Life

by Rosie Scott

  One

  62nd of New Moon, 425

  The mines beneath Mistral were quiet as death, but the long passageways were cluttered with signs of recent life. Streaks of gemstone peeked flirtatiously through cold gray rock on either side of us. Lumps of glimmering raw rubies sat abandoned in a wheelbarrow large enough to transport a dozen bodies. Pickaxes were strewn over dirt and rock. Sconces placed haphazardly along rocky walls glowed firelight which was in the midst of battling for territory with a thousand shadows. The orange light from a nearby sconce danced over the stone just ahead of us, pulling our attention to a thick trail of blood.

  Azazel walked ahead of the group, leaning down to put two periwinkle fingers to the blood. When the archer brought his hand back and swirled the liquid between both fingertips, he took note of its thicker consistency before lifting the fingers to his nostrils and sniffing twice.

  “Recent,” he murmured, his black eyes scanning over the rest of us. “But it is in the midst of thickening. It's a few hours old.” Azazel glanced farther down into the depths of the tunnels and lifted up a hand, using alteration magic to look for signs of life. The magic returned no signs of it. “We're on the right path.”

  “How far would the creature have to be for your magic to miss picking up on signs of life?” The question came from Leura Brennan, Eteri's new seventh Sentinel. Both of the latest additions to the prestigious set of generals were dual casters, and Leura's elements were earth and fire. She had been suggested for promotion by Altan for her part in the assault of Narangar three years earlier. Leura had a penchant for using lava in battle, and the combination spell had been immensely helpful in both burning dwarven ships and weighing them down. Her hair was the same bright red as my own, but her eyes were an emerald green; both of her elements were determined to take precedence in her appearance.

  “Quite far,” Azazel replied, before looking over the stone walls of the mines. “But obstruction matters more than distance. The fewer obstacles the magic has to search through, the better and more accurate the result.” Azazel took note of the bewildered look on Leura's face before he added, “If I use the magic across an open field, the spell only travels through air. If I use the magic here in these tunnels, the spell must travel through stone. The thicker the stone, the less accurate the spell.”

  Leura nodded. “So it is possible the creature is closer than you think.”

  Azazel shook his head. “No. I'm still tracking it using other methods. Alteration magic should be used as support, not as a replacement for sharp senses.”

  “Don't forget that Azazel's ears are better than yours,” Altan told his former soldier.

  Leura chuckled softly. “Yes, I do keep forgetting that. Forgive me, Azazel. I've never worked with an Alderi before.”

  Azazel shook off her apology with an unconcerned smile.

  “I feel unprepared, Altan,” Leura continued after a moment.

  Altan snorted as if to say he found that ridiculous. “Unprepared? You single-handedly took down three dwarven warships in Narangar's harbor, my dear. Don't you dare start to doubt yourself.”

  “Yes, but I feel so ignorant to so many things. Every question I ask has an easy answer I've simply overlooked.”

  Altan raised his eyebrows. “How do you think I felt when all this alliance business with the Renegades started? I've been in this army for hundreds of years, Leura, and I never knew a damn thing about alteration magic until just a few short years ago. Barely knew anything about the Alderi except not to trust them.” He grinned over at Azazel with blinding white teeth.

  “Says the man who was all too quick to bed one,” I retorted, speaking of Nyx.

  Altan laughed heartily at that and slapped my shoulder playfully. “I didn't have to trust her to enjoy her, Kai.” The Sentinel hesitated and added, “Sure do miss her, though.”

  My playful demeanor soured as my heart ached with longing. It had been two and a half years since Nyx had left us after the Battle of Highland Pass. We had once been inseparable. Cerin had told me long ago that he didn't think Nyx would stay away from finishing this war, but it had been so long now that I wondered if that's precisely what she had decided to do. Part of me also pondered the possibilities that she had somehow gotten herself harmed or killed over the past few years. I didn't want to think that, of course, but I had heard nothing from her to suggest she was okay.

  I felt a warm hand on my shoulder and glanced up to see Azazel looking to comfort me. He smiled when he saw my eyes clear. “You okay?”

  “Don't worry about me, Azazel,” I murmured, nodding toward the tunnels ahead as I felt everyone's eyes on me. “We have a job to do.”

  Azazel completely ignored my attempts to divert the subject and replied, “I'm always going to worry about you. Don't tell me not to.”

  I chuckled softly at his insistence. “You're as stubborn as me, I swear to the gods.”

  Azazel shrugged light-heartedly. “That's why you love me.”

  “One of the reasons, sure,” I admitted with a smile.

  Altan shook his head in humor as he listened to us bicker lovingly. Flicking a bronzed finger between Azazel and me, he asked Cerin, “This doesn't bother you?”

  Cerin chuckled. “Why would it bother me? They're the best of friends. They do this all the time.”

  Altan shrugged and moved his amused gaze back to Cyrus, who had been pretty quiet during our mission thus far. “I mean, Cyrus is a good friend of mine, but I'd never admit I love him.”

  “Out loud,” Cyrus spoke up from the back of the group. “I have all of your letters where you pine for me, Altan.”

  Altan laughed boisterously at the other Sentinel's joke, his jovial voice echoing down the tunnels. Before me, Azazel's eyes sharpened, and he stood up straighter, holding up a finger. The Sentinel noticed and cut his laughter short, and the tunnels went silent.

  Azazel turned back toward the depths and held a hand up, seeking life once again. Just the slightest hint of red energy hovered above his palm, pulling our attention to the pitch black and mostly undeveloped south end of the mines. The archer didn't have to ask us to be quiet as our group moved forward once again.

  Leura clutched her tri-headed flail to her side, her green eyes staring into the abyss ahead. The weapon was deceivingly beautiful, with a solid steel handle which led to three separate chains, each ending in a spiked ball which had seen its fair share of bludgeoning and ripping. Leura may have been fairly new to being a Sentinel, but she had used the weapon for decades after going through strenuous training. She'd mentioned before just how hard the flail was to wield, but she was in love with its brutality, so she refused to use anything else.

  Just behind Leura crept Dax Romney, the newly promoted sixth Sentinel. He was a life and water dual caster and tended to be quiet and calculating. It was little wonder why Kirek had grown fond of him and suggested his promotion. Dax had shoulder-length silver-blonde hair that he liked to keep off his neck with a stubby ponytail, and his eyes were the most beautiful turquoise. I hadn't yet had the privilege of seeing him battle due to his training with Kirek that had kept him far from us over the past year, but I could only imagine he was as brutal as his mentor. Dax wore a heavy weapon belt adorned with four identical small steel axes. I'd heard he was as accurate in throwing the weapons as he was using them in close combat melee.

  Nearby, Uriel held up a hand to seek life in the dark tunnels ahead. Though Azazel had found life earlier, we had traveled forward for a few minutes without hearing a thing. No energy hovered over the healer's palm, proving that the creature was toying with us. Uriel glanced over at me before giving a shrug.

  Azazel slowed once the lit tunnel of the mine opened up into a darker and larger cavern. The ceilings were high here like everywhere else, ensuring that the giants who frequently worked these mines could come and go with little issue. Steel beams arced in toward the ceilings above to keep them from caving in as the mines expanded. The stone just ahead was barely lit by the
sconces left behind us, but I could tell this cavern was quite extensive because of the low echoing of our footsteps that bounced off of rock walls farther away than I could see.

  Enhaun visua. The illusion magic transferred from my hand to my temple, and my eyesight sharpened in the dark. I immediately saw what Azazel had, waiting to be discovered in the shadows. A mutilated giant's leg was cooling in a puddle of blood, the flesh and muscle of the upper thigh torn straight through with razor-sharp fangs. The femur was broken completely and at an angle. Whatever creature did this had to be immensely strong. Femurs were usually sturdy bones anyway, but the fact that this one belonged to a giant meant it was many times larger than average.

  Azazel slowly came back to us after examining the limb. His eyes were on Altan's. “Your miners broke through to the underground,” he murmured.

  “Why do you say that?” Altan replied, confused. I reached over, using illusion magic to enhance the Sentinel's vision. Once he saw the mutilated limb, he grimaced. “Gods.”

  Azazel kept his voice low as he said, “We are dealing with a camazotz. They can spread disease with their bites, but victims rarely survive the bite. This one has clearly grown quite large if it's eating giants.”

  “What the hell is a camazotz?” Altan retorted.

  “The Alderi call them death bats,” Azazel replied.

  “Lovely,” Altan huffed.

  “So they fly,” Dax spoke up for the first time, his low scratchy voice holding no fear.

  “Yes, but flying relies on their digestive systems,” Azazel replied. “Camazotzs only feed on blood. Feeding weighs them down until their digestion system expels the liquid as urine.” The archer flicked a finger over to the giant leg. “This one won't be flying right away if we can reach it soon. Be careful not to step in the urine. I've seen hunters get stuck and incapacitated in it before.”

  “And you once complained about the creatures of Eteri, Kai,” Cyrus teased me.

  “We're still in Eteri, Cy,” I replied. “As far as I'm concerned, this is still your problem.” Cyrus chuckled.

  We quieted once more and entered the darkness. With my magically enhanced vision, the depths ahead had the clear outlines of the rocky walls. Farther into the mines, sconces hadn't yet been installed. Closer to us, however, there had been sconces, but the calcint covered torches were scattered over the floor like there had been a scuffle which had knocked them from their places. When we passed them, the heavy metallic stench of blood filled the air, and I realized the calcint was no longer burning because the torches were in puddles of gore.

  The illusion magic dispelled itself from my eyes a moment later, and I didn't refresh the spell right away. I stayed right behind Azazel, only knowing he was there because of the soft glint that flashed to my eyes every few seconds from the metal of the karambits on his belt. When he stopped again, our group bunched up behind him. There were only nine of us, which included six Sentinels and three Renegades. Zephyr was currently stationed in Makani helping to rebuild its harbor after the Great Glacial Flood of 423, and Maggie was in Tal, building battleships combining the steam engine designs of the dwarves and her own magical shielding systems. We needed larger ships with which to bring the giants with us to Hammerton in less than a year, and the once decimated town of Tal was being rebuilt so we could depart from there.

  Azazel pulled his bow up before him and took an arrow slowly from the quiver at his hip. I leaned my head around his shoulder, trying to see what he saw. There was nothing but shadows, so I recast the vision spell and immediately saw our foe.

  A large, round cavern laid out at the end of our tunnel. A few limbs of giant corpses were spread around the jagged stone floor like missing pieces to a puzzle. Blood collected in shallow pools of the lowest stone, and blood spray was cast over rocky walls and ceilings alike. Evidently, the tunnel had continued past this room, because I could barely make out the slight turquoise glow of bioluminescent fungi far ahead, where the giant miners had mistakenly tunneled too deep. Before the light, however, was the creature.

  The camazotz was resting on the stone floor when I first saw it, eerily human arms holding up its weight from folded knuckles in the midst of blackish-gray fleshy wings. It was the most massive flying creature I'd ever seen, dwarfing even the wyvern from near Whispermere. This cavern must have been sixty or so feet high, and it appeared at nearly half the size of the room itself. Its head was much like its bat brethren only at many times the size, and the skull was broad and jutted outward at the jaw, where dozens of fangs dripped blood from its recent kills. Two black eyes were still and aware as it tracked Azazel's movements. It tilted its head ever so slightly as if asking us if we really wanted to do this.

  Shik! Azazel's black arrow splatted through the camazotz's eye, and it screeched so loudly that the echoes of its cry vibrated my skull painfully. The colossal bat walked forward on its two massive wings, thick muscular legs pushing it forward from behind.

  I quickly gave the others enhanced vision with illusion magic, and it was immediately apparent to me when they saw the creature for there were plenty of quick inhales and rapid movements of reaction.

  We rushed into the cavern, which lit up with orange light as Altan threw a fireball, the element whistling through the air before it exploded outward from the camazotz's chest, singing the dark matted fur and releasing the thick smell of musk. Kirek lifted up both palms to summon earth magic and two solid shards of metal formed with the echoes of slicing blades. She thrust both spells forward, and the metal zipped through the air, each magical blade shredding the dense flesh of a wing.

  Eager to prove herself, Leura rushed to the beast's right side, spewing flames from her left hand while swinging her flail heavily with her right. The spikes of the weapon's balls pierced into the grimy skin of the right wing before she jerked the flail back. Specks of ripped flesh and drops of blood splattered outward from the wound as if chasing after the weapon which released them, spraying across Leura's face even as she went for another swing.

  The camazotz was slow and lumbering from the weight of its recent meals, but it sought to protect itself. Cerin was leeching energy from behind its left wing, trying to pull the life straight out of the creature's heart. The huge bat lashed its head out toward my lover, but the hit was blocked by the flat of his scythe. Because the beast was so mighty, Cerin skidded back a few feet from the defense, his thick boots sliding through blood.

  I wasted no time in building the paralyze spell and thrusting the emerald alteration magic at the camazotz's chest. It immediately stilled, kept steady by both thick legs and wings. As Cerin hacked at its left leg with his scythe, Altan stood just behind the beast's tail, throwing his flame-imbued chain around the right leg, trying to both burn it and cut off its circulation to render it useless.

  Azazel continued shooting arrows into its eyes, but the thick skull was preventing the arrowheads from reaching the brain. I hurried up to the left wing, reciting creatius les fiers a nienda de material in my head. Fire swirled above my right hand just before I thrust the spell to the beast's flesh.

  The fire wall built upon the skin of the wing, sticking to the creature just as well as it had once adhered to the stone floors of the underground. A wide section of the camazotz's wing was now in flames, the element feeding off of the oxygen of the air and its fur to continue burning the creature even after I no longer held the spell. I hurried to the other side of the enormous bat, planning on using the same spell on its opposite side to relieve it of both of its wings.

  An ear-piercing screech surrounded us as the camazotz broke out of the paralyze spell, now free to voice the pain of many wounds. Even though its left wing was still swirling with flames, it started to lift itself off the ground, flapping both wings heavily in the air. Both Cerin and Leura were slapped out of the way by the massive limbs. The sound of my lover's scythe scraping across the stone grated to my ears just before it was retrieved with a shing.

  Altan still had a hold on the righ
t leg of the creature with his chain, and it screeched again as it tugged its limb forward, fighting the muscular Sentinel for ground. Altan grunted as he struggled to pull the beast back. With another cry of both frustration and determination, the bat shook in mid-air, and a grumbling noise bubbled out from its stomach.

  Pssh!

  A fountain of thick golden urine erupted from the camazotz's back end, spraying over Altan and much of the stone behind him. Given that the creature was full of the blood of multiple giants, there was so much waste that it puddled over jagged rock and immediately filled the air with a stench of ammonia so intense that a headache started to throb against my skull.

  Altan let go of his chain, and the camazotz took off into the air, newly lightweight. The stone walls of the cavern were lit with orange from its one flaming wing, and Altan's chain whistled through the air as it was carried.

  “Fucking hell!” Altan cursed, spitting over the rock near his boots and shaking free of the urine in disgust. “I quit!”

  Cyrus laughed even as he shot ice shards into the air at the giant circling bat. Blood spurted out from one of the shards cutting through the camazotz's torso, and another shard missed and shattered against the rocky ceiling in a dozen pieces of whitish-blue. “Don't be so glum, Altan,” Cyrus finally commented as Altan shook urine from his short red hair. “You normally have to pay somebody to do that.”

  Even in disgust, Altan couldn't help but laugh at Cyrus's joke.

  Magic of all types was being thrown at the camazotz as it flew slowly in the air, circling around us as it tried to decide what to do. There were no upper exits from the cavern, so its flight was mostly to keep it safe from our attacks. As it flew, slivers of heavy burning flesh fell from its flaming wing, and it started to fly a little lopsided.

  Dax held two steel axes, one perfectly balanced in each hand. Both of the axes dripped with thick blood from causing wounds on the bat in melee. His two turquoise eyes followed the beast as it flew, and he lifted the right ax, the muscles of his arm twitching as he aimed.