by Eric Vall
One bullet clipped the wing of the keichim, and it squeaked in pain as half of its body caught on fire. With every second of flight, its leathery wings fanned the flames, which grew into a terrible blaze that raced up the bat-monster’s body.
“Keichim!” Layla shouted out in concern as she recalled her monster to stop the damage from worsening.
I’d read the bond of a familiar also meant any injury to the monster felt worse for their owner.
Layla’s reaction seemed to agree with that theory. She bared her teeth in rage, and her eyes flashed with anger as she threw out a dark blue crystal.
Her hyppocrans emerged in a flash of smoke. Its snake-like head and orange eyes roved hungrily over Gawain, and its muscled legs pawed at the ground in anticipation.
Since Layla’s keichim had been injured, I was uncertain if she would have the mana and focus to control the hyppocrans. It was a difficult monster to use non-lethally even if its owner was in perfect shape, and Layla wasn’t exactly fresh anymore.
“Be careful!” I shouted warningly.
Beside me, Cyra glanced at Kalon on her shoulder with urgency. Then the silvery dragon leapt off and began to grow in size at a rapid pace.
The hyppocrans leapt into combat with frightening ferocity. It thundered toward Gawain and stopped short, then swerved its head sideways to uncoil its tongue, which snapped at the gun in his hand. The hyppocrans’ tongue looped around Gawain’s wrist as well as the gun, and the monster pulled both toward its mouth.
With his other hand, Gawain released a fireball that burst into the face of the hyppocrans with a crackling explosion and an enormous cloud of smoke.
Layla’s monster reared back in rage and pain, and I heard Layla gasp as she struggled to contain its will. The hyppocrans reared back on its trunk-like legs, and its arms raised as it prepared to crush Gawain under its giant fists.
Kalon, who was now almost the same size as the hyppocrans, leapt forward and caught the blow with her body as she tackled Layla’s monster. Both creatures tumbled over the pavement as they thrashed at each other with teeth and claws.
Gawain took several steps back as he brandished the gun, which he’d torn free from the hyppocrans’ grasp during the chaos.
The fire mage yelled gibberish and let out a bone-chilling laugh as he sent off several wild shots toward the fighting monsters.
Electric bullets snapped through the air and struck home. Both monsters keened and shrieked in pain. Their wounds from their tussle with each other were already taking a toll, and the bullets were simply too much.
Luckily, Layla and Cyra managed to recall them before things got worse, and the two monsters disappeared back into their crystals.
Layla collapsed to the pavement in exhaustion with the effort of regaining command of her monster. It was clear she’d lost control of the hyppocrans, at least to the point where she couldn’t adjust the force of his attacks, and she shivered with wide eyes as she stared at Gawain.
I wondered if Layla was just scared of his change in behavior, or if she was feeling the full weight of almost killing him with her hyppocrans.
I gritted my teeth in regret. Either way, I didn’t have time to help her out.
Varleth raced out of cover to gather up Layla and take her back into the inn with the rest of the sheltering people.
Gawain fired off bullets at their retreating backs, but I sent my second wallerdon to cover them.
It absorbed several ice shots and collapsed just as my friends made it to safety. Another one of our monsters was down.
I considered the situation. I had seen Erin run off to block the street and keep anybody new from stumbling into the fight, so she was busy with that important task.
Now, it was just Cyra and me against Gawain.
I threw out my kalgori as well as my new monster, the sprucebore. I was slightly nervous about the prospect of using an untested monster against Gawain, but I felt a bond immediately snap into place between me and the sprucebore.
Its mind was simple and straightforward, and I got a vague impression of the hivelike order it was used to. The sprucebore wouldn’t be great at improvisation, but it was a perfectly attentive follower, and it leapt to the task as I commanded it to draw electricity.
Static raced down from the iron trimmings on some of the buildings and gathered to the metallic tree on my monster’s back. My sprucebore fluttered its wings with a buzz and chittered as the sparks on its lightning rod grew.
I grinned. It would be nice to have such a steady, reliable monster at my side.
This wasn’t the Shadowscape, however, and we weren’t lucky enough for a thunderstorm in the human realm. The night sky was clear and cloudless, so my sprucebore’s lightning would be limited in its ability.
That was alright, though, since my kalgori was ready to take up that part of the problem.
I commanded it to multiply, and the green butterfly divided with a hungry eagerness. Soon, one pair of metal-trimmed wings grew to a dozen, and I directed them to circle Gawain and us with a wide berth.
I didn’t want my kalgori to cut him to pieces, but they weren’t nicknamed “storm of knives” for nothing. As my group of a dozen multiplied into over a hundred flashing kalgori, the wind began to pick up around us in the beginnings of a storm.
Gawain was entirely absorbed in fighting the kalgori as he fired off flaming bullets that singed their wings and sent single butterflies to the ground as they burned.
I felt the mana drain as each one was felled, but the fire mage couldn’t keep up with me, and there were always more kalgori to multiply and replace those that fell.
My plan would work.
Cyra’s brown curls whipped wildly around her face, and she took a nervous step toward me. “Don’t we want to be outside the tornado?”
I shook my head with a confident smirk. “I’m not letting them go fast enough for that. I just want some speed, and more importantly, I want the static.“
Sparks raced from wing to wing as the whirlwind of kalgori around us picked up speed. The sky flashed, and thunder boomed around us with deafening noise. Cyra whooped in celebration as lightning arced to my sprucebore’s tree with a pop of noise and an explosion of sparks.
I pointed at the target, and the sprucebore released its lightning.
Electricity shot from my monster toward Gawain in a flash of sizzling, white power, and the fire mage was knocked backward as the bolt connected with his shoulder.
I’d been aiming for his gun, but luckily I kept the power low enough not to do too much damage. I sprinted forward to close the gap between me and the fire mage. I wanted to tackle Gawain and seize the gun, but he scrambled to his feet with frightening speed before I could get close.
“You!” he shrieked with a wild rage that contorted his face.
Gawain ran for me as he gestured, and a blade of fire stretched from his empty hand. In the other, his gun kicked and popped as bullets flew from it.
The fire bullets absorbed harmlessly into my bullet bass coating and fizzled out of existence. Cyra was also protected, and she leapt forward to join me in close combat as Gawain swung his flaming sword for my throat.
I dodged the first slash and grabbed his arm by the wrist as it passed by. I pulled and heaved with my weight to throw him off balance while I followed up with an uppercut to his jaw.
Gawain dropped his gun and twitched out the summoning spell for a second fire sword from his newly freed hand. He swung with snakelike speed, and the second blade left a burning scratch on my left arm as it cut through my bullet bass coating.
My eyes widened in shock at the wound. I couldn’t imagine the concentrated intensity of the heat contained in his swords if he’d managed to cut through my metal coat.
Gawain whipped his sword around in another horizontal slash, and I quickly released his arm as I stumbled away from the deadly blade. Then I put distance between us with a few backward strides.
My eyes flickered over the scene as I cons
idered my options. The gun was on the ground at Gawain’s feet, but I needed an opening if I hoped to steal it away.
In an impressive display of agility, Cyra spun at Gawain in a roundhouse-style kick. Her shoe connected with Gawain’s jaw and sent him sprawling onto his back, but he just used the opportunity to grab his gun from the pavement. He aimed the muzzle at Cyra, and I saw the switch on the side of it flick over to a new color that signified earth.
I’d had my bullet bass long enough to know it did very poorly against earth magic.
Cyra might die if I didn’t do something.
I commanded my sprucebore to let off another blast of electricity despite our close quarters, and it shot a bolt straight into Gawain’s torso.
He thrashed on the ground as electricity shuddered through him, but he wasn’t the only one affected by my attack.
Extra electricity crackled through the nearby pavement and sparked up Cyra’s legs as she yelped in pain.
I ignored the shocks stinging through my own feet as I pulled Cyra away from the blast zone.
Just as before, Gawain recovered too quickly from the shock for me to take his gun. This time, he didn’t bother to shoot the two of us, but instead he turned and fired off a tight grouping of earth bullets directly at my sprucebore.
I couldn’t move faster than his gun, and my sprucebore was torn apart by the heavy shooting. Yellow blood coated the street, and I recalled my monster before more mana drained from me.
I sagged as the power left me, but I still had a good amount left.
I readied a new handful of crystals, but Gawain was quicker on the draw. Earth bullets thundered from his gun and struck me in the chest, where they shattered against my bullet bass coating.
True to the gun’s power, though, my coating shattered as well. Metal crackled off me in sheets and left me exposed and unprotected. One more shot, and I could be killed.
I summoned a third wallerdon and crouched behind it hastily, but to my surprise, Gawain didn’t continue his onslaught.
“Fools,” the crazed mage spat, “I tire of this.”
Gawain left us stunned as he turned tail and ran down the connecting street. His tattered cloak whipped around his legs as he disappeared into the night.
I recalled my wallerdon as I scrambled back to my feet.
“Don’t let him escape!” I called, and the two of us raced after the fire mage.
With a last-minute mental command, I ordered my kalgori to merge down into just a few controllable members and had them follow us closely.
Our feet pounded down the pavement, and I could tell we were catching up. Gawain didn’t look healthy to begin with, and even with the gun, he couldn’t sustain a fight forever without tiring himself out physically.
The street was dark, and I began to fear we’d lost his trail, but I heard a window shatter somewhere in front of us. Glass sprinkled onto the pavement, and we stopped short on the main street as fire bloomed from a storefront.
It was an apothecary, I noted, and we ran toward the store.
Gawain was barely visible in the burning interior, but his shadowy figure was outlined in red firelight. He grabbed tonics and potions off the shelves and stuffed them into a satchel at his side. As I watched, the fire mage uncorked an elixir and gulped it down in one go to restore his mana and seal his wounds.
I juggled the idea of sending my half-dozen kalgori in after him or standing my ground outside, but Gawain didn’t give me the chance to decide. An enormous fiery explosion rocked the apothecary and threw Cyra and me backward with the force of the blast.
I tumbled across the pavement before I rolled to a stop, and I winced as I acquired more scrapes and bruises. Then I smothered a few smoking sections of my clothing and sat up.
Gawain leapt from the window with the satchel slung around his shoulder. “Potions, potions,” he muttered, “got them all, they’re mine now. Just what I wanted.”
I nearly sent the kalgori after him, but I stopped myself from giving the command. They flew high overhead with eager anticipation, yet I held them back from the attack.
I reminded myself that the crazed man in front of me was once my friend. He sounded insane, and I had no idea what had twisted him like this, but maybe I could bring him back to reason. I couldn’t continue without at least trying to bring him in peacefully.
“Gawain!” I yelled as I rolled back to my feet.
I caught his attention, and his darting eyes snapped over to lock onto my face. He tilted his head and took a nervous sideways step while he stroked the satchel at his side.
“You know who I am,” I told Gawain with a hesitant smile, “we’re friends, remember? We fought that ice troll together.”
Gawain’s brow furrowed in confusion as he stared at me.
Something about this was working, but I couldn’t be sure what exactly it was. I hoped more potent memories could jog something loose inside his mind.
“We even battled together in the Shadowrealm a few times,” I said as I wracked my brain for the most vivid events. “Do you remember when we fought in the Magicae Nito trial as a team for the first time? I looked at your gun and asked about how it worked. We’ve closed more than one rift together as a vanguard, right? Later, in the desert, you even helped me save Nia from the Shadowrealm palace. Do you remember that?”
Gawain opened his mouth, but he closed it again soundlessly with a wince. Then his green eyes glittered in pain as he blinked and shook his head. It almost looked like he was fighting with himself.
Was I getting somewhere?
“C’mon, buddy,” I coaxed, “you remember that trip. You remember when we fought Phi.”
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say.
Suddenly, Gawain’s hesitation turned to malice, and he bared his teeth in anger. He raised one hand to attack as a fireball blossomed in the center of his palm, and the flames quickly turned hotter and brighter until his entire hand shone like a star.
Cyra was prepared this time, and she threw out a crystal before I even had a chance to react. Her new monster’s serpentine form rose from a cloud of smoke, and Cyra’s petripede appeared as the wisps dissipated. I caught a glimpse of its white, segmented body and alabaster wings, but that was all the look I got.
Gawain threw the giant fireball in our direction, and he followed it up with a barrage of air bullets. Bullets ripped through the petripede’s wings as its body was consumed in flames, and it writhed in pain before it disappeared in the inferno.
The fireball swept through the petripede and shot onward without a hint of slowing. The air sucked in like a vacuum as the intense heat approached.
Gawain’s fireball flew for us with deadly accuracy, but I resummoned my bullet bass with a quick toss at the last moment. My monster donated its metal powers to cover our skin just as the flames engulfed us.
While we were pinned by the explosion, I commanded my remaining group of kalgori to follow and trap Gawain. They leapt with ferocity to the task, and it took the last of my willpower to hold them back from quenching their bloodthirst.
We shrank before the fire and shielded our faces as the heat grew uncomfortable even with the bullet bass coating on our skin. Gawain’s power as a fire mage was incredible, and his strength was more clear to me than ever while I was forced to fight against him.
The heat continued to grow, and I cringed as the fire grew hot enough to make me sweat. After a few minutes, it started to cool, but it still felt like an eternity before the flames retreated and left us unscathed.
“Wow,” Cyra gasped out as she looked around.
She and I sat up while the smoke cleared. The ground around us was blackened and covered in broken glass, and the fire in the apothecary across the street raged as flames licked up the side of the building.
Gawain was nowhere to be seen, but a half dozen kalgori flapped unsteadily around a blood trail that led down the main road and turned the corner onto a side street. They hadn’t managed to catch him, but they’
d done an excellent job of marking his direction for us.
I thanked my clever little bugs for their hard work and recalled them to conserve my mana.
Though the forest was out of sight, I knew Gawain’s blood trail led back into the woods where we’d tracked him to the previous day.
“He’s leaving civilization behind again, huh?” Cyra asked.
“I think so,” I replied, “and I might go after him.”
I got to my feet with the intention to chase after the escaped fire mage, but I swayed, and my vision grayed out as I stood.
Cyra glanced up at me with worried eyes. “Hold on, Gryff, you’re way too drained to follow. Besides, I’m not going anywhere either.”
“You’re right,” I admitted reluctantly.
I’d probably be fine without an elixir, but doing more magic today was out of the question. The chase would have to wait for another day.
On the physical side of things, my bruised and battered body wasn’t feeling up to the task either. The scratch from Gawain’s flaming sword stung and burned as I rubbed at the shallow wound, but I was happy to have gotten away with just these minor injuries.
I considered downing a tonic and charging after Gawain anyway, just to stay on his trail, but it was a foolish idea. All the mana in the world wouldn’t help me catch him if my strategy wasn’t up to par.
Cyra sighed from the ground beside me and tucked her white petripede crystal back into her belt. Blackened ash was smeared across her soft cheeks, and I bent down before I wiped it away with a gentle hand.
“Thanks,” the dark-eyed summoner said as I helped her to her feet.
I noticed her thin, pink pajama shirt had suffered in the fight, and a large rip across her chest exposed a portion of her cleavage.
“You might want to do a wardrobe check,” I told her with a hidden smile as I fought to keep my eyes away.
Cyra glanced down and flushed at the sight of her breasts on display. She fumbled with the damage, but it was simply too torn to fix.
