Chapter 48 - Desert Basilisk.
Seven figures in heavy desert rags, concealing their bodies and faces completely, closed around Aren in a tight semicircle, watching the head of a giant vulture roll across the scorched ground before them.
Unconcealed malice showed through the rough slits in the fabric, while fingers tightened their grip on the hilts of curved daggers, ready to fall upon the sole surviving target.
One of the attackers, with a hoarse cry, lunged forward first, closing the distance with a wide stride and raising his weapon for an overhead strike.
Aren closed the gap between them in a swift rush, seizing the initiative before his opponent could complete the swing, then drove all his momentum into a leg sweep that sent the man down onto his back.
Without letting the others recover, he immediately surged toward a second target, who had not yet had time to grasp what had happened.
The pommel of the sword struck the next attacker in the stomach, doubling him over at the waist and forcing the air from his lungs with a whistle, while a third bandit, almost at the same moment, threw himself at Aren, swinging his blade in a wide horizontal arc, but a series of body turns combined with a short step back kept Aren just out of range of every lunge.
Pivoting on his planted foot, he drove his heel into the enemy's temple, sending the man crashing forward into the sand before he could throw his palms out to catch himself.
Suddenly a thick wave of warm air shifted behind his back, with no discernible source, and Aren barely managed to throw his forearm across his body before an unfamiliar blade cut through that motion, slicing the skin and sinking deep into the muscle.
Pain seared the flesh in a sharp flash, while blood beneath the sleeve immediately swelled into a dark stain.
With a growl Aren spun in place, throwing a fist toward his opponent, who managed to sway aside, avoiding the blow. Right before Aren's eyes, the figure's outline began to lose solidity, thinning into complete transparency, before it vanished entirely from sight.
Aren's eyes widened in shock, but there was not a single second left to process what had happened, since the remaining silhouettes kept pressing in from the flanks, forcing him to retreat far enough to wrench the lodged blade free from the wound.
A sharp burning sensation rolled upward from his wrist to his elbow the instant the point left his body, revealing dark streaks spreading along the veins of his arm in short, branching lines. Understanding came almost instantly, and in its wake it became clear that the enemy's weapon had been coated in poison.
A sharp tightness gripped Aren's chest in time with every heartbeat, forcing him down onto one knee in the hot sand.
Four of the attackers grinned viciously, baring their teeth through the slits of their cloth masks, while Aren made out the fifth only by a trail of depressions appearing one after another in the loose ground, with no visible cause.
Before Aren's eyes everything blurred into a thick, cloudy haze as he struggled to drag his hand toward his belt pouch in search of a vial of antidote.
The hidden opponent attacked at that moment, tearing through his own concealment with a swift lunge, after which the point of the blade shot straight toward Aren's throat.
Aren managed to throw his body backward, gathering the last grains of his strength, and immediately lost his balance, tumbling down the steep slope of the dune.
He lay rigid, barely able to draw a breath through constricted lungs, while the enemies slowly moved after him, descending over the crumbling sand.
Suddenly the ground beneath them trembled, barely perceptible, forcing the attackers to freeze in place, after which a dense shadow began to grow above their heads, blotting out the sunlight.
Turning, they saw a colossal sand basilisk rising up from beneath the earth with the whole of its scaled mass, and their faces froze in silent horror.
The basilisk's body kept unfolding in uneven tiers of bony plates, each one gleaming with a copper-ochre sheen edged in dark along its rim.
A ridge of sharp protrusions ran the length of its spine, following the twists of the massive body as it reared above the dune in several coiled rings.
The creature's head was crowned with a pair of large curved horns, rising above the skull in a smooth arc and converging at their points toward the back. An eyelid slowly parted over a narrow, elongated pupil, revealing an iris the color of molten metal, utterly devoid of warmth. Dozens of jagged fangs jutted from its half-open jaws in uneven rows, while bony spines along its cheekbones bristled sharply with every movement of the heavy jaw.
Every inhale filled its ribcage beneath the bony armor with a dull, creaking sound, while each exhale burst outward in a dense stream of hot air, lifting fine dust off the surface of the dune.
The basilisk's tail still lay buried beneath the sand, but its tip had already broken the surface, a row of close-set bony ridges fanning open with every sway.
Sand poured off its flexible scaled coils with every turn, while the air around the basilisk shimmered with the heat radiating from its body.
Aren watched the unfolding spectacle through a cloudy haze of fading consciousness, barely making out how the figures of the attackers stepped back as one in fright, unable to tear their eyes from the giant towering over the dunes.
With a sharp motion the basilisk closed its jaws on one of the bandits, crushing his bones in a single short snap.
The survivors scattered in every direction, leaping over the dune ridges in a desperate attempt to break away from the creature.
Aren kept reaching toward his belt pouch with disobedient fingers, a strained wheeze tearing from his throat, while his lungs refused to take in enough air for another breath.
A wave of weakness hit him, and a clumsy movement of his hand shook out all four remaining vials, scattering them across the hot sand beside his hip.
Aren's vision broke apart into shapeless colored blotches, forcing him to squint until it hurt in an attempt to make out the right shade of liquid among the scattered vials. His chest contracted in convulsive jolts, pushing out short, whistling sounds that brought no relief.
Fighting through the clammy tremor gripping every muscle, Aren strained to reach the right vial with weakening fingers, closed his palm around it, then slowly pulled it toward himself.
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His teeth clenched around the stubborn stopper, hesitating for a visible moment, before his strained jaw finally wrenched it free in one ragged motion.
The thick concoction poured down his parched throat in feverish gulps, scorching every inch of his gullet with a caustic bitterness.
The emptied vial slipped from his weakened hand, which then sank limply into the scorching sand beside his sprawled body.
Aren lay on his back, his gaze fixed on the faded sky, while ragged breath tore out in short bursts through a throat seized by spasm.
Somewhere off to the side came the guttural, rumbling sounds of the basilisk, methodically dealing with the doomed fugitives, whose dying screams carried over the dunes in waves of agony and animal terror.
Feeling the poison's grip gradually loosening within his veins, Aren slowly reached for another vial, gripping it with trembling fingers.
Damn... this is the last healing potion... but if I don't drink it... this creature will just devour me... He thought, studying the clouded glass.
He tore the cap off with his teeth and took a long, greedy gulp, feeling warmth spread through his numbed limbs and bring back a lightness long forgotten.
Bracing his palm against the ground, he slowly rose to his feet, realizing that his strength had returned only partially.
Straightening to his full height, he carefully climbed the crest of the dune, then peered over its edge to make out the huge basilisk ahead, finishing off the last of the wretches.
He was already plotting a route around the slaughter unfolding below when a distinct rustle of movement reached him from behind.
Turning slowly with his whole body, Aren froze in place, for right in front of him another colossal basilisk was rising out of the depths of the sand, equal to the first in monstrous size.
"You've got to be kidding me..." Aren muttered with a sigh.
A thick cloud of swirling dust shot up sharply off to the side, making the first basilisk turn its head toward the source of the noise.
The creature saw Aren sliding desperately across the loose surface, trying to keep his balance after a powerful dive that sent him tumbling head over heels across the crest of the neighboring dune, while the second basilisk surged toward him with a thunderous roar, opening its jaws for another attack.
Aren tightened his grip on the blade, lunging to meet the mass hurtling toward him in one swift surge of his body. Pushing off the ground with the full force of his legs, he soared high above the creature's open snout, then brought his weapon down in a single strike, sinking the steel between the scaled plates of its nape.
Hanging from the pierced flesh, he held on to the hilt with both hands while the basilisk thrashed convulsively from side to side, trying to throw off the unwelcome weight.
At the right moment Aren wrenched the sword from the wound, then broke into a run along the ridge of the writhing body, gathering speed for the decisive leap.
Pushing off right at the base of the neck, he swept the blade in a wide arc, slicing the serpent's throat halfway through and unleashing a torrent of blood that crashed onto the sand in dark brown stains.
The other serpent immediately lunged at Aren, who had not yet had time to recover his stance, aiming its open jaws for a lethal bite. But at the moment of collision, amid the cloud of dust rising around them, the creature's pupils widened sharply at the sight of enormous energy claws holding its own jaw wide open.
Gigantic limbs, shaped after the paws of Ursus, emerged from behind Aren's back as dense masses of crimson energy, slamming into the upper and lower rows of fangs from two opposite sides.
Meanwhile the carcass of the giant just slain dissolved into a transparent shimmer, soaking entirely into the glowing runes on Aren's skin and filling him with a fresh surge of strength.
With a furious roar Aren wrenched his arms apart, tearing the predator's maw in half, and it thrashed in the air in unbearable pain, its lower jaw hanging slack.
Aren himself pushed off the ground in a powerful leap that raised a whirl of sand particles around his boots, soaring high above the serpent frozen in agony.
Reaching the peak of his jump, he brought down a single crushing blow right between his enemy's eyes, driving the blade clean through and slamming the enormous head into the scorching ground.
Aren gasped convulsively for air, barely holding on to his weapon with disobedient fingers, then dropped to one knee, trying to steady his ragged breathing.
The lifeless husk of the second fallen opponent likewise dissolved without a trace, returning a portion of his lost strength to his exhausted body.
Slowly straightening on legs gone numb, Aren swept his gaze over the scattered remains of the attackers, whose mangled bodies bore witness to the recent feast of both giants.
Who were they, even?... Bandits too?... And what kind of magic was that... concealment magic?...
Raising his head, he peered toward the horizon, where through the ripple of scorching haze the outline of a colossal plateau could barely be made out, with a city sprawled across it.
I need to hurry. I have no food left, no water, no healing potions left... And the longer I stay here, the higher the chance of running into more trouble.
Aren adjusted the sword strap on his shoulder, then trudged forward across the endless dunes, leaving the bloody slaughter behind him.
Meanwhile graduates Artus and Olen stood frozen in the middle of the Archon of War's spacious office, holding themselves at attention for a good fifteen minutes already, while Lucia Radiant methodically signed yet another stack of reports at her massive desk.
Finally setting the magic pen aside, she lifted her hands from the desk and settled into the high back of her chair, fixing the recruits with a long, unblinking stare devoid of any expression.
"You've both been assigned to different units, but for the first three months you'll need to complete a shared training period together. Your first day will begin with a patrol of the northern territories of the Golden Desert. You'll be accompanied by the Twelfth Detachment, led by Lieutenant Irvis Rind."
"Yes, great Archon!" Both trainees shouted at once.
Waiting for silence, Lucia continued without changing her tone.
"Before you head out, stop by the equipment division and collect the necessary gear. After the patrol, I will personally expect a full report from each of you on the work done. Is the task clear?"
"Yes, sir!"
"You're dismissed." Lucia replied, having held a brief pause beforehand, after which the trainees left the office.
Entering the equipment building, both recruits froze on the threshold, taking in the vast warehouse space opening up before them.
The building itself occupied a space more fitting for an enclosed airship hangar than for an ordinary army storehouse.
High vaulted ceilings vanished somewhere into the gloom, while endless rows of metal shelving stretched deep into the hall in parallel lines, disappearing from view long before the opposite wall.
Between the rows, squat cargo platforms darted back and forth without pause, gliding above the floor on a thin cushion of sunlit glow, so that their wheels never touched the stone slabs at all.
Each cart carried neatly stacked crates marked with colored labels, moving from one storage sector to another without any visible driver.
Dozens of workers in light uniform jackets moved along the shelves, checking the contents of containers against the lists in their hands and occasionally calling out to one another across the narrow aisles between the storage rows.
On the shelves on both sides of the aisle stood sets of armor of varying degrees of protection in tight rows, beside which photocyte-blade harnesses hung neatly, ready for issue to recruits.
Somewhere in the very depths of the warehouse, the ceiling vanished behind dozens of cargo nets hoisted on chains, packed to bursting with shields, helmets, and munitions of every type, enough, it seemed, to equip an entire legion.
One of the workers stood with his back to them, a little off from the main flow, sorting through crates at a far shelf, and Olen decided to approach him specifically.
"Excuse me, we were sent here to receive equipment..."
The man turned, looking him over through round glasses with yellow lenses, then took them off entirely and squinted, peering more closely at both recruits.
"Huh? New here or something?... Trainees?"
Both nodded in unison, at which the man let out a long sigh and shouted somewhere over his shoulder.
"Hey, Lara! Get over here! Issue these brats their gear!"
A young girl with tousled blond hair peeked out from behind the far shelves, immediately voicing her indignation at full volume.
"What? Why me? Can't you see I'm busy!"
"The crates from inventory eight aren't going anywhere. And these guys here apparently have a patrol to go on today. Issue them the new equipment, basic set B23." The man replied, flipping through his list.
Lara stormed off with an indignant sigh, sizing up the recruits with a quick, sharp glance, then vanished behind the other shelves with a huff, rummaging through containers one after another until she pulled out the two right crates and flung them onto the nearest shelf in front of the trainees.
"Here. Sort it out." She said, immediately turning away and walking off.
The man glanced briefly at the boxes he'd received, checked them against the notes in his hands, and frowned in displeasure.
"This is set B32! Lara, damn you!" He exclaimed.
Turning and finding that Lara had already vanished without a trace, he shook his head in resignation, then looked at the two young men, who clearly had no idea how to react to what was happening.
"Fine. Take these. Looks like today's your lucky day." He said, then turned and walked off, leaving them alone with the load they'd received.
Olen and Artus exchanged a brief glance, then picked up the boxes with a faint smile and headed toward the barracks.