ShadowBound: The Need For Power

The Alpha turned toward Asher, throat widening.

Asher did not stay where he had invited the attack. At the last moment, he kicked off a cracked stone and used blue flame to lift and shift his body sideways, not fully escaping the pressure, but preventing it from hitting him straight on. Liam dropped behind the broken fountain base and braced one hand against stone, angling his body away from the direct line.

The bellow tore across the market square toward the open interior, away from the southern gate and the most fragile barracks.

The sound hammered through the fountain, cracked the far paving stones, and shook dust from roofs farther down the street. Liam felt the vibration pass through his arm and shoulder, numbing his fingers for a breath. Asher spun out of his burst roughly, landing on one knee and sliding through the water spilling from the fountain. Kara held her position above, teeth clenched, loose pebbles skittering around her boots as the wall shuddered but did not break.

The Alpha’s chest collapsed inward slightly as the bellow ended.

Recovery window.

"Asher!" Liam shouted.

"I know!"

Asher drove forward through the shallow water, blue flame bursting beneath his boots in a low hiss of steam. He used the slick ground not as a problem, but as speed, sliding under the first sluggish swipe and rising into the Alpha’s front. His longsword flared with Inferno Edge, hotter than before but held narrow along the blade. He drove it into the cracked upper chest plate they had been working since the start.

The strike did not cut through.

It did what they needed.

The armor superheated along the fracture, the dark vein-like cracks around it glowing faintly beneath the surface. Asher gritted his teeth and held the blade there half a second longer than was safe, forcing heat into the plate before the Alpha’s larger arm began coming down toward him.

Kara fired.

The arrow struck the heated crack dead center and shattered on impact. Ice burst across the plate, white and violent, plunging cold into the superheated fracture. The bone-like armor split with a sharp crack that sounded different from stone breaking. A jagged opening widened across the upper chest and lower throat, dark flesh visible beneath.

Liam was already moving.

He lifted one hand, compressed fire into a tight, direct point, and drove it into the crack.

The pulse punched inward.

The Alpha staggered, not dead, but hurt in a way it had not been before. The armor around the opening caved slightly, flesh beneath burning black. It roared, shorter and rougher than the bellow, more pain than pressure. Its larger arm swept toward Asher, forcing him back before he could finish the opening. Liam closed from the opposite angle, but the creature twisted, protecting the wound with its smaller arm.

It still had instinct.

Enough to survive if they let it reset.

"No reset," Asher said through hard breaths.

Liam agreed without answering.

Asher made himself the obvious target again, but this time he did not use flame first. He threw a broken stone from the fountain base into the Alpha’s damaged knee. The impact was small compared to its size, but it struck where the armor had already been heat-cracked and frost-stressed. The Alpha’s leg shifted. Asher followed with a flame-backed slash to the side of the knee, forcing it to lower its stance.

The Alpha snapped at him.

Asher stepped in instead of away, raising his sword flat and striking the underside of its jaw with the guard and blade together, blue flame bursting from his boots and shoulders to add upward force. The impact did not break the jaw, but it forced the head up and back, exposing the cracked chest-throat gap.

"Now, shadow bastard!"

Liam entered.

He crossed the last distance beneath the lifted jaw, one dagger vanishing into shadow as he called Grandpa Billy’s longsword into his hands instead. The longer blade gave him the reach and driving line he needed. Inferno Edge wrapped the sword in a tight, dark-red flame, controlled so closely it seemed pressed against the steel rather than burning around it. He drove the point into the exposed gap with both hands.

The blade sank through burned flesh.

The Alpha’s body convulsed, its larger arm swinging blindly toward him. Liam shifted his stance inside the arc, too close for the full force to catch him cleanly, but the side of the limb still clipped his shoulder and nearly tore him off his feet. He held the sword in place, jaw tightening, then released a narrow fire pulse through the blade.

The flame drove into the vital space behind the cracked armor, burning through tissue and whatever thick organ structure powered the Alpha’s upper body. Heat thudded inside the creature rather than exploding outward. Its roar broke into a wet, grinding sound. Asher struck again from the side, sword carving into the damaged knee to prevent the creature from regaining height.

Kara, seeing the opening, fired one final ice arrow into the side of the Alpha’s throat gap, not to kill, but to stiffen the tissue around Liam’s blade and keep the wound from closing around the steel.

Liam twisted the sword.

The Alpha Mauler dropped.

Its knees hit the cracked courtyard first, hard enough to shake water across the broken stones. Then its upper body followed, massive jaw smashing into the edge of the fountain base and splitting the remaining stone. Liam pulled his sword free and stepped back as the creature collapsed fully onto its side, its heavy arm scraping across the ground before going still. The dark vein-like cracks along its hide faded slowly, leaving only scorched grooves, frost fractures, and the ugly split in its armor where they had made the kill point.

For several breaths, no one spoke.

The southern entry section of Veyrhold remained standing.

Damaged, but standing.

The market square was cracked, the fountain ruined, and one old side wall had partially collapsed where the Alpha’s earlier swing had weakened it. Scorch marks scarred the stones in narrow lines rather than wide burns. Frost clung to the ground and several armor fragments. The barracks still stood, though the torn entrance and broken doors would need to be cleared.

The storage house was as useless as before, perhaps slightly more collapsed, but nothing vital had been destroyed. The southern gate remained usable. The main approach remained open. Several structures that could serve as early shelter or defensive positions had survived because they had not allowed the fight to become pure force.

Liam stood beside the dead Alpha, breathing harder than he liked.

Asher stood a few paces away, longsword lowered, chest rising and falling heavily. Dark Mauler fluid stained the blade and part of his sleeve, and scorch marks ran along the edge of his uniform where the bellow-thrown debris had grazed him. His hair was slightly messier than before, and there was a shallow cut across his cheek that he either had not noticed or refused to acknowledge.

He looked at the dead Alpha and grinned through the exhaustion.

"That," he said, "was better than theory week."

Liam wiped his blade with a strip of torn Mauler hide and stored the sword back into shadow. "Your standards are diseased."

"And yours are boring."

"Boring kept the gate intact."

"My flames kept that thing facing the right direction."

"Barely."

Asher turned his head slowly. "Barely?"

"You were hit into a column."

"I used the column."

"It disagreed."

"Still alive, isn’t it?"

"It is leaning."

"Then it is emotionally weak."

Above them, Kara lowered her bow for the first time in several minutes. Her hands were trembling visibly now, the adrenaline and strain finally reaching her fingers. She stared down at the Alpha’s body, then at the southern gate, then at the smaller Maulers she had helped finish before they could crawl back into the fight.

Her face was pale, but she had not left her position. She had not wasted shots after realizing her arrows could not pierce the Alpha’s armor. She had adapted, covered the gate, finished wounded threats, and timed the freeze when it mattered most.

Liam looked up toward her. "You held."

Kara swallowed, still gripping the bow. "I almost fell during the roar."

"You did not."

Asher wiped his sword with far less care than Liam and called up to her, "Do not start looking proud yet. You still have to warn the weaklings below before they walk into something dead and scream."

Kara’s mouth tightened. "My name is Kara."

"I remembered enough letters."

"That is not how names work."

"It is how mine does."

Liam almost told them both to stop wasting air, but Wing shifted above the settlement before he bothered.

The shadow creature circled once over the southern wall, its ember-like eyes turning toward the road beyond the gate. A faint impression slid into Liam’s awareness: movement through mist, a larger group, route marks, tired steps, several injuries, formation still mostly intact. Chris’s group.

Liam walked toward the southern edge of the courtyard and looked past the gate approach.

"They are coming," he said.

Asher followed his gaze, the satisfaction in his expression sharpening into something more amused. "The bastard arrives after the work is done. Tragic."

Liam watched the dark road beyond the gate, where the first signs of approaching students were beginning to form through the mist.

The Alpha Mauler lay dead behind them, its massive body sprawled across the cracked courtyard like a warning placed there before the rest of the year could misunderstand what Veyrhold truly was. The southern entry was not safe yet, but it was no longer a meat grinder waiting untouched behind the walls.

Chris’s group was nearing the gate.

And the first convergence of the Bastion Assessment was about to begin.