by Eric Vall
We hiked back through the snow toward Erin’s airship as the sun reached its peak in the sky. Our path from a couple days ago was still here, though it had been dusted lightly in fresh snow, but it was nice to have to work less to trudge forward.
We reached the airship, and Erin unlocked it before she lowered the ramp down. We filed onboard, and some part of me was disappointed at just how cold the ship was. I wasn’t sure why I expected it to be any warmer than the outdoors, but my breath still fogged from my mouth in puffs of cold air.
“It’s gonna be a long trip back,” Erin told us both, “so get some rest in the process.”
“What about you?” Ashla asked in concern.
“I’ll be fine,” Erin answered, and she smiled slightly as her gaze flickered away. “I ended up getting plenty of sleep last night, eventually.”
Ashla looked from the mimic to me, then back to the mimic, and she chuckled knowingly as she worked out what had happened in the ice hut between us.
“You two sure know how to live,” she said with an impressed whistle. “I wish I had been there, too.”
Erin giggled, and Ashla patted her on the head before they separated to take care of their different tasks.
It took a long time for Erin to finish her safety checklist and even longer for the airship’s inner workings to warm up properly, but eventually, the ship jolted from the ground and began to rise.
The journey back was long, so I tried to settle my impatience by involving myself in a routine of napping, reading, and talking with Ashla. Hours passed, and I snacked unsatisfyingly on my travel food to make up for a missed breakfast. I finished my book and turned to Arwyn’s study guide out of boredom, but there were only so many times a person could read the same ten pages in repetition before the monotony got overwhelming.
I set aside my reading material and switched to quietly humming to myself to pass the time. Ashla didn’t seem to mind, and she joined in on a few of the songs she knew.
For dinner, Ashla and I chatted about potential strategies to use against a permanent rift while we ate an unsatisfying meal of dried beef jerky and hardtack biscuits. We were both revved up on the idea that we were nearing Varle Enclave, at least in the sense that we were in close proximity to Njordenfalls and a few other villages known to us.
Suddenly, Erin careened through the door and into the main cabin with a wide-eyed expression on her face.
“What’s wrong?” Ashla asked in alarm.
“We’ve got to set the ship down,” Erin answered urgently. “Make sure you’re strapped in.”
“Why?” I asked as I tightened my safety harness. “What’s going on?”
“It’s a rift,” Erin answered. “One opened up below our ship. We have to stop it.”
Chapter 13
I stared at Erin in surprise for a moment before I gathered my thoughts.
“Of course,” I told her, “let’s put the ship down as quickly as possible. We don’t have a full team or even a banisher, but protocol is to guard the rift entrance until the Academy sends a real team.”
Erin nodded sharply and disappeared into the cockpit while Ashla and I fastened our safety harnesses tightly.
“Is your mana mostly recovered?” I asked Ashla as I ran my hands over my bandolier to check my monsters.
“I’m pretty much back to normal,” the ice mage answered with a firm expression. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. I’ve gotta fight, we all do.”
“We can’t let this spread to defenceless villages,” I agreed with determination. “I wish there was some way to report to Sleet simultaneously, but this takes precedence. I’m sure the soldiers are preparing to mobilize right now, anyway.”
Erin set the airship down quickly, and our seats shuddered as the slight impact sent vibrations through the hold. The instant the landing legs touched ground, I unbuckled my harness.
Ashla did the same, and Erin ran from the cockpit with well-practiced haste.
“Should I keep Gawain’s fire powers?” the mimic asked as she hit the ramp button to open the hatch.
“Keep them for now,” I told her. “You can switch to ice or summoning later, if we think it’s necessary, but I’d rather keep options open.”
“Got it,” Erin affirmed.
“How far out is the rift?” I asked quickly. “Should I expect monsters the instant we’re out the door?”
“No, no,” the orange-haired pilot assured me. “I would never risk Diomesia like that. It’s a quarter-mile away, I think.”
“Good,” I said, and I led my small team down the ramp at a jog.
We had set down in a field of yellow wildflowers, and their beauty clashed oddly with the reason we were here. The splash of golden blooms wandered across the tall grass all the way to the rift, though the meadow narrowed as a dense forest of trees encroached on it at the western edge.
We strode past the edge of the airship, and I got a better look at the rift itself. The murky, dark opening rippled and churned with odd colors as a new group of monsters emerged. If I wasn’t mistaken, they looked like gargoyles, a kind of stony monster with wings and a nasty ability to wield minor earth magic.
My blood roared in my ears as I prepared myself for the fight ahead.
If you won’t free me, Sera purred suddenly from inside my head, at least have a taste of my power. Open all the rifts you want, just remember each time that you could have so much more …
I huffed in irritation to hear her goad me on so obviously, but I was glad to have her power at my disposal. It had proved integral to the fight I’d last used it in, and I was going to need it now more than ever.
“Alright,” I told my team. “I only see gargoyles so far, though I expect something else has already come through. Fire isn’t going to do much good, Erin, but I want you to hang back and watch for other monsters while Ashla and I take care of these.”
“Got it,” the mimic agreed.
Ashla and I glanced at each other, and a shit-eating grin spread across my face as adrenaline thrummed through me.
We faced the gargoyles and charged them simultaneously. Ashla unhooked her double-bladed axe, Bessie, and twirled it in her grip before she hefted it expertly.
The gargoyles ranged in size from about the scale of a housecat to a large horse, but they all reacted the same way once they noticed us. Wings flared out with a stony, grinding noise, and the gargoyles took to the air en masse to meet us in battle.
I knew they had minor earth magic, but I didn’t think it would be much of a problem for us.
A smaller one flew at the head of the group, and as it reached us, Ashla swung her axe to cleave it straight down the middle. Frost crackled from the metal edge of her weapon, and the gargoyle shattered into a dozen pieces of brittle rock.
That was my cue to start kicking ass, and I threw out a handful of essence crystals that shattered across the battlefield.
My roosa and baroquer emerged, and I ordered each to pair with a speed slug. In an instant, they were enhanced and ready to go. This combination would have been impossible for me to control a few months ago, but I was now able to deal with both of them without passing out.
The roosa made an insectoid shriek and skittered into battle on its speed-empowered legs. It met a group of gargoyles and seized two in its claws before it crushed them easily, and stone debris sprayed across the field.
One gargoyle swooped and gestured out a spell, and a chuck of rock flew from the earth toward my scorpion monster. My roosa took the blow on its metallic carapace, but it barely suffered any damage, and it seized the offending gargoyle in one shining claw before it crushed its enemy into oblivion.
My baroquer was faring just as well as my roosa was. He crashed and stomped among the gargoyles as he swung his flaming sword in sweeping, deadly motions. Many gargoyles avoided him with nimble aerial maneuvers, but a few got hit and exploded into shards of gray rock.
Ashla cast a wide, complex ice spell, and a half-dozen gargoyles were part
ially frozen in the blast. My baroquer finished them off with a few well-aimed stomps of his armored feet, and I yelled out in victory as our enemies fell before us without a chance.
We’d wiped out about two-thirds of the gargoyle flock when Erin called my name with urgency.
“Look out!” she shouted. “We’ve got monsters incoming from the woods on our left, and it seems like trouble!”
There was no time to react before two mid-sized monsters burst from the forest, and they each charged us on pairs of stilt-like bird legs.
“What the fuck are those?” Ashla asked me in alarm as she cleaved another gargoyle in half.
The two monsters looked like large birds gone terribly wrong, and I could only compare them to herons or perhaps ostriches, though I’d never personally laid eyes on one of those flightless, western birds. Sleek, white feathers lay close to their bodies, and they had long necks that ended in predatory heads and dangerous, sharp beaks. They were both only about eight feet in height, but there was something menacing about them that convinced me we should be careful.
The bird monsters squawked as they ran, and I noticed briefly each had a different type of head crest. One had a sort of ballooned, yellow growth made of beaklike material, and the other had a spray of impressive purple feathers.
“I don’t know what these things are,” I yelled back to Ashla, “but I don’t want to find out.”
“Too late to run!” Erin shouted, and she raised her hands to begin a fire spell.
She shot off a fireball, but the nearest bird simply opened its mouth as the flame neared. In an instant, it sucked up the ball of fire and closed its beak around it, and I stared in shock as its yellow crest began to glow faintly with radiant power.
“It absorbs fire magic,” I realized, “Erin, stay back!”
The mimic backpedaled until she was behind us again, but we needed to do something else quickly. The birds had halved the distance to us, and they weren’t slowing down.
“I’ll take care of this,” Ashla assured me as she switched her attention from the remaining gargoyles to the new threat.
My baroquer swept away another three gargoyles, and I directed it to hold the defences while Ashla focused on the charging birds.
A spray of icicles shot from the ice mage’s hands, and the purple-plumed bird was caught directly in the path of her attack.
At the last moment, the yellow-crested bird swerved in and opened its beak to suck in the icicles. Each shard dissolved into glittering dust and swirling magic before the bird consumed it entirely. Its yellow beak snapped shut again, and its crest began to glow more brightly with a white aura of power.
“Scratch that,” Ashla amended. “It absorbs all kinds of magic, as far as I can tell!”
“Shit,” I swore. “They’re too close, can you buy me a minute so I can finish the gargoyles?”
“Can do,” Ashla said as her hands started on a new kind of spell.
The ice mage gestured, and a long, snowy wall sprung up between the birds and us to block off their attack.
My roosa crushed the last two gargoyles, and I directed my scorpion-like monster to guard us on the left end of the wall as my baroquer stomped toward the right end.
Suddenly, both birds appeared at the top of the snowy wall as they pumped their small wings to give themselves lift. Their talons curled around the top of the wall, and each bird landed heavily. They tilted their heads in curious, hungry movements as they regarded us below.
“They can’t quite fly, but they sure can jump,” Erin squeaked out.
“Shit,” Ashla swore as the birds mantled their wings to leap down.
My mind scrambled as I tried to come up with a good idea, and a split second seemed to pass as slowly as a minute.
Suddenly, I knew what to do.
I reached for Sera’s power and thrust my hands up to open a portal above us. The magic drained from me as Sera let it flow between us, and I panted as a rift swirled into existence a few feet above my head.
Erin and Ashla ducked as the birds shrieked and leapt for us, but both monsters fell through my rift and vanished as they were transported to the Shadowscape. I tried to snap the portal shut on them, but the spell twisted out of my control, and it shrank slowly and unevenly before it finally closed and popped out of existence.
I saved you once again, Sera drawled out with heavy meaning layered beneath her words. How many times do you think you have left?
“Phew,” Erin sighed.
“It’s not over yet,” I warned. “The main rift is still open, so they’re not staying gone for long.”
I used the precious seconds to call my roosa and baroquer over. They arrived at my side just as the main rift warped and wrinkled, and the two bird monsters stepped back through.
Their pale eyes latched onto us, and the purple-plumed bird let out a squawk as it shook out its stubby, white wings. The other bird turned to it and dipped its head oddly, and the yellow crest on its head shone with blinding, bright light.
The yellow crest faded, but as it did, the purple-plumed bird beside it lit up like a shining star. As my team stared in surprise, the plumed bird opened its beak to shoot a powerful ray of fire and ice magic directly at us.
My baroquer stepped in front of the beam and absorbed the full blast with the armor of his lower legs. The baroquer rumbled as the dual magic damaged him, and I felt his pain echo through our bond. The ice brittled and broke parts of his metal armor, and the flame melted and warped other bits of it into craggy, jagged shapes.
My baroquer swung his flaming sword in a single desperate attack as he stumbled, but I ordered him to stop at the last second. He froze, and his sword deflected to the side into the ground. The purple-plumed bird swerved away from his swing as the yellow-crested one stepped even closer to it.
Quickly, I recalled my baroquer before the bird could steal any of his power.
“It would have used your baroquer’s fire magic,” Erin realized out loud. “Ashla and I are practically useless in this fight. We can’t even hit those two monsters.”
“But why does the other one dodge?” Ashla pointed out. “Something is different between these two.”
“I can’t be sure,” I told my teammates warily, “but I think one bird absorbs, and the other bird uses the absorbed power to attack.”
“Makes sense,” Ashla agreed as she hefted her battleaxe over one shoulder. “The good news is, I can still use my axe without ice magic. I’m gonna take this sucker out.”
“Wait,” I called as she ran for the birds, “we shouldn’t act rashly!”
Ashla’s axe came down in a smooth, perfect attack, and the plumed bird ducked away just as its partner stepped in to meet the blow. Ashla’s axe swept down just as the bird thrust its yellow crest toward the blade.
The axe bounced off the crest, and the entire thing lit up again as energy absorbed directly into it.
Ashla yelled wordlessly as her axe bounced off her target, and her eyes widened in surprise. Not to be dissuaded, she darted away quickly toward the purple-plumed bird in a redirection of her attack.
“Hold on!” I called, and I ordered my roosa after her.
The plumed bird made no move to dodge this time, and its partner dipped its head quickly in the same transference of energy we observed last time.
Light shone suddenly as the plumed bird received energy from its partner, and it opened its beak to shoot out a ray of pure, percussive force that warped the air as it traveled. Ashla froze and held her axe up to stop the blow, but my stomach churned in fear as the deadly blast neared her.
At the last moment, my roosa darted forward and held out a claw to stop the blast. The beam rocketed into the metal claw, and my roosa’s appendage cracked ominously as it absorbed the blow. Thin fracture lines zigzagged up the side of its claw, and my roosa chittered in anger.
“It can steal physical force, too?” Erin asked in a shocked tone.
“Only the crested one,” I ground out as I
focused on my monster. “Now the other is ours.”
My roosa stabbed forward with its poisonous stinger, and the tip of its tail slammed home in the flank of the purple-plumed bird.
The bird squawked and stumbled sideways, but it was merely dazed by the early effects of the poison. Its partner sprinted in as it readied itself to absorb the next blow.
My roosa skittered away from the yellow-crested bird, but the monster was tenacious, and it leapt up to rake my scorpion monster with its talons as it stabbed with its long, deadly beak. My roosa cringed away, but it couldn’t hold out forever, and it thrashed back with one claw as it tried to hold off its attacker.
The bird absorbed the blow easily, and its crest thrummed with new power as it hopped away from my roosa. In an instant, it could transfer that power so the plumed bird could unleash a deadly attack on my team.
Ashla never let it get the chance. She swept toward the purple-plumed monster, leapt into the air, and chopped her axe into its neck without a moment’s hesitation.
The bird dropped dead without fanfare, and its partner shrieked as it ran for Ashla with its beak open and snapping.
The ice mage swung her axe toward the yellow-crested bird, but her weapon glanced ineffectually off its crest. Ashla’s blow bounced away, and the ice mage was now open to the bird’s attack.
Simultaneously, Erin stepped in, and she released a white-hot bolt of fire that sliced through the air like a bullet before it exploded against the bird’s unsuspecting back. The monster should have burst into flame, but it collapsed almost instantly instead. I could just barely see the charred hole that cut deep into its flank, and I realized the initial spell itself was the killing blow.
Gawain’s fire magic sure was potent, even when used by a mimic.
“That’s a relief,” Erin panted as we stared at the dissolving corpse. “I wasn’t sure it couldn’t absorb two attacks at once.”