Chapter 43 - Close Encounters of the Barely Intelligible II

Claire engaged the yeti with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. The specific choice of weaponry was far from intentional—she had just grabbed whatever was nearest her hands. A lack of time had kept her from making any choices.

Spinning around, the one-eyed gorilla slashed at her with a sharpened icicle it crafted on the fly. The weapon was long and jagged, a tiny knife by the cyclops’ standards, but a full-blown longsword by the rogue’s. Claire thrusted at the blade with her dagger, meeting it before it could cause any harm. Her weapon was shoddy, but it remained far superior to the brittle medium her foe had leveraged. The ice broke upon contact, shattering into a thousand shards that vanished before they so much as touched the ground.

But she was still sent flying.

The force of the blow knocked her off her feet and threw her out of the cave. She landed over a dozen meters away, inside a bank of snow. Cold and draining as it was, the soft powdery substance had proven itself helpful. Its presence kept her relatively uninjured; she would have been battered and bruised had she landed on anything harder.

The cyclops tried leaping at her and crushing her underfoot, but Claire got to her feet and darted out of the way before it landed. Making use of her agility, she slashed at one of its legs as it passed her by, but the attack proved pointless. Its fur was too thick. All the dense hair between her blade and its skin dulled the blow. She wasn’t even able to draw blood, despite putting her back into the one-handed strike.

It retaliated with its other leg, lifting the limb and kicking backwards like a horse. The motion was faster and more dexterous than anything she would have expected from a creature with such a massive frame, but it didn’t catch her off guard. Durham had delivered a thousand similar blows during her lessons. And though she had hardly taken his advice to heart, she knew how she was supposed to react.

Ducking underneath the attack, she bashed the butt of her dagger straight into the yeti’s shin. Again, no blood was drawn, but a howl of pain erupted from the creature’s throat either way. The stimulus caused its leg to lurch forward with an uncontrolled, haphazard spasm.

Another opportunity.

Claire pushed with her knees and thrust her antler straight up into the primate’s loins. It wasn’t a fatal blow, but it was painful enough to provide her the opportunity to retreat. Or at least it should have been.

Contrary to her expectations, the yeti didn’t keel. It shrugged off its second injury and caught her with a sideways kick before she could back away. Claire was able to cross her arms just in time to stop the blow from destroying her unprotected gut, but she didn’t come out unscathed. She was sent flying into a tree. The pine’s frozen needles pricked her and its jagged wooden branches tore into her back, shredding her garments and rending her flesh. Her scales were no better off. A handful of them were torn from their places, their roots filled instead with splinters.

The pain made her wince, but she didn’t have time to bitch or moan. The halfbreed hurried to her feet, and just in time. No sooner had she relocated than an overhead slash landed where she had been. Her arms were still numb from the impact, but she managed to meet its next attempt on her life head on.

Again, their weapons collided. And again, the ice gave way to the bone. It happened once, twice, thrice. The yeti’s blade broke every time, but still, the rogue was unable to make anything out of the exchange. Its attacks were too heavy. Her arms were knocked back after every clash, even when she braced herself against the tree supporting her spine.

The situation was looking bleak at best. She couldn’t follow through on any would be advantages and her feet sank deeper and deeper into the snow every time she parried.

Her only saving grace was the cyclops’ lack of intellect. Claire darted between its legs during one of its wind ups and made some distance between them. Glancing at her own weapons elicited a grumble. Her dagger was fine, chipped, but still usable. But her antler was on the verge of being reduced to rubbish. The fragile bone had once again proven its lack of durability; it was already starting to crack and break apart, despite its status as a recent acquisition.

Not knowing how much longer it would last, the rogue decided to discard it. She coated the weapon in a layer of quicksilver and threw it as soon as the monster turned to face her. To nobody’s surprise, the attack went nowhere. The cyclops swatted the sword away with a flick of its wrist and flung it into the snow behind it.

It was a dismissive, discouraging display, but Claire remained unwavering. She didn’t care that the creature had an infinite supply of weapons, nor that trading blows with it hadn’t worked in her favour. She was still the one to initiate the next set of exchanges. The cold was eating away at her, and the yeti was her solution.

Kicking off the snow, she dashed straight at her three-meter-tall opponent. A quick hop to the right allowed her to evade a stab, while weaving to the left let her dodge another. She coated her dagger with rocket fuel as she drew near its eye and lunged with the weapon held in a reverse grip.

But the critical weakness never entered her range. The cyclopean sasquatch reeled its head back right as she swung and nearly caught her dead on with the headbutt that followed; she would have been impaled by its crystalline horn had she failed to parry it with her blade. Claire tumbled through the air and landed on her feet, but she wasn’t quick enough to recover. Her foe was already upon her and she was once again stuck parrying blow after blow. She could feel her arms creaking and her hips screaming as the shock of every strike coursed through her body. And with no tree to support her, she lost ground after each attack. Slowly but surely, she was being pushed back, all the way to the woodland.

Adding to the problem was the primate’s ability to learn. It was holding its legs much closer together—there was no longer any room for her to slip through them. Had they been in a less tiring environment, Claire would have been able to hop right over the beast’s head mid dodge, but the snow was weighing her down. She couldn’t quite get the footing she needed and the cold was sapping her strength.

An idea came to her right as her dagger shattered, inspired by the glimmering of the quicksilver that had adorned it. Eyes darting around, she managed to locate and pull on the half-broken antler the cyclops had knocked away. The weapon whistled through the air and flew straight into the cyclops’ back. The mercury-coated blade ripped through fur and muscle alike, stopping only when its tip emerged from the other end of the yeti’s body. But again, the beast didn’t falter. It remained completely unaffected by the quicksilver forcibly injected into its system.

She ducked under a sidelong blow that came from just outside her peripheral vision, but not quickly enough. The yeti’s blade cut deeply, drawing a fresh tide of crimson. For a moment, the halfbreed worried about the potential blood loss, but her concerns were soon redirected. A thick layer of ice spread from the incision on her forearm, encasing everything from her fingers to her elbow.

The bizarre wound distracted her. She was so caught up in figuring it out that she failed to notice a second attack, a kick that nailed her right in the gut. The heavy blow sent her flying into the forest. This time, Claire was luckier. She missed the trees and landed on a fresh patch of snow.

She didn’t get up right away. She couldn’t. Her mouth was filled with the taste of iron, and her stomach was screaming at her like no tomorrow. Her brain was on fire. Every single nerve in her abdomen was firing off a thousand distress signals. Somehow, after a countless number of futile attempts, she was able to muster enough willpower to wrench her attention away from her gut. Unlike her insides, her arm wasn’t in pain. But that, if anything, was more of a concern than it was a sign of relief. She couldn’t feel or move it at all. It was almost like it wasn’t there. Her upper arm wasn’t faring much better. It wasn’t frozen, like its bottom half, but it too was robbed of almost all sensation. She could barely feel anything when she prodded at it, even as its flesh swelled and darkened.

A scowl crossed her lips. It wasn’t the worst injury she’d experienced in the past few days, but it was definitely among the top five.

“Why is it always my left arm?” Claire grumbled as she rose from her slumped position, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process.

Her head was spinning and her eyes were blurry. They didn’t clear up, no matter how many times she blinked. But even with her sight distorted, she could easily make out the cyclops. The towering brute was pushing its way through the trees, approaching in near silence. Any branches too inconvenient to displace were cut apart, split in half by the blade it had in hand. Strangely, none of the wood reacted like her arm. It all remained exactly as it was, untouched by frostbite.

Claire re-evaluated the situation as she slowly pushed herself off the ground. Her club was far more durable than any of her other weapons, but even it was sure to break if she continued to smash it against the gorilla’s blades. The one-eyed ape’s weapons would continue to reform so long as it had mana, and she wasn’t about to place any bets on her ability to drain its supply. The spell didn’t seem particularly expensive nor did its caster appear the slightest bit concerned by the number of times it had used it.

Wiping the crimson drool off her lips, Claire reached for her remaining sword, only to stop halfway in favour of taking up a weaponless stance. She already knew that drawing the weapon would get her nowhere. Unlike all the other monsters she had fought, the yeti wasn’t mindless. It knew how to use its daggers, and in a sense, it was precisely what Durham had tried to train her to fight. Tried.

A faint smile crossed her lips as she prepared to intercept. Her instructor had taught her nothing. But she had, over the course of many long years, figured out everything that got under his skin, every possible way to catch him off guard with some sort of underhanded trick. And she was starting to think that it was precisely those skills that would bail her out of the precarious situation she found herself in.

The rogue took a deep breath, leapt to the side right as the giant stepped forward, and prepared to attack. Unperturbed, the cyclops followed her intently and raised its weapon overhead. There was a brief window where it obscured its own vision with its bulky, hair-covered arm.

That was the moment she put her plan into action.

Expelling all of the air she held in her lungs, the half lamia spat. A stream of blood and saliva flew straight towards the furry beast’s eye, landing right on target before it could react. No damage would have been done if the two liquids were the only things present, hence why she had also thrown a surprise into the mix.

It was a fang, a fang she tore out with her tongue.

Unlike her mother, Claire didn’t have any venom glands, but she was able to compensate by coating it with a layer of rocket fuel.

For once, the yeti recoiled. She had finally hit it where it hurt. The force mage pushed her advantage. Using her magic, she shoved the fang deeper and deeper before suddenly pulling on it as she moved. The process was repeated tenfold. Over and over, the yeti suffered as its eye was shredded by a large jagged tooth.

Her foe didn’t just sit around as she tormented it. It flailed with its blade, stabbing at where she had been before she sealed its sight. But it didn’t hit her. She had already moved a whole ten meters away, just barely within range of her most reliable spell. It tried moving around, but chasing her was far from beneficial. All it managed to do was give the halfbreed an infinite number of ways to explore the inside of its eye socket. Fifty casts of Apply Force later, the cyclops’ almond-shaped organ was gone, torn to bits. It was on its knees, clutching its face and howling in what she presumed to be some sort of primitive language.

That was when she finally approached. Mace in hand, she smashed the weapon into its neck full force. It didn’t break after the first hit, nor after the second, but Claire didn’t lose heart. She continued whacking at its spine with every last bit of strength she could muster. Until she suddenly couldn’t.

A fist smashed into her shoulder and sent her flying. The force of the blow shattered her arm instantly. Agony coursed through her system. She could feel every splintered bone, each broken fragment digging its way into her flesh. But she didn’t scream. She couldn’t. The attack had winded her; there was no air left in her lungs to scream with.

Breathing tortured her, and not just because of the cold. Blood was dripping from her lips with no signs of stopping. And from her nose as well, despite its otherwise perfect condition.

She tried to raise her arm, but the limb wouldn’t respond. It continued to do nothing but hang limply at her side, no matter how desperately she tried to move it.

The blinded beast started stumbling in her direction. She didn’t know how it suddenly knew where she was, but it was headed straight for her, screeching as it grew closer and closer. She managed to force her body to rise, but she couldn’t run, at least not at any notable speed. Her inability to move her arms was throwing her off balance.

Clenching her jaws, Claire put her magic to work. The mace that had fallen several meters behind her flew forwards and propelled itself into the yeti’s neck, followed shortly by the blades hanging off her waist and thighs. She shot them towards all the weak points her Dagger Mastery had informed her of, the various important organs scattered throughout its frame. She even manipulated the blade already embedded in its chest, pushing it back and forth to spread the quicksilver. Soon, the yeti’s once white fur was covered in nothing but red. Still, the fuzzy, large-footed creature didn’t stop. The only thing that was able to momentarily halt its advance was a full force Paralyzing Gaze.

She thought of injecting it with a dose of soarspore poison, but she wasn’t able to get ahold of any of her weapons. Pulling them towards her brought them to her dysfunctional hands, and all that amounted to was a load of nothing. But she did eventually find a thin looking branch on a nearby tree. The halfbreed bit down on it, tore it off, and coated it in a layer of the fruitiest poison at her disposal while she held it in her mouth.

The prickly stick flew off in a random haphazard direction when she first launched it, but a quick magical tweak readjusted its trajectory and sent it straight into one of the furry creature’s open wounds. The toxin forced a series of constant sneezes, but the monster was undeterred. It kept moving, advancing on her with its icy weapon in hand.

Its lack of sight made its attacks easy to dodge, even with her body feeling as sluggish as a rock. After evading a particularly big swing, Claire kicked the back of its wrist, loosened its grip, and turned its blade upon itself with a spell. The sharp icicle began flying straight towards the cyclops’ face, but vanished before making it all the way. Unfortunate, but not the end of the world.

The next thing she manipulated was its horn, which had been broken off by several repeated clubs to the face. She rammed it into its shoulder when it tried to punch her and neutralized the attack by robbing it of its momentum.

With a pained grunt, she leapt onto its head and started stomping at its neck. She enhanced the brutal attacks by jumping as high as she could and magically accelerating her feet as she descended. She was the axe, the axe that served as the cyclops’ executioner.

Three stomps and two magical club strikes later, there was a resounding crack.

The battle was finally over.