Chapter 20 #2
Even as Alex prepared to cleave through the third wolf in furious retribution as it dove for Lao Tie’s throat, it jerked away with a hideous howl as white-hot plasma fire obliterated the flesh from its face in a flash of obliterating flame so hot that Rachel cried out and even Lao Tie hissed as the yipping wolf desperately tried to escape, an instant before Alex roared and struck, silencing its howls forevermore.
Crimson Corkscrew stuns and cripples opponent.
You have successfully decapitated your foe!
But Alex was already spinning on his heels and racing for a screaming Kuaisu, effortlessly sprinting above snowy ground that had slowed Wu Xien’s footsteps, to the man’s roaring frustration.
Yet Alex’s newest allies had hardly been lax, for even as a pair of snarling wolves blending so perfectly with the snow darted under Kuaisu’s spear and snapped at her heels and wrists, Tang’s naginata was already cleaving through the air, and steel enhanced with the essence of sharpness left a deep gash on the closest wolf’s flank, spraying the snow with crimson and foiling the snarling ambusher’s camouflage in the instant Kuaisu cried out, massive jaws tearing into her calf before Alex roared and struck.
There was no way he could safely chop through the snarling beast as it flung Kuaisu about, so instead, he plunged his weapon’s spear point right through the monster’s neck, ripping right through its spine.
The snarling wolf instantly collapsed as Kuaisu crumpled with a cry, spurting blood from her badly injured leg.
Alex leaped into the air, gaining a few feet’s altitude to glare through the howling snowstorm that had blown full force at the worst possible time, finding even his Infravision somewhat impaired by the chilly whiteness all around.
“Ya Ling, report!”
“I think that’s the last of them, Alex.”
“How can you tell?”
He could sense the odd bemusement in her tone. “The Wind. Can’t you sense it as well?”
Alex’s eyes widened, and he felt a twinge of dismay mirrored by Linnea.
In truth, he had grown so accustomed to making full use of her Infravision and Soul Sight to spot trouble that he hadn’t even thought of incorporating Wind Qi the way Ya Ling seemed to be implying.
Not simply a means of carrying sound, though little could be heard above the howl beyond Kuaisu’s sob as Lao Tie rushed to her side, but as a pressure against the wind itself.
Alex flashed a tight smile before stepping off the currents to Lao Tie and Kuaisu’s side.
“I think that’s going to take me some work to master,” he admitted, his mind utterly free of insight or revelation, ears rich with the wind’s cheerful bluster, willing to blow at his command, in moderation, or send him flying high above… but he sensed no pressure affinity at all.
Ya Ling’s eyes twinkled. “Well then, it’s a good thing I’m around, wouldn’t you say?”
Alex gave her an appreciative nod before his features hardened with concern, catching sight of Kuaisu’s pain-filled expression, readying himself to reveal yet another card he would have rather kept close.
Only for Lao Tie to reveal cards of his own.
“Focus, Kuaisu. Stop thrashing! We can heal this, but you need to be still.”
“It fucking hurts!” she hissed, glaring Lao Tie’s way with pain-filled eyes.
Yet she had stilled enough to accept a single sip from the crimson flask Alex recognized all too well, before he placed several drops on top of the savaged calf, armor shredded and torn as if it had been no more substantial than delicate lace.
Then she began to buck and spasm, cursing furiously as she was force-healed to painful effect.
Just seconds later, it was over, Kuaisu’s eyes wide with relief and wonder. “Heaven’s mercy, that stuff actually works!”
Lao Tie flashed a weak smile. “For the coin I paid, it damn well better.” He then turned anxious eyes toward Tang. “Report.”
Tang glared all around what Alex now appreciated was a very open and vulnerable position.
“No sign of any more of those bastards, but they can cloak through snow so damned well that there’s no way I can say for certain.
” He cursed under his breath, looking back the way they had come.
The portal, like a lifeline, still just a short distance off. “Captain…”
Lao Tie angrily shook his head. “No. Not after a single damned encounter, just minutes after we entered!”
Wu Xien snorted. “Ambushed by a pack of five Silver-tier spirit beasts. Silver! Even if barely more than a half-step. They still came too damned close to making short work of us. And had it not been for our newest companions…”
Lao Tie shuddered, eyes revealing unexpected vulnerability. He turned to Linnea, flashing a grateful smile. “Your fire burns hot, indeed, sister of the flame. Glad to have you fighting by our side.”
“You’re Welcome!” Linnea beamed happily. “But you should totally be thanking my husband and sister-wife, because if they weren’t so in tune with the wind, there’s no way they would have been able to slaughter the rest in time.”
Lao Tie blinked, as if only in that moment noting a scowling Ya Ling peering so intently all around them, taking her duty every bit as seriously as Tang, and incidentally riding the currents effortlessly several feet above their heads.
He flashed a grateful smile. “A Wind wujen who knows how to channel her art through the steel of her blade. Truly, we are both fortunate and grateful.”
“And my wrist is still sore from that stop-thrust, and I’m damned lucky Master Coy was the one who made my blade or it would have been destroyed,” Ya Ling said softly, almost under her breath, yet the breeze carried her words effortlessly to all their ears.
Tang chuckled ruefully. “And a better scout than me or Kuaisu, at least in winter’s storm.”
“Speak for yourself,” Kuaisu said with a husky voice and drained smile as she and Wu Xien finished binding her fortunately only slightly sore calf and making sure that the shredded armaments were secure and would neither hinder her movements nor expose her to too much chill.
She turned, peering thoughtfully Alex’s way.
“I thought I was done for, Captain,” she said with odd solemnly.
“But the speed this kid moved…” She shook her head.
“He took out two of them by himself, in the time it took Tang to eliminate the bastard that would have torn right through my wrist, after I lost my footing on the ice under this layer of awful powdered snow, because I moved just a bit too fast…” She shook her head with rue.
“Because all it takes is a single mistake, no matter how many successful runs we’ve already completed, no matter how many beasts so like these that we’ve sent to their graves. ”
For just a moment, her unguarded features were filled with dismay, before she chuckled, eyes twinkling with wry good humor once more. “And how fortunate we are to have run into a full quartet of boon companions at just the right time. Had they not been fighting by our side…”
“We never would have dared Winter. It’s as simple as that,” Wu Xien curtly said, before bowing his head toward Alex.
“Well fought, boy.” He frowned thoughtfully at the savaged beasts before them.
“Struck dead before I was able to trundle through this damned slippery snow and strike a single one.” He then frowned.
“And I note that your feet touched the snow so lightly that you don’t even leave footprints. ”
Kuaisu nodded her agreement. “And he’s fast. Damned fast.” She caught Alex’s gaze. “You have your wife’s talents?”
Alex gazed up and met Ya Ling’s flushed countenance as she quickly looked away.
“Ya Ling and I both enjoyed the same fortuitous encounter with an enchanted lychee tree that gave us Greater Wind Qi Affinity,” Alex admitted readily enough.
Kuaisu’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
Ya Ling grinned. “He is,” she said from on high.
Tang chuckled. “Talk about finding your fortune! I’d certainly love to hear that campfire tale.”
Alex frowned, gazing up at the girl now smiling down at him so impishly. “Ya Ling, you might want to get down.”
She frowned down at him. “Alex?”
He sighed, glaring at the corpses Wu Xien was even now chopping through with a nod from Lao Tie. “If predators can camouflage themselves so well and attack from the cover of snow…”