He heard a roar from outside the still unblocked window and turned towards the noise, raising Notch, ready to strike, and holding the buckler before him. When the shape burst through, past the rotting frame, he gave an answering roar, bringing Notch down towards the blur of a shape rolling on the floor.
"Stop! Stop! It's me!" At the last second, he diverted the blow, sending Notch thudding into the water thickened floorboards. Tiera, on her backside, two halves of her spear in her hands, stared at the blade, a mere inch from where her head had been.
"Tiera, you mad bloody fool!" He swapped Notch to the other hand, and offered her help to climb to her feet. "How did you get away? What in Patrons' names is it?"
"I don't know what it is. It's big, but somehow manages to hide under the water." She reached up to wipe a smear of blood from a cut above her eye, breathing heavy. "I had to get my pack and weapons roll from the horse before that too went under."
She pointed to her pack and weapons roll on the floor, near where she had landed. Standing upright, she drew in several deep breaths and then looked at the pieces of her spear in her hands, as if seeing them for the first time. Shrugging, she tossed them aside and bent down, pulling a sword from her weapons roll.
"I can't stay ..." Viriili stirred once again, trying to move, her eyes rolling in her head. "I don't want to kill you. I must ... I must ..."
Both Brorzjav and Tiera dropped beside the girl, urging her to stay down. Tiera felt Viriili's head and then touched the back of her fingers to the girl's cheek. She looked at Brorzjav and he knew she shared his concerns. Viriili was getting worse. Yet, they couldn't do anything about it. He doubted any healer could help her. The only things that seemed to make Viriili better was healing people or the 'invisible hand' exploding out from her and they couldn't leave her alone for that to happen.
They both heard a sound outside, like something slithering, or dragging along the surface of the ground. At first the noise came from one side of the hut, then from the other, then from outside the door. Another sound accompanied the slithering, dragging sound. A deep, rumbling, gurgling sound. Brorzjav saw Tiera's head turn, following the sounds, as he reached over for his pack, to find water for the girl.
"I know I hit it, with the spear. That's when it broke." Tiera stood, crouching, turning in a circle, following the noise. "And when I hit it, it roared. In pain, I think. If it can't be hurt, it can be killed."
Something thumped against the wooden walls of the cabin, then scraped down against it. Brorzjav jumped up, brandishing Notch in that direction. He could feel his heart beating, fast and fluttering. Nothing produced fear more than the unknown. If he could see his enemy, he could work out how to best it, but this enemy hid. This enemy used terror to its advantage and Brorzjav wondered if it was some dumb creature, after all, or whether some kind of malevolent intelligence powered it.
"Whatever happens, the girl cannot be the last of us to die." Brorzjav moved back-to-back with Tiera. "If she has to die here, let it be by our hands, not a slow, lingering death from this monster."
"Agreed." He felt Tiera tense.
Silence blanketed the entire cabin, for a second. Even Viriili seemed to fall quiet. And then something smashed through the kitchen shelving, sending wood pieces and splinters flying in all directions. This battle had truly begun.
-+-
Brorzjav ran to the window, readying Notch to attack, but whatever had hit the shelving had now disappeared. For the last foot or so, he slowed, edging towards the opening, his boots crunching on the shards of wood that now littered the floor. Reaching the open frame of the window, he eased closer, looking outside, ready at tiniest notice to slice whatever was attacking them. All he saw outside was the encroaching fog and the trees in the bare distance resembling tortured, twisted figures from nightmares.
"Grey!" Behind him, Tiera shouted.
He turned and froze in place. Through the opposite window, a tentacle or a tendril of some kind, as thick as a leg, looped in through the opening, thrashing in the air. It seemed to sense the occupants of the cabin, but it had no eyes upon its sickly green surface. Tiera launched herself towards the thing, swinging her sword. She missed as it curled backwards and then it unfurled, striking the brave young warrior in the chest, sending her flying back.
She landed in a heap at Brorzjav's feet and the tendril looped back out of the window, and swished out of sight once more. Tiera groaned, clutching at her chest where the tendril had struck. Trying to watch both windows, Brorzjav leaned down, offering Tiera an arm to lift herself up.
More sounds came to their ears, then, as they followed the scraping, shuffling and slithering. The thing outside tested the walls. Light thumps and knocking sounds coming from several directions. Then their eyes raised upwards as the noises seemed to travel onto the broken, sagging roof. Holes in the roof revealed nothing but the darkening sky above, filtered by the fog that had all but swallowed the cabin.
"Can't ... stay ..." Viriili's muttering seemed like the only real noise in the cabin as her head rolled and lolled, turning and flopping. The girl was delirious due to the illness her 'gifts' brought to her.
"What in Patrons' blood is this thing?" Tiera pushed herself up, using Brorzjav's arm and her sword to steady herself.
"I don't know. I've fought many things, human, Other-Kin and monsters, but I've never seen anything like this." The tapping and knocking continued as Brorzjav began to circle, following the progress of the noises.
The tendril whipped in again, from the window once covered by the shelving, cracking as it hit the end of its reach. Brorzjav pushed Tiera aside and caught the blow on his buckler and launched an immediate strike back with Notch, only missing the tendril by the tiniest fraction of an inch. From the other window, another tendril launched inwards. This time Tiera had readied herself. As the tendril closed in towards her, she swept her sword upwards, slicing a gash in the thick limb of the tendril, releasing a black liquid that splashed upon the floorboards, a revolting smell assailing their noses. That tendril retreated back through the window and, outside, they heard a terrifying screech.
The first tendril held itself in the air, as if watching Brorzjav. It whipped one way and then the other, but Brorzjav, like Tiera, anticipated the movements. This time, he circled to his left, swinging Notch in a high arc and brought the ancient blade down upon the limb of the creature. Notch cut deep and true, slicing through the entire limb and, once again, the tendril retreated from the cabin accompanied by the screeching outside, leaving a piece of itself flopping on the cabin floor.
"That's two good strikes. Do you think it'll leave us alone?" Tiera took the respite to kneel beside Viriili, placing a calming hand on the girl's chest. She jerked her chin towards the piece of the creature twitching upon the floor. "What is it?"
"I doubt two gnat bites'll give this thing pause to thought." He knelt down near the piece of the creature he had severed, poking it with Notch, turning it this way and that. "This looks like a cutting from a plant. That goo that sprayed out? It's sap, not blood. Or something in-between, maybe."
He stood upright, raised his boot and brought it down upon the severed piece, crushing it underfoot. The piece stopped moving, the remains of its sap dribbling from its flattened, crushed form. The knocking began again, then. Soot fell from the chimney breast, at the back of the cabin, rolling out in a black cloud from the hearth. Tiera wafted the soot away from Viriili, then stood back up, herself.
Brorzjav and Tiera moved to stand back-to-back, watching both windows at the same time. Trying to keep an eye on the increasing, jerking movements of Viriili, and making occasional glances in the direction of each knock, each tap and each scrape against the walls.
Two more tendrils appeared, one at each window, and both warriors readied themselves to fight again, but the tendrils seemed to hover, not attempting to enter the cabin. Almost as if they were afraid. Brorzjav didn't believe that. It was a trick. A trap to entice them to move towards the windows. But why?
He got his answer sooner than he expected. The door to the cabin exploded inwards, pieces of it flying and crashing against the walls. Brorzjav brought up his buckler in time, as a piece destined for his face bounced off the small shield to the side. They had no time to brace and, even as the pieces of door began to settle, several tendrils, or vines, or tentacles launched in towards them.
Both of them recovered fast, fending off the tendrils and vines as they flashed this way and that. It was like fighting several fighters at once. Several fast, agile fighters that could attack on every level at the same time. They hacked and slashed at everything that moved. Their swords a blur. Their movements almost choreographed. If he had the time, Brorzjav would have admired how well they fought together.
Several more pieces of the creature fell to the floor, but the tendrils also made some hits. Brorzjav felt one strike into his stomach, knocking the breath from him, sending him down to one knee, but he could not give up. Could not stop. With a roar, he swept Notch outwards in a wide, wild arc, catching a few of the attacking vines in one swing. It gave him time and space to regain his feet.
Tiera had caught a couple of blows, also. The first catching a glancing tap on her jaw, but the young woman showed great resolve, shaking her head and turning back to the fight. The second blow caught her as she turned, hitting her full in the shoulder, sending her spinning backwards to crash against the stone fire place. She didn't let that stop her either. Pushing against the stones, she jumped back into the fray.
"No! No!" The shout broke a silence neither had noticed fall upon the cabin. Each had remained engrossed in their own part of the fight. Now the noise, the tiniest of shouts, almost sounded like the loudest scream.
Viriili, amid the mayhem, had, somehow, found her feet and in her delirious state had tried to leave. To get distance between them before her 'invisible hand' emerged. She had not seen, or did not care, about the thing attacking them. Instead, she had found a way outside, through the whipping tendrils, avoiding any harm. Brorzjav saw the girl stumble and then become caught by one of the tendrils, circling around her body and dragging her.
And, outside, through the flurry of tendrils darting in front of him, attacking him, he saw the creature itself. Like a mass of the tendrils and vines had come together to form a whole. The thing lurked outside, its flat, pulsing 'body' spreading outwards, sending parts of itself out to the attack and, in the centre of the mass, a great, black, toothless maw opened, sending a bone shaking roar outwards. Even the fog appeared to flinch away from the creature.
Losing all sense of fighting technique, he launched himself forward, swiping at anything in his way. He could see Viriili struggling in the creature's grip, throwing her head from side to side, pushing against the tendril holding her. Brorzjav couldn't make it. He couldn't reach her as she neared the creature's open, black mouth.
Then Viriili screamed, a high-pitched piercing scream that rattled the ears. Her body seemed to pulse and expand and then a ripple of some kind emanated from her, followed by a great rolling wave of disturbed air, the only sign that anything was happening. The wave hit the creature first, battering it as if a million invisible fists pounded upon it. Then the fog around the cabin appeared to become pushed backwards, falling apart, dissipating. The wave then hit the cabin with a roar. The very foundations shook, the walls broke apart and flew away from the wave and the stones of the fireplace cracked and shook.
Protected, after a fashion, by the mass of tendrils and vines, Brorzjav and Tiera still got caught in the wave of invisible force, thrown backwards to crash against the fireplace stone.
And still Viriili screamed.