"You've even penned yourself in like rats." The Deuxan Archcrafter lifted his pike as his cantae cloak flowed around him. "A convenient place to finally finish you."

"How did you find us?" Theo asked, less because he cared about the answer and more to buy time. Yet this deep in the cavern, their chances weren't good, and he saw several other soulcrafters coming in behind him. Not all the Deuxans, and not Esaire, but...

"I don't really get it, and I thought we'd lost you when we found the trackers, but you can't escape us. Those Deuxan sublime materials leave a trace going through Tatian, so as soon you left the city, we followed it." Delarde rolled his shoulders, apparently enjoying his superior position as his allies gathered alongside him. "Of course, I didn't figure out any of that, but Esaire showed us how to finish tracking you. Now I get the pleasure of taking you out personally."

"So he survived, but he must have suffered injuries. You're really still coming after us after losing so many of you?"

"Some of the others took him back home for treatment, but we can't go back without getting something for all our trouble." Finally he lowered his pike into combat position. "Will you survive if I cut off your legs? Time to find out..."

Fiyu struck, a silent shadow blurring through the light cast by the lantern. Theo was shocked by how quickly she moved and so was Delarde, barely managing to dodge back from the dark cantae thrusting at his face. But even if she could equal his speed, she couldn't match an Archcrafter's force, so when he slammed his pike into the cave floor, she staggered back.

Though Fiyu struck again, he was ready this time, sweeping his pike to drive her back. "Careful! You could hurt somebody with that..."

Clearly Fiyu couldn't stop him, and she'd be throwing herself into danger once the other Deuxans got their act together and struck at her flanks. Theo didn't see many options, but at that moment Nauda came up beside him, new blood coating her staff as she gripped it.

"I'm going to take down that cantae aura. You'll only have one second."

With that, she struck alongside Fiyu, thrusting out her fork and catching one of the soulcrafters in place. She swept both to the side, driving him into the others, but Delarde was far too quick to be caught by such a maneuver. He rushed forward with a mad grin, his pike sweeping into position for a fatal thrust.

Nauda let out a cry and cantae swept from her, not in an attack but nullifying the energy in front of her. For a moment, Delarde's burning cloak flickered out.

Theo's hand was already up, sending cantae into his opponent's chest.

Though Delarde let out a cry and tried to resist, his aura came back up too late. Theo's cantae created twisting planes of gravity trying to tear him apart from within. The Deuxan soulcrafter groaned and staggered, blood staining the front of his shirt and one of his arms going limp.

Yet instead of falling, he slammed a foot into the ground and kept himself upright. Grinning through bloody teeth, Delarde managed to straighten up and raise his pike with his remaining hand. Though Theo tried to send another torsion burst, it deflected off his opponent's aura, even though it flickered weakly. The Archcrafter was only keeping himself standing with raw cantae, but he had plenty to spare.

"Al... almost." Delarde grinned again, and swept his pike to gesture at his allies. "Stop staring and join me. This isn't a duel, it's putting the worms in their place."

The group advanced, weapons rising and cantae bolts beginning to flicker in their hands. Theo could have tried a gravitational field, but had to assume that they would all have soulcrafted Esaire's defenses. Acting would only spur them to attack, and it would go poorly... he didn't have good options, Nauda was barely on her feet, and Fiyu...

His answer was obvious, once he thought about it. Theo raised his hand to the side and used a cantae bolt to destroy the lantern.

All at once the cavern was plunged into darkness, lit only by the unstably flickering light of Delarde's cloak. Theo couldn't see anything except the Archcrafter, but he heard a cry of pain from one side of the entrance. Delarde whirled to look, flaring his aura, only to find one of the soulcrafters lying against the wall, blood flowing from the new wound on his chest.

"She's in the shadows!" Delarde called. "Don't give her any!"

One of the other soulcrafters lit up in a defensive aura, desperately searching for an enemy... but it only illuminated him for a moment before Fiyu appeared behind him, driving her blade of dark cantae through his back. In the shadows, the blade surrounding her hand looked like darkness itself, and when the man's cantae died, Fiyu was one with the shadows, even before she drew her veil of stealth around herself.

As one of the others let out a cry, dying in the darkness, the last soulcrafter rushed to go back to back with Delarde. It was a strategy, but not a good one. In the darkness, all Theo could see was the two of them illuminated by aura, so he slammed all his gravitational fields down on both of them, dropping the soulcrafter and even staggering Delarde.

Though he still burned with an Archcrafter's cantae, his focus was waning and the blood loss was beginning to slow him down. His soulhome still overflowed with more cantae than he could use, but that was exactly the problem: it wouldn't do him any good if his body gave out before his soul did.

An invisible blade suddenly sliced through the back of his leg and he went down with a cry. He tried to swipe backwards, but Fiyu was already emerging from the shadows in front of him, a hail of light slamming into his cloak, battering it down, throwing him to the ground.

"Please, don't..." Delarde struggled to scramble backwards away from Fiyu as she walked toward him. "You've won, alright? If you let me live, the Armeau family will reward you... you'll get the bloodprice and the prestige of-"

"I don't know what that is." Fiyu drove her blade into his face and the last light was quenched.

Though he was now in total darkness, Theo could finally breathe easy again. Being completely unable to see left him unpleasantly vulnerable, wishing he had his old techniques, but Fiyu was the only one who could take advantage of it.

"That was smart, Theo." Her hand patted the back of his before flitting away, nothing but a sense of motion in the darkness. "You too, Nauda. I could not have defeated him if he had been uninjured."

"I'm glad this is good for you," Nauda said wryly, "but I could use some light."

"Oh, of course. There was a second lantern, was there not?"

Soon enough, Fiyu appeared beside the sleigh with the lantern's light flickering around her. Her smile was broad, even when she twisted the device to increase the light to flood the entire chamber. Nauda dropped into a seated position, letting her staff clatter to the floor again. Though her hands would recover, he didn't envy her all the torn skin.

All around them, the chamber was filled with the bodies of soulcrafters, blood pooling around them. He'd assumed that Fiyu's blade was generated from darkness, but not realized that it might be designed for it. Combined with her stealth, it would make her a dangerous hunter on Ichil.

Out of habit he looked over the bodies, wondering if they had anything useful that could be taken. Presumably they had a sled outside, at least. Yet when he counted them...

"Fiyu, there's one more!" Theo was already running after the smear of blood that went around the corner. Though Fiyu looked surprised at first, she rallied her weary senses and then her eyes widened and she rushed after him.

All of Fiyu's strikes had been fatal except for one, and the surviving Deuxan had managed to crawl his way surprisingly far. Theo spotted him outside the entrance and raised a hand to strike, but the last Deuxan let out a cry and his cantae exploded from him, lighting up the cavern mouth like the sun.

For a moment, Theo was stunned by the foolishness of it. His dying cantae had been potent, but too far away to hurt them. Once, such a burst would have blinded Fiyu, but her soulcrafting and mask reduced it to nothing but a wince. There was no one outside to warn, just an empty sled floating beside the cavern, and Theo didn't believe any of the other Deuxans had remained...

He understood just a little before he heard the roar. The enormous form of the eryo bounded over one of the nearby hills, rushing toward them.

There should have been more than enough time to retreat, but they were both exhausted from the battle. By the time they realized that escape from the cavern was impossible and turned to run, the eryo was already almost there. As Theo sprinted back inside, he heard the sled be smashed apart into splinters. Even when they got deeper, he felt a massive claw scraping against the stone.

When they retreated to the dead end, they discovered Nauda sitting there, watching them numbly. "I take it the eryo can't get in?"

"Not as far as I can tell," Theo said, "but we're trapped inside."

"That's fine. I just hope it stops roaring." With that, Nauda lay down and shifted into a comfortable position to sleep. Honestly, he couldn't blame her.