CHAPTER 19
“Jeez, that was cold. How are you supposed to make friends by storming off like that?”
“I told you to get out of my head.” Ventas kneaded his eye, the faint sting slowly dying down before the divine spoke again, reawakening the irritation.
“I meant what I said Ventas. He doesn’t deserve your loyalty, and you don’t have to worry about being tossed from your chapel. Our arrangement isn’t permanent. Just do what I say and you will have your pendant back- everything will be back to normal. There is no need to give in to his abusive demands.”
“Shut it. I don’t owe you an explanation.”
Ventas stomped down the grassy hill to the grove, hoping that Epictus would lose interest soon and leave him be. The cool breeze gave respite from the oppressive heat but was still unable to quell the rising anger and shame in his heart as he left Birdie behind on the hill. Ventas was still having a hard time discerning when the divine was talking to just him, or the both of them. He hoped with all of his heart that Birdie hadn’t heard what Epictus had just said to him on the hill.
Of course she didn’t. She looked confused, He assured himself, coming to the edge of the grove and dropping down into it through snaggling vines of thorny bush and tangles of undergrowth. He stopped a moment to inspect the budding fruit clustered on the thorn covered vines, but passed them by when they proved unripe. The prickle in his eye sparked up again and Epictus spoke softly to him.
“He really is horrible to you. Do you truly believe that giving in to his little scheme is going to lead to the best outcome for you? Your people? Forgive me for my bluntness, but Camcenan does not strike me as a caring and well-meaning leader. He is manipulating you, Ventas.”
“Manipulating? Oh that's rich coming from you. I don’t think I’ve ever met a bigger hypocrite in my life. Now leave me alone before I-” Ventas cut off and stopped dead in his tracks under the canopy of the grove.
“Before you what? I’m just trying to help! You don’t deserve to be treated that way-”
“Shut up!”
“Come on-”
“Shhh!”
Ventas dropped into a crouch behind a patch of thorny berry branches, his ears straining to pick it up again. That sound that warbled through the trees just then- it wasn’t natural. Even in this foreign environment, Ventas could recognize organic ambiance as well as the next hunter, and that distant hissing noise was not natural- something was wrong.
“What are we looking for?” Epictus whispered.
Ventas ignored him, and surveyed his surroundings.
The grove of trees was crowded in the recess between hills as it housed a nursery of tall paper white birch and scattered pine. The round leaves fluttered like wind-catchers in the breeze, and made getting a clear look at the environment difficult as limbs swayed and light danced through the lattice of foliage. From where he crouched, Ventas couldn’t see anything wrong, but he could feel something. And then he realized something else that set off alarm bells in his mind.
Where is Brooke?
His heart picked up as he snuck around the bush to a nearby tree and began scanning the grove in renewed purpose and panic. He couldn’t find a trace of the girl anywhere. Not the sound of her collecting wood or glimpses of her picking through the undergrowth. She was simply gone.
“Hold on! Eight degrees to your left”
Ventas didn’t know why the divine bothered whispering, but he listened anyway, scanning the south.
Brooke’s cream colored cloak lay abandoned at the base of a tree. Heaped upon it were dozens of dry branches and twigs, forgotten.
Then he heard it again.
“Sssss!”
From a tree beyond where the cloak lay, Ventas saw Brooke. Her green eyes were wide in terror, and she had her back pressed to her hiding spot as she gaped at him in straight-faced terror.
He opened his mouth to call to her, but stopped when she raised one hand quickly to her lips, and pointed with the other. Her trembling finger aimed directly behind him.
Whatever had spooked her, whatever caused her to abandon her task, was standing somewhere to his back.
Then a new sound pierced the wind and Ventas recognized it this time. Sniffing. Deep and desperate the sounds were, tearing through their stalker like sharp wind through a hollow tree. It was distant, coming from where he had entered the grove, but it was getting closer.
Thankful that the divine was keeping quiet, Ventas moved slowly, rolling his feet along the twig strewn ground to keep from snapping them as his heart rate picked up like the beating of a drum. He came around the bush, putting it squarely between him and the sniffing thing, passed Brooke’s abandoned cloak, and crept forward to where the girl hid. She scooted over clumsily, letting him sidle up next to her before he finally turned to look behind and she grabbed at him with shaking hands.
Standing over the tangle bush he just left was a tall and crooked something. For an embarrassing moment, Ventas thought it might have been a massive naked human. But no… it was something else. The creature was hard to look at in many ways- as Ventas tried desperately to identify it, his eyes kept skipping right over the thing, as if it was reaching out with its mind and swatting his vision away. The scraps of information could gather, pieced together to give him a vague image of a starved, bipedal creature with a pale goose-flesh hide that held the look of a scrappy and jagged canvas tossed over a leaning tower of bones. Its back was curved like frail young trees under heaps of winter snow, and though it looked like it was about to topple over any second, it moved with an unnerving silent fluidity. It was thin in the wrong places, and draping skin in others, with ribs and joints poking out as it moved through the grove with its face to the ground like a dog in search of a bone.
Ventas jumped as Brook cupped her hands around his ear, her hot breath covering his cheek as she whispered in tones bordering hysteria.
“It’s a mageater! It has to be!”
“How?” Epictus hissed in his ear, “They aren’t supposed to be this close to my domain!”
Ventas didn’t have time to respond as the creature snapped its head around, fixing its two empty eyes squarely upon Ventas and Brooke. The sockets were dark and hollow, and its leathery ragged skin pooled in the empty unblinking holes, making the thing's face look like rotting worm-eaten fruit. It took a deep sucking breath in, and began slowly creeping their way, dropping onto its hands and feet and stalking like a cat as it sniffed desperately at them.
Brooke tightened her grip on Ventas and stood slowly, dragging him to his feet in front of her. He obliged, feeling his heart begin to pound even more desperately in his ears in face of the advancing monster.
“Shoot it!” She squeaked, backing away and pulling Ventas with her.
He pulled his bow string, but found that his aim was swooping and inconsistent. Just when he thought he had a mark on the thing's face, he found himself staring at another part of its body, a tree, the sky.
It made his head spin and his stomach turn sour.
“I-I cant!” He finally lowered his bow, unwilling to waste an arrow by sending it over the trees.
“We just have to make a break for it!”
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His eye stung, and Epictus sounded a warning in his ear.
“Watch out! Where there is one there is more, and we don’t-”
Before Epictus could finish, the monster sprang. It reached out long and knobbly fingers directly at Ventas, who jumped back in surprised terror. Brooke reached around him and sent a beam of white light directly into its face. The Creature fell short, but made a sucking rasping sound that echoed through the grove and sent Ventas into a panic as he scrambled away.
It wants me. It’s coming for me! He thought desperately.
A quick scuffling blast of footsteps sounded to his left, and Ventas acted on instinct. Before he knew what he was doing, he swiveled and let an arrow fly. It soared with a sick thump into the rotting-fruit face of another creature as it skittered towards them. It careened off course, slamming into a tree and writing its awkwardly jointed limbs in reaching desperation at him, a high pitched sucking screeched escaping the jagged hole of a mouth.
“Birdie get up! We need to move!” Epictus’s voice was muted by distance as it sang in whispered warning.
“RUN!” Brooke screamed and yanked on Ventas’s arm, pulling him from his stationary stand by the tree. He backed away in terror as the grove seemed to come alive. Creatures came into view as they scurried from behind trees, from over fallen stumps and piles of plant refuse that were innocent only moments ago.
His head felt like it was spinning again, and the confusion finally overpowered his fear, turning him to his last available option: flight. He turned and tore after Brooke up the hill as the sounds of the grove springing to life spurred him on.
Up ahead, Brooke sent a flare into the sky. It soared over the hill by twenty feet before it popped, sending smoking tails from the specs of red light.
“RUUN!” Brooke screamed, practically on all fours as she tore up the steep slope.
“Birdie the mageaters!!”
Ventas closed the distance on her as the tearing steps ripped through the underbrush and gained behind him. He grabbed Brooke by the wrist, pulling her faster as his legs burned, churning up the hill.
A streak of aqua light zoomed by him from the top of the hill, and Ventas heard a thump right behind him as the volley made contact with one of their pursuers.
“Come on!”
Birdie was shouting at them.
Ventas looked up to see her standing with her silver sword in hand, Brand strapped to her back, and her empty palm outstretched towards them, aiming at the monsters pouring out of the grove. She sent another three blasts behind them and Ventas was relieved to hear the power meet their targets further behind.
He and Brooke finally crested the hill, and Ventas released her as he swiveled around to draw his bow beside Birdie.
He was going to be sick.
The whole hillside seemed to spin before him. His eyes jumped from monster to monster to the sky to the grass, never still, never able to focus. Glimpses of the horrible faces jumped in and out of his vision as he staggered, mentally reeling but doing his best to pull his focus under control.
What was going on? Why couldn’t he see?
Beside him, Birdie was sending stream after stream of magic at the beasts, toppling them as they struggled up the hill. Brooke was behind them, frantically tossing their bags together before coming to stand beside them, her sword out and palm at the ready.
“What do we do!? Magic is only slowing them down!” She shouted, adding her white streams of magic to Birdie’s.
“They are gaining up the hill!”
“How many are there?” Ventas asked desperately, his arm beginning to burn from holding the bowstring back without release.
“Twenty? The magic is just pushing them down, it’s not stopping them! We need to use weapons!” Birdie shouted as she unleashed a sustained volley of power shots in a spray of desperation down the hill.
“Weapons?” Brooke screamed, “I am not letting those things get close! We need to run!”
“Shoot them Ventas!” Birdie ordered in frustration.
“I can't! I can't see them-they are doing something to my eyes!”
Birdie spared him a quick look of distressed surprise, and for a moment he contemplated listening to Brooke before a prickling sting in his right eye precursed Epictus, who spoke frantically in his head.
“It’s me! They are being drawn to my magic, and at the same time they are hidden from my view. Close my eye!”
Ventas did as he was told, switching his bow to his other hand and using his finger in place of the arrow shelf as he aimed with the wrong hand. He clenched his divine eye shut, and immediately the hillside came into focus. His attention stopped jumping, and he was able to aim an arrow directly between the socketed eyes of the closest mageater. His first arrow missed, piercing an appendage of a monster further back. He adjusted, trying to be steady through the flood of fear that set him trembling now that he could better see what he was up against. His second shot met its mark, dropping the creature where it stood, but the body was simply overrun by others, only twenty yards off now, and making rasping noises as they scurried up the hillside.
“I’ve only got fifteen arrows prepared!” he warned, sending strike after strike into the climbing monsters.
From his periphery he saw Birdie drop her silver sword into the grass.
“Shoot as many as you can! I can get the rest!”
He continued pulling arrows from his quiver and sending them over the hill, dropping monster after monster and missing occasionally as they moved in sporadic tearing desperation towards them.. Brooke was still sending streaks of light down the hill, But from what he could tell, Birdie just stood still and watched.
“Last arrow!” He shouted as five of the mageaters at the back of the pack skittered over their fallen fellows.
“Almost ready!” Birdie grunted.
He shot the closest beast and as it fell Birdie rushed forward.
“Wait!” Brooke yelled, lunging for Birdie’s dropped silver sword and holding it out to her. Ventas stopped her, expecting to see Birdie wielding Ammi’s long sword, but he felt his stomach drop when he realized that Birdie was empty handed; Brand was still strapped to her back in its scabbard.
“Birdie!” He shouted.
She came to a jarring halt mere feet before the closest mageater and shoved her hands forward. The grass still standing amidst the fallen monsters bent away from her a moment before a curved wall of light blue light raced in a semicircle from Birdie’s outstretched hands. The sound was like nothing Ventas had ever heard before- deep and crackling like the sound of a fire, and it moved so fast that he almost missed it. All of the mageaters- alive and dead- were thrown with unnatural force from her as the wall of power slammed through them, clearing the vicinity around her of all corpses and debris. The disturbing bony beings tumbled and flew back almost all of the way down the hill, with many of them disappearing into the grove below. Birdie fell to one knee in the stillness, her shoulders heaving.
“How-” He began, but Brooke took that moment to tear away down the hill towards the girl, still clutching her abandoned silver sword.
Ventas followed with his left eye fixed on the dip in the hill where the ground gave way into the grove where the beasts tumbled out of sight.
“Come on!” Brooke descended on Birdie and grabbed her arms, hauling her to her feet.
“Wait!” Birdie panted, standing her ground with shaky legs.
“We need to go!” Brooke cried.
“No! We need to kill the remainder first! They will not stop chasing us now that they have our scent!” She took the silver sword from Brooke, and turned back to where the monsters disappeared, gripping her weapon in what Ventas took as a well established fighting stance.
“On your mark Brooke! There are only four of them, come on!” she ordered, causing Brooke to flinch. The Champion lifted her sword defensively and conjured a thin shimmering ward that sputtered like a mirage in the heat before finally solidifying into a reliable shield.
What about me? Ventas realized as he looked down at his empty quiver and the longbow in his hand that he was useless here.
He had no time to figure something out because the last four mageaters chose that moment to come tearing back up the hill. Ventas was glad to see that a small one in the back limped behind with one of his rogue arrows in its shoulder, buried almost to the feathers. But the other three made quick time as they barreled straight for them without any hindrance.
Brooke shot first. She dropped her ward and sent a beam of light splashing into the face of the first mageater right before it reached them. It staggered, and Birdie took the opportunity to hop to the side and hack at the nape of its neck. The blade sunk deep, and the creature let out a sucking screech before crumpling in a twitching heap at their feet.
Brooke tried the same trick again with the next beast as it bounded forward, but it was too quick. She was able to catch the first with a staggering attack, but a second one ducked around and leapt right at her as Birdie made herself busy with the throat of the staggered monster.
Brooke screamed as she was flattened, and Ventas, not knowing what else to do, Jumped on it. He wrapped his arms around the calloused and grating skin and pushed forward with his feet, sending the two of them rolling down the hill away from Brooke. Ventas felt the monster writhe and squirm as its bony appendages flailed into his head and neck as they tumbled, but he refused to let go, hoping to buy the girls time to deal with the last two so they could dispatch the one currently struggling to gain the upper hand on him.
Just when he felt like he had it properly restrained, he was hit with another concussive slam that almost tore the beast from his grasp. It was the wounded mageater. The second monster piled on top of them, and a sharp shredding pain tore across Ventas's arm. The bite drove Ventas into a panic, and in a desperate attempt to wrench his limb from the monster's crushing maw he let go of the first and began wailing on whatever he could reach.
“Aaarg!” he fought and flailed to get free as the pain sent hot streaks of agony through his arm and up his shoulder and neck. The first monster wriggled free and rounded on him, and Ventas got one glimpse of its terrible empty eye sockets before a hot rush of blue energy caught the monster and sent it flying.
The pressure over his arm disappeared as Brooke and Birdie descended on the wounded monster and wasted no time sinking their blades into its crouched torso. It released him, and Ventas scrambled away, his system flooded with pain and fear, and his shirt doused in the creature’s dark and stinking blood.
“One more!” Birdie shouted, and the two girls turned back down the hill, bracing themselves to face the last monster that came sprinting back at them, unphased by the abuse it had already suffered in its mad pursuit of destroying them all.