The next day, Levi and his men strolled down to the docks, spears in hand and shiny leather cuirasses and helmets on their bodies and heads. Levi had spent a fair bit of the remaining coin on the armour, but he thought of it as an investment. They were more likely to be hired if they looked the part, right? Of course, that didn’t necessarily justify spending the rest of it on beer back at Barro’s bar afterwards, but they were about to be rolling in coin soon, so what harm would a little splurging do?
His cheery spirits allowed him to mostly ignore the hangover crawling up his spine towards the base of his neck, and he whistled a jaunty tune as he went.
“Come on, brothers, fortune awaits!” he called to the rest of the Aluwai lagging behind him. They were… not, in as high spirits as he was. Derek and Panusi plodded along, largely indifferent to everything and everyone around them, but the brothers looked a little green around the edges and Bopau still had crusted puke around the corners of his mouth. The fool tried to keep up with Derek in a drinking contest. Only Isakoa was fully sober, the greyhair having made his thoughts known on the wisdom of Levi’s plan before retiring early for the night. As Levi looked them over, he caught the old man’s glare and quickly turned back around.
Old fool. He’ll come around soon enough.
He rounded the corner of a ramshackle building and was immediately overwhelmed by a gust of rancid air, equal parts brine and rotting seaweed.
Stretched out before him was the shorefront of Port Pirie. The tide was out, the brown sea water barely extending past the first few jetty pylons to lap fitfully at the mud flats. The flats themselves extended underneath the rest of the jetty structures, up past the ‘beach’ itself and into the slums.
Levi carefully made his way between the shacks, the muddy surface underfoot alternately boggy and slippery depending on if he was walking through a vein of silt or clay. The surrounding buildings loomed out of the sludge, raised on rotting wooden stilts covered in black algae. It was the only way to build structures this close to the water, otherwise, they would be inundated every day when the tides came in. As he glanced around, taking in the suspicious faces of the shacks’ residents, he fought to maintain his optimism. This place was miserable. Barro had mentioned the tribes would discuss pooling their money to build some decking down here, every now and then, but the negotiations always broke down when it came to who was paying what, and so the waterfront remained chronically undeveloped.
It had the advantage of boosting business, though; when adventurous nobles disembarked, fully intending to hire the bare minimum skeleton crew as an escort, they quickly saw the value in hiring porters too as they struggled through the muck. And more heads hired meant more money for the tribe.
Levi saw a fair few such groups loitering about on the beach. This was the hiring ground itself, a patch of muddy dirt on the landward side of the jetties, where the tribes could secure contracts and money could change hands before the foreigners had the chance to come to their senses and leave. As he watched, one escort group turned, heading back into the port as their leader shook hands with a tall, skinny Aderathian. The foreigner turned, shouting something to a gaggle of attendants behind him, all weighed down with a comical amount of luggage. With obvious displeasure, they began following the Mardukians through the sludge.
“See, Isakoa?” Levi said, forcing a smile. “They’ve already secured a contract for the day and I see many more ships at anchor in the bay, waiting to come in. We’ll have the money we need in no time.”
Isakoa came to stand next to him, following his gaze with a sour look. “The Aluwai are not tour guides, Levi. We don’t know the first thing about escorting these Bark Eaters through the jungle.”
“We escorted Erskine and his men easily enough, didn’t we?”
Isakoa shot him a dirty look. “That was different and you know it. They were fighters, hard as Ironbark. Paleskins like them are the exception to the rule. We should have bought what food we could and returned. It would have been lean, but the tribe could have made it.”
“Oh, sure. Most of the children would starve to death and probably about half the hunters, but I’m sure we would bounce back. We’ll just ask the Gundies to give us two to three generations to replenish our population before they attack again.”
“Being a smartarse won’t fix this, Levi.”
Levi rounded on him, anger flaring behind his eyes. His fists clenched, and he fought the urge to raise them against the greyhair. Isakoa stared back, impassive as always. Levi closed his eyes and turned his head away, fighting his rage back under control. “Enough, Isa. Your solution is no solution at all. We will accept a contract, and we will keep the foreigners safe, because we have no. Other. Choice. Is that understood?”
Isakoa regarded him, his face inscrutable. “Yes, leader.”
“Good. Now, go stand with the others. Make sure they look presentable, and by the Ancestor’s make Bopau clean his fucking face.”
Isakoa set to his task as Levi turned to face the jetty. He fixed his best smile as a group of Tok Risim merchants swaggered down the walkway, and stepped forward to greet them.
*
A few hours later, the winning smile was gone. The beating sun had overwhelmed his cheery disposition around mid-morning, and the hangover lying in wait had seized the opportunity to strike. The group had retreated from the punishing heat, hiding beneath a hut, and after a few minutes of stubborn refusal, Levi had joined them. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and glanced at the jetty.
Most of the other groups were gone, having successfully negotiated contracts with visiting adventurers. There was only one other left, currently haggling with a long haired Calandorian and a tall, bald Emrinthian. They were wearing ridiculously impractical clothing for the jungle, the former a long heavy robe of golden cloth to match his hair, the latter the same style garment in black. No doubt they would settle up soon and leave, too. They were the last group of adventurers.
It turned out that most of the ships at anchor had been cargo ships. They had come in long enough to drop off or collect their loads, and then sailed out of the harbour and into the open sea. They had been in a hurry to avoid the monsoon that was making its way down the coast.
It was the first monsoon of the season, signalling the arrival of the wet, and it meant that there likely wouldn’t be any more ships coming to port for months. The sole remaining ship belonged to the curious pair. When they finalised their contract, Levi’s chance to rescue the Aluwai from oblivion would be dashed, once and for all.
Maba and Manawi started bickering behind him, the argument quickly devolving into a brawl until Derek intervened and pried them apart. The rest just glared in glum silence. They were all hot, hungover, and out of hope. Levi looked back down to where he had been doodling in the mud with a stick. He had tried, he really had. All smiles and assurances, telling tall tales of his exploits in the unforgiving jungle, but it had been for nought. Every foreigner had come on the recommendation of a friend, and they had come knowing the names of the premier escort agencies. No one wanted to take a chance on an unproven group, their lives were too precious apparently, so when Levi told them of the Aluwai, he was met with blank stares and polite excuses before they drifted away.
He should have known it wouldn’t be so simple. He should have listened to old Isa. Now his people were ruined.
“Um… excuse me, good sir. May I have a moment of your time?”
It took Levi a moment to realise the voice had been directed at him. He looked up, squinting against the sun’s glare, to see two figures looming before him.
“Oh, my apologies,” the voice said, shuffling to the side slightly so that the sun was no longer directly in Levi’s eyes, “is that better?”
Now that he could see clearly, Levi realised it was the robed Calandorian and his Emrinthian companion, the ones who had been negotiating with the other escort group just a moment before. Levi looked over to see the group packing up and heading home. Their leader made eye contact with Levi, just for a moment, and shook his head before following his men.
That’s weird, Levi thought as he looked back to the Calandorian.
“You looking for an escort?” Levi asked, his voice cracking when his parched throat protested. He looked down at the shady mud pit he was sitting in and immediately leapt to his feet, realising how poor of a first impression this must be.
“Uh, yes, yes we are, in fact,” the Calandorian said. “We were hoping to hire that last group over there, but they, uh, rejected our proposal. Quite emphatically, in fact.”
The man had a habit of nervously wringing his hands, and Levi found it very difficult to focus with the distraction. “Right. Rejected. Uh, did they say why?”
Does it fucking matter? Screamed the voice in his head. Take the damn contract!
“Yes, well, we need an escort to a specific place. It is quite deep in the jungle, you see, and the group leader felt it was too dangerous.”
“Really? A Mardukian was too scared to take you into the jungle?”
The voice in Levi’s head was quiet now, his intuition aligning with his conscious thought. The man was keeping something from him.
“He also felt it may have been… sacrileges.”
The robed Emrinthian snorted beside the man. “Sacrilege? The only sacrilege is these backwater people and their ancestor worship.”
“Hamzir!” the Calandorian protested.
“What? You’re thinking it too, Adrian, you’re just too polite to say anything,” the Emrinthian replied.
“Be that as it may, we need their assistance. A little bit of courtesy wouldn’t go too far astray? Hmm?”
Hamzir sighed, but nodded, a look of resignation on his face. “I suppose.”
“Right, now that’s settled. Mr…” Adrian held a hand out to Levi, leaning ever so slightly away from him, even as he extended the hand of friendship. Levi’s eyes slid between the two of them. He immediately disliked them, though for different reasons. The Calandorian for being a spinless pansy, the Emrinthian for being a prick. But the Aluwai needed the job. Levi hawked a glob of phlegm into his hand and grasped Adrian’s before he had a chance to pull it back.
“Oh, my. What an… interesting… custom, you have here.”
It wasn’t. Any self respecting Mardukian would have decked him for doing that, but these two seemed too desperate to refuse his services. And he really disliked them.
“Levi’s the name,” he said, shaking the hand vigorously, the willowy Calandorian being seesawed off balance by the motion, “where do you need to go?”
With difficulty, Adrian extricated his hand, wiping it on his robes as he replaced his look of revulsion with a diplomat’s smile. “Not too far, I believe, though it is off the… beaten track, as they say. Here, I have a map,” he said, fumbling around in his robes and retrieving a rolled up parchment. Levi snatched it and turned away, putting some distance between himself and the foreigners, tapping his chin as though in thought.
“Isakoa!” he hissed, when he was far enough that the foreigners couldn’t hear. “Help?”
The old man sighed and climbed to his feet, looking over the sheet as Levi held it out to him. He sucked his teeth and poked his tongue around in his mouth.
“Well?” Levi asked.
“I dunno. I don’t like it,” Isakoa replied, scratching his cheek. “It’s in Boloa territory. They’re fine, I’ve had dealings with them before. And their land is pretty close, probably a week’s travel over these causeways, then breaking track here before their village and cutting directly to the destination.” He pointed to various points on the map as he spoke, but Levi couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. He nodded thoughtfully along anyway. “But!” Isakoa said, “this destination, in the swamp. There’s an Entrance in there.”
Levi cursed. “An entrance? Or an ‘Entrance’?” he asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.
“Big E, boy. Nothing good ever came from messing with a sacred site. It’d be even worse to let these foreigners mess with it.”
Levi turned back to the strangers, weighing up his options. Isakoa whispered at his shoulder. “I know that look, Levi. This is a bad idea. It’s wrong.”
“Why? Because ‘tradition’ dictates?” he snapped back. “Because it’ll offend the ancestors? Where were they when the Gundagaal attacked? Where will they be when our children are crying from hunger? Will they help us bury our dead?”
“Be careful, boy. They helped us when the Skjar attacked, even though it is not their role to play. Do not demand too much or they will withdraw their favour.”
“Bullshit. We helped ourselves. And also Erskine and his boys, but mostly us! ‘They’ had nothing to do with it.”
“Are you sure?” Isakoa asked, arching an eyebrow. Levi stared back, breaking eye contact first and waving the old man off with a ‘bah!’
He walked back up to the foreigners. “Do you know where this is? What this is?”
Adrian’s nervous tic got significantly worse. “Ah, yes, I believe your people call it an… entrance?”
“’Entrance’” Levi corrected, “with a Big E.”
“I… see? Anyway, that last fellow informed us it is some sort of holy site, and he promised us horrific and protracted deaths if we disturbed it.”
“That’s part of the story, at least. We believe they’re entrances to the underworld. When the jungle claims us, our souls depart underground to join with our ancestors, where they do battle to contain the evil underneath.”
Hamzir scoffed. “And you believe such drivel? There is no mention of chthonic evils beneath Marduk in the Doctrine of the Pantheon.”
“Mate, Marduk is full of chthonic evils. I dropped one in the long drop just this morning, actually.” Hamzir screwed his nose up in disgust. “As for what I believe?” Levi hesitated. All things being equal, he would never even consider it. But what choice did he have?
“Is your interest inside the Entrance? Or the surrounding swamp?”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“We believe just the surrounds. Why?”
“We won’t take you inside.”
Hamzir snickered, cutting off his companion as Adrian opened his mouth to reply. “Really? Why? Because an ancient evil awaits us in the dark?”
Levi clenched his jaw to keep his face from contorting too much in rage. Getting uppity from their disrespect wouldn’t get him anywhere, but if they blundered into the cave and got murdered, Levi wouldn’t get their coin. He wracked his brain for an excuse they could accept.
“The jungle is dangerous enough in the light of day. We don’t go into those caves because of their reputation, born of superstition, true, but it’s likely those superstitions arose for a reason. Even if the inhabitants are the same as everywhere else in the swamp, I’m still not going in to battle drakes and orniraptors in the dark. They’re death traps.”
Adrian made a calming motion with his hands, looking between the two men with a pained expression. “We understand, Levi. Don’t go into the caves. We can follow your advice on that.”
“Good. How long do you expect to be there?”
“Probably no more than a week.”
Levi nodded. They had enough time to get there, wait around pulling security for seven days, get back, get paid, and get some food for the village. “We’ll take you. How big is your party?”
“Quite small. Just Hamzir and I, plus Eric, our apprentice, and a half dozen attendants.”
“Attendants?”
“Yes, but they are more than capable of looking after themselves, I assure you. We packed light as well, only one or two bags each.”
Levi shook his head. “Bags? As in, ones with carry handles?”
Adrian nodded.
“They’re no good for where we’re going. You’ll need packs. There’ll be a place in the port that sells them.”
Adrian tilted his head, his eyebrows furrowed. “But will you not be carrying our things for us?”
Levi fought the twin urges to sigh and punch this guy in the mouth. Instead, he took a deep breath and counted to five. Surprisingly, it helped. He’d need to thank the chieftain for that bit of advice when they got back. “We can’t carry your packs and protect you at the same time, and before you assure us you don’t need protecting, you do,” Levi said, forestalling Adrian’s protests. “I can hire porters to help, but that’ll cost extra.”
“But of course, we wouldn’t expect otherwise,” Adrian said, pointedly ignoring Hamzir growling behind him. “Which brings us to fee negotiations?”
“No negotiations, two hundred silvers a head, plus five gold for the tribe.”
Isakoa called out from behind him. “They’re mages, Levi. Filthy rich even by foreigner standards.”
“Right, thanks Isa,” Levi replied, nodding to him and turning back to the mages, “four hundred a head and ten. And I want half the silvers up front.”
“That seems, a little steep, Levi,” Adrian said, a nervous smile on his face.
“Do you want our help or not?”
The mage’s tic hit a crescendo before he finally settled, a deflated look on his face. “I suppose we have little choice.”
“Great, I’ll take the coin now then, if you please. And I’ll be back in an hour with the porters. We can get underway immediately.”
*
A few days later, the party was moving along a causeway at a snail’s pace; the rain pounding down around them. Levi ran a finger through his close cropped fuzzy hair and sighed, taking in the pitiful sight before him. The foreigners were slowing them down far more than he had expected, even relieved of their packs, the mages were unsuited to any form of physical activity, and their ‘attendants’ had turned out to be heavily armed and armoured warriors. They looked formidable, especially the wickedly curved scythes they hung from their belts, but covered from head to toe in heavy black plate armour, they were wilting in the heat. He watched a porter take two steps behind one such warrior and stop, patiently waiting for the man to inch far enough ahead that the porter could advance another two paces. He met Levi’s eyes and gave a broad, toothy grin.
Levi smiled back. At least the new hires were in good spirits. Isakoa had, once more, made his displeasure known when Levi outlined his logistical plan. They could have gone to one of the local tribes and struck a deal, but they would have demanded a significant chunk of the earnings for the tribe’s coffers. But Barro had given him an idea. After a quick chat with the barkeep, Levi had sought out a number of the Tribeless scattered throughout the port. Some of them had lived up to their reputation, and Levi was still sporting a swollen eye from when three of them jumped him for the coins in his pouch, but on the whole they had been grateful for the honest work. He’d paid ten silvers a head, and they were treating him like their own personal chieftain. A twinge of guilt shot through him as he looked into the smiling face of the porter. He was paying them ten silvers each, while the rest banked four hundred. Maybe he’d give them all a hefty bonus when the job was done. He turned away from the man, searching out the two mages who had hired them.
He found them, clutching each other for support as they slipped along on the wet causeway. In contrast, the black haired youth behind them ambled along with practiced ease, though his brows were creased in a frown over something. He replaced it with a smile as he caught Levi staring, and waved, skirting around his bosses and approaching the Aluwai.
“Hello, Levi. Something I can do for you?”
“Na, Eric, just caught me staring. Lost in thought.”
“What were you thinking about?” Eric asked, a sly smile on his face. “Wait! Let me guess. At this rate, the wet season’ll be over before we make it to the bloody swamp?”
Levi laughed and nodded. He liked this guy. Eric was Calandorian and a mage, like Adrian, but, before being found by a college scout and brought back to the colleges, he’d grown up in the country’s south, where the boundary between Marduk and Calandor became hazy. As such, he’d grown up in a similar environment, and judging by the colour of his skin, he was at least partly Mardukian as well. He was the only foreigner not to seem put out by the climate, and more importantly, he was the only one who didn’t aggravate Levi’s sensibilities with nervous hand wringing, incessant sermonising, or thinly veiled insults directed at the Mardukians’ faith and culture.
“Something like that,” Levi said. “At this rate, we’ll need to start hunting and foraging to replenish our supplies, which’ll just slow us down even more.”
Truth be told, Levi was becoming increasingly nervous. The village had some stores, it was true, but they were still relying on Levi to make it back soon or they would run dry. By his estimate, they could hold out for a month, month and a half tops, before the village would starve. If they slowed their pace further, they wouldn’t even make it back to Port Pirie before that month was up.
“You have some place to be?” Eric asked. His eyes gleamed, but there was a hint of genuine curiosity in his voice.
“No offence, Eric, but there are many places I would rather be than here, escorting Hamzir the Eternally Happy. Not to mention you and Adrian’s pasty arses.”
“Hey! I’ll have you know I go to great lengths to keep my backside a delicious chocolatey hue!”
Levi chuckled and shook his head. “Not wiping doesn’t count. But in all seriousness, I was hoping to be back at my village within a month. It’ll be tight as it is, if we have to stop to gather food…” he trailed off, sinking back into his mind as he weighed up options.
“Could we split up? A small party head out to gather food while the rest keep plodding along with the Adepts and guardsmen?”
“Come on, Eric. You know how dangerous it can be, especially in unfamiliar territory. I’d need to take all my guys, and probably a couple of porters as well. We’d come back and all you foreign bastards would be eaten.”
Eric laughed and clapped Levi on the back. “Walk with me, Levi. What if I told you I have a solution to all your problems?”
Levi gave him a wary side eye. “I’d accuse you of being a used cart salesman.”
This prompted another outburst of laughter from the young mage, who ignored the ensuing glare from Hamzir the Humorous. “Probably smart, Levi. But I think I can help. Let me do the hunting. It’s been ages since I’ve gone for a wander in the jungle and, being here now? I’m getting the itch. I can kill literally anything in here if I see it coming. Pit, I can de-feather, de-skin and dismember it, too! I just need a couple of blokes to watch my back while I dust off the cobwebs.”
“How?” Levi asked. Coming from any other paleskin, he would have taken such claims as meaningless bluster, but Eric had a peculiar earnestness and excitement in his voice. In response, the young mage raised a hand, palm up, and summoned a cloud of roiling black smoke. Or at least, that was the closest approximation Levi’s mind could find, in reality it was like nothing he had seen before. The innocuous ball triggered a deep seated sense of alarm that set his heart thumping in his chest.
“What kind of mage are you, exactly?”
“We call ourselves the Umbral College, though it’s more like a religious sect, partnered with the Aetherial College,” he said, snuffing out the cloud, “but no one outside the college walls calls us that. Most people know us as either black or death mages.”
“You’re a death mage?” Levi replied, jumping back. Eric jumped back too, a look of genuine hurt on his face. “Sorry, Eric. I just, I’ve heard things, about death mages. Raising corpses, human sacrifices… that sort of thing. They’re… that’s not true, right?”
“Oh, Pit no! Honestly, we Umbrals got the short end of this bloody stick,” he said, shaking his head though a faint smile reappeared on his face, much to Levi’s relief. “The two sects are complimentary manifestations of cosmic principles- “
“Sounds painful,” Levi interrupted. Eric fixed him with a cheeky glare before continuing.
“Order and entropy. Putting things together and taking them apart again. The Aetherials do the former, reversing entropy to heal wounds and restore bodily functions to better fight disease. Us Umbrals, do the opposite.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. I’d rather run afoul of someone with a premature aging beam than one of those fire mages.”
“Eh, wait till you see what I can do,” Eric replied with a wink.
“If that’s it, though, where did all the rubbish about fucking with the dead come from?”
Eric waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, that. One of our religious functions is disposing of bodies, particularly during plagues or war. It’s benign, stops the spread of disease by basically evaporating away the corpses, but it is morbid and people’s imaginations tend to run away with them during emotionally distressing events. So anyway, do we have a deal?”
“Fuck’n oath we do. Just let me grab one of my lads and we’ll head in.”
*
“What are we looking for?” Eric whispered. They were crawling through a small clearing in the jungle, just a few hundred metres from the causeway, though it had taken them the better part of an hour to force their way through the densely packed vegetation. At least under the canopy, the driving rain was reduced to a steady drizzle.
“Why are you whispering?” Levi replied, turning to look at the mage.
“I dunno. Why are we crawling through the scrub? I thought we were being sneaky for some reason.”
“Well, I’d advise against shouting, but we should be alright until we come across any bodies of water. I’ve got Bopau overhead. He’ll warn us if anything comes our way.”
“Right, good to know. I still don’t understand why we’re crawling around, though.”
“Didn’t you ever forage as a kid?”
“Na, we’re slash and burn farmers north of the border. I wouldn’t know what’s good eating and what gives you bloody diarrhoea.”
Levi snorted. “In short, almost everything gives you the shits, and that’s best case. But there are a few wild tubers that are fine, and one of the trees has edible bark, though it’s really not worth the hassle.”
“Oh! So that’s where that insult comes from?”
“Yep. Anyway, we’re looking for a creeping vine with small white flowers. The roots are edible and nutritious.”
“Like that one?” Eric asked, pointing to a creeping vine with small white flowers.
“No. They look similar, but that one is highly toxic.”
“Really? If I eat it? It looks so innocuous,” the mage said, reaching out a hand.
“If you touch it,” Levi replied sharply, prompting Eric to snatch his hand back.
“Maybe you should just show me one when you find it.”
They continued on in silence for a few minutes before Levi found what they were looking for. Sure enough, it was a bed of creeping vine, almost indistinguishable from the thick carpet of vegetation around it, especially to the untrained eye. He traced the sprawling mass back to the central point and ripped a thick, purply orange mass out of the ground.
“Here we go,” he said, showing it to Eric. “A few kilos of these will pad out our stores, at least enough to reach the site. My people can gather more for the return journey while you lot piss off the Ancestors.”
“You seem remarkably blasé about this supposed sacrilege.”
“Faith is fine, but food and coin is better. Why do you care? Aren’t you supposed to be a magical priest or something?”
Eric shrugged. “We’re born with these powers, we don’t choose them. I was also brought into the fold at a much later age than is usual, so I’m not as dogmatic as the others. Let’s just say, where I grew up, we had a healthy respect for the bush. Shit happens in here beyond our ken, and I don’t think that belief excludes my faith in the Pantheon.”
Levi regarded the man carefully. Despite the clothes, he was definitely cut from different cloth to the others. A fluting sound from above their heads drew his attention and his head snapped up, then to the surrounding jungle.
“What a beautiful bird call,” Eric said, gazing open mouthed at the canopy.
“It’s not a bird, that’s Bopau. We’ve got orniraptors incoming, and fast. Climb!”
Levi dropped his spear and half assisted, half manhandled Eric up the trunk of the closest tree. The mage was trying, but years in the college must have dulled his physical abilities because he was struggling.
“Eric, I say this with nothing but kindness in my heart,” Levi said, hearing dozens of claw toed feet thudding into the ground in the jungle behind him. “Hurry. The fuck. Up!”
“I’m trying! The wood’s slippery from the rain!” Eric protested.
“Excuses are like arseholes! Get up there!”
He breathed a sigh of relief as Eric got a solid grip on an overhead branch and, with help, hauled himself up. He spun and held a hand out to Levi as the thicket behind him exploded, orniraptors streaming into the clearing. Levi grabbed the hand and ran his feet up the trunk, flipping himself over the branch as an orniraptor barrelled feet first into the trunk. The entire tree shuddered under the impact, the bird’s dagger like claws gouging a chunk out of the wood as big as Levi’s head. It squawked in rage, the six foot tall murder chicken ruffling its vibrantly coloured plumage before following the rest of the flock back into the jungle. Levi released a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding, but before he could say anything, Eric had leapt back down, facing the receding birds.
“Well, that was a bracing experience, I’d say,” he said, hands on his hips and a smug grin on his face.
“Get the fuck back up here!” Levi hissed.
“Why? The birds are gone.”
“Those birds are solitary hunters, they only stampede like that when something’s chasing them!”
“What?”
Eric froze as a swamp drake burst into the clearing. It was a big one, a six metre long monstrosity made entirely of armoured plates, thickly corded muscle and sharp, conical teeth. It stopped to get its bearings, a low hiss escaping from its long, thick snout as it swung its head ponderously from side to side. When it spotted Eric, it stopped, its slit pupils narrowing.
“Eric, run!” Levi shouted, but the mage was rooted to the spot, the whites around his eyes visible even from up in the tree. His response had the fortunate side effect of confusing the beast at least, the drake advancing slowly, stopping now and then to scan the jungle for threats. It would have been used to everything either fleeing or attacking on, so Eric’s idiotic response was fairly novel. It gave Levi time to think, but he realised it was fairly irrelevant because what the fuck was he going to do, anyway?
Things were complicated further when Bopau sailed out of the canopy above him, spear clasped above his head and a war cry coming from his lips. The wiry little man landed on the drake’s back, his legs not even long enough to fully straddle the beast’s back, as he plunged his spear through a gap in the scales. The drake roared and flailed, trying to dislodge its attacker. Bopau held on through the bucking, cackling like a maniac.
Bopau, you fucking idiot, Levi thought. You landed too far down its back!
As he watched, the drake twisted, craning its neck around and snapping at Bopau. He squeaked and threw himself backwards, falling off the beast and hitting the ground with a thud. The drake spun, another, angrier hiss emanating from its throat as it reoriented towards Bopau. The little man crawled backwards on his hands and feet, terror on his face. There was no way he could get away from the drake without help.
“Fuck!” Levi screamed as he jumped. He landed on the drake’s head, his weight snapping its jaws shut and driving its head into the mud. He wrapped his arms around its snout and squeezed with every ounce of strength he had. “Bopau! Get your spear and keep stabbing! I’ll keep its jaws shut!”
Bopau looked up at him, eyes glassed over.
“Bopau!” Levi cried as the beast lifted its head and started tossing it from side to side. A voice deep in Levi’s mind admired the beast’s strength as it flung him around as though he were a child and not a hundred kilo Aluwai man. The rest of his mind was screaming in incomprehensible terror.
Bopau shook his head, the focus returning to his gaze, and darted around the thrashing head. He jumped in and ripped the spear free, but the drake caught the movement and spun, its tail sending Bopau sailing out of the clearing, his eyes bulging in their sockets.
Oh, shit! Levi thought as the titanic lizard reared up on its hind legs. What’s it doing now?
The drake answered the unspoken question as it arched backwards, Levi’s stomach rising into his throat as they passed the tipping point and the ground rushed up to meet him. He jumped at the last second, narrowly avoiding being wedged between the earth and a thousand kilo monster. He hit the ground awkwardly, his left shoulder popping out from the impact, and he snarled through clenched teeth as he rolled to his feet, locking eyes with the drake as it righted itself. It was probably all in his head, but Levi fancied its eyes were scrunched up in a mocking smile.
Levi gripped his bicep with his right hand, not daring to break eye contact.
“You. Miserable. Cu-AAARGH!” his words devolved into a shout as he tugged, hard, the head of his humerus slotting back into his shoulder socket. He experimentally rolled his shoulder, wincing at the pain. The limb was definitely damaged, painful, and weak. He couldn’t use it to fight a beast this size. He looked around, desperate, as the beast stalked towards him.
There!
His spear was on the ground, just a couple of metres to his flank. He glanced from the weapon, to the hissing drake, and back again. He chewed his lip and weighed his options. The beasts were heavy, but they were bloody fast over short distances.
This was going to be close.
He sprinted for the weapon as the drake charged, diving onto the spear and rolling, raising it, one handed, as he regained his feet. He found death surging towards him, an open maw filled to the brim with teeth as long as his forearm and a bite force that could snap an Ironbark. In that moment, he knew the spear was useless.
And then everything went black. Not black as in the absence of light, but black as in the colour of charcoal or a storm cloud passing in front of the full moon. It was a roiling, angry, living thing that filled his vision. He turned his head and found the source.
Eric stood, the stream of smoke issuing from his outstretched hand. It was passing within inches of Levi’s face.
“I’d step back if I were you. I’m still learning to control the spread,” the mage said, completely nonchalant. Levi nodded and retreated a few paces as the vague form of the swamp drake thrashed about inside the cloud. After a few seconds, the beast stopped, and after a few seconds more, Eric cut the stream. As the smoke petered out, Levi saw the swamp drake again, fully.
Or rather, what was left.
Just a chunk of pinky-white meat, the smooth surface broken here and there by bony protrusions that, he supposed, used to be its legs. The six metre long, multi-tonne monstrosity had been, true to Eric’s word, de-skinned and dismembered, and now was little more than a few cubic feet of wetly glistening flesh.
“So, you’d still rather pick a fight with a fire mage?” Eric asked.