by Rosie Scott
“I doubt it will be that simple,” Neliah protested, “but I will happily oblige.”
Cyrene slowly turned toward the center of Misu and motioned for us to follow. “Let's find you all lodging for tonight and eat a nice meal together. We can talk details then.”
Ten
Under the assault of overbearing late morning sunlight, Cyrene led us through soggy long grasses still drunk from the wet season. The beautiful woman made just as beautiful of a jaguar. Bronzed flesh became golden fur spotted with a brown and black camouflaged pattern. Long and curved claws left pin pricks in the mud ahead of imprints of paw pads the size of dinner plates. Although Cyrene claimed to be able to walk as a biped in blood-kin form, she often didn't, and now was no exception. She slunk so low to the ground it was a wonder her elongated stomach didn't weigh her down with water and mud.
I followed closely behind, on all fours as well to stay quiet and out of sight. Jayce slithered along beside me, sixteen feet long from her scaled nose to the tip of her tail. The crocodile-kin made for a terrifying sight, for she was bulky with muscle, heavily armored with scales thicker than mine, and the scars that marred her Vhiri body carried over to her blood-kin, making her look like the only grizzled survivor of a well-populated bloodbath. Jayce's closest green eye dilated intensely into a reptilian slit from the sunlight before the milky white nictitating membrane slid over the organ, clearing it of imperceptible debris.
Vallen's blood-kin was the largest of us all. The brown fur covering the bear-kin matched his Vhiri hair color, and he walked on four legs with such a shambling, awkward gait I couldn't begin to imagine how he could fight with any finesse. Layers of fat jiggled as he walked, hiding his true muscular strength and creating an unwelcome extra warmth. Lacking sweat glands in his current form, he resorted to panting as quietly as he could and walking through water rather than around it. His round head resembled a canine, with a long snout that ended in a black, wet rhinarium just above a collection of sharp incisors.
In bat-form, Jaecar waited to fly until we needed him to. Instead, he walked with a clumsy gait, his wings pulling his body forward with stilted movements before his legs followed, swishing his leathery tail from side to side. The awkwardness of his blood-kin was oddly endearing.
Kali decided to use her cesti for this battle, for her blood-kin was best for picking off humanoids one at a time, and afancs were said to be far larger. She and the other warriors crept behind the shapeshifters, eyes scanning and weapons ready.
Croaking frogs, a harsh buzzing, and the rattling vibrations of underwater calls created a song of active aquatic wildlife far before our eyes feasted on the lagoon. Crooked trees and large brush finally parted ways to reveal our destination. Hassan gagged behind me as the muggy stench of biological decomposition fogged over the group like toxic smog. Gratefully, the olfactory system of my blood-kin took no offense to the smell. After gagging again, Hassan regurgitated in the shallow water. Acidity spiced the air, but I didn't flinch.
Hassan cursed and whispered groggy apologies. I glanced back to see Kali fanning her friend's pale face, which dripped with perspiration from heat and nausea.
“Breathing through your mouth helps,” Kali murmured, and the color slowly came back to his skin as Hassan complied.
Cyrene waited at the lagoon's edge, her lips parted to reveal a panting tongue between her largest fangs. Her green eyes stared unblinking across murky standing water to the northeast, where a tuft of long grasses revealed the lake's island. Following the directions she gave us the night before, I scanned the island's edge until I saw the dam. Logs, sticks, and pieces of frayed driftwood intertwined like threads of a fabric above the waterline and continued below it. Based on the amount of wood and its length across the inner shoreline, the dam was gigantic. Considering much of it was underwater, there was no telling its true size.
My reptilian ears picked up on the swirling of an underwater disturbance near the island, and a series of ripples slid over the water in a widening circle like mini lazy waves. The image dulled in my vision as my sight quickly refocused on Cyrene, who turned her head to stare at Koby. She jerked her head up and to the side in a request to act.
Jaecar ascended in the air, his dangling feet near to the ground. Beside him, Koby tugged two clay balls pre-filled with calcint from a satchel. He situated one in Jaecar's foot until he gripped it, then did the same with the other. The bat-kin fluttered higher and swooped over the lake, stopping only once he hovered above the dam. Ascending even higher for added safety against enraged jumping beasts, he loosened his toes.
The clay balls hurtled out of the sky, hitting wood and bursting into gray shards and weighty clumps of black goo. Glistening sludge crept over twigs and between the intertwined layers of the dam. Some of the oil-based alchemical mixture floated over the standing water, oozing ever outward.
Jaecar fluttered back over, no worse for wear. As the patterned ripples became fiercer and more common with disturbed waking wildlife, Neliah stood and walked up to the water's edge, her arms by her side but palms facing the skies.
“Generat le meteora a multipla,” she murmured, her legs slightly spread for a powered stance as she siphoned energy for the powerful spell straight from our environment. The slight breeze that had made the muggy heat somewhat bearable slowed and then ceased, caving to Neliah's demands. Small flames sparked in her palms, growing by the second in density until balls of flame the size of skulls danced and crackled like bloodthirsty pets. Neliah's red eyes watched the dam with an uncomfortable intensity as she threw her arms up to the heavens. The balls of fire lifted and hissed as they dissipated in the air above her. At first, it seemed the spell misfired. But Neliah's confidence remained, and she walked backwards from the lagoon as we waited for her spell to materialize.
Demonic darkened clouds circled around the dam like vultures to a kill, intimidating the sun until it pulled back its rays and waited its turn. The lagoon was thrown into shadow as the heavens rumbled with indigestion, lowering the temperature of the nearby marshes considerably. The croaking, buzzing, and singing wildlife went silent at once as creatures sensed an unnatural and undetermined threat.
A bright flash of orange light flickered across the blackened skyward fog before a great ball of elemental fire broke through the blanket of steam with a hiss. It hurtled toward the earth with a whistle and crashed into the lake just south of the dam. Water erupted in a circle like it dodged a falling cannonball before vaporizing in mid-air from the heat. Somewhere to the east, a small creature squeaked with fear and scampered off.
The skies pulled back layers of clouds like curtains, unleashing dozens of meteors over the lagoon. The third finally crashed into the calcint-coated dam. Splinters of wood exploded like shrapnel from the impact, and with a whoosh, the fire clung to its accelerant and rapidly spread. The gray-green color scheme of the marshes caved to dancing orange light as the dam succumbed to roaring flames, and then the calcint still hugging the surface water until a large portion of the lagoon was on fire. According to Koby, calcint could keep a fire going for hours even if it only floated on water, so we had a hell of a fight ahead of us. We tensed as we waited for the inevitable.
The vibrations grew more violent, then they stopped entirely. My reptilian eyes picked up on nothing discernible save for a shadowy figure moving rapidly underwater near the dam. Responding to instinct, I settled back on my haunches to prepare to leap, trembling with anticipation.
Like the lagoon itself ejected the beast from its depths with the force of a thousand cannons, a monstrosity the size of a hut burst through the flaming surface water, screaming like the spawn of Hades. The furious hoarse wail echoed with agony as the once-floating calcint clung to it, spreading flames to flesh and fur.
Given its size, this was the mother afanc. Vallen had described afancs as a mix of beaver and crocodile, but other than Jayce's blood-kin form, I was familiar with neither and could only go on what was in front of me. The afanc was almost entirely covered in
thick brown fur that did its best to hide a bulky body with layers of fat and rippling muscle. Its head was the size of my torso and jutted forward with a snout reminiscent of Vruyk's kludde-kin. Its mouth was open to let loose its enraged cry, unintentionally showcasing long, arced top and bottom incisors that were tinted orange with iron-imbued enamel. That its teeth were flat-bottomed rather than pointed gave me no relief; it was immediately obvious that with one snap of those teeth, the gigantic afanc could crack a spine.
The afanc had four legs, each foot showcasing five webbed toes capped with lethal talons. A tail unlike any I'd seen trailed behind it in its leap; it was long, flat, as wide as its hips, and covered in dark reptilian scales. Its deep brown eyes were the only other feature to appear reptilian, for its pupils were slits rather than circles.
The afanc crashed back into the lake in its rampage. The fire eating through its fur and blubber hissed out in mere moments, deprived of oxygen. Smoke rose from the disturbed water. Beside me, Jayce hissed and slipped into the lagoon so hastily and smoothly I second-guessed she moved at all.
But I waited, my reptilian senses tracing the frantic underwater movements, my hearing picking up on its audible swirling.
“Don't do anything rash, Cal,” Koby warned desperately behind me.
If I weren't so focused, the request would have amused me. Don't do anything rash? When had I given Koby the indication I was capable of anything else?
Acting only on instinct, I used the tense muscles of my powerful haunches to leap up and forward, claws of hands and feet spread with points forward. As if the afanc and I had mutually agreed on a meeting place, it burst from the water like a wall of muscle and fur just before me. Fury switched to confusion in its eyes as it found me, and it reacted by mocking my wide-armed stance. We collided in mid-air. My claws cut off locks of fur and dug through inches of blubber and muscle, releasing streams of blood that splattered across the water like heavy rainfall. With the afanc's wide hands grasping my waist, all sounds of battle muffled and ceased as we crashed underwater together.
The lagoon water was murky, full of clouds of contaminants, chunks of debris, and slimes of various origins that stuck to scales and fur alike. Even with my reptilian eyes, I could see little through such thick particles, particularly when the afanc's frantic pace and movements stirred up the water. Instead of relying on sight, I relied on my sense of touch, digging my claws into fresh wounds and tearing out strings of muscle and globs of fat.
Within seconds, however, the water grew hot, and a dull rumbling sounded overhead. Pale orange light struggled to reach through clouds of contaminants, proving we were beneath the flaming floating calcint. Still holding me in its grip, the afanc dove deeper, and all light caved to blackness.
A chorus of anxious chattering echoed from all directions. I tugged one hand from digging in the afanc's side and sought life with alteration magic.
Waving with the natural flow of water, the forms of multiple creatures half my size appeared as pulsating blobs of red energy.
The bitch is trying to feed me to its babies! The thought was so absurd I would've found it humorous if my life weren't on the line.
The mother afanc released its grip of me, but I held firm onto her, digging my hands into ever-widening wounds and scooping out strings of blubber and muscle. My vision was nothing but swirling green-brown clouds and slivers of orange light, but the water warmed with the release of blood and viscera as I refused to relent.
A violent whirling approached us from the deeper lagoon at such an immense speed I nearly panicked. A reptilian hiss echoed dully through the water before the mother afanc jerked with surprise and sudden pain, forcing me loose from my grip. Flashes of orange light that struggled through the layers of dam overhead revealed glimpses of Jayce at the mother's back end. While the crocodile-kin held the beast's scaled tail in her jaws, she burst into a powerful roll. The mother afanc was far too large to be dragged into it entirely, but clouds of blood streamed into the water before the tail split at its center. Jayce slowed her roll, loosened her grip of the tail, and then mercilessly attacked its split. Splinters of scale and tendon littered the water before the mother spun in the water, opened her jaws, and clamped her orange teeth down over Jayce's armored torso.
An excruciating stabbing pain erupted from my tail as it waved in the dark waters. Frantically, I twirled in the water, coming face to face with a hungry rabid afanc kit. A chunk of flesh glimmered silver-blue between its incisors; my lower tail throbbed incessantly as the waters clouded with my blood. Pain and panic tumbled over into rage. As the baby afanc gnashed on my flesh, I grasped its sides with my hands and darted out of the dam's underwater entrance. Once we were free of the dam's shadow, the lagoon brightened with fire and sunlight. Anger overrode my reasoning; without thinking, I raced toward the surface water with the feasting fiend.
The murky muted underwater world exploded with heat and noise as we burst through to the other side. Goopy calcint clung to my scales and the baby's fur alike; we landed on the lagoon's island together in a tumbling wrestle, engulfed in flames. The creature screeched and cried for its mother as the overbearing stench of seared flesh pushed my brain over into a homicidal frenzy. The heat from the fire was suffocating, but the protection of my scales allowed me to temporarily ignore the risk to my health as I held the afanc's scaled wide tail and threw the flaming creature forward like an ax to fell wood.
The baby's cries silenced abruptly as its skull hit the sturdy wood of the dam. A beautiful shade of crimson painted over nearby drunk grasses with a splatter from a surface wound, but the afanc's head only swelled from the blunt force trauma. An agonized hiss escaped my scaled lips and shattered off surrounding brush as I threw the creature into the ground again, ignoring the aching protests of my biceps. At last, its skull caved and flesh broke; when I threw the corpse forward a third time, an arc of gore followed my swing.
Screams broke through to my subconscious. Koby yelled at me from the opposite shore of the lagoon. I wasn't mentally sound enough to focus on his words, but I recognized his warning tone. Between us, Jayce bled as she pursued the mother afanc in a furious race to me. The mother clutched the exterior of the dam, launching herself up and out of the water.
Still enraged, it took every ounce of self-control within me not to meet her in a fight. I needed to focus on surviving long enough to kill her, and right now, I was on fire.
The mother afanc also wasn't impervious to the calcint infused water; she rushed over the dam toward me, her lumbering flaming body a terrifying sight. Still holding her decapitated baby by its tail, I threw its corpse at her like a threat. It crashed into her chest, its blood hissing and sizzling on contact with her flaming fur.
Without delay, I collapsed to all fours and bounded over the island to the nearest shoreline untainted by calcint to dive into the lagoon. All at once, water vanquished the flames, leaving a tingling ache in its wake. My shoulders in particular felt tender and burned. I couldn't know just how badly I'd hurt myself until later; I undulated through the water toward the shore where the others waited, and multiple disturbances echoed behind me as the afancs pursued.
I half-crawled, half-swam up the muddy embankment, wisps of smoke rising from my still-cooling scales. The others still waited here, weapons prepared and stances defensive. Their perplexed gazes made me realize that Jayce and I had ignored Cyrene's original plan in our thirst for chaos. The plan we'd gone over the previous night was to wait as a group for the afancs to come to us before taking them out on this shoreline. In our thirst for blood, Jayce and I were the only ones insane enough to take the fight over to the afanc's flaming territory.
Koby noticed my injuries but said nothing; we had no time to stop and tend to wounds. He braced for battle as the afancs rapidly approached, their locations only visible by groups of ripples that etched over the surface water. The largest disturbance marking the mother's location headed straight for me; while trembling with the trauma of multiple wou
nds, I crouched to empower my legs.
The mother afanc violently emerged from the water, gnashing teeth leading, a broken tail trailing, and singed patches of fur between. Her wet fur swept forward upon her heavy landing, loosing a mist of bloodied water. I'd planned to pounce, but the gigantic afanc lurched forward with teeth meant to snap bone. I dodged to the side, my wounded tail barely escaping further abuse.
A flash of movement alerted me to the land I'd left behind, where Sage took advantage of the gigantic afanc's mistimed pounce. The knight's heavy armor squeaked with protests as he swept his greatsword toward the beast's right arm, perspiration beading along his brow and determined gaze stuck on the limb he sought to incapacitate. A horizontal arc of glimmering silver steel ended in an eruption of blood as the weapon sliced clean through the afanc's major brachial artery and crashed into the inner humerus with a crack. The bone didn't break through, but imbalance suddenly plagued the afanc, and now she bled out at a considerable rate.
Sage hefted the greatsword back and held it at chest level as the afanc retaliated with gnashing teeth. Sharp steel blocked iron-imbued incisors. As knight and beast had a stand-off of raw strength, Koby rushed up to the scene, thrusting his sword toward the afanc's ribcage with both hands on the hilt.
Shink!
Blackened metal scraped off bone as the sword slipped between two ribs toward the afanc's inner organs. The determination on Koby's face indicated he knew enough about the afanc's anatomy from his books to aim for a particular spot. Still, bulky hide and muscle did its best to prevent the wound from deepening. The afanc shifted to the side, trying to confront her new contender. Sage doggedly followed, once more using his greatsword as a deterrent when the beast snapped at Koby.
After losing his grip on his sword during the afanc's protests, Koby caught back up with it, grabbed the hilt, and with a grunt of effort, shoved it deeper. The crackling split of taut flesh was followed by the wet squelch of a pierced organ. After a barely noticeable hissing noise of escaping air, wheezes impeded the afanc's breaths as she suffered from a punctured lung.