The boulders crashed past Bel’s position, thundering into the darkness below them. The scrattes shrieked with jubilation, but their cries were immediately drowned out by the thundering stomps of Cleisthenes’ trunk-like legs as he charged uphill.

Bel could see the scrattes all around them, glowing with an irritating crimson hue in Kjar’s sight. The nearest group of ambushers rushed downhill to meet Cleis. Bel watched with concern, but Cleis swung his massive poleaxe and turned the scrattes into a fine mist. Their auras dimmed as their lives were extinguished, giving Bel the grim impressive that the rampaging hippo was cutting down a horde of ghost-like beings in a cyclone of murderous rage.

If the scrattes were being forced into his reach then Cleis’ approach would have been a good one, but his reckless charge ignored the fact that they could simply go around him. Once they realized that he was dangerous, the small, loose-skinned creatures turned their attention to the seemingly less dangerous members of the party.

Bel looked at Pelagius. The fish-person was flopping around on the ground, clearly injured from the shoulder high boulder that had clipped her as it tumbled down the sinkhole.

“We should save her,” Bel said.

“Are you sure–” Orseis began, but Flann bopped her on the head with his staff.

“None o’ that now, don’t be jokin’ around during a fight,” he scolded.

The old fox drew back his arm and cast it forward, tossing a sheet of sparks in to the air to provide enough light to better see the approaching creatures and, more importantly, the ground beneath their feet. He strode with determination towards Pelagius, flicking bolts of flame as he went.

“I was serious though,” Orseis mumbled under her breath.

Bel sighed. Things weren’t ideal, but things never seemed to be. She quickly checked her weapon before charging at the nearest scratte.

She swept her glare over it and two of its closest friends before killing them with three precise cuts of her blade. She flicked her sword quickly to toss off some of the gore, doing her best to avoid looking at the mashed corpses she left behind.

This past month of training really payed off, she thought grimly. Beth would be proud, though.

The entire slope lit up at Flann bathed it in a wave of searing flames. Bodies of scrattes went flying, tossed by the incredible force of his attack. Ah, maybe Beth wouldn’t be that proud. The old fox is putting me to shame.

While she was distracted, Orseis breezed past Bel, tentacles snatching up and tossing rocks as she went. By the time she reached a clump of a dozen scrattes who had ducked behind a boulder to shelter from Flann’s assault, half of them were already dead from rocks to the brain. Orseis fell upon the rest with flailing tentacles and gleeful laughs; in moments pieces of scatte were flying over the ridge.

Bel lowered her opinion of herself once again.

Then she turned and went to Pelagius’ side. The fish woman was still breathing, but her scaled skin was pale and her mouth opened and closed as she gulped down air.

Bel honestly couldn’t say if that was worse than normal, but the oozing blood from the long, jagged gash down her side looked pretty bad. Bel put her hands on the wound and focused her two coagulation abilities, first to force the blood to immediately stiffen and second to made the oversized scab tough enough to hold together despite the fish-woman’s thrashing.

“Are you okay?” Bel asked.

The fish woman gaped at her.

Right, we don’t speak the same language. Great.

Flann hobbled over to Bel’s side. “Looks like we took care of the last of ’em.”

“Where are you cretins?” Cleisthenes shouted. “The fighting is up here!”

Orseis sauntered over, wiping gore from her tentacles onto her gore-covered cloak. She looked up at the hippo as he yelled. “I don’t think he’d taste good,” she declared, “but I’m willing to try.”

Bel frowned. “Stop joking around, Pelagius may be seriously injured. I’ve stopped her bleeding, but I’m not a healer like my brother.”

A rainfall of shattered stone heralded the arrival of the angry, angry hippo.

“Where were y– Pelagius!” Cleis turned to them with narrow, angry eyes. “What happened?” he demanded.

Bel stood up and brushed off some dirt from her knees. Her gloves creaked as she clenched her hands into fists while she tried to control her temper. “She got hit by a rock.”

“A rock?” Cleis made the statement into an accusation as he rushed to the injured woman’s side. “This is serious! Thanks to your mismanagement, we must withdraw!”

Simon and Johan had finally made their way over from whatever hole they’d crawled into, and made a variety of distressed noised when they saw their injured companion. Bel ignored them.

“You’d best deploy your balloon, Cleis. Pelagius is too heavy for us to handle, so we’ll watch your back while you make it ready.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Cleis harrumphed, but he did pull out the tightly compressed wad of silk that would expand into a balloon once fully inflated. He got Johan to pull it open and give it some shape, but, to Bel’s surprise, he didn’t ask Flann to inflate it. Instead, the hippo swallowed a large brick of something, walked under the open balloon, and breathed fire. Bel had to admit that she was impressed; the balloon quickly filled with hot air.

The hippo continued to exhale an impossibly long breath and the balloon soon swelled to fulness. Without pausing for breath, Cleis scooped Pelagius up in his arms while Simon and Johan grabbed onto two of the dangling silk slings. Bel waved as they ascended.

“I assume that we aren’t following?” Orseis asked.

Bel glanced at her two reliable companions. “Of course not. I mean, as long as that’s okay with you two.”

Orseis squeezed several tentacles in the air. “My hunger is not yet quenched.”

Flann gave her a thumbs up.

“Great! Maybe you could calm down a bit with the bloodlust though, Orseis. There’s no one here to impress, you know.”

Orseis clicked her tongue, and Bel grinned.

“Okay, should we just run down the sinkhole before more scrattes get here? Can you keep up Flann?”

“I can scamper just as fast as you young’uns!”

The fox paused and scratched at his furry chin. “Although, I do have to admit that my eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be. Maybe we could–”

A pair of tentacles emerged from Orseis’ cloak and wrapped around the fox.

“Put me down this instant, you accursed water-breather!”

Orseis cackled with glee as she took off running, forcing Bel to rush to keep up. She was worried about a few clusters of scrattes who were emerging into their downslope path, but then she Orseis rotated Flann like a foxy turret and he blasted a group that was in their way.

Her heart ached a little when they ran by all of the corpses – she needed essence to grow stronger after all! – but it would would be stupid to sit still for another ambush, especially since she’d just yelled at Cleis for the same thing.

The continued for a long minute, and soon Bel was sweating inside of her her heavy, laminar armor. Orseis was gasping for breath, and she wasn’t holding Flann up quite as high in the air as she had at the start of their run, but neither of them slowed until they reached a glowing hole in the ground.

“What the heck,” Bel panted, “is this?”

Orseis leaned over the edge, dangling Flann by one of her tentacles. When she pulled the fox back Bel expected him to yell and curse, but instead his nose quivered with excitement.

“It’s amazin’! I’ve never seen the like! Green, green everywhere!” He spread his arms wide for emphasis. “There’s rivers, and waterfalls, and so much life! Seeing it absolutely makes this trip worth it!”

Bel took a step forward, but Orseis waved her back. “Wait a moment Bel, the edge is dangerous.”

Bel was about to ask why Orseis got to go to the edge, but then she noticed a pair of tentacles that stretched from Orseis two or three strides back to a large boulder that jutted out of the ground, anchoring her in place.

“How far do your tentacles stretch?” she asked.

Orseis clacked her beak. “You’re so rude, Bel. Get out your parachute. How far is the drop, Flann?”

The fox was was still being held in the air, but he didn’t seem to have any more objections. “Looked at least as far as the drop we just did to get down here.”

“We’re going to have trouble with the landing then,” Bel worried. “We don’t have that burning brazier on a parachute to light the way.”

“Nah, the plants are all glowing,” Orseis responded. “We should be fine.”

Flann shook his head. “Well, we’ll be able to see where we’re falling, but the ground is under all the plants. Who knows what’s under them – it’s like a sea of green, Orseis. It’s like nothing in the Golden Plains.”

Bel bit her lip and tucked back one of her snakes that was wandering into her eyesight. “Well, are they trees that will break our bones if we hit them? Or are they just…”

The gorgon paused. She didn’t know the word for fern in the native tongue. “Wait, haven’t you guys seen anything besides scrubby grasses and scraggly trees?”

“We’ve got mangroves in the Lip,” Orseis responded.

Flann was silent.

Bel rubbed her hands with frustration. “Okay, you said that there was water, right? How about we drop into that?”

Flann’s ears drooped. “Well, I don’t really like getting wet…”

Orseis clacked her beak. “Okay, river it is. How should we drop? There’s nothing to tie our ripcords to.”

Bel rummaged in her bag and pulled one of the metal piton that James had given her for just these occasions. She held it up triumphantly. “If you two can watch my back, I’ll set up the parachutes.”

Orseis pulled herself back from the edge, releasing a small rockslide of debris. Bel was suddenly glad that she hadn’t rushed to the edge. She turned and jabbed the piton into the rock soil. She slammed a rock into a few times to drive it deep enough that it wouldn’t move. It took her a few minutes of work to untangle everyone’s parachutes and fasten their cords to her piton, but soon she had everything set up.

She looked up and squinted against the bright light as Flann incinerated a few more scrattes.

“They’re gonna start getting wise to this sooner or later,” the fox said. “Won’t take ’em too long to just start rolling rocks at us again.”

“Good thing that I’m done,” Bel replied. “Who wants to go first?”

“Me,” Orseis volunteered. “I’m most capable in the water.”

Bel nodded. “You want to go next, Flann?” Now that he’d admitted that his eyesight wasn’t good, she wanted to be sure that the old fox didn’t get separated from their group during the descent. Bel was relieve when he nodded without protest, and in less than a minute they were counting down to their second jump of the day.

Orseis whooped as she leaped over the edge.

Flann followed a second later.

Bel watched to be sure that their rip cords worked properly, pulling their parachutes open before slipping free of the anchored piton. She followed after her companions without a backward glance.

As she cleared the lip of the hole her mind was blown for the second time that day.

Another enormous cavern lay below the first one, but this one was lit by the soft glow of a million delicate leaves. Each fern and vine was speckled with blue or orange spots, and the multitude combined to create a soft illumination that covered every surface available. As she drifted past a vine that hung hundreds of strides from the ceiling she saw that it wasn’t the leaves that were glowing, but tiny insects that each twinkled with their own internal light.

She couldn’t help but laugh with happiness. “This is amazing!” she yelled.

She looked down, wanting to share her delight with her two companions. They were too far away for her to speak to though, and it seemed like she still had a minute more to fall. Bel craned her head in every direction, determined to drink up every sight. She would bet that even James, with all the wonders of his strange world, had never seen anything so beautiful.

As they neared Orseis’ target – a large, still pond – Bel sighed with contentment. Maybe she could convince James to take this route as well. With some protection of course. Maybe even Beth would mellow out after seeing something like this, she thought.

Bel’s finger’s tingled with tension as Orseis splashed into the pond.

A few seconds later, Flann followed her.

Bel watched Orseis emerge from the water, and Flann emerged a moment later, both safe, and some tension left her gut.

Bel hit the surface a second later.

It was just like her practice jumps; she shucked the outer pouch that held her parachute and hoped that the oiled inner pocket of her bag was properly sealed against the water.

She sank deeply enough that her feet touched the squishy bottom, but she quickly pushed up. Then something hard clamped around her ankle and she was jerked back down.

Ah, shit, she thought.