"Wingless-Worm..." Rem said it in the same way as the Spell, which stopped everyone in their tracks. His pronunciation was rough, but the name itself was right.
"How did you know what they are called?" Niall asked, confusion visible on his face.
Rem tried to look surprised. He didn't want to get into explaining what the Spell was, so to avoid the trouble, he lied instead. "I don't remember. Must have read it somewhere before."
Thinking it wasn't a big deal, Doran continued walking, keeping a lookout around him as he explained.
"That's what people used to call them up above—The Wingless Cuimh. Not long ago, people were still being sent here to mine as punishment. Then, one day, they started turning into monsters. Nowadays the criminals who get caught are sent down here too. Not to mine anymore, but to kill the monsters that now roam these parts."
Both Rem and Valdo nodded slowly, Rem unable to contain his curiosity, asked. "How did the people turn to monsters then?"
"It started at the lowest Clochán. People fell sick one after another, and the sickness spread faster than anyone could keep up with. By the time anyone noticed, it was already too late."
He plunged his blade deep into one of the monsters' heads as he kept talking.
"The people back then were too afraid to interact with them, let alone help the sick—terrified the sickness would spread. They justified it too, saying those afflicted were once murderers, that they were punished by one of the great gods. So they were left down here in these tunnels instead."
Rem cut the head off another monster. Unlike the others, he was sweating, his movements nowhere near as refined or practiced as theirs—something which all of them seemed to notice.
He'd swapped his sword for a better one when they arrived here, even keeping two small swords on him in case something happened to it. He tried to find a spear, but not a single one was left among the corpses. He also attempted to scavange for a helmet next, but none of the Warmongers wore any, and whatever the local soldiers had once used was either torn apart beyond use or missing entirely
They continued on, moving along the city's edge, clearing out Wingless Cuimh as they went and talking occasionally as they pushed deeper into the settlement. Then Valdo suddenly went still—the sound of bone and flesh being crunched somewhere ahead—and told the rest to stay silent.
Everyone tesned and walked slowly forward, swords drawn and ready for battle.
As they got closer, the crunching only grew louder. They could hear liquid pouring in heavy sheets into some kind of pool directly ahead, the wet, steady chewing sound enough on its own to turn their stomachs.
Reaching the sound they finally saw the abomination.
Unlike the other monsters down here, this one looked like a disproportionate, blue-skinned human. It crouched over a bunch of corpses scattered around it, a wide pool of blood spreading beneath it. A single, bloodless seam split it's face from ear to ear, it's jaw open so wide it reached down to it's own chest, rows uneven, jagged teeth glistening with fresh blood.
While one hand held what remained of a corpse to it's mouth, the other searched around blindly for the next body. Its arms were unnaturally long and thin, ending in fingers stretched too far and honed too sharp. What little light reached these parts—filtering down through the holes in the ceiling from far above—caught on the monster's fingers, slicked wet with blood, shimmering like they'd been forged out of steel.
All at once, it stopped eating and shot upright—the motion too fast, almost like a spring, wrong in a way none of them could quite place—and it turned to face them. As it did, with blood still dripping down it's mouth, it screamed in a high-pitched shriek that nearly made them drop their swords to cover their ears. Niall's and Rem's hands shook uncontrollably.
The monsters dropped onto all fours—moving with the skittering gait of something caught between a lizzard and a spider, its limbs splayed wide and bent at sharp, impossible angles—and it sprang forward towards them.
Doran and Valdo were at the front. It lunged at Valdo first, who dodged it gracefully. Then, still on all fours, it reared one arm up and slammed it down towards Doran. Despite crouching so close to the ground, the creature's reach was absurd. The raised arm alone towered well above Doran's head. He threw himself backwards instead, not even trying to test the monster's strength.
The monster stood on all fours in the middle of them, and Valdo screamed at the top of his lungs. "Just like we agreed—don't get too close to each other, but stay in helping distance!"
That was when the monster suddenly darted through the gap between Rem and Cathan, smashing headfirst into one of the cottages still standing nearby. The building looked whole, but the moment the creature crashed into, the whole thing came apart, stone tumbling loose like it had never truly been mortared together at all.
It kept smashing through the houses, until the air was thick with choking plumes of dust. Everyone stayed in their original place, tense and focused, waiting for the monster to explode through the dust clouds, but it never did.
Not until, Rem spotted its shape—crouched low behind one of the buildings the dust hadn't reached.
The moment he saw it, the creature bolted straight for him—upright this time, on two legs instead of four, and swept one hand towards his chest.
[Faint Instinct] fired off like crazy, warning him to duck. He managed to drop down in time, a second strike was already coming, a kick aimed straight for his abdomen. [Faint Instinct] did warn him about it, but he wasn't fast enough to dodge in time, so he blocked it with his sword instead, catching it just barely in the nick of time.
Before his mind could even register the collision, he found himself already airborne, crashing back-first into the house behind him before dropping to the ground. His eyes snapped shut on impact. By the time he hit the ground, his vision had gone blurry, and he couldn't make out anything around him.
He lifted his arms up covering his face, bracing for the monster's follow-up attack—the way his dad had taught him—but it never came. It's total absence almost as unsettling as if the monster hadn't sent him flying a moment ago. But the pain in his arms, back, and abdomen said otherwise. His broken sword had landed somewhere far out of reach.
He kept his arms raised, peering out through the gap between them, but the monster never appeared.
The finishing blow never came.