by Eric Vall
“Gryff!” Layla squealed as she pointed ahead of me.
I only had a second to see the small impish monster with green-gray skin that sat perched on the trunk of the tree in front of me before it pounced.
I dove off Cas right as it jumped at me and slammed into the dirt. The monster rested only for a moment on Cas’s backside before lunging for me again. I rolled to my side and narrowly dodged it, then came up in a crouch. I had no time to summon my own monsters, so I unsheathed the dagger at my hip and shot forward to stab it with my blade.
My knife plunged into the monster’s sternum. Its sharp arms flailed on either side of it before falling limply at its side as the life drained from it. Swords and daggers could be pretty effective against smaller monsters if you hit them in the right spot, and as someone well experienced with dealing with monsters, I knew exactly where to hit it. Its weight slumped against me as I pushed it off of me while my heart pounded out a desperate tune in my chest and my lungs craved air. That had been much too close.
“Gryff! Are you alright?” Layla asked, the concern obvious in her voice as both she and Braden hopped off their horses.
“I’m fine.” It wasn’t entirely true. While I was okay health-wise, there was a portal to the Shadowscape open, and we were not banishers. That… that was a very serious problem that we didn’t have a solution for.
I looked down at the monster. It was beginning to break down into useable loot, but I recognized it immediately, a chatteroshi.
They were impish little creatures, humanoid in shape, about as tall as my stomach. They had wiry builds, long bony limbs that seemed much too long for their small torsos. Their skin could range from all manners of colors, browns, greens, blues, dark reds and yellows. They weren’t strong, but the danger came from their arms which ended in sharp appendages like an axe goblin, with mantis-like scythes that could retract into their arms. Their feet ended in a single blade-like toe the size of a dagger.
Also like goblins, one was easy to deal with, but chatteroshi always swarmed. I turned my gaze to the forest around us and caught sight of dozens of them as they climbed amongst the trees, and the chittering of their voices drowned out the normal sounds of the forest in their din. Bark flew about as their sharp limbs scampered about the trees, and bits rained down as the monsters flayed the trees.
“Fuck!” I yelled.
We didn’t have time to flee, and we couldn’t, for Layla and Braden’s horses whinnied in a panic and bolted.
“Well, there goes our deposit,” I muttered. That made me feel bad even though I knew Cas couldn’t understand. “Sorry, girl.” I skirted around her head to my saddle where I kept a sword. I unsheathed it and held it at the ready. I still had my monsters, but chatteroshi were fast and numerous. I’d have to defend myself. My friends, however, did not have the luxury of a weapon. I slapped Cas’s backside and sent her running after the other horses. I didn’t need her getting in the way.
The chatteroshi were a buzzing swarm milling above us, constantly moving like a chaotic army of ants. We didn’t have much time before they pounced in mass.
“Do you still have your essence crystals?” I asked my friends, hoping desperately that they hadn’t left them all in their saddlebags, which wasn’t smart to begin with since horses could get spooked by the monstrous energy the crystals give off.
“I do,” Braden replied as he opened his coat to reveal his essence crystals.
“I have what I brought with me for the trip,” Layla added. “Didn’t bring too many though.”
“Hopefully that will be enough.” I swallowed hard as I looked around.
More and more chatteroshi seemed to appear from the tangle of tree limbs above. I had to push down the panic. Our monsters wouldn’t have a lot of room to operate, but we had no choice, we had to fight. With my sword in my right hand, I gripped a few crystals in the other. Braden gripped his own, three in each hand, and Layla had two.
As the chatteroshi closed in, their annoying noises grating at my brain, Layla lit up. “Gryff, could we make ourselves metal with your bullet bass? That way their attack wouldn’t hurt us?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed with a confident smile. It was a brilliant idea, exactly the type of creativity Rori and I had been trying to instill into my friends, the ability to think on their feet and use the situation and environment to their advantage and to know their enemies’ weaknesses, know their own weaknesses, and how to overcome them.
Truthfully, being metal wouldn’t make us safe for long. If the bullet bass itself were killed, we’d lose our metal skin, and even if the bass remained, there was only so long it could maintain its metal coating power, especially on three of us, but maybe it could give us the wiggle room we needed.
I summoned a bullet bass and had it cover us in metal just before the chatteroshi decided to attack. They swarmed us, a storm of bladed limbs and chittering teeth. Their gnomish heads had beady little eyes the size of marbles, but their mouths… their mouths were huge, wide and circular, nearly the size of their heads, and they had rows and rows of tiny razor-sharp teeth.
Thankfully, the metal coating worked. The chatteroshi blades danced off my skin harmlessly. My sword, not so much for them. I hacked and slashed in wide arcs, not bothering to be subtle or skilled. My sword took out two at a time, but more kept coming. Layla summoned her hyppocrans and was riding on its back as it rampaged through the mass of bodies, but that strategy didn’t last long as the sheer number of chatteroshi swiftly overcame it. It didn’t help that hyppocrans weren’t known for their ability to turn on a dime. Layla stumbled forward off it as it died, but Braden was there to catch her.
We weren’t making any progress. Braden carried Layla over to me, her protesting the whole way. I summoned a ring of wallerdons around us, which would buy us some time but not much.
Braden’s face was alight. “I have a plan,” he proclaimed.
The swarm gnashed and slashed all around us. One jumped into our cocoon of wallerdons, but I swiftly buried my sword in its heart. “Okay, spill it.”
“These metal skins are fireproof, correct?”
“Correct.”
He dug into his satchel and pulled out a large round essence crystal, fiery and red, so fine and shiny that it almost looked like a ruby. I knew instinctively that something powerful sat inside of it. He smiled and held up the crystal.
“This is an ember eagle.”
I nearly gasped. “You have an ember eagle?”
Ember eagles were grade B monsters, incredibly dangerous and powerful. As their names would imply, they looked like massive eagles shrouded in flames. Braden wore a cocky smile that was unlike him, but I appreciate his budding confidence.
“I’m very wealthy, remember. I bought this from a trader who came to our family manor right when I discovered my affinity for summoning.” Braden’s cockiness faded and was replaced by resolve. “I’ll lob this out, and the eagle will burn all those fuckers away. How’s that for a plan?”
It was reckless and flashy. I liked it. Braden and Layla were on a roll today. I only had one important question. “Can you control it?”
He frowned. “Not for very long, no, but we only need it for the one attack.”
It was the conventional way of using summoners in combat, but given the situation, it was the right call. Besides, the move would have been dangerous if we weren’t coated in flameproof metal.
I gave him a thumbs up. “Go for it.”
“Right.” He tossed it high above us, where it disappeared and materialized into a massive bird.
But it wasn’t a bird. It was living flame shaped like a bird, bright and brilliant almost as if were made of the Sun itself. Glowing white eyes shone out of the fiery face, and red flames shot out of the top of its head like a shimmering mane. Blue-hot flames tinged the tips of its wings as the eagle spread them wide.
The attacks of the chatteroshi stopped as they looked up at the new combatant.
“Get ready!” Braden cal
led. “And don’t look at it, the flash of its attack can blind you.”
Right. I called my bullet bass back to me and had it hide in my shirt. If the ember eagle killed it in its attack, then we’d be fried too. Bullet bass were fireproof, but ember eagles were on a whole other level, and I’d rather not risk it.
“Here it comes!” Braden yelled and ducked his head. As the eagle began to glow and the flames of its great wings began to expand, I huddled together with my friends behind my wallerdons. Braden wrapped his beefy arms around us as if that would protect us from the blast more than our metal skin was already going to do.
What came next was sensational. A resounding boom split my ears and cracked the air of the forest, leaving my ears ringing. A strong gust of wind and flames washed over us and knocked us aside. Even with my eyes closed, all I saw was whiteness through my eyelids, and despite our flame-resistant skin, I could still feel the heat crawl over me, but despite the itch it caused, it wasn’t burning me.
Finally, it was over. The heat receded, the blinding light of the flames was gone, and the jittery chatter of the monsters was gone. All that was left was the crackling of flames. The surrounding area was a scorched ruin, the trees blasted back and charred black, with veins of fire running all along them, but it looked like it hadn’t spread beyond the blast zone. The grass beneath us was no more, crumbled into ash as I walked over it. The air was choked with smoke and soot. The damage didn’t extend too far, as I could spot green not too far away, but this was still astounding. Possibly even overkill.
But we were alive, and the monsters were gone.
“Wow,” was all I could say.
“Wow, indeed,” Layla echoed.
I clapped a metal hand on Braden’s shoulder. “Excellent job, my friend.”
“Thank you,” he said bashfully as he scratched his head. “For a moment there, I didn’t think I could do it.”
“But you did, and I’m proud of you,” I said.
“Awwww,” Layla laughed as she came up behind us and rested her hands on our shoulders. “I’m proud we are alive too.”
My wallerdons were gone, no surprise. I pulled out another crystal and threw it out, my mana coursing through it as an imp appeared. Only one of my many imps was a water imp, so I sent it out to patrol the blast zone and put out all the fires still burning as best it could. We didn’t need to burn the whole forest down accidentally.
Of course, we weren’t out of danger yet. The stench of the rift was still pungent in my nostrils. It was nearby, and there would likely be more monsters waiting.
“We need to move,” I told the others. “There may still be monsters around the rift. We need to kill them if we can.”
They nodded, their metal faces determined. Once my imp was finished putting out the fires as best it could, we continued on. Once we left the edge of the charred woods, I recalled the bullet bass so that it hovered over us and dropped the metal skin that coated us. Things weren’t going to be easy for the fight that was sure to come, especially if I had to use the bullet bass on all three of us for the whole time.
“I wish there were a way to contact someone,” Layla said. “Request a response squad.”
“This is too remote for the military to bother with,” I reminded her. “They would get in contact with freelancers if there are any near enough to do something about it.”
“So what are we supposed to do then?” Braden asked.
I set my jaw and lengthened my stride. “We’ll hold off any invading monsters for as long as we can until help arrives or the portal closes on its own. That’s what we’ve been trained to do.”
We marched on through the woods and hiked up a brief rise. As we rose, the smell of the rift got thicker, so bad that it assaulted my nostrils and made me want to gag, but that meant we were close at least. When we crested the rise, my suspicions were confirmed when I saw the rift in a small clearing between a few clusters of trees.
Layla and Braden both gasped at the sight of it. The portal was about the size of a regular door, the swirling, inky blackness of it a darker blue than the last portal I had seen. A few ghouls and axe goblins milled about the perimeter of it, no doubt confused as to why there was nothing to kill and eat. The moment we came into view, their attention snapped to us.
I was proud to say that Braden took the lead. Whether he was fully over his fear of monsters or not was unclear, but he didn’t let it deter him at all. Though he was strained from summoning the ember eagle, he fished another crystal from his pack and tossed it as we advanced down the hill. With a flash, a troll appeared, large and hulking, its deep gray arms covered in rough, armored hide. It was only a basic grade D monster, but it would take care of some ghouls. I tossed out a fire imp to help the troll out, and together, they made quick work of the fodder.
Layla came up next to us and blew out a breath. “That was easy.”
“It isn’t over yet,” I said solemnly and recalled my imp. “Hopefully the chatteroshi were the brunt of this attack, but we can’t know that for sure.”
Braden recalled his troll as he took in deep breaths. “How long can rifts stay open?”
“That was on the exam, Braden,” I chuckled, an eyebrow raised.
He shrugged. “I suppose I missed that question.”
“I hope you didn’t miss too many.” I shook my head with a smile. “Rifts can stay open all day, but they won’t produce a continuous stream of monsters though. Monsters are hurt by moonlight, so once the sun goes down, the rift will close.”
“Well, I knew those last bits…” He scratched his neck.
“Good.” I crossed my arms and kept my eyes square on the rift. “So, while this rift will close naturally, it could take a whole day or more, depending on its strength.”
“And we don’t know how long this one has already been open for,” Layla added.
“Exactly.”
Braden grumbled. “I see our problem then.”
Right. How long could we realistically hold the monsters back, without help that probably wouldn’t come? We were already growing tired from using our stronger monsters. Lasting a day simply wasn’t a realistic option.
Just then, the rift rippled and began to glow, expanding ever so slightly to accommodate the passage of a larger monster. The rift at Ralor’s Stead had grown to the size of a house so that the immense fire-eye could come through and wreak havoc on the poor little town. Thankfully, this one only grew a few feet taller and wider. That still wasn’t good, but it was just a little bit better. With a whooshing sound, the rift glowed even brighter, and our next enemy came through.
It was a yellow basilisk, and it would be a handful.
The yellow basilisk was smaller than its more famous, greener cousin, who can petrify its prey with a single glance, but the yellow variety was far faster and could spit acidic venom. I wasn’t sure if the metal coating from a bullet bass would be of much help against acid or not, but it wasn’t wise to test that out in these conditions.
The monster reared back and lunged at us, fast as lightning. I tackled Layla out of the way as it struck while Braden dodged in the opposite direction with a yelp. The basilisk’s mouth sank into the ground where we’d stood, but thankfully, it found nothing but dirt and leaves.
The basilisk didn’t waste time. It looked right at us, and as it reared back to spit acid at me, I called up a wallerdon and reinforced it with bullet bass metal. Acid splashed across the metallic wall with a loud hiss and bubble, and the normally indomitable wallerdon screeched with pain. If I hadn’t made it metal, the vicious acid would have already eaten through it, but even so, it wouldn’t protect us for long.
“We need to regroup,” I grunted and led the way toward the nearest cluster of trees. Layla and Braden fell in behind me as the wallerdon held the basilisk off for a few more seconds. We dove behind them right when the basilisk struck again, sending my monster back to my crystal. At least in the tight wood, the massive snake would have a harder time maneuvering to get
us. It’d give us a moment at least to figure out a real plan.
I turned my gaze to Layla, whose eyes were wide from the rush of adrenaline and fear. “Do you think you could summon your hyppocrans?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “I’m exhausted. I can summon it, but I can’t promise how well I could control it.”
“Fair enough.” I couldn’t ask Braden to use his ember eagle again either. He was probably also too drained for it, plus its attack would kill us too. I doubted I had the strength to shield us from its blast a second time. My kalgori was an option, but my control of it in a confined space like this would be questionable at best.
As we hid behind cover, the basilisk seemed content to stalk us. It slithered around the copse of trees as caustic drool spilled from its fangs and hissed as it hit the forest floor. Time was not on our side. It would either start spraying acid to eat away our limited cover or simply wait us out until more monsters spilled out of the rift.
“What do you know about these things?” Braden asked, as tired looking as Layla was. “I remember that they are fast, and we all saw the acid spit, but do they have any weaknesses?”
Layla shrugged helplessly, but more things came to mind from the extra books Arwyn had me study. “They have thick scales that are proof against most piercing and cutting implements. Electricity too,” I remembered, “but its hide is still flexible. Hard, bludgeoning force could still crush it.”
“But it’s too fast to bury under wallerdons,” Layla pointed out, no doubt as she thought of one of the techniques I’d used against Gawain in our duel. “Not that they would last long against that acid. And daggerdillos and axe goblins are right out!”
“If only we could slow it down,” Braden mused, and that sparked a crazy idea in my head.
“I have a plan, but it’s risky,” I began as I dug crystals out of my bandolier. “Do you have any grunts left you can summon safely? I don’t care what it is, just something to distract it and, more importantly, keep it in the center of that clearing.”