The Sunderkin drew near. The distance between them wasn't that much, but it was enough. If done right, they could kill at least three of the crawling abominations. Visibility was low in the tunnels, but that didn't matter at this point. The Sunderkin were close enough to be seen.
Jae pointed his hand toward the first Sunderkin in front.
"Hey. That. Go for that."
She took a step back, bow already in hand. The sound was coming fast, straight from the front. No time to think.
She raised the bow, steady but quick. Her fingers pulled the string back, the arrow already nocked. Her arms tensed.
She squinted ahead, heart pounding.
Then she let go.
The arrow shot forward, slicing through the air with a sharp hiss.
In an instant, it pierced what seemed to be the Sunderkin's head, bringing the dreadful abomination's charge to a stop.
Jae mumbled in a low voice,
"One down, four more."
She sent two arrows in quick succession—one hitting its mark and one barely missing its target—but that didn't stop the two monstrosities at the back. They charged with hunger and madness in their eyes. Things weren't looking good for them. They didn't have an infinite amount of arrows, but like Varik said, their goal wasn't to stop the dreadful things. It was to slow them down. So all they had to do was slow them down somehow.
Riven, on the other hand, didn't notice anything. All he was doing was watching the battle between Nira and the rotten monstrosity. The tunnel he was stationed in seemed dead quiet.
There had been no single movement in sight. That didn't mean that there wasn't something inside, but it didn't seem to come Riven's way.
The same couldn't be said for the other three Firstborns. They were flooded with the pale-skinned abominations. They couldn't even count their numbers. They had made preparations since they knew that their tunnel was where the monstrosities would come the most.
As soon as Varik locked eyes with the rotten thing, they moved to their tunnel. They searched the ground for anything they could use. They found stones—jagged, sharp-edged ones—and placed them across the ground in scattered clusters. Not enough to build walls or barriers, but enough to form a rough layer of obstacles. Anything to disrupt the crawl.
They arranged them so that the crawling abominations would have to drag themselves over uneven, biting surfaces. It wouldn't kill them, but it would cut into their limbs, tear into their pale flesh, slow their movements. The crawling beasts, wild in their frenzy, didn't stop to avoid the pain. They pushed forward anyway, scraping themselves against the sharpened stone, screeching as their bodies tore open. Blood smeared across the tunnel floor, turning the ground slick and dark.
But they did slow down.
And that was enough.