Chapter 169: Saving Private Bryan
Chapter 169: Saving Private Bryan
The creature’s body stiffened as ash packed into the heat inside it, smothering whatever internal flame gave it life. Rohan grabbed a jagged stone with his free hand and brought it down on the creature’s head until the body stopped moving.
He tore his arm free with a grunt.
Blood ran down to his wrist, too bright against the ash-dark skin.
The final creature had reached the cart.
The trapped human slashed at it, but their hand was shaking too badly. The blade glanced off one of the creature’s front limbs, and the thing lunged over the cart frame, mouth opening toward their face.
Rohan had no spear.
No time.
He grabbed the broken wheel from the cart wreckage with both hands and heaved.
The wheel was heavier than expected, reinforced with a rim of dark metal, but the ash assimilation had left his body with enough borrowed vigor to move it. He swung it like an oversized shield and smashed it into the creature mid-lunge.
The impact knocked the creature sideways into the ash.
Rohan followed, lifting the wheel over his head and bringing it down.
The creature scrambled away from the first blow.
The second clipped its back.
The third pinned it long enough for Rohan to step onto the wheel and drive his full weight down. The creature shrieked then, a thin kettle-like sound that made the ash in the basin tremble. The ember glow in its mouth brightened wildly.
Rohan’s stomach dropped.
’An explosion?’
He jumped back, grabbed the trapped human by the front of their coat, and pulled them as far as the cart allowed.
The creature burst.
It was not a true explosion, but it was close enough. A pulse of hot ash and cinders blew outward from beneath the wheel, peppering Rohan’s coat, hands, and face. He turned his body over the trapped human on instinct, taking most of the blast across his back and shoulders.
Heat bit into him.
For one horrible second, the ash coating his skin tried to catch.
Molten Assimilation surged in response.
Rohan didn’t know whether he controlled it or whether the skill acted to preserve him, but the ash across his skin compacted suddenly, shifting from loose dryness into something denser and darker. The heat sank into it, swallowed and buried rather than allowed to bloom. Smoke curled from his sleeves. Pain prickled across his shoulders, but nothing ignited.
He stayed still for a moment, breathing hard.
The basin fell quiet except for the wind.
Then the human beneath him whispered, "Are... are you alive?"
Rohan opened his eyes.
"Currently."
His voice came out rougher than intended.
He pushed himself up and looked around. The creatures were down. The one pinned by the spear still twitched faintly, so he walked over, grabbed the shaft, and wrenched it free. The creature tried to rise.
Rohan stabbed it again.
This time, he kept stabbing until the ember glow went out.
Only then did he allow himself to breathe properly.
The trapped human stared at him.
Their scarf had slipped during the chaos, revealing a young woman perhaps a few years older than him, with ash-brown skin, cracked lips, and pale grey eyes that reflected the violet sky too brightly. A thin line of blood ran from her hairline down the side of her face. Despite that, her gaze was sharp. Terrified, yes, but not empty.
She had watched the fight.
She had understood enough of it to know he was not normal.
That could be a problem later.
For now, there were more immediate concerns.
"Can you move?" Rohan asked.
"My leg is pinned," she said, voice tight with pain. "I can’t feel my foot properly."
"Bad or very bad?"
She gave him a strained look.
He moved to the side of the cart and examined the frame. It had collapsed across her lower legs at an angle, with one thick support beam pressing down over her left thigh and knee. The ash beneath her had softened, which had probably saved her bones from being completely crushed. Unfortunately, the broken cart was still heavy enough that lifting it alone would not be easy.
Rohan glanced at the other two humans.
The unmoving one was dead. He could tell even before checking. The second, the one lying face down, was breathing shallowly.
"You," he said, pointing toward the injured woman. "Name?"
"Liora."
"Rohan. Is the other one alive?"
Liora’s expression tightened.
"Bryan. He was alive before the skarn found us."
"Skarn. Those things?" He pointed at the creature.
She nodded once.
"Good to know they have a name."
Liora blinked, seeming unsure how to respond to that.
Rohan moved to Bryan and carefully rolled him onto his side. The man groaned weakly. He was older than Liora, with a short greying beard and a face lined by years of sun, ash, and exhaustion. His left arm was broken, and there was a deep gash along his side where claws had torn through his coat. Blood had soaked into the fabric, though the flow seemed slower now.
Alive, but not in good shape.
Rohan looked toward the basin’s exits.
"How far are we from the settlement?"
Liora swallowed.
"Half a league to the east. Maybe less. The marked road is close."
"That wall I saw?"
"Veyrhold," she said. "You’re not from there."
"No."
"Another hold?"
"No."
Her eyes sharpened despite her pain.
Rohan pointed at the cart before she could ask more.
"Later. First, I need to get this off you. Are more skarn coming?"
"Maybe. They hunt in ash pockets. Usually three to six. Sometimes more if there’s a nest."
Rohan stared at her.
"A nest."
Her face paled slightly.
"We didn’t know this pocket was active. The path was clear two days ago."
"Of course it was."
Rohan resisted the urge to look up at the sky and ask Hestia whether she was enjoying this. She probably was, wherever she was. Or she would claim this was educational and therefore beneficial. He could almost hear her calm, infuriating voice explaining that survival experience was best gained through surviving.
He inhaled, then regretted it when the air scraped across his throat again. His assimilation was still active, but the fight had disrupted the comfortable balance he’d found. The ash on his arms had cracked in places, and blood from the bite wound was interfering with the skill’s flow.
It wasn’t enough to hinder him, though.
’That’s good enough.’
Rohan planted Hestia’s spear under the broken cart frame and tried to lever it up.
The frame shifted.
Liora gasped sharply, her hands clawing at the ash.
"Sorry," Rohan said. "Not stopping."
"I didn’t ask you to!"
"Good."
He pushed harder. The spear bent slightly, though not enough to break. Whatever Hestia had made it from, it was far better than normal metal. The broken cart frame rose by a few centimetres, then slipped.
Rohan cursed and reset the spear at a different angle.
"Bryan," Liora said through clenched teeth. "Can he help?"
"Bryan is currently busy bleeding and being unconscious."
"Then give me something to bite."
Rohan looked at her for half a second, then picked up a strip of torn leather from the cart wreckage and handed it over. Liora folded it and bit down without hesitation.
That raised his opinion of her.
He wedged the spear deeper, braced one foot against a slab, and pushed with both hands. Molten Assimilation flared across his arms. Ash gathered along his fingers, compacting until his grip stopped slipping. The muscles in his shoulders screamed, and for a moment the frame refused to move.
Then it lifted.
"Pull your leg free!"
Liora dragged herself backward with a muffled cry. Her pinned leg came loose inch by inch, ash and broken fragments sliding around it. Rohan’s arms trembled. The spear shaft creaked. His injured forearm burned as blood ran beneath the ash layer.
Liora’s knee cleared the beam.
Rohan let the frame drop.
It slammed back into the ash with a heavy crash that echoed through the basin.
Both of them froze.
Rohan listened.
For a few seconds, there was nothing.
Then, faintly, from somewhere deeper within the ridge, came an answering scrape.
Liora heard it too.
Her face went rigid.
"More."
"Fantastic," Rohan said. "Can you stand?"
She tried.
The moment she put weight on her left leg, it buckled. She would have fallen if Rohan hadn’t caught her by the shoulder.
"Not well," she hissed.
"That was very clearly a no."
"I can hop."
"With skarn chasing us?"
"If I must."
Rohan looked at Bryan, then at Liora, then toward the narrow gap he had entered through. Getting himself out would be easy enough. Getting one injured person out would be difficult. Getting two injured people out while more creatures approached from unknown tunnels in the ridge was the kind of logistical problem that made him want to file a complaint with the universe — or Hestia.
He knelt beside Bryan and checked the man’s breathing again.
Still alive.
’If I leave him, he dies. If I try to take him, we might all die.’
There was no clean answer.