Summoner 5

by Eric Vall

  I suddenly very much wanted to fight another pyrewyrm. At least then I’d know what I was dealing with.

  All I knew of roosas, other than their physical appearance, was that they were known to break their prey in half before they devoured them and that the toxin stored in the stinger was instantly fatal. Unlike the gastrotoad or the venotox, roosa poison worked instantly. There was no time to pop an antidote or for the human body to bounce back from it. The venom was so potent one drop of it into the bloodstream would paralyze instantly, and then you were dead. There was no in-between.

  I continued to back up as I debated what I could use against this metal beast. My baroquer seemed to be the obvious answer, but I wasn’t willing to throw him out first. He was my last resort. There had to be something else I could use against this guy.

  With a deep breath, I rested my hand over the crystal I’d gotten at the end of the Magicae Nito. I knew it would suck up a large portion of my mana, but I knew I could handle it if I could keep focused.

  As the roosa fully emerged from the rift, I shouted and smashed the crystal to the sand. When it didn’t pop, I grunted and smashed it with my foot. It was then that the pyrewyrm I’d fought against only a week ago rushed forth, and my mana took a huge hit, enough to stagger me on my feet.

  I thrust my arms out, though, and clutched my hands into fists to keep it steady. With a long, shaky breath, I gathered myself. The sheer amount of power in this one monster was unfathomable to hold in my hands, but here I was. It was both terrifying and incredibly invigorating. The pyrewyrm calmed though, and it heeded my command.

  My pyrewyrm was just as horrific looking as I remembered it being. It had no face and a deadly screech that emitted from somewhere on its body I hadn’t yet determined. Coupled with its gigantic wingspan that swirled with essence, rhin in its natural state, it was a truly harrowing creature, and I was excited to see what I could do with it under my command.

  The roosa screeched, and it sounded like a wood saw grinding against metal. I regretted not having the foresight to pack my earmuffs, especially with the deadly cry of the pyrewyrm. My only hope was to be able to withstand its cry and hope my comrades could do the same.

  Both the pyrewyrm and the roosa stared each other down. The wings of the pyrewyrm flapped to keep it aloft, and the wind it created caused the sand around us to kick up. I shielded my eyes from the onslaught with one arm as I fumbled for my goggles with the other. I slipped them over my eyes, and it made a world of difference. Now able to see clearly, I refocused.

  “Charge!” I commanded.

  The pyrewyrm lingered a moment, but eventually, my command was strong enough that it suddenly swooped up higher and trailed sand up in its wake. The grains stung my bare skin, but I ignored it. With a high-pitched chirp, the pyrewyrm dove headlong at the roosa.

  The roosa took a stance and drove all six of its metal-clad legs deeper into the sand. It hissed, then rose up on its back two legs and reached up for the pyrewyrm with its giant pincers. The pyrewyrm dodged, and then it swooped back down again.

  Essence dripped from its wings and landed on the roosa. As it splattered onto the roosa’s armor and began to eat through the metal, the beast hissed and swiped fruitlessly at the pyrewyrm who had managed to stay just out of its reach. While the essence seemed to have an effect on the metal, unless I could somehow keep the roosa pinned long enough for the pyrewyrm to simply drip its ooze onto it, I came to realize this fight was going to go nowhere fast. I couldn’t let this become a repetitive game of tag.

  “Dive in from behind!” I commanded again, unsure of what I was able to push the monster to do, and the pyrewyrm chirped once more. It was a sound that I came to quickly interpret as obedience as it didn’t deafen me to hear. Maybe being immune to its cries was something of a bonus as a master of a grade A monster.

  The pyrewyrm reared its head back and wriggled in midair before it dove in again, only this time, the essence that surrounded its wings seemed to concentrate in the center of its body before it shot off like a beam of darkness. It exploded upon hitting the roosa directly, and the hiss the monster emitted before turned into another screech. It tumbled and rolled several times across the sand, and I thought maybe the pyrewyrm had managed to take it out in one shot.

  Those hopes were soon dashed, however, as the roosa emerged from the cloud of sand that it had kicked up. It was furious, and its stinger waved about angrily. There were a number of dings and dents in the roosa’s armor now, but nothing was as bad as the crack on its back. The roosa hissed as it struggled to stay upright, and black blood began to ooze out from the wound. I expected it to retaliate and take another swipe at my pyrewyrm, who was clearly proud of itself as it screeched and flapped its wings excitedly.

  Instead, the roosa locked its sights onto me and began to skitter across the sand at a much higher speed than I could have anticipated for as much damage as it had sustained.

  “Oh shit,” I swore, and I mentally commanded the pyrewyrm to stop the roosa’s charge.

  The wyrm monster flew through the air, but it just wasn’t as fast as the roosa. I watched in horror and gasped as my hand scrambled along my bandolier for a speed slug crystal. If I could summon it and get it attached to my body, then I could probably outrun the roosa and save myself from imminent death. Time was not on my side today, though, and the immense beast was on me before I could reach my crystal. I ran anyway, and I dodged from side to side in the hopes that it would throw the roosa off. The stinger, after all, could only move directly forward and back, but even my attempts to outmaneuver it only seemed to slow me down.

  Just as the scorpion-thing lashed out with its tail, my hand found my speed slug. I quickly pulled it off my belt, but before I could smash it to the ground, the roosa unleashed an awful hiss that drew my attention back to it.

  Its shadow no longer encompassed me, and I stopped long enough to see there was someone on the back of the scorpion monster. They were clad in metal themselves, and I could practically feel the mana rolling off them as they grunted. There was a loud crunch, and the unknown human managed to break the roosa’s tail. It wasn’t enough to break it clear off, but it was definitely crooked in places where it hadn’t been before.

  The roosa screamed, and the human was tossed from its back as it thrashed wildly. They landed with a thud, and I rushed to their aid despite them being able to stand on their own almost immediately after being tossed to the sand. It wasn’t long though before the roosa reoriented itself, and it began another charge toward me.

  “Gryff, run!” the person yelled to me, and it was then that I recognized him.

  “Orenn!” I yelled back, speed slug forgotten, but that was all I could do. I couldn’t run. I knew I’d never make it away in time, and running wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Instead, my pyrewyrm went in for another attack, and it was careful to avoid the stinger as it swooped in and dug its talons into the roosa’s back. Though the talons couldn’t tear apart the metal, there was enough strength behind its grip to put several dents in it.

  Again, the roosa let out an awful hiss, followed by a screech, and the pyrewyrm dodged its stinger before the roosa could stab it.

  “Are you okay?” Ashla suddenly rode up to my side and, in one fluid motion, leapt off her horse. The horse immediately galloped away, and Ashla brandished her axe.

  “I’m fine,” I told her through gasps for breath. The mana I was using to control the pyrewyrm had already started to take a toll on me, and I struggled to keep it under control. Still, I persevered.

  “What happened?” Gawain was also suddenly at my side, and he put his hand on my shoulder as he looked over me. “You look like shit.”

  I barked out a laugh and managed a bit of a smirk. “It isn’t easy controlling a monster of this caliber.”

  Gawain snorted, then clapped me on the back. “You can do it. Just hang on while we take this thing down.”

  He and Ashla rushed forward, Gawain with fire blazing in his palms and A
shla with her giant axe encrusted with her ice magic. Both of them bellowed their battle cries as they unleashed their attacks.

  Ashla brought the axe down on the metal shell of the roosa, and it made a deafening sound loud enough to echo off the mountains that surrounded the desert. Ice began to spread over the armor, and though it slowed the scorpion down significantly as it crackled down its legs, it wasn’t enough to stop the beast completely in its tracks. The attack had managed to put a gash in its side, however, and essence seeped out of the wound.

  Even that hadn’t been enough to deter the roosa, though. Its tail reared back, and Orenn leapt to hold it steady once again. At least with Orenn being a fortified meat shield, he was the most likely to be impervious to the stinger, but I doubted he was entirely sure of that, even as he put all of his might into keeping the tail from causing any damage.

  Gawain tossed fireball after fireball at the roosa as I commanded the pyrewyrm to dive down to pick at the armor on its back once again. Now that we were a team, we’d made progress in this fight. The roosa was a formidable foe, one worthy of having at my side in battle.

  A smirk flashed across my features as I advanced on the monster. Piece by piece, we picked it apart, and as it tried to swipe its pincers and fight back in some way, it grew more and more panicked. This roosa was determined to go out with a fight, and it was that kind of grit I wanted at my side.

  “I want it,” I declared aloud, though I didn’t think it was loud enough for anyone to hear me.

  “Don’t kill it!” I yelled to my comrades.

  All three of them turned their heads to look at me as though I had just told them the sky was green and the clouds were candy pink; basically, like I had gone insane.

  “What?” Ashla asked incredulously as she struck another piece of the roosa’s armor off. “Has the sun gotten to you? Is that it? Because that’s the only thing I can think of that would make you say anything remotely that stupid.”

  Gawain laughed loudly at that as he conjured a fire whip and wrapped it around the roosa’s tail. He took a hard stance and held it in place, which Orenn looked at and nodded approvingly.

  “He’s a show-off,” Gawain joked. “Let him take what he wants. Consider it payback for saving my ass in the thicket.”

  I recalled my pyrewyrm, not because it wasn’t helpful. On the contrary, the pyrewyrm had done a tremendous job, and I was now more confident in my ability to use it again in another battle, but I needed all of the mana I could spare for what I was about to do.

  I rushed forward and leapt onto the roosa’s back. It thrashed angrily, as though it knew what was about to happen. It didn’t want to be tamed, but that feistiness was part of its personality that I hoped carried over once I captured it.

  Just as I did with the baroquer in the Magicae Nito, I brandished an empty crystal and started to pump my mana into it. Already I could feel myself growing unstable, but I needed this monster. I knew this roosa needed to be a part of my party. Without a care for the blood that was spilling onto my pants from the roosa’s wounds, I straddled its back and slammed the crystal into the bare spot where the armor had been stripped off.

  There was a flash of light, and the essence of the roosa started to infuse with my mana inside of the crystal. I gritted my teeth as I forced myself to keep the crystal in place. Man, the roosa really didn’t want to go out this way, but I knew we would make a remarkable team.

  Then, the roosa vanished from under me, and I fell to the ground with a loud thud. The crystal in my hand was a muted silver color with an amber hue that was shaped like a fang, or rather, like the stinger on the end of the roosa’s tail, and it was about half the size of my forearm. It was certainly the most oddly shaped crystal I had in my collection, barring maybe my baroquer crystal which was in the shape of a meteor.

  I sat in the sand for a moment, shock on my features, and then I cackled. I’d done it again. I had obtained another monster for myself, and it felt great. It was a small victory in light of there still being a rift to deal with.

  “That was amazing!” Ashla cheered as she sank to her knees next to me. “I didn’t think you’d be able to capture such a high-level monster. The highest level I’ve ever seen caught in person is a low-grade C.”

  “I’ll be damned, Gryff!” Orenn came up from behind me and shook my shoulders. “You never cease to amaze me.

  I laughed sheepishly and scratched the back of my head as I stood. Even Gawain had a small smirk on his lips.

  “I’ll name it after you,” I teased.

  Gawain snorted, but before he could properly respond, the ground shook violently. For a moment I was afraid another rift was about to open up, or that the shaking would cause a rockslide along the mountainside.

  What actually happened, though, was much, much worse.

  The ciphers and the tablet that had been buried in the sand from the battle sprang toward the sky as if held aloft by some unseen power. They still glowed a fierce shade of red, and the rhin dagger at my feet in the sand also began to smoke once more. The rift became unstable, and the gate began to glow as the artifacts did. A surge of energy pushed through the gate. It was like someone dropped something heavy in water, and it sank to the bottom.

  I wasn’t sure how it happened, whether or not Gawain was simply the one who was closest to the shift in the rift, or if there was another reason, but suddenly the rift swallowed him. It was exactly like it reached out and grabbed him like he was a toy in a toy box and he was the next puppet the monsters wanted to play with.

  Just like that, he was gone.

  “No!” I yelled, and I dashed forward. “Gawain! No!”

  I wasn’t going to let him be taken again. The last time I’d lost him in a rift he came back with scars and nearly bled out and died. Not again, and certainly not on my watch.

  “Gryff, come back!” Ashla yelled as I sprinted past her in the sand.

  On my other side, Orenn made a mad dash for the rift gate as well before it could close. The two of us lunged into the rift without a second thought and skidded to a stop on the other side. There was no sign of Gawain, but the ciphers and the tablet laid in the dirt nearby. That was one good thing, anyway.

  Right behind us, Ashla emerged, and she looked less than impressed. She pulled on her mask as did we, and she narrowed her eyes on me.

  “What were you thinking?” she shrieked, “You had no idea what you were running into, and you didn’t even head in with your gear!”

  “There wasn’t time!” I argued. “Gawain is in here somewhere, and I wasn’t going to let him go missing again.”

  “Again?” Orenn asked beside me, and I turned to him.

  “What are you doing here?” I questioned him. “Not that I’m ungrateful for your help, but I wasn’t really expecting to run into you like this.”

  “I was wandering the woods on top of the eastern mountain when the rift opened,” Orenn explained. “I didn’t think there would be anyone else around to respond to it, so I was heading there to wait until a response team showed up.”

  I looked him up and down as I tried to calm myself. My mind was scattered in what felt like a million pieces as I tried to process everything that had happened in a matter of moments.

  “You two know one another?” Ashla motioned to Orenn, and I ran my hands through my hair as I nodded.

  “I’m Orenn,” the metalougue introduced. “Gryff and I are on a defense squad together.”

  Ashla smiled a little under her mask. “I’m Ashla, leader of the Wild Reds.”

  “Freelancers?” Orenn asked, and Ashla nodded. “Nice. We could use someone a bit more roguish in these parts.”

  “Let’s chat while we move,” I suggested. “Wherever Gawain is, we need to find him fast.”

  Ashla and Orenn nodded as they flanked either side of me. I took several tentative steps towards the ciphers and tablet that had landed a few feet away.

  “What about the rift?” Ashla inquired. “We can’t leave it open li
ke that. What if more monsters appear?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly as I knelt in front of the artifacts, “but we can’t just stand here either.”

  “Isn’t that standard procedure though?” Orenn interjected.

  “Look,” I snapped as I turned to them, “I almost lost my entire squad in the Magicae Nito because an actual rift opened within the mock one. Erin was poisoned, Varleth had to go out alone to banish the catalyst, and Gawain was almost killed on my watch because I let him follow a monster he believed was a little girl. So, yes, it’s protocol to stay and await a banisher to close the rift, but I’m not letting Gawain’s dumb ass get almost killed again, or worse, actually get killed.”

  I watched as Ashla and Orenn’s expressions shifted, but I couldn’t tell what it was they thought. As far as I was concerned, I was within my own right to be worried about Gawain.

  “You’re both welcome to stay here and act as the vanguard, but know that when I go in there, I’m not going as a banisher,” I told them. “My goal is to find Gawain and get out. You’re also welcome to join me, and maybe we can come up with something together so we all come out on top of this.”

  A moment of silent contemplation hung in the air before Orenn barked out a laugh.

  “Man, you’re going to be one hell of a squad leader one day,” he commented. “Let’s find Gawain. We can catch each other up along the way.”

  My shoulders relaxed knowing that I had someone on my side, and I smiled graciously. “Thanks, Orenn.”

  We both turned to Ashla, who looked as though she were having a much more difficult time making a decision. I understood, though. As someone who had served in the military both as an official squad member and a freelancer, she felt her duty was more to the citizens. Something like this wasn’t a decision made lightly.

  After a few seconds though, she shook her head and shrugged. “Why not? I’ve already come this far. Might as well keep on.”