There were few things as arresting as watching a hydra in motion. The behemoth below us seemed to flow up the mountainside, its massive weight moving so swiftly and sinuously that from where I stood high above it, it barely seemed to be touching the ground at all. Its six heads bobbed and swayed, each of them moving so as to shift the hydra’s weight in the same way that a runner moves their arms. A massive slab of a tail stretched out behind it, curling up and down and undulating from side to side, keeping its balance.
It had dark scales, a matte-green that was almost black, even in daylight. Each of its heads was crested with a bony protrusion, and spikes lined the sides of its tail. It was beautiful, but only because it was so terrifying: the deep parts of my mind understood the danger of the creature as soon as I beheld it, pulled my attention to it and set a panic in my gut.
I grinned, running the tip of my tongue across the point of one of my incisors. Below me, I saw Valir moving into position with long, powerful bounds down the slope. When I judged that he was close enough, I leapt from my place on the cliffside and flew in an arc, landing on the steep ground opposite Valir so that we could come at it from both sides.
For a brief moment, I could no longer see the hydra—it still had a steep section of slope to climb before it would be visible from where I’d landed. But I could feel its footsteps as vibrations in the ground below me, a fast drumbeat that travelled through my boots and up into my body.
Then it came into view, rising ahead of me along with the crashing sound of its footsteps. Valir and I were already charging toward it, each of us taking one side.
We reached for each other in the [Wild Bond], opening ourselves up to sharing sensations as we’d done so many times before. We needed to come at it from both sides—a hydras sides were its weakest point. Their heads could strike at the ground beside them, but they didn’t have the balance to attack someone beside them with the frenzied speed that they can manage for anything directly in front of them.
The first head lunged for me, and I waited until the last moment, until I knew it couldn’t adjust its course fast enough to catch me before surging my strength to leap up past it, pushing a line of mana into the air behind me as the arc of my jump brought me just a few feet over the neck of the hydra.
The second head came a moment later, but with a blast of air I pushed myself down onto the first head’s neck and then sprang off its dark scales, leaping out of the way once more as I trailed more mana.
The third head swooped in to snatched me out of the air, but I pummeled myself downward with [Air Magick], pushing myself just past it and then landing on the ground before igniting my mana, creating a jagged half-loop of lightning that reached up into the air over me and then bent back, funneling all its power into the crest of the first head.
I leapt back toward the cliff behind me as I heard the hydra let out multiple cries of pain—not only had I left one half of one of its faces a smoking ruin, but Valir had stricken another head with a mighty blow from his hammer, cracking the bony crest and sending it reeling.
I spun myself in midair as I leapt back, landed facing the cliff, then sprinted toward it, putting the wind at my back. I could sense the hydra coming after me with my gaze, and could sense through my bond that Valir, fifty meters to my right, was running with me, parallel to me, matching my windborne speed with his superior physical attributes.
I was using my [Blood Pool] to replenish my mana, certain that I would need to use the strongest lightning bolts I could conjure….
Unsurprisingly, the hydra was faster than we were. It surged forward up the rocky slope, drew close enough that it could comfortably strike with all its heads in succession, and began its assault.
The first head came: I gathered air as I dropped to my knees and skidded to a halt, spinning myself in place and then launching myself back toward it as the head smashed into the rocky earth before me. The second head struck, and I leapt over it before quickly using my [Air Magick] to push myself to the ground again, then leapt again to avoid the third head, pushing myself forward with air once more to land in a crouch against the front of its chest and kick off with a surge-fueled burst of strength, leaving a line of mana that began just a few meters away from its body as I launched myself between its necks.
It had all only taken two or so seconds, and the second and third heads were still recovering as I flew past them, rearing back to prepare for another strike. The first head had recovered, though, and it followed me as I attempted to fly out of the hydra’s reach—but I ignited my line of mana as soon as it drew close enough, causing it to recoil and cry out in pain as I took off up the slope, Valir falling in beside me once again.
Go, I told him.
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Then I launched myself into the air, flying parallel to the cliff that rose behind me. Below, Valir bounded away along the cliff’s edge, making for a more traversable slope that would lead back up to where our people had gathered.
The hydra tracked both of us with its multiple heads as its massive bulk flowed toward the cliffside… but then Mirio took the chance to help it decide.
Through my [Wild Bond], I felt a sudden, massive assault against four of its minds—the archdruid was leading the wildhearts and telepaths in a concerted, pinpoint psychic attack, surging its bestial rage so that it pursued me.
And pursue me it did, its massive body flowing up the steep, rocky slope and its heads striking out, each missing me and smashing small craters into the rock behind me. It mounted the cliff a moment later, using two of its heads as limbs, grasping at rocky outcrops with them and climbing almost as fast as I rose. Its heads striking out at me in rhythmic sequence, snaking into the air above and around me to try and corral me into dodging one mouth by moving toward another. But I’d fought its kind, danced its dance before—I wove between its jaws and necks with practiced aerial grace, flying so close in some places that my cloak brushed against its scales.
The hostility-inducing effect of Mirio’s coordinating attack wore off a moment later, but by then it was already too late. The hydra froze halfway up the cliffside, sensing, perhaps, the trap that Zirilla had begun laying for it the moment I told her of its existence. It could feel that elves that were above and around it, everywhere—and a moment later a bolt of white light struck its body, a spell cast from the precipice above by one of our mages.
Its heads lulled as it was momentarily stunned by the spell, and I heard an ear-splitting crack from above me as an entire section of the mountainside was torn away and pushed outward a huge cluster of rock that fell toward it.
More curses struck the hydra, each a differently-colored bolt of power, a precisely prepared spell fueled with thousands of mana. They would be reducing its attributes—[Strength] so that it couldn’t move, [Aegis] so that it wouldn’t survive. They would be stifling its regeneration, causing random spasms in its muscles, weakening its psychic defenses as Mirio led the wildhearts and telepaths in another focused attack to paralyze it.
A great shadow came across me as the mountainside above me fell, and I threw myself out of the way of the oncoming avalanche with a burst of [Air Magick] as small pebbles and shards of rock that had been blasted free began to fill the air around me.
Below me, the hydra struggled to move under the magical assault, instinctively grasping the cliffside with two of its heads to hold itself steady. But this only put it in the way of the falling rocks—I watch as an entire section of the mountain that the earthmovers had shaped with a downward point fell square onto the center of the beast.
It was a thing of terrible beauty, seeing such a mighty beast—one whose phenomenal strength I’d felt just a moment earlier—crumple like paper under the might of a mountain, its body fast swept away in an earsplitting avalanche that cascaded down the slope we’d just fought on, growing larger and louder as it moved.
My eyes found Valir—he was out of the avalanche’s path, bounding up the mountainside in the distance. With him safe, I rose through the air and swept my eyes across the gathered elves on the higher slopes.
Rockslides are unpredictable, and while Zirilla would have seen the constitution of the stones beneath and around us, there was still a small risk that our people would have the ground shift beneath them. But from my vantage I could see that everything had seemingly gone to plan—I heard Mirio report that the creature was dead, followed by a cheer from our people.
I flew further down the mountainside, then perched on a cliff to look down at where the body of the hydra lay, mostly buried by stone and earth. The land was still moving over and around it—we were high in the mountain, and the rockslide would likely continue for kilometers.
I looked down into the dust cloud where the hydra had fallen, sensing its body with my gaze and scowling. It had surely granted someone plenty of essence and some good skill keys, but there was another prize to be had, here—one that we would have to forgo.
Soon enough Mirio landed near me on his spectral broadwing, Luthiel riding behind him. “We’ve nothing to harvest the venom with,” I lamented. “Shame, that.”
Hydra venom was so magically caustic that once they died and their [Aegis] no longer protected their bodies, it ate its way through the glands that held it, burning holes through their jaws to spill onto the ground. If we’d had the equipment to harvest and store it, this creature’s venom would have been a powerful addition to the armory.
Luthiel spoke, his voice ringing clear over the slowing sound of cascading rocks. “If you think you’ll be safe, Aziriel, you could harvest a few parts for me to make some tracking foci.”
I considered this, then nodded. Hydras tended to cover vast expanses, taking multi-day hunting trips that saw them sleeping in the dens of the prey as they roved through the wilderness. They could be found across all manner of biomes, but rarely together. If our seers had the right equipment, our hunting parties could hone in on any ordinary-sized hydras that they passed near while out in the wilderness.
With luck, it help us gain a slow trickle of the rare [Plural] skill keys.
Zirilla, I said in the bond.
Mm?
Come down here and help me harvest some parts. Bring tools.
I flew down to hover over the body of the hydra—only three of its heads were above the line of dirt. And Valir—you should get everyone moving once they’re able. I looked down at the heads, gauging their size. She and I are going to be here awhile.