My wyrmblade sang a deadly note through the cold, dark air as I drew it free. I landed with a jarring jolt on the uneven ground and skidded, bracing my back foot against the slide, leaning forward to stop the backward momentum.
I swept my cursed blade low, just above my hip. Both hands locked around the knotted hilt.
My muscles were taut, ready to spring forward.
Mela mirrored me across the junction passage. Determination carved her features grimly. A flash of a feral grin in the gloom.
The beast was moving too fast for it to check its momentum. Too swift for it to writhe and twist around. So quick that when it hurtled past in a straight line, I only glimpsed its head, a glint of quicksilver eyes.
Fine stone hewn from the tunnel walls billowed out in a whirl of dust to obscure my vision. And I sent a quick prayer to Zrenyth that I’d strike its flank, right between the grinding plates of rotating skin.
“Now!” Mela roared.
I shoved forward. A violent derecho. A squalling line of fury.
A war cry wrenched from my throat.
I rammed the wyrmblade into the stone eater, using every scrap of strength that hummed in my body.
It felt like I’d hit solid rock.
A savage shudder rattled through my wrists, up the bones of my arms, and I almost lost hold of the sword.
But the wyrmblade carved inward, almost to the crossguard.
An ear-shattering, otherworldly scream filled the air.
I lunged in, heaving my full weight and might against the hilt, using my body as leverage and the serpent’s momentum to my advantage.
The stone eater careened forward, and my sword slashed through its innards, carving a fissure right through its length.
Black blood sprayed out in hot waves.
An unearthly bellow of rage shook the tunnel walls.
I held my ground, my blood-slippery fingers locked tight. Fire raged in my throat and flames burned my thighs as I pushed to keep leverage, to keep the blade slicing true, the sensation much like fighting off a quaking wall of strength.
The serpent crashed to a halt, flailing and roaring, almost wrenching the sword from my hands. Its entire body thrashed inits death throes, cracking against the tunnel walls, sounding as if a detonation had brought down the great sheets of rock.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
The beast shuddered.
One last heaving wriggle and a wheezing gust of breath leaked from its enormous mouth before its limp body crashed upon the ground with an almighty thump, nearly knocking me off my feet.
Silence, but for the odd thunk of rockfall and my heaving breath. Fat droplets of sweat ran down my forehead, carving a path through the beast’s black blood splattered all over my body like tar. My boots looked like I’d trampled through sludge, and pools of sticky blood seeped down the tunnel.
I watched in astonishment as the skin on the beast turned to a whitish-flaky texture. I tentatively tested my sword, still jammed inside its body. Its innards felt like marble.
I tugged and twisted and finally felt it give. The blade drew cleanly from the serpent, the sensation much like a pen stabbing a piece of paper. Flimsy and insubstantial. As soon as I pulled the wyrmblade free, the beast shattered into a million pieces of rubble and clouds of dust.
I swiveled away, swiftly covering my face with my arm, trying not to breathe it in. When the dust finally settled, a thick layer of grime covered me.
Nothing remained of the beast, only chunks that might make sense if you knew what it had once been.
