"Had I known it would prove ineffectual," said the archer coldly, "I would have poisoned it with venom of pit scorpions."
"You'll regret… regret…" Suddenly distracted, Johan shook his horned head. The heroes of Palmyra and Arboria stared, for never before had the tyrant shown befuddlement or hesitation. Johan mashed his hands against his eyes. Clearly his skull throbbed. Adira wondered if the emperor had run out of fresh air. If so, was she obligated to liberate him now and punish him later?
A piercing whistle cut the smoky air. Down a murky passage raced one of Magfire's pickets. "Shauku comes with legionnaires! Not a hundred yards behind!"
Pandemonium.
Adira Strongheart bawled, "Stick together! Heath, find us two boltholes where we can fight clear! Any direction will do! Jedit, scoot Johan's prison behind those boulders! Partner up!" Between tunnels and the littered cavern floor, a thousand hiding places beckoned, but they would give advantage to legionnaires as much as pirates. As Adira orchestrated a line of defense, teams of black-clad terrors charged from the haze. Battle was on.
Eschewing any partner, Jedit Ojanen leaped to meet black-hiked swords with wicked black claws. Leaping at a pair of Akron Legionnaires, Jedit swiped left and right to force one or the other back, lest one gut him while the other was distracted. The soldiers were trained to stand their ground and work in pairs, yet the quick ferocity of the man-killing tiger knocked one man against a boulder, so he skidded and fell. Immediately, Jedit Ojanen whirled to kill the other.
Looming like a behemoth, Jedit shot both paws like clusters of knives. The soldier's back slammed a boulder, but he kept his feet. Perhaps too well. Claws punctured leather and ripped long tears that half-undressed the man and raked his skin with stripes of blood. Still the soldier gamely rammed gloved fists and sword hilt to crash under Jedit's jaw. The tiger's teeth clacked, and he bit his tongue. Another brutal slam actually shoved Jedit back, so he momentarily lost track of his foe. He paid a double price as a painful jolt crashed on one eye and an ice-cold slice behind slashed his upper thigh.
Enraged, Jedit scooched and leaped to escape the returning sword swipe. As he landed, he didn't hesitate, for that invited attack. Squatting like a bullfrog, Jedit lunged and tackled the wounded man before him. The legionnaire hammered his sword's diamond-shaped skull-popper on Jedit's head with both hands. The blows stung so hard Jedit saw stars. Still, straddling him, Jedit Ojanen knew where every squirming limb must be. Opening a jaw full of razor fangs, the tiger bit savagely into the soldier's left biceps, slapped one paw on the man's chest for leverage, then humped his powerful neck and wrenched backward. With a gruesome grinding and snapping, the tiger ripped the man's arm from the shoulder.
Again Jedit paid a price for his single-minded attack. From his left, the surviving legionnaire whacked him across fur and skin and muscle, and almost creased his spine. Spitting out the arm, Jedit ducked, whipped a half-circle, and cannoned into the legionnaire. The soldier was bashed so hard against another boulder he lost his breath and almost his sword. The tiger warrior gave him no chance to recover. Scooping both hands under the man's crotch, Jedit slammed him headfirst into the rock so hard his neck and spine snapped in a dozen places.
Similar fights boiled all around. Salted amid the brawl ran a perpetual argument.
"We must pull out!" hissed Magfire, swinging her spike left. "I told you these caverns are unlucky!"
"We can't retreat with a job half done!" snarled Adira Strongheart, slashing right. "Johan's still alive!"
"Legionnaires know each other's whereabouts!" reminded Magfire in her husky whisper. "Killing one will fetch down all fifty! We'll be massacred!"
"Shut up and fight the enemy!"
Completely forgotten, the cosmic horror bubbled with new life. Freshened and strengthened by luscious nectar, the monster fought for its own freedom in its alien, half-mad fashion.
Nearby, Johan suffered inside his crystalline prison. Having once read the dreams of the star-lost beast, Johan now found his skull throbbing and reeling as the alien marshaled its thoughts. Other-worldly ideas and laments and pleas and phrases surged through his mind like seawater through a sinking ship. An apt analogy, for Johan felt his sanity ebbing as a thousand incomprehensible images blared in his brain.
Then, one stark truth shone like a beacon.
A shooting star.
Johan fixated on the picture. A rock. Falling through an infinite black void. With nothing to compare against, the wizard could not guess its size. It might have been a pebble, or a boulder, or larger. Straining to understand, Johan watched the pebble glow from dark dusky gray to a warm orange. Then a fiery red. Then white-blue. Then pure white, so bright and sparkling it was painful to see.
White hot?
Trapped in the crystal with the throbbing thoughts of the cosmic horror, Johan fought to think. How could a rock become hot? Ah! The rock had become a falling star!
Falling where? wondered Johan. And in the same instant he knew the answer. The monster was trapped and could never win free. Overwhelming despair wracked Johan. This landing place had proven hostile. The monster was imprisoned by painful fire. It would rather die than be a prisoner. So, with a tiny reserve of strength, it sought oblivion.
By reaching for a star. A shooting star.
With a jolt, Johan threw back his head and stared through amber glass at the cavern ceiling.
The clang of sword on sword rang throughout the cavern with an earsplitting clatter. Pirates and pinefolk defended a jumble of boulders as a makeshift fort while legionnaires swarmed from all sides. Hacking furiously, Adira Strongheart felt her belly grow cold as ice. Very bad, thought she. Her pirates were canny swordsmen who could board or brawl, but these legionnaires were diehard professionals, and she couldn't even lift her head to count their numbers. The only outcome was slaughter.
Heath and Taurion and a woodswoman tried in vain to kill a single swordsman who met all their thrusts and hacks and paid them back. Taurion was felled with a slashed arm and the woodswoman was clipped above the hip. Before Taurion could defend, the same sword whacked him alongside the neck, and he fell.
Behind Adira, Magfire jabbed at two soldiers while a forester and Murdoch ganged another and Jedit grappled still more.
"We don't have luck in caves!" With one broken arm, Sister Wilemina had to hang back and feebly jab with her bow. "The last time we ventured underground merfolk drowned Treetop and nearly ate us hoof and hide!"
Adira cast back and forth, trying to decide who needed aid, and spotted Simone the Siren, who suffered attacks from two men. Her cutlass flashed wildly just to fend the blades aside, never mind return a thrust. Trapped in the midst of a scrap with no way to help, Adira shouted for her lieutenant to watch her footing, for the floor was lumpy.
A fatal misstep. Simone ducked a thrust that was actually a feint. While she lurched off-balance, the assassin dipped his shoulder and lunged. Two feet of red-smeared steel jutted out Simone's back. Not wasting a motion, the killer twisted the blade and ripped in another direction. Adira screamed as Simone was gutted like a fish.
"Simone! No!" Too late, the pirate queen drove to kill. Furious, but keeping a clear head, she lashed straight and hard in an overhand arc that split a legionnaire's throat. Blood spouted in a crimson fountain that painted the ceiling. "Heath, help me reach Simone!"
Heath was busy. Lamed, he skittered between a legionnaire's legs, dumping him backward. Heath aimed his sword like a dagger and rammed steel in the man's belly. The part-elf twisted the blade as if to pry the man's soul from his bowels. It took Jedit Ojanen to clear the way by killing a half-dozen foes with bare, blood-soaked paws.