Page 94 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

I raise my blades. “Berun, the next time it does that, try to hold it in place.”

He swallows hard and nods. A moment later, a spike slams upward, only a foot in front of my face. It’s close enough that I can see the serrated edges, gleaming with a dangerous sheen. Blue light materializes around it, Tartak bonds gripping the thing as tight as Berun can manage. It tries to retreat, tugging against the magic, but it can’t move, at least for the moment. I swing both my blades inward, closing them like a scissor, biting into the base of the spike. It’s tougher than I expected, and heat flares on my arms as my power struggles. With a blast of green light, the blades cut through, and the spike clatters to the deck.

The sheared-off surface is smooth and featureless. No blood, no internal structure, just tough, metallic carapace.

Underneath me, the deck shudders. I hear a wild scree, the slashing of talons against metal. I barely have time to leap aside before the deck plates buckle upward, opening outward like a flower in a shower of sparks. More black spikes tear at them, forcing the hole wider, and inch by inch the dredwurm pulls itself up.

It’s roughly cylindrical, maybe twenty feet long, thickest at the head and tapering to a thin, whipping tail. The black spikes are set on multi-jointed limbs, which protrude from its segmented body in rings, a dozen at a time. It doesn’t seem to have a sense of up and down—the spikes hold it off the floor and anchor it to the ceiling, both at once, scraping against the metal with hideous screeches.

At the front of it, there are three triangular mouths, ringed by rows of inward-pointing teeth. Each mouth is surrounded by another ring of limbs, smaller than the big leg-spikes but just as sharp. A final barbed spine tips the thing’s tail. It’s a dull black all over, carapace scraped and scratched from its passage through the metal. The only hint of color is in the center of its head, between the three mouths, where a faceted crystal pulses with a bloody red light.

It looks … familiar.

I am now firmly convinced this was a bad idea.

I glance at Aifin, give him the “okay” sign we agreed on. Back at home, we’d settled on a tentative plan. Aifin would work to draw the creature’s attention, while Berun tried to slow it down, and I would see about actually hurting it. Simple enough, when you’re not faced with tons of black armored monster.

Aifin, to his credit, doesn’t hesitate. Golden light blooms around him, drawn from his Rhema Well, and his shape blurs. He skates forward, sliding across the deck so fast he leaves trails of sparks in his wake. The writhing spiked legs of the monster make it difficult to approach from the side, but he threads his way between them like they were standing still, and he puts all his weight and speed behind one of his swords, aimed right at the seam between two segments of the dredwurm’s body. It sinks in, halfway to the hilt, and sticks there.

The screech comes not from the monster, but from the metal of the floor and ceiling as it grips hard, turning toward the source of the pain. Aifin darts backward, trailing golden sparks, as spiked limbs slash in his wake. He’s good, but I wonder how long he can keep it up. I’d rather not have to find out.

“Berun!” I shout. “Try to clear me a path!”

He wipes sweat from his eyes and raises his hands, the blue glow of Tartak. The closest half-dozen legs to me are wrapped in blue light, locking their joints. I can tell it won’t hold, the things are already trembling, but it gives me a second or two to sprint forward without having to dodge. I get to the thing’s side and grab a leg, hoisting myself off the ground.

Aifin has retreated through a doorway. The dredwurm plunges after him, its limbs ripping the walls apart to make a space wide enough for it to pass. Mushrooms explode into fragments as it barrels down the corridors, legs digging into ceiling, walls, and floor, pulling it forward faster than a charging horse. I can see Aifin’s golden light, only barely staying ahead of the monster. I keep my head down, bits of mushroom and scraps of metal glancing off my armor.

Time to do some damage. Locking one arm around the monster’s leg, I swing my blade inward, driving it into the dredwurm’s armor-plated side. Melos power flares and crackles, but the energy skitters along the surface, scoring a line into the dull black armor without punching through. The dredwurm, still focused on Aifin, doesn’t even seem to notice.

I close my eyes for a moment, concentrating, and refine my power into the penetrating shape I used against the blueshell. It still doesn’t come naturally, but I can force the energy into new channels, flooding into my right hand until my skin crackles, uncomfortably hot. The long Melos blade shifts into a short, pointed spike. I wind up, pushing away from the dredwurm’s skin and swinging back down with all my weight behind the blow.

This time, the energy blade sinks in, until my knuckles scrape against the dredwurm’s skin. I release the pent-up energy inside the creature, braced for a furious reaction. But the blast feels muted, contained, as though the monster didn’t have any insides to shred, only more layers of armor. It barely reacts, shuddering slightly, legs still churning in its wild pursuit of Aifin.

Well. Rot. Now what?

Aifin is having trouble. He rounds a corner, and the dredwurm follows, slamming itself against the wall and scraping away a carpet of mushrooms. I hang on for dear life, armor flaring to protect me from countless minor impacts. Aifin’s golden aura is flickering, sparks of bright energy exploding off it, and he’s slowing down. He turns again, and I see we’re headed back toward the room where we left the others. Meroe is visible in the doorway, waving Aifin frantically to one side.

“Now, Berun! Stop it!” Meroe screams.

“I—I can’t.…” Berun hesitates, hands raised.

“You can!”

Berun’s hands close into fists. Blue energy sparks around him, and Tartak bindings wrap themselves around the dredwurm’s head, trying to lock it in place. I see them snap under the thing’s enormous momentum, magic shattering in showers of sparks, and with every sundering Berun winces as if he’d been struck. But he keeps trying, lashing out again and again, and the dredwurm slows. Steam is rising from Berun’s clothes as the heat plays over his body.

I push off from the creature’s side again, bring the armor-penetrating spike around in another roundhouse swing. Once again, it sinks in, but the blast of energy that follows doesn’t seem to have any effect. This isn’t working, and I need to move. Taking a deep breath, I put my weight on the embedded blade and use it as a handhold to swing forward, grabbing for the next ring of legs. I get a grip and clamber through as they swing and strain, trying to drive the creature onward against the flaring pressure of Berun’s magic.

The dredwurm has nearly halted, pulling itself forward only inch by inch, its head wrapped in a coruscating aura of brilliant blue. Berun’s mouth is open in a soundless scream, enveloped in a matching nimbus of scintillating energy, but he’s got it stopped. Aifin is still on his feet, golden sparks gathering around him, holding his remaining sword in both hands. I swing forward again, pushing through another ring of squirming, straining legs, only one segment back from the creature’s head.

The eye. That red jewel. If the dredwurm has a weak spot, that has to be it.

Then it all goes wrong.

The dredwurm twists, folding itself nearly in half, with more agility than I thought possible. With its head locked in place, its tail comes around with lightning speed, striking Berun in the stomach with the force of a cavalryman’s lance. The long spike goes all the way through him, emerging dripping crimson from his back. With a flick, the dredwurm throws him off, his limp body slamming into the mushroom-covered wall and flopping bonelessly to the deck in a pool of gore.

As his bindings vanish, the freed dredwurm rolls over, swinging me toward the deck. I have to leap free or be crushed, hitting the deck with a painfully hot flare from my armor. The thing’s tail comes around again, sweeping back toward Aifin. He dodges the tip with preternatural speed, but there’s nowhere he can go to avoid the length of the thing, and it catches him in the midriff. He folds up around it with an oof, and the monster slams him into the wall with a spray of broken pieces of mushroom.

Meanwhile, its head turns in my direction, and it advances on me as I struggle back to my feet. Free to move, its spiked legs screech horrifically against the metal of the floor and ceiling as it drags itself forward. Around its three mouths, the smaller limbs reach out for me, tight nests of interlocking blades. In the center of that horrible shape, the eye, glowing a deep, malevolent red.