Snippet #1832527

It was moments such as these that Huascar cursed himself for never mastering the dark shroud. He could never cast a shroud of that size and hurl it more than a few feet. His employer threw something over his head blocking his vision, he almost, almost gutted her in that instant but he then saw the logic behind it and she reminded him of it before he could strike her down.

He heard her footsteps as she bolted towards the beast and with a dissatisfied grunt he removed the cloth from his vision and closed his eyes instead. It was hard to try to kill something that wanted to kill you without seeing it, he doubted he could dodge its attacks relying only on the sounds of it but he had no choice . He heard the heavy thuds of the beast moving about and faintly Kanai's lighter footsteps in the same general direction.

He gripped his sword with both hands and planted his feet firmly on the ground preparing for anything that might come his way. That is when he heard the beast's heavy footsteps move somewhere in front of him in quick succession.

He gambled it was facing away and when he opened his eyes that was the case. In between the quickly dissipating shroud he could see the tail of it pointing at him, not losing any of the valuable seconds he had he charged at it at full speed. He was closing the distance between them fast convinced the beast was distracted facing elsewhere. Then the shroud cleared enough for him to realize that the beast had merely coiled unto itself, judging by its stance he would come eye to eye with it and that would be the last he would see.

Too late to stop himself all he could do was close his eyes and keep charging with his sword ready to strike, relying only on memory, he lashed out at the Basilisk and somehow connected with something. He felt the blade sink into something before the thick flesh of the beast stopped the blade from cutting any deeper. He jumped to a side pulling the blade out of the beast when he felt something big and heavy crash into his left side sending him tumbling to the ground. The fall was more painful than the impact, the hard sharp rocks in the cave bruising and battering him.

If he had somehow wounded the beast he was not sure of its gravity since it did not make any sound indicating if it was hurt or not. He couldn't hear anything at the moment and was still shaken from the impact, he had lost his bearing and his main weapon, he dared not to open his eyes to see for fear of becoming petrified.

He heard the beasts heavy footsteps charging in his direction and instinctively threw himself to the side, he felt a gust of air moving overhead signaling how close the blow was. Only then did he open his eyes to crawl further away from the Basilisk. Something told him to roll and so he did just before one of the large clawed legs of the monster crashed where he had just been. He scanned the floor briefly for his sword but didn't see it, this small lapse of his divided attention was enough for the monster to knock him off his feet with a second blow.

He landed on his back and for a second saw the beast turning away to focus on Kanai. To his bad luck he could see his sword dangling from the mouth of the giant lizard. The blade was encrusted in its head almost severing the lower half of its jaw.

Despite the gravity of the situation he stood up and charged at the beast again, a lesser man would have sat there lamenting his bad luck or praying to one of the Aethernian gods for strength. He dashed up to the beast reaching for the sword but his footsteps where too close and too loud to not be noticed, it had not forgotten him. The last thing he saw before closing his eyes was something red moving his way quickly, he rolled forward and he knew the monster's head had just passed very close overhead.

He raised his left arm blindly reaching for the handle of the blade, his forearm caught one of the sharp edges giving him a very deep cut. The beast was shaking his head and in the next swinging motion he caught the sharp edge again but this time with his palm. His right knew at that moment where the grip was and was not disappointing when he felt it in his grasp.

He held it tightly like if his life depended on it and yanked forward and up, removing the top part of the Basilisks jaw along with his head. The beasts body made a satisfying thud that shook the ground and sent a few rocks rolling further downhill into the cave, leaving a breathless but relieved Huascar smiling at his good fortune despite the injury on his left arm.

He opened his eyes and finally gave his adversary a good look, its eyes now a darker shade of brown, lifeless and harmless.

He looked up at Kanai and his next comment was more the excitement of the moment than his own words. "You're Basilisk is dead." He said panting.