CHAPTER SEVEN—HORDE
The shelled beasts lurched toward the high vizier and one of them at the fore pulsed brightly for a moment and then suddenly exploded just as he lurched back, the bright plume flashing Shiro’s eyes left white marks in his vision.
He grunted, covering his face as a thrill of fear for his friend Ali shot through his stomach. “Ali!” he called, running forward toward the man.
He was lying on the ground.
“Watch out!” bellowed Debaku. He took two steps forward and swung his blade with magical force, sweeping back several of the monsters and shattered another before it could explode like the first.
Another jumped toward Raz, and because of his distraction, it had almost landed on him when he glanced toward his brother, but he reacting quickly, punching the beast with a fist that sounded like a snapping rock.
The beast flew back, pulsed and exploded, sending others out flying and Shiro jerking his head to the right from the sudden crack of loud noise and the flash of light threatening to blind him.
When he reached Ali, the man groaned, and the blood—his blood on the ground, was clearly visible. “Ali!”
“Look out!” shouted Captain Ushtan.
The others screamed as well with Gohar being the loudest as he beckoned Shiro away “Hurry!”
With his strength, Shiro was able to grab Ali by the arm and drag him over the bumpy and mossy surface of the monster’s shell, pulling his forearm high enough to keep his head from thumping across the uneven surface.
Shiro took him toward the trees and behind a luminous wave of blue light appeared. His stomach roiled as he thought one of the beasts had caught him, but when he heard Jessamine’s cry, he felt a sudden release of tension as a flash of golden magic lit the night.
Beasts exploded and cracked in waves and the horizon on the side of the beast where they were coming exploded in bright flashes of magic from their attacks, but also from the horde’s explosions.
“What are these creatures!” cried Hashtem.
“Never mind that!” shouted Gohar, “Get ready to fight! Shiro—more from behind!”
He glanced up and cocked his head as another wave of the beasts ahead appeared at the bottom of the slope, thick and snapping and cracking, though not as high or as vicious as the other side.
Turning his head, the samurai screamed over his shoulder, “Raz! RAZ!”
“I am here, man! What is it?!” He came up short. “Oh.” He glanced toward Ali suddenly. “How is my brother?”
He moaned like a child.
“He will live,” said Shiro.
“I don’t feel like it,” he whined, his eyes flashing with blue luminescence, probably from the turtlenut milk he had drank.
“Let me take care of this, brother. Do not worry.”
“Stop talking, you dolt.”
Shiro put him against a tree. “Do not move! I will help your brother.” Then he turned to Ghoar, Ushtan and Hashem. “You three watch Ali with your lives!”
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“Of course!” cried Ushtan. “Quick!” he said to the others. “Surround him!”
With a nod, Shiro stepped over the bumpy terrain as a flash of golden light and great explosions filled the night like thundering mountains of glass that had shattered and fallen down a slope—she sheer high noise of it all causing him to lurch to the side in reaction and his knee touched the ground.
The samurai pushed himself back up to his feet, his head swarming with racing thoughts. His head hurt from the noise—never had he heard such a ruckus, save for when he was in the void, when Debaku had done battle with Darius. Their fight had been full of magical and explosions, a thing far greater than either mad was capable of in the physical plain.
Jumping forward, Raz swung his fish-fin blade, slicing through five shelled creatures at once. One of them had blinked, the way they were doing just before exploding, but they seemed to lose their magical mass after being killed.
From the darkened hills, an unseen watcher waited, watching the mammoth shell lumber across the terrain, over forests and over straights, slowly, yet with great speed to smaller creatures such as was fighting on its back.
The flashes of magical energy and explosions would have been plain to see by any that a great magical battle was taking place between adventurers and monsters, both sides pitting their strength and resolve against one another.
But for Samira, she did not need to see anything—the aural presence of the individuals atop the mammoth shell were enormous, and one of them in particular felt ancient and deep, like the sheer edge of a dagger.
They were powerful, and yet those fools did battle with a thing they did not need to fight. How had they awoken such a beast by accident? Were they truly so ignorant and stupid, or had they awake its ire purposely?
Were these men—this army that they led—a force of hunters, sent here to despoil these primal lands of its magic and of its monsters?
Narrowing her eyes, Samira watched from a distance, her heart beating faster with negative anticipation, for she had no fear of the mammoth shell or its hordes of newly hatched eggs, but rather her concern filled her heart with dread.
She had another task—and I will not allow these fools to interfere!
With great speed, she moved across the terrain, jumping and bounding great lengths as she made to catch the mammoth shell.
The horizon swept away, and the mammoth shell loomed ever larger in her sight when she turned her head. She ran, using her great speed to traverse the hills and the forests and the monster moved over the terrain. She was an inexorable force—the mammoth shell, and she would not be stopped.
Samira went into the forests, the trees covering the horizon and of that of the mammoth shell lumbering over the hills and the straight, though above the treetops the Blade Dancer could see the top of the shell, the trees and the glowing swarms chittering up the sides toward the adventurers.
She turned her head, ran and rushed over a set of fallen trees as she made her way through the natural path that the local monsters and animals had cut. She went down the hill and bounded over a rock, her arms held back like streamers, her front knee bent and her left leg outstretched behind her.
She glided through the air, landing into the strait of cool water bellow with a great splash. Bubbles and agitated water swirled all around the huntress, and she kicked her legs, breaking the water and bounding up the hill.
The looming mammoth shell above her, like a mountain moving on many spiked legs, the edges of its great shell a clacking and pinching mass of deadly mandibles, continued forward.
She had caught it, and suddenly another great explosion of magic erupted from above, filling the night with luminescent magic of blue and gold light as chittering and clacking beasts fell off its back, raining down pieces of shell, mandibles and legs, and chitinous chunks. They are making great work of its offspring.
When she reached the top of the hill, the mammoth shell skirted the earth, its outstretched pincers, hundreds of them jutting out from under the bottom of the slightly upturned shell, snapping and writhing, she jumped into the air. Samiro flipped forward, missing the pincers by mere paces, and landed on the upturned portion of the shell, which gave her a base from which to keep herself from sliding off at this steep portion.
She then kicked hard, jumping up toward the top of the shell. She used her scimitar to dick into the armor to keep from slipping down. The mammoth shell could not feel her needed attacks, for its armor was far too thick for that, even should she insert her sword to the hilt.
She jumped again, using her second sword to defend herself from the sudden onslaught of its offspring. Though most were crawling and falling toward the adventurers at the top, some few did attempt to attack her.
Samira made easy work of them all, and jumped one final time in a great leap, flipped forward, and landed among the adventurers, whose eyes widened as they whirled on her, unsure of what to do as the surrounding hordes closed in on them all.