The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2)

by Honor Raconteur

  Bannen nodded along. “Not a bad thought. I think it’s doable, definitely preferable to trying to keep him off of us while Rena does her thing.”

  Our illustrious team leader gave a hum, fingers flicking in the air, gesturing for us to move. “Let’s walk and discuss this. We’ve got a little more time before we exit this narrow path, and once we’re through, we can test the strategy on smaller targets before we get to that monstrosity ahead. Rena, walk with me. Let’s get the finer details of how much distance and time you need to pull this off.”

  Going through that narrow pass made me want to crawl out of my skin, because no fighter worth their salt goes through such a narrow pass on purpose, not without very good reason, but I did admit that it kept the minions off long enough for me to get my wind back. And it didn’t smell so much like decaying old man’s socks and death in here, which my nose appreciated. Even Rena needed the chance to catch her breath, as she’d been using more magic than advisable to keep the minions from swarming us.

  Yez tapped something on his mouthpiece that let him communicate with the other teams, relaying the plan we’d hatched, and I hoped it worked. It would mean quite a bit of coordination, a series of bait and retreat that took timing and skill to pull off. Too fast or too slow, it would fall apart and we would be in the wrong spot at the wrong time, and nothing good ever came out of that.

  While we exited that twisty mountain pass, we had no line of sight, which made my already stretched nerves even more jumpy. I kept a hand on Rena’s back, the contact meant to steady us both and to keep my familiar bond with her from trying to strangle me. I’d gotten better control over it in the past two years but situations like this made it writhe like a cat tossed into a waterfall.

  I barely had two feet of clearance before I realized that while we had come down the mountain, the monster we dreaded had moved toward us as well. I swallowed around a dry throat as I got my first look at it. “Deities, what a sarding brute,” I choked out, and I could just feel the fine hairs on my skin raise. “There’s no way that’s only two stories tall, Chi, you liar.”

  “Durable,” Vee looked more than a little put out, “we need to get your eyes checked.”

  “Hey, I was estimating size from almost four thousand feet away, I think I did pretty well, all things considered!” Chi protested. “Rena, back me up, here.”

  “The distance did make things deceiving,” she offered.

  Chi nodded, vindicated. “Exactly!”

  Still, that didn’t mean I liked what I saw. The monster had the size of an ancient tree—likely had been originally, some four hundred year old oak tree or the like—and every footstep made the ground tremble in aftershock. Like the other minions, this one had a bipedal form, two long arms at the top, stubby legs on the bottom, with branches sticking out that might or might not be truncated limbs. His arms were thinner than the trunk, forming long whips, dragging in the ground behind him, heavy enough to leave ruts behind. I understood at a glance why Chi and Rena came up with the idea they had, to step in long enough for Rena to get a good look, then back out of the area immediately. Those whip-like arms would not be something we could stop, only dodge, and the reach on them would be tremendous.

  Maksohm took one look and a pinched expression came to his face. “We need to range this thing as much as possible. Yez, pass the word, long range attacks, nothing close range.”

  I stared at my illustrious leader for a moment, puzzled. “Isn’t that obvious? Who would be crazy enough to try close-range combat with that thing?”

  Chi sidled up and explained slowly, “MISD agents are not well known for their survival instincts.”

  I met him look for look. “I thought that was just you.”

  “No, I’m sadly par for the course.”

  “That’s disturbing.” It also explained a lot.

  Maksohm lost no time in getting us away from the mouth of that twisty pass, and I appreciated that, as it now gave me the willies with a monster like that bearing down on us. We went right, as quickly as we could, dust puffing out and lingering in the air as our feet kicked it up, and fortunately not many minor minions seemed to populate this area, so we didn’t have any real impediments. I had to wonder was Big Bad over there the reason for this? I couldn’t imagine any other reason, as until now we’d had plenty of opponents.

  I kept an eye on the other teams, saw them scattering either left or right, trying to gain enough distance to get into position before we were all forced to engage. Rena kept staring hard at Big Bad, only to make a face, over and over again. Trying to get a reading on him now, save us the effort? And failing, by the looks of it. We were still over a thousand feet away; I didn’t expect her to see anything useful at this range, but Rena had always been the type to try even if she knew she’d fail.

  The ground here felt even less stable than the area around the barrier, although it took me a second to realize why. This place had been under Toh’sellor’s influence a lot longer, and the influence of his energy had cracked and distorted even the dirt itself. It felt like walking through fine powder, stirred up in the air, although it made no real sound as it shifted. I felt like I walked through the grey ashes of someone’s grave, and wasn’t that a creepy thought?

  Everyone knew the instant Big Bad sensed our presence. He let out this roar, like a soundless blast of high pressed air, more felt than heard. Maksohm didn’t even swear, just jerked his head at Yez, who understood the signal.

  “Team Four, move!” Yez barked out.

  The first team darted in, close enough to use their long range spells, and even from here I could hear them, the zing of spells singing through the air, lighting up Big Bad on impact in a haze of colors. No damage, but we hadn’t expected any, and the spells did the job: Big Bad turned, his attention going toward them.

  I swore softly. “He’s more limber than I gave him credit for. He did that turn in two seconds.”

  “He’s using his arms to do it, did you see that?” Nora’s eyes narrowed as she peered. “He doesn’t just use them as weapons, but for maneuverability.”

  Vee said what we all thought. “In that case, we have a chance.”

  Yez lifted his hand to his mouthpiece again. “Team Three, move in, Team Four, fall back.”

  Rena bounced from foot to foot, radiating impatience. “When can I get closer?”

  “We need to get around to his blind side first, or maneuver him to face the other direction,” Maksohm reminded her, putting a hand on her shoulder to keep her still. “It’s faster if we can move him, so give it a moment. Let’s see if we can.”

  I held my breath as we waited, watched Teams Two, Three, and Four dance in and out of range, hitting Big Bad with a volley of spells before pulling out, taunting him to move one way or another. Dust swirled up around them as they moved, like a mini-sandstorm, and I could distantly hear them calling out to each other, the sounds muted and distorted from here. As large as the monster was, he was slow on the uptake, not quick enough to hit any one opponent before the hassling distracted him from the first enemy to the second, so that he only swung those massive arms twice, not hitting anyone. If they could just keep this up, we’d be alright, although I didn’t know if they could. The pacing was brutal.

  “Good,” Maksohm declared with a feral smile. “Move!”

  We moved, going as quickly as we dared, almost a run, although for Vee it was more like a power walk. I could hear Rena muttering to herself as we went and I ducked in closer, trying to catch the words. “—nine hundred eighty feet, nine hundred seventy, nine hundred sixty—”

  Of course she did a count down. I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head. She was nothing if not focused.

  There were moments in my life when I realized I had lost all the survival instincts I’d been born with, if I’d possessed any at all, and getting close to something that loomed over me to the point it blocked all light and could squash me like a bug was one of those moments. It rang like an epiphany, and even wh
ile I had sweat streaming down my back, from my temples, even as my feet demanded I run the other way, I couldn’t help but feel the thrill of being this close to something earth-shatteringly powerful.

  Maybe it wasn’t my survival instincts that’d failed, but my sanity?

  I had no time to ponder the life-altering question as we ran forward. This close, the spells sounded more like crashes than thuds, giving off bursts of heat and light, and the smell, deities, the stench nearly overpowered me. Rotting broccoli, molding socks, and decayed fish would smell good in comparison to this.

  Finally, finally, Rena hit that magical fifty feet away, and stopped dead. “Two minutes,” she begged softly, eyes already flying all over, tagging what she needed to know.

  It was not our job to engage Big Bad, we were here in case he noticed, and we really didn’t want him to notice, so we all stayed as still and quiet as possible. Please don’t notice, please don’t notice, because our cracks at close-combat being suicidal aside, I didn’t have any long range weapons on me, which I now realized was an extreme oversight, and I really needed to do something about that when this was all over.

  Rena let out a sharp, “Ha!” of victory. Then she abruptly turned, gesturing for us all to move, running back the way she had come.

  Relieved, I ran with her, easily keeping pace, one eye over my shoulder so that Big Bad couldn’t take us by surprise if he finally realized he had an enemy literally in his shadow.

  For a moment, just a moment, I thought our plan would work. That we’d get by with it. Then his two arms slammed into the ground, upsetting my balance so that I almost tripped, and he turned sharply, facing our direction. No eyes resided in the upper part of his form, nothing that indicated pupils, and yet he clearly stared right at us.

  Sarding son of a Bauchi, that was not good.

  Vee spun on her heel, Seton lighting up in her hands. “Rena!” she commanded.

  Rena stopped abruptly, whipping around, the words already forming on my lips even as she moved to put Big Bad within her line of sight.

  Really? We were doing this? I couldn’t just grab Rena and run faster? Even as I thought it, I knew it wasn’t plausible, we stood too close, those arms would get us for sure. But I didn’t see how standing our ground here was any more feasible.

  “Nora, some help,” Vee requested, cool as ice. “Armbrace Variation. Seton, sync with it, on three. One, two, three!”

  Nora snapped open her grimoire, flung it to the right page with a practiced flip of her wrist, and then tossed the spell toward Vee with a sharply spoken word. Vee lit up briefly in a sharp white flair, a barrier forming in front of her, but mostly to the side, and she lifted her staff familiar in a stance I knew well.

  No. Surely not. Even a quarter-giantess couldn’t hold her ground against that thing!

  Chi instantly went to her, back braced against hers, as if to help her. I shifted to Rena’s back, ready to tackle her to the ground the instant it looked as if those arms would hit us.

  Big Bad’s right arm lifted, rocking back to gain momentum and speed, then he let fly like a horse whip, air whistling as he cut through it. The sound almost deafened me and I had to fight the instinct to flinch from it.

  The impossible happened, right in front of my eyes. That massive arm hit in a crack of sound, like a whip snapping, and Vee stepped just outside of Maksohm’s shield to take it without even flinching. Her heels dug in, sliding back a foot, Chi moving with her, but stoically not shifting, still bracing her as best he could. The arm stopped dead, blocked completely, although part of it kept moving, wrapping around us. Maksohm, Yez and I all moved, weapons up to block it, but it didn’t go completely around. Did Big Bad not have any fine motor skills? Likely not. Either way, not questioning a miracle.

  Roaring in frustration, Big Bad retrieved his arm, lumbering back, the stench of him wafting over us strongly as he moved, and if a monster could feel panic and confusion, the look on his barky face suggested he did. Of course, being stupid and with a one-track mind, that meant he lifted the other arm, intending to try again.

  I could see the magical spells being flung at his back as the other teams tried to regain his attention but the agro was lost; they didn’t have a prayer of getting him to turn again, not with us so close. I glanced at the shield hovering over our heads but despite the impact, Maksohm had managed to keep it up, thanks to Vee’s interference. If it went down, leaving us vulnerable to Toh’sellor’s energies…I didn’t want to think about it.

  Rena’s spell this time had some familiarity to it, but not one I knew, so I couldn’t guess how much more time she needed. I didn’t dare interrupt her, not now, not when she needed to focus.

  Vee shifted abruptly to the right side, bracing again to take the impact, and I watched her as she moved, trying to see any sign of weakness or injury, but she showed none. I knew giants were tougher than humans, but this tough? I had a whole new respect for their race right now. Or did Seton’s protection and the two mage’s shield spells have something to do with it?

  With another roar, Big Bad let the other arm fly, this one moving faster and harder. I could hear it, could feel the pressure of the wind as it flew toward us, and this time I didn’t know which action would be better: did I help brace Vee? Did I try to flatten Rena to the ground before that thing hit us?

  In a split second I threw my faith in with Vee’s muscles and helped Chi, putting my back to her, our shoulders overlapping. I felt the heat pouring off of her along my spine, his bare shoulder through my shirt, could smell the faintest hint of sweat from both of them. Chi beamed at me, briefly, then his faced closed down as he focused.

  This time I felt the impact through Vee’s shoulders, and even braced, it rocked me a little forward. I heard Vee grunt, not in pain, or at least it didn’t sound like pain, more like an oomph of determination, and Chi growled out a curse, shoulders overlapping mine as we pushed back. The arm wrapped around us again, coming a little closer, and I eyed it in growing dread. It might actually curve enough to touch this time, and if it did, I would need to leap out of this position immediately to help cut that thing down—

  In the next instant, the arm vaporized, becoming nothing but dust. The hard push against me disappeared in the same moment, and the shock of it suddenly being gone threw my balance enough that I nearly face planted. Which, eww, I do not want to put my skin anywhere near this disturbing dust, much less my face, thank you very much.

  Pivoting, I turned to look, even as I realized what must have happened. Where Big Bad stood, nothing remained, not even a trace of the monster. That’s my girl. Grabbing Rena by the shoulders, I gave her a loud, smacking kiss. “I love you.”

  “You’re easy to please,” she responded, laughing. “I’m always my sexiest when I’ve destroyed something.”

  She thought she joked. “You really are.”

  “It’s just as well that you have strange taste in women.” Rena took in a deep breath and looked at Vee. “You alright?”

  “I’m good.” Vee looked down at her familiar staff. “You?”

  Seton lit up in quick series of colors that meant absolutely nothing to me, but Vee gave him a satisfied smile. “Good, glad to hear it. Well, that’s out of the way. Good job, everyone.”

  Maksohm echoed this, heartfelt. “Very good job. Yez, check in with the teams, do we have any injured?”

  Yez spent several minutes talking back and forth with different people before shaking his head, looking more than a little relieved. “No injuries.”

  I counted that as a miracle straight from the heavens. Even if we had been ranging this monster, things still went wrong in crazy fights like these.

  “Then let’s continue. We lost a good hour to this fight at least, and I for one to do not want to miss our goal or try to set up camp in darkness.”

  “That does sound like a supremely bad idea,” I agreed, heartfelt. I might or might not have poor survival instincts—I really needed to debate that with myself later—but makin
g a fortified camp in the dark while in the middle of enemy territory? That sounded suicidal. Let’s not do that.

  Maksohm gave that wave of the hand that meant move out, and we moved out, walking steadily. The Big Bad had apparently some kind of territorial rights over this area as we saw no minor minions for quite some time, and I felt grateful for that, as my heart still pounded. Cooling down a little sounded great to me. As we walked, I couldn’t help but ask Vee and Chi, “How did you know that you could take him?”

  “Wasn’t quite sure,” Vee admitted candidly, still flushed from her success. “But I’ve braced comparable things before.”

  Chi offered, “Like that collapsing building in Alyadar.”

  “Huh. I actually had forgotten about that one, but that’s a good example. I was thinking of that train outside of Ravenswood. Remember that? It jumped the track and was trying to go over.”

  “Do I remember that?” Chi laughed and for a moment his expression slipped and his adoration of her was all over his face. “I had a broken leg, trapped on that thing, and you were outside the car, holding it up so that it couldn’t slip over into a ravine, chewing me out for not sitting next to you.”

  “Well, if you’d been next to me, I would have been able to grab you and get you out before that thing went sideways.”

  “I was trying to let you sleep, remember?” he responded as if they’d had this argument at least a thousand times.

  Vee flapped this response away, clearly not willing to get back into it. “Anyway, that’s the first thing I thought of. I figured the limb itself probably weighs three hundred pounds? Even with the amount of force he could put behind it, it can’t be too much more than the weight of a train car. I figured with Nora augmenting my own shield spell, I’d be able to more or less manage. I do appreciate you two backing me up, though. I might have lost my balance without the support.”