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Ch. 20: Dire Straits
🕑 Added 2025-09-11 22:00:05 +0000 UTCCass leapt in front of another rhynselk, a Tempest Blade flying from its end. The blade crashed into the beast’s side, slicing through the hide and electrocuting the muscle. Salos launched out from her shadow, his claws burying themselves in the monster’s face, raking at eyes and nostrils.
It groaned in pain, its legs buckling and its body crumbling under its own weight.
“Get back!” Cass yelled at the noncombatants behind her as the beast careened forward on its charging momentum.
They weren’t moving fast enough. They’d be hit. She’d be crushed between them.
“Noncombatants, move to the sides!” the caravan master’s voice echoed over the chaos as his guards pushed apart the back wall of wagons. “Combatants, channel the beasts through the center!”
The sea of noncombatants surged away from the fortification’s center, the frantic people pushing and shoving to get away from the beasts.
But still not fast enough.
She drew a Wind Tempest Blade to her staff’s end, widening and blunting it. She twirled, turning on the noncombatants behind her. She hoped they had reasonable Fortitude. Her wind glaive slammed into the people, throwing them out of the way.
She twisted her staff, drawing it up and over their heads while maintaining her momentum, driving the wind blade into the falling rhynselk’s face.
Salos, swap!
Space shifted, and he continued her turn in her body, his greater Strength slamming into the monster and shoving it wide around her.
That all you wanted? he asked.
Yup, swap back. Cass triggered the skill again and returned to her body before the winds along her staff dissipated.
More rhynselk were already pouring through the opening at the front. Several still tore through noncombatants as caravan guards attempted to kill or redirect them to the newly opened exit in the back.
How much longer could they continue like this?
Time slowed as her Alacrity ramped to maximum effect.
Alyx, Kelstor, Marco, and several of the higher-level combatants contained the rhynselk queen. All of them were bleeding. Kelstor had a deep gore in his shoulder, bleeding profusely. Blood dripped down the armor of most of the humanoid combatants. Marco had a blood trail starting under his helmet and continuing over one eye and down to his chin.
The queen was in little better condition. Long gashes ran across her hide. An eye was bloody red. The horn under that eye was broken off, while her nose horn was visibly cracked.
Still, ice magic rolled through the air, cold and deadly, driving ice shards the size of Cass’s arm and as sharp as broken glass into the defenders.
None of them had the luxury of stepping back to protect the noncombatants from the lesser rhynselks.
Something needed to change.
If they could kill the Queen, the defenders could focus on the lessers. If they could keep more lessers from entering, they could turn their full might on the queen.
Rhynselk Queen (lvl 39)
Cass couldn’t kill that. Not when so many others were already struggling with it.
That meant she needed to keep the lessers out and kill or drive out the ones already inside. More ran through the gap every second, each pushing the opening wider and wider as they ran through.
Could she plug the gaps with Elemental Manipulation fast enough to keep them out? Maybe, but what about the wagon walls? How quickly would the rhynselk blow through the wood, creating new gaps?
Cass needed not only to close the gaps but to keep them closed.
Stone spears along the periphery might help, but did she have the Focus for a working as big as this?
“Could you keep the rhynselks out with a barrier?” Cass asked Pellen as she turned her staff on another beast. Lightning sliced through its side as it charged past.
A bolt of dark blue energy shot from the little mage’s tome and into the side of another rhynselk as Pellen finished her spell. The rhynselk grunted and thrashed its head, but kept running. Pellen’s shoulders slumped in exhaustion. “Not for long. A minute? Maybe?”
That wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
“Could you restrict the queen?” Cass asked, changing tacts as she drew up another stone spear, letting the next creature skewer itself with its own momentum.
Pellen squinted at the queen. “Once. And for even less time.”
“What about the squeezing variant?”
Pellen shook her head. “No. It’s much too Fortified for that to work.”
If Cass could come up with a one-shot kill for the queen, Pellen’s restriction spell could guarantee the shot. But they couldn’t use it before that.
Stone spears seemed her best option.
Cass darted through the chaos, skirting around the thrashing rhynselks and pushing noncombatants out of the path of danger. She Stealthed around the queen and pressed herself up against the wagon walls.
They shook as rhynselks ran past. Alarmingly so.
Atmospheric Sense showed her the herd outside. Most still ran around the walls. Too many funneled through the gap. Far too many slammed into the wagons before bouncing off and choosing one of the other two options.
She closed her eyes and pressed into the stone beneath her with Elemental Manipulation. She grabbed at what was beneath her feet and pushed it into the gap in the wagons.
The stone flowed up, thickening with her will.
Focus: 326/630
A rhynselk slammed into the stone. The shock reverberated through the stone and into Cass. She could feel cracks forming.
She redoubled her efforts, pulling up more stone, thickening it and smoothing the cracks.
Focus: 287/630
Down the wall, a horn slammed through. Wood splintered. The rest of its body burst through a moment later.
Cass darted toward the new hole, Elemental Manipulation already reaching for the stone beneath it. Her staff tip reached it first. She yanked it up, filling the gap before another rhynselk could storm through.
Behind her, a rhynselk slammed into the first stone wall, its horn piercing straight through. It shook its head, shattering the barrier.
Cass’s heart sank. The walls alone weren’t enough. Would stone spears keep them out?
She had to try. She pushed the stone under the wagons, forcing it to jut out into spears. They came up faster than the walls.
A rhynselk swerved around the section of spikes, slamming its head into the wagon wall at an angle. The wagon shook. The beast buffeted off, running parallel to the wall and turning again through the existing hole.
Cass walked along the wall, pulling up more spikes.
Focus: 242/630
Already, rhynselks were skewering themselves on them. Some beasts died on impact. Some squealed in pain and shook themselves free of the stone, breaking the ones they hit and more.
Another horn went through the wall in a section Cass hadn’t lined with spikes.
They were still pouring through the gaps.
Her Focus was falling.
This wasn’t working.
If she could throw up spikes across the wall all at once, this might work. But Elemental Manipulation just didn’t have that kind of range, especially not for manipulating stone.
Cass grimaced. There were so many corpses out there, and it hadn’t made a difference. So much blood.
It reminded her too much of the cathedral and the countless paladin corpses.
That thought, as gruesome as it was, gave her pause.
Kohen had a skill for turning blood into spikes. He’d turned the cathedral into a minefield of blood. Couldn’t he use that along the wall?
Where was he?
She spotted the back of his head, unmistakable from the streaks of white through his purple hair. Daidyn walked backward behind him, the huge vargher standing out amid a fleeing crowd made up as much by combatants as it was noncombatants.
Cass’s blood boiled and Hearth flared.
She Wind Stepped, materializing between them and the exit. “KOHEN!”
Kohen jumped. Tiador raised his blades. Far behind them, a rhynselk trampled a man.
“What are you doing?” Cass yelled as the fleeing portion of the crowd pushed around her. “Why aren’t you helping?”
Kohen flinched.
“He can’t,” Tiador snapped far sharper than Cass was used to. “He’s one man. And he’s hurt.”
Kohen looked away.
Hurt? Cass tried not to snort. Right, he was pretending. She couldn’t imagine why. Especially not now. He was in as much danger as everyone else.
Another combatant attempted to block a rhynselk’s horn, only for it to go through their shield and impale their chest.
There wasn’t time for this. “What about your blood spike spell?”
“His what?” Tiador asked. He shook his head. “Get out of our way. If you want to defend this falling caravan, be our guest, but don’t expect us to stand with you. We weren’t hired as guards. We have no obligation to die here.”
Tiador pushed past her. Kohen moved to follow him.
“Is hiding those skills worth dying over?” Cass shouted after them.
They didn’t look back.
“That’s it?” Cass growled. “Coward. Spineless, self serving, coward.”
Kohen stiffened but kept walking.
“Sorry, miss,” Daidyn whispered as he followed his master.
Cass’s teeth ground together. Salos was on her shoulder. She could feel his opinions, unvoiced, against her consciousness. He agreed with Kohen. He’d rather she ran too than stand and fight here.
He thought if she was going to do this anyway, she should make Kohen stand and fight with her.
She shook. All it would take was a word from her and Kohen would have no choice. All it would take was a word from her and these people would be much safer.
All it took was overriding one man’s will.
As was apparently her right.
“You’ll die pointlessly out there!” she screamed after them, as if they hadn’t already run the calculation. As if her opinion of their chances would push the needle at all.
Behind her, people screamed. An endless pounding of hooves thundered toward her. Wood splintered as wagon walls crumbled. A dragon roared and the queen squealed.
She could feel frantic breaths stop. Could feel people dying. There wasn’t time for this.
“KOHEN!” Cass shouted over the din. “STOP THE RHYNSELKS FROM ENTERING!”
