by Simon Archer
It was incredible, a true feat of engineering and ingenuity, the height of civilization…
And it was all overcome with chaos and ruin.
Fields lay fallow. Many of the buildings were in disrepair, some simply abandoned while others were ruined by fire or force. In several places, nature had begun to take over, vines and weeds growing over walls, columns, and structures. Several of the smaller docks had collapsed, claimed now by the sea, while forgotten ships still listed forlornly in the harbor. Even the great palace of domes looked battered and ill-kept the more I looked at it.
However, despite what it seemed like at first blush, this damage wasn’t caused by time or abandonment. No, it was clear from our lofty perch that there was plenty of life and activity in the districts below, but it wasn’t that of people going about their lives, farmers working the fields, or even raiders attacking the city.
Instead, the Marches were infested, overrun with wild beasts of all kinds. Wolverpines roamed the avenues in roving packs, strange animals that seemed to be half-bear, half-owl tore through buildings searching for prey, and giant birds of prey soared through the skies. Further east, among waterways and canals that criss-cross the districts towards the harbor, scaly, fanged creatures slithered onto shore to sun themselves, while I was certain I saw tentacles lash out to drag smaller creatures below the waves. The air around the palace itself was clouded with dense formations of buzzing, alien insects.
Accompanying this tableau of savagery were the howls of wolverpines, strange clicks and slithers, roaming packs of beasts, and the overwhelming cacophony of a city-state retaken by the wild creatures beyond its walls. Something had happened here, something that not only attracted these creatures but let them run rampant through Solanna.
It was a long moment before anyone could say a word, our minds wrapping our head around what we were seeing. At last, I took a deep breath and spoke.
“We need to get down there.” I kept my tone level, even hopeful. “It looks grim, but you said it’s only been five years, er, seasons since contact was lost, right, Amalthea?”
“Yes, William,” the sphinx confirmed, her voice hard as steel. “There were no emergency missives, no crier’s script telling of coming disaster, nothing save for the barony preparing for war with the Black Runes… and nothing since.”
Reggie let out a soft harumph. “Still, that does not preclude the chance that there are still survivors down in those ruins or hunkered down in that monolith of a palace.” He gestured off-handedly with the barrel of his revolver.
“Exactly.” I nodded. “And even if things come to the worst, we have to figure out what happened here. If this is something that could spread…” I let my voice trail off for a moment. “Well, I don’t think I need to say the rest.”
Petra finally shook off her awe and horror, her leafy hair shaking with the motion as she took a step closer to the edge of the cliff. “No, dear William, you don’t… but if there is any chance to save a single innocent life, we must do so.” Silver poked his head out from her leaves and let out a chirp of agreement.
“Right.” I nodded and looked up and down the line. “Shikun, Amalthea, fly along the cliff and scout us out a way down. If you can’t find anything, I’ll have you two ferry us down to ground level.” I hoped that wouldn’t be the case because we’d have to leave the karushes and quite a bit of our supplies with them. “We’ll wait--”
I didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence. A scream of terror ripped up from below us, a very human cry that snapped my eyes straight to its source.
There, a narrow winding path, full of switchbacks and dangerously tight curves stretched along the cliffside that would likely come up to the lip a fair stretch to the north. Fleeing up that path was the tiny figures of what I thought were a man and a woman, and on their heels was one of those big, burly owlbear things. It was catching up quickly. While this thing might not have been an Earth bear, it moved like one… which was very bad in this situation.
See, a lot of folks think bears are slow, lumbering creatures, but the truth is that bears can really, really move when they needed to. We needed to act and act now.
“Shikun, get me down there and put me right on that thing’s back,” I called out. “Amalthea, follow us, get those people out of harm’s way.” I glanced sidelong at Petra. “Can you get yourself and Reggie down there with your magic and provide backup?”
“I can. Now, go,” the dryad said firmly as she raised her hands. “Help them.”
I didn’t need to say anything. I just nodded as I drew Libritas and spread my arms. Amalthea fluttered up into the air and then broke into a dive, pulling her wings back to increase her speed.
A split-second later, Shikun looped her strong arms under my armpits and launched down the cliff herself. Despite the danger of the moment, a rush of exhilaration flooded me as the wind tore past us in the dive, a feeling only matched by feeling the dragon-girl’s warmth pressed against my back.
“Get ready!” Shikun screamed above the roar of our descent, and she was right to say it. Already, both the owlbear and its fleeing victims were zooming in at frightening speed. I barely had a split-second to focus on the shining feathers of the monster’s back, my intended landing point.
“Born ready,” I called back as I summoned up Libritas’ power. Her runic tip burst into light as her voice sang in my mind, and before I could think about how it was absolutely crazy that I was about to do a high-velocity death-from-above on an owlbear by means of a hot-in-more-ways-than-one dragon-girl, Shikun braked abruptly.
I only had a split-second to feel the shudder in my joints before she let me loose. There was no hesitation or thought during that momentary fall, just instinct as my booted feet hit the bear hybrid's back and drove Lib straight down into the middle, right where the spine should be.
Now, that should have been it. In my admittedly brief time in Etria, there hadn’t been anything that the Brand’s super-heated tip couldn’t melt or burn right through. Metal, wood, flesh, and bone, it didn’t matter… but none of that happened here. Instead, Libritas merely smoldered against the layers of seemingly fireproof feathers.
That’s when my senses caught up with all the rapid motion, and I realized a few things. First, what had seemed like a big bear… owl… thing from above was actually the size of a Buick and not some modern model. We’re talking a land yacht from the 1950s. Second, I hadn’t felt the landing from my fall because there was just so much downy fluff that any blunt impact would just bounce off this thing. Thirdly, its head was now turned towards me because, just like an owl, its round head could swivel all the way. Those luminous, sewer-lid-sized eyes were now focused right on me, and somehow, I could tell the owlbear was pissed at my interruption.
“Any thoughts or ideas would be great right about now, Lib,” I sent with a thought as the beast’s chest seemed to expand underneath me. Even though I had just asked for advice, I was already tensing to jump.
My instincts were dead on as Lib shouted, “Get out of the way!” in my head.
Just as the owlbear’s lungs breathed out with explosive force, I dove to the right, towards the cliff wall. The monster’s head feathers rustled as its shining black beak snapped open, followed by an ear-splitting hoot. The air literally rippled with concussive force from that tremendous call, and if I had stayed on the thing’s back, my flesh would have been pulped and my bones shattered for sure. Even so, the vibrations rattled my teeth and made every joint ache before I hit the ground.
The hard-packed earth of the trail did me no favors, but I pushed through the pain and rolled up to my knees, back flat against the cliff face. Up close and personal, the owlbear was even more bizarre than I had first thought. Instead of something like a griffon, a centaur, or our lovely Amalthea, the monster wasn’t composed of the upper half of an owl and the lower half of a bear. Instead, it was as if someone had chopped a bear in half lengthwise right under the neck, then replaced that top section with somethin
g akin to an owl. That wasn’t even accurate, as no Earth owl I had ever seen had fireproof feathers that glinted like dull steel or a supersonic hoot.
Neither of us had a moment of rest on our laurels, though. Shikun swooped past after the owlbear’s hoot and lashed out with her talons across the thing’s back, while Amalthea interposed herself between the two travelers and the monster. She let out a fierce cry as she swatted at it with her lion’s claws. Sparks flew where both slashes raked against the owlbear’s feathery armor. Though they didn’t seem to do any real damage, the strength of the sphinx’s oversized paws impacted with enough force to bounce the thing’s head to one side.
“How are we supposed to kill this thing?” Shikun shouted as she began to come around for another attack. “If Libritas can’t burn it, my dragon-fire surely can’t.”
It was a good question. I already had an idea, but before I could say anything, I was cut off by the monster lurching its immense bulk towards me. Despite being knocked a little silly, the owlbear was still moving and seemed focused on me. Thankfully, my reflexes were as sound as ever, and I pushed off from my crouch, just clearing the length of the owlbear before it crushed me against the unyielding stone.
“It’s an ironfeather owlbear,” Lib told me as I came up behind the thing, her tone apologetic. “I thought them extinct, and they are almost impossible to distinguish from a normal beast from a distance.”
“And just the name tells me everything we need to know,” I sent back in a rush. Its name was enough to make me think my hunch, the obvious solution really, was the correct one. “Thanks, Lib!”
Of course, the real trick was making it happen. As I lunged forward toward the owlbear’s hindquarters, hopefully so low that the thing’s swiveling neck couldn’t find me, I called out the play.
“We’ve got to go low,” I shouted. “Get to the soft squishy underbelly!” I mean, not that a bear’s hide was exactly soft and squishy, but it had to be better than the nigh-impenetrable feathers up top. I put my words into action as my brand lashed out, thrusting right toward the left rear flank…
And as if the savage creature understood my every word, it kicked back with that same foot hard. With my forward momentum, all I could do was to try to twist toward the cliff face and minimize the crushing blow. Instead of the owlbear planting its giant paw into my skull, it plowed into my left shoulder. The crunch of bone echoed in my ear as pain spiked like an electric shock through my body, but it was better than being dead… just barely.
But even with that hit, as I twisted to the side of the beast, I managed to bring Libritas around for a hard swing into the offending leg. While it wasn’t as effective as a thrust would have been, the Brand did strike true. The hissing side of Lib’s runic tip burned a gouge across the owlbear’s thigh, and that elicited a loud chirrup from the owlbear’s beak.
Then I hit the ground hard. The force of the thing’s kick combined with my twist made me tumble completely around so that my now-broken shoulder hit the hard-packed earth, and I bit down the scream of agony I wanted to let loose into simply a very loud, agonized grunt.
Rolling over onto my gut instinctually, I tried to push myself up, but everything was moving in slow motion, and the screaming needles of pain in my left arm told me it was going to be utterly useless. Shouts of alarm, my name called out, and booming owlbear hoots rang in my ears, but I pushed them out. I had to get up and move, and that seemed to work at least a little. Pressing up on the fist wrapped around Lib’s grip, I was up on my knees when an all-encompassing shadow loomed over me.
“HOOT!”
That pierced through the cloudiness in my head, and I looked up to the sight of the massive owlbear reared back on its hind legs, doing what I was as it fought through the pain of its wound. Those luminous eyes glared down at me as it raised its foot-long claws, shining with the same steeliness of its back feathers. Now, I’d been in plenty of dangerous situations both on Earth and here in Etira, but this more than anything else felt like the Grim Reaper had come calling for me.
But the funny thing was, I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t afraid… because I saw more than just the owlbear raised up over me. I saw past it, at what all was coming for this monster, and I grinned toothily, a little blood dripping down my split lip.
“Considering you seem to understand me, let me tell you before you squash anyone, you might want to look behind you.”
At that moment, the owlbear froze, still balancing on its hind legs, and then showing how much it actually understood me, its giant owl head spun fully around to its backside. Of course, by then, it was too late.
From above, a torrent of thorny vines cascaded down from where Petra stood, her and Reggie both suspended in thick ivy that she had grown from the cliff face, and bound the owlbear by its upper paws. The beast struggled for only a moment. It knew how vulnerable it was now before it began to swivel its head up, puffing up for another deadly sonic hoot to free itself. That was when Shikun launched herself to grab the owlbear by the head, her muscles flexing into relief as she pulled its aim off to the side. Then, for good measure, Amalthea’s leonine forelimbs wrapped around the monster’s waist with her claws out, and her paws found purchase in the bear-hide.
“Now, William!” Shikun growled out, her talons clamping around the owlbear’s short beak to hold it closed.
With a growl of my own, I bit down the grinding pain in my left shoulder as I pushed up to my feet and drove the Brand of Freedom forward, up past where Amalthea lion-hugged the thing. Lib’s tip blazed white-hot as she seared through the owlbear’s hide and plunged right through what had to be ribs or sternum. Though the edges of the wound cauterized instantly, as I pushed the Brand deeper to put the monster out of its misery, blood and gore poured out. The owlbear began to thrash wildly in a blind panic, but I tried to ignore it and just pushed harder, driving the weapon up the hilt.
Then, thankfully, the owlbear tensed once more, then went limp.
The fight was over, and I really, really wanted two things: a cup of zym and a doctor. As I tore Libritas back out of the owlbear’s carcass and staggered back from it, Petra and Shikun released their grips on the dead thing as Amalthea flung the carcass off the side of the path with a roar.
“Good riddance,” I muttered as I glanced down at the tumbling body… and that’s when I realized my voice was a bit slurred. And that’s when I got a good look at my busted shoulder. There was a lot of red where there shouldn’t be, and in that strange detachment that you sometimes get when you’ve been badly hurt, I figured out that the owlbear hadn’t just hit me with the pad of its paw, but its back claws as well.
That’s when the shock set in, and things went from fuzzy to black.
4
Amalthea
“William!” The name of the man who had freed me, the one we called savior, slipped out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
Not that my worry was not real. I did not need my keen mind, my century of experience, or the access to the vast medical knowledge contained in the Khalarti Record to realize the danger posed by his clearly broken arm or the sanguine flow that soaked through his khaki shirt. And was I not a sphinx? A guardian of my tribe, and this injury to our headman was a failure on my part, even as I succeeded in fulfilling the task William had given me.
No, it was not any frivolity on my part that tried to stay my tongue, it was the uselessness of the gesture of shouting his name when he was clearly passed out.
Fortunately, the others were not caught up in unhelpful emotions. A cushion of moss burst from the hard earth as Willam collapsed by our dryad’s hand, and even that was mostly unnecessary, for Shikun flew to his side in one silvery flash of her wings. Before he had even tumbled a foot, the scarlet draconian arrested his fall before lowering him gently onto the bed of moss.
Throughout the entire battle and now, the two people we had rescued from the owlbear huddled together against the cliff face, as afraid of us as they had been of the monster chasing them.
Understandable, but still strange, as strange as their mix of tattered finery and animal hide for clothing, their faces concealed behind masks formed from wolverpine skulls.
My focus was not on them, though. I padded closer to where Shikun hovered over William as Petra’s ivy lowered her and Sir Reginald down to the trail. The draconian had already gently arranged our savior gently on the moss and was peeling the bloody cloth away from his wounds. The trauma was clear: an impacted shoulder, no doubt fractures in the arm itself, and two clean slices from where the owlbear’s talons had found purchase in his flesh.
For such a serious injury, my medicinal knowledge gleaned from the wisdom of all written lore in the world would be the most essential thing. Clearly, I needed to lead the efforts to tend to dear William. Shikun was a soldier, after all, and Petra raised in a forest among the trees. They certainly wouldn’t have my doctoral skills to guide them.
“It looks bad,” Shikun astutely noted, while Petra came around to his wounded side and knelt delicately. Sir Reginald moved with the steely reserve he always carried as he dug into his pack. As Petra began to soothe William’s brow, I loomed over them all and puffed up a little. After all, I did have all the answers.
“Fear not, my friends,” I pronounced as I closed my eyes and summoned my magic, “for, in a moment, I will be able to direct you as to how best to help William.”
As I did so, my mind’s eye opened as a seemingly infinite array of hallways filled my psyche, the hundreds of thousands of shelves upon which the vastness of Etria’s written words was displayed for my perusal. This was the great gift we sphinxes shared, and as I put my mind to work racing through the stacks, I passed the psychic essences of hundreds of my brothers and sisters, each diligently at work seeking knowledge for the betterment of their tribes.