Chapter 50: The Brawl in the Streets, Part 4

Gorpmorp's landing shook the ground and threw cobblestones out in every direction like missiles, pelting everyone nearby. 

Valerie ducked to try and avoid the flying debris, which meant she was already out of the way when Gorpmorp started swinging its massive arms. A fist the size of her body whipped over her head and crashed into Arden, who had summoned a shield of divine energy to protect himself. The priest's shield cracked, and he went sailing through the first floor of the King's Dream.

At the same time,  Kaleb had thrown himself and his shield in between the stones and the closest person—List. His shield rang, and several bits and pieces caught him in places the metal didn't protect, but he stood unmoving.

Then Gorpmorp's other fist hit him, and he was thrown back and into List, sending both of them sprawling across the street.

Xigbar was the only one standing far enough away to avoid the fallout from Gorpmorp's landing, and he wasted no time putting more distance between him and the giant monster.

In only a second, Valerie was the only one left standing against the bugbear. 

Its eyes bore down on her as it raised its fists, and she only barely managed to roll out of the way. More stones were kicked up from the impact, and several hit her in the back as they fell, but she ignored it. She ignored everything but the monster right in front of her.

Another blow came down, and she dodged again, the margin between her and certain death even smaller this time. She worked her wristbow as fast as she could, shooting whenever she got half a chance. If Gorpmorp even felt the bolts, she couldn't tell. She would need to hit something vital if she wanted to do real damage, or else start trying more specialized bolts.

But those took time to prep and properly load into the wristbow, and she didn't have time, not while Gorpmorp was flailing and thrashing trying to crush her to a pulp. She needed a breather. She needed space.

She tripped. In the middle of her desperate, frantic movements, on an uneven cobblestone in the streets, she tripped. She didn't know if the stone had been loosened and knocked askew by Gorpmorp or if it had always  been like that, but it didn't matter. Her momentum betrayed her, and as she tumbled to the ground, she brace herself to die.

A beam of light thicker than her torso shot out of the King's Dream, splashing against Gorpmorp's barrel chest and forcing it away from Valerie's prone form.

Arden re-emerged from the inn, the golden image of a mace superimposed over his cane, and a divine shield hovering over his other arm. Gorpmorp roared in fury and pain from Arden's blast, and in one lunge was practically on top of him. Its chest and arms swelled before it swung again, and when Arden blocked with his shield, a spiderweb of cracks formed in the golden construct of power. 

When Arden struck back with his empowered cane, the blows rang like the crash of thunder, and his weapon flashed, but Gorpmorp was only lightly staggered by each hit. Alone, Arden's power wasn't a match for the monster.

Valerie adjusted the firing mechanism of her wristbow to accommodate non-standard ammunition, and reached into her new bottomless pocket. 

Luckily for Arden, he wasn't alone.

---

Kaleb's entire body ached, and from only a single hit that he'd taken on his shield. Considering that had hurt him, he felt even more glad that he'd moved when he did. He couldn't imagine what that kind of blow would have done to someone without his ancestry.

Speaking of.

"Are you okay?" Kaleb asked the hellborn girl. He couldn't remember her name, or if Valerie had ever even said it, and this seemed like a terrible time to ask.

"I'm fine," she growled, slapping away the hand he'd been instinctively reaching out toward her. "Watch where you're standing."

A part of him wanted to say that if he hadn't been standing where he was, she'd probably have several broken bones right now, but she didn't give him the time to work up the nerve. Her tattoos flashed, and then a whip was in her hand.

Red lightning crackled across her whole body and down the length of the weapon as her tattoos glowed the same color as the chaotic energy.

"Hey!" she shouted at the giant bugbear, which was currently in a protracted melee with the gentlemanly priest. "Over here you mangey sack of shite!"

The bugbear didn't acknowledge the taunt, but then List cracked her whip across the thing's back. The weapon opened a gash in the monster's hide like it was wet paper, and blood sprayed from the wound.

The bugbear twisted around, kicking out with its back legs at Arden even as it spun to face the new threat. It charged her, but halfway through bringing her weapon around for another swing, List had to jerk to a hard stop.

Valerie's Mystery Boy—Kaleb—ran right out in front of her, getting between her and the charging bugbear. If it weren't for the months of training to fight alongside Valerie, List might have cracked her whip into the back of his skull, probably splitting it open. As it was, she had to abort her attack, redirecting it partway through into a limp swipe at Gorpmorp's head, which didn't even hit.

That idiot. She wanted to scream at him for getting in the way, but there wasn't time, because now Gorpmorp was bringing down its arm like an axe. List knew she could have dodged it, but Kaleb didn't even try.

He ran straight at Gorpmorp, eyes fixed on the blow coming down on him—and he caught it. Both arms braced behind his shield, feet firmly planted, Kaleb took a blow from Gorpmorp head-on, and stopped it in its tracks. His shield rang like a gong, and the stones beneath his feet were shaken loose, but he actually stayed standing.

For the half second it took for Gorpmorp to swing his other fist, after which Kaleb was immediately flattened into the street. The third fist, List was sure would turn him to paste, if the previous one already hadn't. List had every intention of trying to stop it, but the others beat her to the punch.

Three crossbolts sank into Gorpmorp's upraised arm, each other trailing a rope that went taut a moment after impact.

Across the street, Valerie loaded a fourth rope bolt into her wrist bow, shot one anchor into Gorpmorp, and another into the street. The mechanisms in the bow did the work of making sure the rope was only as long as it needed to be, leaving little slack for the monster to move its arm. 

These bolts were supposed to be for climbing or ziplining, not restraint, but she'd had to improvise. 

From elsewhere, Arden picked up on the same idea as her. He slammed his cane into the ground, and chains of golden light erupted from it. A few sank directly into the ground, anchoring the cane in place, but most raced out, wrapping around Gorpmorp's other arm.

Between the two of them, the beast was held in place, arms splayed wide. It howled with rage and frustration, but for the moment, the bonds held. 

List took the opening. Her whip flashed around her like a serpent of living lightning, lashing out at the monster again and again, opening a new line of red in fur and flesh with every crack. The more Gorpmorp took the hits, the faster she attacked, trying to kill it before it could break free.

Arden gave a sudden cry of pain as an arrow sank through his leg, just below his hip, and nearly buckled. All of them whirled to track the shot, spotting the last thing any of them needed right now. On a nearby rooftop, just as Arden had hypothesized earlier, were a group of armed individuals who could only be Paver reinforcements, here to finish the job of their earlier attack.

Arden had dared to hope they'd fled once Gorpmorp had arrived, which would have been the sane thing to do, but apparently they'd merely been lying in wait for an opportune moment to strike.

He threw a shield up between him and the Pavers to block any further shots. It was a mistake.

With his will divided between the shield and chains, the power in the binding wavered. He'd underestimated Gorpmorp's strength, or overestimated himself. Either way, he was prepared when the enormous bugbear heaved, and the chains of light shattered. Arden didn't even have time to shout a warning before it ripped free of Valerie's anchors a second later, and descended on List.

The hellborn held her own admirably, her and her weapon both a constantly dancing whirlwind of red lightning. She leaped, twirled, ducked, and weaved, always keeping the whip twirling around her in a swirling display that would have made a Gypic silk dancer jealous. She lashed out at every opportunity, constantly opening new wounds in Gorpmorp's hide.

It was, in its own way, absolutely breathtaking to behold. 

And it wasn't enough.

She tried to leap over an incoming swipe, and just barely didn't make the jump. The glancing blow made a sickening cracking sound and sent her cartwheeling through the air. She tumbled across the ground, eventually rolling to a stop at the foot of a cart. Though she tried several times, she didn't get back up.

Valerie and Arden both tried to rush forward, only to be met by more arrows from the Pavers above. They returned fire, Arden with blasts of light, Valerie with crossbolts, but for the moment, they were pinned.

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Valerie's mind raced through their situation. In an extended shootout, she favored her and Arden over the Pavers. But List didn't have time for that. Someone had to get Gorpmorp's attention now, before it finished her off. She raced through her options. Kaleb still wasn't moving—he might already be dead. She could try to distract Gorpmorp herself, but that would mean either splitting her focus between the monster and the Pavers, or leaving herself exposed. She needed another way. Another option.

She searched the battlefield again, and a light came on when she realized what was missing from the picture. It was their only chance.

"Xigbar! Help!" Valerie shouted.

"What do you want me to do?" the thief shot back, poking out from behind the public mailbox he'd been using as cover since the fight started.

"Anything!" she retorted. Distract Gorpmporp. Help repel the Pavers. Get List to safety. Anything.

Xigbar looked incredulous, but before he could refuse, the heavens intervened to remind him they were still laughing at him.

"What the— It's him! It's the Snake!" someone shouted from the rooftops above. "Drek him!"

More arrows came down, these aimed at Xigbar. He let out an angry hiss. Great. Valerie had drawn attention to him, and now he had to do something.

---

Kaleb was in immense pain, which he took to be a good sign. Pain meant he still had feeling in all his limbs. Pain meant he was still alive. That was good.

He just wished he could move.

He could hear the fight still going on, catch glimpses of it out of the corner of his eye and hear the shouts and roars, but the back of his head was lodged in the street, and he couldn't turn it in either direction. He was stuck, staring at the sky, throbbing in pain, useless.

A familiar face appeared above him.

"Hey, you alive?" Xigbar asked.

"Xigbar?" his voice came out more strained than he'd expected. He might have been more hurt than he'd been willing to admit.

"Oh, would you look at that," Xigbar said. "Don't mind me. I'm just borrowing something."

Kaleb felt rather than saw as Xigbar started rummaging through his bottomless bag. Kaleb desperately hoped Xigbar was doing something useful, and not just using the opportunity of the fight to finally rob him like he'd wanted to when they first met.

"What are you doing?" Kaleb asked.

Xigbar smirked as he withdrew the large crossbow Kaleb used to shoot scaling ropes. "Helping."

---

Valerie lost track of Xigbar for a few seconds in the chaos of the fight, and when she saw him again, he was on the rooftop with the Pavers, dagger in one hand while the other threw a snake into a man's face. She didn't waste a second, digging into her bottomless pocket for a different kind of specialty bolt.

Its head was larger than the normal bolts, bulky and round. This sort of bolt was difficult and dangerous to make. She only had the one. She doubted it would have the range of a normal shot, but she didn't need to shoot far. She needed to hit hard.

Gorpmorp was closing in on List now, and though the hellborn had a grim, twisted smile on her face and a dagger in each hand, Valerie knew how the fight would end if she let it continue. That monster was going to kill List. That monster was going to kill her new sister.

She wouldn't let it. She finished loading, aimed at the nape of Gorpmorp's neck, and loosed.

The explosive bolt struck dead on target, producing a thunderous boom and plume of smoke and fire. The bolt was the hardest hitting weapon in her arsenal. She watched with satisfaction as the monster's hulking form rocked from the blast. A moment later, her stomach dropped.

The skin where the bolt had struck was barely pockmarked with burns. It hadn't done anything.

Except get Gorpmorp's attention. The beast roared at her now, List all but forgotten. Valerie was still too stunned by the failure of the explosive bolt to process what was happening.

Short of a perfect shot to precisely targeted vital, that bolt was the best she could hope to do against Gorpmorp. And it had done nothing. Arden could stagger the monster with a swing of his cane, and List could open its skin with a flick of her wrist. Neither of them had been enough to kill it, but they'd done something.

Gorpmorp was moving at her, fast. Bugbears were incredibly fast, much faster than their size and awkward frames suggested. She could feel this one's massive, thundering steps reverberating through the ground as it charged.

She was dead. She knew it the moment she'd made eye contact with the beast and not immediately started getting out of the way. It was too fast, and her window was gone.

But maybe. Maybe if she could hit that perfect vital, she could take the beast with her.

Time moved in slow motion as she loaded a normal bolt into her wristbow and took aim. Careful aim. The most careful she'd ever taken in her life. Her every sense, her very being, trained on Gorpmorp's body as it drew close. She would only get one shot.

It was already covered with wounds. Its fur was matted with blood and sweat. Its spittle flew out from its open jaws as it roared at her. The smell hit her first. A moment later, the taste, as tiny airborne droplets shaken from its form assaulted her nose and mouth.

Her mouth went impossibly dry. She felt something in her empty, and a cavernous, gnawing void grew in the pit of her stomach.

A moment before she loosed her bolt, it burst into black flames.

The bolt exploded in a ball of black fire on contact with the side of Gorpmorp's neck, followed by a geyser of blood as a chunk of flesh was blasted away from the creature's body. Its momentum was thrown completely off, and it tumbled past Valerie without touch her, leaving a scarlet trail along the cobblestones.

A coppery stench filled the air, and Valerie's stomach twisted into a knot.

"Valerie!" Arden shouted. He was sprinting toward her, but he seemed a thousand miles away. Her attention lay solely on the monster. It's chest was still moving. With a massive gouge in its neck, and its blood spilled all over the streets, it was still alive.

She loaded another bolt, and this one too burned with black flames as she pulled the arms of the bow back into place. The gnawing cavern inside her grew. It hurt. It made the world spin. But she held onto the feeling. It was where the flames came from. And the flames could kill this monster.

"Valerie, stop!"

She loosed the bolt into Gorpmorp's chest, and another spray of blood burst out from the creature's back.

Gods, there was so much blood. She'd never been around this much of it at once, smelled it this strongly. Her stomach felt like it constricted to the size of pinhead in reflexive disgust. And yet, she thought there was a part of her that actually liked the smell.

The last thing she heard before blacking out was Arden shouting her name.

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