by Unknown
“I have a couple of spells, but they’re less effective than yours,” Eda said with a nod. “That should help, right?”
“Yes, since that gives a third of us who can engage immediately, and even if the cave gives whoever’s inside a good way to keep an eye out, it also means we can bottle them up relatively easily,” Brianna said, looking at Cora speculatively. “That’s what you’re planning, right? To let Joy investigate, and if they spot her, we hit them with ranged spells and keep them from using any number advantage against us.”
Cora couldn’t help a smile, shrugging sheepishly as she nodded. “Yes, that’s about what I was thinking. It isn’t the best plan in the world, but I’m no tactician. I don’t see what else we can do, with how few of us there are and how little we know about what’s in there.”
“Nah, I don’t think you’re wrong. Eight of us over here, and there aren’t that many avenues of escape for anyone inside… I think it’s a workable plan,” Brianna said, her expression musing. After a few moments she glanced at James and asked, grinning, “What do you think, James? You do seem to be the ‘official’ leader of our group, as far as Silverhoof is concerned.”
The man grimaced at that, shaking his head firmly. “No, no… you’re all equals, thank you. If I’m in charge, that’s only until we get to Clarion and for convenience. I’m trying hard not to let a little authority go to my head. That’s a good way to get in trouble.”
“We know; Bri’s just teasing. At a bad time, too,” Cora said, glowering at Brianna.
“Now’s exactly the time to tease,” Brianna shot back.
“Er, regardless of that, I agree that the plan seems like a good one,” James interjected hastily. “Brianna and I can cover the front, with Helen and Marilyn covering our flanks while Stella keeps an eye on all of us, plus Cora, Eda, and Jean in the back as ranged attackers. It feels pretty balanced to me, as long as no one attacks us from behind.”
“The worker would warn you if she spotted something coming!” Joy interjected brightly, nodding to the rear. “She doesn’t want us to get hurt.”
Cora glanced back, and this time she spotted the apis, who was carefully inspecting the flowers on a bush, but glanced up to smile back at Cora and wave before going back to whatever she was doing. It was so strange to see, but Cora wasn’t about to argue with the apis. Having backup was important.
“It sounds like we have a plan, then. Joy, how long do you think it’ll take you to circle around?” Stella asked, unlimbering her shield.
“Not long! A couple of minutes at most,” Joy replied instantly, gesturing at the rocky terrain as she added, “This place gives plenty of places to hide, and I’m not as good as the Shadebough apis are.”
“Then I’d say we should get ready while you circle around,” Cora said, taking a deep breath. “Just be careful. More careful than last time, hm?”
“I will! I really don’t want to get hit by an axe like last time,” Joy assured her, then darted away, ducking to keep her head out of line of sight. The only thing that concerned Cora was that Joy didn’t sound like she regretted getting hit that much.
“Why do I not believe her?” Cora asked after a second, looking at Brianna and Stella helplessly, prompting a chuckle from Brianna.
“Because she’ll happily throw herself in the way of an attack on one of us, of course,” the human said, drawing her sword and examining it for a moment before nodding in satisfaction. “At least none of us are going to be right there, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t any webs to trap her, so she should be fine.”
“Besides, we’re here to back her up, and aside from the occasional leopard or carnivorous mountain goat, there aren’t that many dangerous creatures around here,” James added, smiling wryly. “I’m more worried about us, if I’m being honest.”
Cora thought about trying to reply to that, then gave it up as the others positioned themselves, preparing her staff and trying to calm down. Hopefully whatever was in the cave wasn’t too bad.
Joy fluttered over a rather large pile of dry branches that’d been tossed around the back of the hillside with the cave, a little amused at the sight of them. Those would make it difficult to bypass them without making a bunch of noise, at least if someone couldn’t fly, and she thought they looked like they’d been placed there deliberately. Mostly she wondered where they’d gotten so many branches, at least for a moment. Then she was past them and set back down to scramble along the rock, mentally focusing on hiding. That would help, and she didn’t want to give away her presence by flying. Her wings made a little too much noise, and she couldn’t help hoping that she’d get an ability to quiet them still more in the future.
The rocky slope wasn’t too hard to climb down quietly, though Joy noticed several stones that would be easily dislodged, and carefully avoided them, though she made note of where the larger ones were. If she could drop a rock on a bad person’s head, she wasn’t going to object.
She slowed down as she approached the lip of the cliff, though, adjusting to where she was moving on her hands and knees, noting that it was a lot more difficult to move upside-down than it had been as a bee. It was an idle thought, though, and she cautiously poked her antennae over the lip first.
The first thing Joy noticed was that it was quiet in the cave. Far, far too quiet to be natural, especially with the smell, which caused Joy’s nose to wrinkle. The smell of smoke pervaded the air, like there was an active fire inside, and the unidentifiable stench was even stronger now. There were also the smells of a bunch of people, far too many for Joy to individually identify, but they were fresh enough, and she smelled a lot of filth. The thought briefly made her wonder why the others had looked at her so oddly when she’d talked about poop, but it wasn’t something that she pondered for long. Joy slowly lowered her head until only her eyes were past the lip, then blinked in surprise.
The shadows of the cave were even starker now that she was looking at them up close, so stark that they couldn’t even be called shadows at all. It was like a wall of shadow, without any of the gradients that she was used to, no additional shadows from reflections of light, nothing. It was unnatural, and she briefly wondered if she should try to poke her head into the cave, since she couldn’t see anything. That was when the air inside the cave shifted suddenly, the unfamiliar scent approaching, and Joy instinctively recoiled.
An instant after she recoiled, a thin black stinger the size of her rapier blade lanced through the air where her head had been, shooting into the distance very rapidly. Joy didn’t have much time to wonder what it’d been, not since a moment later a creature pounced out of the cave, seemingly appearing from nowhere.
The creature was a huge cat with tan fur, its mane a well-groomed brown, and it opened its mouth to roar, revealing immaculate, sharp fangs. Worse, the feline was glaring up at her as it unfurled its bat-like wings, and its tail was tipped by dozens of thin black stingers.
“Uh-oh,” Joy muttered, blinking at the creature in shock.
Chapter 17
“Oh, crap. Analyze,” Cora whispered, her eyes going wide at the sight of the creature that had just attacked Joy. She didn’t need to know what the manticore was, just what level it might be. Then she got extremely unwelcome information as well.
Lesser Manticore (Level 22)
Attack Power 25
Defense 21
Abilities: Companion, Spike Throw, Spike Growth
“We’ve got a Beastmaster!” Cora exclaimed, beginning to stand just as several more humanoid figures rushed out of the cave. She just hoped they weren’t all as powerful as the manticore, or they would be in deep trouble.
“Spike, what are you—” Dan began, but his voice cut off as he stepped out of the cave and looked up. The welcome fresh air was forgotten as his eyes went wide, meeting the wide-eyed gaze of yellow-haired, black-garbed woman with insect wings clinging to the hillside above the cave like a spider. He froze for an instant, and the woman smiled at him sheepishly.
“Hi!” she said, sending a chill down his spine, especially when he heard something to the south and caught movement from the corner of his eye. He’d heard about how deadly and ruthless the apis were, and Dan really didn’t want to follow the example of Damaris.
“To arms! Spike, kill—” Dan began, and yelped as the apis took the moment to throw three daggers in a row at him, dancing out of the way barely in time before finishing. “Spike, kill her!”
“That’s mean!” the apis complained, just as more of Dan’s soldiers began rushing out of the cave, and he hoped the others were getting into their armor.
Especially as the first fireball came flying at him from the south, and Spike snarled, whipping its tail at the apis and launching a spike, which the woman unfortunately dodged as she jumped into the air. Then Spike took flight, chasing the apis, and Dan didn’t have much time to worry about her. He hoped Spike would deal with the woman quickly, then they could deal with the damned magi.
Joy took flight just barely in time, dodging another spike from the flying kitty with spikes. She did not understand why it had both the wings and the spikes, but she didn’t understand a lot of things. She knew that it would hurt if it caught her, though, so she focused on dodging.
The monster roared again, lumbering into the sky after her, and it looked so silly that Joy couldn’t help giggling, grinning as a ball of fire crashed into the hillside next to the cave, followed by a couple of bolts of light and ice. She saw several Skyfishers hurrying out of the cave to help the second man, one who wore leather and had a bow in his hands. She wished he hadn’t dodged… and the distraction nearly proved her undoing as she almost failed to dodge the cat swiping at her with its claws. She barely bobbed down out of range, and the creature overshot, going rather far past her as it slowly turned.
“Catch me if you can!” Joy said, her thoughts racing as she watched the cat turn, her wings beating rapidly to bounce her around in the air randomly, just in case anyone was going to take a shot at her.
The cat was big, and obviously stronger than Joy was, but at the same time she’d already spotted a major weakness of it, and that was its maneuverability. It just couldn’t turn quickly, though its tail spikes gave it a ranged attack Joy couldn’t match. Still, she could probably deal with it, given some time. She just had to avoid getting hit.
Joy’s smile vanished as she glanced down again, just in time to see the man fire an arrow at her friends. James blocked the arrow with his shield, but it punched right through the shield and bounced off the man’s armor, leaving a scar in the pretty metal, and her friends were advancing right into the teeth of ten soldiers she could see, and that worried her. The last Skyfishers they’d run into had been really tough.
The flying cat turned, and Joy spoke, her tone warning as she drew her rapier. “Leave us alone or I’ll have to hurt you, kitty. I mean it!”
The only response from the cat was a snarl and lash of its tail, sending two spikes flying at her, which Joy barely managed to duck, as it had aimed at the direction she’d dodged the previous time. That was a bit of a warning sign to her, but she didn’t let it faze her. Instead she focused still more, glancing down as she flittered to the side, causing the creature to course-correct toward her, while she gauged just what she was going to do, filtering out the clash of metal on metal below her.
“This could hurt,” Joy muttered, then called out. “Here, kitty, kitty!”
That just seemed to irritate the flying cat more, and it roared as it lunged toward her, its claws outstretched and maw wide open. Joy briefly considered trying to thrust her sword down its throat, then abandoned the thought. Instead, she waited until almost the last moment.
“Speed Burst!” Joy exclaimed, and the world seemed to slow down briefly as she shot up and forward, so close she could see the whites of the cat’s eyes. This time she didn’t go entirely past the cat, though, as her free hand snapped out and grabbed on to the cat’s mane, which bodily yanked her down behind it… just as she’d planned.
Joy didn’t second-guess herself, reversing the blade to get it close to the base of the cat’s left wing, and she used her next ability just as the cat was starting to struggle to throw her off. “Tendon Slice!”
Her blade cut into the cat’s muscle, and the next instant the left wing went limp, causing the creature to begin falling very rapidly as its roar turned a touch less ferocious. The wind whipped by, and Joy found herself being dragged with the monster as it fell toward the cluster of Skyfishers attacking her friends.
As she fell, Joy found herself grinning, and she exclaimed, “Whee!”
“Ah, hell. Lightning Blast!” Cora said, throwing a ball of lightning at one of the enemy soldiers, then ducked as the archer took another shot at her, wincing as the arrow buried itself halfway into a boulder. If he hit, that would hurt.
Her lightning blast hit the soldier, but she cursed as he barely flinched, the armor obviously designed to help against magic. That made her scowl, since it meant that her attacks wouldn’t work as well, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Brianna and James were holding off the enemies relatively well, though their methods were dramatically different. James used his shield to block most attacks, while her friend was swinging her sword hard enough that most of her opponents didn’t dare try to get into the gaps. That would be close to suicide, with how it’d open their flanks to Helen.
“Whee!”
The sound of Joy’s voice from above startled Cora just as she was about to cast a spell, and she glanced up just in time to see the manticore falling out of the sky with one limp wing, the other wing beating frantically as it tried to correct its course, all while Joy was holding on to its mane with an incredibly broad grin, her rapier in her other hand.
“Scatter!” one of the enemy soldiers exclaimed, her voice frantic as the woman fell back, just in time for Jean to hit her with a large stone sphere. The other soldiers tried to scatter, but they didn’t have enough time as the manticore came slamming down into the middle of them, landing fully on one unfortunate man, and scattering the others like a flock of chickens with a fox in their midst.
“Spike!” the archer in the back exclaimed in anguish, a look of horror on his face. Almost as if in response, Joy regained her feet, letting go of the mane, and spoke.
“Stab! Penetrating Strike!” the apis said, stabbing the manticore twice rather viciously as it tried to regain its feet. Behind her, the creature’s tail lashed around, and Cora’s eyes widened in horror, opening her mouth to warn her.
“Careful!” Brianna interrupted, bringing her sword down with a grunt, half-severing the tail before it could launch a spike, and the next second Marilyn slammed a dagger into the manticore’s throat, though it glanced off the first time, while Stella stepped forward to club it over the head with her mace.
The other soldiers were still regrouping, Cora saw, but her vision focused on the archer, whose shock had turned to rage as he took aim at Joy. Cora snapped to a decision, aiming her staff at him as she snapped out.
“Ice Blast!” she said, launching a ball of icy shards at the man just before he could loose his arrow. The attack threw him off-target as he dodged, and she said, “Jean!”
“On it! Earth Spike!” Jean said, her eyes glittering.
The man tried to dodge again, but the rising shard of stone was fast enough that it clipped his leg, slowing him down just as Cora cast another spell.
“Lightning Blast!” Cora spat, launching a ball of lightning into the man’s face, prompting a scream as he staggered backward and fell over.
As they were attacking him, the others finished off the manticore. The enemy soldiers looked shaken to Cora, but they hadn’t given up yet, a bit to her surprise.
The rest of the fight wasn’t nearly as bad, though, as Joy dove into the fight gleefully, as though she was completely oblivious to the odds. Just about everyone took injuries except for Cora and the other magi in the back, but Eda’s spells dealt with the injuries
almost as quickly as they were inflicted, prompting a wave of envy to flow through Cora. A White Mage was an amazing job, and one that not just anyone could get.
Things grew a little more complicated when another wave of soldiers came out of the cave, this time with a mage to back them up, but by that point all but one of the enemies were down, and between Cora and Jean, they managed to take down the mage before he could get off a single ball of fire, one which scorched Joy’s wings. A minute or two later the fight was done, and Cora slowly lowered her staff, internally grimacing at how much mana the battle had taken.
“What were they doing with better than twenty soldiers here? And a manticore?” Cora asked, wiping her forehead.
“A manti-what?” Joy asked, prompting a chuckle from Brianna. “I leveled after killing it!”
“A manticore, Joy. That beast that you rode down into their soldiers, and I’m not surprised you leveled,” the human explained, jerking a thumb toward it. “Have to say, that was a lot easier than all the stories I’ve heard about fighting them. Usually manticores can keep their distance, so they’re hellish for people like me.”
“Oh! I was just more maneuverable than it. It had really big teeth,” Joy said, looking at the manticore, and Cora saw her mouth the name, as if memorizing it.
“It did, and you scared me half to death when it fell. You almost hit me,” James said, kneeling next to the archer, then nodded in satisfaction. “This one’s alive, so we can take him to Silverhoof as a prisoner. Any others?”
“I think we have another, but most of you were slightly overly enthusiastic in stabbing,” Stella commented dryly from near another fallen soldier. “What about the cave? Shouldn’t we investigate it?”
“Probably,” Cora said, looking at the others.
