Unbound

"Enemy above! Brace yourselves!" Zara shouted.

Her words sent a ripple of terror through the thirteen waking guards. Reed stared up in horror at the gnashing jaws close to a mile long, and those only one of many on the Whalemaw. It closed, dropping with a speed that belied its bulk, and hungry tongues lashed outward to strike at Zara's crystalline enclosure.

"Brace!" she repeated.

The ground dropped out from beneath them all, the conjured flagstones tilting into a sudden forty-five degree angle. Men and avum tumbled and slid as Zara forged a path at an angle, while above them the gargantuan Whalemaw snapped at a now-empty space.

As if encouraged by her voice, those awake shouted in alarm and pain. They fell like a stone for ten heartbeats, then Zara curved the path and evened them out again. A few among them were injured, but not terribly as they came to their feet. The mounts, unfortunately, had the greatest casualties.

"Move! Everyone run as fast as you can!" Zara shouted. "Kelgan! Bring your people! Reed! We need your sword at the fore!"

Pained and confused, the Haarguard were at least reasonably well-trained. Those thirteen came to their feet and snapped out orders to their own sections of alchemically-dosed compatriots, and what avum that could be saved were brought along. The limping or dead few mounts she left in their own forged bubbles, soon disconnected from their own passage.

Reed stomped to the front, greatsword in his one giant hand, and he snarled at her. "What in Avet's black teeth was that?"

"That is a creature so powerful not even I could face it," Zara said through a sheen of sweat. They were all running now, full-tilt, and she was building their flagstone path ahead of them while destroying it behind them. A constant effort of recycling Mana that did her strained concentration no favors.

Reed swung his sword as a tentacular beast wormed its way through the front of her barrier, drawn by their fear and blood and wavering Wills. The creature ruptured, its body sliced through easily and releasing a splash of shimmering rainbow Mana. "Why are they getting through?"

"Because I cannot concern myself with the lesser threats any longer," Zara panted. "I've dropped us from the Whalemaw's original path, but we must return to our original elevation so that we can exit this Passage." Beneath them, the angle of the flagstone path tilted upward just a touch, increasing slightly with each layer she reforged. "We cannot deviate too far from the Passage, or else who knows where we will end up."

Reed killed another creature, one his Analyze had issue identifying she could tell. "It has our scent. Look." Zara spared a look back to see the huge bulk of the Whalemaw turning on itself. It was slow, ponderous, but she wasn't fooled. "It's hunting us now. We have to fight back, or else no one will stop the Inquisition!"

Zara sent spears of crystalline Mana outward, stabbing through dozens of voidbeast that swarmed around their enclosure. It also lit up the dark a touch more, showing thousands upon thousands of them moving for the company. "We have enough to fight! That is too much for you, Chosen Hand of Pax'Vrell! It catches us and we won't have to worry about the Inquisition any longer!"

Reed took the hint, brandishing his greatsword as more voidbeasts assaulted the forward breach. They died with every stroke of his sword, every pulse of his savage wind magic. Still, he glared daggers at her every chance he could, as if the weight of his ire could do anything. Were he stronger, perhaps it could. As it was, Zara put him from her Mind. She had other concerns.

Zara dug deep, into parts of her Mind and Spirit she rarely accessed. There, among the wild chaos of her core, she gripped a half-forgotten Skill. Intent and Will she held fast, while her Affinity traced its edges in rapid fashion, until the aquamarine light around her wobbled with the effort. The crystalline enclosure fractured, yet before Reed could even complain Zara hurled her left palm upward.

"Siren's Song!"

An orb the size of a house shot upward, oozing through the crystalline barrier. It escaped into the liminal space and shot off in a high, powerful arc like a signal flare from an adventurer team. It lit up the dark, shining upon more voidbeasts than ever, a nightmare tide of abominations hungering for them all. Yet the orb burst alight at its height, singing a song that was alluring as any mind slaving compulsion. The voidbeasts swarmed it, all of them trying to take a bite of its powerful Mana, until the light was no longer visible under the weight of their dark flesh.

"Keep running!" Zara dropped her arm and did just that. "Look forward and regain your calm! We shall make it!"

A booming roar shook the inky air, so much that the flagstones tilted and tipped, turning treacherous. Men and women stumbled. Beyond her Siren's Call, the Whalemaw appeared, now set to intercept the voidbeasts and their snack.

"Siren's Song!"

Another followed, this time arcing right into its startled, but unharmed head. The orb bounced harmlessly off its massive bulk. It wasn't meant to hurt it.

It was chum in the water.

Zara may not have fought such a beast before, but she knew someone who had. The Whalemaw could not stop itself from tearing into the bounty before it. Voidbeasts died by the hundreds with every vicious snap of its jaws. Mana splashed and near-soundless screams ripped into the liminal space.

Zara did not stick around to watch. Her team ran off into the dark.

Ten thousand mouths opened in ecstasy as it fed. It was hungry. It was always hungry, ever since the burning crimson might had spread across its bulk. It had thought to end that hunger before, when it had chased down its prey, but it had only been hurt by the Light of All Things.

The terrible Light.

After, it had wandered the barren Void, desperately seeking...something.

What?

The rapid growth it had experienced a few weeks ago had slowed to a crawl despite its almighty power. It's size and shape had not changed overmuch, except the availability of its endless maws, and the hundreds of tiny arms that studded its craggy surface. It bore no similarity to its former kin, imbued with such terrible potency, and they fled from its presence. But they never got away. There was a hunger in it that couldn't be denied, one that sent it ravening after every piece of life it encountered. Hundreds, thousands fell before its razor sharp appetite, yet none filled the chasm in its center. It had lost the one thing that would make it complete, lost so completely that it could never again be whole. The Light of All Things had consumed it entire.

And then it heard the Call.

It had been faint at first, but something was skipping across the Void, couched in the greater dark. Enthralled by the Call, the Whalemaw had rolled its monstrous girth and sped after it. The sound would sing and fade, before reappearing once again in a far distant location, pushing the Whalemaw to burn its bountiful power to accelerate it across the black. Swarms of lesser voidbeasts followed in its wake, a veritable horde teased from rock crevices and hidden warrens, all of them hungry for the Whalemaw's Mana....yet too terrified to close.

Its power spread outward like mantle of blood and decay, a rot that ate at stone and flesh with equal alacrity, but the Whalemaw pressed on. It was driven by a Need it could not name, for all that the power within it had enhanced its Mind. A Need. A Want. It followed the thread of that Call, until it penetrated the bubble of black on black, rupturing a barrier that screeched in agony at its arrival. It did not care.

The Call was stronger than ever.

Then it had seen it! A glorious light containing such potent Mana that it had never before seen! And the Call led to them, to many of them, strings of connection that tickled at the hollow in its core. One, however, stuck out among the others. This one had a surer connection to the thing it Needed. Would it be whole, finally, if it ate them?

Yet they met its Need with trickery! They fled, faster than prey should, and distracted it with baubles of shimmering Mana. Pathetic attempts to stop its advance. However, the light brough forth the hordes that dwelled in the Whalemaw's shadow. The scavengers that were too afraid to attack were now driven into a frenzy by the plush source of Mana hovering tantalizingly in front of them all.

Wings, tendrils, and serpentine forms tore across the Whalemaw's body, many caught in its grasping arms, but more still surged and gathered in a way that was impossible for it to resist. It had a Need for the Call, but it was so hungry.

It ate. Oh sweet glory, it ate.

Yet the Call it followed, the one that soothed that emptiness within it, the Call was fading. Fleeing.

Its prey was getting away.

The Whalemaw was coming for them, bellowing out into the eternal dark with terrible force. Her constructed dome shook under the pressure of just its voice. Zara knew they wouldn't survive direct contact. Perhaps no one could.

All they could do was run, and Zara put everything into that.

The ascent back up to the level of their Passage had nearly been achieved. Her flagstone path had tilted upward at a forty-five degree angle again, but this time she fashioned the ground into steps. Behind her swarmed the company of dead-eyed warriors and the terrified men and women who led it all. Kelgan and his people shouted terse orders and huffed with Stamina that was too close to being expended.

They weren't going to make it like this. Not all of them.

Even now, the Whalemaw was pulling itself from the morass of voidbeasts. She could see it in the distance. It was only a matter of time before its endless jaws came for them.

"Reed!"

The Hand looked at her, his sword never stopping. Voidbeasts clashed against him like water off the prow of a boat, all of them cut into dark spume by his blade. Zara pointed at the guards. "We are almost to the exit, but they're flagging! I need to open the barrier to speed up our progress!"

The Hand furrowed brow and made a wordless growl.

"More monsters than ever before will assault us. You, and only you can fight them off! Be ready!" Zara said.

"Just get on with it!" he shouted at her.

With a crystalline chime, the green-blue barrier around them shattered into a thousand shards. Zara seized the shards and swept them behind and ahead of them, speed forging a back and fore facing half wall. At the same time, voidbeasts dropped from all directions, coming at them with flashing talons and lashing tentacles. A cyclone of steel met their charge, cutting apart any appendage that dared their platform.

Almost emptying her reserves of Mana, Zara finished her forging. Beneath them a ship had manifested, conjured and formed from the planes of crystalline aquarmarine Mana and her trembling Intent. The ship moved, following her strained Willpower and Alacrity, and her people collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

"Reed! Protect them!"

"I am!" He hurled a net of storm winds at the sky, catching hundreds of voidbeasts in it. Dark ichor rained down on the deck, followed by the splash of rainbow light. That, at least, dissipated into the liminal space quickly. "Kelgan! Get that spear moving!"

Zara dimly saw a few of the guard stand on shaky legs and retrieve their weapons. Spears and arrows lashed outward, every blow hitting a mark from how impossibly crowded the beasts were; Reed's net of winds held them back, but not forever.

"Aim for the center mass! Don't get fancy!"

Reed was shouting, but Zara let the sound of it drift away. Her eyes were fixed on the Passage they had just reached again. Beneath her, the ship leveled out, straightening and flying with all the speed she could muster. Yet the Naiad could feel her concentration slipping with every passing instant, and the scraps of Will and Intent were barely enough to hold her creation together. And now the mass of voidbeasts had started pushing the ship back. They were too densely crowded to push through!

"Damn you! Avet's own! Sent me the strength to make it!" Zara slammed her hands into the crystalline deck and sending a shiver of vibrations through its surface. From the prow burst three pronged blades, each of them slicing deep into the amassed voidbeasts. They reeled back, pain and fear overcoming their hunger, and the ship jolted forward again. "Begone!"

They were close. So close. Zara could feel the delicate serenade of the Corporeal Realm, just ahead. They would make it.

An appalling bellow shook them all. It sheared across Zara's senses, interrupting the flow of her magic even as it threw everyone—man or beast—onto the ground. The ship still sped off, her tenuous grip on her Will keeping it aloft, but Zara could not help herself. She looked up into a cloud of gore and viscera to see eyes pushed from behind it all, chasing after them. They were bigger than her ship, blinking at her in a way that made her stomach roil. They rolled and popped, reforming instantly close by like quivering pods of pus. Teeth followed, jagged and curled, pushing in every direction.

"Blind gods," Kelgan whispered. "What is it?"

"That's...that's a Primordial!" Thangle said with a strangled hiss. "That—we have to get out!"

The ship was still moving, still flying forward with all the Will Zara could muster. Yet the Whalemaw kept pace. She wasn't even sure how far away it was, its size distorting perspective more effectively than any illusion. Voidbeasts like specks of dust hit its sides, all of them grasped by tiny clawed appendages littering its putrid flesh. It opened its maws wide.

Zara's eyes widened at the same time Reed shouted.

"Everyone down!"

A beam of heat and corrosive darkness tore through the space above them, punching passed with such power it sent cracks spiderwebbing across the sky. Sound filtered to them, beyond the cries of the Whalemaw, the sound of something immense hissing.

"The abomination cracked the liminal space," Zara said. Disbelief dragged at her heart as the liminal space around them began to erode. The cracks grew wider. The ship shuddered.

We're almost there!

The Whalemaw surged forward, its body wreathed in rotting crimson, as if it swam in bloody tides. In moments, it had halved the lead they'd managed to claim, and in moments more it would have them.

They would die.

"There!"

To their right, the cracks converged on a twisting portal. Normally unseen in the space, the destabilizing nature of the crack had revealed it. Zara wrenched at the ship and screamed. They turned, and the last vestiges of her Mana shot ahead, into the portal.

It burst alight.

The Whalemaw bellowed, high and low notes mixing in agonizing dissonance. Her people collapsed, even Reed, but Zara held on. Fingernails bleeding against the crystalline deck, she pushed.

The light consumed them.

And the Whalemaw screamed.

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