“Let's just focus on the task at hand,” I said calmly. At least I hoped I sounded calm. “When should I cast any of these enhancement spells? Which direction should I go?”
“Hold off on the enhancement spells for a few more moments,” Breena said thoughtfully. “And I'll try to handle the reconnaissance for you.”
The fairy shrank to her smallest size and dimmed completely. She was almost invisible. The only signs of her at all were a faint zipping sound that sped through the air, and even that was quiet.
“Huh,” she finally said after floating over to me. “I don't hear any gibber-kin.”
“Should you be hearing them?” I asked. Wasn't really sure what to expect here, after all.
“Well, yeah, they're gibber-kin,” the little fairy replied plainly. “Everybody hears gibber-kin. It's hard to find something more obviously into biting you than a gibber-kin. If we can’t hear them out here then Stell landed us out too far.”
“Does she do that a lot?” I asked. The little fairy shook her pink-haired head.
“Nope. Never.”
“Okay,” I began logically. “Then, either Stell finally messed up a landing, or we're facing something else out here.”
“But there isn't anything else out here,” Breena said in almost a whine. “Gibber-kin are the only things that fit the profile. Nothing else starts out that weak, breeds that fast, and gets more dangerous over time. Especially out here.”
“Not even goblins?” I asked, but in truth there were over a dozen fantasy tropes that disagreed with Breena's recent statement.
“Don't be racist!” she suddenly shouted, and actually lit up and kicked me with her tiny feet. I think. I actually couldn't feel anything, and at her current size that wasn't not surprising. “Goblins have come a long way from their stereotype! Some of the smartest, most advanced creatures I know are goblins! And most of them don't eat anyone these days!”
“Sorry, sorry!” I said quickly, raising my hands. “It was just a guess! I threw it out based on my world's books. I didn't even know that was a sensitive subject!”
“Well it wasn't a nice guess.” Breena huffed. “Don't be mean to any goblins, okay? Unless they earn it first!”
“Deal,” I said. “I promise to be nice to every goblin, orc, gremlin or kobold we meet. Everything except gibber-kin. Especially if any of those things actually exist.”
“You didn't know- oh, sorry. Forgot you were from Earth again. Anyway, we need to figure out what's going on here.”
She fluttered over to my shoulder and sat down, changing to a size of about four inches big and containing her glow until her body was merely colorful instead of bright. “Alright, new plan,” the tiny woman declared. “I've got friends and family in this area...”
“Wait, what?” I interrupted again. She seemed annoyed but I pressed on anyway. “You have family beyond Stell? How does that work? I thought you were one of her, uh...”
“Satellites,” Breena said with an eye-roll. “We're called Satellites. And she put us all- except for Guineve- with people to sorta grow up with. All of the other Satellites have adopted families on their respective worlds. I travel a lot, though, so I got to know all of the other small-folk on each of these worlds. The batch near us has a lot of my cousins and nieces.”
“Stell said this area was remote,” I pointed out. “I thought no one really lived out here.”
“Humans and other big folk don't,” she said with a shake of her head. “But little folk like me live in this area. So do a number of animals I can talk to. It's safe because nothing really dangerous hunts us out here, and any Challenges or Trials that do form are ones we're able to hide from. Just keep marching until we reach one of my old hot spots.”
Without much else to go on, I did as she said. I tried to keep my eyes everywhere, looking for hidden movement, listening for the snapping of branches, other forest sounds I still recognized from camping.
After about thirty seconds I realized we had a problem.
“Breena,” I said, carefully and quietly. “I'm not hearing anything. Should I be?”
She looked distracted, like she was thinking carefully.
“I already said that you should be hearing gibber-kin if they were here,” she muttered, her face locked in concentration as she stared far off.
“I'm not hearing anything” I repeated, still quietly but more forcefully. “Should I be hearing anything at all? Birds? Some breaking branches? Anything else?”
Her tiny eyes widened even further. That was all the answer I needed.
“Stoneskin, I said softly. As a signature spell, I innately knew that saying its name and making a tiny gesture would begin the spell's activation process. “Quick Step. Earth Bones.”
I held off on Wind Armor and the lightning spells, because I didn't want to buffet or shock Breena by accident. She still looked very pale.
“I should have noticed,” the tiny woman said tensely. “I was so sure... we have to hurry. Move forward quickly until you get to a really old tree. I'll let you know when you see it.”
By then I had begun to notice the change the magic had done to me. A rumbling sound crawled all over me, and I both heard and felt a faint creak as I took my next step. The sensations comforted me, made me feel stronger, more protected.
My footsteps seemed surer, faster, more graceful. With each step I was vaulted forward, then parachuted very softly to the ground.
Breena's behavior had also changed, and completely. Gone was her cocky, playful attitude. Her tiny mouth was set in a thin line, and her eyes darted all about. I saw her tiny, slightly pointed ears twitch hopefully every now and then, and each time they did she seemed more frustrated afterwards.
Still utter silence.
The only noise at all in the forest was from my soft steps. In other circumstances it would have been almost peaceful, but the fact that we both knew we should have been hearing some kind of noise made it strangely terrifying. I would have been scared out of my mind right then, except for one fact that bounced in my mind with every step.
This was still not as terrifying as becoming crippled had been.
The new power in my legs was now a motivation, a desire to be useful, a need to be the person I used to be, to do the things I once took so much pride in doing. People were in need of help. They may not count as people to those back home but here they were both desired and missed. Even if this all was some crazy, yet completely lucid, dream, I didn't want to let people get hurt and miss my chance to be the old me, the one that could help people.
“There,” Breena whispered in my ear softly. “That large gray tree just up ahead.” I felt once of her tiny hands clinch hard on my shirt.
We reached the tree she was talking about, this one half again as wide as all the others, with gray, slightly warped bark. There were tiny holes all along the base of the tree, some going as high as ten feet. I stopped running, and Breena stood and floated off of my shoulder, wings fluttering softly, and silently.
“Hello?” the tiny pink woman called out quietly, glowing in one brief burst. “Beryl? Syl? Lotus?”
Her voice had grown louder but was still far from a shout. Nevertheless, something reacted.
I saw a brightly colored bird land on a branch some twenty or thirty feet above us. It pointed its beak right at my fairy companion and began chirping quickly, almost angrily. In fact, it chirped more angrily than any bird I'd ever heard in my life.
Breena quickly flew up to about fifteen feet away from the bird and started making chirping noises back at it. The bird just waved its wings angrily, squawking as if it were about to have a little bird- seizure, then flew off like a bullet up into the trees. Breena floated back toward me, her eyes never leaving the animal until it disappeared.
“What did it say?” I asked quietly, though my eyes were roaming all about us. Some unknown instinct was screaming at me that we were already in trouble and that I needed to hurry up and get ready, idiot!
“And d
on't land on me,” I added, quietly casting Wind Armor.
“'Turn back, turn back,' he said,” Breena replied, still in shock. “I asked him where the other fairy folk were and if there were any bad things nearby. He just said 'taken, all gone. Turn back now.'”
“Shit,” I said, immediately activating Outer Current, then quietly began casting Shocking Digits. That last one would take longer since it wasn't a signature spell, and I realized I should have cast it sooner.
“And then he just flew off,” Breena said dumbly. “They're all gone...where...why?”
I finished casting the last spell. My body hummed and crackled all over, and my fingers twitched, each one with a single extra bolt of electricity. For whatever reason, the earth spells in my skin and bones didn't insulate or screw up the two lightning spells coursing through me, and they all worked together perfectly.
That was good, because we didn't have time for complications.
“Breena,” I said, still searching the trees. “Get down. Or up, since you can fly. But you're a target right now.”
Breena turned to look at me. I could tell she hadn't fully snapped out of it yet.
“What? No, Wes you don't understand. This can't happen. Why would the fairies already be gone? What monster hunts fairies from the start?” She looked around wildly. “What monster hunts everything from the start, and leaves nothing behind? What's going on?”
I deeply resented Breena at this moment. She was supposed to be my guide. She wasn't supposed to get surprised and dazed. I didn't know anything about monsters, and I didn't know anything about all the rules these monsters were supposedly breaking. But I did know about being surprised by people who wanted to hurt me.
And this was a scene straight of dozens of horror movies I had seen and several dozen more horror games I had played. I'm pretty sure anybody else from Earth who at least had a TV would draw the same conclusion I had just drawn.
“We're being attacked,” I growled out. “That's what's happening. Get away from the trees.”
“What?” she asked, and then suddenly like a string, she snapped back into focus. “Oh!” She immediately flew behind my shoulder. I thought for a half-second that it was my warning that brought her back to focus. I was immediately proven wrong.
“Heeeessshhh.”
A saliva-filled mouth half-laughed, half-slurped. My eyes shot over to the ugliest thing I had ever witnessed under three feet tall. Something humanoid and unfinished stood some thirty feet away. Skinny arms and legs, with twisted muscles wrapped in oily wrinkled skin, stretched out menacingly in a wide gait. Those limbs connected to a round pot belly hanging over a sunken chest that heaved with every breath. On top of that torso was a round, wrinkled, hairless head, wrapped in that same oily-black, dripping skin. The head was too big for the tiny body, and its drooling mouth was far too wide. I could barely make out two curved ears pressed flat against the creature's oil-coated head, and its tiny eyes squinted at me and Breena. It gnashed its teeth at me and flicked an unnaturally long and disgusting tongue at my fairy companion.
“Yeeeeesshh,” The creature slurred for another gross moment. “Ha!”
With that bark, its eyes suddenly popped open, sickly, yellowish orbs with black pupils that focused erratically on us after bouncing madly. Its ears flared wide as well, almost doubling the size of its head. Then it began slapping the ground, slobbering all over it as its mouth guttered in time with the slaps.
“Ha! Ha! Heesssh!”
The creature's raspy speech ended in a slur-filled roar, and it suddenly brandished its tiny black claws upward.
“No,” Breena whispered above me, her voice catching on something in her tiny throat. “Oh no-no-no-no. Not this.”
As my eyes finished taking in the creature, something clicked, and my mind-screen shimmered for a half-second. When it closed, I felt the words pressed deeply into my mind.
WARNING! WARNING!
FOREIGN CONTAMINANT DETECTED.
CONTAMINANT IS Ilkling-CLASS HORDE.
BEWARE! BEWARE! BEWARE!
Right after that, the creature leaped forward, hopping and bounding on all fours toward us, tongue lolling out of its mouth and eyes rolling about in its head.
“Nonono,” Breena repeated shaking her head in my peripheral vision. “Not the Horde. Anything but the Horde.”
Suddenly, she seemed to snap back to her senses, looking quickly around.
“Wes! Watch out!”
Her gaze had been to my right, away from the creature that was running toward me and being really obvious about it. Immediately grasping the nature of my familiar's warning, I pivoted, driving my fist around in a punch and cursing myself for not recognizing the attack earlier. I saw another of the frightening, disgusting little monsters sailing at me through the air, black claws outstretched, mouth opened wide. My fist pounded into its face just above the needle-filled mouth. I felt my calcite-lined knuckles crunch into its nose-slits, and a split second later I felt an electric charge leave me and course into the monster's slimy skin. The tiny head snapped backward, and its body was dragged along in a backward somersault, limbs flailing about until its head slammed with a crack into one of the nearby tree trunks. The entire body then slid downwards into a still and boneless heap. I had a brief moment of shock over the fact that I had just killed a living thing with my bare hands, and that I didn't feel any remorse at all.
“Wes!” Breena shouted as she zipped by my head. “Focus! To your left!”
Another Ilkling was leaping at my other arm from several yards away. It surprised me just how high these creatures could leap, practically doubling their height in the process. I twisted and moved my arm out of the way, but I was unable to get a good enough footing to counterattack. I felt the creature's claw tips scratch against my skin, sharp enough to mark the calcite covering my arm but lacking enough power to penetrate my skin. A small spark jumped from my arm to the monster's claw, causing the little Ilkling to yelp as it flew by.
I swung my head about then to get a clearer view of the new battlefield. Several Ilklings were within fifteen feet of me, with two of them grasping at a small pink woman that strafed by them, shooting fiery bright sparkles behind her. The third one was the Ilkling that I had noticed first, and it was rushing towards my leg, its mouth locked open to brace for a bite. Remembering how well these things can leap, I stepped quickly forward, bringing my right foot backward. I swung my calcite-toed boot forward in a football punt, connecting hard with the little monster's skull. There was another crunch, another buzz of electricity, followed by the increasingly frequent sight of another squat little monster sailing through the air to flop miserably against the bare earth.
It survived, but only barely, twitching weakly on the ground. These little monsters were frightening, extremely disgusting, and much stronger than they looked. But even disregarding my magic, I was over twice their height and outweighed them by well over a hundred pounds, therefore producing almost comically one-sided results when they came at me head-to-head. I learned a lesson in that.
Always bring a grown eighteen year old to a toddler fight.
“Heesh!” Interrupting my learning experience was a fourth Ilkling that I hadn't noticed. I don't know where it came from. Maybe it crawled up a tree limb and leaped at me. Maybe it just crawled up while I was celebrating the result of my absence of compromise with the last Ilklings. Whatever happened, it was able to latch onto my arm with its spindly limbs and bit down with its teeth, all while raking at me with its tiny sharp claws. My calcite skin blunted the attacks slightly, but insufficiently, and one of the little bastards finally drew blood.
I yelled out in pain.
“Son of a bitch!”
The back of my mind said I should get a handle back on my profanity. The front of my brain said I could do that after I murdered all the little shits that were trying to eat me.
My other hand reached up and grasped the slimy thing by the wrinkles on its skin. My fingers almost slipped of
f, but in my anger I gripped the little maggot as hard as I possibly could. The monster began writhing when my electric current spell kicked in, but afterward it had only begun to bite down harder, determined to eat its way past my spell. I yanked it off with another shout, and the damned thing took a red chunk of me with it. Shouting again in pain, I slammed it into the ground, kicking and pummeling it until something inside it snapped and the creature lay still.
Trembling with adrenaline, I barely remembered to look back up and look for Breena. The little fairy was still flying frantically about, weaving around another Ilkling's leap and turning to launch another cluster of sparkling darts into the scorched face of the next monster trailing far behind it. The creature shrieked and fell backward, writhing on the ground for a moment before it finally fell still. Then wisps of smoke were the only movement around it. But the other black gremlin was gaining on Breena, looking as if it might catch the tiring fairy in its next leap. Trying to think quickly, I charged past a low-hanging tree branch I had noticed earlier and ripped off of its limb with one pull. I then turned and made a leap of my own, meeting the little monster in the air with a powerful two-handed swing of my new club. There was a cracking sound as the stout wood connected with the tiny creature’s shriveled skull, followed by another hum as the magical current somehow traveled from my grip, up my wooden weapon, and into the snarling monster's face. The creature flew through the air with a smoky hiss and did not get back up. I looked wildly around for more opponents and to check on Breena, but she looked unharmed and the only remaining monster was the one still twitching from my punt earlier.
Downfall And Rise (Challenger's Call Book 1) Page 22
