The fog above clung low and thick, and the silence of this place made even hurried movent feel wrong, like the world was waiting for them to make noise so it could answer.
"Now, don’t take any other paths besides the one we’re taking," Darma said as he began rushing up the slope as if it were a straight path forward.
The instruction wasn’t delivered like advice. It was delivered like a rule that had already been paid for in blood. Darma didn’t glance back to make sure they understood; he simply moved, boots digging into loose dirt and dead needles, shoulders angled into the incline as if the mountain was trying to shove him back down.
Ludwig didn’t hesitate to follow after, and so did Akro, Gale and the rest of the lizardn.
He moved with Durandal kept low, not sheathed but controlled, the blade’s weight steady in his grip. Akro stayed close enough that Ludwig could hear his breathing, sharp and asured, and the other lizardn followed in a loose cluster, too close for comfort, but spreading out here felt like begging to be picked off.
Gale’s presence behind them was a grim reassurance, Oathcarver’s bulk cutting a darker shape through the dim than anything else in the group.
The disparity in speed was obvious; however, the lizardn were not built the sa way Orcs were. Their shorter legs allowed them little when it ca to sprinting, and they chased with all they had after the orcs.
Even pushing themselves, the lizardn couldn’t match the long, heavy stride of orc bodies. Their tails worked against them on steep ground, swaying balance left and right, and their feet had to take more steps to cover the sa distance. In a normal forest, they’d have been fine, water, cover, and ambush angles. Here, on a climbing slope with fog swallowing landmarks and a hostile environnt notification hanging in Ludwig’s mind like a bad taste, speed mattered too much.
Ludwig noticed that first and slowed down his pace, "Keep going, Gale, don’t lose track of them,"
He forced himself to bleed off speed even as instinct scread to keep up with Darma. Losing the ogres ant losing the only lead they had into whatever this mountain was hiding.
Losing the lizardn ant losing the only forces he had in this place.
"I shall leave markings for you to follow after if we are separated," Gale replied as he went up behind the three ogres.
Gale didn’t argue. He simply surged forward, turning his heavier fra into montum, closing the gap on the ogres in a few brutal strides. Ludwig caught a glimpse of Gale’s hand brushing a tree trunk as he passed, scraping a shallow line into bark, nothing obvious from afar, but enough for soone with discipline to follow later.
Gale moved like a man who could be blindfolded and still find his way back by mory and scar.
Ludwig worried that he might lose his Lizardn if they stayed too long behind, so he slowed down his own pace even further.
He let his legs take shorter steps, deliberately matching the lizardn’s cadence, keeping his body between them and the fog ahead. The slope itself felt wrong underfoot. Not unstable, patient. As if the ground was waiting for them to commit before it decided whether it would hold.
This gave the lizardn a new insight into Ludwig’s personality. A Leader, not a Boss. A man who is willing to risk his own life for others. A man who makes you willingly want to trust and follow him.
Ludwig didn’t notice the looks at first. He was too busy listening, listening for that childish laughter, for the dry creak of tightening vines, for anything that would confirm the mountain had decided to stop watching and start hunting.
But he felt the lizardn’s posture change behind him: less scattered fear, more focused movent. The kind of shift that happened when soldiers believed they weren’t just tools.
"Keep it up, boys! We don’t know what might co out of these-" Ludwig couldn’t finish his words before the ground in front of him tore open.
The Earth didn’t split like a natural collapse. It opened like a mouth. Dirt and roots burst upward in a violent spray, and sothing pale and slick shot out of the gap with too much speed to belong to anything that large.
The hands of the Soothsayer shot up toward his face, followed by the laughter of children.
The laughter hit first, high, delighted, wrong, like the sound had been waiting behind Ludwig’s ears rather than in the air. Then the hands ca, fingers too long, nails catching moonlight in thin hooks. Ludwig’s chest tightened hard, not from fear, never from fear, but from the sudden certainty that the mountain had been guiding them into this mont.
Ludwig bent backward, avoiding the lunge, the Serpentinian creature’s body, or most of it went above Ludwig, missing, but that didn’t an it was done. It twisted its upper body, breasts flailing, hair swaying, and arms chasing after the next prey, Akro, who was in the lead.
The creature moved like a nightmare wearing flesh, too flexible, too eager, as if bones were optional. Ludwig’s spine brushed close to the ground as he arched back, feeling grit scrape his shoulders, and the thing sailed over him with a wet rush of air.
The sll that followed was damp and sour, like swamp water left in a sealed jar. Its hair hung like a curtain of black strands, hiding whatever face might have existed under it, and the mont it missed Ludwig, it redirected with no hesitation, predator logic, target the one that looks like it can’t counter fast enough.
This wasn’t just an ambush; it was a preditated trap.
The Lizardman champion wasn’t about to let himself be the first victim, as he hastily raised his spear up in a block.
Akro’s reaction was pure veteran instinct. The spear lifted crosswise, haft braced, feet planted despite the slope trying to slide him downward. His jaw clenched, and the muscles in his arms and shoulders tightened in preparation for impact.
The weight of the creature crushed Akro into the ground, forcing a grunt of pain, but not much in terms of damage.
The force was ridiculous, like being hit by a cart. Akro’s knees buckled, and his body slamd into dirt, the spear shaft digging into his palms. The ground under him compressed, and Ludwig heard the breath explode out of Akro’s lungs in a single harsh sound. Yet the champion held. He didn’t fold completely. Not broken, just pinned.
Akro tried to lift the creature up with the spear, but was unable to; it was just too heavy, clearly and obviously from how Akro’s muscles inflated.
The spear trembled under strain, the wood flexing, and Akro’s arms shook with effort that turned veins into cords. The creature didn’t even pretend to struggle against his leverage. It simply pressed down, hair swaying forward as if it enjoyed the helplessness.
The sounds of laughter changed into those of children crying as what looked like drool dripped from the creature’s hair-covered face.
The switch was instant, the sa cadence, the sa pitch, but inverted; joy turned into sobbing that sounded rehearsed. Drool, or sothing close to it, slid through the strands of hair and fell onto Akro’s chest in thick drops. The sll sharpened again. Ludwig’s stomach turned.
"Not today!" Ludwig imdiately sliced upward, cutting a large gash into the creature’s abdon.
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