After a short break, they moved further in, narrow tunnels branched like a spider’s web, interlocking in confusing patterns. Kobold scratch marks, symbols, and crude warnings decorated the stone.

  At a jagged crossroads where three tunnels converged, the air changed.

  Fetid incense clung to the stone, thick and sour, and crude symbols had been smeared along the walls in streaks of what Josh hoped was dried blood. From the shadows ahead emerged a knot of kobolds, smaller than the drudges but no less dangerous. Several were marked head to tail in red pigment, their scales carved with ritual scars. Bone totems dangled from their necks and staves, clacking softly as they moved.

  Perberos stiffened. “Shamans,” he hissed. “Multiple.”

  The kobolds screeched in unison, a shrill, piercing sound that set Josh’s teeth on edge. The shamans slammed their staves against the stone, and the totems flared with sickly light, whilst the other kobolds flooded forward. Their chanting began immediately, high, discordant voices overlapping in a rhythm that felt wrong, like fingers scraping across bone.

  The air shimmered.

  Heat warped vision. Pressure built behind Josh’s eyes as mana pooled unnaturally fast, drawn into the shamans’ ritual circle. The stone beneath their feet vibrated faintly, as if the dungeon itself leaned in to listen.

  Brett reacted on instinct.

  He thrust his staff forward, mana surging violently as he ripped a spell half-formed into existence. “Not today.”

  A chain of raw fire exploded from his outstretched hand, leaping between the chanting kobolds in jagged arcs. Flame lashed across red-painted scales, searing flesh and setting bone charms ablaze. Two shamans screamed as their concentration shattered, one collapsing as its totem detonated in a spray of splinters and burning marrow.

  Josh and Bhel surged forward together, spears flew to meet them. Josh raised his shield just in time as a volley slammed into it, the impact rattling his arm to the shoulder. One spear slipped past, gouging a line across his thigh. He grunted and pushed through the pain, slamming into the front line, shield-first, scattering lesser kobolds like skittles.

  Bhel barrelled in behind Josh with a roar, axes carving brutal paths through bodies and staves alike. One shaman tried to curse him mid-swing, black energy crawling up the bone staff but Bhel caught the haft with one hand and ripped. The staff snapped with a sharp crack, the magic backfiring in a flash that blew the kobold backward in a smoking heap.

  Then the shamans retaliated.

  A wave of pain magic slammed into Josh like a physical blow. His vision went white, sound collapsing into a high, ringing whine as every nerve in his body screamed at once, as if his bones were being crushed from the inside. He staggered and dropped to one knee, shield slipping from numb fingers and clattering against the stone.

  The kobolds didn’t hesitate.

  They swarmed him the moment his guard fell. Rusted blades hacked at his arms and legs, one scraping across his forearm hard enough to tear skin, another biting into his thigh with a wet crunch. A spear jabbed under his ribs, driving the breath from his lungs as he curled instinctively, trying to protect his head while claws and steel rained down on him.

  “Josh!” Brett shouted.

  Carcan’s voice cut through the chaos, steady and commanding. She planted her staff and raised both hands, golden light spilling outward in a radiant surge. Healing magic washed over Josh, knitting torn flesh and dulling the agony just enough for him to breathe again.

  “Up,” she said sharply. “You’re not done yet.”

  Perberos was already moving.

  His arrows flew in rapid succession, each shot precise despite the chaos. One shaman took an arrow through the throat mid-chant, the spell dying in a wet gargle. Another caught one clean through the eye, collapsing before it hit the ground.

  The remaining shamans shrieked and redoubled their efforts.

  Crackling bolts of warped mana lashed out, scorching stone and leaving blackened scars in the walls. One blast clipped Brett’s shoulder, sending him stumbling back with a hiss of pain as the air filled with the stench of burned cloth and flesh.

  Bhel saw Josh go down. The sight punched the breath from his chest. One moment Josh was holding the line, the next he was on his knee, half-buried beneath snapping jaws and rusted blades.

  With a bellow that was more rage than war cry, Bhel forced his way into the press. He shoulder-checked one kobold warrior into a stone pillar with bone-jarring force, then brought his axe down in a brutal, two-handed chop, splitting the creature from collarbone to hip. He didn’t slow.

  Another kobold tried to scramble past him toward Josh. Bhel seized it by the tail, swung it bodily off its feet, and smashed it into the cavern wall hard enough to leave a dark red smear and a body collapse.

  “Get. Away. From him,” Bhel snarled, planting himself over Josh like a living shield, axes rising again as more kobolds came for his downed friend.

  Warmth flooded Josh’s chest, sharp and sudden, like breath forced back into lungs that had forgotten how to work. The screaming pain dulled, retreating in jagged steps instead of all at once. Pins and needles raced through his limbs as torn flesh knit and bruised bone steadied itself.

  His vision swam, white giving way to colour in slow, bleeding layers. Shadows sharpened. Stone resolved. Blood.

  A translucent shimmer flared into existence inches from his face. A shield of pale blue light, humming softly, caught a jagged spear that would have split his skull. The impact sent ripples across its surface like water struck by a thrown stone.

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  Carcan.

  Josh sucked in a breath and forced himself upright, boots slipping in gore. His fingers closed around his sword hilt again, grip trembling but solid. The weight of it grounded him.

  Another kobold lunged, screeching, blade raised high. Josh met it with a savage upward slash, steel biting deep into scaly flesh. The creature fell back, clutching at its opened belly, and Josh followed through without hesitation, stepping in and driving his sword through its throat.

  Pain still throbbed beneath the healing, a deep reminder that he was not whole, and something inside Josh snapped. The pain, the fear, the sight of kobolds swarming too close, too fast, all of it twisted together until there was no room left for thought. Only motion. Only threat.

  He roared and let go of restraint, letting something else take over.

  His left hand tore free his longsword from its sheath. Steel rang as it cleared leather, and then he was moving, not advancing so much as crashing forward. The world narrowed to shapes and movement and the instinctive certainty of where to strike.

  A kobold rushed him, teeth bared, blade raised. Josh met it head-on, ramming his blade into its chest hard enough to lift it from its feet. Before it could hit the ground, his right-hand sword punched down through its collarbone. He wrenched the blades free and spun, the second sword already arcing out in a brutal horizontal cut that opened another kobold from shoulder to gut.

  Blood sprayed warm across his arms. He barely noticed.

  They came at him in a pack, shrieking, desperate now. Josh tore into them like a man possessed. One blade hacked and chopped, battering aside weapons and limbs. The other thrust clean and lethal, slipping through ribs, throats, eye sockets. He drove forward step by step, boots slipping, breath coming in harsh snarls.

  A spear glanced off a magical shield and shattered. Another struck his pauldron and skidded away. Josh surged through it, hip slamming and then kicking a kobold into the stone wall hard enough to crack bone. He finished it with a downward stab that pinned it in place.

  “Josh!” someone shouted. Brett, maybe. Or Carcan.

  He didn’t hear them.

  A kobold leapt at his back. Josh twisted, catching it mid-air on his blade, momentum carrying the creature down the length of the steel. He flung the corpse aside without breaking stride and kept going.

  Fear bloomed in the kobolds’ eyes now. They tried to fall back. Josh chased them, followed closely behind by Bhel, both cutting the beasts down as they turned, hacking into spines and hamstrings, dragging them screaming back into reach.

  Only when there were none left standing did Josh stop.

  Josh stood heaving, both swords dripping, chest burning, vision tunnelling again, not from pain this time but from the sheer flood of adrenaline. His hands shook. His heart hammered like it was trying to escape his ribs.

  Slowly, the rage bled out of him.

  The cavern came back into focus. The bodies. The blood. His friends staring at him.

  Josh lowered his blades, breath ragged, and swallowed hard.

  “…I think,” he said hoarsely, “I might have overdone it.”

  Brett stared at the corpses, then at Josh. “That was… metal.”

  Silence fell abruptly. Smoke drifted through the crossroads. Broken totems lay scattered across the floor, their magic bleeding away in faint, dying sparks. Blood pooled in the grooves of the stone, mingling with ash and melted bone.

  The aftermath hit Josh harder than the fight. His arms felt heavy, as if the swords still weighed on him even after he’d sheathed them. The cavern seemed too quiet now, the ringing in his ears replaced by the soft drip of water and the crackle of dying magic. When he looked down at his hands, he had to flex his fingers just to convince himself they were still his.

  He hadn’t planned any of that. He swallowed, throat tight, and forced himself to look at the bodies. The way some of them lay twisted. The sheer violence of it. His stomach turned.

  “I didn’t…” Josh started, then stopped. The words wouldn’t come.

  Carcan was in front of him before he realised she’d moved.

  Her staff clattered to the ground as she reached him, both hands pressing hard against his chest. Not pushing him away, not pulling him close. Just there. Her eyes were wide, bright with unshed tears, her breathing quick and uneven.

  “You scared me,” she said, voice breaking. “Josh, you scared me.”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but she hit him again, a small, furious thump against his breastplate. Then another. Her fists were clenched, shaking.

  “You just— ” she said, words tumbling over each other now. “I couldn’t reach you. I threw shields on you, healing, everything, and you didn’t even look at me. You didn’t look at anyone.”

  Josh’s chest tightened painfully.

  “I thought we’d lost you,” Carcan whispered. Panic finally spilling over, her voice cracking. “Not to the kobolds. To… whatever that was.”

  She struck his chest again, harder this time. It barely hurt, but the sound of it echoed louder than any blow he’d taken in the fight.

  “I didn’t mean to,” he said, the words raw. “I didn’t even feel it happening. I just… snapped.”

  Her hands curled in the front of his armour, and for a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Josh could feel her trembling through the metal.

  Instinct took over again, but this time it was gentler.

  He reached down slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted to. When she didn’t, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in.

  Carcan froze.

  Then she sagged against him with a shaky breath, forehead pressing into his chest. Her fists unclenched, fingers curling into his cloak instead.

  Josh held her like that, solid and still, grounding himself in the simple reality of it. Her breathing. The warmth of another person. The fact that he was here. That they both were.

  “I’m still me,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “I promise.”

  Carcan nodded against him, swallowing hard. “Just… don’t do anything like that again.”

  He tightened his hold slightly. “I won’t.”

  When they finally separated, both of them looked a little stunned.

  Brett was staring openly. Perberos had politely turned away, pretending to check the tunnel. Even Bhel had gone quiet, watching with a thoughtful frown.

  Josh cleared his throat, suddenly very aware of how close that had been. “Sorry,” he said, awkward and sincere all at once.

  Carcan wiped at her eyes, took a steadying breath, and retrieved her staff. “Good,” she said firmly. “Because next time, I’m knocking you unconscious myself.”

  Josh snorted despite himself.

  The tension eased, but it did not vanish. It settled into Josh’s bones instead, a quiet reminder that whatever had surged through him back there was not something he could fully control.

  Perberos swept his gaze down the branching tunnels, already setting another arrow to the string. “Shamans or not, that kind of magic doesn’t go unnoticed. The warren felt that.”

  Bhel rolled his shoulders, wet axes leaving dark streaks across the stone. His grin was feral. “Good,” he said. “Means they’ll stop hiding.”

  Carcan let out a long breath, the last threads of healing light fading from her hands. “They already know we’re here. Every trap, every corridor… they’ll be awake now.”

  Josh bent, retrieving his shield and tightening his grip on his sword. The metal felt solid. Real. Grounding. “Then we don’t give them time to settle in.” He looked down the tunnel ahead. “Lets keep moving. And we hit whatever comes next before it can choose how.”

  I appear to have caught something along the lines of the black death or man flu. I'm hoping it won't impact too much on my up coming releases, but if it does I'm apologising in advance... I slept for 15 hours yesterday, and not been able to do much writing the past few days.

  Fingers crossed I'll be better by weekend and can crank out a fair few chapters.

  5* reviews are well known for their healing abilities, right?