Chapter 3 - Divine Apostasy Book 3

Chapter 3

Ruwen cursed, returned the baton to his belt, and jogged with Sift up to Lylan.

“We have twenty seconds before it gets here,” Lylan said.

“And we don’t want to fight in the tunnel,” Sift said.

Ruwen sighed. “Right, let's take the fight into the cavern. Nak and I will get its attention, and you two try and take it out from behind.”

Sift and Lylan nodded, and Ruwen turned to Nak. “Follow me.”

Ruwen sprinted into the cavern. After ten seconds, he stopped and turned back toward the tunnel. Sift and Lylan were crouched there, and Ruwen turned to look at what had ripped Juva in half.

When the creature had been hunched over Slib, it had looked large, but its actual size couldn’t be seen. Now that it stood up straight, Ruwen forced his panic down. The creature vaguely reminded him of an eight-foot beaver. Instead of two oversized front teeth, it had a pair of worm-like tubes that moved independently from each other. At the bottom of each wrist, it had a hook that angled toward it. If it could get that hook into its prey and pull, it would split them like opening a zipper. From its forearm, a large spike emerged.

As horrifying as all that looked, Ruwen’s attention was drawn to the light that filled the beaver’s chest as well as the two smaller orbs of light: one in its right leg, just above the knee, and the other in its left arm between the shoulder and elbow. A pair of glowing lines ran between each orb and the light in the beaver's chest.

No information appeared over the beaver’s head, so Ruwen didn’t know its level. The creature stuck its nose toward Ruwen, and the teeth-tubes went crazy, almost like they were trying to jerk the beaver forward. The beaver leaned forward, and Ruwen tensed in case the beaver dashed or leaped at him.

Instead, the smaller orb just above the beaver’s right knee flared, and a moment later the stone under Ruwen flowed up and over his feet and calves, locking him in place. Nak, to Ruwen’s right, suffered the same fate.

Ruwen realized the beaver had just cast a spell and used the stone under their feet to root them. And another realization struck him. The Stone Meridian was associated with the right leg, the very orb of light that had flared on the beaver as the root had triggered.

The beaver had cast a spell with Spirit.

The orb of light near the beaver’s left bicep brightened for a moment, and a powerful blast of air radiated out from the creature. Ruwen would have been pushed to the ground if his feet hadn’t been locked in place. Next to him, Nak leaned forward to lessen the force of the air. Behind the beaver, Sift and Lylan were thrown backward and struck the wall of the cavern with loud thumps.

Sneaking up on the creature looked like it would be difficult.

Spirit from the beaver’s center snaked through its arms and into the sharp hooks under its wrists. It leaned forward and jumped, appearing between Ruwen and Nak in a blink. The beaver spread its arms, placing them on Ruwen’s and Nak’s chests. Ruwen could feel the pressure of the glowing hook against his ribs.

The beaver jumped again, attempting to drag the hooks across their torsos. This looked to be precisely how Juva had been torn in half. Ruwen’s arms were at his side, and he jerked them upward to try and trap the beaver’s arm and stop it from ripping him in two.

As the beaver leaped away, Ruwen squeezed the beaver’s arm against his chest, and the momentum of the creature yanked Ruwen backward. The stone encasing his feet shattered and Ruwen landed on his back. Rami had just told him that preserving the connections to his Meridians was critical, and this first attack would likely sever them all.

A groan of pain from Nak mixed with a loud slapping sound from behind Ruwen. He still held the beaver’s arm and released it as he rolled to his left. Jumping to his feet, he looked down to find the arm still stuck to him. The glowing barb had sunk an inch into his skin.

Ruwen pulled down on the arm in disgust. After a moment of resistance, the arm separated below the wrist and snapped free. Now Ruwen held the beaver’s arm, and its hand remained on his side, the wrist hook still embedded between his ribs.

The slapping sounds grew louder, and as shocked at Ruwen felt at holding the beaver’s arm, he forced himself to focus on his surroundings. Nak had been torn in two. His bottom half, still locked in place by the root, remained stationary. But Nak’s top half crawled toward the beaver.

The slapping noises were coming from the beaver as the two tubes thrashed wildly, slapping the cheeks and gums of the beaver. It crouched but didn’t jump at Ruwen. Spirit dripped from the right shoulder were its arm used to be. Ruwen thought it looked confused.

As confused as Ruwen felt. For some reason, the creature's attack had only slightly damaged Ruwen while destroying Nak. In addition, Ruwen had been able to hold tightly enough to the beaver’s arm to rip it from the creature’s body. Even the root had been overcome without Ruwen’s ankles being snapped in the process.

Ruwen held the beaver’s arm in his left hand and removed the wrist-hook from his side. The hook still glowed. The arm Ruwen held had a spike protruding from it, but it hadn’t been filled with Spirit like the hook had been. Keeping an eye on the beaver, Ruwen pushed the spike into his right arm. As he suspected, it didn’t penetrate his arm, and after he applied more pressure, it started to warp. While the spike didn’t feel soft, it definitely didn’t have the hardness the hook possessed.

Without taking his eyes off the beaver, Ruwen spoke. “Nak, crawl back to your feet.”

“That is a really weird thing to say,” Sift said as he walked up beside Ruwen.

“This is a weird place,” Ruwen said.

“It’s deciding if it should flee,” Lylan said, staring at the beaver. “Are we going to let it?”

Ruwen sighed. “I don’t know. I think I figured something out.”

Ruwen handed the arm to Lylan and then snapped the spike off the forearm. He gave it to Sift.

“Stick that in your heart,” Ruwen said to Sift.

“And I didn’t think this could get any stranger,” Lylan said.

Sift lifted his shirt and placed the spike against his chest.

“And you’re just going to do it?” Lylan said, her voice rising.

Sift shrugged. “If Mr. Two Halves in the tunnel isn’t dead, this will probably be okay.”

Lylan and Ruwen watched the beaver, who studied them in return. A second later Sift spoke, and Ruwen glanced at him. Using his chin, Sift held his shirt against his neck and the spike jutted out from his chest. While all of Sift’s organs appeared fuzzy in his torso, his heart looked completely defined.

“It takes some pressure,” Sift said. “But it breaks through my skin. When it gets to my heart though, the spike smooshes.”

“Smooshes?” Lylan asked, still staring at the beaver. “Is that even a word?”

“You should hear the words Ruwen makes up,” Sift replied.

Ruwen pulled the spike out of Sift’s chest. “I don’t make them up.”

Sift rubbed at the hole in his chest and then let his shirt drop. “What was that about?

“Your heart is the only Meridian you’ve Fortified, right?” Ruwen asked.

“Is this going to be a lecture? Because my parents –”

Ruwen waved the spike back and forth. “No. I think the Fortifying we did at home translates into armor here.”

“It’s doing something with its light,” Lylan said.

Ruwen handed the beaver’s hand to Lylan, and she gave him back the arm. “That light is Spirit, and it’s power here. That hook is full of it and might penetrate its armor.”

Lylan took the beaver’s hand and gripped it through the fingers like the hand was her own, and the glowing wrist-hook now sat against her wrist.

“Sift you should use Io. My guess is he’ll cut through almost anything here,” Ruwen said.

Sift removed Io, and Ruwen looked away from the dense light.

“It’s tensing to jump. Looks like it decided to fight,” Lylan said.

Ruwen tried to relax his muscles. “If you see the orb above its knee pulse, a stone attack is coming. The shoulder orb will cause an air attack.”

“What are you going to fight with?” Sift asked.

Ruwen dropped the arm and the spike and looked at his hands. “I have an idea.”

Sift groaned but couldn’t comment as both the Stone and Air Meridan’s flashed on the beaver, and the world turned into a rock storm.