by Terah Edun
Rivan didn’t rise to the bait.
Instead he shrugged and said, “I am happy to increase your emotional development with continual banter but I draw the line at someone else killing you.”
Mae gave him a weird look out of the corner of her eye but she decided not to touch the ‘someone else’ part of his statement. No need to get into a side argument she wasn’t sure she really wanted an answer to.
“Not to make you even madder,” Mae started to say slowly. “But what chance do you think you have against that.”
She waved her hand at the two-ton one-horn being held back by his shield wall.
“You’d be surprised,” Rivan murmured under his breath.
Mae shook her head in disappointment.
“This is no time for your bravado,” she complained. “I’ll admit that your claw trick with the pillar was impressive, but I doubt it’ll do anything worse than irritate the beast.”
“Oh, and how would you know that?” Rivan asked with questioning eyes.
“I may not have recognized the one-horn when it first confronted me,” Mae admitted. “But I’ve since had a few close encounters with it and its hide is thicker than you’d think. I couldn’t even get my fire to burn him.”
“While that information is useful, I don’t find your lack of belief in my abilities charming at all,” Rivan said dryly.
“Good, because I’m not here to puff you up,” Mae said as she turned to him full on. “I’m just trying to keep you alive, that’s what friends do.”
The last descriptive slipped out of her mouth almost without her knowing it. She was so astonished she slapped her fingers across her face with wide eyes.
“I didn’t mean that!” she quickly said.
“The friends part or the alive part?” he said dryly.
Mae glared at him. “Don’t joke, it doesn’t suit you.”
Rivan rolled eyes and moved past her mistake with ease.
“Fine you want seriousness? Then here it is,” he said fiercely. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“No offense,” Mae said as they both looked at their ferocious opponent. “But I’m going to say the one-horn has the advantage here.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Rivan muttered as he flexed his muscles.
“Be serious,” Mae pleaded.
“I am,” Rivan confirmed as he turned away from her and began to walk across the broken stone floor of the bottom stairwell landing and towards the beast that outweighed them both many times over.
As he reached his shield wall and put a hand on the blue rippling casting, Mae saw the one-horn turn its gaze on its new opponent.
Its beady eye was tiny but she swore she saw all the hate that it could possibly summon in its focused gaze.
Stomach dipping, Mae stepped directly between the shield wall and Rivan himself.
Then she shook her head in determination.
“I’m not going to let you die for me,” she announced. “Too many before have suffered that same fate.”
Behind her Mae heard the one-horn growing increasingly frustrated. Now that her back was pressed to the shield wall, the sound barrier was lessened and she could here every bellow voiced from its mouth. It just made her more determined than ever that Rivan couldn’t go through with this.
But her savior, who might be a friend, seemed to be determined to do the exact opposite of her wishes and fulfill her fears.
“Oh you foolish human!” snapped Rivan. “The only one dying here today is that bullish one-horn.”
Mae almost felt offended at how dismissive he was of her, but she was more concerned about him getting gored to death at the moment than anything else.
Frustrated Mae physically tried to push him away from the barrier. But he was as stubborn as an ox and wouldn’t move.
Stronger than she had formerly surmised too.
“What makes you think you can do this?” Mae cried out as she thrust up her hands in defeat.
“You can’t win,” she pleaded.
“That shield wall is coming down whether you’re standing here or not,” Rivan promised. “I’d start running up that back staircase if I were you.”
He was obviously referring to the one that was not on the side with the one-horn. It was an identical stone carving set into the wall that would take her back up three flights of stairs to a new landing.
But she didn’t want to go without Rivan.
“You have forty seconds Mae,” Rivan called out.
Rivan looked down at her calmly and said, “Trust me.”
She stared at him agape and started to back away.
Then as he started to count down, she saw the blue of the shield wall slowly inching down from the very top of the second floor, where the one-horn couldn’t possibly reach even if it reared up, she realized he was serious.
Maeryn Darnes had no choice.
She turned and raced towards the stairs, hoping all the while that the young foreign boy knew what he was doing.
If he didn’t, this would be a very short confrontation indeed.
25
Mae reached the stairs and she stopped for a moment.
She looked back to see Rivan standing alone in the center of the room.
His shield wall was about halfway down now and it was an eerie sight at the bottom of the room, from Rivan’s neck to his feet, was covered in a blue misty light where it still stood.
Above that nothing stood between Rivan and the irate one-horn except air.
She watched as the beast took a deep sniff of Rivan’s scent as it stood inches away from his face.
It didn’t try to reach out and bite him or gore him and that was the scariest part of the scenario.
The look in the one-horn’s eyes was more than just evil.
It was patience.
It would have its prey and it would have Rivan as well.
Her stomach turned as the shield wall kept lowering and reluctantly Mae started climbing the stairs two at a time. Going as fast as she could while still keeping an eye out for Rivan’s lone form in the room’s center.
It won’t be long now, Mae thought as she reached the first landing from the bottom of the stairs and turned expectantly to see the opponents squaring off.
Rivan had backed up a few feet away and now he had his arms spread wide as if to make his little human body as big a target for the one-horn as he could.
Mae called out, “Stop being a fool Rivan! Run.”
Of course he didn’t acknowledge her as her own hands tightened on the staircase rail in front of her and she gritted her teeth in near panic. There was nothing she could do. Her fire had already proved particularly ineffective against the creature’s hide and well…she could barely make it up the stairs as physically tired as she was.
The only thing she would accomplish by going back down would be to make herself a slower-and-more attractive target for the beast to gore. She thought about it seriously for a moment.
“That’s what friends are for aren’t they?” Mae asked herself quietly. “To stand by you when you need them most?”
She took a step in the right direction confident that even if she only gave Rivan a few extra seconds it would be worth it.
But before she could make it over to the top of the staircase, she heard him yell out to her.
“Keep going up those blasted stairs Maeryn Darnes or you’ll hear from me!” Rivan shouted up at her without even turning around.
Mae gaped at him.
How did he know? She wondered in astonishment.
He couldn’t see her from where she stood, but that didn’t stop him from further admonishing her.
“That means now Mae!” Rivan said with a fierce tone in his voice, one that demanded to be obeyed and despite herself she took a step back almost involuntarily.
Mae wavered at what to do but the decision was taken from her. The shield wall came crashing down and the beast charged.
Rivan didn’t wait f
or it to meet him head on though.
He jumped into the air and flew up almost as if he had wings before he came down to earth with ferocious force. Rivan aimed his booted heel straight at the back of the charging one-horn which still hadn’t realized he wasn’t where he had been before. He landed on its back with a perfect kick and Mae heard the beast bellow in rage and pain.
If she thought it had sounded angry when it first came for her, well this was many times louder and more frightening. She was suddenly glad to be standing safe where she was on the second landing. As Rivan flipped off his opponent’s back with an aerobatic kick, the beast made an abrupt turn that took it in the wrong direction.
Her direction.
It gave a triumphant bellow and raced straight for the stairs now that the shield wall and its other human opponent was no longer in its way.
“No,” Rivan shouted as he landed with an elegant drop on the ground behind it.
But it was clear that the beast was just as intelligent and pig-headed as he was.
It didn’t want to fight Rivan, it wanted the prey it had been ordered to track down from the beginning.
Mae suddenly realized she’d better start climbing and fast. It was already on the first of the landing steps.
“Run, Mae, run!” she heard Rivan scream behind her.
Already on that! She thought in distraction but she was too out of breath to shout it back at him like she wanted to.
She scrambled as fast as she could, taking more steps than she ever thought possible as she leaped over three at time and made it up the second flight of stairs in a record dash. The third staircase, the one that would take her to freedom, was in her sights. She had almost made it.
But her error was fully human though. She tripped. She fell.
As she saw the stone steps rising up to meet her Mae tried to stop herself from falling, the only thing she ended up doing was bracing herself with her knee enough to reinjure it and break a finger in the process.
Panting at the pain that was now shooting up her arm, Mae turned to look over her shoulder helplessly and find out where the one-horn was.
But she was too late to do anything. Even get up and continue running up the stairs.
Because it was already there.
She saw nothing but its massive face as it raced up those final steps, lowered the heavy bone jutting out of its face, and charged her laying at the base of the final staircase to the top.
Mae screamed and flung her herself away, trying to shield her head at the same time.
But nothing about her thin skin and bones would stop it from stomping her to death.
Just before it reached her she heard a new roar.
This one deeper and more guttural than anything the beast had ever uttered.
She opened one wary eye to see something with scales slither over the side of the staircase landing and hit the one-horn head on from the side.
The one-horn obviously didn’t see it coming but Maeryn Darnes did.
She couldn’t even begin to describe what she was seeing. It looked like a giant lizard clinging to the back of the one-horn as tenaciously as a stable boy sent to break-in a new steed.
But that’s where the comparison ended.
Lizards were cute.
This thing…whatever it was…most certainly was not in any sense adorable.
It had unhinged its jaw like a giant snake and was currently swallowing the one-horn’s thick neck in a vice.
Each of its four feet had talons the size of swords on all five of its digits. Every talon was currently digging and tearing into a piece of the one-horn with ferocity.
That didn’t even account for the wings that were flapping angrily above the two creatures currently fighting. Though the wings seemed to mostly be used for leverage to keep the giant lizard from overturning and atop the one-horns back as well as the occasional fearsome slap with its leather boned ridges.
Blood was flying everywhere and roars as well as bellows were nearly deafening her.
Mae watched in horror, unable to move as she saw something that she’d never dreamed possible, two creatures the size of village homes battling it out in front of her.
She had no idea where the second one had come from but she wasn’t sticking around to find out either. Mae realized quick enough in their jerking struggle that either of them could crush her like a bug if they fell on her, so she scrambled up and took off up the last staircase as fast as she could.
When she reached safety, she had the presence of mind to look down into the spiral that led to the bottom floor below to search for Rivan. But she couldn’t see him drat it. He was nowhere to be found.
As the sounds of the confrontation grew louder, Mae looked back that way from her position at the very top of the stairs. She was huddled in the shadow of a column, a mirror of the very one that had fallen on her in fact, and hoped to stay hidden. At least in this manner she was protected on three sides. The staircase banner covered her left and part of her back. The pillar she was currently using for partial support, her right side and the rest of her back.
So all she could do was watch in horror as the lizard thing released its grip on the one-horn’s neck and proceeded to scrambled over its head before turning around to face it once more. The one-horn, blinded with rage and pain, had nearly shook it off in its ferocity but that wasn’t why the lizard had released its grip even Mae could see that.
The one-horn had still seemed determined to get up that final set of stairs, regardless of the fact that it was now facing an opponent slightly bigger than it was with sharp teeth and claws added on. Its focus was unerringly raised up to her even though Mae was quite sure its beady little eyes couldn’t pick her out against the pillar she was hiding against.
Blood was pouring down the one-horn’s back, throat, and from various gashes on its legs in an unending deluge. The one-horn had to be feeling the loss but still it lowered its head, signaling it was ready to charge.
The lizard snaked out its head with a sharp snap and flared the fringe around its neck in warning.
It too was ready and it had no intentions of backing down.
Mae’s heart beat hard in her chest as she wondered who would win in this fearsome confrontation.
She couldn’t take her eyes off either opponent. She just hoped Rivan had found his own hiding place as they dueled it out.
The one-horn let out a warning bellow and the lizard creature shouted back with its own combination of a hiss and grating roar. The sound itself sent a shiver of fear up her back. She wasn’t sure if it was protecting her or more likely, had somehow gotten loose from its Cross Guard keepers and was wreaking havoc wherever it could, but Mae did not want to come across that thing in a dark corner at night.
Or in the day for that matter, she thought chilled.
The one-horn didn’t seem to be aware of the danger it was in though.
Instead it charged as the lizard creature lowered its head and locked its claws into the stone beneath it. Mae heard the stone give way as the lizard scraped its claws into the hardened rock and for a moment she wondered if it could possibly be made of magic itself.
The lizard gave another warning scream just before the one-horn stampeded directly into it. But the lizard creature was ready. With its claws planted as some sort of anchor, it used its body as a counterweight and immediately snapped forward with its wide reticulating jaws to take in the one-horn’s entire head, bone blade and all, in one snap. It didn’t bite off the one-horn’s head like she thought it would but it swung it around with a huge yank and slammed it down to the floor.
The one-horn easily got up from the slam but it couldn’t seem to yank its head back out of the lizard creature’s mouth which seemed to be locked down tighter than a set of bait traps.
So they proceeded to devolve into a sort of tug of war between their positions, as Mae wondered from above, what explanation could be possible for something so terrible as the lizard creature to exist on this plane
of existence at all?
But she didn’t have an answer to that question as she watched a beast challenge a beast.
With only one left standing at the end of it all.
26
The one-horn was still caught head first in the lizard creature’s mouth.
But it wasn’t giving up the struggle as it jerked its head back and forth in terrifying fear.
Mae wasn’t sure if the lizard could smother the one-horn while holding it in its mouth like that but it needed to do something fast.
The one-horn’s jerks to regain its freedom were so violent that when it hit the wall next to it, the very building shook.
Mae pulled back as she watched the impressive fight but she knew they would all end up dying if one of these creatures didn’t concede victory soon enough. The very building was likely to fall around them if not. She certainly saw dust and debris dislodged from whatever cracks and crevices they’d hidden in the ceiling, begin to cascade down on her head as it seemed that the very roof was about to cave in under the strength of this epic battle throughout the rotunda.
As the one-horn grew even more desperate its body jerked in even more feverish motions as it tried to free itself, to the point that she watched as it began to bang its head up and down—forcing the opponent which had captured it to do the same and be battered against the stone floor as it did so.
To her astonishment however the lizard creature looked unfazed. Its jaws didn’t unlock and with its claws hooked into the stone beneath its feet, it wasn’t going anywhere.
It just let the one-horn jerk its head around, back and forth, with seemingly no detrimental effects. While with every moment that went by, Mae could see the one-horn’s strength weakening.
Its body was shuddering in panic.
Perhaps even oxygen deprivation, she thought as she watched the massive beast’s fight lessen.
Soon enough it was clear that the one-horn was tiring. It had stopped jerking about so much after a few minutes and its legs were splayed out in different directions as if it could barely summon the strength to keep on standing.
