Unbound

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Archie dodged another swing of a Major Shadow Elemental flicked his wrist. His Echoblade chimed like a bell and a dark copy of its shape spun out in blur. It sliced through the dark Elemental in three places before returning to his hand. "What are you doing here?"

A thunderous squeal stampeded over his words. Ironclads, the heavily armored Dwarven warriors from the Rimefangs, charged into the fray atop giant boars and Golems made of gleaming orichalcum. Thousands flooded the jungle, flattening it beneath their boots and the crashing steps of their enormous Elemental slaves. The Fiend's forces were under heavy fire now from all directions, with the Rimefang Dwarves commanding the north and Marzul's Corrupted hemming them in from the south and east.

Archie stabbed another Dwarf through the eye slit of his helmet, pumping Mana through the blade. An echo spun free, and the interior of the Ironclad crunched like steak in a blender.

You Have Killed An Ironclad Of Anvilchest Hold!

XP Earned!

Are all of the Holds here?! At some point, he'd heard someone say that there were twenty thousand Dwarves against them, and he believed it now. Even the Boar Spears! Balls!

"They're just appearing out of nowhere!" one of the villagers cried out. "We're surrounded!"

Another flash of shadow caught his eye as a star-flecked rift disgorged a thirty-foot-tall Frost Elemental and hundreds of Ironclads.

"Get a hold of yourself, lady," Archie snapped. "Your kids are watching."

The woman fell silent, casting a shamed look at her children before hugging them close. Archie was followed by a dozen such families, each of them held together in a daisy chain of clasped hands that ended at the wide harness on his back. Archie couldn’t afford to let any of them panic, least of all himself.

He had a job to do.

"There they are!" a growly baritone called. "Run them down!"

Two of the Boar Knights set for Archie and his charges, leveling massive lances toward the Untempered villagers.

"Stand still," Archie commanded.

The villagers listened, barely. He didn't move, even when the knights crashed through the trees twenty feet away, nor when their lances gleamed so close he could almost feel the cold metal against his skin.

Tread The Worldvein!

Archie and all of his villagers dropped out of view, just as the charging Knights careened through their space and into one another.

You Have Killed A Boar Knight Of Boar Spears Hold!

XP Earned!

Damn, one survived. Despite being blind in the endless dark below the earth, Archie's Dire Viewing saw through it all clearly. One of the Boar Knights skewered the other’s mount and, in the discharge of Skills, had severed the Dwarf at the waist. Now they spun, their mount’s hooves churning up the bloody mud as the Knight hunted for where they’d gone.

He’d never find them.

The world above was mired in chaos. His Dire Viewing was a Transcendent upgrade from Blindsense, but even it could not parse all of the information being fed into Archie’s Mind.

Vibrations shook everything as countless Golems, Elementals, and worse stampeded across the jungle. His Viewing was a muddied mess in nearly every direction—but that only gave him a goal. Archie angled himself in the crushing dark, tilting his Body toward the silence.

Tread The Worldvein!

His Skill cut through the earth, even as it streamed through his core space. A deep thrumming pulled at his attention in the dark—an attraction he couldn’t deny to something far below. Not now! Archie marshalled his Intent, cutting off its song as his Skill activated fully.

His Body shot forward through the dark, the villagers pulled behind him on their tethers. Carrying so many people was hard, and it strained the bounds of his Skill, costing him extra Mana with every moment it was active.

Damn freeloaders…!

The silence grew closer, and he released his Skill. Immediately the crush of the earth squeezed at him, and had he possessed ears to hear they would have bloodied from the screams of the villagers behind him. They shot out of the earth, every single one of them vaulting forward into a tumbling mess of limbs. Groans and gasps tore from their mouths, and they could barely stand, but they were alive.

The clearing was empty, and the jungle looked untouched. They stood in a valley between a tree-lined ridge on his right and the vine-tangled rise of a cliff to the left. It was blessedly quiet.

"Stand up," Archie hissed.

The families listened. Fathers soothed children, and mothers helped the elderly to their feet, but they were slow. The tethers between them all tangled through their legs and around the waists of a few others, and sorting it out took precious seconds.

Someone screamed. Archie lowered himself, all but vanishing into the undergrowth. At his gesture, the villagers froze.

That’s more than one person. He peered through the trees, Perception flaring. There’s a fight just over the ridge…but it’s far enough away. He straightened back up and gestured to his people. “Come.”

He started running, and the villagers had no choice to follow. It wasn’t a fast run—barely a run at all to Archie—but even so, the Untempered found it hard to keep up. The ground was uneven, the night unnaturally dark, and their fear hammered at his Affinity like a drumline.

A groan shook the air as explosions rose above the ridge to their east. The screams got louder, and Archie bit back a curse. Just beyond the trees, he could see the shoulders of an Elemental lift up. It only needed to turn around, and they’d be exposed.

Faster!

He sped up, covering the ground at twice the speed, despite the older villagers gasping breaths. He couldn’t stop. If he did, everyone died.

Vess…this plan…is shit!

Archie had thought it was good a few hours ago, back when it was all squiggles on a map. Vess and Gabby had been really clever, and Archie was eager to spit in the Hierophant’s eye—but things were falling apart. Phase Two had been to get everyone to a pre-existing safe location, but now their path was gone. Though a company of Legionnaires had been set aside to accomplish this task, it now fell to the one person that could get past the enemy. Him.

I hate this stupid world.

Trees flashed by. The safe house was hidden in the stone, carved out by Beef and the others before being draped in vines and growths that Kevin had magically grown around it. It should have remained invisible to everyone, including Archie. He’d only been given directions to the place, and now most of that was useless as the armies had trampled every available landmark. Archie had only his Dire Viewing to keep his heading, and while he should be able to follow the cliff much of the way, the battle had him all turned around.

It's almost here, I think. I can feel—!

Boar Knights. A whole company of them appeared in the near distance, just beyond a thin layer of jungle between the ridge and the cliff face they’d been following. Ironclads marched beyond them, heading east, but the Knights stood still as if watching over them.

Letting the rank and file lead the charge. Typical. Archie remembered the Knights from his time in the Rimefangs. A few Knights would show up in town on occasion, and they never gave up an opportunity to lean on their privilege to get what they wanted. Lazy bastards.

Each of the Knights wore a mix of orichalcum and mithril, and the lances at their sides were glowing with deadly inscriptions. The beasts they rode were covered in heavy mithril armor themselves and had a series of savagely curved tusks. A single strike from lance or tusk would be enough to end most, let alone any of the Untempered following Archie.

Archie slowed to a stop. The Knights weren’t charging, which meant they hadn’t noticed them yet…but they were blocking the only way forward. He crouched beneath the jungle underbrush, and the big leaves covered their group like an umbrella. Beneath it, the night was even darker, and their breaths sounded harsh in Archie’s ears—but they couldn’t be seen for the moment.

He racked his brain, thinking of paths through. He could phase with them again. It was draining, but he had the Mana to spare currently—the problem was that his limit was going to come sooner rather than later, and Archie had no idea how many ranks of the Ironclads were beyond the Knights. He could see at least two or three ranks deep, but more could be hidden behind the trees and the uncertain terrain.

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Archie gave the tether a single tug. Move.

As one, they inched their way ahead, avoiding the clusters of fronds between trees. Many among the villagers had low-level stealth Skills, and that helped at least in part; no twigs were snapped or errant roots tripped over. Slowly but surely, they edged closer. Archie needed to see what was ahead of them to make any sort of plan. If he could see the end of them, he could gauge the distance and vanish—

“Enemy spotted!”

The Dwarven voice was loud enough to hurt Archie's ears. Something burst from the tree line, a figure that rose up above the canopy before smashing into the dirt only twenty feet away. Untempered fell back, dragging Archie onto his ass with an undignified squawk.

“Oh, c’mon!”

The thing before him was wide, bulky, and it steamed with Mana vapor, like a train turned into a magic robot. Stone and red-gold metal made the thing up, strapping its limbs, chest, and head with an aura of indomitable might.

An Orichalcum Golem!

Dwarves were on top of its shoulders and chest, bound fast by chains and belts, leaving their blunt hands free. One of them pointed at Archie. “Golem! Kill them all!”

The thing swung. Archie dropped all of them down into the earth moments before impact. The earth exploded, and his head rang like a bell. He floundered, momentarily dazed, and before he knew it, they were adrift.

No. Gotta realign…

A song reached out to him. Thrummed through his veins like blood. It wanted him closer. Deeper. The Worldvein…it called to him. Archie reached out…but was caught short by the tether tangled around his elbow.

The villagers. The kids. With a wrench of his Will and a significant loss of Mana, he redirected his Intent, cutting through the ache from far below. Leave me alone!

They burst free just beyond the Golem’s legs, already running hard. Archie held tight to his harness and tethers. “If you wanna live, don’t stop!”

The Golem was faster than any construct Archie had ever seen. The thing pivoted on a dime, its waist rotating to follow them as Skills launched from the Dwarven mages on its shoulders. The underbrush ignited and froze in equal measure, forcing Archie to phase his entourage again and again. They skimmed the earth, speeding along at speeds the forced gasps from the villagers, and the mage’s attacks passed through them like ghosts.

Tread The Worldvein is level 118!

…

Tread The Worldvein is level 120!

Archie couldn’t keep it up forever, though. He longed to phase through the jungle floor and evade the damn Golem entirely, but he couldn’t see beyond the Boar Knights or the Ironclad ranks. They could have been ten feet across or a hundred, for all he knew.

“Enemy of the Night Mother! Die!” The Dwarf atop the Golem wrenched something attached to its chest, and the thing’s hands started glowing. “Obliteration Wheel!”

The Orichalcum Golem’s arms spun like helicopter blades, and its hands cut a circle of light into the air like a whirling ember. Trees burned, and underbrush vanished in a wave of scorching flame. The villagers cried out.

The kids! “Tread The Worldvein!”

Archie phased them harder, sending them skipping across the uneven earth like slick ice. The Golem’s attack still connected, but the flames passed through his people—and assaulted Archie himself. The vibration of its Mana was potent, strong enough to sear at his Body through the edges of his Skill. He pushed harder, and they shot free—but not before his Mana started to flag.

Warning!

Your Mana Has Dropped To 20%!

He fumbled a blue Elixir out of his belt, but an explosion of fire and wind at his side knocked it from his hands. The gleaming bottle flew into the underbrush and was instantly lost as they sped by. Archie cursed.

The Ironclads and Knights shouted up ahead. They had noticed them, of course—they would’ve been idiots not to, with the Golem raising a ruckus. Already the boars charged, and the Ironclads were right behind.

He was out of options. Here goes nothing.

“Tread The—!”

The earth exploded before them and gave way. Archie skidded to a desperate stop, his Skill cutting out as the villagers crashed into his back. Nearly bowled over, the Delven could only stare in disgust as a massive Greater Elemental claimed the space before him.

No way.

“Don’t worry, little guy,” said an annoying voice. “I got you.”

Built of solid stone and wrapped in gleaming chitin, it reached out a fist as big as the Golem's torso and smashed it through the air, crushing the Dwarves against its metal. The Ironclads and Boar Knights redirected with a shout, attacking its legs with Skills that nearly blinded Archie in the dark.

“You think that’ll work against me?” Beef laughed through his Risen and twisted. The thing had a tail Archie hadn’t noticed, and sudden spike-ridden boulders tore through the Ironclad’s ranks. They died inside their tin can armor, and the boars squealed their last.

The way was open.

Archie gritted his teeth. “Thanks, Beef.”

“Go! More are on the way!” His Risen pivoted and darted around the ridge, heading east as it was joined by two other chitin clad Elementals.

“I am!” Archie shouted at his back. “Move, people!”

Scurrying past the Risen as it took on more ranks of the Ironclads, Archie and the villagers were basically ghosts. No one was concerned with them when Beef assaulted their formations. At least he’d been right to be cautious: there had been at least two hundred Ironclads just beyond the treeline. If he’d tried phasing through with his current Mana, he would have erupted directly into their ranks.

A flare of Mana burned through Archie’s Perception, and he turned, but the Skill caught him in the arm before he even thought of dodging. He fell back, but follow-up shots were caught by a sudden five-foot wall of lumpy dirt that rose to his right.

Archie’s eyes widened, and he glanced back at the villagers, meeting the gaze of a furiously sweating old woman, her arm outstretched and shaking. “Thanks.”

The old woman opened her mouth, but whatever she would have said was lost in a cascade of ice. Heavy spears skewered the dirt wall and crashed into her, casting the lot of them off their feet with the shockwave of its impact. The tether yanked Archie back, though he pivoted to track where the lady had gone.

All he saw was bloodstains.

No…

He stood up, harness dragging against his back as the burning jungle evaporated the ice into a layer of low-lying fog. A squad of Ironclads had remained, and they were training their crossbows on his group. Mages in the front spun their fingers, purple-white Mana concentrating into their palms.

Archie grabbed his Echoblade. If they wanted a fight, he’d give them—

“Let them be!”

Elowen blurred through the trees, her massive frame cutting across the Ironclad squad like an avenging angel. Her furry fists caught two of the Dwarves in the heads, dropping them both instantly. The Ironclads instantly turned toward her, weapons leveled at the mage’s back and sides, but Elowen didn’t even pause to be intimidated. She moved, too fast for the Dwarves to see, and her antler chains jangled as her robes swept through the dirt and blood. More Dwarves went down, faster now, and the others couldn’t get a bead on her. Crossbow bolts fired, but they thunked harmlessly into the earth or tree trunks, and more than one Skill caught their fellows instead. She was a whirling dervish of death…and she hadn’t used a lick of Mana.

“Unbound!” Corrupted Dwarves rushed from the trees, their flesh split open to reveal almost houndlike bodies of woven night. The Ironclads fell back as the Corrupted leapt into the fray, their shadow tendrils lashing out.

A flare of purple-gold Mana caught them, stopping the first three before hurling them back into the others. Some Corrupted stumbled and fell, bodies bursting, but the rest continued on—a wave of death, headed their way.

“Where are you going?” a new figure asked. Scaled in blue and orange, he brandished two weapons that were slick with the same blood that streaked his massive Body. “Disgusting little cretins.”

Wendell’s sword sheared through them, slicing through Corrupted and Ironclad alike, and setting off explosions that bloomed from the edges of his blades. A shockwave spread, cracking through tree trunks and dropping even a few of the distant enemy.

“More on the way!” Elowen warned.

New Golems and giant Elementals headed their way, no doubt chasing after the Ironclads that lay dead at Archie’s feet. With three Unbound, he was confident they could take them all—but not with the villagers behind him.

Archie backed up, looking for a way out of the fight. “I don’t think we can run anymore, people. I think we have to fight—”

His voice trailed off once he got a look at the Untempered. The adults were silently weeping, many of them covered in dirt and bruises, but the children were silent. They held their parents’ close, but they weren’t crying. They just looked at him. Like he was…a hero.

Archie cursed. He was going to have to do something stupid.

“You will not have them!” Wendell strode forward, putting his immense bulk between Archie and the approaching horde. “Core Manifestation: Wise Man’s Folly!”

The air jumped, pressure changing in an instant, before the ground leapt away, too. It exploded, collapsing beneath the charging enemy and consuming them in a cloud of dust and flame. In the seconds of thunder, Dwarves, Golems, Boar Knights, and even several of the Elementals were gone, consumed by the collapsed earth. “Don't touch my kid’s friends.”

A one-man demolition crew… Archie groaned as his ears popped. How come everyone's figured out their Core Manifestations already?

Archie ran, and the villagers followed without a sound. There was one way out of this, and it was to get them to the cave. If he could get there, he could resupply and get back into the fight. More were headed their way, but Elowen and Wendell headed them off.

They’re all crazy! If Archie wasn’t so damn tired, he could grab them both and phase out of there. “Stick to the plan!” he hissed at himself.

Wait! Archie saw it, just ahead. The flower!

Crawling up the trunk of a thirty-foot-wide tree was a single off-white blossom. Other than being the size of an adult Gnome, it was unremarkable, save that it was exactly what Kevin had described.

It marked the path to the safehouse.

All but cheering, Archie sped up, flaring Tread The Worldvein a bit more to keep the people skimming forward. Just a bit closer, and they’d hit the crevice that led into the cavern, then safety. Then—

A gale tore across the jungle, carrying with it a tree trunk that slammed into Archie’s path. He skidded to a stop as more were uprooted, the underbrush coming with it as roots and branches crashed all around them. Several villagers fell again, unable to withstand the wind.

Archie groaned. “What the hell is it now?”

A hurricane descended three hundred feet away, the trees tearing straight up from the earth and circling a fifty-foot tall Elemental standing on four icy hooves.

Name: White Frost Stag

Type: Superior Elemental

"Oh.” He swallowed. “Fuck."