by Dante King
“You said we were going hunting,” Labu said to Cadrin. “Are you still interested?”
I hadn’t expected the apparent friendliness between a Wild and someone who apparently despised them, but Cadrin smiled at the prince. It wasn’t quite the smile of a friend, more like the bully who’d managed to gather a lackey who worshipped him. It was clear already that their relationship was not one of equals.
“I already told you to meet me outside,” Cadrin replied. “And we’ll leave as soon as this fool in front of me decides to follow his half-freak friend and that wonderful little snack. Go on; finish your mission.”
“Why don’t I come along for the hunt?” I said as my hand closed over the Sundered Heart. “It’ll give me a chance to get to know you better.”
It would also give me the opportunity to show him that I not only possessed fire techniques but wood and water, too.
“Oh, I’m awash with honor,” Cadrin mocked. “Labu, are you going to insist on bringing your sister? We can bring the messenger boy, if we must. I’ll gladly teach him a thing or two.”
“I’m sure to learn something amongst such skilled Augmenters,” Kumi said, but her eyes were on me the whole time.
“Ugh.” Cadrin looked at Labu. “You, at least, understand something of our ways and are willing to learn. If only all Wilds knew their place.” His eyes swept to Kumi. “If I allow you to join us, will you wait a day or two before needlessly bothering the Guildmaster?”
Kumi inclined her head. “I’d be happy to.”
Cadrin turned his gaze back to me. “You, I would actually like to see hunt. To find out whether your fighting is up to your posturing.”
“So gracious of you,” I said. “I’m interested to see how you do things here.”
I was interested in a lot of things. My mission to Horix could wait. Sometimes, the best way to see the quality of a teacher was to take a measure of his students. But there were unanswered questions. Labu was obviously a Wild, just like his sister. So, why was Cadrin’s manner so accommodating to the prince, but not the princess? Was the guild really stealing from the clan’s farmlands? What was the business with the Isles?
I needed answers, and I wasn’t about to find them. Not if I waited around in the guest quarters. Going on the hunt with these three would provide insight into the guild and the Qihin Clan. There was also the added bonus of more monster cores, and I had to admit that was a big motivator.
“I’ll be sure to show you how a real guild disciple fights,” Cadrin said.
Kumi watched me, fascinated.
I smiled at her before I nodded to Cadrin. “Lead the way, babyface.”
Cadrin pulled the gate shut behind him, and we followed him down the path to the shoreline. He moved into a boat, and Kumi shot me a grateful smile as I followed. Labu ignored both of us as we climbed into another magical craft and set off.
Half an hour later, I stood on a stretch of sandy beach alongside Kumi, Labu, and Cadrin. The now-empty boat had sliced a furrow into the sand where we’d drawn it up out of the ocean.
If I hadn’t known in advance that this was a Vigorous Zone—a place of strong magic and elemental beasts—I would have soon been able to work it out. The waves crashed unpredictably against the shore and didn’t follow the regular patterns I was used to. Streams gushed from the dunes beyond the beach and shifted directions as they swept away the sand. Sometimes, the water would stop, swirl in a single place, and form a pool out of the sand. Other pools vanished as the water fountained out of them and the sand swelled to take its place.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Kumi asked me.
“It’s definitely different from a fire cave.” I winked at her.
The princess’ features flushed as she turned to face the ocean.
“What are we hunting?” I asked Labu.
The prince pointed along the beach toward a series of fast-moving shapes. “Starsquids,” he said.
“They’re frenzied,” Cadrin chuckled. “Far more dangerous than your regular monsters. They’ve claimed more than one fisherman this week. Are you still sure you want to be here, Lo Pashat?”
“I’m sure it’ll be easier than appreciating your flawless wit,” I said.
The starsquids’ black bodies swirled under the shallows as icy tentacles ripped ceaselessly at the air. As Cadrin and Labu drew their weapons, the monsters increased their pace and emerged from the water in a dripping mass of inky foam. Starfish-like heads hung open with barbed suckers clicking back and forth. A translucent armor of ice shimmered around their bodies as the monsters pawed their way over the sand. They were monsters from the deep ocean, creatures from a biology textbook’s worst nightmare.
“Ugly suckers, aren’t they?” I asked Kumi.
“Certainly not the prettiest the ocean has to offer, no.”
“You talk too much,” Labu growled at me.
The Sundered Heart Sword warmed in my hand as I drew it free of its scabbard. It was a comforting contrast with the bitter chill of the ocean breeze. Cadrin drew what I had taken for a katana, but it turned out to be a sword with a serrated blade. The blade almost glowed as it caught the light of the dying sun. Labu took up a fighting stance beside him and blocked my access to the rapidly approaching starsquid.
Kumi didn’t reach for her daggers from over her shoulders. Instead, she started singing in a low, beautiful voice, a rhythmic chant that reminded me of waves rising and falling. Water rose out of a nearby pool as she sang and swirled her hands. The princess conducted the ribbons of water toward us like the master of an orchestra. The flowing liquid traveled through the air and found each of us. Power coursed through me and strengthened my internal Augmentation channels.
I stared at her in amazement. “You’ll have to teach me that.”
Kumi halted her song for a few bars. “Wild Augmentation can’t be taught, Ethan. It can adapt to traditional techniques, but you can’t teach someone.” Her eyes twinkled. “You’re welcome.”
“I fight first,” Cadrin said.
I wanted kills and cores, but I also wanted to see what he could do, so I nodded.
“I’m second,” Labu added.
“No teamwork?” I asked. “Or is Kumi the only one kind enough to share their techniques for the benefit of all?”
She chuckled under her breath as the wave of starsquids closed the distance between us.
Cadrin closed his eyes for a moment, and plates of icy armor twisted into being across his body. It was identical to that of the starsquids, but spikes rose from his shoulder plates. The addition seemed purely ornamental, and I shook my head at his lack of discretion when using Vigor.
“Frozen Armor,” Kumi explained. “And what he’s about to do next is undoubtedly an Ice Spear.”
On cue, Cadrin produced a short barbed spear of ice in his left hand and hurled it into the monsters’ midst before he dived into the mass of ice-bladed limbs.
The monsters thrashed at Cadrin with their tentacles, and he responded with his blade. He sliced into each limb as it attacked him and forced the monsters back toward the foaming ocean. More bolts of ice appeared in his free hand and found their way into the limbs and joints of the starsquids. The improvised weapons shattered the monsters’ armor after dozens of blows, and his serrated blade cut through their soft flesh only when it seemed they’d had enough. It was clear as day that Cadrin was an attrition fighter. He believed in the death of a thousand cuts, rather than the one, killing shot.
The starsquid nearest to him faltered, and its movements grew sluggish as its inky blood oozed out of a wound. Cadrin darted in and delivered another long, shallow cut to one of its limbs. The babyfaced guild disciple kicked the blood-soaked creature onto it side and let it twitch. Cadrin laughed and leapt across it, ready to take on the next creature.
Kumi’s voice rose again in song as her brother jumped into the fray.
Ice crackled around Labu in thick plates, heavier and more square than the spiked version that Cardi
n wore. Kumi’s brother didn’t fling himself into the heart of the monster pack. He stood back, blocked the way to Kumi, and absorbed her flow of invigorating water into his back.
Labu summoned his own Ice Spear, a heftier version that lacked the barbed tip of Cadrin’s technique. He flung it at a straggler starsquid that drew closer to us. The projectile crashed through its armor, splintered the icy plates, and buried itself in dark flesh. The creature toppled nervelessly to the ground.
Another starsquid advanced toward Labu and filled the air with skittering clicks. The prince moved with purpose and constantly kept himself between his sister and the nearest predators. The prince blocked an edged blow with his barbed spear, spun the weapon around, and struck at the creature’s torso. Labu’s first strike glanced off its armor, but his next one went higher, and the tip burst through its neck. Black blood ran free as Labu wrenched at his spear. The creature dropped, its head almost torn off.
Labu’s glance sometimes shifted to Cadrin as he fought. Any time he saw the other man looking his way, Labu redoubled his efforts and became more aggressive.
“Time to show these darling children how it’s done,” Nydarth urged me.
“Is it my turn yet?” I asked Kumi, and she gave me a little nod.
I dashed past Labu, and a starsquid lashed out at me with a muscled tentacle spiked with icy barbs. I cut off the tentacle with a swing, but another mass of wriggling limbs shot toward me. My blade flashed as I severed limb after limb. I drove the sword into the creature’s head, and it twitched before rolling up like a dead spider.
The starsquids responded to my arrival by swarming me. I sliced through any tentacles that swept my way and stayed on the move to ensure the beasts didn’t get a chance to surround me.
A monster slammed into Cadrin’s back and sprawled him out on the sand. Two of the tentacled monsters stormed in for the kill.
Cadrin was a dick. But I wouldn’t place myself well in Horix’s good graces if I let him die. I made a fist and called forth the power of wood. I used the image of spears to fashion objects in my mind before Vigor flowed effortlessly through my body and out through my feet. A wall of spiked Plank Pillars shot out of the ground and skewered a single starsquid. The other monsters reeled back and avoided my wooden spears.
I charged to meet them, and one twisted around to face me and thrashed its barbed tentacles. The Sundered Heart sang as I hacked off the flailing limbs and called up an Ash Cloud around the beast. I flung the gray miasma into the faces of the two closest starsquids and ducked under another spiked row of suckers. My targets made wretched rasping noises as they struggled to breathe. I’d broken their focus for just a moment and blinded them. I stepped forward and claimed the head of the nearest one. Cadrin attempted to cut down a monster, but it threw him to the ground. I slashed across its armored torso and delivered a Stinging Palm into the gap in its armor.
I didn’t know exactly how fire would fare against these monsters when it had been almost completely ineffective against the lampreys, but now was the time to try. I drew Vigor from within myself and produced a one-handed Untamed Torch. The tiny fireball hissed as it shot toward a smaller starsquid and melted a hole in its armor. I drove my sword deep into its rubbery flesh, and it collapsed onto Cardin as he caught his breath.
I found it really hard to care about that.
“Such repugnant flesh,” Nydarth laughed within my mind. “And yet it will all fall before our might.”
Cadrin pushed the starsquid’s body off himself and rose to his feet.
“An Augmenter of multiple elements,” he said. “I’m almost impressed.”
“There’s blood all over your tunic, pretty-boy,” I retorted.
Cadrin went white and looked down at his ruined clothes.
Then, my makeshift wall of Plank Pillars crashed down, and a pack of fresh starsquids closed in aound us.
I used swift, light strikes to fend off as many of the tentacles as I could. But they were everywhere, and I started to take hits. Blood welled from gashes along my arms and down my side.
Something cool and damp brushed against my skin, and my ears filled with the sound of song. Kumi had sent her supply of healing water to me once more, not to strengthen my channels but to heal my wounds. Pain faded and flesh closed as the water washed across it. It left me restored and ready to continue fighting in earnest.
The numbers of starsquids seemed to increase by 20, and more continued to join them from out of the ocean’s tide. Cadrin had been right about the monsters being frenzied, but he’d never said they’d come in unceasing waves.
Ah, shit. I’d just made a terrible pun.
I fought off the cringe as I tossed another Untamed Torch at a monster. The blast of fire hit it in the chest, and its armor melted, but the heat didn’t get through to the flesh. The carapace shifted and stitched itself back together as the starsquids swung their heads to look at the huge flash of heat and light.
Fire only did the trick on the smaller starsquids, and they were all dead now. But did it work as a lure?
I aimed another Untamed Torch at a gap between the surrounding starsquids. At least half of them turned toward the flames and heat.
“It’s about to get warm,” I said to Cadrin.
I dug into my pool of Vigor and cast it through the fire channels within my body. A ball of flame in my hand became the blazing whirlwind of the Burning Wheel technique. I hurled it forward and watched it careen through the crowd of starsquids. The Burning Wheel crystallized the sand beneath it as it danced over the ground in haphazard patterns. Cadrin and I jumped aside as it came back toward us. The vortex of flames ripped through the space where we had been and on in the direction of the dunes.
The starsquids skittered over the sand after the light, uninterested in Cadrin or me.
“That’s right, scum of the ocean,” Nydarth whispered. “Follow the pretty lights. Good thinking, my sweet man. You continue to surprise.”
One of the creatures broke the spell of the flames and detached itself from the pack. It angled itself toward me, but I didn’t give it the opportunity to land a hit. Vigor surged through my flesh to form a Smothering Mist all around me. I backed through the cloud as the starsquid flailed ineffectively at where I’d been a moment before. I emerged from the mist like a bad dream and cut it down with the Sundered Heart.
My comrades followed the starquids as they skittered after the bright light sweeping around the beach. Labu and Cadrin hacked the creatures down from behind, and I joined them with deft strikes of my sword. Soon, we had a heap of monsters at our feet. Labu and I had gone for the clean kills, but Cadrin’s victims squirmed and flooded the sand with their black blood before they expired.
We knelt together and started the long process of slicing into the flesh of the creatures, pulling out the skeletal corrals and removing the magical cores. I was thankful to see their armor melt upon death as it was easier to tear them open.
“Fire, wood, ash, and water,” Kumi said. “That’s an impressive assortment of powers you have. You’re an elementalist?”
“What else would he be?” Cadrin snarled. “No refinement. All flash and no true skill. He might as well be a jester in a court. Elementalists are often praised for their diversity, but they merely scratch the surface of true Augmentation.”
“You jealous?” I asked as I pried open a bone-cage and took the core within.
“You’re obviously unfamiliar with water techniques,,” Cadrin said. “Your Smothering Mist was clumsy.”
“Clumsy?” Labu snorted. “Have you seen anyone else ever pull off tricks like that?”
“Of course. Master Horix, for instance.”
“You must be impressed if you’re comparing him with Horix.” Kumi laughed. “I’ve seen how you worship him like he’s some kind of immortal.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle along with her infectious laugh. “Bit of a teacher’s pet, are you, Cadrin?”
His jaw tightened. “Everyone should
respect the guildmaster. He is the finest Augmenter in all the Diamond Coast.”
“Second to Kumi, here,” I said and bumped her shoulder playfully with mine.
The princess bumped me back, and I hit Cadrin. The pretty-boy collapsed into the pile of squid corpses and stood up with a slew of impressive curses. Labu calmed him down and turned his attention to our spoils for the day. We divided up the cores between us, and I put mine in a belt pouch. Nydarth had helped me absorb fire cores on the fly, but I doubted she’d give me that same assistance with cores of her rival element.
I nudged the pile of monster viscera with my sandal and looked at Labu. “I take it that you guys don’t eat this stuff?”
Labu looked at me like I was insane. “Of course not.”
I cleaned my weapons in a pool as Nydarth murmured in my ear.
“Driving into such flesh must excite you, my sweet man,” she purred. “Grow in your power, upon your path, and you shall have mine if you so desire it.”
I’d seen Nydarth’s dream-form before, and if her ‘flesh’ was anything like that, then it was a promise I’d see her keep. The thought made my blood boil as I headed back toward the boat.
“You boys can sail without me,” Kumi said. “I’m going back to the city.”
Twilight was falling across the beach as she stepped closer to me and looked up with dark blue eyes. I couldn’t help but appreciate the ample curves of her hips, the swell of her chest, and the way her skin caught the light.
“It was a pleasure to meet my rescuer again,” she said as she laid a hand on my arm. “And to discover that you’re so… gifted. I look forward to meeting you again soon.”
She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek. The princess turned and strode up the beach. Kumi had the most alluring way of walking. Her hips seemed to know exactly how to sway to her footsteps.
I managed to drag my attention away from Kumi and caught Labu’s glare. Cadrin smirked at his companion’s obvious discomfort.
“Boat,” Labu said. “Now.”
