The first tearing of a web by the smaller golem wrings a cry out of Al-kin. The shaper moved back and tried in vain, to pull something from the still depleted ley lines. There was nothing left. All of it had gone into the larger creature. What had caused it? What was the reason for something so...

Alarin fumbled for the sword and finding it, stood in the hole. Breathing in deep, not stopping to think that such an act had been difficult but a moment before, the fighter took a step back from the small rock monster.

The other.

Al-kin's heart skipped a beat. It was crawling out of the ground. There was nothing Al-kin could do. There were no powers to draw about, nothing to do but perhaps push back with the sword. Still, there was no proving that the steel would stand up to such a battering from either, that there would be anything to hold it steady and keep it in one piece. No, chances were, a blow by either one of those creatures and the sword would shatter almost as easily as Al-kin's body would.

Though there was nothing but a small whisper of voice deep within, Al-kin could, at the least, hear the fear in it. Even Mamoru was frightened of what happened before them. With a frown, Al-kin gripped the sword's hilt with two hands because one was too shaky on its own.

"Jutta nandar!" the shaper screamed in battle and leapt forward. Magic would move but only with the caster still there. In Al-kin's case, the caster was the old man. Whatever he might have been, Al-kin was sure he was mortal in the end.

Therefore, with the next swing of the flail, Al-kin ducked under the sweep and rolled past the stone creature. Pressing with the balls of slender feet, the shaper crossed the space in two, long legged bounds, sword swinging upward in an arc attempting to sever the old man's forearm at the elbow. Casters needed two arms, after all.

__________________

‘What will my death be like?’ he thought- and knew at once
with abrupt certainty, that it would be just like his life:
... the same balance of bearables.
~Amis