Infinity Blade 02 - Redemption

terrified him.
    He checked on a few more items—including his secret kingdom to the south, where he was called by different names. Excellent. That seemed to be untouched. If all went very poorly, he could travel there and rebuild.
    He would rather not. It would mean abandoning this empire, admitting defeat, and allowing the Worker to drive this realm into the ground.
    Raidriar memorized what he felt he would need from the information, then set the machine to wipe itself. He took his Devoted from this holy hub, stepping out as the spiderlike keepers began to deactivate and drop from walls and wires. They clicked against the ground like falling coins.
    He walked from the temple structure toward the sunlight, traveling down a long tunnel that would open onto the plains beyond. How could he reclaim his empire? He would need resources, allies. Unfortunately, going to the other Deathless would be dangerous. They would see him as weak. Beyond that, he wasn’t certain any of them would be all that useful against the Worker. The creature would have them all in hand, and would have prepared for Raidriar to try turning them.
    Raidriar needed to do something more unexpected than that—
    Thump.
    He stopped, looking up out of the metallic tunnel. Something blocked the sunlit sky just outside, casting an enormous shadow. A four-legged monster with tattered wings—half machine, half rotting flesh. No artistry to it at all.
    Raidriar sneered. At least he now knew why there had been no further resistance. The Worker had sent this beast. It meant that Raidriar’s escape had indeed been noted, and his edge—if he’d ever had one—was no more.
    Bother.
    The beast smashed a limb down, crushing the tunnel opening. Raidriar rolled free, weapons out. He heard a pathetic scream from behind. The two Devoted being crushed. Raidriar growled, launching himself forward, trying to get beneath the beast’s four stubby legs. Monsters like this had trouble if you could get underneath them . . .
    A large mouth gaped on the bottom of the beast’s body, full of fangs and dripping drool. Now that was just plain wrong . The beast lurched downward, trying to shove him into the maw. Raidriar dodged away. The thing left chunks of decaying flesh on the ground where it scraped and smashed.
    “At least,” Raidriar said, “send something of beauty to try to kill me!”
    This was an insult—and knowing the Worker, a deliberate one. In addition, there were likely traps set up at other rebirthing chambers. If Raidriar died here, when he awoke . . .
    He’d just have to avoid being killed. Raidriar growled as the thing snapped at him with its proper mouth—not the one on its underside, but the one at the end of its long neck. The creature looked like a dragon out of fanciful mythology—some of the Deathless were positively neurotic about creating such things. Only its skin was more leathery than scaled, and along with its long, clawed hands it had four trunklike legs. They’d probably used an elephant as a base, grafting on wings, clawed forearms, and a sinuous neck.
    Honestly. Q.I.P. mutants and creations were supposed to make sense , supposed to look dangerous and deadly—not horrifying and monstrous. There was a difference.
    As the abomination swiped a clawed hand at him, Raidriar twisted his sword deftly and sheared free a few of the clawed fingers. The machine part of the beast—a large section of its back that leaked ichor—glowed with lights, and the beast screeched in anger. Raidriar dodged another snapping hand.
    The head is a distraction, he thought. It’s kept alive by machinery, not by a brain. A kind of undeath.
    Raidriar sheathed one sword, then reached into his pouch and fished out the teleportation ring. Then, he raised his blade and dashed at the beast.
    “I am not some peasant to be toyed with!” Raidriar shouted.
    He dodged under the creature’s inevitable swing, then leaped, slamming his sword into the beast’s leathery side. He used that handhold to heave, pulling himself upward to scramble onto the monster’s back.
    Here, he whipped out his other sword. The thing lurched.
    “I am not an irritation!” Raidriar rammed his second blade into the monster’s back, using that for a handhold as the thing thrashed and lurched. It smelled awful .
    “I am a God,” he shouted, rolling across the beast’s back and slapping the key of the teleportation ring against the machinery keeping the monster alive.
    It thrashed again,