CHAPTER THIRTY #2
Yet here I was, drawn toward this quiet, graceful knight with fine bones and a voice that always seemed pitched just below certainty. I couldn’t explain it. And I didn’t want to. It seemed the harder I tried to deny it, the feeling only deepened—like a thread tightening between us.
“Did you hear that?” Lioran whispered, and I realized I hadn't been paying any damned attention to my surroundings.
Gods, what the fuck was wrong with me?
"Hear what?"
"There was a—"
But Lioran never finished. From behind a massive boulder to our left, something exploded into motion—a thunderous crash of displaced stone and splintering branches.
Tristan's flesh golem.
The thing was a grotesque mockery of human shape that stood nearly nine feet tall.
Its body was a patchwork of mismatched flesh—some pieces pale as death, others mottled with decay, still more bearing the gray-green tinge of rot.
The seams where different segments met were crudely stitched together with what looked like wire, the metal glinting dully.
In places, the wire had torn through the flesh entirely, leaving gaping wounds that wept viscous black.
One arm was massive and corded with muscle—clearly taken from some warrior or laborer—while the other was skeletal and withered, ending in fingers that had been sharpened to points like claws.
Its legs were equally mismatched, causing it to lurch forward in a horrible, uneven gait that somehow didn't slow its charge.
But the face. Christ, the face.
It had no single face at all, but rather a collection of features torn from different victims and assembled without regard for symmetry or sense.
Three eyes stared out from various points on its skull—one blue, one brown, one milky white and clearly blind.
Two mouths gaped where they had been sewn into the flesh, one screaming silently while the other hung slack and drooling.
The entire head seemed to shift and pulse as if the pieces were still trying to reject each other, the flesh writhing beneath the surface.
The stench hit me then, and I took a step back—rot and chemicals and something else, something metallic and wrong that spoke of dark magic and forbidden rituals.
My battle sense kicked in immediately, that familiar precognition that had saved my life countless times before. I saw the thing's massive arm sweeping toward me, saw myself dodging left, saw—movement beside me. Lioran stepping forward, ice already forming at his fingertips.
"No!" I shouted, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him back just as the golem's fist crashed through the space where he had been standing. The blow pulverized a tree trunk behind us, sending splinters flying like arrows.
"Stay behind me," I commanded, drawing my sword in one fluid motion. The blade sang as it cleared the scabbard.
The golem wheeled toward us again, both mouths now working in tandem to produce a sound that was part shriek, part groan—a chorus of the dying that made my skin crawl. Black ichor dripped from its wounds, hissing where it struck the ground, leaving small scorched patches in the earth.
I'd faced golems before, but never one so large, and never one so clearly pieced together from so many different victims. Tristan's necromancer magic was impressive, though it wasn't going to be any fun trying to slay the bloody thing.
I'd have to give Tristan a good solid punch to the stomach later in repayment.
"How do we kill it?" Lioran's voice was steady despite the horror before us, and I felt a flash of approval even as I positioned myself between him and the creature.
Why in the fuck are you protecting him?
The thought struck me like lightning, and I immediately stepped aside.
"Fire or dismemberment," I answered, watching the thing circle us with those repellent eyes. "Magic won't hold it for long. These things were built to resist spells."
The golem charged, and my vision split. My precognition acted as a ghostly overlay that showed me its massive arm arcing downward toward my left side while the skeletal claw reached for my throat. Two seconds. That's all I had.
"Ice wall, now!" I barked at Lioran. "Three feet to your right!"
To his credit, he didn't question it. Frost erupted from the ground exactly where I'd indicated, a crystalline barrier rising just as the golem's momentum carried it forward. The thing crashed into the ice with enough force to crack the barrier, but it bought us precious time.
I saw the next move before it happened—the creature would pivot left, sweeping low with that grotesque arm.
"Down!"
We both dropped as the limb whistled overhead, close enough that I felt the displacement of air. As I rolled to my feet, my precognition showed me the opening—a gap of three seconds where the thing would be off-balance from its swing.
"Freeze its left leg," I commanded, already moving. "At the knee joint!"
Lioran's magic lanced out, ice spreading across the golem's mismatched leg like a creeping plague. The moment I saw the joint lock solid in my vision, I lunged forward with my blade, bringing it down across the back of the thing's frozen knee.
The sword bit deep. Black ichor sprayed everywhere, the stench overwhelming and unbearable, but worth it as the golem stumbled.
"The arm!" I shouted. "The big one—when it swings, freeze the shoulder!"
I saw it coming—the massive fist driving toward my chest. But I also saw Lioran's ice spreading across the joint, saw the moment the foul thing would seize up.
I waited.
Waited.
Now.
I sidestepped as the arm locked mid-swing, the fist passing so close to my face I could smell its fetid decay. My blade flashed up, finding the gap where rotting flesh met wire, and I dragged the edge through with all my strength.
The arm didn't sever completely, but now it hung by threads of sinew and wire.
"Again!" I roared. "Same spot!"
Lioran's ice encased the wounded joint, and I struck once more. This time, the limb separated entirely, hitting the ground with a wet, meaty thud.
The golem shrieked—both mouths working in dissonant harmony—and lurched toward us on its damaged leg. My precognition revealed the desperate lunge it was soon to take, showed me exactly where those sharpened fingers would try to rake across my face.
"Freeze the other arm!" I was already ducking beneath the strike I knew was coming. "Wrist and elbow!"
Ice spread like wildfire across the skeletal limb as Lioran poured his magic into it. The fingers locked in place, frozen mid-grasp. I brought my sword down on the thing's wrist in a brutal overhead chop. Once. Twice. The frozen flesh shattered like glass, bone splintering beneath my blade.
The creature was falling apart now, lurching on one damaged leg, both arms useless or gone. But it kept coming, driven by Tristan's dark magic.
"The neck," I said, breathing hard. "When it lunges—go for the neck."
I saw the moment before it happened—the golem's final, desperate attack. That horrible patchwork head driving forward, mouths gaping, trying to tear at me with broken teeth.
"Now!"
Lioran lurched forward, swinging his sword with everything he had.
His blade carved through the golem's flesh and wire, through vertebrae and sinew, and the golem's head toppled backward, still twitching as it struck the ground.
The body collapsed a second later, pieces separating as the magic binding it finally failed.
Lioran immediately dropped to his knees beside the twitching corpse, which was now turning to mist, fumbling with his pack.
Once he yanked a glass orb from the bag, he closed his fingers around it and pressed his thumb against the rune.
The orb split open as a vortex of air spiraled out from the glass, pulling at the dark mist that was already rising from the golem's remains.
The mist stretched thin, then thinner still, before the vortex dragged it screaming into the glass prison. The moment the last wisp vanished inside, the orb snapped shut with a sound like breaking ice.
Lioran held it up, breathing hard. Inside the glass, the dark mist roiled and pressed against its glacial walls, seeking escape it would never find.
He looked up at me, those too-large eyes bright with exertion. "Tristan will be hearing about this later."
I immediately released a heavy chuckle, and he did the same.
"I’ve never hunted so effectively with a partner before." The words escaped before I could stop them.
But they were true. In all my years beside Arthur, I’d hunted with dozens of knights—but always preferred my solitude. I was a blade meant to strike alone. Yet this... this had been different.
Effortless. Intuitive.
Unnerving.
And exhilarating.
-GUIN-
As we trudged through the dense undergrowth of the Whispering Wilds, fat drops of rain began to plunk against the leaves, coming softly at first but soon escalating into a downpour.
The sky darkened with oppressive clouds, their undersides swollen with rain. The chill of the storm soaked through my armor, but I embraced it, allowing the water to renew my energy, my entire being.
The hunt had proven interesting in more ways than one. The creatures we'd tracked demanded focus, strategy, and coordination—all things I'd trained for. But the real challenge walked beside me in black armor.
I didn't know what to make of Lancelot. One moment he'd offer guidance, positioning himself to allow me the killing blow on the ankheg. The next, he'd snap at me for some minor misstep, his jaw tight with frustration that seemed directed less at my mistake and more at something internal.
I couldn't decipher it.
Perhaps he sensed my attraction to him—the way my gaze lingered too long on the line of his shoulders, the flex of muscle beneath wet leather.
Maybe it unsettled him, bothered him. The thought twisted in my gut.
If he suspected anything about me, even that Lioran desired men, it could destroy everything.