A Stone's Throw From Death | TWIN Anthology

A Stone's Throw From Death | TWIN Anthology | Ecency

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Best Served Cold

"You think it's over that ridge?"

Serje squinted, grunted. "Doubtful, love. See those vines? Yeah. Near the peaks. That ain't it."

"Right..."

They were traveling for a week now, and Serje was getting impatient. Anxious. They laughed about it at their makeshift camp. Dusk had just left, and the stars were out. The embers of their campfire danced alongside the celestials.

"It's your job to be anxious," Sylla laughed around a mouthful of stew. "And it's mine to protect you." Serje merely smiled, which prompted Sylla to choke on her meal. "I'm sorry, love." She tried. "I know I'll be nowhere without you."

They had had this conversation so often that it almost felt like a ritual. "I'll take the first watch," Serje said. Sylla gave him her best-annoyed look. A lot of nights, Serje would let her sleep far longer than he should've. She was the important one, after all, he was just the navigator. She did the hard stuff.

Recently, Sylla had been pushing back on that notion, but she didn't fool Serje. Love had a way of lying sometimes.

Serje had just put down his head when the orb started to hum.

Sylla lept at it, grabbing and throwing it into the bucket of water. It stopped, Sylla looked at her love with a stunned expression.

"Don't give me that look..." Serje's voice trembled. "I wasn't sure if it would work..."

Sylla scoffed at her beloved's annoying modesty. They approached the orb, tentatively. The thing's glow was alien. Its once dull shade now a bright purple that periodically switched to random colors. Neither of them had seen anything like it.

"What if we took it out now?" Sylla asked.

"By all accounts." Serje gulped. "We die."

"What? It stares into our soul and sends us to the Netherrealm?"

"No. It explodes and sends us in a thousand tiny pieces." Sylla grunted and Serje placed his hands in the water. Another might panic, but the trust that these two had for one another bordered on madness. She merely looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "The, the text says this was the only way to read the thing... it was right about the water part, so..."

"So?"

"I... feel something..." Serje did indeed feel something. He felt something traveling all across his body. "Vibrations. They're..."

"My love?"

Just as Sylla was about to tackle him off the damned thing, Serje let go. He jerked up, hastily looking around clockwise - then turning back half the way he turned. He then fell on the ground like a sack of potatoes, slumped.

"Serje!"

"I'm fine, love. I'm fine." He steadied his breathing and pointed in the direction he was facing. "That way. The vibrations were strongest that way."

Sylla looked up to see the ridge she spotted earlier that day. "But you said the map..."

"The Oracles lied. Apparently. I don't know, love. But that's our peak."

Sylla's smile spoke volumes. "So. In the end. My instincts were right. Again."

"Shut up."

They traveled throughout the night and the subsequent day. Barely resting, always alert. The orb did not activate but they were ever watchful of it starting up again - always carrying a whole bucket of water with them, just in case. This made the journey slow going, but what choice did they have?

On the third day the warriors found themselves at the foot of the mountain. Its edges were sharp and fierce - there was a narrow goat path to the side of a small cave. That was their ascend point, everything else was too jagged to climb.

"You are not coming with me." Sylla's voice was firm. "It's too dangerous."

"That's nonsense and you know it. We've done way more dangerous things than climb a mountain."

"Not with an artifact such as this."

"And how, pray tell, do you plan on using the artifact?"

Sylla hated Serje's smug expression. She understood her feelings well enough to know this meant he was correct.

"You could barely carry the bucket, love." She said, not looking at him. "What will we do if the damn thing activates again?"

Serje had no answer to that. "What do we do then?"

Sylla sighed. "Rest. Get our wits about us. I gather that -"

The ground shook and Sylla drew her spear. The bucket Serje was holding fell and spilled as the shake persisted, knocking them both to one knee.

As the orb started to hum.

"Not good!"

Serje's mind raced, looking over every scrap of information he had found thus far. The library; the Oracles; the Myths. Water was the only way to stop it from exploding. Well, that and returning it to its ancestral home. Wait -

"Sylla! The cave!"

Sylla kicked the orb as hard as she could. It bounced, spreading its vibrations to the ground and making the pebbles shake. It just barely managed to reach the cave -

And stopped.

"Did. Did it work?" Serje asked cowering behind a tree.

"I don't feel dead. Do you?"

Serje approached with an uneasy step. "Was I... was I right again?" He tried to smile but it ended up being an uneven smirk.

The orb soon dissolved as if made of sand. And the world became silence.

Until it started to shake.

"An Earthquake? Now?" Sylla yelled, but her voice contained no panic.

"No... This is the orb! On your guard, love! I think -"

A spear shot out of the darkness of the cliff. It streaked towards Serje's head before Sylla blocked it with her shield. The earthquake stopped, and two Stonemen emerged from seemingly nowhere.

"Serje?" Sylla never left her eyes off the monsters as they came closer.

"Guardians of the Sanctuary! Must be! The text said they are weak to water!"

"Which we don't have!" The monsters seemed bigger the closer they came.

"W-water erodes the f-flesh; S-stonemen are impenetrable by s-sword or s-pear; T-their r-rock hard flesh."

"Serje! They're nearly upon us!"

Serje wracked his brain but there was nothing...

"Run!"

Sylla picked her lover up and jumped down the small ravine. The Stonemen's stomping nearly knocked her off balance as she hopped from one ledge to the other. Serje was mumbling something but she paid no mind, she needed all her concentration to keep calm and keep her footing steady.

She was headed towards the stream they filled their bucket last. Is it too far? She couldn't risk looking behind them.

"They're gaining on us!"

Probably.

Sylla landed, feet sure, plan made. She tossed Serje aside as she reached into her belt. Taking out a Powerstone she rammed it into the ground just as the creatures were upon her.

"Sylla!"

As the circle formed, she blocked the first stone fist with her shield. Redirecting the best toward the second one's swing. She jumped back just as the circle formed.

The ground fractured then, halting the Stonemen's movements. But for how long? Serje thought not that long as he scurried towards the stream. Hurry, love... Sylla kept her eyes on the best as they slowly untangled themselves from their prison. They were made of this same soil, of course, it wouldn't hold them long. Their untangling appeared as if designed by nature. Sylla gazed at their forms trying to find a weakness but there weren't any. How can you defeat a mountain?

She had two more Powerstones. If she used them here their reward would not match the cost. Additionally, they wouldn't stop these beasts. But if they had to flee...

"Sylla!"

Serje ran with his satchel dripping wet. Sylla met him halfway and took it.

Wasn't much, it had to be enough.

Sylla threw the water just as the beast got out of his containment. It hissed when it touched his rocky exterior. The beast seemed to rumble like an avalanche. Its movement was slowed, not extinguished. Sylla shoved her sword into the exposed rock and sliced the Stoneman's head clean off. It crumbled to the ground.

The other was still entangled. Serje was there throwing water he had carried in his carry bag, the one he used to collect notes and such. It was barely more than a speck, but Sylla drove her sword with precision as the monster reached for her beloved. It soon joined its brother in the dirt.

They fell on their knees, wheezing for air. Sylla looked at Serje. "Your... supplies..."

"Not sure... where I threw them..."

"Where... where did you find the water? The stream was much further down..."

"There was this pool. Remember? The one you said was toxic..."

Sylla calmed her breathing. "Clever fuck."

Serje grinned.

Sylla dropped down to retrieve the two gems at the Stonemen's hearts. "Serje...these better be worth it..."

"They will, my love. Have I ever let you stray?"

Sylla could not stop the smile from forming. "No, beloved. You have not."

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