“Ok, we’ll make that plan C,” said Joss. “Start looking for a good place to fight. Anyone else have any good ideas?”
“I take it that outrunning it is out of the question?” asked Lucy. She wasn’t in the mood to get into a footrace, but she wasn’t in the mood to meet anything where the preferable outcome was killing it. Lucy had an inner sense of survival, and she didn’t mind sparring, but she was finding she did not have much of a taste for death.
“If you want we could try, but our horses will tire faster that it will. Eventually we’ll have to kill it; it’s only a choice of now or later.”
“Then what’s wrong with plan C?” asked Gavin.
“How about we make plan B a modified version of plan C?” suggested Justin.
“Details help in plans,” said Joss.
“Do we have some time to set some traps for it? If nothing else they will slow it down until plan C can commence.”
“As long as none of the traps are magical,” said Maya.
“Yes, but we can use magic to create some of the traps. We can magically dig a trench around wherever we intend to fight. Lucy can grow thorns and other dense underbrush on the other side of the trench so it will get cut up trying to reach us. Gavin can place snares. Those aren’t magical. They won’t hold an erdette, but anything that tires it out, wears it down, or makes it paranoid can work to our advantage.”
“Works for me,” said Joss shrugging. “Let’s find a decent defensive site, and everyone keep thinking of ways to beat this thing.”
They kept traveling in the same direction and at the same pace. There was no need to entice the erdette to attack sooner, which it might be inclined to do if it thought that its meal might get away. As they rode, Justin and Lucy scanned ahead to see what they could find. Justin located a rocky area that they could back up against with a small cavern that their horses could be barricaded into. Horses and erdettes generally didn’t get along very well.
The sun was setting and the night breeze picking up as they arrived at their best option for a defensive position. Maya took the horses into the cavern and tethered them on large branches brought in by other travelers long ago to serve as benches. Gavin helped her drag another large branch across the entryway. Hopefully their horses wouldn’t be able to run off. Joss built a fire and set arrows in the ground next to it. Easy to grab, flame, and shoot.
“Do erdettes catch fire?” asked Maya.
“Not really,” replied Joss, “but they don’t seem to like fire and I’ll take any advantage I can get.”
Justin and Lucy were busy re-landscaping the area, while Gavin fixed up some snares in the nearby trees. Justin magically made holes, and took the excess dirt to an overhang, and loosely secured it to be used as an avalanche option later during the fight. Lucy was in charge of vegetation. She surrounded the whole area with thorn bushes. Since they were magically created and grown, she made the thorns an inch or more long, and closely spaced. They had to magically lift Gavin over the barrier where he started getting all his weapons ready and making sure they were easy to draw, but not too loose in their sheathes that they would fall out too easily.
“Maya?” asked Lucy curiously.
“Hmm?” she responded.
“You have an advanced knowledge of potions and poisons. Do you think you could make the thorns poisonous?”
“Great idea, I’ll see what I can do.”
“How close do you need to be?”
“I can probably do it from here. Why?”
“I don’t think we have a lot of time left and I have other ideas for vegetation, but I don’t want you too close to it.”
“Sure, no problem,” replied Maya.
Maya began to hum and move her hands in various intricate motions. The thorns turned from a light shade of brown to interspersed reds, greens, and blacks.
“I’m not sure what all will poison an erdette. Hopefully one of the combinations will do something,” Maya said when she was finished.
Then, she worked her way back to the fire, strung her bow, and readied her arrows as well. While Maya worked on poisoning the thorns, Lucy was busy making other things grow. Even Justin was impressed as she managed to grow three huge Venus fly trap-like plants that certainly looked carnivorous. In between these she arranged what looked like innocent ferns. When Joss arched a questioning eyebrow in Lucy’s direction regarding the tame looking ferns next to the otherwise vicious plants, Lucy shrugged. Then, she picked up a stick and threw it in the direction of the ferns. A frond leapt out, caught the branch and wrapped it up so tightly it couldn’t be seen anymore. Lucy arched an eyebrow back at Joss, and he grinned in response.
“I would recommend not letting the fighting carry you too close to any of that,” said Lucy somewhat unnecessarily. “If I had more time to practice and try a few things, I could perhaps teach them the difference between friend and foe, but I don’t think we have that kind of time.” Lucy sighed and stretched.
“Tired?” asked Justin.
“Not too bad, but I think I’ll sit for a minute. I’m not sure we have much more time than that. Question. Can I light a branch on fire and magically direct it into the erdette like an arrow?”
“That might work,” said Joss. “Worth trying anyways.”
Lucy began to collect some thick looking branches and made sure she grabbed her extra throwing knives out of her pack. Gavin ran through some stretches to loosen up. Justin monitored the movements of the erdette as best he could to make sure it came at them from the direction they wanted and if it didn’t, they would be ready to adjust to whatever direction it did come in. Then, all they had time left to do was wait.
Chapter 56
They didn’t have to wait very long. Lucy had barely managed to collect what she hoped would be an adequate amount of branches when they heard one of Gavin’s snares go off. They heard a hiss of disgust. Everyone was alert with adrenaline as they waited for their first glimpse of the thing that had been tracking them. It started to work its way through the thorn bushes. It snarled in anger and pain as the thorns scratched its body, but it kept coming. It could smell lots of magic ahead of it, and it was worth the pain to reach that tempting meal. It burst through the thorns, and they paused a brief moment to look at it before they started attacking.
The erdette looked vaguely like it might have once been human. It was taller than Gavin, but had longer arms, clawed hands, and walked slightly hunched over. Its skin was grayish in color and hung loosely on its frame, but they could see the muscle definition beneath. It had no hair to speak of, and its body was ripped and bleeding from the thorns. The head was misshapen, elongated, eyes pushed to the sides, pupils catlike, nose large and sniffing, thin almost imperceptible lips parted to reveal long, pointed, carnivorous teeth, and a wide mouth. In the short time they studied it, the thorn cuts stopped bleeding and began to close. The erdette’s eyes narrowed as it saw its prey. It smiled and made a noise that Lucy would have defined as purring if it had come from a cat.
The next moment, the fight began. The erdette leaped into the air, over the ferns, fronds snatching at the air where it had been a moment before. The fronds continued to reach for it as it landed. Lucy had only given them a few feet to uncoil, not wanting to place her friends in too much danger. Now, they would need to back the erdette into the vegetation for it to be of any use. Everyone fired arrows at it or threw knives, but it charged them anyways, ignoring the many holes in its body. They jumped aside as it reached their fire.
As they tried to regroup, the erdette pulled arrows and knives out of its body, throwing them away dismissively. It sensed that the largest amount of magic was inside one of the females so it chose one and attacked. Gavin figured out what the erdette had in mind at about the same time and swung his sword at its back. The erdette was forced to turn and fight rather than go after the prey it wanted more. It could sense that this one had little magic and would not be using it in a fight. He needed to get one of the others with magic to m
agically attack him so he could eat, heal, and feel more refreshed. This man in front of him held no challenge if he could eat even a little magic.
Joss had his sword out and was also hacking at the erdette, moving quickly away from the claws that it swiped in his direction. The erdette was quick, but it couldn’t get the better of both men. Justin joined in on a third side with his staff. Maya had an arrow notched, but couldn’t find a safe opening. With how fast everyone was moving, she was afraid she would hit friends instead. Lucy stood next to Maya. She guessed that the erdette had figured out it was one of the females that was his main target, and she hoped sticking together would make it harder for it to figure out which one it wanted.
Lucy tried to figure out what she could do to add to the attack. A fourth person surrounding the erdette would almost hamper rather than help the others. Too many people and there wasn’t enough room to safely swing weapons or dodge claws. Lucy had sparred with both Justin and Gavin and had no desire to end up on the wrong end of a follow through swing.
The erdette was concentrating its defense on Gavin but its offense towards Justin. It had determined that Justin also had large amounts of magic, and scratching him or making him use magic to defend himself both worked towards the erdette’s advantage. It howled in rage as Gavin cut off its arm. It continued to fight, and they watched in amazement as the arm re-grew. They did their best to hack and cut, but anything major, the erdette healed. It was frustrating for Lucy and Maya to watch. Even though all the guys were in good shape, they were starting to tire, and there was no way to tell how much magic or stamina the erdette had left.
Lucy finally thought of a way to try and help. She found fist sized rocks with sharp edges and threw them high into the air. As they came down towards the fighting group, she put more power behind them and directed them at the erdette’s head. It was something that would be annoying for the erdette, but not fatal to her own allies if she should accidentally miss.
“I think we’re making progress,” panted Joss. “It hasn’t bothered to re-grow the last three fingers Gavin hacked off it.”
No one else had noticed that yet, but then again, no one was looking for that either. They were doing their best to stay alive and preferably unhurt. Joss had fought these things before and knew what he was looking for. They kept at it. Lucy was getting better at her rock aiming and started to bounce them off its head. It didn’t do a lot of damage, but every time the erdette brought an arm overhead to slap a rock out of the way, it left itself open to a hit or jab from Gavin, Joss, or Justin. Gavin ducked low and hamstrung it, but it healed that.
“Go for injuries that aren’t life threatening,” said Joss. “It’s keeping reserves to heal the important stuff; we’ll get further giving it lots of little cuts.”
Gavin sliced off an ear. It bled a lot, but the erdette didn’t do anything about it. Justin butted his staff against its gut hard enough to make it double over long enough for Joss to get some major slices in on its back. Lucy thought the erdette was beginning to slow, but that still didn’t give them much of an advantage as the guys were getting tired and slowing as well. The erdette was bleeding from a whole passel of injuries, but it was giving injuries as well. Lucy knew that they could heal their injuries, but they had to wait until they killed the erdette, and she hoped that if its claws were poisonous, it was a slow acting poison.
Finally, the erdette got sloppy or overwhelmed, and Gavin swung a powerful blow at its neck severing its head. Had it not been so gruesome, Lucy would have laughed as the head soared through the air and landed in the waiting mouth of one of her carnivorous Venus fly traps. Justin lowered his staff, but Joss wasted no time in seeing whether or not the erdette could re-grow a head. He cut out the heart and tossed it to one of the other Venus fly traps. The erdette flopped around as severed nerves sent confused final impulses to its remaining appendages. Then, it lay still bleeding and voiding itself on the ground. No one said anything as Joss and Gavin hacked off the remaining limbs and fed them to Lucy’s plants.
Joss’s clothes were in tatters, and he had a variety of shallow scratches crisscrossing his body. Gavin had a tare down his cheek, one on his shoulder, and one down his leg, splitting his pants. Justin had been able to keep farther away, wielding a staff, but his arms were still scratched. All three were bloody, sweaty, dirty, panting, and tired. Joss stripped off what was left of his shirt and tossed in onto the fire. The other two did the same.
“Take off your weapons and your boots, and stand close together,” said Lucy.
“Why?” panted Joss.
“It’s a cloudy night, and some of those clouds are full of water. I thought I’d direct it at you for a cleaning option since I don’t know of any streams nearby.”
Joss nodded gratefully and moved closer to the other two. Lucy stepped farther back and concentrated on funneling water out of the clouds and onto the guys. When she started to feel the effects of all the magic she had been using, she stopped.
“Thanks,” said Justin wringing out his hair.
“Not as good as a hot bath, but better than any other options,” said Joss, but he smiled as he said it. “Can you dry us off as well?”
Lucy was tired, but she nodded and directed the wind to blow harder and directly at them while at the same time sucking some of the heat out of the ground.
The guys nodded their thanks. Maya came over with water skins and passed them around. Joss would have preferred something stronger, but after a fight like that even he knew it was a good idea to replenish some of the water sweated out of his body.
“Do you have any energy left?” Gavin asked Justin hopefully, while Joss raised an eyebrow.
“Enough for you I think. If Lucy wants to try her hand at healing she can do me, or we’ll have to use old fashioned methods.”
Joss still looked confused as Justin stepped up to Gavin and put a hand over the cut on his face. Both eyebrows rose in surprise when Justin moved his hand away and Gavin’s face was healed except for a light scar.
“Scar?” asked Justin confused. He had healed lots of things and none of them had ever left scars before.
Joss shrugged and pointed to a scar on his arm, “As far as I know, an erdette’s claws aren’t poisonous, but for some reason any cut they make, no matter how shallow, leaves a scar.”
“Women love scars,” said Gavin with a grin.
Maya and Lucy simultaneously rolled their eyes, and Maya went to calm down the horses who were still thoroughly overexcited by the whole affair. Justin moved on to Gavin’s other wounds. Once healed, Gavin went in to help Maya with the horses. Justin turned to Joss.
“What about you?” asked Joss.
“I can’t heal myself very well. It’s a hard thing to do because of the energy it takes. I can make things stop bleeding, but I’ll let Lucy help me. I can help you.”
Joss nodded and let Justin close his wounds.
“Amazing,” he muttered, looking at the light scars that had been bleeding only moments before.
Maya came out of the cavern bearing food, and they sat down to eat. It wasn’t a hot meal. Everyone was too tired to cook and too hungry to wait, but it was a filling a meal, and that was enough. Lucy gulped down some bread and turned her attention to Justin’s wounds while he ate a piece of jerky.
“Do you want me to try to do this magically?” asked Lucy.
“You look tired, too. You’ve used a lot of magic recently; bandages and stitches will suffice,” replied Justin.
Lucy wetted a cloth and dabbed at the wound to clean off any dried blood and leftover dirt that her impromptu shower hadn’t managed to wash away. She knew she wasn’t very good at healing, but the idea of stitching together someone’s flesh still made her skin crawl. She settled for magically attaching the skin together. It wasn’t healing, since it could rip open just like stitches if Justin wasn’t careful, but it was a lot less mentally scarring than repeatedly pulling a needle through flesh. She took some of Maya’s herbs, made a poul
tice, and tied it to his arm. It wasn’t much, but it was the best she could do at the moment. Justin nodded his thanks when she finished, and she turned her attention to food.
Gavin look around them, “Well, I say we camp here tonight. We can sleep in the cavern. Lucy’s defense system will protect us from most things, and anything it can’t protect us from would be a danger no matter where we camped.”
The others agreed. Mostly because they were too exhausted to think about trying to ride and then set up camp somewhere else. They dowsed the fire and filed into the cavern. There they set up bedrolls and fell asleep.
Chapter 57
The next morning they woke up stiff and sore, but they were alive and no longer being followed by an erdette so they were in good spirits as they saddled the horses and prepared to ride. Lucy had to ungrow her vegetation. Justin filled in his holes, and Gavin set off his snares. They didn’t mind killing animals to eat, but letting something fall into a large hole that it couldn’t climb out of was cruel. Joss couldn’t wait to get to the next town. Justin, however, felt it might be better to avoid the towns. They didn’t need any more notoriety or notice. All they needed to do was get back to Taran’s alive and get out of here with the Eye.
“Feather beds are so much more comfortable,” argued Joss.
“Bedrolls can be safer,” argued Gavin.
“We can listen to rumors,” reminded Joss.
“We can scan far enough to see if we are being followed,” countered Justin.
“Hot food,” Joss suggested even though he knew he was losing this argument.
“You don’t have to stay with us,” said Maya. “You can leave and go on to the next town any time you want.”
“Perhaps, but I’ve gotten comfortable with you people. One more to your group can only help, I’ve proven myself as a competent warrior in battle, and I have to stay until I’m sure you find me irresistible.”
The Eye of Elicion: The Kinowenn Chronicles Vol 1 Page 43
