All-Knowing Novice, page 24
Taryn moved his jaw up and down a few times as if he were still speaking. “Hey, Grandma, I hear someone in trouble over there. We should go check it out,” he said to no one.
“Sure, Taryn, that sounds like a great idea,” he replied, answering his own question in an imitation of Fan Shun’s voice.
“Do you think you could help me get there, because I can’t jump over a fucking building!?” He hollered at the ceiling, not caring who, or more importantly what, could hear him.
He ignited his core and rushed at the building ahead of him. As soon as he was within five feet of it, he jumped with his arms fully extended; his intention was to grab hold of the wooden planks with his claws and scale the front of the building.
That’s not what happened.
The rotten wood disintegrated beneath Taryn’s hands, his claws ripping through it like parchment. His knees hit the wall just beneath him and broke through, leaving him dangling by his arms.
He shuffled a bit, trying to find purchase as he scrambled up the side of the building. Almost the exact moment he reached ten feet up the wall, the building let out an ominous groan and start to shake.
Taryn tried to release the wall, but his claws were sunk too deeply into the rotten wood. He couldn’t remove his hand without taking a piece of the wall with him.
The building groaned again.
Taryn racked his brain for any way he could get down without causing the building to fall on top of him.
The building groaned a third time.
Taryn realized he didn’t really care if the building fell; he just didn’t want it to fall on him.
He braced his feet against the wall, patently ignoring when his left foot sunk into the softwood, and as he shifted back, he pushed off as hard as he could.
He landed on his back seven feet from the building and promptly curled into the fetal position. The building collapsed in front of him, the roar of falling wood and shattering glass deafening.
Taryn waited for the dust to settle before he unfolded himself and sat up.
He spotted Fan Shun standing on top of the ruined building with a pissed-off Xia Yawen across her shoulders, and an unconscious Xia Wei and an extremely nervous Gao Feng under each arm.
Fan Shun stared at him, then slowly tracked her eyes down to the building beneath her feet. “I know I left you here... But was destroying the building really necessary?”
Taryn first looked at the expressions on Xia Yawen and Gao Feng’s faces, then at the building beneath Fan Shun’s feet.
“Oops?”
The scream of a hundred souls ripped through the air. The sound made the hairs on Taryn’s neck stand on end and goosebumps pop out on his arms.
Taryn’s entire body grew tense as the cries, accompanied by what sounded like an army’s worth of footsteps, drew closer by the second.
“We need to move, now!” Fan Shun jumped off the pile of rubble and landed directly in front of Taryn. The veins in her neck became visible as she struggled beneath the weight of three people. “Run,” she ground out.
She deposited Xia Yawen and Gao Feng on the ground and repositioned Xia Wei, so he was lying across her shoulders.
She kicked the still immobilized Taryn in the foot. “Get up,” she said through gritted teeth.
Taryn scrambled to his feet and started running away from the screams. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Fan Shun and the others keeping pace with him. “What happened to you three?”
“Ask your questions when we’re not running for our lives,” Xia Yawen snapped back.
“It’s probably not that bad, right?” Taryn slowed to a jog, allowing the three to pass him.
A single undead ran around the corner of the junction and screamed at them.
“See, that’s not so—”
That single undead was quickly joined by about three hundred others. They raced around the corner like a tidal wave of death.
Taryn didn’t speak another word. He ignited his core, dropped on all fours, and tore off after the other three.
Gao Feng’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull when he saw the large wolfman wearing Taryn’s ruined robe appear at his side. His eyes widened even further as Taryn outpaced him, arriving at Fan Shun’s side within moments.
Taryn’s mind went into overdrive. His eyes darted from side to side in a constant state of panic as he searched for a way out of this mess he’d caused.
He pushed off the ground with his arms and used the momentum to rise onto two legs. It was a little awkward running on two legs in this form, though the extra length of his legs meant that for every two steps the others took, he only needed one to match them.
He looked over his shoulder, hoping to see an empty road behind them.
Instead, the horde was closing in. Many of them ran as Taryn had, on all fours like a wild beast.
The four of them rounded a corner faster than Taryn had ever run in his life. Too fast, as it turned out. His awkward running afforded him no favors when it came to making tight turns.
His legs tangled together mid-step and he was thrown into a dive.
Taryn hit the ground on his left shoulder and bounced twice before he slid into the side of the building. He shifted back to normal as he climbed to his feet and sprinted after the others.
Fan Shun doubled back to save him, but Taryn waved her onwards. In the time it had taken him to get up, the horde had run over a hundred feet and was now only seconds away from being able to grab him.
Taryn couldn’t risk Fan Shun getting caught because of his stupid mistake.
Fan Shun ignored his wishes and passed him, running in the opposite direction.
She drew her sword in one smooth motion. She leapt into the air, flying twenty or thirty feet above the horde, then she angled the blade downwards and yelled as she stabbed at the ground.
A massive pillar of red Eco hit the center of the horde and detonated.
Those at the center were reduced to little more than puddles of blood, while those on the outer edges of the horde were sent flying into the walls of the surrounding buildings. Some even flew hard enough to crash through said walls.
Fan Shun lost her grip on the sword as approximately half of her total supply of liquid Eco was instantly burned away.
She landed heavily, collapsing to her knees and panting for breath.
Taryn raced over and lifted her into the air by her waist. He grabbed her sword as he ran and used it to decapitate an undead who was climbing to its feet.
He couldn’t see Xia Yawen or the others anymore.
They’d once again abandoned them...
“Taryn, over here!” Taryn’s head whipped around at the voice. He saw Xia Yawen standing in an alley between two buildings, her hand resting on the side of a ten-foot-tall gate.
Taryn made a sharp turn and headed for her. He didn’t dare look back in case they were gaining on him again. He was going into the alley, and he was going in fast.
Xia Yawen pressed her body flat against the wall as Taryn raced past her, then she slammed the gate shut and quickly latched the deadbolt. And not a moment too soon, as moments later, numerous undead slammed into the wooden gate hard enough to splinter the wood.
They didn’t wait around to find out if the undead could get through or not. They ran down the alley and escaped out the back, hopefully losing the horde in the process.
As he stepped out of the alley, Taryn looked up and saw that he was only a street or two from the ridiculously tall building.
His goal was finally within sight.
Chapter 22
THE GROUP HAD SETTLED in for much-needed rest inside one of the many abandoned buildings near the structure. All of them were tired and hungry. And Taryn was growing more annoyed by the second, but he wasn’t sure why... Okay, that wasn’t entirely the case. He had a pretty good idea why.
“Yawen, I’m sorry,” Gao Feng pleaded. He was begging for her forgiveness and had been for the last half hour or so.
To her credit, Xia Yawen seemed no closer to forgiving him that she had at the start. The entire time he’d knelt in front of her, she had not so much as looked at him, instead choosing to focus on her still unconscious brother.
Taryn couldn’t blame her; he’d been tending to Fan Shun since they made camp. After using so much of her Eco in one go, Fan Shun had fallen unconscious. She hadn’t stirred in the last three hours, and Taryn was beginning to wonder if she’d ever wake up again.
He’d once been told of the dangers of using too much Eco at one time. It was a lot like bleeding out; after a while, Eco became as vital for survival as blood. And using it as Fan Shun had was always dangerous.
Fan Shun was as still as a corpse, and the only reason Taryn didn’t panic was the pink of her cheeks and the warmth of her skin. A fever may not have been a good thing, but in this case, it was better than nothing.
Taryn broke his watch over Fan Shun to glance at Xia Wei.
The man didn’t appear to have any external injuries, yet just like Fan Shun, he had yet to awaken.
Taryn hadn’t bothered to ask what happened to them. He was too overcome with grief over Fan Shun’s condition and didn’t have the emotional capacity to worry about anything else at the moment.
That, coupled with the fact that he and Gao Feng didn’t get along at the best times, meant that it would only take an errant word to light their fuses. With the tension as high as it was, the slightest provocation in either direction would likely end in bloodshed.
Or so Taryn predicted. It was honestly hard to tell how Gao Feng would react now that he was so focused on acquiring Xia Yawen’s forgiveness. It was entirely possible that he wouldn’t care what Taryn did. It was also possible that he would use any slight against him as a means to turn Xia Yawen back to his side.
Whether it worked or not, Taryn wasn’t willing to give him the opportunity to try.
“Xia Yawen,” Taryn said suddenly. His voice interrupted Gao Feng mid-plea and prompted Xia Yawen to look at him, which earned him a glare from Gao Feng. Taryn ignored him. “If Grandma doesn’t wake up in the next hour, could I trust you to get her back to the city?”
“Why can’t you do it? Are you planning on ditching her?” Gao Feng accused.
Taryn glared at him but begrudgingly answered his accusation. “No, if you don’t want to do it that’s fine. But we came here for a reason, and Grandma would hate me if I gave up now. Look, I’m not asking you to take care of her forever. All I’m asking is that you make sure she makes it out of here alive.” Taryn transitioned onto his knees and bowed his head to Xia Yawen.
Xia Yawen was taken aback. Her emotions had been up in the air for hours, and it didn’t look like there was an end in sight.
First, the two of them were dead. Then they were alive, but they were leaving them to do... something. What, she didn’t know. And then Fan Shun swooped in and saved them from a horde of undead like some type of guardian spirit. Now, Taryn wanted to leave, and Fan Shun was, for all intents and purposes, in a coma caused by a severe case of Eco deficiency.
Until, and unless, she regenerated her lost Eco, there was very little chance she would wake up anytime soon.
Xia Yawen thought over it for a long moment as she watched him.
“On one condition,” she said quietly.
Taryn’s breathing hitched and he clenched his fists. Of course there has to be a catch. It would be too much to ask her to do it out of the kindness of her heart. He took a deep breath and nodded. “If it is within my power to grant, I’ll do anything.”
“Don’t die.”
Taryn’s head shot up and he looked right at her; she was looking away from him, her eyes fixed squarely on her brother.
Taryn gulped and gave her a tentative nod. “I’ll do my best.”
“Your best isn’t good enough.” Xia Yawen’s eyes met his own, and there was fire in them that Taryn hadn’t seen before. But just as quickly as it appeared, it faded away and was replaced with something else. “Fan Shun would be devastated if you died. Don’t do that to her.”
Taryn bowed his head low to the ground. “I won’t. You have my word.”
“See that you don’t.” Xia Yawen looked away from him and refocused all of her attention on Xia Wei.
Taryn breathed a sigh of relief and sat down. He looked into the fire and noticed that it was beginning to die; little more than smoldering ashes remained. They would need to feed it soon or else the fire would die completely.
“So, we’re on babysitting duty now? What, just because he’s got some Eco now he thinks he can run off on his own?” Gao Feng growled. He pushed himself to his feet and stormed over to Taryn.
Taryn didn’t back down. He drew his dagger and stared defiantly into Gao Feng’s eyes. He could feel his Eco churning within him, just waiting for the moment he would ignite it and shift.
Gao Feng stopped on the other side of the fire and drew his sword. He pointed the tip at Taryn’s chest. “I’m tired of your arrogance and attitude. I challenge you to a duel, Taryn the Clanless. Maybe when I’m done with you, you’ll have a little more respect for your betters.”
Taryn never looked away. He stared straight into Gao Feng’s eyes.
Unknown to Taryn, this act resulted in two things happening simultaneously: The Eco churning within his body lit up the tattoo on his chest, and its bright light was visible through what remained of his robe. And the light of the fire reflected in his crimson eyes, causing them to glow eerily in the dim light.
This agitated Gao Feng even further. Though he would never admit it, Taryn intimidated him. Though he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he could take Taryn in a fight, there was something about the way that Taryn looked at him that spelled danger, and Gao Feng hated that to no end.
Everyone there could tell that Taryn was no longer the same person they’d left the city with. And though she didn’t show it on her face, Xia Yawen was hurt by this fact, because he wasn’t the boy she used to know either.
Taryn slowly stood up, rising to his full height, and squared his shoulders to face Gao Feng, his dagger gripped tightly in his right hand.
“I’m sorry you’re so insecure that you feel the need to put me down every chance you get. But I’m done with your attitude. You don’t like me, I get that. If it makes you feel better, I’ll leave right now. Is that what you want?”
Gao Feng’s eyes darted from his sword to Taryn’s unfaltering gaze, and he bit his bottom lip hard enough to taste blood. He slammed his sword back into its scabbard and threw his hand in Taryn’s face in a clear sign of dismissal.
“Leave. The sooner you’re out of here, the sooner things can return to normal.” Gao Feng turned away from Taryn and looked to Xia Yawen. But Xia Yawen was ignoring him. Instead, her eyes were firmly affixed to Taryn.
Gao Feng’s chest burned and his head swam. He moved to a corner by himself and sat down.
Taryn gathered up his things, then looked at Fan Shun one final time. “I’ll hold you to your promise, Xia Yawen. Don’t let anything happen to her.”
“You have my word.”
“Thank you.”
Taryn left the building through the front door and didn’t look back. If he looked back, too many things could go wrong.
He didn’t want to leave Fan Shun behind, but something inside of him was itching to get moving. He was worried that if he didn’t move now, Duan He and Gu Qigang would find the core first. And that scared him more than leaving Fan Shun with Xia Yawen.
Despite everything that happened, he knew Xia Yawen would fulfill her promise. Even if he couldn’t trust her, he could trust in her upbringing. The nobles valued their image over everything, and their word was part of that.
Taryn looked off into the distance, once again looking towards the large structure. Now that he was closer, he couldn’t help but notice the images on the glass panels near the top.
His eyes landed on the one that looked identical to his tattoo, and ideas began to race through his mind. However, he couldn’t worry about that yet. He could think about why it was there later, but for now, he only needed to get to it.
For the first ten minutes or so, his journey was relatively quiet. He could hear undead moaning off in the distance, but so long as they stayed way over there, he had no need to worry about them.
However, the closer he got to the structure, the more noise he heard.
It started out slow, at a level he could barely hear. He’d pick up a growl here, an angry snarl there. But eventually, there was a cacophony of noise as metal clanged together and a snarling beast made its presence known to all who approached.
Taryn pressed his body to one of the buildings and peeked around the corner: what lay before him was a large square that reminded him of the central square of the market district, only much larger.
The ruined buildings that formed a perimeter around the “market square” were even more dilapidated than normal and looked like a strong breeze could knock them over.
Beyond the square, Taryn could see the base of the structure: the dark stone stood out even in the dimly lit cave. It seemed to consume the light around it, making the open area around it appear darker than the rest of the cave.
However, that couldn’t hold Taryn’s attention long in the face of what was at the base of the tower.
A gigantic reptile lay on its back just ten feet from the structure, and the upper half of an undead’s body was held between its front legs while it chewed on its right arm.
The lizard had orange scales and eyes the color of emeralds. It was somewhere between fifteen and twenty feet long—it was hard to tell from this distance. And he couldn’t tell how tall it was since it was lying on the ground, but it was larger than anything he’d seen since leaving the city... Save for the Mokan spider, but that thing was a freak of nature, whose mere appearance could make the divines tremble.
It wasn’t fair to compare anything to that.
It didn’t take Taryn long to find the discarded lower half of the undead lying twenty feet away, near what could only be an ancient market stall. It was too small to be a true building, but too large to be anything else.
