NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: The Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 4: The Hunt)

CHAPTER SEVEN: KESLA

"Oh my ... what the fuck ... Kesla, what the FUCK?!!! What did you just do?" Shay rounds on me now, looking ready to reach out and start shaking me, while Tulen's clearly too stunned to even try and speak now. I just look down, turning Hefdred over in my hand now as I inspect the condition of the now conspicuously cold and inert blade.

"He's fine." It's a strange thing, I would've expected carving all those things apart would've put a whole lot of nasty unpleasant shit all over my blade, not just dead blood but ... gods, I don't really wanna think about what they were actually made of. But the steel is surprisingly clean, making me suspect the heat of Corvina's fire blazing through the blade must've been enough to just burn most of it off. So I simply turn the sword around, find the throat of the scabbard, and slide it home again into its sheath. "Look for yourself."

While Tulen's just rooted to the spot, clearly still too alarmed to do anything, Shay gives me a really sharp look before stepping to the window to frown out into the night ... then lets a long, relieved breath loose as her shoulders fall immediately as she starts to relax. "Oh. Okay, I just ..." Her frown still deepens as she turns back to me. "That was a bit much, though. Don't you think?"

"Maybe." I know exactly what she's just seen, of course – Driver 8's right outside, stood just a little way below the window, likely straightening up again after having lowered a very startled dwarf to the ground after catching him. Probably with the creature Shay booted through the glass still thoroughly crushed under one foot. Now he'll be waiting for the rest of us, patient and implacable as ever.

"You mean ... is he not ... what happened?" Tulen blinks now as she takes a very tentative step that way too, clearly a good deal more reluctant in the face of her shock. "Is he okay?"

Stooping to drag Dumoli's warhammer up from the floor, I have to brace both mylegs firmly to work up the strength to heft it up in one hand now. "Oof ... he's fine. All things considered, anyway." Frowning down at it for a beat, I realise there ain't nothing else I can really do with it, so I just pitch it through the hole too. Then I look back down the corridor again.

Gods, there's more of 'em, it makes we wonder how the hell they could've got so much meat and bone and metal together so quick. Or maybe it's all the dead in this place, now. I shudder a little at that thought. "Yeah, you gotta go."

"What?" Tulen don't seem anything like so shaken now as she starts to protest, instead looking at me like I'm daft. "But what about –"

"Don't make me repeat myself, Tu." I reach back over my shoulder now, working on shrugging the corresponding axe free from its harness, but it takes more'n one try to work it loose. "There's no time."

"No, I can still fight –" She's fishing through her components bag again, frowning deeper now.

"Shay, do me a favour, will you?"

For a moment the half-orc just frowns at me, like she won't actually do what I ask after all, then she lets a short, bitter hiss of a sigh out and turns quick to smash her elbow into glass still left beside her, repeating the process a few times to knock the hole through a bit wider. Then she turns back and grabs hold of Tulen from behind by both arms and immediately starting to steer her forcefully towards the window.

"What? Wait! No ... no, no no wait! Hold on, I can still help!"

I'm already stepping toward the quickly advancing wave of horrors, giving my axe a little flourish as I prepare myself to give my friends cover, so I guess I must miss when she starts rubbing her palms desperately together. Not so much the scratchy little catching sound that I've learned to recognise from my time spent with Gael, though, accompanied by a little bloom of heat at my back that goes with it enough to give me warning enough as Shay shouts: "What are you ... oh shit! Kesla, duck!"