by Drew Hayes
“Four golds are enough for me,” Tori said, turning her fiery head to Beverly, who nodded as well.
“Plenty enough to win, especially the way we’re doing it. I’m all for playing it smart and getting back to the meeting point.” To illustrate the point, she shifted back to her green dragon-form and walked over to Lance, lifting him from the ground as if he weighed no more than a few pounds and cradling him in her massive arms.
“Win or lose, I cannot imagine Arachno Bro isn’t going to give me shit for this,” Lance sighed from the crook of Beverly’s arm. “Still beats not coming back at all, though.”
“You can say that again.” Tori turned back to full human-form, something she’d tried to avoid any more than necessary around Lance, and pushed aside a small set of rocks near the wall where she’d stashed her cannon. Turning it over carefully in her hands, she slowly made her way back across the mesa and held it out to Lance. “Here, I want you to hold this.”
“Isn’t that what the sling is for?” Lance pointed to the twisted fabric around Beverly’s back, now largely empty except for the lone scroll resting inside.
“She can’t carry us both, and I can’t hold this when I’m in flame mode. If something gets the jump on us, you can still shoot, so you get tasked with holding it. Just remember: you only have one shot, and if you use it on either of us, the other will make you regret it.” Tori shook the cannon once, moving it a few inches closer to the injured man in the dragon’s arms.
“Trust me, there is no gain in me taking a shot at either of you. But if something attacks, I’ll be ready.” Lance reached out and wrapped a meaty hand around the cannon, clutching it carefully against his pecs.
“Good. And don’t miss. Like I said, one shot left,” Tori reminded him.
“Think there will be trouble?” Beverly growled.
“Look at who we’re dealing with. The question isn’t if there will be trouble, it’s how much we’re about to step into.” Tori’s form grew blurry as she once more morphed to flame then pushed herself gently into the air with her controlled blasts. “Lance, keep your bugs on alert. I’ll try and scout as best I can. Beverly, if we get caught off guard, scatter first, then regroup.”
“Let’s finish strong.” Beverly’s gravelly voice echoed off the mesas as the three apprentices started on the final leg of their trial: the journey back to the start.
* * *
The platinum timer ticked away steadily, shedding seconds as the time for the final confrontation drew closer. In Xelas’s room, the cheerful atmosphere had subsided significantly as each spectator watched the screens with more rapt attention than they had before. As veteran members of the guild, they knew that everything in the previous few days had merely been sport and spectacle, a way to test the mettle of each apprentice as well as entertain the watching guild. What was coming was the true test, their actual trial.
Of everyone present, no one was more nervous than Thuggernaut. While the others had met and enjoyed some of the rookies one on one, he was the only person present with a vested interest in seeing one make it back alive. Beverly was strong and had a good head on her shoulders, but she was still green. He could only hope that the last few days were enough to teach her that she wasn’t invincible. If she didn’t think through what was about to happen, it could cost her more than spare change and bragging rights.
As he watched worriedly, Johnny laid a hand on the massive man’s shoulder.
“Relax. She’s a good one, and Ivan’s kid has solid instincts. Add in that they’ve got the insect guy’s powers, and those three have a real shot at making it.”
“We’ve seen others with shots make bad choices,” Thuggernaut replied, eyes unwavering from the screen.
“Maybe so, but none of them had you as a teacher. You know Beverly better than anyone here, and I’ve got no doubt you prepped her for this as much as you could. Now it’s time to have some faith.” Johnny leaned forward, nodding to the ticking clock with highlighted platinum numbers. “They can do it. And hey, you’ll win a few bucks in the process.”
“There’s that classic Johnny way of navigating a moment,” Xelas said. “But he’s right. Those two are kicking ass, and adding in Lance only makes the group stronger. If anyone should be crapping themselves right now, it’s Balaam. His apprentice hasn’t exactly been going strong since the golds came out.”
“Warren got one,” Gork reminded them. He’d managed it after a morning of recovery, and while the effort was impressive, especially since he’d done it solo, it was still far too little to close the gap between him and the others.
“And if that were the real test, he’d be looking great. As it is, he has to know he’s behind, and with only a few minutes left until the big game enters the field, the kid might be desperate enough to try something stupid.” Xelas glanced at the clock, even though she was perfectly able to keep track of the time on her own. There was something a touch more dramatic, more human, about watching the tool with the others.
“Good or bad, looks like we’re about to see how things are going.” Johnny gestured at the screen where Tori, Beverly, and Lance were nearing the drop-off site. Tori blasted a few copper-cored drones out of the air, seemingly clearing out the area. Of course, she didn’t know what was still waiting. After all, there were still twenty minutes until sunset.
But more importantly, there were ten minutes left on the digital clock with platinum numbers.
* * *
“That was actually pretty easy,” Tori said as the last of the copper-cored drones fell to the ground in fiery scraps. From behind her, a loud, pronounced groan filled the air.
“You just had to say that, didn’t you? Haven’t you ever heard of a jinx?” Lance was propped against a pile of rocks, sonic cannon still in his hand, while Beverly rested nearby. She seemed intent on staying in dragon-form until they were safely out of the desert, a precaution that no one questioned the validity of.
“There’s no such thing as a jinx.”
“Says the lady who is made of living fire, to the boy that can summon swarms of insects, who is sitting next to the woman that turns into a massive dragon creature through what I’m assuming has to be magic,” Lance countered.
“Fine, jinxes are real, but you don’t activate them just by commenting on the fact that we weren’t attacked much on way over,” Tori replied.
“That probably depends on the jinx.” Beverly’s stout neck swiveled as she craned her head around to sight any incoming threats. Above them, the sun was dipping deeper toward the horizon. By their best guesses, sunset was likely only a half-hour away at the most. “You know, if it was a trap.”
“Who would, or could, lay a trap for us that was triggered by us talking about the fact that we didn’t get ambushed by robots on our way to a meeting place?” Tori demanded.
“Well, we do know that Warren uses magic,” Lance pointed out, grinning despite the subject matter.
With a fiery huff, Tori lifted off into the sky to help Beverly scout. Buzzing overhead was Lance’s cloud of gathered insects, a swarm that steered clear of the burning woman as she pushed herself free of gravity’s tireless clutches. She rose partly to get away from the conversation and partly to sweep the area from a new vantage point, but mostly because she didn’t know when her next chance to fly would be. Ivan was a good teacher, and despite his demeanor, she suspected he cared about her, but he wasn’t big on getting her much practical training. Now that she’d finally pushed herself enough to learn she could leave the ground, it was an experience she wanted to repeat as often as possible.
Tori’s annoyance was the only reason she was in a high enough position to see the movement. While Lance’s bugs and Beverly’s eyes scanned the sky, Tori happened to glance down at her fellow apprentices just in time to catch the shifting sand that was moving toward them. Something was burrowing beneath the surface, on a course directly for Lance and Beverly, who were just standing around unaware. With no time to think, Tori hurled a fireba
ll just to the right of them, scorching the dry desert sand and immediately grabbing the pair’s attention.
“Ruuuuuun!” Tori screeched the word, desperate to be heard through the great distance. Her flaming hands gestured wildly to the moving lump of sand, trying for all she was worth to get them to look over.
Mercifully, it was Beverly who trusted her enough to look away from the apparent attack. Her scaly eyes widened as she caught sight of the thing heading for them. Grabbing Lance by the shoulder, Beverly flung him through the air. He crashed in a groaning heap nearly forty feet away and immediately tried to right himself and figure out what had happened. As for the dragon, Beverly leapt backward, putting some distance between herself and the approaching enemy. Fast as her reactions had been, she still only missed the attack by a matter of inches.
A metallic pincer as long as green-dragon-Beverly was tall burst out of the sand. It sliced through the air, chopping the space where Beverly had been only seconds before. Red energy flickered between the two razor-sharp blades as they came together, filling the air with a sickening sizzle. As quickly as it appeared, the pincer sank back through the sand and rock, as easy as a shark through water, vanishing completely save for the slight bump that gave away its movement.
It headed for Beverly, but she’d already taken a cue from Tori. Emerald green turned to pearly white as her scales shifted, arms turning to wings almost midair. Beverly took to the sky, rising upward with two powerful flaps before reorienting herself toward Lance.
The large, injured young man was no slouch at discerning a situation. While the sand robot had gone after Beverly, Lance had called every nearby insect he had to converge on his location. Together, hundreds of tiny wings were slowly bearing him away from the perilous position on the ground. It was clearly a struggle, though; he was less than four inches above the sand when the bump turned and headed toward his direction.
Strong, foot-like claws grabbed Lance by the shoulders and yanked him higher as Beverly beat her wings for all she was worth. While neither she nor the bugs could raise him quickly enough on their own, together they managed to get fifty feet off the ground by the time the sand bump would have been in striking range.
“What the hell is that?” Lance yelled, mostly for Tori’s benefit since she was still flying over to join them.
“Platinum core, I guess,” Tori replied. She eased off the fire blasts as she drew close, not wanting to careen into the swarm and kill any of the helpful bugs.
“Too easy,” Beverly snorted. In this form, her words came out half-garbled. Evidently, the white dragons were less suited to speech than the green ones. “We can just fly away.”
“We can, sure, but how many apprentices have flight powers?” Tori reminded her. “Though I’ll give you that it does seem like a pretty serious design flaw, especially if it’s meant to be as dangerous as the gold-cored ones.”
“Um, you know how you didn’t believe in jinxes?” Lance said, pointing to the sand below them.
From the depths beneath the desert, the robot began to rise. It was a massive beast, long as a line of buses and three times as big around. Out of its front extended a pair of sharp pincers, along with mandibles and dozens of glowing red eyes. Stretching up from the back was a long, metallic tail that whipped freely through the air with what appeared to be a glowing blade and some sort of cannon affixed to the end. Three thick legs extended from each side, half buried in the ground as it kept itself low. Along its back were dozens of turrets and guns, all of which were quickly rotating, aiming in the three apprentices’ direction.
“Fuck me,” Tori said, taking in the instrument of death as it gazed at them with countless glowing, targeting eyes.
“Holy shit, it’s going to blast us. Scatter!”
Chapter 26
Tori blasted upward, racing away as fast as her flames would take her. Beverly let Lance go and went into a dive, zipping through the air with half-tucked wings. For a moment, Tori thought Beverly had taken the heartless route, but as the first shot ripped through the air, it became clear that dropping Lance had saved them both. He’d fallen faster than she could have moved while bearing him. Meanwhile, his insect swarm had slowed his fall and was steering him toward the relative cover on top of a nearby mesa.
The robot, some strange bastardization of a weapons depot and a scorpion, didn’t take long to recover, reorienting its aim even as its targets tore through the sky in different directions. Beverly’s grunts of pain reached Tori just as she felt a bolt of energy race through her own insubstantial leg. It didn’t hurt, not exactly, but it definitely wasn’t a pleasant experience. She knew from her experience with the sonic cannon that too much damage could push her back to human-form, and there was no reason to doubt these blasts’ effect would be any different. Too much from them and she’d be a sitting duck. Strike that: a falling, flightless duck that would be finished off by the robot monster if the landing didn’t kill her outright.
Forcing herself to turn up the intensity of her blasts, Tori cranked up the speed just in time to dodge the next volley of shots. This plan was no good; the damn thing could track and attack them all individually. As it was, they were simply treading water before they got shot down; counterattacking wasn’t even on the table. They needed a moment to think, to plan, to recover. She glanced down at Lance, whose bugs had set him down on the mesa’s top out of the massive thing’s eyesight. Of course, given that it could somehow swim through rock and dirt, that wouldn’t keep him, or any of them, safe for more than a few minutes.
Unless, of course, it had something else to attack.
Banking hard to the right, Tori sacrificed some of her precious altitude to drop within shouting distance of Lance. She couldn’t chance slowing down or changing direction, so she screamed, “Lance! The bugs! Send them out as one giant swarm right now. Make them stick close and draw its attention!” With that, she was past the mesa, only able to hope he’d heard her and that he trusted her enough to follow the seemingly crazy order.
Turning up her speed again, Tori raced through the sky, taking a few more bolts for her trouble. Pushing past the fear and first rumbling of pain, she raced onward, getting close to the white dragon that was ducking and dodging under the hail of fire.
“Get to the mesa!” Tori screamed the words as she and Beverly zipped past each other, the predicament of their situation not allowing for any more conversation than that. At first, she feared her ally hadn’t heard, but seconds later, Beverly took a sharp turn and flapped her way in the direction of the mesa.
A giant cloud of insects was slowly rising off of said mesa like buzzing steam from a boiling pot. Tori hurtled toward it, noting with some relief that the robot’s volley had begun attacking the bugs as well. She turned wide, passing behind the cloud of bugs before rocketing down, not so much landing on the mesa as crashing into it, her fire-body spreading like a dropped egg before reforming itself.
Getting up from the ground, Tori turned human and checked the sky. Beverly was coming in for a landing a few feet away, and the cloud of insects still seemed to be taking the endless onslaught, both of which meant they still had a fighting chance of living through this.
“Lance, you can see through the bugs, right? Is that robot moving or just attacking?”
“Hang on.” Lance closed his eyes for several seconds, long enough that Beverly landed with a mighty whump nearby before they snapped open again. “Just attacking. Do you think it doesn’t know we’re here?”
Tori quickly shook her head. “It’s a robot, running on programming. This one seems to seek out targets and engage them. I think as long as it has some target to fight, that protocol wins out over chasing other ones. At least, that’s what I was hoping when I noticed it didn’t try to come after you after you left its line of sight.”
“Great, so we use the bugs to keep it distracted then run by once the doorway opens?” Beverly had shifted to her green form. The half-dozen wounds on her arms and legs began to heal before
Tori and Lance’s eyes as the dragon-woman limped over.
“No. It has no problem targeting multiple enemies at once, as we just saw,” Tori told her. “The bugs will buy us a few minutes, maybe, but the minute we step off of here, we’re right back in the fight. Assuming we can wait it out until the doorway opens, we just have to think of a way to get past it.”
“You don’t want to try and take the thing out?” Lance asked.
“Too strong. Maybe with a full day to hunt it and learn its weaknesses, we could have given it a shot, but as things stand, I think we need to focus on surviving.” Tori looked between the others, carefully checking each of their expressions. “Unless one of you knows of a way we can beat it.”
“I’m trying to figure out how we’ll survive even getting past it,” Beverly replied.
“I’m on board with running, I just expected one of us to be more gung-ho about taking it down,” Lance said.
“Nope, pretty sure we all want to not die. If that’s even on the table.” Tori moved slightly nearer to the edge of the mesa’s cliff where she could look down on the landscape below. The cliff face where the portal would open was a few feet behind the wildly flailing tail that whipped through the air. No way around it; they’d have to pass the robot to make it out.
“Beverly, I hate to say this, but I think you need to get the scroll out.”
“Whoa now, I told you I don’t know what it does,” Beverly said, turning to face Tori so quickly that her claws left marks in the rock beneath them. “The most I could figure out was how to activate the thing.”
“Which is why we agreed it should probably be saved for an emergency,” Tori said. “Maybe we’re getting different reads on the situation, but this feels a lot like an emergency to me. As it stands, I’ve got no idea how we’re going to get past that robot. We need to change something, because this is not a good situation for us.”