Chương 75: Racing Squirt

An hour later as the darkness of the night truly took hold, the wyrm lifted its head as high as it could in the air before letting out an earth-shattering scream. The ground rippled out, shaking the top of the tree. Squirt fell to the tree branch, hugging it with her arms and legs as the tree rocked back and forth, weathering the storm until she could scamper higher, now wrapped around the thin top of the trunk as she stared out at the far horizon. No.

No, no, no, no — What idiot — Squirt gritted her teeth, shouting out, "Does the village just north of the keep have fey with notable power?" The chief huntress coughed, her voice a little strained as the tree finally settled.

"Yes—why?"

"Because someone decided tonight was a good night for fucking fireworks." A choked sound from behind her had her eyes whipping around to take in the blanched face of Chief Huntress Lobelia. Panic gripped Squirt's heart as the beasts were starting to move south.

"Shit—""We have to divert them—""I know!" Another quake rumbled through the earth, and Squirt gritted her teeth as she came up with as fast of a plan as she could. Pakos helpfully supplied, I will be your steed in this. She added that to her plan, nodding to herself, then turned to the Chief Huntress.

"I can divert them and draw them elsewhere. If we can at least wound the wyrm and keep it focused on us, we'll be able to draw it back like the lords wanted." A desperation glinted like steel in the huntress's eyes as she nodded once.

"Good. I need you to go to Cirn and Jul—they can be faster than their steeds for short bursts." Qzi bounced on his branch, totally at ease despite the sway from the quake, "Got a plan, pricklebear?"

"Yep. Zhadin, I need you to return to the village and tell Anvanil. If I can't get the creatures to divert, I'll use the lord prince's beacon. Go." Their presence faded from the shadow. She turned to Qzi next.

"Qzi, I need you to cut across to meet the horde and I with Cirn and Jul. If I'm right, they'll be able to take down the big one." She glanced around the treetops, pointing.

"See there? That's where the path originally diverged from the straight line. I'll bring the horde in a slow arc there. Go now." He dived in, hovering a centimeter above her lips as he murmured, "Gods, I love it when you command me." Before the words, "Piss off," could leave her mouth, he'd jumped down to the forest floor. Growling under her breath, she pulled out the precious box from Sugar Works, light glue, and the sand.

Not bothering to be clean about it, she began pouring the glue into the box, silently mourning the loss and hoping whoever the fuck the Chief Huntress was clearly worried about was fucking worth it.

"Chief Huntress, I need you to go back to the other two, grab their steeds, and return to the village." Using her hand, she slathered the glue over all of the surfaces including the lid.

"Tell Cirn and Jul to meet at where the wyrm originally diverted its path. Tell them that she's to make a block of ice, and as the creature swallows it, I need him to superheat it as hot as he possibly can as quickly as he possibly can. Understand?" The huntress nodded, though she had to assume this was some strategy they had worked out before as she didn't understand what a block of ice would accomplish. Squirt grabbed the pouch of sand, dumping it into the box before closing the lid and shaking it hard.

"Good. After that, return with the steeds to the village and gather your crew to meet in the same spot. Focus on picking off the basilisks while we wait for the lords and pray this fucking works." Dropping the now empty bag of sand and empty glue jar, her sticky hand reached once more into her bag, pulling out a basilisk feystone she'd been saving for a rainy day. Opening the box, she put it inside and held it out to the woman.

"Break this." The woman blinked twice.

"I…" Squirt's tone was curt as she snapped, "We don't have time. Break the damn feystone and run." The ground was shaking. Half the beasts had already left their little valley on the way to the exploding fireworks of magic in the distance. Snapped out of her daze, the Chief Huntress took out her knife, using her magic to enhance her strength, agility, and extending it to the blade to increase the sharpness of it, she slammed it down on the stone. It shattered with a bright burst of magic that washed over them.

She got less than a second to see the glowing loose orb of radiant magic pulsing like a beacon before Squirt snapped the lid shut, tucked it under one arm, and leapt on top of the now much larger Pakos. Gripping his hair with her free hand and his sides with her legs, she held on as he took a death-defying leap off the treetop. Gods, the rush —it was like he was— Oh. No. He was flying. Sort of.

It was like he had simply lessened the effect of gravity on himself, able to lightly bounce off branches and bursting forward with jolts of impressive physicality— Gods damn it, her dog could quickstep— Within minutes, he had closed the distance between them and the horde of feybeasts headed in a beeline south. He raced through the trees, using the bond between them until they were one creature, moving with one mind.

The full moon tonight was the best blessing he could have hoped for, his power at its maximum strength. He stopped on a dime, turning to look at the incoming horde before letting out a challenging snarl. Squirt took her cue, opening up the box so they could sense the magic in it. The quake wrym rose its ugly, purple-brown head into the air, letting out another horrible screech the basilisks seconded before diving after the pair. Gritting her teeth, she held onto Pakos with all her might as he took off.

She kept her eyes glued to their pursuers and the box lid cracked, using their bond to tell him when to jump or dodge. He focused on the path ahead, charting the course she had set earlier as he pushed himself harder than he ever had in this lifetime. Sometimes he flew short distances, running along the edge of the moonlight, while other times his paws remained firmly attached to the ground. Exhaustion was beginning to weigh on Squirt.

Twice, her grip almost slipped, leaving her to grumble to herself about needing a damn saddle for her dog. Holding onto the box as she was, she couldn't even take out her strung bow and shoot at any of them—not that it would have made much of a difference even if she could, as they were several sizes too large for her to do much of anything except annoy them. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Much to her chagrin.

The fur on Pakos's body began to morph as he diverted a little of his magic to help strap her in, something that saved her life three times in quick succession. Two basilisks pounced, having somehow gotten around in front of them, and Pakos had to quickstep to get out in time, her grip on his fur slipping as he did. He crashed through a stream and then suddenly started running vertically up a tree to avoid another basilisk strike and the spray of venom.

Then the quake wyrm roared, and massive spikes shot up from the ground with the clear intention of skewering them. Pakos swerved and then leapt up, nimbly running on top of the spikes— Squirt didn't bother to hide her awe when he did something new, giving him an odd smugness during this race for their lives. She couldn't hate it. Gods, it felt so good to fly again. He agreed. They both smiled.

Terrified and running for her life, Squirt would rather face this a hundred times over than ever deal with titled fey games ever again. In the distance, he saw Cirn and Jul, and Squirt turned to face forward. Immediately, Cirn lifted her hands above her head, using enough magic for her aura to become visible in a wispy, silvery cloud of condensed magic around her body. Squirt watched in awe as a giant lance of ice formed over the woman's head, bigger than a carriage and quickly growing in size.

Jul then flew up by using his flames under his boots to lift himself up, placing a hand on the massive ice lance and coating it in his magic. A visible shudder ran through them both, and there was a brief instant where Jul lost focus. Before Squirt could grab out a knife to throw and stab him with, he shook himself out of it, nodding and calling out something to Cirn. Squirt watched him count her down. Three. Two. One.

She threw the icicle lance forward towards the quake wyrm's gullet, and it, sensing magic, eagerly opened its mouth to swallow it whole. Jul went to make a motion and Squirt screamed, "Wait!" He did, hesitating as the creature finished closing its mouth. Pakos almost reached him when it did and Squirt turned forward to scream, "Now!" He snapped his fingers, the spell he'd been holding onto rapidly bursting and costing him much of his magic. It was worth it.

As Pakos raced past the two mages, Squirt twisted to watch the giant wyrm burst. Unlike a real snake, its scales were hard. There was very little give to them. And the rapid change to the ice caused an explosion of steam in a contained space. The creature burst into pieces before the space suddenly stopped as if taking a breath. Then the pieces rapidly imploded, a wormhole of power and magic condensing its matter into a massive feystone as tall as Squirt herself.

For the briefest moment, exhilaration almost made her whoop out a cheer, Pakos sliding to a stop as she quickly scanned the scene for the next crisis. Horror gripped her as the basilisks then turned as one to swallow the massive feystone. There was no need to utter a command. Pakos moved as she made the decision, bursting forward as Squirt dropped the box, pulled out her Skyian recurve, and aimed a whale-wolf tail arrow at the feystone itself. Time slowed. She took a breath, adjusting her elbow slightly.

One moment, the arrow was between her fingertips. The next, it was gone. Whistling through the air and slicing straight through its target. The resulting blast sent Squirt flying. She curled into a ball around her bow as best she could as she rolled ass-over-head and landed on her feet, springing up to scan the area. Pakos was already turning back for her. Two basilisks were rearing back to strike at her while another three aimed at the box she had dropped.

As she started to reach into her pouch, her mind racing to come up with a plan, a path of ice burst out beside her and covered the box in several layers of thick protection the basilisks couldn't pierce. A shout of gleeful rage proceeded Qzi as he launched himself onto the back of the head of one of the basilisks aiming for her. Cackling as he blinded it, he pulled out the blades he had sunk into its eyes, drawing lines of blood that he was able to whip out to slice off the head of another basilisk.

Strong arms wrapped around her waist followed by a jolt in her stomach of a quickstep that got her out of the way of the battle, and Squirt recognized the arms and armor of Cirn. Another basilisk stood between them and relative safety of the trees. As it rose up in height, its venom poured out of its mouth straight down onto them. A mass of liquid death. Cirn moved to cover her, so Squirt moved them both, launching herself into the woman's middle to knock them out of the way.

Even so, some of the hot liquid landed on her back as they tumbled to the ground, and Squirt hissed in pain from the acidic burn. An ice-cold hand brushed over the bare part of her shoulder where the venom had hit, and suddenly the burn was gone. Squirt's eyes snapped up, caught the venom on Cirn's veil, and ripped the damn thing off the woman before she stood and bolted for the tree line. Not another thought on her mind other than keeping the venom away from orifices or injuries.

So, when she turned in the next second by the first tree to grab an arrow and assess the scene, she was stunned that Cirn was simply laying there in shock. She only had a moment to hesitate as a basilisk began to wind up a strike on the stupefied woman. Cursing, Squirt dropped the bow on the ground, pulled out her favorite stick, loaded up a large paralytic, and launched it straight at the basilisk's face just as it finished coiling into the s-formation.

Already poised to strike, it snapped up the offending bag, giving Squirt enough time to furiously shout, "Get the fuck up, Cirn!" In a daze, Cirn slowly sat up and turned to look at Squirt, her eyes wide in surprise. Squirt, likewise, was caught off-guard by the sheer, radiant beauty the woman had hidden behind the veil.

The basilisk fell back behind Cirn, temporarily stunned from the paralytic and almost deafening them from the thunderous boom as it hit the ground, the echoes of it punctuating Squirt's realization. Cirn was blessed by Beauty Himself. Just like Siabith. Squirt hesitated for the briefest of moments before shoving away those thoughts and snarling, "I said get the fuck up, warrior bitch!"

Like that suddenly brought Cirn back to the present, her eyes cleared, she stood, and in one fluid motion she turned while unsheathing her sword. Squirt shivered as the temperature dropped cold enough to see her breath before the lady disappeared in a haze of speed and magic. Soon, evidence laid out across the small ravine as she began obliterating the basilisks. Squirt picked up her bow, ready to jump in and help, before realizing how incredibly extraneous she was.

Already, the hunters from Norland had jumped into the fight, each one able to fell their own basilisks. Avanil and Zakam were among them, and she watched as Zakam transformed into the minotaur form and simply gored a basilisk, knocking it over hard and fast enough to snap its own neck on the way down. And none of them had anything on Chief Huntress Lobelia, Cirn, or Jul, each of them able to obliterate swaths of beasts on their own.

With a huff at realizing she was probably actually pretty safe when even Pakos could take down a damn basilisk on his own, she climbed up a tree to hide as she watched the end of the battle play out. Zhadin materialized from the shadows on a branch next to her, handing her the now mostly ruined box from Sugar Works, the magic having already escaped through the cracks. Squirt stared at the box but did not immediately take it. Zhadin tilted their head, studying her with the slightly too large eyes.

"This troubles you." She didn't answer, her eyes still lingering on it, lost to thought when the realization hit her that her trust in them was so complete, seeing them shifted into fey form like this, she had stopped watching the battle entirely. Her hands finally shifted the bow to her lap so she could take the box, lost to her thoughts before she eventually said, "A reminder, I think." Their head tilted a little farther.

"For what?" She dropped her head and sighed. Her dry tone was only a little bitter.

"That sometimes it's better to just enjoy it while you have it."

"Did you not?"

"Nope." They dropped their eyes to the box, studying it.

"… it was… candy?" She nodded, a touch of mournful remorse softening her tone.

"The best. Sugar Works isn't just a sweet treat. Each creation is a handmade work of art. I thought them too pretty to eat, so… I didn't." A pause sat between them. An empty space in the conversation that belonged as they each sat with their own thoughts, hers focused as she returned the box to her pouch and her eyes to the battle, theirs on considering her words. When Zhadin eventually broke the silence, the sound was at a natural point for the both of them to return to speaking.

"I didn't know you liked sweets." Nothing she could do would keep the slight blush from her cheeks, much to her annoyance. She muttered out petulantly, "Lots of fey like sweets."

"I have no interest in lots of fey. I have interest in you." They said it so plainly, so naturally, that at first, she just nodded along. Then blinked a few times as the words sunk in. Her lips parted partially in shock and partially in a flash of rage. Gods damnit, they didn't have to acknowledge it — Shit, now she had to respond, didn't she— They faded back into the shadow, but she knew they passed her on the shadow plane when she heard their chuckle whisper by her ear.

She scowled when she realized they had timed their escape to leave her flustered without overwhelming her. Damn. They were one calculating bitch. … how long had— Nope. Nope. She didn't want to know at what point the fell had decided they wanted to court her. Right now, she could live in the belief that they were mistakenly thinking they were highly compatible, and that belief was slightly more comfortable than some of the other possibilities.