by Eric Vall
“Hm,” hummed Arwyn as her eyes narrowed, “this complicates things.”
It really did. The town was in such a state of complete disarray, it felt bad to leave it in order to close the rift. Was it worth abandoning the struggling survivors just to shut the portal sooner rather than later? However, protocol was clear, and some of us would have to go.
“You should probably stay here, right?” I asked the red-haired healer as I pressed my lips into a thin, uncertain line.
“I think so,” Arwyn agreed. “If I run into some smaller beasts or the military finds anybody, I need to be here to provide immediate attention.”
“That’s fair,” I said with a nod. “Alright, Erin and Varleth will take care of the catalyst in order to close the rift. Nia and I will guard the entrance and clear the monsters.”
“Got it,” Erin responded, and the rest of my team nodded in agreement.
“Alright, let’s do this,” I confirmed.
We all unhooked our gas masks from our belts and pouches before we slipped them over our faces.
I adjusted mine so the straps fit tightly over my ears, and the seal prevented any outside air from entering the mask. One of my least favorite things about the Shadowscape was the stench of decay and rot. I’d even heard stories of mages going mad from a long exposure to the smell of the Shadowscape, and I wasn’t ready to totally discount the rumors.
The rift rippled and churned ominously, but our group walked into it without a second thought.
The strange, cool sensation I felt when I entered the rift never failed to make me shiver internally. Since the portal was so large, I imagined being swallowed by the mouth of some huge monster, and it sent chills down my spine.
“We’ve got company,” Nia warned in a tight voice, and I followed her gaze as she pointed one finger to a horde of monsters.
The monsters noticed us simultaneously, and they whooped out a series of loud, grunting howls as they beat at their chests.
“Simirunts?” I asked as my mind raced over descriptions and drawings from my time at school.
“Gotta be,” Varleth agreed.
The simirunts were very apelike in nature, and they were covered in long, stringy fur the color of old leaves. Each was about three feet in height, but their short stature was offset by their powerful muscles and grasping hands. Their muddy green hair was offset by a series of white, bonelike spikes which ran down the center of their backs. Though simirunts were just as mindless as most monsters we encountered, they did travel and fight in packs, which could make them a little challenging to fight if one happened to encounter them in a large group.
This group was large, to say the least. Where the town would be on the human side of this rift, on this side there was only a crumbled pile of stone and rotting wood. Dozens, if not hundreds, of simirunts jumped and hollered from along the top of the structure as they revved themselves into a battle frenzy.
“Ready to do this?” I asked as I glanced sideways at Nia.
In that moment, I looked at her easy smile and her graceful poise, and she was breathtaking. Her ashen hair shone from the soft, muted light of the Shadowscape, and her cheeks glowed pink with the flush of battle. Her eyes sparkled with a fighting spirit that set my heart pounding more than the adrenaline from any battle ever could.
“You know me,” Nia replied as she spun a glowing fire spell to life between her fingers. “I’m always ready. Don’t worry about combining our powers, I’ll just make sure to back your monsters up when it looks like a good synergy.”
When Nia and I worked together, no enemy could stand a chance against us. I grinned as I bared my teeth at the gang of clustered simirunts.
Suddenly, a half dozen simirunts whooped and leapt from the top of the building before they charged across the barren ground of the Shadowscape toward us. Behind them, the rest of the horde gradually began to stir and run.
“Gryff’s face really pisses them off,” Varleth commented as he drew a hand over his sword and wreathed the blade in swirling, dark energy.
“Shush,” I demanded with a chuckle of laughter, “I know you were tired of waiting, anyway.”
“Don’t be ashamed to stay back, Erin,” Nia advised as she took a protective stance in front of the mimic.
I snagged a few wallerdons and daggerdillos off the lower end of my belt and tossed them out as well.
My wallerdons had wide, rectangular bodies with dark, segmented plates of tough skin. They were appropriately named, since wallerdons were quite similar to heavy stone walls.
My daggerdillos were roughly pig-sized, and their armor was much like that of an armadillo. They could curl into balls, and metal spikes protruded from their backs as their only defence.
Normally, the two monsters would serve little use on a serious battlefield, but together, they were a very effective barrier against attack. The metal spikes of my daggerdillos protruded through the bodies of my wallerdons, and together my monsters served as a jagged barricade against our enemies.
The first simirunts didn’t stand a chance, and five of them ran headlong into the spikes without the time to stop themselves. The next group got wise to the danger and nimbly grasped the daggerdillo spikes to hurl themselves up on top of my wallerdons.
That was a new one.
The simirunts mounted my barricade and stormed over the top of it, but Nia didn’t give them a chance to come back down. As they appeared over the edge, she released a parallel jet of fire that scorched the air and set the simirunts ablaze. The ape monsters shrieked as they burned, and their bodies crisped as they died en masse.
I tossed out four bullet basses to cover us, and chrome melted over our skins to protect us from the heat of the flames.
The smell of burning fur mixed with the stench of the Shadowscape and permeated my gas mask in one disgusting blend of odors.
“Eugh,” Erin muttered as she stepped back away from the fire.
“Might be a good time for you and Varleth to take off,” I advised her. “Nia and I have this covered, and it’s more important for us to take care of the catalyst quickly.”
“Got it,” Erin agreed with a sharp nod as she pulled her stagi crystal from her pouch.
“You have enough mana to use that twice?” I asked.
Summoning the same monster more than once in a short period of time could be really draining on the summoner. Erin hadn’t used much mana today, but it would be a significant cost if she did use the stagi twice in a row.
“Don’t worry,” Erin assured me with a wink as she tossed out the stagi crystal. “Doesn’t take much mana to keep my stagi from going out of control. It’s not exactly a predator, so I don’t have to keep it from wanting to kill everything it sees.”
I turned to stare at the stagi, but it just pawed at the cracked, dry earth with one hoof and snuffled at the ground.
“My baroquer doesn’t want to kill everything it sees,” I responded with a note of indignation to my voice.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Varleth quipped teasingly before he heaved himself onto the stagi’s back. “I’ll just nurture my fond memories of it trying to crush you into tiny little pieces during the Magicae Nito exams.”
I gave the banisher my best scowl, and he threw back his head with laughter.
“Good luck,” Erin told Nia and me before she gave a little wave and commanded her stagi to ride.
Nia’s burning method began to be less effective as more of the simirunts opted to simply charge wide around the walls instead of barely skirting past them.
“Sit tight!” I called to her, and then I grabbed the essence crystal for my vingehund and threw it to the ground.
The wing-shaped crystal shattered and revealed my vingehund’s canine-like form. She yawned and stretched out her pale blue, feathered wings, and her arched horns glinted in the dim light of the Shadowscape. The vingehund’s pink tongue lolled playfully from her mouth as she panted and looked back at me for instruction.
I grin
ned as I directed the vingehund with a few orders, and she leapt to Nia’s defence with a jaunty, casual trot to her step. As I watched, she lunged and tore through two simirunts at once, and the apes whooped in anger at her as she made quick work of them.
Even though I knew it would require more mana, I plucked another essence crystal from my bandolier and tossed it in the other direction, and my roosa emerged for a second time with an insectoid chitter. My scorpion monster dashed forward into battle with very little instruction from me, and I watched it sweep its pincers through huge swathes of simirunts at once. Ape monsters hollered in anger and bared their long fangs as they leapt for my roosa, but the simirunts barely scratched its metal carapace.
“Lightning, look out,” Nia called as she tossed a spell toward my roosa.
A ball of yellow electricity raced over the metallic back of my roosa and reflected off in a tremendous spray of arcing static. Simirunts shrieked as they fried in electricity, and more fur caught on fire as the lightning cracked across the field.
My wallerdons and daggerdillos weren’t doing much anymore, so I recalled them even as I threw out a barrage of axe goblins.
The axe goblins were simple creatures, and though they weren’t weak, they weren’t very fast either. They had green skin and red eyes, and they were built thin and lean with ropy muscles. Their mouths were filled with razor-sharp teeth, and their only standout trait was the axes that grew from their arms in place of hands.
The axe goblins were grunts that were usually used for lumberwork, but they were just as good at holding the horde of simirunts back as any other monsters. As I ordered them onward, the goblins spun and slashed out with their axe blades.
The simirunts grunted angrily as they were pushed back by my axe goblins, and I grinned as the tide of the battle began to turn heavily in our favor.
A couple of simirunts slipped past my roosa and drew close to Nia, but I dashed in and drew my rhin dagger as I stepped in front of her. The first simirunt fell to an uppercut stab to its neck.
Nia flashed out one hand with a sword of compressed wind, and the blade beheaded the other simirunt cleanly.
“Nice one,” I complimented with an eager smile.
“Same to you,” Nia shot back with a wink even as she shot out a spray of ice darts. “Say, got any monsters that can speed this thing up?”
“Baroquer,” I replied with a shrug. “I guess I have the mana to use him twice, but I’d rather keep him in reserve just in case.”
“That’s fine,” Nia said with a teasing grin. “I’ll do all the heavy lifting instead.”
The ashen-haired mage twitched her fingers in a complicated spell, and a fireball bloomed between her hands. She transferred it to her left as she worked on an air spell with her right. Soon, Nia had two swirling, humming spells in her hands that crackled with energy.
She thrust her hands out, and both shot beams of wind and fire toward the oncoming horde of simirunts. Then she tilted her hands inward until the beams crossed ever so slightly.
A couple dozen feet in front of her, the epicenter of the crossed beams exploded into a raging inferno that exploded with hungry power. Several dozen simirunts died instantly in the blaze, and dozens more shrieked as they were lit on fire by the sparking, fitful flames.
“Wow!” I exclaimed with a wild laugh and a huge smile.
“Fire likes being fed wind,” Nia explained as she smiled back at me. “Within moderation, of course.”
“No kidding,” I replied. “Let me help you out, then.”
I commanded my vingehund to take to the sky, and I directed it several feet above Nia’s twin streams of fire and air. I ordered the vingehund to beat its wings to fan the flames, and it did with skill and power. Its feathers flared as wind whistled beneath them, and the fire fed on its new source of fresh air..
Fire roared in my ears as the flames burst into an enormous, raging inferno that consumed everything in its path. Simirunts were slaughtered instantly, and it looked like we were nearing the end of the horde.
Suddenly, my wrist communicator crackled to life.
“Gryff,” Varleth’s voice came through, but it was barely distinguishable. “… in … to he … s … elp … s”
“He’s asking for help,” Nia realized with urgency in her voice.
“Are we sure?” I asked, but there was no doubt in my mind either.
As if to answer my question, a flare bloomed in the sky.
“The emergency flare,” Nia gasped. “Something’s wrong.”
“I’ll go now,” I told her. “Once you finish these off, you can catch up. Think you’ve got this covered on your own?”
I called for my vingehund and roosa to follow me, since I didn’t want to put them away and risk draining my mana to bring them out a second time. I recalled the rest of my monsters and gave Nia a careful, concerned look as I turned to go.
“I’m definitely okay here,” Nia replied as she tossed out another orb of fire. “Please hurry, Gryff, I’m worried about them.”
“Me too,” I said with grim concern in my voice. “Me too.”
I got my bearings on the flare and took off running.
Chapter 5
As I chased the flare down, I hopped on my roosa to pick up speed, and my mind raced over what could have gone wrong. Were Varleth and Erin injured? Was it serious? Usually, when a banisher went to close a rift, they weren’t bothered by many monsters. Monsters were drawn to magic use, and the team members who guarded the gate almost always used enough magic to draw most of the enemies to themselves.
I glanced over to my vingehund and asked her to fly overhead. She gave a huff of air and sprinted ahead before her wings carried her from the ground. If she saw Varleth or Erin, she would let me know through the bond.
My mind turned in circles as I worried about them. There was no guarantee there weren’t monsters lying in wait near the catalyst, so Erin and Varleth may have run into some. I’d responded to flares before, and the situation was usually dangerous because a big monster had shown up. I hoped that hadn’t happened here. It seemed like we’d already gone through quite a few large monsters just to get into the Shadowscape itself.
The smoke from the flare still hung faintly in the sky, and I fixed my eyes on it as I directed my roosa across ruins and cracked earth. The roiling, distant storm that characterized the Shadowscape made it difficult to see how far I was from the flare, but I suspected I was close.
Suddenly, my vingehund sent a small twist of alarm through the bond. She had spotted a monster running below, though I didn’t get much more information out of her.
I didn’t want to be caught on top of my roosa in the middle of a serious fight, so I hopped down and gave it a pat on one metallic leg before I took off at a sprint. The landscape of the Shadowscape gave way to more crumbling buildings, and my eyes scanned them anxiously as I ran through the ruins.
My breath fogged my gas mask as I skirted another ruined wall and turned the corner.
Erin and Varleth nearly ran into me, and we stumbled apart in surprise as we examined each other.
My roosa skittered to a halt behind me before it backed away slightly to give us space.
Erin was missing one legging and a shoe, but apart from her scuffed foot, she seemed okay. Varleth looked like he was in the same condition as when I last saw him, even though his dark cloak was now covered in dirt.
“You’re okay!” I exclaimed as I scanned my friends.
“Not for long,” Erin said with wide eyes. “I had to recall my stagi, something attacked it.”
“Something?” I asked.
“It took the stagi down, and now it’s chasing us,” Varleth panted. “Either come up with a plan of defence quick, or start running, ‘cause we have to go.”
“Are we near the catalyst?” I asked as I ran my hands along the essence crystals in my bandolier.
“It’s close,” Varleth confirmed.
“Alright,” I said with a grin. “We’ll fi
ght here.”
Suddenly, the telltale scratch of claws on stone sounded above us.
“Look out!” Erin cried as she pulled me away from the ruined wall.
I stumbled away with Varleth in tow just as the monster pounced on the spot where we’d been. It landed with nimble agility before its head swung up to glare at us.
I expected a big catlike monster or some kind of wolf, but the beast in front of us wasn’t even close to either. It was covered in dense, curly fur like a sheep, and its body was more like an herbivore than any kind of predator. Its face was stretched and deerlike with two long ears, and its furry legs ended in four-toed paws with claws. It was almost the same size as a rambler, and each of its huge paws were bigger than my face.
As I gave a quick order, my roosa skittered over to my side and brandished its metallic claws at the strange monster. The two beasts stared each other down, but neither moved a muscle.
“It’s like some kind of nightmarish alpaca,” Erin said with a tremble in her voice.
The monster’s mouth slowly opened, and it revealed a row of pointed teeth that dripped with yellow, viscous fluid.
“What’s an alpaca?” I asked as I frowned at the strange monster.
“A southern herd animal,” Varleth said. “I’ve never seen one, but I’m pretty sure they don’t have claws and fangs.”
“I haven’t read much about the south,” I admitted. “They could have flying pigs, and I’d never know.”
“You didn’t know about the flying pigs?” Varleth asked, but his tone was clearly joking.
“Afraid not,” I replied with an eye roll before I returned to staring at the monster. “Why won’t this thing just get it over with and attack?”
Its gaze was fixed on my roosa, but the strange monster was frozen in position as if it were waiting for something to happen.
“Dunno,” Erin confessed, “but I really don’t want the roosa leaving us exposed.”
“That’s fine by me,” I said with a smile. “I’ve got other plans, and other monsters.”
Suddenly, my vingehund came tearing out of the sky with her nose and teeth pointed groundwards. The alpaca monster looked up and leaped sideways, but my vingehund was prepared. She twisted midfall and sank her teeth through the monster’s curly fur and into its neck with a satisfying crunch.
