Chapter 6: Rui (part 2 of 2)

  This trip had been illuminating in many ways, and I was now in the midst of living its most painful lesson thus far; I had become despairingly aware of how unfit I was.

  Twice now, the whole group had to stop to allow me a few minutes to catch my breath. We were deep within the thick jungle that extended inland from Pulai River. The air here was humid and cloying, and my changshan was drenched through within minutes of starting the march. When it became clear that I could not keep pace with the rest of the of the party, Zahir had wordlessly removed the rucksack from my back and tied it to his own. That had helped only a little.

  Presently, I sat on a moss-covered stump and gulped down bottled tea, shamefully aware that it was a limited resource best saved for the people responsible for keeping me alive. Our march up to that point had been uneventful, interrupted only by the buzzing of flies and the flight of shrikes. I readjusted my glasses, which kept slipping down my nose from all the sweat, and looked around at the rest of the group.

  Even at rest, each member of the party was positioned according to the diamond formation we had rehearsed. Everyone was silent. By protocol, we were not to make any noise unless it was necessary. Darsik brooded as usual, not a single drop of sweat on his unreadable face. Zahir's eyes darted this way and that as he kept watch behind the group. I couldn't help but notice that he looked unusually irritated, and my shame redoubled. Lucy knelt beside me and gestured for me to drink more when I made to cap the tea bottle. I tried to put on a brave face for her benefit but succeeded only in producing a strained grimace.

  Off to the side, Prisha leaned on her halberd and watched Boonie as he crouched near a patch of underbrush in our path. It seemed he had found something of interest, and he now intently examined the patch of ground at his feet. He suddenly bent down, head nearly touching the soil, and... sniffed the ground; at least that was what it looked like from where I sat. He then started running his hand over the ground in a kind of brushing motion, shifting fallen leaves and branches. After a moment of consideration, he turned around and signalled to Prisha.

  Soon, the party was on the move again at Prisha's urging. I gathered that Boonie had found Oliphant tracks, and the Daoshi now led the party on a winding path, stopping every few steps to brush more leaves on the ground. This slower pace suited me better. I started to feel secure and bored enough that I took to looking down on the spots where Boonie had stopped, trying to see if I could make out these so-called tracks. Try as I might, I could not discern any patterns to the soil and strewn plant bits.

  On one of my brief forays into attempted track identification, I bumped into the back of Lucy. Only then did I notice that the party had stopped again. Boonie was crouched near the ground once more but this time, his eyes were pointed forward. I followed his gaze, and even I could see that there was an obvious break in the vegetation.

  There was a thicket where Boonie had oriented himself. The branches here were broken in many places and the bush had the appearance of having been pushed aside, leaving an almost circular path in the middle. At ground level, the grass and and leaves were flattened in patches of visible depression. It didn't take an expert to deduce that a large creature had pushed through this thicket.

  Boonie crouched in silence for a while longer, taking measure of something I was oblivious to. The rest of the party waited patiently. Finally, he seemed to nod in satisfaction, then bounded to his feed and began wading into the thicket at a more purposeful pace.

  Our diamond was forced to compress into single file as we ventured into the thicket. Prisha and Darsik fell in right behind Boonie, with Lucy and I following closely at their heels. The thicket was hard going for me, and I found myself stumbling frequently as my clumsy feet caught against low branches and matted grass. Just as my breathing started to roughen again and as I thought about tapping Lucy's shoulder to ask for another rest, the party slowed. The members in front of us began to all but tiptoe forward, taking care to reduce their noise as much as possible. I followed suit and concentrated in vain on steadying my breaths.

  Shortly, the party came to a complete stop. The adventurers around me all knelt down, and I hastened to copy their movement. But before I did, I caught a glimpse of the view ahead, where the thicket appeared to thin out into a clearing. Prisha inched over to Boonie's position and the two of them began a whispered conference. From the very little that I could follow, I inferred that there was a watering hole ahead, and the two of them seemed to be discussing a plan of approach. Prisha then looked over her shoulder directly at me, then shifted her eyes to Lucy and back. I nodded my understanding.

  My heart began to pound and my head swam. I stared straight ahead yet could not register anything in my visual field. I felt as if I was somehow watching from outside my own body as Prisha made her way to the back of the party, stopping at Darsik and Lucy to exchange a few quick whispers, then brushing past me toward Zahir. I had long passed the point of no return, yet the realization that I was about to engage Maladies had not come crashing down until this very moment.

  My panic must have shown, at least enough for my own sister to notice. Lucy put a hand on my back and I watched myself turn my head toward her. As I met her kindly eyes, I became aware of the warmth radiating from her hand. It spread from my centre to the tips of my fingers and toes, and to the crown of my head. For a moment, I felt as though I had just wiped myself off after a hot bath. At the same time, I felt a tension in my chest that built quickly then released itself in a prolonged rush, my lungs emptying and pushing hot air out of my nasal passages. My breathing steadied then, and the muggy heat of the jungle became less obtrusive. I felt as calm as the situation allowed me to be. I wasn't familiar with the technique my Ignis-attuned sister had just applied, but I nodded my gratitude all the same. If only Lucy could follow me to every stressful situation in my life and set me straight with her magical touch...

  By the time my conscious thoughts had returned to my body, fully under my own control, Prisha had already made her way back to her original position behind Boonie. The party began to advance again, the formation widening as the surroundings allowed. I followed, taking care to keep myself just a step behind Lucy.

  We stopped again at the edge of the thicket and knelt down to set down our packs and make final preparations. I saw them then. Partially covered by the surrounding trees, but they were there, in the flesh.

  In the clearing ahead, two massive beasts stood facing each other, busying themselves with a pool of water shared between them. My breath—steadied just moments ago by Lucy's touch—was taken away by the sight of these Oliphants. In spite of my fears, I craned my neck to get a better look. I took in their sets of four prominent tusks each curved like the blade of a cutlass, their prehensile trunks that seemed to have lives of their own as they sucked greedily, and their massive feet, as solid and scarred as the most ancient trees in the jungle. Most of all, I couldn't take my eyes off their sheer presence.

  Around me, there were more movements among the adventurers. These men and women were tasked with bringing down the forces of nature before us, a task that—despite all of the evidence I had seen to the contrary—I was now convinced was impossible.

  First, the four main fighters gathered into a huddle and exchanged a series of swift hand signals. Darsik the Guru, crouched between Boonie and Zahir, put a hand on the Daoshi. I watched with fascination as the grass and leaves at Boonie's feet grew, creeping up his legs and torso before fully enveloping him in Arboreal armour. Darsik then directed more energy to the ground and a mound formed at Zahir's feet, composed of dead leaves and branches. This would be Arbor-imbued kindling for Zahir's Igneous arrows. Lucy also sidled up to the group and placed a hand on Prisha. The Aqua-attuned Lancer took a sharp breath in, then exhaled slowly, producing puffs of steam. The air around us grew noticeably warmer for just a second. Prisha stood up, and the party sprang into action.

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  They broke off into pairs, Prisha with Zahir heading toward the Oliphant on the left and Boonie with Darsik taking the one on the right. Lucy tugged at my arm and I hurried to follow close behind her.

  Prisha and Boonie moved much faster than the rest of the group and were far ahead on their respective sides of the battle. Boonie let out his primal yelp and started flinging his nunchaku in rapid circles around his body. A short burst of that loud, Aurum-amplified ringing ensued and his target wheeled around to face him, incredibly nimble on its heavyset feet. On the other side, Prisha ran to the middle between the two Maladies and slapped the pool with her halberd, forming a tall spray of water that splashed against the Oliphant on the left. With blinding speed, she squeezed past them and rounded to the far side of the clearing. Her target also turned to face her, turning its back toward the rest of the party.

  At this juncture, both vanguards had positioned themselves on the far side, putting the Oliphants between themselves and the ranged fighters. Zahir and Darsik ran to flank their respective Oliphant on either side, effectively constructing two separate triangles with the two quarries forced into the apices.

  The Maladies seemed to sense that they were in a fight for their lives, and responded accordingly. Clouds of dust shot up from beneath their feet. As they settled, the dirt particles coated the rough skin of the Oliphants in layers of Terrene protection. There would be no one-shotting them through these defences.

  Lucy took up a position near the perimeter of the clearing, almost dead centre between the two battlefronts. This gave her—and myself in turn—an uninterrupted view of the action. My eyes were first drawn to the more dynamic left side, where wide sprays of water—Aqua-manipulated by swings of Prisha's halberd as she dodged the Malady's stomps and charges—rained down in a shimmering mist. Zahir stood to the side and flung arrow after burning arrow into the fray. Each time he strung an arrow, the tip burst into flames, feeding off the clump of Arboreal kindling at the Ranger's feet.

  The fiery arrows did not do much to penetrate the Oliphant's Terra-augmented skin. What they did do was turn the Aquatic mist into a haze of steam. The Oliphant staggered and slowed its attacks, its vision clouded and its whole body embroiled in heat. Even I—standing a good twenty yards away—recoiled at the intensity of the heat and felt my face burn. Zahir took this opportunity to direct more arrows into the articulations of the Oliphant's limbs. The Malady withstood this flurry until one clean hit too many into the back of a hindleg, and it stumbled, falling onto its knees with a thunderous crash.

  Prisha needed no further invitation. In one flowing motion, she deftly rounded the tusks and dove under the Oliphant's jaws—knowing full well it was temporarily unable to react—and drove the point of her halberd into the floor of its mouth with a powerful thrust. The next thing I knew, a ball of flesh had popped up into the air from where the beast's left eye should have been. Black tarry blood spurt out from two locations: the entry wound where only the shaft of Prisha's weapon was visible, as well as the eye socket from which protruded the point of the blade. Prisha, still looking up at the underside of her quarry's jaws, was showered by the black liquid. She slid her weapon out with a vigorous pull, and the Oliphant collapsed on its side, shaking the ground beneath. One down.

  Over on the right side of the clearing, the fighting had a more deliberate rhythm, one that was conducted by the sprightly Daoshi. The Oliphant bellowed in frustration as Boonie darted around it in a dizzying dance. He landed hits when he could but his primary focus was to distract rather than damage. Darsik kept up a ceaseless volley of alternating throws with his chakrams but curiously, these hits were also not intended to penetrate. Instead, they were angled to scrape against the surface of the Malady's body. Each time they did so, spots of mossy green appeared on the dirt-covered skin. They were patches of grass, the result of a transfer of Arboreal energy via the chakrams. The growths slowly but surely disintegrated the Terrene armour over the course of battle, stripping away the Malady's defences.

  With a mighty roar, the Oliphant hurled its trunk toward Boonie, intent on finishing the fight once and for all. This time, instead of dodging, Boonie extended his nunchaku and presented it in front of himself. The trunk wound itself around the weapon, stopping short of hitting Boonie. The Oliphant leaned in, ready to drive its tusks into its hunter. I expected the diminutive Daoshi to let go of his weapon to avoid the attack but instead, he squatted low to the ground before launching himself into the air. In a display of tremendous force and speed, he twisted his whole body in midair several times; with each rotation, the trunk that connected the Oliphant's face to Boonie's nunchaku grew tauter until it snapped clean off at its base. A fountain of black blood sprayed forth in a wide arc.

  The Malady let out another roar, this time tinged with fear and pain, and began to stomp wildly in place. Its misery wouldn't last long. By this time, Prisha and Zahir had joined the fight, and the bulk of the Oliphant's body had been weakened by Darsik's persistent landscaping job. Several quick jabs of the halberd and a barrage of fiery arrows later, a second fresh carcass collapsed on its side, mimicking its companion.

  Two fallen giant beasts lay on their sides. Four victorious adventurers stood beside them. Each of them was panting from the effort, and the two vanguards especially looked like they'd been through hell and back—caked with blood, mud, and entrails. But most of the blood did not belong to them. These lunatics from Silver Crane had just taken down not one but two mammoth-class Maladies in one fell swoop, and had come out of it all but unscathed. This translated to a haul of eight undamaged tusks; that would surely have met their quota and then some.

  I let out a sound that was an odd mix between a sigh of relief and a whoop of laughter. I covered my mouth immediately, remembering that we were still in the middle of the jungle, then felt ridiculous considering the racket that the fight itself had generated. No one seemed to pay me any mind. The party members hadn't yet moved since the end of the fight. It seemed they needed a reprieve before moving onto the next order of business, and who could blame them? Beside me, Lucy started to dash toward the main group, anxious to check up on them.

  To my dying day, I would often replay the events of the seconds that followed, searching my memory for signs that I could have foreseen, turning points that I could have rewritten. Perhaps by then, I had already stepped foot on an unbending path, yet I couldn't stop myself from singling out these events as the moment that changed my life forever—and set me on a course for destruction. And yet—despite all the pain and sorrow that followed—would I really have changed a thing?

  Acting according to both instinct and instruction, I strode forward to keep pace with Lucy. Only then did I realize that my legs had turned to gelatin from the stress of watching the fight. I stumbled, and as I did, my glasses slipped down my nose and dropped to the ground.

  Instantly, the world around me became a formless blur. I planted my feet, relieved not to have heard or felt cracking glass underneath. Just as I bent down to look for my glasses, Lucy's voice shrieked, surprisingly close to my ears.

  "RUI!"

  I felt myself knocked off my feet with force and I landed awkwardly on the muddy ground, something or someone weighing down on me. I heard several things at once: a rush of air, a bestial growl, the wet sound of flesh being torn and bones being crushed, and a gasp of pain. Moments later, the weight that had fallen on me lifted.

  I scrambled to my knees in a daze. Around me, I could hear more commotion and saw blurs of colours shifting rapidly. Unable to think, I concentrated on looking for my glasses. I needed to know what on earth was going on! I went down on all fours and began to pat the ground in agitation, inching my way toward where I thought I had been standing earlier. My hands felt the mud and the wet grass, but it also felt something else that was liquid, and I tried not to think about it.

  It must not have taken more than a minute for the commotion to die down, but I was trapped in an eternity of panic and dread. Eventually, I managed to brush against the frame of the glasses and picked them up with shaking hands. I put them back on, lenses crooked and soiled with mud, and the amorphous blurs around me resolved into hellscape.

  Four, five, maybe more Jungle-hounds lay dead or dying, their carcasses strewn across the clearing. Boonie, with a fresh cut on his face, along with Zahir and Darsik stood close together, their sober eyes directed in unison at something on the ground next to me. Prisha knelt over the thing on the ground, her face stricken and lacking her usual composure. Her tunic, face, and arms were now covered in even more blood, this time bright red. Maladies don't have red blood, I thought blankly. Her hands worked furiously as she appeared to be ripping the fabric off the hems of her leggings and fumbling with something at her knees.

  The thing on the ground was my sister. I first saw her face. She took quick shallow breaths and her skin was white as a ghost, her lips a shade of greyish purple. Even in my befuddled state, I recognized that she was in shock, but from what?

  Then my eyes travelled to the rest of her body. A large gash had opened around her left hip joint, mangling what was left of the thigh. Torn tissue and jagged edges of the broken femur jutted out of the mess. She was bleeding profusely, and dying before my eyes.

  All of my senses fled then, and I was left in the throes of a violent scream that I could neither hear nor feel.