by Demi Harper
But Binky is.
I scanned the area for the sulky spider, regretting my orders for him to stay with the convoy. Where did he g—
The shrieker behind Ris’kin started to wail. The volume and proximity made my avatar’s ears throb, and the squirrel beside her head jumped so violently all four of its paws momentarily left her shoulder.
We whirled around to see eight black eyes glinting mischievously at us from beside the shrieker he’d just triggered. The spider waved his palps, as if to say, “You’re welcome.”
“You disobeyed my orders!” I exclaimed, weak with relief.
He clicked his chelicerae as though laughing.
Oh, you. Though I chided him silently, I couldn’t stay mad at the adorable arachnid. The shrieker had distracted the Zolom away from my gnomes, and it was heading this way—just as I’d planned.
“All right, then. Let’s work together.”
Binky agreed. The spider lowered his body until he was half-submerged in the water; with his greenish-brown coloring, he didn’t look out of place in the marsh himself. But he wasn’t hiding. This was an invitation.
The Zolom was almost upon us. With a thrill of excitement, Ris’kin leapt onto Binky’s back and the three of us took off toward the next shrieker.
Each time the convoy triggered one of the shroomy sentinels, we’d set off a different one on the far side, keeping the Zolom distracted long enough for my denizens to escape the area. Binky’s nimbleness made sure we easily avoided the serpent’s clumsy attacks; the passive terrain skills he’d gained alongside the gnomes meant he practically danced through the murky water. I almost felt sorry for the serpent as I watched it throw itself blindly at unseen enemies over and over again.
Eventually the gnomes moved beyond range of the last shrieker. The downside of this was that my Sphere was receding too. Binky might be growing more independent, but he wasn’t yet fully terrestrial, and as long as his existence still utilized at least one Creation slot, he was still subject to the influence of my Sphere.
However, this didn’t quite mean the same for him it had before. My early, “celestial” god-born had been unable to pass beyond its boundaries at all; when Ris’kin was still just a regular forrel, I’d seen her bounce right off like an invisible but solid wall. Now, for Binky, it seemed to be more of a force than a wall. It pulled on him, but he resisted as best he could.
However, it was clear this was not a fight he could win; as long as he was struggling against the pull of my Sphere, he was distracted and vulnerable to attack. In the end, I urged him to give in and join the retreat. The gnomes were safely away, and it was time for us to follow.
The Zolom, no longer harried by the conflicting cries of the shriekers, was now homing in on the last remaining source of noise: the two humans bringing up our rear.
“It’s coming your way,” I warned them. “Can you hold it?”
Benin gulped but nodded. He rubbed his hands together; sparks crackled between his palms. The emberfox flinched, huddling deeper inside the mage’s bag.
Coll gripped his hammer with both hands and set his legs wide, facing firmly in the wrong direction. He adjusted his stance when I told him, then assured me, “We can hold it. Get the little ‘uns out of here.”
Though it made sense, part of me rebelled at the suggestion. I hated that we were once again on the run—facing an enemy we couldn’t defeat, hiding behind humans, running rather than attacking.
“There’s no shame in running,” Ket’s voice floated across our bond. “Just because we’re not standing our ground doesn’t mean we’re not fighting. It’s just that our fight is for survival right now.”
“When the choice is between fleeing and living or standing and dying, ‘tis no choice at all,” agreed Bekkit. “We must trust in our human allies.”
“But Ris’kin can—”
“Ris’kin’s presence could hamper rather than help,” said Ket firmly. “Let Benin and Coll handle it. Your denizens need you more. Who knows what we’ll find when we leave this forest?”
Even through the mist, I could see the trees were thinner and the light brighter. For the second time in recent weeks I found myself reluctantly fleeing toward the sun.
When I looked back, the last thing I saw was the shadow of the Zolom rearing up, followed by a flash of fire. Then there was only mist.
Forty-Seven
The Jaws of Death
Benin
“Nothing’s working!”
Yet another spell—Kelarian Candle this time—ricocheted off the serpent’s body in a shower of fiery sparks.
Benin’s fire-based abilities were more powerful than the new air-based ones, but the snake’s natural resistance—not to mention the fact that its scales, along with every other surface in this thrice-damned marsh, were wet—meant the flames splashed harmlessly off its unnaturally hard skin. Even the Lightning Ball spell Bekkit had taught him seemed merely to irritate the snake.
“Okay… so it’s immune to magic, and hitting it with my hammer only stops it for half a moment.” Coll threw him a glance. “I say we trigger those mushrooms and run.”
“We don’t know that the others are safely away yet,” Benin argued. They both stepped aside as the snake snapped at the air between them, drawn by their voices.
“Besides,” Benin added, nodding toward the slight lump in the serpent’s throat. “We have a rescue mission to complete.”
“Are you kidding?!”
Coll ducked just in time to avoid the snake’s lunge. Its head impacted the tree behind him with a crack. For a moment Benin dared to hope the sound had been the serpent’s skull. But no; the cracking grew louder, and with a splintering snap the top half of the tree toppled sideways. The broken trunk remained rooted, jutting up from the water in deadly shards.
He couldn’t blame Coll for sounding so incredulous. A month or so ago Benin himself would have laughed at the very idea of risking himself to rescue one solitary gnome—a gnome who may well already be dead.
But with every day that went by, Benin became more and more conscious of the fact that he had contributed almost nothing to the exodus. He’d been absent during the dire badger attack when he was needed most, and still didn’t have enough control over his abilities to use them in fights without fear of collateral damage.
What am I training for if not to actually help?
Past-Benin would not have thought saving one gnome was worth the risk; that it wouldn’t make a difference. But he’d spent enough time among the tribe and its God Core to know that every gnomish life mattered. He’d witnessed their grief when their scout had failed to return, and again when the old clothier had popped his clogs. He still couldn’t honestly say that he himself would grieve if the swallowed warrior turned out to be beyond saving, but he knew others would, and he wanted more than anything right now to be the reason they were spared that.
“Coll,” he called, leaping away from the snake’s next attack and almost turning his ankle on the slimy ground. “When I say so, make a really big noise right over there.”
He pointed. When the warrior began wading in that direction, Benin checked if Pyra was still safely tucked inside his bag. He was fairly sure she’d be fine if she fell, but given her clear mistrust of the flooded environment compared to her previous confidence, even in heavy rain, he didn’t want to risk it.
The snake had raised its head again, forked tongue flickering in and out of its fanged mouth. Blood from Coll’s arm still stained the tips of its teeth.
We’ll teach you not to mess with us.
Benin drew on his mana and cast Levitate.
It was still like surfing on a silk cushion, but at least it no longer felt as though the cushion were actively trying to buck him off. He raised himself higher, then, once he was certain he was stable, he channeled a trickle of his rapidly draining mana into his hand and snapped his fingers.
A noise like a thunderclap burst through the air, and the serpent immediately snapped
in his direction. But he was too high, beyond its grasp. For now. It hissed in frustration, just like before, and withdrew to uncoil itself further from the trees and extend its reach.
Benin anxiously watched his mana drain. Come on, come on, come on…
As soon as he spotted it coming back, he yelled, “About time! Dinner’s up here, snakey!”
It rose, hissing, and continued to rise. Benin was floating at least five meters in the air, almost above the level of the mist and the tops of the trees, and he gaped at the sheer scale of the massive reptile. Its tongue still flicked the air, tasting for him.
“Now!” he shouted.
The snake’s jaws gaped open, but before it could strike at Benin, there was a concussion down below. Hammer Smash sent tremors through the flooded ground, pushing the water away from the point of impact. It instantly came rushing in again, but not before the snake’s head plummeted downward toward the sound.
Just as he’d hoped, the jagged base of the broken tree trunk pierced the snake’s upper body, driven into and through it by the force of the serpent’s own momentum. The creature let out a terrible hissing scream.
Benin hurriedly lowered himself back to the ground. He winced as waves of cold water splashed up his legs, soaking his robes all the way to his waist. The serpent was thrashing ferociously, the seemingly endless coils of its body shaking the surrounding trees, sending surges of water everywhere, and triggering shriekers to add to the cacophony of its own agony.
The mage waded toward the broken trunk, careful to avoid the thrashing coils.
“Coll?” he called.
He almost fell over when the snake’s head lunged toward him, snapping at the air just in front of his face. The trunk impaling it had stopped it dead just before it could bite his head off.
“It’s still alive!” yelled Coll.
The serpent lunged back in his direction. Benin heard him swear. There was a splash, followed by sounds of a scuffle and more swearing.
He waded urgently closer, sparks crackling in his hands, though Levitate had left him almost entirely drained. He stopped dead when he rounded the thick trunk and saw Coll rolling around in the water, his arms and legs wrapped around the snake’s thick body as it writhed in a futile attempt to shed its unwanted rider.
There was a glimmer of metal in the warrior’s hand. Was he… was he going to try and cut the gnome out of the snake’s gullet?
It won’t work, you idiot.
“I can’t cut it!” Coll sounded surprised. Benin rolled his eyes, but the warrior had already tossed the knife aside. He began working his way further up toward the snake’s head.
“What are you going to do, choke it out?” He was only half jesting. There was very little Coll could do that wouldn’t surprise him.
“Get over here,” the warrior grunted. The gloved fingers of his left hand closed around the serpent’s snout, while his right hand gripped the edge of its lower jaw in between its front fangs.
It thrashed as Benin waded closer, but the warrior held its head firmly in the crook of his elbow. Though its violent movements dragged him back and forth, it wasn’t able to move its head enough to attack them.
“Go on, then,” said the warrior, teeth gritted with the exertion of holding the monstrous snake’s jaws open.
“What?”
“Get the little ‘un.”
“What?!”
“Hurry up. I can’t do this all day.”
Benin stared into the jaws of death.
He’s right. This is the only way.
“Hurry up,” Coll grunted again.
Benin rolled up his sleeve, held his breath, then plunged his hand into the snake’s mouth.
Its breath was hotter than he expected. He managed not to actually touch any part of the snake until he got to its throat. The surface was grossly smooth, as though lubricated. The same thing that helped it swallow its prey so easily now worked in his favor as he grimaced and pushed his hand deeper.
He could feel the hot, powerful muscles in its throat contracting around his arm, trying to swallow him too. He pushed down the urge to scream and flail and instead forced himself even further inside.
His fingers brushed against something hard. He pushed deeper; leaning in, his entire shoulder was now inside the snake’s mouth, its teeth just inches above his head. He made the mistake of glancing up, and almost passed out at the sight of more teeth. Even more so than the protruding fangs at the front, these curved backwards toward the throat. Benin now also noticed the angled ridges in the roof of the snake’s mouth, also angled toward the throat. Presumably this was all to prevent prey from climbing back out again.
He’d basically just stuck his arm inside a bag of very large, very warm needles. And the only thing keeping it from snapping shut on him was the grip of a single human warrior.
“Don’t—let—go!” he grunted to Coll.
With one last push, his hand closed around what definitely felt like a very small, booted ankle. He fished around until he found the other ankle, then grasped them both firmly together in his hand.
He tugged. The gnomish warrior shifted a little, but was stuck fast, trapped in the beast’s muscled esophagus. I doubt he can breathe in there at all.
The thought of slowly suffocating to death while entirely unable to move filled him with horror. With a renewed effort, Benin thrust his other arm in, leaning all the way down the snake’s throat and pushing through pulsing flesh and muscle to better grip the gnomish warrior.
This time, when he pulled with both hands, the gnome came slithering out. Benin fell back on his backside, and the gnome landed in his lap. Benin pulled his sleeves back down and used them to wipe the thick layer of saliva, or whatever it was that covered the little guy’s face, but he wasn’t breathing.
“Can we go now?”
Sweat poured down Coll’s face. His arms were beginning to tremble. It wouldn’t be long before his stamina gave out.
“Just a little longer.” Benin glanced at his mana globes. He was still low, but he had plenty for this. He only hoped it wouldn’t fry his target.
He held a hand out over the gnome’s chest. The emberfox climbed up his back and onto his shoulder, curious.
A spark leapt from his palm to the gnome’s chest. Its entire body jolted. When nothing else happened, Benin prepared to do it again—but then the gnome gasped suddenly, eyes opening wide. He looked around wildly, coughing and gasping. Gradually his face changed from its bluish pallor to something more closely resembling its usual ruddy-cheeked pink.
“Now can we go?”
Coll’s entire body was shaking violently. Even as Benin watched, the snake’s jaws began to force themselves closed inch by inch.
“When I say, let go and roll away.”
Coll nodded, veins and tendons in his neck standing out starkly with the strain. Swirling sparks crackled in Benin’s hand as he took aim between those monstrous jaws.
“Now!”
Benin launched the Lightning Ball. It sailed into the snake’s mouth just as Coll let go; its jaws snapped shut around the crackling ball. Benin clenched his fist and the ball detonated.
He’d been half-hoping for a dramatic explosion. Instead, the snake shook its head as if confused. Tendrils of smoke wafted from its mouth.
He had the barest sliver of mana remaining, hardly enough for the meanest cantrip. It was clear Coll was empty too. He could barely stand, let alone lift his hammer. Stamina was to a warrior what mana was to a mage, and wrestling this ancient behemoth had drained his companion almost dry.
They were both done.
We have to go, he signaled to Coll, who nodded wearily.
Benin leaned forward to scoop up the gnome, who was thankfully in one piece, snakeskin trousers and all. He was heavier than he’d expected, and clearly unhappy at being carried like a babe, but they needed to get out of here as quickly as possible.
But the snake was angry. Rather than listening for its prey, tasting the air, o
r resting its jaw on the water’s surface to feel for vibrations, it was snapping unpredictably at the air all around it. And Benin was on the wrong side.
As he turned to look for a different path around the snake, it twisted and snapped at him. It came so close its fangs grazed his chest, and he gasped in shock. When the snake, having confirmed his location, came back for another bite, he stood frozen.
Before it reached him, though, something shot in from the side, and its face and neck were coated in a sticky, web-like substance. It snapped its jaws closed prematurely, then found it could not open them again thanks to the sticky fluid.
Hardly able to believe he was still alive and whole, Benin scanned the heavy mist in the direction the projectile had come from. From the twisted branches of a tree only just within sight, eight eyes gleamed in the weak sunlight.
Then the spider was scrabbling at the tree, trying to resist being dragged back by some invisible force, presumably the Core’s influence.
The gnome he was carrying saluted the spider weakly. Benin found himself following suit, raising his free hand to the arachnid. It seemed to relax, and let itself be dragged away, though its cluster of eyes continued to stare back at him. He still found it unnerving, but far less so than when he’d first met the creature.
“Ben!”
Coll’s shout made him turn just in time to see the snake lunging for him yet again. Even as he stumbled backwards with a yell, lifelong instincts had him reaching for his fire, and a weak stream of flames burst from his outstretched palms into the serpent’s face. It shrieked at the heat but its skin remained uncharred.
Idiot, he berated himself. Fire doesn’t work. Its scales don’t burn!
Binky’s webbing did, though. The flames licked at it ravenously, as though delighted to have finally found a substance they could consume. The giant snake—impaled, enwebbed, and now incinerated—writhed furiously, screeching and shrieking in defeat as it sank beneath the water.
“Is it dead?” Coll asked.
