Summoner 8

by Eric Vall

  I made the job easy, and I leapt from its head as hard as I could. Air whistled past me, and I stretched my arms out in the hopes of catching my target before I hit the ground.

  My vingehund darted underneath me, and I made a rough, bumpy landing on her feathered back before we swooped away again.

  “Great!” Ashla shouted as we swept past her and Erin on the wall. “You made it angry!”

  She was definitely right, but that was exactly what I had in mind. The craus’lar focused its remaining eye on me, and I grinned as rage overtook its actions. I was a quick, flying target, and the craus’lar had only one ranged attack in its arsenal, so I knew exactly what it would do.

  The scaled beast stretched up on its four, stumpy legs, and its enormous mouth opened as slime gathered in the back of its throat.

  It was the perfect opportunity.

  I flew my vinghund into the mouth at an angle, and we zipped into the cavernous, toothless jaws just as the slime began to build to the breaking point. I threw out my hands to open a rift, and the slime erupted just as my portal sealed over the opening of the craus’lar’s throat.

  Several tons of caustic fluid poured straight into the Shadowscape, and I imagined the pool of green ooze coating the barren ground of the monster realm. It was funny to think of it emerging from nowhere, but the Shadowscape wasn’t my concern.

  The flow of slime stopped, and I snapped my portal shut.

  The craus’lar’s jaws began to close around me, but I wasn’t concerned about it. I ordered my bullet bass to stay close and activated its power to coat me and my vingehund in protective metal.

  Then I dove deep into the monster’s empty throat.

  I lit my borrowed flare to see our path ahead, and my vingehund navigated the narrow throat with expert maneuvering.

  I’d succeeded in tricking the monster to open wide for me without becoming devastated by its acidic attack, and now I was right where I wanted to be. As my vingehund and I shot down the creature’s muscled throat, I dropped dagerdillos enhanced with speed slugs in our wake.

  Their piglike bodies were each covered in a dense coating of long, metallic spikes, and my daggerdillos curled into protective balls as they rocketed down the craus’lar’s throat. Each daggerdillo left a series of deep, bloody gashes in their wake, and the craus’lar thundered out a deafening bellow as my attacks hit home.

  We dropped into the stomach of the beast, and each daggerdillo scored a deep cut as they fell from the throat opening to the bottom of the craus’lar’s stomach. I noticed a particularly thin portion forming on the flesh below, and I threw out a series of axe goblins to help hack away at the wound.

  My vingehund darted around in tight circles as my goblins got to work, and slime began to ooze up from the bottom of the stomach as the craus’lar replenished its supply. I coated my goblins in bullet bass protection, but I knew they wouldn’t last long once the liquid level rose again.

  I’d have to speed things up myself.

  “Down, girl,” I called as I requested my vingehund to land, and the two of us filed in next to the goblins and daggerdillos.

  I took my pair of daggers out and began to slash at the tough flesh below. My vingehund followed suit, and she tore at the ground with her sharp claws to hasten the progress.

  The craus’lar shook and trembled in pain as we tore through its insides, and the turbulence made it hard to keep my balance, but I hung on and slashed harder.

  Gobbets of flesh peeled away from the stomach floor, and I marveled at the toughness of the craus’lar. It was an easy foe to distract, but its defence was nearly impenetrable, and I couldn’t fathom how long it would take to hack through its hide from the tough exterior.

  Suddenly, an odd bubbling sound interrupted my progress, and I turned just in time to come face to face with the snapping jaws of a flying, long-toothed fish.

  On instinct, I brought my hands up, and the fish flew directly into the blade of my rhin dagger. The impaled fish struggled for a moment as it flopped wetly on the end of my knife, and I stared in shock as it died. It shivered and stilled as the life left it, and green slime trailed slowly from its thick lips.

  The fish was about a foot long, and its green flanks glimmered with slimy skin instead of scales, but that wasn’t the weirdest thing about it. Its dorsal fin looked normal, but in place of its double forward fins, two small legs protruded from the bottom of its torso.

  “What the fuck?” I asked out loud as my jaw hung open in surprise.

  The volume of my voice echoed through the craus’lar’s stomach, and the slimy pool of acid bubbled in two-dozen places as a horde of fish seethed beneath the surface.

  I ordered my monsters to keep working, and I brandished my daggers as the fish began to jump for me.

  They had an amazing height to their leap, and I sliced several out of the air before one slipped past my guard and sank its fangs into my thigh. I yelped as I buried my blade into its back, and the fish released me as it died and flopped to the floor.

  The fish stopped flying, but the attack wasn’t over yet. Some popped their heads from the green surface of the pool to spray me with jets of pressurized liquid.

  One spray of liquid hit me in the chest, and the breath huffed out of me as I stumbled backward. That was one powerful jet, and I felt sure it would have cracked my ribs if I wasn’t wearing bullet bass metal. The liquid seeped through my shirt, and I patted the fabric frantically to try to stop the fluid from corroding through the fabric. However, it didn’t so much as sizzle, and I stared at it in confusion for a moment.

  It was water, not acid, I realized. The reason the craus’lar was so good at producing slime was because it had help from these fish that lived in its stomach apparently. The fish produced the water, and the craus’lar acidified it. Each type of monster was only responsible for half the slime attack.

  Another jet of water shot past me, and I dodged narrowly out of the way. The spray hit one of my axe goblins in the shoulder, and it squealed in pain as it was knocked forward by the blast.

  I redirected it to chopping at the stomach and focused on keeping the fish off my workers.

  “Oh yeah?” I shouted. “Come at me for real! I always wanted a pack of water monsters.”

  The slimy ooze bubbled again, and another storm of fish leaped from the surface.

  This time, I was ready with more than just my one dagger. I pulled out my father’s dagger to hold in my left hand, and I stuck an empty essence crystal between my teeth. As the fish leapt for me, I slashed at them, and the fish dropped bleeding to the floor.

  When the storm of snapping, flying fish was done, I spat my essence crystal out and slammed it into the nearest live body. The fish seized up before its soul was sucked into the crystal, and a thrill of victory surged through me as I captured the fish for myself.

  I slammed crystals into the rest of the living, bleeding fish, and I amassed seven of them in short order. Pellets of water whizzed past me dangerously as the surviving fish in the ooze began to fight back again.

  I threw out a wallerdon from the lower end of my bandolier, and the tough, segmented monster settled into place like a shield between the fish and my crew of working goblins.

  That helped to stop the water pellet attacks, but green slime began to ooze around my feet. I stepped backward in alarm as the pond of caustic slime grew with renewed speed. It was only a matter of seconds before my monsters and I would be in danger of being digested alive.

  My vingehund barked to interrupt me, and I turned to see what she was interested in.

  The faint glow of light from outside had just began to seep through our hole. Just a little longer, and we would be free from the craus’lar with our attack completed.

  I shouted a wordless cry and joined the goblins in their effort to dig through the flesh. My rhin dagger cleaved through fatty tissue once, then twice, and then my third stroke burst through the stomach lining entirely.

  The stomach suddenly split wide as m
y attack chopped through the final layers of skin, and the entire stomach lining tore to release the pool of acid directly into the craus’lar’s abdomen. Green acid poured through the opening and flooded the entire cavity between skin and stomach lining, and the craus’lar bellowed as its own slime began to eat away at its torso.

  “Once more!” I shouted, and my goblins scrambled as they brought their axes down on the thin layer of skin that separated us from the outside world.

  The hide burst open, and sunlight flooded my eyes as we dropped a dozen feet from the belly of the beast to the slimy ground below.

  “Gryff!” shouted the familiar voices of Ashla and Erin in tandem.

  I coughed and rolled out of the way as an enormous flood of stomach acid burst through the hole we had carved.

  “Get him out of the way,” Doc barked urgently. “This whole beast is about to collapse.”

  Strong hands seized me by the shoulders and tugged me away as I blinked monster blood out of my eyes. I squinted as I opened them, and I caught a glimpse of my vingehund following me at a trot as she whimpered in concern.

  The strong hands stopped dragging me, and I used my newfound freedom to recall my daggerdillos, vingehund, and axe goblins. Then I stuffed their crystals back into the proper slots as I wiped blood and slime away from my face.

  The craus’lar collapsed onto its stomach, and it twitched feebly in its death throes.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes, but it seemed like I’d actually done it.

  “Keep that bullet bass going,” Doc ordered me as he crouched to meet my gaze. “We’re going to wash you off, then you can take it away.”

  “Wash with what?” I coughed out in confusion.

  As the question left my mouth, Ashla cast a low, ringed wall of snow to surround me. I stared at it in bewilderment, but then Erin threw out a fiery spell of intense heat and warmth to heat it quickly.

  The snow instantly turned to slush, and the augmenting mage from the Wild Reds strode across the patch of half-liquid snow to grab me by the shoulders.

  She unceremoniously picked me up and dunked me directly into the slush.

  I sputtered indignantly, but she rolled me over the damp snow until every trace of slime and blood was gone. By the time I fought back to my feet, I was shivering with cold, but I was also entirely clean.

  “I hate you all,” I chattered out as I glared around at the seven people surrounding me.

  “If you hate us so much,” Erin growled as she put her hands on her hips, “why’d you go and risk your stupid life to kill that monster all by yourself?”

  “Ah,” I replied succinctly, and I gave her a cocksure grin. “Sorry about that, but hey, that monster isn’t getting up anytime soon.”

  Erin took a deep breath as if to ream me out, but instead she burst into light, uncontrollable laughter.

  Suddenly, chuckles bubbled up in my throat, and I had to join in.

  “You’re the luckiest idiot around,” she gasped out between giggles. “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

  “I never doubted you,” Ashla added with a wink and a cheeky grin. “Honestly, it’s a miracle Erin hasn’t learned by now your strategies look like suicide and pan out as masterful plans.”

  “I just expect some part of it to go horribly wrong,” Erin protested. “He can’t predict everything.”

  “Now,” I cut in, “Erin’s right about that. I got attacked by a bunch of stomach fish.”

  “Stomach fish!” Erin burst out in a bewildered giggle. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “They have legs, too,” I added with a shrug. “I can’t make this up. I’ll show you guys later, when I’m all rested up.”

  “About that resting up thing,” Doc interrupted, and his face turned grim. “Right before we landed at this rift, we got a report in about three new attacks, and it sounds like we’re going to have our hands full.”

  “Three new attacks?” I asked as I frowned at the heavyset leader. “What’s going on here?”

  “Well,” he said heavily, “I don’t actually know what most of the communication chatter flying around meant, but it sounds pretty bad. Like some kind of organized, mass-scale attack.”

  “Organized?” I asked, and my stomach dropped as my mind jumped to the obvious conclusion.

  “Three attacks,” Doc repeated with a shrug. “Let me know if I’m wrong, but I think these locations are pretty important, since as far as I know, you’ve been sent to all three places on special missions.”

  “What are the locations?” I questioned him as my brow knit in concern. “Just tell me, I need to know.”

  “Ortych Sands, Svellfrer’s Rest, and Njordenfalls,” Doc reported with a grimace. “It sounds like two of the attacks are under control, but one is under the highest alert. Massive amounts of military are being moved to it.”

  “Which one?” I demanded in alarm. “Which one needs help?”

  “Njordenfalls,” Doc told me, and he shook his head with serious worry. “Something really big is happening there, and I don’t know if we can stop it.”

  Chapter 15

  “Njordenfalls?” I repeated, and my heart clenched with fear. “We have to go stop the attack.”

  “You can’t,” Doc pressed as he took an urgent step toward me. “Look at your teammates. You’re all mana exhausted, and you’ve done enough here. Me and the other Wild Reds have to complete our mission, which means we’re going into that rift to close it, and I don’t want you three to go off to Njordenfalls alone.”

  “Why did you guys get sent on this mission anyway?” I asked in confusion as I looked over the unfamiliar faces of the new Wild Reds. “Who are all these people?”

  “The Reds have been gathering new members,” Doc explained. “I’ve got a lot of connections among retired mercenaries and ex-Academy mages. We need all the help we can get in order to keep humanity alive.”

  “So, you’re the backup forces,” I realized, and I huffed out a frustrated breath. “Sleet is so low on spare mages he had to send an outside team, and you’re telling me we don’t need backup at Njordenfalls?”

  Doc frowned and narrowed his eyes at me. “Just because Grand Mage Kenefick and the Headmaster are low on forces, that doesn’t mean you three ought to go running off to get yourselves killed.”

  “We’re not going to get ourselves killed,” I argued. “We’re one of the few people who understand the threat at Njordenfalls. We have to go.”

  “You’ve accomplished one miracle today, Gryff,” Doc growled as he jabbed a finger at the dissolving corpse of the craus’lar. “Don’t test your luck on another.”

  “It’s not luck I’m working with,” I ground out. “I planned this kill, and it went fine. Strategy is not a miracle.”

  “You might be a good planner,” Doc argued, and his eyes blazed with anger, “but you’re not immortal. You could have died if that craus’lar actually let loose its acid, and you’re damned lucky it didn’t.”

  “It wasn’t luck,” I growled, “it was--”

  I wanted to explain about the rift I made with Sera’s power, but I stopped and shut my mouth at the last moment. It would be fine if Ashla and Erin were the only people listening to me, but none of the Wild Reds had any idea about Phi or the other Archons. They weren’t part of the coalition against Phi, and if I let slip Headmaster Sleet’s biggest secret to a group of people I barely knew, I might as well throw in the towel on the whole idea of being a leader.

  “That’s what I thought,” Doc answered, and he shook his head in consternation. “Go home, Gryff. Take care of Ashla and your other women. I don’t want to hear about you back in battle until the week is over.”

  “… Fine,” I grated out. “We’ll go home. Promise me you’ll take care of this rift.”

  “I swear it,” Doc said solemnly. “Not like there’s much left to do, though. I’m sorry for giving you a hard time, kid, but you have to learn your limits.”

  “Of course,” I answered in a d
ull echo. “Sorry for arguing, I must just be tired. Do you have any spare mana potions? I’m worried about Ashla’s condition, she spent a lot of power.”

  Doc turned and frowned at his ex-teammate, and she gave him a weak smile back.

  “Of course,” Doc answered, and he gave Ashla a contrite smile before he dug a blue, glimmering elixir from his bag. “This should take care of all three of you, including any injuries.”

  “Wow,” Erin replied in awe as she peered at the vial of elixir. “This sounds amazing.”

  “Be careful, now,” Doc warned. “This is potent stuff. None of that Academy garbage.”

  “You mixed it yourself?” I asked as I quirked a curious eyebrow at the healer.

  “Of course,” he sniffed. “I don’t carry around store-bought potions. Do you even know me?”

  “Sorry, sorry,” I apologized, and I slapped him on the shoulder in an expression of friendship. “We’ll go home and stop bothering you now. Get that rift done.”

  “I’ll introduce the new teammates to you next time, then,” Doc agreed. “We should get going.”

  “Don’t hurt your back, old man,” Ashla added in a teasing voice.

  “I won’t as long as you kids fly home safe,” Doc responded, and he smiled at us warmly as we said our goodbyes.

  Erin and Ashla followed me at a tired pace as we trudged back to Erin’s airship. By the time I next turned to look at the Wild Reds, I just caught the tail end of a red scarf disappearing into the rift.

  “Think they’ll be okay without us?” Erin asked as her amber eyes glowed with concern.

  “I think so,” I said confidently. “From what I saw, Doc has a pretty perfect lineup of teammates there.”

  “Not more perfect than we are, I hope,” Ashla inserted with a chuckle.

  I threw my arm around the ice mage’s shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

  “Never more perfect than you are,” I confirmed.

  Ashla snorted while Erin giggled, and the three of us limped up the ramp back into Diomesia.

  Erin sighed and walked into the cockpit, and Ashla slumped into her seat as she strapped the safety harness around her chest.