“That son of a bitch just ate my treespringer!” Chomai said, her voice outraged as she dropped from her mount and rummaged through the bodies of a pair of fallen marshals, rising with new decks in her hand.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be the last thing that fly eats,” I said grimly, gathering my pets as Kamath strode down from the hill, looking supremely unconcerned by the small army of monsters facing him. I didn’t blame him; the bloodfly was stronger than even my terror eagle, and with how strong its bond was, it could probably kill most of my pets easily enough. I had a few more now, though, and I checked my pet screen, hoping they’d be enough.

Pet Stats

Name

Bond

Atk

Def

Dmg

Spd

Dodge

Buzzfly (Simple Glowwind)

1,043

162

58

154

197

88

Cloudhunter (Greater Air)

3,801

509

119

339

688

254

Shockfloater (Greater Lightning)

3,831

359

194

574

410

250

Cavehunter (High Predator)

7,511

1021

341

799

666

487

Deepstriker (High Wildwave)

8,469

618

616

589

528

824

Galestrider (High Wildstorm)

9,408

251

869

397

485

1264

Mistfreezer (High Ice)

9,444

645

553

566

825

841

Moonstalker (High Predator)

8,550

889

403

941

797

505

Slimeripper (High Water)

9,336

893

290

796

1065

474

Snowbeast (High Ice)

9,216

882

400

956

772

490

Sparksnake (High Lightning)

10,216

632

560

561

846

843

Stormbiter (High Wildstorm)

8,336

1091

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381

935

779

519

Thunderwing (High Glowwind)

10,496

716

449

1051

901

599

Terror Eagle (High Wildwind)

12,221

1441

406

1038

1450

628

Wave Horror (High Water)

13,344

303

1144

455

586

1654

Of all the pets I’d bonded, only six survived, leaving me fifteen in total. The cavehunter was a ten-foot-long creature that looked like a cross between a wolverine and a lizard, with a wolverine’s body covered with inky black matte scales and a long tail that swept behind it. The deepstriker resembled a light blue crayfish with a moray eel’s head curving from the front of its body. The slimeripper looked like a hippo with an alligator’s mouth and pink skin that oozed slime, and the snowbeast was the pale white, frost-dripping leopard. The stormbiter was a huge wolf with cloudy gray fur, lightning crackling around its eyes and jaws, and three whiplike tails that sparked and snapped as they moved slowly around behind the beast. The thunderwing resembled a huge falcon, two-thirds the size of my terror eagle, with wings that trailed bluish glows of electricity as it soared above me.

The new pets were weaker than my original ones, and I gained no new abilities from them, most likely because they’d been severed and rebounded. Even so, they offered me lots of options for attack and defense. The thunderwing, cavehunter, and stormbiter all had good attack and damage ratings, while the slimeripper and deepstriker offered excellent defense. Like my mistfreezer, the snowbeast was a little good at everything, and the thunderwing had a Wing Storm ability that rained lightning and blades of wind down below it, giving me another ranged attack. I closed my screen and refocused my attention; I was as ready as I was going to be for this battle.

The marshal stopped as he got about thirty feet away and hooked his thumbs into his belt. “Well, you turned out to be right pains in the ass,” he called out conversationally.

“That was what I was aiming for,” I called back with an impudent grin. “Good to know I succeeded.”

“You did. And I gotta admit, you had me fooled. I was sure you were severed, but you avoided it somehow, didn’t you?”

“I think that’s pretty obvious,” I chuckled, gesturing at the pets arrayed before us.

“Well, at first I thought you’d just had your pets hide, knowing you’d be severed, then gone back to re-bond them once you escaped.” He shook his head. “But they’re too strong, and you’re using them too well. You never lost them.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You, though,” the man continued as if I hadn’t spoken and pointed at Chomai. “You, I know I severed, but you’re handling too well, too. You got an explanation for that?”

“You’re stalling, Kamath,” I interrupted before Chomai could speak. I didn’t want the marshal to know that I could heal severing, not just yet. “You’re worried that we’re going to stop you–and you should be.”

“I don’t think so,” he laughed, holding up a pair of cards. The first triggered, and pain spiked in my head as a sword blade of energy cut through the Nullification rune I’d activated. The second card flared, and a glowing shield of power wrapped around the man. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me. If there was, I’d have killed you when I first saw you.” He shrugged. “And maybe I should have, but I was hoping you’d see things my way. You don’t, so…”

The bloodfly streaked forward, a tiny, red line in the gathering darkness of twilight. It was ridiculously fast, but apparently, so was Chomai. Power ripped out from the card in her hand, wrapping around the Simple creature, and its flight slowed to something more manageable as her rune wrapped around it. Arcs of lightning and blasts of ice crackled into it, and wooden thorns peppered its hide. Despite that, it still winged toward my mistfreezer, shrugging off the assaults–until a cloud of acidic tendrils lashed out and snagged it, holding it tightly. The creature struggled and thrashed, and it bit into one of the tendrils, drawing power from my wave horror even as the horror’s acid seared its body. I watched the horror’s bond plummet, but before it sank below two-thirds, the fly’s armor cracked, and the creature crumbled into paste that dripped from the horror’s tendrils. I let out a sigh of relief; the fly had been ridiculously deadly for such a small creature, but it died quickly enough.

Kamath clapped his hands slowly. “Not bad!” he called out encouragingly. “Of course, I’m not sure what you’re gonna do about these.” He raised a hand, and a dozen more bloodflies rose from his body, hovering in the air around him. I stared at them with wide eyes.

“What?” I gasped. “But I analyzed you! You only had one bloodfly…”

“See, this is where experience comes in handy,” he laughed aloud. “A weakness of the Analyze rune is that it only reads the types of bonds you’ve got, not how many of them. That means if you’ve got fifteen of the same kind, it only shows up as one.” He laughed again. “Shame you didn’t know about that before. Might have saved you–but it’s too late now.” The man waved his hand, and the flies streaked forth, piercing his barrier and racing out toward us.

I pulled out a handful of cards and charged them, debuffing the flies and buffing my pets as best I could. The insects slowed slightly, but they still moved with terrifying speed as they slammed into Chomai’s and my pets. She shouted in dismay as one landed on her squirrel-beast, and the dark-furred creature began to shrivel and wither beneath the blood drain. Another alit atop her antelope, and that dropped to the earth as well, its body collapsing in on itself as the fly sucked the vital essence from it.

A blast of ice from my mistfreezer swept over three of the insects, while arcs of lightning and thunder crackled from my galestrider and crawled across several more. My terror eagle swept down and tumbled the bugs about with a Sunderscream, and two more dropped, paralyzed, as the shockfloater’s lightning blasts rippled around them. Fire roared from a card Chomai tossed at the bugs and crisped their wings, and a wave of dark water shot from the deepstriker’s eel-like mouth, batting more from the air.

The slimeripper snapped at a pair of flies that settled on it, and I watched as its bond began to plummet. A blast of caustic slime erupted from its skin, but the flies hung on, and a moment later, minor pain lanced through my skull as the creature collapsed, its bond to me severed. I felt another knife stab in my temple as the cavehunter dropped, three flies sucking away its essence.

My wave horror’s Acid Flower erupted outward, capturing and crushing six of the weakened flies, while the moonstalker’s jaws clamped on the insects still clinging to the dwindling husk of my slimeripper and popped them with loud cracks. The terror eagle’s beak snapped on two more, but it missed the third that slipped past and landed on my shockfloater. Lightning arced from the floater into the insect as the bug bit into my pet, and more pain stabbed my skull as I felt the creature’s thoughts pulled forcibly from me, even as it cooked the insect that destroyed it.

Another bug landed on Chomai’s frog, but before it bit, her bat-monster swooped down and hit it with a sonic blast that knocked it free of the amphibian and sent it tumbling through the air. It quickly righted itself, but before it could streak back to the frog, a blast of electricity from my galestrider arced into it, crisping it. The frog’s tongue lashed out and snatched another fly from the air, pulling it back to be spat onto the ground in front of my snowbeast. The wintry leopard struck at it with ice-coated claws, and it cracked and crumbled beneath the cat’s attacks.

I took a deep breath as the last of the flies fell, but Kamath merely grinned at us. My heart dropped as another batch of flies rose from his body and swarmed about him, twenty or so this time.

““You’ve gotten stronger, Charita!” he called out. “That was pretty damn impressive!”

“No-face?” Chomai asked quietly, her voice puzzled.

“Long story,” I muttered. “I’ll tell you later.”

“In fact, you’ve gotten strong far too quickly,” Kamath continued, oblivious to or uncaring of our conversation. He squinted at me appraisingly. “High rank?” he asked disbelievingly. “Stats above seventy each? You were a Generalist when you walked into my town, with stats in the fifties!”

Chomai glanced at me in confusion. “Wait, you’re High-ranked?”

“Again, a great story for later,” I hissed. “When we’re not worried about dying.”

“By all rights, that sort of growth should be impossible,” the man mused, still ignoring us and tapping his chin thoughtfully. “I mean, there’s no way a man stuck in prison should be able to step from a Greater to a High path without killing a single handler. That is, there shouldn’t be.” He grinned at me. “Unless you’re like Ujali was, that is. Are you, boy?”

“Probably,” I called back with a shrug. “I never met her, so I can’t say for sure.”

“Well, now, if that doesn’t beat all!” he laughed happily. “You know, I was still going to offer you a place at my side, Charita. But now, I’m going to kill you and see if I can take your power the way I did Ujali’s. With twice the power and a Mythic beast, I can take over the whole, damn world!”

He raised his hand. “You survived round two, but I think this’ll be the last one. So long, Charita.” His hand dropped, and the twenty flies raced forth, streaking toward us. I held my cards again, preparing to charge them, but before I could, a blast of air slammed into the flies, knocking them about crazily. A huge, hooved foot crashed down atop several, while a rust-colored paw swatted more away, killing them effortlessly. I froze, cards in hand, and stared in amazement at the sight of Sheriff Ramka astride Parri, standing between us and the marshal.

The rust-colored beast looked, if anything, even larger and deadlier than it had before, and the sheriff’s body had lost a slump to his shoulders and head that I hadn’t even noticed. He patted his pet on the neck affectionately, and it responded by reaching its head back and nuzzling him, even as its jaws crushed half of the bloodflies with a loud snap. The effortless way it killed the creatures astounded me, and I took a moment to analyze the dracodile for the first time ever. I whistled in amazement at what I saw.

Parri (Paragon Dracodile)

Type: Skyhunter

Bond: 29,404

Attack: 4,898 Defense: 2,228 Damage: 3,803

Speed: 3,663 Dodge: 2,081 Heal: 4,395

Special: +72% Bond Drain

Special Attacks: Wing Buffet (2,065), Storm of Thorns (1,934), Paralyzing Scream (2,112)

Special Defenses: High Regeneration (2,142), Wind Shield (2,037), Barkskin (2,048)

Weaknesses: Vermin

Threat Level: Extreme

“Now, that is a beast,” Chomai murmured appreciatively. I concealed a smirk as I wondered if she were talking about the man or the creature.

“Sorry I took so long,” the sheriff said over his shoulder. “Took me a bit to find the old girl, and I weren’t gonna settle for nothing less.”

“I don’t blame you,” Chomai muttered.

“Well, Kamath, what say you and I tussle without that Severing rune of yours,” he said, turning back to face the marshal. “Unless you think old Parri, here, might be too much for your little flies. Looks like you lost a few already.”

“Oh, I’ve got a couple more,” Kamath chuckled. As he spoke, a cloud of flies rose around him, easily a hundred of the tiny beasts. “I think they’ll do the job.”

“Then you think wrong. Parri tells me she’s a bit hungry, and those little vermin of yours look mighty tasty to her.” The sheriff straightened on his mount’s back. “We’re gonna kill those damn flies, then I’m gonna put a bullet in your skull. Might even take it back to see what sort of bounty’s been put on it. I figure I can be rich and happy at the same time that way.”

“Honestly, I’d be a little nervous,” Kamath said, looking the dracodile up and down. “That thing’s almost an Epic beast, and I’ll bet that it really can handle my flies. I would be, that is–except you’re too damn late.”

As he spoke, power welled up from behind him, and the ground began to tremble as Kamath’s rune activated.

The Mythic beast was about to arise. Kamath was wrong. Round one had just ended. Round two was about to begin.