Mark of the fool a progr.., p.35
Mark of the Fool: A Progression Fantasy Epic, page 35
“Done,” was all he said.
“I… I thought you never saw battle before?” Alex stared at him.
Thundar shrugged. “Not true battle, but our brawls among the clan are… vigorous.”
Alex looked down at the smashed monsters, noting to himself to never, ever piss him off.
“I am glad we did not walk into that unawares.” Khalik stepped to one of the little creatures’ bodies and knelt down beside it. The fangs in its mouth still twitched slightly. “If they had surprised us with a successful stone attack, we would have been unbalanced, and had they then jumped us with their numbers, things could have been grim.”
“We could have survived with our skills and Isolde’s armour spell in place. Most of us, at least.” Thundar’s hooves scuffed over the dust as he approached. “But there would have been wounded, which would slow us, or maybe the wounded would have been taken by the chancellor’s spell.”
“It is good we found them before they could attack us,” Isolde agreed. “And I am well pleased with what each of us brings. That battle was solved with two spells, a bird and a mace. We are still left with plenty of mana resources.” She looked to Alex. “Your forceball is incredibly versatile. I’ve never seen one that can crack stone and move so quickly.”
“I had a lot of time to practice with it.” Alex shrugged. “If I had a choice, I’d kinda like to shoot freaking lightning from my fingers.”
Isolde’s face softened a little. “ELEC-1400 is not an easy course, but it’s fun if you can get through the initial unit on the history of electrical magic and the unit on conduction. Did you pick it?”
“No,” Alex said. “Maybe later.”
Khalik glanced to the sun. “Let’s hope their troop was not close enough to hear their cries. Either way, we should be moving.”
The four wizards took a final look at the fallen monsters then began climbing the ramp up to the other side. The sun’s heat grew stronger as they reached the top of the canyon.
Boom!
They abruptly stopped, gaping at the horizon.
Light flashed in the distance followed by a roar, and a massive fireball soared into the air followed by clouds of smoke and dust. Moments later, a crack like stone tearing, and more dust shot up from the ground elsewhere in the distance.
“Looks like the other groups ran into their own troubles.” Khalik sent Najyah into the sky, letting her lead and scout again. “Let’s go. We have a long way yet.”
The group pushed on through the wastelands, wrapping their cloaks around their heads for protection from the sun. There was no wind to blow dust into their faces at the moment, but an unexpected gust could stir it up and sweep away visibility. The cloaks would protect them against those two threats at least. As they continued toward the escarpment, the sun rose farther into the sky, closing in on noon.
The heat continued to climb.
Alex and Isolde were sweating profusely, and Thundar was starting to pant. Khalik was more used to the heat, but even his broad shoulders had started to sag. Alex took long sips from his waterskin as they trekked through the plain. On the horizon, another flash of light would suddenly appear from time to time, marking signs of more battle.
They watched their surroundings with sharp eyes, tensed for another ambush, but none came. For a long time, they were alone in the wastes, left only to the searing heat that cracked the dry earth, and the thick mana in the air.
Najyah circled above, watching for threats.
Soon she wasn’t alone in the sky. Massive birds with black feathers began soaring above the plains. Many circled the canyon to their backs, just above the spot where they had killed the muupkaras. Others flew over areas ahead of where the battle had taken place. Their wingspan appeared to be about as wide as Najyah’s, but they were thinner, at least from what Alex could see.
“Big crows,” he said.
“Vultures,” Khalik corrected him. “They are birds that feed on the dead.”
“Well, I guess we left them a lot of food back there,” Alex said.
“Hrm.” Thundar watched the vultures behind them. “If the muupkaras’ troop is around and looking for their hunting party, they might go check why vultures are flying over where their hunting party was. If they’re smart enough.”
The students quickened their pace.
As they continued through the wastes, they saw other signs of life.
Large insects burrowed from the earth to bask in the heat as the sun approached midday. Fist-sized beetles shook the dust from their shells then unfolded green, leaf-like wings.
Some flew from the earth, making a loud droning noise, and swooped to the top of rocky rises dotting the plain. There, they would look around and splay their wings wide to take in the sunlight. Despite the heat, Alex shuddered, remembering insectile eyes watching them in the Traveller’s Cave. He pushed the memory of silence-spiders from his mind.
‘They’re just bugs,’ he told himself. ‘They’re just bugs… Aren’t they?’
He pointed to the large insects. “Know anything about those, Isolde?”
“Green Wings. They take their energy from the sun. They’re harmless, unless you eat them.”
“What happens if you eat them?” Thundar asked.
“It’s a strong poison. Especially to those with a lot of mana in their bodies. That trait helps keep them safe from predation in the Barrens.”
“Oh.” Alex was glad eating bugs, or anything else they found out here, wasn’t part of the test.
He took another long sip of water, mentally cursing the sun. Even the hottest summer days in Alric felt like a cool fall breeze compared to the merciless beating the sun was giving them here.
The heat was sapping his strength—all of their strengths. His feet were hot and felt like weights were tied to them. Isolde’s straight-backed stride was starting to droop forward and Khalik’s shoulders continued to sag. Thundar’s panting filled the air. Alex was glad he’d trained for endurance over the past month. If he hadn’t, he doubted he could have made it this far.
He looked up to the escarpment. It was getting closer, at least.
“Hold on.” Khalik stopped them. He squinted up as Najyah flew down to land on his gauntlet. “Najyah has seen something.”
He and his familiar locked eyes for a moment, and information passed between them. Khalik quickly looked back over his shoulder.
“Oh, damn everything,” he swore. “The muupkara troop pursues us.”
The group whirled around, squinting at the horizon. In the distance through shimmering waves of heat, something moved. It was far enough away that they couldn’t make it out clearly.
“How many?” Alex asked.
“Najyah says many more than we killed. Many more.”
“And we’re on open ground,” Thundar said. “They’ve got short legs; we should keep moving. Keep ahead of them. No need for a fight if we can avoid it. Especially against a lot of them, and in this heat.”
Alex looked up to the escarpment. It seemed deceptively, tauntingly close. They pushed on through the sun, with each of them looking back over their shoulders to look for signs of movement.
Thundar sniffed. “New scents ahead, more of them. And something else. Something strange.”
Cautiously, they removed the capes from their faces and moved on with hands raised for spellcasting. They were tensed, ready for an ambush.
They didn’t encounter living muupkaras.
They encountered corpses.
On a patch of earth that had been torn up, half a dozen lay scattered on the plains ahead. Each of them was half-collapsed, like waterskins that had been punctured. Their flesh sagged, giving them a strange, soft, deformed look. Because they were so fuzzy, it took Alex a bit to figure out what was wrong.
Their claws were missing.
Their bones were gone.
Gone from each one of them.
Their faces looked like someone had half-flattened clay dolls and left them in the rain to melt. The plump features were sunken in and their limbs were crooked and displaced, like shrivelled sacks of flesh drying in the sun.
Large puncture wounds pierced each of them. Some to the chest, some to their arms, and some to the backs of their heads.
“Uldar’s beard,” Alex swore. “What the hell happened to them?” He remembered one of the monsters Baelin had warned them about. “Oh shit, did one of those bonedrinker things the chancellor mentioned do this?”
Paling, Isolde studied the bodies, then scanned the horizon. Still empty. “Yes. They have sharp tails they use to bore into their prey, then they release a substance that liquifies the skeleton. The skin and flesh is left behind, but the bones and marrow become like a thick soup for them to drink their fill of.” She checked the horizon again, this time apprehensively. “From the way these muupkaras’ bodies are punctured and how they look deflated, I think we can say that there was a bonedrinker here.”
Khalik grimaced. “Dammit, the dust storm must have blown away any tracks. Can you smell where it might have gone, friend Thundar?”
The minotaur sniffed. “That way.” He pointed south, away from the escarpment. “The scent is old, though. It might be anywhere.”
Khalik frowned, lifting up the hand that had been spell-marked by Baelin. “Remember all, there is no shame if we need to retreat.”
Alex looked at him sharply.
From the way Khalik had said that, he wondered if he meant that for himself too, or if he just meant it for them. After all, he was the one who persevered in his journey to Generasi with only Najyah after the rest of his entourage couldn’t continue.
“You’re right,” Alex said, his mind working. “But we’re getting close. We should be able to get there before anything gets us. I hope.”
“Yeah, if we keep moving,” Thundar said.
They pushed onward, scanning every direction. They glanced back toward their pursuers far in the distance and scanned the horizon for any sign of bone-drinking monsters. The wind blew toward their backs, giving them an extra push forward, thankfully. Only a light spray of dust kicked up, not enough to hinder their progress.
The wind made their journey easier.
But it also turned out to be a curse.
With it blowing at their backs, Thundar couldn’t smell what was ahead. They continued scanning the horizon for threats, but the dust obscured a lot of the terrain.
They never saw the second ambush until they walked right into it.
Chapter 43
The Escarpment
Dust exploded from the ground.
Muupkaras emerged from the earth around them, screeching, rocks raised above their heads. There were only eight this time, but now they had the element of surprise. They threw the stones with full force and surprising skill.
“Oof!” Alex groaned as one struck him in the chest and another cracked off his forehead. The Lesser Force Armour absorbed much of the impact, but the weight of the blows was enough to send him stumbling backward and drive a hot burst of pain through his body. The little creatures were surprisingly strong for their size.
Stones struck the others, glancing off their force armour or clipping Khalik’s leather gauntlet. Thundar grunted as one struck him in his powerful thigh, but his tough hide and muscle made the impact little more than annoying.
Then the beasts rushed in, swarming and dodging past Khalik and Thundar to head for Isolde and Alex, the weakest-looking members of the group. Isolde stumbled back in surprise, but Thundar recovered quickly, spitting out a short incantation.
His form shimmered, and he suddenly split into a twin of himself. He and his image went to Isolde, and he swung out with his mace, warding off some of the attackers. The muupakaras skidded to a halt in front of both massive weapons, trying to dart between them. Some stayed focused on Isolde and Thundar.
The others went for Alex, their jaws opening and splitting, ready to grab him and tear at his flesh. He quickly dropped into second stance and shot his forceball down in front of the closest one.
Bang!
The creature ran into it, falling backward in a heap.
The others swarmed forward as Alex backed away, sweeping the air in front of him with his broomstick. His heart pounded as wet sounds bubbled from their throats, while scores of pointy teeth twitched and throbbed as they advanced.
He called his forceball, dropping it in front of their faces and weaving it rapidly in circles and figure eights around them. The air whooshed around like a swarm of bees. He danced the forceball between them, guiding it close enough to make it look like he was aiming for their faces. They skidded to a halt, dodging out of the way of the spell.
“I have them!” Khalik shouted.
Najyah shrieked out a battle cry.
She swooped over the line of monsters with her master’s spell shimmering beneath her. Sharp rocks rained down in a line behind her, bombing and striking the creatures through their fur. They howled and stumbled back. Now Alex swept his forceball forward in front of them, spinning grit into their large eyes and mouths. Wounded and now half blind, they screeched and scampered back.
Alex’s eyes looked for anything he could use against them, anything indirect. But there were no mop buckets of water, no fire-gems in the eyes of goddesses, or rocks to rain down. All he had was dust and flat-earth.
Think. Adapt.
Gritting his teeth, he swept the forceball back and forth in front of them, inching it closer, driving them back on their heels. Suddenly, their screeching intensified. Khalik’s sharpened stones were vanishing from their wounds, and blood began to pour over their fur as the deep cuts opened. Panicked from their injuries and fear of the forceball, they were forced into full retreat, leaving behind long trails of red on the dust.
Boom!
Isolde raised her hands. Sparks danced across her palms and burst into flame-blasts that reached out in a cone, sweeping the air fifteen feet in front of her. The scent of burning filled the air as some of the monsters’ fur caught fire.
One of her attackers leapt around the flames and tried to duck toward her, but a swing from the closest Thundar’s mace stopped it in its tracks. It froze in surprise as the minotaur’s mace passed into the ground where it had just stood, disappearing like a rock dropping into water.
That Thundar had been the illusion.
The real one swung while it was distracted.
Splat.
The last of the attacking muupkaras was a crushed mess beneath his mace.
The others ran away, all badly bleeding. Theresa had told him about animals she’d hunted—bleeding from her broad-headed arrows—these creatures would not get far with that amount of blood loss.
The second Thundar shimmered out of existence and the four wizards panted in the heat. Despite catching them by surprise, their attackers lay dead, dying, or would be dead soon enough.
“Anyone hurt?” Khalik asked.
“Fine,” Thundar grunted.
“Just my pride.” Alex wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Filthy creatures.” Isolde glared at the corpses. “Filthy, filthy creatures.” She glanced to Thundar. “Thank you, if you were not so quick to act, that would have been much worse.”
“Just doing my part for the herd,” Thundar said.
“Khalik, you and Najyah saved me there too, thanks.” Alex clapped him on the arm.
“Your distraction helped us,” Khalik said. “If you had just started to attack one of them, then the rest would have swarmed you. Keeping them away was good thinking.”
“Y-yeah,” Alex said. “I’m just glad we all got out of that in one piece.”
“Mhm, though my mana reserves are dented,” Khalik said.
“Mine too,” said Isolde.
Alex looked happily at his forceball. Practicing a sustained spell for so many years to up its mana efficiency was paying off quite well. “I still have more juice.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We should get moving. These things had brown fur instead of grey. Maybe they’re from a different troop. If we don’t get going, we might have two groups after us. Oh, and, Isolde, your force armour saved my ass. Thanks.”
She shrugged. “We’re a good group so far. That’s all there is to it.”
They pushed on through the dust, squinting their eyes against the sun. Noon was nearly upon them. They still had time, but the test’s end was getting closer.
It seemed like they’d been walking for days. The sun was high and the air seemed to burn. Earlier, Alex would have sworn the Barrens couldn’t get any hotter, but the heat seemed to double with each passing moment.
Najyah had taken breaks from soaring above by flying down and perching on Alex’s forceball. He was glad he’d gotten it to the point where it could carry heavier weights. The group’s steps had slowed as the sun continued to sap their strength, and the movement on the horizon behind had grown more distinct as time went on.
The muupkaras were gaining on them.
“Persistent little demons.” Alex glanced back over his shoulder. He was sure he was imagining it, but he thought he could already hear their angry screeches carrying on the wind.
“They have a lot of endurance.” Isolde poured sweat, and her raven hair was plastered to her shirt. “They… run prey down for miles.”
“We can’t slow down,” Thundar panted. The minotaur wizard’s breathing sounded as loud as the wind from earlier. His mace hung loosely in a loop on his belt. “If anything, we’ve got to speed up.”
Khalik poured water over his plaits and face. It dripped from his beard. “We are close, but Najyah says there is some kind of change in the terrain ahead. With hope, it will not slow us down.”
“Wish one of us knew ice or water spells,” Alex groaned. “At least we’re not one of those people that showed up wearing some kind of armour.”
He thought of Derek, and noticed Isolde’s jaw harden.
“If someone did, then they had better have taken it off,” she said. “That metal will be as hot as the smithy it was made in by now.”
