridescent slime. It hissed, a sound like steam escaping a cracked pipe, the stench of its breath hitting me – spoiled meat and chemical decay.
Move! The command wasn't Kaelum's; it was pure instinct, a primal scream echoing in the Guardian's mind that I inhabited. My body reacted before conscious thought. I twisted, bringing the heavy length of pipe gripped in my hands – rusted, dented, scavenged – up in a desperate parry just as another talon whistled down.
Clang! Sparks flew. The impact jarred my arms to the elbows, sending fresh waves of agony from my wounded shoulder.
Behind me, pressed against the cold tunnel wall, whimpered the reason I stood here. A family. A child, his face etched with terror but his body shielding the others – a woman clutching a toddler to her chest, the baby's face buried in her neck, and an older girl, maybe ten, wide-eyed and trembling, clutching a sharpened stick like a talisman. Their eyes, huge and terrified in the gloom, were fixed on me, their sole barrier against the devouring dark.
The Sucker lunged, low and fast, a blur of wet darkness aimed at my legs. I jumped back, stumbling on the uneven ground. Pain flared in my ankle – twisted? No time. I swung the pipe down in a savage arc. It connected with a sickening thud against the creature's carapace-like shoulder, but it felt like hitting solid rubber. The thing barely flinched, its milky eyes swiveling towards the family, drawn by the toddler's muffled sob.
"Get back!" My voice – the Guardian's voice – was a raw, ragged shout, torn from a throat raw with dust and fear. I planted my feet, ignoring the shriek from my shoulder, the tremble in my legs. The pipe felt impossibly heavy and inadequate. The Sucker's maw opened wider, It gathered itself, preparing to barrel past me, towards the easy prey.
Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the Guardian's resolve. Not enough. I'm not enough. The woman screamed, pulling the toddler tighter. The older boy raised his stick, his small frame shaking violently.
As the Sucker tensed to charge, its focus locked entirely on the family, I saw it. The opening. The cluster of milky eyes on its flank, momentarily unguarded. The fear, the pain, the exhaustion – they fused into a single, desperate point of action. With a guttural cry that was part pain, part fury, I surged forward, ignoring the shrieking protest from my shoulder. I raised the heavy pipe high, not aiming for the armored body, but for that vulnerable cluster.
I brought the pipe down with every ounce of strength left in this borrowed battered body.
The impact was sickeningly wet. The pipe sank deep into the soft, gelatinous mass. The Sucker's shriek cut off abruptly, replaced by a horrible, wet gurgling. Its thrashing became spasmodic, uncontrolled. Ichor, thick and black and smelling like acid and rotting fish, fountained from the wound, splattering the Guardian's face and chest. He gagged, the vile taste filling his mouth, but he leaned his weight onto the embedded pipe, grinding it deeper.
The creature shuddered violently, then went utterly limp, collapsing in a heap of twitching, oozing flesh.
Silence crashed down, broken only by my ragged, gasping breaths and the terrified whimpers of the child. The air hung thick with the stench of death, ichor, and ozone.
I sucked in a breath that tasted of blood and victory and utter exhaustion, bracing myself against the tunnel wall. The family was safe. For this moment. My borrowed heart hammered against ribs. I scanned the darkness ahead, muscles screaming, tensing for the next impossible step.
My vision shifted again, chaos erupted through my senses.
It was my shoulder screaming, my borrowed muscles shrieking in protest as the heavy iron shield strapped to my forearm buckled under the blow. Spittle flew from my lips with a grunt ripped from my throat.
Dim, flickering torchlight danced on wet, jagged tunnel walls. The air was a suffocating soup: blood, void-ichor, sweat, ozone, and the raw stink of terror – my terror, mixed with the reek of the things pressing in. Suckers.
Not one. Not two. A wave of shifting, slick grey-black horrors, flowing from the darkness like spilled oil given teeth and talons. Lidless white eyes pulsed; vertical maws gnashed with rotating needles.
My body moved before thought. I was a warrior here, with instinct forged in a thousand desperate skirmishes. My right arm, already burning with fatigue, swung the heavy, notched axe in a brutal horizontal arc. THUNK. It bit deep into a carapace-like flank. The impact jarred up my arm, vibrating in my teeth. Ichor, thick and acrid, sprayed across my face, stinging my eyes.
No time to wipe it. A hooked talon whistled towards my ribs. My shield-arm, numb and trembling from the last hit, surged up barely in time. CLANG. Sparks flew. The force slammed my elbow into my own side, knocking the wind from my borrowed lungs. My boots skidded on loose stone and gore.
My muscles screamed. Every fiber in my back felt like frayed rope stretched to snapping. My thighs burned with the effort of constant shifting, bracing, lunging. My shoulders were knots of fire, the shield a lead weight, the sword a mountain in my grip.
Another lunged low. My sword came down, crushing a joint with a wet crunch. But the creature behind it surged over its fallen kin, its maw gaping wide. My shield bashed its head sideways, my arm shrieking anew at the impact. My breath came in ragged, tearing gasps. Each inhale felt like drawing broken glass into my chest.
Fight. Hold. Move. The commands weren't thoughts; they were primal surges of adrenaline forcing my failing body to obey. My world narrowed to the next talon, the next gnashing maw, the next patch of unstable ground to plant my boots. Tunnel walls pressed close, offering no retreat, only the promise of being pinned and torn apart.
My sword swung again, deflecting a probing limb. My shield slammed forward, shoving a Sucker back a precious half-step. Sweat stung my eyes, mixing with blood and ichor. My vision blurred at the edges, tunneling. Exhaustion wasn't just fatigue; it was a leaden cloak threatening to drag my knees to the stone.
But the warrior's will was forged iron. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the tide of weariness. My teeth ground together. A raw, wordless roar tore from my throat – defiance, pain, sheer animal refusal to fall here, now. My muscles, shrieking in protest, coiled again. My shield arm trembled violently as it raised once more. My sword felt welded to my hand, slick with gore, impossibly heavy, yet my fingers locked around the haft.
The Suckers didn't tire. They pressed. Relentless. Hungry. My borrowed bones felt brittle. My borrowed breath was fire. The next blow came – a hammer-strike on my shield that drove my buckling knees another inch towards the bloody ground. My vision swam, darkness creeping in from the edges.
But my arm, fueled by desperation alone, lashed out with the axe in a final, savage arc.
The vision shattered. Not peace. Not quiet.
A vacuum.
The sudden absence of clanging steel, shrieking void-spawn, and the warrior's own ragged gasps was more jarring than any impact. One moment, the crushing weight of the shield, the burning muscles, the taste of blood and fear—the next… Empty.
I slammed back into my own body like a dropped stone.
My body.
Except it wasn't. Not anymore. It was a vessel overflowing, cracked and leaking agony. The cool, echoing stillness of the Hall of Echoes hit my senses like a physical blow after the sensory storm of the tunnels. The air, once smelling faintly of ozone and ancient stone, now reeked only of blood, ichor, and terror – phantom stenches clinging to my skin, my lungs.
My knees buckled. There was no strength left. None of mine, none borrowed. I collapsed onto the cold, polished obsidian floor. A choked sob ripped from my throat, raw and broken, quickly followed by another, and another, until I was shuddering, tears streaming hot and unchecked down my face. They dripped onto the dark stone, tiny dark spots in the dim light.
Pain. It wasn't localized. It was everything. It seared behind my eyes, a white-hot brand pressed into my skull. It throbbed in phantom limbs – the Guardian's shattered shoulder, the warrior's screaming muscles. It echoed in the hollow ache where my own sense of self should be.
Blurred shapes swam in my tear-filled vision. The towering obsidian pillars of the Hall. The soft, eerie glow of the crystal sphere resting on its pedestal nearby. Alpha Dareth and Alpha Lyra – their imposing forms were indistinct smudges of dark robes against the gloom. One of them moved towards me, a darker blur against the blur. A voice cut through the muffled ringing in my ears, distant, insistent.
"Iris… Iris!"
It was a voice I knew, tight with concern. Kaelum's? Or Roan maybe? I couldn't tell. Couldn't focus. The sound was underwater, meaningless noise against the tidal wave of suffering crashing inside my head.
Pain. Suffering. Blood. Fear. Loss. Endless, crushing loss…
I tried to look towards the voice, my head lolling weakly. My vision swam, refusing to clear. Only fragmented impressions: the cold stone beneath my cheek, the glow of the crystal pulsing like a diseased heart, the vague outline of a face leaning close – familiar, perhaps Kaelum's spectral presence trying to pierce the veil? – but unrecognizable, just another shape in the torment.
Too much. Too much pain. Make it stop. Please…
My lips moved. A dry, rasping whisper scraped out. "Hurts…"
But then, something else rose. Not a thought. Not my voice. A pressure building in my chest, behind my teeth, cold and immense and utterly alien. It shoved aside my feeble whisper, my choked sobs. My mouth opened wider, not of my own volition. My throat constricted, then relaxed into a channel for something vast and ancient.
The voice that emerged was flat. Resonant. Devoid of my fear, my exhaustion, my tears. It echoed strangely in the Hall, seeming to vibrate the very air, making the crystal sphere hum in response. It held the weight of glaciers and the chill of the void between stars:
"When the Shattered Sky bleeds into the Deep..."
Alpha Lyra closed her eyes shut, muttering something I couldn't listen, But the Nathair Alpha positioned himself in front of me.
"...and the light strains against the rising Dark..."
My body arched slightly off the floor, rigid, a conduit straining.
"...a Bond forged to the Seventh..."
Tears still tracked through my face, but the eyes staring blankly ahead held no awareness, only an abyssal emptiness reflecting the crystal's light. I felt someone hold my frame from the back, but they immediately let go.
"...alone shall avert the dying of the Light, Or become the vessel for the endless Night."
The final syllable faded, leaving a silence deeper than before. The pressure vanished as suddenly as it came. My body went limp, collapsing back onto the obsidian, utterly spent. The phantom pains roared back, filling the void left by the message. Awareness flickered– the cold floor, the lingering echo of that voice, the blurry shapes of the Alphas frozen in shock above me, the distant, frantic calling of my name now tinged with something like awe and profound apprehension.
But all I knew, all I was, was pain. And the suffocating certainty that something vast and irrevocable had just been spoken through my broken lips.
I was falling.
Strong arms caught me, a jolt against the crushing weight of agony. The dim shapes of Alpha Lyra and Alpha Dareth swam above me, their lips moving urgently, forming words I couldn't hear over the roaring void filling my skull. Sound was gone, swallowed by the static of my own unraveling.
Then, another face surged into my blurring vision, closer, sharper through the tears and haze, Roan. His familiar features were etched with raw horror and a desperate urgency. His mouth moved too, shaping my name – Iris – or maybe a plea. But it was silent. Just his stricken eyes locked onto mine, the last clear thing I saw before the blackness surged up, thick and absolute, and pulled me under into nothing.