15 The Limit, Part 1

Lace walked with the bow in her left hand, an arrow in the off-hand hand ready to be nocked.

'So stubborn, she thought,' staring at Kiren's back as he climbed over a boulder. 'If he keeps running off like that he'll get himself killed, regeneration or not.'

He did have a point, though. The sun would set soon. There was no time to play around.

Lace held down her quiver as she clambered up the boulder after him.

'Maybe we could use that recklessness to our advantage.'

"We know the Beast is capable of laying traps," Lace said. "So let's not fall into another one."

"How do you expect us to do that?" Kiren asked.

"Well… We haven't observed the Beast using tools so far, so a trap is most likely to come in the form of a simple ambush, just like before."

Lace clambered over the boulder. The slippery moss made her feet slide, forcing her to scramble for purchase. It was harder than Kiren made it look.

"The Beast knows we're hunting it, so it only needs to pick a location to stop and wait for us to approach, then spring out on us."

"It's not like we can help that," Kiren said.

"No, not really," Lace said. "It's hard to say where the Beast will be hiding. We're not exactly master trackers, either, so that doesn't make it any easier. However, if the Beast wants to make a trap for us, we can make one for it."

"What are you thinking?"

"Well…"

Kiren stopped and looked back at her. "You want to use me as bait."

"I could be the bait!" Lace said. "Except, I know how to use the bow, and my Power's pretty good for enhancing the impact of the arrows, so…"

He sighed and kept walking. "Right. What's your plan, then?"

'The first plan Kiren's willing to consider, and it involves him recklessly charging in as always. Of course.'

"Well, head trauma didn't seem to do much to the Beast," Lace said. "I know Beasts don't have proper organs like humans do, so it stands to reason it wouldn't have a brain. Even ripping its arm off didn't incapacitate it."

"How do we kill it, then? Dice it up into bits? We don't exactly have the weaponry for that."

"No. I started thinking. The Beast has flowing blood. Which means that it must have a heart, or something similar, to transport it around the body. If we destroy that, it might kill the Beast, or at least stun it long enough so you can finish it off. Except, landing that kind of shot is pretty hard. I'd need a good angle and enough time to line up the shot."

"So you want me to be the bait while you hide in the bushes?"

"Yes, exactly!"

"Anyone ever tell you that you think too much?"

Lace smirked. "A few."

"Well, it doesn't seem like we have any better plans. Let's do it."

They proceeded with Kiren in front and Lace following about ten meters behind on his right. She listened out for anything that might be indicative of the Beast, but the forest was deathly quiet.

The further in they got, the more withered and rotten the trees and undergrowth were. A few oaks had sloughed off to the side as if the wood had lost all its integrity, and many of the bushes had shriveled and lost all their leaves. Every now and then, some tree bark came off in a dusty sheet.

'The Beasts must have been wreaking havoc here for some time now.'

'We're going to put an end to that.'

They came across a clearing with bones arranged into little piles all over the ground. Most of them looking like animal bones, but she couldn't tell for sure. Some of them had been stacked into little figures. A bird with three heads, a three-legged deer with a snake inside its ribcage, a cat with feathers stuck to it. They were kept together at the joints with that Beastly, black blood.

Ropes of sinew had been tied between the branches and hung with small bones and bird skulls, forcing them to duck underneath to get through the clearing. The hanging bones rattled in the breeze.

"The fuck is this supposed to be?" Kiren muttered. He kicked one of the grotesque bone animals. It tipped over, making a clangor of clattering sounds.

"You idiot! Don't…"

A shrill call pierced the silence of the forest. Then another.

Then a whole host of them.

Kiren raised his improvised knife. Lace nocked an arrow.

A hand clawed out of the dirt and grabbed her ankle. Needle-sharp claws pierced the skin and dug into her flesh.

Lace cried out and jumped back, claws snapping off inside her as she broke free of the grip. A twisted, bird-like head appeared from the dirt, followed by a thin body with almost a dozen sets of ribs protruding from its skin.

Lace kicked the thing in the face and it fell backwards. More of them revealed themselves around her, reaching up to her waist. She counted five, six. Even more of them surrounded Kiren.

"Spawnlings!" Lace shouted.

"Yeah, I got that!" Kiren swiped at one of the Beasts, shearing clean through its jaw. The hoofed, pig-like creature did not seem impaired by this and launched itself at him with a series of inhuman snorts. It clung to his body, clawed forelimbs sinking into his flesh.

The humanoid's cackling laughter echoed between the trees.

"Easyyy…" it said. The creature was out of sight, and its voice seemed to come from every direction at once.

The spawnlings around Lace came at her from every direction.

She shouldered the bow and raised her hands. She took in a deep breath and funnelled a pillar of air from above the treeline, all that was within her reach. Once it hit the ground she spread her hands horizontally and created a blast of wind that went out in all directions, knocking the undergrowth flat. The spawnlings were sent flying, smacking into trees or rolling across the ground.

The chaotic burst of air sent Kiren stumbling with a string of curses. The pig-like spawnling managed to hold on and clawed up his arm. He hacked at it until a grasping forelimb came off. It released him and backed away cautiously.

"Could've warned me about that one!" Kiren said.

"Sorry!"

The spawnlings crawled back up, screeching and brandishing sharpened claws.

"Where's the big one?" Kiren asked, grappling with a pair of Beasts.

"I don't know!" Lace shouted. "Close, I think! But we can't deal with this many! We have to run!" She sent off another wind blast, knocking over the two Beasts closest to her.

A spawnling jumped onto Kiren's back and tore out a chunk of his neck with a sharpened beak. He roared and reached behind him and grabbed the Beast. He threw it over his head and it landed on the ground in front of him. He stomped on its head, grey and black viscera flying.

Blood flowed down his back and shoulder. He staggered and tried to stem the bleeding with one hand.

"Fuck," he growled, kicking away a spawnling. Two more took its place. "We've got to go."

"Okay, get ready!" Lace shouted. She put her hands together, drawing in a deep breath.

The spawnlings leapt for her, screeching utter contempt.

She exhaled.

The wind screamed, whirling around the epicenter of her body.

Spawnlings were tossed aside, crashing against rocks and tree trunks. Kiren fell over, catching himself against a tree stem. The trees swayed, moaning as the wind passed through their branches.

Though the wind didn't touch her, she felt it—almost like an extension of her body. It tore at the dying forest, clawed the breath from her lungs. She gasped for air, but nothing came.

The winds whispered in her ear.

'Keep going,' they whispered. 'Give us more. More.'

Their words sent a euphoric chill up her arms, making her lips tremble. The world around her faded. She was one with the wind. A distant, desperate part of her screamed for air.

'Need to breathe!'

Lace snapped her mouth shut and let her hold of the wind fade. The whirlwind dissipated and leaves drifted to the ground, a brief calm falling over the forest as everything settled.

Lace gasped for breath, chest heaving. Slowly, her breathing returned to normal.

She hurried over to Kiren and helped prop him back up on his feet. Together they ran, Lace hobbling from the pain that shot up her ankle with every other step.

There was a drawback for every Power. Lace's was as ironic as it was fitting. The more wind she summoned to her command, the harder it became for her to breathe.

"How's there so many of them?" Kiren asked as they ran.

"You said it yourself! Beasts never show up alone! We were fools for thinking there'd be just one."

Lace glanced back. The spawnlings were pursuing, only a few meters behind.

"We can't fight all of them," Kiren said. "Fuck the assignment! If we keep this up, we're going to end up dead!"

"What are you suggesting, then?" Lace's voice was almost drowned out by the chattering of Beasts and the insistent clawing of their feet.

"Go back to the village! If Excelerate's still there, have him clean up this mess! If not, at least we'll have more bodies to stem the tide!"

"We can't do that! They don't know how to defend themselves! If any of them die, their deaths are on us!"

Lace leapt over a large rock. Her ankle buckled when she landed and she fell on her knees. Kiren dragged her up and slashed at a Beast that nipped at her. They kept going, and Lace didn't dare look back.

"This is not the time to play hero! It's our lives we're talking about!"

"We have to divert them. Lead them away from the village so no one gets hurt."

"You're not listening!" Kiren shouted. "You might be fine throwing your life away in this rotten, stinking forest, but I'm not! If you won't save yourself, I'm going it alone!"

"I'm thinking!"

'There's no other options. No way out of this.'

'Wait…'

'The gorge!'