Elias was ninety meters from the pit when the first candidate reached him. He had felt them coming for the last seven minutes via Stone-Souled, his new traits, even before his Crimson Vein legacy that could feel the blood inside others, giving him a sort of heat sense
He was discovering that his new trait that had fused with his legacies also gave him new senses, but it was not a sense in the way that sight was a sense, in the case of Stone-Souled, the ground beneath his boots carried the shape of footsteps the way still water carried the shape of dropped stones, and two hundred and seventy-three pairs of boots on broken cobblestones made a pattern that was easy to read.
Two hundred and seventy-three left from three thousand? Anywhere else, and that loss would be devastating, and yet these candidates, instead of fleeing, were coming closer for more of the action.
Surely they had tasted the results of the ash that enhanced their talents, and the ones that were left must be the strongest and craziest, but Elias still thought it was foolish; none of them was ready for this trial, and they should have quit while they were ahead.
However, he knew that if these creatures were still focused on him, then these candidates left would be the lucky ones, as they would be able to kill without holding back, knowing that he was the one drawing the entire heat.
He wondered if any of them had thought of this point, but he would not be surprised if all of them had thought of it, and yet did not mention it to the others due to the innate pride of Siphons.
They had come slowly at first, as if they were hesitating, and then they picked up the pace until they were coming at a run.
While most of them did not come close to him, spreading out to pick out stragglers by the side, some of the candidates seemed not to be afraid of the sweep of his spider legs, and one of them that was closest to him was a young woman with copper-dark hair tied back with a strip of leather.
She was not a character he had noted at the gate, yet to survive to this point spoke of her character and strength. She carried a spear that had been repaired with wire at the shaft, and her armor was half-plate stripped of its ornamental hinges, and she was breathing hard enough that he could hear it over the work of the spider-legs.
She drew alongside him on his left and did not speak for the first thirty seconds. He allowed this. She was matching his pace and picking out the few that were slipping past his reach.
A wave of perhaps sixty spawns came in from her flank, and a spider leg moved to take them, and showing incredible athleticism, she stepped into the arc of the leg and took two of the spawns herself, efficiently, with the kind of spear technique that suggested the Academy rather than the Guild, and the spider-leg adjusted around her without thinking, crushing the others into ash, before reverting and plunging ahead.
This surprised Elias, because the spider-legs had never been asked to adjust around an ally before, and he had not consciously told them to do so. He did not intend to slaughter these people, and somehow, these limbs seemed to know that.
"My name is Meris," the young woman said, "Your Lumina Construct is amazing. I guess that is what you get for being an Ascendant Candidate. Hey, what's your name?"
Elias did not respond, but his mind was whirling. Lumina Construct, so this was what I created from my epiphany.
"I am going to keep saying it until you say yours, or until I die. I have not decided which is more likely."
Elias still did not respond, his mind going over what it meant to create these spider limbs, and how he had placed all the pieces into what emerged.
She killed another spawn, a small one that had slipped under the sixth leg's rotation. "I am told this works on armored men. My father has been armored for thirty-two years. He also does not speak much. But he speaks when you wear him down."
Elias's helm turned toward her for perhaps half a second. He said nothing and kept moving.
Meris smiled. She did not look at the helm. She was looking ahead, at the pit, and she was not smiling because of Elias.
"I had a brother," she said, conversationally, killing a spawn. "He died at the shield wall four hours ago. He used to say that any conversation worth having could wait for the fight to be over. I told him that was a coward's philosophy. He told me that all of his philosophies were coward's philosophies, and that was why he was still alive. He was wrong, in the end, about being alive. But he was right that conversations can wait." She killed another spawn. "So I will wait. But you should know that my name is Meris, and when I die I would like to have died beside a man whose name I know."
Elias walked, while his spider-legs harvested, and as the ash flowed into him, his pools, he noted with the small dispassionate part of himself that was still tracking, were at 1,389 meters of circumference. He was so close to becoming a peak Fury Forge, and he would reach this level before he got to the pit, even with these people here collecting a small portion of his prey.
Behind Meris, more of them shifted closer to him, as it seemed they were aware that he was not going to be hurting them, and hunting closer to him was safer.
A big man with an axe took his position on Elias's right and said nothing at all. Two academy students in matched uniforms fell in three paces behind and set up a crossfire with thrown blades of pure condensed steel. A woman whose talent Elias could not identify but whose left hand left trails of frost in the air, joined them, and before he knew it, he had a small entourage around him.
They did not try to lead or match his stride, which was a very smart play on their part. They walked behind him, or beside him, at the edges of the safe zone that the spider-legs had been carving through the tide for hours, and they killed what slipped through, and they did not waste breath on questions… Except Meris, who was still talking.
"I am told that you are from the Stoneward Asylum."
Nothing.
"I am told that you have only been an Ascendant Candidate for a month."
Nothing.
"I am told that when you speak, rainbows appear in the sky and fair maidens are suddenly pregnant without you even touching them."
Elias paused for half a beat, but he did not speak.
"I am told," she said, "that you are not actually mute, and that you simply find most people too dull to address. I hope this is true. It would be a useful thing to know about a man whose name I would like to have died beside."
The big man on Elias's right spoke for the first time. His voice was deep, slow, and unhurried.
"Girl. Shut up."
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