Radiance - The Alight Archives Book #1

26. Light in the Labyrinth

With the powerful wind that roared in her ears, whipping around her like a living entity, Elaine was astonished by Custas's ability to maintain his sturdy posture. Well, he was a wind mage, after all. 

However, his advice to remain still was undoubtedly wise—Elaine could only pray to Aeris that Fearne was listening to him. She had a nagging certainty that if she attempted to rise from her crouched position now, the unrelenting gusts would seize her, tossing her through the air like a leaf caught in a cyclone, much like the deathstalker a few paces away from where Fearne was. Elaine's gaze darted toward it—the grotesque, hulking mass—still stubbornly battling against the intensity of the howling winds.

Normally, predators had an instinctive understanding of their limits, recognizing when they were outmatched or when a situation was too perilous for their own survival. But that didn't apply to this deathstalker. With a ferocious grunt that replaced its typical shriek, the arachnid dug its massive claws into the stone floor, desperately clinging to the ground as the tempest raged around it. 

To its credit, this tactic was proving effective; the creature maneuvered its diaphragm with surprising agility, bracing itself against the breeze that lashed into its exoskeleton. With every ounce of its formidable weight, the deathstalker had managed to anchor itself into the stone, straining against the wind currents in a showdown of instinctual resolve.

Moreover, with a shimmy of a leg or the push of its tail, the deathstalker could engage in a steady, haphazard advance. Inch by inch, the creature neared Fearne. Any closer, and Elaine knew it'd be able to reach the girl with its claw. Just a bit closer, and she'd be within proximity. Custas must have realized this as well. 

Muttering a spell that Elaine couldn't quite hear, and with a blue flash shooting from his wand, the intensity of the wind amplified, rampaging with enough force to push boulders or topple nearby, half-destroyed pillars and staircases. Elaine pressed herself to the ground, avoiding the brunt of the air current, and yet she could still notice herself flying backward, slowly sliding over chips and fissures.

The deathstalker cried out in anger, or at least, what Elaine presumed was anger. Dislodging itself entirely from the ground, it lunged forward in a blind rampage. A claw thrust out in front of it, striking the terrain with an ear-splitting slam! that caused Elaine's innards to shudder with a terrible vibration. Fearne screamed, scrambling back as another of the beast's claws crashed near her, severing the stone with its might.

"Fearne!" Elaine shouted.

And then, a thought possessed her. A dangerous, risky consideration. The deathstalker was combating Custas' storm, but it wasn't defying it outright. If she fired a spell at it, she might be able to hinder the deathstalker's more than unstable stance. Maybe she could even get the creature to retreat as it had done so before. Her grip tightened around her wand, and her target clarified in her eyes. But before the words of a spell could leave her throat, Custas shouted out behind her, "Wind Magic: Dromen Tempas!"

Flying from him soared a barrage of razor-like wind. Each of them—eight, Elaine approximated—was several feet long and had been crafted to look like the blade of a sickle sword. They were so sharp, Elaine noticed, that they were capable of cutting the rocky terrain in half, leaving singular trails of severed stone wherever they flew, kicking up storms of dust and debris into the air. Elaine hadn't even realized that they'd already passed her until a gust of breeze stung the back of her neck like a whip, causing her shoulder cape to billow uncontrollably. 

The blades of compressed wind slammed into the stunned deathstalker one after the other. Over the commotion of wind-shredding keratin, Elaine discerned the creature's panicked and pain-induced screeches. One of the wind swords curved upward amidst its predetermined trajectory, cutting straight through the beast's pincer tail, slicing the thing clean off.