by Simon Archer
I looked upon all the women I’ve met along this journey, the powerful forces in this world. But more than that, I saw the beautiful, courageous women that they were, and I couldn’t help but tear up a bit. Luckily, I don’t think they noticed.
“Well, we have our heading!” Reggie triumphantly declared. “A no-good owlbear to the east, and a vicious latopus to the west! A land in desperate need of saving! Danger at every turn! What are we waiting for, my good friends?”
“A direction, good sir knight,” Petra answered, “Which Great Beast do we face against first?”
“I vote for the owlbear,” I said, a little tinge of fury in my voice. “I’ve got a bone to pick with her.”
“I second that,” Shikun said. She was hiding her own passion for killing the owlbear as best she could, but it was hot as a sun just beneath the surface. I could tell she was even ashamed of her own emotional expression. Hopefully, we’d be able to fix that one day.
“And in that spirit, we set afoot!” The ‘good knight’ stomped to the east, leading the way to our next quarry. Maybe he was a little embarrassing, but he was family, and no one was going to make my family worry again.
This owlbear wouldn’t know what hit her.
7
“Confound it!” Reggie tried to swipe his knife through the dense evergreen foliage in the eastern border of the Marches. “How could I have forgotten to bring a machete? Of all the essential tools!”
He continued to bring his blade down on the ‘nefarious’ bushes, insisting that Petra save all of her strength for when we found Chimarra. We all interjected at the foolishness of it, but if Reg was anything, he was a stubborn Brit, so we continued at this pace for a good chunk of the day because, believe it or not, it was still quite quick.
Amalthea seemed particularly distant after we left the Stalker tribe. She seemed unable to look me in the eye. I could see all of the beautiful chains flowing off of her and the remnants of the iron chain that seemed to jingle as she toiled in thought. And let me tell you, I was sick of the hierarchical, one-above-the-others, self-induced shame-cycle I found myself in with these ladies. They all had these amazing talents. If they could just see the greatness inside themselves like I did, they’d soar like… well, like Amalthea could.
So, I decided to nip this particular bit of shame Amalthea was feeling in the bud. I was going to break all of these iron chains even if it killed me.
“What’s wrong, Amalthea?” I said, walking beside her, “You don’t seem like yourself.”
“It’s nothing, my savior,” Amalthea said, turning away, “I’m perfectly fine.”
“Tell me, in what section of the Khalati Record does it say that the phrase ‘It’s nothing, I’m fine,’ has ever been convincing?” A little humor always lightened things up.
“Nowhere, my savior,” Amalthea smirked, not even bothering to check the Record, “but it is nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
“It is if it concerns you. You’re important to me.” I nudged the great sphinx’s soft shoulder as she blushed at the comment.
“It’s, well…” Amalthea paused as she parsed her words. “It was when you were unconscious. I tried to help heal you by accessing the medical knowledge of the Record, but in the end, I just held everything up. Petra and Shikun, they were so efficient under Reginald’s guidance. Me and my big paws.” She looked down at her lion paws and scoffed. “I could only speak to the kobolds, and they showed us a healer. I’ve never felt so stupid in my life. I wish I could have done more.”
“You found the guy who fixed my shoulder, and yet you’re still wondering how you could have helped fix my shoulder?” I summarized. “Do you see how that’s a little bit backward?”
“Well, when you put it like that…” she mumbled out, blushing beneath her smooth face. “I still think I could be of more use to you.”
“Even if you didn’t have powerful lioness strength, the ability to fly, and access to every written work in this world, all amazing abilities innate to you,” I said, bringing myself closer to her face as I stroked her hair, “I would still want the beautiful, stoic, smart, primal fury of a woman that you are by my side in all of this.”
I kissed her lips, and she pushed back against mine. Even though she was quite a bit larger than me, we naturally clicked in that moment as I felt the softness of her back, still feminine to the touch.
“Thank you, my savior,” she said, breathing a little heavily. “You are far too kind to me.”
“It’s William, by the way,” I said, pulling away from her and regretting it every second, “William Tyler. And you can put that in your Record as what to call me.”
“But you will always be my savior,” the sphinx purred, “and not a single heroic feat less.”
“Now who’s being far too kind?” I replied. We kissed once more. Even though I couldn’t be physical with her, due to the obvious limitations, our hearts touched at that moment. As we parted lips, her iron chain flickered away into dust like a flame on a wick.
It hadn’t gone away completely, but I sensed that it would with time.
“You’re learning quick,” Libritas said to me. “Your mastery over these chains continues to impress me.”
Petra came to my side at that moment, dragging Shikun along by the hand. “You are far too hard on yourself, sister,” she said softly to Amalthea, “You would think that every failure is a mark on your soul. I felt the same way under Uruk.” She went over and kissed the sphinx on the cheek, “If my time with this group, with William, has taught me anything, it’s that we get to decide who we are, not our failures.”
“You will always have a place with us,” Shikun added, “We love you so much.” The draconian came to Amalthea’s other cheek and kissed it as well. We all took that moment to stop and embrace, our bodies pressed against each other. As I looked above, all of the beautiful chains between all of us grew thicker and stronger, interlocking in ways that could never be broken. At that moment, I knew we could handle anything.
“Tallyho, my friends!” Sir Reginald exclaimed, before immediately ducking down and wincing a bit at how loud he was. “Tallyho, my friends,” he whispered only half as loudly. “I do believe we’ve found our quarry.”
As he waddled over to us, Silver in tow under his arm, he blinked a bit. “Pardon me, have I interrupted something important?”
We broke our group hug, and I patted my old friend on the shoulder as we went to find some bushes to hide behind. Once we were all settled, we peered over.
Not half a football field away, a rocky formation held an opening trimmed by moss. A quiet but voracious snoring pervaded the area, which must have been like a foghorn up close. That would have been the most conspicuous sign of Chimarra’s presence, were it not for the small battalion of beasts just outside the cave. Three owls the size of motorcycles perched atop the entrance, and at least a half dozen full-grown grizzly bears lounged in front of the entrance.
This could be a problem.
“What’s the battle plan, chap?” Reggie whispered over my shoulder.
“Well, there’s no way we can fight all of those things unscathed,” I whispered back, “so we’ll have to find a way to break this group up a bit.”
“Wait, shush,” Petra said before looking at Shikun, “What do you see?”
“The owls are looking for us,” she said, stifling her worry and volume, “I think they can still hear us.”
Sure enough, the owls’ giant heads were swiveling like they were scanning the area, looking for something. And their gaze was pointed back in our direction.
In an instant, a tingle started up in the back of my head. It spread to the entirety of my mind, and suddenly, I could see words appearing before me. They were completely foreign to me, but at the same time, I could read them like they were taught in Upland Kindergarten. These were names and places, titles and phrases from famous books throughout Etria. I just inherently knew that somehow, like I was connected to all the knowled
ge in the world.
“Can everyone hear me?” I heard Amalthea speak from inside me, like how Libritas did.
“By God, man,” a familiar British voice called inside my head, “this is bloody brilliant!”
“Dear Gods, what is happening?” Shikun’s worried voice spoke within as well. “Why can I hear you all in my head?”
“Calm down, Shikun,” Petra chimed in. “I believe this is the Khalati Record that the sphinxes use. We’re all connected to it now, somehow.”
“You would be correct,” Amalthea explained, “I’ve been feeling a greater degree of power since William gave me the Rune of Freedom. It was a complete guess, to be honest, to see if this would even work, but one that is paying off handsomely.”
“I’m so glad that I could help you, Amalthea,” Libritas said, “I could never dream of this even being possible.”
“Hot damn, who is that?” Reggie exclaimed within our heads. “Silver, is that you?” He smiled at me as I almost audibly chuckled. Silver chirped an unknowing chirp… and that chirp gave me an idea.
“Oh, my! Libritas,” Petra said, a respectful tone entering her inner voice, “it is an absolute honor to meet you. You have done so much for me, too much for me to convey in this moment.”
“And so with me, great Brand of Freedom,” Shikun stated with that same deference, “we are all forever in your debt. I could never repay you in a thousand lifetimes.”
“Enough of that, girls,” Libritas said, “I’m a part of this family, same as you. Like William has been trying to say this entire time, we are all equals in this circle. In fact, it is my absolute honor to meet the both of you.”
“Now that introductions are out of the way,” Amalthea returned to the task at hand, “I don’t think I can hold this forever, so let’s be quick about this. We have a little time, but not a lot.”
“Amalthea, you’re amazing,” I said, “We should test the range on this later, but you’re right. Time to focus. For right now, I think I have a plan. How much wyrm-fire do we have?”
“I’ve been collecting it since we left Kaldua,” Reggie pulled out his satchel full of glowing bits of feces. “What do you have planned?”
“At the end of the day, these are animals, especially with the influence of Savagery about,” I explained. “And like any animal, they’re disorganized and innately afraid of fire. I think we can at least spook most, if not all, of the guards away, then we can attack Chimarra five-on-one.” Silver chirped grumpily. “Sorry, six-on-o-- Wait, did you put Silver into the Record, Amalthea?”
“I haven’t quite mastered the power yet.” The sphinx looked down and blushed a bit.
“Well, anyway, we can make this work. Wyrm-fire me.”
Reggie placed a good chunk of wyrm-fire in my hand. I tried not to think about the fact that this was Silver’s poop. Like a pitcher at the mound, I chucked that thing straight across the clearing, right in front of the bears in the cave. Fortunately, they were all asleep, so they didn’t notice. The owls did, though, prompting two of them to step off their perch to investigate the disturbance.
As I turned my head, I saw Petra already prepping a miniature ballista grown out of the nearby tree. Amalthea pulled the drawstring taut with her mighty paw, then Shikun blew a short breath of white fire onto the arrowhead already in place, lighting it on fire.
What was crazy was that they were doing exactly what I was thinking for the second part of my plan, which I was just about to tell them…
Oh, wait, we were in each other’s heads. Duh.
The sphinx released the arrow, the spectral flames creating an arch in the sky. The arrowhead struck the ground, perfectly bifurcating the wyrm-fire in two pieces for half a moment before exploding in an infernal torrent. The flames flew like fireworks across the clearing, catching the grass and spreading wildly.
The owls followed suite, spiraling wildly in the air in their attempt to escape the flames already on them, being so close to the initial explosion. Only one bear woke up to the sound of the blast, but the rest were roused by that bear’s fearful roars in response to the all-consuming blaze. In a pandemonious flailing of fur and claws, they struck out at each other, trying to crawl away to safety in their panic. After a couple of moments of rampant roaring and groping, they broke free of each other and ran deep into the forest.
The giant owls weren’t long after, even the one who had stayed on top of the cave quickly left, and soon the clearing became empty of all life and motion, save for the flickering flames left over from the wyrm-fire.
Even over the crackling of the burning grass, we could all hear the pervasive snoring cease at that moment. Shortly after, the shambling thumps of a massive creature picking itself up reverberated through the clearing, followed by a very pissed off owlbear emerging from the cave.
If the last owlbear was the size of a Buick, this one was the size of a monster truck. The feathers on her back brushed against the top of the cave’s mouth as her lumbering claws scratched at the rocky floor, cutting through them like a hot knife through butter. Despite the bear-like structure of her body, her long neck carried its owl head back and forth, looking upon the charred grass left in the wake of the wyrm-fire. When she was done, she looked out to where we were hiding and thundered out a chilling mix of an owl screech and a bear roar. I thought it was safe to assume that this was the famous Chimarra, and we just pissed her off. Even with all of us so close together, I could tell she was staring right at the guy who had branded her other owlbear to death.
“Go around,” I told the others through the Record. “Flank it. I’m pretty sure I’m the one she wants, and that’s going to bite her in the ass. Don’t attack her until I tell you to.”
“Please be careful,” Shikun said, even the voice in her head holding a tremble. “This one seems even more dangerous than the last one.”
“Yeah, but she’s way too big,” I assuaged her fears. “Probably doesn’t corner well.” I then strode into the clearing to take on Chimarra’s challenge.
As I walked closer, she planted her claws deep into the stone in the entrance, ready to charge at any given moment. Petra and Amalthea took a wide berth to the left, Shikun and Reggie to the right.
“Remember, you don’t have to face this alone, William.” Libritas cooed in my ear. “Even you can’t go up against a brute like this with strength alone.”
“I know,” I sent back “My part’s the easiest, anyway. She’ll be a cakewalk to take down once I’m done.”
Chimarra dug deep into the stone, kicking herself off in a blindingly fast sprint. As she flung dirt and burnt grass into the air, I jumped to the side, rolling back onto my feet as Chimarra zoomed by me and crashed into the trees bordering our arena. They bent as far as they could before snapping her back to her feet, and the Great Beast Lady shook off what must have been a terrible headache.
Just as I thought. While I was pretty sure any one of those grizzly bears would have been able to correct their courses and hit me during my roll, Chimarra had too much heft to change her direction even a little bit. And if she kept charging like this, she’d tire herself out long before I did. If my hunch about the Brand of Savagery was right, she was going to be too wild to adjust her tactics to fit our approach.
Turns out, I was spot on. She charged me again, and I dodged just as dexterously as before. This time, she crashed into the side of her cave, pulverizing a chunk of the opening to rubble. She shook off the pebbles and rocks caught in her feathers and positioned herself to charge yet again.
While this was going well, there was a big downside. If any of these charges hit me, no amount of healing magic would bring me back.
This bullfighter’s dance of ours went on for a few more rounds. Each time she crashed into the trees, she made more and more of a bowl shape out of the bent trunks. I’m sure her cave would stop qualifying as such if she pounded it even two more times, too. And like I planned, she was getting slower.
But so was I… and I needed to
make these next moves carefully.
“You better!” Shikun shouted into my head. “I-I mean, if it’s not too much trouble. I’m sorry for distracting you.”
“You are more than fine,” I sent back to her, almost forgetting we were all in the same ‘headspace.’ “But I think I’m going to need an assist in the next little bit.”
“Don’t have to tell us twice,” Petra added into the conversation, “I’ve been getting itchy to jump in and help.”
“I’m ready when you are, my savior,” Amalthea asserted. I eyed her and Petra inching out from the trees in front of me, right behind where Chimarra had just landed by the barely functional remains of her cave, which meant that Shikun and Reggie were right behind. Now was the time to act.
Chimarra charged again, not bothering to prepare herself this time. As the beast loomed closer, panting as she pushed herself to run, I heard Shikun’s wings unfold as she soared up to meet the Great Beast, rushing past me in a flash. Shikun planted her feet and thrust herself up, swinging her fist into an uppercut right to the beak of the giant owlbear.
The combination of power, muscle, and impact propelled Chimarra into a standing position. The Great Beast Lady could only take one step backward before Amalthea struck both her paws against Chimarra’s neck, slamming the owlbear into the ground. She began to thrash, but only for a moment as a swarm of vines wrapped themselves around her like a wolf’s jaws, her body sinking into the earth as she lay there. Flail as she might, Chimarra couldn’t break free of the vines. Soon, only her arms and head appeared above the viney floor Petra had made.
Chimarra continued to throw her limbs out like socks in the wind, roaring and screeching wildly, but she was simply unable to leverage her mass and strength properly for it to be effective.
“Damn fine work, ladies,” I congratulated the group verbally as my connection to the Khalati Record fade. “Damn fine. I told you Chimarra’d be no problem after I was done.”
“Bloody hell.” Sir Reginald came strolling up to the thrashing owlbear limbs. “I wouldn’t want to get on these girls’ bad side. Good gracious.” He walked around the pinned beast, the color in his face a little drained at the sight of the spectacle he had just witnessed.