Runeblade-Chapter 204B2 : Infiltration, pt. 4

The squabbling boggarts kept wailing on each-other, slavering and howling with maddened fury. The lump of bone and gristle they were fighting over spun across the floor of the cavern, launched by a stray kick.

Both boggarts paused, staring at their distant prize. A moment later they both lunged, flying into a tangle of grasping and clawing limbs as they yanked each other back.

One squirmed its way free, desperately reaching for the bone.

Only for the other to sink its fangs into its calf, red blood spilling free.

Kaius saw the very moment the boggart tasted its fellow’s blood. Pinprick pupils set deep into beady eyes dilated, frozen in place as the other boggart howled in pain.

The noise seemed to snap it out of its reverie. Its eyes flicked to the bone, then back to the spindly leg held tight in its grasp.

It made its choice.

Biting deeper, it snapped its head back, ripping free a chunk of the other boggart’s calf. The wounded one screamed, shrill and terrible.

Turning on its attacker, it swept up a stone from the cave floor and bashed the biter over the head. Once, then twice when the first wasn’t enough to force its vice-like bite free.

The stone gashed the biter, face splitting open as greasy fur ran slick with its blood. Hands were raised, warding off the strikes.

The air in the room shifted. Once staring on in cackling amusement, the other boggarts that lined the wall leaned in, a hunger shining in their eyes. It was a dark focus, almost palpable—resonating with the pained and furious screams of the combatants.

The bitten boggart straddled their biter’s chest. Its clutched stone rose high overhead, before it drove it down with the weight of its anger. It clacked off a raised forearm, splitting the flesh—though the bone held strong.

Hissing in fury, it struck again, and again. A hate filled rhythm fueling its twisted body, and the bitten boggart savaged its opponent. At first the biter held up resistance, scratching at the other’s face with desperate intensity. Then a heavy smash slipped through its guard, catching it on the forehead.

The boggart gasped, head snapping back to crack against the stone floor with a loud retort. It slumped back limp and dazed.

Crying in victory, the other boggart didn’t pause for a second. The hall quieted, filled only with the sodden sound of its chosen weapon splitting flesh. Again and again it wailed, until with one final heaving blow, a sickening crack echoed off the walls of the cave.

Panting in exertion, the boggart rose, looking down at the mashed face of its competitor. Kaius saw the wild and hungry look that covered its face.

He knew what was coming, but he couldn’t look away.

The boggart dived down, tearing at the mouldering leathers that covered its companion. It stripped the body clean with practiced efficiency, and then bit down on its shoulder, wrenching a chunk of flesh free with a snap of its neck.

Kaius clenched his teeth, swallowing his gorge at the casual display of cannibalism. He turned his attention to the spectators.

Only for them to pounce. The sight of so much flesh sent them into a madness, clawing at each other as they descended on the slain boggart.

Whipped into a fervour by the taste of blood, the victorious boggart tried to defend its kills. Stone raised high, it cried out in challenge, despite the numbers arrayed against it.

It proved to be the wrong move. The mob turned on it at once, and it vanished under a flail of limbs.

Pained cries filled the cave, only to be cut short and replaced by the sound of cracking bones and torn flesh.

The boggarts were…not clean eaters. In their maddened hunger, strips of fur and sprays of blood coated them liberally, spraying away from the densely knotted cluster.

The bugbear, however, had not moved. It still stood there, unmoved by the show of wanton hunger and violence. There was no sign of displeasure on its twisted and alien face. No, instead its jutting fangs were bared in a clear display of glee.

It laughed, loud and dark, before it pushed itself off the cave wall it had been leaning against and waded into the fray.

Lost in bloodlust as they were, more than one boggart turned on the intruder with a hiss. The bugbear simply growled, spitting out a gravelly word in their twisted mockery of language as it kicked them to the side, sending the boggarts sprawling.

Reaching one of the bodies, it bent down and snatched up a leg—wrenching the body free of the lesser ones that tried to hold on to it desperately. A flurry of snapping kicks was enough to dislodge the unruly bunch.

Standing with its chest high, the bugbear hoisted the slain boggart aloft. Chunks were missing from its arms and legs, and the shattered remnants of its skull still leaked a pink sludge streaked with dripping blood.

The bugbear gave the body a cursory look, licking its lips with a heavy breath. One of the boggart’s whimpered, staring at the body that had been torn from it. The bugbear’s eyes snapped over, staring at the hungry remainders with a dark scowl on its face. As if daring them to challenge it.

When none did, Kaius watched it smile, look over its prize, and turn to descend deeper into the tunnel.

The remaining boggarts sat frozen and fearful, watching the retreating figure of the bugbear vanish into the tunnel. That moment of quiet calm lasted only until it had disappeared from sight.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

As a group, they turned back towards the body. Growls raised in throats, as boggarts were shoved away from the single remaining meal. As soon as violence was raised, they descended over the body in a mad rush to gorge on the slain meat.

Yet there was only so much to go around. Those that clustered around the body had to deal with shuddering punches, and heavy scratches as their compatriots tried to tear them free to get their own access.

It was a quickly breaking balance, Kaius realised. It wouldn’t take the mob long to realise that there was plenty of meat with its heart still beating. The second one showed a fraction too much weakness, they would fall prey to their own vicious desires and turn on eachother.

A perfect moment for them to strike.

Taking a last, long, look at the horrors the boggarts had wrought on their own kind, Kaius knew that they had to die.

It was foul and evil, what they did. Perhaps, if they had been unthinking and particularly brutal beasts, he’d be able to wave it away as the heartless viciousness of nature. Boggarts weren’t beasts.

They made fire, tools, and clothes. They even had some simplistic cousin to language, same as the goblins. To descend to such depravity when they had such faculties was unforgivable. No, it was evil. Plain and simple.

Worse, if they were falling to cannibalism, they must have been struggling to support their population levels. He’d known that they’d only seen a few beasts since they’d entered the hills, but the appetite of the plague must be truly voracious.

The sourc𝗲 of this content is freēwēbηovel.c૦m.

It wouldn’t take long for the hunger to drive them from their den. Send them spilling out into the plains below.

They had to end this. Tonight.

…

Kaius raced through the cave, hurrying back to where his companions waited for him a few bends around the tunnel.

He found them waiting, hidden in a crook of the cave wall that would have obscured them from anything following them in.

Waving to catch their attention, he saw Ianmus sighing in relief.

“What did you find, friend?” the half-elf whispered softly.

“Madness.” Kaius replied, shaking his head at the memory of the grotesque display he’d had the displeasure of witnessing.

“It’s definitely the start of their warren. The cave opens up—there were two boggarts fighting over a scrap of bone.” he continued, keeping his voice low so as to be certain to be drowned out by the sounds of the hissing brawl that came through the cave.

“Just the two? Why’d it get louder, then?” Porkchop asked, looking back the way he had come.

Kaius shook his head. “There were more, perhaps ten, watching them brawl—same with a bugbear. One of the fighters got killed, and the other was quickly overrun as it turned into a feeding frenzy.”

“They’ve already fallen to cannibalism? That’s not good; we have a week—at most—before they’ll start looking for fresh feeding grounds. In fact, I bet that’s what those raiding parties are already doing. With these ‘bugbears’ and a shaman, we should expect more organisation than boggarts are known for.” Ianmus replied, frowning heavily when he learned how close they had cut things.

“Exactly. Regardless, this is our chance to strike. The bugbear left with one of the bodies, and the boggarts are on the verge of descending into bloodshed once more. If we attack in silence, I doubt any listeners would be able to hear anything different.” Kaius explained.

His companions nodded, doing a final check of their gear. Porkchop decided against summoning his armour. Strong as it was, plates of overlapping stone weren’t the most agile or quiet of things. Besides, with his brothers might, he should have very little trouble with the diminutive creatures.

Kaius drew his blade, moving slowly so as to keep the motion silent. He’d rubbed it in ash much like his armour, blending with its smokey crystal fuller and edge to leave it looking like a slice of congealed shadow in the umbral intensity of the cave.

Right on cue, the second that they started to creep forwards, the snarling of the boggarts rose to a crescendo, cries of anger and pain echoing through the passage.

They had turned on each other.

“Ianmus! SundrenchedStrength!” Kaius hissed, breaking into a jog.

The mage nodded, eyes narrowing in concentration as he kept pace with the team, mana streaming towards him. A second later Kaius saw mana flash—though it did not illuminate the cave to his mortal sight—and felt the soothing vigour of the sun settle into his flesh.

**Ding! You have been Enhanced - Sundrenched Strength!**

A second flash followed a few steps after that, this time centred on Porkchop.

His physicality empowered, Kaius was able to speed up while still remaining silent. A quick glance behind him showed Porkchop right at his tail, with Ianmus at the rear, a channelled spell held primed and ready.

At the last turn, Kaius broke into a sprint.

Bursting into the room, he was treated to the sight of all out bloodshed. Two more boggarts were bleeding profusely—their flesh writhing as health slowly sealed their injuries. The rest of the boggarts had cornered them, ignoring the half eaten corpse lying by the fire in the centre of the room.

It was a cacophony of snarls and gnashing teeth, and brutal, clawing blows. The two targets were getting the worst of it, but it didn’t mean the rest were working together with ease. No, any boggart who drew too closely to another almost invariably caught a swung stone or a heavy punch.

Kaius took it all in, cataloguing their dishevelled lack of unity. His Glass Mind called in glee, pouring over the weaknesses in their formation. Stormlash was right out—it was too loud, and he needed to save it.

He also wouldn’t need it.

Leaping forwards with a silent snarl on his face, he buried the edge of A Father’s Gift in a boggart’s brainpan, blood spraying from the wound.

It collapsed, limp and boneless.

**Ding! level 54 Boggart - Feral Mauler slain - Experience Gained! Bonus Experience for slaying a foe of Significant Strength!**

He was already moving. The strange style of Vesryn swordplay was still unfamiliar to him, but he’d started to get a handle on it. It was quick, adaptable, and fast.

Planting his weight on his lead foot, he spun, using the momentum of his turn to rip his blade free of its bind in the goblins head. The pommel of his blade caught the next one in the back of the head with a shuddering crunch, sending it sprawling prone.

Then Porkchop descended upon them, a storm of flashing green claws quickly followed by a burst of heat as Ianmus unleashed his spell. He’d done….something to it using freecasting. He could still feel the heat of it—see it in his mana-sight—but it was invisible to the naked eye.

The boggarts finally noticed them, Porkchop too large to be lost in the haze of their bloodlust.

They cried in surprise and fury, scrambling back from their assault.

Kaius only grinned, switching to a one handed stance he had been practicing, before he whipped his blade through a boggart's exposed belly. Blood ran in waves, entrails sloshing free to tangle up its allies' feet.

The calls. They sounded exactly like the boggarts earlier brawl.