Tormule
Tormule
He didn't say "Stay alive" or "Don't die." Rather than make promises he couldn't keep, Aslan raised Seobsaeng in his left hand, steadied Purity in his right, and swung the blade in a slow circle.
The garrison soldiers formed a long line behind him, each clutching a weapon. His companions flanked him, checking their gear or steadying their breath as they prepared for the breakthrough.
Speed was the key. Given the Tormules waiting on the other side — not one, not two — speed was all that mattered. Break through fast, find the target fast.
A drawn-out fight would mean casualties among the garrison and his own people. Steeling himself, Aslan glanced at Anna.
"Can you break the wall?"
"...The wall?"
"Yes. If we're packed into a choke point at the moment of breach, it'll be dangerous."
Anna stared at the wall, then gave a nod.
"Shouldn't be difficult."
"Then I'll ask you to do it just before we go through."
Anna's eyes flashed without reply. Aslan turned away and swept his gaze across the others.
Tiyamal, expression grave, rifled through a quiver that had only a few arrows left. Angie rolled her neck from side to side without a trace of nerves. Fay was expressionless; Ereta wore a smile. Each of them met the coming fight in their own way. Belatedly, Aslan sensed a presence on his left and turned — Rumel stood there rigid with tension, readying herself for battle.
Unlike the others, her nerves were plain to see.
For a moment he didn't understand why. Then he recognized what set her apart from the rest and let out a silent sigh.
Rumel had fought alongside him only once before.
Tiyamal, Ereta, Angie, Fay — they'd survived crisis after crisis with him. For Rumel, this was only the second time she faced death at his side.
It made sense.
She hadn't yet learned to treat mortal danger as routine.
Aslan regarded her for a heartbeat, then turned forward, gripping Purity tight as he settled into his stance. Weight centered high, left foot advanced just slightly.
He raised Seobsaeng overhead. Behind him, garrison men swallowed hard. The low thrum of Anna shaping magic pressed against the air. When Aslan thrust his sword forward, everything vanished beneath the roar.
KWA-BOOOOOM!
The stone wall shattered into flying shards. Dust erupted thick and white. Aslan was the first to thrust himself into the gap, sword locked in his grip, eyes shut tight.
Beyond those closed lids, something like a premonition surged raw and violent.
Through the hail of brick fragments, shapes bled into view. Enemies. Aslan's eyes snapped open. He brought Purity up from low to high in a single wicked arc.
CRACK!
A Tormule's body split apart. Black fluid sprayed as the halves tumbled away, and Aslan launched himself forward.
The dust parted as his companions burst through behind him.
Breath of fire.
Aslan swung Seobsaeng and slammed a Tormule aside. Rumel followed the opening instantly, spear driving forward. A chest-plate shattered under the thrust.
To their flank, a spear stabbed in. Fay leapt in and kicked it down, the weapon gouging the floor as it stopped. She flowed upward onto the creature's shoulders, twisted, sprang — and a Tormule's severed head tumbled across the ground.
TWANG!
CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH!
Dozens more Tormules emerged from the chaos. An arrow scythed through the mass — a bolt nearly the length of a short spear — that detonated the lead Tormule's skull and punched on through the black figures behind it. The sound was not of flesh but of crystal and stone shattering, bodies that weren't bodies scattering.
Angie crashed into a Tormule charging at Tiyamal and tore it apart limb from limb. Ereta whirled her axe in dazzling arcs and guarded Angie's blind spots. Anna scattered lightning that seared afterimages into the retina and drove back the creatures surging toward them.
Masters, former masters, last remnants of ancient gods — the party pushed forward, each doing their share and more.
"Don't fall behind! Thrust!"
"Hyaaaah!"
Behind the masters came the garrison soldiers in their scores. Weak as each might be individually, long training had drilled them into a single breathing unit. They caught Tormule attacks on heavy shields and shoved them back with spears.
Axemen hammered down on the staggered creatures. Shoulder to shoulder they surged forward, clinging desperately to Aslan's wake, shouting as they came.
The morning sun was just climbing over the City of Pleasure, its light spilling bright across the carnage. The streets were smeared with blood and strewn with intimations of countless dead. Still the garrison pressed on.
There was hope. If they could break through like this, they could find a defensible position or hunt down the main body — either was possible.
That was what Aslan thought. What he failed to account for was the Tormules' ability to do their own breaking through.
Aslan drove Seobsaeng into the nape of the last Tormule's neck, halted it, pulled it close, and sheared its head off with Purity.
RUMBLE-BOOM!
"Gyaaak!"
A scream and a crash erupted behind him — something collapsing. As the slain Tormule fell, scores of black forms materialized beyond it. Angie spat a curse. Fay called his name, low and sharp.
The sudden chaos spread fast, consuming their formation like flame. Aslan found the source and turned.
Behind them. The gap they had broken through — now filled with black silhouettes. He set his jaw.
"Tormule...!"
The figure there was not what he expected.
This was the Tormule he had killed once before, in an alley not long ago — sheathed in Bug's carapace, just as then. The difference now was the countless black crystals studding its entire body, and the endless dark shapes massed behind it.
Hundreds at least, closing the encirclement with terrible speed. A tide of former masters. Aslan stared at the wall of spears and ground his teeth. The garrison soldiers shied back from the thrusting points, colliding with each other.
Trapped, terrified, their shrill cries laced with despair.
Aslan glared at the main Tormule. Tiyamal, arrows spent, clicked his tongue and drew his axe. The others' reactions mirrored his.
A dense thicket of spears pressed inward. Aslan swept his eyes across the scene.
Tiyamal, despite his predicament, kept his gaze level on the enemy — though fatigue made his arms tremble faintly. Angie looked around frantically and swore under her breath. Ereta held her axe low, ready to meet any charge. Fay stood beside Rumel, watching the tense woman in silence.
Rumel was looking at Aslan.
He read everything in her eyes: grim resolve, hesitation, sorrow. He let out a breath.
Resolve was what he needed. That was why he put a hand to his cloak and stepped forward.
Precognition, domination — he would use every tool he had and force a path. He made that vow, and before he could act, the Tormule spoke.
"Want to live?"
Aslan stopped.
He hadn't expected reason from a Tormule. Not anymore. Its only word should have been "Found you." Communication should have been impossible.
Confusion rippled through him, and then the mouth opened again.
"Yeah."
The main Tormule was more intact than the horde behind it. It wore Bug's shell, clutched a black spear, and bore dark stains and crystals across its body, but at least one eye was still clear. That eye fixed on Aslan. Aslan met it.
"Even if it means someone else dies for it?"
The question came out of nowhere. Aslan's expression tightened. The Tormule let its spear fall silently to its side.
No emotion could be read on that Bug face. And yet Aslan remembered a moment — an exchange during a monster hunt long ago, with Tormule at his side. The question it asked now was the same one it had asked then.
He didn't know its intent. The Tormule showed no signs at all. Aslan gazed at it in silence, then stepped forward.
"No."
The same answer as that day.
The Tormule let out a dry, clicking laugh, as if the answer pleased it.
"Stubborn."
It threw something. Not at Aslan — at the ground.
The spear drove deep into the stone and stood quivering: black, slickly gleaming.
"That's..."
Rumel's gasp said she recognized it, and so did Aslan. The same spear Tormule had wielded when it ambushed them at their reunion. The one that likely held its soul.
Aslan understood the gesture. His gaze sharpened on the creature.
When their eyes met, something flickered in that dark pupil. Aslan said nothing. The Tormule smiled and spoke. "Take that spear. And I'll let the rest go." It pointed at the weapon with perfect calm. Aslan closed his mouth and looked down at it.
Black, gleaming. By Aslan's reckoning — and Rumel's horrified realization — the moment someone took hold of it, they would become a Tormule. The horde behind it was proof enough.
The trap was transparent. Rumel grabbed Aslan's arm.
"Lord Aslan! You mustn't! If you fall for its trick—!"
Aslan didn't answer. He arranged his face into an expression without hesitation — a face full of grim resolve. It had to read as the look of a man who understood he would lose himself the moment he touched the spear, yet believed he had no other choice.
Of course, he did genuinely intend to take hold of it.
And there was no particularly noble or foolish reason for it.
Stifling a smile with effort, Aslan met the Tormule's eyes. Not a trace of suspicion in those pupils. It seemed certain that the instant Aslan grasped the spear, his body would be stolen.
'This is the only opening.'
The spear lay before him, magic coiling through it.
He couldn't know exactly what magic it was, or how similar it might prove to be. But if it shared even a fragment of resemblance to Bolen's necromancy — if it was close at all — then Aslan, who had already broken Bolen's craft, could dispel it.
No guarantee it would be the same. But no other way existed to break this encirclement around his companions and the garrison.
Even if they forced a passage, the losses would be catastrophic.
Of the lives here, none was especially more precious or worthless. To Aslan, they were all equal. All except one — his own. If there was a life he could spend without hesitation, it was his alone.
He shut his eyes. Behind the lids, emotions and calculations whirled. The chance he was wrong. The chance this choice killed him. His honest desire not to die, and a selflessness that refused to watch others die because of him. The feelings flickered past, one after another.
And yet.
He was the only one who could choose this. The only one who could do this. The thought was enough to push everything else aside. He opened his eyes.
He took a step.
Before his foot could come down again, someone caught him.
A woman looked up at him, her face wretched, hair plastered wet to her cheeks and brow. Rumel.
Aslan turned his head. She shook hers, a tiny motion.
"Then let the woman — no, let her take the spear instead. You'll still get what you were promised."
The Tormule corrected itself, offering. Aslan lifted only his eyes to it and read the hunger swimming there.
He turned back to Rumel. Faced with his resolute expression, she bit her lip hard and spoke.
"This isn't... my land, but — protecting the Empire's subjects is a noble's duty. So..."
The words stopped. But her face was still set, still firm with resolve.
Aslan gazed at her quietly, then laid his hand softly over hers. He gently loosened her grip, working her fingers free from his arm. As his arm slipped from her hold, a small, wounded sound escaped her.
Tears welled up — too many emotions surging at once. Aslan watched her for a moment, smiled gently, and stepped past.
He walked toward the spear. Any onlooker would have seen a man sacrificing himself in a woman's place. Even Rumel, with all her romantic delusions, could not have mistaken it for anything else.
He stopped before the spear embedded in the stone and looked at the Tormule.
"If I just take hold of this... you'll let them all go?"
He asked it with a steadying breath. The Tormule smiled — visible even on that Bug's face.
"I will. I keep my promises."
Whether it knew Aslan had seen through the game was unclear. The Tormule seemed at ease.
Aslan lowered his gaze. The mask of composure he had been forcing slowly peeled away. His lips curved upward.
The Tormule frowned at the sudden smile. Aslan reached for the spear.
"Well, that's good news."
That smile — it didn't belong to a man making the worst choice out of defeat. To the Tormule, it was the smile of a victor. Pure, unmistakable wrongness. Before the Tormule could react, Aslan's hand closed hard around the spear. An instant later, his consciousness sank as if into a lightless swamp.