12 Miles Below

“Incoming!” I screamed out, praying he’d grab the rope fast enough for me to yank him out of range.

Sagrius realized there was no time for that. Instead, he twisted on himself and lifted a hand directly to the incoming hammer while bracing his shoulder against the floor. Two shimmering occult domes appeared, one on his hand and the other on the other ends against his braced shoulder.

The hammer struck an instant later - and held against the barrier in a shockwave of dust and electric occult. Sagrius grunted, hand straining backwards. The force passed straight through, as if channeled from his hand and out this shoulder, the ground under him cracking further, the hook bumped out with the broken rock. Inverted gravity already started to make it fall while Sagrius remained pinned between the floor and the hammer, occult crackling around him.

“Nnnn… Deathless.” The Feather murmured, violet eye widening slightly. “Tedious...”

The hammer glowed brighter and pulsed out with force. The ground under the captain ripped apart in dust and pulverized stone.

His occult spell shattered against the pulse, but so had the hammer been repelled backwards in the explosion. Sagrius slumped, exhausted for a half second. Then, he mustered enough energy to twist to the side and kick off the closest wall, the Feather's hammer returning for a second attack, striking his abandoned hook, flattening it like a paperclip.

The captain hadn’t made a clean escape. His ankle and foot had been just slightly in the way. His armor’s shields triggered, holding off the hammer just long enough for him slip past. Not long enough for the glow of the hammer to disperse downwards, occult twisting force and physics behind the blow.

His nametag turned orange, medical report showing shattered bones in his foot and massive muscle contusions within. He didn’t let that get in his way.

The fake gravity sent him sliding him along the floor behind the hammer’s swing. Behind the tower shield. A kick on the side of the walls let him slip past the Feather's own lazy attempt to stomp down on the passing knight. His occult blade whipped through the air at lightning fast speed at the same time. It struck the Feather’s body and exposed leg, triggering shields. Two hits, three hits, four hits. The captain continued to slide down the corridor, delivering one final hit before the gravity threw him out of range.

Soon enough, he reached the end of the artificial gravity then rolled back up on two feet by the battered remains of the other two clan knights.

The Feather regarded him for a moment, shrugged, then turned back to face us as if he was no threat.

“Orders m'lord?” The Captain called out, breathing heavily.

“Winterscar, hold position lad,” Atius answered calmly, assessing the situation. “We’ll slip another few knights in your direction and then open fire with knightbreakers on both sides. His shield can only hold off one direction.”

Howling came from the end of the corridor, where Sagrius stood. He turned his helmet to search behind him, then drew his swords in that direction. A moment later, he leaped out of view, and white blurs raced past where he’d been. The sound of fighting emerged.

Static came from the comms, but his voice still carried. “Large number of Screamers, three spiders. I can hold,” He said. “Continue operation.” He sounded strained, clearly in the middle of a struggle.

“Kidra, with me.” Atius called. “Windrunner, guard the boy. Keith, prepare a knightbreaker. Remaining units, hold position with Keith. We’re killing this monster now, before the Winterscar gets overwhelmed.”

Atius leapt straight down the corridor, Kidra jumping out after him, blades lit.

The Feather tilted his head to the side, giving his neck a crack. He neither smiled nor seemed to particularly care, readying his hammer and shield as if it was business as usual.

Atius swiped his sword through the air, occult embued around it, launching out an arc forward that slammed against the tower shield and the sides of the rock walls. The shield held against it without any sign of effort, while the rock walls nearby were gouged out. The Deathless tutted, not surprised the spell failed to do much. What it had done was force the Feather to lurk behind the shield.

Occult pulsed across Atius again, eyes trailing blue light. He twisted on himself, angling his fall, a white sword striking the floor and slowing the decent slightly.

Kidra passed right by him.

The Feather peeked over the shield, then swung his hammer, right at my sister.

Atius leaped further down, rolling into a kick that sent Kidra launching off to the side. She crashed against the wall, bouncing past the hammer’s swing. It struck uselessly against the side of the wall, ripping it apart while the two knights sailed past him, striking out with blades against his shields.

He grunted as the threats passed by him, then shrugged again and turned back to watch us. Specifically me.

Kidra and Atius slid to a stop at the end of the corridor. “Hold position,” Atius ordered, “I’ll assist the Winterscar captain. Take aim and open fire with the knightbreaker while I keep them busy here.”

She nodded, reaching for the weapon behind her belt while Atius raced out of view to enter the fight and back up my captain.

The Feather stood his ground, waiting.

“On three,” Kidra called out while I drew out my own knightbreaker, one hand still holding onto the rope.

"Copy, on three." I sent back.

“Nnnnn… Enough.” The Feather grumbled and slammed his hammer again into the ground. A shockwave of blue raced out, shaking past my armor and dealing negligible damage. But I hadn’t been the target. Instead, the rope I’d been holding onto snapped, and I slid straight down along with Windrunner and the other clan knights behind me.

“Oh-shit-one-two-three!” I shouted out in quick succession, pressing the trigger down.

Kidra matched my attack, opening fire at the same time. Two knightbreaker rounds raced at the enemy from both directions. He let go of his shield, turned and slammed his hammer directly on Kidra’s round. It squashed the knightbreaker, chains and all into the ground. My own attack struck against the bronze shield, equally doing no damage.

Okay, didn’t think he could do that but in hindsight we really should have guessed that he could. Damn.

He lifted the shield up, letting it slam back down on my spent knightbreaker, just to be a complete dick to my creations. The Feather turned his gaze to me, judging the distance. “Close enough. Do it.” He muttered.

The tunnel behind me exploded.

Rocks tumbled down as the corridor collapsed on itself, cutting off the Winterscar knights behind and leaving only myself and Windrunner in the clear. The rest were buried under the rubble. Nameplates mercifully remained green, the armor easily keeping them alive against something like a cave in.

But that left me falling directly down at a walking hydraulic press, looking at me like I was the next snack.

I’ve been baited out. Wrath had been right, they’d seen us coming down here somehow.

The hammer lifted up, occult pulsing into it. Kidra screamed out behind, charging forward. She hadn’t drawn out two blades, instead throwing her own rope and hook directly at the Feather’s neck with one hand, while her other brought up her occult knife in the familiar halo of blue.

To her perspective, she was scaling a vertical cliff to reach an enemy. Even in relic armor with the advantage of the rope, she couldn’t scale it that fast. She wasn’t going to make it in time.

I had no knightbreaker, no rope hook to work with, and I was falling directly to my doom with little way to move myself out. Wrath was screaming in my head, the knights were yelling on comms, Kidra was trying to beat a world record in scaling a sheer cliff in seconds, and the only thing going through my own head was annoyance.

My free hand reached out behind me, to a familiar prototype shield. One I’d spent some time working on.

Of all the scrapshit bull I had to deal with, it’s not even a single hour into this trip and I already had to use up my tricks. Oh well. Negotiations are at a standstill, time to try alternate methods, like extreme violence.

The front edge of the shield lit up occult blue. See, the one thing I’d realized could reliably block an occult blade was another occult blade, with exception to those massive mite blast doors. But those cathedral sized blocks of metal were basically impervious to everything and couldn’t be stolen by any conventional means. I’d thought about it, trust me.

Occult blades as a shield though? That was doable. So that’s what I did. I layered a bunch of occult blades stacked like a waffle on top of a metal shield. Enough to catch everything. All great except not much range or way to attack with it. It was a dingy little armguard that had the same reach as my fists.

And that’d be all it could be if I were just a regular knight. Except I wasn’t just a regular knight. I was a gods damned sorcerer knight and I wasn’t about to let that go without being squeezed for every last drop.

Occult pulsed around me and I sent out three ghosts ahead, each carrying a shield of their own. They blurred forward, condensed into small thin dots of blue to travel faster, before surrounding the stunned Feather, popping back into full size. And each slammed their occult shields directly into his unprotected body.

"Nnnnn... Three Deathless?"

A single blade could do good damage. But the surface area was a little small, hence why it took a few blows to whittle down a Feather’s shields. The knightbreakers were the right way to go about it, with chains that would wrap up and apply a thousand times more surface area. The occult shield was a little more humble compared to those monsters, but it certainly wasn’t something to ignore when there’s three of the angry things pushing down on someone’s shields.

The Feather had two choices. Continue to wait for me to slowly reach his shield so he could squash me like a pancake, or leap backwards out of the way of the three occult ghosts currently ruining his day.

I was betting I’d take more time to fall down on his shield than it would take my three ghosts to cut through his own shield and then dice him up into neat little bite-sized silver cubes.

He thought the same and wisely picked to leap backwards, trying to escape the occult ghosts. The hammer swung down, not on me, but swiping across all three images, dissipating them all.

I hit his left behind tower shield a moment later, scrambling on top, and powering my occult again.

More ghosts were sent flying straight through the shield, zipping directly at him, swiping those wide arm guard shields. He ducked, dodged, punched and slammed his hammer and pole, fighting off the specters with simple brute movements. He was arguably good at breaking my ghosts before I could generate another from them, forcing me to constantly start back from scratch.

Then a hook wrapped around that tree-trunk sized neck and Kidra was on him the next second, stabbing away with her knife, outright furious, climbing around him in a way that he couldn’t reach or grab her, swinging wildly.

Stab, stab, stab went her knife, each time forcing his shields to trigger, while she swung around him using the rope, climbing over his body against the inverted gravity.

His hand slammed the side of the wall, occult pulsing through, leaving another handprint. It sucked in both air and Kidra, giving him a little room to breath. He reached his hammer up, ready to slam down on my trapped sister before another swarm of ghosts harassed him.

He was still breaking them apart faster than I could generate them and I could feel my head growing sluggish from the excursion.

Windrunner made all the difference. He hit the shield I’d been camping on, rolled and jumped off, a knightbreaker in his hands, safety off, aimed straight at the monster ahead.

The Feather raised his hammer in position, ready to slam the shell down. Only he didn’t get that luxury, since my ghosts were once again harassing him from all sides. He punched one, kicked another, and then the knightbreaker round flew right at his chest, perfectly timed to the instant he wasn't looking.

The Feather grunted, moving stupidly fast for a mountain of muscle. Not quite fast enough, the round clipped his arm, the chains flying off and wrapping around. Shields lit up, flared and broke instantly against the deadly hug. An instant later, they cut off his arm and a large chunk of his chest.

He leaped backwards, and made another mistake in doing that. He’d gone outside his gravity field. Windrunner flew directly at him, blade out, while Kidra clawed her way off the occult gravity well, and raced across his shadow like an assassin, hunched forward, duel occult daggers out for blood.

Windrunner hit first, and battled the Feather. The enemy held him off, hammer swinging out and finding a way to both repel the knight backwards and also slam down on the spent knightbreaker shell that ate his arm off in the same motion. This motherfucker clearly had resource denial as part of his goals. Kidra joined in a moment after, leaping at him with kicks and spinning blades.

The Feather fought both with one hand holding onto his hammer, swinging it as if it were weightless. Kidra managed to rake a blade across his head, cutting deep into his hidden eye, and stabbing a few more critical joints. Swings and strikes came lighting fast from all three fighters before the Feather managed to nail Kidra with a kick that flattened her into the ground and pinned her in place, while his hammer flicked out against Windrunner mid-jump. It struck him dead on with a pulse of occult, sending the armor reeling off into the air, nameplate going orange.

The hammer swung into position, high above Kidra and then swung down all in one smooth motion.

The weapon fell behind his back instead, a heavy clunk against the rock, his severed hand still holding onto it. The last working violet eye turned to gaze at his severed arm, spotting the trail of occult from where my ghost had struck.

Three more ghosts zipped into place. He tapped his other foot on the ground, leaving an occult inprint there. Air rushed forward to the mark, but that didn’t affect any of the ghosts. Things like inertia and gravity didn’t mean anything at all to the occult.

He seemed to realize it a moment too late. “Ahhh.” He shrugged. “I tried.”

“Shouldn’t have tried at all, asshole.” I yelled back at him, and my images sliced through the machine without a shred of mercy.

Next Chapter - Move fast, kill faster

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