RE: Monarch

Dirt, grass, and plant matter showered the camp. The sparse cries of alarm turned to a dull roar as more and more drephin poured from the tents like angry bees, searching for the source of the chaos. Above, the “berserker pixie” continued her siege, collapsing tents and detonating water supplies, realistically zipping side to side, dodging the projectiles that assailed her.

For an untested idea, the distraction worked far better than I could have hoped. They were too busy trying to fight the thing to notice the lack of casualties.

”Keep the pressure on, Vogrin.” I called out to my summon.

”I’m a demon, master. Torment is what I do.” Vogrin said. He sounded whimsical. Almost happy. There was a possibility he was enjoying this a little too much.

I glanced over at my father beside me. His hand was glued to his jaw, gaze focused on the camp. His focus was so complete I wondered if he saw something I didn’t, until he made a choking noise, then laughed. The laughter—dark and rich—grew louder, tears shining in his eyes, and he wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

What the hell was this? Was he mad?

King Gil squeezed me to him, tightly enough that my bones creaked. “Gods. Look at them. Creatures of myth and legend, nothing more than irate ants chasing a long-departed boot. You did that, boy. You.”

I let out a nervous chuckle. “Still… gotta capture the shaman. That’s the hard part.”

“Fuck the shaman. This is gold.”

The question popped out before I could stop it, contradicting years I spent telling myself that my father’s approval didn’t matter, that I didn’t give a damn what he thought. He studied me. Of course. Any moment now, he would turn. Push me away. See the moment as weakness.

Instead, he ruffled my hair and smiled. “I think, with the two of us together, that usurper of yours is in for a quick war.”

I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. My lips felt bound, my throat dry.

King Gil’s head snapped to attention. “There he is, the bastard.”

Amid the chaos, the shaman emerged from one of the center tents, flanked on both sides by drephin wielding staves. He whipped around, shouting elvish at the panicking throng, but mostly, they ignored him.

The strange spell of paralysis faded as I walked the circumference of the camp and took in the scene, searching for an opening. Gil kept pace behind me.

“Question is, how are you going to get him out?” Gil asked.

“Really? Not pushing for assassination?” I called over my shoulder.

“Gods no. I want to see you solve this. Use all the resources at your disposal.”

If what I had in mind worked, getting the shaman out of the camp would be easy. Getting through the forest and back to our people, however, would be harder. Unless—

I hesitated. “Does that include you?”

Gil looked at me as if I’d sprouted a third eye. “We’re allies; our interests are aligned. Why the hells wouldn’t it?”

There was no trace of sarcasm in the statement. No hint of disappointment. I took a moment to remind myself who my father was. That a matter of days ago, he’d threatened to slaughter every infernal in the enclave, shattering the painstaking progress I’d made in an instant.

But wasn’t this supposed to be about rebuilding? Letting go of old grudges for the sake of the grander plan? Putting what he’d threatened aside, he’d done exactly what he promised to do.

He waited.

I made a decision. “Circle around. Position directly across from me in a straight line, with the shaman in the center. There’s no way to know exactly when we’ll have a window, so be ready.”

Gil squinted at the camp, then smiled a savage grin.

“If you intend what I suspect? I look forward to seeing your power,” he said. Then he faded into the overgrowth, disappearing as easily as if he’d cast a spell.

I sent a mental command to Vogrin, telling him to limit the area he flew over to the clearing on the left side of the camp where there were a minimal amount of trees and tents. Then I set to work.

First, there was the problem of casting. This would require heavy use of my inscriptions, which were as mana hungry as ever. I also needed to cast the air-disc spell Saladius taught me almost instantly. It was a complicated spell—and while I’d successfully used it to save myself from a hard fall on several occasions, it was difficult to pull off reliably.

I called the wind, forcing it into the weaved array that formed the transparent circle directly in front of me. Fed it enough mana that it would last anywhere between ten to fifteen seconds. I was tempted to give it more, but couldn’t do so without putting the next step in jeopardy.

Demonic chitin spread down my left arm, and I drove my fist into the array. The spell dissolved instantly, absorbed into my arm. I waited, ready to discharge it safely into the forest if it was too much for the gauntlet to hold.

Nothing happened, save the one of the mana gems inlaid on my armor glowing white.

Perfect.

I repeated the action twice more, again checking the gauntlet for overcharge. It hummed, but remained stable.

You’re a god among men, Xarmos.

I readied myself and lowered into a crouch, bracing my back foot on the ashy trunk of a solid looking tree and placing my hands against the ground. The inscriptions on my legs burned as I pushed more and more mana into them. My muscles grew tauter, tighter, like ever coiling springs.

In the camp, the shaman stalked forward, pushing the fleeing drephin out of the way as he approached the pixie raining down hell, giving no care to the detonations at his feet. His followers fanned out to give him space as he stared up angrily at the fake pixie and raised his staff.

I reached out to the current of wind, guiding a trail of flash powder directly in front of the shaman’s face.

For just a moment, the crowd of drephin surrounding the shaman thinned. I saw a glimpse of my father across the clearing crouched in the bush, waiting. He caught my eyes and mouthed two words.

Do it.

The flash powder detonated.

There was a deafening snap of wood and I flew forward, air whipping past my ears as the distance between the shaman and myself shrank rapidly. A few of the drephin saw me and attempted to lash out, but it was like they were barely moving.

The shaman’s eyebrows shot up moments before I leapt forward, driving my shoulder into his chest. The impact that followed rattled my teeth, and the shaman’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, his staff flying off to the side.

Both airborne, we plummeted towards the ground.

I extended my left hand, drawing out the circle and catching us, holding on to the shaman as tightly as I could in a prone position. The circle shot forward, gliding along the ground and carrying us toward the tree line. We were still moving quickly.

But not quickly enough.

A drephin mage spun, following our trajectory with the tip of his glowing staff, muttering a soundless incantation.

I panicked, looping my arm around the shaman’s neck and shifting him into the line of fire. The mage’s matching panicked expression told me everything I needed to know. It was too late.

A green bolt, dark and malevolent, shot towards me.

I closed my eyes, preparing for the agony that would follow.

It never came.

Instead, something strong wrapped around my waist, scooping me up.

I opened my eyes. King Gil was sprinting through the forest, laughing like a madman, carrying me under his arm. Across from me, he hauled the shaman in his other arm, the drephin’s body still completely limp.

The mage… missed?

“It worked?” I said, barely able to believe it.

“You’re a fucking menace!” Gil shouted, leaping effortlessly over a burned out tree that blocked our path. “The scourge of knife ears from here to Onri!”

“Not really what I’m going for—“ I cut off. There was a swell of distant howls behind us. The drephin had caught on. Not all of them, but enough to be a problem. A wolf broke through the clearing behind us, followed by another. My father was fast—faster than a human had any right to be—but the wolves would be faster. “They’ll outrun us.”

“Aye,” my father acknowledged.

I was almost spent. Had to bring it home. I reached out and summoned the second circle beneath me. Blue light strung together as the circle formed instantaneously. “Alright. Let go.”

He dropped me onto the circle. I landed on my knees, keeping hold of the armor strap at his waist, skating along behind him as I rotated to face our pursuers.

Three wolves shot out of the brush. If they were patient, they might have posed a threat. But a brief glance was all I needed to spot the agitation in their movements. They panicked, bolted off without a plan to catch us before we returned to the central camp.

All three of them charged forward at once.

I smiled. Just because I didn’t have enough mana to summon an aegis didn’t mean I couldn’t improvise.

I summoned the circle directly in front of me just as the wolves leapt towards us. They saw it—tried to divert—but either their magic was limited in their beast forms, or none of them had any method of staving off the inevitable.

Two wolves smashed face-first into the circle. The third—by far the smartest of the lot—rotated upward, her forelegs clinging to the upper circumference of the mana figure as her torso slammed into it painfully. In my haste, I’d placed the magical barrier at a slight angle, and the momentum pushed her upward and towards us.

I watched grimly as she scrambled to the top of the circle as it skyrocketed towards the canopy, hopping down, bouncing from tree limb to tree limb. Before they fell, the two prior wolves focused almost entirely on my father and the hostage he carried. Judging from the rage in her eyes, this one seemed almost entirely fixated on me.

Out of options, I drew my sword and waited.

C’mon. You’re not stupid. Don’t do this.

The wolf bounced between three trees in a zigzag—more movement than was strictly necessary, probably trying to throw me off. But Thoth was infinitely faster. I tracked the pattern, waited for her to hesitate.

There it was. She stopped for just a moment, gathering enough power for one last leap and dove directly towards me, jaws parting, showing a row of vicious white teeth.

I braced, drawing my sword back, preparing to swing at the perfect moment.

It never came.

The wolf shifted back into drephin form mid-jump. The sudden change in weight sent her plummeting to the ground a few span short of my circle. She rolled once and caught herself. Rage radiating in her eyes, she stood to her full height.

I realized it was the sole survivor from the earlier group, the same one I’d tracked through the forest.

She stared me down with a look of disgusted defiance I knew all too well. As the distance between us grew, her silhouette growing smaller and smaller, she struck her chest and extended a fist towards me, a sober message that transcended the language barrier.

”I’ll find you.”

I know.

The woman disappeared, several trees obstructing my view. There were more howls further back. More of the drephin realizing what had happened and giving chase. But they were so distant, I doubted they would reach us in time.

Beneath me, the circle faded. I hopped off and sprinted after my father, barely keeping up with his breakneck pace until we broke through the treeline.

One thought overshadowed all others. The Everwood didn’t hold the same threat to me it once had, but the feeling of menace and malignant evil remained.

I sincerely wished never to set foot in it again.

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