"Hold my hand? Which one?"
Kai'Sa looked at Zihark in complete confusion, her unmutated hand still clinging tightly to him as if she were afraid he might run off.
"The one you hate."
"Oh."
Hesitating, Kai'Sa slowly held out her arm. She clearly did not want Zihark looking too closely at the ugly plate fused to her skin.
He took the dagger from her and tapped the armor with it. Just as he had expected, it was hard as steel.
He did not touch it directly, but judging from the moth-wing-like pattern on the surface, he guessed it would feel both smooth and rough at the same time.
Then he moved the dagger to his own left arm and slashed hard along the line of the artery.
Strangely, despite the size of the movement, he did not feel much pain. If the arm had not still been attached to his body, he might have wondered whether it was even his anymore.
The move came so suddenly that Kai'Sa froze in shock, but Zihark paid her no attention. Black blood slowly welled from the wound, and he grabbed her arm at once, using the plate on it to catch the drops falling from his own.
To her astonishment, the black blood vanished the instant it touched the armor, greedily absorbed without leaving the faintest stain behind.
It was like water soaking into a sponge. Kai'Sa had spent her whole life in the wasteland and had never seen a sponge, but even if she had, the sight in front of her would still have seemed deeply unnatural.
It was monstrous.
"Now do you understand? You can use that armor to 'eat,' and it's also your armor and your weapon. You won't survive down here without it."
Zihark explained it as patiently as he could. Kai'Sa nodded earnestly, though she still felt he had not needed to go this far for her sake. By then, however, he had no interest in arguing the point anymore.
Once the bleeding stopped, Zihark said, "We're going after a monster right now. Listen carefully. If one jumps at you, block it with the armor on your arm. While it's distracted, I'll kill it with the spear. I need its heart and its belly plate. If I can get those, I might still survive."
He could feel himself growing weaker by the minute. Even after eating, almost none of his strength had come back.
He had to move fast. Before he lost the ability to act altogether, he needed one more chance.
"I understand." Kai'Sa clenched her fists.
For Zihark's sake, she was no longer afraid.
The two of them retraced their steps and returned to the place where they had fallen earlier.
At the tunnel entrance, they saw patches of flickering violet light shifting in the dark.
Just as expected, a large swarm of Void creatures had already occupied the area.
"There are too many of them." Watching from cover, Kai'Sa shook her head. How were two children supposed to kill even one of them in the middle of a swarm and carry back its heart and shell?
"Use this." Zihark handed her a peach pit.
Kai'Sa lay flat against the rock floor with only her head peeking out, her bright eyes scanning the swarm as she studied the creatures she was about to face.
The creatures Zihark called Voidlings were mostly no bigger than bulldogs. The one that had attacked Kai'Sa earlier had been the exception, nearly as large as she was.
Once she felt she had a little confidence, Kai'Sa hurled the peach pit with all her strength.
It cut through the dark in a smooth arc and struck one of the Voidlings square on the head.
Thunk.
The crisp sound was almost pleasant, but it made both children tense up so hard they stopped breathing.
The other Voidlings turned at the noise, their glowing triple-curved eyes sweeping over the area once, then went still again.
But the one that had been hit turned toward the source of the attack.
It stared at the tunnel entrance, and in those narrow eyes, endless malice rippled.
A Voidling's vision worked nothing like that of ordinary creatures. It did not need light to see. It could perceive colors, contrasts, and shades that did not exist in nature, and the instant any patch of the world shifted or stood out, it noticed.
Then suddenly, a head popped out at the tunnel entrance. After the briefest eye contact, it immediately vanished again.
The Voidling caught that flash of movement at once and started forward, its bladed legs carrying it in a sinuous crawl toward the tunnel.
There was no hesitation in it at all. These things did not need to think. Endless hunger ruled everything they did, reducing their logic to something brutally simple.
Life detected.
Consume and convert.
Erase everything.
Never expect anything from the Void. It will answer you with nothing but gleaming fangs and foul saliva.
"It's coming!"
Kai'Sa shot to her feet and crouched in position just around the bend in the tunnel.
"Stick to the plan. Let it strike first."
Zihark tightened his grip on the spear with his right hand, locking the shaft against his wrist, elbow, and armpit. With only one usable arm, that was the only way to keep enough control and force behind the thrust.
The patches of violet light cast by the creature's heart moved quickly across the dim tunnel ceiling, revealing exactly where it was. As the glow drew closer, Kai'Sa's nerves tightened to the breaking point, and her legs started trembling uncontrollably.
She could have run.
But she could not.
Behind her stood the only person left in the world she cared about. She could not lose him too.
The Voidling came crawling around the bend and pounced with a speed almost too fast to follow.
Didn't it need at least a moment to lock onto its target?
That thought flashed through Kai'Sa's mind as she threw everything she had into the block, raising her left arm sideways to meet the slicing forelimb while bracing one leg behind her.
The sharp blade-leg slammed into the armor on her arm and carved a deep gouge into it, but it did not punch through.
At that moment, Kai'Sa's talent for battle showed itself. This Voidling was much smaller than the one that had left the plate on her arm. She absorbed the impact without being knocked down, then drove her arm forward with all her strength and shoved it back.
The Voidling crashed into the rock wall and rolled over onto its back. Its blade-legs flailed wildly, unable to right itself, exposing the softer, pale armor on its underside and, beneath that, the cartilage-wrapped heart faintly glowing purple within.
"Nice!"
Zihark roared the word through clenched teeth, seizing the perfect opening Kai'Sa had created. He took two quick steps forward and drove the spear straight at the creature's heart with all his strength.
Spurt.
With that sharp sound of the spear piercing flesh, it was over.
The heart was the only weakness these mindless Void creatures had. If you did not strike their energy core, they could recover no matter how badly the rest of the body was damaged. They could even harden and strengthen themselves further.
That was exactly why Zihark had chosen a spear from the ruins instead of something easier to swing, like a sickle.
If he had picked the wrong weapon, he might not even have been able to crack a Voidling's shell, let alone kill one properly.
The instant the heart was pierced, the creature's lifeline was severed. No matter how savage it had looked a second earlier, death came at once.
The Voidling in front of them did not struggle at all. Lying there motionless, it almost looked cuter dead than alive.
Zihark pulled the spear free, planted it against the ground again, and leaned on it to rest.
Without even realizing it, Kai'Sa had already started treating him as the one to rely on. That last thrust had clearly drained far too much of his strength. He stood there breathing hard for quite a while before he finally managed to speak to the worried girl waiting for instructions.
"Do it here. Cut out the heart and use the belly plate to hold it for me."
[End of chapter]