by Dante King
“You know you owe me now, don’t you?” she said.
“Is that right?” I asked, as we made our way down a slightly sloping corridor toward a set of carved sapphire doors.
“Well, the other girls got spells.”
“You don’t know what they had to do to get them though, do you?” I said, glancing at her out of the corner of my and flashing her a smile.
“I was at breakfast,” Cecilia said. She stepped close to me, out a hand on the nape of my neck and whispered, “And who knows, maybe the better time you have the better spell a girl gets? There’s only one way to find out...”
Her breath was like a warm summer breeze in my ear, and I felt my stomach clench. It might have been a bit of an elvish trick but, the way that it made me feel, I found that I didn’t really care.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied as we were ushered through the set of sapphire doors and found ourselves confronted by a large, apparently empty room. “In the very, very forefront of my mind.”
Once the four of us, the King, and the Princess were inside the large empty room, we were joined by a company of thirty Gemstone Elementals. They wore no clothes—as seemed to be par for the course with this race of peoples—but their heads were adorned with some rather snazzy helmets that looked to be carved out of cobalt blue lapis lazuli. They also carried bows made from some sort of resinous-looking material, a quiver of arrows on their backs and a short war-axe on a leather belt around their waists.
The door shut behind them. What with the press of Gemstone soldiery that we were suddenly sharing the space with, I found myself squashed up next to Cecilia.
“This is cozy,” I said.
The young elvish woman’s hand slipped down between us, moving surreptitiously around to the front of my pants. Due to how squashed up we all were, nobody saw exactly where she squeezed me.
“Nothing wrong with a bit of intimacy, is there?” she asked.
I didn’t have time to reply in the affirmative, because at that moment the entire room gave a lurch and my stomach dropped a notch. The lack of an exit door was suddenly explained; we were in a magically powered elevator.
When the door opened, and the company filed out of the sapphire doors once again, I found myself standing in a long rectangular space, at one end of which I could discern a square of light that I took to be the end of a tunnel.
“Welcome to the Basilisk Pens,” the Prophet King said. He gestured toward the rows of stalls that lined either side of the enormous room. “Pick a mount that you like the look of and one of my men will help you mount.
“Do we not get a quick demonstration on how to ride these things?” Janet blurted out.
I’m about to ride a fucking snake-lizard—a fucking basilisk! I thought.
“Do not fear,” the Gemstone Princess said in her soothing voice. “You will find that basilisks are a beast that a rider adapts to quickly. They are intelligent creatures and adapt to the way their riders sit them. They will respond to your lightest touch, to the slight shifting of your muscles, so that it almost feels like they are reading your mind.”
“Let’s get cracking!” I said, on hearing these promising words.
I walked over to the nearest pen door and looked inside. The basilisk that was stabled looked up as soon as I stuck my head in. In response to my presence, it gave a slight hiss. Up close and personal, it was as fearsome and formidable-looking creature as I had ever seen. Only the fact that the Prophet King had assured us that these things were quite rideable and had been tamed and trained for years stopped me from backing instinctively away. On closer inspection, it looked more like a lizard with no legs than an actual snake. Its head was like a wedge, its eyes sharp, intelligent, and with vertical cat-like pupils. This particular specimen was at least twenty feet from snout to tail tip and was a scintillating deep bronze color. It hissed at me again as I ran my eyes over it, and it bared needle sharp, six-inch long teeth.
“What the hell are you looking at?” I growled back, staring it dead in the eye. For a moment, we locked gazes. I could almost feel the strain of our opposing wills. Then, with a low whine, the basilisk dropped its eyes and bowed its head.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
Then I said two words that I figure every man had ever wanted to say; ever since animals were first domesticated, ever since the invention of the motorcycle, ever since we climbed out of the trees and stopped eating our meat raw. Two words that send shivers down the spine of even the most timid individual.
“Let’s ride!”
Riding the basilisks was just as the Princess had said; very intuitive and easy to get used to. The magical creatures did not have a gait as such—seeing as they moved fluidly across the ground like snakes—and so riding them was extremely comfortable. It was very much a cross between riding a bike and a horse, in the way that they turned the way you leaned, but also responded to the pressure you exerted on their flanks with your knees. They were obviously perfectly suited to the terrain, having undersides that were both supple and tough. The jagged rocks of the wide plain that we boosted over caused them no problem whatsoever, and they moved at an easy forty miles per hour.
The Prophet King led the hunting party on for a few miles, riding hard past the farms, orchards, and other agricultural enterprises that must have fed the entire colony above. The King and Princess headed the column of hunters with me and the three women following. Behind us were armed hunters of the King’s guard.
Before too long, we came to one of the walls of the ginormous cavern. Passing through a series of tumbled boulders and shards of crystal as big as houses, the Prophet King led us to an ominous-looking crack.
“Through here is a single burrowed root through which the Cockatrices sometimes come scavenging,” he told us as we all reined in for a moment to let our mounts have a breather. “They never hunt Gemstone Elementals—our make-up not being one that they find appetizing—but they try to carry off our meat animals from time to time.”
“Is this the only way that they can get into your under-temple?” I asked.
The King shook his head. “All sorts of creatures honeycomb the underground passageways around our home,” he said. “There are far too many routes for us to patrol. All we can do is be vigilant and stamp out hard on any Cockatrices that stray too close to our sanctuary.”
We traveled through the fissure and into the gloom of the tunnel beyond. A dozen of the Gemstone hunters moved to positions on the outskirts of the group and lit strange chemical lamps that they hung from poles and illuminated our surroundings. After a while, we came to a halt yet again.
“We are on the perimeter of one of the Cockatrice nests,” Princess Alura informed us. “We try not to venture too close to the heart of this nest as we believe that it might be the one that the Alpha—the male that breeds with the Queen that rules all the nests in this area—lives in. If we are careful and quiet, we should easily be able to surprise one of the younger ones and collect its tail feathers.”
“Sounds good to me, darling,” Cecilia said. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m simply dying to get myself a change of clothes back at the Academy.”
We moved along in relative silence now. The only sound was the rustling slither of the bellies of the basilisks against the gravelly floor of the tunnel. As we came to the end of the tunnel, and it emerged out into a spacious cavern beyond, we were greeted by the welcome sight of a jade-colored Cockatrice hanging from the ceiling. It was slightly smaller than the one that we had met in the forest. Its color was a more ghostly green due to the ethereal light of the Gemstone hunter’s lanterns, but it had the same frill of fern-like spines at the end of its tail.
In the time that it took me to spot the thing, ascertain that it was, indeed, the type of creature that we were hunting and raise my staff to give it a Storm Bolt right in the kisser, the King had already risen in his saddle. As he stood up, armor flowed like quicksilver from a central spot on his chest and spre
ad until his entire chest was encased in a chest plate of gleaming mercury.
This guy has some serious magic of his own.
The great glittering figure whipped out a staff from a sheath on his back, and I saw that it was the black crystal staff he had shown me in his throne room. He raised it in both hands and pointed it calmly up at the hanging Cockatrice. Then he twisted it, as if he had already impaled the beast and was making sure of its death.
To my amazement, the Cockatrice opened like a split bag of chips. Its claws were clearly embedded in the rock of the cavern ceiling pretty securely because the monster continued to hang there for a few moments, even as its intestines uncoiled out of its ruptured stomach and dropped out of it. They hit the ground about fifty yards away from us with a resounding splat. The Cockatrice—somehow—managed to let out one last, long, blood-curdling shriek and then dropped on top of its spilled entrails with a dull thump.
The smell that wafted out to greet us was appalling.
“Wowza,” I said, scrunching up my eyes, “that is a smell strong enough to hang your goddamn washing on, isn’t it?”
Enwyn edged her basilisk over to me and said, “Not much of a hunt was it?”
I tried to hide my own disappointment. I had really wanted to be the one that brought down our ticket back home, preferably after a good long fight in which I acquitted myself admirably, but you couldn’t have everything out of life.
“Hey,” I said as a couple of the Gemstone hunters got down from their mounts and started to plod over to the carcass of the Cockatrice, “at least we get to head back to the Academy n—”
My sentence was drowned out by a long, ridiculously loud shriek that reverberated off the walls of the cavern and set the basilisks to swaying and hissing in alarm.
“Hold that thought,” I said as the furious roar faded, leaving only a slight ringing in my ears.
“What is going on, Father?” Princess Alura asked the Prophet King.
The King turned in his saddle, a frown on his face. “Something that should not have happened at all. We are too far from the hub of the nest for the slaying of that smaller creature to have caused any sort of alarm. Unless my ears deceive me though…”
The mammoth bellow echoed through the tunnels and caves once more. It actually sent the lanterns to rocking on the ends of the poles and a man-sized stalactite cracked away from the ceiling and crashed to the cave floor.
“No, I am right,” the King said. “It is the Alpha.”
“What?” the Princess gasped. Just for a moment, the mask of unruffled serenity slipped from her face and she looked scared. “But how is that possible? The Alpha never comes forth. That’s the job of the drones!”
“It would seem,” the King said, “that ‘never’ is the wrong word.” He turned swiftly to his assembled men. “Ready yourselves for the fray!” he roared. “Three of you guard my daughter. For the guests—”
“Don’t you worry about us,” I said with grim surety. “We can take care of ourselves.”
The King did not even try to argue with the look on my face, but simply nodded. There was no time for anything else, because at that moment the Cockatrice Alpha smashed its way out of a side tunnel and voiced its displeasure at seeing us all gathered there. It let loose a roar that would have made the T-Rex at the end of Jurassic Park walking away with its hands in its pockets in embarrassment—if it had pockets. Or arms long enough to reach them.
“I thought the smell of the little one’s guts were bad,” I shouted, “but that thing’s breath is a whole other level!”
I thought I knew a lot when it came to battling monsters—RPG games on the PS4 being a favorite of mine—and so I got my retaliation in before the Alpha had a chance to strike. I sent one of my shiny new Blazing Bolt spells right at it. The monster was fucking massive–at least four times the size of the Cockatrice that the King had downed–and made an excellent target. My spell hit it square in the chest and—
—ricocheted off.
“What the fuck?” I said, looking at the staff as if it was a gun that had just jammed on me at a key moment.
“The Alpha cannot be damaged by magic!” the King bellowed. “It’s hide is imbued with an intrinsic magic that repels all other spells. It can only be brought down by arrows.”
I looked at the bows and arrows in the hands of the Gemstone warriors and then up at the mammoth creature sitting in the mouth of the tunnel it had just enlarged with its body.
I hope there are some really good shots among these motherfuckers.
The Alpha charged forward, and the group of hunters scattered.
A few arrows, fired by some of the ballsier Elementals, sped through the air and embedded themselves in the Alpha’s flanks. As they were fired in haste, they did little more than piss the monster off. It manifested its annoyance by lashing out with a clawed foot and eviscerating one of the bowmen that had had the temerity to have a go at it. He fell with a strangled yell of agony. Guts, which looked like ropes of dripping, slimy beads spilled across the ground. Another one of the archers was crushed by a ruthless tail strike, his arms and legs spinning off in a spray of stone chips.
I rode my basilisk around the great beast, thinking vainly of a way that I could take it down. As I circled it, I saw Enwyn activate her own new spell. The orange armor that I had last seen Bradley wearing encased her in a glow of orange. I had to say, as the Alpha neatly decapitated another Elemental and bit another screaming Gemstone warrior in half, a suit of armor looked pretty good right about then.
To try and distract the giant monster, I conjured a flaming axe using the Flame Barrier spell, moved my basilisk in behind it, and slashed at the back of one leg with my magical weapon. The creature roared in discomfort, but my axe burst apart in shards of fire.
“Shit!” I said, wheeling my basilisk out of harm’s way as the great tail whipped in to try and squash me.
One thing could be said for our futile attempts to magically bring the Alpha down, and that was that it distracted it from totally annihilating the Gemstone warriors within a matter of minutes. What with the rain of spells from us four humans and the arrows that peppered it whenever one of the Elementals had the time and space to let a shaft fly, the Alpha was left a whirling, confused mass of rage. Its bird-like head darted out every now and again as it spun on the spot, snapping at any warrior that came within range.
The monster managed to corner a pair of Elementals and snatched at one with its clawed foot. It impaled the unfortunate hunter with a talon, punching through him like he was made of marshmallow instead of crystal. The other warrior lunged in with his axe and hewed at the foot the Alpha’s other foot. His axe bit deep into one toe and yellow blood sprayed out. The Elemental’s roar of delight at wounding the creature—full-throated and manly as it undoubtedly was—was cut short when the avian head ducked down and ripped his face off. Even without the usual human gore that looked like an ugly way to go. The warrior fell gurgling and was trampled into grit by the furious Alpha.
“At this rate, you’ll be out of men before we’ve so much as given it a black eye!” I yelled at the King.
He had picked up a bow and arrow from a fallen hunter. As I watched, he nocked an arrow to the string and sent it speeding into the Alpha’s neck. The monster roared, turned, and lumbered toward him.
And it was then that inspiration struck.
“Hey, girls,” I yelled at my three female companions, “I’ve got a plan, and I could use your womanly wiles.”
“Again?” Janet quipped.
The three of them brought their basilisks alongside my steed and, within a few seconds, I had outlined my plan.
“There is only one thing that could go wrong with that,” Cecilia said, “but that one thing could go seriously wrong. You better have a good eye.”
I gave her a roguish smile. “The best.”
The girls, riding as one, flanked the Alpha as it continued its slow advance toward the King. When they were level with its
head, they all started firing spells at it. Frost, Storm, and Fire magic pelted the flanks, head, and neck of the Alpha. It must have been like being singled out by all the gnats at a barbecue. After only a few moments, the Alpha turned its attention on the three women and made tracks toward them.
“Run!” I yelled.
They fled, still riding together to present a bigger target to the Alpha male. The animal must have been weakened somewhat by the arrows and the noise and the magic, because its pace had definitely slackened. It wormed its way across the gravel ground, roaring in frustrated anger at the three retreating women.
I waited as it crossed in front of me. My staff twitched in my hand.
“Almost,” I muttered. “Almost...”
My staff gave an impatient thrum, raring to get back into the fight.
“Almost…”
The three women had reached the far wall of the cavern and turned like three very foxy foxes at bay.
“Now!” I cried and raised the staff.
A Blazing Bolt erupted from the tip of my vector, flew through the air like a sizzling beach-ball and crashed with a satisfying boom into the huge stalactite that I’d had my eye on. It blew the base right out of it, and the hanging spike of rock sheared away from the ceiling.
The Alpha reared back, its glass-like teeth gleaming as it opened its mouth to strike at my three friends.
The massive stalactite dropped like a planet onto the top of the creature’s head. Tons of limestone speared downward and punched the Alpha’s head into the cave floor. Blood and brains exploded out from under the gigantic triangular piece of rock, spraying up the wall and covering my three female companions in a glutenous gory soup.
The Alpha’s body twisted and thrashed spasmodically in its death throes and then lay still, leaving only a ringing silence in its wake.
Cecilia wiped pulped Cockatrice eyeball from her face. Her countenance was an interesting mix of admiration, relief, and disgust. It was a combination that I didn’t think I had ever seen before.
