by Eric Vall
The ground was covered in slime, we still had hundreds of flying monsters on the loose, and the enormous craus’lar was fixed on making us its next meal. Its stubby legs carried it over the ground with surprising speed as it narrowed the gap between us. Ashla’s wall stood slightly higher than the top of the craus’lar’s back, but I had no doubt it would knock us down and finish us off in no time, if it got the chance.
A swarm of shrieking beakroks, imps, and gargoyles dove for us, and the craus’lar reached the base of the wall. It pushed up on its stumpy legs as slime ballooned in the back of its throat, and it prepared to coat our wall in corrosive liquid.
Imps descended, and my companions turned to fend off the leathery-winged beasts in one desperate, final standoff.
My vingehund barked and joined in the fray as she launched herself at the horde with her fangs bared.
I stared the craus’lar directly in its slim, reptilian eyes, and I readied my best attack in the clenched grip of my fist. Sweat trickled down my forehead, and the fetid stench of the craus’lar’s slime filled my nostrils, but I straightened my shoulders for my next throw.
I might not win, but I’d be damn certain to give this bastard the fight of its life.
Chapter 14
My arm let fly the crystal for my arachness just as an airship swung into view overhead. I glanced up in surprise as the mid-sized airship loomed in the sky overhead, and I felt a spark of relief as I saw backup finally arriving.
The cavalry was here, but I couldn’t stop fighting yet.
My arachness essence crystal shattered on the stubby snout of the craus’lar, and smoke puffed from the surface of its face as my spidery monster appeared. She skittered across the craus’lar’s scaled skin toward his left eye.
“Backup’s on the way!” Ashla shouted as she swung Bessie in a complicated arc that took out four imps at a time.
“Let’s not rely on them for everything!” I answered, but I was far more desperate than I sounded.
My arachness had one amazing power at her disposal, but it would do no more than delay the inevitable. As she reached the craus’lar’s left eyeball, she moved her tawny face directly in the line of its sight. The crauslar’s yawning jaw froze, and the entire monster seized up as paralysis took hold of it.
“Nice going,” Erin complimented in a gasp as she summoned a crude, flaming sword to her hand.
A beakrok dove for the mimic, and she separated one of its wings from its body in a burst of flame.
“It will break free soon,” I warned as I stepped forward with my dagger to score a deep cut across an incoming imp. “A big monster like that can resist this kind of magic, or I’d use it more often.”
“Let’s hope whoever that is knows what they’re doing,” Ashla responded over her shoulder in a concerned tone.
The airship set down with impressive haste not too far from Erin’s Diomesia, but the craus’lar wasn’t waiting around for reinforcements to arrive. A muscle under its jaw began to twitch, and the long, reptilian talons on its feet kneaded fitfully into the ground beneath it.
“Hurry up, hurry up,” I muttered as I ran my mind over the list of monsters I could use.
My baroquer and roosa were out, my kalgori and pyrewyrm were down for the count, and my arachness was carefully balanced on the craus’lar’s face with almost nothing more she could possibly do. Her pointed spider egs were her secondary weapon, but she couldn’t so much as make a dent in the thick, scaly hide of lizardlike craus’lar. She was a useful monster, but she wasn’t even in the same league as something like my roosa.
We were up against a behemoth with our mana nearly depleted, and my most powerful monsters would cost a large dose of mana to resummon. I sure hoped the response squad in that airship could pull a good fight out of their asses, or we’d all be dead.
The craus’lar began to move its stumpy legs forward in short, jerky motions, and my shoulders tightened as I prepared for the onslaught.
The hatch of the new airship dropped, and a team of red-clad fighters filed off at a fast jog.
“All fire mages?” Erin asked in bafflement as she glanced at the red-clad newcomers.
“No,” Ashla corrected, and a shit-eating grin spread across her face. “All Wild Reds.”
“Fuck yes,” I growled as I thrust my dagger through the exposed throat of a beakrok. “Now, let’s show them a good fight.”
My vingehund howled out an eerie cry and launched into the air to tear through a gargoyle with nothing but her fangs and claws. An ice imp tried to crowd her, but I sent her a warning, and she thrust her arched horns back into the imp’s soft flesh. The monster screeched as it retreated with bloody rends sliced across its torso.
Monsters flew for us, but we fended them off with the same desperate rhythm as before. I popped open two portals at once, and a half dozen gargoyles dove through before I snapped them shut again.
Take it, take it all! Sera laughed as she siphoned more power to me. You’ll need to free me soon, and you know it! What hope do you have without my godlike power, Gryff? Join me in mind and body, and we’ll--
I shoved her to the corner of my head again. We could do this, we just had to stay focused on our task. The Wild Reds would help us clear the monsters out, and we wouldn’t have to worry about a thing. Imps, gargoyles, and beakroks were small fry, no matter how many there were.
Then the craus’lar broke free, and it spat a slopping billow of slime that oozed across the top of our wall.
Green liquid hissed as it sizzled across the flat portion of Ashla’s wall, and the snow beneath us ran with water as it sunk limply under the corrosive strength of the slime. The three of us stumbled away from the slime, and Erin scraped green gel from her shoe onto the snow wall to stop her boot from sizzling away.
The Wild Reds reached the edge of the lake of ooze and stopped helplessly as they stared at us from a distance.
“We’re running out of places to stand!” Ashla shouted as she sprayed bullets of ice into the sky.
Sweat dripped down her temples, and her face flushed with exertion as she leaned heavily into her next axe swing.
My friends were almost dangerously out of mana, our footing was rapidly disappearing, and our backup didn’t know quite how to reach us.
“I’ll be back!” I shouted as I turned and jumped off the edge of the snow wall.
Erin yelped in fear as I disappeared, but my vingehund swooped by at the perfect moment and scooped me onto its back.
I clutched tightly to its blue feathers as we shot away at high speed. The craus’lar eyed us with interest as we passed by its snout, and it made a half-hearted snap with its toothless maw to try and swallow us whole. My vingehund avoided the bite effortlessly as it spiraled away and toward the Wild Reds.
I dropped the final feet off the back of my vingehund even as I snagged a string of crystals from my bandolier.
“Good to see you, Doc,” I greeted as I smashed essence crystals between my hands.
Doc was a heavyset man with black hair, though his kind eyes were the most recognizable part of him. Usually, he wore a red scarf draped over his healer’s cloak, but he had on a new set of red-dyed leather for protection. All the Wild Reds members did, in fact, and they looked impressive in their united garb.
“I have to admit,” Doc said with a bewildered blink, “I didn’t expect to see you three here.”
“Just coming back from our mission,” I explained before I handed out a speed slug to each of the Wild Reds members.
Doc was accompanied by four other people, and there were a few unfamiliar faces, but I didn’t have time for introductions.
“What are these?” asked an older, blonde-haired woman as she held the slug gingerly in one hand.
“Put it on the back of your neck,” I instructed. “It’ll speed you up, and we’re going to use that speed to charge that craus’lar. As for the acid, I’m going to give us a protective coating, but it will wear off. Try to be quick, and take every opportunity to get
out of the slime if you can.”
“Got it,” Doc agreed easily as he tightened the strap to his first aid pouch.
“You must be the Gryff we’ve heard so much about,” the woman realized as her eyes widened. “Knowing that, your plan sounds good.”
“Perfect,” I concluded as I tossed out my bullet bass. “Ashla and Erin are depending on us. Let’s take this thing down.”
My bullet bass floated in place on its tiny, rubbery wings, and I directed it to cover us with metal. Chrome flowed over our skin as the six of us were coated in our new protection.
Then we turned toward the craus’lar, and I led the charge as we sprinted into battle.
My legs flew beneath me as I barely touched the slime, but I could hear my shoe soles begin to bubble and sizzle as the slime ate through them. Even if I lost my boots entirely to the acid, the bullet bass would keep me safe a little longer, and I could protect the Wild Reds too as long as they were near me. I suspected the acid was corrosive even to metal, so we would have to be careful.
“Staggered line formation!” Doc shouted to his teammates as they spread into a widely-spaced wing behind me.
The older woman’s muscles bulged into an impressive size as her biceps and fists swelled powerfully. She was an experienced augmenter, clearly, and I wondered where Doc found her.
Then my expectations were blown out of the water as the curly-haired westerner toward my right gestured once and pulled an entire rifle out of his arm. Not from his sleeve, his arm, and his dark skin melted seamlessly into the wood and metal of the weapon until it slid free easily into his hands.
We zipped up to meet the craus’lar as it slowly turned to focus on us. I was sure we looked like an appetizing snack compared to Erin and Ashla, who remained out of reach on the wall.
There was also a middle-aged southern woman with skin in a near-golden hue. Her straight, thick hair fell down her back in a graying sheaf of dark locks, and electricity sparked from her hands as she sent a bolt straight for the craus’lar. Her attack smacked into its flank, and the monster flinched slightly as a charred stripe of black marred its scaled hide.
“This is going to need some serious firepower,” the southern woman shouted to the rest of us. “Get out the big guns!”
A lanky, pale man toward the far edge of our group gestured, and a focused beam of pure light energy blasted from between his hands.
“A light mage,” I gasped out loud in surprise as the bright energy seared into the craus’lar’s eyes.
The monster rumbled and flinched away, and its jaws snapped shut around the gob of slime it was preparing.
The final member of the new Wild Reds team was a man I guessed to be in his fifties. His salt-and-pepper hair stood in a wild halo of fluffy tan and white around the crown of his head, and he held nothing more than a composite longbow notched with a sharp, barbed arrow.
I didn’t often see fighters go into battle with bows, since guns were the preferred ranged weapon these days, but he carried the bow with a confidence that reassured me. I spotted a black band of cloth wrapped around his upper arm, and I assumed he was the group’s banisher, or the Wild Reds never would have been sent to this rift on their own.
The craus’lar moved its spiked tail back as it prepared to unleash a devastating, sweeping attack that would wipe us out in one blow. Its jaw hung open again, and fresh ooze slopped across the dying grass toward us.
Suddenly, my arachness skittered into the lizard monster’s mouth, and I grinned as my orders took effect. Even as the acid scalded her, she stabbed her eight, pointed legs into the soft flesh of its toothless maw.
The craus’lar flinched as her attack hit home, and its jaws snapped shut as it shook its head in pain. Its spiked tail returned to the resting position, and it forgot about me and the Wild Reds as it tried to deal with the enemy inside its own mouth.
My bond shuddered as my arachness was consumed by fresh, corrosive slime, and I recalled her back to my hand as we sprinted the final steps toward the craus’lar’s legs.
We arrived, and our attack began in a chaos of magic and noise.
Arrows thunked into the crauslar’s face, and steel barbs stuck from its nostrils and eyelids. They were small, but they had a noticeable effect on the beast, and it bellowed as it shook its head in irritation.
Ice magic and fire magic twined together to blast flying monsters from the sky with the occasional brief shot toward the craus’lar itself. Ashla and Erin were exhausted, but they weren’t going to step aside and let the Wild Reds do all the hard work.
I looked up to check on them, and both girls gave me a brief wave. It seemed like I could leave them up there and use my vingehund for more exciting things.
The craus’lar shook off the pain from the arrows and turned to us with fresh hunger. Its black eyes shone with interest, and it wound up its spiked tail for a deadly blow.
“Warner!” Doc barked urgently.
The light mage worked his hands around a spell, and a field of sparkling stars popped into view around the craus’lar’s head.
The monster swung his stunted face in confusion between the lights. In its distraction, it snapped toothlessly at the air, and the humans at its feet were quickly forgotten.
“Just an illusion,” Doc explained to me as he passed by with his hatchet drawn, “but pretty effective on a dumb monster like this.”
We threw ourselves toward the craus’lar’s legs, and I hopped up onto one taloned foot to spare my shoes the corrosive acid. Doc hopped up beside me and began to swing his hatchet at the ankle of the beast.
His blade wasn’t enchanted, but Doc himself had a powerful set of biceps on him, and the steel bit deep into cras’lar’s tough hide.
Then the monster picked up his injured foot and shook it brusquely in an attempt to knock us off.
Doc and I clung desperately to the flailing limb, and eventually the monster stopped to set its foot down again.
“Maybe I won’t do that one again,” Doc panted as he clutched his hatchet and clambered to his feet. “It’ll take me a dog’s age before I hack through this leg.”
“I don’t want you getting crushed,” I agreed. “Hold on, I’m going to take the fight to its face.”
“That doesn’t seem safe,” Doc warned as he frowned. “What if you fall off?”
“If I fall off,” I explained as I jabbed a finger toward the wheeling silhouette in the sky overhead, “my vingehund will catch me. Just make sure to keep the flying monsters distracted, or I’m a goner.”
“Let me ask my team to change tactics,” Doc requested, and he turned to bark a series of orders to his companions.
“You’ll have to avoid the slime while I’m gone,” I told Doc. “My bullet bass can’t protect your feet while I’m not here, and the speed slugs will have to go.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Doc reassured me with a firm nod. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
“One more thing,” I asked as a smile spread across my face. “Can I borrow a flare?”
“Will you give it back?” Doc asked, but he was already unfolding his hip pouch to dig a flare out.
“Nope,” I said frankly, and I gave him a confident grin as he handed the flare over.
Doc sighed, but I ignored him in favor of checking on how his team was doing.
The banisher directed his arrows at the imps and beakroks, and the electricity mage gave her attention to zapping monsters from the sky. The fabricator held his rifle up and let loose a series of popping shots that took out gargoyles left and right.
The augmentor was stuck fighting on the ground, but she guarded the ranged attackers carefully and destroyed any monster that dared to fly down and interrupt their work. Her fists and feet grew and shrank with smoothly guided magic use, and her display of control was astonishingly impressive.
Where had Doc found these experienced, trained mages? True, the Academy was mostly full of young adults in their twenties, because that was when magic users were
usually first discovered and drafted, but I hadn’t considered the mages who graduated and went on to live their lives freely. Not all of them settled down completely, it seemed.
Doc ran back to his team to get away from the dangerous flailing of the craus’lar, and I watched as he had a short conversation with the fabricator. The dark-skinned man nodded, and he produced an enormous slab of rock that folded out from his arm like a magician’s trick. The rock slab splashed to the ground, and the team hopped up onto dry ground.
It was a good way to prevent the slime from scorching them while I was gone, so I recalled four of my slugs and asked my bullet bass to follow me closely.
Then I called my vingehund, and she dove past me with her wings outstretched just in time for me to hop up onto her back.
We swooped skyward, and I gave her the orders to bring me to the scaly neck of the beast. With any luck, I could sneak forward without it minding too much, especially since it would have its attention on the Wild Reds’ light illusions.
I landed lightly on the green hide at the back of the craus’lar’s neck, and the beast twitched uncomfortably beneath me. It seemed to notice something was wrong, and it could move at any second to knock me off or worse.
Then an icy beam slammed into the craus’lar’s snout, and the beast huffed in irritation as its attention was drawn away.
With the craus’lar’s untimely discovery of me circumvented, I crept forward and dodged around spines as I moved over the unstable, bumpy hide of the creature. My breath caught in my throat as I transitioned onto the top of its head, and I crouched to carefully move sideways over to one of its large, black eyes.
I took out my rhin dagger, brandished it carefully, and slid down to reach the eye. The enormous creature startled as I dropped into its field of vision, but before it could react, I plunged my knife deep into its eyeball.
The reaction was instantaneous, and the craus’lar thrashed and bellowed as it tried to knock me from its face. Clear fluid and blood streamed from its eyeball, and I could tell the eye was beyond repair. It tossed its head back hard, and my grip began to loosen.
