The Rebirth Of The Beast Tamer

The twelfth day bled gray light across the plains. No birds sang. No insects stirred. The silence was off. Salaris's wings snapped open mid-flight, as a sudden shiver coursed through his frame. His shadow-feathers flared like knives as he screeched down to Kelvin.

"Snare sigils and dozens of it." His voice was raw with an alarm. "It was etched into stone and into the bark… everywhere."

Kelvin's heart lurched as he turned, and there they were—blackened spirals that were carved into a crooked oak, their grooves pulsing faintly with green light. The runes breathed like wounds.

Lyra's hand flew to her dagger, her eyes were narrowing. "Veil snares and the cult has been here." Darius spat onto the cracked soil with his knuckles white around his hammer. "Cowards' tricks but tricks can kill all the same."

Rhoam rumbled deep in his chest, with nostrils steaming. The armored beast's horns glowed faintly as if it was rejecting the very air they breath.

Xerion moved and coiled beside Kelvin, he raised his head with a low growl that made the ground quiver. His eyes blazed like pits of night-fire.

The Crest slowed, fanning into a rough circle. Every step forward felt like it was pressing deeper into a trap-lined throat. Salaris wheeled above with feathers scattering in agitation.

Then the first sigil pulsed and the ground beneath their boots shifted, cracking open as green mist hissed upward. The oak trunk split with a sound that is like a bone that is breaking. From within staggered three shapes that are like zombies, but they were wrong.

Their flesh was covered with sharp projection of shards of Veilstone, glowing like sickly emerald veins. Their eyes burned with unholy fire, their shrieks were clawing at the mind as much as the ear. The air warped with their presence, space folding, pathways that was bending.

"Form up!" Kelvin barked, as he raised his spear into his hands. The first fused zombie hurled itself forward with a speed no corpse should possess.

Its limbs were cracked backward like broken bones, and still it lunged, with a shriek. Xerion intercepted and its jaws snapped. Black flame bursted and engulfed the whole place. But the Veilstone shards were drank at the fire while dulling it and resisting the devour.

"Damn it—!" Kelvin staggered as pain lanced through his veins. Every burst of Xerion's flame tugged at his lifeforce like hooks in his marrow. The tether that bound them groaned under the strain.

To his left, Darius roared and swung his hammer. Runes etched along its head blazed and the blow shattered a nearby pillar that was etched with cult sigils and green sparks bursting outward. The zombie tethered to that rune shrieked and faltered as its chest convulsed.

"They are bound to anchors!" Darius bellowed. "Crush the rune-pillars, or they will keep rising!" Lyra's voice was cut sharp as she said, "More are coming!"

From the mist, five more staggered as their shapes emerged, their glowing veins were like molten cracks. Each step they took rippled through the air, as though the earth was about break.

Salaris dove, its shadow and feathers were slashing across two of them. The feathers cut deep, embedding into the flesh, then burst in a scatter of shadowflashes. The corpses shrieked, staggering, but still, they advanced with jaws snapping and nails lengthening into claws.

Kelvin gritted his teeth. Already his parents' voices whispered in the back of his mind, rising like a phantom echoes. "Kelvin… why didn't you save us?"

He staggered, the spear was wobbling in his grip. His vision was blurred. His mother's hand reached from the mist, broken and full of blood. His father's eyes glowed with disappointment.

Xerion roared, the sound was ripping through his skull like thunder. The illusion shattered, leaving only corpses and green flame.

"Stay anchored!" Kelvin gasped, forcing his legs to be steady. "They are trying to break us apart." Rhoam moved forward. His armored body crashed into two Veil-fused zombies, with horns slamming through their ribcages.

With a twist of his head, he hurled them into a rune-etched boulder, shattering it into powder. The anchor's green glow winked out, and the corpses convulsed into black smoke.

Lyra darted across the battlefield, her daggers were carved while glowing sigils into the dirt. Her shadows seemed long while forming snares that clutched at the zombies' legs.

Her voice was low, trembling while Elara's name flickered in her runes, drawn without conscious thought. The sight of her sister's style gave her strength. The traps snapped shut, halting two of the glowing corpses mid-lunge. "Now!" she cried.

Kelvin lunged, glaive cleaving through one neck. Black ichor hissed, spraying across the ground. Xerion followed, with his jaws locking on another, while crunching bone and Veilstone alike in a single terrifying bite.

But the snares pulsed again. New fissures opened in the ground, spraying shards of green light. The battlefield writhed, bending space until paths curved back into themselves.

Salaris cawed in alarm as invisible currents shoved him downward, forcing his wings to snap wide to keep balance.

"The plain itself is trapped," Darius shouted and sweat dripped down his temple. His runes burned as he steadied another hammer swing. "They have woven the ground into a killing item!"

Kelvin swore under his breath. Each step he took forward could lead them into a loop, a choke, or worse, right into the center of another detonation. The cult had not just left traps. They had carved the entire plain into a weapon.

They flared all at once with dozens of rune-carvings along the trees, stones, and even the soil itself bursting with viridian fire. The light was blinding, the air that was vibrating with a low, jagged hum that stabbed into the skull.

The earth split open in a ring around them, a perfect circle that was lined with glowing glyphs. Green fire sprouted upward, trapping them inside.

From the fissures dragged themselves more of the cult's wretched creations, ten this time, their bodies a mangled blend of corpse and Veilstone shard. Their veins pulsed with an inner glow, casting everything in a sickly haze.

"They have locked us in," Lyra hissed, her voice was cracking. Her shadow traps flickered as if it was smothered by the sigils' pressure. "It is a ritual kill-zone."

The first swung a jagged arm at Rhoam. The beast bellowed, catching it on his horns, but the impact cracked the ground under his hooves.

Xerion leapt past him with jaws snapping shut on another corpse's shoulder. He ripped it apart, but the shard was embedded in its chest that pulsed and exploded and blasting him back with a wave of green fire. Kelvin stumbled, his veins burning as if it was set alight from within.

"Xerion!" he shouted, clutching his side. His vision was pulsed black and white. Every tethered burst of necrotic energy drained him like blood that was siphoned straight from the heart.

Salaris shrieked from above, twisting mid-air to hurl a storm of shadow-feathers. They streaked like knives, cutting through three of the fused corpses. But the sigils on the ground flared, pulling the feathers aside and bending their trajectory unnaturally. They tore flesh, yes, but not lethally.

Darius roared, his hammer blazing as he smashed another rune-pillar that sprouted from the dirt. The shockwave blew two corpses apart, while ichor was raining across the battlefield. But his knees buckled immediately after, runes on his arms flickered.

"Keep crushing anchors!" he bellowed. "The snares feed them—cut the cords or we drown in their numbers!" Lyra darted under one corpse's swipe, her daggers was a blur.

Her runes flashed, trapping it in tendrils of shadow. For an instant, it resembled Elara's sigils and her late sister's style echoed in the patterns. Lyra's throat was tightened, grief punching through her concentration. The shadow bonds faltered.

The zombie broke free with a shriek and swung, claws clipping her across the ribs. She gasped with blood soaking her tunic.

"Lyra!" Kelvin shouted, but his warning turned to a cry as Xerion slammed back-first into him, both were tumbling to the dirt. Another Veil-fused corpse towered over them with green fire spilling from its mouth.

Kelvin's eyes burned. He seized the bond with Xerion and forced it open, wider than it should go. Mana poured between them like molten lead while searing their veins.

"Together!" he roared, thrusting his spear forward. Xerion's black flames erupted, coiling down the spear's length. Kelvin struck upward and the combined blow tore the beast clean in a half. The Veilstone shards that was embedded in its chest was cracked and dissolved, their glow faded into smoke.

The cost was instant as Kelvin's knees hit the dirt, blood was dripping from his nose. Xerion staggered, his scales were dimmed and steam was rising from his maw.

"It is not… sustainable," Kelvin gasped, but forced himself back to his feet. Rhoam moved past them, trampling two corpses into paste.

His armor cracked under the strain, but he roared defiantly, horns were glowing as if it was daring the snares to try and break him.