by Eric Vall
Abrus’ upper lip twitched in the beginnings of a sneer, but before he could respond, King Temin shook my shoulder good-naturedly.
“Talented, intelligent, and modest,” Temin said with a smile. “If I had a daughter, she would be yours, Mage Flynt.”
“Thank you, sir,” I replied with a polite smile. “Also, if you so desire, you can just call me Mason. ‘Mage Flynt’ feels a little too formal for me.”
“Then Mason I shall call you,” Temin intoned. “Now tell me, Mason, how soon do you think we can have my men armed and ready to slay a whole nest of hydras? Additionally, there is the matter of your payment we have yet to discuss.”
My eyes drifted once again to the golden crown atop the king’s head.
“You are too kind, sir,” I said respectfully. “Thank you, I--”
The rest of my sentence was cut off by a blood-curdling scream.
Temin and I whirled around in unison to find his guards scrambling for their swords. One of them, however, stood apart from the rest. I assumed this was the guard that had screamed because he stood stock still, one hand clutching at his chest and the other trembling as he pointed toward the workshop.
“D-d-dragon!” the same guard stammered, his voice raw, terrified, and splintered.
Before I could even blink, the guard gasped loudly, his face blanching as he choked on nothing, and then he pitched forward into the grass and did not move.
Dead. He was dead.
I turned to look for the dragon that had apparently stopped the poor bastard’s heart, but then Aurora’s voice sliced through the air.
“It’s not a dragon,” she yelled. “It’s a basilisk! Do not meet its eye!”
“A what?” I shouted, but Aurora’s hand suddenly locked onto my elbow and forced me to look at her. Her grip was crushing, and her eyes were as sharp as glass shards.
“A basilisk,” she repeated. “If you meet its gaze, you’ll perish instantly like that guard.”
My heart dropped into my shoes. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a great shadow move slowly and deliberately out of the cave like a tendril of oozing oil.
Fuck.
“How the hell do we kill it then?” I asked Aurora through clenched teeth.
“Very carefully and very quickly,” the half-elf replied. “Keep your eyes focused on the ground.”
Suddenly, a second scream rent the air, and I jerked my head up to see another soldier fall into the grass, his armor clanking loudly as he struck the earth.
I spun to Temin and Cayla as adrenaline flooded my system and I jumped into action. “Cayla, you and the king retreat to safety. Run all the way back to Serin if you can. Aurora, Abrus, and I will deal with the basilisk.”
“I want to help,” the blue-eyed maiden argued, but I could see the fear in her eyes.
I opened my mouth to refuse, but then another guard screamed and was dead before he hit the ground. There wasn’t time to waste talking now. I had to act.
I reached deep inside myself and opened the floodgates. My magic rushed to the surface in a deluge, and I spun around to attack the basilisk before I even had a well-formed thought in my head.
The ground shuddered violently beneath my feet, and an instant later, a wall of rock shot up in the center of the clearing. It stretched nearly thirty feet into the sky, and it spanned at least twenty feet across. The workshop, cave, and most importantly, the basilisk were now hidden from view.
Having bought a little time, I whirled back to Cayla and Temin. “Go,” I ordered and pointed off to the south. “Now. Take the last two guards with you.”
I waved at the lone survivors who still clutched their swords in terror surrounded by the bodies of their comrades. It was impressive how fast they sprinted to the king’s side covered in all that heavy plate armor.
“Sire, we must depart, quickly,” one of the guards panted. His face was pale, and his eyes darted back and forth in horror.
Temin nodded but then turned to me and clapped me on the shoulder again. “It seems the time has come for a true demonstration of your weapons’ might. May the gods grant you strength and precision, Mason.”
The guards hustled the king away before I could reply. Cayla trailed after them uncertainly and kept glancing at me over her shoulder. I shook my head when she paused at the other end of the clearing, and then she followed the king and his men into the trees.
“What’s the plan?” Aurora asked me as we turned to face the stone wall I had created. A sound like thunder echoed through the clearing, and the ground shook beneath us again, though not from my doing this time.
It seemed the basilisk was trying to ram its way through the wall.
I watched as a giant crack suddenly split the stone in half.
Correction: the basilisk was succeeding in ramming its way through the wall.
“Abrus?” I asked the elder mage on my other side since he was the head of the Order after all.
He had been strangely quiet since the basilisk appeared, and when I glanced at him, his face was perfectly serene, as if he was not worried at all. Little warning bells began to go off in the back of my head, but they were drowned out by the deafening crack of stone and an ear-piercing screech that rent the air in two.
“I believe the only thing we can do is try and survive,” Abrus replied glibly as we watched the stone wall being to collapse. He struck the earth with his staff. “I will blind it and attack from the front. You and Defender Solana approach from the sides.”
“What about the guns?” Aurora gasped as she spun in place looking for the rifle.
“We’re out of ammo,” I replied with a wince. “Cayla only packed enough for the demonstration, and the rest is in the workshop. We’d have to get past the basilisk first.”
Aurora cursed, but there was no time to lament past mistakes. There was one last earth-shaking thud, and then the wall collapsed completely before us. I immediately dropped my gaze to the ground, and as the dust settled, I caught my first glance of the basilisk.
With my eyes downcast, I could only see its bottom half, but that was enough to dry my throat. From the black scales, I guessed that the basilisk was another reptile, but unlike the drake and hydra, it didn’t have legs. Instead, the fat body of a snake sat coiled in the dirt. It had to have been over four feet wide in diameter and nearly twenty feet long.
“Oh, that’s going to be a bitch to kill,” I grumbled to myself.
As if to prove my point, I watched as the basilisk coiled its lower body, its muscles bunching beneath scales, and then it launched itself across the clearing.
Aurora, Abrus, and I reacted simultaneously. There was an instant of static as the air supercharged with our combined magic, and then the torrent was released. Aurora shot out a huge, orange fireball from her hand, Abrus fired a bolt of white light out of the end of his staff, and I slammed my hands into the earth to open a sinkhole. Even though I couldn’t see it directly, the attacks must have hit their mark because the basilisk shrieked before it crashed through the now soft and shifting earth. I rushed to close the hole, to crush the beast with rock and stone, but it was faster than I had anticipated.
The basilisk shot out of the hole seconds before the earth crashed closed again. I thought it had used its gigantic body of muscle to propel itself upward, but then I realized it had not crashed back into the ground. I almost looked up but caught myself just in time. Then, I saw the strange shape of the basilisk’s shadow on the ground.
“It has wings?” I shouted in disbelief as it let out another screech.
“Why do you think the guard mistook it for a dragon?” Aurora yelled back. Then she shot another jet of fire into the sky without looking, but it must have missed because an instant later, a burning branch smashed into the ground not fifteen feet in front of us.
“Gods be damned,” Aurora snarled. “I cannot use my powers efficiently if I cannot see where I am firing. I will end up burning down the entire forest.”
My eyes were glued to t
he ground while I tracked the basilisk’s shadow as it circled above us. “Then let Abrus and I handle it. Only take a shot if you know you’ll hit it.”
“Here it comes again,” Abrus remarked as we watched the shadow circle back toward us. “Prepare yourselves.”
I gritted my teeth and squared my feet. This battle really was going to be a pain in the ass.
When the basilisk’s shadow dove, Abrus lifted his staff, and a bolt of lightning cracked loudly from the end. The beast bellowed, and the stench of burning flesh filled my nose, but the bastard kept on coming.
“Come on,” I snarled, and then I punched my fist into the air. My magic burst forth, and a huge spike of stone exploded out of the earth. The pike of rock shot into the air, and then there was the sound of tearing flesh as the basilisk screamed in pain before it crashed heavily into the ground.
“Watch out,” Aurora yelled as she yanked Abrus and I back by our arms. We stumbled backward several feet, right before bright green blood spattered against the grass and sizzled.
I glanced at Aurora in shock.
“Its blood is corrosive,” the half-elf cringed, “and its venom is as deadly as its gaze.”
“So it’s a lovely creature all around,” I muttered as I glanced at it out of the corner of my eye. I seemed to have dealt it a great wound because it thrashed and hissed on the ground but didn’t move to strike again.
“Let’s finish it,” Aurora said as she clenched her fists and snarled. Blue flames danced along her knuckles.
“Yeah, on three, hit it with everything you got,” I said to the half-elf and Abrus.
The air charged with magic one last time and then--
“Mason!”
Cayla’s voice rang out across the clearing. My heart jumped into my throat, and I whirled around, even though I knew the basilisk was still there, even though I knew it was dangerous.
A shadow writhed in the middle ground, but I forced my eyes past without looking at it square on. Across the clearing, Cayla stood outside the door of the workshop with what I presumed was a loaded rifle held over her head. She waved urgently at me.
“I have another weapon!” she shouted. “Where is the beast?”
Aurora hissed in distress beside me. “She can’t see it from where she is. The debris is in the way.”
Instantly, I realized the half-elf was right. In using my powers, I had destroyed the clearing and turned it into a quarry of rock and stone and earth torn asunder. From Cayla’s perspective, the basilisk was hidden.
She couldn’t see that it was barely twenty feet ahead of her.
But the basilisk seemed to realize it because I watched as its shadow moved in my peripherals and turned toward the sound of the raven-haired beauty.
“Cayla!” I screamed. “Look out, it’s right in front of you!”
Even from this distance, I could see her blanch, but it was too late. The basilisk seemed to have rallied its strength, and I watched in terror as it launched its terribly long body backward and headed straight for Cayla.
My magic swelled inside of me like a building volcanic eruption. I didn’t know what I could do, but I had to do something. I had to save her.
“Close your eyes, Cayla! Close your eyes!” I shouted, and then I let my power explode out of every single one of my pores.
I caused the earth to undulate beneath my feet, and then I was airborne, catapulted across the clearing so fast the wind stung my face. It happened in a blur, but I could see the shadow of the basilisk beneath me, and then I was past it, and then the ground rushed up to meet me. I tucked myself into a roll and used my magic to soften the ground and slant it toward the workshop like a BMX bike ramp. When I hit the earth, the air got knocked out of me, but I managed to use my momentum to land in an unsteady crouch right at Cayla’s feet.
Her blue eyes were wide with shock and fear, but I didn’t have time to comfort her. I shot to my feet, snatched the rifle out of her hands, yanked down on the lever to load it, and spun around to face the oncoming basilisk.
All I saw was a black blur before I squeezed the trigger and began to fire. I shot seven times in quick succession, all while staring into the middle distance, so I didn’t accidentally meet the bastard’s eyes and keel over dead. When the rifle clicked empty less than ten seconds later, I tossed it to the side, summoned my magic again, threw up a barrier of stone in front of us, and spun back to Cayla to wrap my arms around her. I bent my knees and readied myself to run or launch myself to the side, but then I realized… it was quiet.
Still with Cayla pulled tight against my chest, I turned back to the haphazard shield I had erected before us. No sound came from beyond it. I waited for a breath, then two, but the basilisk didn’t come crashing through the wall.
“I-is it dead?” Cayla gasped against the hollow of my throat.
I held her so tightly I could feel her racing pulse.
“I don’t know,” I rasped quietly. Then I cleared my throat and raised my voice. “Aurora? Can you hear me? What’s happened?”
“Why don’t you lower the barrier and see?” the half-elf called back, and my muscles unclenched as I heard the tone of her voice. I let a trickle of magic out, and the wall in front of us shuddered before it began to recede back into the earth. When it was gone, and the dust had settled, Cayla let out another gasp.
There before us, not ten feet away, the basilisk lay dead and bloody. Most of its face had been taken off by my rifle. It seemed, even when shooting blind, I was still a hell of a shot.
“Take that, you son of a bitch,” I said with a triumphant grin.
Chapter 15
“Y-you did it,” Cayla murmured in shock as she stared at the dead basilisk. “Mason, you killed it.”
“Eh,” I said as I looked down at the woman in my arms, “it wasn’t that hard.”
“Yeah, but something else is.” She nodded down to where my crotch was pressed against her. We stared at each other for a silent moment and then simultaneously broke out into hysterical relieved laughter.
“Gods,” Cayla gasped, her eyes full of tears, “I thought I was surely dead for a moment.”
“I would never let that happen to you,” I told the blue-eyed beauty honestly as I settled my hands on the generous curves of her hips. Perhaps it was the near-death experience, but I felt emboldened. I wanted nothing more than to swoop down and kiss the gorgeous woman in my arms.
Cayla looked up into my eyes, and that’s when I realized she had put her palms flat against on my chest and could probably feel my racing heart. I swallowed past my dry throat and looked into her sapphire eyes. In their azure depths, I saw relief, happiness, and… desire.
“Mason,” Cayla whispered as her eyes dropped to my lips. I took that as all the sign I needed and was leaning down to press my mouth over hers when I heard King Temin call my name.
“Hold that thought,” I sighed inches away from Cayla’s luscious lips, and then I dropped my hands from her hips and turned to find the king.
Temin and his guards walked out of the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. The soldiers still looked terrified as they clutched their swords and cast their eyes about, but Temin was all broad smiles and wide open arms.
“I understand now why the farmers of Edhil were so awestruck,” the king said as he approached us. “That is truly a weapon of the gods. I have never in all my years seen something so spectacular. And the way you catapulted yourself across the clearing? Marvelous.”
“Thank you for the compliments, sir,” I replied with a slightly strained smile, “but with all due respect, didn’t I tell you and Cayla to retreat to safety? This could have ended much differently. Someone could have gotten hurt or even died.”
Well, someone else besides the three guards who lay dead and scattered about the clearing like rag dolls.
“I think, as a king and a grown man, I can make my own decisions regarding my own wellbeing,” Temin said as he cocked an eyebrow at me.
I cringed. “No
, of course, sir, I only meant--”
“But I wasn’t the one who decided to return first,” the king cut me off and then looked pointedly at Cayla.
I glanced at the woman beside me in shock. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I knew that if I circled around the long way while you had the basilisk distracted, I could reach the workshop and procure another weapon,” Cayla replied as she lifted her chin. “And it worked… more or less.”
“While the execution needed some work,” Aurora remarked as she and Abrus reached us from their side of the clearing, “I must say you do not lack for courage.”
Cayla grinned at the impressed look on the half-elf’s face. “Thank you.”
“Yes,” Temin added with a smile, “the people of Cedis are gods blessed indeed to have such a brave and fearless princess.”
My eyes nearly bulged out of my head as my mouth fell open in shock. “P-princess?” I looked between Temin and Cayla. “I-is this a joke?”
“You did not know?” Temin asked in surprise.
“No!” I exclaimed and then turned to Cayla. “Why didn’t you tell me, Y-your Highness?”
Cayla winced. “Well, I had a multitude of reasons. With both Cedis and Illaria currently being full ofntly danger due to the beasts, my father worried about me being targeted. That is why I traveled alone, dressed in disguise.”
I glanced at her revealing, sexy outfit. “That’s a disguise?”
“For Princess Cayla Balmier, who has only been seen in court appropriate dresses?” Cayla replied with a quirked eyebrow. “Yes, yes, it is.”
“Furthermore,” she added with a sigh, “despite my royal status, I do not have much to offer in the way of payment because Cedis has fallen on such hard times. So, I thought if you assumed that I was merely a normal citizen, you might be more inclined to help me for less.”
“I would have helped you regardless,” I said with a frown.
“I know that now,” Cayla replied with a soft smile, “but I did not then. Please forgive me, Mason. I did not mean to deceive you.”
“I’m not upset with you.” I shook my head. “I’m just surprised is all.”