The world had shrunk to the space between the monstrous beast and Lira's paralyzed form. It moved on all fours, a blur of matted white fur and jagged ice, closing the distance with horrifying speed.
"Why shouldn't we look at the eyes?!" Adel's scream tore through the chamber as she drew her daggers.
Renn, already nocking an arrow, answered in a clipped, emergency tone. "Cryovigils! Its gaze induces a paralytic shock. The weakness is the eye, but to aim for it is to risk being frozen yourself!"
The information was a cold stone in everyone's gut. The beast was mere feet from Lira, its maw opening wide.
A blur of motion, a roar of effort, and Korr was there. He slammed into the creature's side with the force of a battering ram, his fist connecting with a sickening crunch of ice and bone. The beast was sent tumbling across the floor in a clatter of limbs.
But it was unnervingly fast. It scrambled to its feet, shaking its head as if annoyed, not injured. It ignored Korr completely, its glowing blue eyes locking back on Lira. Korr's hands, now entirely sheathed in gleaming, hardened metal, steamed in the frigid air. He knew, with a brawler's instinct, that pure force wouldn't win this. He raised a defensive stance, ready to intercept again.
"Orrin, no!" Korr bellowed.
But Orrin was already moving, sprinting past him. "Stay back!"
As Orrin passed, the steam venting from Korr's metallic fists suddenly swirled, drawn toward the young man like iron to a magnet. It coalesced around Orrin's spear, which began to glow with a hot, inner light. The cryovigil attached to the arm lunged. Orrin didn't meet its charge; he dropped, sliding under the swipe of its claws, and thrust his superheated spear upward, deep into the creature's chest.
A horrific sizzle echoed in the chamber. Dark blue blood, sizzling and steaming, dripped from the wound. Orrin twisted the spear and wrenched it free, following up with a slash that scored a deep line across its icy hide. The monster screamed, a sound of rage and pain, and swung a backhanded blow. Orrin took the hit on his shoulder, spinning with the impact to avoid the full force, but he was still sent staggering.
He conjured the energy he'd absorbed, forming a swirling, volatile ball of superheated steam in his free hand. He hurled it. The cryovigil on the abominations shoulder, enraged, tried to swat it aside. The moment its claw touched the sphere, it scream. Ice melted away, leaving a smoldering, blackened stump.
Thwip.
An arrow from Renn found its mark, burying itself deep in the fresh, vulnerable wound in the beast's chest.
The brutes response was terrifyingly intelligent. It ripped a chunk of ice from the wall, crushed it in its good hand, and hurled the shards like a volley of daggers. Orrin raised his arm, but sharpnel sliced into his leg and chest. He cried out, stumbling. Seizing the opening, the beast lunged. Orrin barely managed a desperate roll, the claws gouging the floor where he'd just been.
While the beast was distracted, Renn scrambled to Lira's side. He dropped his bow, placing his hands on her temples, channeling a surge of pure, focused Vyre into her mind. Lira gasped, life flooding back into her limbs. "Renn…"
"No time!" he said, already grabbing his bow. Lira didn't need telling. She snatched up Gray's still-unconscious form and hauled him further into the relative safety of a recess.
"How do we kill it?" Korr yelled, deflecting another ice shard with a metallic clang.
"Distance!" Lira shouted back, her breath misting. "We can't trade blows with it!"
"Its chest!" Renn called out, loosing another arrow that skittered off its shoulder. "Orrin opened it up! It might be a weak point!"
The cryovigils chose that moment to swarm. They extended themselves, using their speed to their advantage, their sharp claws aiming to hamstring and distract. The fight became a chaotic mess. Adel moved like a ghost, appearing behind one of the smaller creatures, her twin daggers finding its eyes before vanishing again. But the large beast was adapting. When she tried the same trick on it, it anticipated her, its leg kicking back with impossible speed toward her head. She dropped flat, then pushed off with her hands to flip backward, barely avoiding the blow.
Korr saw an opening. He hefted his axe and leaped, bringing it down with all his might on the beast's shoulder. The axe bit deep, and the creature roared, swinging around to punch him square in the face. Korr's head snapped back, but the skin where he was hit shimmered and turned to solid metal, a metallic sheen spreading across his features, and threw a return punch. The beast caught his fist and, with terrifying strength, hurled him straight up into the ceiling.
Before he could fall back into the swarm of cryovigils waiting below, Lira was there. She leaped, her sword a silver arc that severed the limbs of two creatures and found the eye of a third. Korr crashed down onto the clear space she'd created.
"Korr!" Adel shouted. He looked. "Throw me!"
He didn't hesitate. He grabbed her by the arm and waist and spun, using his entire body as a launcher. Adel became a projectile, a cloud of mist swirling around her to obscure her trajectory. The beast's head turned, tracking her perfectly. It reached out and its good hand closed around her throat in mid-air, halting her momentum completely.
She struggled, choking, her daggers useless against its armored wrist. Lira materialized from the mist, her blade slashing down on the creature's arm, not to cut it, but to force it to release. Adel dropped free, gasping.
Orrin, bleeding from his leg, saw his chance. He threw another searing steam-ball, not at the body, but at its feet. As it recoiled from the heat, he lunged, driving his spear into its foot, pinning it to the floor for a precious second. But in his focus, his eyes flickered upward, meeting the glowing blue eyes of a smaller cryovigil he hadn't seen.
He froze solid, his body locking in place.
"Orrin!" Lira screamed.
It was all the opening the large beast needed. It ripped its foot free and kicked Orrin with the force of a cannon. He flew across the chamber and crumpled at the base of the ice stairs, motionless, blood pooling beneath him.
Gray watched from the shadows, horror a cold knot in his stomach. The fight was turning. Adel was too weak, her daggers only hurting the cryovigils, not the actual beast. Renn's arrows were merely annoyances, bouncing off the thick hide. Lira, the only one who could truly hurt it, was tiring, the glow of her Vyre flickering low. Korr's metallic form was dented and scarred.
With a roar of frustration, Korr charged again, a berserker's fury. He drove the beast back against the wall, pummeling it with a barrage of metallic fists. The sound was like a forge hammer striking an anvil. He stepped back, chest heaving, and saw with sinking despair that he had barely chipped its exterior.
The cryovigil turned its head. Slowly, deliberately, it locked its paralyzing gaze with Korr's. A shiver, deep and primal, ran down Korr's spine. Then the creature simply swatted him aside. He crashed into a wall and slid down, barely conscious.
The beast walked now, calm, inevitable. It ignored the desperate, useless attacks from Adel, Renn, and a fading Lira. It walked to Korr, who tried to push himself up, to raise a metal arm in a final, hopeless block.
The beast knocked his arm aside like a twig. It raised its good claw for the final blow. Korr coughed, a spray of blood misting the air. His eyes held no hope.
The claw began its descent.
And stopped.
A fraction of an inch from Korr's face.
The monstrosity shuddered violently. It let out a wet, gurgling cough, spattering the ground with dark blue blood. Then it leaped backward, retreating to the top of the central altar, clutching its chest where Orrin had stabbed it.
The cryovigils on its body blinked looking at the familiar figure.
Aurelle stood between them and the fallen Korr, his posture relaxed yet utterly poised. He didn't move, simply waiting. But something was different. In the gloom of the ice chamber, his eyes held a new, faint luminescence, a silver sheen that seemed to gather the scant light and reflect it back with unnatural intensity. It was a cold, sharp light. And his blade, still dripping with dark blue blood, was now sheathed in a barely perceptible, shimmering aura that made the very air around it waver like a heat haze on a frozen plain.