The next morning, the group headed north. With winter approaching, the winds and rains had a sharper sting to them. Femira was thankful for Landryn’s ability to deflect the power of the winds around them, creating a pleasantly still shell of air around them. The wind made a whistling sound above their heads as it slid over the invisible barrier. She could sense Landryn’s edir maintaining the barrier but airshaping was so different to stoneshaping that Femira struggled to understand how it worked. Did he create a solid shell like the stoneshell she’d learned from Endrin or was he pushing on the opposing wind constantly, deflecting it around them? She watched him as they rode trying to tell from his edir. It was firm and solid, but would occasionally flare out similar to how hers did. Did Landryn struggle with the same edir control as she did? It was encouraging to think that someone with his experience and skill might still face the same issues she did.

Shortly before midday they reached the cove with the ruined village. The rains and tides had washed away all the blood stains. Evidently, people with no qualms with stealing from the dead had picked the village clean since Femira had last been. Not that she judged them, she’d looted many a dead body herself. It wasn’t like she had any higher morals now that her job was making dead bodies instead of just stealing from them.

As they rode into the village a small group of squatters who’d taken up residence in the village emerged from the ruins. They were stragglers hoping to make something for themselves from the remnants of the village. Upon seeing their uniforms and weapons, the squatters quickly surmised that they were soldiers. They dropped to their knees and swore that they’d only just arrived two days before and were repairing the fishing boats intending to use them. They had nothing to do with the missing villagers or even the looting. They looked like honest people, a group of five adults just wanting to feed their families. Small children in rags could be seen peeking out from the ruins.

Landryn told them there’s no crime in trying to build a better life for yourselfand Fermira noted that he never told them that he was a Prince. He simply introduced himself as Landryn and the leader of the group. He told them that there were no families left to inherit the ruins from the missing villagers and that he would send a representative from Heraldport arriving in the coming weeks to formalise the new residents as owners, if they wished it. The squatters bowed and thanked him, profusely.

Landryn asked them if they’d noticed anything strange since they arrived. One of squatters, a large man with hair poking out from the top of his shirt, talked about noises at night coming from the northside of the cove. At first, they thought it was just the waves, but it sounded more like scraping. He went on to say how his wife had tried to convince him to give up the idea of repairing the fishing boats and continue on down to Heraldport to look for work. But he wouldn’t be scared off by some noises. It was too promising an opportunity here to make a good life, he insisted.

Landryn began inspecting the damages to the buildings. The squatters had begun repairs on some of the buildings that had more than one remaining wall but most were still heaps of rubble.

“You were right,” he said to Femira, “none of this looks like cannon damage. There’s not a single scorch mark or any sign of explosives.”

“A stonebreaker wouldn’t have left this kind of mess either,” Femira added, “if you were going to destroy a building it would be easier to just disintegrate the stone supports and let it collapse in on itself. The stone supports seem to be what held out in most cases here.”

“Doesn’t look to be the work of any type of runewielding…” he replied, “an exceptionally powerful stormstone user perhaps but even then, there would be rubble strewn across the entire cove with airblasts strong enough to destroy these buildings…” he looked up at the surrounding cliffs, “a stonebreaker could have shot boulders out from the cliffs to destroy the buildings… that would explain how the mostly seem to be crushed.”

“Still seems like too much effort,” Femira shook her head, “if the goal was to destroy all the buildings, it would be far more effective to just disintegrate them. Any runewielder than can manage to throw a boulder around would have the skills to dust this place easily.” Femira included herself in that group.

Landryn’s kept his gaze on the cliff face, his eyes narrowing. Without a word, he started to stride purposefully across the beach. Selyn and Femira shared a confused look, Femira shrugged and started following after him. Landryn’s two bodyguards; Kendrik and Drad remained in the village, looking around the rubble. The pair seemingly understood that their Prince was more than capable of defending himself and their purpose was primarily for support and appearances. So it wasn’t surprising that they didn’t follow the three runewielders as they investigated the northside of the cove.

The sandy beach gave way to rocky boulders that they stepped across towards the rockface.

“Does this area look strange to you?” Landryn asked Femira, pointing into a shallow cave. The walls of the cave looked jagged, the colour also slightly off compared with the rest of the cliff face. One of Femira’s jobs in Lichtin’s crew had been to create hidden caches along the Altarean cliffs. She would hollow out small clefts in the rockface that the crew could use as discreet drop-offs for loot. She’d made hundreds of these over the years working with Lichtin, it was first thing he’d shown her how to do with the earthstone. Something she’d always noticed was how flaky and crumbly the inside walls of the hallows she’d created were when compared to the smoothed sea-worn rockfaces.

“It hasn’t been worn in by the sea,” she surmised, chiding herself for not realising this the first time she’d been through. She’d never seen an earthstone-carved hollow this big before and she hadn’t registered it.

“This whole cave looks like it was carved out by a stonebreaker… without being soulforged this would have taken days to make.”

“I’m not so sure it was runewielding,” Landryn contested, “look along the edges here,” he pointed, “these look like impact marks… these rocks we climbed over I think then dragged away from the cave when it was being hollowed out. A stonebreaker wouldn’t bother with that effort. I think something tried to burrow into the cliff here… but then gave up when the earth above started to weaken.” He indicated holes in the roof of the cave where chunks of rock had fallen.

They followed the cliff out towards where the surf met with the rocks. Splashing up plumes of the white water against the shore. Landryn called out to his bodyguards in the village and they trotted over to join them.

“Can you forge us a path?” Landryn asked Selyn. She nodded and rolled up the sleeves of her uniform. An unnecessary step for a runewielder but Femira guessed that it was subconscious. Femira liked to have her arms free for using her hands to guide her edir in stoneshaping so Selyn must do the same with wavecalling. Her assumption was proven right when Selyn made pushing gestures with her outstretched hands at the surf.

Femira had seen Wavecallers work along coastal walls before. Rows of them would guide the tides away from the city to prevent any flood damages and the effect was always very subtle, with the tide simply not breaking over the over the top of the walls. What Selyn did was a complete contradiction to everything Femira knew about Wavecaller’s ability. I suppose that’s the difference between the soulforged and regular runewielders. The waves crashed against what looked to be an invisible barrier and roared upwards. Selyn’s guiding hands directed the waves back into themselves creating a roiling, churning mass of water a few feet back from the cliff face, exposing a rocky path at the base.

“Whoa,” Femira admired, blowing out a whistle, “that’s impressive.”

“This is nothing,” Selyn gave her a sideways glance but Femira caught the hint of a smile. Compliments seemed to go a long way with the woman. Femira noted that for when she’d later try convincing the woman to spar with her.

Landryn confidently strode out onto the slick stones of the newly exposed walkway, leading out of the cove. Femira and Selyn followed, the wavecaller maintaining a walking area of about two dozen feet around them. Femira watched in amazement at the force of the waves crashing against Selyn’s edir. The woman tensed her shoulders only barely with the effort.

“What do you think is out here?” Femira called ahead to Landryn after they’d followed the cliff face to the north for a while.

“I don’t think that the claims the locals are making are that crazy,” Landryn replied, “we know that there’s strange creatures that lurk in the simirwood to the east, the plains of Athlin and the Black Sands beyond the mountains are all said to have monstrous beasts roaming throughout. I think it would be naive of us to assume that there are none within our borders. There are stories of my ancestors fighting monsters and demons after the fall of the Sorcerer King’s… Elyina and her armies drove them from the lands.”

“You think that they’re returning?” She asked, a little taken aback by his forthright conclusions.

“I think it’s a possibility, yes.”

Ahead of them, nestled between two jagged outcrops of rock was the large opening of a cave.

“This one’s the same as before,” Femira observed, indicating the edges of the cave that looked to have been carved out recently. Landryn turned to Kendrik and Drad who had been following along dutifully.

“You have torches?” He asked and Drad nodded in response. The stone-faced guard pulled out a vial of oil from his cloak along with a rag. There were some hardy bushes that grew out from nooks in the cliff face, Kendrick climbed up a few feet to tear a few branches out of one. The pair quickly fashioned sets of torches that were passed out to the group.

Selyn remained outside the cave, keeping her edir focused on repelling the waves. Kendrick had a topaz on him and ignited all of their torches. Landryn led the way forward flanked by his guards with Femira trailing behind. She had little fear of the dark, but that was when the scary thing hiding in the shadows was her.

Their boots echoed against the roof of the cave. The walls were still slick, water trickling off them and forming pools that her feet would occasionally stumble into. They delved deeper into the darkness, the opening of the cave growing smaller behind them. None of them spoke as they made their way deeper into the cave.

The flickering light of the torches danced off the jagged edges of the cave and the ceiling stretched up into the darkness above. Femira sent out pulses of her edir, touching off the walls and roof of the cave as they moved. The walls resonated in response to her edir as she expected. As did the rock at her feet and the large boulders they passed—she froze.

A shadowy mound she’d mistaken for a boulder just ahead didn’t resonate back. Her edir slid passed right over it and didn’t react at all.

“Stop,” she hissed ahead of her. Landryn paused and glanced back at her, his face looking ominous in the light of the torches. “What is—” he began but then cut off when the shadowy mound began to rumble.

The rumbling sound of rocks grinding off one another echoed through the cave. More shapes just beyond the light of the torches began to shudder and rise. Landryn and his guards immediately drew their blades. Femira pulled out her own set of daggers. She could summon her glass blades if she needed them and she’d also begun keeping a stock of steel material in her reserves for if she needed to conjure up another set of daggers. She felt Landryn’s edir wash over her as he sucked the air around them into him. Long black insect legs began protruding out from the shadowed forms but in the flickering torch light it was difficult to really discern what was happening.

“Pull back to the entrance,” Landryn commanded and the group edged backwards. Keeping their weapons raised.

The mounds were slow to rise at first but now that their many legs had been extended they scuttered about with shocking agility. Femira couldn’t count how many there were as all she could discern were dancing shadows. She pulsed out her edir but instead of seeking out resonances, she focused on the absence of it. Landryn, Drad and Kendrick’s own edirs she could sense as she passed over them but the creatures had nothing. Her pulses detected that there were only three of them despite the amount of moving legs that the torchlight caught.

“There’s three of them,” Femira informed the men in front of her.

“You can sense them?” Landryn asked, his tone tense.

“More like the absence of them, if that makes sense?”

One of the spider-like forms shot forward towards them. A raspy hissing noise reverberating through the cave. Landryn blasted it with a condensed push of air, allowing the group a few more moments to make it back to the entrance. Selyn kept her position just outside, still holding back the wall of water.

“What’s happening?” Selyn asked, her face masked with concern as the four of them backed out of the cave, their weapons drawn.

Before anyone could respond to her, a blue boulder the size of a horse was flung out of the cave entrance in front of them. Femira’s instinct was to dust the boulder as it flew mid-air but when she pushed out her edir, the boulder didn’t pulse in response to it.

It was one of the creatures!

The thing’s trajectory was aimed towards Landryn who dived out of the way before the creature uncoiled itself and smashed into the spot he had been. In the full light of the day, Femira could see that the monster was more like a giant crab than a spider. The blue material she’d mistaken for the boulder was its carapace. Long insect-like legs unfurled from the carapace with four enormous pincers at the front, protecting a toothy maw that reminded Femira of a bloodworm. Femira froze at the sight of it, her mouth agape.

Landryn spared not a single second, rolling to his feet and smashing the crab off balance with an airpush. Faster than Femira could follow, he darted in towards it and made a series of lightning fast blows with his blade. His sword glanced off the carapace with minimum effect. He dodged out of the monster’s range before a pincer could grab at him. He rounded to the creatures side and again danced his sword out in a flurry of attacks. He’s testing for the crab’s weak points.

“Vreth!” She heard Selyn shout at her. She glanced over at the woman who was pointing to where the other two crabs were emerging from the cave. They were both blue like the one Landryn was fighting; only this pair were a little smaller. Kendrick and Drad were embroiled with fighting one of them and the other was closing in around them.

Femira’s edir whipped into action, repeated practice had trained her to immediately begin forming her murder moons but she reckoned that the glassblades would be useless against the hardshelled creatures. Instead changed her focus onto the cliff face pulling in the rock material to her and reshaping it as a stonespear. She pushed with her edir, heaving the stonespear towards the third crab. It shattered, crumbling against the crab’s thick carapace but the force had been enough to hurl the crab backwards.

She immediately formed another stonespear above the creature, she balled her hand into a fist and pulled it down. The action guiding her edir and pushing more force into the falling stonespear. The crab stumbled as the stonespear shattered against its back, the force pushing down on its legs. Wasting no time, she conjured another stonespear above it and crashed it down on the monster. Over and over, she pummelled the creature with repeated falling stonespears until there was an audible crack as the carapace was finally breached.

The crab made a painful hissing noise and launched itself at her. She dove out of the way but felt one of the massive pincers grab at her torso pulling her back. The pincer carapace felt like jagged rock biting into her core and lower back. Her version spun as the creature pulled her about like a ragdoll. She couldn’t even scream as the tightening pincers forced the air out from her.

I didn’t train every day to be killed by a crab! She gritted her teeth and focused her edir inwards, guiding the power of her earthstone to her core and strengthening it with stoneskin. The constricting pincers were still painful, but was more of a dull ache than the torture it had been. The creatures toothy maw writhed as it drew her close. She kicked at what she considered to be its face, refusing to allow the thing to eat her. I’m not your fucking lunch! The pincers tried to close tighter, but her stoneskin held strong against the vice grip.

She could see where the monster’s carapace had been split on the top from her repeated barrage of the stonespears. In the fracture she could see soft grey flesh. Instinctively, she tried reaching for her daggers at her hips but the pincers around her torso made them impossible to reach. Instead she conjured a glassblade, her focus on her stoneskin waned as she did so but thankfully the crab didn’t attempt to crush her in that moment.

She pushed her edir against the glassblade flinging it into the gap in the carapace. A screeching hiss sounded, and she was falling, the pressure on her torso gone. She fell hard against the rocky ground but quickly regained her footing and rolled forward underneath the crab. Coming to a rise, she drew her daggers and could see that the underside of the beast had numerous gaps in the shell. She thrust upwards in a quick succession of stabbing manoeuvres. Each time, she slid her blades in through the gaps and into the grey flesh resulting in more hissing screams from the monster. The legs of the creature buckled and twisted and Femira realised with a sudden panic that it was about to collapse on her.

She didn’t have time to roll out from under it so instead she foolishly focused on a stoneskin as the crab fell on her, she cursed at herself for not thinking to create a stoneshell instead. Now she was pinned underneath it and needed to focus all of her attention on maintaining a full body stoneskin to prevent the body of the crab from crushing her.

Her breaths were ragged and she didn’t dare shout out for help. She needed to retain all focus on keeping her stoneskin. Even with it, she could feel the weight of the creature’s body pushing down on her, slowly forcing more air out of her lungs and putting more and more pressure on her bones.

I can’t hold this! The thoughts flicked across her mind in a dazed panic. Her lungs were taking in less and less air with every breath and then suddenly she went completely cold, her vision going black. She was choking, and being spun about wildly. The weight of the crab was gone but her body was being thrown about. She coughed and sputtered and tried to gasp in a breath but only found water filling her mouth and lungs.

In a matter of seconds she was lying flat on her face on the rocks, soaking wet but with no giant crab monster on top of her. She choked up salty water, hot tears streaming against her cold skin. She struggled to her feet, still retching up. Glancing about, she could see through bleary eyes that Landryn had already dispatched of the crab he’d been facing and was now finishing off the one that Kendrick and Drad had been fighting. Selyn stood at the edge of the water one had still towards the waves, holding them back and the other was facing towards Femira. Femira looked behind her and could see the crab that she’d been fighting was now rolling and spinning, being battered against the rock face by a torrent of water flowing in from a break in Selyn’s invisible wave barrier.

Femira’s breath eventually returned to her, her heart was still pumping with adrenaline as Landryn jumped in between the final crab’s pincers and his sword drove into the maw. The creature had managed to clamp onto the armour at his torso but he didn;t seem to be at all impeded by it. Damn that armour is strong! The crab screeched in that horrible hissing sound before crumpling to the ground, Landryn pulling his blade from its face. Selyn had also put all of her attention back on keeping the waves at bay, the crab that Femira had killed in a heap by the cliff. Landryn was at her side in a moment.

“You’re ok?” He asked, his eyes searching hers. She nodded. Fucking hells. They’d fought monsters! Genuine monsters!

“Those…” she breathed, “those were… crabs?!”

Landryn looked at her, and his face broke into a grin and he started laughing. Kendrick, Drad and Selyn all followed with their own nervous and relieved laughter and Femira herself found herself laughing with them. The joy of still being alive washed over her. She’d fought a crab monster the size of a fucking horse and survived!

Jaz and Aden are never going to believe this.