Chapter 31: Blood and Rain

The tentacle yanked Rael into the air. His wrists burned where the red flesh tightened. Lila’s body hit the ground below with a soft, final sound.

He did not look down.

Ignite.

Flame erupted against the tentacle at point-blank range. The sudden heat forced the flesh to recoil just enough. One hand tore free. Rael reached for the goblin blade still tucked at his belt, reversed the grip, and drove it straight into the thickest part of the tentacle still holding him.

The blade sank deep. Blackish blood sprayed across his arm. The tentacle convulsed and released him. He dropped hard, rolled, and came up on one knee just as three more tentacles shot toward him from different angles.

Fireball.

The sphere of flame met the first tentacle mid-lash and forced it to twist aside. Ignite followed instantly on the second, coating it in clinging fire that made the flesh hiss and shrink. The third wrapped his left ankle and jerked him off his feet again. He stabbed downward, cutting deep enough to make it loosen, then rolled free.

Aurelia stood twenty paces away, six tentacles already regenerated and swaying behind her like living whips. Her shoulder still bled from Alex’s earlier bite, but the pain only seemed to sharpen her focus. She smiled.

"Still fighting for a corpse?"

Rael did not answer. He raised both hands.

Two Fireballs left his palms in quick succession creating a smoke field. He fired another fireballs One forced a tentacle to block; the other struck her side and forced her a step back. Before the smoke cleared he coated a broken arrow shaft in flame—Piercing Arrow mixed with Fireball—and hurled it. The burning tip punched clean through a tentacle and set it alight from the inside. The limb thrashed wildly, spraying burning fluid, until Aurelia severed it herself with a snarl.

New tentacles sprouted almost at once. The cost showed only in the slight tightening of her jaw.

Rain began to fall.

It started as a thin mist, then thickened into cold, heavy drops that turned the blood-soaked ground into slick mud. Visibility dropped. The standing corpses became dark shapes in the downpour.

Rael reached for Soulbinder.

The dead souls still hissed around him—kill, kill him—but beneath their noise he found Aurelia’s own soul, a sharp, hungry red. He felt its exact position even when tentacles came from behind the rain and the corpses. He ducked one that would have taken his head, twisted under another, and let a third slam into the mud where he had been standing a heartbeat earlier.

Small Fireballs bloomed across the ground in a rough circle. Thick black smoke rose, mixing with the rain into a choking fog. Inside it Rael moved low and fast. Tentacles lashed through the smoke, missing by inches. He lured two of them toward a dense cluster of standing corpses, then set the entire pile ablaze with a wide Ignite. The dead bodies became fuel. Flames roared upward. The tentacles tangled in the burning limbs and jerked violently as the fire climbed them. Aurelia hissed and tore them free, but the delay bought him three full seconds.

He used them.

Another flaming Piercing Arrow took a tentacle near its base. A Fireball forced her to shield her face. He closed the distance while she was off-balance and drove the goblin blade into the meat of one regenerating stump.

"Aaaa... You bastard." She screamed—more rage than pain—and three tentacles slammed into him at once.

One struck his ribs. Something cracked. Another wrapped his right forearm and squeezed until the bones ground together. The third lashed across his back, opening a long, shallow cut. He was thrown through the smoke and landed hard among the corpses.

Rain washed blood into his eyes. His right arm hung useless for a moment. The blade was gone, lost in the mud.

Aurelia walked toward him through the fire and rain, new tentacles already forming. She looked almost calm.

"You’re creative. I’ll give you that. But you’re still just a boy with borrowed tricks."

Rael pushed himself up with his left hand. The ground was littered with broken rock and lengths of chain from the cave. He grabbed a jagged piece of stone and a length of heavy chain. His hands were already blistered from the constant fire, skin peeling in places, but he tightened his grip anyway.

A tentacle shot forward. He swung the chain like a whip. The metal wrapped the limb and held long enough for him to smash the rock against the point where it joined her back. Something wet and soft gave under the blow. Aurelia staggered. Two more tentacles came at once. He ducked one and let the other take him in the shoulder, using the force to roll closer. Up close he drove the rock into the same wound again, then again, until she finally kicked him away with enough force to send him sliding through the mud.

He coughed blood. The rain tasted of iron and ash.

More tentacles rose. She was no longer playing. They moved in coordinated pairs—two to pin, two to strike, two to cut off escape. He burned one pair with a desperate Ignite at his own feet, forcing them back with the heat. He threw the last of his strength into a wide Fireball that lit the rain itself for a moment, turning the falling drops into brief orange sparks. In that light he saw her clearly: eyes bright with excitement, mouth curved in something close to joy.

She was enjoying this.

A tentacle caught his left leg and yanked. He hit the ground face-first. Another wrapped his waist and lifted him again. He cast Fireball point-blank into the limb holding him. The explosion tore it apart and dropped him, but the blast also seared his chest and arms. The skin there was raw now, shiny and tight. Casting any more fire would be agony.

He still cast.

Ignite on the nearest tentacle. Fireball on the ground to create one last bank of smoke. He staggered into it, grabbed another length of chain, and waited.

The tentacles hunted through the smoke. One found him. He let it wrap his midsection, then used the chain to lash it tight against a half-burned corpse. When the limb tried to pull free it only dragged the burning body closer. Rael set the whole thing ablaze with the last clean Ignite he could manage. The tentacle screamed without a mouth. Aurelia severed it, but the delay was longer this time. The regeneration was slowing. The focus cost was mounting.

She stopped smiling.

"Enough."

Five tentacles came at once from five directions. Rael burned two. He dodged a third by sensing her soul a fraction early. The fourth took his already damaged right arm and twisted until something tore. The fifth slammed into his stomach hard enough to drive the air from his lungs and throw him backward into the mud.

He landed near Lila’s body. Rain washed over her still face. For a moment the fight seemed far away.

Then the tentacles closed in again.

Rael pushed himself onto his elbows. Blood ran freely from his mouth. His hands were ruined—blistered, cracked, barely able to close. The goblin blade was gone. The chain was gone. He forced himself to his knees.

Aurelia walked closer, tentacles swaying like a crown of living blood. The rain plastered her red hair to her face. She looked down at him the way someone might look at an interesting insect that still refused to die.

"You should have stayed on the ground," she said softly. "It would have hurt less."

Rael spat blood and rain. His mana was running low not much he can do now.

The tentacles moved.

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