RavensDagger

  Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Five - Snakes Are a Pain

  The old quarry didn’t look like much—I guessed that unworked quarries were really just hills with a bunch of ro them. The hilly ndscape was covered in trees except for the rge area where the new quarry was located. There was enough stone in the ground that the only trees around were small, scraggly things that didn’t look like they’d resist a strong wind.

  The crevice that the others had spoken of was in the tre of the hills, a cra the ground that started a few hundred metres from the hillside. I got to poke at it as we moved into the area. It was a crack, maybe a handspan wide he start.

  The closer it got to the hill the rger the crack became, until someone could easily fit a car in the gigantic slice. I guessed that the monster had snuggled into that crack. Maybe there was a cavern or somethih it?

  “Do you know how the craed?” I asked the person me.

  The pn, or what I uood of it, called for everyoo split apart introups. The Inquisition were splitting up and sneaking around the hill to take on the rear fnks. The rger force of the army from Granite Springs were setting up in the open, where the ground was even and they had plenty of room to move.

  General Holey and his molefolk forces were moving to the forward fnk, with his earth mages setting up he bottom edge of the crevice. Bastion had asked that I stay he general and his men, because that was one of the safer areas where I could still be pretty useful.

  My job was to jump in and grab anyone who got hurt. The medical tents were still by the Inquisition camp, a three minute walk away. Far enough not to be caught up in all of the trouble but close enough the injured could be brought over in a hurry.

  There had to be well over a hundred soldiers on the field. It felt like a lot of people for one mohere was arigle to the air, nervous energy and magic waiting oips of fio be cast.

  “The crack isn’t natural,” the general answered at long st.

  His voice made me jump. Maybe I was nervous too.

  “There was a fight between twons in this valley once, some hundred years ago, or perhaps a little more now. It reshaped the nd, burnt down some of the a forests, a behind a nd scarred and cracked. That slice was likely caused by one of them nding.”

  “Whoa,” I said. Then again, I could imagine someone like Rhawrexdee making quite a mess if he were to fight, and he was a younger dragon. His mom was much bigger.

  “The sylphs have good reason to mistrust dragons and their ilk,” the general said. “We were always a little more fortunate, owing to our homes beh the earth.”

  “I see,” I said.

  The orders were given, people were in their pces, and all that was missing was the monster we were going to be fighting.

  A hush fell over the battlefield as Bastion stepped up. He stood in his full armour, sword uhed and held loosely by his side. My best-sylph-friend was a dozen paces ahead of the main body of the army, alone and ready.

  “We’re beginning,” the general said. The mole people around us shifted o time, spears rising and boots g on the loose gravel underfoot.

  At the top of the hill, a soldier from the Inquisition, in lighter armour than the rest, took to the air with a fp of his wings. He had a stick of something with a long fuse in it that he lit before tossing it down the craot an explosive. Instead a thick smoke poured out of the crack, and I heard a few people gag as it rolled over them.

  I s the air, then recoiled as the smoke was carried over by the wind. It stank, like an old fart, but stronger.

  That had to be to wake up and irritate the amphiptere.

  There was a rumble. Rock tumbling over rock, and the sylph flying above darted away and ran past a line of soldiers that made room for him to pass.

  The rumble slowed, then stopped.

  I saw everyoensing, preparing themselves for a fight.

  Then, from the crack, slithered a monster.

  The amphiptere was a long snake-like creature, as big around as my head, and nearly three metres long. It shifted across the rocky ground by the wider part of the crevice, then reared up, strange scales sliding back from its eyes so it could see everyone looking at it.

  It hissed, and a pair e wings spread out behind it.

  The monster opes mouth wide, and a ball of greenish goop shot out and towards the person.

  Bastion stepped ly and easily to the side, avoiding the spittle.

  The monster hissed again and shot forward.

  I gasped at the speed of it. It was fast. A rapid, bck-ish brown blur.

  Bastion jerked to the side, whirling in a split-sed spin as the snake passed through his afterimage.

  By the time my mind caught up, he was standing three paces away, sword swinging around in an easy circle to off the blood and gunk caught on it.

  The monster flopped behind him in three rge ks.

  “Was... was that it?” I asked.

  That had been impressive, but there were a lot of people here just for that.

  “No, that was a juvehe general said. “On guard!” he shouted.

  I tensed, especially when I felt the ground shifting underfoot and saw all the soldiers tighten their grips on their spears. The hillside shifted, in a weird, uling way because hillsides aren't supposed to move. I looked around, trying to spot where, exactly, the shift was ing from.

  Then it exploded.

  Rocks shot into the air, big boulders rolling down the hill out of a growing cloud of dust. Eeping, I ducked down and grabbed at the edges of my helmet as tiny pebbles came raining down from the sky. They ked and plinked off of the armour of the people around me, most of whom stood still as they weathered the storm.

  A roar filled the air.

  You have heard the roar of a powerful beast. You are challeo fight.

  I gnced up, then gasped.

  The amphiptere was massive, as wide around as a bus aimes as long, though its tail did start to taper to a poiually, with big fins on the very end. It hissed into the air, its breath stagnant and vile, like old rotti. Then its wings spread out behind it, eae the size of a small building, ribbed ahery, like the wings of a huge bat, with visible veins running through them.

  One of the wings was clearly injured, cracked and broken a at an odd aill, when it fpped its wings, I saw a few of the soldiers closer to the front, those who hadn’t taken a solid stance, be thrown bato their rears.

  Bastion, at the head of it all, weathered the storm with nothing but a mean gre for the monster. “Mages!” he called, voice clear and ringing.

  “Now,” the general o me barked.

  The mole people mages stepped up, and, with tight little gestures of their arms and a synized stomp, they shot off magic ahead of them that immediately dove into the ground.

  Nothing happened, and the monster began to gather itself, muscles tightening, and it was then that the ground turo something like mud. Stone boiled, and the amphiptere sank while rge spikes of rock jabbed into it from both sides like massive teeth.

  The sylph army all took a step forward at the same time, one hand pung out ahead of them, and soon the air was filled by a thick volley of tiny fireballs that pelted into the amphiptere.

  When the dust settled it became clear that none of it had done much. The fire had only blemished its scales, and while one or two of the rocky spikes had broken into its skin, the wounds were small.

  It shifted, body twisting, snake-like, and just like that, the storapping it broke apart.

  “Oh, this isn’t great,” I muttered.

  Would we even be able to do anything against something that strong?

  The monster reared its head back, just like the smaller one had, and I gasped. It was going to spit!

  “Shields!” ander Warmwood called. He was right there, at the back of his men with his own gear on, sword pointing to the monster in defiance.

  The snake hissed and a glob of acid goop sprayed out of it as if from a firefighter’s hose.

  Bastio straight up, spun, then kicked against the glob of acid to gain more height. He came hurtling down with a flipping kick,his heel crashing against the monster’s snout with a crack that I felt from all the way where I was.

  The amphiptere’s head snapped down, and its acid spit fizzled out as it was wasted on the rocky ground.

  I winced as I saw stones smoking aing. Then I gnced over to the army, expeg to see something horrible.

  Instead, the soldiers were stepping ba an orderly fashion, shields raised ahead of them with the rims glowing. There was still some spit p off the front of them and onto the ground, but it didn’t look like any of them were really injured.

  equipment, that.

  “We o hit it harder,” General Holey said. “Mages, again. Pin its midse down. We’re moving in.”

  “Moving in?” I asked. I didn’t want to be closer to that thing than I had to be, and I was never oo shy away from adventure.

  Bastion was somersaulting away from the monster as it tried to snap him out of the air, but he was never where it lunged, and whe came too close, he’d sh out with his sword, lightning-quick, leaving a small slice across its scales.

  That wouldn’t be enough, of course. Bastion would tire eventually. The mooo... but it was big.

  The mages cast another spell together, and I saw the Inquisition soldiers doing something simir befe balls of fire rammed into the monster’s bad sent it reeling forward.

  All around, soldiers started to move in, shields up and spears raised, points glinting in the sunlight as they kept an even paot to break their formations.

  The monster wasn’t going down so easily. It thrashed and spun around, tearing itself out of whatever grasp the mole people mages had on it. It spat at the top of the hill, where the Inquisition soldiers dove and flew out of the way.

  The soldiers around it came close enough that some were able to strike, spears glowing before they stabbed into the monster’s sides. Magic spears? Maybe they were ented. It was enough that they’d leave rge cuts in the monster’s side.

  “Stay here, captain,” General Holey said. He shifted, then tore his sword out of its sheath. “It’s best that you avoid getting hurt.” And with that, he walked off towards the moo apany his soldiers.

  I fretted on the sidelines, more than far enough that I wouldn’t get hurt.

  I didn’t like it, not one whit.

  Still, I didn’t know what a lone bun could do to help.

  My fists tightehat was no excuse not to find something I could do to help!

  ***

  RavensDagger

  Are You Eained?

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