Runeblade
B3 Chapter 308: Kolnir, pt. 3

B3 Chapter 308: Kolnir, pt. 3

Kaius heard the bellowing hoots of far off kolnirs once again. Four in quick succession, closer than they’d been only seconds before.

At best, they only had a handful of minutes.

He wanted to tear at his hair and scream. They had a kolnir pinned beneath Porkchop’s claws, immobile and on the verge of death. It had to be nearly out of health — it had been weakened before Kenva had brought it straight to them, and he could barely see its wounds closing.

It was still a tough bastard, and there was no guarantee they could kill it before they had to flee!

And they would have to flee — they’d struggled against a single, weakened kolnir. No chance in all the forsaken hells that they would be able to handle a whole group of them.

He was wasting time — he could feel the questioning stares of his team as the moment hung.

Kaius grit his teeth. They needed the levels this kill would bring — every single one would make them safer as their strength grew. There was no guarantee they would be able to isolate a weakened creature like this again.

“We fight!”

“Thank the Matriarchs!” Porkchop ripped into the creature's chest with renewed vigour.

The kolnir gnashed its teeth — still flailing ineffectively in an attempt to haul itself out from under his brother. It floundered. With one arm lying limp on the jungle floor, and its entrails spread wide, it had been crippled. Even unnatural second-tier toughness wasn’t enough to power torn muscles and ligaments with Will alone.

Stepping forwards, Kaius cut at the weeping wounds his Arcane Blight left bubbling in its flesh — its Constitution driven hardiness giving way beneath his blade.

It still lived. No matter its wounds, it still struggled on — ignoring even the unrelenting deluge that Kenva and Ianmus unleashed as they joined the desperate assault.

Even with the full might of their team landing on the creature, they were taking too long. They needed to kill it, now. If they could just crush its blasted head!

The realisation slammed home, his eyes flicking back to the bubbling wounds he had left on its body.

He moved quickly.

Drawing back, Kaius ignited his blade with a burning Rend. He rammed the tip of his blade into the kolnir’s eye. The arcane filament along his sword’s edge collapsed, erupting in caustic energy a moment later. The kolnir gurgled in quiet agony as vitreous fluid and gore exploded from its face.

It was only a flesh wound — the back of its orbit had still stopped his thrust fast. Gods’ scorn.

As much as he wished it weren’t so, its bones may as well have been made from adamant — even Porkchop struggled to crack them as he pressed against the beast’s chest with his full weight and strength. Kenva fired a Lance of Fury at its neck. The oversized arrow barely chipped its spine, ravaging what was left of its throat as the enchantment on her bow caused the projectile to shatter.

Kaius scowled bitter and furious.

Undeterred, he ripped his blade free. More arcane energy had collected on its edge — his Skill capable of sustaining another burst thanks to its level. He rammed his blade home again. Another eruption, more of his Skill’s caustic affliction building up in the wound. It boiled, eating away at the thin layer of bone that shielded it from certain death. ȒἈꞐȫ₿ËṦ

It had to be cracked! No matter how tough it was, the bone was thin — he’d just thrown two uses of a Heroic skill right at it!

“Porkchop!”

He pushed a flood of images across their bond. His brother growled in hungry acknowledgement.

Drawing up to his full height, Kaius roared as he infused his sword with both his Rend and his Bladerite once more.

The kolnir’s remaining good eye widened.

He brought his blade down and felt the orbit crack. It still held. As his Rend started to whine — the energy of his Skill racing to the tip of his sword — Porkchop lunged, slamming a paw into the pommel of his sword.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

There was a grating shudder as bone ground against the edge of his blade. It shot a handspan in. The kolnir stiffened. Mystic’s Rend

triggered.

Cracked and compromised, the beast’s weakened orbit wasn’t able to contain the violent expulsion of energy that was compressed by its skull. Fatty gore spurted from the wound, pressurised by a gout of crackling arcane energy.

A ding sounded in his mind. Undeterred by the muck that coated his face, Kaius grinned maniacally.

**Ding! level 244 Kolnir - Jungle Juggernaut slain - Experience Gained! Bonus Experience for slaying a foe of Significant Strength!**

…

**Ding! Runeblade Initiate has reached level 132 > 135!**

**+3 End, Str, & Int, +2 Dex, Wil, +1 Vit, Free - from Class & Racial Traits!**

There was no time to stand and revel in their victory — he could hear the approaching kolnirs. Every few moments, another let out a hooting call.

They were close, though the dense jungle made it impossible to tell by exactly how much. Close enough they might have cut their departure too fine. He whipped towards them, half expecting to see the jungle growth rustling as the behemoths charged towards him.

He ripped his blade out of the gorey mess they’d made of their foe's face.

“We flee!”

They moved, rushing to the trunk of the immense tree that towered above them.

Alongside the wall-like roots that snaked across the earth, hollow depressions had been eroded into the ground. Thousands of lesser tendrils sprouted off the sides of the main roots, weaving into a dense net that hung down to pierce the ground. Each was thicker than limb of a fully grown willow, creating an inviolate barrier to a network of caves that he knew stretched far beneath the tree.

The few entrances it had were small, and they’d already plotted a route to a thicket of undergrowth far from the approaching beasts.

An escape route, far faster and safer than trying to circle the jungle sentinel from above ground.

He rode the high of their victory as it mingled with his anxiety, fueling his footsteps. It had been a risky play, but it looked like they might have gotten away with it.

Then he heard more howls. Further off, but undeniably coming from the direction of their planned escape. Three more. Still far too many.

Kaius’s stomach dropped. They were cut off.

Ahead of him, he watched Kenva snatch Ianmus by the shoulder as he was about to dive into the warren. The mage had missed the noise in his haste. Kenva snapped to Kaius, looking for direction.

The kolnir’s started to call out more frequently — a net that was closing fast. Four behind, three ahead — there was no way they could survive a confrontation like that.

Kaius’s mind raced, his eyes searching the jungle for an alternate route. He found nothing but impenetrable growth — it might be enough to slip away from the approaching beasts, but only if they didn’t catch their tail.

“Cavern wall?”

He shook his head sharply. No! The jungle thinned out too quickly — if they were followed, they’d be caught quickly and would have far fewer options to escape with the wall hemming them in.

There was only one other option. Kaius grit his teeth.

“We need to go deeper into the jungle!”

He moved, knowing that his team would follow.

“What?!” Kenva landed next to him, vines coiling tight to her legs after her empowered leap. She kept pace. “Kaius, we’ll only run into more beasts! Every creature for a hundred longstrides will be able to see the trail we’ll bash through the undergrowth!”

“By the gods’ scorn, we don’t have a bloody choice! The only other option is the cavern wall, and we’ll be even easier to track, let alone catch!”

“They’re only depthsborn! Even if they are hunters, we don’t know if they’ll be able to track us like a normal beast.”

“That’s a fool’s gamble, and you know it.” Porkchop said, breathing even as he kept pace with a loping gait that matched their laboured sprint. Despite the wounds he had sustained, his brother was stoic as his healing worked away at them.

Light flashed momentarily, Ianmus pulsing Starlit Alacrity to catch up. Neither he nor Kenva used their skills to race ahead — splitting up would only put them more at risk.

The mage was panting, pushed to his absolute limit — Kaius might have been running hard, but he let Ianmus set the pace.

“Porkchop’s right,” Ianmus said, his words haltering as he focused on their flight. “We’ve already been warned that depthsborn get more lifelike as you get deeper — we have to assume the worst.”

Kenva clenched her jaw, but nodded all the same.

Close to the titanic tree behind them, the undergrowth had been thin and patchy — almost reminiscent of what one would find in a normal forest. It quickly grew denser, grasses and fronds forcing them to slow as they pushed their way into the depths of the jungle.

Kaius’s stomach clenched every time he heard a kolnir’s howl — worrying that the next would come from right next to him. Every second that passed they came more frequently, and grew closer.

Porkchop broke their way forward, his bulk forcing aside the carpet of green as they followed in his wake.

Barely three minutes passed before Kaius was hit from behind by a wall of sound, howls blurring together into a singular mass. It came from the base of the tree. Their hunters had found their dead troopmate.

Their furor carried on, kolnir calls growing furious and incensed.

“Slow,” Kaius said, tapping his brother on his haunch. “We need to be quiet now, and try to disturb the undergrowth less — tell the others, there’s still hope we can slip away.”

Their pace dropped to a hurried scurry, Porkchop taking more care to avoid flattening the growth in front of them.

Kaius looked back nervously. He could still hear the kolnirs at the base of the tree, working themselves into a frenzy. It couldn’t last — they’d come after them soon.

He just hoped they would have long enough to escape first.