by Eric Vall
“Where the hell are you?” I growled.
As if in answer, an unholy screech split the night air.
The sound was quickly followed by more terrified screaming.
I ran toward the chaotic noise and shifted my fingers to get a better grip on my rifle. The moment of truth had finally come.
I rounded the corner, dashed through a demolished house, and finally came upon the beast.
At first glance, I thought it was another drake, but then the smoke cleared and I realized whatever the hell that was in front of me was at least twice as big as the drake had been. People shrieked and scurried to get out of its way, but one sweep of the beast’s ten-foot tail and half a dozen villagers went sailing through the air and sprawling in the dirt.
I watched one brave idiot grab a burning piece of timber from a nearby fire and fling it at the beast’s head. The flaming projectile missed entirely and only worked to set another house ablaze.
Well, I figured out how Edhil burned down.
The villagers had set fire to their homes in an effort to kill the reptilian monster, but their efforts had done less than nothing. The monster was unscathed as it snapped its forearm length fangs at everyone.
The people of Edhil had failed to slay the beast.
Now, it was my turn.
While the huge reptile was preoccupied with the few villagers attacking it, I dropped my leather bag to the ground, hefted my rifle up, placed the stock against my shoulder, and sighted down the barrel. The smoky air made for less than ideal visibility conditions, but it didn’t matter. I needed to bring this bastard down now before anyone else got hurt.
Just as I got the butt of my rifle stock against my shoulder, I heard a wild shout echo through the air, and then Aurora charged out of the remains of a building to my left. Her long elven legs propelled her across the dirt faster than I could blink, and then a ball of orange flame engulfed her hand.
“Aurora, get out of the way!” I yelled, but it seemed like the half-elf couldn’t hear or see me because she didn’t stop.
The Ignis Mage jumped ten feet into the air and hurtled the fireball she had created at the beast. The flames crashed into the monster’s side, but they dispersed harmlessly over its thick scaled hide, and the beast swung its massive head around in a fury.
Aurora landed nimbly on her toes, but then dove to the side as the beast swiped at her with a massive claw. As she came out of her roll, she raised her silver sword and blocked the beast’s next blow. The shriek of claw on metal echoed out across Edhil as sparks flew through the air.
“Son of a bitch,” I grunted as I glanced down my rifle sight. I couldn’t get a clean shot off with Aurora jumping and dashing all over the place.
With my hands metaphorically tied, I did the only thing I could.
I turned back to magic.
As Aurora vaulted over the beast’s tail, I lowered my rifle, lifted my hand, and summoned that power from deep within me. It rushed to the surface like a deluge, and a metallic taste bloomed on the back of my tongue as the ground began to shake.
An instant later, the dirt beneath the beast’s left front paw yawned open and swallowed the appendage up to the elbow. The creature floundered for a moment and tried to extract itself, but I clenched my fist as tight as I could, and the ground slammed shut again.
The monster roared in agony as its leg was crushed by earth and rock, and Aurora used the opportunity to swoop back in. She darted in from the right and jumped high into the air again. The half-elf lifted her sword above her head, and she snarled as blue flame suddenly leapt up along the edges of her blade.
“Hyaaaa!” Aurora let out a primal scream as she swung in a downward arc. The beast tried to turn its head to snap at her, but it was too slow, and her white-hot blade caught it in the back of the neck and sliced the beast’s head clean off.
Aurora landed half a second before the beast’s head tumbled to the floor, and her flaming sword steamed as blood evaporated off its edge.
The half-elf stood from her crouch and turned to me with a wide smile on her beautiful face. I met it with my own fierce grin, but then I saw the corpse of the monster start to twitch.
“Aurora!” I shouted as my eyes went wide with terror. “Behind you! Look out!”
The Ignis Mage turned just in time to see the reptilian beast stagger to its feet.
Headless.
As the two of us watched in abject horror, the monster shook its long neck, and the bloody stump began to bubble and bulge. A disgusting wet gurgle emanated from the gruesome sight and then, like something straight out of a nightmare, the skin and muscle burst and out sprung not one, but two new heads.
“What the hell?” I shouted as my heart shot up into my throat.
“Hydraaaa!” Aurora screamed at the top of her lungs. She stumbled backward, but her feet caught on the beast’s discarded head, and she tripped.
The hydra opened its four newly minted eyes and locked its double gaze on the fallen half-elf. Both of its maws opened simultaneously, and its teeth dripped with saliva and a black viscous fluid.
“How do I kill it?” I yelled as the two-headed monster took a menacing step toward Aurora.
“Hit it in the heart,” she shouted as she staggered to her feet. “The armored patch over the left breast!”
The hydra took another step toward her, but that was as far as I was going to let it get. While the hydra was preoccupied with what it saw as easy prey, I swung my rifle up again, pressed it into my shoulder, and sighted down the barrel. Then I took a deep breath, aimed at the thickly scaled spot on the left side of the creature’s chest, and squeezed the trigger.
The rifle bucked in my hands as the bullet exploded out of the muzzle.
An instant later, the hydra’s chest burst like an overripe melon and a hole the size of my fist blossomed on the armored spot where its heart was supposed to be. My ears rang from the retort, and there was a faint taste of sulfur on my tongue from the spent gunpowder as the monster’s black blood rained down to the ground.
The creature let out an unholy shriek as it flailed in agony, but I didn’t give the hydra a chance to regroup and retaliate. Before it could even reorient itself, I took aim for the second time and pulled the trigger.
More hydra blood exploded into the air, the body crashed into the dirt like a fallen tree, and then all was quiet.
For a moment, no one and nothing moved. There was still the sound of distant cries rising into the night air, but they had lessened now that the fires had mostly been put out. I lowered the rifle slowly to my side, and then I quickly retrieved my revolver from the leather bag I had discarded on the ground.
“Better safe than sorry,” I muttered as I marched past Aurora.
The Ignis Mage cocked her head curiously at me, but before she could ask what I meant, I pointed the revolver at the hydra’s carcass and emptied the cylinder. Two more bullets for each head and two in the chest, just to cover all my bases.
As the last echoes of the gun’s retort faded out into the darkness, a fierce grin stretched across my face.
I’d just wasted a two-headed hydra.
With bullets that I made with magic.
Goddamn, I loved Illaria.
“Mason,” I heard Aurora say, and then I turned to see the villagers of Edhil slowly emerge from the wreckages of their homes. Disbelief and awe shone in their eyes and on their soot-stained faces.
“Everything is alright,” I called out as I flipped open the loading gate of the revolver’s cylinder and pushed on the ejector rod to free my spent brass. “You’re safe now. You can come out.”
One by one, the villagers slipped out of their hiding places. As they did so, I finished reloading and turned to Aurora. Sweat from the fires had darkened her blue hair and ash settled like grey constellations against her cheeks, but I didn’t see any blood.
“Are you okay?” I asked. My heart was slowly returning to its normal rhythm, but my throat still felt tight with adrenalin
e and soot.
“I am fine,” Aurora responded as her eyes then went to the giant carcass a few feet away from us. “I-I have never seen a baby hydra before.”
“That’s a baby?” I gaped incredulously. The beast had to be three times the size of an adult horse.
Aurora nodded. “Yes. It had never been beheaded before, which is why it only had one head and why I did not recognize it. I have only had the misfortune to meet a hydra once before, near the western sea. This one is obviously a babe in comparison.”
I tried to imagine what an adult would look like, especially given the multiple head thing. I suppressed a shudder.
Suddenly, a commotion sounded behind us. At first, I thought it was more screaming, and I had half a second to worry about another hydra, but then I turned around and realized what the noise actually was.
Cheering.
Over a hundred soot, grime, and blood covered people now surrounded us. Someone had started to cheer in victory, and the rest quickly followed.
“The Order has saved us!” someone yelled amongst the applause and raucous shouts.
“May the gods bless the Order!” another screamed.
“Gods bless King Temin!” echoed a third.
I puffed my chest out as the villagers began to edge closer to us, awe and hero-worship in their eyes. Beside me, even Aurora smiled proudly. She was so beautiful, and I recalled the fear that had swelled in my chest when I saw the hydra bear down on the half-elf. Everything in me had screamed to protect her, and now everything in me was screaming to sweep her up into my arms and kiss her.
As if she sensed my heated gaze, Aurora glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. A zap of electricity shot through me as we made eye contact, and by the way the gorgeous maiden bit her lip, I knew she felt it, too.
But before I could reach out and pull the sexy Ignis Mage toward me, someone grabbed my left arm. I whirled around in alarm, but there was only the boy whose mother I had saved from the burning cart earlier. His two front teeth were missing, but gratitude was in every line of his young face as he smiled at me.
“Is the beast really dead?” the boy asked innocently. He tried to peek around me, but I caught his shoulder.
“It’s really, really dead,” I replied with a grin. “Everything will be fine now.”
The boy seemed happy at first with my answer, but then a frown creased his small face. “But our house was on fire! Where will Mama and I go?”
“King Temin will send some men out soon to see to the village’s reconstruction,” Aurora cut in smoothly, and I could tell by her recitation that it was a line she used regularly.
I could also tell by the villager’s quickly souring expressions that, perhaps unbeknownst to Aurora, there would be no kingsmen or aid any time soon.
I looked at the destruction, ruin, and ashes of the village. Lives had been lost here, homes demolished, but perhaps there was one last thing I could do to help.
“Aurora,” I said casually and looked back to the blue-haired maiden at my side. “Do you think we can spare an hour or so before we report back to Abrus?”
“Perhaps,” the half-elf responded with a frown. “Why?”
I grinned and let my magic unfurl inside me once more.
Then I began to rebuild the town with my power.
First, Aurora worked to put out every fire and ember left in Edhil. Once she had done that, I used my magic to rebuild some of the demolished homes.
Most of the houses the hydra had destroyed had been made of wood, so the ones I created weren’t perfect replicas. Hell, since my magic was so depleted already, most of the homes didn’t even match. I first tried to pull fully formed stone walls from the ground, but that took way too much energy. I was only able to make three houses that way.
But then I realized that if I made the buildings out of easy to manipulate mud and then had Aurora bake the walls with her Ignis Mage powers, the structure would be almost as sound as if they were made from stone.
“Ready?” I called to the half-elf as I stood up to my ankles in a field of mud.
Aurora nodded from twenty yards away, and the air crackled with static as we both summoned our magic.
The mud in front of me began to bubble and then build upward into the air. When the wall was about eight feet tall, I used my power to make the mud stay in place and then called out to the Ignis Mage again.
Immediately, fire began to bathe the wall, and within minutes, it had hardened. Even though I was already bone tired, I grinned at my ingenuity and moved on to the next wall. Once we had all four sides secured, I was able to summon waves of dirt over the edges. Aurora baked these as soon as I had formed them, and then I pushed center support beams upward to keep the makeshift roofs secure. It wasn’t a beautiful solution, but the villagers were grateful to not sleep in the elements, and they would probably last dozens of years if they properly maintained the adobe.
“Thank you, Defenders, thank you,” they kept saying to us as we worked.
A guy could get used to this kind of gratitude.
Several hours later, the sun was finally coming up over the eastern hills. As the dawn brought an end to the previous harrowing night, Aurora and I sat in the center of Edhill with our butts in the dirt and our backs against the village’s stone well. We were both crusted in dried sweat and panted from our shared exertion. My eyelids were twenty-pound dumbbells, and I struggled to keep them up. My entire body felt like one sore muscle, and all I wanted to do was sleep for ten days.
But it was worth it.
“I think we did a fine job,” I panted as I passed Aurora the canteen of water.
“Fine enough.” The half-elf shrugged, but a small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
The Ignis Mage, despite her sometimes stoic and reserved demeanor, really did have a soft heart. Just a few minutes ago, when the boy I had saved pressed a small blue river stone into Aurora’s hand as a thank you, I thought she might burst into tears.
“Come on. We are awesome.” I rolled my eyes and knocked shoulders with the half-elf. My skin burned where we touched, and I did my best to ignore it. Now was not the time.
“Perhaps,” she said, but I saw her smile grow a bit.
“Totally awesome.” I laughed.
“We should return to Serin soon,” Aurora announced after we had sat in silence for a minute or so. “Abrus will be awaiting our report.”
I groaned as I knocked my head back against the stone well. “Can’t we just sit here for a few more minutes?” I asked. “Or hours?”
“There is more work to do.” Aurora smirked and slid gracefully to her feet as if she didn’t feel a thing.
“Now you’re showing off,” I muttered as I painstakingly slid my hands underneath me and pushed up off the ground. Every single one of my joints cracked in protest.
“Do you need me to fetch the horses?” Aurora teased as she passed me the canteen one last time.
I swiped the bottle from her fingers with a mock glare. “No,” I grumbled. “Just give me a moment to get the blood back in my feet.”
The half-elf tipped back her head to laugh, and the sound was the most beautiful thing in the world after the night of chaos, fire, and exertion we just had.
After that, we bid farewell to the villagers of Edhil and promised that we would send more supplies within three days. We were basically given a parade to the edge of the village, with dozens of people extending their thanks and their hands as we passed. The tanner of the village caught me on the edge of Edhil and, in thanks, he gave me a shoulder strap to hold my rifle. The leather was soft and supple and smelled of sweet oil when I slipped it over my head.
Once we reached the tree line, we traveled a little quicker, even if we had to pick our way through the long grasses and over thick roots. Aurora led the way, and I followed on her heels, both my rifle and my bag slung over my shoulder.
Before long, Aurora let out a low whistle, and I heard Nerfrina whinny through the trees ahead of
us. We found her, and my stallion still lashed where we’d left them, the only difference being the patches of bald grass they had grazed during the night.
“Good morning, dear friend,” Aurora said with a smile as she reached out and stroked Nerfrina’s pale nose. The horse nickered and nosed at the half-elf’s palm.
My stallion, on the other hand, barely even glanced at me before he bent his head to keep grazing.
“Missed you too,” I muttered. I sidled up beside him and started fastening my bag and rifle to the side of his saddle. A few minutes passed quietly like this as we each tended to our horses, but then Aurora cleared her throat delicately.
“Mason,” she said abruptly.
“Yes?” I asked as I raised an eyebrow. She rarely called me by my first name.
Aurora frowned slightly as she stared at me and her eyes skipped over my face as if she were looking for answers. I was about to open my mouth and ask her what was wrong when the blue-haired maiden suddenly took a deep breath, darted forward, and pressed her mouth tightly against mine.
My eyes went wide, and my heart shot up into my throat, but I wasn’t about to waste this opportunity. Before she could move away, I wrapped my hands around her waist, pulled her hard up against me, and delved my tongue past her lips. She tasted of pine smoke and something a little sweeter that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Finally, the half-elf pulled a fraction away from my mouth to gasp, and her hooded emerald eyes roved hungrily over my face.
“What was that for?” I murmured. I still had my hands latched onto her hips. My blood burned through my veins like molten lava, and already my leather breeches felt a little too tight.
“Something I had been considering for days,” the tempting maiden whispered back huskily.
“Oh really?” I asked as my eyes dropped back to her lips. “So I wasn’t the only one?”
Aurora chuckled seductively, and the sound only strengthened my raging libido. “Most certainly not. I have thought about it since our first encounter in the woods, and it’s become more frequent as I’ve watched you hone your powers. But the way you slew that hydra was brave and ingenious and would have been impossible were it not for your special abilities. And then you stayed to help these villagers even though they are poor and some would deem them unimportant. Not many would have done as you did.”