“I’m not here to fight…” El started, but cut off as Nidina swept through the crack in the cliff. The woman had what looked like a teenager in each hand, and she dropped them quickly on one edge of the crowd.

  “Bear right behind me,” Nidina said, twisting in the air and heading right back to the cleft.

  No time for explanations, El flared her wings just enough to leap over the surprised crowd, weapons trained on her the whole time, but none of those strange bangs sounding. Good enough.

  “Dayne, that’s enough. Fall back,” Laze instructed.

  Not a second later, the bear Nidina had warned about smashed through the nearest pair of stone spikes. By the clear path of destruction behind it—and stone dust across its scales—it didn’t know what the word detour meant.

  Small cries of panic and surprise echoed behind El, but she didn’t have time to deal with it, igniting a large battleaxe in her hands.

  “I’ll go low,” El said into her armor, stepping into the space between the cliffs while her axe swept down and around in a wide uppercut. Stone parted before the blade, snowflake-like frost crawling out from the scar in the ground before the axehead slammed into the bottom of the oncoming bear’s chin.

  Slowed at least a bit by the stone spikes, it didn’t have the same inertia as previous charging bears, and the impact of the axe to its face managed to stagger it to the side. Stone crunched as the bear’s scaled shoulder slammed into it, then Nidina hit it from above like a comet.

  A large axe of her own came down across the bear’s spine, spitting sparks and small embers where the edge struck. The bear’s knees buckled from the blow, and the ground beneath its feet cracked, but the monster didn’t fall. Instead, two furious eyes turned in El’s direction, then looked past her to the practical buffet of exhausted runners.

  WHAAAAM, El smashed the bear between the eyes with a second swing of her axe, snapping its attention back to her. On its back, Nidina swept her own weapon back and forth, focusing on the same spot over and over. Yet the scales held.

  What the Blaze are you made out of?!

  “Get across the bridge while we hold them off,” Laze’s voice came from behind El. “You don’t have long.”

  If anybody responded to Laze, El didn’t have the chance to listen, a massive, clawed arm swiping across to take her head off. Not wanting to find out if her frost armor could take a blow like that or not, El quick-stepped back on a small burst of flame from her feet.

  Claws passed just inches in front of her face, then crunched into one side of the stone cleft. Made of stronger stuff than the stone spikes, apparently, the rockface didn’t instantly crumble to dust. It did, however, get four fresh inch-deep scars running along it.

  “Why won’t this thing fall down?” Nidina called from the bear’s back, another two-handed swing of her axe splashing flames in an arc from the impact.

  “Nidina, up, now!” Dayne’s voice said.

  Trusting in her wing-mate, Nidina didn’t hesitate, launching herself straight up. Not a second too soon either, a second bear crashing into the back of the first. The two massive beasts went down in a tangle, completely filling the space in the rockface. A heartbeat later, Dayne landed beside El, a spear of flame in his hands.

  A bit of distance seems like a good idea, and El spun her blue-flame axe in her hands. Thinning and extending, the weapon changed into an eight-foot-long harpoon of fire. One step, two, she moved then lunged, driving the spear’s blade towards the head of the bottom bear. Distracted by the other beast on top of it, the first didn’t even see the attack coming until it sparked off the side of the monster’s face.

  Flinching more in surprise than pain, the bear’s head whipped around, and its jaws snapped at the weapon. Two rows of serrated teeth closed like a vise, but El’s weapon wasn’t quite so easy to catch. Back then in, she stabbed a second time for the bear’s face, then a third as the blade left a frosty trail over the monster’s shielded eye. And, again, the scaled bear snapped its jaws to crush the annoying spear blade.

  El pulled her weapon back and stabbed a fourth time—not that it was any more effective than the first three times—while the jaws predictably opened. The pink roof of the mouth and scaled tongue appeared as the maw widened big enough it almost felt like it could swallow El whole. Beyond, the darkness of the monster’s throat extended on and on and…

  Waaaaaait!

  El stabbed out a fifth time, one more scraping along the side of the bear’s face right beside its jaw. Within the blink of its large eye, the powerful maw snatched at the weapon, clearly intent on crushing it between its terrible teeth and breaking it apart.

  Except El’s spear wasn’t solid in the traditional sense. Instead, though more than a foot of the weapon vanished behind the monster’s teeth, her connection to the weapon wasn’t broken.

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  Should’ve thought of this sooner.

  El flared her spear at the same time she changed the shape of its head to something more akin to a spiked mace. An undulation of power shot from her hands, up the spear haft, and into the bear’s mouth.

  Then the beast’s eyes exploded outward in a spray of blue flames, more fire washing out of its mouth, and its whole body spasmed. On its back, the second bear bucked and lost its balance as it tried to stand, Dayne’s spear stabbing at it to keep it off balance.

  Nidina dropped out of the sky a second time, a maul replacing her axe to crash down on the top bear’s head. GONG, and the thing’s legs splayed out to the sides while it fell across the still-twitching back of the beast beneath it.

  “Laze, how’s it going?” El asked, reforming her spear to join Dayne in harrying the second bear. The longer they could keep it off-balance…

  “People are moving, but not fast enough. I’m going to start ferrying people over,” Laze said.

  “Nidina, help her,” El said. “Dayne and I have got this.”

  “You sure?” Laze and Nidina asked at the same time.

  “Yes,” El answered simply, looking at the woman atop the bear. “Go.”

  Nidina met El’s gaze, slammed her hammer down once more on the bear’s head for good measure, then leapt into the air to shoot over El’s head.

  “We’ve got this?” Dayne asked just for her ears.

  “Probably,” El said, stabbing at the bear staggering like it was drunk. “We don’t have to hold long. Be ready to pull back as soon as I say.”

  “Got it,” Dayne said, taking a step to the side. His next stab caught the monster’s clawed foot as it tried to stand, sweeping the leg out from under it. A seemingly frustrated huff woofed out of the bear’s mouth as it thumped down yet again.

  “Laze, keep me and Dayne in mind as well. When it’s time to go, we can take some people with us too,” El said, then nearly jumped out of her skin as somebody appeared on her left side. One of the Pilish people with his strange weapons.

  A smaller version in each hand, he gave El a quick nod, then stepped in closer to level his weapons at the bear’s face. Nothing immediately happened, as if the tools had failed him.

  What’s he…?

  BANG, BANG! The two weapons spat smoke and sound as the bear’s head turned in the man’s direction. Something pinged off the plated forehead, so fast El barely saw anything, while the bear roared and jerked its head away. Dark blood oozed from the ruined right eye-socket, and the monster flailed in enraged pain. Clawed limbs swept and struck at everything around it, the complete fury of it forcing El and Dayne back.

  Two more sharp bangs accompanied more smoke from the Pilish weapons, but whatever they did, there was no effect on the monster.

  “Fall back, it’s getting through unless we can find a way to kill it,” El told the two men beside her.

  “Unless you have some way to take its head from its shoulders, that’s not happening,” the man on her left said. “It’s far too pissed off to die now.”

  “Says the guy who poked it in the eye,” El snapped back.

  “Worked last time,” he said with a shrug and mischievous grin.

  “Last time…? You…?” El started, then dove to her left with a flare of her wings. She caught the Pilish man in the waist to hurl them both to the ground as the bear’s swiping claw whooshed through the air. An impact on her shoulder, along with a flash of cold and pain like she’d been hit with a hammer, and El was on the ground ten feet away. Beneath her, the Pilish man blinked up at her in surprise, and she felt the end of one of his weapons pressed up against her stomach.

  Would her frost armor protect her from it at that range if he decided to use it…?

  “Sorry,” she said, glancing down at the weapon.

  The man’s eyes stayed locked on her, as if weighing whether or not he should find out how effective his weapon would be. Then, out of nowhere, that same grin split his face again. “We should probably go.”

  “Can’t disagree with you on that,” El said, pushing herself up. A wince at the pain in her shoulder, but she managed to roll to her feet to see the bear finally push its way through the gap in the wall. Dayne poked at it with his spear, but it did about as much good as one would expect. And, there behind the raging mammoth of a bear, a second one was already climbing through.

  “Laze?” El asked.

  “Just four people left on your side,” Laze said.

  “Dayne, exit time,” El said and spun to the Pilish man beside her. “Take my hand.”

  Thankfully, without questioning, the man slid his weapons in what looked like specially-made sheaths for them, then took her extended left hand.

  “Hold tight,” El instructed, igniting her wings, then leapt into the air. Dayne was already racing towards the rickety, rope bridge. Nearby, three people stood with their arms extended above their heads in waiting, like they knew what was coming.

  Of course they do. Laze and Nidina have been doing the same thing.

  Trailing fifteen feet behind Dayne—the same distance ahead of the rampaging bear—El flew so low the Pilish man’s boots would’ve dragged across the ground if he didn’t lift his feet. When her wingmate shifted towards the two on the left, El went right, her arm dangling towards the smallest of the three waiting.

  A titanic roar behind reminded her she only had one chance to catch the person. Hand stretched and fingers spread, she reached for the arm extended in her direction. Lined up perfectly, her palm slapped into the other woman’s forearm, only for the contact to flare pain up her shoulder where the bear had caught her earlier. All at once, her hand spasmed beyond her control, the fabric of the woman’s sleeve slipping through her fingers.

  NO!

  But she was past, and she turned her head back to see… empty ground. Where? A grunt below her and a pull on her arm, and El glanced that way. The Pilish man had caught the woman around the waist as they’d rushed past, the two of them still swinging where they held on to each other for dear life.

  “Nice catch,” El said, flying past the edge and over the small chasm. Another small squeal escaped the lips of the woman below, but even her struggling wasn’t enough to stress the strength provided by El’s frost armor. Besides, barely a second later, they were already across, and El deposited her two passengers safely on the ground. The man’s feet quick-stepped across the stone as they landed, the woman’s weight in his arms throwing him off balance, but El easily held them upright.

  A nod of thanks from the man, and El let go, turning to see how they were doing.

  Dayne landed next to her with the two people he’d picked up, Nidina and Laze likewise finishing their last run as well. That just left…

  ROOOOOOOAR!

  The massive scaled bear reached the edge of the chasm—and the rope bridge—but didn’t even slow. Completely defying the laws of weight and physics, the wooden boards under its first foot didn’t instantly collapse, and instead set the rope bridge swinging.

  Shouts of surprise and panic echoed from the few people still left on the bridge, the furthest out only halfway across. Would they be able to…?

  One of the supporting ropes snapped under the bear’s weight.