The Cursed Extra

"Numbers don’t matter if they can only reach you one at a time."

***

The flames around her fingers shifted color. Orange to white-hot as she poured everything she had into the stone. The air around her hands shimmered with heat. The smell of superheated rock filled the tunnel. Acrid and sharp enough to make Rhys’s eyes water.

Where her hands touched, the loose debris began to flow like thick honey warmed over a fire. The stone lost its solidity. Became something between liquid and solid that responded to her will.

She shaped it with movements that were part instinct and part training. Merged and hardened the molten material into a protective wall around Jorik’s upper body. She worked fast. Sweat streamed down her face and cut tracks through the dried blood and dust that covered her skin.

The barrier curved around Jorik like a shell. Thick enough to stop a blade or a club. Shaped to deflect attacks away from his vulnerable head. She left his head and arms free so he could still fight if anything got past Rhys.

Though they both knew that if anything got past Rhys, they were all dead anyway.

"There." She slumped back. Her hands dropped to her sides like they’d been filled with lead. "Best I can do."

The chittering had stopped.

In the sudden silence, Rhys could hear his own breathing. Each inhale and exhale loud in the enclosed space. He could hear the soft crackle of the torch as it consumed itself one flame at a time.

And he could hear something else.

The careful placement of feet trying not to make noise. The sound of creatures that had stopped talking because they were close enough that talking might give away their position.

They were close now.

Very close.

Rhys walked to the chokepoint. His father’s spear balanced in his hands. The weapon felt lighter than usual. Maybe adrenaline was making everything sharper. Stripping away the fatigue and the fear and leaving only the clean simplicity of what needed to be done.

He planted his feet in the narrow gap where the tunnel walls pressed closest together. Barely enough room for one person to pass through at a time. His boots scraped against stone that countless miners had walked before him. Their footsteps worn into the rock over generations of labor.

His mana reserves were still mostly intact. The collapse had caught him off guard, but he hadn’t burned through his power trying to stop it the way Petra had.

Earth magic came naturally to him. A gift inherited from his mother’s bloodline. The stone spoke to him in ways it didn’t speak to others. Responded to his touch like an old friend greeting a familiar face.

He slammed the butt of his spear against the tunnel floor.

The sharp crack echoed off the walls. Announcing his presence to anything listening in the darkness.

Earth magic flowed through the weapon into the stone beneath his feet. He shaped it with the kind of control that came from years on the palisade. Not a complete barrier. Not a solid wall that would trap them as surely as their enemies.

Instead, he raised the floor on either side of the passage. Created stone ramparts that narrowed the gap even further while giving him cover to fight from.

The wall rose slowly. Stone flowing upward like thick mud pushed by invisible hands. Rhys kept the opening exactly wide enough for one person. No more.

A kill zone.

Where superior numbers meant nothing. Where ten enemies were no more dangerous than two because only one could reach him at a time.

"Krek-krek-krek!"

The sound burst from the darkness ahead. Sharp and angry.

They’d realized what he was doing. They’d seen or heard or sensed the stone moving. They understood that their advantage was slipping away with every moment he spent reshaping the tunnel.

The chittering started up again. Louder than before. Filled with fury that transcended language.

The first goblin appeared at the edge of the torchlight.

Yellow eyes reflected the flame like a cat’s. Gleaming with hunger and hate in equal measure. Taller than the scouts they’d fought earlier. This one had the look of a veteran. Scarred hide that spoke of battles survived. Iron-tipped claws that scraped against the tunnel walls.

It carried a crude but effective-looking club studded with metal spikes. The kind of weapon that didn’t need skill to cause damage.

Rhys shifted his stance. Spear point angled toward the narrow gap he’d created. His weight settled onto his back foot. Ready to lunge or retreat as needed.

"Come on then."

The goblin rushed forward with a shriek that echoed off the stone walls. It squeezed through the opening Rhys had left. Club raised high.

And ran straight into the spear point.

The blade punched through its chest with a wet sound. Dark blood spurted across the stone floor in a spray that caught the torchlight like black rain.

Rhys twisted the weapon and pulled it free. Already turning toward the next attacker before the first body had finished falling.

Two more goblins tried to push through together. Snarling and clawing at each other in their eagerness to reach him. The narrow gap forced them into single file despite their efforts. They stumbled over each other in the confined space.

Rhys took advantage of their confusion.

His spear swept left. Caught the first across the throat in a spray of dark blood.

Then he reversed the weapon to slam the butt into the second goblin’s skull.

The crack of bone was loud in the enclosed space. Followed by the soft thud of a body hitting stone.

Blood splattered the walls of his makeshift fortress. Dark stains spread across the ancient stone. The torch flame danced wildly as air currents shifted through the tunnel. Pushed by the movement of bodies and the displacement of dying lungs.

Three down.

Rhys wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Left a dark smear across his skin.

"Krek-sha-krek! Sha-krek-krek!"