Lucien did not pause. He barked the orders over the shrieking. "Zuri, left side. Cut the manus. Don’t let them grab you. Zeph, right side. Heads only. No bites. If one head closes its mouth on you, you’re dead. Keep moving."

He ran straight at the monster’s body.

The fight became fast and ugly. Zuri went left. Two manus reached for her. She ducked under the first and brought her Gayang sword up. The curved blade sheared through the second manus at the joint. The claw fell twitching. She rolled away before the first manus could swing back.

Zeph went right. A head lunged at him from above. The fangs were open, aimed at his shoulder. He swung his Ngulu sword in a flat arc. The heavy blade hit the neck just below the head. The head came off in a spray of black blood. The neck stump flailed, spraying droplets across the cave floor. The remaining six heads screamed.

Lucien reached the monster’s body. He drove his left sword into its side. The blade went in up to the hilt. He twisted it, pulled it out, and stabbed again. Black blood poured down his arm. The monster thrashed. A manus caught him across the chest and threw him into the cave wall.

His back hit the stone. The breath left his lungs. He slid down, gasping. His left sword was still in his hand. His right was on the floor three feet away.

He grabbed it and stood up.

Zuri was still cutting manus. She had taken three now. The stumps were scattered around her feet. But a fourth manus wrapped around her ankle. It lifted her off the ground and slammed her onto her back. Her head hit the stone. Her eyes went unfocused for a second.

Zeph ran to her. He chopped the manus in two with one swing of the Ngulu. Zuri rolled to her feet. Blood ran down the back of her neck from a cut on her scalp.

"I’m fine," she said. Her voice was thick but steady.

A head lunged at Zeph from his blind side. He turned too slowly. The fangs grazed his forearm. His leather sleeve tore. But there was no cut from the skin beneath.

He looked at it. Then at Lucien.

"Keep going! Make sure it doesn’t bite you!" Lucien shouted. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Zeph went back to cutting heads.

They had taken three heads and six manus. But the monster was not slowing. The remaining four heads were more aggressive. They struck faster, pulled back faster. The manus that remained swung in wider arcs, forcing Zuri and Zeph to stay low.

Lucien moved to the monster’s side again. He stabbed and cut. Black blood soaked his shirt. The cave floor was slick with it. He slipped, caught himself, and kept cutting and stabbing.

Then a manus caught Zuri across the ribs. The impact lifted her off her feet and threw her toward the cave entrance. She landed hard, rolled, and did not get up immediately.

"Zuri!" Zeph turned to help her—a manus wrapped around his waist. The claws dug into his leather vest. The monster lifted him and swung him toward the cave wall. His shoulder hit stone. He dropped his Ngulu sword. The manus swung him again, this time toward the entrance. He flew out of the cave mouth and landed on the scree outside. He lay still, his arm bent at a wrong angle.

Lucien was alone with the monster. It had one manus left. One head. The body was bleeding from dozens of cuts. Black blood pooled beneath it. But it was still moving and still lunging.

The lone manus shot forward. Lucien dodged left. The claws scraped his ribs. He swung his right sword and cut the manus at the midpoint. The claw punched through his left side.

He felt it go in. He felt it push between two ribs and stop somewhere near his spine. The pain shot through him, making his vision blur for a second. He could not breathe. He could not think.

His hands moved anyway. His left sword came up. The blade was heavy. His arm was weak. But he put his shoulder into it.

The monster lowered its height, ready to devour him. But Lucien drove the sword into the monster’s single remaining head. The blade entered through the throat and exited through the top of the skull.

The head stopped moving. The body went limp. The manus on Lucien’s side stopped pushing.

He pulled himself off the claw. The wound bled. He felt the blood run down his leg, hot and fast. He took two steps away from the body. Then he fell on the stone floor of the cave.

The monster did not move again.

Lucien sat there in the almost dark cave. Some of the fireballs had died. He could see Zuri climbing to her feet outside. He could see Zeph sitting up, holding his broken arm.

He looked down at his side. The skin was torn. He pressed his hand against the wound. The blood pushed between his fingers.

Zuri ran into the cave. She dropped to her knees beside him. "Lucien!"

"I’m fine," he said. His voice was quiet.

Tears welled up in her eyes. "You’re not fine."

"It’s dead," he said. He looked at the monster’s body. The lone head was still impaled on his sword. "That’s what matters."

Zuri tore a strip of cloth from the sleeve of her shirt and pressed it into the wound. Lucien winced.

Zeph limped into the cave. His left arm hung at a bad angle. He looked at the monster. Then at Lucien.

"You need a healer," Zeph said.

"I know," Lucien said.

He did not try to stand. He sat on the stone floor of that dark cave, leaning against a pillar of rock, and watched the last of MonoValith’s black blood spread across the ground in a slow, widening circle. The hiss was gone.

"I can try to heal you." Zuri cried.

Lucien closed his eyes. The elixir was already wearing off. And the pain was starting to spread through his body. "No. Your magic can’t heal me." He swallowed it. "It’s MonoValith’s venom. Zeph needs you." Lucien coughed.

"It’s just a broken arm."

Lucien groaned. "You would be in terrible pain once the elixir wears off." He coughed. Black blood poured from his mouth.

"We should leave," Zeph said.

They tried to help Lucien to his feet. And they exited the cave.

"Burn it. That way, no one would be able to bring it back to life." Lucien said.

Zuri pressed her palms together again. She turned it towards the cave, and she sent more than twenty fireballs into it. This time, they traveled at a fast pace and consumed every part of the monster.