ShadowBound: The Need For Power

Kara fired from above, not at the Alpha but at an ordinary Mauler dragging itself toward the gate approach with one broken leg and one working claw. Her arrow struck behind its neck, frost spreading down into the wound Asher had opened earlier. It collapsed before it could reach the archway, blocking nothing important. She shifted immediately after, scanning the road beyond the southern gate as instructed.

The Alpha inhaled.

Liam saw the signs a heartbeat before the sound came. Its claws dug into the stone. Its chest expanded beneath the plated hide. The layered armor around its throat shifted outward, not opening, exactly, but loosening like vents. Its jaw lowered wider than it had during the bite. The lesser wounded Maulers near the den flattened themselves closer to the ground.

"Move," Liam snapped.

A deep, concussive roar that traveled through air, stone, and bone together. Liam’s balance broke for a fraction of a second despite moving before it fully released. The sound slammed into his ribs, rattled his teeth, and made the shadows in his sight smear at the edges. Asher’s blue-flame movement sputtered mid-burst, forcing him to land harder than intended and skid across cracked stone.

Above them, Kara dropped to one knee on the wall, one hand catching the parapet as loose stones jumped beneath her boots. Broken masonry shook free from a nearby barracks wall and crashed into the courtyard. Cracks spread outward from the Alpha’s claws like the road itself had flinched.

Liam caught himself against a fallen pillar and forced his senses steady.

’Not in the guide.’

The Eldervale guide had mentioned Gravebound Maulers. Their territorial behavior. Their nesting instincts. Their armored hides. Their crushing jaws and wall-tearing claws. It had said nothing about an Alpha variant using sound pressure strong enough to disrupt movement and damage stone. That did not make the guide useless. It made it incomplete. Either the academy had never properly observed the ability, or whoever had seen it before had not returned with enough detail to make the entry reliable.

Both possibilities made the fight worse.

Asher stood, shaking one shoulder as if trying to force the vibration out of his bones. "What the hell was that?"

"Unrecorded ability."

"No, really? I thought the guide hid the part where it screams buildings apart for fun."

The Alpha lowered its head again, slower now. Its chest contracted. The throat armor settled back into place. Its next step was heavier, but slightly delayed.

Asher noticed too.

"It has to brace," he said.

"Yes."

"And it is slower after."

"Yes."

"Good. Then next time, we make it waste that ugly noise facing somewhere less useful."

Liam looked at him briefly. "You are thinking."

"Do not sound surprised, dead-eyed bastard."

"I am adjusting expectations."

"I will adjust your face."

The Alpha advanced again, and the two of them moved apart. They no longer attacked as if weak points could simply be found. The Alpha had protected those. They needed to make a weak point. Liam watched the earlier scorch grooves on the throat and upper chest, then the line Asher had burned across the shoulder plate. The armor had not cut open, but it had cracked faintly where flame had heated it and force had struck twice.

Asher’s gaze followed the same marks.

"Stop trying to slice through it," he said.

Liam already knew where his mind was going. "Crack it."

"My flame heats the plate. Kara freezes the heated spot. You hit the fracture with one of those nasty little narrow blasts you pretend are not overkill."

"Compressed fire pulse. Small radius."

"Same thing, prettier name."

"More accurate name."

"Shut up."

Liam assessed the idea quickly. Thermal stress against bone-like armor. Heat, sudden cold, focused impact into the fracture. It would not require wide destruction. It would require timing. It would require keeping the Alpha in a controlled space long enough to repeat pressure on the same plate.

Practical.

"I do not hate it," Liam said.

"That is your version of applause."

"No."

"Take it anyway."

They needed the wider courtyard.

Asher became the pressure point. He surged forward with controlled blue-flame movement, not charging straight into the Alpha’s strength but cutting around its front, forcing its head to track him. His longsword struck the same upper chest plate he had marked earlier, Inferno Edge flaring hotter for only the instant of contact. The blade left another scorched groove, deeper now, the bone-like armor glowing faintly at the edge before darkening.

The Alpha swiped.

Asher did not retreat toward the barracks. He burst sideways toward the wider market square, dragging the creature’s attention away from the fragile structures. Liam moved opposite him, sending a small fire flick at the Alpha’s flank to prevent it from turning back toward the den. Wing circled above the open square and sent Liam the angle of the path ahead: cracked but open, one old fountain base in the center, low walls around the edge, fewer buildings close enough to collapse.

"Kara!" Liam called. "Heated chest plate. Freeze on my signal."

"I need a clear shot!"

"Wait."

Asher forced that clarity.

He stepped into the Alpha’s range deliberately, blade held high enough to invite a bite. The creature lunged, jaws snapping. Asher dropped under the bite, slid on blue flame beneath the line of its head, and slashed the same chest plate upward. The armor glowed along the existing crack.

Liam raised his left hand.

Kara fired.

The ice arrow struck the heated plate and shattered, but the frost did what the arrowhead could not. It spread across the scorched groove in a sharp white bloom. The heated armor contracted violently, and a thin crack split wider through the plate.

The Alpha recoiled.

Liam sent a compressed fire pulse into the fracture.

It was narrow, no wider than his fist, and it punched forward rather than outward. The impact struck the crack with a dull pop, deepening it without exploding into the surrounding stone. The Alpha roared and slammed one fist down, but this time Asher was already pulling it toward the wider square, away from the barracks. The blow cracked old road stones and shattered part of a low curb, but the main entry structures remained standing.

"Again," Asher said.

They repeated the pressure differently each time, because the Alpha learned enough not to present the same opening twice. On the next exchange, Asher did not strike the chest first. He forced the creature to turn over broken stone by angling low flame along the ground behind its rear foot.

The Alpha stepped forward to avoid the heat, placing one heavy leg onto an uneven slab. The slab tilted. Its weight shifted badly. Liam used the brief imbalance to cut the inner side of its knee ridge, not trying to sever, only scraping flame into the crease to slow the next pivot. Kara’s arrow struck the heated knee plate and iced it over. The crack there was smaller, but it made the Alpha’s next step stutter.

It answered with a sudden backhand.

Asher saw it too late to avoid completely. He turned his shoulder, braced his sword flat against the incoming arm, and rode the impact with a burst of blue flame that launched him backward instead of letting the blow crush him into the wall. He still hit a broken stone column hard enough to crack the side of it, breath tearing out through his teeth. The column leaned dangerously.

Liam moved immediately, not toward Asher, but toward the Alpha’s line.

If the creature followed, it would smash the column and collapse the side of the square. Liam threw a small flame burst into its already cracked chest plate, forcing its attention away from Asher before the next charge. The Alpha swung toward him, and Liam slipped behind the fountain base, using it as a turn obstacle. The Alpha tried to cut around, but its heavy body and damaged knee made the turn slower.

Wing’s sight gave Liam the position of the larger arm behind the fountain. He moved just before the claws came through the mist and carved the stone rim apart.

Water, old and stagnant, spilled from the cracked fountain basin across the ground.

Liam noted it.

Useful.

Asher pushed himself off the damaged column, eyes narrowed. "Still alive?"

Liam stepped around the spreading water. "Unfortunately for you."

"I meant the beast."

"Specify."

"I hate you."

"Later."

The Alpha inhaled again.

This time both of them saw it early. Claws digging in. Chest expanding. Throat armor shifting. Jaw lowering. Lesser Maulers lowering themselves near the den, though fewer remained alive now. Kara braced on the wall before the roar came, one knee down, bow held close.

"Angle it away from the gate!" Liam called.

Asher moved before the bellow released. He burst across the Alpha’s front in a bright line of blue flame, making himself the loudest, brightest, most offensive target in the square. "Come on, ugly!"